Vacation 2015, #8 - Seattle, Underground Tour, pt 3

And the 3rd & final post about the dank underground of the great Northwest, and I'm NOT referring to the office of "cheatin' Pete Carroll" and his Seattle Seahawks, but rather the underground that is old Seattle proper.
 

Again, right from the sidewalks of downtown, we re-enter the underground.

I couldn't figure out what this was, but thought it may have been at one time one of those sidewalk skylights that were sort of purple'ish, but could be terribly wrong.  It almost looked like wine bottle sticking out but they obviously weren't. Ideas? 

An old bathtub of sorts.

This was a hallway leading from what seemed to be one area of storeroom for old, antique underground poop to another.

And here we see more of that stuff, or poop, as I referred to it.  The pictures do NOT capture the awesomeness of some of this stuff that was just cast to the side of the walkways.

Exhibit A!!!

At the time I took this pic, I had  a thought of what these might be.  Now?  Not a clue...

Looks like office furniture or school room stuffs.  Who's to say?

This was a pic that hung near the end of the tour representing some of the "street level" stuff that you get to witness on the tour. 

Is it all for real?  Again, who's to say, but I can say that it was super-cool to see this stuff on the tour and it was one of our favorites as we ranked vaction in a family-geeky way!

Vacation 2015, #7 - Seattle, Underground Tour, pt 2

So, I finally get around to working up a little post about the underground in Seattle, Part Deux.

I had hoped to be fast at it but, well, I wasn't.  I have no excuses other than to say that I had more impressive offers!

Yeah right...  I'm lazy and was putting it off.  That's it...

Off we go!

Back underground we go on Part II of our tour.

This was the first big room that we came too.  A former bar, dining establishment.  And who would've guessed who was tending bar, except for smaller Chinese boy and larger American boy,  Caleb and Robby, respectively!

And just in case you need to wash up or use the crapper, here 'tis!

Here we're passing thru an area that has obviously been reinforced with supports in more recent years.    Comforting...

Another shot with some cool old artifacts along the edges of our "trail".

More of the same... both additional supports and interesting stuffs off to the side that you cannot experience from our photos, so you'll have to take the tour for yourselves.

Obviously, a more recent addition, but I couldn't begin to tell you why.

A better shot of the formerly arched window store fronts.

And again, we're back at street level, this time deposited into a alley behind an old Italian restaurant. 

And so, part II comes to a close.  Better luck to me on getting part III completed sooner, than later.

Vacation 2015, #6 - Seattle, Underground Tour, pt 1

On this fine day with the temperature outside sitting near zero degrees and a good, stiff wind blowing with gusts up to nearly 30mph, I figured it would be "warming" to look back to July and a post about downtown Seattle, WA. 

This is the first of 3 parts since I have about 30 pictures I wanted to share.

This was one of our favorite activities on our vacation and I wish we would have had more time to go off into the little nooks and crannies that you'll occasionally see in the pics.

This is the street corner where you buy your tickets and begin your tour.  That fancy black iron awning this is part of  a bus stop at this corner.  Really a pretty cool area all around.

This is the meeting spot where you meet your tour guide and get a bit of history of what you're about to see.  It's a beautiful old hotel bar with some amazing woodwork.  And, it provides your last option of a public restroom for a little while, so choose wisely...

Here we are, under the streets of Seattle as our tour guide explains what we're looking at in that photo that hangs on the wall.  I wish I would have done this post back in August when I could remember some of the stuff that he relayed to us because it was cool, historically speaking.

Here's the first of many of those nooks & crannies that I spoke of earlier.  I'm unsure if this is a nook or a cranny...  I would have to have explored it to determine the correct answer.

There were many blocks of sites like this.  It would be fascinating to go down there and be able to extract some of that 100's of year old wood that's laying along the walking paths!

You really can't tell by this photo, but you were looking thru an old store and there is another room, or rooms, that are lit up on the backside of it.  Again, I wish that a fella was allowed to explore all of this in a much more thorough and time consuming fashion!

Note the brick archway on the left of the photo. That used to be street level storefronts.

Blurry, but gives you an idea of some of the passage-ways we went thru.

This is a "sky-light" from the under-side.  You walk over these on the streets leading to the beginning of the tour.

Another nook and/or cranny that should have been explored.

Here we are going back up to street level at the end of part 1 of our tour.

I'll attempt to do parts II  & III soon, but you never know with me...

Vacation 2015, #5 - Seattle, Space Needle'ish

Well, enough of the ugly feet pictures post at the top! On to the next vacation post from last summer. 

It's only the fifth post from vacation so far and I've probably got another 10 or so to go after this...

As you maybe guessed from the title, we're at the Space Needle and it's surrounding area this time around.

We mis-handled the day and in turn, the day mis-handled us...  I'll spare you the details but it wasn't the best day of vacation although you wouldn't guess that after looking at these fun pictures!
 

