Seattle

In December, McLain was sent to Seattle for a training for work. He ended up having to drive, so I got to go with him! ROAD TRIP!!! So we sent the kids to my mom's for a few days and headed north...west.

We left early Wednesday morning and drove pretty much all day long! It takes a good 13 hours or so to get there from Richmond.

We learned a few things about Oregon. It's against the law to fill your own gas tank. Who knew? Thankfully, the guy came over and started filling ours before we did anything bad. We also came in contact there with a nice old man that tried to change lanes right where we were, saw us at the last second, swerved back into his lane, and decided to show us how wrinkly his middle finger was. It was so funny. He was totally yelling at us and cussing us out. Grumpy old man, we were in that lane first!

We got to Seattle that evening at 6:00 or so, right at rush hour...awesome timing! There was another ornery driver in Seattle. As we were driving slowly in the slow traffic, the guy behind us apparently wanted to go faster. He totally kept flashing his brights at us. Over and over. Didn't he realize that we were going just as fast as the rest of the cars? Honestly. He finally was able to pass us and he got back into our lane just in front of us. Just as he pulled into our lane in front of us, he tapped his brakes. So we had to slam on our brakes real fast. Then he sped away. What a turd. He was obviously very mad at us. He wouldn't have thought it was so funny had we hit his beautiful shiny car.

Seattle roads are somewhat confusing. The hotel was next door to the airport and as we were trying to find our way to the hotel, we ended up in the one way lane for airport parking. We did not want to go to the airport! Luckily the nice lady didn't even question us. She just told us the right way to go. About 2 minutes later, we were in the airport parking lot again! We were so confused. But we finally made it to the hotel. (Just for the record, it wasn't really a great hotel. The free internet was so so so slow, there were hardly any channels on TV, and there wasn't even a pool or hot tub. Really??! What hotel doesn't have a pool?)

Thursday and Friday, McLain had training for 8 hours. So I tried to entertain myself in the hotel all day. I played games, watched TV, worked out in the fitness room (they have a fitness room, but no pool?), and slept in. By the end of the second day, I was pretty bored.

By the time the trainings were over in the evening, many of the things were closed in Seattle, like the museums, Pike Place market, and so forth. So one evening we went to the HUGE mall and walked around. It was so so big! I'm used to the dinky one in Logan that has like 10 stores in it. The one in Seattle was ginormous!!! And the other evening we went to the Seattle Center.

Here are the pictures capturing our fun at the Seattle Center.

Space Needle (so cool)

us in front of the Space Needle (which you can barely see)

view of the city from the Space Needle

view of the bay from the Space Needle

looking in the cool mirrors, which made us
tall and skinny

short and fat

and somewhere in between

posing in front of a fountain, in front of the Space Needle

and making a heart in front of a fountain, in front of the Space Needle

because we heart each other.

Then we drove home on Saturday. Thanks Mom and Dad for taking the kids for us.
I really enjoyed Seattle and loved seeing it from up high in the Space Needle. I hated the traffic and the weird roads, but it was beautiful to look at. And it was so good to get away and be with McLain for so long.

Yay for road trips!