We decided to go back to Specialty’s Cafe and Bakery for breakfast because they served steel cut oatmeal until 10 AM. It was good, but not great. Definitely not up to par with the Blog Cabin oats that BRK makes. I got another Denver egg sandwich. It did not disappoint. They were out of dark roast coffee, which did disappoint, but that’s okay. I just filled up before we left and took it back to the room.

After the busy day yesterday, none of us had any issues with chilling in the room after breakfast. Oh, and poor Curtis had a nasty cold. :(

It was cloudy and kind of cold outside, so what better thing to do than Ride the Ducks? There’s nothing quite like going down the freeway in an open-air vehicle when it’s 57° and cloudy! The land tour section was all right, but my favorite part was being on the water. The view of the city was spectacular, and getting a closeup view of the boats the planes and watching the seaplanes land was pretty neat. We even saw the house from Sleepless in Seattle. Not that I remember much of the movie. I was probably 12 at the time I saw it, and I always confuse it with You’ve Got Mail.

During the end of the tour, the sun came out, which made things much more comfortable. Once we got off the duck, we decided it was time for lunch. We ended up eating at McCormick & Schmick’s. I had seafood and roasted corn chowder and Mongolian beef on jasmine rice.

All the fresh air tuckered us out, so we headed back to the room for naps. At around 5ish, we went to the Fisherman’s Terminal because the Duck tour guide mentioned that some of the ships from Deadliest Catch, like the Northwestern, were docked there. The only one we saw was the Rollo, which apparently was only on for a couple of seasons. I wouldn’t know—I’ve only seen a handful of shows. I think BRK was kind of disappointed, though. :(

After relaxing and computing in the room, we went to dinner at Shuckers. The clam chowder was good (and expensive, holy crap! $9 for a cup??!?). I ordered the wild seared scallops for the main course. They came with asparagus, mushrooms, and crab mashed potatoes. Yum!

We were pretty full, so we ordered dessert, sans ice cream, to take back to the room. I got the chocolate fudge cake. BRK got the blueberry blackberry pie.

Tomorrow is the Blackfield concert, yay!

Curtis, BRK, and I left for Seattle on Saturday morning. Nick was kind enough to drive us to the airport at 7:30 even though he had only gotten an hour of sleep.

The flight left on time and arrived early, which was nice. We upgraded our rental car from a Hyundai Accent to a Jeep Cherokee. It’s very spacious. Our hotel room at Red Lion wasn’t ready for check in when we arrived, so we ate lunch at the British pub attached to it named Elephant & Castle. The three of us got Manhattan chowder and fish and chips. Very delicious.

I decided to do my best to make the blogs for this trip visually dynamic. Good thing my phone has a decent camera because I left mine at home so Nick could document the healing process of his latest softball injury. For some odd reason, my phone’s battery had drained halfway during the flight (???). After firing up the navigator to find the hotel, tweeting, and taking photos, the juice was dangerously low. Hopefully it was just a one-time glitch. Anyway, I digress.

After lunch we walked down Pike Street and found a little grassy area near the market to plop down in for an hour. Naps were had. It was nice. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at The Dragon’s Toy Box. I bought a pack of Suddenly! GIANT fish eggs. They create mounds of clear spheres instantly! Makes 6 full cups! Just add water! Seriously, how could I resist?

Kristen decided she wanted a middle-of-the-day birthday dessert (Happy Birthday, BRK!) , so we found a place that sold individual sized cheesecakes. I got triple berry. Yum! Kristen got Mexican chocolate, which had cayenne pepper in it. Very interesting juxtaposition. I was jonesing for some milk to wash it down, but the best we could find was an iced latte from Starbucks. It was challenging to make it to the room without sucking it all down. Damn strawed beverages.

BRK and I computed while Curtis napped. We got a kick out of how he fell asleep clutching his cell phone while using a decorative pillow to block the sunlight.

For dinner we went to a fun little place in Georgetown called Calamity Jane’s. I ate a delicious burger and had a drink (or three) made with pink lemonade, Stoli Blueberi, and pomegranite. Bryan and Pam, two of cklahr’s friends who live in Spokane, met us at the restaurant.

We hung out there for a while. Kristen decided she needed a proper birthday dessert, so she ordered bread pudding. It wouldn’t have been my first choice of a birthday dessert. Kind of tasted like soggy bread. It was soaked in alcohol too. My first bite was reminiscent of taking a shot. Sometime later in the evening, some dude came in and started ’70s movies on an old school movie projector.

I just want to add, that my drunken navigation skillz are mad. I didn’t like the way Kristen’s phone was telling us to go back to the hotel, and I accidentally touched something that made the directions go away completely, yet I got us back without a hitch.

So far Seattle has been awesome. I can’t wait for day two.