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The original plan was to spend the first three full days of vacation in Anchorage, but about a week before we left we made the rather spontaneous decision to drive south and spend a day in Seward. The town is ideally situated on Resurrection Bay off the Gulf of Alaska, which made it the perfect spot to try our hands at sea kayaking and take a cruise around the bay. This turned out to be one of the best decisions we made, and the day in Seward was one of the highlights of the whole trip.

Since we'd been up late at the wedding, we were able to sleep in a bit, but we wanted to be on the road by 9 am to make sure we had time to get to Seward (only about 125 miles away, but all of it on small two-lane roads, so we periodically found ourselves stuck behind slow-moving RVs) and grab some lunch before sea kayaking at 1:00. The drive was absolutely lovely. The first half of the drive is on a highway nestled between Turnagain Arm, a long thin body of water that comes off the Cook Inlet and border Anchorage to the south, and the Chugach mountains, which border Anchorage to the east. The day began overcast and cloudy, but it looked like it was clearing up in the south so we were hopeful we'd get some good weather.

After a quick lunch, we headed a mile down to Lowell Point for our 3-hour kayaking trip with Sunny Cove Sea Kayaking. Some of their longer trips sounded like fun as well, but weren't sure our arms would hold out since we'd never kayaked before. Three hours turned out to be just right, especially since the first 45 minutes were occupied with getting ready to go. First there were rubber boots to put on to keep our tootsies dry as we stood in the shallow water at the shore. Then there was the "spray skirt," which is worn like a skirt with suspenders. There is an elastic cord that runs around the bottom and fits over the lip of the kayak seat to keep the cold water out and your legs dry. We'd come prepared with our raincoats to keep our top halves dry, so after that we just needed the life jacket to make our oh-so-stylish outfits complete.

After getting geared up, we headed over to the shore for a quick lesson in paddling technique and what not to do, so as to avoid tipping the otherwise quite stable kayaks over, it was time to go! There were about 10 other people in our group and all of the kayaks were tandem. The guides suggested that the Type A personality take the back seat, since it involved multitasking -- having spotted my Lonestar Tri hat earlier, one of them jokingly said "Type A...like triathletes!" However, the back seat had pedals that controlled the rudder, which immediately got Jose's attention. (Rudder pedals! Like an airplane!) So he took the back seat and I slid in up front, which was the "photographer's seat" according to our guides. Perfect.

We pushed off from the beach and headed south along the shore of Resurrection Bay. Almost immediately, we started seeing some wildlife. There was a huge bald eagle's nest in a nearby tree, and there were two eagles on either side guarding it. Next we saw some harbour porpoise fins sticking out of the water as they swam along. After that, we noticed we were being checked out by a harbor seal. He kept popping his head up for a moment and then disappearing underwater, only to reappear on the opposite side of the group. He was very cute.

Just before we turned around, we came to Tonsina Point where a river dumped out into the bay. July is the middle of salmon spawning season, and while we didn't actually see the fish swimming upstream (though we did see the splashes as some of them jumped out of the water), we did see four bald eagles sitting on the beach enjoying their salmon dinner. At one point they flew up in the air for a bit, spinning and diving and looking for another fish (I assume) but we didn't see them catch anything. Their call, though, was really cool. I guess I'd never heard a bald eagle before, and I'm sure they also do the typical long piercing bird of prey sound, but the calls they were making as they flew around the mouth of the creek sounded like laughter. It was really neat. You can see their "bald" heads in this photo, but I couldn't get any closer for a better shot because the water got too shallow.

We headed back to Seward after that, a little disappointed that we hadn't gotten a closer look at the eagles. We shouldn't have worried! As we pulled our kayak on shore, we heard the laughing call of another eagle sitting on a pole directly above our heads! He took off, but only flew as far as the tree next to the kayak shack. His eagle friend was perched in another nearby tree, and they stayed long enough for me to grab my "good" camera from the car.

