Seattle’s Travel Blog
Hey guys! Just wanted to let you know that I have updated my website to include my journal from the May Seattle to Dallas drive. It includes some of the stuff from my blog but is more in depth and cohesive (I hope) and has pictures. I’m working on a reading list to go with it that should be finished by the end of the week. Cheers, Terrell
my favorite picture from Arches National Park
It’s been almost exactly a month since I left Seattle and, believe me, there are plenty of things I miss about the Emerald City (Oh, for a Bartell’s nearby!). It occurred to me that a list of some of the things I miss most might be helpful to some of you still living there. We all know that every Seattleite is required to host several out of town guests each summer, and this list might help you think of things for them to see once you’re finished with the Pike Place Market. Or maybe it will just you remind why you like living there so much.
I miss being able to look down the street and see a mountain or water. My current home, along with much of the rest of America, is flat. Really flat. 
No mountains, no hills, no views. I really miss all those great viewpoints scattered around Seattle. Take your guests to see Kerry Park, the Magnolia Bluff Loop, the Space Needle, Alki Point, and all the other wonderful spots where you can see for miles. My favorite little-known viewpoint is the Lenora Street Pedestrian Elevator just north of the Pike Place Market. From Western Avenue head west on Lenora across the bridge to nowhere—it once led to the upper level of a now-dismantled warehouse—and you’ll find yourself on a viewing platform that has a spectacular vista of Elliott Bay, the Bell Street Pier, the public boat dock, and the guest rooms of the waterfront Marriott. I like to pick up lunch at the Market (Turkish Delight is my favorite take-out spot) and then spend a sunny summer hour eating and watching the container ships heading south to Tacoma. Take the glass elevator down to the waterfront for more touristy fun when you’re done.
I miss old buildings. Thankfully, Seattle has managed to escape our national compulsion to tear down every building that is more than thirty years old. Out-of-towners may be amazed to see the terracotta facades of Seattle’s downtown (the chiefs on the Cobb Building, the walruses of the Arctic Building), the Art Deco decoration of the Egyptian Theater on Capitol Hill and all the great buildings in Pioneer Square. It may be hokey, but the Underground Tour still gets raves from all the tourists I know. While you’re in the Pioneer Square neighborhood, be sure to wow them with Seattle’s impressive array of galleries like Foster/White 
and Northwest Fine Woodworking. Get takeout lunch from Mario Batali’s dad at Salumi and eat it in the Waterfall Garden, the site of UPS’s original location. And I would end the visit by walking up the waterfront to Ye Olde Curiosity Shop for a little vintage weirdness. If the steam organ is functioning, be sure to feed it a couple of quarters for me but watch out for the blast of sound.
I miss parks with no sidewalks. I’m currently living in a place where people rarely walk and when they do, they only walk on concrete. Take your house guests to some of Seattle’s great parks where you can walk on muddy trails, sandy paths, and grassy fields. Getting semi-lost in Discovery Park’s woods, climbing the hill to the top of the waterfall in Kubota Gardens or wandering under the giant rhododendrons in the Arboretum is something I truly miss. The Arboretum even connects with one of Seattle’s great treasures, the elaborate ring of parks planned by the Olmsteds that include Volunteer and Seward Parks. Find your way over to Lake Washington and enjoy the beautiful stretch along the lake with stone balustrades and steps enhancing the views across the water. And all for free!
Baseball. Dallas pretends to have a major league baseball team but if you check the standings, you’ll see it isn’t true. Your sports-minded guests who live in smaller cities will really enjoy Safeco Field and a chance to go to “the show.”
Food. Of course the out-of-towners have food where they come from. It may even be great food. But there are few places that can boast the confluence of natural resources, diverse ethnic traditions and culinary talent that one finds in the Pacific Northwest. From steamed pork hombows at Mee Sum’s in the Market to one of Tom Douglas’ restaurants, from a loaf of limpa bread from Ballard’s Scandinavian Bakery to The Herbfarm’s over-the-top nine-course meals, Seattle has it all. If I could transport myself back to Seattle for the weekend, my fantasy food itinerary would include dim sum at The House of Hong, a stop at Uwajimaya’s flagship store, tapas at The Harvest Vine in Madison Park, brunch at Macrina’s in Belltown, and a dinner of wild boar at Volterra. And that wouldn’t even be scratching the surface. Especially if your guests are paying.
Live Music. If there’s one thing that beats the food in Seattle, it’s the music. Every weekend, in fact every evening, there’s an incredible selection of musical genres and styles available for your listening pleasure. Benaroya Hall has a few events in the summer and the opera is performing The Flying Dutchman in August. Catch an incredible lineup of jazz at Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley. Roots music has a home at the Tractor Tavern and the under-thirty crowd will not want to miss the shows at the Crocodile Cafe.
Boats. Did you know that there’s not a single natural lake in all of Texas? Did you know that many people who live in the United States have to drive for days to get to a coast? 
Take your guests out on the water, they’ll love it. Even if you don’t own a boat, there are plenty of easy ways to do it. Rent a canoe from the Waterfront Activities Center at the University of Washington, take out a sailboat from the Center for Wooden Boats , or just hop the ferry to Bainbridge Island. Believe me, us landlocked types think it’s a real treat. If they’re afraid of the water, they can just watch at the Hiram Chittenden Locks or go for a stroll through Fishermen’s Terminal.
