We flew from Fairbanks to Seattle on Friday, lost an hour (or got one hour closer to our normal time zone, depending on your point of view) and took a Lyft to a really nicely-appointed and excellently located VRBO apartment.
We’re quite close to Pike Place Market, so on Saturday morning we headed over to get some provisions.
The first surprise was the downhill between our street and the waterfront – you know the grade is steep when you’re struggling to walk downhill! On the bright side, we’ll be getting plenty of cardio this visit! The next surprise was the number of people at the market. A summer Saturday + FIFA games + 3 cruise ships in town = a staggering number of people queued up for every coffee shop and restaurant and packed tight in the actual market. We somehow managed to get a couple of seats at the counter of a breakfast place. Later we squeezed into a farm stand and came back with a pretty good haul (enough for dinner salads for 3 nights). Well worth the effort!
The afternoon got much calmer when Kavya scooped us up in her car and drove us out of the madness to Golden Gardens Park. We had a lovely walk along the beach, watched a seal at the marina and enjoyed some “get the boat on the trailer” maneuvers that we were all glad to not be part of!
Next up were the Ballard locks. There are very active locks for both large and small boats, a botanic garden, a museum, and many nesting herons! It was fascinating to watch the operation of the locks and the museum had a couple of short films on the history of the locks, so we even got to rest our weary feet!
Early Sunday morning we walked to Seattle Center along with a few people setting up for the Pride Parade and Celebration.
The Space Needle has amazing views but the real star in Seattle Center is the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum. The pictures don’t do it justice but here are some of our favorites.
And a couple of the Seattle skyline to prove that we went up in the needle.
Seattle Center is also home of the Museum of Pop Culture, formerly the Experience Music Museum. We grabbed lunch there and spent a couple of hours checking out the exhibits. They were a lot of fun – some nostalgic and some educational for the old people.
When we finished touring in Seattle Center we were headed to the Olympic Sculpture Park, which was sort of on the way back to our apartment. As soon as we exited the museum we realized that we had landed in the middle of the Pride celebration. The crowd was even more packed than the one at Pike Place, but it was way more entertaining. No pictures as we’d have to change the rating on the blog!
We decided to return to the Ballard locks on Monday, this time in a boat! A two hour trip took us from the Seattle waterfront, through the locks, to Union Lake. The boat passed under a number of bridges but this one was extra exciting as they had to lower various bits on the top of the boat to make it through!
We used the small lock and it was another very tight squeeze. The bigger lock was full of recreational boats batched up and ready to go. Apparently kayaks are handled the same way.
We had a great time in Seattle! Tomorrow we board the train for Chicago.