Seattle Center in September

I pulled into the parking lot of the hotel around 1:30 or 2:00 pm on Saturday, I can’t remember exactly what time it was. Seeing Shannon walk out of the door hotel made everything so real. Traveling so much this summer the beginning of this trip felt like every other trip, not like the start of a wonderful vacation. With Shan living in Orlando we only see each other about once a year and finally seeing her in person made the realization that our vacation was actually beginning. After a quick trip to Wendy’s, dropping off my luggage in our room for the night, and a changing into cooler clothes – it was around 80 degrees out - we jumped in the rental car to head into downtown Seattle.

I was pleasantly surprised how well I remembered the city and how to get around. This was Shannon’s first time in Seattle and she was excited to see the city. As we approached she took this picture from the car.
The first “landmark” we saw was Safeco Field.
We then traveled down Alaska Way and Shan saw Puget Sound for the first time. We decided to start our sightseeing at the Space Needle. Parking around that area was quite expensive and hard to find. A few blocks away we found some on street parking, but you had to back in on an angle. Normally I would not think too much of this, but being in a rental car, that I had only driven for a few hours, I was a little nervous. But I did really well. We are the little black car in the middle
We walked a few blocks to the space needle, which is surrounded by the Seattle Center which has sculptures, gardens, museums, and kid’s area. Here is the space needle as we approached it.
This is one of the sculptures – it is not a Calder – but it looks like one.
Shan and I both had our pictures taken by it. While we were there a little girl was using one of the tubes as a slide, I tried to take a picture, but she was bored at the point and went to play with something else. Evidently grass is not very nice in Florida, so Shannon as excited to walk on some real grass.
These are some of the pretty flowers
I found this mural and I liked it.
Shannon wanted to go play in the kid’s area, but she was too tall.
This is a lightning bolt sculpture – I liked this too.

On the road again

So much of this summer still seams so surreal, including the fact that I was in Seattle twice in less then three months. I have to say I really like Seattle – the area is beautiful, the people friendly, and during the 8 days I was there the weather was beautiful, warm and sunny, no rain!

Getting to Seattle was uneventful for me. For the 3rd time this summer I took the Grand Rapids to Denver flight, and for the third time the time was moved up to 8:30 am. Which meant I needed to be up and out of the house by 7:00 ugh – not ideal for the start of a vacation, but thankfully I was able to sleep most of the first flight. As we were approaching Denver I was looking out the window and notice a plane was stopped on the side of the road out near the runway. Approaching the plane were several emergency vehicles, obviously something was wrong. I found out later the plane was from Little Rock, and a tire blew during take off. Thankfully they were able to land without incident, but they had to sit there for a couple hours and several people missed their connecting flights, including a several couples who were on their way to Seattle to catch a cruise ship and were in danger of missing it, which is why I am glad I flew out a day early.

The second flight was also uneventful and as I approached Seattle I was able to get some great pictures of Mt Rainier. With all the time changes, I spent 8 hours traveling, but arrived in Seattle at 1 pm.

Shannon’s travels to Seattle were decidable more complicated and stressful. Originally Shannon was scheduled to fly from Orlando to Seattle on Saturday with a lay over in Huston. But with hurricane Ike quickly approaching, the Huston airport was to close at noon on Saturday. Shannon received this news on Wednesday and so her flights were moved to Friday. She was able to get into the hotel a night early and everything was set. So we thought. Thursday night Shannon received another phone call from the airline telling her that the Friday flights were now cancelled and she had two choices, take a flight that lands her in Seattle an hour after the ship left on Sunday or pay an additional $1000 for the final first class seat on Friday. Neither one was a valid option. So Thursday night, just hours before she was scheduled to leave Shannon was with out a plane ticket. Thankfully she found a flight on Air-Tran that got her into Seattle on Friday, but didn’t get her home until Monday. This worked out due to the fact that Shan’s roommate works for the Marriott chain and was able to get us rooms at the Courtyard by Marriott for $50 a night.

On Saturday Shannon hung around the hotel until I arrived, thankfully I landed early, quickly picked up the rental car and drove over to the hotel. Our adventure was about to begin….

Alaska Overview

I just returned from the most amazing vacation ever! I was on a 7 day Alaskan cruise out of Seattle. I am just beginning to go through my pictures and I am not sure when I will have them all, but I thought I would do a quick overview and then go into more details as I go through the pictures.

I arrived in Seattle on Saturday September 13th on another beautiful sunny day. Here is a picture of Mt. Rainier from the plane
We spent Saturday afternoon, evening and Sunday morning touring around Seattle. My favorite thing was the underground tour. A must see if you are in Seattle
Then we boarded the Star Princess – our home for the week. We bought some flowers from the Pike Place Market to bring on board; they brightened up our room for the week.
Our first port stop was in Ketchikan – the weather was beautiful – no rain, which is rare the city has 280 days of rain a year. We went zip lining there – this is Shannon on the zip line.
Our second stop was in Juneau – there we went kayaking. Here we are with our kayak guide.
Our third stop was in Skagway. We went mountain biking here. It was so much fun! Here is Shannon all decked out in bike gear. Our days at sea were filled with activities too. We got lots of pictures taken – here is us one of the not formal nights.
Here we are on the second formal night.
Our cruise director was JJ. Every morning he would host Good Morning Alaska which went over all the activities of the day and give any pertinent information. Every morning we watched to see what was going on. I am going to miss having someone lay out my plans for each day for me. JJ was a great cruise director and I enjoyed chatting with him a bit.

The week went by so quickly and I was so sad to have to leave. I miss the boat and the great people I met. I will post all the fun stories from the boat as I am able.