Saturday, August 8, 2009

Saturday Morning Satin Sheets 8/8/09

This has been a very interesting week for sure. We thought we had our house sold and then we don't. Life is too short to dwell on the past. Do the right things, continue to move forward in a positive direction and good things will happen. I am a firm believer. I will jump to my sales side for a moment. I promise I will get back to the story very soon. We really do have some great specials going on right now at Fantasy Cruise & Travel along with some great travel tools to make things super simple. If you know someone else who is also looking for a great travel agent to personally take care of everything for them, please pass them my information. There will always be a gift from me for a referral. For those of you who are Facebook fans, I would love for you to become a Fan of Fantasy Cruise & Travel. There is lots of information at your fingertips. If you tweet on Twitter you can also find some great information. Just look for cruisetravelguy. When you make it over to Facebook, make sure to search for Fantasy Cruise & Travel. If for no other reason, you get to see these funny pictures of a Pink Flamingo. You heard me! It's me stylin' like a Pink Flamingo. I officially became a member of The Pink Flamingo Club this week. You have to look at the picture for an explanation. I also need to throw out a special thanks to Heather at Travel Impressions. As always, I need to check your Cruisitude. How is yours going this week? Mine is strutting! Just a quick thank you for everyone’s support! I am in a better place because of you. OK, now back to the good stuff! With this being Saturday morning I thought I would start it off with Satin Sheets. Pillow talk? Don't leave me! It's going to get good now. Even though I do not own a pair/set of satin sheets, I can sure enough make one. Got you thinking for a minute, didn't I? You thought I was going off on a different direction. Well I am! Are you ready for Satin Sheets? Here is the silkiness of it. Take the following: 1 oz Kahlua, 1 oz Bailey's Irish cream, 1 oz Chocolate liqueur (Godiva) Ice & Milk! Combine Kahlua, Bailey's, and the Godiva chocolate liqueur over ice. Add milk to fill the glass and stir or shake. Now that is a way to start off this Saturday morning. You gotta love Satin Sheets! Especially in the summer. Even though the Alaskan portion of our trip is over, our Seattle portion is just starting. The disembarkation from the Princess Coral was very easy. As soon as we got off the ship we boarded our bus for our 3 hour journey into Seattle. We have never been to Seattle before and were looking forward to seeing this grand city. Our bus takes us to the Seattle airport. This is where we will get our rental car. We are going to be exploring the Seattle area for the next 3 days. Our home base for this trip will be in Woodinville. This town is north of Seattle by about 20 to 30 minutes. Our hotel of choice was the Willow Lodge. This is a Washington wine and culinary resort. This lodge is ranked #80 in the world and #12 in the US & Canada by Travel Leisure Magazine. They also had Fireside Cellars where you could sample some of Washington States wines or eat at the Barking Frog. The Barking Frog is a casual bistro featuring country fresh Northwest cuisine. Right next door is The Herbfarm Restaurant, rated in the top 50 restaurants in the world by Travel + Leisure magazine. According to Gourmet magazine, “you’ll be glad you booked a room at the luxurious Willows Lodge next door after one of The Herbfarm’s fabulous 9-course dinners”. Enjoy! Even though the Herbfarm was not open during the week we were there I hope to come back and experience this amazing place. This place was awesome. It was just far enough away, but so close to everything we wanted to do in Seattle. We were stuck right between three wineries and one brewery. Go figure, me next to wineries and breweries. You bet! The wineries were Columbia Winery, Silver Lake Winery and Chateau Ste. Michelle. The most incredible architecture and landscape I have seen. I have been to Napa several times and I would put Chateau Ste. Michelle and Columbia Winery right up there. Please do not get Columbia Winery confused with Columbia Crest. Oh, and the wine tastings were awesome. We spent a couple of hours at each winery. Washington State really has some good wines. You should check them out. We were also right next to Redhook Brewery! It is one of the nation's most highly-regarded micro brews. They actually have a restaurant at Redhook Brewery. We ate there for lunch one day. It was called Forecasters Public House. We had some appetizers and burgers (awesome) while I sampled a few of the brews. Janet stuck with the wine. I had the sampler tray which consisted of six different beers. Very nice beers! The other cool thing was we got to go on a tour of the brewery. All for $1.00, woo hoo! We walked around the different stations and sampled some more of the beers as we toured. Janet does not drink beer, so for some reason I got two each time. Do I hear a nap? Can you believe this though? All of this within 20 minutes of Seattle! Our morning started off with a trip into Seattle to visit the World Famous Pike Place Market. I am in heaven. We wanted to see all of it and needed some food for our bellies. You have to