A Seattle visit on a budget

I mentioned on Friday that I’d taken a short trip to Seattle, and I promised to tell you a little more about that. 

I’m on a laid-back mission to get to all 50 states, so when Southwest had a flight sale earlier this summer, I poked through the offerings to see if I could get a deal on one of my not-yet-visited states.

And Seattle popped up with some pretty affordable flights.

For lodging, I booked a tiny house Airbnb, which the hosts had built on top of their garage.

And I rented a Civic through Turo because that was way cheaper than other car rental options. 

My Airbnb had a small but full kitchen, which meant I could buy groceries!

Since the Seattle air was so nice (OH SO NICE), I opted to walk to the nearby Fred Meyer, and I carried my groceries home in my backpack and also in a paper bag.

I stopped to take pictures of all the flowers on my way to and from the grocery store, of course. 

I decided to take it super easy on my trip because resting was kind of the point.

So, I slept 9-10 hours each night. The bed pulls down from the wall, like so:

And then it folds up for the daytime.

I paid for a month of HBO Plus so that I could watch the highly-recommended medical drama, The Pitt, and I watched all but three episodes. 

(This after having not watched anything all semester; I think the last thing I watched was Wicked in the theater in January!)

I made breakfast in my Airbnb each day; coffee, eggs, a whole-wheat English muffin, and strawberries.

I ate tons of strawberries because Fred Meyer had a good deal on a four-pound box. So I bought it and I ate the entire four pounds in 2.5 days.

I also bought a salad kit, a package of chicken sausages, half-and-half, cheese, crackers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and grapes. 

As a result of these purchases, I only ate one meal out.

At Pike’s Place, I did buy some little treats just for fun, like a huge gingersnap.

Some agua de pepino.

A crumpet, which I’d never had in my life before:

And some Turkish delight, which every Chronicles of Narnia reader has probably been interested in trying. 🙂 

I stopped in an antique market and look, they had knobs for sale like the ones reader Suz gave me for my scuffed table!

I also enjoyed lots of free parks.

And I visited the Ballard locks. 

I’d never seen kayaks go through a lock system before! 

I chuckled at the heat advisory that came up during my stay; Seattle residents would really freak out at the weather we experience here on the daily in the summer. 😉 

I gleefully wore a sweatshirt on some cool mornings.

And also some jeans. Ahhhhhh. 

I am desperately envious of the weather Seattleites get to experience in the summer. I know they pay for it with a rather gloomy 9 months the rest of the year, but the summer air was amazing.

I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. 

I would like to summer in the PNW for the rest of my life, please and thank you. And if I end up doing travel nursing down the road, you can bet I will look for summer assignments out there. 😉 

For a weather comparison, here is how it was the morning I got back; only 81 degrees, but so humid, the real feel was 99 degrees. Ewww. 

I have thirteen more states to get to, but I have a trip to Portland scheduled for September (FinCon is in Portland, and so is my blogging friend Katy), and I also booked a trip to Albuquerque later this year, so I can cross New Mexico off.

So by the end of the year, I’ll only have 11 states left. 

It feels wild to be able to actually plan trips now that nursing school is done. Yes, I have to work, and yes, I’ll be doing online BSN classes, but all of that is way more flexible than nursing school was. 🙂 

So, I’ll keep stalking Southwest’s flight sales and eventually, I’ll get those last 11 knocked out.