Tag Archives: Seattle

Pacific Northwest Part 2

  • Seattle
  • Chihuly Garden and Glass
  • Bainbridge Island
  • Olympic National Forest Hiking
  • Kalaloch Lodge
  • Cannon Beach

Seattle the City:  I know that many of you could write pages about this iconic city, and I, I have only been there this once. So I am just going to highlight the fun things we did on this trip. If you are a beginner like I was when you go, you might find this helpful. 

Pike’s Place market and the Underground Tour. Pike Place Market is a public market overlooking the Elliott Bay waterfront in Seattle, Washington, United States. It opened in 1907. You could easily spend all day here and not see everything. The “fish guys” are famous for throwing the fish to one another-to the scales to be weighed. It’s a Seattle icon. You gotta go there. Also the Underground Tour is a fascinating and eye opening walk through subterranean storefronts and sidewalks entombed when the city rebuilt on top of itself after the Great Fire of 1889. You do this with a ticket and reservation only. There are several companies who offer the tour. I highly recommend it.

Smith Tower and Observation Deck, which in 1914, became the first skyscraper in Seattle and the tallest building west of the Mississippi River, is another fun filled way to spend a morning or afternoon. For more than one hundred years, it has remained a cultural icon of the city, offering breathtaking, panoramic views of the city from the Observation deck which you access through the rooftop restaurant bar. Also lovely.

Downtown Seattle and its beautiful architecture, and our cruise on Argosy Cruises Locks Tour, into the Puget Sound.

Chihuly Garden and Glass is a museum in the Seattle Center showcasing the studio glass of Dale Chihuly. Really it is lovely, and it only takes about an hour to get through this stunning museum.

And ALL of this in only 2 1/2 days. We left Seattle via the Bainbridge ferry over to Bainbridge Island. This Seattle–Bainbridge ferry sails across Puget Sound between Seattle and Bainbridge Island. Once on the island, we started our drive around the North side of the Olympic National Forest headed to the great Pacific Ocean, but with a few stops for hiking along the way. Lewis and Clark could not have been more excited than we were to arrive at that grand body of water. So let’s just let the pictures tell you the story of this 364 mile trek from Bainbridge Island to the Pacific and on south to Fort Stevens State Park with a night’s stay in the exquisite Kalaloch Lodge in Forks, Washington.

  • Bainbridge Ferry Seattle
  • Marymere Falls WA
  • Lake Crescent WA
  • Pacific Ocean at Ruby Beach WA
  • Hoh River WA
  • Kalaloch Lodge WA
  • Quinault Rain Forest WA
  • Astoria-Megler Bridge into Oregon
  • Fort Stevens State Park Oregon

Finally, we made our way down to beautiful Cannon Beach for our last night of this epic journey. Again, not enough time in Cannon Beach. But the food was wonderful and the views unforgettable. We stayed at the Inn at Haystack Rock. They are literally little cottages. Lovely and I do recommend them. But there are many places to stay. Just do your homework.The next morning we had a mere 1 hour and 40 minute drive to PDX, the Portland Airport, right back where we started this incredible quest.Why does it always have to end? Because of course we love our homes too and are always happy to get back again, that is until we shake the dust off of feet from our last trip, and are ready to repack our bags again, in search of another dazzling geographical location waiting for us to explore.