have energy to walk around this place. We had heard about Lowell's and it did not disappoint us. We ate on the second floor called "The View Lounge" We had a great view of the water. This place was buzzing! We had the most incredible breakfast. Now we were fueled for our adventure. I could not wait any longer. There were so many options. Janet choose the pancakes and I had there special breakfast sandwich. It was so worth the wait to get a table. You have to try this place. I had to go see them throw the fish! We headed off to The World Famous Pike Place Fish Market. The seafood was so fresh! Once you pick out your fish the fish monger on the front side takes your fish and throws it to the guys behind the counter. This was really cool. We continued to watch for a while as the fish kept flying. Pike Place Market is awesome. There were so many things to buy and look at. They had more fresh seafood than you could ever imagine. Italian markets were they had so many fresh varieties of pastas, tons of fresh vegetables, and so many different flowers to choose from. Can I live next door? What a special place. I wish every city had something like this. Did I mention the original Starbucks is across the street? Well it is. Number 1! This is where I first became a lover of the Pike Place Roast. The best stuff ever! Take a real good look at the original Starbucks logo. You will not see it anywhere else and something is exposed. I am not kidding, take a look for yourself. There are so many different places and shops. I am still in heaven. After several hours of walking around we had worked up an appetite for my wife’s favorite comfort food. Clam Chowder! We did not have to look far until we found the cream of the crop. The Chowder House! It is located at the Alley of Pike Place Market. This clam chowder has won first-place awards everywhere in the country and is the only chowder to have accomplished this fete on both coasts. We are still in heaven! We spend a few more hours walking around Pike Place. Now it is time to head back towards Woodinville. We are not only food, travel, and wine junkies, we are sports junkies. On our return to the Willows Lodge we stop at the University of Washington. I wanted to go look in Husky Stadium. Did not know how I was going to do that, but upon arrival it looked like there was a soccer camp going on. We just acted like parents and we were going to pick up our child. We walked around on the field. It is a beautiful stadium. Tonight was going to be a movie night, so we picked up a bottle of wine and some local sausage and cheeses and headed back to our room. What a day it had been. The next day we headed back down to Pike Place Market to do it all over again. It is still just as awesome as it was yesterday. We still had two stadiums to go look at, so we took off on our 2 mile walk towards the Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Mariners stadiums (Safeco Field). We lucked out again on the Seahawks stadium (Quest Field). They were having a youth football camp. We walked right through the gate and walked around for a bit. An outdoor football stadium is the only way to watch a game. Even though we could not look in the Mariners stadium it was still an awesome site. Now it is time for our walk back. This time we caught one of the local transit buses and got part of the way back. Now it was time to sample another favorite food of ours. Oysters! We choose The Brooklyn Oyster & Seafood House. We sat at the bar where the oysters were located at. That is what they call an oyster bar! They had a special of six different oysters times 2. This made it perfect for us to get to try some different oysters from the Northwest region. After a couple of dozen oysters and a couple of beers and Janet's glass of wine we were set to see more of Seattle. This was going to be our last night in Seattle and we wanted to make it special. We selected Palisade's on the opposite side of Elliott Bay Marina. This place was incredible. We got there a little before dark so we could see the sunset and you do need reservations for this restaurant. We had a great table overlooking the bay with the city of Seattle in the background. You cannot believe the view. We were going to take our time and enjoy the last night of our trip. The food was outstanding. The wine was good. The crab cakes were to die for. Oh my goodness! I would highly recommend this restaurant to anyone. It's a keeper for me. As our trip slowly comes to an end we reflect on the awesome memories that we have made. I would highly recommend that you don't wait until your 25th wedding anniversary to experience Alaska and the Northwest. We are headed back to San Antonio and we know our family and dogs will be glad to see us. What a bucket list trip of a lifetime. Now that is a tongue twister! I hope you have enjoyed this ride with me to Alaska & Seattle. I truly appreciate all of you who are reading and following. Leave me a comment and share this with a friend. I would love for you to become a follower. You will be surprised were our journey takes us next. Hang on for the weekly ride. Until we unite again remember to love a travel agent. Keep your Cruisitude in check and always Travel Your Way!

1 comment:

John said...

My favorite is the Starbucks logo. I wish they would of kept the original!