Pike Place Market

I'm sure you are all anxiously waiting to find out if we survived our night in the "haunted" hotel...yup...still here!
The ghost detector device showed my room free and clear. Whew...I needed a good nights sleep! Seems the only supernatural activity was located in a corner of my daughters room. Bummer for them. Oh...I guess the ghosts were most interested in her family anyway,  as it seems they were slinking around the halls behind them as well ;)

Hmmm...this picture is a bit dark. But...in the bottom left corner you can see a large light shadow following them to their room :) No worries...they made it out okay as well.

This was the scariest part of the hotel for me...every time I walked out the door of my room I ran into this lady! I seriously jumped every time I saw her getting wedged into the elevator door! Poor thing...

When I got out of bed I decided to make a coffee run to the lovely teeny little coffee bar just off the hotel lobby. I took a quick coffee wish list from my travel companions and actually headed down in my pj's. No biggy...it's Seattle people! You should have seen some of the outfits wandering around that town! It was cooler and foggy and damp and there was a cute "fake" fire burning in the little "fake" fireplace. The coffee smell was warm and comfy and inviting. The barista impressed me with her pouring skills and made beautiful leaf art on top of our drinks. Welcome to Seattle!

We met up a few hours later with our Washington cuzzies, wandering beautiful sunny Seattle in Pike Place Market. Little foodie cuzzie knew of all the hot spots and places to visit. We planned to pick up a few fresh food items for our trip to the San Juan Islands...

First stop...Le Panier French Bakery. Oh my...we indulged in an assortment of fresh baked croissants and pastries. I don't see many petite little French macaroons in my hometown. I picked up a box of assorted flavors. They didn't disappoint. They were melt in your mouth amazing. (Um...just as I was about to indulge in the chocolate one, the Sprout wrestled it from my hand and helped herself!) Gotta love that kid!

Then we headed to Beechers Cheese. Wow! Delish. All kinds of fabulous cheese and crackers. We ended up getting a sampler pack and some cheese curds for the Sprout. The "No Woman" cheese was especially nice.

On to the Mexican Grocery... Homemade salsa and all shapes and sizes of tortillas. A case filled with tamales and burritos and enchiladas. We decided on chicken tamales, cheese tamales, fresh red salsa and an assortment of tortillas. Perfect for a quick and tasty meal on the island...

Next...Uli's Famous Sausage where we picked up a few links of handmade authentic sausage. The Cajun Andouille was my favorite and was pretty hot and spicy!

Inside the produce market we bought a pound of fresh, wild picked Chantrelle mushrooms. Wow...people that live in Seattle are lucky! We bought some large succulent red and green grapes as well.

And, finally...

Our very own fresh, local Coho Silver Salmon...in season! Woot Woot. Sorry, the guy "threw" our fish after this but I didn't catch a picture :(  The fish was about 6 pounds and fed us nicely for 2 nights. Oh...it was amazing...

Fish guy was more than happy to lop off the head, fillet this guy and put him on ice.

I think we all felt pretty good about our haul of goods. Island cooking...here we come!

We headed back to the hotel to get our assortment of luggage and pack up the cars! I couldn't resist one more beverage from the amazing little coffee bar attached to the hotel.

Seriously? An iced "orange" mocha??? You have NO idea how tasty this was. Again...I'm kinda craving one right now...good luck, right?

Dear Seattle: Thanks for the memories. You're a pretty happening place! Hope to see you again soon!