A Week in Seattle

It's been a great week in Seattle! Weather has been beautiful with a few rain showers but mostly sunny warm days. We hooked in at the Burien Elks Lodge Saturday afternoon, just south of Seattle which turned out to be the best of locations...easy to get into and out of Seattle and a chance to see a new area.

Paul and I are big fans of jazz, and Seattle has a wonderful jazz scene. We booked a table at Tula's for dinner and show, a wonderful evening in a small venue. Sunday was a bit blustery, huge clouds and winds that were blowing leaves from the trees, such a fall day. We visited Burke Museum on the Washington University campus to enjoy their collections (Carnival Around the World,

and natural and cultural displays)and to buy our museum membership in NARM, a nation wide reciprocal museum pass for over 400 museums. An amazing membership that we'll definitely use this next year. Thanks, Emily, for telling me all about it!!!!

By the time we left the museum the dark clouds had blown away and only big puffy clouds in a blue sky. We drove over to see the Ballard Locks for a wonderful afternoon.

The salmon were using the salmon ladder which we could see from an underground glass display. Several beautiful sailboats came through passing under the train draw bridge.

Spent some time along Lake Union looking at boathouses trying to find the one where Tom Hanks lived in Sleepless in Seattle...but never found it.

Monday was a REAL Washington rainy day. We started the day with a visit to Pike Place Market in Seattle. Stunning displays of flowers as well as veggies, fish and crafts. Always a fun time here...stops for a warm pastry and coffee, picked a beautiful bouquet for our little house and some amazing cheeses. 

After picking up Foster we took a picnic down to the beach for lunch. Parkhurst Beach is only 8 min for our house and a lovely walk along a quiet part of Puget Sound. We came to the beach most evenings for sunset while we were here.

The rest of the afternoon drifted away before going to another Apple Store lesson for me. It is wonderful to be able to travel to different cities and still book an hour of time to learn more on the computer.

Tuesday we had plans to drive north to Mukilteo to meet up with our nephew, Zachary. He'd spent the summer working at a Dude Ranch in Wyoming and had just returned to WA. the week before.

So fun to spend the afternoon with him and hear about life in Wyoming, which turned out not to be as glamorous as it sounded...long days, little pay. We had lunch in Edmonds and walked
around the cute little town visiting art galleries and garden shops.

We loved seeing Zachary, who we once held on our laps, become such a handsome 6'3 adult!

We visited the Wing Luke Asian Museum on Wednesday morning, located in the Chinatown-International District in Seattle. It is housed in the very hotel once used by immigrants for their first meal and room once landing in Seattle. The rooms have not been renovated so the sense of life there is still very real. It is the nation's only museum telling the story of the Asian Pacific American experience. Last summer I read, On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, which is set in Seattle's Chinatown in the 1940s. To have the walking tour of the book's locations I needed 9 other friends with me which I didn't have, so we tried to find a few on our own.

From the museum, we drove a bit south of the city to visit the Kubota Japanese Gardens to sit in the lovely gardens and enjoy our lunch. Very quiet with few visitors and such a nice afternoon.


Dear friends of ours, Diane and Burt Caldwell, flew into SeaTac that afternoon so we headed over to their hotel to enjoy an evening together, a wonderful dinner at 13 Coins Restaurant with live music by a Samoan guitarist. We also spent Thursday morning together taking them to our little beach walk and stopping by our motorhome.



Once we said our goodbyes Paul and I packed up our bikes for a beautiful ride along Alki Beach. Such a fun paved bike path for miles along the water.

beautiful views of the Olympic peninsula, the Seattle skyline looking east and ferries crossing Puget Sound. We saw this amazing house along the way.  I don't know if I've ever seen a house so colorful and flower-filled as this!!! What an inspiration for our next home, or maybe even our little motor home!





We spent our last Seattle day with a visit to the Frye Museum to see an amazing exhibit of work by Gabriel Von Max, a late nineteenth century artist, entitled:  "Be-Tailed Cousins and Phantasms of the Soul".  What a wonderful 2 hours! The rest of the afternoon was spent back on our bikes at Alki Beach once more. At this time of year new born seal pups often come ashore to rest and a group of locals protect the area by roping it off and standing watch.  One little pup chose his quiet spot right next to a boat launch area...he's hard to see as he looks like just another log on the beach, but his little head is up looking at us from the left of the sign.

We left the Seattle area on Saturday morning and planned to stay a few days near Tacoma. Here's my favorite sign for the week...

This gave us both a laugh! Traveling together 24/7 does take lots of compromising, but so far we're doing well and so happy we set out on this adventure. I think the thing we love best is the freedom to change plans; stay longer when we want or pick up and move on if that sounds better. I never thought we'd spend so much time in Washington as my original plan was to be in the Utah Canyon lands about this time, but we  just can't seem to leave this beautiful area of trees and water.  Looks like we'll be here for a couple more weeks before heading south.