Seattle Day 2

We woke up a little later than normal and found ourselves hungry already so we got ourselves ready for the day and made our way to Ballard Coffee Works, part of the

larger Seattle Coffee Works. I would describe them as coffee snobs that have earned the right to be snobby. They had artifacts from the wild west days of coffee brewing – glass percolators, grinders that look like they belong in a mine, even a few contraptions I could not place. Adrienne ordered an almond milk chai tea latte with a blueberry corn muffin and I had a cappuccino with a chocolate croissant. The foam artistry never ceases to amaze me!

 

Then, we caught an Uber to Pike Place Market. This was my very first Uber experience and I have to say, it was super easy. I can easily see why it would replace traditional taxis. At time of writing, we have taken 5-6 trips using it, and have barely had a problem. Pike Place was pretty slow being morning on a weekday late in January, so we walked through it and actually bought some rosemary flavored noodles.

 

We walked up to Beecher’s, a local cheesemaker and tried some samples of their cheese. Loved it! Their signature is a moderately sharp white cheddar, but we would have no way to transport it back home. Next, we found Rachel’s Ginger Beer. Now this was what we were looking for!

 

RGB is a local soda shop specializing in ginger beer (obvi, as the Millennials would say) and they had several speciality flavors. We got an original and Blood Orange. It was too early in the day to try their Moscow Mule, but I’m seriously considering have a case shipped home to try it out at a more reasonable hour of the day! There was a sharp ginger flavor to the beer, but no alcohol, and it was just smooth. Sweetened, yes, but not to the point that your subconscious diabetes alarms were set off. A true craft soda – something lost among the multinational conglomerates left over from the post-Cola Wars.

 

 

 

 

So we walked out and saw our first glimpse of the mountains (save from the plane), took a picture (seen here), and experienced our first Uber-mishap. The GPS signal was a touch confused and we were unfamiliar with our location, so the Uber was waiting around the corner. I guess they’ll just have to tweak the code.

 

The Uber took us to The Elliott Bay Book Company. It is a giant independent bookstore run by bookworms. Part of their jobs is to read books and fill out little cards which are hung from the shelves that help you make choices. I saw one that read, “Never mind that Bill Gates recommends this book, Bryce the bookseller recommends it!” Others have condensed descriptions giving you snippets. It’s been one of my favorite book perusing experiences! We each ended up picking up a couple of books.

 

Steven biked from a meeting to meet us at a little modern-Mexican restaurant, Barrio. Adrienne and I ordered pineapple salsa and salsa verde with chips and I had an iced tea. The tea had a deep flavor to it often missing in iced teas, but it was very nice. I got three tacos: shredded pork topped with diced mangoes, fried fish on shredded cabbage, and diced beets with oaxaca cheese and cilantro. The beet taco was definitely my favorite – it was totally fun and original. It was also messy, and my hands were partly stained with beet juice.

 

 

After lunch, we went back to the hotel to read and rest for a bit before picking up The Jolly Lib Giant – a wonderfully named 2001 green Toyota Highlander belonging to my sister and also coincidentally her former screen-name. It’s the first reliable car my sister has ever had (there were at least a pair of old Jeep Grand Wagoneers) and it’s accompanied her on some of her more epic journeys, including the move to Seattle. Anyway, we picked up the JLG which we drove out to Kirkland to meet up with Adrienne’s aunt and uncle who had cooked dinner for us. Dinner was great, but I never critique homemade meals – I find it causes a self-consciousness that impairs culinary experimenting, which is the last thing I want to do! In all seriousness, however, I’m going to try to replicate one of their side dishes as soon as I get home!

 

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was past midnight Indiana time and we were spent, so we crawled under the covers and quickly fell into a deep slumber.