Stage 10 - Seattle

I had visited Seattle once in my college days - as one of my friends was from that area - but can't say that I remember doing many of the standard tourist activities. I just remember there were beer gardens involved.  So I was looking forward to seeing the city in family style.

Our hotel was in South Lake Union - which is north of downtown but right on Lake Union.  I enjoy being near the marinas and having restaurants with decks with views into the Lake.  The new light rail had a stop in front of our hotel - so it was convenient to get into town.  As soon as we rolled into town - I set out to run around the lake - which seemed easy but I ended up run/walking 10 miles (I intended to do 5) as I took some wrong turns.  So we had a late dinner before retiring for the evening.

On Friday - I had intended to take a water taxi across the lake over to the University of Washington but something about the water level prevented the taxi from running that morning.  So I took the kids and drove the 4 miles to the University of Washington.  This was the third and final stop of the college tour.    It was pretty hot that day - so none of the kids were very excited to do the tour.

In the afternoon - we headed over to the Seattle Center - where the Space Needle and other attractions are located.  Due to time constraints (I had to pick up my Dad and Nancy at the airport) - we split into two groups - Jake and I did the EMP Museum and the rest rode up in the Space Needle.

After my airport pickup - we had a fantastic dinner out on a patio with views of the Space Needle.

The next morning I woke up to a very big surprise.....clouds.  Up until that morning - I could probably count the number of clouds we had seen on the first 23 days of the trip on all my fingers and toes.  The weather had been fantastic.  Since we were going to be outside and walking around - the cooler weather was actually a benefit.  We took the light rail downtown and walked through Pike Marketplace.  We then boarded a ferry for the 25 minute ride over to Bainbridge Island.  It is a relatively inexpensive way to get out into Puget Sound and see the city from the water.  Bainbridge Island is also a nice town to walk around and we grabbed lunch before heading back to Seattle.

We then walk around a bit before heading down to Safeco Field to catch the Twins-Mariners game.  I thought San Francisco had a high population of homeless people - but Seattle appears to be providing good competition.  Kelsey sagely noted that there were "no homeless people at DisneyWorld".  The Twins lost the game in the bottom of the ninth - so the locals went home happy but we were a bit disappointed.

We were a bit melancholy going back to the hotel - as we faced the reality of packing up and heading home.  Of course - when you are faced with an 11am flight - there is only one thing you can do....run a 10K before the flight !  There was a 10K race that started at 7:30 right outside our hotel. Jake and I had entered but had not done a tremendous amount of training throughout the vacation.  Jake beat me soundly again but not as bad as the race earlier this summer.  After the race - I threw down some post-race pancakes and showered and headed to the airport for the flight back to Boston.