Seattle 2008 pt. 1

I finally returned from my trip around eight this morning. I was supposed to be home Monday night, but as you can see, it's Wednesday. I'll get to that in a moment but let me tell you about my trip!

Zack and I packed up and left on the 5th and drove all day and rested in Troutdale, Oregon. We stayed in a gross Motel 6 and set out the following day for Bellevue, Washington, where his dad and step-mom live. I must say driving through that part of Oregon was beautiful, but Washington should be my real home. I love it there, the water, the forest, it's gorgeous and it calls to me.

We got to his parents house and relaxed for a few days and played with Andrew, Zack's younger brother (by younger I mean Andrew is 1 year old). I was introduced to The Wonderpets! and...I wish I never was. The songs get stuck in your head, and not in the fun way. But, along the trip I was introduced to a lot of new things, like Indian and Ethiopian food. I love trying new foods so that was an awesome experience.

We went to Seattle for a day and spent our time by the water, mostly at Pike's Market. I love it there. The small shops, the local flavor and culture is just so different than the life you see in Salt Lake City. I dropped a lot of money on clothes (poor Zack had to suffer while I shopped) and took in the atmosphere as much as I could. Needless to say, I think the decision to move to Seattle is a good one.

On Friday, we saw Eddie Izzard at the Paramount. Mapquest gave us wrong directions so we wond up walking a bit to the theater, but it was worth it! I love watching Eddie on tv and listening to his albums, but it's so much better to see him in person! He's incredibly funny and we had such good seats, we were ten rows back from the stage!

The Saturday before we left, Zack and I made our way to a little town called Forks, Washington. It was a nightmare. Well, the only nightmare was the town itself, the trip was fun. It took six hours to get there, we had to take a ferry, drive through small towns and forest, and it was beautiful along the way...until we reached Forks. Forks sucks. It's a town of trailer parks and double wides. Not only that, but there was not a cloud in the sky. Ridiculous. I've learned my lesson though, don't visit places in books. I'll never try to find Hogwarts now. On the way home, I told Zack what Twilight was all about and he felt so bad that my dream was shattered. To help my pain he drove 100 mph along the highway, like a Cullen. He's so sweet.

Since we felt like we wasted a day, we decided to leave the next day and spend one more day in Bellevue. It was nice, especially since his dad installed a new 58' HD tv. I feel like I have to squint at regular televisions now.

We left on Monday, determined to make it home by ten Salt Lake time. Alas, life had other plans. Outside North Powder, Oregon, the car broke down. The engine was making a terrible knock, so we limped to North Powder and waited for a tow truck. We were towed to Baker City to a mechanic where, after an hour and a half of wandering in Safeway and Rite Aid, we were told it was unfixable. Awesome. We spent some time trying to figure out what to do, and we decided to Greyhound it back to Salt Lake. We heaved all our luggage to the station (keep in mind we had to get everything we could out of the car) only to find the ticket booth had closed five minutes earlier. Dragging our luggage to the nearest motel, we crashed and spent the night there. We were told we could buy tickets from the bus driver in the morning if we paid in cash, so we tried that for the 6:30 bus. The bus driver slashed our dreams and told us he didn't sell the tickets, we could only buy from the ticket window, but that didn't open until 9:30. Once more, we dragged our stuff back to the motel, explained our situation to the woman at the desk and she let us have our room back until checkout, but then we'd have to talk to the manager if we wanted to keep it until seven, when the next bus was. While I was sleeping, Zack went over, bought tickets and talked to the manager (who wouldn't let us stay without paying for a whole night because she "had a business to run") and took care of everything. At 6:30 we, for a final time, trekked to the station, got on the bus--which was an hour late--and finally made our way home. It was icky and uncomfortable but hey, we lived.

After all of that, we decided we should go on The Amazing Race, because we never once got into an argument, got upset with each other or tore into each other. We're pretty much the perfect couple. And I had such a great time up there. Stay tuned for pictures.