Seattle, Washington: Pike Place Market

I love farmers' markets. 

It's one of the first things I look up when we are moving to a new place.  Little ones, big ones, fancy ones, simple ones...I like them all. 

The main reason I like them is for the chance to purchase the freshest of veggies and fruits, but also simply for the atmosphere.  There's just no comparison.  Folks gathered together selling, sharing, smiling, chatting, and just having a good time.  For sure the best grocery shopping ever :).

Pike Place Market is huge.  The fruit and veggie selection was out of this world...

...and the flowers.  Oh, the flowers!  GORGEOUS arrangements of the freshest flowers for only $10 per bouquet!  Say whaaat???  If I lived near this market, I'd always have bundles of these flowers around me.  Hotel room, RV, or even a tent...as long as I had a flat place to sit them, these flowers would be going home with me on the regular :).

Most markets have a vendor or two selling some kind of meat or eggs.  This market on the edge of the bay sold seafood and fish...and lots of it!  Some of it looked really good...

...some not so much!

We got to see the famous fish toss...

flying fish: right under the black seahawks sign

...he caught it, too!  Color me impressed, fish are so slimy...I'd have dropped it FOR SURE, hahaha!

Besides the usual market fare, Pike Place has so much more to experience.  We wandered down Post Alley...

...found the Gum Wall.  Um...

...ew?  But cool at the same time, haha!  So gross that you can't help but check it out and want to run away at the same time :).

We debated on going into the "Original Starbucks" for some coffee.  I say " " because I've read that it actually isn't the original one.  Some say it is, some say it isn't...I dunno.  We probably would have went in anyway if not for the ridiculously long line that snaked down the street...not my idea of a good time, so we passed on that one.

It was getting late and we were getting hungry, so we asked around about a sit down restaurant that would welcome the kids.  We were pointed to the Athenian Seafood Restaurant, which was right there in the market (and seafood, yay!)...

While waiting to be shown to our table, we saw this poster on the wall: 

hello

This is the restaurant from the movie!  Pretty neat :).  We were seated at a table upstairs with a view of the water.  Great view, great food, we were happy.

blurry picture, but that view...

By the time we finished dinner, pretty much everything in the market had closed.  We did manage to snag some donuts as big as our face to take back to the hotel for dessert...

these were the neatest lights...

We big fat puffy heart loved our little visit to the king of all markets and can't wait to go back (those flowers are calling my name....)!

We went to Seattle!...

Oh yes, we did :)!  FINALLY!  Seattle, Washington, has been on our must visit list probably forever.  I mean, duh...

have you ever seen a prettier view from a parking garage?  yeah, me neither ;)

Pretty much everything about it is awesome...as far as cities go.

The mountains...

The water...

The king of all markets!...
 (this place is getting it's own post because again, duh)

The really tall buildings (space needle, anyone?)...

...Seattle does them all so very well.

We only had one night and parts of two days, no where NEAR long enough, to spend in this beautiful corner of the country...*sigh*.  A little is better than none I suppose, it just makes me all the more ready to come back and stay a month or four ;).

Fort Clatsop, Lewis and Clark National Historical Park

Such a grande adventure these two gentlemen, Lewis and Clark, found themselves on more than two hundred years ago...

We haven't traced their route footstep for footstep (yet :)!); but we have, however, found ourselves in many of the same places that this famous duo passed through so many years ago.

We visited the shops in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, where the expedition got many of their supplies and began their long journey...we walked the banks of the Knife River in North Dakota where their ranks were vastly improved by the addition of Sacajawea and her family who accompanied the party as interpreters...and now we would visit the last encampment of the group, the site where the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean collide...

The expedition reached this point near the end of 1805.  Not able to begin their journey back east until the spring, they spent a wet and chilly winter in the forest along the Oregon/Washington coast...

I'm sure it had to of been cold, but oh so pretty, too...

The trees, the ferns, the mosses and fungi <3...so many beautiful things to discover and explore...

the ferns were HUGE!

Fort Clatsop is what they called their winter shelter, so named after the Clatsop Indians that lived in the area...

A snug little place for more than two dozen grown men, for sure...

After our walk in the forest, we headed back up to the Visitor Center to check out the displays and for the kids to finish up their Junior Ranger books...

With that done, it was time to leave Oregon behind and cross the Columbia River once again.  Heading back north into Washington...

A quick pause at the Dismal Nitch, a cove on the Washington side of the Columbia River where the L&C group spent a miserable 6 days riding out a storm...

...and we were back on our way north.  We didn't make it very far until we saw a sign that advertised "Fresh Oysters"...

There was a lazy tendril of smoke rolling off the grill out front and the river where the oysters were harvested just across the street...um yes, please, and thank you!  Quick as a wink, the car was parked and we were all piling into the tiny seafood joint by the name of River View Dining in South Bend, Washington. 

Do yourself a favor...if you ever pass through that way, stop by the River View for some BBQ'd oysters.  Order extra, though, or your kids will eat them all before you get to have more than one..yes, they are THAT good :) (and now I'm hungry, haha!)