All in all, kayaking was a lot of fun, and reignited the thought I have occasionally of renting a kayak to tool around Clear Lake and the area bayous. Of course in Alaska, the weather was cool and the animals cute, while in Houston, the weather is hot and the animals are alligators. With teeth. Eek. But kayaking was only the first activity of the day! We drove back up to the main part of Seward and had about an hour to wander around the waterfront before getting on a Kenai Fjords Tour that went all around the bay and stopped for dinner on Fox Island.

Our tour was surprisingly empty -- there were only about 30 people on the boat which seats a couple hundred. (It was a typical short cruise boat. Lots of benches both inside and outside, and a little counter with hot drinks in the back.) The lack of other people was nice, because we had plenty of room to stretch out and enjoy the cruise. It was chilly outside in the wind, but Jose and I bundled up in our warmest clothes and were fine. We definitely did a good job of preparing for the chilly temperatures after living in Houston all summer. (I've lost any cold tolerance I ever had, apparently.) During the cruise, the sun came out, which made it warmer.

We cruised south through the bay towards Fox Island and got there in about an hour. Dinner was a buffet that looked a little iffy, but turned out to be quite tasty. In fact, Jose said that the salmon steak he ate on Fox Island was the best one of the whole trip -- and he ate salmon seven times total during the trip. After dinner we had just enough time to skip stones on the shore before leaving. The entire shore consisted of thousands upon thousands of flat, smooth stones so they were perfect for skipping. Too bad I suck at skipping stones.

After dinner, the cruise really got good. We continued south far enough to get a pretty good view of Bear Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park. It looks like it's a tidewater glacier (one that comes all the way down to the water), but apparently it is not. The sun was slowly beginning to set and was directly above the glacier (it was about 8:00 at this point), so it was hard to get a photo that really did it justice. We both took some good looks at the ice through Jose's binoculars, and it was very cool.

As we left the glacier behind us, we turned towards the east for a bit before heading north on our way back to Seward. We were now on the opposite side of the bay and the back side of Fox Island, and there was quite a bit of wildlife we were able to see -- puffins, sea lions, thousands of roosting sea gulls, and a super cute sea otter who just floated there staring at us as we went by. The boat captain also told us more about the area. At one point, he asked us to look at the mountains to our right and compare them to the ones on Fox Island on our left. The ones to the right were a rich brown color, while the ones on Fox Island were gray like granite. The brown rocks were igneous rock, while the gray was sedimentary. I didn't fully understand what this meant (we needed Meryl and James there with all their geology knowledge!) until the boat captain finally made his conclusion. Turns out the entire Resurrection Bay area lies on a fault line. "This would not be a good place to be in an earthquake," our captain nicely pointed out. It reminded me of the stories we'd already heard about the 1964 earthquake and the jets of water that shot out of the earth due to all the ground movement, not to mention the resulting tsunamis. Whoa.

We got back from the cruise a bit before 10:00, and even though we had a two-hour drive back to Anchorage ahead of us, I still insisted that we take a short detour to see the Exit Glacier, another large glacier coming off the Harding Ice Field in Kenai Fjords National Park. We didn't have time to do the hike up to the closest lookout, but we still got a good view from a distance. If I ever find myself back in Alaska, I'd like to do the trail that goes up to the top of the glacier.

We were both very tired, but somehow we made it back to Anchorage -- where we could still see light on the horizon when we arrived at the Lake Hood Inn just before 1 am! Our day trip to Seward was a huge success, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for some cool activities within a day of Anchorage. Here's the full slideshow of our day there. Enjoy!

The one thing I forgot to mention about our two days in Anchorage is the one big item in the city's history that gets mentioned everywhere you go. In fact, it would probably be annoying to hear so much about it if I didn't find it so fascinating.

The 1964 Good Friday earthquake occurred at about 5:30 in the evening and was about 40 miles west of the town of Valdez, Alaska. It's the largest earthquake ever recorded in North America at a staggering 9.2 on the Richter scale. It caused surprisingly few deaths, mainly because Alaska is (and was) so sparsely populated, though there were people in California and Oregon that died in the resulting tsunami waves. The stories we heard and the evidence we saw of the quake's destruction are mind-blowing.

