Seattle TravelGram

Fares to Fly By – Virgin America. Seattle to San Francisco is $79 each way for a very limited time. Here is the rub: All Main Cabin fares are one-way and require a 14-day advance purchase. Travel must occur between 06.08.10 and 06.30.10. Fares are available on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays only however higher sale fares  available on remaining days of the week.

If your schedule is flexible, than this is a great deal to get you down to San Francisco for a fantastic Bay City adventure .

If the smell of the ocean and  STYX’s song “Come Sail Away With Me”, aren’t enough to make you long to get out on the water then maybe sailing on a 70’ retired racing sailboat will. Let’s Go Sailing offers a unique sailing adventure right on the Seattle Waterfront at Pier 54. Feel and experience what it’s like to be completely powered by nature.

Through September the crew of Obsession and Neptune’s Car will sail around Elliott Bay where the spactular view from the water will delight you. The boats will sail past the industrial Harbor Island and Seattle waterfront neighborhoods. If you are lucky the Cascade and Olympic snow capped mountains to the east and west will be out. It’s always a bonus when Mt. Rainier peaks out of the clouds too. Keep watching for seals, sea lions and bald eagles which are just some of the sea animals you might see one these 2.5 hour trips.

Emerald City Charters provides day sails, group charters and parties all aboard its two high performance luxury sailboats.

Beet Salad

My newest favorite local hang out is an old time Seattle favorite, Szmania’s in Magnolia. Who doesn’t love Jäger Schnitzel or Spätzle?

Open since 1990 the cozy, friendly, romantic and warm atmosphere invites you in and makes you feel right at home. Chef Ludger Szmania’s menu has a variety of German foods with the freshest northwest ingredients. Always on the menu is fresh seafood done to perfection.

The Jäger Bar inside Szmania’s has a tasty viriety food choices that are reasonably priced. The happy hour also makes for a yummy inexpensive way to taste the bar menu. Wednesday may be the perfect time to visit this charming neighborhood restaurant because many bottled wines are available at 1/2 price.

Guten Appétit!

The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra

June’s jazzy mix of horns, pianos, guitars, percussion, and vocals are set to take over the heart of Bellevue for the 2010 Bellevue Jazz Festival.

Five highlight performances at The Meydenbauer Theater will get your feet tappin’ and fingers snappin’. See either the 17-piece Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra with The Festival’s Rising Stars, The Bad Plus comeback guitarist Pat Martino, Terence Blanchard or the double-bill sensation Sachal Vasandani Quartet with husband and wife piano duo Bill Charlap & Renee Rosness.

Pick up as many shows as you want at $15 per ticket and be captivated with enough aural delights for your iPod to keep you jivin’ and hummin’ until next June.

For more information on the Bellevue Jazz lineup, check out http://www.bellevuejazz.com/

Gold Charm- Tiffany and Co.

Pacific Place is downtown Seattle’s premier shopping, dining and entertainment center.  There are 5 stories of upscale shopping and dining featuring such notably recognizable names as Tiffany & Co. and Williams-Sonoma to local favorites such as Sixth Avenue Wine Seller and Seahawks/Sounders FC Pro Shop.

If you are hungry and in the mood for lunch or dinner there are six delicious restaurants that offer a variety of dining possibilities. Your choices range from Italian to Mexican, or Thai cuisine to good old all-American hamburgers. The 11-screen theater complex is perfect for those of you who want to combine dining and shopping before or after they see the latest movies.

Pacific Place has a  five-star concierge staff  that is always ready to help! These in-the-know experts offer tons of helpful services and information, including theatre and dinner reservations, taxi and hotel shuttles, and public transit information, as well as a list of events and happenings at Pacific Place and downtown Seattle. The 2010 Seattle TourSaver is available for purchase at the concierge desk. Seattle TourSaver offers over 100 2-for-1 coupons with thousands of dollars of savings on tours, attractions, accommodations and museum.

 If you are driving and looking for a place to park I’d really suggest parking here. There is lots of affordable parking. “Affordable” being the optimal word because parking prices in downtown Seattle can be a bit of a shock to your pocket book.

Pacific Place is the place for fashion, food and film.

It was a weekday and my daughter and I were going to make the best of the spring sunshine so we decided to go to the Woodland Park Zoo. I’d been hearing about the new meerkats enclosure and missed out on the opening of the penguin exhibit so it was time to revisit and see all the new wonderful exhibit and animals.

I really didn’t expect the crowds early in the morning but of course I hadn’t figured on school field trips. Even with the bus loads of kids the park was pleasant and not overly crowded. We waited many times for the waves of children to go by and took our time which made all the difference.

Plan out your viewing because this is a 92 acre zoo and I’m just saying that it will be hard for you to see everything. The zoo is divided into bioclimatic zones, featuring different natural habitats ranging from humid tropical rain forests and coastal deserts to temperate rain forests such as we have here in the Pacific Northwest.

