She-Addle

Ragged and I are beginning our third day in Seattle. It is weird that it is almost 9 am at home and it's still dark here. Thankfully the time change doesn't take place until next weekend or we would really be in for some time zone madness. We got off to a very early start on Saturday (2:30 am) with a few bumps along the way including our luggage not making it to Seattle when we did. We switched from American to Alaska Airlines, so there was bound to be trouble in the tranference of baggage.

At any rate, we arrived on a cool, foggy day and I was immediately struck by the hilliness of Seattle. Who would have thought it? Not quite as hilly as San Francisco, but after a long day's walking, those hills were formidable and Ragged and I took a cab the 5 blocks uphill to our hotel. Lazy I know, but facing the same circumstances I think you would have made the same decision. Apparently the buses are free here, but we just weren't up to figuring it all out to get back "home".

Yesterday, we took a one-hour boat tour around Elliott's Bay. It was probably the highlight of our trip so far as we haven't made very good restaurant decisions up to this point, but I hope to remedy that starting today. Anyway, the tour was great but cold. By the end of it, Ragged and I were both red and snotty-nosed and shivering. Neither of us brought a coat which is okay as long as your not out on the water. We saw some sea lions lounging on a couple of bouys and a couple in the water swimming around. I love to see the animals. We walked around and around the Market area noticing different shops and restaurants with each pass. We've also learned where various scenes of Sleepless in Seattle were filmed. We also learned that the view seen out of the condo on Frazier doesn't exist from any structure up on the hillside. It was taken from a plane or helicopter. Ragged made her second jaunt to the yarn shop to grab an extra skein for her intended project. We grabbed coffee at Starbucks prior to going on the boat tour and we watched the kids who were all dressed up for Halloween on the Waterfront (not the official name). I got to visit the Science Fiction museum early on in the day. Unfortunately you couldn't take photos inside the museum. I have to say the props were very cheap looking. Pilot and Rudy made better ones for me when we were kids. Anyway, there was a healthy representation of Star Trek items and information including original uniforms, weapons, tricorders, and scripts from the show. Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) had apparently donated quite a bit of her memorabilia to the museum.




At the market, there was fresh fish, fresh flowers, and an amazingly diverse cross-section of people milling around and working. Seattle seems to have a high Asian population. Where in our neck of the woods Spanish is the second largest spoken language, here it is Japanese. The monorail had instructions in Japanese and so did the airport. I believe it was Japanese or maybe Chinese. My guess would be Japanese. We saw fishes thrown and the guy who dated a girl from the Real World still working at the same place he had been those many years ago. We picked up a few souvenirs and got a lot of picture taking accomplished after a slow start on the first day. We have drunk so much coffee I'm starting to twitch. Coffee is like water here. It's available out of the faucets almost. Seattle is a big green city which Ragged and I both like, not as serious as Asheville I don't believe, but more than most cities. The salmon population seems to be a concern for them.

Today, Ragged starts her conference so I have some alone time coming which I'm looking forward to (don't tell Ragged). I'll be getting some exercise and enjoying the pool, visiting the library, and doing some meandering around the city and maybe some caching, too. I'm reading the Star Trek book Before Dishonor. I'm about half way through it. I started in on the 4+ hour plane ride here and I've been reading it in the morning and at night since then, so I expect to continue that. We are on the 20th floor of our hotel and the pool and fitness area are on the 28th, so exercising will be alot easier with that sort of view.


Enough of the blathering. On to the pictures:

A slight shadow of Mt. Ranier

Taking carmel apples to a whole new level

What If I'm Not Ready

We are gearing up for another trip to the other side of the continent this time. Although I'm excited to visit Seattle, I wish I had another couple of weeks to recouperate from Charleston. Yesterday, I got my broken wisdom tooth removed. It was a surprisingly easy and painless undertaking. I absolutely hate to go to the dentist. In fact, I panic when I'm having any type of medical procedure. I'm not sure why. I guess it's a common reaction.

Tomorrow we are having our monthly big meeting at work. I was hoping I could spend the entire day at home, but our boss decided on Monday to schedule this meeting. They are usually useless and just end up adding more senseless work to our already overwhelming workload. I'm hoping to get a haircut tomorrow so in case the plane goes down I will be a good looking corpse. I hope if we crash we fly into a mountain and burst into flames. I can't do the Donner Party thing.

