Seattle - Day 4

Monday – January 22, 2007
It’s the last day of fun before the business part of this trip begins for me. Kay leaves for Minneapolis on Tuesday afternoon and back to her routine. We took the bus to Capital Hill and checked out the Broadway shopping area, which was less than I expected. We headed down to the Pike Street Market, which is OK but touristy (not how we roll). Checked out the North Face store and found nothing there that we couldn’t live without. We probably walked 3 or miles today, which is a good thing.

Monday evening we went to The Fun House, a punk rock club, for the Monday Night Gold Sprints, a bicycle race on trainers. It was an indoor alley cat race, more or less. The organizers had two roller-trainers hooked up to a computer and an LCD screen. Participants raced against each other in a 500M sprint, with progress for each bike tracked on the computer and LCD display. It was pretty cool, and they were going to a different bar each Monday night.

Photos for the long weekend are on my Phredly flicker site. (See the links to the right).

Seattle - Day 3

Sunday – January 21, 2007
The weather looked good again, though more cloudy and a little colder, so we returned to Montlake to rent the bikes again. Ben and the guys took real good care of us, it’s a great shop. We decided to head west on the Burke-Gilman Trail, south along the streets that parallel Puget Sound and over to West Seattle. Our return trip took us through China Town on Jackson Street, then north on 12th Avenue before rockin’ on the residential streets of Capital Hill and finally turning in the bikes for good. The lads at Montlake Bike shop recommended the nearby Montlake Alehouse, which had good beer and good pub grub. After a stop at Mr. Johnson’s Antiques, we headed back on the 43 Bus.

Seattle - Day 2

Saturday – January 20, 2007

Took the 43 Bus to the Montlake Bicycle Shop, where we rented bikes. Kay rented a sweet Cannondale CAD5 bike with Shimano 105 components. It was red and the shop had just built it up. I rented a Klein that was equipped with Shimano Ultegra, also a very nice rental. The weather was wonderful, with mostly sunny skies and high temps of about 45 degrees.

We met up with a Cascade Cycling Club ride that was led by a woman named Allyson. It was a 25 mile casual paced ride. We started at Gasworks park and went along Lake Washington to Seward Park. Seattle has had some terrible weather lately, and the nice day attracted a lot of riders. We saw well over 100 cyclists, including the UW team. We went along Made the acquaintance of John and Dick on the ride, who were kind enough to ride us out to The Chittenden Locks after the group ride. After bidding farewell and thanks to John and Dick, Kay and I headed up Seaview Avenue NW (goes along Puget Sound) and then climbed up to NW 80^th Street. We took NW 80^th Street (which got a little busy), then NE Ravenna (which had a wide bike lane on the left side of the road that is shared with left-turning autos) to the Burke-Gilman Trail, passed “U-Dub” and back to Montlake where we returned the bike. I am guessing we rode 45 miles, lot of fun.

We had a great dinner at Chez Gaudy at 1802 Belleview in the Capital Hill neighborhood. It was the best meal of the week. Cool restaurant decor, vegetarian friendly, good food.

Seattle - Day 1

Friday – January 19, 2007
We flew to Seattle and checked in to the Grand Hyatt, the view from our room is pictured. It’s a nice place with a great view in downtown that leans toward Capital Hill. Headed straight down toward the Pike Street Market and had lunch at 94 Stewart. Kay had a fish (salmon) and chips lunch and I had a Fried Avocado dish with crab, tomatoes and capers. It was recommended by Seattle Weekly, and it was good.



We took the 26 Bus to Gregg’s Bike Shop, the Greenlake location. Kay was sweet on checking out a pair of Harlot Scarlet knickers, which Gregg’s had in stock. She tried them on, and another pair from Sheila Moon. She opted for the Sheila Moon knickers, which were more to her liking. The Sheila Moon knickers are a nice piece.

Little Bob on a cold day

Here is little Bob, our 13 year old Dachshund huddled up against a heat vent on a cold day. Poor little guy is always cold, no matter what.