Day 1 - Arrival in Seattle-Tacoma Airport, relaxing walks and dinner on the water...

We arrived at the Seattle-Tacoma airport, rented a car, and secured our hotel reservations in Tacoma without incident. After a brew pub lunch in downtown Tacoma, we headed back towards Seattle to meet a friend for dinner. Along the way we stopped at the Pacific Rim Bonsai Collection near the Weyerhaeuser Corporate Headquarters on Federal Way. As we strolled the gardens, we relaxed from our flight and acclimated ourselves. The bonsai collection was very interesting with many different species and unique planting sculptures.

Entering Seattle, you can't miss the traffic. I think Seattle is famous for its snarled rush hour and it is best to avoid the high traffic times, if possible. We wound our way down towards the Seattle Center and then up Queen Anne Hill to the Kerry Viewpoint on Highland Drive - "a park with a view". We took in the view enjoying the warm sun. This is the place for the classic Seattle skyline photo and also a pretty good place to people-watch.

We then made our way down to the waterfront, parked the car and walked to the Bell Street Diner for dinner with a local friend. The food and drink was good and the atmosphere of the dock-side patio was great. After a leisurely dinner and dessert we wandered downtown for more night-life at the Virginia Inn on First Avenue. Martinis and funny conversation filled the rest of the evening. Although, we didn't take the drink too far or too late because we knew we'd be getting an early start the next day to start our excursion on the Olympic Peninsula.