It was impossible for people to remain standing without holding onto something as the ground shook for almost 5 minutes. Streets cracked down the middle like in a movie. The control tower at the Anchorage airport collapsed. Entire towns were almost completely destroyed by the shaking and ground movement, and coastal towns like Seward, Valdez, and Whittier were severly damaged by the waves (Valdez, for example, now sits 4 miles away from where it used to be). Some areas of land rose by 30 feet, while others areas dropped by 10 feet. Landslides took out homes and businesses. For 18 months -- a year and a half! -- Alaska residents could still feel occasional aftershocks. And today, more than 40 years later, you can still see groves of dead trees as you drive down the Seward Highway along the Turnagain Arm. They were killed when the land dropped and the trees were flooded with salt water.

I've always been fascinated by earthquakes, so it was interesting to learn the history. I've only ever felt one -- a very minor 3.5ish quake while I was in grad school in California -- and that was weird enough. I can't comprehend what it must have been like to experience such a huge quake. Today, Anchorage is of course aware that they're always at risk of another huge quake. The tallest building in town is only about 10 stories.

I've barely been home for 48 hours, and people are already clamoring for photos! I know I had a whole day off yesterday, but I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped because I slept until almost 1:00 p.m. (I was a little tired from lack of sleep on our red eye flight back from Anchorage.) Yep, I slept through the whole tropical storm, which wasn't much of a storm -- Edouard took a turn and came ashore east of us, so the weather in Clear Lake was nothing more than about 2 inches of rain and some wind. It had stopped raining by mid-afternoon, so I ran for the first time since the day we left for Alaska. Man, the weather was nice! Edouard cooled things off for a day. I ran with Jose, who has decided to give running another try. We both have the goal of losing 10 pounds by Thanksgiving. (Amazingly, I only gained 1 pound in Alaska -- a relief given the massive quantities of good fish that I ate and good microbrews that I drank.) We ran 3 minutes and walked 3 minutes, and after a half hour we'd completed just over 2 miles. Nice and easy for me, perhaps too much so, but I do like running with Jose!

There's so much to share, and I think the best way is going to be doing this in four parts: our first couple days in Anchorage, our day trip to Seward, our three days in Denali National Park, and our final two days in Anchorage. So here we go with part 1!

We took all of Friday the 25th off work, and it was really nice to be able to relax that day and get ready for the trip without feeling like I was in a packing frenzy. I managed to avoid my standard pre-trip anxiety almost entirely, which I think was aided by that relaxing day. We left for Intercontinental at 3:00, which was just early enough to avoid rush hour traffic. Parked, rode the shuttle to the terminal, dropped off our bags, and it was time to go! Our flight made a 1-hour stop on the ground in Seattle, and we had the most amazing view of the Cascades as we flew in. Mt. Rainier was right beneath our wing, and Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Hood (my best guess at what the other three were) were all visible in the distance to the south. It was a truly amazing view.

The sun set while we were on the ground in Seattle, and the horizon was pink fading slowing into blue as we took off for Anchorage. Here's the weird part: that twilight remained almost entirely unchanged for the entire 3 hour flight to Anchorage! We were essentially following the sun, and heading far enough north that it couldn't completely set. It didn't start to get dark until after we were on the ground -- and mind you, we weren't on the ground until 11:30 pm! It was like we were stuck in a world of endless twilight, and the sensation was very strange.

It was almost 1 am before we finally got to bed, but here's the even weirder thing -- we were strangely not feeling very tired, despite the fact that it was now 4 am Houston time and we basically hadn't slept at all on the plane. We had to close all the shades to keep the light out (though the sky darkened, it never got to a point I'd call fully dark) but we finally fell asleep and didn't bother to set an alarm. We woke up around 8:30 the next morning, feeling pretty good. The time difference never got to us too much, and after bumming around our hotel room for a few hours (I even caught the recap of the Iron Girl triathlon on TV!) it was time to head out into Anchorage.

