A winner has been selected, but I’m gonna show off my good time first! read to the bottom.

I know most of you have watched Grey’s Anatomy a couple of times at least, right? And you’ve seen the opening credits and probably wondered what dreary city they filmed. Well, it was Seattle. Not that I think Seattle is dreary, but the crew must have given up on seeing a sunny day.

Did I get pics of the road and the port or even of the lovely green mountains? Ha! I went underground. If you’re reading this in Facebook, you’ll have to go to my blog to see it.

For those of you who don’t know, Seattle was originally built at sea level. When the town started to grow, they built a public sewer system. When the tides rolled in, people had to be wary about flushing, because they’d get geysers erupting from the their toilets. So when much of Seattle was destroyed by fire, they built the roads high, encouraging people to build their shops and houses with deep basements so that their upper floors were accessible from the street. As a result, there were shops and walkways underneath the streets and sidewalks that you either had to access by ladder or through the shop’s stairways.

Today, much of the Underground is walled up. This is one entrance and where the official tour begins. I trekked down into the bowels with Sasha White, my cousin David and his partner, Greg.

Speaking of geysers, this is what the water/sewer system would have looked like before the buildings built up.

Here’s the entrance to the bank. There are still teller windows and a vault door, but I liked this pic because of the spooky blips. I know some folks will think the blips are probably dust, but I like to think they are the ghosts of patrons past.

I’m not sure what this is. An artsy design set in the wall. But I liked the way it looked when I took a pic without my flash. Looks creepy!

Built into the sidewalks above were these “skylights” with thick glass circles to let in enough light so that those walking beneath the surface would have light.

That’s it for the underground. I have some great pics of the graveyard coming next, including Bruce and Brandon Lee’s headstones.

Almost forgot to announce that winner! The winner of yesterday’s free download of Arctic Dragon is (by random number generator)…Jody F!