The Heathman Hotel Kirkland

... Here is a quotation that resonated with me: "I saw a friend who's a freelance writer and asked him what he was working on. 'Nothing right now,' he answered. 'You know how it is for freelancers. But at times like this I tell myself I'm "between opportunities." That way I don't have to feel I'm nowhere.' There's often a tendency for us to hurry through transitions. We may feel that these transitions are 'nowhere at all' compared to what's gone before or what we anticipate ...

... I'm off. On a journey I will call: "If I can do it, believe me you can too"! If you want to, that is. For some perspective, it comes as no surprise to my close friends and family that I am directionally-impaired. Recently I lost my car on the ferry returning from Whidbey Island to Seattle. Yes, I did. You see, drivers park their cars, then head up a couple decks to enjoy the wondrous scenery. An announcement comes on, as the ferry reaches its ...

... was just the right amount of time I think. I think we were getting hungry anyway, especially thinking bout the Italian Festival in Seattle Center...or so we thought! We walked all the ...

... where we need to be for our visit in the morning, but as it turned out, we thought we may as well stay around the airport area since we were there already. As well, we noticed the pile up - bumper to bumper - of traffic on the interstate we would be going out to Gig Harbor on. Forget it - absolutely nightmarish! Besides, the thought of getting in early and chilling in the hotel was way too attractive!

... free to ask questions. We will be leaving in just about 6 weeks. Currently we are very busy researching places we would like to visit. We have a few "anchors" along the way, but much of our trip we have decided to leave open to possiblity as we go along. We will be putting up our tentative itinerary in the next entry so keep an eye out. Hope to hear from you, Michael, Ren, Garrett, and Kaeley

... but managed to get a few hours' sleep before setting off for Sea-Tac by taxi at 7:30am. We checked in and sailed through security with no problems. In fact, at the check-in counter, Todd was overjoyed to discover that Tim's suitcase was heavier than his -- by 6 pounds! This conspicuously put an end to Tim's teasing Todd about how much he had packed, although Tim did point out that Todd ...

... that you don't really get a shock when you get back home. Well, while it's definitely good to come back to a certain level of comfort, technology and gastronomical diversity offered by the North American society, I'm afflicted by a massive sensory overload resulting from an excessively mediatized and materialized nation. Oh and, yikes, everything is sooooo ...

So, here I am at my old house in Kirkland where my brother-in-law, Doug, continues to live (kind of) even though we sold the house. We are staying the night because we needed a place to leave our car and Doug offered to drive us to the airport in the morning. so That was great of him to offer to do that for us. However, we didn't find out until yesterday that Doug hasn't actually lived in the house for about a year. He just pays half the rent and stores his stuff ...

We're two days away from departure, and are rushing through the usual list of last minute details: stopping mail, arranging local travel, buying clothes, finishing job tasks. For a trip that we have known about for so long - over a year - it is amazing how we still managed to put things off. We are going on our own modest version of an ...

... went to Wild Waves for the day; I picked them up in a chauffeured limo and we rode home on the bus. Every kid needs to know: whatever your circumstance in life, you can have a great time! Today, we were riding the DUCKS, WWII amphibious vehicles that went straight from the street to the lake with wheels dangling down. Now, that surely would be a day of fun. But, I hadn't counted on the noise-makers the other passengers-in ...