Seattle, Washington

Trip with my New Android phone
time going to Seattle
trip west of Montana
water that is close to the Pacific Ocean
Safeco
Married vacation other than honeymoon
Blogged trip on Everlater (kinda)
losing a camera on vacation
vacation with Amy and my mom
3 day vacation
trip with no car

We had big plans for the trip, but really no idea what we wanted to do when, so the first day we just winged it and tried to do everything. We started out by checking out the Pike Place Market. Though we heard a few things in Seattle were neat from different people, everyone mentioned the Pike Place Market and one person said the earlier the better.

I think we went a little too early. Things were just starting to open up around 8. It was nice that there were less people in the way of our pictures, but there was also less activity. We didn't see any fish throwing, but did taste test some fresh peaches, that were delicious. Amy took a while to be brave enough to ask, but eventually she did, after someone else actually bought the peaches.

We decided to check out the aquarium on the water front of the Puget Sound. It was a nice aquarium and very kid friendly, but not near the quality of Chicago's. Chicago's is still my favorite. I would say it's pretty similar to the aquarium at the Omaha Zoo, but still it was fun. I got to test out the underwater capabilities of my new Kodak PlaySport video camera. They were nothing too fantastic, but still kinda fun. The sea lions were also fun, they were actually wrestling in the water while we were there. The octopus was also pretty cool. I wish they had Dolphins or more sharks, but maybe they're not really native to that area. The salmon area and other native fish were pretty cool though.

We then walked a little further South down the water front area and picked up a couple souvenirs. After that we headed back to the Pike Place Market for lunch. I had a Seafood Bisque from Pike Place Chowder that was amazing. I don't eat much chowder, but it was really good. I'm not sure I'll be able to eat chowder again now since it probably won't compare to theirs. Amy had pizza again, it wasn't too bad.

We also did a quick loop of the shopping by Westlake Center. Amy bought some jewelry and I grabbed a t-shirt and tickets for the Mariners game on Friday. Then we grabbed a quick drink at Fox Sports Bar & Grill before heading back to the hotel to meet my mom.

My mom's conference had a dinner and visit to the Experience Music Project owned by Paul Allen, so Amy and I snook into that. We rode the shuttle over and then just walked in to the dinner, turns out my mom had us sitting with the people sponsoring the event. That was a little awkward, but worked out fine, they were glad to have us. We had a lot of fun playing the instruments upstairs and I enjoyed seeing the memorabilia from the Grunge era of Seattle Music. The Jimi Hendrix stuff was cool, too, but I wasn't alive for that.

After a pretty busy day we caught the shuttle back and got some rest. It was an action packed day and we were glad we got so much in. I almost forgot to mention we met Brenda, a co-worker of my moms that joined her for the conference. She was very nice and did a great job of putting up with my mom, again, no offense mom.

We decided to dedicate day 2 to the nature part of Seattle and wanted to do a little hiking. We originally thought we'd catch a ferry over to Bainbridge Island or Bremerton, but couldn't find much for activities to do once we got there. So we decided to go to Washington Park instead. It is a natural park maintained by the University of Washington and it's kinda in the middle of the city. The pictures we saw online were very pretty and since it was close to Lake Washington and Madison Park we decided we could make a day out of it.

The only problem was it was going to be quite a hike to get their for our hike since we didn't have a car. We started walking down Madison Avenue on what we thought was about a 3 mile walk. Sounds easy a 5K right, not so easy, we didn't figure in the hills. It was almost like we climbed a mountain halfway there, then went down the mountain the rest of the way. Walking through Seattle University was nice. The whole city has a scenic view of nature. The city has that same vibe, with mountains and water almost always in sight. We stopped for some local cookin' for breakfast and had some Starbucks. Amy's decision to get iced coffee wasn't the best idea, she ended up drinking more of my hot Caramel Macchiato. We finally had walked about 3 miles and made it to Washington Park.

Not knowing anything about the park, we planned on doing the full loop, but once you start walking the paths go in and out and all over the area and you start to lose track of where you are exactly. The GPS on my phone helped a lot, but we decied we kinda saw the whole park by walking down the middle. We walked all the way to the North end before we got a little lost and decided to just turn around and head back the way we came. So we didn't exactly do the loop, but saw enough. Only part I wish we had seen was the Japanese Garden, but we had walked enough we were pretty happy with what we had seen.

I took a ton of pictures and then we took some really fun ones where we would put the camera on a rock and run in front for pictures together. Sadly I never downloaded them before I lost my camera, but I guess the memory's are still there. There were some really good ones too. It's too bad since Amy and I don't get in the mood to just take fun pictures like that together very often, but oh well I guess.

