Seattle Archives - Cammo Style Love

Visit Seattle Pt 2 – Ride The Ducks and Buy Used Books

Ride the Ducks Seattle is a must-see while visiting! You get to see so much of the city, from land and water, that would be hard to recreate on food or car! If you want to see the “Sleepless in Seattle” House this is the only way to do it. The house is in a secure gated community and can really only be seen from the water. So we knew that taking a water tour was high on the list. Good news for all my military readers, they offer a great military discount. The tour is pricey, but getting to Seattle and parking (as I mentioned in my last post) is ridiculously easy and inexpensive. Plus you get to see some beautiful sights and learn a ton about the city. I think it would be hard to see and learn all you do on this tour in any other way. Also, if you scroll down you can see the best tour guides ever!!!

I learned more than I ever wanted to know about houseboats and people who live on their boats and the difference between them. There are true houseboats and you’re paying for the area space of the water (into the millions), but the rule is that they have to untether themselves and “go out to sea” once a year. It’s some crazy stuff. But how cool would it be to live on the water?!

This is gasworks park where everyone comes out on the one sunny day of the year to get their tan on! Apparently, we brought the good weather with us. And here we were hoping to experience real Seattle weather, but that was a big fat nope!! Gasworks park is on my bucket list! If you watched “Ten Things I Hate About You,” this is where they filmed the paintball scene.

See that brown house in the middle, barely recognizable? Yeah, that’s the sleepless house. We were giddy!! Don’t judge!

Just a little taste of some of Seattle’s crazy and cool public art! It’s so crazy how much there actually is.

Best tour guide and driver ever!! We were blinded by the ridiculous not Seattle sun, so I had no idea what this picture would look like…and I totally cut off my mama!! Sorry mom, love you!

Add this place to must see used book stores. The lady in this place was amazing and they had everything!!! They even had some really awesome first editions and hard to find books. Also, they have the coolest cats that hang out there.

Did you know Seattle is the birthplace of Nordstrom’s Department Store? Well, I had to take in some of the more historical sights and view the First Nordstrom’s location (shown above). The bottom portion has been completely redone but the part of the building on the second floor and up is original architecture.

They then moved to the location below (which is now under revitalization) and have been there ever since. The Flagship Nordstroms is beautiful!

See What Other Must-See Things You Need to Add to your list in Seattle here

Visiting Seattle – Day 1 – Pikes Place and Coffee, Coffee, Coffee!

Last month I had the amazing opportunity to take a little trip with my mom to Seattle, Washington. Its kind of always been a bucket list item of mine and so for my thirty-fifth birthday I went. It was such a crazy time in my schedule that I barely had any time to really prepare or pack so we were kind of flying by the seat of our pants. But we were ready for the adventure. In my next couple of posts I’ll be sharing all about my trip, sharing with you the places we went and what YOU shouldn’t miss if you make a trip there. An important thing that I noticed, for all my military readers, was how many places offered a military discount! It was pretty cool! All the attractions we visited offered it. Public parking was also a dream there. I used my parking panda app and was good to go. UBer and Lyft are popular and easily accessible, and drivers are some of the nicest I have ever seen! I don’t think I heard a horn once, even while driving in the city.

First stop was Pike’s Place and to eat at the Althenian Seafood Bar and Grill (of Sleepless in the Seattle fame). This is the restaurant that Tom Hanks and Rob Reiner eat at when he asks him how his butt is. LOL! The Pike’s Place Market itself is a really cool place to go. Flower vendors as far as the eye can see. The flower were absolutely gorgeous and I was so sad that we were not staying in town long enough to have them.

The view was amazing and the food was stellar! Best clam chowder I’ve had outside of Monterey. Plus being here with my mommy, who I used to watch Sleepless with over and over with, was icing on the cake.

We of course visited the first Starbucks! While not in its original location (only a few doors down), its a tiny little shop that runs like a well oiled machine. The line moved really quickly and they have it well organized. All the cups and items to purchase are behind the counter. You point to the cup you want on a laminated sheet and they give it to you all boxed up. The greeter was so sweet and adorable..plus he had a British accent, so that’s fun. If you are able to go during the week, I would suggest it, weekend lines can be crazy. But for coffee cup collectors like myself its a must see site! This location is also the only one with the naked sea witch/mermaid!

We hit up several Starbucks locations in Seattle. In the city there is a crazy amount of them, like over 200 just in the city part of Seattle. I had a whole list of Starbucks I wanted to try to see, and while we only made it to two of the ones on my list I was going to make sure we checked out the Starbucks Reserve Roastery. This place is crazy!

This is just a portion of the 15,000 sq feet of coffee heaven. Its incredible and takes up a whole city block. But don’t think you’re going there to order your non-fat, vanilla latte with extra foam. You can sample specialty brewed coffee that you can only purchase at that location. They have a special dark hot chocolate too, and i’m kicking myself from getting so full I couldn’t taste it. The food here is amazing, cooked in these really neat little ovens. You can also get alcohol here. It was a really neat experience you can only have in Seattle.

If you want to see the list of must-see Starbucks locations (including all the ones I couldn’t get to) visit the Starbucks Melody blog.

My favorite Starbucks, and the best we had on our trip, was at the Seattle Armory which is located in the Seattle Center near the MoPOP museum. It is on the grounds of this amazing collection of art sculptures, playgrounds, and art exhibits. Its a really incredible venue and we wish that we had had more time to experience.