To kick off my Sabbatical, my husband, Anthony, and I took a trip to Seattle with his best friend, who ironically enough is also named Anthony, and his new wife, Monica. It was crazy you were practically eye level with mountains from the plane.
We made it back safely and were not eaten by any bears! (Note: We did not actually see any or were near any bears but it sure felt like we should have been). Let me tell you it was absolutely BEAUTIFUL there, I didn’t know trees could be that tall! Okay I did know, but I had never been around any before. Oh and let me tell you the weather was perfect. We got lucky and it did not rain once while we were there, and humidity? It doesn’t exist up there! People had told me about that before going, but I didn’t actually understand it until we were there. Though because of that I did manage to get a sunburn in only 68 degree weather… On the bright side my husband likes to point out it was the longest I had ever been in the sun before burning!
I now know the secret to easily becoming physically fit… just move to Seattle. The hills, oh my word the hills… everywhere we went there were hills comparable to what we like to call mountains here in Abilene. I swear my calves got a work out of their life, plus the lack of humidity? Hardly any sweating. Though the cost of living there is really expensive, so I’m not sure if it’d actually be worth it.
We visited Pike’s Place Market, and I have officially determined that I am not a crowd person. I know it was a tourist spot so of course there were a ton of people, but it just made me think of huge cities where people deal with that everyday. No thank you. I like my personal bubble, it may not be a very big bubble but it’s there. I kept worrying that someone was going to try and pickpocket us, I was going to step on a little kid or that I was going to trip over absolutely nothing and cause a huge scene that it was hard for me to enjoy it at times.
Later that day we went to the Space Needle, of course. Let me note now that I am afraid of heights…to put it lightly. We get into a crowded elevator and I’m pushed off to the side. We start going up and to my great delight (note: I say this EXTREMELY sarcastically) right next to me there was a window. Which I’m sure had a really lovely view, and I would have been okay with had I been able to mentally prepare myself for. I know that sounds silly, how did I not know that there was a window there? Well I didn’t and thinking back on it I should have guessed that any really tall tourist trap would of course have windows in their elevator, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. Thankfully my husband realized pretty quickly how freaked out I was and managed to push through the crowd to switch places with me. I still didn’t like that I could see our rapid ascent, but I was no longer staring over the edge watching the ground disappear beneath us.
We had dinner at the restaurant there, which after I made my way shakily to our table and was able to adjust to being up so high, the view was absolutely beautiful. The restaurant itself rotates so you could see all of Seattle. Next we had to venture up to the observation deck at the very top of the Space Needle. I would have been perfectly fine just leaving after dinner… but no the group wanted to go up, so we went up. The views from the deck were probably more beautiful that what we saw from the restaurant but I was too busy hugging the side of the wall and making sure people went around me if they wanted to go by to really enjoy it much. It’s one thing to be inside staring out but I could not handle being out in open air very well.
We also saw a Seattle Mariners game (Baseball for those who may not know). They lost, but it was still a really fun experience and there was a huge firework show after the game that definitely made up for the loss. We of course opted not to drive and used Uber/Lyft most of time. Have any of y’all ever tried to use one of them after a big event? If they were to pick us up near the stadium it would have cost us $128! Yes you read that right a hundred and twenty eight dollars. For a 30 minute car ride. We ended up walking roughly 2 miles to get out of the high priced zone and ended up only having to pay $28, but it was kind of creepy. I believe walking around after dark in an unfamiliar area would put anyone on edge.
Our next big adventure was zip lining. We had to travel about an hour away to a 230 acre farm to do this, but it was well worth it! When we were first pulling up everyone thought I was planning on getting us killed because it was pretty much in the middle of nowhere with very few signs letting us know if we were going in the right direction…. I can admit it did seem a little shady at first (Don’t let my husband know I said that). We got lucky and it ended up just being the 4 of us in our own group. We started our adventure off getting to ride a historic Unimog forest vehicle. Don’t know what that is? No worries I had never heard of it before either. I did make sure to attach a picture of it though. Apparently the owner of the farm saw it being driven around town one day and basically stalked them home to ask if he could buy it.
As noted earlier I am petrified of heights but I am also rather odd… who knew right? The hardest part about zip lining for me was the 3 little steps I had to take to be hooked onto the line, not the actual jumping over the edge. I’m not exactly sure why this was easy for me when I was hugging the wall at the Space Needle. Where everyone else had no issues at the Space Needle, but were all nervous about zip lining. I’ve just accepted that I’m weird and it makes no sense. Our guides were great they really helped make the experience that much better. We got to try all sorts of berries and plants (yes I said plants). After we all made it safely through the forest we made our way to a little beach about 10 minutes away, where we found the water to actually be pretty warm considering it was only 72 degrees.
There was so much more that we did, but this pretty much concludes the highlights of our Seattle adventure. Overall it was amazing, and we definitely plan on visiting again.
