Seattle, Washington
With the cruise ship back to the dock for good (at least for our cruise), we were faced with an exit around 8:30 AM. Bags in hand we left the Celebrity Solstice for the last time but had a whole day to kill, as our flight home wasn't until after 11 PM that night. Prior to the cruise, we had spent our time in the Seattle-area at Pike Place Market and out to Mount Rainier, this time we were going to stay and do some of the touristy stuff we missed.
The first stop was (of course) the iconic Space Needle!
The observation level was recently refurbished and now had a floor to ceiling glass that allowed for undisturbed views all around. I honestly think it freaked Lilly out a little bit, as she was keeping more than a fair distance from the "edge," even though the glass wasn't letting you go anywhere.
While the Space Needle was pretty cool, it didn't kill a lot of time, so our next stop was the Chihuly Garden & Glass, an exhibit right at the foot of the Space Needle (although a separate admission). I'm not going to pretend, I didn't know who Dale Chihuly was before we went, but his blown glass installations were pretty amazing. (If you've ever been to Las Vegas, you might be familiar with his work and not know it, as he's responsible for the glass flower ceiling in the lobby of the Bellagio.)
I'll save the words, there's not much you can do to describe the beauty in some of these abstract floral & aquatic blown glass sculptures. The camera doesn't begin to do them justice, it was like something from Alice in Wonderland...
By now, it was lunchtime... so we walked a few blocks to grab some pizza at Bambino's. Strangely, I didn't take any pictures of the pizza Lilly & K.C. shared or the calzone I ate. They were all excellent, I'd highly recommend the place.
After lunch, and with the whole afternoon in front of us, we decided to spend most of the time at the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP). Closing at 7 PM, we figured this would take up most of the time before we grabbed dinner and headed to the airport. It did not disappoint.
MoPOP was founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, and many of the exhibits on display come from his personal collection. There are several semi-permanent exhibits - such as a few on movie themes - science fiction, horror, & fantasy, Seattle musicians Jimi Hendrix & Nirvana, as well as a full-on "Sound Lab" where you can hands-on learn how to produce music - from recording vocals, playing instruments, sound mixing, all that stuff. There was also a video game exhibit sponsored by Nintendo with some very unique independent game titles.
The star of the museum was a traveling Marvel exhibit, which featured a full historical timeline of Marvel, through both the print comics as well as the cinematic universe. It was very similar to a Star Wars exhibit we saw this summer in St. Petersburg, Florida.
As a pop-culture geek, this museum was incredible. We probably could have spent several days there if we had the time. I'll post the photos below without caption, I bet you'll immediately recognize at least 75% of the items in the photos...
I only shared about a quarter of the photos I took. There were just too many things!
After all that museum-ing, we were done. Totally done. 100% spent after a day on our feet, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at a nearby burger joint and summoned an Uber for a ride to the airport. The red-eye back to Jacksonville (via Houston) awaited, and it was going to be a long haul.
10 days of awesome was over, and so was our vacation, (just like this week of posts!)
Seattle | Ketchikan | Juneau | Skagway | Victoria | Seattle II
