Our Last Day in Washington

April 24th

Our last day in Washington was jam packed. Like all good mornings, it started with donuts. We found a place just north of Seattle called Mighty-O donuts. It was in a really cute neighborhood and would have been a really fun place to just hang out for a while, but we had a lot to see today so we grabbed the recommended French Toast donut, lemon poppyseed donut and the chocolate peanut butter donut. There best seller was the lemon poppyseed and it was spot on! I also gave Seattle another chance at the chai but I was disappointed again. Apparently coffee is there thing, on the only thing they can do for your morning caffeine fix. That was ok. The donuts more then made up for the sub par chai. It was better then yesterdays...

After donuts, we were on a mission. There is this town called Fremont just outside of downtown Seattle and from what I could tell, it is right up our alley. Our first adventure was to find the Fremont Troll. This thing is AMAZING! It is something everyone should see in person. He is just so cool. He hangs out under the bridge and apparently grabs cars.

That is a real VW bug under his hand! Check it out!!

After the troll, we headed to Fremont's downtown area. This is definitely a place I would like to come back and explore more another time. It just seems so chill. But in what I think is the center of there downtown is the Center of the Universe! How amazing is that? We have now been to TWO centers of the universe! This one and one in Delphi, Greece.

Fremont, Washington

Delphi, Greece

We found two last amazing things before leaving Fremont. The first was a very large statue of Vladimir Illych Lenin. No, not the Lenin you would think, the Communism, and the former Soviet Union, yeah, weird.

The other amazing thing we found we Sweet & Savory Pie. It was so good. We tried a Key Lime Pie and a strawberry rhubarb pie. So good and a really fun find.

After our quick stop in Fremont we had a very important stop back in Seattle. I was super excited about this place and it was worth backtracking a little just to go to The Yellow Leaf Cupcake Co. This place just sounded amazing and I had to try there cupcakes.

Jed just dropped me off at the door for me to run in and get ONE cupcake and then hit the road. I knew I was up to the challenge of picking ONE cupcake and heading out but when I got in there it was a completely different ballgame. Oh man! I knew the ONE cupcake that I had to have as soon as I saw it. Pancakes N Bacon. I mean, really, is there any question. It is a cupcake with bacon. Clearly a no brainer. But then all the other cupcakes were calling my name and I couldn't resist. So the caramel delight had to come with me too. Even though I was only going to walk away with ONE cupcake, I was pretty proud that I only walked out of there with two. It could have gotten a lot worse!

Oh and they were AMAZING! I could eat these everyday.

So after a quick cupcake stop, we were back on the road with a ton of options to check out. We were going to go to the Skagit Tulip Festival or Snoqualmie Falls but we wanted to hit the Canada border first. We figured we would head over the border, get our passports stamped, grab some lunch just over the border and head off to other places in Washington. But somewhere along the drive we learned about Capilano's Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver. And then we found this Diners, Drive In and Dives place, Tomahawk Restaurant. So then we just had to go.

Our first stop was Tomahawk Restaurant. This place was unique. They have "Yukon bacon". I have no idea what that really means but it looked like huge pieces of ham as opposed to what I know as bacon. I didn't love it but I think it is a place everyone should try.

Just down the road from the restaurant was Capilano's Suspension Bridge. It was kind Swiss Family Robinson for adults. It was a lot of fun but really expensive. We didn't have long before we had to start heading back to Seattle to catch our flight in the evening so we paid the crazy entrance fee to hang out for about 2 hours but we had a great time.

We left North Vancouver around 3:30 in the afternoon, plenty of time to get back to Seattle and even time to explore the waterfall or the tulips if we played our cards right. Then we hit our first hiccup. Traffic. Oh boy was there traffic. It was crazy traffic and we were not moving. We stared at the GPS and watched our estimated arrival time to the Seattle Airport get closer and closer to the when our flight was supposed to leave. It took hours to get through the traffic but after superb driving by Jed we were finally clear of the traffic and only one last small obstacle til we were back in the states and home free. We were both pretty excited to finally see this sign.

Just a quick stop at the border to show our passports and answer a few simple questions and we should be on our way to dinner and a red eye flight home. That is until we got to the border stop... When we got to the border stop they asked to typical questions, "Why were you in Canada?", "What did you do?", "Where are you from?", they put a neon sticker on our windshield and told us to go a different way then every other car. It brought us to a parking lot with what looked to be a closed building in front of us. There were only about 3 other cars in the parking lot and we were really confused. We had no idea what we had done and what were were supposed to do. We drove around the parking lot and found a guy in a uniform at a little hut thingy. We figured he could help. Through a lot of confusion, we learned that we had to go into the closed building and talk to people in there. They required us to fill out paper work to declare the $2 worth of post cards we purchased and then took our keys and searched our car. But no sweat, it only cost us about another 45 minutes to an hour to our trip. When we finally got through it all we HAD to stop and get this picture.

I think Jed summed it up best when he said, "We can't be the only people to drive up to Vancouver for lunch on a Tuesday.... Well, maybe we are." Definitely an event that I will not soon forget.

As we set off to hustle to the airport we saw this and HAD to make a quick stop to get this picture.

50th State!

Jed did a great job of getting us back to Seattle in record time. We even had 20 extra minutes to make a very quick stop at a Jamba Juice (the best) and the local favorite, Dicks Drive In. It was no In-N-Out, but we were glad we got to try it.

Seattle was a super fun place and I look forward to making another trip out west to explore more of it.

