Monday, August 27 - Seattle - Chittenden Locks

For all of you, like myself, that picture Seattle as a rainy, cloudy town, today was contrary to all expectations. The sun was out and the temperature was in the mid 70s. For all of our eastern friends, I’m sure that sounds a lot better than the heat and humidity of August. We met up with Sheri’s parents at the hotel in the morning and went out to Chittenden Locks. I had heard that the locks were built with a fish ladder so you can see salmon jumping up the ladder. In my mind I pictured a dozen or so salmon jumping up every few seconds. The reality is that the fish ladder has tunnels through each step that the salmon prefer. We only saw about 4 fish that actually jumped out of the water to climb the ladder. Nonetheless, it was impressive and worth the trip. Particularly because they constructed a viewing area, which allows visitors to see the underwater ladder tunnels like an aquarium. Some of the salmon were about three feet long! I should mention that our fish ladder experience was part of a nice tour that the US Army Corps of Engineers offers. In fact, for all of you botanical folks, they also have a botanical gardens at the locks. The kids don’t quite appreciate variety in plant life, so we skipped that part. Some neat facts about the locks include their sea lion deterrent system. They use underwater speakers to project killer whale sounds that try to foil the sea lions. It works for the most part, but some sea lions have figured out the system. They even tried a robotic killer whale, but it didn’t take long for the sea lions to figure out that it wasn’t real.