After a stop at the hotel’s breakfast, we drove out to Woodland Park Zoo, which was only about 10 minutes away. It was a pretty nice layout, with all types of animals – giraffes, monkeys, gorillas, lions, etc. We had a quick lunch of chili at the zoo’s food pavilion, and then drove a few blocks down to meet Amber in Fremont. We walked down to a coffee shop and sat outside on a seat of rocks with our mochas. Then we headed down to the locks and watched a ton of boats being lined up waiting for the water to rise. After driving around a bit, we headed to Ballard and went to a cool bar for a few drinks. It was now dinnertime, so we went to a mexican place called Oaxaca. One last stop was at a unique Seattle shop, Cupcake Royale, where we finished our “outskirts of the city” tour with Amber with a few tasty cupcakes.

Our itenirary today will be mostly drive time as we venture north towards Qualicum Beach which is located on Vancouver Island.

Pike Place Market. We found a small french cafe and started our day with some crepes. We walked all throughout the market, and yes, saw some fish throwing along the way. Beautiful inexpensive flowers. Honeys and jams. Various trinkets and handmade goods. It was full of people from end to end. We caught the overwhelmingly strong scent of fresh doughnuts around the corner from the fish store, and had to get a half-dozen, bite-sized, powdered, and frosted.

After we were content to have seen most of the vendors, we ventured into downtown. Walked past several more stores, including the world’s first Starbucks, a handmade cheese shop, and at least 4-5 more Starbucks. We hiked up to the Westlake Plaza area and sat in the open square for a while, people-watching and saw the city horseback cops making their rounds. We walked around for a bit in the mall and stopped into a coffee shop (not Starbucks!) and had some molten dark chocolate mochas.

At this point we were feeling a bit tired from all the walking so we came back to the hotel and crashed. We didn’t realize it, but we were VERY tired, and slept until late in the night. Since it was Sunday night, most restaurants were closed, but a local place a block away from our hotel – Blue Lake Bistro – was open until 1AM, so that was our place. Krissy had mushroom soup and salad, and I had a chicken parmesan. The rest of the night was just spent hanging out in the room, watching TV. Chilling out. It’s ok to just chill on vacation, right?

So today, now that the weather is good, we plan to head over to what is supposed to be one of the world’s best zoo’s. Woodland Park Zoo. And possibly meet up with Amber for lunch or dinner, since the zoo is blocks from her house.