Arrant Nonsense

We're home.

Seattle was awesome. More later. We're going to see GI Joe and have dinner at the theater...

One drink, y'all. Three kinds of rum has knocked me on my ass.

Today, we visited the Boeing Restoration Center, which was very very cool. They don't really get much business there, and if you look halfway interested, you will be pounced upon and shown all sorts of neato STUFF, like how an old-time flight simulator worked. Nowadays it's all circuit boards and ones and zeros, but back then they did it all with bellows systems and vacuum tubes. It was wild.

And then we got to see a P-47 take off, do a few laps around the field, and then land. I haz pictures. Will post them later.

And now we're back in the room watching NASCAR, which is a treat because we haven't gotten to see NASCAR since they went to ESPN a couple of months ago. We ate at Ram's again, where I once again had the steak OMNOMNOM. And the aforementioned Bahama Mama. Which. Dude. Yeah.

In other news, I have hit upon an end game. Ish. Remember how I said that Janni, Ben, and Ange would all live through this?

Um.

We'll see.

BUT. I cracked 100K yesterday. Which was cool. Go, me?

Couldn't have asked for a better flight out here. The car was waiting for us, and the hotel is lovely. Blew $30 right away at Half-Price Books, but when they have hardbacks and trades for a BUCK, what're you gonna do? Not that I bought thirty of those, but other stuff adds up three bucks at a time...

At at The Ram Restaurant and Brewery, because, in our experience, breweries have the best food. We were not disappointed; it was YUMMY. I had them put some kind of spicy rub stuff on my steak and ZOMG. Tastebud explosion.

Thursday, we drove up to Anacortez and took car on the ferry out to San Juan Island, and then we drove out to Lime Kiln State Park in hopes of seeing killer whales. Alas, we saw no whales, or indeed sea mammals of any kind. HOWEVER, we got to climb around the rocks in the park, and there are some very very interesting tidal pools down there. Green sea anemones, oyster beds, hermit crabs, and some kind of funky little fish all make their homes in those places, along with barnacles and limpets and other miscellaneous shellfish. We poked around the State Park farther north as well, where we got to see oysters in actual action. They extrude little frondy things and filter foodstuff out of the water when the waves come up. Never seen that before. It was NEAT.

We ate at...some resort place-thingy in Roche Harbor on the island. I had my first ever mojito, because Sam on "Burn Notice" likes them. And now I know why. Their version of pizza is yummy, and the Hubby had a lamb burger which was also delish.

Oh, and I saw a harbor seal in the water on the ferry ride back.

And today we got to see airliners being built at the Boeing plant. Intellectually, we all know what size a building that they build jets in has to be. But to actually drive past it, and then go inside? DUDE. Thing is frakkin' huge. The process is fascinating too--everyone should visit that if they're here, because, really--who knew?

We had a slight gasoline crisis on our way home, because apparently the people who live downtown all either walk or use public transportation or some such crap, and our GPS unit saved our lives because it took us to an actual gas station that we never would have found on our own. And the planned visit to Pike's Place was thus aborted because we were SICK OF DRIVING by then. Also, the GPS unit seemed to be ON CRACK at times and we got all turned around more than once. By the time we got to the gas station, we had half a gallon left in the tank. NOT FUN. I DON'T RECOMMEND IT.

And then we ate at the Ivar's here in Kent, which was not at all what I expected it to be. But it was filling and tasty, so yay.

Also, we managed a visit to Fry's Electronics (somewhere in there) and I found an external ASUS DVD/CD burner/player for about $60. SCORE. Now I can watch movies on my laptop. And yes, we tested it. With the copy of "Heart and Souls" I found at a grocery store, which I've been hunting for ages. Yay again. (Obsessed? Moi? *innocent look*)

And now we're here at the hotel. Tomorrow, we're going to the Boeing Restoration Plant to see what they've got going, and then we'll wander around Pike Place for a bit, and then come back to watch NASCAR, which we haven't gotten to see in about ten weeks since they went to cable. And then we've got three zoo visits in a row.

Will try to keep everyone updated through here, since this is where you find me.

Looks like we're going to Seattle tomorrow and leaving next Wednesday. We have a reservation at the Holiday Inn in Kent and a Hertz rental car reserved. And we'll be getting into Renton before they close the runway at four.

Thursday--Seattle Zoo
Friday--Boeing Museum
Saturday--Tacoma Zoo
Sunday--Pike Place Market/Space Needle
Monday--Northwest Trek
Tuesday--San Juan Island and whale watching

That appears to be the itinerary as it sits right now. Naturally, I'll be wanting to hit both Half-Price Books sometime--probably hit the one up in Bellevue on the Wednesday we get in. The weather looks fantastic.

foxcutter, fenchurche... we should exchange contact info, yes?

