Our spring break roadtrip took us west to Seattle, as well as north of the border to visit beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia. Here are a few interesting trip bits...
Luis ran in the Mercer Island Half Marathon on Sunday morning. He did not disgrace the family - in fact, he shaved nearly twenty minutes off of his goal running time of 2:15.
Sunday afternoon Luis and I left Seattle and headed north to Vancouver. While searching for a map, we discovered a third passenger holed up in the glove compartment. I simply can't imagine how a garden gnome got in there... anyhow, he accompanied us on the remainder of our trip, nestled safely in my purse.
One of our favorite things about big cities is the wide variety of cuisine they offer. While away, we had Greek, Spanish (twice), Japanese, Vietnamese, Memphis BBQ, and Mexican, along with the usual road trip munchies. (Yes, copious vacation consumption was done, and we returned with a slight waddle to our step. Gluttony punishment has commenced at the gym...) One small disappointment - the eggs benedict I ordered our last morning in Vancouver came with ham instead of Canadian bacon. I didn't go all the way to Canada for ham...
We got to spend a few days hanging out with Patt, Luis's sister-in-law. The three of us had great fun.
On Wednesday we attended the Seattle symphony concert. They performed Schostakovich's 5th Symphony, and I think I'm in love. I have a friend who rhapsodizes about Schostakovich, and now I finally understand why. It was a beautiful, moving experience.
Thursday afternoon we were sitting at a stoplight in downtown Seattle and some guy waiting to cross the street yelled walked up to our car and yelled "MISSSSOUUUUULA!" It was a friendly gesture, I'm sure, but he used a scary Satan-esque throat yell, and crescendoed through the word. Little bit creepy. (Montana license plates are coded by the city you live in, so we assume he saw the 4 at the beginning of our plate number and that's how he knew where we were from. The only other way he could know is if he was a scary stalker, and I'd rather give him the benefit of the doubt.) We smiled at him, which encouraged a loud "GOOOO GRIZZLIES!!!!" from the guy. It was an all-around odd encounter.
Luis, Patt and I visited the Chateau Ste Michelle winery on Friday afternoon. We took the complimentary tour, which included a wine tasting at the end. It was a good learning experience, plus I was wicked buzzed by the time we finished. Then we headed a few short blocks over to the Red Hook Brewery. We just missed the start of the tour there, and rather than wait for the start of the next one we opted for lunch and the beer sampler. By 2:00 we'd each had samples of six wines and five beers. Woohoo. :)
Our last evening we saw the Britten's Turn of the Screw at the Maydenbauer Center in Bellevue. The last opera I had seen was The Marriage of Figaro, so I was briefly shocked at the dark, modern feel of this one. It was very good, though. As the curtain fell we made a mad (hopefully discreet) dash out of the theatre - Chipotle was only open for another fifteen minutes, and we had our hearts set on a farewell burrito. We got there at 9:55, and they were kind enough to let us in, and even to let us stay to eat. Huzzah for enormous burritos!
And now, back to the real world...
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