A Different World

A couple weeks ago my husband asked me how I felt about going to Seattle. Being that I had never been there before, I was all for it! He needed to travel out there for work and being that he is the biggest chicken EVER when it comes to flying, he wanted me to go along. Last week Friday we left bright and early for the Grand Rapids airport. Dan's way of coping ... rum drinks at 7:30am ... I am not kidding!

After a 45 minute delay, we were off the ground, heading for Chicago.

Ohare ... what a CRAZY airport that is! Twists and turns everywhere, I honestly think there is no end to that place.

After a 2 hr layover and some lunch, we were on our flight to Seattle. This was Dan's way of making it through ...

and after only 3-4 hours of sleep the night before, this was mine ...

As we were coming in for the landing, I looked out the window to see a car fire! Talk about an "eagles eye view." Ha ...

After checking into our home away from home for the week, food was on our minds. We heard about this fabulous Mexican resturant a block away from us and a taco sounded wonderful. Mama's Kitchen has to be the best Mexican Resturant I have ever eaten at!

PDA (Public Displays of Affection) very common on the streets of Seattle ... in all honest, we will just say Seattle seems to be a very open place. A little different than here in Western Michigan.

After dinner we came back to the hotel and decided we should check out our roof top view at night ... beautiful!

On Saturday we had to check out Pike's Market ... the home of the flying fish. On the way we seem sales set up in the most fabulous alley ways ever.



There are many people in Seattle looking for "tips or donations" as they call it. Some of pretty straight forward with it, others have more fun with it ... they sing, dance, play guitar and even tell jokes. It is an interesting place!

Another thing I noticed they like to experiment with there is hair ... for example ...

After dinner and a couple rum drinks, we headed towards the water to see what we could see.



The most interesting thing was probably the living bush. Well, not really. Dan and I were walking along and noticed the bush across the street moving ... 3.2 seconds later, a man seemingly dazed and confused or maybe he just had to many rum drinks popped his head up out of his little home.

Tell me ... do you see anything wrong with this picture?

I got a little bored sitting in the hotel room so I decided to go down to the streets to do a little street level time exposures ... I had to be creative since I had no tripod with me.

Sunday we headed to the 238 foot water fall ...

Danger Cliff ... um ... you know we had to check that out!

Along the trail of the dangerous cliff we spotted amazing things, like this tree. They have trees that grow out of the dead stumps of old trees ... very cool looking!




Then we headed over to the wetlands hoping to see an eagle or maybe mountain lion. I wish I could say I have great pics of mountain lions to follow but the most wild life we seen was a dragon fly, a squirrel and a bunny. So instead you get fun pics of trees. They have this crazy moss like stuff growing on them that reflected beautifully in the sun.





And my handsom model ...

Monday was a very exciting night! Dan and I went to the roof and noticed a man up there with binoculars. I asked if he saw anything interesting. He turned around, showed us his badge and said he was just looking for crack dealers! Um ... yeah, I guess the corner we were on is pretty much known as crack capital of Seattle. Dan's place of employment obvisouly forgot to tell us that little detail when they informed us of where we would be staying. Oh well, me ... being me, promptly asked Dan to run down and get my camera just in case. I jumped the railing and was on looking out with James (the awesome police officer). We weren't watching for to long before James was on the CB, radioing to the ground crew. Even though I knew the pics would turn out blurry being that I had to slow the shutter speed way down and I was literally hanging off the edge of the roof but I had to at least try! Here is the actual deal ...

This is just a fun little time exposure of a bus ...

On Tuesday, Braden, our old youth group leader and friend joined me in Seattle to entertain me for the day while Dan was at work. The first thing on our agenda ... Starbucks and not just ANY Starbucks ... the 1st EVA Starbucks!


Then we headed over to the best donut place on the face of the earth ... I am convinced of this!

After that, Braden just took me around to different place in Seattle. On the way we seen a fabulous alley way, I made Braden play model ... :-) He did pretty good!

Love this view ...

This is Kite Hill. When driving up I seen the sign "Kite Hill." I asked Braden, "What's that?" He's like ... "Um, a hill where you fly kites." I knew that, really! :-)

Then we went over to see the troll under the bridge ... interesting.

Even though the needle thing (what is that thing called?? I can't believe I can't remember), is one of the highlights of Seattle, because of Dan's horrible fear of heights, this is about as close to it as I got.



They love their dogs in Seattle ... they are allowed almost everywhere! They even have little doggy lounges ... I love this place!!



After the most amazing pedicure and manicure ever ... we were headed back home.

Even though I would have never picked Seattle as a vacation destination before this ... I can imagine I will be going back again. It is crazy, different and so much fun!