The walking and the rain really wore us out this day, but we were determined to trudge on to Madison Park Beach. Of course we were the only people on the beach in the 55 degree weather and rain all day, but it was neat to just sit there and take it all in. There were some gooselings out that were cute, but that's about it. The beach isn't your typical beach, it is basically grass all the way to the edge of the water and then there are a couple cement steps before the rocky beach, which the tide was up to the top of the stairs. There were some benches and a couple docks, but we didnt' make it out on them.

We had our lunch at Cactus, a Mexican restaurant in Madison Park. It was a little expensive for our taste, but I guess we did get drinks and the full meal (minus chips, 'cause they weren't free.) Then the manager came over and he said since he had heard it was our first time there, he gave us free flan for dessert. That was very nice of him, I figured it was because I had Yelp up on my phone trying to decide what to order, but either way it was very nice. He gave us this little speech about how we could've chosen anywhere, but it made his heart warm we chose his place. So we left with smiles to compliment our empty pockets. (By the way, he did get a good review from me on Yelp.)

After all that walking, which was probably close to 5 or 6 miles by now, we decided to catch some public transportation on the way back. We still had some walking to do with my mom later. My new Android phone was awesome for giving us directions on which bus to catch, how much it cost and when it came by our stop. We were amazed. We had just missed 1 bus, so we had to wait a little longer than we had hoped, but it wasn't too bad.

After we made it back to the hotel, we decided to head back out shopping a little in the Westlake Center area and planned on going to the Grand Opening Party for the Seattle Hard Rock Cafe. It turns out it was a private party, but the setup was pretty neat. They had a red carpet out and the sidewalk all closed off. I didn't see any stars, but I heard that a couple bands played and there were a couple local celebs there.

We decided to eat at the Fox Sports Bar & Grill this time with everyone and our food was really good. My mom ended up going all out on her meals since they were paid for, so we tried some of her salmon. I had a BBQ pork sandwich that was pretty good. I guess you can't find pork as good as the midwest. Amy decided against Pizza this time, and liked her food as well, even though I can't remember what she had, I think it was a club sandwich or a burger.

We headed back shortly after that to try and catch some of the season finale's, but didn't get to see all of Grey's Anatomy, so we didn't watch any of it. (We had it on DVR at home, so we weren't too worried.) Although, one of my friends texted me to ask me to head over to Seattle Grace Hospital to help out. We weren't sure where the hospital was if it existed, but I was willing to help out if only I knew. We ended up checking out the pool and hot tub and called it a night. There happened to be some softball players from North Dakota State in the pool and we didn't realize it but they were in town to play Nebraska in Softball at the University of Washington for the softball playoffs. (Nebraska ended up losing to North Carolina, beating NDSU and then losing to UNC again.)

We knew my mom had a half day of meetings, we had lunch reservations in the Space Needle and tickets for the baseball game that night, so it was a pretty lazy morning. We slept in a little and headed to exchange a gift we had gotten for my sister, then caught the Monorail to the Seattle Center to check things out around the Space Needle, before my mom showed up for lunch. Again Amy and I took some spontaneous pictures touching the top of the Space Needle and spinning it on our fingers and other fun stuff. Amy tried to push it over, then tried to take about 30 pictures of me poking my finger on it. She struggled a little with the concept, she was trying to get them to move the Space Needle for the pictures to come out instead of just moving the camera a little. (Once again, I lost the camera, so I don't have these pictures.) Then my mom showed up and we checked things out again, before heading up to lunch. The lunch was pretty good, and the dinner area actually spins during your meal so you get to see a full view of Seattle every 40 minutes (or 50, i forget). The food was really good, and wasn't priced too bad considering we got a free trip to the top of the Needle included. So we went to the outside area and took some more pictures. Even being a little scared of heights it wasn't too bad. The free telescopes were cool, I wish I had a camera that good to take those zoomed in pictures from there.

Our next stop was to catch the Duck boat tours. These are the tour "buses" that drive you around town telling you about the city and it's history, then it actually drives into the lake and shows you the view from the water. This was very informational. The show they put on was a little much, but I could see where it would be fun for kids. I actually did enjoy it more than I thought I would. Amy said I wasn't enjoying it enough, but it turned out she was the party-pooper. We found out about all the history of music from the area and where it was recorded, to where movies like Sleepless in Seattle were shot, and many other recognizable features of the city. I wish we had done the tour a little earlier so that I could have looked into some of the things a little more, but it was our last day so we didn't have much extra time. The tour brought us back to the area by the Seattle Center so we could catch the monorail.

