A Field Trip... For Me

Today I took myself up to Seattle for the day. Just a day for sight-seeing, really, but I had a few things I wanted to do.

1) Find a yarn store and look for a few skeins that I needed. I succeeded in this quest. I found Hilltop East on 8th Street in Bellevue. (For those of you from St. Louis, Bellevue reminded me quite a bit of Clayton.) Beautiful shop! Everything was displayed nicely with good samples to look at. The shelves were only waist-high, letting you see around the whole store. To be honest, though, I wasn't overly impressed by their selection: they didn't have a whole lot of any one thing. Severly lacking in the sock yarn department. :( But, I WAS able to find a couple of skeins of Mission Falls 1824 Wool to finish up that striped sweater that has had UFO status on Ravelry for most of the past year. Still, the two women working in the store were very nice and helpful; I'd recommend you visit Hilltop East!

After that, as I was going back towards I-90, I stopped at the Whole Foods in Bellevue. I picked up a few things for my kitchen. ;) A girl does have her favorite foods, you know.

Then I got on I-90 and headed west. This shot was coming off of Mercer Island (Christine, correct me if I'm wrong!) heading across Lake Washington. Seattle is just over the hilltop, ahead of me.



2) My first destination in Seattle was the Klondike National Historic Park museum. I don't quite have gold fever, but I caught the history bug for the Yukon and Alaska gold rush era when I was up in Alaska a couple of years ago. I thought the displays were interesting. I don't know if I could have handled the 1500 steps of the Golden Staircase on the Chilkoot Trail, but reading about it was fun. Another stamp for my NPS passport. Some day, I'll get up to Skagway and see the other half of this museum. ;)


Heck, I'd take my weight in gold, even at the 1897 value!



This area is directly north of Qwest and Safeco Fields (but who cares about football or the American League?! Go CARDS!!!!!). I walked around the old downtown area, window shopping the art galleries and boutiques that I couldn't even afford to enter. *laughs* I really like the architecture of old buildings. I should go back and take more pictures of the buildings. At this point in the day, the winds were really strong and the temperature was dropping. So I headed in doors.


You could tell that it was the off-season. Many of the booths were filled with crafters and local artisans. I also got there late; around 4:15. Most of the booths closed at 5 p.m. A few flying apples soared over my head. Fish were not flying today, although the guys in one of the booths selling fish looked like they were having a bit too much fun. ;) I looked around, got some sushi to snack on and walked out to the back of the building. I took this picture, looking out over Puget Sound:


When driving home, I stopped for groceries in Puyallup. Then, between Eatonville and Elbe, the snow was coming down pretty hard. The road is a country road and is not lit. I was thinking I would be spending the night in my truck on the side of the road somewhere. But finally, our Park HQ sign came into view and I breathed a sigh of relief. My little truck and its four-wheel-drive do just fine on ice and snow! Back to the mountain!