As we neared the end of a rainy stroll through Seattle last Friday afternoon, fellow road tripper Jeff Wroblewski declared that he had enjoyed his first glimpse of the Emerald City, but only wished he could’ve seen it in the sunshine.
“But why?” I asked. “This is Seattle in its natural state.”
For the all the jokes about the rain in Seattle, apparently there’s good reason. It did rain for a good portion of our three-day trip to the Pacific Northwest – including a downpour during Saturday afternoon’s game – but it couldn’t put a damper on our Road Trippin’ experience.
While I already had a pretty good idea what I wanted to see in Seattle – full disclosure, I’d been there twice before – I took to Twitter and asked the masses for suggestions. While I did receive a variety of tips (thanks, by the way), the consensus was clear. When in Seattle, go to Pike Place Market.
Everyone associates Pike Place with the fishmongers, which is understandable. There are quite a few and they’re easily the most entertaining (and most vocal) of the local merchants. But there’s so much more to Pike Place. There are endless amounts of stands selling fresh produce, specialty foods, flowers, art, jewelry, clothing … pretty much anything you could imagine.
I could’ve walked through Pike Place Market for hours, but I probably would’ve gone flat broke. Check out the quick video we put together of our stroll through Pike Place down below.
So people associate Seattle with rain and Pike Place. Oh, and Starbucks. We stopped by the first-ever Starbucks (right at one end of the marketplace) to catch a glimpse. I’m not a coffee drinker, but apparently a lot of other people are judging from the line stretching well outside the door. Of course, if all they really wanted was coffee they could’ve stopped by another Starbucks 50 feet down the road.
We had one last stop on our stroll – a skate shop called 35th North, which JWro wanted to check out – before making our way to Safeco Field for that evening’s baseball game between the Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers. I’ll admit it was a bit cold to sit for three hours watching baseball, but it was still a fun experience, especially since Safeco’s state-of-the-art retractable roof had been deployed.
We likely won’t be back to Seattle for a while with the way the MLS schedule works, but I was satisfied with the recent journey. It’s a unique city which I’d recommend everybody visit … so long as you can stand a little bit of rain.