This is my least favorite part of the trip as best as I can remember it. I got a call from my dad as we were getting our tickets and getting ready to board. I had just taken group pictures after the Duck Boat tours and I assume I put my camera in my back pocket. My front pockets were full with my video camera and my phone. I had put it in my coat pockets at times, but always zipped my pockets when I did that. So back to the phone call, my dad had called while we were getting our tickets. We had to wait for my mom because she couldn't find her round trip ticket. Then we boarded the monorail, I'm assuming as I set down on my camera, still on the phone, that I either laid it on my lap or down on the bench. I'm really not sure what I did with it. I finished the call, then as we exited the monorail, my mom went a different direction then we did (I'm not sure why) and I never double checked myself to make sure i didn't leave it. I hate losing stuff, because I take all the blame and think that I should never lose things, especially my nice technology gadgets. I was off the phone at the time and was kinda in a hurry to get to Hard Rock Cafe to look for a gift for Amy's family and hurry to the game. By the time we got to Hard Rock, I went to take a picture and realized what I did. As you can tell I was so devastated, I had lost our nice Sony Cyber-Shot camera and all the pictures saved to it. Luckily it was only the 2nd and 3rd day pictures, but still the most fun ones from the trip. I tried going back to look and ask around, even posted to Craigslist and about 5 or 6 forums, but haven't heard anything yet. I guess it could've been worse, it could've been a nice Digital SLR camera or had pictures of babies or our wedding or something. (I have to tell myself that to make me feel better about it.)

We left the hotel to catch a bus to the game. After walking about halfway in the coldest rain so far, we decided it would be easier to just walk the rest of the way to the game. It was chilly, but atleast they had the cover on so we didn't get rained on during the game. Safeco has a removable cover that moves to covers the whole stadium in about 10 minutes. The stadium isn't enclosed from the cold air, just covered. So it was still under 50 and we were wet most of the game, but still a fun game. The San Diego Padres started out with the lead, but the Mariners had a great game offensively and scored a lot of runs. We got some garlic fries with our chicken strips and had another "cup of joe" to keep us warm. There was definately a lot of garlic on the fries. I smelled them earlier from the people rows behind us and thought it was shrimp scampi or something, but then we got them, I was like "want some fries with your garlic". They were pretty tasty though. We just had to brush our teeth pretty well to take care of the smell later. The mints weren't quite good enough.

We left a little early from the game and walked back the long way, still looking for some underground train that would supposedly take us back to the hotel. The steep hills and angled streets made the walks seem a lot longer than they really were. We packed up that night and got ready to fly out in the morning

This was my first trip with my new Android phone the HTC Incredible from Verizon. I was so glad I had it. We used the Google Maps Navigation a ton for walking directions and public transportation directions. It was very helpful. Google Maps on Android also remembers your recent searches, so the stuff I looked up on the computer before our trip was in the history when I was looking for it in Seattle. This was very nice to save typing on the keyboard.

I used TripIt for all of our travel arrangements and any reservations we had. You just email your confirmations to it's email address and they organize the information. It was nice to lookup our flight confirmation numbers in there without having to get out all the paper work and sort through it when we needed stuff.

I tracked our location with Google Latitude for the whole trip, I haven't mapped it yet, but I'm looking forward to that. I would be interested to see how much we walked everyday. If only I could figure out how to have it consider the elevation too.

I used PDANet every night to get my computer online through my Verizon connection. You just have to use a USB cable to connect your phone to the computer and with a little software it's pretty easy. I was surprised how fast it was. I was still in the 30 day trial, so I wasn't limited, but this might be well worth rooting for to use it as a wifi hotspot if I traveled more.

I used GMail on my phone to update my Posterous Blog, which also updates my real blog and all my other blogs. I also used GMail to send pictures to TwitPic.

Then of course I used Seesmic to update my twitter account. It was nice to be able to search the area to see what was going on around me too.

Speaking of which I used Foursquare a ton. I was surprised how much more helpful it was in a big city. Every night it told me where the most people were checking in at. I "earned" the overshare badge by checking in over 10 times (I think) 1 day and then the Swarm badge by checking in with over 50 people at the baseball game. I can't wait for it to catch on around Omaha and have people realize how helpful it can be.

Yelp was nice for reviews on what to order at places and where to go.

I also used email to check my work account to see what I was missing.

I really wish there was an everlater app for android. I had my iPod Touch with me, but it doesn't have a camera, so I couldn't really use it mobile like I wish I could.

Speaking of the camera, it is amazing on the Incredible. I lost my point and shoot on the trip, so the pictures from the 8 Megapixel camera on the Incredible are about all I have from the trip. Most of them, you can't even tell are from a phone.

