Seattle!
I realize that it's been a week since Brook and I traveled to Seattle, but I still wanted to post some of our pics and give a quick run down of our adventures. First, the pictures: Here we have a beautiful view of Seattle from the top of the Space Needle.
And now, me! This was taken near Pike's Market.
And here we have Brook and me...
Our trip to Seattle was a lot of fun. We had a slightly difficult start to our journey, as Jack ended up without a babysitter and my driver's license was lost (resulting in a run to the DMV on our way north). However, our drive up was pleasant. Getting into the city was exciting, and while we arrived in Seattle at 11pm-ish without motel reservations, we were optimistic that we'd find something. Ha! Because we had Jack with us, we couldn't find anything in the city. Either they didn't take pets, or all the rooms were booked. We drove around for a long time, slowly growing weary of our adventure, and finally ended up around 1:30am with Jack in the Box dinner and a Motel 6 room 20 miles from Seattle. lol. While the experience of being turned away at every place we tried to stop was quite frustrating, both of us were incredibly happy to get settled in that room.
Our Friday explorations were fabulous. We basically spent the day walking through Seattle. While the entire day was fun, some of the highlights were shopping at the giant REI store (oh yeah, I got some hiking boots for my trek through Hawaii), sitting in on a trial at the amazing courthouse, strolling through Pike's Market, visiting the Space Needle, a visit to the Century Ballroom (such a beautiful place to dance!! I can't wait to go up there again for that purpose), and late night drinks at this great little bar. I can't remember the name of the bar offhand, but the music was good (and live!), the staff was friendly, and the atmosphere was cozy. Saturday was a shorter day, as Brook and I had to make it down to Detroit Lake by 6pm, but we managed to fit in some time to watch a slow motion parking lot accident (some people ought not to drive) and enjoy some delicious Thai food in a cute little restaurant in Bellevue.
Saturday night was also a lot of fun. Brook and I drove like crazy from Seattle to Detroit Lake for my friend Chrystal's birthday. We arrived at the motel where her family works around 6pm, and were treated to champaigne and a fancy steak dinner as prepared by her Uncle Terry. It was neat to see Chrystal again, and I was really glad to have Brook along with me for the visit.
So, one of the most adventurous aspects of our entire trip was the drive between Detroit Lake and Eugene. We just about ran out of gas near Blue River, and ended up in a closed gas station taking to high school kids to try to find some way to get gas. Luckily a man who works at the gas station saw us parked and came over to see what was up. Being the kindly gentleman that he was, he opened up the station just for us and filled up our tank. It was sure close. Brook and I were pretty sure we'd be either rescued by Noah or Will or sleep over night in the car.
So, that's it for my Seattle post! More adventures to be posted soon (next week: Climbing the South Sister).