Eccentric Planet: Seattle Day 1

In August, the kids headed to Camp Wapsie, so Ben and I took the opportunity to go somewhere he loves and I've always wanted to see: Seattle. My friend/book producer/sometimes-agent Lee Ann lives outside the city in Port Townsend, so we arranged to see the city, visit her, and then take the handy train straight down to Portland to visit my poet/professor friends, Jerry and Mary. As we boarded the plane, we were so excited to be heading west for a change. We always seem to go east. We were also eager to be heading north in August, to cool off a bit.

We arrived, settled into our hotel, and walked around a bit to get the lay of the land. I was excited to come upon Dahlia Lounge, a restaurant owned by the famous (in my world) Tom Douglas, but we were too late for dinner so we had a drink, then turned in to prepare for our first full day--I had a big one planned.

In the morning, we headed out for a full day of food tours. First up in the morning: The Pike Place Market Tour, through Savor Seattle. We saw this cool street cart on the way, and met our group at Starbucks (because we're in Seattle). Our friendly tour guide then took us kitty corner from the Starbucks over to the market.

Hooray Seattle, here we come! Does Ben look sufficiently "Western"?

It's not that we *needed* candy for the plane. It's that we *wanted* candy for the plane.

All aboard and ready. I didn't expect the flight to be so long! I guess Seattle's actually really far away from the Midwest compared to, say, New York.


Cool street cart

Ben ordering at Starbucks while we wait to meet our tour.

Mmm, coffee...Ben got the girly drink. I got the latte with soy milk. (Is that also a girly drink?)

And there it is!

Our Savor Seattle tour guide

The market has history

When people start talking about food, I become enraptured. (Dork!)

This is where they throw the fish.

Buskers

Clear rolling papers? Weird.

Full and happy after a morning of food and history, we had a short while before our next tour--the Chocolate and Coffee tour, also through Savor Seattle. We went to our next meeting spot in a hotel, and got a sneak preview of the coffee drink we would receive at the beginning of our tour.

Beginning our tour--with audio

Ben does NOT want to go up there.

We saw these things all over the city. We refrained from boarding any.

Getting closer...oh c'mon Ben, it's the Space Needle! You can't go to Seattle without going up there.

Our lovely and talented Chocolate and Coffee tour guide.

He did it! (But he didn't like it.)

Still not liking it...

Back on the ground, tour over, we wandered around taking funky pics

Why is there a fire hydrant that says IOWA in Seattle?

Ben in front of the famous gum wall--smoking his very first pipe! Yes, this is where it all began.


Heading back after a long and filling day.

Can you believe we were hungry after that? As we wandered back, we were actually a bit woozy after tiny bits of so many different foods, so we had a beer sampler at The Pike Brewing Company, then wandered around the city until we came back to the Dahlia Lounge we'd seen the night before. But across the street was another Tom Douglas spot I'd heard great things about: Lola. We had stopped in for a beautiful dinner, during which we saw--what do you know!--Tom Douglas himself! (That's him, right?) On our way back to the hotel, we took some pictures of the lovely fish lamps at Dahlia, and hope to eat there on another trip.