SLICES OF A LIFE
Seven decades of images by Teekay

Trip to Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula, May 2004
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We had never stopped in Seattle before, so decided to spend a couple of days seeing the city's most popular spots. Like typical tourists we rode up the Space Needle; admired the flower stalls at Pike Street Market; watched buskers and demonstrations on crowded downtown sidewalks; and rode the Monorail.

Also in Seattle, for something completely different, interesting and away from the crowds, I had selected the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks. But surrounded by well kept parks and trails, this is actually rated the third most popular spot on weekends for Seattle residents, so we had trouble finding a parking spot! The locks are among the busiest in U.S. and handle a constant stream of traffic. The small boat lock shown here has ingenious sliding bollards that rise and fall with the water, making it easy to tie up. A larger lock beside it can handle vessels of over 700 feet.

In the churning water below the locks I spotted a Great Blue Heron fishing right below me on a ledge and had just about got it framed nicely for a close-up shot when it saw me and flew off in startled disarray so I was lucky to get this photo.

The Museum of Flight was a "must see" for me, if not June, and since it was raining we spent a good part of our first day exploring there - it's huge! From left to right: the Concorde; the unexpectedly cramped passenger cabin; the SR71 Blackbird spy plane, with an attached drone. The Blackbird remains, after 35 years, the world's fastest combat aircraft, never shot down or intercepted.

The presidential suite on the original Boeing 707 Air Force One was used by a succession of presidents over the years. The toilet was redesigned by Jackie Kennedy but still looked like cheap plastic!

Two days in the city were quite enough so we eagerly headed for Cape Flattery, the utmost NW tip of the "Lower 48" States. The Makah Nation provided a good map to locate the trail to the cape and other beaches on the Reserve. We took the spotting scope and tripod to look at the multitude of sea life and birds around the cape and on Tatoosh Island offshore.

The wild open beaches of the Olympic Peninsula were the goal of our trip for the second year running. As before, we found them stunningly beautiful, clean and almost deserted.

From huge sea stacks to the smallest tidepool life, there was something new and interesting every few yards.

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