Seattle +

We had a great time in Seattle. Nikki made reservations for dinner at the space needle. It was great company, great food, and the view never got old. We did 3.5 rotations before we were ready to go. After dinner we spent a few moments on the view deck in the rain and wind, but still managed smiles for the photos. In the photo left to right, Edith, Nikki, Jazzi, Garrett, and Alex. Lou and I have heard many people talk about the underground tour of Seattle, but honestly we were skeptical it really existed. So while we were in Seattle this time we made a point to find out, and check it out. We really enjoyed the tour, learned about the craziness that is the history of Seattle. One favorite story was about the exploding toilets. Back in the day, 1880ish, Seattle didn't have the sewer system figured out all too well. They used gravity to move the sewage into the bay, ok sounds like that might work except at high tide the flows reversed. If you flushed your toilet during this reversal the pressure was released and voila, exploding toilet. YUCK! The newspaper published the tidal charts to help people avoid these incidents, but you can bet from time to time some out-of-town guest didn't quite believe it until they saw it. So next time you are in Seattle and have a spare 90 minutes, try the tour.
Lou and I are in one of the underground rooms, the floors are all warped because they were built on tidal flats.
As Lou posted earlier, we were in Seattle to hang out with my sister and other Homerites participating in the Pinapple classic fundraiser race. For this event each team must carry a pineapple across 5km of obstacles, costumes encouraged. My sister's team went with the superhereo theme, and they looked fabulous! If you are ever looking for that just for fun race the Pineapple classic is for you. Plus you are raising money for a good cause. There were some great costumes and great entertainment watching teams lob their pineapple over cargo nets or haul them through tunnels, all good family fun.
The last night we made a visit to the Pikes place brewery, Pete was hanging out, Clayton (another Homerite) came over from Bremerton, and Crystal, who I have known since before we were born, came down from Bellingham. It was really great to see everyone. The brewery was followed by a visit to the candy store and a delightful candy apple treat challenge. There are candy apples and then there are CANDY apples. Pete picked out the largest most sugar coated apple in the store, green apple covered in caramel, marshmallows, nuts, and two kinds of chocolate. The rocky-road topping was over an inch thick all the way around and it was delicious. A perfect treat for six, but can't imagine trying to eat all by oneself.
photo left to right: Gala, Clayton, Louie, Jaz, Garrett, Pete, Crystal, Alex. Thanks for taking the pic Nikki.
We are back in Santa Cruz this week, Lou was offered a few days of work and we decided to take them. I should be editing my thesis, so enough for now. Headed to CO on Saturday, for more family, friends and fun!

Trials

Our final stop in California before heading north once again was San Francisco. One of the coolest people that we met during out time in Cali is currently living in the The City and pursuing med school. We met with him Sunday morning and went to the Exploratorium to exercise our craniums. To our delight entry was free all weekend so we did not have to spend any money to run around and act like little kids while we did numerous tutorials to teach people about the laws of physics.

Eventually it was time to leave so that Erik could collect cadaver parts for his research with the UCSF orthopedic lab. Talk about a good job to have for someone wanting to become an orthopedic surgeon. Erik's cadavers would have to wait though because upon returning to our vehicle we discovered that some low life shmuck had decided that our car was a good one to prey on and had busted the window to steal all of our stuff.

Upon initial inspection we thought that nothing was actually taken which would have been amazing because pretty much everything that we own right now is always in the car. As we thought through all of the stuff that was in car we realized one bag had been taken, my old school bag. The same bag that was stolen out of a car 7 years ago as Lane and I were mountain biking around hag lake. Amazingly that bag was found by a good samaritan and returned to me along with the majority of its contents. Hopefully the bag still holds the same karma it did 7 years ago. There was not too much of consequence in the bag except for jasmine's newly edited thesis! Everything else was minor stuff like a head lamp, pocket knife, reading books, etc. I hate crooks. Often times they do not do any damage except to cause a major inconvenience. This jerk-off is going to cause us numerous hours of our life to get things back to normal while getting no profit out of it. There was no cash, credit cards, jewelry, or otherwise valuable things in the bag. So much for big cities. In all honesty, we feel lucky that it was not worse but I still do not like crooks.

We were able to get the window fixed the next morning and we were off again on our way to Oregon. We should be there by Monday evening and then be working our way to Seattle via Ashland, Eugene, and Portland. We are going to attempt some more turkey hunting on our way north so wish us luck.

Tribulations

We made it to Tahoe with out any incidents and had 5 days filled with perfect temps and sunshine. So far on our loop from Portland to baker to Tahoe to San fran and back we have encountered every kind of weather. Plenty of rain in Portland, snow in baker, and sunshine in Tahoe. We love it all. It is wonderful to be experiencing weather and the seasons again. We had a group of six converge on the condo in Tahoe for Halloween and had a great time drinking wine and playing cards. Unfortunately the casino tables were not as nice to us but thats how it goes.

After getting in some nice evening runs on the lake as the sun set and a few days of climbing we made our way over to Santa Cruz. On the way we had a great lunch with Emily Campagna and met a friend at the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield which I would recommend to anyone going through this area. It is conveniently located right off the freeway at the interchange of highways 80 and 505. The tour was great and who does not like some free Jelly Bellies. By Saturday we were with friends in Monterey sailing around the bay with more surprisingly nice weather.This is Jasmine's major advisor Captain, and Dr., Greg Cailliet, with Zach and Barrett behind him.Lou took his turn sailing the boat too. He expertly kept us clear of the sail boats that were racing that day and smoothly tacked to keep the race in view.

Before we left Santa Cruz for San fran jasmine was able to pic up her edited thesis (with minimal edits, good job jaz, wahoo!) and I stepped on the track in an attempt to run a personal best in the mile. When I came across the line I had run one second faster than my PR. I was hoping for more but I was still very pleased.

Thats the synopsis of another awesome week on the road. We are looking forward to heading back north. By next weekend we will be in Seattle for Nikki's, jasmine's sister, fundraiser relay race and then we have our first unscheduled days of our trip. Where will we go, what will we do? We do not have the slightest clue but I am sure it will be great. What a nice thought.