Seattle!!!!

Thursday

Soooo we finally made it to SEATTLE! WOOOO! We stayed in Marco Polo Inn (Motel?). It was much nicer than any of the reviews on Google made it seem. The room was clean, there was HBO, a microwave, and a fridge with freezer space. The guy who ran it was super nice and friendly. He was nice about the door not opening with the key he gave us (made us a new one) and the room not having a remote. He also offered us an extra amount of coffee every morning when we came down to get some, literally pushed us to fill mugs of it! On Thursday we went into Fremont, the closest district to our hotel. We saw the Fremont troll which is under the bridge and a touristy spot. We also walked down to the area that had the shops and restaurants. We checked out a few little shops. One was a consignmen/vintage type shop that had a lot of goofy things like old boyscout shirts and army jackets and crocheted sparkley, velvety stuff. It was interesting to look at but the shop was HOT. We also looked in some high-end boutiques that had home decor and backpacks/bags that both Tom and I liked. We took a business card so that we could stop back once we had more income to spend on stuff like that. There was this one shop that sold rugs and carpet that made us giggle because they had a Persian rug outside the store with a giant tiger laying on it all Aladin style. We stopped and ate lunch at a vegetarian restaurant (YAY for me!) called something like Silent Nest Heart (???) that was opened because of some Buddhist guy. Honestly, I have no idea what it was called but the food was BANGIN'. Tom ate some vegetarian tacos with black beans and I had a guacamole “bacon burger”. The bread and burger in my meal was made on-site and was delicious. Instead of fries they give you fried potatoes and they have special spicy chipotle ketchup. SO GOOD!!! The service was also excellent and I feel that we will definitely be going there again. We walked back to the hotel after that because I had a horrible tension headache, most likely from driving so much, and laid around for a few hours before going to see We are the Millers at the movie theatres. GO SEE IT!! It was definitely worth the money. Hilarious. The theatre was really nice. It was in a shopping plaza but it was interesting because it was built up so there were a couple floors.

Friday

We woke up early again Friday. Drank a bunch of coffee and ate pizza and Charlie's zucchini bread for breakfast. We checked out at around 10ish and went to Bellevue. Bellevue is outside Seattle and you have to take SR520 to get across the water to get there. I was a little freaked out because signs kept saying that the bridge was closed for boat traffic but we got over the bridge fine because the closure was for noon to 12:30. We found the Plato's Closet in Bellvue pretty easily. It was pretty nice! Tom found a pair of Levi's on the cheap. It was funny because, in true Seattle area fashion, someone had their puppy in the store and it was no big deal. Except I was gushing because I'm still getting used to the fact that people take their pets EVERYFREAKINGWHERE around here. We also went to Ross because it was right next to Plato's Closet and Tom found a nice shirt and sneakers. We headed back to Seattle afterwards. We went towards Pike Place Market and parked in a garage for a few hours while we walked around the market and downtown. Tom did find another pair of Levi's jeans at a shop in the market for cheap. While in the market we experienced our first encounter of individuals freely smoking marijuana in Seattle. It made us laugh because there were a lot of tourists and kids walking around who started making funny faces and coughing and just generally freaking out. We walked to the city Target after that to kill some more time since it was close by. It's not really the greatest Target. They definitely have limited stuff but it is pretty cool because it is three levels with escalators with special things to take the cart up to the next level. We headed back to get the car from the garage at quarter after 4 because we figured that traffic would be crazy on a Friday afternoon and boy were we correct. I NEVER WANT TO DRIVE AGAIN!!!!! It was insanity. Sooo much gridlocking. We had to detour so many times just to get the few blocks to the place where we had to pick up the keys and such for the temporary housing. I couldn't even park and had to just let Tom out of the car to get the packet. I drove around the block and it took more time to do that than it took Tom to get the packet! Then we had to go a few blocks to where we were actually going to be living for the next month. That wasn't too bad because the parking garage is down a back alley off a street that isn't too busy BUT they gave Tom the wron information in the packet that he got. So he had to go speak to the leasing office while I waited in the car for 45 minutes hoping that I wouldn't get a ticket or towed! Once we got it all figured out we finally started unloading the car. It was a little weird because we had to go up the elevator in the garage then out onto the street and around the corner to get into our building and take our stuff up to our apartment. It only took three trips thankfully. It was funny because there is a restaurant/bar on the corner so everyone sitting in their booths by he windows were staring as we hefted everything up the street. Once we got settle we headed out to get groceries and dinner at Whole Foods. I am in love! I seriously feel that I may beg to be hired there. It is a happening place on Friday night! They have a crapload of food in their buffet area plus they have a coffee/juice bar and a wine/liquor/beer bar! Tom got hot food while I just got a salad and smoothie. Did I mention it is all organic? The food part was only $14 and we got A LOT!. The smoothie was expensive but it was so good! We got food that should last us about a week. I also bought a pair of red canvas Tom's Shoes that they sell at Whole Foods. We chatted up our cashier then came back to our apartment, put our food away and had an alcoholic beverage. We didn't even finish the drinks before we went to bed around 10! Also, I used the gym which is spectacular! They have free yoga classes almost every day!

