I know when you say “Seattle” to most people, the image that comes to mind is grey skies and rain. And you wouldn’t be wrong, as Seattle averages a whopping 152 days per year with rain… but luckily for us, a big chunk of that happens from October to May and we’re here in June, so we got a sunny day instead. It was pretty much perfect, actually, with blue skies, a light breeze, and temps hovering around 62F (17C). Pefect shorts and t-shirt weather.

We walked a few short blocks to catch the monorail.

As monorails go, this one is pretty short. There’s one stop on either end and it only runs from the Space Needle to the shopping district just up the hill from Pike Place Market. Still, it’s clean, inexpensive, and faster than walking. It also has banked turns!

You exit the monorail at 5th Ave and Pine St, right in the heart of the old-school fancy shopping district.

Rob wanted to visit the Macy’s store, but it’s been closed for a few years now. Other shops have moved in, even though the outside of the building still sports the old signage.

I’m wearing a new t-shirt that I bought with a gift card that my handbell choir gave me after our last concert. It’s a simple navy blue shirt with the word “canadian” on the front. It got a response from three people (so far). Two of them expressed thanks - Canadians have avoided travel to the US for a few months now, in response to the US president’s highly insulting rhetoric towards Canada and his threats of economically blackmailing us into becoming a US state. So these two people were quite happy to see at least two Canadians visiting their city.
The third person was some jackass in the hotel elevator who said, “Canada? Are we at war with you yet?” Idiot. Anyway, I like the shirt.

We walked down to the famous Pike Place market along the harbour front (which I suppose would be spelled ‘harbor front’ here in the US).

The market is a bit like a farmer’s market combined with a flea market combined with an artisan market. It’s always super-crowded.

Silly me… on the way down, I told Rob that I might as well get a cwaffee (intentional misspelling, based on how I pronounce it) at the original Starbucks. Why not? This is it:

Yeah… you see those people lined up along the wall there to the left of the door? That line stretches almost a block. I’d estimate around 100 people in that line, waiting for a cwaffee that you can literally get on almost every street corner. And if you’ve ever been in a long line at a Starbucks, you know that those people at the end of that line might as well pack a lunch.

So we skipped that and headed back into the market, heading downstairs to the lower level where the crowds are much thinner.

The main point of our visit to the market, however, wasn’t the shopping, it was to find some Dungeness crab for lunch. And we did find that at a nearly 100-yr-old spot in the market called Lowell’s.

We found out that they don’t start serving lunch until 11:30am and it was only 11:10, so we put our name on the list for a table and had a seat at the bar to wait. It’s a very cramped, very funky bar with a friendly staff and nice views of Puget Sound out the windows.

Rob had a classic Bloody Mary and I had a Grey Wolf (yes, spelled with the ‘e’)… sorta. A Grey Wolf, according to their menu, is vodka, St Germain, and grapefruit juice mixed with soda. I asked if he could make it with gin rather than vodka and he said sure… then I asked if it would have a different name if made with gin. He didn’t know. I mentioned that on Viking cruises, it was called a Venus Sunrise and back home in Canada, we just called it “that gin and grapefruit thing that everyone likes”

Before long, we had a table and they were serving lunch. I took a selfie of us at the table, trying to get the views of Puget Sound behind us, but something weird happened and it looks like everything outside the window is a painting. Very strange.

We came here for Dungeness crab and that’s what we got. Rob had crab cakes, which he said were very good, and I had the iconic crab melt, which is Dungeness crab, melted cheese, and bacon/tomato jam on grilled sourdough. It was also very good.

After lunch, we headed down to the harbour walk for a bit of window shopping. Found this cute little spice shop that we’d spied out the window during lunch. Ended up walking out with a couple packages of spices - a cinnamon toast blend and something called togarashi, which is Korean chilis, ginger, and orange peel. Supposedly good on pasta. It smelled fantastic and I’m anxious to give it a try.

After that, we stopped into a little design and home decor shop called Kasala. They had a chrome octopus that Rob was eyeing and it’s a piece of art if you set it upright and a wine bottle holder if you set it on its back. I bought it for him and then later made the trek to the UPS store to ship it home. “Maude” (that’s the name he gave her, and yes, there’s a reason behind that, and no, it has nothing to do with Bea Arthur) will be on her way to Calgary soon.

Afterward, we had a nice stroll along the harbour front, enjoying the sunshine and people watching. There are lots of restaurants, galleries, and fun shops along here.

