Walk into the Waterfall Park in the heart of old Seattle, right around the corner from Pioneer Square, and it's almost like taking a quick vacation from your vacation.
Seattle has no shortage of beautiful settings to sit and soak up the scenery, but the Waterfall Park at 2nd and Main has to be one of my favorites. Maybe it's all the negative ions flying around from the 22-foot waterfall. Or maybe it's just the fact that the white noise masks the drone of the street traffic outside. Whatever it is, this undercelebrated spot always has the same effect on me...relaxation and calm.
While you're here, you can plop down at one of the cafe-style tables and eat a picnic lunch, enjoy a cup of coffee, or just catch up on your travel journal for the day.
And if by some odd quirk of fate you happen to be a business history buff (hey, could happen), it also has the distinction of being the site of the original United Parcel Service office (though at the time UPS was called American Messenger Service).
The water has been splashing down the wall of huge rough-hewn rocks here since 1977, when it was built by the Annie E. Casey foundation, a philanthropic foundation started by one of the founders of UPS, Jim Casey.
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