West of Here: Around Seattle 6/10

The first day that I was in Seattle, I went on a walk with Trudy. When we came up from the park and headed toward her home, I saw this sign posted. It seemed appropriate to me since this visit to the Pacific Northwest was most definitely WEST OF HERE ... west of my home in Nebraska.

We spent the first day enjoying the outdoors with a walk with Trudy, time with my brother Seth, and a mini-concert with Seth and John. Wednesday was a day at Pike Place market and downtown Seattle with Trudy and an early turn-in, as Seth and I got up at 3:00 Thursday morning to head to his aircraft carrier in Everett for the most amazing experience, complete with Prowlers doing touch-and-go demonstrations on the flight deck: a Family Cruise. Where do we pick up on Friday (the 19th)?

Trudy and I were sitting in her kitchen enjoying a wonderfully brewed cup of coffee and breakfast. My phone rang at about 9:00. It was Seth. He said that he was looking at downtown Seattle. We knew what this meant ... the USS Abraham Lincoln was coming south through Puget Sound and it was nearby! I asked Trudy if we could see the ship from the nearby park. She said she knew a better place. We hopped in the car and went up to Alki beach to watch my brother's aircraft carrier come through the sound! It was amazing to see because I knew that my brother was on that ship and that I had been a guest on it just the day before. We watched it until we could not see it anymore.

Trudy took me to several coffee houses around the city. She knows that I have access to Starbucks here in Nebraska, so she wanted to give me a chance to sample a variety. This coffeehouse, Zoka, is in the Wallingford neighborhood. We got donuts across the street at Mighty-O Donuts. I had a French Toast cake donut, very tasty, organic, natural, vegan, etc., but most importantly, it had frosting! We took our coffee and walked back through the neighborhood to the car, smelled some fragrant rosemary along the way, and admired all of the gardens.

Trudy picked an excellent restaurant for lunch (care to leave the name of it in the comments section?) and we took sandwiches to go and headed toward Gasworks Park, in toward the lake, and watched float planes take off and land while we were eating. I drew a red arrow pointing toward a float plane which was preparing for take-off.

After we left the park, we went to Ballard, or Chittenden Locks, watched a few boats go between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, and looked at the fish ladder. We then went to Washington Park Arboretum. The trees were blooming and the park was beautiful. We spent quite a bit of time walking and talking there. The park smelled better than Bath & Body Works! Every few steps there were new flowers to smell. I took a wonderful picture of Trudy and her beautifully thirty week pregnant self in the park but she said no pictures on the internet *sigh*. On the way home, we stopped at the Japanese Garden. After the Japanese Garden, we stopped at The Seattle Fish Company for fresh salmon!

:: Above, The Arboretum :: Below, the Japanese Gardens ::