That picture (which I love) was actually from yesterday. But if I started off with a picture of how today actually began, no one would ever come back. Because nobody needs to see the dead bird that had apparently been wedged in the grill of my car for who knows how long. It took El Jefe a pair of gloves, under-the-hood access, and nearly 5 minutes to remove it, all the while marveling that I had no idea when it got there nor how.

I swear I don’t remember hitting a bird.

Anyway, the day started at another find from the duck tour: Elephant Car Wash. Where Elvis used to wash his car, it seems.

Debirded and scrubbed clean, it was off to Pike Place Market.

Something you may not think about taking long road trips: Days bleed together. You start to lose track of what day of the week it is, and the meanings of those days blur and shift until you’re shocked when things are closed on Sunday yet you could have sworn it was Tuesday.

We went to the market on a Saturday.

Um…

Oh, great sea of humanity.

At least most of the sea in the market had their pants on. Ahem.

I love Seattle.

Upon seeing the naked cyclists, my child called to me over her shoulder in a scandalized whisper. “I shouldn’t be seeing this…but I can’t look away!”

Fortunately, they were far enough away that it wasn’t quite as indecent as it could have been. For the most part…er…parts.

Anyhoo…we popped into a nearby antique shop where Earl found a treasure. It was billed on the tag as a “Never-Before-Seen Japanese Pixie Elf.” I have my doubts, but to her, it is fragile and beautiful and precious. She was afraid to even hold it at first, and she was honored to hand over some of her souvenir money for it.

The pixie elf was the only thing that left with us, thank goodness. There was some truly bizarre and creepy stuff lurking in that shop. I’ll only traumatize you with one shot because, well, I like you. Also, isn’t this one enough?

From the antique shop, it was a quick lunch featuring crab and shrimp tater tots (OMYUM!), then back into the fishy fishness of the market, where there were too many people for fish to be flung. Perhaps if people obeyed the signs?

Oh wait. Then we wouldn’t have been there. Carry on.

And carry on we did. Right on to the border!

We done went international, y’all!

Canada hated me from the start. I started sneezing just inside the border, my rotten whatever-chest-thing I had going backwards from my chest up to my nose in one fell cough. If that wasn’t enough, shortly after we were cleared by the smiling Canadian border patrol officer, we were greeted with a tunnel under a river.

I hate tunnels. I really hate tunnels that go under bodies of water.

Most of the drive up to Vancouver was spent trying to figure out how to make my car show me my speed in kph instead of mph. We could change the distance measures. We could change the mileage calculations. But the speedometer was stubborn. If I hadn’t had the cold, the math might have been more doable. As it stood, though, the entire time we were in Canada, I didn’t have the foggiest idea how fast I was really going. I just had to trust that everyone around us was going the speed limit.

Less than ideal, but I didn’t get pulled over, so {shrug}.

Vancouver was no less dreary than Seattle, but Vancouver’s dreariness made me sadder. Maybe it was the cold. Maybe it was because this was kind of the pinnacle of the trip, all together again and far far from home, and it was cloudy. But I think it was because, from the moment we crossed the border, as much as Canada hated me, I loved it.

Despite the gloom.

We checked in, and I pronounced that I was done. I sent El Jefe and Earl out to explore around the hotel on foot while I continued my Coldeeze and Good Samaritan routine until I reeked of zinc and cinnamon. I meditated, I prayed, I Reikied, I had room service.

I called it a day.

When we arrived in Seattle, I thought, “Ah, Seattle gets such a bad rap! The weather is beautiful! There’s not a cloud in the sky!”

Then the second hand on the clock moved forward a tick, the clouds raced in, temperatures dropped, and I was all like, “….oh.”

Ah, Seattle, you dreary city you.

I can’t knock it too much, though. Actually, I can. Seattle, you’re dreary and you are one ginormous construction zone. It should have taken us 10 minutes to walk from our hotel to Seattle Center; it took a good half an hour. When Earl is whining that she’s tired before you’ve so much as seen a street vendor, you know it’s bad.

Seattle Center is one of those really cool areas of town where you find artists and parks and shops and cafes and Jedis and playgrounds and anything else your heart desires. It is not, however, magical, and it still took eons of aimless walking and you-pick-no-you-pick bickering over where to find lunch. We settled on Collections Cafe.

Because you can never go wrong with a restaurant with dozens of accordions suspended from the ceiling.

I’d booked us onto a tour of the city after lunch, but we had a few minutes to kill. It didn’t take long for Earl to spot the enormous playground teeming with screaming, but well-behaved, children of all ages. She was bouncing from the moment she spied it, and when she asked, “Can I go?” El Jefe and I could hear the joy about to bubble over. We barely nodded, and she was off.

It’s an amazing space for kids of all ages. That climbing structure, though—El Jefe turned to me after a few minutes and asked, “Am I the only one feeling a little ‘Lord of the Flies’ here?”

Perhaps. Or perhaps not. The pictures do not do justice to the sheer number of arms and legs and heads and elbows and knees freely flailing every which way. Everywhere.

