Day 8 - Spokane to Seattle

Spokane -

We found a fantastic little market for breakfast called Huckleberrys Natural Market. Move over Whole Foods and Trader Joes, this is my new "I'm going to live in this grocery store" residence. Just incredible. They had a prepared foods section that was humming .. a coffee bar, juice bar, breakfast, lunch ... everything - YUM!
We ordered a Mermaid juice (orange, spinach, pineapple, spirulina, wheatgrass), fried egg sandwich which was divine with arugula, gouda, basil pesto on sourdough and coffee.

Poor Matt always has to wait for my picture before diving in. Do you see his hand ready to pounce? Who can blame him - these sandwiches were amazing!

After breakfast we made our way down to the Riverfront Park downtown. We visited the "Suction Goat", the worlds largest Radio Flyer wagon, saw the Looff Carousel (a hand carved wooden carousel) behind glass (closed Mondays) and the waterfall.

I think Mr. Goat was full by the time we got here. 

Matt chose not to slide down the Radio Flyer as there were people milling about. But guess who did after I got a pesky little kid out of the way. Why was he even here anyways? :)

He was posing for me - I had to oblige.

Ugh! I can't even look at this picture without a sea of guilt rushing over me. I haven't run at all on this trip. Yes, I've set my alarm on several different occasions to wake up early to run. 

The snooze button is both a beautiful and evil thing! Best kick it in to gear as I will be running a 5k in California on Saturday with my brother and sister-in-law. I'm toast!

So, off to Seattle ... 5 hours later.

Rain, rain, rain LOTS of rain!! Easy drive with beautiful views despite the rain. From city center to our hotel, The Edgewater, on pier 67 Seattle reminded me a lot of San Francisco with their hills. Love it!

We checked in to the hotel where they valet parked Newt - Matt and I both hate valet parking for the cost AND the hassle (but mostly the cost). The hotel was gorgeous and just about as "cottage-esque" as I would want. It was like a cottage art-nouveaux style. Never thought I would see/type those words together.

Birdy made a new friend.

Our room was beautiful with a little balcony overlooking the bay. There was a cruise line at the Pier to our left. We were hopeful to see a cruise liner arrive/depart but that didn't happen. Okay at the same time as this would have likely blocked our entire view of the bay.

It was STILL raining like crazy but we braved the weather with the hotels courtesy umbrella and Matt's astronaut rain jacket. What's Seattle without rain anyways! Pike Place was maybe a 10 minute walk from our hotel. There were a few shops / restaurants still open opposite the market. You could walk into sections of the market but most of it was closed; scheduled to re-open at 10am the next morning.

To Pike Place Market

Hooray! The original Starbucks. You were all expecting this picture, I know.

Sassy Duck in our shower

Matt and I explored the area more - mostly looking for open restaurants and searching Yelp for good reviews. We weren't dressed for fine dining, nor did we want to pay the $$ for it tonight. After walking past the Wild Ginger restaurant 5 or 6 times we finally decided on this restaurant. Glad we did! I ordered the a summer ahi tuna salad with ginger vinaigrette and Matt ordered their signature duck dish. Both delish! The waiter had informed us that Seattle has had impeccable weather "for the last 100 days" .. sunshine, beautiful temps, "until today". We explained our need to share our Pittsburgh weather with the nation. Fortunately we lucked out the next day as it was gorgeous!!