A Long Way From Home, Eh?
We made it to Seattle late on Saturday afternoon and got settled at our Airbnb near the University of Washington. I found it surprising (though I shouldn’t have if I’d actually stopped and thought about it) how hilly it is in Seattle. You wind through the Cascade mountains and then the city and surrounding area opens up right in front of you. I have been to San Francisco twice before and if my memory serves me, Seattle is a much hillier city. The duplex we were staying in sat on a steep hill that looked down over Lake Union, which connects Puget Sound and Lake Washington. We were all really hungry when we arrived so we walked down the hill for some seafood and were able to watch seaplanes take off and land from our water side seats.
Cameron went out on a run on Sunday morning and scouted out a route that Ada and I then ran when he returned. We decided our first destination of the day would be the Pike Place Market. Seattle has a great public transportation system with an easy to use app so we were able to get around the city and leave the car parked at the duplex. We took the bus down to the market area, had a quick lunch, and then joined the droves of people exploring the many shops and vendors. The Pike St. Fish Market had a crowd of people 3 or 4 deep waiting to see the famous fish tossing. It was much smaller in person than I expected, but still entertaining to watch. The people that work there have to be multi-talented as the job requires fishmonger skills, crowd management, and tour guide.
Having worked for an amazing florist in my last job, I was especially looking forward to seeing the flowers at the market and they did not disappoint. The cooler and wetter climate in the Northwest produces some gorgeous blooms that are especially coveted in the floral industry. Peonies and dahlias were abundant at the market and the prices were so low. They were often half of what we would pay wholesale for the same flowers in North Carolina. Luscious bouquets that would have been $30-40 dollars in Winston-Salem sold for $10-15 at the market. I really wanted to get one, but we wouldn’t be back at our duplex for hours and I didn’t want to carry them around that whole time. I was also impressed with the fruits and vegetables on display. Most of the assorted berries for sale came from Washington farms. Again, had we not had a full day of sightseeing ahead of us I would have purchased some to taste test later.
After enjoying some Daily Dozen doughnuts from a market stall, we walked down to the waterside and then decided to head to the Ballard Locks. Formally known as the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, this national historic site is the busiest lock system in the country. I had read about the Ballard Locks on a 48 Hours in Seattle article I found on Trip Savvy and it seemed like a unique place to visit and something a little different from typical tourist attractions. Upon arrival, we first went down to watch the salmon work up the fish ladder and then went back up to the top to watch the lock system at work. The purpose of the locks is twofold: to allow boat traffic between two waterways that are different levels and to keep the saltwater of Puget Sound separate from the freshwater of Lake Washington. We were able to see the small and large locks at work and all of us enjoyed it more than I think we expected. We then walked into Ballard and had a great dinner at Senor Moose Cafe before going back to the duplex.
We had been watching the forecast for Seattle to see if there was going to be a sunny time when it would be worth it to go up the Space Needle. Things were looking good for Monday afternoon so I went ahead and bought the timed tickets and we built our day around going there. After a slow start to the morning we decided to walk over to the University of Washington to see the campus, take care of some business at the post office on campus, and get lunch at one of the favorite local haunts. The edges of the campus on the western side are more commercial with modern buildings, but then you come upon the original buildings from when the university moved there from downtown Seattle over a hundred years ago. Nestled above a cove on the western edge of Lake Washington, the collegiate gothic campus is really stunning. I normally am not a fan of the gothic style, but I really enjoyed it in this setting. The cold starkness I usually dislike in gothic architecture is softened by the water below, the abundance of green spaces, and rolling terrain. It probably helped that we visited on a warm and sunny day, but nevertheless UW impressed us all.
After a quick bus ride to Seattle Center, we walked around for a little while before getting in line to go up the Needle. The weather was even better than we expected so we were hopeful for some good vistas and maybe a view of Mt. Rainier in the distance. The clouds were clinging to Rainier so we couldn’t see the summit, but the views were still worth the visit. The kids enjoyed sitting and laying against the glass walls and benches on the observation deck and Cameron, who is not a huge fan of heights, handled it all really well. While it was a very touristy thing to do, I would definitely recommend it to any first time visitors to the area if you happen to be there on a sunny day. After coming back down we walked through the Olympic Sculpture Park, which was underwhelming compared to the one we visited at the Walker in Minneapolis, and then headed back to the duplex to cook dinner and get packed up for our venture into Canada the next morning.
When we were planning the trip and looking at going to Vancouver from Seattle, I came across a Trip Advisor posting that recommended taking Amtrak because it was usually a faster and easier path through customs than driving. Once I figured out that we could then travel by water to visit Victoria, BC and then get back to Seattle, we decided to ditch the car and rely on other modes of transportation to get us to and from Canada. After a parking snafu (the rooftop cargo carrier makes my car too tall for many garages), we boarded our train early the next morning. It was a scenic train ride and a smooth and quick entry through customs into Vancouver. After an early check-in to our hotel we went in search of lunch. In my research on Vancouver food it was clear that Asian cuisine was not to be missed in the city. Luckily, our kids aren’t picky eaters so we knew we could try some new things. We found a traditional Chinese restaurant known for their soup dumplings and tried a variety of dishes. A few were too spicy for Jackson, but otherwise we all discovered some new favorites. Personally, I enjoyed the cucumbers with garlic sauce.
