Seattle, Washington - Space Needle - Pikes Market

I am glad we visited Seattle to see the Space Needle and Pikes Market, but I have no interest in revisiting Seattle in my lifetime.  First off, everything here is expensive; food, restaurants, bars, and parking.  The only good value at Pikes Market was the floral arrangements; they were beautiful and very fresh flowers at very reasonable prices.  King crab and lobster tails were being hawked at $32 to $40 per pound and they were not even from Maine.  Salmon was $18 - $36 per pound and this is where they catch it.  There were some nice looking pastries but I observed an eclair the size of a small hot dog for $6.50.  How about $4 per pound for tomatoes and $6 per pound for peaches.  I did not see many tourists falling for this rip-off, but they did buy some $5 coffee's and $3 bottles of water.  A couple times per hour the fish market employee's would toss a fish from the display case a few times and return it to the case for sale.  I was not impressed!  We paid $16 for 5 hours parking while we toured the city and the Space Needle.  As for the Space Needle, if you don't make reservations in advance online, you are relegated to waiting in line 30 or 40 minutes to purchase an elevator ride to the top starting at $26 per person.  After purchasing your tickets there was a 2  to 2.5 hour wait. What???  They must think this is an E ticket ride at Disneyland?  I am sure when this was built, it must have been quite a spectacle, however there are more interesting buildings across this United States and they don't charge you for the elevator ride.  We decided to pass on this.  You can ride for free if you agree to buy a $37 hamburger, but those tickets were sold out.  There were some interesting sculptures around the complex.  Traffic is a nightmare here in and around Seattle.  While the only highway through this city is the I5, it was always crawling while we were here.  The streets downtown are very poorly planned and it took us nearly an hour to go 4 blocks to the freeway.  I could have walked it there and back twice in that time.  You had better have GPS around here as most streets have numbers on them like NE 188th St. or NE 18th Ave.  Believe it or not, those two streets intersect.  Most residents know how to get around, but have no clue of how to give directions if you give them the address. 

We did enjoy a musical play in Seattle one night "Jane Eyre".  The lead in the play, Art Anderson is the son of a good friend of mine.  The theater was very intimate venue,

and probably only had maybe 200 seats.