I realized the other day that I hadn't ever finished uploading the pix from the Seattle trip. So, without further ado...

( Spiders and squirrels and ospreys, oh my! )

In other news, I haven't written a thing. I emailed the CatFeet story to another market today, because my printer is having *cough*issues*cough* and I couldn't print it out to send it to the place it was supposed to go next.

*cries* I HAVE NO PLOT. I have giant bugs and nothing to do with them. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN TO MEEEEEE??? I have two versions of the story, one where the protag is an entomologist (sorry, flist, but it's easy enough to change), and another where he's one of the oil company execs partially responsible for the disaster in the first place.

And I don't have anything for him to DO. There's no frelling conflict. He doesn't want anything. He's not talking to me.

Damn damn damn. And hell. Shall I add a crap to that for good measure?

Wednesday, July 25
Pacific Science Center, Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, and the Space Needle. That's a whole lotta stuff packed into one day, right there. The science center was really neat, with dinosaur bones, animatronic dinos, and an IMAX movie about them as well. It was really funny to see them talking in the movie about how some of these fossils they've found where the animals had to be overwhelmed without warning by some sort of flood event. YA THINK??? I got some really nice butterfly shots, and they had a fun thing with how the body works and stuff.

The Science Fiction Museum was fascinating. Not just for the movie and TV show props, but for the meta and the history and the "this is where we've been and this is the seminal stuff and this is where we might be going" sort of thing. Sadly, a dearth of Firefly stuff, and not a whole lot of Farscape either, but just a wealth of books and information. I highly recommend this; it was one of the highlights of the trip for me. And the Hubby wasn't bored either. Interestingly, there wasn't a whole lot o' fantasy to be seen, if any.

The Space Needle was neat, although I'm not sure I need to do it ever again, especially not for that price. Cool views, about what you'd expect. Got to see a seaplane take off and land in the harbor.

Dinner at the Thirteen Coins, just out of downtown. Hubby had some sort of seafood stew, and I had a very tasty club sandwich with some amazing potato...things. They were french fries, but about twice as thick and long. Need to figure out how to make those.

Thursday, July 26
Whale watching! And wandering around Friday Harbor looking at STUFF. Whale Museum! Scored a plush jellyfish for the bathroom! There's a used bookstore with a bunch of neat rooms, and I nearly bought a couple of Gaiman books I don't have, but I'm getting short of money, so I decided to save it. It's not like I don't have enough to read right now. But then we hit another bookstore (new, not used), with the most eclectic collection of books I've ever seen. Ann Coulter is rubbing shoulders with Michael Moore, and they've got the Creationist books sitting right next to the ones on evolution. It was wild. And then I found something called "The Physics of Superheroes." Well, duh, of course I grabbed that. What do you take me for? I needed something to read on the ferry back, right?

The whale watch itself was a rousing success. We saw whales! I even got pix of fins! We saw some breaching way off in the distance. It was SO COOL. And we saw harbor seals and nesting birds too. I was really happy for my long pants, because BRR, y'all. If you go on one of these things, and you've got hair like mine, bring something to tie it back with. Wind-blown hair might be all romantical in a song, but practically speaking, it's a pain in the ass. The trip was really shiny, though.

( Pix! Need I mention that this section is really not dial-up friendly? )

With twice as many pictures!

Monday, July 23
Boeing Air Museum. Wow, lots of cool stuff here. Highlights included an inside look at an early Air Force One (which had a dog door!), and a Concorde. I managed to get us going the exact opposite way we needed to go to the hotel. Good times. Still no wi-fi. Ate at the Red Robin downtown on the pier. What's up with the no fried zucchini or cajun shrimp??? Was still good (always is), but sheesh. Wandered south to a little state park on the beach and saw some sort of tern diving into the water. Pretty sunset.

There's a letter from the thirties that I shot and came out amazingly well, talking about putting stewardesses on planes. It's posted under the cut, but in case anyone doesn't want to plow through the capslock to the relevant portion, I'll quote it for you:

I am not suggesting at all the flapper type of girl. You know nurses as well as I do, and you know they are not given to flightiness. The average graduate nurse is a girl with some horse sense and is very practical and has seen enough of men to not be inclined to chase them around the block at every opportunity. Further, as a general rule nurses are not of the 'pretty' type which lends to their usefulness in this case.

Can you imagine such a letter being written today??? OMG, wanksplosion.