Again speaking of losing my camera, I figured out how the Craigslist app works for seeing if anyone was selling my camera. I wish it had better integration with the lost & found section, but it was good enough. The web browser made up for it.

My battery wasn't quite good enough, but we went back to the hotel every afternoon, so that made me able to make it through. I couldn't do much more than the necessities without the battery dieing so I had to be careful.

I wish I had more battery so I could've used Layar, Wikitude, Qik/UStream, Evernote, and My Tracks.

I used my iPod Touch for entertainment on the plane with the music, audio books, podcasts and games, this helped save some battery on my phone, but it would be nice if my phone would do all that and didn't need charged more than once a day.

I wish I had played with HTC's Footprints more, but didn't feel like spending the time to figure it out. Any other mobile apps I should include in my travels?

-tour Qwest Field and Safeco Field
-large bread bowl of Seafood Bisque at Pike Place Chowder
-more time at Pike Place Market to see fish throwing
-dress warmer for cool rainy weather
-not lost my camera. I should've had someone else carry 1 camera, or combined the video camera and point and shoot or something. it would've also helped if i had downloaded my pictures after the 2nd day.
-visit Underground Tour to see old underground walkways of Seattle
-take the duck boat tour earlier in the trip
-take a ferry over to Bainbridge Island or Bremerton
-visit the Microsoft Campus
-visit during the summer

The flights went really well. We flew Southwest, so our bags flew free, as they say "It's on!". We didn't have any delays, or see any celebrities. Even though I tweeted that we saw LeBron in Chicago (free-agent this year) and got 1 of my Chicago friends excited. I had to tell him I was just kidding, even though I said that in the original tweet. On the way there, we had a short layover in Las Vegas. I really wish I could've spent a night there, but I'll do that later sometime. Then on the way back we had a little longer lay over in Chicago Midway. It seems a little longer when you're coming back from a vacation anyways, but the 2 hour time change and longer layover made it extra long. Although it didn't seem quite as bad as it was. Atleast not until it took 4 days to get used to being back in the central time zone. I was tired for days.

We decided not to rent a car and were glad we didn't. Everything is really close and the walking wasn't too bad. Yes it was hilly and rainy, but we managed. A lot of the stores had awnings to keep us dry. An umbrella wasn't really necessary, but might be if I lived there.

My phone was amazingly helpful. We used the walking directions from Google Maps about everywhere we went and never really had a problem. We kinda did with Public Transportation directions, but I'll get to that later. It might have been nice if it told me the ways with the least hills, but I didn't look to hard either. I also had Google Latitude track my GPS locations the whole time, so I'm hoping to put that together and see our path.

As far as public transportation, it was pretty good. The airporter shuttle had stopped running by the time we got in late Tuesday, so we took a taxi. The driver was nice and took us directly to the hotel. It was almost $40, but was our only option that night. We took the bus back one day and it only cost a couple bucks. We got off a little early since the bus routes weren't marked well enough and my phone didn't help much there. And the price was wrong on my phone, but the times were within a minutes using Google Maps for Public Transportation directions. We used the monorail, which again I dislike now, since I lost my phone and no one turned it in and we actually rode the airporter back to the airport for our flight leaving town. The driver was again very nice and it was early on a Saturday, so there weren't many people at the pickups, making it go a little smoother.

The hotel was really nice. It was the Seattle Renaissance, which Amy and I wouldn't have been able to afford if it was just us, but was really nice since my mom's work was paying for it. Everything about the hotel was in good shape. The pool and workout room were on the 28th floor and were in good shape. There were a few restaurant/bar/lounges, but we didn't make it to any of them. Room service came in a little early one day, but did a good job. The best part was how close the hotel was to everything in the city. That part was awesome, we were able to walk everywhere. I might actually consider paying more for hotels in the future, just for this reason.

-Always take a picture of your name, address, phone number and/or email address to get your camera/pictures returned if you lose it.
-Save pictures off of camera everyday in case you lose it.
-A car isn't required if you stay in central Seattle. Walking was kinda fun.
-It does rain as much as you think, or atleast as much as I thought while we were there.
-more time would've been nice, but 3 days was enough.
-my mom is more high maintenance then my wife to travel with, no offense mom.
-The space needle is an absolute must when visiting Seattle.
-I actually learned the most about Seattle from the Duck boat tour, I wish I had done it earlier.
-The baseball game was worth it, no matter the score or weather.
-You must, must, must get coffee atleast once a day. Stop at Starbucks, but you also have to try Seattle's Best and the other local options.
-Pike Place Market was very cool, I wish we had spent more time there.