SF to Seattle Trip Report (installment plan)

[SomethingClever]

[ QUOTE ]
Surprised you went to Anthony's. There are probably several better places to go, but it sounds like you enjoyed it well enough.

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This is true; Seattle has a ridic restaurant scene.

If you just wanted to do the seafood/waterfront thing, Ray's would have been a solid choice.

[ThaSaltCracka]

Hey SC, we should go get drunk sometime in P-Town.

[SomethingClever]

[ QUOTE ]
Hey SC, we should go get drunk sometime in P-Town.

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Agreed. We still need to celebrate our championship plaque from a few seasons ago!

[Dids]

Ray's (unless there's one downtown I don't know about) doesn't really count as waterfront, at least if you're using that to describe a specific area. It does have a great view and the food is a lot better than Anthonys.

The Muck is south of Seattle. Tulalip is the one that's north.

Deception Pass is amazing. I have a poster of it in my office. One of my favorite places.

And yeah, driving north of Seattle is weird. Lots of North to get South and such.

[SomethingClever]

I just meant waterfront as in, near the water.

But yeah, the one I'm thinking of is near the ballard locks.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
I just meant waterfront as in, near the water.

But yeah, the one I'm thinking of is near the ballard locks.

[/ QUOTE ]


I used to visit Seattle a lot in the 1980's when my friends lived near Ballard (Crown Hill) and we would always go down near Lake Union, the Ballard Locks, and Discovery Park etc and hang out. Water Front Park was a nice place also. I liked the Crown Hill - Ballard area as it had many nicer older-style brick homes (many along 80 and 85th streets and surrounding area not quite in Ballard). Many were fixed up and had wonderful flowerbeds, small sweet green lawns and cozy front porches. Good feel to the neighborhood. That was also the time frame of the budding Red Hook Brewery and Ballard Bitter was the rage ("Ya Sure, Ya Betcha"). There is also a Nordic heritage museum in Ballard IIRC. The Scandinavian influence was and still is strong.

I had great times up in the Seattle area back then and many fond memories. I also recall going to Anacortes a few times and eating buckets of steamed clams at some water front restaurant near the boat slips. Can’t wait to hear Clark’s reaction to deception pass.

-Zeno

[ThaSaltCracka]

bump so clark finishes this.

Question, does anyone here in the PacNw have some recomendations for wines under $15.00?

[Clarkmeister]

It's the weekend. I'll get to it before Monday. Was busy gambling today.

[Clarkmeister]

Day 9

I awake after a good nights sleep and Irish makes us some awesome apple pancakes. He has to go back to the base for a quick flight, but that’s ok because it allows us to chat with his wife and ultimately take a nap. Rest is good.

From there it’s to be a sightseeing doubleheader. First, a tour of the naval base and then Deception Pass State Park.

The tour of the base is pretty cool. Especially the planes. In a hangar are some really kickass bomber looking things. Eventually we go out to the runway and see one of his planes close up. He flies a plane called a P3 which is an anti-sub plane.

Even better than seeing them, is hopping into one. It’s kind of startling how ancient the instrument panel looks. One would think that planes would have higher tech looking controls, but apparently not. The coolest part was the manual bomb dropping holes. There were litterally holes with lids on the floor where one could undo the lid and drop stuff right out of the bottom of the plane. Cool.









Deception Pass was pretty cool. Very scenic whether up top or down by the ocean. Apparently Paul Allen owns some island out in this area. Must be nice. The current under the main bridge was amazingly strong looking, I wouldn’t want to try swimming it for sure.







From there we headed back to Irish’s place and picked up his wife and kid for a nice meal at Rockfish, a family seafood restaurant that doubled as a blues club at night. A night of video games and fantasy sports talk rounded out the day and the last thing I did before going to bed was print our boarding passes for the return flight home the next day.

Day 10

Today was strawberry and banana pancakes. Just as tasty as the previous day. Irish lives in a house right next to some large fields that have horses in them. We took a morning walk with his son and fed the horses.




In addition to normal horses, there were two little retarded horses. I dub them cookie and cream. They look cute when you look at them. Even cuter together. Awwwww, look at the retarded little horsies!









We all chat some more and eventually it’s time to go. Refreshed after a nice few days with friends, we head back north, then east, then south to Seattle.

There’s enough time before our flight to make a stop, so we go to Pike Street Market. Basically, it’s part fresh fish/fresh produce market, part flea market. Parking was easy to find and reasonably priced at only $5.

