Day 17–Sleepless in Seattle

After getting to the hotel at 1:00AM, we got up at 6:00 to get back on the road.

Very tired.

We had lunch at Elmer’s, a regional chain I read an article about where they won best regional breakfast.

Aryn had triple-berry French toast and I had a triple-berry German pancake.

I’m not sure how they won that award, because it wasn’t that good.  As you can see, I only ate a little of my pancake and Aryn hardly touched her French toast.

Must have been bribery involved in that article.

So back on the road to Seattle.  We stopped at Mount St. Helens on the way.

That’s it between the trees, above the foothills and behind, well, the clouds, because the mountain wasn’t out this morning.  It was supposed to clear later and probably would have if we’d driven the extra hour to the closest viewing spot, but we’re already behind schedule pretty bad, so on to Seattle.

First we went to our hotel, which was North of Seattle – far north.  When I booked the kayak tour, I asked the guy where we should stay, he said Mt. Vernon.

Luckily Priceline had no deals in that area and I just made a reservation, because the hotel wound up being in Bellingham, even more north.  After I got in touch with family to arrange meeting after we’d checked in and cleaned up a bit, we were still on the road north.  Since the family’s in Tacoma, south, I canceled the Bellingham reservation and split the difference between Seattle and Mt. Vernon, winding up with an expensive room in Marysville.

We checked in, cleaned up, then headed back past Seattle to meet family for dinner.

After dinner, we had just enough time to get Aryn to Pike’s Place Market and the first Starbucks before they closed.  She got a drink and a t-shirt at the coffee-drinker’s Mecca, thus completing the pilgrimage all Starbuckians must perform once in their lifetime.

It was crowded so I dropped her off while I looked for a parking place, and on the way to meet her I saw dude-getting-arrested.

While across the street we had people-filming-dude-getting-arrested.

Then it was back to the hotel, through the confusing Seattle streets that don’t let you turn on lights and become one-way mid-block.  Kayaking tomorrow, so up at 6:00 again.