In January, Alaska will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its statehood, and plans for the celebration are obviously underway. There were banners across the main streets, and t-shirts for sale in all the stores. The "We're In" headline comes from one of the state's newspapers, which published that headline after the vote passed to make Alaska the 49th state.

Jose's friend Meryl had recommended a handful of restaurants for us, and most of them were microbrews. I couldn't help but think of JD each time I sampled a new beer! :) On our first day in Alaska, we had lunch at Moose's Tooth, a popular pizza place. They were setting up in their parking lot for a big 12th anniversary party that night featuring Wilco -- which we could've heard from our hotel room if we hadn't been at the wedding was that night! Jose won the lunch round of eating by ordering the halibut pizza, which sounded strange but was actually quite tasty. I tried the raspberry wheat beer, which was good enough, but not as good as I'd hoped. Jose had their regular hefeweizen, which was also good, but not as good as BJ's hef. Still, we were big fans of Moose's Tooth in general. Great pizzas, good beer.

From lunch, we headed downtown. Anchorage has a market on Saturdays and Sundays in the summer that features all sorts of random items from native Alaskan crafts to animal pelts, food to photography. The selection of stuff for sale was a bit disappointing after what we'd read about it, but we still found some gems. As we were leaving the market, the gray skies opened and it began to rain lightly. We wandered around the downtown area, which is filled with a ton of tourist shops, and got some souvenirs. It was a little strange to see a city where the downtown was so dominated by things for visitors -- especially when the tourist season is so short. After a while, we found a cafe and settled in for a little while to warm up with some coffee and cake. The day was a little disappointing in a way that's hard to explain. We knew we were in Alaska, but we saw no signs of that except for all the tourist shops and postcards. It was so gray and overcast that we couldn't see a single mountain!

We headed back to the hotel to change clothes, and it was off to Meryl and James's wedding! They had it at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art which was a very cool location. The ceremony was held in a gallery lined with gorgeous huge paintings of Alaskan scenery, and the reception was held in the main lobby of the museum next to a cool fountain and big staircase. The hallways surrounding the lobby were lined with one of the museum's current exhibits showcasing Bradford Washburn's awesome photos of Denali and other Alaska wilderness.

Meryl is one of Jose's best friends from college, and I'd met both her and her fiance (now husband!) James once before when they were in Houston last year. (They met in grad school at Penn State.) The funny thing is that they are actually moving to Houston in a couple weeks. James is a paleontologist who just got a job with one of the oil companies. Meryl is a geologist, but isn't sure what she'll do yet. They want to move back to Alaska eventually, but it will be cool to have them in town for a while.

Meryl is Inuit, and grew up in Unalakleet, a town of less than 1000 people on the west coast of Alaska that's only accessible by airplane or boat. She had a ton of family members in town for the wedding (which was held in Anchorage mainly because she said it would have taken too long to get everyone into Unalakleet). The coolest part of the ceremony was when all of her family sang a hymn in Inupiaq, their native language.

Later during the reception, we noticed a tub of some strange blue substance on the table next to the cake. Everyone was taking some of it, so Jose and I got some too along with our cake. It looked like blueberry whipped something. We tasted it and it was...interesting. Jose said "I think this has fish in it!" but we had no clue what it actually was. A bit later Meryl came over and explained. It was Eskimo ice cream -- made with crisco, canola oil, sugar, berries, and -- yes -- fish! (Traditionally it's made with lard and seal oil instead of crisco and canola oil.) You can see it on the right side of this photo. It was definitely a new taste, that's for sure.

