Rather a thoughtful day!

Saturday – Seattle to Sequim, WA 

Hello!

Today has been a rather melancholy day, after hearing from R’s niece about his brother.  Rather than packing up and heading west across the peninsula, we instead found ourselves blessing the invention of computers and telephones!  Robert will get us safely installed in our Victoria condo, and will then head back to Chicago on Monday, with the viewing scheduled for Wednesday, and interment on Thursday.  Hopefully, R will be able to fly back to Vancouver on Friday morning – and his US Airways flight actually goes directly to PHOENIX before heading north!!  Can you believe it?!  A very, very special THANK YOU to our neighbors, Bob & Stew, who got into our house (in itself an adventure, with the alarm being set!) found all of Robert’s dress clothing, and took it to UPS and got it shipped to Chicago where it should arrive by 3 p.m. on Tuesday!  There is NO substitute for good family, friends and neighbors!  

So…getting back to Seattle.  We were able to get everything confirmed – plane, car and hotels – by 10 a.m. at which point we again loaded up the ubiquitous luggage cart and down to the car.  As I know I have expressed earlier, I had grave doubts as to our ability to take all the luggage AND Mom and her luggage – but Robert was AMAZING!  He got everything to fit in the car – including Mom AND her luggage!  And, we could even see out of the back window!  An expert organizer for sure!  

 

Headed directly to Pier 56, which is the departure point for ferries going to Bremerton and Bainbridge Island.  Either one would have worked for us, but as Bainbridge was next to depart, in line we went.  Only have 15 or 20 minutes to wait, and on to the ferry we went!  Parked the car and went upstairs into the passenger section to enjoy the trip.  The ferry was so smooth that I didn’t even notice we were moving!  Munched on some popcorn, and suddenly, voila, we were at Bainbridge!

Off the ferry in a leisurely fashion, and then started heading toward Port Townsend.  We are booked into Sequim, but have stayed several times in Port Townsend, and wanted to find a good place for lunch.  Thanks to TripAdvisor and our iPad, we were able to find a good place – Silverwater Café!  Parking was something else; we had to make several circuits of the area before we were able to find a place; obviously a popular location, especially as it’s a holiday weekend!

As it was almost 1:30 p.m. we were able to be seated right away.  Mom had a Reuben sandwich and a bowl of clam chowder.  I had a cup of clam chowder and an English muffin with a shrimp and crab melt on top – it was fabulous!  Robert had tomato cilantro soup, and then a crab burger, which he loved!  Desserts were amazing…Mom had chocolate mousse,  I had a molten chocolate cake with home-made vanilla ice cream, and R had huckleberry pie – which he raved about!  So, everybody happy!

It was about 45 minutes from Port Townsend to our hotel in Sequim.  It’s a Holiday Inn Express, fairly new.  Our room, however, is fairly compact; not too much room to move around, but it’s only for tonight.  Tomorrow we head to the Black Ball Ferry in Port Angeles and our arrival in Victoria!

I’m a bit concerned about the blog, as Robert, my photographer and picture-placer-extraordinaire will be away for a few days…he is planning on re-teaching me how to download pictures from the camera, compress them for space issues, and then get them safely into the blog…I was able to do it a couple of years ago…we’ll see how this goes!

So for tonight, I will close with thanks for all our blessings and particularly for having such wonderful families, friends and neighbors!  Thank you, all!

Much love,

m

xxx

A difficult time...

Saturday -

Just a quick post to say that Robert's brother, Dick, passed away earlier this morning.  He had been in and out of hospitals this past month, and while this wasn't expected, it also wasn't totally surprising.  I am just so very thankful that we were able to spend some quality time with him in July.  Very, very sad.   This will involve some changing of plans...

More later,
m
xxx

A Glass-Filled Day!

Friday – Seattle

Hello!

I do apologize for not blogging last night, but sleep overtook me after a nice but long day.

