Seattle Trip

The trip to Seattle to visit Gill and her family was officially a success! Chris and I drove down to Spokane on the first day (to split up the drive) and stayed in a lovely hotel just outside of the city. It was called the Pheasant Inn and Suites and was truly a great place to stay. Pool, hot tub, free buffet breakfast, free cookies and hot chocolate in the lobby, good sized rooms...plus HBO! Gotta give a shout out for the HBO. The next morning we did the rest of the drive and headed to where they live, which is called Lake Stevens and is about 40 minutes outside of Seattle. We got super duper ultra mega lost at one point which set us back about an hour and a half, but after finding free Internet at a Starbucks and a quick reference from Google Maps, we were back on the road and on our way! We found the house around 5pm (after circling the neighbourhood 4 times and getting really confused since there are apparently two houses with the same address in the neighbourhood!) and were greeted with open arms. After a lovely dinner and a goodnight to the kids, me and Gill whomped the guys at Cranium. Poor guys. They really tried hard though.



The next morning, Gill's sister came over to babysit the kids while the adults all headed to the city for the day. Most of the day was spent walking around Pike Place Market (I begin to drool just thinking about that place), the Pier and downtown Seattle. Honestly, walking around that city makes me happy. I have yet to find something about it that I do not like...except perhaps that it isn't closer to where I am. That would make it perfect.



Chris and I tried to sneak into a strip club while Gill and Ralph sat down for a drink elsewhere. It didn't work though.



We all walked over to the Space Needle and Chris and I took a ride up the 520 feet elevator (takes 43 seconds) to the Observation Deck to have a peek of the view. I had been up there before since I've been to the city many times, but Chris had never been so we figured we'd might as well take a look...we'd come all that way already anyway. As always, the view was beautiful.

After spending the whole day walking, we headed to Gill and Ralph's favourite restaurant for dinner. Needless to say, dinner was a bit of a bust. Sort of. It's a long story, but to sum it up, they changed the menu very recently which we were unaware of and removed the two items that Gill and Ralph always get. Plus, the place was out of 5 menu items, 4 of which we just happened to order. We felt so sorry for the waiter who was probably just equally frustrated every time he had to come back to the table to tell us that another item we ordered was not available. I can just picture the scene in the kitchen...

Chef": "Hey Joey, this table ordered the fillet mignon? Sorry man, we're all out of that."
Waiter: "What? I've already told them that the beer, chicken dish and seafood/rice dish are no longer available. I can't go back again to say we're out of steak!"
Chef: "Sorry dude. We've only got what we've got."
Waiter: "I'll give you my whole nights tips if you go out there and tell them. I just can't do it again."
Chef: "No way man. I work the back of the restaurant for a reason; so I don't have to deal with people."
Waiter: "Oh man! This blows!" and he stalked out the kitchen.

The one great thing was that the hostess woman heard about our table troubles and came over to apologize. She also gave us all of our entrees for free, gave Ralph some free sushi and offered us free dessert! We only paid for our drinks, so that was a rather awesome surprise for a semi-crappy experience. Oh well. Free food!

The next day was a bit more sightseeing of the area they live in. We packed everyone up in the truck and went for a drive to look around. We also went on a nice hike through a bit of a canyon. It was very very pretty. I would have loved to have been able to go through there through the Spring when the waters were running high. But it was beautiful no matter what.



After the hike we went home for a quick lunch. Then the boys (Chris, Ralph, Parker and Phinn) all went to look at fancy shmancy cars together so that Chris could drool all over them. Myself, Gill and Piper went and did some shopping. As always, I spent way too much money but got some lovely pieces of clothing in the process (like an amazing vintage looking dress). After car drooling and clothes shopping, we all met back at the house. The kids headed off to bed and us adults played some board games. Now I don't want to brag, but if you ever need to be on a winning team for Cranium, just give me a call.

As I mentioned already, it was a great trip and I am sad that I couldn't spend more time down there to visit with my friends. Thanks for having us guys! I love you dearly and can't wait until I can get my butt back down there again.

Tip of the Day: Sometimes dried up waterfalls look like giant labia.