Is this a complete list of the things I miss about Seattle? Of course not. I haven’t even mentioned watching the kids play in the International Fountain at Seattle Center or the fact that I didn’t get a chance to see the renovated Seattle Art Museum or anything about Seafair’s summer schedule. And don’t get me started on bookstores. Or travel stores. Sigh.
Don’t have time to play with the visitors? Hand them the new Seattle Insight City Guide ($16.95) due out this month, a copy of Eat.Shop.Seattle ($14.95), Nature in the City: Seattle ($15.95), GM Johnson’s Seattle Mapbook ($11.95) and, of course, a printout of this article and send them off on their own. They’ll still thank you!
(images courtesy of the businesses to which they link)
Summer is here. I know it may be hard to believe since the first few days of official summer saw Seattle temperatures almost ten degrees below normal, but all you have to do is take the Front Table’s temperature to know it’s true. The Table is chock full of hot summer reads ready to spirit you away from your workaday world to exotic literary vacation destinations. So fill up your glass with ice-cold lemonade and stretch out in a sunny hammock with one of these new beach reads. OK, maybe you should bring a sweater, too.
Nothing says beach like a frothy, romantic fantasy especially if it invokes the patron saint of literary romance, Jane Austen. If you’ve ever dreamed of a country house lifestyle or wished you could step into the pages of Sense and Sensibility, take a vacation with Austenland by Shannon Hale. Hale’s main character, Jane Hayes, is a thirty-something New Yorker with a secret obsession with Mr. Darcy. When her aunt leaves her the bequest of a stay at Pembrook Park, a British resort where the guests dress, speak and act as if they were living in one of Austen’s novels, Jane has a chance to confront her obsession and decide where true romance lies. The writing is good, the cast members charming, and the escapism inescapable so let yourself be swept into the ballroom for a quadrille or two. ($19.95)
If you prefer your summer fantasy to have more meat than froth (or if you’re a guy), consider Irish author Tim Willocks’ latest, The Religion. This is a sweeping, swashbuckling, historical novel set amidst the religious wars of the 16th century when the Ottoman Empire fought the Christian knights at Malta. It features the adventures of Matthias Tannhauser, a soldier of fortune with a cynical soul and a checkered past, who is convinced to assist a beautiful French countess seeking the illegitimate son she was forced to surrender at birth. Packed with historical detail as well as rampant violence, passionate romance, and spiritual redemption, this is exactly the right kind of book to read on those long summer weekends. The Religion is the first of three Tannhauser books and with great reviews from all the big guys, it’s sure to be a summer blockbuster. ($26.00)
Sometimes there’s nothing so good for a hot weather read as a starkly cold murder mystery, especially if it’s set in a faraway place. I opened the gray and black, fairly nondescript cover of The Broken Shore by Peter Temple without great expectations but the plot description on the fly-leaf immediately drew me in. A Melbourne cop recovering from his injuries in his small coastal hometown in Victoria—the one in Australia of course—is drawn into the beating death of an elderly millionaire that’s being blamed on three aboriginal boys. I flipped to the first page and then had a hard time stopping the page flipping. Temple’s writing is dialog-driven with numerous Aussie-isms that really make you feel like you’re vacationing Down Under and he includes plenty of shocking plot twists. He’s already won five Ned Kelly Awards (the Australian crime writing prize) and they seem to be well deserved. ($25.00)
Let’s move from Australia to Thailand for the latest installment of John Burdett’s seamy Bangkok-based murder mysteries featuring his devout Buddhist detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep of the Royal Thai police. Bangkok Haunts begins shockingly with Jitlpeecheep watching a snuff film featuring his former lover. He calls in FBI agent Kimberly Jones to help him trace the source of the video through the underbelly of the Thai sex trade which leads them to some unexpected places. Burdett’s novels are definitely R-rated with plenty of salty language and “mature situations” so they’re not for everyone, but his spare writing style and taut plotting as well as the exotic setting have made all his Bangkok series bestsellers. There’s a local tie-in, too, with the complete text of an article Seattle author Tim Egan wrote for the New York Times on the big business of pornography included as an appendix. ($24.95)
If murder mysteries are a little dark to suit your summer reading tastes, let me suggest Dario Castagno’s A Day in Tuscany, a follow-up to his amusing memoir of life as an Italian tour guide, Too Much Tuscan Sun. Born in England to Italian parents, Dario moved to Tuscany when he was ten and fell in love with Italy’s romance and history. This new book starts with his return to Italy after the American tour for his first book. Organized around the happenings of his first day home, these events spur memories of all the special things that make him happy to call Tuscany, and especially Siena, home. I was particularly interested in his insider stories of the Siena contradas that sponsor the famous Palio horse races each summer. The book is sweet and funny and full of all those little details that make you feel like you’re coming home to one of your favorite places. ($18.95)
I have to say that the Front Table book I have really been waiting for, Travels with Herodotus, although small, is a little more challenging than your typical summer beach read. When the author, Ryszard Kapuscinski, was a young reporter in the impoverished Poland of the 50s, he dreamed of traveling abroad—to neighboring Czechoslovakia. When his editor called him in to give him an assignment in India he was both thrilled and terrified. The same editor gave him a copy of the Histories of Herodotus, which became his companion and guide during a career as a foreign correspondent that spanned more than four decades and witnessed twenty-seven revolutions and coups. The author of such celebrated books as The Emperor about Halie Selassie and The Soccer War, Kapuscinski, who died in January, had a career that was certainly not without controversy, but it is fascinating to read what he, himself, thought of his emergence from behind the Iron Curtain into such an interesting life. ($25.00)
Welcome to summer. Be careful getting into that hammock.
