Our First 2 weeks on Capitol Hill

 Our first two weeks in Seattle were spent in Capitol Hill (a neighborhood of downtown Seattle) This is where Meghan's brother lives. Meghan and I shared  one bedroom and bathroom, rent free, for 2 weeks in exchange for our cleaning services. The house was in need of the novel idea of soap and water. It's a wonder that 4 boys couldn't have thought of that themselves! There was no need to share a "before" picture...no one needs to see that. Here is the "after" picture of our hard work...

 

 It's amazing what a little elbow grease can do.
Our bathroom was also in dire need of a good scrub so we got started on that project the second day there. We couldn't shower without a clean bathroom and we had plans to go out Friday night so priorities set in and we got that quickly accomplished. Within two days of sharing a small bedroom (living out of suitcases!) and getting ready to go out Friday night, our bedroom quickly turned to this.....

 I (Jen) can't live in such chaos for too long, so this didn't last.

Hula Hula is where we spent our first night out. It's in downtown Seattle. We met Meghan's friend Georgia, and their mutual friends from college there for drinks. It was a fun evening and before we left we were blessed to receive a karaoke rap done by a slightly drunk former football player from Colgate University. It was quite entertaining to say the least. 

We spent some time touring the city, getting familiar with the area, and seeing some of Seattle's best. Here are some pictures of what we did see and hopefully within the next couple months as the weather gets warmer, there will be more adventures to share of our explorations around Seattle.


Gas Works Park:   On the tip of Lake Union you can find these remains of a gas refinery that use to be here. (As remembered by most from the paintball scene from 10 Things I hate about you)

 They tore most of it down, but left some pieces and put in a surrounding park with some walking paths. People come to run, walk their dogs and enjoy the view of the water.

 Under a pavilion is where you can read about the history of the refinery and the machines that powered it. I guess it is interesting if your into that sort of thing. To me it was old, brightly painted parts of machinery. I was more interested in running through the park and people watching at this end of town. It was mostly rich folk walking their small dogs mixed with a few homeless people stashing their belongings beside the machinery.


Views of the Lake Union neighborhood across the water and of downtown Seattle.......

If you look closely in the picture above you can see the famous Lake Union house boats. It's that whole bottom row of brightly painted square houses!

  Pike Place Market:    There is so much to see and do here!  I loved it!
Pike Place Market is located downtown and lies right along Puget Sound. It is a 3 floor produce market known for their fish throwing. We were told to sample the Smoked Alaskan Salmon jerky. It was amazing of course and for the price ($40/lb) it had better be!
You can also pick up as many souvenirs as you wish. There are vendors everywhere selling postcards, local art, shirts, jewelery, etc. There is local produce, meat, fish, honey (which we sampled and bought),cheeses, beautiful flower boutiques, really just anything you could want.

 It is a busy place full of hustle and bustle, smells of good food; fresh and local, and people who come to show off their best handy-work. Bookstores and antique shops are downstairs where it's a bit quieter. That day we left Pike Place enthralled by all it had to offer, but not before a guitar player singing for tips gave us a friendly tune. We shall return......with more money next time

 There are walkways and crosswalks that take you right up to the water for views like this...

 And this...

 There will be another post of our first two weeks on Capitol Hill....I need an ice cream break first.
Jen

Hello Seattle! (Thanks for the CD Brent)

Day 6

Finally! Sorry for posting this last day so late! We've been job searching/ new place hunting... you know how that goes! We're enjoying the city and I'll be posting about it as well!

So we finish the great trek west with the very last shortest leg from the edge of Eastern Washington to Seattle. This is the view from Judy's porch! The Snake River and Chief Timothy Park there in the middle! 

That's the view I woke up with! It was amazing!

It looks like you're going to just fall off the cliff edge of their driveway! It was really up there on the mountain!

Here's one view of the winding road up to Judy's house. It was a terror to climb, but the views make it so worth it!

Here's the view from the bottom of the road. The house is way up there on the top of the mountain to the left.

 Here's another great view along the Snake River. It was a gorgeous morning! And it was hilly as we drove across the top of the Cascade mountain range.

We drove through some amazing looking orchards as well. It was some great scenery across the great state of Washington! We also finished the Great Gastby if anyone was wondering. It was again not as great as I had hoped it would be, but maybe the movie will be great anyway. Side note- as I was finishing the last chapter, which just drags on, I said I didn't want to finish the last 3 pages at which time Jen pops up from laying on her pillow to yell that I had to finish it- she didn't hear the last pages... she totally fell asleep right after saying this.

Above and below are pictures of some orchards and vineyards in this wine grape growing region of Washington. They looked pretty even without any grapes. Maybe we'll go back out to visit some on a weekend trip out of the city next summer!

Here are some great rocks!

 And here is the sketchiest bathrooms we used all trip long. The only outside entrance bathrooms we found, but don't worry it was very clean inside. This was where we stopped 2 minutes after Jacob pulled over to the side of the road to pee because he couldn't wait haha.

Here is the rainbow Jen spotted while we thought she was sleeping. It was cold and rainy and then nice out again- hence the rainbow!

Here is a field of windmills. They are totally massive and there were just tons of them! Yay for clean energy sources!

Cascade mountains!

 And here was are folks! SEATTLE!! This is Lake Union and some Seattle neighborhoods!

 Yay Seattle!!

 A sight for sore eyes! And once we got into the city we drove right to our storage unit, and unpacked the car snappy, speedy because it was sort of rainy- normal!

 Here is our storage unit! Lots of stuff... well mostly just clothes!

Then we got to my brother's house in Captiol Hill (a neighborhood just east of downtown) and after putting way to many bags in his small basement room. woops we're girls that can't decide what we need with us! Then we went out to dinner with my good friend Georgia!

So that was the great journey! We traveled many miles but we made it and had a great time doing it! Jacob stayed the night with us, and then he woke up and turned right back around. We'll keep updating to let everyone know how much we loooove the west coast and Seattle!