This is the troll that lives under a bridge in Seattle. As we were searching to find it, Chris decided to ask someone for directions as we were walking by. He said, "Excuse me, is there a troll under that bridge?" In any other city or circumstance that would be a really ridiculous question, but not in Seattle. If you want to see something else that is ridiculous, click here! I always thought those were silly, but that may be the silliest yet.

Before this tour, the only reason we knew that Seattle had some sort of underground was because there was a tour of it. We took this tour and really learned a lot about the history of Seattle. I'll give the condensed version: Seattle burned down sometime in the 1800s (I learned a lot, but that doesn't mean I remember everything I heard on the tour). As they planned how to rebuild the city, they decided to re-grade the city to lift it up off of the tide flat. This process was going to take way too long, so they rebuilt stores and such right away. Then the city came along and built a retaining wall 8 - 32 feet high next to the sidewalk and built the road up above the first floor and sidewalk. They used ladders temporarily to get from sidewalk to road but eventually built a sidewalk above at the new street level. The second floor of the building was now ground level. That leaves the original sidewalk and first floor store entrances under the sidewalk. In the picture Chris is going down the stairs under the sidewalk. We had a great time on the tour.

It was fun to walk around Pike's Market and see all the shops and delicious food. A crowd gathers as everyone eagerly awaits the next fish throw. We waited around long enough and were able to catch a picture of it. The blur in the middle is the fish ;)

As overpriced as it seemed, we decided we just had to go up on top of the Space Needle. It was the must-see of Seattle. We were blown away by the amazing and beautiful views of the city.

This is the kind of picture you get when you ask another tourist to take a picture of you. Cute huh... well, that half of my face...

It was just beautiful to see the whole city like this.

I was astounded when I saw this sculpture. Last year in Washington D.C. I took a picture in front of a sculpture exactly like this one. I did not know that there were three of these in existence! I think the third one is in New York. In case you're like me and had no idea what this was, it is a giant (10x) typewriter eraser.

This was a museum off the beaten path. It was full of books and displays about the unknown (Big Foot, UFOs, ghosts, etc). One of the museum volunteers explained some of the stories and showed us some of the displays. The picture shows the casts of Big Foot.

This was another favorite stop (couldn't be because of the free chocolate samples). They told us about the process it takes to make chocolate and let us sample the different kinds of chocolate they make at the factory. Their chocolate doesn't have all the fillers that most chocolate does and has a higher percentage of cocoa (45% vs 12% in milk chocolate). As you can guess, the chocolate was oh so tasty.

As you can see from the picture they has samples of every kind of chocolate. We tried them all once, and our favorites... a few more times than once.

It was really interesting to watch the boats come in, the gate close, and the lock begin to fill with water rising to the level of the fresh water. We also spent time looking at the fish ladder and watched the fish swim around in the water. We only caught a glimpse of a fish as it jumped up the fish ladder.

We made our way to Magnuson Park and asked for directions to the Sound Garden (makes music when the wind blows) but we were told that unfortunately you can no longer go to the Sound Garden. For some unknown reason they decided to block it off. You used to be able to go through this gate and make your way over to the structure.

This is a picture from a little ways away. I was hopeful we'd be able to hear something, but we were rather far away and the wind wasn't really blowing very much. The rest of the park was very pretty and we enjoyed a walk by the beach.

Welp, that's all folks! But if you're anything like me, it's always fun to watch a movie about the city you are going to visit before (or after) you've visited it. Then you recognize places and can say, "I've been there!" So here's a classic for you: Sleepless in Seattle.