Seattle, WA

Seattle, WA - July 6 & 7

Because we are parking the coach about 80 miles north of Seattle, Dad thought it would be beneficial to stay in Seattle the evening of the 6th (YAY!!!!!!) so that we didn't spend time driving back and forth and back and forth. As a general observation, we have always had great luck with Hotwire.com in finding reasonable rates for hotels so we decided to use that approach for Seattle. Julie gave us a few areas that would be convenient and we found a room at the Sliver Cloud University Inn, next door to Washington University.   Hotwire.com convinced us this choice would be similar to a Holiday Inn. Perfect for a one night stay.

Julie planned dinner at Chinook's at Salmon Bay for us at 7:00 PM on Friday evening. After driving through that heavy traffic in the Newell, we realized that even with the Jeep we would have to plan ahead significantly to be on time for dinner. We ended up leaving Fidalgo Bay at 1:00 PM (talk about early, ha) to have time to arrive at the hotel, work out, and then leave for dinner. As a general rule, Dad is always early, but 5 hours early to the city where we are having dinner is a new record, I definitely have to say! All in all, it was the correct decision to spend the afternoon at the hotel since it was paid for and this gave me a chance to use the work out room.

Well, the drive to Chinook's was quite the experience. Nothing bad happened along the way, but driving in Seattle is different than driving anywhere else. The roads just go everywhere...there is hardly any organization to the area where we were. Also, there are bikes everywhere you turn. In the bike lane, not in the bike lane, in your driving lane, on the sidewalk, crossing the street, on the bike paths...just EVERYWHERE!!! So it's something extra that we had to pay attention to because taking out a biker would not have been a good way to start our mini-vacay to Seattle for sure. After about 20 turns, I kid you not, we managed to make it safely to Chinook's only about 10 minutes early (ha ha).  Julie and her family showed up shortly after we did. I guess since Julie and I both have engineers for fathers, early is on time....on time is late. 

At Chinook's at Salmon Bay

Julie's crab cakes. She let me finish her potatoes. I still eat food from every single plate I can.

My salmon tacos! SO YUMMY!

Lynda, Julie, and me

Lynda and Eric Spalding at dinner

Our delicious dessert!

View from Kerry Park of the Space Needle and Downtown Seattle. To the right of the Space Needle, we could also see WAY in the distance Mt. Rainier. I don't think it showed its best in any of our pictures because it looked like a mirage. Fascinating to see, and so so big.

Love!

With Dad at Kerry Park

Kerry Park - we had to go on some pretty tiny and steep roads to get here, but it was so worth the view.

She's so strong. So happy to see friends in other places!

After seeing the magnificent views of Kerry Park, we said goodnight and went back to the hotel with plans to meet at Pike's Place Market about 11am on Saturday. When we returned to the room, Dad did some research on places to park and found the early bird (arrive at parking garage before 9:30 am = early bird), all day parking plan for $10.00.   Not a bad deal at all;  we just needed to be packed up and ready to leave at 9:00 AM. I had made the comment that I wanted to get up and work out early, so it was definitely going to be a long day.

Well, sometimes one makes those off hand comments, like yeah, I'll totally get up and work out at 7:00 AM on a Saturday morning and there is no way that's going to happen. Well, try that with Russell White, and at 6:45 - "get up get up get up." So I grunted around and got to work out with plenty of time to get to our garage on time. Skipped on the coffee which probably ended up being a mistake!

Parking ended up being a piece of cake, but some of the roads downtown looked like they might shoot off into the water if we didn't turn soon enough.

Down we went.

The famous market

Tourist - good thing we showed up early because the street got packed quickly

Fresh shrimp and crab legs - looks so delicious

Bacon.....bacon....BACON!!!!!!!!!!

Market sign

Beautiful flowers everywhere - and for only 10 to 15 dollars. Amazing!

My favorite arangement

Such a great shot of all of the flowers in the market

HUGE CRABS!

Seafood bisque I had for lunch. A+++

The smoked salmon we got at a vendor at the market - amazing! We've been eating it with crackers

The original Starbucks - the line was too long to go in, but I had to snap a picture.

This is where they throw the fish. It was pretty cool. After a group of people stood around for a while, the workers would toss a 20 lb fish across the counter, everyone would scream, and then move on. Couldn't get a picture, but you get the idea.

More fresh fish.

Near the water front in downtown Seattle

Loving our visits and matching sunglasses, of course.

View of Seattle

We walked along the beach which was crawling with people because of the great weather. It's hard to see in this pictures, but we could see snow on the tops of those mountains in the distance. The beach and snow in one picture?? It happens.

After touring Seattle with Lynda, Eric, and Julie, we said out goodbyes and headed back to Fidalgo Bay to plan the rest of our visit in Anacortes. I'm so glad I dragged Dad all the way up to here to see my friend, and it was even better that Julie's parents were in town too.


It's been real fun, Seattle...