Getting there is half the fun, come share it with me!

I know I know I know, I haven't posted in a day, almost two, I'm sorry. We've been a little busy navigating a HUGE city. How big is it? Observe. 

Everything building is Vancouver. See that little strip of buildings in the back edge of the picture? Vancouver. All of the little islands connected by bridges that you can't see in this photo? Vancouver. 

And Vancouver is AWESOME. 

Its clean. Its artisinal. Its unique. Most of it looks like this. 

No joke guys. Every street. Its like someone left a cotton candy machine on for a million years.

But, a significantly awesome part of our day in Vancouver was staying with Sarah's aunt and uncle, Peter and Natasha Mitchell, and their very savvy two-ish year old daughter Jasmine. 

Why is this picture of them on a boat? Because they have one! Not only do they have one, they have one of these. 

And they let us come out and collect their crab pots with them. In which we caught these

Which we had for dinner. HOW COOL IS THAT?!

More boating fun below.

Tash and Jazzy, being awesome.

Pete and Jazzy, also awesome. 

Paddle-boarding guy, being frankly crazy. That thing behind him? Yeah, thats totally a tanker.

Sarah being badass and steering the ship. For the record, she is generally badass and capable of doing all kinds of specifically useful things.

Michael, who if you cannot tell is actually thrilled to be on the water.

Leigh Paylor. Bringing sexy back. 

Here I will pause to make mention of just how cool this boat is. Its a floating hotel guys. 

So back to how big Vancouver is. All of the pictures below were taken from the boat. Vancouver, the bits that aren't being awesomely islandy, is one big half circle around English Bay, not unlike Traverse City. 

Way way way over on the left is where uncle David lives. 

For human interest, Michael's finger. 

After an adventurous afternoon of boating with our wonderful hosts, Cam and Sarah remained at their house for crab dinner, and Michael and I went and had a lovely visit with Uncle David wherein I met my other cousins Nate and Chris. At about 9 Michael and I were completely zonked out, and we crashed hard. The next morning we bopped around Vancouver for a little while, before hopping on the ferry. 

If the Mitchell's boat was a floating hotel, this was a floating AIRPORT. It had 4 decks available to passengers, including a full sized cafeteria, business lounge, movie theatre thingy, shops, an arcade, and various other awesomness. 

We were the very very very last car on the ferry. 

Seriously. Thats the gate closing behind us. 

But the best thing the ferry had were views. 

Eventually, the ferry slowed to a halt, and we drove off. We are now in Victoria resting, about to go out and explore this last city before we arrive in our new home tomorrow. More tomorrow morning. 

Footloose and fancy free!

I'm having a lovely breakfast conversation with two road workers, one of them from Scotland. I pinned his accent to the north, so I'm getting better at that, which pleases me.

All right, so let me fill you in on yesterday.

In deference to the time changes that we've been going through this week, we let ourselves sleep in. Which still meant that I was up and blogging at 6:45 local time. So you are entirely aware of my morning's labours. The blog posts take me about two hours to put together, because of course I'm on Michaels computer so I have to upload pictures through google plus instead of straight to the computer through a cable. Thank you apple for making life difficult.

After breakfast, we did this.   What is it? The EMP museum. It was AWESOME.                                                                                                                          

                                                                     

Inside we visited two exhibits- AVATAR, which was a fantastic interactive exhibit about the making of the AVATAR movie including real props from the set, some incredible high technology interactive attractions including a booth where you could invent your own Pandora plant, and an area where you can do some Motion capture, which I really enjoyed. It looks hokey, but hey, its fun. Here is a link to my youtube performance at the exhibit.

    

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55I2fKBmkq0

This was a fantastic thing. This is an enormous touch screen display, which allows you to zoom and play with menus and cool bonus art. Thats not the coolest thing about it though. 

All of those little pictures are zoomable with articles and pictures about the making of the film. You see the black squares in the middle? They are cards, about the size and shape of a coaster, and each card has on it a different topic. 

So all you have to do is pick up the card you want to learn about, place it on the screen, and the circle menu comes up with your options. Take it off the screen and put it back in the holder to remove the data from the screen. SO COOL!

No Michael, you may not have one. I'm not taking that thing in for oil changes.

If you've seen the movie, thats one of the actual suits they used in filming. Seriously awesome. 

This museum was just awesome in general. Observe the coolness. 

The other exhibit we saw (besides the AWESOME Sci-fi paraphenalia...did I mention that this is a science fiction/music museum?) was a really fantastic one called "Can't look away; the secrets of horror films". I was in seventh heaven. Contrary to popular belief, given that I am a scaredy cat about silly things like this-

I'm sorry, that's terrifying. I have no faith in a buiding that looks like the end of a jenga game.

I love horror movies. I think its because Dad let me watch Psycho and the Birds, two of the greatest psychological thrillers of all time. I have no pictures of this exhibit because they had actual movie props from things like Nightmare on Elm Street and one of the Alien suits and so on, so there was no photography allowed as not to damage the items. Oh, and Jason's mask and machete, did I mention them? Also the wolf's head cane from the original Wolfman movie. AHH! Geek heaven. I probably spent the better part of an hour down there. Dani, when you come visit me, I'm taking you to Seattle and I'm bringing you to this museum. I could have happily spent the whole day there, but we had things to see. 

Sarah, and I don't blame her in the least, bowed out of spending too much time in the horror exhibit as it is not her cup of tea, and instead walked the labyrinth outside. 

After the AWESOME (I can't stress that enough) museum, we had lunch at Zeeks pizza, which was pretty fantastic too. Cam and I shared a build your own with roasted garlic and sausage, while Michael and Sarah had a 'white' pizza, meaning the sauce was alfredo instead of red. That looked good, but I was in love with my roasted garlic pizza. 

