Exploring Seattle

Today was a long day. My mum, Bryn, Jonathan, and I got up early, around 6 a.m., and left about an hour later to take Jonathan to Seattle to catch his flight. The six-hour drive down was fine and, surprisingly, the border official barely asked us anything. Just wanted to know where we were going and why and then had a few other simple questions. We stopped about 20 minutes later in Bellingham, WA for an Olive Garden lunch and then kept going and finally made it to downtown Seattle around 2 p.m. We spent some time at the Space Needle and Jonathan and my mum took about a thousand pictures (Hyperbole?? Probably not.) of the Seattle sights and the harbour, oops, harbor. I spent a good bit of time watching some float planes take off and land in a lake right near the heart of downtown. When we came back down, Bryn stayed in the gift shop to look around and Jonathan, my mum, and I walked to a park right in front of the Seattle Science Center to take, you guess it, more pictures. After that we met back at the truck and consulted the GPS for another place to explore.

Statues are fun!

We decided on seeing the piers at the edge of the Pudget Sound and walked around those for awhile before heading to Pike's Place Market, which was just starting to shut down for the day. It smelled terrible and, after hugging a bronze pig, I was glad to leave. Somehow Jonathan and I got separated from Bryn and my mum so we waited by the side of a road until finally getting a text that they were back at the truck. We quickly made our way back there and then Jonathan found a park at the end of the lake that I was watching the float planes from the Space Needle and we decided to spend our last few hours of free time there.

Across the lake from downtown Seattle

It was an awesome park. If you're ever in Seattle, check out Gas Works Park. It's pretty cool. We watched float planes, walked around, and took more pictures. Finally it was time to go.

Twirling at Gas Works Park

We made our way to International Blvd. and found a hotel for the night. Then we brought our stuff in and got settled for the night before Jonathan and I left for the airport. His flight was at 11:30 p.m. so we left the hotel around 9:45 and took the shuttle to SEA-TAC. I showed Jonathan where to go and he got his ticket really quickly. Then we walked to security and said good-bye, after which I had to stand there watching him get into line, go through the metal detector and finally wave a final good-bye and walk towards the S gate. It wasn't the best part of the day. But, observing a young gay couple who were bawling right before one of them went through security helped me feel a little better about the situation since I had refrained from bawling unlike them. Once Jonathan was out of sight, I went back to the shuttle waiting area and called the hotel clerk who said the shuttle was already on its way to pick up another passenger. I made it back to the hotel without any mishap and tried to be quiet as I got ready to sleep since my mum and Bryn were already in bed.