Crazy With A Side of Crazy

We are home and I have to admit it feels strange. Usually when we go away for awhile I am chomping at the bit to get home, but not this time. I wish it could have lasted longer. I kind of wish we had moved away for good.

While we were gone, a tornado hit our town. There was lots of damage and a few injuries. Our house is okay, but Ragged's parents had some damage to their rental property. It hit the downtown area and tore off several rooftops and destroyed a tobacco barn. Ragged's church was also damaged. I haven't driven around much to see firsthand what damage was done, but our town did make the MSNBC news.

Tomorrow things are back to normal which makes me ill. I hate normal.

I Pity the Fool

It's our last day in Folly. Well, not even our last day, we had that yesterday. It's our last morning and the rain has moved in. I guess that's a sure sign that it's time to go. We are moving out of the Low Country and on to Asheville were the weather is cooler which won't be so bad. I am leaving with a healthy tan and lots of good memories and hundreds of photos to remember with. It seemed like our vacation would never get here, now it's over.

The Morris Island Lighthouse

The beach at Morris Island










Graffiti

Nanny!

Ragged has shown you the glamorous side of our vacation. Now, let me fill you in on the not-so-pretty side of our trip to Charleston. It started out the first day with part of my tooth breaking off while we ate at PF Chang's. I was concerned that I might have pain, but luckily there is none. I will still have to have the tooth removed once we get home, so I'll have to call the dentist from here and schedule the appointment. Now I'm stuck with a tooth with a large hole in it. It is a wisdom tooth that came in that I should have had removed years ago if I would have followed the advice of my old dentist.

The next thing was while we were at Ft. Sumter taking pictures of each other, Ragged noticed that my zipper was down. It had been that way the entire day. I was mortified and convinced IT was visible in all the photos we had taken up to that point. Thankfully, after we returned to our room, we looked at the photos but could see no cows through the barn door. On the same note, Ragged realized her zipper was down later the same day, though I think she may have pretended like it was to make me feel better.
Today we are going to the beach and to downtown Charleston. I can't wait to see what pitfalls await.











A view of Ft. Sumter as we were pulling away
















A one-legged seagull hops down the beach





















Our inn/bed and breakfast

Ragged on Folly Beach

Flowers in the garden at Boone Hall

Boone Hall mansion

The Yorktown

Maybe A Bright Sandy Beach

Time is ticking until we depart for our trip. Despite Ragged's claims, I am not paralyzed. I have been doing things to get ready. A big difficulty is the seeming two different climates we will be in over the week, not to mention the mixture of formal and casual activities we will be participating in. Needless to say, we will be taking alot of clothes and probably not wearing half of them. Ike has been sleeping on my suitcase which is in the middle of the floor slowly collecting what I've decided to take along. We realized that it may still be possible to swim in the ocean, so since I have apparently lost the two pairs of swimming trunks I'd had for the past 17 years, we ran out and picked up a pair to take. Bring on the relaxation.

Izzie

Doldrums

Today is the official last day of summer, at least in my book. Hopefully the hot snap is over. Now onto Fall and vacation. Ragged is in a list making frenzy trying to get us organized and ready for this trip. It's sort of nice to hand over the organization reigns to someone else. It's nice to be taken care of. Thanks, Ragged. Things have been kind of rough lately, but they are getting better.

More pumpkins

Everything Zen...I Don't Think So

This has been a trying week to say the least. Not only are we in the final leg of preparations for our vacation, but my mom became ill early this week. It was four tense days of spending large amounts of time at the hospital. Finally, yesterday, we got good news, at least better news than we had anticipated and mom went home. I was completely exhausted after it was all said and done and I didn't complete the amount of work I had hoped. Thankfully, I have a new internet service provider and I can work from home. I'll probably do some work this weekend as Ragged has gone on a day trip to knit in The Big E. My day plans are to mow, clean the bed, hit a few open houses, and go to the Y for a little exercise and mind clearing.

Pumpkins

Presto Chango

And just like that a new day dawns. Today, Ragged and I switched ISPs. As I had whined about in a previous post, working at home had become nearly impossible as my computer moved so slowly. I thought it was the connection, but it turned out to be the ISP.

A praying mantis we saw outside Ragged's workplace

Meerkat Manor

Flower!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!