KatelynNovember 25, 2021 – December 1, 2021
Where We Stayed: Hyatt Regency Seattle
Trip Highlights:
- Chittenden Locks
- MOPOP
- Seattle Public Market, especially Metsker’s Maps
Favorite Restaurants:
Our Travel Thanksgiving tradition continues! We left Milwaukee on Thanksgiving morning to make our way out to Seattle for the week. We had a two hour layover in Denver over lunchtime, and luckily the Denver Centurion Lounge decided to serve a Thanksgiving feast on their buffet line, so we managed to get a little taste of a traditional turkey dinner before continuing on to Seattle.
Our first day in Seattle began with one of the most touristy things you can do when in Seattle. We had tickets to the top of the Space Needle. The trip up began in a glass elevator up the the middle of the Space Needle from the base to the top. The top had two different floors, one of which used to be a revolving restaurant, but now contained more viewing platforms and a bar. The upper floor had both an indoor and outdoor area, but we spent most of our time inside, as it was cold and rainy this day. I’m sure that outdoor area would be great in the summer! I particularly enjoyed spending time in the old restaurant space with the revolving floor. The entire floor was slowly rotating around the needle and you could watch it rotate through the glass floor as well.
Our second stop was located just at the base of the Space Needle: The Chihuly Glass Gardens. Both of us had seen some Chihuly glass art before this, but this was definitely one of the largest and most interesting displays we’ve seen. Dale Chihuly is from the Seattle area (hence his garden being located here) but he also studied at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, so there is a decent amount of his work located in Wisconsin as well. This garden was half art museum, half outdoor garden area, with both spaces containing displays of his blown-glass art. Definitely worth a stop when in Seattle.
For lunch, we headed in to Seattle to the classic Public Market. Today was Black Friday, and the market was PACKED with people. We had intended to spend time wandering through the indoor area of the market, but given the crowds and with the pandemic still a pretty big concern, we decided to instead just get lunch, pick up some snacks at some of the outdoor stalls, and come back to explore the market on a later day.
We enjoyed lunch in the market at Pike’s Pit Bar-B-Que, which we both agreed was some of the best barbeque we’ve had, especially the pulled pork. The pulled pork held its own compared to some of the best barbeque we’ve had in St. Louis. We picked up desserts, including a giant gluten free cookie and a mini cheesecake sampler, and enjoyed them after walking the fifteen minutes back to our hotel.
We spent a bit of time resting at the hotel before heading out for dinner. Dinner was Ghostfish Brewing Company, an all gluten-free brewery with an entirely gluten free menu. We ended up coming back here a couple times on this trip, because their food, especially the fish and chips, were super good. You never would have been able to tell these fish and chips were gluten free!
The next morning was the first clear, non-foggy day we had had, despite the fact that it was raining outside. It was clear enough that we could just barely glimpse Mt. Rainier from the outside of our hotel window. This ended up being the only time on our trip that we could see Mt. Rainier from inside Seattle, though we did fly by the mountain on our flight home several days later.
Our first stop that morning was Chittenden Locks. These boat locks are located north of downtown Seattle, and were man made in the early 1900s to connect Puget Sound to Lake Washington beside Seattle. There are two sets of locks, one for large boats and one for small boats, and we spent time watching boats go through both of them. The area also has a fish ladder meant to help salmon as they migrate through the area. We did check out this area, though it was not the right season to watch the salmon migration, so we didn’t see any fish come through. There was also a small museum that we wandered through, which helped us to better understand the history of the area.
It was raining pretty consistently at this point, but we walked through the rain to the Ballyhoo Curiosity Shop, a shop full of weird items from preserved animals, to interesting art, to little odd knick knacks. At this point we had definitely worked up an appetite, so we made our way over to Fremont to enjoy lunch at Red Star Tacos.
We had a little over an hour to kill before our next scheduled event, so wandered around the Fremont area in the rain, which had plenty of weird things to look at. There seemed to be a lot of mentions to space, with an old rocket being stuck onto a building on one corner and another corner containing a building covered in models of the planets. There was also a giant statue of Vladimir Lenin on one corner (near Red Star Tacos, appropriately) and other strange street art on other corners.
Our finals top for the day was a guided tour of Theo’s Chocolates, complete with lots of free samples and tastings. We learned all about how chocolate is made, the best way to eat chocolate to fully appreciate the flavors in the chocolate, and we definitely purchased a few bars on our way out to enjoy back at home.
Our final weekend day began with a trip to MOPOP, or the Museum of Pop Culture. This museum used to be entirely focused on music, but has since expanded to cover lots of other areas of pop culture, from gaming to different genres of movies and television. We particularly enjoyed the Fantasy area (which had tons of props from Harry Potter, Dungeons and Dragons, and Game of Thrones) and the Sci Fi area (which had props from the original Doctor Who series) as well as the video game history area. We also paid a little extra to check out their traveling exhibit dedicated to Disney costumes.
We had two more days in Seattle, though we spend a majority of our days working from the hotel, and our evenings exploring the city. We were able to fully explore the Public Market on these days, checking out some of the interesting shops. Two of our favorites were Metzger’s Maps, a store dedicated to travel and maps, and the comic book store in the basement of the market, which had all sorts of nerdy goodies. We also checked out the infamous Seattle Gum Wall (which was disgusting) and a couple of weird shops along the shore.
We flew home Wednesday, both of us taking our first flight on Alaska Airlines. Overall, we loved Seattle and would love to go back for another visit in the future.
