Seattle Days 3 and 4

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

After such an activity-packed first couple days, we decided to take it easy on the third day. We went to downtown and had lunch at the Todai at Pacific Place, a really nice mall —

We hadn’t had all-you-can-eat sushi in a while, so that was fun. And, what is a trip to Seattle without a visit to REI Headquarters? We walked for about half an hour to get there after getting some inefficient directions from a tourist stand in the mall. But, it was good exercise after our big lunch.

We passed something so intriguing that Karen and I couldn’t help gawking up at it —

It was a massive glass roof covering the entire block in front of the convention center, to shield convention-goers from the rain. Impressive —

The REI was awesome – it had a climbing wall! Too bad we didn’t make reservations early enough. I really wanted to do it. It was only $5 for REI members, which I am, of course —

Then we went to a plant nursery that was decked out for the holidays already. It was huge and full of gorgeous plants. I was fascinated by the hydrangeas, the colors of which were the theme for our wedding —

We returned home to Bothell and I watched part of “Walk the Line” until my college buddy and bridesmaid, Carrie, arrived for dinner.

The next morning, we awoke to Peter knocking on our bedroom door and exclaiming, “It’s snowing! Come see the snow!” Though I am an East Coast native and no stranger to snow, it’d been a while since I saw snow actually falling (there’s no guarantee of a white Christmas in Baltimore), so I grabbed the camera and went onto the deck —

We attended church at Mars Hill church, a large “emergent” church with a somewhat controversial pastor, Mark Driscoll. He comes under fire for things he writes on his blog every so often. Check out his posts on the Ted Haggard scandal. A women’s rights protest was planned for this past Sunday in part due to some of his comments in that post, and other posts and sermons.

Mars Hill had an emo band as their worship band. We were impressed by the music so we bought a few CD’s, but it turned out the band was much better live than recorded. Oh well.

The airport and evening sky were really pretty from where we were waiting —

Due to the snow, our flight was delayed 3 hours. We were only 10 minutes away from takeoff when they shut down the runways for plowing. Doh! Well, I’d rather be delayed on a plane than stranded and freezing in the snow like the family that got trapped in the Oregon Coast Range from the very same snowstorm until yesterday. The father is still missing. Keep him in your prayers…

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