Seattle Vacation-Day 3

Itinerary: Zip line canopy tour, exploring

Today we headed out for a zip line canopy tour.  We rented a car and traveled north to Camano Island which is about an hour north of Seattle.  The tour consisted of six zip lines situated on platforms of varying heights above the forest floor. I was surprised when I booked the tour to see that it would take 2.5 hours to complete all the zip lines.  We had two great tour guides who not only set up our safety rigs but also taught us about edible plants we passed by on the short hikes between zip lines.  We ate wild salmon berries, huckleberries, elder berries, and wild grape leaves. We also learned that stinging nettle leaves are edible (you have to fold the leaves up just right) and we learned the two antidotes to the painful stickers of stinging nettle.  The first treatment is to chew the stinging nettle leaf until it is a pulp and then apply to pulp to the affected area. The second is to use a fern that grows near stinging nettle.  Find a fern leaf with an orangish underside and rub that on the affected area. We were both thoroughly impressed with our guides knowledge of the local forest. 

Overall the zip line adventure was an amazing experience and well worth the money. There was one line that was 650 feet long. That's 25 feet longer than the space needle is tall. 

Patrick with his safety tether on one of the zipline platforms

The view from one zipline plater to another

Patrick after finishing a zip

Brett our guide showing us edible plants of the northwest forest

Wild salmon berry tasting 

My view before crossing the "rickety bridge"

The zippy couple

Can I just stay here?

Patrick on the 650' zipline. 

As if the tour itself wasn't great enough, they knew it's was our anniversry so they gave us each a free souvenir tshirt! Talk about taking care of your customers. If you visit Seattle this place is worth the time and money to travel to. 

After zip lining we got some lunch at a cute little dinner nestled next to the woods and a lake.  Again, I wa pleasantly surprised at how good the vegetarian options we in taste, abundance, as well as how filling my salad was.  It's so nice to be in a place that respects and understands vegetarians and is environmentally conscious.  Recycling is everywhere.  And they will only give you a bag at shops if you ask for one, at which point you pay $0.05 for a paper sack. So from what I can tell, plastic bags are all but banned here. We did see one restaurant that used plastic bags for take-out, but that's it.  I'll happily pay the $0.05 cents if that's what it takes to clean a city up and reduce everyone's footprint a little more. 

After lunch, we headed toward two little neighborhoods: Fremont and Ballard.  Both of these neighborhoods have hipster shops and fit us to a T.  We were so wrapped up in checking out all the cute stores that we forgot to check out the Fremont Troll, which is a massive sculpture under a bridge in Fremont that looks like, well a troll. Perhaps we'll get back there before we leave. I did get one thing in Fremont, those of you who see me frequently will likely notice right away. I don't think anyone reads this who won't see me in Dallas when we return, so I'll just leave it at that. 

After cruising the hipster hangouts and thoroughly enjoying ourselves, we made our way to the original REI. Again, it was awesome. The walk up to the store is wooded and has a little nature trail. For being in the middle of the city, this comes as an unexpected but very appreciated surprise.  Inside there are two stories. 

Patrick at the start of the trail that leads to REI-Seattle

Cute kids play area

We had an idea to buy Ollie some dog hiking booties to try to prevent her from scratch at the carpet when we're away so we bought these at REI.  Scratching is one of her coping mechanisms for her separation anxiety and it causes damage to carpets.  Let's hope these boots work. 

By the time we finished at REI we were beat so we headed back to the hotel and crashed early. More fun coming tomorrow.