Two Weeks in Seattle, Washington

We swept into Seattle, actually into Bothell, WA on July 22nd and scheduled ourselves into the Lake Pleasant RV Park for 2 weeks. This was so we had time to catch up on some tasks we had been too busy to accomplish, for a bit of R&R after skipping over the US like a stone, to visit with some friends from Ellyn's college days, and to do some sight seeing in the Seattle area. The weather turned out to be, for the most part, very delightful.

1. Day 1: A potluck lunch with Ellyn's good friend Sidney, who was just back from an overseas teaching job. Geoff made his fabulous baked bean recipe and it was its usual big success. THe weather was perfect for sitting in her backyard and just relaxing.
   
   While we were at the lunch party, we discovered that our friend Henry from Los Angeles was in Seattle visiting his brother. We contacted him and went to dinner and then took a walking tour of Fremont, a very quirky little portion of Seattle.
   
2. Day 2: Geoff hung out at the RV working on a few little projects, like scraping bugs off the front of the RV that had been building up for most of the last 2,000 miles and starting a washing job on the RV. It had also accumulated a lot of grime.
   
   Ellyn went out with Sid and visited some locations where their friend, Mary Cooper, and her daughter, Suzanne Stoddard-Cooper are memorialized. They were the victims of a brutal murder more than a year ago which still goes unsolved.
   
3. Day 3: This was a rainy day so perfect for running errands. We both got needed blood tests and made a Costco run to one we had passed on the way. We also went to a Barnes and Nobel with a gift card Ellyn had found while cleaning out a drawer in the RV that morning.
   
4. Day 4: Another cool day, although not so rainy. This day we spent mostly in the RV doing some much needed straightening up and cleaning. We did go out once to a local coffee house (not a Starbucks; this was a Tully's Coffee place) to meet another of our friends, Moss, who was newly back in town. We made arrangements to go on a ferry ride the next week to an undersea museum.
   
5. Day 5: The weather got warmer again so we went into Seattle to the water front. We had lunch at Ivar's Acres of Clams and shared some very good soups and a salad. Then we hung around a while and ran into a Native American working on a totem project to honor his late brother, also a totem sculptor, who was mistakenly shot by police a year ago. It was very sad but we had a nice conversation with him and wished him well.
   
   Then we went on a Segway tour of Seattle for a couple of hours. It was our third time on Segway's and we enjoyed it very much. The hills were more of a challenge than we had encountered before but the devices are very easy to handle and even the beginners of the group had no problems. We even got to zip on them a bit near the football stadium, although they are governed at about 13 mph.
   
6. Day 6: Ellyn and Geoff both had a day out with Sidney, going to visit their old stomping grounds; the University of Washington Campus. We started on "The Ave", AKA University Way and, after lunch, walked onto the campus. We were in search of yet another memorial to Mary Cooper. After some checking with the library staff, we eventually found a bench and two trees which are dedicated to her, as well as a bench inside of one of the buildings. We spent some money at the UW bookstore and did a little grocery shopping on the way back home.
   
7. Day 7: We took in the Flea Market at the Country Village stores near our RV park and then went for a bike ride on one of the many bike paths in the Seattle area. People here put a lot of miles on their bikes.

End week one. The second week will be continued in the next post.