Seattle

Dave and I thought that since we can fly for free wouldn't it be fun to fly to Seattle for the day, take the kids to the science center and fly home that night. My parents could come, we'd all ride the bus and wouldn't it be fun. Weeelll this is how it really went. Our first mistake was not leaving until the 9:30 flight because you know how good we are at getting places early. Although we'd been warned that the Seattle bus system could be time consuming we still assumed we'd just hop off the plane and onto a bus. Um no. Let's just say if you are ever planning to take the city bus from the airport, plan on waiting a while. You wait for the right bus number. But some busses just flash that number to taunt you and aren't really going where you want. Then when that magical bus does appear, its full. On the bright side its really cheap and the people were super friendly and not at all scary. I had some prejudice that Seattle bus riders would all be scary. But hey this is Seattle and there are a plethora of tree huggers riding the bus around. Also gas is like $4.40. So we made it downtown and got lunch at the variety pack that is Pike Place Market, waited some more for a bus and went to the Science Center. Now some people on the bus had made mention that there was a big parade downtown that evening so we should have been prepared. Imagine our surprise when we show up at the bus stop (I had carefully mapped out our every bus route the night before) to find a notice announcing its closed for the parade. And every other bus stop for many, many blocks. Replenished with diet Coke, we finally found a bus stop with actual buses to take us to the University District to meet my sister for dinner before she goes to work. We of course took a bus that left us with a hike to the shopping center leaving us a whole 40 minutes to visit Chrissy. Then the fun began. Realizing that my printouts won't due us any good thanks to the parade, I call the busses little hotline to route us to the airport. Now its 7 and we leave at 9. The guy on the phone laughed at me! He said I'd be lucky to make it in time for the last flight at 11 to Spokane. He says (laughing the whole time after he heard my kids shrieking in the background) my best bet is to book it a mile to UW medical center in like 10 minutes and bus to Bellevue, then the airport, skipping locked up downtown. Now his mile was more like 2 and we had a large group. After booking it there we of course miss the bus by a mile. By this time we were all in a spectacular mood and looking forward to the possibility of spending the night at a hotel with nothing. I was, of course the only one with a toothbrush, we were running out of diapers, and we didn't have Tag (Greg's precious blanky we never should travel without.) We were exhausted, stranded at a bus stop, and Carl's ostomy bag exploded. Good times for all. Luckily we caught a bus to Bellevue and found that there was still another bus to the airport, in 45 minutes. For entertainment we had a local couple drinking on the bench alternating between needing a room and needing someone to call the cops to break up the fight. In the end the police showed up just as our bus did. Having been up to date on their COPS viewing, they hopped on our bus like they were heading to the airport anyways. I'm smart enough to know they were just avoiding arrest and they probably weren't going to tone down the R rated language or the fight club for us (they had been beating each other up minutes before). But not smart enough to know when to shut my mouth. There was no way I was going to ride for an hour with those fools. So I hike up front, stick my head in the drivers little cubby, and inform him that his latest passengers are the drunken, violent idiots that the police are running around outside looking for. I said it much nicer I swear. Crazy black lady gets all drunk up in my face yelling at me about kicking my butt. I think the only reason she didn't was I had Connor in the pack and she was sober enough not to hurt a baby, (like I said not too smart.) She starts telling the driver I'm drunk and I don't know what I'm talking about. Now my mom's getting all mad, I can tell she's getting ready to jump up, and yells "she's not drunk, she's a Mormon." Crazy black lady wasn't impressed. Finally some other lady backs me up to the driver so he shuts the door and starts honking for the police. Just like COPS only no exciting background music. Relieved, we rode to the airport just praying we'd make the last flight out. We ran through the airport like fools, throwing our shoes back on as we ran and barely made the last flight. Luckily Dave was able to smooth talk (yes Dave) the customer service guy into sticking us onto the flight at the last second even though we'd booked a different flight. Needless to say it was a fun day but I think we've learned a lot of what not to dos. And I'm pretty sure my Dad doesn't want to come next time.