Since I had been planning to run the Vancouver Half Marathon and I wasn’t able to get any leave any time soon, so that I wouldn’t go stir crazy I figured why not have a bit of a staycation. For those that don’t know a Staycation is a vacation in your own city. Stay a night in a Hotel in your own city, explore it like your a tourist, have fun and enjoy yourself. Considering I still haven’t really explored this city, it was appropriate right? Heidi also agreed that we should have some touristy fun. I won’t go into to in depth of a trip report, mainly because a lot of it is just boring but let it be said that we picked the hotel purely so that I could give Kimpton another shot and also open up the use of the free nights (which are not all that helpful this year as it turns out you only have free night options in either Savannah or Miami). Out of the 3 Kimpton hotels in Seattle we went with the Monaco.
We started off the weekend by me suprising Heidi with a mystery. Originally planned for Sunday afternoon but since the weather was crap, I decided to move it up. We headed down into Sodo for the Google Glass event. Showcasing the Google Glass was pretty cool, I had always wanted to see what it really was but after experiencing I wouldn’t buy one. It just isn’t my thing. Bonus though we got a photo together and add in the free food and drink on offer and it was a good morning.
After checking into the hotel (and being told the room wasn’t ready) and leaving the truck up in the International District (also convenient to grab a cheap lunch of Bahn Mi’s for $3 each!), we did a walking tour of Pioneer Square. Picked up from Howaboutwe.com for free and through Stray Boots which controls it all like a scavenger hunt via a phone app. It was good and i had my first experience of a Utilikilt
Weirdest thing about the scavenger hunt was having to go into some stores and do stuff without buying anything. Felt kind of awkward, but it was still pretty fun. After the scavenger hunt we recollected the truck and parked it down by Belltown and picked up some gelati on the way back.. yeah it was a voucher again obtained for free so why not! We shared a cone on the way back and had a bit more for later stashed away. We got back to the Monaco and checked in. The hotel is definitely Kimpton. Small, Boutique and unique as well, it was a great looking hotel. We grabbed our bags and headed up to the room:
The room was great, would of preffered a view in the other direction, but hey can’t have everything right? The room was what is called a “Junior Suite” in America. More an overly large room with some form of barrier between the “sitting room” and the “bedroom” which in this case was some fabric curtains. There was two things missing when we arrived, the in room amenity and the goldfish. Kimpton has a great perk for some travellers who get lonely. They will place a goldfish in the room to keep you company. Heidi loved this idea and just had to have one, eventually the fish was delivered and we met our new friend Charles:
He was a great little companion, didn’t say much but he was always there swimming around (and also seemed to be constantly taking a dump, any time we turned around… I’ve never seen a fish poop so much!). The in room amenity was also delivered but it was wrong. I won’t go into the whole situation to much but after the stay I emailed the hotel as they dropped the ball big time on this. Turns out they gave my Inner Circle ammenity to someone else. Big Big ball drop on that but it could of happened on any stay.
We stuck around the hotel for a little bit, went out for a walk as well and just generally relaxed and enjoyed things. When it was time for dinner we lost track of time and while trying to get around some technology issues that had cropped up we ended up missing our dinner reservation and were late getting back to the truck before the time ran out on the parking (Thanks Uber for the free ride!). By that stage we didn’t feel like even going to the restaurant we had planned and due to all the stress we just couldn’t make up our minds what we wanted to have. We drove around Capitol Hill trying to find a park but couldn’t, in the end we gave up and headed to 13 coins for dinner. It was old school, not so cheap but pretty filling. The counter seats were pretty amazing (not that we were able to be seated at them):
After a dinner that had the most amazing cream sauce (yeah I went not even remotely healthy) we headed back to the hotel for a quiet night in. Sunday was a little bit less stressful thankfully. We woke up at a reasonable time and rather than stick around the hotel since we had changed our plans around, we checked out before breakfast and headed up to Ballard for breakfast at Skillet with Dan & Shawna. Skillet Diner is probably one of my most favourite places to eat and with a location in Ballard that is bigger, easier to find parking and still the same food, well… only this would happen:
The Cinnamon roll was pretty amazing and the frosting so good that I ended up doing this (And getting shameful looks for doing so)
Heidi had the Biscuits and Gravy which looked pretty good
After Skillet, Heidi took me down to the Ballard locks as I had never been there before, sadly no Salmon in the ladder though but there was plenty of boats in the locks though
After the locks it was time to meet the Grandparents and pick up a chair for Heidi (hey the Truck got some real usuage) and before we knew it, Staycation was over and it was back to reality.
Staycation was a great idea and it was something we both needed, a way to relax (at times) and try and just forget about our lives for one weekend. Plus getting to play around downtown without the stress of driving home or worrying about times or anything like that is worth it on so many levels. The whole weekend was good and we should do it again sometime in the future. Maybe a weekend in LA is next… god knows I need to fly this year!