We were up fairly early, and down for breakfast here at the hotel.  It was very nice, but to be honest, they didn’t have salsa for the scrambled eggs…and scrambled eggs without salsa is just – scrambled eggs!  About 9 we decided that we would head out for the Space Needle (about 45 minutes on foot), as the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum opened at 10. 

Well, it was certainly a good thing that we left when we did, as they are tearing up ALL the streets in our area!  It looks like Tucson with all the orange signs and cones!  There were sidewalks blocked off, and cyclists and walkers being re-routed – It is normally 1¼ mile from the Silver Cloud Hotel where we are staying to the Space Needle, but I can tell you, we walked a lot farther than that!

Finally made it with just a few minutes to spare before the museum opened.  And wow, when it did…!

I find that people are either Chihuly glass people or they’re not…there doesn’t seem to be much “middle ground.”  We happen to be BIG Chihuly fans – the botanic garden exhibit in Phoenix that he did several years ago was amazing, and it’s scheduled to return either this fall or spring…so exciting!

At any rate, the Glass Museum was phenomenal!  One of my favorite pieces was the ceiling that he did – photos are good, but just really can’t do justice to all the different patterns and colors!   We did a complete tour, then took a lemonade break so that we could sit out in the garden and just ‘be’ with the glass…

Walked back to the hotel via a different route … down through a traffic tunnel, which is definitely not fun, but we thought was a bit shorter than our route there! 

It was now about noon, and we needed to pick up Mom at Sea-Tac at 5:20 p.m.  Decided that we would head to the Museum of Glass (MOG) in Tacoma – obviously a glass kinda day!  (We had planned on going to the glass museum on our return from Victoria, but as in the interim there is a change of seasons, the museum won’t be open then!  So!!)  Ran into incredibly difficult traffic heading south on Highway 5 to Tacoma – I mean, the LA-completely-stopped kind of traffic – and this was the middle of a weekday!  Just amazing – we are SO spoiled with Tucson traffic; this was terrible!  Finally got to an exit ramp and were able to bail on to surface streets to finish our trip…got there about 1:30 p.m., and were of course starving!

Decided on food first thing – very nice café attached to the Museum.  Robert had potato/bacon soup (which was good) and a baguette with ham sandwich.  I had their cob salad with blue cheese dressing; very good! 

Then, out into the museum!  They had an excellent exhibit of work from Australian artists, one of whom is their current “artist-in-residence” and was working with the Hot Shop crew on a piece of glass.  The Hot Shot team are employees of the museum who work in support of the visiting artists.  Basically, they are the ones who work closest to the molten glass in making the artists creations into reality.  It was all fun to watch; glass is such magic stuff! 

Robert bought me a beautiful piece of glass from their shop – a small blue wavy edge bowl; I just love it!

Then it was time to get to Sea-Tac to pick up Mom.  Fortunately, we were now going against traffic, and made excellent time; we had been really worried about traffic backing up, but it didn’t happen, thankfully!  We were amazed at how little signage there was to the airport!  Don’t know what out-of-towners do, or folks who don’t have good GPS systems…interesting!

Parked the car and into the terminal.  Mom’s flight arrived on time, and after collecting her luggage (which I’m not sure if will fit into the car, but R says not to worry…) we were off to the hotel.

Out a bit later to Chandler’s Crabhouse for dinner, just a short ride down the street, and located right on Lake Union.  Had forgotten that Boise State plays the University of Washington today in football – there was that Boise royal blue and screaming orange everywhere…

We had a lovely bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc while we were waiting to be seated.  Then dinner!  We started with an appetizer of crab and artichoke dip with chips; yummy!  Robert had crab soup for starters, and followed it with soft shell crab.  (He said it was great, but that crab really shouldn’t be fried, as it has a fairly delicate flavor.)  I had their wonderful clam chowder to start, with a HUGE crab cake and three sauces.  Mom also had the chowder, and followed this with crab Rockefeller, which she enjoyed very much.  Mom the only one up for dessert – crème brulé, which she said was good, but not as good as Robert’s!