We enjoyed the market. Very colorful and it had lots of character. We got some websites from a few of the fish places. We’ll see how good they are at shipping and who has the best stuff (I assume they all basically have the same stuff). My only complaint was that it was hard to find specific stores. The maps they had both inside and outside the bazaar merely showed which area stores were in, not which store number they were.







Lunch was at Lowell's. Basically a high end fish cafeteria with a menu. Good food, reasonable enough prices. They had a sick line at all times. Goldmine. Hey, we got another nice window view overlooking the water too.

Clarkmistress gets some salmon and we bid adieu to Seattle. The trip is winding down and it seems like we’ve been gone a month, or a day.

We pull into the rental car return at Sea-Tac and I am dead out of gas. Not wanting to pay like $5 a gallon to refill it, I convince the car return lady that I had bought the full tank purchase option up front. She notes that it wasn’t there, but after me whining she just knocks $35 off the gas price for me. Sweet.

We go through security and are melancholy that the trip is over. But, we did have two more cool vacation moments.

First, we were 2 full hours early. A very nice, new seeming facility, Sea-Tac has a lot of cool shops and stuff. And, fittingly, they have a wine bar too. Into the wine bar we go for one final tasting of the trip.

We each get a flight of Syrah to compare notes and all are pretty good. It’s kind of neat to have the end of the trip fit in so well with the rest of the trip. Relaxed after a few glasses, we head out to board the plane.







The second and final vacation moment actually came on the plane itself. Flying out over some very scenic overviews of the Seattle area, we fly dead over Mt. St. Helens about 30 minutes into the flight. Pretty cool stuff.









Finally, we return home and see the beautiful Las Vegas strip sprawled out off our side of the plane. Beautiful as ever, it’s great to be home. The trip was great, but it also gave us ideas for future trips. It’s tough to pull off 10-day excursions, but I definitely see some nice 3-4 day getaways to Napa and Willamette in our future. What a great time.


Trip wrap up summary sheet:

A trip this brings a lot of new experiences. Here are our award winners and stats for the trip:

Best hotel: Indian Springs. Runner up: Hotel Vitale
Worst nav system: Neverlost
Best dinner experience: Joel Palmer House
Best wine tour for recreational wine fans: Del Dotto (bring a designated driver)
Winery with best overall wine: Domaine Serene
Coolest winery to go to: Sineann (hard to beat no tasting fee, 16 wines, and talking to the winemaker.
Best mom and pop winery: (tie) Naumann and Lawton
Most scenic view: Ashland, OR
Number of wines tasted (approximate) 100
Number of normal 750ml bottles purchased on trip 65
Number of 1.5L bottles purchased on trip 3
Number of bottles impulse purchased on the internet in the 7 days after trip: 37
Number of new wine fridges purchased to house all that damn wine: 1
Best wines tasted:
Gold - 2003 Ken Wright Guadalupe Vineyard Pinot Noir (had an advantage for being perfectly paired with a great meal)
Silver – 2004 Domaine Serene Jerusalem Hill Pinot Noir
Bronze - 2003 Joseph Phelps Insignia Cabernet Sauvignon blend.
Worst wine tasted: Burrell School Chardonnay.
Best designated driver: Boris edges out James because his recommendation of Byington edged out James’ recommendation of Lawton.
Estimated miles driven: 1,150
Coolest non-wine activity: Balloon ride edges out mudbath. Sorry Jose.





Recap:

Day 1 – Arrive in San Jose, hook up with Sucker.
Day 2 – Passport Day for Santa Cruz Mountain wineries with Sucker, Boris, Diablo and friends.
Day 3 – SF touristy spots, Alcatraz, dinner with Tommy, drinks with Diablo.
Day 4 – Brief Napa stop, spa in Calistoga, CA.
Day 5 – Lake Shasta, Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, OR.
Day 6 – Arrive in Will-AM-ette Valley, have nice dinner, relax and read.
Day 7 – Hot air balloon ride, tour of Willamette Valley wineries.
Day 8 – One last winery stop, dinner in Seattle, night in Anacortes, WA with friend.
Day 9 – Friend gives us a tour of the naval base and Deception Pass state park.
Day 10 – Pike Street Market, fly home from Sea-Tac, wine and Mt. St. Helens.
Home - Buy wine fridge to store the 100+ bottles purchased as a result of this trip.


[/end trip report]

[stabn]

Lol shetland pony's. Thanks again for doing this trip report Clark, it was a great read.