Our Pacific Northwest trip

While poor Matt and Anne were dealing with the massive upheaval in their lives, Andy and I were galavanting around on the West Coast. The primary purpose of the trip was to visit Callie, my step-sister, and her husband, Scott, who live near Seattle in Shelton, WA. But we also took the opportunity to visit Vancouver, BC and Seattle.

We had a layover in Denver on our way to Sea-Tac airport. Upon arrival in Seattle, we rented a car. Andy had booked an economy car, but the rental place was out and we were stuck with a Seabring convertible. Initially, Andy was concerned about the gas mileage on the car -- V6 engine! -- and didn't want to take it. Not a crazy concern considering the price of gas lately, which was severely impacted after Hurricane Katrina. But the car turned out to have decent gas mileage and was a lot of fun to drive. The entire time we were out there, the weather was great.

Our first stop was Vancouver. The city has some very pretty areas. The first day we took a trip on a tandem around Stanley park, which was a lot of fun (even if we did look ridiculous in the bike helmets). But on the way back towards the hotel on a search for Chinatown we found crack city. Drug addiction is treated as a health problem rather than a criminal issue so there are many addicts living in Vancouver. On the aforementioned afternoon Andy spotted a guy carry his crack pipe and baggie of crack out in the open. Not something you see everyday! The first evening we went to a great sushi restaurant for dinner called Tsunami Sushi, followed by beer at Steamworks Brewing, a local microbrewery. Andy and I started with a sampler of 8 of the brewery's beers. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that all of the beers were great -- except for the nut brown ale, which we didn't like because we just don't like that style of beer.

The second day we started out at the Capilano Suspension bridge. We moved from there to Grouse Mountain where we saw bears, birds and a lumberjack show. The views from the mountain and the gondola ride up to the peak were well worth the money -- although we found Canada to be very expensive and poor value for money overall. Just ask Andy about the Storyeum.

That evening we tried to go see Ted Leo and the Pharmacists at Richard's on Richards. But we were too late and missed the first 40 mins or so. Turns out the bar was a club with a club night staring at 10 pm, so the show got started really early for a Friday night show. After that we tried to get a drink in Yale Town, but decided it wasn't our type of place. After stopping at an Scottish pub up the street, we headed to Steamworks again for a nightcap.

The next morning we headed to Callie and Scott's house off the dirt road. Over the next few days we took the boat out on the sound, met some of Scooter's family, went clam digging and canoeing, ate some really good food and even toured the local Wal-Mart. The last evening we ate white salmon caughted by a neighbor. Scott cooked it two different ways and both were delicious! It was really nice to finally see where Callie lives.

Regretfully, our time in Shelton was over too fast and we spent our last few days and nights in Seattle. Andy was able to get a great rate at a 5 star hotel, the Fairmont Olympic, through IBM. It was very fancy.

We walked a lot in Seattle. Even walked all the way from our hotel to the needle because the monorail wasn't operating the day we tried to hop a ride. The views from the needle were unreal. I can definitely see why David Gedge thought Seattle would be a nice place to live.

We toured Pike Place market a couple of times; wandered around most of the neighborhoods in the vicinity of the hotel; took two huge walks -- one to Filson and a second to REI; took a ferry across the sound at night, which was really cold, but pretty; and had a nice dinner at Wild Ginger, a favourite of Callie and Scott.

On the way home, we were delayed some in Denver. The plane for the leg to Atlanta hit a bird as it was coming in to land from the preceeding flight. Some damage was done to the electronics in the nose cone so we weren't able to take that plane. Luckily there was another plane handy and we weren't delayed for too long.