Epic RVing with the Gradys - Day 8 - The Emerald City

One week ago we left on this adventure!!! In a lot of ways that is hard to believe. We’ve certainly held up better than I would have expected being in such close quarters. This is in no small part due to Quinton’s mood being quite good the entire time. He really does seem to enjoy this style of trip - despite all the driving and hiking that we are doing!

We lazed through the morning a bit this morning, waking when the spirit drove us, which wasn’t very early! I got out and did an early morning run which was complicated by some toilet emergencies, and made quite difficult by the extreme terrain. All told, for my 3 mile run, I was able to job about 1.5 miles of it. The rest were either extreme uphill or thorugh thorns or mud. I suppose at least I got it in.

We grabbed a shower and loaded up the Mazda and headed north. It was about a 2 hour drive to Seattle, so we got there right around 11:30. We decided to first take the grand tour of where we used to live to stoke up the nostalgia factor. The first destination was the 520 floating bridge, which is a toll bridge now! Also, it doesn’t seem too impressive now that it’s all big - it hardly seems dangerous at all!!! No fun. Oh well, I doubt the kids would have been all that impressed anyway.

We then headed north to Bothell where we tried to locate our first apartment by memory. Yeah, it didn’t work. We searched around for about 30 minutes before we had to stop for gas station snacks and to cheat with Apple Maps. We weren’t too far off - only about 3 miles! The old place looks pretty good!

We then plotted a course to our first condo in Mountlake Terrace. I had to guess since we couldn’t remember the exact address, but based on landmarks and memory, I was able to hit it on the head. Of course, Apple Maps took us in a direction that I never knew existed. Turns out it was probably the fastest way between the two dwellings! It occurred to me that we lived there before the dawn of the smart phone, so it stands to reason that we maybe never found the optimal rout back in 1998!

After getting some pics and certainly creeping out the current residents, we headed over to I5 south towards Seattle. We tried to show the kids the Fremont Troll, but it was too busy. Damn COVID!!! They were able to see it from the car, but it still wasn’t all that impressive.

We camped out downtown near Pike’s Market and basically just walked around the rest of the day. We ate at Pike’s Market at a cafe, which was delicious. Then we walked over to the monorail and took it to the Space Needle. The line to get into the Space Needle was quite long, so we just hung out in the park for awhile. Mireille and Quinton played on this impressive climbing structure that looked WAY too dangerous to actually be legal. We then headed back on the monorail towards downtown where Quinton and Jenny hung out at the Nike store while Mireille and I went to Gameworks - it’s still there!!!

One thing we found out was that Washington has only just recently rolled back their COVID restrictions, like in the last week. We’ve seen lots of people wearing masks and lots of getting used to having people present again.

It was fun seeing all the old places. It definitely stoked up the nostalgia factor and made us wonder what could have been if we had stayed out here.

After we got our car, we headed back to the Ballard neighborhood where I had arranged to meet up with a coworker of mine, Christina, who had a beer with us. It was nice to see somebody from work “in the flesh” as this last year has been pretty sparce with those meetings.

We then headed back south - the 2 hour drive back to Harvee where we basically just got into bed and fell asleep.