The wedding capped off a great first day in Alaska, and we were pooped by the time we got to bed that night. We got up fairly early the next morning to head to Seward for the day, which I'll write about in the next blog entry. That night, though, when we got back from Seward, we were able to settle in for two nights at the Lake Hood Inn. I found this place in one of the guidebooks and it was indeed a great little bed and breakfast, right on the shore of Lake Hood, which is the world's busiest seaplane base. The owner is a pilot himself, and the entire inn (which has only 4 rooms) has an airplane theme. It was the most expensive place we stayed, but also by far the best. The room was lovely, and our balcony overlooked the lake so we could watch planes taking off from the lake. There were even speakers and headsets on the deck that allowed us to listen to the Lake Hood control tower! So it was definitely a cool place for a pilot like Jose and his aerospace girlfriend. :)

We slept in on Monday morning since we'd gotten back from Seward quite late, and then headed down the road to visit the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum. The museum was pretty cool and featured a lot of historical items and facts about flying in Alaska, from the early bush pilots to the later days of regional airlines and on to today, when Alaska has one of the highest number of pilots per capita in the world. The sad part of the museum is that while they had many great old planes, a lot of them were in absolutely horrible shape. They're doing the best they can, but they need a lot more money and time to get all of their aircraft restored.

After the museum, we had a late lunch at the Glacier Brewhouse. Jose won again, with a delicious salmon burger. I had the fish and chips, which were great, but I paid for eating such a large amount of heavily fried food later on with a stomachache! And of course, for JD -- I had the hefeweizen, while Jose had the amber ale. Both good, again. We never had a bad beer in Alaska, that's for sure.

After picking up some snacks in preparation for our journey into interior Alaska, we headed back to spend the rest of the evening relaxing at the Lake Hood Inn. The place was just that comfy! And we got a great view of the sunset. For the record, this photo was taken at about 11:00 pm!

Here's a slideshow of the full set of photos from our first two days in Anchorage. If you're reading via RSS, you may have to come to the site to see them -- or just check Flickr.

Jose clued me in to a feature on Google Maps that I'd never noticed before -- the ability to look at a map overlaid with snapshots of the place you're looking at. (It's under the "More" box at the top of the map.) This had led to me scrolling all over the city of Anchorage, looking at all the cool shots of mountains and wildlife and float planes. See, we suddenly realized the other day that our trip to Alaska is just over two months away and we had made zero plans, other than returning the RSVP card for the wedding in Anchorage that is serving as our excuse for spending 10 days in the land of the midnight sun.

But we have been nothing if not productive since that realization, and two days later we now have plane tickets, 7 nights of lodging secured in Anchorage and outside Denali, and tickets for the "backcountry adventure" all the way down and back the 95-mile long road through Denali National Park. We're in the process of choosing and scheduling the rest of our activities now, like hiking to the top of Alaska's "most-climbed mountain" (a 3,500 foot peak outside Anchorage), whitewater rafting in the shadow of the national park, and taking a floatplane to go bear viewing a few hours outside of Anchorage, and holy crap, is this going to be an expensive vacation. I may very well spend more money for 10 days in Alaska than I spent for a full month in Europe in 2001.

But I'll eat ramen for the next two months if I have to, because I'm SO FREAKING EXCITED about going to Alaska.

I haven't left the country in two years and my feet are most certainly getting itchy. So yesterday I bought two tickets to Japan. Well, "bought" is perhaps not quite the right word, since what I actually did is clean out my frequent flier account. And I must say: frequent flier miles on Continental are awesome! A few clicks and 120,000 miles later, and Jose and I each have a non-stop ticket to Tokyo.

We are scheduled to go at the beginning of November. And unfortunately I have to say "scheduled" because there's a chance we'll have to cancel the trip and redeposit all those miles back into my account. I've always said that I'd never allow the space shuttle launch schedule to get in the way of my vacation plans, but that's a hard promise to keep. There may be a mission right when we want to be in Japan. If there is, it will probably be Jose's first mission as lead Rendezvous GPO. Thus we'd have to reschedule our trip again (we've already put it off twice).

But for now, I'm trying not to think about that. Because this is the first time of the many times we've talked about buying tickets that we've actually gone through with it. As of now, I'm going to Japan!

Very exciting.

Our final day in Seattle was unofficially declared to be "airplane day," which we celebrated with visits to the Museum of Flight and the Boeing factory in Everett. (More photos on Flickr.)