Saturday

We slept in a bit later today. We stayed in bed until closer to 10. Tom made eggs with some peppers and I ate the rest of Charlie's zucchini bread. We just lazed about for a few hours before deciding to head back into downtown to get a few things we forgot yesterday such as laundry and dish detergent. We looked around a few places like Free People and then stopped Nordstrom Rack. Tom bought a pair of gym sneakers while I bought a few tank tops. I love all the nice shopping places within walkin distance! We came back to the apartment to eat and laze about again after. Didn't really do much today. I did text David who is a guy from home that is working for Amazon as a recruiter. We ended up going to Capitol Hill and having a few drinks with him and a little tavern. They have really good beer out here. There was a really nice watermelon beer that was delicious at this place. Tom and I are still trying to get the hang of it out here. For me it is so weird seeing so many homeless people. A lot of them have dogs which is even more depressing! :( It is also weird being here because since people sleep on the streets so often you never know if someone is just sleeping or something is wrong! Yesterday a woman passed out on a bench outside our building and the ambulance came! I hope she's ok because she was there for a while before anyone thought to worry about her! Overall though I think we're both really enjoying being here. Seattle seems very safe and friendly for a city!

These are some pictures that didn't make it into yesterdays album (where they belong).

Butte to Coeur d'Alene

We left the hotel around 9:30 am and headed for Coeur d'Alene. We headed over some pretty big mountains to get to this city that was nestled in the mountains by a HUGE lake. This whole drive was HOT and DRY. 90 degrees and humidity at around 20%. Yikes! We were sweating like crazy and chugging so much water. It was dreadful not having A/C in the car.

Coeur d'Alene was beautiful. There were a bunch of shops and restaurants everywhere. Parking was weird because there were a lot of Park Here signs but then we'd pull in and find out that it was for the people who worked at the shops nearby or whatever. Very frustrating. We finally found a parking area near a thrift shop. It was different because it just had this box with slots in it that had corresponding numbers to parking spaces that you just shoved your money into. We hadn't seen that before so we went into the thrift shop to make sure we were doing it right. The girl working there was nice but she thought it was funny that we hadn't seen that before. So after we parked we looked for a place to eat. We decided to eat at a Greek restaurant called The Olympia or Olympus. We got babaganoush with pita, a gyro and falafel. It was really tasty! Afterwards we walked around Coeur d'Alene. We stopped in a couple of shops (they had a Pendelton's!!) and walked down to the lake. We both chatted with our parents for a bit (Hi Moms and Dads, we know you're reading :) ) and then decided to get back on the road.

Coeur d'Alene to Seattle

We drove for another 4ish hours to get to Seattle. There wasn't much to see in most of Washington. Very flat, hot, and dry most of the way. Once we got closer to the mountains there seemed to be a haze forming in the sky and it looked like there was a fire on one of the mountains in the distance. It was really strange. There's also an Amber Alert in effect out here so the radio kept cutting to that announcement and there were a lot of posts on the highway. Hopefully they find the girl and boy who were abducted!

On top of one of the sets of mountains there was a windmill farm. There were so many of them! It was quite windy though so I can understand that it is a really efficient way to produce energy out here. In another part or in a different set of mountains there was a lake that was also really cool. The best part of the trip was when we could finally start to see Mt. Rainier in the distance.

When we finally got into the Seattle area the traffic got rough. It wasn't completely horrible but the sun was in our eyes and other cars felt like zipping and weaving in out of the traffic. When we finally got to our exit the GPS started to crap out which was AWESOME. We were freaking out a bit because it kept taking us down roads and then say that it was recalculating. We quickly used a phone to figure out how to get Marco Polo Motel on Aurora Ave. It was about 9pm when we got there and checked in. The room is fine. We have internet and tv. It is clean and we're basically just sleeping there so it works.

