Seattle

We arrived in Seattle two days before our cruise ship embarked.  We wanted a little time to see the town and, since we didn’t go through the cruise authority, we were on our own as far as being in Seattle to board the ship on time.  We spent the day prowling the water front.  It was within walking distance from our hotel downtown.  A seatmate on the plane recommended a ferry ride so we rode the ferry to Bainbridge Island and poked around a little there.  After lunch on the island, we rode the ferry back to the mainland where we intended to visit Pike Place Market, also recommended by the man on the plane.  Unfortunately we petered out and just went back to our hotel to crash until dinnertime.   The evening before we ate at Zeek’s Pizza, which we stumbled on after arriving at the hotel and went out looking for a place to eat.  The pizza and craft beer was so good we thought, “Well, shoot.  We’ll just go back there,” so we did.

Our shipped docked back in Seattle early in the day a week later and we were through customs by nine o’clock.  That gave us the rest of the day to wander around Seattle some more.  Our flight home wasn’t until 5:30 a.m. the next morning.  That also explains why weren’t able to fly home Saturday.  Anyway, we used that time to visit Pike Place Market.  It covers several blocks and has all kinds of shops.  We passed the original Starbucks but got our coffee at another one a block or two away because there was a line around the block for the original one.  People want to be able to say they got coffee at the original Starbuck’s, I guess.

Seattle was better than some big cities, maybe most even.  I thought it interesting that the grass wherever it wasn’t watered, and that was most places, looked like High Plains grass in the middle of winter.  Apparently it isn’t just California that is experiencing a drought.  There was lots of greenery, trees and bushes, so maybe they were in just a little dry spell.  Still, I thought it rained all the time there.