2012 Vacation Part II - Seattle

When I last left off, I had just returned from the lake and was preparing to leave for Seattle.  I arrived home the morning of the day I flew out for Seattle.  It was a bit hectic, but I wanted to soak up as much time with family as I possibly could.  I am really proud of the fact that I a) was packed within an hour of arriving home, and b) I fit everything for my week vacation in a carry on.  Score!  Ever since my luggage got lost on a trip to New York, I have avoided checking bags if at all possible!

I arrived in Seattle on Thursday evening and got into downtown around 6 pm.  I made the most of those short few hours that I had in Seattle!  Once again, I will let the photos do the talking!!

The first sight I encounter?  Blue trees.  Strange, but sort of beautiful!  I've never seen a city paint their trees!

It was the end of the day, so the market was closing down, but some of the stalls were still open so I meandered through on my way down to the water!  You can see how blue the skies were that day.  There was not a cloud in sight and it was so sunny!  I love the weather in the Pacific NW.

If I had more time, I would have checked out that giant ferris wheel!  I am afraid of heights, but I am sure the views from the top would have been amazing.  I guess I will have to tackle that on my next trip!

I continued to walk around, taking in the beautiful blue, cloudless skies and savoring THE LACK OF HUMIDITY.  I came from 95F+ temps and high humidity, so 75 and no humidity felt AMAZING.

I worked up an appetite walking around, so my next mission was finding a restaurant with a good gluten free menu.  Luckily, I have found that the Pacific NW is VERY good about having gluten free options.  The hotel had suggested a Thai place and when I saw that it had a good gluten free menu, I was sold!

I started off with some chicken satay.  The sauce was SO good, and I loved the pickled vegetables and rice ball (err, square).

Next up was my main course:  mussels in a coconut curry sauce.  The waiter recommended it to me and described the sauce as liquid crack.  He was spot on!!  The mussels were so fresh as they were caught locally.  Besides the mussels, there were bits of pineapple, and it was garnished with bean sprouts and cilantro.  Yum!!

That is all I fit into those few short hours!  I headed back to the hotel early as I knew I had some big days ahead of me.  I went to bed so excited as I knew I'd be seeing Kelly and her husband Eric the next morning!

Have you ever been to Seattle?  Do you like mussels?  Mussels are probably one of my most favorite foods!!