Alaska! (and Seattle-Mostly Seattle)

 

I should preface this by saying while I "sorta" wanted to go to Alaska "sometime" in the future but it was totally not on my radar for 2018.  We polled the kids about a year ago and Alaska didn't even make their top 10 vacation destinations.  I figured "D" and I might go after the kids leave for college (or prison-depending on how these next few years go).

Then earlier this spring "D" took over the duties of a guy who left his company, or something, the details escape me because after being together for more than 20 years you don't always hang on your spouses every word.  At some point during this "conversation" he mentioned something about a company sponsored cruise to Alaska.  Something about a customer perk and there was a small chance we would get to go. I figured there was little chance we would be invited and the timing was terrible so I didn't think about it again.

Then in June, just as I was trying to pull together a last-minute Orlando trip for AAU Nationals, "D" tells me we are going on the cruise.  Being a control freak I was pretty unhappy. I like planning, then planning some more, then over planning.  Going to Alaska and having no control over which ship, which itinerary, which ports or even the fact that it was a cruise vs land trip...that was a lot for me to take in.  But long story short...I was a good wife and I got on board. And within a few weeks I had picked excursions and planed for our time in port.

We just got back and I took almost 1000 photos.  It’s hard not to in SE Alaska where every view is amazing.  I promise not to post all 1000-but it’s going to be hard not to overdo it.  Also "D" was a good sport and posed every time I asked him to!  Bless his heart...I asked him to pose a lot.

To begin the trip we had about 24 hours in Seattle.  I wanted to make the most of every minute.  I didn’t want to do the regular touristy things, mostly because we lacked the time to properly see them all, so I designed my own walking tour.

 

We took the light rail from SeaTac to downtown.  My poor husband is really more of an Uber/Taxi person.  But I enjoyed the light rail trip.  It was 3 dollars per person and we got off about a block from our hotel.  After dropping our bags we started walking towards the harbor.  My goal was to take the water taxi to West Seattle and walk around and maybe grab a bite to eat.  I loved West Seattle.  It was so cute and funky and progressive.  However I hadn’t planned to walk quite so far

My hip may never be the same.  We ended up walking 4 miles the afternoon we arrived and I was wearing flip-flops.  Whoops.

I should also add we had amazing weather for almost all of our trip.  Sunny skies and warm weather.  

I said WARM weather.  It was close to 80 out and this family is dressed for the Yukon.

No Starbucks for us...but "D" didn't really love the coffee at any place we tried.  I can say for certain Peets doesn't know how to make a good iced tea.  But then again we are in Seattle -about as far from the south as you can get.

We made it to the waterfront.  It was an easy walk from the downtown Sheraton on 6th.  But a lot of it was downhill and we already thinking we might not want to walk back.

I heard the view of the city from West Seattle was great-it was.

Lots of crab fishing from the pier.

 No we didn't go Kayaking.

 This seems a bit extreme-but it gets the message across.

Alki Beach is pretty neat.  I say "pretty neat" because the view is lovely but the "beach" isn't beachy like I am accustomed to.

The area has a nice large park, bike trails and walking paths, condos and quirky homes and neat little shops.  It's the sort of place I would love to live-except for the million dollar price tag on condos and narrow empty lots.

Look at this gem.

I'm sorry but I thought the actual beach itself was yucky.  Lots of seaweed and smelly-ness.  Rocks and poo.  It is prettier from a distance.

 Its hard to tell but they were playing beach volleyball -I wanted to show my daughter.

My goal for the trip was to have fish and chips everywhere possible.  This place looked like a winner but the walk was further than I expected.  I swear every time we checked the map it said 13 min.  And an hour later....

I ranked Alki Spud the best Fish and Chips place of the entire trip.

I broke down and we Ubered back to downtown where we went to stop #2 on our tour of Seattle.  Recreational Marijuana is legal in Washington.  I think it should be legal everywhere but….anyway I wanted to JUST check out a recreational dispensary.



For the record my husband wanted no part of this plan.  But he is a good sport and came with me anyway.

Now IF you bought something there you might get a text message like this.  But only If you bought something -which of course I didn't do.  Even though it is totally legal.

The clientele ranged from college kids to middle aged vacationers and everyone in-between.  And the line was LONG.  An employee said it was like this every day and worse when cruise ships were in town.  I wasn't expecting to hear that.

The next stop on our tour was Amazon Go.  If you are unfamiliar with this, it is a retail store with no cashiers.  Scan you phone, grab what you want and leave. You will get your very accurate receipt a few minutes after you leave.

I really have to learn what this is.

The next morning we went for (forgettable) coffee and then on to Pike Place Market.  Sadly it wasn't very busy at 7:00 am.  Basically everything was closed or just getting set up for the day.  However there were a lot of shops that looked neat. This is the famous  stall where they toss fish for your enjoyment.  They were unloading the trucks-no tossing at 7:00 am. We did return later around 10:00.  We saw a toss.  The fish tossing is really overrated.  I mean how could it not be.  Its TOSSING a fish.

The mini donut place was open.  Yum.  We almost ate them all.