With only one afternoon and evening to experience Vancouver we had to decide how to best use our time. A bike ride through Stanley Park was high on most of the “what to do” lists I had read. Bike helmets on and beach cruisers ready, we rode the 5.5 mile seawall that rings the park. It’s a very popular thing to do for tourists and locals so the paths were crowded, but were well-marked and mostly populated with courteous riders. The bike rental agencies on the edge of the park definitely make a killing in the summer months. Despite the touristy nature of it and the number of people, it was still a worthwhile way to spend the afternoon and be near the water in Vancouver. After we turned our bikes back in we stopped for Ada to get a bubble tea and for the rest of us to get a sweet treat as well. That night, we found a spot with local oysters and a Happy Hour where we filled up on seafood. We were all pretty tired and decided to call it an early night since we had another big day ahead of us. Sometimes the pace we are going catches up with us and we alter our plans to make sure we don’t push it too much. This is our last burst of changing locations daily and I think we are all looking forward to being in the same place for longer stretches of time.
Wednesday was another early morning as we had to catch our whale watching boat to Victoria. There are many companies that offer whale watching in the Vancouver/Victoria area, but most of them are day trips where you return to your starting point. The Prince of Whales offers a one-way trip to Victoria, which allowed us to get to our next destination while hopefully seeing some wildlife. While they can’t guarantee that you will see whales (orcas, humpbacks, or minke) our chances were higher due to the time of year we were visiting. However, the weather seemed to have other plans for us. When we first left Vancouver it was cloudy, but as we crossed the Strait of Georgia and started to work our way through the San Juan Islands, the fog set in. For the first three hours of a four hour trip, we worked our way south, catching sight of harbor seals, bald eagles, and lots of bird species, but not a whale. The two naturalists on the boat with us had not completely given up hope and said there had been word that there was a pod of orcas outside of Victoria harbor. They made the decision to expedite our trip to that area in the hopes of seeing them before they moved on. By this point, all of us had resolved ourselves to not seeing any whales. The scenery was beautiful and it was certainly better than driving or riding a bus, so it wasn’t a complete bust. As we got close to Victoria Harbor we saw around ten other whale-watching boats of various sizes all floating in the same spot. One of the naturalists told us that in dense fog situations the boats communicate with each other if there is a sighting because otherwise it would be nearly impossible to locate any whales.
Not long after we arrived, we could see a pod of transient orcas (mammal-eating) in the distance. There was one bull (male), three females (cows), and one calf. After observing them for a few minutes the naturalist said that they were hunting and it was most likely a seal or porpoise they were trying to take down. The path of their prey determines their route so they were getting quite close to some of the boats as they continued to hunt. After watching them for about ten minutes they suddenly turned and headed straight for our boat, coming right along the side, directly below us. Because they were so close we were able to see the porpoise they were chasing. We were able to keep watching them another 20 minutes as they completed their hunt, shared their meal, and then were joined by another pod that came into the area. According to regulations, our boat had to leave after thirty minutes as that is the maximum allowed time for a vessel to be in proximity to whales. I could tell from the excitement of the two naturalists, who do these tours on a daily basis, that what we got to see was not a normal experience. They don’t typically come across the whales while they are feeding so they rarely get that close to the boats or are at the surface that consistently. Jackson took a great video of the whales when they were close to the boat that you can check out at the end of this post.
After our exhilarating finish to our whale watching trip, we got checked in to our hotel in Victoria and then went out for lunch. The weather continued to be foggy with off and on rain so after lunch we mainly walked around going in and out of shops before resting back at the hotel. The rain briefly moved out and we were able to walk around more down at the harbor, checking out some of the wooden ships and historic buildings in the area. It’s a lovely town and I hope that we can return there for a longer stay.
We were able to sleep in on Thursday morning and have brunch before boarding our Victoria Clipper ferry back to Seattle. Once there, we took a cab to where the car was parked and then started towards Packwood, WA, which would be our stopover for Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens today (Friday). We drove right by Mt. Rainier, which at 14,411 feet is the highest peak we will be near on this trip, but never actually saw it because the clouds were so low. The weather for today looks better and we have picked a hike that will hopefully get us a good view of the peak and some of its glaciers.
**You may notice that I’m often posting a day or two behind my writing. I’m able to write offline, but need really good wifi to get pictures loaded so I often have a delay in posting after I’ve written. I wrote this post on Thursday evening, but wasn’t able to post it until late on Friday night.
