Seattle

Today is the last fun day of our trip. Tomorrow we make the 8 hour trek back home, which will be very sad. :( There will be no pictures with this blog as I left my camera in the car by accident when we picked up our bags to check in. If you are reading this on facebook you can check out my blog at www.magic-and-mystery.blogspot.com

We arrived in Seattle at 11 today and had a few ordeals to start with. I took a few wrong turns when we got to the city and circled for about half an hour. We could tell we were in the right neighbourhood, but we couldn't find the cross street we needed. Thankfully, the circling was done safely with no close calls or near accidents. When we arrived in the parking lot, we wound through 8 floors trying to find a spot and then took the elevator down to street level. This pops you out completely kitty corner to the hotel so we had a hard time figuring out where we were supposed to go. At least when we checked in the hotel people were jovial and very happy to see us. I made a fool of myself spilling all our escapades to them.

The first stop on the map was the Pike Place Market. Thankfully it was much slower than the last time I was there. I took some pictures of the fish throwing, but some Market Spice tea, saw the original Starbucks but did not go in and then we headed on our way.

Lynette and I had lunch at a restraunt called McCormicks and Smicks. It was a fancy seafood restraunt that was reasonably priced. I had a salmon club sandwich and the BEST fries I have eaten in a long time (quite possibly my life). We headed to the Pioneer Square section of Seattle so I could go to the Mystery bookstore and a toy store I had visited the last time I was here. Then we made the extremely long trek to the monorail station and got on it to go to the Experience Music Project/Sci fi Museum. The ride is short, but enjoyable. We didn't have a lot of time to check out the exhibits but we did enjoy them. Then we headed back to the hotel to to officially check in and grab our stuff from the car. This turned out to be a bit of an ordeal.

We rested for a few minutes in the hotel, and headed to dinner. I chose the restaraunt off of my Urban Spoon app. The Wild Ginger is an asian fusion restaruant with lots of different choices. It turned out to be an excellent choice. We ordered some Satay's from their Satay bar and I had a 5 flavor beef dish which was excellent. The restaraunt was quite high end and Lynette and I felt underdressed. The atmosphere was extremely cool though and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is in Seattle looking for Asian food.

Puyallup

Today I got to sleep in. It took me awhile to fall asleep in my new digs, because it is HUGE...it feels safer somehow to be in a tiny little hotel room.

When I finally got ready I drove to Puyallup to pick up Lynette and go shopping. I was intent on finding a Ross Dress for Less and succeeded. I dropped a pretty penny there, but bought a cute little 60s style dress, a cook book and a sparkly hat. I also got to shop at a book store. I had a bit of trouble finding something I wanted but mostly because the prices weren't as cheap as I expected. Lynette and I found a store called Honey baked Ham and went to investigate only to discover it was a cafe and take out place. we had delicious sandwiches with banana peppers and chipotle mayo.

I dropped Lynette off at her hotel room and took the shuttle to the fair. It is conveniently located outside Lynette's hotel. I knew I needed to go to the fair because I had been hearing about it for years on the American stations we get in Canada. Sounded fun....and it was. First thing I did when I got there was check out the Mutton Bustin'. This odd sounding activity involves children under the age of 6 hanging onto sheep for dear life. Thankfully the arena is layered in thick mud so even when they fall off it doesn't hurt.



Next I rushed to get to Sinbad high dive show. It was definitely worth it! So much sillyness and some actual amazing feats. There was a silly character named Josephina (a man who carried a purse, pranced around the stage and generally acted silly). They did a lot of dives off the lowere platformss and then did a huge dive off the extremely high platform at the top.



Next I went wandering around the fair until it was time for a magic show. It turns out that it wasn't really a magic show so much as a comedy act. he showed us how to do most of his tricks. At the end the message was quite good. He talked about how his grandpa inspired him to follow his dreams. Once again magicandmystery went to magic show! The one I saw in Courtenay though was WAY better!



Lastly I decided to have the traditional fair dinner, a corn dog and curly fries. The corn dog company was apparently called crusty pups....sounds nasty but was quite good. So essentially, the Puyallup fair was everything that the commercial led me to believe it would be...and more!

Now I am ensconced on my couch watching the season premieres of NCIS and NCIS Los Angeles.

Tacoma

Today started out with breakfast at the Pig'nPancake...a cheesy breakfast joint in Seaside. Since we arrived late yesterday we shopped a little on the boardwalk...I bought some bath salts and that was about it! I did however find a board game called Mr. Bacon's great Adventure, however despite being extremely tempted I decided one bacon related purchase per trip was more than enough.



