Seattle

Still on east coast time, we woke up early at 5am despite all the beer from the night before. We walked across town to Sweet Iron waffles, a small nook that made a small but tasty waffle with various toppings. Myron got a savory waffle with prosciutto, creme fraiche and green onions. Sherilyn got the special with rhubarb compote and fresh whipped cream. Both were fantastic, though we could've eaten more than one!

With nothing planned for the morning, we (along with Doug & Karen) decided to check out Bill Speidel's Underground Tour and we made our way over to Pioneer Square. This turned out to be quite interesting with lots of jokes to make it entertaining, and to blur the lines of truth. We learned about the early history of Seattle, from founding through present day. The tour took us into 3 city blocks, underground (with explanations why). We really liked this tour: unique, history & humor. It was $19 per person and lasted about 75 minutes.

After the tour, we got a call from Richie and Casey that they were awake and we met up with them at Pike Place Market on the waterfront. This market is a multi-story market filled with every time of shop you could imagine. We used this to shop and sample various offerings. We ate Czech koloaches, Greek jeros, fried scallops & fries, Russian onion-cheese roll at Piroshky x2, mac & cheese at Beecher's Handmade Cheese, beer at Pike Brewery and a caramel & chocolate covered apple at Rocky Mountain Candy Co. We walked by the original Starbucks, browsed art, bought flowers for our stateroom with gorgeous peonies and generally just explored and enjoyed the area. Richie and Casey went on the huge ferris wheel down by the waterfront but the rest of us were scared of heights and chose to stay on solid ground.

At around 4:30, we returned to the hotel to get ready for the baseball game. We walked to Safeco field which was around 1.7 miles. We had decent seats about 35 rows back on the 3rd base line. Safeco is a beautiful park with modern amenities. The food options were very good. As if we didn't have enough to eat earlier in the day, we enjoyed chicken nachos, garlic fries, a stick of chocolate covered strawberries and more local craft beer. Everything was reasonably priced too. The game itself was very good. Buchholz pitched well: 11K's through 8 innings and 3 hits allowed. Only blemish was a solo HR to Smith. The game was 1-1 in bottom of 9th. Mariner's walk-off single by Cruz. After the game, we walked back to the hotel and called it a night.Read more