Thursday, July 25, 2013

Woodinville Wine Country Tour


While there are over 600 wineries in Washington, they are located in Eastern Washington...about 3 hours from Seattle.  The tour of Woodinville was very different from a tour of Napa or Sonoma.  When touring Woodinville, you actually tour the tasting rooms of the different wineries. 
 
The only vineyard we saw was at Chateau Ste. Michelle but it was really just a show vineyard.  We did get a good overview of the Washington wine making program and did get see the bottling process at Chateau Ste. Michelle.
 
Now don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the tastings at all 4 tasting rooms (tasted 22 different wines)!  Just wanted to pass on what to expect when touring Woodinville Wine Country to everyone.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

We Found Nemo at the Seattle Aquarium!

After the very active day yesterday, we decided to take it a little slower today and just visited the Seattle Aquarium.  We took the Light Rail in from our hotel and hopped on the Emerald City Trolley at Westlake and headed to the waterfront.
 
Seattle is a city with public art all over the city.  Here are a few of the pieces we passed on our way to the waterfront.
 


 
 
 
 
 
After lunch at the Crab Pot on the waterfront, we headed to the Seattle Aquarium. This is a great aquarium with lots of interactive stations...I touched a starfish and a couple sea anemones.  Not being too fond of weird textures, it was definitely an experience for me!
 
 
 
 
In their Life of a Drifter exhibit, jelly fish float in a circle as you walk through a giant loop.  Funny how something that looks so touchable can hurt so much.
 
The aquarium has a Giant Pacific Octopus and its one of the
top exhibits so getting up close and personal was a little challenging.
 
A face only a mother could love
When my favorite 2 1/2 year old comes to my house, we watch "Finding Nemo" so of course we had to head to the Pacific Coral Reef exhibit.  After going all through the exhibit and looking all over the reef for the little clown fish, we finally found him.  But first, here's some of the others we saw.
 







Dori...we're getting closer!
 
Finally found the little guy..Nemo!
Outside we found the Harbor Seals lounging in the sun.  We must have sat there for 30 minutes watching them.  They were probably thinking..."are you crazy humans going to sit there all day watch us do nothing?"




 
 

 

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Seattle: Above the City, Cool Glass and a Little Rock n' Roll

After disembarking and hopping in the car service, we were headed to our hotel at the airport for Daddy's USMC Vietnam Reunion.  We dropped our luggage and then hopped on the Light Rail (great deal...$5.50 for me for an all day pass and $1.50 for the 'rents...age has it's advantage) so we could go explore Seattle.

First stop was the Chihuly Garden and Glass...I did a quick walk-thru in February when I was on a site visit so it was nice to have the time to really look at his artwork. 


 

 

 
 





They have a great cafĂ© at Chihuly so we stopped for lunch before heading over to the Space Needle to get our timed ticket for later in the day.  Today was a little working vacation day as I had a meeting at Experience Music Project so after getting our Space Needle ticket, we headed to the EMP for my meeting.
 
Experience Music Project is the creation of Paul Allen...a big Jimi Hendrix fan.  Upon entering the museum, you find yourself in the Sky Church with a jumbo screen playing videos of Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, No Doubt, Sheryl Crow, The Who and a bunch of other very high energy groups.  The first exhibit is of course dedicated to Jimi Hendrix and then if you head upstairs, you find the Women Who Rock exhibit which is pretty cool.


View of EMP from the Space Needle


 
 
 
 
Madonna
A Lady Gaga tame outfit
Cindi Lauper's Shoes
Van Gogh's Starry Night
Can't have a Women Who Rock without a little
Tina Turner!
The EMP has a fabulous interactive Sound Lab...everything from keyboards to drums to guitars to scratching turntables to remixing and much more.  We went in one of the sound proof (and it's a good thing it was sound proof!) studios to test out our musical talents.

















 
The next American Idols


Final stop of the day, the Space Needle.  It's just a short 30 second elevator ride to the top of the Needle (604 feet).  Along the way,  you see Puget Sound, Mount Rainier and skyscrapers all around...definitely not an elevator ride for the faint of heart.


Just 7 days ago, we were on this exact ship
 heading up to the Final Frontier




Love the digital photos from the Needle and Chihuly