Back to the hotel about 9:30 p.m. and crashing shortly thereafter!!

More later!

m

xxx

Back to the Coast -- and seafood!

Thursday – Kalispell MT to Seattle WA

Well, we’ve made it to Seattle!  As Robert says:  SEAFOOD!  Up this morning at the usual time, and down for breakfast about 6 a.m.  Again, an excellent breakfast, and I was even able to resist what looked to be wonderful cinnamon rolls.  Packed everything up and into the car about 6:30 for our three state day – Montana, across Idaho and Washington!  (A quick comment:  The BW in Kalispell had some wonderful decorations – bushes and trees completely wrapped in lights!  They reminded me of the jeweled trees and branches I brought home from Okinawa!)  

We had a lovely day for a drive – cool-ish, and a bit cloudy, until we ran into a couple truly torrential rain storms!  Very exciting!  We debated taking Highway 2 vs. the I90 freeway, and decided that with the possibility of inclement weather, that we would stick with the freeway.  A good thing, we think, as apparently most of Highway 2 is two lanes only, which would have definitely made for difficult driving during the rainstorms!  The scenery the entire drive was fantastic – lots of water and pine trees, and beautiful stretches of mountains; we took a few pictures!

Got into Seattle around 2 p.m. and found our way to the Silver Cloud – Lake Union hotel where we’ll be for the next two nights.  Really lovely hotel, and WOW, what a room with a view!  We’re in room 717, which is on their top floor, and we have French doors opening up directly to the view of Lake Union!  It’s GREAT!  We can also see the Space Needle, where we’ll be heading tomorrow to see the Chihuly glass museum.  Our room – suite, actually – has a full bathroom with two sinks (makes it easy!), another room with a huge king-size bed, big flat screen TV, chest of drawers, etc.  This then opens up into a large living room with wet bar – microwave and fridge with a couch/sofa bed, easy chair, coffee table as well as a large desk…oh!  And of course, yet another large flat-screen TV!  (What would two people do without a TV each?!)

Settled in and got organized, and then decided to take the hotel’s free shuttle service to the Pike Market.  Quick and fairly efficient, we were dropped off right in front of the market – and right in front of a cupcake shop…oh, boy…we had a nice walk through the market – what total and complete chaos!  And there are just WAY too many options as to what to do/eat, etc.!  As Robert says, if we lived in Seattle, we would be at the market on a daily basis!  Everything looked so fresh and good!  After walking through most of the shops, we decided to find a place for an early dinner. 

 

Decided on Etta’s, which is just across the street from the market itself.  We were actually in time to take advantage of their “crabby” hour, which runs from 3 – 5 p.m.  We both ordered the same things – bowls of clam chowder and crab salad with avocado, grapefruit sections and Bibb lettuce.  FABULOUS!  Honesty think that was the best clam chowder either of us have ever had!  It was very thick and rich, and was topped with bacon shavings – YUM!  Robert forgot to take a picture, so, for once, he took the “after” picture…sorry!!  Crab was amazing – they made a citrus-y dressing which we loved … absolutely no survivors there!  As this was my birthday dinner, I got a free dessert – their warm peach melba with peach and cream ice cream…R had their crab apple dessert, hold the ice cream.  During dinner, the storm which is moving through the area hit with incredible force!  One minute we could see across the bay, and the next, NOTHING – and the rain came down in absolute sheets!  We figured we were going to be fixtures at the restaurant until it stopped, but it actually didn’t take long at all!

Walked back to the shuttle drop-off spot and caught the van back to the hotel.  A GREAT deal of traffic as the Seattle Seahawks are playing the Raiders tonight – that brought out ALL the crazies! 

We are now settled in for the night, watching sea planes take off from the bay across the street!  What fun!  Our plan is to head to the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum tomorrow at the Seattle Center, and then pick up Mom when she comes into Sea-Tac in the late afternoon.  Not sure what else we’ll find to do, but I’m sure we’ll think of something!!

More later!

m

xxx