The Jewel of the Northwest, the queen of the Evergreen State, the many-faceted city of space, elegance, magic and beauty.

Every major American city has a nickname: New York City is famously known as The Big Apple, Boston Beantown, New Orleans The Big Easy. Among the popular city nicknames, Seattle the Emerald City is by far one of our favorites; the name conjures up an image of the precious gemstone and, indeed, everywhere you looked this city is adorn with brilliant lush greens.

One of the best places to enjoy Seattle’s natural scenery is Discovery Park. On Monday we rented a car for a half day excursion to the 500-acre park on the shores of Puget Sound. (Drew, unfortunately, had to stay in because of work and couldn’t join us.) Similar to the Redwood Regional Park in Oakland, Discovery Park is nestled in a residential neighborhood. Parking was ample and easy to find. We parked by the Visitors Center and hiked the Loop and South Beach Trails to the West Point Light House (roughly 3 miles total). Unlike the California coast, Seattle’s coast consists of different shades of green, orange, yellow and red — it was truly a view not to be missed.

Coast of the Pudget Sound

Coast of the Pudget Sound, living up to its nickname: The Emerald City

Discovery Park

Today we said goodbye to Seattle, just in time to miss the rain. After checking out of our condo, we had lunch at Pike Place Chowder, before heading to Pioneer Square near the train station.

While waiting for our train, Teresa, Katy and Mark went on the Bill Speidel Underground Tour. But it seemed that they didn’t enjoy it as much as we did when we visited Seattle last summer. Teresa was disappointed that she didn’t find any evidence of an underground burial like Drew had her believe, and unlike a UN-trained translator, she also found it challenging to translate and listen to the tour guide at the same time. After the tour, we hung out at a local beer pub and played a round of table golf. At one point, Katy was the top shot but in the end, Drew took first place, winning by one point. His prize was a night of bragging rights.

Our trip to Seattle had been near perfect with just one regret. We’ve been told about the stunning view of the train ride from Seattle to Vancouver and had booked the the early morning train a month before our trip. Unfortunately, while reviewing our itinerary the night before we left for our trip, we realized we had never received our order confirmation. After a phone call to Amtrak, our fear was confirmed — our order did not go through — and much to our chagrin, the morning train was fully booked. We ended up taking a night train at 7 and therefore missed the view.