West Coast Trip: Seattle Day One

Eight days.

Three states.

Three cities.

Two people exploring one of the most beautiful stretches of land America has to offer.

Because I took so many pictures and have so much information to share with you about our little journey, I decided to break this up into separate posts for each day.  This way it's a bit easier for your mind to digest.  Not that any of you need things to be simplified; I know we're all complex, uber-intelligent beings.  Nonetheless, I feel like it also pays respect or homage, if you will, to the trip.  We seriously did as much as we could in the short amount of time we allotted for each city.  Sadly, we were forced to pick and choose certain places and/or activities over others, but now that all is said and done, I feel confident that we organized the best possible schedule that truly matched our goals for this vacation.

We arrived in Seattle around 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, picked up our bags from baggage claim and headed over to Thrifty to pick up our rental car.  We originally chose an economy-sized car for better gas milage, but they, unfortunately, did not have any washed and ready to be rented so we got stuck with a Chevy Captiva SUV.  It wasn't too bad.  It was nice to have a little extra room and not feel so cramped during the road trips, but with gas prices as high as they are on the west coast, we weren't necessarily thrilled with the free "upgrade."  After we got the car thing settled, we navigated our way through downtown Seattle to our hotel - the Holiday Inn Express on Aurora Ave - which was about a mile north of the touristy spots along the waterfront.  The hotel was pretty nice, a typical Holiday Inn Express with complimentary breakfast and a fairly large room with a small sitting/living area and a comfy queen-sized bed.  We also had a really great view of the famous Seattle space needle, which was only a few blocks away and, sadly, a little disappointing.  It wasn't nearly as tall as it seems in skyline photos.  Nevertheless, it was still pretty cool to be able to see it from our hotel room.

After getting somewhat settled in at the hotel, we walked through the city down to Pike Place Market which we just quickly skimmed through to get over to the ferry for Bainbridge Island.  We decided we would come back to the market the next day to spend a little more quality time and see what all the vendors had to offer.  The ferry ride over to the island was super cold and windy - a bit of a shock after spending the past few months in the offensive, blistering oven that is Texas in the summertime.  The ferry actually had a pretty nice indoor cabin area with lots of tables and seating, but we wanted to get the full experience of riding on the ferry up on the sun deck.  The ride was a mostly enjoyable 15-20 minutes that provided breathtaking views of the Seattle skyline as we drifted away from the city across Puget Sound, and even better views of the Bainbridge Island shore as we gently made our way to the dock.

We stepped off of the ferry and onto a bus that dropped us off about half a mile from our first island destination - Bainbridge Island Brewing.  Jason and I were both really impressed with the tap room's craft beer selection.  He tried an IPA, a pale ale and a rye tripel.  I went with the Kommuter Kolsch, Sundaze Wheat and a Yoda Green Tea Gold which was seriously one of the best beers I've ever had!  Who knew a green tea beer could be so tasty?  Not me, but I'm very happy I gave it a try.  All of the beer we guzzled paired more than nicely with the smoked cheddar cheese we snacked on whilst chit-chatting for a couple of hours about how nice it would be to live somewhere so peaceful and clean with fresh crisp air sifting through the trees and surrounding us daily.  Ah, to dream so sweetly...haha.

In true Eikner-Kitchen style, we had planned way before we even left Austin where we were going to eat for dinner on Bainbridge Island, and to my delight, we chose sushi!  We hopped on a bus to get us back over near the ferry docks and then walked about a mile through the cutest, most well-kept little downtown area to SuBI.  We ordered some Gyoza (pot stickers/dumplings) and miso soup as appetizers because it was happy hour, of course, and we each ordered a specialty sushi roll as an entree.  Feeling satisfied and sleepy, we made our way back to the ferry to depart paradise and return to Seattle, where we would happily crash a bit early.  Consequences of waking up before the sun, half a day of flying across the country and the two-hour time difference...  

Stay tuned for Seattle Day Two!

xoxo