Day 1 (7/10) - Travel Day

We had a fairly uneventful trip to Seattle. We did leave Eleanor's booster seat in our Uber, but, thankfully, I was able to get a hold of our kind driver, Loretta, who circled back around for us. The rain had stopped by the time our flight was to take off, but due to bad storms to the west, we waited on the runway for about 40 minutes while our flight was rerouted. It is a longer flight than what we're used to, but kids did fine. 

When we landed, we called our hotel for the shuttle and then moved on to our Days Inn, our airport hotel in need of a face lift. Once settled, we walked 3 blocks to a nearby Link station, which is the train that runs into the city. It took about 25 minutes for us to reach the station closest to the Pike's Place Market. 

Seattle itself reminded me a lot of San Francisco. Not only is it very hilly, but there is a decent amount of homeless all around. (One of the more interesting homeless men had a hammock suspended between a building and lamp post and was perched above the sidewalk.) From the train station, we had a short walk to the Market, which we simply explored. We went to see the area where the guys throw fish, which was funny. When someone orders one of the whole fish on display, they yell it out and then toss it to another guy behind the counter to be filleted and packaged. You can pack up fish, crab, etc. and take it right on the place with you. It's good for 48 hours. We have enough to carry on a plane, though, so we passed. Eleanor was not a fan of the smell (not bad because all so fresh) or a fish that they would make move from a string under the ice. If a little kid approached it, someone would make the fish move, resulting in either hilarity or terror from the child. Entertaining to watch for sure.

For dinner, Will and I both had a blackened  salmon fish sandwich from the Market Grill, which was delicious. The kids, despite eating it at home, weren't interested in salmon and shared a chicken basket. Ethan did try my fish, though, and approved. 

Next to the market, we came upon an alleyway covered in used gum. I didn't know this was a thing, but apparently it's called the Gum Wall. We chose not to add to it, but we did have the kids pose for pictures, of course. Some people had even written their name in stretched out gum. Pretty gross. After the market, we stopped off at an ice cream place for terribly expensive but also very tasty handmade ice cream. Then, we went down to the waterfront to explore some shops and sites before heading back to the train station and back to our hotel. 

It was still light out at 9pm when we went to bed, but since it was 11 to us, 3 out of the 4 of us were asleep quickly. You can guess who chose to stay up. Ok fine - it was Eleanor. We were all up early with the time change, which was a-ok because we needed to get to the airport around 8 for our international flight. The airport has a neat common area with a huge section of Windows where you can watch planes land and take off. We grabbed another little breakfast (hotel continental breakfast left much to be desired) and relaxed for a while before going to our gate. 

I'm typing this while on our Delta flight to Calgary. We will be in the air for just over an hour, so it should go very quickly compared to yesterday. We will pick up our rental car at the airport and then hit the road for Fernie, BC, where we are staying in a beautiful ski lodge for the night before driving south into Whitefish, MT.