The Museum of Flight turned out to be much larger than we expected, and we could have easily spent the whole day there. We ran out of time to see the Warbird wing, and skipped the space display as well -- we'll put those on the list for our next visit. As it was, we made the best of our limited time and saw quite a few cool things. The highlight was the outdoor "airpark" that is home to the last Concorde, one of the first jet Air Force One planes (Air Force One is not a single plane, rather it's the name assigned to whichever plane is carrying the President), the first-ever 737, the first-ever 747, and a 727. The Concorde and Air Force One were both open to visitors so we got to walk through them! The Concorde was surprisingly dull inside -- it looks just like a normal airplane, except even more cramped. Sure, there were luxurious leather seats and a cool mach meter that showed passengers how fast they were going, but I guess I was expecting caviar or something. :)

Air Force One was cooler. It was a Boeing 707 used in the 60s and 70s by Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, and the interior decor reflected the style of the years it was in service. It was cool to see where seats were taken out to add a typewriter, copier, meeting table, presidential stateroom, communications center, and more. There was a pipe rack that belonged to Kennedy, and a hat rack under the desk that held Johnson's cowboy hat.

We walked around the first production 737 which is actually on loan from NASA Langley, and then gawked at the size of the 747 (serial number 1) used for extensive testing over the years. I wish it had been open -- I've always wanted to see the upper deck of a 747.

Though we skipped the space exhibit in the interest of time, I did make a pass through the area long enough to see this 60s-era board game that I totally need for my office, the Rendezvous Guidance and Procedures group. They actually had a large exhibit dedicated to rendezvous and Pete Conrad (not sure why, he must be from that area) and that's the one exhibit I regret not examining more closely.

Alas, we had to leave the museum because we needed to be in Everett in time for the 3:00 Boeing factory tour! Everett is home to the largest building in the world by volume -- the building that houses the assembly lines for the Boeing 747, 767, 777 and new 787 "Dreamliner." Yep, all the big boys. They didn't allow photos (in fact, they didn't even let you carry a purse or any personal items on the tour) so unfortunately I can't really share photos, but it was pretty cool. We saw the assembly lines for the 777 and 787.

The 787 "Dreamliner" is a new plane that was just rolled out for the first time in July. It hasn't flown yet, and we saw the first two planes still on the assembly line. Once up and running, they expect to assemble each 787 in only 3 days, since all of the components come pre-assembled from other factories and locations and the Everett plant simply has to put them together like Legos. The first 787 is going to All Nippon Airways, while the second is designated for structural testing. It's interesting that the first plane will be going into service while the second plane will be used for testing. I guess they're pretty confident that the plane is well-designed! The plane has a lot of composite material used in construction, making the structure strong enough that they can actually increase cabin pressure from the equivalent of 8000 feet to 6000 feet, while also including bigger windows. The windows don't have pull-down shades -- instead, you touch the window and it magically darkens. You can buy one -- without engines and without any interior furnishing -- for the bargain cost of ~$150 million, but the earliest delivery you can expect is 2016 since they already have more than 700 orders to fill.

We finally headed back towards Seattle and Auburn and met Jen and Boyfriend for dinner at (ironically enough) a Mexican restaurant. We hadn't eaten since breakfast and they could seat us immediately, so that's where we went!

Our flight on Monday left at 11:00 so we didn't have time to do anything that morning but play a few games on Katie and Joel's Wii. All in all we had a great (and very busy!) vacation and it was nice to get out of town for a while. It might be rainy and it might be cold, but Seattle is somewhere I think I could live...

I wanted to blog more from Seattle, I really did, especially since it's national blog writing month and all. But we were out and about all the time, and everyone would make fun of me when I sat down at the computer! I guess I fail at blog writing month, but no matter -- vacation was still most excellent.

I updated the previous post with some photos, and there are more on Flickr if you are interested.

We woke up to sunny skies on Saturday in Seattle, so at the last minute we changed our plans to include something "nature-y." This was premature of course, because the sun disappeared within an hour, replaced by ominous clouds. Nonetheless, we stuck with Plan B and headed east towards Snoqualmie Falls. I had never been there during my previous two visits to Seattle, and it was more impressive than I imagined -- a 200+ foot high crashing waterfall! We first saw it from above, and then hiked down the steep half mile trail to the boardwalk running along the river below. The woods were very green and pretty.

