Friday and Saturday…

Friday we woke up and didn’t do much either as it was cold and rainy. It quickly turned to warmth though. We did watch some Price is Right and then do a little shopping and stuff. After that Beth decided to chill at home with Anna so Larkin, Jess and I went downtown. We found free parking by Safeco, bought tickets for the baseball game that night and rode the free bus to Pike Market for a 3rd trip. We had more cheap tamales, the worlds best (that’s debatable but it was decent) Mac & Cheese and some Gellato. We also shopped around. We then went to Gameworks and played the balloon game, and I got my first career win (actually I was 2nd to some ringer employee but most importantly I beat Larkin and Jess.) We bussed back into Safeco to join the thousands of fans waiting to get in for their Ichiro bobblehead. The stadium was beautiful. We took in batting practice and saw some fan not paying attention take a homerun ball to the groinal area. We toured the stadium, I had a hotdog and we watched some baseball. Day turned to night and warm turned to cold and by inning 6 we decided the windy upper deck was no way to go and moseyed down to behind the 1st base dugout maybe 35 rows back. Much better. The Tigers won as the rally was squashed in the 9th as Ichiro couldn’t be the hero… We sped home and took in some shut eye.

Saturday was departure day. I returned the LeMond road bike back (thanks Ian) and then we packed. We spent a lot of time with Anna. We then decided to go to Red Mill burgers for lunch before leaving. We get there and it was packed. Our 15 minute stop turned into a 45 minute wait for food, a bag to go and some high speed driving to the Sea-Tac airport. Of course our car fuel light hit empty a good 15 miles before, so add finding gas to that list. We found gas finally (10 miles from the Burger place was the first gas station) right before a nice draw bridge that was down. I ate my burger while Jess pumped. Best Burger in Seattle!!!We then got in the car, speed up the road and hit a red light. And then the bridge rises. We sit and contemplate missing a flight. At that moment we look to our left and for the first time we saw Mt Rainier (it hides in the clouds most of the time.) It was huge, words can’t describe how massive it is. It is only 200 feet lower than Colorado’s highest…but this one starts at sea level so it is 14+K of total height, where a Colorado mountain is only like 8-9K above the surrounding. Anyways riding the bike around just the base is like 156 miles and has two mountain passes that are part of the Rainier uprising, so we get it, it is huge! Anyways, I threaded the post bridge traffic and just hoped the airport runs smoothly. It did, I swear it took 15 minutes to park the rental, turn it in, get our luggage checked and boarding passes, go through security and get to the gate, we had a half hour to spare which turned into an hour with the half hour delay. We flew to Chicago, got to the car around 9. It took us 2:06 from the O’Hare parking lot to our driveway including a rest area driver switch. It was good to come home to the puppies (Jess’ dad picked them up from the kennel earlier.) I hate going to Seattle. It is a place I would love to live, and leaving the beautiful area and Larkin, Beth and Anna was very hard. And not being on vacation anymore will hit me hard tomorrow.

A special big thanks goes to Eric and Beth for putting us up while we were there. Their hospitality was much appreciated as were all the tips for getting around and what to do! Thank you so much and we hope we can return the favor some time!!!

All in all it was an awesome trip with a little bit of everything thrown in!!!