2015 Summer Roadtrip: Day 25–Wed—7/9: Troll Freemont Bridge, Chocolate Factory tour, Locks and salmon ladders, Pike’s Market

We spent the day touring Seattle with Andrea’s friend Kelly (who is Sarah’s godmother) and Kelly’s daughter Amanda (Amanda is Andrea’s goddaughter). We started in Freemont, an artsy neighborhood north of the city. We climbed on a very large rendition of the troll from the 3 Billy Goats Gruff, which was sculpted under the Freemont Bridge. Then we went on a tour of Theo Chocolate Factory. It was really interesting to learn all about cocoa beans and the process involved in making chocolate. We also got to sample lots of interesting types of chocolate such as coconut dark chocolate, sea salt dark chocolate, and chai tea milk chocolate. The funny thing is they make you put on a hair net before going in so loose hairs don’t end up in the chocolate. We had a lot of fun on the 1 hour tour. Then we went to the locks and salmon ladders. We got there just in time for a tour, and it really helped to hear about the incredible engineering and how the locks work, getting boats from the higher-level fresh water lake to the lower-level salt water sound that leads out to sea. We watched the whole process in the large lock which brought about 15 boats in at once, as well as the small lock which brought just 1 boat, needed less water, and was much quicker. Then our tour guide took us to the salmon ladders and explained the life cycle of the salmon. We got to watch lots of salmon jumping in the water and making their way up the ladders. It was awesome!

We had a nice seafood lunch and then drove to downtown Seattle to Pike’s Place Market. Walking to the market, we went through the alley where thousands of pieces of gum are stuck on the walls. Urban art, if you will. Ryan was pretty disgusted. Sarah and Amanda chewed some gum and added to the giant collection on display. Then, at Pike’s Place Market we all enjoyed watching the guys throw really large fish through the air to each other as they called out the type of fish that was being bought or displayed, and we had fun checking out the food and flowers in the booths at what I think was the first Farmer’s Market in the U.S. Sam showed Sarah and Ryan how to pick up large live crawfish (with big pinchers!) without getting pinched by them. The kids enjoyed picking up a few of the larger ones. We even found a baseball cap for Sarah to replace the hat she lost on the jet boat at the Rogue River in Oregon. We had a great day with Kelly and Amanda and it was so helpful to have people who know how to get around the city show us lots of fun stuff that we may otherwise have missed.