The Home Stretch -- Seattle -- Friday, May 28, Day 7

Portland was a much easier city to leave than to get into. With only a couple of navigational glitches (that would be me), we were on the road to Seattle – the last stop of our trip.

By now we were getting tired and didn’t have a lot of plans for Seattle. We’d agreed that there wasn’t time to do much sight-seeing and that we’d perhaps come back another time when we had more time and energy.

The drive north along I-5 was pretty unremarkable – some areas of traffic heavier than others (like around Tacoma) but we navigated into Seattle and found our hotel with little difficulty.

The hotel was the Hotel Vintage Park, and it was very lovely. We received an upgrade to a Deluxe King and that was nice. My favourite feature of this hotel was the leopard print bathrobes. But, I couldn’t get Bob to wear it.

"

As I said, we didn’t have much time, but we did have time to visit the Tap House Grill featuring 160 beers on tap. Can we say “kid in candy store”? I only had two though – the incredible Mac & Jack’s African Amber and of course, Dead Guy Ale. If I’d known that I could get Dead Guy in Edmonton, I probably would have tried something else … or maybe another African Ale. Bob had a Maritime Imperial IPA and Deschutes Black Butte Porter. It’s a pretty amazing place.

We climbed back to the hotel for the wine tasting in the lobby (climbed because Seattle is a very hilly city). That was quite nice. I can’t remember the wine being tasted, but it was a Washington wine and quite nice.

We had reservations for Bob’s birthday dinner at Elliott’s Oyster House. It had a nice view of Elliott Bay and the ferries going back and forth. Ordering two appetizers probably wasn’t a great idea because it left us with little room for dinner. Still we ordered a sharing plate consisting of a couple of types of crab legs and claws, some shrimp and a couple of types of oysters and sauces. I was okay with one kind of oyster (raw) but not the other. Bob was not a fan of either. It was okay, but not the highlight of our trip.

We had an interesting cab ride back to the hotel with a very pleasant, chatty driver from Africa in a very fancy cab. We were also looking for a bottle of wine to bring back to the hotel. Now, while Oregon is very progressive and wine is literally everywhere (in 7-11 and gas stations, for Pete’s sake!), Seattle is not quite like that. It was somewhat harder to find late in the evening, though we did find a grocery store with a decent selection.

In fairness to Seattle, we didn’t spend much time there and didn’t see much. It is, however, a very beautiful city with some amazing architecture and I would love to come back again.

Back to the hotel for what we hoped would be a good sleep and then off to Abbotsford to celebrate Bob’s birthday with good friends, Doreen and Sue, and family, Erin and Sarah.

This had been a spectacular trip. One that we'll remember forever. Journaling in my blog has been a wonderful way to relive those memories.