Day 15: Vancouver to Seattle

Woke up to this beautiful view from our hotel…

And, come to find out, if you loose a tooth in a foreign country, the tooth fairy leaves your money in that country’s currency!! Who knew?!

We packed up and left Vancouver pretty early, but once we got to the border, there was an hour wait.  This doesn’t bother me a bit.  It should take some time to pass from a foreign country into the U.S.  There are cameras everywhere!  It’s weird, but I love handing over my passport!  Something about that official document saying that I’m an American makes me happy!  My favorite part anytime I come through the border or customs is when the officer hands back your papers and says,”Welcome Home.”  I LOVE that!! 

Border Patrol is always fascinated that we are from Texas.  Today the officer asked if we drove all the way from Texas just to go to Vancouver.  Scott explained our 28 day trip.  He then asked the routine question about if we had any fruits or vegetables.  We said no.  Then he asked if we had any guns in the car.  I laughed and said no, even though we were from Texas we didn’t.  He then glances down at Scott’s passport and says, “Oh, you were born in New York, that’s why!”  Thomas and I thought that was hysterical, but Scott was a little offended!

There were a couple of outlet malls on the way back to Seattle, so we all did a little bit of shopping. 

Our first glimpse of Seattle...

We are staying at a great suite type hotel on the water.  Mandy had a great time getting to ride the luggage cart back down the elevator!

Then, for dinner we decided to hit Diners, Drive-ins and Dives stop #3 on the trip.  We took the hotel shuttle down to Pike Place Market and went to Caffe Lieto...also known as Biscuit B*tch.  Now, normally this is not a place I would frequent, but the entire menu is all manner of variations involving homemade biscuits and gravy.  Grace and I simply can't pass that up.  However, when we got there and looked at the menu...we had to promise the kids we would order for them before they would even go in!!  I had the biscuits and gravy with 2 fried eggs on top!

Grace went for the classic, scott had his with scrambled eggs and bacon, and Thomas had his with pulled pork...

Crazy good.  Musician Robert Plant had been in just before us.  

After that it was off the Starbucks store #1!  Just for fun I used my Starbucks app to guide us to its location...

It's nothing fancy.  It opened in this location in 1971 and this flagship store has been open ever since.

 We all had a drink and bought a few souvenirs.  

The line was out the door when we got there, but it went fairly fast.  Although, we were entertained during our wait by this gentleman...

And, the smell of pot was nearly enough to knock you down!  After we had our drinks we walked over to the water.  The kids were freaking out over the number of homeless people, which burdens Mandy.  And, by the number of unusual characters hanging out on the waterfront.  Like this shirtless gentleman, who was cussing out a nonexistent girlfriend while wearing a Cars backpack...

It was about 9:00 p.m. (note how light it still was outside), and the kids were constantly asking to go back to the hotel.  They are waaaaay outside their Rockwall bubble here!  Really even our Texas bubble.  As, "weird" as Austin is, it's ultra-conservative compared to the West Coast.  

Tomorrow the kids want to do the Space Needle, and Scott seems determined to get us all on one of those tin can/death trap looking sea planes. We'll see how that works out for him.  Fortunately we are here for 3 nights, cuz there seems to be plenty to do!

Seattle Blessings,

Leslie