Adventures with Abigail

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I went to Seattle, Washington in June of 2023. This is my story.

I drove all the way over to Seattle with my pup. It was a lot of fun. I will mention up top that Seattle has decent public transportation. It’s primarily buses that are frequent enough on the route that it doesn’t matter that they are never on time.

For this trip, I found a cute basement AirBnB in a neighborhood by Green Lake. There was a bus stop nearby, and the lake was just across a busy road. There was a pedestrian bridge that we were able to use to walk over. I will say, I hate the Seattle car infrastructure. What kind of city has frequent left only exits and entry ramps on the highway?? That was super annoying, and I’m very glad the only time I had to drive was to pick up and drop off my friend from the airport. We arrived late in the day, so Kylo (my pup) and I took a stroll over to Green Lake before heading to the airport to pick up our friend.

The first full day in Seattle we had a CityPass that helped give us access to the top attractions in Seattle and also organized the ticket purchasing. We got our tickets to the aquarium for right when it opens. ProTip: do Aquariums and Zoos (and other popular family attractions) when they first open so you get in/out before most of the family crowds. The Aquarium didn’t open until 10am, so we were able to get a nice breakfast at Biscuit Bitch nearby. They have lots of good options, and they shout your name and “Your bitch is ready” when your food is done. It’s very fun, and if you don’t like anything on their menu, then you can get their “Picky Bitch” option which lets you specifically select each biscuit and side that you want. They do require ID on pick up to make sure it’s really your order.

The Seattle Aquarium has one of the best interactive rooms I’ve ever experienced. They have several long pools of sea life that you can touch. There was fresh water sea urchins (salt water ones are poisonous!) that will hug your finger, star fish of all sizes, and other sea plants like anemones. The aquarium has other fish and sea birds, and they all move around enough to be interesting. They also have sea lions and otters, but the sea lion show was much more informational targeted at child level education that it wasn’t really worth the time we waited around after seeing all the other animals.

Nearby the aquarium is Pike’s Place Market that’s a combination of a farmers market and food stalls. I bought a “Seattle Grunge Beanie 2.0” and a hand painted neon Sasquatch hat (see photo below). We then took a bus over to a brewery to get some lunch. After lunch we decided to take a walk before heading back to the Airbnb, and we stumbled upon the Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room. Our expectations were very low because we were both of the opinion that Starbucks is way over hyped, but it actually ended up being really really cool. There were several different stations, and we ended up at the bar. My friend selected the martini sampler platter, so we tasted four different espresso infused martinis. This Starbucks is definitely worth the time to stop by if you don’t have one in your city.

After taking Kylo on another walk to Green Park, we headed back down to Seattle via bus for our Harbor Cruise. The bus does take about 40 minutes to get into Seattle, but I do think it’s worth the extra time to not have to worry about finding and paying for parking. The Harbor Cruise was mildly disappointing because I thought it would only be about 20 people, but it turned out to be about 200 people. This is the cruise that comes with the CityPass. They did have a tour guide on the loud speaker telling us fun facts about Seattle and buildings we were passing. I sat on the top deck, so I was able to get good photos of the skyline (see photo below). After the cruise docked we made a quick exit ahead of the massive crowd and secured a table for two without reservations at the nearby Elliott’s Oyster House. I do recommend putting in the effort to get off the boat first if you don’t have a reservation because everyone else has the same idea to go eat nearby. The food was good, but the google rating of three dollar signs ($$$) is accurate. This restaurant did dessert wine, so that’s always exciting.

For our second full day in Seattle we had tickets to the Space Needle, MoPOP, and the Chihuly Glass and Garden Museum. We did the Space Needle first. We stayed about an hour and a half, but 30 minutes of that was spent at the gift shop. The whole top of the Space Needle rotates, and the bottom level has a glass floor that you can walk on. If you use the CityPass, then you get a second free visit at night on the same day. We were exhausted by the end of the day, so we did not take advantage of the offer. After we left the Space Needle, we walked across the plaza to MoPOP (Museum of Pop Culture). This is now the best museum I’ve ever been to. They have so many good displays and themes (see the giant guitar tornado below). There was a Nirvana room, a Hip Hop room, a Science Fiction room, a Horror room, a Fantasy Room, and a Jimmy Hendrix room. These were all quality exhibits, but my favorite was the top floor Sound Lab. The sound lab had 2 main focal points. The first was about 20 small studios with a sound mixing board, and you could experiment changing the tracks with the song Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics. The other focal point was several trios of open booths around the room that each had a guitar, a keyboard, and a drum set. You could play together with the other two in your pod, or you could jam out by yourself. After having a blast with that, we had a quick lunch at the attached Culture Kitchen. It was a little pricy in my opinion for lunch, but the food I did have was really good. We then ran across the plaza to make our time slot at the Chihuly Glass museum. The museum was surprisingly small, and half was in dark rooms with the glass light up by lights. There was a nice greenhouse-esk room with the glass high above you before heading to the outdoor section of the museum. Here the glass was interspersed between plants. This museum was primarily for the looking and walking type of museum goer (as opposed to the read everything museum goer). The saving grace for this museum was the hourly demonstration that have in the small plaza inside the museum. It was really cool to see them create a vase. The museum also has a small theater room with rolling documentaries on the lead artist that the museum is named for.

We were done with the last museum around 2pm, so we headed back to our Airbnb. We decided to break out the inflatable paddle board I brought with me and headed over to Green Lake for an afternoon on the lake. We did end up driving over so my friend could rent one, but Kylo and I shared ours (photo below). After paddleboard we got some dinner at a nearby Mexican restaurant.

All in all, Seattle was a lovely city. I really liked the place I found, and it was nice to not have to worry about traffic. People usually recommend staying in the city center, but for Seattle I say stay outside of it near a bus stop. Seattle’s public transportation is good enough that you don’t have to worry about scheduling yourself around it like in other city’s. June was a wonderful time to visit Seattle because the weather was amazing.

Seattle was the first part of a two city trip, so if you want to read about the next part then follow the link here.