PNW Vacay Part 5: Seattle

Hello! I hope your week is off to a great start.

I’m linking up with Joanne for…

…for the fifth and final post about our vacation to the Pacific Northwest.

Let’s wrap up this trip, shall we?

After driving from Lake Quinault Lodge, we arrived in Seattle around 12:30. We booked our hotel on the drive to Seattle. Can you tell we were over planning trip details at this point? haha

Really, we knew it would be easy to get a hotel, so we just pushed that final decision to the end. The bad news is that $400/night is about the cheapest you can find in downtown Seattle. We did end up at Hyatt Place for a bit less than that, and we were very pleased with the hotel and the location.

We figured we were too early to check in, but Travis went to the front desk, and they gave us access to park in their garage. Then, we got our bearings, but literally, when we looked up from the hotel, we could see the Space Needle, so that was an easy attraction to locate.

Travis had told me I was in charge of this part of the trip, and that was easy enough…I wanted to go to Pike Place Market and figured the Space Needle was a tourist spot we should see (and we’d get a great view of Seattle).

Also, I read Andrea’s blog daily, and she’s been recapping their time in Washington. They started their trip in Seattle and highlighted a few things like Pike Place Market.

We were about a mile from Pike Place, so we started our walk there.

It was a beautiful day in the low 80’s, and the walk was about 20 minutes.

We’d arrived…and I was so excited!

We were hungry!…but we spent about 20 minutes getting the lay of the land.

Trader Joe’s needs to take note on the beautiful peonies.

It was so fun to see the market with fresh flowers and fresh produce. If we were staying longer, we would have purchased flowers and fruit.

We did end up at the fish market where they famously throw the fish to each other. That was a popular spot, but we enjoyed standing there for a few minutes.

After that, we split up, and Travis and Hayden went to find something to eat as did Hadley and I. It was around 1:30, and before we parted ways, I booked the Space Needle tickets for 3:30. We’d said we’d meet back up around 2:30 after we got our food.

I’d missed it on the first pass by, but I spotted the original Starbucks. The line was out the door. It sounds silly, but if we were there one more day, I would have come back and stood in the line for coffee and maybe a coffee cup souvenir.

Hadley spotted a French bistro…and she loves a macaroon, so we stopped in there to pick up a few for dessert.

I’d spotted Beecher‘s Handmade Cheese, and I’d remembered that Andrea shared about it too. Mac and cheese is one of my favorite foods ever, and I was hungry. Hadley wanted the tomato soup, and then we also split a grilled cheese sandwich. They had a counter where you could stand to eat, but we also were able to watch the workers making the cheese. It was really cool to see.

We walked around a bit more, and I’d texted Travis to see where they were. He said they were at a pizza place by the gum wall…and I’d remembered Andrea sharing about that too. Anyway, we made our way to the restaurant and sat with them while they finished their pizza.

The gum wall is equal parts mesmerizing and gross…

…but of course we had to get a pic!

Then, we made our way out of the market, but the kids obliged me in taking one more pic for the memories. I truly could have hung out there quite a bit longer, but we needed to make our way to the Space Needle.

We arrived at the Space Needle, and I pulled up the tickets on my phone. Well, I apparently purchased tickets for an observation deck somewhere else? I’m guessing it was an observation deck with view of the Space Needle?? I’m not sure, and do you see why I shouldn’t be in charge of the itinerary?! haha

The look on my face must have shown my panic because the very nice lady gave me four tickets, but we’d have to come back at 5:30. I was so appreciative, and actually, it was probably a good call because we walked five minutes back to the hotel, and had about an hour to cool off, relax, and regroup.

As we entered the hotel, they were handing out champagne…see, it did work in our favor to come back to the hotel for a bit…haha

At the hotel, we checked in and got our bags from the car. Then, after about an hour, we went back to the Space Needle around 5:15 and got in line.

The line is outside and reminds me of getting on a ride….and then once you get inside, you still weave around until it’s time to get on the elevator to the top. While in line, there is a spot where they take your pic and give you a QR code to access the photos at the top.

We were probably in line about twenty minutes before getting in the elevator to go on up. I don’t love heights, so I was a little nervous that I’d be anxious, but once we stepped out of the elevator (which only took about 40 seconds, I think?), this was the view. It was so pretty…and I had no worries at all.

Mt. Rainier was easy to spot!

We walked around the top in order to see 360 degrees of views.

The Puget Sound was so pretty as well.

We even spotted our hotel.

We snapped a few pics…

…and then we went down one level to the revolving glass floor. I don’t think we took pics correctly…haha

How many times can you say you hit 10,000 steps at over 600 feet in the air?

We were probably at the top for about 45 minutes, and then rode the elevator down. As you exit the elevator, there’s a Space Needle made out of Legos!

While we were at the top of the Space Needle, we visited the kiosk to choose our picture backgrounds. Hadley had quite a few she liked, so I received four emails with four different background pics.

These two were my fave:

Then, we walked back to the hotel to take settle in for the evening. The track trials were on TV, so that was a great way to spend our evening. We were tired. The kids relaxed, and Travis and I said we’d go find dinner. He’d already spotted a few places near the hotel.

A funny thing happened though when we walked around the block…We’d paused at a restaurant to read the menu that was on the window, and the door burst open, and someone shouted “Jennifer!” Hardly anyone calls me Jennifer, and I was startled at first…but it was one of my co-workers! What are the odds that we were both in Seattle at the same time?! He’d just arrived in Seattle with his family that day and were headed to the Space Needle after dinner. Small world!

Even with the walk around the block, we settled on the pizza place right across the street from our hotel. Even though Travis and Hayden had pizza for lunch, they were fine with having it again for dinner. I got a salad as well. While the pizza baked, Travis and I got a beer and chatted.

We ate our pizza in our room, took turns showering, and then watched the track and gymnastic trials on TV.

We were all truly exhausted, and had no trouble falling asleep by 10:00. This hotel room also had a pull out couch, so it was nice to let the kids each have a bed to sleep in.

The next morning, we were up early and at the hotel breakfast by 7:00 when it opened. Our flight was at 10:30, and thankfully everything was on time. I was really impressed with Alaskan Airlines. We had a direct flight to Cincinnati and no delays! We got home to Homer around 7:00, and it was so nice to shower and sleep in our own beds.

The following night, we were all still awake at midnight, and it dawned on me that we were gone just long enough to adjust to Pacific time zone.

If you don’t read Andrea’s blog, you should check out her trip recap. She has lots of posts about Seattle and Olympia and all that they did.

Trip Recap:

Here are the posts about the other parts of our trip in case you missed one:

Thanks for following along on our journey. We saw so much and covered a lot of ground; some of the best memories were logged in the car and at various pit stops along the way.

I’d like to think we’ll be out that way again some day, but no matter what, I’m really thankful for Travis for planning it all, and I’m grateful for this time with my fam visiting new places.

Let me know if you have any questions!