Summer Vacation Part One

This summer I took a real honest to God vacation.

For the past few summers I've taken trips... but always to places that I have been to before. Don't get me wrong I love those places but I always stay with friends (which I love) and always do what we used to do back in the day reliving memories which is WONDERFUL but this time I needed something different. I needed a plane trip, a car rental, a hotel bill, and to feel like a tourist! a Vacation.  So this summer I went on a Road Trip with some friends from work that incorporated all those things and let me tell you- that was quite an adventure.

I had never really hung out with these girls for very long before the adventure just random get togethers at another friend from works house, but I always felt out of the group since they were all teachers and I'm just an EA. However they asked me to go and I agreed... and I'm glad that I did! In the weeks leading up to the trip there was lots of planning and meetings so I felt like I got to know them a little more and was psyched and ready to go about a month before we actually left.

Our venture started out first in Phoenix where we spent the night with one of Caty's friends who graciously let 4 girls sleep at his house and drive us to the airport the next morning. The first leg was a flight from Phoenix to Seattle which we barely made by the skin of our teeth because of a not so nice baggage checker whom I personally believe jinxed us. But it all worked out in the end and all four of us got our behinds on the flight!  Of course I got bored on the plane and entertained myself my taking pictures of my fellow travelers.

When we arrived in Seattle we took a journey on the light rail... and let me tell you it was quite a way to start off this Seattle leg! It was amazing because of many reasons. One being that it is CRAZY CHEAP! the second being that while on this train we encountered an individual who started us off on the right foot! He was a strange kid who had a new ipod that has the speak feature where when you speak to it it responds with a song by the artist... he chose to play mostly classical. He had gigantic glasses and he stuck up a conversation with Nikki about her iPhone she decided to keep him engaged in conversation... He looked like a fellow who enjoyed his food so we asked him for Lunch recommendations and he gave us quite a list we chose not to participate in his selections as most of them were in the Northgate Mall food court. We bid our fair wells to him when we got to the last stop of the Light Rail and headed to our hotel, Hotel Max. We... well I got a little lost and turned around after departing train station but we only had to walk one block out of our way... it was a needed stretch of the legs!!  I've stayed there once before with my sis and I had a gut feeling that this was the place we should start off our journey on, and it was amazing. The rooms have pictures of famous musicians on all the doors and VERY comfortable beds to sleep in- We had a quick bed discussion then headed out to the market to grab some lunch and pictures! Another thing great about our hotel was that it was really close to the market so we didn't have to walk very far at all! We went in on the side with all the outside vendors and meandered our way to the fish men! Who after a little trash talking on his part recommended that  we got to Pike Brewery for lunch instead of dinner like I had planned. But we heeded his advice and went for lunch and it was delicious!! 

Crazy full on delicious beer and food we walked back out through the market and back to the hotel for a lay down. We went to the hotel bar for cocktail hour  and waited for a one ms. ABBY LEONARD to make her appearance!! We got a dinner suggestion for a restaurant in near where the space needle is so my fellow travelers could experience that side of town  from our waiter who proceeded to shoot down the "advances" of a ms. nikki and walked our way to dinner. The name of the restaurant is blanking me as of this moment, it was once again an delicious meal from a nice restaurant. After which we tried to make an appearance at a Chopstick  type of establishment but after walking in and realizing that we were the ONLY people in there we decided to head out.
We walked through City Center after the sun had gone down and gave the ladies a view of the space center at night, one of my all time favorite sights! After that Abby left us to go back to the real world and we dropped a very tired Lindsay off in the room, and Nikki, Caty, and I went back to the hotel bar for a night cap.

a great first day.