Space Needle

When my grammy died a couple weeks ago, Randi expressed to the family that she desperately wanted to attend the burial in Seattle instead of the funeral in St. George. Randi begged me to go and I agreed after she twisted my arm...and she told me I had to. We were able to use two "buddy passes" Randi & Mike were given from their friend Cristina. They were about to expire, and it was the perfect way to get from here to there.

Randi & I met at the airport after her IUI procedure. We checked our bags and headed for the gate. We talked about everything we wanted to accomplish in the 24 hours we would have there...we talked about the IUI...we talked about everything we could come up with until we boarded the plane, all the way to the back row! I'm not sure I've never sat at the very back of the plane, but it was the only row available with two seats next to each other- the VERY last row. I made mention to Randi that the seats did not recline...in fact- I think they may sit more upright than the other seats. I also think they aren't as wide as the other seats. We laughed it off and enjoyed the free flight.

Luckily, we made a pit-stop in Sacramento. It was a quick 20 minutes to change planes and get back in the air. The second flight was much more comfortable and seemed a lot shorter than expected. I could feel myself getting excited to be back in Seattle and learn a few more things about the place my Mom grew up. We spent an amazing summer there with my mom when I was thirteen and that is about where the memories fade.

As we flew in Randi reported that we were flying over the airport. We continued to fly for 5 more minutes and then we landed. We later learned that the "other airport" was Boeing. There was so much water and beautiful green trees...GREEN everywhere!! We wanted off that plane so we could get out there and see it all. We landed, picked up our rental car and headed towards our hotel. We stayed at the Seattle Sheraton Down Town. The hotel was beautiful even if we did have to pay an additional 40 dollars to park the car over night.

We checked in and headed for the Space Needle. Once there we bought our tickets.

Waited for the cool capsule shaped elevator and finally took the ride up. We walked around most of the perimeter,

but the wind was crazy cold...so we went inside and looked at all of the cool stuff they had to play with. They had the history of the Space Needle...how it came to be and how it was "rejuvenated" for the millennium. They also had a really cool interactive "map" of Seattle...there were question marks you could touch and a blurb would pop up and give the information on that location. Very cool.

When we were done, we wandered around the gift shop and then drove back to the hotel. We took our stuff up to the room and realized it was almost 9 0'clock!! It was bright as noon...we were starving, but had NO idea how late it had gotten.

We quickly cleaned up a bit and walked toward the fish market. The concierge told us the restaurants were open until 11pm, so we figured we'd find something. On our walk down Pike Street, I realized we probably wouldn't be walking back. There were some questionable characters that made me nervous and Randi's cop instincts act up.

We got to the market and everything was closed. Everything. We stood and looked at each other for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do...when a market employee told us to walk down the stairs, through the alley (the dark alley with nobody close by to hear us scream), and out to the street where we'd find more restaurants on the water. We decided to walk with two Canadians who were headed that direction.

On the way down, they told us they had just eaten at a great place called Ivars. We walked past numerous restaurants...all closed for the night. It was only about 9:30...we were bummed.

We finally found Ivars and they were open, so we went in, sat down and ordered a lot of food. Randi enjoyed King Salmon & Dungeness crab legs and I order a spinach & goat cheese stuffed chicken breast. We also had an appetizer of crab cakes (yum), shrimp cocktail & calamari. By the end we were stuffed.

We took a cab back to the hotel (dessert to-go in hand) and headed for bed. Randi laughed at me because I was so excited to sleep in my own bed with nobody to kick me, snuggle up to me, snore in my ear, etc.