More of AK and WA

We'll be flying back to Ohio tomorrow and I know that day will be totally non-productive.  Not only that, we'll lose 3 hours and while it will be 7:30pm EST when we arrive, (or are we still on daylight savings time?), my mind and body will think it's 4:30 pm.  We'll wait until we get off the plane before we decide whether to spend the night in Columbus or collect our car and drive the hour or so back to Athens.  I want to make a run to Trader Joe's before we head for Texas and the Columbus store is only a couple of miles from the airport.  Decisions, decisions!

Quite a few years ago I talked Bill into a taking a vacation where we took as many different modes of travel as we could find.  For the most part it was really fun....  except maybe for that little incident on the Greyhound bus.  In case you're wondering...  the bus was packed.....  We had a young mother with an infant and a little girl around 3 years old sitting right behind us.  The young woman didn't speak English...  the baby cried a lot... but the really bad part was that the 3 year old was terribly carsick...  stood up hanging on to the back of the seat in front of her (Bill's seat) and when she wasn't tossing her cookies (now THAT'S an euphemism, isn't it!) she had the dry heaves.  They got off in St. Louis, only to be replaced by a lady who was carrying her mother-in-laws ashes in what looked like Chinese take-out in the seat beside her.

Bill forgave me a long time ago for this vacation (?)...  We still travel; we still meet very interesting people; and we still love taking various modes of transportation.

This trip we've taken a commercial flight, shuttle tram in the airport, taxi, city bus, subway, light rail, various hotel shuttles, monorail, and cruise ship.

And, we walked!

We seldom use the elevators, but this trip I think we rode up maybe a half dozen times in our week on board.

While I'm back on ship, let me show you the speakers at the Genealogy Conference...

Since I didn't go to any of the workshops, I'd have to ask Bill who all these folks are.

I just go to the cocktail party that recognizes everyone at the end of the conference.

And...  because I planned part of the trip around finding geocaches...

Yep!  There was an "Earthcache" at Tracy Arm!

Just for the record, I'll mention that we found five caches in Washington (Seattle), Ten in Alaska, and One in British Columbia.

For any geocachers out there, we also got 3 new Souvenirs...  one for visiting Groundspeak, one for our first cache in BC, and the third for finding caches in Alaska.  

So now we've found caches in 49 of the 50 states....

Do I see a trip to Hawaii in the future?

Today is kind of a laid back day, but we had missed going to Pioneer Square in Seattle last week.  So... this morning off we headed...

Bill at Pioneer Square

Waterfall Park

A lovely little enclosed garden 

Especially interesting because the building all around it are commercial.  This is a quiet spot amid chaos!

More Totem Poles

There are a lot of homeless folks here....

You'll see people sleeping on the ground; some alone, some with others; some with a dog or two.

Lots of panhandlers and buskers...

But the area is quite beautiful...

Flowers everywhere.....  hanging baskets, potted plants, flower boxes....  just all kinds.  Colorful and beautiful!

Isn't this an interesting take-out restaurant?

We're not sure what it started out as... 

but now, it's the

Pig Can.

We didn't buy lunch there...  we headed to the boardwalk and ate at Ivar's...

Here's Bill....  paying the tab at the end of lunch.

They specialize in seafood...

I had the cod taco; Bill had an oyster po'boy.

A nice way to end our visit to Seattle.

We walked through the Pike Place Market one last time..

Then we headed back to the Light Rail train station....

Now we're back to the hotel and Bill used the complimentary "office" to print our boarding passes for our flight out tomorrow.

So this adventure is about to end....

It's been great!

But that just means that another one is about to begin!

That's All For Today!