We headed straight from the south entrance past the African Safari towards the meerkats and boy were they cute. All the kids were so excited to see these little guys eating grubs and scampering around. Following the path we headed around towards the Elephant Barn which takes you though Tropical Asia and the Orangutan and other tropical animals.

Continuing, we headed to the  Australasia Willawong Station, an exhibit that I had not seen before. It’s an enormous aviary where you will be surrounded by small parrot species from Australia. You can even purchase a seedstick and everyone in the family can feed these feathered friends.

Mom and Baby

Cutting across the North Meadow where the Zoo Tune Concerts are held we headed to the beautiful historic caracole and watched children riding the delicately carved and painted horses, deer, lions and other fantastically painted animals on this blast from the past.

Moving along we headed to the new penguin exhibit. How fantastic! There are viewing areas from above the water and windows below the water to watch this birds that fly underwater. Some of the penguins come up to the window and just watch people back; they really seem to enjoy the experience themselves.

No trip to the zoo would be complete for me without seeing the Gorilla and it’s always a wonderful surprise when you get to see new babies. On we walked through the Northern Trail, Tropical Rain Forest, the Temperate Forest and the Family Farm and saw many more beautiful animals along the way. The Woodland Park Zoo and its natural animal habitats help us all to love and understand our natural world and encourage conservation for generations to come.

Seattle welcomes back Cirque du Soliel who will be preforming KOOZA starting on Thursday June 3^rd for a limited engagement at King County’s Marymoor Park.

KOOZA is a return to the origins of Cirque du Soleil that combines two circus traditions – acrobatic performance and the art of clowning. The show highlights the physical demands of human performance in all its splendor and fragility, presented in a colorful mélange that emphasizes bold slapstick humor.

“KOOZA is about human connection and the world of duality, good and bad”, says the show’s writer and director David Shiner. “The tone is fun and funny, light and open. The show doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it’s very much about ideas, too”.

Every show that the Cirque does is simply amazing. I’ve been to three of their shows and each one is completely different and awe inspiring. What the….How’d they…Wow… are just some of the utterances that I know I’ll be saying let alone what the crowd will be saying while watching KOOZA.

There are certain places that are worth visiting over and over again throughout the years and the Seattle Aquarium is one of those magical places where there is always something new to see and learn about.

When you walk in the door your view is of a 120,000-gallon, 20-foot by 40-foot angled acrylic Window on Washington Waters exhibit.  The gigantic floor to ceiling aquarium is filled with salmon, colorful rockfish, vibrant sea anemones and other native Washington marine life that live amid the kelp-filled sea.

Strolling through this beautiful space you will see large and small windows that peak in on over 400 different sea species and wildlife that live in the Puget Sound. One of the newer exhibits is the circle of glowing jellyfish. You can stand right under this arch filled with moon jellies and watch them move all around you.

The Puget Sound is known to have the largest octopus in the world and you can catch the famous Giant Pacific Octopus up close and personal and if you time it right you can watch it eat. Be sure to check ahead for the feeding schedules.

Always a delightful is the hands on wet table where children and adults can touch sea stars and all sorts of sea creatures. You’ll be amazed by the underwater dome where schools of large open-water salmon flash by, large menacing ling cod lurk around underwater reefs, sharks swim by ever on the look-out for prey, brightly-colored deep-water rockfish hover near crevices on or above the bottom and large sturgeon prowl the bottom for leftovers. The longer you stay in this underwater world the more creatures you see.

Moving along you will walk by seals who are in constant motion, otters playing, and sea birds swimming under water and others birds walking on the shores. Stop to listen to the calls of our region’s orca whales, and learn about conservation of our amazing Puget Sound.

This will be a well spent morning or afternoon and and educational one too. The Seattle Aquarium is one of  100+ participants in the 2010 Seattle TourSaver where there is over $8,000 dollars in 2-for-1 savings coupons.

Capt Dave Palmer with his B-17crew & Clark Gable

Interested in historic Aviation? Coming to the Museum of Flight May 26-31^st the Experimental Aircraft Association (EEA) is offering historic flight experiences in its beautifully restored B-17G Flying Fortress “Aluminum Overcast.”

This aircraft is an example of the American heavy bomber that helped turn the tide of battle in World War II. Fly a mission back in time and feel the might of this magnificent aircraft, just as those brave young men did more than 50 years ago. Aluminum Overcast, the EEA’s restored B-17 bomber, returns to the skies in Seattle as part of a nearly 60 planned stops for the 2010 “Salute to Veterans” national tour.

Tens of thousands of people have experienced this unique airplane through its visits and aircraft ground tours over the years. Thousands of aviation enthusiasts have actually flown in the renowned bomber, which is considered one of the greatest military airplanes ever built and one of the best-known aircraft types of the World War II era.

Yes, that is my father-in-law in this photo, Capt Dave Palmer.

The Museum of Flight is a great way to spend the day learning about the history of flight with a nod to the future. The Museum of Flight is one of the participants in the 2010 Seattle TourSaver where over 100 museums, hotels, tours and attractions offer 2-for-1 savings.