Sugared Harpy

We got married, it was wonderful! Then we were home for a very busy week and the next week we were off to Seattle and San Juan Island for our honeymoon.

Which was amazing and perfect and holy shit y’all, skip the warm beach and head to the Pacific Northwest. I work in art and I swear I’ve never said the words, “Beautiful,” so many times in my life. It’s simply stunning up there.

We had such a good time, and packed in so much goodness with plenty of calm, good relaxation and the best sleep we’ve ever had into seven days. I want to share this with you if you ever decide to go, so you have awesome times yourself. None of these are paid or encouraged reviews or recommendations, just our experiences as they were and what I feel like sharing.

Our itinerary:
Saturday morning, fly into Seattle
Sunday morning, drive to Anacortes, WA and take kick ass ferry to Friday Harbor, WA
Sunday through Wednesday, Friday Harbor
Wednesday, ferry to Orcas Island then ferry and drive back to Seattle
Wednesday through Saturday, Seattle

What we actually did in those places:
Day 1
Flew into Seattle on Halloween, checked into the Mayflower Park Hotel, missed our kids then got over it and googled to find the best damn clam chowder place around, Pike Place Chowder. Go, it’s really quite yummy and pretty close to what I make at home. Score! You want the one in Post Alley at the Pike Place Market, that’s the one you want to go to since it’s in the market and the people watching is good stuff.

That night we went on a ghost tour of Seattle (being Halloween and all) through Spooked in Seattle. So much fun on a night where we weren’t sure what to do in a city we were unfamiliar with. We got to see people dressed up everywhere and a great architectural tour of the city. What! Yes, ghost tours are really often great architectural and historical tours. The ghost part is definitely the least of it for most people.

Note, Seattle skews kind of young. Like it’s a city of seemingly 20somethings. And there was clearly a Halloween costume standard for young women: white and black tights, fluffy petticoat, pigtails.

Day 2
We ate…somewhere….with more chowder. I can’t remember. Bah.

We then drove from Seattle to Anacortes to catch the 2:40pm ferry. It takes about ninety minutes to get to Anacortes and then in the off season like we went in, you can get there fairly close to departure and still get on. I hear in the peak season, you need to be there no less than an hour to two hours early and in line.

The ferry ride? Beautiful.

It is totally a highlight of this area is this awesome, relaxing mode of travel. I have no idea if you feel that way when you live here, but for tourists is wonderful.

We landed in Friday Harbor, Washington on the island of San Juan. Again, gorgeous. Ridiculously gorgeous. Our hotel was Friday Harbor House.

Go there. Today. That above is the view from our room. I tell you what, we have never slept so good and we love our house and our own bed. This room is super comfortable, modern, and has a real bed. It’s small, the rooms are simply silent from other guest noise, and we loved to crack open the balcony door at night and have a little air and a little noise from the harbor. Slept so good. We loved being in Friday Harbor. Loved it. LOVED IT. We fell in love with the entire place.

That night, we ate at Downriggers, as suggested to us by the awesome staff of Friday Harbor House. It was a tiny walk from our hotel to the restaurant and the place was really lovely. We ordered Halibut. People, here is where I make you sad. What you are eating in the Midwest is not fish. I don’t know what it is anymore, but it’s not fish. I normally love salmon and tuna and sushi and eat fish all the time, but kind of hate white fish. It’s boring and fishy tasting. Okay, I don’t hate but it’s never exciting so why pick it? Let me tell you, it’s because it’s not fish. Pacific Northwest has FISH. Did you know white fish is buttery, substantial, and like a real food you would order because it’s fucking awesome and not because you think you should because it’s a *lighter* choice. Oh my god. This halibut at Downriggers made us both groan, “mmmmmmm.” It was amazing. Thank you, Downriggers. Oh my god, thank you. You have good dessert, too.

After dinner, we walked to the local market and I tell you what, I fell in love with that market too. It’s small, had tons of local and organic foods, limited choices (I like that, a huge display of crackers makes be buy zero boxes of crackers), and it was just set up beautifully. And then we walked back to our hotel and our oh so comfy room.

We learned a few things in those two days.
1) Fresh fish is awesome. We’re crying in the Midwest again.
2) We love being in walking cities.
3) I may have a sensitivity to nightshade plants, which are also my favorite foods: tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes.
4) This:

The rest of the honeymoon to come soon!

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 14th, 2009 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Observations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.