Earl made it down the big slide once before we had to pry her away to head across the street to catch our bus…er…boat…er…quack?

It’s a duck tour! It’s a bus! It’s a boat! It’s a vehicle with a 70 year old suspension!

And we all got quacking noise makers! And I chose the wrong seats so El Jefe was smooshed and unable to see behind the driver! And Earl and I had a great view of the dash! Hooray!

That makes it sound like we didn’t have a good time. We did, some more than others—I tried to get El Jefe to switch seats with me, but nooooo, he had to be all gentlemanly and suffer in the name of giving me the better (snort) view.

Graham Quacker was our tour guide with his endless supply of hats and corny tour guide jokes. He played music and plied us with knowledge and cheese (not the edible kind, sadly) and encouraged us to have the most fun possible. After all, we were in a bus that would later drive us into the lake on purpose. How cool is that??

I’m coming to learn (veeeerrrrry slooooowllyyyyy—we’ve only been married a dozen years) that El Jefe has a much quieter, less expressive kind of fun than Earl and I, and I have to continually work to accept that. After all, sometimes it’s very difficult to discern if someone is having a good time if they don’t particularly look like it. But I was proud of myself: I asked him once if he was okay, he assured me he was, and that was that. I didn’t fuss about him just sitting there when everybody else on the bus was mimicking General Quacker’s duck bus choreography to “Stayin’ Alive.” I simply had fun on my own and didn’t worry about him. See? I’m growing on this trip!

Personal growth aside, my chest crap, despite all the Coldeeze and Good Samaritan I could dissolve or inhale, was setting in heavier with each breath. Something about not being able to breathe affecting the brain’s ability to remember stuff…that’s my excuse for forgetting to charge the camera batteries and letting my iPhone battery get so low. So there aren’t many pics of our tour ’round Seattle. But there’s this one that made me laugh:

Because when every road in the stinkin’ city is under construction, sometimes important things are easy to misplace.

That is the hammering man. I think he has another name, but he hammers all the time. He’s always hammered. Graham Quacker hammered us with bad hammer puns.

And that’s the view out the front of our bus…boat…er…quack? Seattle as seen from Lake Union.

El Jefe, Earl, and I had each been spying this building near the Space Needle off-and-on all afternoon. On the tour, we’d learned that the odd structure is the home to the EMP Museum designed to highlight Music, Sci-Fi, and Pop Culture. Dude, that is so right up our alleys, so as soon as we were off the bus, we knew where we were headed.

Did I mention the Star Wars Costume Exhibit was there?

The top floor of EMP is chock-full of booths where you can learn to play instruments, complete challenges, work on vocals, and even record your own songs from the ground up. It’s an amazing experience, and Earl had far too much fun recording her very own masterpiece (which she won’t let me listen to yet).

Currently, the sound experience shares the top floor with a really cool exhibit on Chuck Jones and his animation. Here’s Earl doing her best horizontal (this blog format ain’t perfect, as much as I love it) Wile E. Coyote impression.

There was an Art of Gaming exhibit set up, too. And how on earth do you have an exhibit on gaming without oodles of consoles for people to play? Hog heaven for a certain 9-year-old.

Despite the hour or so that I completely lost Earl and El Jefe (who were together. in the gaming room. where i’d left them. unawares. and didn’t realize it until i had power walked all three floors of the museum in a frantic search because omg where did they go????), EMP was massive fun for all.

We capped the evening off with dinner at this little place right on Lake Union. My phone and camera were both dead, so there is no photographic evidence of the adventure, but it is absolutely worth mentioning, because it was a meal unlike anything I have ever had.

Pasta Freska was a recommendation from the girl behind the desk when we checked into our hotel. She told me then that if we wanted Italian and didn’t mind an unusual dining experience, it was a must visit.

Boy, was she right. On so many levels.

When you walk into Pasta Freska and sit down, you don’t get menus; you get owner and chef Mike at your table asking if there’s anything you absolutely won’t or cannot eat. Now, I consider myself a picky eater, but curiosity killed the cat and, minus those few years in the nineties and naughts when citric acid was my kryptonite, I’m allergy free.

I’m not sure whether it was a touch of hubris on our parts or just Mike’s effusive personality that caused all three of us to leave all of the options open. Bring it on.

With a smile and a whirl, Mike was gone and food started appearing. Seven perfectly-sized courses in all, most of which I still couldn’t tell you what they were. The menu at Pasta Freska is all chef’s choice, and it’s not necessarily explained as it’s placed in front of you. I know we started off with what was possibly eggplant, then there was an egg roll kind of ravioli dumpling thing, a plate of penne with homemade marinara-esque sauce, a plate of mussels and shrimp, a serving of salmon, a small portion of steak, and one other course that I have no memory of whatsoever because by then it was getting late and we were just so full.

Every last bite was delectable, though, even when we couldn’t identify it. Even Earl tried some stuff she’d never tried before and liked it!

