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Thursday, July 19th, 2007

Thursday, July 19, 2007 I got up at 6:30, Ron at 7:00 and Sarah and Zach at 8:00. It was a nice hotel room. We left at 8:48. We left the hotel and drove north on 4th Avenue through the downtown area. Portland has a nice downtown with lots of trees, but there was a lot of construction going on. We parked in a parking garage (Star Park) off SW 6th and Oak Streets at 8:53. It was $8.25 to park all day. We had to get out and Ron had to fold the mirrors in on the suburban so he could park it. Then he had to climb out the passenger door. It was a very tight spot. We walked down to Pioneer Square and saw the Mile Post sign and the old Hotel gate. We were going to go in the courthouse across the street from Pioneer Square, but you had to have an ID and I did not have mine. It was an old building. We walked back to Pioneer Square to a Visitor Center for information and our 18th bathroom break. A lady that was going to do a walking tour was waiting for her group told us how to find the Echo Chamber and that the river (Willamette) was close by. We played in the Echo Chamber and then walked to the riverfront and walked along the river. We then walked to Chinatown and to Powell’s City of Books Bookstore and our 19th bathroom break. This bookstore is the largest independently owned bookstore in the world. It was huge. While we were looking around, we got separated from the kids. Ron said it was OK because Zach had his FCD [Field Communication Device, or as the cool people call them, the FC (Field Communicator)]. Zach had brought his FC so when we invaded Canada, he could communicate with people. It also had a rare book section. We saw a first edition Charlotte’s Webb book for $350. It was really cool. We bought a book that was on sale and Sarah got a sticker. When we left the bookstore it started sprinkling, so we decided to walk back to the garage and go on to Seattle. We left the garage at 12:20. We let Maggie get us out of downtown. There is a lot of construction going on in downtown. A lot of streets are closed. We took 405 north at 12:28 and then 5 north at 12:30. We saw a sign for UP (University of Portland). We found a McDonald’s at exit 308 and stopped at 12:38. We decided to eat it there. We had our 20th bathroom break. We left at 1:08. Sarah made a friend at the McDonald’s while she was refilling her small cup (it’s just a large with more walking). A man said he paid a dollar for his drink and he was going to fill it up 10 times. No way did he know that Sarah did not care at all how many times he filled it up. We listened to XM radio today, because Sarah did not have enough songs on her iPod to get through 14 days. We left the McDonald’s and went to a Safeway to get ice. We bought ice and a lottery ticket. Keep your fingers crossed. We left at 1:43. It was 76 degrees with grey clouds. Maggie directed us back to 5 north and we got on the interstate at 1:45. At 1:48 we entered Washington State. It was 75 degrees with grey cloudy skies and some blue sky showing also. In Washington the fine is $101 for not wearing your seatbelt. Ron was the first to spot the elusive Washington cow. We exited at 2:15 at exit 30 for our 21st bathroom break. We did not need gas, but we stopped at a gas station anyway. We stopped at 2:16. While we were paying for our drinks, an employee ran after a car that he thought had stolen gas. He chased after them for a long way. We bought SoBe drinks, except Zach who got milk. Yes—milk. We left at 2:25 and returned to interstate 5 at 2:27. After our 21st bathroom break, I will explain our bathroom policy. If anyone has to go, then everyone goes (not really—if you don’t go then you don’t get to request a bathroom break next time.) We will stop as often as necessary. The bathroom breaks in the hotel rooms do not count. Only the ones where we can all go at the same time. We are not a weirdo family. We have not seen Mt. Helens because it is too cloudy, but we did see some Honey Bucket Porta-Potties. At 2:32 it started sprinkling on us. It was 71 degrees with grey clouds. At 3:23, we had our 22nd bathroom break at a rest area. I noticed when we stopped that it had stopped raining and the sun was shinning. Ron said it had stopped a long time ago. I have been typing road trip notes. We got drinks out of the ice chest because if you don’t drink you can’t pee. We left the rest area at 3:34. 4:32 we have been in stop and go traffic for a while. We are in Tacoma, Washington. It has been a very pretty drive from Portland. We stopped at a rest area in Sea-Tac at 4:40 for our 23rd bathroom break. Of course, since we were getting off course, Maggie started complaining again. Ron said we were going to have to start calling Maggie Naggie Maggie because she never allows for bathroom breaks. We left the rest area at 4:47. At 5:00 we had our first sighting of Seattle. We are all excited. We entered Seattle at 5:03. At 5:07, traffic slowed. At 5:14, it was 78 degrees and sunny with mostly white fluffy clouds. The traffic was moving, but still slow. At 5:17 we took the Seneca Street exit. Because we were not sure which way to go, we did not get in the correct turn lane, so we drove around downtown Seattle. We saw a guy ridding a unicycle in downtown. There were lots of people and traffic. While driving to our hotel, we saw a pink “Elephant Super Car Wash” sign—of course, there was a big pink elephant on the sign. At 5:42, we found the hotel. We are staying in a Quality Inn. When we went to check in, they did not have our reservation. When we made the reservations, their internet was down, so they had no room for us. We had reservations for 2 nights. The lady at the desk called the Holiday Inn across the street, but they did not have any rooms. She called around to other hotels and finally found one that had one room for tonight, but we needed 2 nights. Ron said that wouldn’t work. The lady called the 1-800 number for Quality Inn and talked to someone there. Then the 1-800 lady talked to Ron. Ron told the 1-800 lady that we had a confirmation number, but they did not have our reservation because the system was down when he made the reservation. Ron said it obviously did not matter to anyone there that we did not have a room. The lady he was talking to said it did matter and wanted to talk to someone there at the hotel. The 1-800 lady talked to the lady at the hotel that was helping us, and told her to give us a room. They talked to the hotel manager and she had some rooms that were available. So we did get our hotel room for 2 nights, but it was a pain. We parked in the parking garage and went to our room. Of course, the room keys did not work, and Ron had to go back down and have the keys re-keyed. We all changed into jeans and left the hotel at 6:55. We drove down to the waterfront and parked in a public lot. It was $10 to park there. We left the lot at 7:06 and walked across to the waterfront. We ate supper at Alder’s Smoked Fish & Chips. The kids and I had fried Halibut & chips, and Ron had fried salmon & chips. Ron and I walked back to the suburban to get jackets, while the kids walked down to the pier where we going to ride a ferry over to Bainbridge Island. We bought tickets for $6.50 each and had our 24th bathroom break. We rode the ferry from Pier 52. The ferry left at 8:10. It was really cool. We all liked it. When we got to the island, we watched all the cars unload from the ferry. We saw Seattle from the water and it was really pretty. We were all glad to have our jackets. It was very windy, especially on the front of the ferry. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Regular Size Lily’s dad for the tip on ridding the ferry at sunset to the island. We returned to the pier and walked back to the parking lot. Most of the shops and restaurants had closed. We left the parking lot at 9:46 and got back to the hotel at 10:00. We all really liked the ferry ride.