Plan My Trip! West Seattle with Pam

IT Editor Janelle Nanos is on the West Coast this week, blogging about her trip and taking advice from readers on where to head next. After gathering some suggestions, she met up with one IT reader for a tour of her favorite neighborhood. She'll be heading to San Francisco next and is still looking for suggestions, so please feel free to leave them in the comments below...

After a few stops in Tacoma, Washington, I arrived safely in Seattle this past weekend and was very lucky to meet up with Nerd's Eye View blogger and friend of IT Pam Mandel, who took some time out of her busy afternoon to show me the old amusement park grounds at Alki Point, which was once known as the Coney Island of the West.

I'd never heard of (or honestly, even conceived of) Seattle's little beach town, but with its amazing view of downtown and a hefty heaping of kitsch, I was instantly smitten. The Point was the place where first settlers arrived in Seattle, and its current iteration, Alki, is a mix of old and new: Stacks of old-brick condos mingle with newer glass developments along the waterfront, and old fishfry shacks cozy up to coffee shops with Wi-Fi. There's a long, winding bike path that snakes along the Sound, and volleyball players—and yes, even a few swimmers—were taking advantage of the beach (the great old photographs in Spud Fish and Chips show hundreds of swimmers in their full-piece bathing suits playing in the waves—causing us to wonder whether the enthusiasm waned or whether our tolerance for cold has slackened over time).

As we wandered along the beach, we happened upon a group of paddlers who were working their way up the Puget Sound from Cowlitz, Washington, to the Cowichan, British Columbia. They were participating in the annual Tribal Journeys Paddle—a flotilla of intertribal canoes who paddle to the Cowichan each year, and we were lucky enough to stumble upon the group after they finished the latest leg of their trip. We spoke with a paddler named Joe (pictured, right), who wore a traditional cedar bark hat and huge relieved smile on his face; his arms and body were still covered in a fine layer of salt from an intense morning of paddling. Their next stop was Suquamish, a town 30 miles further up the Sound, he explained, before loping away to hand off some coffee to his cousin. We watched the revelers, enjoyed their music, and admired the 11-person canoes decorated with traditional paintings of salmon. It was a great glimpse of authentic culture that we felt lucky to stumble upon, and Pam has a great take on it over at her own blog here.

After our walk, Pam took me down to Luna Park Café, a restaurant named for the old amusement park that serves up yummy diner fare (watch out for their "Gut Bomb" burger) and some tremendous milkshakes. Their decor is an assortment of signs from old West Seattle establishments, and the diner hopes to continue the fun, free-for-all tradition of the amusement park, albeit on a much smaller scale. Luna Park shares a building with the Avalon Glassworks gallery and studio, meaning those of you who can't make it to Tacoma can still manage to get a glimpse of artists as they work with molten glass.

Pam then dropped me off at the city water taxi dock, where for $3 I hitched a ride across Elliott Bay and got an amazing view of the city. On the 12-minute sail I got the chance to speak with a retired taxi driver named Robert, who drove the city streets for 25 years and was a treasure trove of trivia tidbits. (You can test your own knowledge of Seattle with our Places of a Lifetime quiz.) It was a lovely afternoon on a beautifully sunny day in Seattle and a great way to enjoy a bit of an out-of-the-way adventure in Pam's "passive-aggressive city." But I'll her tell you about it herself:

Subscribe to this blog's feed

Comments

[mary beth]

have fun in san fran! i love the city. hug some hippies for me.

[Lola]

Pam is wonderful folk! Had the pleasure of meeting her last month as well.

[pam]

I am so glad you enjoyed our city! And delighted that we were able to hang out together. Come back any time.

[Austin]

I'm glad you got a chance to see West Seattle, it's a wonderful place. I love going to Alki Beach in the winter; it's not crowded and I can soak up the cold humid air and pretend it's not winter.

[Jenny]

Oooh! I want to try the Gut Bomb Burger!

[Marilyn Terrell]

That's so cool that you happened to meet a Tribal Journeys boat.

[Heather Brown]

Janelle, do you have accommodations already in San Francisco? We would love to have you stay at one of Kimpton's 9 fabulous boutique hotels is San Francisco. Pop me an email and we can chat further about your trip. Thanks!

[Tara]

Hi Janelle, we're excited to hear about your upcoming trip to San Francisco. We're a public relations firm here in the city that represents a variety of top restaurants. We'd like to invite you come check a few of them out while you're here. Please have a look at our client page and let me know if you're interested. Thanks!

[Victor Real Estate]

Seattle is a great city, but with a horrible football team. I'm going there in a month to see a concert and I can't wait.

[Nancy Brown What a Trip]

I know that I'm a day late and a dollar short but I have to add a couple of suggestions for the next time you are in "The City." (Welcome back, by the way.)

I submitted a couple of ideas for walking tours in Chinatown and North Beach to Conde Nast Traveler's "Layover Contest" that ended July 31.

Here's the link to my post and again, my apologies for missing the boat on this post,http://blogs.bootsnall.com/What-a-Trip/say-yes-to-airport-layover-in-san-francisco.html. I hope you had a nice visit.

[Arthur's Colorado Ski Lodging]

I'm traveling to Seattle next week to see Radiohead. So if anyone has anymore great ideas for things to do up there, it would be much appreciated.