Touring the Northwest - Seattle

The second hop of our trip was to Seattle. We drove up from Portland and immediately dropped the rental car off. Everything about Seattle seemed to be about the water and the harbor, so we stayed at the Inn at the Market, which is just above the Pike's Place market.

This is a view of the Seattle harbor and downtown, looking where we were staying.



In addition to a nice room, the hotel had a wonderful rooftop garden. There were tables and lounge chairs and a wonderful view of the sunset.



We knew the market had a lot of fresh seafood. You may have heard of them tossing the fish in to load the displays every morning. What astounded us more was the flower stands. Big, colorful bouquets were only $10 or $15. The flowers were so fresh. If you lived near by, it would be almost impossible not to go buy some at least once a week.



Every city has done one of the "decorate a relevant animal and auction them". Seattle had done pigs and was getting ready for the auction. There were pigs all over the downtown area.



There was a sand art demonstration going on. Most of what they were doing was big and involved. My favorite was the little Miss Piggy they had apparently done before starting the "real" work.



The only travel glitch in the trip came by phone call when we were in Portland. We got notice that the ferry we were taking from Seattle to San Juan Island was having mechanical trouble and was canceled. Our replacement was a small charter flight from Boeing airport to San Juan. It was very smooth and comfortable, although it was the smallest plane Julie had ever flown in. She was a bit nervous, but enjoyed the trip. One advantage to having our own little plane was that the pilot could fly us a lot lower. Most of the trip was at about 1300 feet, which lets you see lots of sights you could never see in a normal commercial flight. It all worked out well.









On to San Juan Island.