The Amazing Adventures of the Gifford Hertel Girls

I'm sitting at Cafe Allegro with my friend-Christopher Jette and trying to catch up on many many emails received and not answered...check out chris' blog, it's way more interesting than mine.

My mother and sister flew back east yesterday after three days of fun in the Seattle sun! Here is a abridged chronicle of what we did....

THURSDAY NIGHT

They arrived and we headed to my fav cafe-cafe on the ave for a little snack and some catching up. I had to work on Friday morning so we arranged for them to meet me downtown at my office around noon.

FRIDAY

We met up at my office and I took them up to the 73rd floor for a view of Seattle and the surrounding water and mountains (a much better view than the space needle and who could beat the price tag-free!) Then we headed to Pikes Place Market and walked around the market, ate homemade powdered donuts, and had lunch at Lowells with a view of the Sound. Then we headed over to catch the monorail from Downtown to the Space Needle. We rode the monorail just in time-it stalled the next day and is now defunct! Anyway, it was a short 5 minute ride, I think we waited for it longer than we were actually on it. The space needle was fun-we just admired it from ground level and browsed the gift shop. Then we went to a store with a sign that said "WoW this was made in Seattle" and mused about how much in the store was absolutely NOT made in Seattle. Good times.

Then we went back to my hood and walked down to Ivar's Salmon House on Lake Union.
Had a great dinner of salmon cakes topped off with chocolate mousse cake! It was delicioso.

SATURDAY

We started the day at my neighborhood farmers market. Eating Washington fruit and pastries while we enjoyed the seattle morning. Then we went resale shopping along the Ave and I found my sister a pair of jeans for fall. Then we did a tour of the parks along the Puget Sound-starting at the Ballard Locks where we watched some salmon jumping and enjoyed the day. Then we headed up to Ray's for lunch. Had a great view of the Sound as we ate some really great food and split a fruit cobbler for dessert. Mmmm. After lunch, we headed up to Golden Gardens State Park. The beaches and dunes were amazing, we walked up the beaches for a bit, enjoying weather. The mountains and the beaches were gorgeous. After our trip to Golden Gardens we headed south towards Magnolia to Discovery Park where we drove out to the Lighthouse and the beach-it was high tide so we sat on the rocks by the lighthouse and listened to the ocean. It was so nice in fact that mom and nora decided to lay down and listen to the waves. It was just grand.

Stay tuned for our Sunday adventures tomorrow-with more pictures of our trip to the Olympic Peninsula!