Friday 14 - The Seattle Travel Edition.

Dear Diary,

The Zensah Ankle sleeve.

14.  I am back home where, predictably, I was missed at work.  It's good to be missed.  The 20-something who lives 2 offices down, for instance, bounced by my office yesterday and said, Oh,Misty,I'mSoGladYou'reBack. ImissedYourEnergy!!!

13. This whole ankle thing has gotten old. It's on average about twice a year that I sprain my right anke. But there's nothing and buying eqUipment won't fix, right?



Stupid ankle.

Nemo?  Where are you nemo?

12. Meanwhile, the ankle is still swollen. Ooo, and ug-lay. Behold. This is day four, after wearing a sock all day. I spent most of the day sitting, too.

It's a Port, After all.

Himself.

11. But I can walk on it just fine. Up stairs, down stairs. I wore heels. No problem. But I can't touch it. Owie.  Stupid ankle.

10. Seattle was beautiful. Despite a forecast of rain for five days out of seven, it sprinled lightly early one morning and then never rained again.

On day one, we ate Indian buffet for lunch out with Baboo's Dad, who is also a psychologist and was in town for a DBT conference.

9. Day 2, we went to Pike Street Market, and had coffee at the original Starbucks. Then went to the REI flagship store. Then I had a stragith shot of espresso. Then we went running trails at Cougar Mountain. Then Had dinner with Dad Baboo at the cheesecake factory.

One of the many musicians along the waterfront.
We saw banjos, a capellasin ging, guitars,
and this guy, to name a few.

8. Day 3, we got up early and deove along the Olympic Peninsula. Baboo ran a 10k through the Hoh rain forest, and I hiked about four miles. It was so cool, mossy and dark. We drove back along the Pacific, stopping to look for shells. There weren't any. Mostly, there were rocks and driftwood,

7. Being fit is awesome. Loud tourists near you? No problem: run away.  Big-assed hills?  So what?  I was at sea level, practically swimming in oxygen.  Until day 4, I felt like I could run forever.

Best sandwich ever IN MY LIFE.  Shrimp and bacon club,
with sweet potatoe fries, at the Cheesecake Factory.
This was two meals for me.

6. Day 4 was the race. Stupid ankle. I would have been at least fourth, possibly third, in my division of my ankle hadn't given out.

Well. There is always next year.

Stupid ankle.

5. Day 5, drove to Vancouver, which is beautiful, expensive, and doesn't "do" iced tea. We went on a suspension bridge. We avoided buying gas there which was, apparenly, 140.8. I have to assume that is cents, per liter. On the way bome, we stopped in Bellingham, and ate at Anthony's on the waterfront. I had crab and a small steak.

I discovered that the persistant queasiness I'd had on and off was because of the outgassing from the leather seats in the rental car.

Peroshky, Peroshky!!
Mine was smoked salmon

Red velvet cheesecake, finished with white chocolate.
I finished this over 3 days.

It occurs to me that most of
my travel pictures are about food.
That seems wrong, somehow.
(Top Pot Donuts)

4. Day 6, we slept in, then drove into town and ate at Top Pot donuts, which had the best coffee on the trip. Oh, and donuts. We cruised through the market on Pike Street again, particularly an antique store and a place that sold old ads and magazines. We walked through Olympic Park. WHERE MY ANKLE WAS JUST FINE.

Stupid ankle.

We ate dinner at Paolo's in Kent.  It was great.  The food was wonderful.

Suspension bridge in Vancouver.
Can you find the Baboo?

"We don't do iced tea."

I can see Alaska from my porch.

Van Burien Press' fairly uninspiring menu board.

Olympic Park

3. Day 7, we slept in, and had coffee at the Van Burien Press, despite our Nuvi's attempts to keep us in Seattle.  Really, Nuvi had some kind of nervous breakdown in Seattle, where everything is a freeway.  Like, we would be sitting at a red light, not moving, not even in very heavy traffic, and suddenly out of the silence Nuvi would say, "RECALCULATING". uM, what?  recalculating what?  We're not even moving!

Anyway.  The Coffee at Van Burien press was so so. The barista seemed somewhat uninspired.  We were subjected to a very, very loud conversation between three high caffeinated new-agers that were going on, ad nausea, and youknowthere'saforceintheuniversethatformsbetweenusandthemoonandthesunreallyscientistshaveactuallymeasureditandicanFEELit.Ican.Imantrathatshit,youknow.

Aussie!  Aussie!  Aussie!  I had a chicken and asparagus
pie.

We sat around for a few hours, and then had lunch at Aussie Pies. Then, we flew home.

2. Now, somehow out of all of this, I gained 10 lbs.  Not sure how that's possible, that would involve something like an extra 25000 calories eaten, added to the face that we were up on our feet moving around most of the time, when usually we are each of us sitting in an office chair.  I mean, I enjoyed myself, but not 25000 calories worth.

I'm assuming that because we ate out so much, I took in lots of sodium.  My clothes aren't tighter, by the way, so I don't know where it all is.  If it isn't gone by this weekend, well, I'll have to revise my ticker up at the top of the page and do the special K challenge, I guess.  Meanwhile, I'm taking in lots of green tea and water.

1. So, back in Albuquerque, where we only have two freeways.  I loved Seattle, and will probably go back, really, since I still don't have a Washington marathon.
I was scheduled to do the Duke City in about 2 days, but, um, probably not.  Tomorrow morning I"m hoping to go out and see how the ankle holds up to walking around the block.  I'll work my way up from there.

Next up: THe Rock and Roll San Antonio marathon, November 12th.

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