Day 11: Maritime Museum, more market, and HOME!!

Hey everyone,

Today we officially have to go home...it's been a long trip, but we had a few spare hours this morning in Seattle so we went to the Odyssey Maritime Discovery Center. I guess we didn't really realize it, but it was more a learning museum for kids to discover how important the ocean is than a Maritime Museum for adults.

Either way, we had fun running around like kids through the museum. We learned how they fish for salmon, halibut and crabs in the Northwest. We also got lessons on the shipping industry, how to operate a crane, and how to steer a tanker....very exciting, haha!

My favorite part was the dress up room, where they had full size suits for various water related professions, like Naval officer uniforms and Coast Guard cold water rescue suits. Taylor was a pretty good sport and got all the way into the cold water suit. He had a little trouble, but we eventually zipped him up - I think he looks like a giant, silly lobster :D

After all the oceanic education we could take, we went back to Pike's Market one last time and then back to the hostel to gather all our bags. After a quick shuttle ride to the airport we got on an earlier flight home than expected! The only downside to this was that I guess our bags missed the flight, so once we got home to San Diego (safe and sound) we had to wait for our bags to arrive.

Anyway - we are home and all-in-all had an amazing trip!
In case you are interested here are a few stats for our trip:

Miles traveled: 1657.6 miles
Average MPG in the Hybrid: 38 mpg
Approximate time in the car: 42 hours
Number of new states visited: 2 (Kristyn has now been to 23 and Taylor has been to 31)
Amount of beef jerky consumed: 3/4 of a pound
Number of times I have now seen snow: 4!
Number of new animal species encountered: 4 (elephant seals, Roosevelt elk, grey whales, sea otters!)
Number of times Taylor was severely disappointed due to my iPod selection of music: 3 (not enough Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, and Skynyrd)

Day 10: The Space Needle, Experience Music Project and more food :)

Well guys,

Today was our last full day of vacation, so we were a little sad. We woke up and got our free breakfast at the hostel (I really like hostels that do that) and headed off to stroll through Pike's Place Market again. We had so much fun yesterday that we decided to walk through the market again before we headed out for the real sight-seeing.

We sampled all the foods again, and even got to see them really chucking some fish around today. They are pretty comical about it, and they even trick the tourists that are watching. If someone demands that they throw a fish (which they usually do only once somebody orders one to be packed up and bought) one of the men behind the counter will pull out a huge fish and say "Your turn to catch!" and throw it into the crowd. We quickly learned that they really just throw a giant stuffed animal fish - but its pretty funny watching the women scurry out of the way to avoid getting "fish" on them!

After the market we found the first, original Starbucks. Even though it wasn't that impressive I did have to take a picture. The logo for the original store it a little more scandalous than their now PC symbol!

We took our time since it was actually a really nice day (for Seattle) and walked to the Space Needle. I couldn't resist going to the top of it, so we bought our tickets and rode the elevator up the 520 feet! It only takes 41 seconds in their high-speed elevators, and the view of the city is neat. There is of course a very expensive revolving restaurant at the top as well, but I don't think we could afford it on our grad student budget.

Right next to the Space Needle is a cool museum devoted to music and its history (The Experience Music Project) so we spent some time wandering through the exhibits. There were even little sound proof rooms with instruments in them where you could learn to play the guitar, the drums or the keyboard. It was fun to pretend to be rockstars for a little while....but we aren't going to be getting record deals anytime soon.

We rode the Seattle Monorail back to our hostel and relaxed for a little while. For dinner we found a little Thai place and had a great meal and for dessert, we went to the Pike Place Pub and Brewery and had a "beer float." I was a bit skeptical, but it was Belgian gelatto floating in a raspberry Belgian beer, and it was yummy!

We have all morning tomorrow to explore, too, so we will be going to the Maritime Museum.

~Kristyn