Over the weekend, Kiddo, my Mother-in-Law (MIL) and I traveled via the Clipper to Seattle. I’d built a little package online, after much research of course, and we managed to pack a whole lot into the time we were there (one full day plus one evening and one morning). We stayed at the Mayflower Park hotel, right downtown on Fourth and Olive, which I would happily recommend to anyone planning a visit.
When we arrived, the scene was being set for the rather huge annual Torchlight Parade which meant we couldn’t really get to the places we’d planned to visit on our arrival but we did get to watch most of the parade from the comfort of our hotel room.
Notable meals included a late dinner at the Icon Grill, about a block and a half from the hotel, and an early breakfast at the Night Kitchen, about three blocks in the other direction. At Icon, Kiddo had spaghetti and meatballs — I’ve had smaller burger patties than the two mountains on her plate — while my MIL and I split some appies: calamari and fried mac-and-cheese. At the Night Kitchen, the highlight was their house-made ketchup; the server told us the secret was caramelized onions and a wine reduction. I am not a huge ketchup fan, but this was amazing stuff — not far off in flavour from what we make, but a little sweeter and blended much finer.
Sunday was tourist day. First we took the monorail to and from the Pacific Science Center — I was a little melancholy for the promised world-of-tomorrow that never really arrived but since we got to the Center early, I was able to play on/with many of the exhibits that I usually leave so that kids get a turn. I played tic-tac-toe with a robot that cheated (it would not place my X tiles where I instructed), climbed into the cut-away Gemini Spacecraft and played with all the buttons, then paid three bucks to watch the Mold-a-Rama machine make me a little plastic astronaut. We ate in the food fair then took the monorail back downtown and made our way to Pike Place Market. The highlight of that was discovering the World Spice Market down on the street level behind the market. After a stop for many spices, we made our way to Miner’s Landing /Pier 57 — truly tourist central — for dinner.
Monday morning we had breakfast, did some shopping and made our way back to the Clipper terminal. Overall, it was a good trip; Kiddo was well behaved and my MIL seemed to enjoy the excursion (which is good, because it was a gift to her for her birthday, one of those “big number” birthdays).
[For more details, check out my Flickr photos labeled “seattletrip“]
Just read the T-C article on you and frugalvictoria – congratulations!