An Emerald City Getaway

Thanks to Will's hard work and travel he earns a lot of points on Hawaiian Airlines and at Holiday Inn hotels. This means we get to take fun trips like our trip to Australia! Will had earned enough points for us to go on a vacation that didn't even need to be part of a work trip, so after looking at destinations Hawaiian flew to, we decided on Seattle! (Yes, we were crazy when we ruled out Tahiti because it was "too similar" to Hawai`i.) So for Spring Break we went on a long weekend trip to Seattle and the Cascade Mountains.

Our first day was strictly a travel day, arriving in Seattle around 10pm. We checked into our airport hotel for a good night's sleep, and we were up and going early in the morning for some exploring.

After we picked up the rental car we drove to the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle. It reminded us of the nice neighborhoods around the lakes in Minneapolis! We had a delicious breakfast crumpets at Queen Bee's, which donates 100% of its profits to local organizations.

Then we walked down to the park at the end of the street and around the neighborhood. As we were leaving the park Will asked what was next. I said, "We have to go see the view from Kerry Park down the way." Will said, "That was Kerry Park!" I looked back to see the sign and sure enough! Turns out the park was closer to our breakfast spot than I realized! Check that off the list!

View from Kerry Park

After our walk we needed to refill our coffee mug! The coffee culture is huge in Seattle and the surrounding area, so it's not hard by any means to find a cup of coffee close by. In fact, our next cup was just across the street from our breakfast cafe.

Now that we were fueled up we were ready for more exploring. It was off to the neighborhood of Fremont. This neighborhood is well known for its street art. There is a huge troll under the Aurora bridge that was created in the early 90s as a way to bring the community together. At an apartment leading up to the troll there is a little group of goats!

Troll Road, leading up to the troll at the end of the road.

Just a few blocks away was our next destination - The Fremont Brewery. Seattle, and Washington as a whole, also has a huge microbrew culture, so you're never too far away from your next glass of beer, either! Will and I sampled some of their beers by sharing a flight. It was all delicious!

Now it was lunch time, so we headed over to the water's edge for a beautiful lunch along the Puget Sound at Ray's Cafe. It may have been our favorite meal of the trip - local beer and a local salmon sandwich for Will, rose and a crabcake sandwich for me. Delish!

The blue heron is the official bird of Seattle and we saw a couple of them throughout the day. This guy was hanging out and drying his wings.

Heading North along the sound, we arrived at Golden Garden's Park. In the park there are beautiful grassy areas, a wetland, and of course beautiful beach. While we were walking along the beach we watch a whole family of harbor seals swimming and playing!

After enjoying the beautiful view and wildlife, we headed toward the Ballard neighborhood. We came across the interesting bridge and got out to take a look. We waited for a while and got to see it get lowered, but there was no train to be heard for a while.

There wasn't much to see on the main street of Ballard, so we continued on our way. We still had a lot of ground to cover!

We went all the way to the other side of the peninsula to the Sound Garden, which is apparently on federal land operated by NOAA. We followed the directions to the park and arrived at a gate with security hut and officers with guns. We pulled up and Will said that we were looking for the Sound Garden, could he tell us where to go. And the guard said this was it! How strange! So they had to take down our driver's license info and give us a car pass and a map with "x"s through the buildings that we weren't supposed to go near. We were also instructed not to take any pictures facing the buildings, only out toward the water. What are they doing in these NOAA buildings, anyway?!

So we walked out to the Sound Garden, which is a musical art installation of pipes that move and whistle in the wind. Unfortunately there was no wind today, but it was still neat to see. And the views were pretty.

After our day exploring some of the outer neighborhoods of Seattle it was time to head toward the mountains! We drove to Monroe, Washington, which is a town of strip malls and one street of mom and pop shops where we had happy hour at Adam's Northwest Bistro and Bistro and Brewery. It was really getting late now, so we made a quick stop at Safeway to get our groceries for the weekend and headed into the mountains toward our cozy cabin in Index!