Well thanks to Ryan's brother and his parents we were able to take a couple days to ourselves and get away to someplace I have always want to go -- Seattle.
We left Hailey with her grandparents and took off on a Friday morning. I am not a frequent flyer. I am terrified of heights, plus I get serious motion sickness. Serious. I do better when Ryan's there, but I still don't enjoy it. The worst part for me is usually the take off. I'm usually pretty okay once we get up in the air, and then I start to freak out a little again when we begin our descent, but usually the take off is the worst of it. The flight to Seattle was awful from start to finish. The pilot couldn't pick an altitude so we were constantly going up and down and up and down - not helpful with the motion sickness. By the time we landed...well lets just say it was not a promising start to our little vacation.
After we checked into our hotel, I had to rest and relax from the flight before we could do anything. We were able to make it to a session in the temple that night, though. The Seattle Temple is beautiful. Its laid out so much different than temples in Utah, though. I had to ask someone on each of the 4 floors where to go next. We had to go back the next morning to take pictures though, because our camera takes horrible night pictures.
On Saturday we spent the day in Downtown Seattle. We hit the Space Needle, Pikes Place Market and the Seattle Aquarium. The Space Needle was fun, a little on the expensive side. The gift shop was ridiculously expensive. Sea World gift shops were cheaper, and in my opinion that is a bigger tourist attraction than the Space Needle. I was surprised with myself with how calm I was being in the Observation Deck 520 feet in the air. I wouldn't go outside on the deck though, I wanted to stay close to the center of the thing, just in case it fell over. (I know. The fear is a bit irrational. I asked Ryan "What if it falls over while we are up there?" He said, "Then we'll be rich when we sue them." I reminded him that we would be dead. He said, "Then at least Hailey will be rich.")
From the Space Needle we walked around a little trying to find Fisher Plaza. (For those Grey's Anatomy fans - This building is where they film some of the outside shots of Seattle Grace. I know, I didn't really recognize it either...)
From there, Ryan convinced me that it wouldn't be that far to walk to Pikes Place Market. He told me that it was a mile from the Space Needle. So we set off. We walked....and walked...and walked...After about an hour (I'm exaggerating here...) I asked if we were close. I could see water, so I figured we had to be close. Ryan kept telling me that it was just a couple more blocks. I think he told me that for like 20 blocks. (I might be exaggerating here too...) We finally arrived and I was pooped. And hungry. So we wandered around looking for a place to eat. Ok, I grew up in a town that was more...granola than it was anything else. If I had seen Pikes Market Place first, I would have never thought of Durango as granola. Everyone that works down there look like they stepped out of a rasta video. Long dreadlocks, beanies, the whole nine yards. I wish I had taken a picture of the inside of the place we stopped to eat...and the guys that worked there. Totally cool, but totally granola. We wandered around Pikes Market for a little while, saw what apparently is a famous fish place, saw a lot of really unique stores, then headed to the Seattle Aquarium.
This is a picture in front of the famous fish market. There are some videos on YouTube of them tossing the fish back and forth. We watched them do it a couple times...pretty cool. The Aquarium was pretty cool, but a little pricey. A must if you have kids with you, though. Much cooler than the aquarium here in Salt Lake. They had some really unique fish, though. And seals. I LOVE seals. We sat and watched the seals for probably 20 minutes.
This is one of the weirdest fish I have ever seen.Ryan had really wanted to go to the Boeing factory while we were there, but that wasn't too interesting to me, so we compromised and went to the Museum of Flight. That appealed to me because in the flier it said we could tour Air Force One and a British Airways Concorde Jet. I was excited about those tours. Unfortunately, by the time we made it to the Museum, they had closed that portion. When we hesitated about purchasing a ticket to see the rest of the Museum, the nice man offered us "rain checks" so that we could come back and see the Concorde and Air Force One. The museum was actually, surprisingly interesting. I knew that Ryan would like it, and that's the only reason I agreed to go. Surprisingly, though, I found myself enjoying it as well. Ryan would tell me what he knew about the planes, and we (he mostly) would read other specifics about them. My favorite part was the exhibit on the planes from the World Wars. I was riveted by the stories of the crazy pilots.
Ryan in the cockpit of an SR-71 Blackbird. He thought it was awesome!Sunday morning, we drove to the Snoqualmie Falls. They claim that the falls are higher than Niagra Falls. It was more overcast on Sunday than it was the other two days we were there. That combined with the mist from the falls made it nearly impossible to see the water at all. It was beautiful though; with the mist and the clouds - reminded me of Twilight, and made me want to go see it again!
From there, we went to use our "rain checks" at the Museum of Flight. I have to say I was a little disappointed with the so-called tours of the Concorde and Air Force One. I thought that maybe they would have a replica of the current Air Force One. Instead it was the actual Air Force One used by JFK and Eisenhower. (Walking through it though, did remind me of 24, and got us really excited to start up one of our favorite shows again!!) The Concorde was more disappointing. It was fun to read about how fast the jet could go (this jet was capable of traveling over two times the speed of sound! It could fly from London to New York and back to London in the time it took for a commercial airliner to fly one way.) But once we got in the plane...They have everything blocked off by plastic. While walking through, you couldn't walk facing straight ahead, we had to turn and walk sideways. It was claustrophobic. Oh well, at least we didn't have to pay for a second time to go see those planes.
The flight home was more pleasant than the flight to Seattle. The only problem was when we started our descent into Salt Lake, it sounded a little like the engines shut off, and felt like we were in a nose dive. I panicked a little.
It was so fun to have a trip with just Ryan. As much as I love my child, traveling is a much more pleasant experience without her. We didn't have to worry about tantrums, diaper changing, nap time. We could just go. And we got to reconnect. I didn't care so much for the gloom of Seattle, but I had such a great time just being the two of us, again. Love you, babe!
