After a very late night crossing back into the U.S., we were up bright and early to make the 90-minute drive back down to Seattle. It was time to say goodbye to El Jefe.
Sad face.
On top of his departure, I hit a wall, and I hit it hard. I’d thought after we dropped him at Sea-Tac, Earl and I would trek into the city to go up the Space Needle since we didn’t the previous week, then we’d make it to Spokane before nightfall. Instead, on a series of missed turned and tiredness, we ended up down at the waterfront.
Earl had no desire to return to the fishy smelling market, but Miner’s Landing caught her eye.
I tried to get her to ride the sky wheel, but she wouldn’t. Instead, she was hungry, so we snooped around in search of food.
We found a cluttered, unmanned woodworking shop with a creepy woodwoman.
And we found The Crab Pot with their Seafeasts.
Earl was worried about the spices, but they weren’t hot. She couldn’t quite master cracking the crab legs, but she was fine with eating shredded crab meat. She even tried the mussels and clams—turns out, my kid will try pretty much anything if it’s dipped in butter first.
I thought it was all good. So good. That pile of food was markedly smaller by the time we were done. I even ate some of the mussels and happily pulled the heads (and eyeballs! ew!) off of the shrimp for Earl. I’d hoped food would wake me up, but by the end of the meal, I was tired enough that I was seeing double. Or quadruple.
That was it. I made the call: There would be no making it to Spokane tonight. I was done for. I looked online for hotels (which were actually available, unlike the night before. turns out One Direction had played the Seahawks Stadium, hence our stay in Burlington.) and stressed over prices before again turning to Hotwire.com.
Room settled, Earl somehow cajoled me into a short stroll down the waterfront to the Seattle Aquarium. Because why not. Fishes!
She enjoyed all the touching pools, because there were lots.
I looked for photo ops to keep myself awake.
The octopus captivated me. Look at those suckers!
And he was very alien-headed. So very very cool.
The Seattle Aquarium is bigger than it appears at first sight. There are lots of outdoor spaces, lots of underground spaces, lots of maze-like twists and turns and of course a surplus of views along the way.
We wrapped up our time at the aquarium, and I thanked God and every other deity that ever existed that Hotwire had put us in a winner of a hotel less than a mile away. I might could stay awake to drive a mile.
I did! And I stayed awake enough to do three loads of laundry! And I stayed awake enough to take Earl up to the rooftop pool for one final Pacific Coast sunset!
As the sun dropped behind the Olympics, we went back down to the room where I watched the sunset until it finished with its last hurrah.
Ah, it was nice.
So was sleep.
Paula says
And the pictures were great!!
Harvey says
Thanks!