Up at 430am and off we go! Mom had a later flight so she stayed at home and slept while the Three of We drove to the Maritime Center (where Garry works) to catch a shuttle to the airport. Garry seems to have too much fun with the notion of being at work, on a work day, but not having to work. He knocks on the glass to wave to his co-workers who are having to cover for him during his absence. He's evil.
No I Won't Get You More Gummy Bears!
The theme for today seems to be: "Russell Repacks Everything". He stayed up all night packing the luggage. Then just before we left, he opened it up and moved things around between the bags. That he had just packed a couple of hours earlier. Then we got to Maritime where...
...he opened the bags and moved things around again. Then we got to the airport where...
...he opened the bags again and moved things back and forth between them.
The flight to St. Louis was fine, we got on the plane to Seattle. We landed. While waiting for our luggage to appear...
Then we got the car and headed off to our first special stop. Garry's Dad requested that Garry try to find a landmark near Seattle, and we looked it up on the iPad. Turned out it was only about 17 miles away, so we fired up Lady Google (that's Google Maps / Navigation on my Droid phone) and took off.
About 10 miles down the road, Russell announced: "I've left my $1500 camera in the overhead compartment of the plane."
So we turned around and went back to the airport! On the way, Russ called Southwest, they found the bag, and took it to a counter. Russ dashed in, retrieved the bag, dashed out again.
Once again, we fired up Lady Google and hit the road. Our destination:
The Jimi Hendrix gravesite and memorial. That's our rental car, which we aptly called "The Hearse." So we're at the memorial, it's raining, and there's a small gaggle of faux artist types there. They're doing charcoal rubbings of the engravings on the memorial.
Every surface, apparently.
Trip after trip after trip from their car to the memorial, and back to the car to drop off a completed sheet of (dripping wet) paper, and pick up a new sheet. Over and over. Then they started repeating the process. I made a snide remark of: "What are they doing? Are they saying: 'Now I want to do them all again in the red charcoal...then again in the green charcoal...' ?" The boys laugh.
Finally about 20 minutes later, Garry decided: Screw it, I'm not waiting any longer, they can just work around me. So he and Russ got out of the car and took pictures for Garry's Dad.
Once done, Garry came back to the car, laughing. He said, "You'll never guess what I heard one of the girls say! She said, 'Now I want to do a set using the pink charcoal!' " haha!
That done we got in the car, and drove to the hotel. We stopped at an odd sounding Mexican Pizza Sub restaurant, which turned out to be really yummy. Then to the room. Garry has been complaining about a headache, so we all climbed into bed to nap until Mom's flight comes in. Russ rummages through the luggage some more (natch!).
Finally it's time to get Mom. Russ and Damian lets Garry sleep. We get in the car, turn on Lady Google and say, "Take us to SeaTac." We know it's only about 3 miles away. She drives us all over Seattle! Eventually we have to turn her off because the battery is going dead and Mom will be arriving to call us. We found ourselves in the middle of countryside nowhere with no clue where we are, how to get back, or how to proceed to the airport!
After a bit of wandering, we stumble onto a ramp to the interstate. We get on and look for any sign of the airport. After about 3 exits we decide we're headed the wrong way, so we do a loop-de-loop, head back, and eventually spot an airport sign. We pull in just as Mom is coming out of baggage claim.
We leave the airport, drive one block, turn right....and there's the street to our hotel! Really, Lady Google? Really!?
But we made it back. Everyone has collapsed into bed. Damian's posting this page and then he's hitting the sack as well.
Tomorrow is another day!
