We got up bright and early Monday morning, didn’t have much to pack as we’d only spent the night and enjoyed the complimentary Holiday Inn Express breakfast before we embarked on our merry way in to the big city of Seattle!
More gorgeous scenery
En route, we pulled in to an empty car park at our next hotel, another Holiday Inn Express, in another small town, Shoreline (hotel count:3). The guy at check in told us that we couldn’t check in early – in spite of the fact that the car park was all but completely empty. So, they either had a hotel full of dirty rooms, a hotel full of people who all walked to the hotel and didn’t have cars, or he was just being unhelpful – either way, we continued into the city.
Once we got into the city, we headed straight for pier 56 where we picked up our tickets for the Argosy boat tour. After we got those, we had just over an hour to kill before the tour itself, so headed up to the Pikes Place area.
When we got there, we took a wee dander through the market, stopping to look at some of the interesting wares people were peddling.
Fish stand
It was quite the quirky place, filled with little shops and stalls, fresh produce, flowers, trinkets etc. When we’d finished our little jaunt, we still had some time to waste, so we figured we’d try out Beechers.
I had added this to our itenerary, not as a ‘must do’, but a ‘meh, this has good reviews’ kind of place – somewhere that we’d check out if we were passing and the situation arose – I’m so glad it did!
We got a large mac & cheese between us and a breadzel – both of us were surprised at just how delicious it turned out to be. Hands down the best mac & cheese I’ve ever tasted!
While you sat on your churn and ate your cheese, you could look through the glass and watch the cheese-dudes do their cheese-thing – it was fun! Definitely an enjoyable experience and highly recommended (Col even suggested that we return for more mac & cheese before we leave for Houston but we ran out of time!).
By now, it was time to head down for our boat tour, we were still a little early so went into the tourist shop…
Col's always loved me in a hat!
waiting in the queue to board
Goodtime II
For the tour itself, we took the plunge and sat outside, the windows looked a little opaque for my liking and I wanted good pictures – holy crap did they come at a price. By the end of the tour I don’t think I could feel a single part of my body and I’d spent the entire time with my hood up and the string pulled tight!
The views were totally worth it though – absolutely breathtaking, and, when I say breathtaking, I mean they actually took our breath away – it was so cold and windy we could barely breathe! LOL!
Seattle Skyline from the bay...
It was an informative tour, we both learned a lot about the city and enjoyed seeing all of the fun and interesting things as we travelled around the 8 mile tour on the water!
Me squinting with the skyline in backCol in front of the skylineCalifornia seals having a 'most manly' contest (no kidding!)This seal isn't interested in who's the most macho seal, just catching some rays...Fleet of Tug Boats...Tug refilling a tankerSmith tower - the tallest building in Seattle for a loooooong time!
After the boat tour we headed back up to the Pike Place area where we searched for a yarn shop that Nicky and Nikki told me was around there. I came out having bought 2 skeins of sock yarn and Col came out with a sore credit card! LOL!
Complete with buskersMaking our drinks...
To ease the yarn-splurge pain (and to defrost us a little), we enjoyed a little treat from the Original Starbucks at Pikes Place and Col picked up a nice mug for his office (courtesy of a gift card for Col’s birthday from Janet!).
Happy Col (just takes a caramel machiatto!)
On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Fred Meyer to get a USB cable to charge Lucy SatNav, we checked in to the hotel, charged the SatNav and our phones before heading out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant called La Hacienda (with another BOGOF coupon!).
It wasn’t great, definitely a different type of Mexican to the Tex-Mex we’re used to but it wasn’t bad. After dinner we stopped off at JoAnns, (I can’t believe I came out empty handed – either could Col for that matter!) before heading back to the hotel where we did laundry while hanging out in the pool and enjoying a soak in the hot tub.
Oh how I’d love to do laundry from the hot-tub more often!
We got a large mac & cheese between us and a breadzel – both of us were surprised at just how delicious it turned out to be. Hands down the best mac & cheese I’ve ever tasted!
