Staycation With The Darby's - Day 2

Our final day of our Staycation with the Darby's we got a little bit of a later start. I think we left at 8am. We wanted to go into Seattle, but just driving there isn't that fun. Especially on a nice sunny day, the way to go into the city is to take a ferry. We took a nice drive over to Bremerton and we were the first people in line for the 11am ferry. Since we were so early we got out to walk down the boardwalk and look around. I didn't take into consideration that it would be so early not much would be open, but it was just nice to walk. We did find a coffee shop we were got drinks and a muffin while we waited for the ferry to arrive. 

First in line gets your front row parking on the ferry too! 

We could not get over the weather. It was so gorgeous! 

I haven't been on a ferry since my Aunt, my cousin and her kids came out in 2018 and we were blessed with gorgeous weather that day too. 

We didn't just sit down inside and enjoy the ride....we hung out outside or just inside the window area up top so we could take in the view. 

At one point I could look north and see Mount Baker, southeast and see Mount Rainier, east and see the Cascade Mountains and west and see the Olympic Mountains. 

The Emerald City! 

It really does look so pretty coming in from the water. 

I spot The Great Wheel! 

It was fun being tour guides for Michael and Robin. After coming off the ferry they make you turn to the right so we had to do this whole turning around thing so we could go back towards downtown. After finding parking we headed to the pier for lunch. 

Michael and I haven't got to The Crab Pot in years...maybe even before kids, but if you are going to give someone the full tourist experiences you have to go. 

I had no idea Michael was wielding his hammer so aggressively towards me! :) 

  

We did the same thing as the day before where we decided to order family style. We ordered one of the crab pot feasts for two and then we got oysters on the half shell and oyster shooters. I had never had oysters before, but I'm all up for trying new things. I LOVED them! The oyster shooters were especially yummy because they were in vinegar with shallots and hot sauce and we added lemon juice. I always wondered how you enjoyed them if you just swallowed them, but the flavor really does stick around....so yummy! The oysters on the half shell we ate with cocktail sauce and lemon juice. I actually chewed those just a bit and they were okay...the shooters were my favorite though. After consuming the feast Robin did not have her fill of crab so we ordered another pound of crab and more oyster shooters. 

Next stop was The Great Wheel. 

The cost wasn't too bad for going up it's was $23 per person....I say it wasn't bad because we were only paying for 2 of us. If we were to take all the kids it would be SO expensive! 

After we paid for the tickets we got some drinks. I got the last hot chocolate of the day. They came in these nice reusable cups with lids. 

Like I said before Robin does not do well with heights. She was fine before we got on because they had music playing, but the music wasn't piped into the cars. Robin is the one that got me hooked on Taylor Swift so I decided we needed to jam out to some Tay-Tay and that would get her mind off her fear. Sure enough...it worked! We were able to sing and she was actually looking all around and enjoying herself!

 I was really impressed with the loading speed. That's one of the things I really hate about Ferris Wheels....it takes forever to load. They had it set up so 6 car were getting loaded at once. The whole ride was about 15 minutes which was honestly really nice! 

Love that I got the shadow of the wheel! 

Look at that big beautiful mountain! 

After finishing up there we headed back to the van only to find a parking ticket on our windshield. We did have a bit of an issue with the app they told us to pay with so we just found a kiosk to pay from that was inside the parking garage we were parked in. I don't know what happened, but we got a ticket. We had the receipt to prove we paid so Michael was going to call them on Monday to figure it out. Unfortunately some how we lost the ticket and the receipt. I have no idea where they are so now we are going to be one of those people where the next time we get pulled over by a cop they are going to say...."Do you know you have unpaid parking tickets?" Who knows if that's actually a thing they do...I don't know! 

Next stop was the quintessential tourist stop in Seattle....The Space Needle! 

A lot has changed since the last time I've been here so I didn't realize it would be better to prepurchase tickets to go up. When we got there it was 4ish and our tickets to get in line to go up weren't until 5:15pm. That was just to get in the line to go up. The line itself was about an hour long. 

We didn't really want to walk around the Seattle Center since it was so cold so we just hung around in the gift shop and looked at everything. We did get in the line about 10 minutes earlier than our time and they were okay with that. The line wasn't too bad since they had all these facts and history in regards to the building of The Space Needle. It definitely made the wait bearable.  

I found Santa on the Space Needle. 

At first I was really bummed that we weren't going to go up while it was daylight, but I decided to change my perspective and just enjoy the fact that we were going to get to see the city from a different light. It was awesome! I don't think I've ever been up there at night and it was so pretty! 

Michael and Robin were loving it! Robin was still freaked out by the heights, but she did really great! 

Sitting on the glass bench that leans you back onto the glass wall. 

Standing on the glass floor looking straight down was kind of trippy! 

We knew we wanted to really get the bang for our buck since those tickets coming up weren't cheap so we ordered a couple drinks at a bar so we could sit at the window. 

We sat at the window for a full rotation and it was so cool seeing the city all lit up at night. 

We had such a blast showing Michael and Robin around. The next day they checked out of their hotel and came to our house for breakfast. The kids and I went to church, but they hung out with Michael at the house and even stayed and had lunch with us before they headed back home to Oregon.