I snapped this pic at the base of the Space Needle while we were waiting in line to buy our tickets.  Pretty cool building and surrounding area but I wouldn't want to be here in a large earthquake!

Look who was on security duty this fine day!  They had taken the day off from conquering far off galaxies and provided a little muscle for the crowds that gather on an afternoon of lovely weather.

Spiderman was also present but he had just been shopping for some new Keds sneakers...

This is inside the top of the Space Needle.  It's nearly empty because only 1 of the 3 elevators was working and we were some of the last folks going down.

The Mobile Chaos Unit at the top of the Needle on the outside catwalks.

A little Seattle city from high above.  This is looking mostly North and a bit to the West.

From nearly the same spot on the deck, this is looking mostly South, and a bit to the West.

There's a large playground area near the base of the Space Needle.  That's where we're at currently with the boys climbing on this cable apparatus.

Again on that same climbing thingy with the Music Emporium in the background.   That's that silvery and purplish looking building.

This is part of that same playground.  It's a giant maze that you have to walk thru and I will say that I had great fun doing it!

Robby a ways into the maze with me out in front snapping pix.

A rather large Stratocaster inside the Emporium.

And finally, we're getting on the Trolley to head back towards the downtown area from whence we came as our day draws to a close.

The Post That Nobody Wants To See... Including Me!

I'm a dork... Let's just put that out there. 

As I've aged over the years, little injuries to myself have become more severe which, in turn, requires more recovery time, if not external help.

A couple of years back, I tore a tendon on my pinky finger playing with the boys on a family camping trip.  It was painful.  It required doctors and physical therapists and I still get to deal with a digit that will never be straight again.

Then last February 28th, about the time I was finishing up PT for the crooked digit, I took devil-dog Juno out for a piddle and stepped off the side of our front stoop.

My right foot landed on a loose landscaping stone and I rolled the ankle, spraining it.

In the 9 months that followed, it has been swelling, hurting and occasionally locking up on me.  Most of the time, the locking up would occur after long bouts of sitting like work days in the office or Sundays sitting on my fat butt watching football games.  

However, there were many other times when going down steps would cause severe pain and the occasional lock-up, which is highly undesirable because of the obvious fall situation.

So, I finally sucked it up and went to the doc as my list of other ailments was finally long enough to justify a visit.

They did more x-rays and then sent me in for an MRI.  The doc I was supposed to see looked at the MRI and declined my visit, sending me to a foot/ankle specialist.

I know!  A specialist!  I'm moving up in the world!

I went in and had a chat with the fine bloke and he showed my the MRI pictures and explained what I was looking at. 

Turns out that I had broken the cartilage cap between the foot & ankle and there was  a floater piece in there, hence the occasional locking up of motion.

I top of that, I had bruised the top of the foot bone and where the bruise (blood) eventually dried up, I had a cyst that had developed there.

The fix?  Surgery to go in and remove the floater, scrape that damaged bone down to create a divot and then the bleeding form the bone should cause some scar tissue to form, replacing the part of the cartilage cap that I had broken off.

And so, on Dec 22nd, I had the surgery.  The remainder of that day and the 23rd were smooth sailing.  Virtually no pain and I took neither anti-inflammatory nor pain meds!

Wooo-hooooo!

Then came Christmas Eve which saw me spend the better part the day in my bedroom trying to sleep thru some rather intense pain...

Finally, I got to pay for my stupid...  Pain is a wonderful teacher and reminds us during recovery that we do NOT want to go thru this again, and as such,  we should behave...

So on to pictures...

Just a warning;  they're not too bad really, but if you're squeamish at all, you may want to simply move on to the next post.

This is the wrap, with about 3 pounds of gauze under it.  I think the gauze was as much for padding as it was for mopping up any errant blood.

The boot to stabilize things.  I always thought these were kinda cool, but I'm over that now!

Oh, and then I broke the middle toe on my good foot by losing balance on the crutches (trying to go too fast) and stubbing the poor little piggy on the left crutch.  More pain for good teaching...  This was several days later.

That's my foot with the three small incisions the good doc made...  a little swelling but looking pretty good here.

Then there's this...  my leg turned a different color to up past the knee and got crazy bad itchy!  It's also swelling a little more.  This was taken after we had returned from the doc's office for a check-up and to have the sutures removed.

Then this showed up, which actually made me feel a little bit better because of how bad my heel had been hurting. 

And then there's this shot from Jan 2nd.   The bruised heel is still going strong along with new bruising across nearly the entire top of the foot and the whole thing is bloated like a Schmitz at a buffet. 

And so it is...   If you were thinking that you may sprain your ankle this year, I would discourage that.


Back to work tomorrow...  in the office that is.  Yikes!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2016 from the four of us Schmitz critters!! 

The mobile chaos unit at the roots of a fallen redwood tree (July 2015).