I had a delicious vanilla pepsi at the soda founatain at Holladay Drugs and we carried on our way. We stopped at an outlet mall in Seaside and found an evilly delicious store called Henry And David(or David Henry). I bought some encredible coffee which I can't wait to get home and try. They also had pumpkin crunch popcorn that nearly put me over the edge.




We drove towards Seattle (me with great trepidation at possibly hitting rush hour traffic). I just about got us lost when I made a wrong turn and drove for twenty minutes while trying to decide if I needed to turn around. Thankfully when I turned around it was the right decision.

I had to rush to get to my hotel because the front desk closed at 5. After checking in Lynette and I drove to her hotel. We met her concert buddy Marcia there. Being in the room with two Adam Lambert lovers was....interesting. I loved listening to Marcia's voice. She is from Milwaukee and has an awesome accent. We chatted for awhile and went for dinner at Applebees and ate WAY too much food. It was suprising how long we sat were there for, but the food was so good! I had to drive to my suite, which was 20 minutes away, in the dark. thankfully I made it safely and I set about making full use of my AWESOME suite. I had a bath in the jacuzzi, made tea, and sat on the couch watching a DVD series that Becky had lent me on my tv/dvd player. All in all I would say it was a good day, despite not being very photo worthy.

Seaside-Round Two

I am sitting in our vintage board game room in Seaside Oregon. It is a super cute boutique hotel in Seaside. This is also round two of my tour of this city as well! I came here about 6 years ago with my friend Cleo. Lynette and I drove for 5 hours to get here and arrived quite late in the day. Since it is a Sunday all of the stores were closed. We didn't mind because we plan on taking time to look at a few places tomorrow.



After freshening up we drove to Cannon Beach which I have never been to before. It was soooo windy at the viewing point that we stopped it. Our hair was blowing every which way and we were having a blast. It didn't make for great pictures though and many of the ones we took were a disaster!

We drove further into town and decided to walk on the beach. I saw the famous Cannon beach rocks and played on some sand dunes. The sand there is so soft, and because of the crazy wind it was blowing in drifts down the beach.



We drove back into Seaside and walked down the main street. I saw one of my favorite places that Cleo and I went to the last time I was here. Seaside has a drugstore that has a soda fountain right inside of it. I am so amused by that because it is so vintage! Yay!

We had dinner at Pudgy's which is a seafood/steak/burger joint. Going with the fact that I am in a seaside town I ordered the dungeness crab sandwich which was delicious!

Now Lynette and I are happily settled into our hotel for the night. One thing of note from our drive down is we crossed the four mile long bridge from Washington State into Astoria, Oregon. Astoria is where they filmed the Goonies and I am such a dork that I brought that DVD and fully intend on watching it while we are here. We stopped for lunch in Raymond, WA at a AMAZING "donut and nacho warehouse" (a little phrase coined on my dorm road trip many a year ago). It was a vintage diner had soda fountain type pop you could order. I chose the Marilyn Monroe which was a pepsi with vanilla in it.

Leavenworth Round 2

I am sitting here in a KOA cabin in Leavenworth, WA. I finally found an adventure to go on for my oh so brief holidays this year. My friend, Lynette was already planning on going to a concert and she just so happened to have several days off to go on a mini road trip. Last summer I came to Leavenworth my cousin and her friend and loved it. Since we arrived late I didn't get to see many of the cheesy Bavarian inspired stores and wanted to play the tacky tourist a bit more. Hence Round two in Leavenworth and the first stop of my 2010 road trip. Tomorrow Lynette and I head off to Seaside, OR which I have also been to before. It is a very cute seaside town at the top of the Oregon coast. I can't wait to get there because we are booked in at a super cute boutique hotel.

So about our adventure today. We manage to be the last car loaded on the ferry seconds before it left. That, sadly, was the end of our good fortune as we had a 40 minute wait at the border and got trapped in a traffic jam for half an hour to forty five minutes. It was hot and Lynette and I were both cranky.

We finally arrived in Leavenworth, checked in and headed out on a night on the town. The last time I was here I wanted to go to the Gingerbread house coffee shop but it was closed by the time I got there. Lynette and I got lattes and delicious soft iced gingerbread heart cookies.



We took lots of cheesy tourist pictures ened up in the infamous Leavenworth Hat store also known as Das Hat Store I believe. After trying on many of the hats in the store I picked up some giant purple sunglasses that I will happily sport about town. Lynette but an awesome fun fur (what I have dubbed scat which is short for scarf hat). The hat has ears and little paw shaped pockets that you can put your hands into. So cute, but very expensive.



