Days 2 & 3

Day 2 (09.21.12)

My dear friend Amanda's mom has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Friday she had an appointment in Seattle to determine what the next step was. I decided to hitch a ride along and let them go to the doctor while I piddled around town. I decided to start out at Pike Market and basically eat my way around it. I had BIG plans. I made a list...yes a list, and then talked to someone there to get his recommendations as well. I started off with a crumpet covered in ricotta cheese, honey and walnuts. Holy moly, it was stinking good! I might HAVE to figure out how to make crumpets at home! Next stop, donuts! I went to the Daily Dozen and lo and behold, they make 'em fresh right there. I was debating for a half dozen, but a dozen was only a dollar more, so who wouldn't upgrade?! I visited with the cashier and turns out he frequents Texas regularly, he handed me my bag of assorted donuts and said "I threw a couple extra in there to keep your hands warm." Turns out, he threw in another HALF DOZEN. I say down with the intention to eat only a few...but soon, I looked in the bag and there were six left. Yes, I ate a dozen mini donuts, AFTER eating an entire crumpet. Kinda put a wrench in my eating all day plan because at the point I was full! I decided to keep walking. I made my stop at MarketSpice, watched the fish throwing, took in a couple of market musicians, who are SO entertaining. I saw a guy who wheeled a piano out on the sidewalk, a gal playing guitar while tap dancing, and another guy playing guitar while hula hooping (all the pictures turned out blurry which is a shame). It was insane. I really wanted to try homemade sausage and piroskhys but my stomach wasn't allowing it. I continued walking through the market and now can successfully said I have made it all the way through, on all floors AND across the street. Now by this time, I was hungry. The chowder I wanted to try had a line waaay out the door, the sausage was sold out (how does that happen?!) so I went to my old faithful, Beecher's Crab and Grilled Cheese. I headed to the park down the way and enjoyed it along with a beautiful view of the harbor.

I decided to take the monorail up to Seattle Center, which is where the World's Fair was held in 1962 (and for which the Space Needle was built). Fun fact: the monorail was built specifically to take passengers from downtown to Seattle Center for the fair. As I got off, a lady was there offering help. She told me about an exhibit that was about to close celebrating the 50th anniversary of the World's Fair in Seattle. I decided to go check that out instead. It was REALLY cool. I'm glad I did. It seems so weird how much we have developed in 50 years. And to see where we THOUGHT we were going to be in 50 years. The exhibit was so well put together; the pictures, videos and various memorabillia took you back 50 years and let you image what it was like to be there if you weren't. I'm making this promise to myself, if there's ever a World's Fair in my vicinity, I'll definitely be going. The city of Seattle tore down buildings to make way for the World's Fair...I mean, can you even imagine the spectacle that it was? Everything had to be bigger and better. I bet it was a sight to see.

After finishing up my history of the World's Fair, I decided it was appro to go to the Space Needle and see the result of said World Fair. While the view was amazing, the history and the making of the Space Needle is what is so fascinating. I highly recommend you doing a little research or at least reading all of the signs if you decide to visit it. I also celebrated my journey to the top with a Seattle dog, a hot dog with bacon onion jam and cream cheese. Holy cow, make me go weak in the knees. You can see all the pictures on Facebook but the view was pretty spectacular! Afterwards, I headed back down and returned to Tacoma.

TODAY, was a slow day. I slept until 11:00 Seattle time, that's a long time btw. I needed to run 5 miles according to my half marathon training plan. I got a waaaay late start and wasn't feeling up to par. But I decided I was gonna do it anyways. I headed out to Point Defiance Park was has a 5 mile road, so I figured it would be perfect. The run started off great, but around mile 2 I got a sharp pain in the leg. Stretching was not helping at all. I tried to walk it off. I did everything possible but it was not leaving. At the point I was at, I had to either run 1.75 miles back or keep going. So I kept going. I then discovered a shortcut back to the truck and decided to take that. Right around then, I hit my stride and was feeling better. But at that point, they had opened up 5 mile road back to cars (it had previously been closed off) I had already resolved to cut my run short so that my whole afternoon wasn't gone. So I only ran 2.5ish miles and headed back to the truck, but Monday, I *WILL* run 5 miles. It's gonna happen. It's gotta. And then next weekend, I'll return to Point Defiance and concur that 5 mile road again. I mean, how can you not want to run when this is your backdrop?

Afterwards, I got back into my photography stride and took some maternity pictures of Amanda. I haven't looked at or processed yet, but I promise, I'll give you a sneak peak by the end of the week. :) That's all for now folks, I've gotta head to bed. One goal that I will reach on my vacation is that I plan on catching up on sleep!