Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program - Thanksgiving in Seattle

Time to flush the backlog of photos and other content. As I mentioned before, Julie, Jacob, Matthew and I took the train to Seattle over Thanksgiving weekend. We stayed at a hotel downtown and explored the area. We did this 4 years ago and had a great time. I was determined though to plan just a tiny bit more - we ended up having donuts for Thanksgiving dinner last time for want of an open restaurant. This time we had a reservation at the Hunt Club restaurant and had a fine 5-course meal. Julie and I opted out of the turkey for some finer offerings (prime rib and lamb).

On Friday we walked a couple of blocks over to watch the annual holiday parade. The rain wasn't too bad and it was a fun diversion. One interesting tidbit: I've been pretty critical of the Segway in the past, but I was proven wrong at the parade. Look below for the perfect application of this amazing (?) technology.

Much of the time we just spent wandering around. Seattle downtown is nicely sized. We were able to roam from Pioneer Square to the piers to Pike Place to the shopping districts with no troubles. Friday afternoon we did the Seattle Underground tour - highly recommded.

Saturday we played tourist and took a boat over to Tillicum Village. We walked down to the piers from the hotel and hung out for a while until the boat left.

The village trip was a bit of a disappointment. I should have expected as much, but for $65 for an adult, the food (salmon) should have been a bit better. We did enjoy a short hike on the island, and the boat ride was a blast. Matthew did like the somewhat hokey native American show after dinner.

One highlight of the weekend was a chance dinner at Fado, an Irish pub. A great menu, even for kids, and of course some tasty Guiness. I had the fish and chips.

On Sunday we caught the train back for an early trip back to Portland. I'm not a huge fan of Amtrak, but they've got a great operation in the northwest. It is a fairly inexpensive way to travel between Portland and Seattle, and it beats driving. The Cascades trains have power for your laptop and usually show movies.