Day 8

The last day of our trip ended on a high note, with yet another day of sunny, clear weather. We spent the day exploring the Fisherman's Marketplace section of Seattle, including Pike's Market, where they toss fish back and forth in front of the crowds. Fresh produce, seafood, meat, cheese, and baked goods were everywhere, and it was impossible to not be mesmerized by the pleasant smells wafting in the morning air.

We proceeded to have lunch at Pike's Pub and Brewery, a fantastic restaurant/brewpub down by the pier. Much of the decor, symbolism, and inspiration of Pike's Pub draws roots from its early 20th-century building occupants. The restaurant labeled it as a "pleasure palace", which is really just an euphemism for brothel.


After recovering from our food coma, we headed to Safeco Field for the Twins-Mariners game. Safeco is another gorgeous park, and they also have a neat Hall of Fame area. There was a decent crowd at the game, but this can be attributed to the fact that it was Ichiro bobblehead night and there were a surprising amount of Twins fans who traveled to watch the series.

Up early (5-6am) to catch our flight home. It's been a great trip, can't believe it's over already. We saw quite a bit in our travels, but there are still so many sights and activities that we weren't able to cross off our lists. Still plenty left to see when we make our next trip out here to the west coast...

Words of Wisdom from Del

At the Mariners' game, the temperature was starting to drop and definitely warranted the wearing of sweatshirts/jackets/long-sleeves. Del, who only wore shorts and a t-shirt to the game, did his best to combat the cold by drinking himself a "beer coat". In the 7th inning, after successfully getting his "coat" on, Del turns to us and deadpans, "My warmth is your refuge."

Seattle Public Market

We have spent the morning walking around Seattle downtown in the Public Market. We returned the rent a car to Avis. There are a lot of tourists here otherwise there are a lot of people who took work off today. We stopped by Hard Rock Cafe Seattle, a local brewery called the Pike to eat lunch, saw the original Starbucks, and saw the Space Needle. Our hotel is 2 blocks away. We are on our way to the ball game to catch a $5 bus ride to and fro the Safeco Field and then venture over to Qwest field. It should be really cool to see more of Seattle. I like this town a lot. Chris will post some pictures soon. We went to eat and went back to the hotel and slept for 15 minutes. We will explore more of Seattle after we wake up from our food coma.

Made it to Seattle

Wow that was a long drive.  We not only had a long drive to begin with but with stopping in Eugene Oregon and hitting the Portland traffic, it added about an hour and a half to the drive.  Once we got here though it was well worth the drive.  So far it is the most beautiful scenic city we have been to yet.  The drive in took us by Safeco Field and Qwest Field.  We missed our exit somehow and I am glad we did because we had to double back and come back across the water on the north side of the city and the view was amazing.  We are also staying 2 blocks away from the space needle.

Tonight we are going to walk downtown to get some dinner and maybe hang out for a few drinks after.  Too bad Griffey retired and we won't see him tomorrow but it is Ichiro bobblehead night so we are getting there early and watching batting practice.

Day 6

Our last day in San Francisco and the Reds came through with a much needed victory to close off their 6 and 3 west coast road trip.  We made a sign for Joey Votto that said Make Votto Prime minister and in true MVP fashion he goes 4 for 7 with 4 RBI and two homeruns.  Oh, and his 4th RBI just happened to be the game winning run in the top of th 12th.  After the victory we had a celebratory dinner at the Pub on Ghiradelli Square before heading north towards Seattle.  It turns out we really did bring the good weather to San Francisco. As we were leaving the fog came rolling in and cooled off the city. The fog was so thick that even driving on the Golden Gate Bridge we could not see the support cables even 20 feet in front of us.  We drove just short of the California-Oregon border passing Shasta Mountain and lake.  Unfortunately it was too dark to see most of it but what we could see of the lake and the snow capped mountain was impressive.

That is condensation from heavy fog, not rain.

Mt. Shasta

We got a later start on driving than we wanted but just stopped in Eugene Oregon to get some food and see the Ducks' complex on our way to Seattle.  About 4 hours left to drive and we will be in our final city on our trip.

San Fran - Lombard Street

I drove down Lombard Street going 2 mph down the turns. It is beautiful up here especially with the unusual warm weather. I was expecting fall cold weather but we brought sunshine and no clouds to the city of San Francisco. Alcatraz was cool. I have a great picture of me in the cell. Will post it later. We found Uncle Jessie's house and Jodie Sweeten in San Fran by the Painted Ladies. Note: We also got to see Lori Laughlin was at the LA Dodgers game on Friday. She can throw strikes.

Del

Day 5

Unfortunately, nothing about tonight's game changed my opinion of Giants fans.

Ugly game to close an otherwise great day. All three Reds rookie pitchers (Travis Wood, Mike Leake, Sam LeCure) got roughed up for 16 runs(!) tonight. Just absolutely demoralizing to watch. Don't worry, I won't be jumping off the Golden Gate bridge yet, since the Reds have a chance to prevent the sweep tomorrow and finish the road trip with a 6-3 record.

San Fran is having unusually warm weather, which is turning AT&T Park into a launching pad, much like Great American Ballpark. A fan mentioned to us that they never see that many home runs in a game (7 total) in this ballpark. Tomorrow being a day game, I would expect the slugfest to continue. Hopefully the Reds can keep the Giants to single digits this time.

Besides the game tomorrow, we are also planning to visit the Ghirardelli chocolate factory and Golden Gate park, before heading up the coast toward our next destination, Seattle.

Buenas Noches,
Mike