seattle visit
Scott Bahlmann
Dear M,
The week away was full of fantastic, invigorating moments, and left us quite worn out at times too! We left early on Sunday, and arrived after dark in Seattle. It was exciting coming into the city where I'll be living soon. I was surprised at the lack of light pollution. In Salt Lake, even when we’re camping in the canyon there is a glow from the valley. With Seattle, we didn't really see the lights from the city until we were in it! I also loved the tree lined highway, which set it apart from the city, and also buffered the usually industrial, busy feeling that freeways give.
Now to see if I can recount all we did without going on for too long, we did so much! We had a room right in the heart of downtown, it was quirky and fun, thought there was ambient noise ...we could hear our neighbor snoring at one point. My fella’ had the idea to turn on the AC, and after that everything else was drowned out and it was very nice. We spent Monday and Tuesday exploring the city. He wanted to show me Pikes Place Market, so we went there pretty much first thing on Monday, before all the crowds. We went again on Tuesday so I could have the ‘full experience’ of the market, and I’ll admit I liked it better with less people.
After the market, we walked all over. First we visited the library, of course. It was a really fun building to be in, the vibrant colors and interesting architecture made it a very compelling experience. It was easy to keep moving through the building to see what else we would discover. The children’s area was a bit like the library in Oakland, where it was on the lowest level, but had a separate entrance, so it was almost a mini-building of its own. Their story room gave me all the jealous.
After that, we headed down Madison St, to a vegan restaurant my fella’ remembered from his time there before. We enjoyed seeing all the stuff along the way, but weren’t hungry by the time we got there, so we kept walking, and discovered some really nice parks, ending up in the Capitol Hill area. The parks in Seattle are fantastic! My favorite was something we found on Tuesday, so I’ll chat about that later. We stopped for pizza in a shop his friend manages, and had a lovely chat with her about our plans to relocate.
We caught a bus next, and headed to Fremont, so scope out the neighborhood where my fella' had submitted an application. We wandered around a bit, but were pretty worn out and caught the next bus back to our hotel after about an hour. But, I wanted ramen for dinner! So we walked all the way back to Broadway on our sore feet and had some very good ramen.
On Tuesday we were up early again, and headed to Columbus City, in the rental truck to preserve our weary feet. It seemed a bit too spread out for our liking, as walkability is one of the big appeals of the city, but we found a lovely place for breakfast. With sated stomaches we drove around the Ballard/Fremont since we hadn't seen very much of it the day before. And we ended up at Golden Gardens, my favorite park that we happened upon. The drive down was lovely, thick forested trees with hints of autumn colors that ended in a sandy beach. We wandered around a bit, and then drove to Queen Anne, and back to the hotel to hit the market at its peak.
We meandered down the boardwalk, and happened upon the Olympic Sculpture Park, before working our way over, and exploring the Center a bit. We decided the Seattle Center was close enough to walk to, and that we had given our feet enough of a rest during the morning. I was meeting informally with some people at the Children’s Theatre, to get a feel of the space and the staff. It was very nice, they hadn’t seen my application yet, but I was glad to have an in person connection. We had Italian that night, and stopped for a cocktail at a cute little bar on the way back to the hotel. And the next morning we were up before the sun and heading down Highway 101 to our cabin overlooking Mt. Shasta!
My favorite neighborhood, of those we looked at, was Ballard, though the Capitol Hill area was also very nice. Belltown was a bit too industrial for me. It was really nice getting a feel for things, and the trip makes the pending move all the more exciting!
-S