Seattle city view
The view of Seattle skyline from Elliot Bay

Every year, my daughter and I take a vacation together. We’ve had this tradition for several years now. And we’ve been to places like San Francisco, Denver and the Grand Canyon. This year, we decided to visit the Pacific North West. We broke the first day of our trip up by staying overnight in Boise, then completing the drive up to Seattle the next day.

yakima valley
view of Yakima valley

We almost always drive, so we can see the sights along the way. And since my daughter had never been to Washington state and Oregon, this was a great opportunity for her to see those states. On day two, we made the trek to Yakima, where we stopped to see how big the valley is there.

Once we reached our hotel, we planned to meet with Grant Ruby and Brandon, who I had never met before, at a brewery in downtown Renton. I had just seen Grant at the Foster The People show in May, but Brandon was much taller than I expected. Great guy and hope to have future meet ups.

Public Market
Pike Place Public Market

We had an entire day in Seattle and wanted to make the most of it. So with the help of my friend and fellow writer Catherine, we got many tips, directions and hints about how to navigate our way through the downtown Seattle area.

catherine marty
Catherine and Marty

This was my first time meeting Catherine and it was as great as I expected it to be. She showed us the area surrounding the Pike Place Market and lead us down to the waterfront, where my daughter and I took a harbor cruise. Turned out this was Tiffany’s first time on a boat, which was awesome.

city
view from the boat

vide of space needle
view of Space Needle from boat

west seattle
West Seattle

tiffany
Tiffany with Washington Mutual building in the background

After our harbor tour, we then explored the city, walking around and making our way to the Space Needle.

space needle
Space Needle from the ground view

This was Tiffany’s first visit here to the Space Needle, and my second [I was here in 1989 with Tiffany’s mom]. The sky was clear and visibility was excellent. Earlier, it was a bit cloudy, but as most coastal cities are, it burns off before noon.

space needle
Space Needle view of the city

We spent a good amount of time at the top of the Space Needle. The City Pass we got included a day and a night visit, which made it nice to know we could see the view from both day and night.

tiff marty
Tiffany and Marty at the top of the Space Needle
EMP
Experience Music Project Museum

We visit the Experience Music Project, which we wished we had more time to spend in. We were there almost two hours and felt like we barely touched on what they had there. The Nirvana exhibit was very detailed with a wonderful history of the band.

Undergound tour
THe Underground tour

After dinner at Fado, a great Irish eatery, we headed to the Underground Tour, which was pretty cool to see all the of history of early Seattle.

Space Needle night
Space Needle ground view at night

Then we went back to see the Space Needle at night. Again, the skies were clear and we had wonderful views of the city all lit up.

night view
City Lit Up at night.

I was really blown away how great the city looked all lit up.

And that’s the first part of our PNW visit. I will post the second part very soon, which includes our drive down the 101 on the Oregon coast.