Tuesday, July 24
Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. PUFFINS OMG. They are so funny. They look like they take themselves entirely too seriously, and they've got this little Groucho Marx walk they do, and bathing is serious business, yo. We also got to watch a polar bear under water playing with a ball and a plastic 30-gallon drum. We were lucky enough to see the keepers interacting with the beluga whales (not on any printed schedule), and I got some practice in for the whale watching in a couple of days. As we were heading out, disappointed that the Arctic Fox had been sleeping all the live-long day, I noticed that his keeper seemed to be calling him by banging a plastic dish rhythmically on the ground, so we hung out. Eventually the fox appeared, ate, wandered about a little, and then went back into hiding. The keeper told us that while most wild Arctic Foxes only live to be five or six years old, this one is ten. So, he's, like, Methuselah or something, and we were lucky to see him at all. Scored a plush octopus for the bathroom.

I also got to go up on stage and shoot pix of a porcupine, which, alas, didn't really come out so well, as you can't see his face too good. But they're better than the porcupine pix I had before...because I had NO porcupine pix before. SCORE.

Another Half Price Books, and scored some more books. Go me.

Lots of "scoring" goin' on here...

We met the lovely and effulgent fenchurche and her handsome and talented hubby rackham for dinner at Anthony's. Tasty tasty seafood, marvelous conversation about fandom stuff and life stuff. Will have to do that again.

( Pix! Soooo not dial-up friendly... )

Saturday, July 21
We were about an hour later leaving the airport than we wanted to be this morning. But we finally got off and on our way. It was a pretty clear flight right up until we hit the mountains in Oregon, and then the weather came down on us. It didn't look like we were going to make it over them, as the Hubby isn't IFR current in the Cardinal and we didn't have the right maps anyway, so we stopped in Hood River to get on a weather computer to see what was the what. Kinda ugly, was the what, so we went to eat (Subway). Went back to the airport, decided to press on up the river canyon a ways to see if we could get out that way...and we did. The weather wasn't perfect, but it was good enough, and we made it into Seattle only a few hours later than we'd planned.

Toddled up to Half Price Books in Bellevue, where I scored 18 books for under $20. HAH. Chili's for dinner.

Wi-fi at hotel not working, v. annoying. Desk clerk let my use the hotel's comp to check my email and update LJ.

Sunday, July 22
Woodland Park Zoo! Rain! Nearly 400 pix! Am exhausted. Scored a plush anteater. Wi-fi still not working. Blah.

( A dozen sample pix under the cut. )

We're here. Nearly didn't make it. The Hubby isn't IFR current, and didn't have the maps anyway, so we stopped...er, someplace on the Columbia River because the clouds were down over the mountains and it looked like we were going to have to spend the night there. But we ate, and he poked around the weather computer for a bit, and by the time we got back up in the air, the clouds had gone up a bit and we made it without having to do a very huge detour. The Cessna ran just fine.

However, the wireless at the hotel is somewhat wonky right now. The desk guy is going to have someone look at it tomorrow morning, so hopefully I'll be able to get on for reals after we hit the Woodland Park Zoo (in the rain! Whee!) tomorrow.

I am really impressed with Fantasy and Science Fiction's turnaround time. I know I've said this before in relation to fic subs; however, remember how I said on Monday that you can get a free Sept 2007 issue if you promised to blog about it? I hold here (in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers) the September 2007 issue of F&SF, which came in the mail today. I guess I'll have reading material for our trip. :) T'would have been ironic to get their response to the story I subbed a week ago today as well, but it wasn't there. Guess I'll just have to wait until we get back...which is actually one less thing to worry about.

Speaking of the trip, I have all our confirmations printed out. I have clothes and sundries packed. I have reading material besides the aforementioned issue of F&SF (Cetaganda by Lois McMasters Bujold, and Jack Knife by Virginia Baker). I have discovered that the large fanny pack I abandoned in favor of a cute little red purse will hold the camera, along with a notebook, my wallet, pain pills (all hail Ibuprofen!), and spare camera batteries. The mail is stopped, the bills paid. The dog is at the dog hotel. The cats have litter and plenty of food and water. The flight plan is filed, the Cessna clean. I still have to pack the computer, obviously, but I think that's it.

I have also discovered that Seattle has two (count 'em!) Half Price Bookstores that are easy to find. Good gravy, I *less than three* those stores.

I... think we're ready to go. fenchurche, did you guys want to get together? Any evening this week is good for us except Wednesday or Thursday. Anyone else in the SeaTac area? We'll have internet access at the hotel; email me at agilebrit (at) yahoo dot com with contact info and times, dates, and places.

I'll try to keep up with LJ, although it may be difficult. See y'all on the flip side!