Seattle Vacation

For our one year wedding anniversary and summer vacation we decided to take a four day vacation to Seattle, WA. Why Seattle you ask? Well, Optometry's Meeting was scheduled to be in Seattle from June 24th-30th and I was getting my way paid to go as President of the UMSL American Optometric Student Association; so we took advantage of the opportunity and flew out before the conference for vacation.
We flew out on Thursday 6/19 and got into Seattle around 10:30pm. We stayed at Hotel Max in downtown Seattle.

On the first morning (Friday) we woke up early and started our day like everyone in Seattle does....at Starbucks. However, neither of us are coffee drinkers so we got juice and pastries; its a wonder they didn't throw us out of the city right then. We walked down to the famous Pike Street Market. Since it was early it wasn't too crowded yet, but by lunch time its packed! And yes, we did get to see the fish throwing too. Just a couple blocks behind the market are the piers at Elliott Bay. The view is just beautiful from he piers, the water is breathtaking and the snow-covered peaks of Olympic Mountains can be seen across the water on a clear day. The Seattle Aquarium sits on one of the piers at the Bay as well. It was a nice aquarium, but probably geared a little more to small children than mature adults like us.
We were really excited about the "petting zoo", we got to touch star fish and sea cucumbers, and the sea otters (I think we are going to build a pool and buy a sea otter as our first family pet - they are freakin' hilarious). We had lunch at the tip of an adjacent pier at a restaurant called The Fisherman, and had the best view in the house because we sat at the very tip of the pier. The weather was absolutely beautiful the entire time we were there too! After lunch we took an hour long Argosy boat tour cruise around the bay and got a great view of the city skyline. After all the walking we had done that day we went back to the hotel and took a nap before going to dinner, this wound up being a tradition we carried on everyday we were there too.

On day two we started in an area called Pioneer Square, which was the original Seattle, and too the Underground tour. The underground is the original ground level of Seattle that is now under the sidewalks because the raised the city. All of the buildings in Pioneer square have a hidden floor underground that used to be the original first floor until the ground level was raised. On the left are some of the old buildings. What is now the first floor used to be the 2nd floor and the first floor is now underground.

On the tour, we walked by the most wonderful smelling BBQ joint, and it was just as good as it smelled. Then we ventured across town to the Seattle Center, home to the Space Needle and Experience Music Project (EMP). We chose not to go up into the Space Needle but did go to the EMP which is a music museum. It was pretty neat, but some of the displays were a little too crowded. Again we went and took and nap and ate dinner.

Sunday, our third day, Brian had scheduled a tour outside of the city to visit two wineries and a waterfall. I am not a wine drinker so Brian had more than his fare share of wine that day, but I did try every one of them. I did find one that I liked, not surprising it was the sweetest one they had. The stop at the Snoqualmie falls was really pretty as well. It was really nice to get out of the city and see the beautiful countryside. The area is SO incredibly green and luscious. They say anything can grow there because of the steady amount of rain and mild winter/summer seasons as compared to the midwest.
Couldn't resist posting this last one. Some day he will learn....some day....

Our last day (together that is) we took it pretty easy because we had seen most of the sites we really wanted to.

We decided to ride the ferry (the first ride on a ferry for both of us) across the bay to Bainbridge Island. The ferry ride was very nice and allowed great views of the city, Mt. Rainier, and both the Olympic and Cascade Mountains.


Brian flew out on Tuesday morning to head home and I traveled about six blocks to another hotel where I would stay with some classmates for the next 5 days while attending the Optometry Conference.
It was a good vacation and we had a lot of fun together, great first anniversary.