We ate at Gustav's restaraunt which has a huge onion dome roof. I made sure to order a bratwurst with Saurkraut which I have discoved I actually do like. We listened to an accordian band at the band shell and made our way back to the cabin. Now we are settled in for the night listening to the crickets and playing on our various computers. Ah the joys of the internet!

The Great Novel project

As if I had too much time on my hands, I have undertaken yet another project for the year! After one of my solo camping trips (which should have been a blog post and may make it into one yet) I stopped in Nanaimo at the Chapters and looked at books. I discovered a book called The Novel 100: A ranking of the Greatest Novels of All Time. by Daniel S. Burt. When I first picked it up I thought, "Pshh who would read a book, about other books" Then I realized that I was the idiot that would read a book about other books. Sadly, I didn't realize that until I was safely at home in Courtenay. I decided this would make a great blog project since I haven't travelled much this year at all. Sooooo, dear readers I have undertaken the project to read each of the 100 novels in this particular list of 100 greatest novels. There are many others lists including the BBC one, but for some reason this one struck a chord with me. I'd love company if any of you feel so inclined to fill your time with some classic novels....or at the very list follow my blog about them as I read them. *Cough. Shameless plug. *cough.... magic-and-mystery.blogspot.com I think is the address if you want to check out my actual blog rather than the facebook note that populates there a few days after I write it.

To make a long story short, after my second solo camping trip, I drove back to Nanaimo to pick up the book. Thanks to Project Gutenberg (I think that's what it's called) most of the books on the list can be found for free in digital editions or on my ibooks account. So after my initial purchase of the list of books for 6.99 I am hoping most of these books can be read for free. Sooooo here it goes guys. I am sure I will hate some of these classics, some of them I have already read (including book number 2 War and Peace) but I am determined to get through as many as I can. Perhaps, I will be a more cultured person at the other end, but chances are my sieve-like head will only retain a few details from each book. Ah well..if nothing I will entertain myself for a year, or two, or 5!!!!

Book number one is Don Quixote. Should be fun....wish me luck.

Under the Dome Review

Soooo, after slaving away on this book since just before Christmas I am finally finished it. Stephen King's Under the Dome is a massive 1000 page monster that was chosen by one of the members of my three person book club...I am sad to say this book was also the death of our book club!!!! Of the three members I am the only one to have finished the novel. One person never finished any of the books we read, the second person hated it so much she decided not to finish it, and I, being stubborn decided to persevere. So almost a year later I finished it!!!

Why did I have such a hard time?

1) the book is way too gory. Stephen King is a graphic writer and he wrote in excruciating detail of bones snapping, noses breaking, pace makers exploding out of chests etc.
2) the book is psychologically traumatizing. This book is about what happens when you cut an entire town off from the rest of society with no hope of ever getting out. For those of you who have read Lord of the Flies we all know how THAT ends!!
3) the book weighs a lot!!! So for a girl who loves to read while travelling, it gets left behind a lot

I wanted so badly to like this book because I thought the idea of cutting off a bunch of people under a dome that was invisible was brilliant. Sadly, however I could not get past how violent it was. For those of you who have ever watched a violent movie with me you will know this is a major problem. While you can hide behind your hands during a movie, it is not so easy to escape the imagery that words call to mind in your head.

I kept trying to tell myself that this stuff could really happen, and I had seen glimpses of the behaviour described in the book in real life, but that didn't make me want to read it any more. In fact, I kept feeling like I was pointless subjecting myself to torture since I was already aware of the fact that power with out checks and balances could destroy a person. Essentially that is one of the points of the book. That, and the heroism of standing up against the tide of popular opinion and fighting for what you know is right and true.

The second point in the book had which comes to light in the last 50 pages is that there is a difference between pity and feeling ashamed. I can't say too much about why this comes up without giving away the ending so I will just say that I actually loved the ending. Each of the heros at the end has to face a time in their lives when they were so ashamed of something they had done that it changed their life forever. They saw what happens when people are cruel and malicious to another life and never wanted to behave that way again. The villians on the other hand have many examples of senseless torture and group think or mob-like behaviour. (Its those parts that I had a hard time stomaching and I have read some pretty harsh books before, and I work with some pretty traumatized people). The dome eventually lifts because whatever held it in place felt pity towards those trapped in place. One of the characters says something to the effect of "well if pity is all they can feel, at least its a starting place". That's all I will say.

Honestly, despite the fact that I appreciated the book's ending I don't know that I would actually recommend anyone actually reading this book. The only reason I finished it was because I was stubborn and wanted to finish what I started. If you want to read a book with a similar message or feeling to it I would recommend Stephen King's other apocolyptic type novel The Stand. I LOVE that book despite its huge size too. I have even watched the 8 hour long made-for-tv series of that one! Go early 90s television!!!