You don't know how long I have waited for this day. There are two main reasons why this is an especially important day in my life. First reason: I found this fun, quirky, electronic(?) band about two years ago called Owl City. I love just about everything I've heard from them, but one of my particular favorites is this song called "Hello Seattle".I loved and heard the song before they played it on the radio. Today I got to do what I've thought about doing ever sing I heard the song: my ears listened to "Hello Seattle" while my eyes actually said "Hello" to Seattle. It was a lovely, life-fulfilling moment.
So, we hung out in Seattle today. Well...part of the day. Our first stop in the area was actually in Fremont, WA which is a little bit northwest of downtown Seattle. Many things turned up in this part of town, and we ended up there to begin with because I did a Google search of "free things to do in Seattle".
The reason why we went to Fremont at all is because they have a troll living under their bridge. Alright, so maybe he isn't living as in alive, but a statue of a troll does live under the George Washington Bridge. He is crushing a VW bug in his left hand (which I stood on top of today and was only a little bit scared). There are also 3 billy goats nearby to complete the realization of the fairy tale. Free, fun, and within the theme of finding random giant statue things. Beginnings of a great day.
Not to mention, it being a great day and all, the weather was just fantastic. Blue skies, not too cold, not too breezy. Excellent weather.
As I was looking at my Google Maps app on my phone to find the troll, what else did I find literally two blocks away? Google's Seattle offices. Naturally we had to go find that as well. We ended up across the lake after a wrong turn from my directions, but then we got to see a drawbridge go up and let three boats through, so that was actually pretty cool. I'm going to work for Google one day. I am. I'd be pretty happy to work for them in Seattle too, just saying...Seattle is a pretty cool city. Good vibes.
After we finally got a couple pictures of the Google offices (which are right on the water of Lake Union), we headed to downtown Seattle. First stop, the Space Needle. It's rather tall, and the elevator ride was a wee bit on the scary side, but I made it to the top, and it was absolutely awesome seeing all of the greater Seattle area from 520 feet in the air. You could see just about everything, including the bridge our troll lives under--but not the troll itself unfortunately, even with a doubler on our camera.
After the Space Needle we headed to Pike's Place. Here comes the second reason why today has been a dream-fulfilling day: the original Starbucks is in Pike's Place. I know, I know. It's a chain. Yeah, they burn their coffee a lot of times. But they are a reliable place to actually get coffee. And if you make their coffee on your own, it really is some of the best coffee out there. Enough of my caffeinated soap box. Point is, I got my usual, tall black coffee from the original, opened-since-1971 Starbucks today. I also now have a fourth Starbucks location mug to add to my collection of England, France, and Washington, DC. It was a completely different atmosphere than any other Starbucks I've ever been to, probably different than all the other ones in the world. There is no seating area in this Starbucks. It was PACKED with people and baristas scurrying around moving coffee and merchandise. The baristas are almost over the top nice. Their manager was from Charleston, WV. They throw cups from the order-taking portion of the store to the order-making portion of the store. It is ordered chaos in that place, and I LOVED it.
The rest of Pike's Place was pretty great as well. There's lots of seafood selling places (stinky) and also lots of flowers selling places (fragrant), so all balances out in the end. We found a crepes place in an out of the way part of the market. We had their vegetarian crepe and their Nutella and strawberries crepe. Both were outstanding.
It was really crowded, so eventually we headed out. Next stops were two lighthouses out on Puget Sound. To get a picture of the first one, we had to walk down this incredibly rocky beach, and I--idiot that I can be sometimes--was wearing my Tom's. No support, no cushion. I got my sneakers on immediately after that very difficult, but thankfully quite short, walk. We couldn't go into this lighthouse because it is only open on the weekends. Boo.
The second lighthouse was in the Nature Discovery Park. We discovered a lot of nature. Actually it wasn't really that bad. The grass was really tall, and I think there were quite a few gnats out. But I don't think I got bitten by anything, and nothing stung me, so I count that a positive experience with nature. Anyways, we walked about 1.5 miles out to the light. We couldn't go inside this one either because it was under reconstruction or refurbishment or something. The walk was a good bit longer, but I had on appropriate walking shoes this time. I wish I had been wearing different clothes because the trails we were on would have been pretty great to run on. It would have definitely been running in the bushes, and well...that's one of my favorite things to do.
That about sums up the day. We head to Alaska for real tomorrow. We catch our ferry to the true North (where, ironically, the temperatures are warmer than in Yellowstone) at 6 pm tomorrow evening. We will be on a boat for two and a half or three days, so I apologize in advance if I can't update this thing every day. I don't know what the internet situation or cell service situation is going to be on the way up.
Wish us luck!
PS--I hope you enjoy the pictures!
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