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)