Darek + Stacie

After lunch we spent some time walking around the area around the space needle. We came across a “quote/poetry garden” kind of thing and there were a few that I really liked.

The one above is kind of hard to read. It says:

When you walk past my window
Bless me.
For the light is still on.

The light is on —
In this dark night
Like a speck of fisherman’s lantern.
You may suppose that my little cabin
Is a small boat tossing in the storm
Yet I’m not sinking
For the light is still on.

–Shu Ting

This fountain is really cool. Music is playing and the water shoots way up at periodic intervals:

I really like riding the monorail:

Horsie with ear mittens!

A view of Seattle from Queen Anne Hill:

I really like Seattle. A lot.

Crispy decided that it might be fun to eat lunch in the Space Needle. Other than feeling sick from moving while eating and riding the crazy elevator down, it was pretty awesome.

This photo was actually taken after lunch, but I’m going to post it first, so you can see how high up we were.

This is what the view looked like when we first got up to the top:

You sit on the part that spins around and the wall next to you doesn’t move. Kathleen is actually slowing moving backwards:

It was really cool to watch the fog burn off as we spun around the city:

The food was really really really yum. My mouth is watering just thinking about it…

Even the butter looked pretty:

Kathleen says “stop taking my freaking picture so I can eat my sandwich:”

People put notes on the ledge so there was always something new to read. First, stating the obvious:

Something a little more clever, I guess:

We never found out if we won or not:

Ah, everyone’s favorite city…Hawaii:

The sky getting clearer and bright blue:

Afterward we went out to the observation deck to look around Seattle. We took our photo in the reflection and suddenly everyone around us was going “that’s the coolest thing ever!” and doing the same thing. It was really weird.

Beware of the Fremont Troll. He eats people.

Auto-correct is funny:

Fun times.

In most parts of the country, when traffic has to stop and wait for something, people freak out. But in Washington, people just turn off their cars and go “whatever.” We spent a lot of time waiting for drawbridges and construction to do their thing. I took a picture whenever we were stopped.

This was, by far, the worst. We waited for something like half an hour on this barge that was making its way veerrryyy sllooowwlly toward the bridge. And I really had to pee. Really badly. And everyone else was like, “whatever.”

Driving up the mountain, waiting for trucks to move some dirt around or something:

One lane was closed for roadwork, so we had to wait for the cars from the opposite direction to make their way in the one open lane:

As luck would have it, we kept missing the previous convoy and ended up being in the front each time:

This is in Forks. Again, only one lane was open:

This one happened just after we’d taken a wrong turn:

This was again when we had missed our road and had to turn around (the roads in WA don’t make much sense):

And everyone else was just like, “whatever.”

Although we drove across a bridge to get to the Olympic Peninsula, we took the ferry from Bremerton to get back to Seattle. I’m a little iffy on boats – I get motion sickness in a serious way. I’ve found that being outside is better than being inside, so we rode on the outside part. Unfortunately, it was freezing. But it was totally worth it. Crispy planned it so that we were on the ferry as the sun was setting.

Mount Ranier:

Another ferry heading in the opposite direction:

We could see jellyfish under the water, it was pretty cool (not pictured, so don’t look too hard):

I was really worried this guy was going to poop on my head. Luckily he didn’t:

I have the best friends in the whole world. They stood in front of me to block some of the wind since I was freezing and couldn’t be inside:

So pretty!

Getting into Seattle:

Some more photos from La Push. I feel like these capture the feeling of the place much better than the color pictures, but that might just be me or the mood I was in at the time.

(disclaimer: I am not a great travel photographer, nor will I ever claim to be one.)