Seattle (Day 2)

April 23rd
Seattle, WA (Day 2)

For our only full day in Washington, we had a lot to cover and the perfect way to start was with donuts. We went back to Unique Sweets for ideas. Top Pot Doughnuts was only a block away from the hotel so it was the obvious answer for a great breakfast.

The best travel advise we ever received was to ask the people working what they like and what is there best seller. We ended up getting a blueberry (based on there recommendation), chocolate covered and a cinnamon roll. The blueberry was the best. Wise chose to listen to the lady that helped us.

After breakfast, we headed back down to Pike's Place Market. We had a lot of unfinished business down there. On our way down there, we stopped for a pack of grape bubblegum. Our mission was the Gum Wall. Before we made it to the Gum Wall, we stopped to check out the very first Starbucks.

After a little confusion, we were able to stumble upon the Gum Wall and it was glorious! It was so cool and so gross. As long as you didn't think about what you were looking at, it was great.

We added our contribution to the wall and we headed to our next stop, The Underground Tour. The tour was a really fun. We had a great tour guide, Richard that was fantastic. I would highly recommend this tour. It was amazing to see and hear why there is a city under the city.

After the tour, we headed back to Pike's Place Market to find a fun lunch. Jed was looking for fish and chips and found them at Jack's Fish Spot. They were good, I even tried them! I chose to go with fresh bread and cheese. We found great bread from Three Girls Bakery and headed back to Beecher's for cheese. It was a perfect lunch.

After lunch we decided that we wanted to get on the water so we headed to the docks and hopped on the WSDOT Ferry. It only too about 45 minutes to get over there and we had a great time hanging out on the deck and checking out skyline on the city.

We took the ferry to Bainbridge Island. It was a cute little island and after checking out all the things we could do over there we decided on hanging out at a coffee shop and take in the views for a little while. We only had an hour before we had to catch the ferry back to Seattle.

We found a super cute coffee shop called Pegasus. It looked perfect, great location, perfect atmosphere, disappointing baked goods and terrible chai. We got our drinks and sat outside for a little while but the disappointing chai and lack of baked goods was just too much for me. Don't think I would venture back there.

When we got back to Seattle, it was time to go find pie! Once again we found a great looking place using Unique Sweets called High 5 Pie. It was quite a walk to get to High 5 Pie. It took us about an hour but it was absolutely worth it! First, High 5 Pie's was amazing. Jed and I tried a marionberry pie. It was GREAT! We also got an apple pie on a stick for the road.

And secondly, on our way to get pie, we found this.....

I was so incredibly excited. This place was AMAZING!! I can not say enough great things about this place. The shop was super cute and the cupcakes were to die for. Just so good. We got a red velvet pop and Compost cupcake. It had coconut, coffee grounds, potato chips and chocolate. It sounds so weird and gross but it was AMAZING!!  If you are ever in Seattle, this place is a must in my book.

After our long trek back to the hotel, we decided it was time to head to dinner. I know it sounds ridiculous since we just came from pie and cake, but it was true. We decided that we were going to try a Diners, Drive-In and Dives place. We found a place called Bizzarro Italian Cafe. It absolutely deserves that name. It was such a unique restaurant. Crazy decor, and bathrooms you have to see to believe. It was a really fun place and the food was superb! We loved it.

After a talkative cabbie's gave us a ride back to hotel we spent the rest of the evening in the hotel lodge working on all the things we were going to do tomorrow. It is going to be a crazy last day in Seattle!

My 50th State!

April 22nd

Seattle, WA (Day 1)

After the canceled Spring Game, Jed and I headed down to Charlotte to catch a flight to Seattle. We flew out Sunday morning and made it to Seattle by lunch. After taking the Light Rail from the airport to the hotel, we decided we need to find lunch before the Mariner's game. Jed found us a great place for a quick bit to eat, Serious Pie. We split a great pizza and had fantastic root beer and apple cider.

After lunch we went to go meet a friend to watch the Mariner's game. While we were there, a lady from Virginia recognized our friend, John and Jed from Virginia Tech football. It was so funny. It was the first baseball for John so it was fun to introduce him to all the baseball traditions.

After the game, Jed and I headed to Pike's Market. It was starting to get late so a lot of the shops were closing up for the day. But we were able to see all of the beautiful flower stands with tons of amazing tulips.

We were able to grab a few little snacks before all the stores closed. One of the first places we ran across was Beecher's. You can watch them make cheese while you eat the famous Mac & Cheese. We had to try the mac & cheese and it was crazy good!

We also found a place called The Confectional from a show we watched, Unique Sweets. They are known for mini cheesecakes and they had sipping chocolate that I had to try.

After exploring Pike's Market, we decided to head to Space Needle.We took the monorail from just down the street from our hotel. The monorail went right through the Seattle Center: Experience Music Project. It was a really unique building.

We headed up to the top of the Space Needle after walking around the area for a little while. The view from top was pretty cool. You could see Mt. Rainier behind the city. It was beautiful but kind of difficult to capture in a picture.

We stayed at the top to watched the sunset. It was a little chilly but we sat for a little bit and tried the Starbucks hot chocolate at the top of the Needle before the sunset.

After sunset, we made our way back to the monorail for one of the last runs back for the night. We spent the evening walking around the area looking for a place to eat a late dinner. We stumbled on a restaurant called, Lola. It was a Greek tapas restaurant. The tzatziki and pitas and Jed's lamb were great and I loved the smashed garlic fried potatoes.

After a late dinner, we decided to call it a night and start again in the morning.