As stuffed and satisfied as we were, there was no turning down dessert. Flan, cheesecake, chocolate cake, and two scoops of ice cream. Holy. Moly.

It was all good enough that just the thought of it is sending me back into a food coma. Seriously. If you don’t remember another word about our time in Seattle remember this:

PASTA FRESKA.

GO.

Oregon, man, you are one whacked-out place, and I think I love you.

I mean, check out that stick family. Parents, three kids, big dog, little dog, squirrel-cat, and eight chickens. That? Is perfect.

You’re also home to one of the funnest cool-creepy places I’ve ever been.

For my Tennessee friends: You know that creepy fairytale section of Rock City? Take that and blow it up the size of Rock City.

For my Carolina friends: You know that creepy feeling of driving through Heritage USA when it was abandoned? Take that and add in creepy fairytales.

Enchanted Forest just outside of Salem, OR, is a place unlike any other.

Earl found it on Roadside America and insisted on stopping. We had time, even though we’d gotten away later than I’d hoped after our midnight drive the night before, and even though we had to pick El Jefe up in Seattle at a set time. Velma the GPS said we had time to kill, so kill it we did.

Tofte founded Enchanted Forest at the turn of the 60s/70s, and while it’s been well maintained, the park is like a time capsule from that time. Which, I think, is what makes it still oddly enchanting 40-odd years later.

Clearly, Tofte didn’t get the rights to use the Disney-traditional dwarf names. At Enchanted Forest, the dwarves are Grouchy, Smiley, Snoozy, Droopy, Wheezy, Dingy, and Lumpy. If that’s not plum delightful, I don’t know what is. </sarcasm>

Poor Smiley, stuck with the rest of that sad sack bunch. When Earl refused to go into their mine shaft, I didn’t blame her at all. The depressed dwarves probably have it booby trapped in an effort to cheer themselves up.

The landscaping was well maintained, although I’m not sure how much maintenance fake flowers require.

I may sound totally down on the place, but it was fun and charming in its own way. The witch, for instance, was splendid!

The Crooked Little Man and his Crooked Little House were disconcertingly fun.

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater’s wife was done with living in a pumpkin.

The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe at least gave her kids an awesome way to leave the house.

In the Wild West part of the park, I loved seeing the shaggy-haired customer thoughtfully contemplate which cut to get while the barber thoughtfully contemplated homicide.

And the dentist is clearly confused. Is it U.R. Hurtin? Or R.U. Hurtin? Does he even know? And are you?

In the village, the animatronic (oh yes, they talk and move) villagers bickering from their windows made me think of AbFab for some wholly unknown reason. Don’t ask.

And the buildings were quaint and delightful with cute little hidden gems scattered about.

Further proof it’s not Disney: Princesses in Disney wouldn’t be caught dead drinking a milk shake they’d just procured by batting their eyes at the cute soda jerk.

When we left Enchanted Forest after only 45 minutes, having not ridden the first ride (yes! they have rides!), Earl sighed. “Next time, we need to spend more time.”

“Yes. Next time we’ll stay for at least an hour and 15 minutes.”

I kid. We might stay two.

Velma said we had just enough time to make it to Seattle before El Jefe landed.

Velma was exacting her revenge. Velma lied. Velma purposefully ignored traffic.

Now you must understand. Earl and I drove over 4,500 miles without hitting anything worse than rush hour traffic in Dallas. But the moment we crossed into Porland, OR? Parking lot.

Did you know Portland has a gondola? I didn’t. But I do now. I also know you can watch it make four trips back and forth in the time it takes to cross under it when the traffic is just so.

What I don’t know is who in the everloving world puts a drawbridge on the interstate? Because best I could tell, that was the hold up—the drawbridge on I-5 at the Oregon/Washington state line.

Oh yeah. We traversed Portland, OR, at a whopping max speed of 10 mph.

So we were already late to pick up El Jefe when we hit our second parking lot in Olympia, WA.

But it was all good. Sea-Tac has a Pearl Jam Poster Art exhibit at the moment, and if there’s two things El Jefe loves more than Pearl Jam and posters, I don’t know what they might be.

Aside, obviously, from the two girls who belatedly picked him up from the airport after having driven exactly 4,750.0 miles.

We checked into our hotel and hit the streets of Seattle in search of food. But we were sidetracked by fountains and foosball.

We wandered slowly down toward Pike Place Market, the realization that Seattle closes shop early creeping over us. At last, we found a little pub for dinner and a peek of sunset.

We have a week with El Jefe before he has to get back to the business of work. As we went to bed our first night in Seattle, I cursed our series of late nights and my lack of sleep as something felt like it was taking hold in my chest. “I’m just exhausted,” I told myself. “I’m not getting sick. I can’t be getting sick.”

But then, if my body insists on getting sick, at least it can have the decency to do it when I have a back up driver for a bit. And while, for a few days, Earl is totally ga-ga over having her Papa around again.

Daddy’s girl is even moreso when she’s been stuck in the car with Mama for nearly 3 weeks. And I am completely okay with that.