The Savage Traveler: Out West Adventure: Part 2--Seattle Second Day

Wed. June 18: After a light breakfast of bread with peanut butter and coffee we went back to nearly the same place as Tuesday, parked the truck a few blocks away and this time walked up the hill a few blocks to the famous Space Needle from the 1962 World’s Fair. We had an early lunch at the revolving restaurant at the top, finding that, like in Niagara and Toronto, the high cost of the meal includes your ride up, which would have been $19.00 a piece alone. Marv had a King Salmon sandwich and split pea with ham soup and I had wonderful barely-seared tuna on greens with olives, peppers, green beans, tomatoes and carrots. We stayed for two revolutions and then went upstairs to the viewing deck for a little longer before going back down and returning to the truck. From there we drove to the Pike Place Market area and found a pay to park on Pike Street and 5^th. There was a bit of very light drizzle in the air as we made our way down to the waterfront. Along with the crowds of visitors we wandered through the famous market, watching the fish guys throw an order and buying a huge, beautiful bouquet to take to Heidi and a small bouquet of Sweet Peas for the camper. Then we went up on Queen Ann Hill to Kerry Park for the most famous view of the Seattle Skyline. It was mostly cloudy there and in the low seventies as it had been most of the time in Seattle so we couldn't see Mount Rainier but we still had a pretty good view over the downtown area and the harbor area at the bottom of Puget Sound. Since we still had much plenty of time we drove to the Crittenden Locks to see the fish ladder that allows salmon to travel up to Lakes Union and Washington. Nearby was Fremont with Theo’s Chocolate Factory. There wasn't room for us in the last tour of the day, but we went in their retail shop and found we could sample their wonderful and sometimes exotic chocolates to our heart’s content before buying one small but expensive salted almond dark chocolate bar. We then wandered for several blocks in a square partly along the canal looking in vain for a coffee shop. When we found that Peet’s Place was closed we reconciled ourselves to settling for Starbuck’s but as we went in I heard a man talking to two other men saying that the best coffee in the western U.S. was right around the corner at Malstead’s. So we went there instead and Marv had a freshly made French Press and I had a nice ginger-fig iced tea. It was 6:00 when we entered rush hour traffic to drive up to Heidi and Dan’s for dinner. We chatted over wine and beer and olives before walking up the steep hill to Smith’s (voted #1 by Janice Oien) for a wonderful dinner with even more wonderful conversation, getting caught up on Heidi and getting to know Dan better. What a joy to interact as adults with good friends’ now grown children!! It was nearly 11:00 when Dan, with a twinkle in his eye, pulled out his credit card with a big block M on it. We all laughed when Marv pulled out his VISA card with the Sparty Helmet and MSU on it and they split the bill. It was midnight by the time we got back to the campsite but it had been a great last day in Seattle.