Sunday Boat Tour and Dinner above the City
We got up on Sunday morning and headed to Starbucks for breakfast. Not because that’s the only place we want to eat, but because that’s the only place that is open when we start our day. Surprisingly, at least in the area near our hotel, the other breakfast places don’t open til 8:00 am, so it was Starbucks once again this morning. After breakfast, we caught a bus over to the Bell Tower area and attended the City Church. It is always gratifying to be with other believers in other cities. It helps make you feel more at home! The Bell Tower campus is a satellite church from the main campus of City Church, but today, Judah Smith (the lead pastor of the main church) spoke at the Bell Tower campus, so that was a treat for us. We thoroughly enjoyed the service and the message was excellent. After church, we walked down to the waterfront to get a bite to eat and once again found a restaurant out on the pier. There was a huge cruise ship (the Norwegian Pearl) docked right behind the restaurant, loading on its cargo for an Alaskan cruise.
When we finished lunch, we walked on down to Pier 55 and boarded a tour boat for a cruise around the bay in front of Seattle, up through the shipping channel, through the locks and into Lake Union. We really enjoyed this waterfront view of the city, and learned some interesting history along the way. The cruise lasted for 2 1/2 hours.
Once we disembarked from the boat, we took a short bus ride to the Space Needle. We walked around that area for awhile to kill a little time before our dinner reservations. We had originally taken a 9:45 pm reservation for dinner at the space needle restaurant because that was the only time available. While we were on the cruise, Jimmy called to see if they’d had a cancellation and after a couple of different attempts, they told us that something had just opened up at the 5:30 pm time slot. We were delighted! We eagerly jumped at the chance to eat earlier, because we knew we’d be able to see more of the city at that time of day, and we were already getting hungry.
When we left the restaurant, we rode the monorail out of Olympic park and to the shopping district. We looked around there for a while, then caught the train back to our hotel. Another very full, enjoyable day! Tomorrow we get up early, pull out the passports and head to Victoria, Vancouver Island, BC.