I could've stayed and stared at the waterfall all day, but we had an agenda to stick to! On our way back to Seattle we stopped in Issaquah to see the salmon hatchery and fish ladder. Salmon are born in freshwater streams, swim out to the ocean and stay there for a few years, and then return to the stream where they were born to spawn (and then immediately die -- rather depressing). The hatchery had a gate up that prevented the salmon from actually going upstream, diverting them instead to a fish ladder leading to a large holding tank where the fish are kept until they are spawned by hand. That didn't stop the fish from trying to get upstream though, and we watched them jumping in vain for quite a while. It was actually pretty fascinating. The fish are at the end of their lifespan anyway, so the hatchery spawns them by hand to ensure that there are plenty of baby salmon to keep the cycle going.

I could've stayed and watched the salmon all day as well, but again -- we had an agenda! We headed back downtown to the Seattle Aquarium. It was a bit small, but still had a couple good exhibits including a Giant Pacific Octopus and some sea otters. We got to watch both of those guys get fed, which was entertaining. The sea otters were like little kids, swimming around excitedly and floating on their backs while they nibbled at their mussels. While we were there, Jen and her boyfriend arrived to spend the next few hours with us. After leaving the aquarium, our agenda had finally ended so they suggested driving over to Alki Point in west Seattle to look back at the skyline. The view was indeed great, and we ended up staying over there for a delicious dinner at a chowder house.

Update: Added photos! There are more on Flickr if you are interested.

We arrived in Seattle on Thursday night and immediately went to bed. It was a good thing too, because yesterday we wore ourselves out! It was clear in the morning, and even a little sunny, so we took the opportunity and David, Jose and I headed to the Space Needle after riding the train up from Auburn with Katie and seeing her office. We met a couple of her coworkers who were nice; one guy is some kind of bus prodigy who knew all the bus routes in King County by the time he was 9 years old. He is definitely passionate about his job! (Katie works for the King County transit department.)

We got to the Space Needle right around 9:00 in the morning, which was nice because there weren't many people there yet. The view was great, as expected -- it wasn't clear enough to see all the way to Mt. Rainier, but we could see all of Seattle and the Puget Sound and the islands across the way. They also had some surprisingly good quality telescopes on top, and we had a lot of fun looking at the boats and ferries and spying on people walking down the street. The side facing the city was very, very windy and cold, but the side facing Lake Union and the university was calmer. After taking photos of the city, we had to warm up inside with coffee.

Our plan was to head from the Space Needle down to the Seattle Aquarium, but while searching for the bus stop we noticed the Science Fiction Museum that was right next door to the Space Needle. It looked pretty cool from the outside, so we decided to buy tickets and ended up spending the next 2+ hours there! They had a pretty amazing collection of everything from first editions of famous sci-fi books by Asimov and Heinlein to movie props from films like Alien to costumes from TV shows like Star Trek. It was really pretty cool, and I think David and Jose liked it even more than I did (they are bigger sci-fi fans). The entire museum was created/funded by Paul Allen, and a lot of the items on display said "From the Paul Allen Family Collection." Must be nice to be rich and able to buy whatever you want!

The museum didn't allow photos, but I did take one in the lobby of the sign for the women's bathroom, since it made me laugh. I also liked the architecture of the building (which is shared with the Experience Music Project that we didn't have time to see). It's so obviously Gehry.

Katie took the afternoon off, so she met us at Seattle Center and we headed back to Pike Place Market where we had lunch overlooking the sound and then wandered around the market for a while. Of course we saw the first Starbucks, and I think we tasted everything that was offered as a sample -- chocolate, jelly, honey, vinegar, all sorts of food items. We bought the yummiest things -- peppermint chocolate sauce and a honeycrisp apple. Man that is a good apple! (Though I'm not sure it was actually a Washington apple; who knows.) Monday Night Football is here this week, and we saw a few of the Seahawks players at the fish market -- they were being videotaped catching fish for a segment for the football broadcast. That was pretty cool, though Katie said none of them were the big stars of the football team. Oh well.