Belle Fourche, SD—>Butte, MT

So Tom and I woke up in our stinky hotel room in Belle Fourche around 7:30 am. Did we mention that our room smelled like old, stale cigarettes and oily fish. Yuck! Other than that the room was decent. It was really hard to find a hotel in the area of South Dakota we were in because there is a HUGE bike rally in Sturgis, South Dakota right now. I've never seen so many bikers, it was nuts! The hotel had no coffee or breakfast so Tom and I just had a quick snakc of zucchini bread that Charlie had given us. Then we got back on the road. We took Rt. 212 through the rest of South Dakota, a tiny bit of Wyoming, and some Montana before Rt. 212 turned into I-90 through Montana. On Rt. 212 we stopped for some brunch at Cashway Diner in Broadus, MT. It was a tiny little hole in the wall place. The drive was pretty decent today. Not much traffic and the speed limit is 70/75 mph out here. The scenery was really nice. I've never seen so much open space! There was nothing but crops, cattle, and horses. At one place a horse had gotten outside the fence and was grazing close to the road. There are some pretty cool houses out here too. Cabin-like ones with lots of windows, big ol' farmhouses, and, for some reason, a lot of little houses that were painted blue.

The weather is really dry out here. My skin and lips are so dried out along with my eyes.

Once we got closer to Butte there were a lot of interesting features to the landscape. There are these random outcroppings of land everywhere a lot like the things we saw in the Badlands but just more random. It still wigs me out a little about how many huge hills and mountains there are.

We finally made it to Butte around 5:30pm. We had a good laugh when we got off the exit and 4 20-somethings were trying to hitch a ride west with signs that read “WE R NOT HIPPIES”.

The hotel we're in now is pretty nice. No breakfast here but very clean and not stinky.

We ventured into town to find dinner and stopped at Fred's Mesquite Grill. We both got sandwiches and they were really good! The town is pretty cool. It's not very touristy or anything spectacular but they have a lot of little shops and restaurants. The only other thing we did was stop at Safeway to get some toiletries because the hotel stuff is too rough.

We're planning on going to Spokane tomorrow but we may go the whole way to Seattle. We'll be going through Idaho and will probably stop in Couer d'Alene because it's supposed to be beautiful.

Sioux City

Here we had a rainy, thundering start. Didn't delay us much though and we continued up I-29.

These are areas are quite remote - we drove for miles at a time without seeing much beyond rest areas and such. Luckily, it is quite scenic. Vast flatness broken up by the occasional set of rolling hills.

Petrified Wood Museum

The fact that something like this is what caught our eye should be a testament to how long we were in the car. I am glad we stopped though as we took some neat photos there. The main attraction here were the “logs”. At one time, they were actually trees, but at some point they sank and were buried. Then the wood was replaced with varios minerals.

They also had an assortment of fossils inside.

The Badlands

These were kickass. Highlight of the day.

Before actually entering the park, we stopped at a fuel station just outside. It looked like an old west store front, but all the cowboys were replaced with leather-clad, harley ridin' bikers. The scene was even complete with Praire Dogs!

Next, we entered the park. The views were beyond incredible, pictures can't do the place justice. Neither can my words really. You could see for miles, if not hundreds. Check out the pans and videos below.

Pans

Keep in mind that I did these with my phone camera.

Videos

• Badlands Drive
• Another Badlands Video
• Night lightning

Was too tired to write this up last night. So I am writing it today (the 5th).

St. Louis

We woke up at about 6am and had a nice complimentary breakfast of eggs, biscuits & gravy, oatmeal, and coffee. Then we packed up and set out for the arch.

The arch was impressive - I wanted to take the elevator to the top, but we would've waited an additional two hours for it. So instead we checked out the Museum of Westward Expansion below the arch. We took a few pictures from there - see the bear, buffalo, horse, and more [o my].

Kansas City

We left St. Louis fairly early and had yet another long, boring drive right through lunchtime; hungry. We stopped in the Westport area of KC and had lunch at the Beer Kitchen. The burgers there are awesome!

Siox City

This is where things started to get flat, remarkably flat and straight. Compared to I-70, there is hardly anyone on I-29. Pair that with the flat-straightness of it and the drive was actually pretty nice.

Late last night we arrived in Columbus, OH. Not much happened on the way there, and there wasn't much to see either (was dark!). We were exhausted and were okay with the shitnasty motel we passed out in.

This morning we left Columbus towards Indianapolis. On the way we found Heart of Ohio which is a giant warehouse full of antiques! A few of the pictures were taken from there.

After a quick look around the place we realized we could have easily spent the entire day there; massive.

Next we had a long, boring, and kinda hot drive to Indianapolis. To be honest, I don't think either of us were expecting much from the place, so when we arrived we were surprised at how clean and pretty the city was. Brick everywhere. Like cool, old brick buildings? You'd love this place. We passed through one of the most beautiful neighborhoods I think I've ever seen. I wanted to tour each one, and I SHOULD have taken some pics. Then we had a quick stroll about Broad Ripple Village.

Next stop, Saint Louis! Another long, hot, and boring drive. We decided to use some of my Hilton Honors points to get a very nice room for tonight. Oh yeah - IT WAS FREE TOO BAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA

Tomorrow we will check out Saint Louis a bit. Come back!

Yes, it is finally here.