We passed another Starbucks, and this one only had two people in line, so we sat for a bit with our cwaffee and watched the people go by. I gotta say, I like Starbucks for their lattes and other espresso drinks, but their drip coffee tastes like burnt dishwater. I think that’s a ploy to get you to order the more expensive espresso drinks!

On the way back up the hill from the harbour, we ended up going through Post Alley, with the infamous gum wall - a brick wall absolute inundated with used chewing gum stuck to it. As impressive as you might think this is, it’s even more so when you find out that the wall was completely cleared of gum in November… just 7 months ago. The wall is about a half block long.

I’ve seen gum walls before, but this one rivalled the one on the Devil’s Den ride at Conneaut Lake Park. If you know, you know.

Anyway, on the way up the hill leaving Post Alley, there were lots of anti-trump posters and propaganda. Here are just a couple of them.

Soon, it was time to head back to the hotel - we poked our head in Target, just to look around and I was pretty shocked to find all-dressed chips!

I also felt a bit betrayed by that, honestly, because that’s supposed to be a Canadian exclusive flavour. At least they didn’t have ketchup chips. That would’ve been sacrilege.

Back at the hotel for a rest - and I made the trek to the UPS store to get Maude the octopus shipped off to Calgary - and before long, it was time for dinner. There is a little Tex-Mex place called “Laredos” just a couple blocks away and I am always up for some Tex-Mex, so off we went.

Full disclosure: I’ve never been to a “Tex-Mex” restaurant outside of Texas that serves authentic Tex-Mex. Ever. The closest I’ve come is Chez Krogseth, right there in Calgary, but that’s because we live there and I’m making the food. So I approached this place with a healthy dose of “we’ll see.”

Step one: margaritas. Actually really good! We’re off to a good start.

Step two: chips and salsa and chile con queso. Now… chile con queso is something that’s incredibly easy to make. It’s basically just a bit of salsa, some green chiles, a touch of sour cream, chopped red peppers, and Velveeta. If you want to fancy it up, add a bit of cream cheese to up the smooth factor. But it’s Velveeta. It’s ALWAYS Velveeta. So you can imagine my surprise when this came out.

What’s in that bowl??? It looks like sausage gravy you’d put on a biscuit or a chicken fried steak. It’s certainly not traditional Tex-Mex queso, that’s for sure. But hey, it was delicious, so who cares? It was made with Mexican white cheese and some spices. Delish. That red salsa, though? Also delicious, but after the tomato, onion, and cilantro, I couldn’t name a singe spice in there. Very strange. Also very good, and the chips were excellent.

So you can imagine that I was ready for nearly anything when the entrees arrived. Rob ordered chili cheese waffle fries and I ordered Tex-Mex enchiladas. Here’s how they looked:

I said to Rob when these showed up, “well, almost nothing so far has been what I expected, but at least from the appearance, this is exactly what I was expecting.”

I tasted the rice. Delicious, and not dry at all. Then I tried the enchilada….

Um….

Cinnamon? Why does my enchilada taste like cinnamon? That was a bizarre surprise and it took me several bites to wrap my head around it, but once I got past “this isn’t what I was expecting”, it was really good. Rob noticed the dessert menu and wondered about something called “sopapillas” and I said, “OMG they have sopapillas????” (So-puh-pee-yas) I said they were basically a Mexican version of the beignets that we got at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans. Little squares of dough dropped into a fryer, which puff up into a hollow pillow. Then you drizzle them with honey. Like this:

So we got an order… and I said, “I wonder what kind of completely unexpected thing will show up this time?”
And I wasn’t wrong…

OK, these are not sopapillas. I don’t even know what to call them. It’s kinda like a very crispy Beaver Tail. Doesn’t matter, though, because as much as I love sopapillas, whatever these were upped that a notch. Absolutely delicious and that stuff under the whipped cream in the centre is a scoop of house-made dulce de leche ice cream. OMG so good. It was all we could do to waddle back to the hotel.

We had a really fantastic day today. The weather was perfect, the food was great, and we had a really good time poking around the Seattle harbour front. The best part, though, was the whole day felt like ten-plus years ago, when Rob and I were dating. We have very different hobbies and things that occupy our time and honestly, we really don’t see each other very much during the day most days. We covet our evenings on the couch with the cats watching some British or European detective show, but our daytimes are crammed with other things.

It was really, really nice to spend the entire day together, just us, and not have all the distractions of board meetings, handbell planning, filling Lego orders, or any of that other stuff. It reminded me of why I fell in love with him and asked him to marry me just over ten years ago. I think I fell in love with him all over again today.

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