Doubletree Seattle Airport

I had to go to Seattle for work for a week. It's a good thing that I was stuck inside a classroom for 11 hours a day because the weather in Seattle was miserable - it rained every single day and the temps were in the 50s. It also didn't help that the conference hotel was an airport hotel which has absolutely nothing around it within walking distance (except a taco bell and a diner). H came with me for the first few days since he wanted to visit the national parks there, but by the last day he...

The tour of Seattle was nice. The sights we stopped at were beautiful. Did you know that Seattle is the 2nd biggest port in the United States? This is definately a city to put on the 'to do' list for another vacation. We saw crab pods like the ones they use on "The Deadliest Catch". Our tour driver said that a couple of the boats they use in that series are stored there during the winter. The tour bus was full and there were several people from Houston on it. The first couple I talked to said...

Security checkpoint in Bloomington and the flight to Chicago was uneventful. The flight attendant told me to go to gate K19 - it's different from my boarding pass but okay, it may have changed. Get to gate K19, tie my shoe, sit down and realize the sign says San Juan. So I hike it over to gate L2G (the one on my boarding pass) just in time to get in line to board. Yeah - no waiting! This flight was uneventful too with no one sitting next to me - sweet! Watched a movie called "The Happening". ...

I told Patty (my sister) that my trip was uneventful until I remembered that I almost drove into the short term parking at the Bloomington/Normal airport. So, I had to back up and then get into the long term lane. I was even thinking long term, long term and did it anyway. Geez!

Next is baggage check. Well, my bag was 7 pounds over the 50 pound limit so it's off to move some of my items from the suitcase to the carry on. Not an easy feat let me tell you.

Everything else went...

Woke up this morning to rain. Time to break out the raincoat and umbrella.

I decided to take the Famous Seattle tour instead of Mt. Rainier. The biggest enticement is an opportunity to go on the Sea Star from the show "Deadliest Catch".

In the lobby today I saw a couple I met on the city tour yesterday. They were getting ready for their cruise to Alaska which starts today. They are from the San Diego area and own a small distribution company. They usually cruise for their vacati...

So off we go on our big adventure. If I carry on...or start drooling during this...forgive me, I've been up since 1:00 AM. After getting up at an ungodly hour to catch the bus at 3:00 AM out of Portsmouth, we headed to Logan Airport to catch our flight. People were quiet that early in the morning...but oh no...not me, no Siree Bob!! I was chair dancing. How could I not? XM radio with our own free headsets, provided on the bus had some great 80s songs...and well...I'm on VACATION PEOPLE...and ...

We disembarked at 7:45 AM with self disembarkation. This means we carried our own luggage off the ship. Easy enough with only one small suitcase and one backpack each. We took a cab to the car rental place, and by 8:15 AM we were on the road to Tacoma. J wanted to go see the glass museum there. After some feel-around-driving (no map or directions) we found both downtown Tacoma and the museum. The museum was nice, but very small. We then went back to Seattle for lunch. We were planning to meet...