The Train! The Train!

Today was another early morning (earlier, actually, than yesterday) - with the alarm going off at 5 so that we could get ready and all packed up and still make our 6:40 train. The 6:40 train that didn't actually leave until 7:10, not that I'm bitter about the extra 30 minutes sleep or anything. This time the doodle slept through all the preparations up to and including being scooped out of bed and carried down to the lobby to wait for our taxi (which literally took 40 seconds to arrive - I had just sat down in a lobby chair and *bam* there it was). He woke briefly in the taxi, then went back to snoozeland until we were at the customs desk.

The whole process of boarding the train, customs, etc. was relatively painless and before long the kiddo was asking to get dressed and wanting breakfast. So Tim and he trekked down to the food car (before we even started off down the tracks) and we were able to start the day with coffee, finally. (When you're going on effectively 4 hours of sleep due to a pounding headache, coffee is a necessity.)

The train from Vancouver to Seattle was just a beautiful as the other way had been, but we didn't take photos this go round, figuring that most likely we'd just end up with the same ones.

We arrived in Seattle around 11, got our bags and a taxi to the new hotel and arrived pretty close to noon. Our room was ready (hurrah!) so we dropped our bags and headed out in search of lunch and then the Olympic Sculpture Garden, which looked like it was just a reasonable walk from our hotel. We headed toward the Space Needle (that we can see from our room's balcony), deciding that the purported food court in the middle of Seattle Center might fit the bill. One observation about this area of Seattle is that now that tourist season is over (with school starting and so forth), everything seems to be under construction and so it all feels a little...run down. Also? Way too many panhandlers that verge on scary crazy wandering about muttering to themselves angrily. Also also? We passed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the workers streaming out of the door in search of their lunches were having a spirited discussion about how much they loved their iPads. It made me chuckle.

We found non-descript food court food then continued on what should have been a relatively short walk to the sculpture garden. Instead, due to the rather cruddy nature of the free map we got from the hotel, we did 3.5 sides of the rectangle rather than .5 side that we should have taken. When we finally did arrive, the doodle demanded up please, and then promptly fell asleep. There were some lovely views of the sound, but the sculpture is all modern "art", which pretty  much means (at least to us) that someone simply pulled a fast one on the community at large by using an arc welder and hammer. But the view of the water and mountains were really nice.

Since the doodle had become dead weight at this point, we hiked back to the hotel (the short way this time at least), and put him down for his nap. Tim decided that he, too, needed a nap. I rested on the couch and read. When everyone was up at 4ish, I remembered (thankfully) that I needed to teach at 9 eastern (so in about 2 hours), which changed our plans for the evening only slightly. We ended up finding pizza (the kiddo, when given his druthers these days opts for pizza, we're too tired to argue right now) and eating back in the room. I taught my class, the boys hung out in the bedroom playing on the iPad, we all hung out a bit more afterward, and now it is time for the kiddo to go to bed. We're hoping he wants to sleep in tomorrow morning too.

If I'm motivated this evening I may upload some more photos now that I have reliable Internet.