Day #8: Seattle!

Patty and Paul served us a very delicious French toast breakfast and then drove us to Bremerton Harbor Ferry.


The Bremerton Harborside area has the most amazing fountains I've ever seen. Oops! This isn't one of them.


We caught the ferry to Seattle and grabbed a quick clam chowder lunch at Ivar's right on the waterfront.


While having our lunch I noticed this strange upside down rainbow in the sky.


We ate our lunch under the careful, expectant gaze of a hoard of sea gulls.


We decided to try the Seattle Underground Tour.


We learned a lot about how Seattle is built one story above the original town. It was rebuilt after a fire much like Chicago. It is also named after Chief Seattle. (I'll bet you spell it differently. I'd check it out but I'll be honest and say I have got to get myself to bed. I'm pooped!)


Also learned how Seattle imported a bunch of toilets invented by Englishman, Thomas Crapper. The toilets used to be called crappers after the inventer.


Next came Pike's Market which was a bustling, exhausting place.


I ran into Chuck Pefley there. He is a Seattle blogger whose blog I visited a while back. It was a lot of fun to meet a fellow blogger.


Back to the ferry from which we could see the beautiful Seattle skyline.


The haze had cleared and we got a good look at Mt. Rainier.

Day #1 Hawaii to Seattle to Vancouver

Forgive me but I'm not going to be coherent. We left Hawaii at 9:00 PM on Thursday. It's now Friday, nearly midnight and I haven't had a wink of sleep! However, it's been so awesome that I've just got to share this day with you. There's so much to tell but I don't have the stamina. I'm about ready to drop.


We arrived at SeaTac Airport at around 6:00 AM, got our Dollar Rental Corolla and were on our way! We stopped at Wellers Cafe, 8490 Mukilteo Speedway and had this humongous breakfast that Joe, our very friendly (owner, I think) server brought me. The breakfast was so large we skipped lunch.



Art wanted to see the Boeing, Future of Flight Aviation Center/Tour. It was interesting. We learned that the Boeing building is the largest in the world and that Disneyland and parking could fit in that giant building. To my pilot cousin and friends, I have a video you can watch about it.



For mom and me, the cherry tree outside captured our attention the most.



We caught the ferry to cross the Possession Sound to Whidbey Island.



A lot of Dutch people settled in Whidbey and if the tulips didn't give you that clue, perhaps the windmills would help.



At Deception Point we saw this bird. I don't know what kind of bird it is but it had the prettiest song.



The view there was also spectacular.



These next few photos were from the Skagit Valley. We were just driving along trying to get to Vancouver at a decent hour when a splash of vibrant, sparkling color attracted us. The day was so beautiful, the colors of the tulips seemed even stronger. We had to stop and spend a whole lot of time there. My mother said if she saw nothing else on this trip, she would still be satisfied after having walked beside all these beautiful blooms.






Wow! What a day! I'm still so full of the hues, smiles and uplifted spirits of everybody at the farm who couldn't help but want to be friends with everybody because the flowers put everybody in such a good mood.

We did make it to Vancouver but we're totally exhausted and I'll have to stop now before I fall asleep at this computer.

Help! I Need Travel Advice for Seattle and British Columbia

We're planning to take a trip to Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and Seattle in late April to early May.


(Photo from Wikipedia)
My daughter went to the Butchart Gardens several years ago and told us that we absolutely needed to go and see it. She also said her favorite place to be in Seattle was Pike's Market.

We plan to rent a car at Seattle's airport and drive to Canada. We would then drop the car off after our tour of British Columbia and take public transportation in Seattle. We plan to be in British Columbia for 8 days and 4 days in Seattle. Does this sound feasible?

Any advice you can give us such as places to see and eat, scheduling, transportation, etc. would be helpful. We do have our Frommer's that we're starting to look at but if anybody has first hand knowledge, it would be so much more fun.