From the market we planned to catch the bus to Bellevue to meet Joel at his parents' house for dinner, but Katie (the bus transportation employee) didn't know where the bus stopped! Well, she knew one place where it stopped, down by the train station next to the football stadium and her office building, so we started walking there. Two miles later, we made it. I teased Katie a lot about the death march she took us on, because I was already tired from walking around all day. But it wasn't too bad, really. And we worked off all the calories from all the free samples at the market!

We had pizza and played pool and cards at Joel's parents house and after that we were pooped! I fell asleep in the car as we drove back to Auburn. It was a very busy day, and the next few will be just as fun!

Austin City Limits was one big hot and sweaty mass of humanity. And it was great, as we expected. We suffered through the heat, had our daily slushee around 5:00 -- those things do wonders to cool you down, and anxiously awaited the sunset. As the sun goes down, everything starts to seem better. It's cooler. The music is better. It gets hard to see anything in the dark except that there are bodies everywhere, and the whole experience becomes surreal.

We drove up on Friday morning and stayed with my college friends Leila and Brian. Despite the fact that they live less than 4 hours away, I hadn't seen them in two years. They moved from southwest Austin even farther out to Driftwood about a year ago, so this was the first time I'd seen their new house. Though they do live in the boonies (albeit a convenient mile from the Salt Lick), their house was beautiful. We didn't spend a lot of time there with the music festival and everything, but we did have time to play their Nintendo Wii. Extremely fun -- and a surprisingly good workout. Our arms were sore the day after playing an hour and a half of tennis, boxing, golf, bowling, and baseball.

Staying there also gave me the chance to go biking with Leila on Saturday morning. She's training for the 40-mile ride as part of the Livestrong Challenge next month, so she's been riding and spinning a lot. We drove to one of the areas that's popular with biking and rode about 17.5 miles at a leisurely 14 mph average -- and finally stopped because my front tire was losing air at a fairly rapid rate. (I haven't found the culprit yet, but I haven't actually taken the tire off yet. Will do that tonight.) It was a nice ride, though even the relatively small rolling hills of Austin did a number on this flatland cyclist. I was puffing and panting on any incline. As we finished putting the bikes back on the car, I lifted up my shirt to wipe the sweat off my face and trapped some kind of insect in there. It must have been a bee. When I lifted my shirt again in response to a stinging sensation, something fell out and there was a stinger stuck right there in my tummy flab. Ouch! I pulled it out, and the sting really hurt for a bit. The pain went away after a while, but then the itching started. It still itches like crazy. Itch itch itch.

Yesterday was Leila's birthday, so we celebrated with brunch at a restaurant downtown. The service left a little to be desired, but the food was great. Jose and I wandered around downtown Austin for a few hours after that before heading over to the final day of the festival.

ACL itself was, as previously mentioned, a blast. Favorite acts included Andy Palacios and the Garifuna Collective (a band from Belize that we discovered on Friday), Andrew Bird, Arcade Fire, and The Decemberists. The worst act we saw was Regina Spektor. She's very popular right now and I'd heard her most popular song on the radio and thought it was ok -- but I hated her performance. Ugh.

We had to leave after Decemberists (though heard some of Bob Dylan while waiting in line for the buses) to head back to Houston. I drove the first half feeling fine, then proved that as soon as I hit the passenger's seat, no matter what, I fall asleep. I feel really bad for making Jose drive from 11:45 - 1:30 with no one to keep him entertained. I am no match for the passenger seat and its sleep-inducing qualities.

There's nothing like a four day week, especially when there are two four day weeks in a row. I'm off to Austin tomorrow morning for a weekend of music at Austin City Limits. I'm trying not to think about how much I'll be sweating in the heat. The daytime can be pretty miserable. But everything is forgiven in the evening, when the sun goes down and the music goes up.

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