So I need to catch up a bit. Been a while since I've posted.
Liz and I just got back from our trip to Seattle last week. It was a good vacation - certainly better than going to work every day. Here's the rundown.
The first day we were there, we spent the day walking downtown. Our first stop was Pike's Place Market. For anyone that doesn't know, Pike's Place Market is essentially a giant farmer's market. Lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. Flowers. Fish mongers. Artisans. Various little stores. It was really quite cool. Obviously, everyone there is trying to sell you what they have, but they do a very good job of walking that fine line between friendly conversation and pushy salesperson. We picked up a few odds and ends down there - some chocolate covered cherries for Liz, some pepper jelly (great on steaks), a flower sconce for the living room, etc. We tourned the entire place a couple times while munching on fresh blackberries. We also visited the first Starbucks (right across the street from the market). Seattle is completely inundated with Starbucks. From just about anywhere in the city, you can see at least one, often two. Wish I could have gotten a picture, but near the bus station, there's a Starbucks just across the street from a Starbucks.
While downtown, we also checked out the Seattle aquarium (not bad, but I wasn't thrilled) and took a trip to the Space Needle. We didn't actually bother to go up into it, but we did take a few pictures from ground level.
The next day, we got the heck out of the city and took a drive to Mt. Rainier. It's a couple hour drive southeast of the city, but it wasn't bad. Traffic was pretty light and the weather was good. The only crummy part of the drive was going through Tacoma. For anyone that doesn't know, Tacoma is a city just south of Seattle. It goes on forever and there's nothing there, except bail bonds places every few blocks. Yeesh.
Mt. Rainier was quite cool. Lots of really great views. For the most part, we just drove through the park and made a few stops here and there to take a couple pictures and eat an overpriced cheeseburger. It was pretty chilly up as high as we were (somewhere around 40 degrees) but, if you could get out of the wind, it was actually pretty nice. We got up to Sunrise (that's the highest point you can drive to) and took a hike for an hour or two. It was really gorgeous up there. The only bad part was that the skies were overcast, so you couldn't actually see the peak of the mountain - it was covered with clouds. We got a couple pictures of the peak when it poked through the clouds a couple times, but no really good view of it. The hike was great, though. It's very quiet up there and we ran across a couple deer that were only 10-20 feet off the path. They just hung out and nibbled on the grass while we sat there watching. Really, the only part of the place I didn't care for was some of the driving. Imagine being about 4,000 feet up and the edge of the road is just a sheer cliff. Honestly, doing some of the driving, all I could see from one side of the car was blue sky. Kinda neat, but really kinda eerie while driving.
The next day was back downtown. We checked out the "underground tour." Seattle was originally built on mudflats so, in order to keep the city from flooding out, they raised the city up one story. As it is, the first story that everyone sees (at least in the historic district we were in) is actually the second story of most buildings. The first story is down beneath the sidewalks. The tour was full of bad jokes, but it was still quite interesting. Following that, we walked up the waterfront on Puget Sound, mostly just taking in the view and people-watching. Eventually, we ended up back at Pike's Place Market, where we picked up some smoked salmon, crackers, and other goodies. We took those back to our hotel room and had a mini picnic while watching Sunday Night football.
Our last full day in Seattle was pretty low-key. We drove out to Boeing to take a tour of the place. It was kinda cool, but you didn't really get to see much. We got to check out their main production facility, where they make their 777's, among other aircraft. It's the largest building in the world - large enough to hold all of Disneyland and have room left over for parking. It's huge. They really churn out the aircraft, too. I believe they said that the roll a new 777 off the conveyor every 4 days, or so (pretty impressive, seeing as it takes about 7 months to make and flight test one).
After the tour of the plant, we pretty much just hung out at the hotel, watching Monday Night Football and relaxing. The next morning, we were back at work, so we didn't get any time at home to rest. Now we're back home and trying to get back into the swing of things.
This last weekend, Nate came out to visit for a few days. As usual, it was great to see the guy and it'd been too long since we'd gotten together. Pretty simple weekend. Video games, eating too much, drinking too much, and football. Nonetheless, it was a great weekend.
I couple babble on about a few more random things, but I'll save 'em for another post. Take care, all.
