Everett, Washington

Back to the short train runs this week. One that I should have gone to bed in one City and woke up in the next, but as the norm for so many people on a train run, I didn't manage to get to sleep till some silly time in the morning, which is fine if it is a decent length journey as dozing in the morning is also the norm so you catch up. Willow is even getting the hang of it, sort of.

We seem to be parked in a nice enough area, close to a bakery and a decent veg shop. We are also close to a play park which has pleased Willow, though she didn't get there as much as she would have liked.

On the dark day (day off) we went in to Seattle, which was only half an hours drive away (thank you Alex). We went and saw The Space Needle.


We popped into the Experience Music Project.



And we hung out at Pike Place Market. I really liked the Market and had a great feel to it, though it did close a little earlier than what we have become accustomed to. It is a very lively market and even had flying fish. The first ever Starbucks is beside the market and if you are a coffee drinker that is quite a big deal apparently. So Willow had her first ever Starbucks (hot chocolate) in the first ever Starbucks, and I had my first sip (that was all I was allowed) of a Starbucks hot chocolate in the first ever Starbucks.


I had heard about an interesting store in Seattle called Archie McPhee's. It sounding a lot like Hawkins Bizarre and seemed to have quite a large range of bacon themed items, air freshener, plasters, dental floss, jelly beans and such like. We didn't go looking for it but kind of stumbled across it. Well in the drive past it kind of way and decided to stop and check it out. It was okay, but I wouldn't say anything special, though the random junk at the back was interesting. It was much bigger than a Hawkins Bizarre shop but no where near as good. I only bought one Yoda postcard here where as I can leave Hawkins with untold stuff I do not need. If we had gone looking for it I think I would have been dissapointed.

On the drive we went up a road called Freemont Street which looked a really interesting area. We certainly didn't spend enough time in Seattle and it would have been wonderful to have spent more time here but Everett wasn't to bad. It seems quite a nice clean city with quite a lot going for it. Wandering around exploring you seem to come across some sort of 'art' on every other street corner. The Comcorse Building is in a nice part of downtown.

My favourite find in the shopping department was a Goodwill thrift store which I thought was a Halloween costume shop at first glance. Willow bought a dinosaur costume from there, not sure if she has bought it for Halloween though or just everyday wear. She wanted to wear it to bed! I also liked the cooperative organic store, though it was a little pricey to do the weekly shop.

There was a Children's Museum in Everett which did look better than your average Children's Museum (we have become experts in this field) unfortunately it was closed most of the days we were in town for some kind of refurbishment. The roof top garden looked loads of fun.