Day 4: Downtown!

Nephi and I decided that since we are on vacation we are allowed to sleep in some days. We slept in until 11:00. Actually…Nephi woke up at 10:00 and I woke up at 11:00. It felt so nice sleeping in. We spent about an hour getting ready for the day then we headed out.

First stop: lunch (or breakfast…depending on how you look at it). We had seen quite a few Qdobas, so we thought that would be good. For you Utahans, Qdoba is like Chipotle or Café Rio. Quick assembly line Mexican. In fact, it was the first assembly line Mexican place I ever ate at. I became addicted in high school and was depressed when I moved to Utah were there are none. Fast forward 4 years and Chipotle has moved into Utah, and now I prefer it. None-the-less, Qdoba is still good.

After lunch we decided to go bowling. I realize we can do that anywhere, but the truth is we don’t. We bowled two games, both of which Nephi won (as always). I have NEVER broken 100 in a game and today was no exception. I got 64 on my first game (average) and I got a 74 on my second game (pretty good). Nephi, on the other hand, got 112 on his first game and 106 on his second game. After that we played a round of pool, which Nephi also won (though only after I was generous and let him pull out the 8 ball that he accidentally put in a hole).

I finally got tired of being beaten, so we headed downtown. We had intentions of checking out the Space Needle, but after realizing we would have to pay $10 just to park 10 blocks away (not to mention the $17 a person charge to get to the top), I said forget it. Instead we drove down to the waterfront. We chose a place to park that was in-between Pike Place Market (our next stop) and Safeco Field (a stop later in our itinerary). We walked along the waterfront and found a cute little shop to stop at. They were really nice. Nephi was trying on a sweatshirt and the owner came over and started giving us discounts on everything. It was awesome. Nephi and I each got a sweatshirt and a t-shirt. Yay for clothes.

We continued on the waterfront and climbed about 1,000 stairs to get to Pike Place Market. Truthfully, for someone who hates fish…this was very unexciting. It smelled gross and because it was already after 5 pm, a lot of the venders were leaving. It was cool looking at all the fresh produce though. We even saw some fruit we had never seen before, such as golden raspberries (raspberries that are yellow!).

We decided to start heading to Safeco field. We needed to stop by the car to drop off our purchases and pick up our coats (which I am so glad we decided to pack even though we are going to Hawaii), so we descended the 1,000 stairs and headed south. As we continued walking, I started to realize what a scary place the waterfront is. There are panhandlers, and it is pretty much under a highway. I started thinking about how I definitely didn’t want to walk back down this street in the dark (which we would have to do after the game). However, by the time I realized this we were almost to the baseball field. I decided we would take an alternate route.

When we got to Safeco Field, we checked out the team store. We needed to get Nephi’s brother a gift for watching our cats and everyone in his family are huge baseball buffs. Ken Griffey Jr. ended up retiring today, so it was a pretty cool day to go to the game. There was a ton of buzz, though he didn’t play. The Mariners played the Twins. The game itself was pretty boring. No one really even got on base. Nephi and I figured out how to hook up our Nintendo DS to the MLB network and I played some games against other fans. I was kicking their trash for a while. Then I got bored and watched the game. The Mariners ended up winning 2 to 1.

By this time, Nephi and I were starving. We decided to go to The Hard Rock Café…just because it’s different. As I looked for an information booth in the stadium, a man drove by on a segway…though it wasn’t just a segway, it was a moving information booth. We got a kick out of that. We asked which bus would take us to Pike Place Market and he let us know. We met some fun people on the bus. They had gone to school at the University of Colorado in Boulder so that gave us some stuff to talk about. Dinner at Hard Rock was yummy, but overpriced (though that wasn’t unexpected).

After dinner it was time to walk back to the car. I decided we should stay on the road we were on (and not return to the waterfront) for as long as possible. We started walking, however, I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to find stairs down to the waterfront after a certain point. When we found some stairs I decided we should go down them (even though we were quite a few blocks north of where we had parked). We walked down the stairs and ended up on a VERY dead road. There was no one. Nephi found that comforting…me not so much (keep in mind that by now it is about 11 pm). I was seriously freaking out; I had 911 entered into my phone and I was keeping my finger on the call button (a bit melodramatic probably). I also had to go to the bathroom REALLY bad. We spotted a McDonald’s on the waterfront so we walked the final block west to that road. As we were walking I noticed all these lumps on the side of the road. There were probably 20 homeless people sleeping on that road. That freaked me out. We ran across the street and found refuge inside McDonald’s. We walked the final few blocks to our car and I was glad to be alive.

When we returned back to Maddy’s we decided to take a quick walk to get a picture of this ridiculous sign. It says, “Drive Carefully: Imagine the Impact You Can Make!” Under the caption it has a picture with people diving out of the way, their schoolbooks flying out of their hands. We thought that was hilarious, and had to get a picture.

Now I am lying in bed trying to get this finished as quickly as possible so I can go to sleep. Tomorrow: Hawaii!