More Donuts

Day 6. In our first full day in Seattle, there was a lot to be seen and do. Or so we thought. Apparently, just like Portland, Seattle doesn’t have that many tourist attractions to see and do. Either that or LL and I just do everything really fast. Check, check, and check. Even with a late start, we were done with our entire agenda for Seattle in less than 2.5 hours.

The day started as I like to do in new cities…with a run. This time it was along the Puget Sound, which was pretty great. Running parallel to the water is my kind of run. And not having humidity out here in the Pacific Northwest has been so amazing with the running and all the site-seeing. My run was along the boardwalk and up on a path that continued after. On this run I just realized how lucky I am 1) to be able to travel like this and 2) that I like to go running even on vacay because I not only get an early lay of the land but I also get to see thing I may not normally see because of where my runs take me. Also running with Mt. Ranier in the background was just picturesque. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, I will never get sick of a mountain backdrop. Oh yeah, and I passed the location where Real World Seattle filmed. Equally exciting obviously. I knew the second I passed it that it was the place. I could just picture Steven tossing Irene’s teddy bear in the water. Oh man, such a good season. I need to find out how I can go back and watch it all over again. Real World Portland too for that matter since I am now familiar with both cities. When I got back to the hotel I even double-checked that I was right. Pier 70 baby. I impress myself sometimes with my useless knowledge of reality TV that I have obtained over time. It’s truly a gift. After the run I had to hike back up the brutal hills of Seattle to the hotel and get ready to tackle to the day.

The first stop was back to Pike Place market to see it in full action. Yesterday we got there so late many of the vendors and booths were already closed. This morning we definitely saw the hustle and bustle of it all. Number one we wanted to see the guys at the fish market toss the fish like they are famous for. And yessss, we got to see it. The market was pretty great with all the food stands, fresh produce, flowers, and little gifts. On the recommendation of a friend, I had donuts yet again. This time it was from Daily Donut and they were cinnamon sugar mini donuts. Dare I say they were better than Voodoo? They were hot right out of the fryer and just melt-in-your-mouth good. I’ve had more donuts in the last four days than in the last four years, but hey, I’m in vacation mode so I’m trying not to feel too guilty. And to balance out the donuts, I also bought some Ranier cherries that Washington state is so famous for. They were equally great!! LL and I were going to stop back at the original Starbucks to get a drink just to say we had, but the line was too long. On the subject of Starbucks, they are EVERYWHERE here. I thought it was bad in New York with Starbucks almost every other block or so, but its ridiculous here in Seattle. There are sooooo many.

After the market, we headed to the Olympic Sculpture Park. I had passed it on my morning run but didn’t explore at all. There wasn’t that much to see there which was kind of a disappointment. So it was off to the Space Needle. Can someone please explain to me what the purpose of this structure is? Is it simply to get an aerial view of the city? I should really look that up. (I’ll look up Real World vital info but not this. Oh me.) Whatever it is, it was cool to see in person. We didn’t go up because we didn’t feel the need to since we had the amazing view from Columbia Tower. At this point, everything on our Seattle to-do list had been done (except take the Washington Ferry which we planned to do Saturday). At 1:00 in the afternoon we had seen it all and still had the whole day ahead of us.  After sitting down with the map and some emails from friends recommending places and realizing we had zero desire to go to any art museums and had seen everything else, LL and decided to head back to the hotel to talk with the concierge about our next move and for what the heck we would do with an entire day Saturday. The ideas of a winery tour or whale watching were brought up but since we won’t be arriving back in Seattle until about 10:30 Saturday we can’t do the wine tour and without a car, going whale watching is near impossible. Huge bummers. We decided we would walk back down to the pier and catch a ferry to Bainbridge Island. The ferry carries both people and vehicles (up to 200 cars! I asked). It was a 35-minute ride with gorgeous views of downtown Seattle and the mountains. I felt very Grey’s Anatomy for some reason. I haven’t watched that show in a long time but for some reason I have images in my people on the show taking that ferry, or one like it. Once on the island, we walked to the main town and grabbed a very late lunch and kind of window-shopped. It definitely seemed like “small town USA” and there wasn’t much to see. The town actually reminded me of a version of a town like in the movie Dante’s Peak. I think it was just having a cute small town with mountains in the background but I could picture Ranier exploding all over this poor town and people running for their lives. I don’t know why my mind went there but it did. (PS, if you haven't seen that movie, you should.) We thought that time on the island would be longer, but once again, we saw all we needed to see in a short period of time. Then it was back to the city (another stop at Target, naturally) and back to the hotel before dinner. We wanted to grab seafood so decided to head back down to the pier and went to a super touristy place called The Crab Pot.  Once again, it was mediocre. Then it was up the giant Seattle hills one last time this day to the hotel. 

So there you have it, pretty much all of Seattle’s tourist attractions done in a very short afternoon. And we still have an entire day left. The city is pretty damn beautiful (and hilly. Did I mention hilly before? It's hilly.) so I could sit by the water all day, but that just seems kind of wasteful of a full day. We are thinking of maybe checking out some of the neighborhoods more and exploring those, heading to the REI flagship store, actually waiting in line at the original Starbucks, and maybe even attending a Seattle Mariners game. We are open to suggestions if anyone has any! Speak up please. We do have a day to figure it out as we head to Vancouver in between. A quick 24-hour trip to Canada and then back to the good ole U.S of A.