Pacific Northwest Day #5 and #6 - Coming home.

Let me preface this by saying that I didn't think that I would have a problem with jet lag because I was so tired all day as we travelled today but here I am - 11:45 at night - blogging instead of sleeping. I've been laying in bed for an hour and a half hoping that sleep would come but have decided to do something a tiny bit more productive than listening to my husband snore.

We got up Wednesday morning and headed into Seattle via the ferry with Aaron as our fearless driver. It was nice to not be at the mercy of the bus schedule or our tired feet and taking the ferry while in a car was a fun experience. (I vaguely remember taking either our camping or a car on a ferry back in the day with family but I'm not sure where it was. Mom?) We didn't have much on the schedule for the day but a couple of touristy stops again. We headed straight to the REI store that is the original/home of the company - which we have lovingly been calling the "motherland". It was a huge store - 3 floors of outdoor goodies - and we had fun just strolling around and trying out the supplies. We only bought a couple of tiny things because if we bought something big we would have had to ship it back anyway...left REI and located the Freemont Troll - a large art sculpture under the Freemont Bridge (photos to come). It was on my list of things to see after having seen it in a couple of movies ("10 Things I Hate About You" anyone?). We then headed back towards the ferry with a stop off for lunch at one of Aaron and Sara's favorite local brewery/pub places (super hoppy beverages - my least favorite of all the ones we sampled - sorry locals!).

We were trying to get back on Vashon Island before 4pm because we wanted to tour the local Russian Orthodox Monastery. They roast their own coffee beans, make their own tea, raise bees, and lots of other cool stuff we wanted to check out. We finally made it back and got a lovely tour from Father Moses. He willingly answered all of our nosy questions in his own quiet way. I bought some coffee to bring back to some caffeine lovin' folks back home and we said our goodbyes to them. Dinner and a movie later, we crashed knowing that we had to get up early and pack our stuff for home. A super windy evening caused power outages so we gladly went to bed in the lovely dark (the island was pretty dark anyway - few street lights and a careful use of resources).

We got up early this morning and Aaron drove us back through Seattle to the SeaTac airport (Seattle/Tacoma - it is about halfway between the two cities). Our flight was delayed about an hour leaving Seattle so we ended up getting tickets for a much later flight out of Atlanta (by about 3+ hours when we planned on a 30 minute layover!). Our pilot must have put the petal to the metal because we made up some lost time and ended up touching down about 20 minutes late. This still meant that Chad and I jogged through ATL from the E terminal where we landed back up to the A terminal and squeezed onto our original flight home just as they made the last boarding call. I am super thankful that I am sitting at home in my PJs instead of just now arriving in the Chattanooga airport.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip. I absolutely love making memories with my guy, seeing places that I haven't ever seen before, taking loads of pictures, and being off work for a few days. I am gearing up for a super busy spring (literally all of my weekends are committed until the end of May) so it was so nice to have some time off and get to spend 24 hours with my guy (though we all know travelling like that isn't exactly relaxing. My mom says that when you get home you need a vacation from your vacation.) Chad actually gets tomorrow off - just how the cards fell - but I have an all day meeting so I wish it was me snoring in his ear down the hall instead of the other way around.

I still feel a little like I am moving from all of the ferry rides and flights so I will be glad with that settles down. I am looking forward to jumping back into a routine and getting back into the gym next week.