Live Fast, Look Good: Our first trip to Seattle, Washington

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Our first trip to Seattle, Washington

As we did last year, we took a trip to another city we have never been to. It was a tossup between Seattle and Portland, Oregon.

After checking into hotel in the neighborhood of Queen Anne, we went go eat. We are always on the lookout for a local, non-chain restaurant to try both at home and when we travel. The missus found a creole eatery one block away from our hotel.

This place is no joke! Toulouse Le Petit Kitchen and Lounge is world renowned for its food. My wife was craving beignets, so this place was an easy sell.

We started with beignets.

Cajun Meatloaf with scrambles eggs and home fries. Utterly delicious! We were so enamored with the cuisine, we went back again!

Seattle's most famous landmark, The Space Needle.

As we were looking for places to visit, we came across a tour that takes you under the city. There was a massive fire in June of 1889 that consumed much of the waterfront as depicted in the sign. This portion of the city was essentially raised one level. Meaning the ground floor of a business was now the basement. Some of the underground rooms were used for illegal activities in the early part of the century.

Here we go...

Probably not the same pavement glass. I wanted to show the view looking down and looking up.

All the different names for Seattle were written on the stairs as you go back up to street level.

Daytime panoramic of downtown from the roof deck of the hotel.

Nighttime shot of downtown from the same rooftop deck.

This was a fun way to get to downtown.

I asked the operator to, "hammer it". He looked at me and said, "ok!".

Just south of downtown, Elliott Bay.

Pikes Place Market

The sheer selection of fresh seafood was overwhelming!

Fresh flowers in Technicolor.

Seattle's Gum Wall

It is one of those things were you know it's going to be gross, but you have to look anyway!

We had lunch at the Market and had a great view of Elliott Bay.

Dough Zone Dumpling House

My wife's friend, Meg, lives in Seattle and she was kind enough to play tour guide for us. She showed where she works, took us on the Monorail, and suggested we all have dinner at the Dough Zone Dumpling House. We talked, drank tea, and feasted on dumplings, pot stickers, and scallion pancakes.

Optimism Brewing Company

Meg also suggested we check out a local brewery, Optimism Brewing Company. It had a good sized crowd and as with other breweries, you can see the equipment used to make the suds.

We each ordered a flight and left with a nice buzz.

This cemetery was about 30 minutes north of were we staying. If it were not for the two people interred in the picture below, we would have not visited it.