Advertisement
Finally a day not strapped in a seat. I was able to get up early with Hannah to exercise. We decided to run through the suburb of Seattle. She had developed her sister's plague and started whining about fever, sore throat, and horrible body aches. I am really proud of her though for sticking it out. We saw some interesting sites including a giant chicken statue and multiple coffee shops. After the run I stretched out with yoga. I did wish for exercise room though as I need to bike a lot while on vacation to get ready for my 1st triathlon of the season when we get back.
Around breakfast time Tim received a text from his sister wanting to know if we were up yet. Unknowingly she was staying in the same hotel as us. We had previously decided to meet up in Seattle along our trip. After a good breakfast it was time to set out to see sights in Seattle, but first a stop at Walmart.
I must confess I drove over 1000 miles and stopped a Walmart. Safety in what you know for shopping. At least they are consistent across the country
and we could find stuff easily. As always we spent way more than we should and bought things we didn't need.
Our first stop in Seattle was the Woodland Zoo. It was a very nice and large zoo. All the animals seemed happy, well as happy as you can be on a cold, dreary, rainy day. With this type of weather I was not left to wonder why the suicide rate is so high in Seattle. The walk in the zoo was great after being trapped for days in a car. Issac was a wonderful guide of the zoo, except for getting us lost. At the end of zoo tour everyone was already complaining of exhaustion.
On our way to the next stop we encounter something I had never heard of a "One Lane Street." Apparently these roads have one lane with 2 way traffic. To make matters worse it looked like the roads in San Francisco. You know the one that is completely curved and in all the tourist publicity. After surviving the road we made our way to our next destination.
The next stop on our tour was Discovery Park. The park overlooks the Sound
to the Pacific. It is rumored you can see whales if you look closely. No such luck on the whale siting and I even looked into a tour, but at $100+ a person that was not happened. The boys, Tim, and I traveled to the top of a hillside to look at the ocean/bay/waterscape. I found myself consistently yelling at my boys to step away from the Cliffside. Issac would follow Devin's suit and try to give me chest pains. I was happy to have some aspirin along for the near MI. After my near MI we made the way to the bus stop in the park to pick up Bri and Pete.
Our car only fits 7, but there were now 8 people. After some creative seating arrangements we were off to the rest of the park. We found a trail that led to the beach unaware that it must have been several miles to the beach. After taking some hill sides and losing one kid up a never ending flight of stairs.We stopped to wait for our lost kid. While waiting a lonely woodpecker showed us how he artfully finds bugs on the side of a tall
tree. It is quite remarkable that we did not disturb his work.
We continued to walk down the trail, but exhaustion set in causing mutiny in the ranks. We turned around heading back to the car. Now I had 2 sick daughters in toe who wanted you to carry them to the car. We reached the car, got creatively seated, and set out for the city center. I only cared to see 2 sites Pike's Place Market and the Space Needle.
Parking 2-3 blocks from Pikes Place Market we got out and began to walk down a very steep roadside. The market was very immense. It housed so many shops and the traditional farmers market stands. It was crazy to see how expensive corn was 4 for $5. I snapped the prices of the veggies for my vegetable farming parents. I instructed my mom to blow the picture up and put if you lived in Seattle. Maybe this would deter her customers from complaining so much about our cheap Indiana prices.
Hannah saw the first Starbucks, which made her day. We did not buy anything their as it had a huge line and I am "Cheap". No
fish were thrown while we were there, but the odor of fish was in the air. My family are mainly browsers not buyers and we left the market with just some views and no goodies. Walking toward the giant hill we stopped to take a picture by the Bay. The hill was worse going up then coming down of course. We walked back to the car to wait for Bri and Pete who had decided to separate from us.
When we met up with Bri and Pete we embarked the 15-20 minute walk to the Space Needle. I had already looked up the price and decided it was too expensive to conquer, plus Issac always reports his fear of heights to me. Everyone was dragging at this point. It seemed like we walked for days. The Space Needle was a site to see. A flying saucer standing high up above the sky on a pedestal. I kept imaging it was going to take off any moment. It was of course was picture time and Pete took a priceless classic of us standing in front of the Space Needle. WE saw the sight now time to trek back to the
car. Everyone was hungry and tired at this point. A we walked back it began to rain. A cool rain as it was only in the 50's. The car could not show up fast enough.
Creatively cramming all 8 of us in the car we headed back to the hotel. Tim swore on the way to the hotel he was absolutely not going to walk anymore for the day. Unfortunately he was wrong. We decided to walk to the Mexican restraint across the street about a 10th of a mile. It was great, large servings of food, but a little too pricey for me. Hannah had been singing the song of "I want ice cream" from the time we had been in the city until now. What do you know there happened to be a Baskin Robbins nearby, but this meant more walking.
Everyone indulged in the ice cream. Then we took the short walk back to the hotel. It was one of my highest stepping days according to my fitbit-33,000 steps to be exact. Not only were our legs tired, but our car was resenting the ride through the mountains. The brakes now squealed a every stop
and Tim had even changed them before our trip. I passed out after the walking, but the kids kept going to the pool. Off for a long drive to California in the morning hoping all are well rested.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.054s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 13; qc: 32; dbt: 0.0267s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb