From sea to shining Seattle - Day 2 & 3

My 2nd full day in Seattle was the 4th of July. We started it out right with a free pancake breakfast at Jon's stake center, complete with flag raising ceremony. From there, we headed home to hang out for a bit, and then set out in search of a burger joint we'd seen the night before on the Travel Channel. Sadly, it was closed for the holiday, so we settled for cheap Drive-in burgers from a place called Dick's.

From there we made our way to Bothell to catch the end of a revolutionary war reenactment and meet up with a couple of Jon's friends.


About all we saw of the reenactment.

From there, it was over to Green Lake where some people were hanging out and swimming at a nice public "beach". (Is it a beach if there are concrete steps going down into the water?)


Green Lake

After relaxing by the lake for a while, we hit up the Safeway for some BBQ supplies (a couple of giant kabobs) and headed to a BBQ. While waiting for the food to cook, I managed to defeat the first 3 circuits of Mike Tyson's Punch-out on old school NES. I was pleased to still be able to beat Bald Bull. Got defeated by the 2nd appearance of Piston Honda. :( Anyway, at least the food was delicious.

Following the BBQ, we decided to brave the only major fireworks show in town (tough economic times are affecting everything it seems) at Gasworks Park. We were worried it might end up being way too crowded, but we managed to cram our way onto a fairly steep hillside next to some other Seattle YSAs and in the end I didn't feel like it was any more crowded than going to Sugarhouse here in Utah.


Gasworks Park


The fireworks were shot off from the barge in this photo, out in Lake Union.


Waiting for the show to start, looking across at downtown.

And I have to be honest, the show was pretty spectacular. Not just in terms of creative displays, but also just the sheer size of it all. I don't know if we were sitting closer than I'm used to, but the fireworks definitely seemed grander in scale that what I'm accustomed to. Well done, Seattle.











After the fireworks we made our way back to a friend of Jon's where we'd parked the car, and then waited probably another hour or so for traffic to clear out a bit. At that point we were pretty wiped out, so we called it a night.

Sunday was pretty laidback. We didn't leave the house until it was time for Jon's ward at 1. After what felt like a fairly typical Sunday meeting block, we walked over to UW campus for a brief stroll around the parts that Jon frequents.

From there it was off to another BBQ, this time at the home of a mission friend of mine who was gracious enough to invite us over for grilled salmon. Those of you who know my eating habits will know that I'm not a big fan of anything that swims, but this was actually pretty tasty.

After the BBQ, we went back to Jon's for more relaxing after a long weekend of seeing all that Seattle has to offer. I think Jon put a hundred miles of city driving on his car on the 4th alone, not to mention all the driving we did on Friday.

Monday morning we got up and Jon dropped me off at the airport as the only drops of Seattle rain I saw all weekend were drizzling in. All in all, a pretty great trip.



Flickr photo set.