Next stop: Pike Market. 

So many vendors! Seattle really is an artists city, because unlike the usual dime-store kitsch you see at open air markets, almost everything was handmade by the vendors, and of excellent quality. This was my favorite booth:

Seriously, how fun are these hats?!?

The light was too dark to take many other pictures of the market, but it was chock full of flowers, mostly tulips. They really like their flowers in Seattle, we kept passing people with huge bouquets of them out in the street. 

After we'd had enough of the market, we wandered back to the hotel where I got to skype in to my Grandfather's birthday party and say hey to my family. Hey family!

We all crashed for about an hour, our time lagged, hill tromping (oh my GOD the hills here are killer on your knees) bodies demanding some down time, before we made our way back out into the city for dinner. We went to the cheesecake factory, where the food was actually beyond my expectations, and the cheesecake simply sent me into a coma. Sadly, our waitress knew nothing about Big Bang Theory, so all of our jokes were wasted. 

After a long and eventful day, we crashed. I am now back in my breakfast nook, enjoying tea with Sarah and about to head down for the breakfast buffet. Today we make our way across the border (prayers please) and meet up with Uncle David in Vancouver for dinner. 

Just a note for those of you still reading- this blog won't end with our trip. By popular demand, I'll also be documenting the moving in, so stay tuned for more adventures. 

For you mom

We're movin right along dooby doom dooby doom...

Finally got the bloody internet working...

So before I being typing ANYTHING this morning, here is my view from the breakfast lounge.

WE'RE IN SEATTLE!

Yesterday began with some very cranky cats, some exceedingly cranky hotel staff, and an attempt to put us on the hook for an extra $150 pet cleaning fee. Michael put paid to that right away, and we got on the road pretty darn early for us, about 8:30 local time. No, Michael still hasn't let any of us drive, and it would appear that he doesn't mean to. I'm not thrilled about it, but at least it lets me take all the beautiful pictures.

Speaking of which...

A slightly illegal sight seeing stop was well worth it. These are the mountains just on the border of Idaho. Which, I must tell you a story about. 

Sarah: "So what states are we driving through today?"

Me: "Montana, about half an hour of Idaho, and the whole of Washington."

Michael: "No, just Montana and Washington, the GPS isn't taking us through Idaho."

Me: "It has to take us through Idaho. Idaho goes all the way up to Canada. Look, see? (pulling out a map)"

Michael: "Thats all well and good, but the GPS doesn't show us routed through Idaho."

Me: "Crazy Serena the GPS? Trust me honey, we'll be in Idaho."

And so we were. It was a really beautiful half hour of Idaho though, lots of mountains. 

Oh my god does this end of the country like mountains. It also likes glorious vistas and water and bridges and tunnels. I was one happy bunny. 

And windfarms. Man do they have a thing for windfarms. I love it! These are on top of a mountain.

More glorious views...

Now I am not a complete rube. I've seen mountains, my father drove us through the Appalachians on our way down to Florida, and I've been to Telluride Colorado which is a town in a valley between two mountains. But when we drove through the Cascades yesterday, my jaw literally dropped. As in 'hung rudely open'. Which I didn't think actually happened to people, I thought that was just a cartoon conceit. I was proved wrong when Michael reached over and chucked me under the chin because my mouth was hanging open. 

They filled up the sky they were so tall and steep. I couldn't stop marveling at them. Gods hand is in all His works, but sometimes you can tell the things he made with real pleasure, and these mountains are one of them. 

Out the mountains, across a bridge, through a tunnel, and then...

Our first glimpse of Seattle. 

Seattle is a bit like a cross between Chicago and Boston, according to Sarah and myself, and just about as much fun to drive in, which is to say not fun at all. We got lost looking for the hotel less than a block away from the hotel because SERENA is a CRAZY *ITCH! I'm looking forward to setting that damned GPS on fire when we finally get to Duncan. Let me show you how much not fun driving here is. 

You see that hill? It is a STEEP FREAKIN HILL! Which would not be so bad if every other street wasn't a one way and you can't turn left and your only option according to SERENA is to drive into the bay. 

Now when I was a kid, I used to ram around on an awesome four wheeler up north in the woods and hills of the Traverse City MI area. And one day going up one particularly steep hill, I managed to pull the machine backwards on top of myself. That particular experience comes back very painfully in a mitsubishi lancer driving up these terrifyingly steep hills. It does not help me that I have what I feel is a very rational fear of poorly designed buildings falling over on top of me. I'll send you a picture of one later today. So my arrival in Seattle was scary for me, entertaining for everyone else. 

While trying to find a pet friendly hotel in the area, Michael gave Holiday Inn a call. Apparently, because we've stayed there so often over the course of the last year, we got bumped up to an executive suite for the same price as a normal one, so we are living large in the city. Part of the perk was a half price bottle of wine, which we had with our absolutely exceptional dinner, served to us by a fellow Michigander. And by we I mean Sarah and I. And by Sarah and I, I mean we were only able to drink half the bottle, and after two glasses of wine, I was absolutely silly. Yes, I am admitting it here and now for posterity. Two glasses of wine and I am a sopping mess. Even with prime rib and mashed potatoes inside me. Sarah had this incredible crab macaroni and cheese, and Michael and Cam had butternut squash ravioli and texas chili respectively. 

Now one of the fun things about me when I'm squiffy is just how adamant I am about NOT being squiffy, which I then belie by giggling like a little loon. 

Cam: Drunk Leigh is SO much fun! 

Leigh: I am NOT!

Cam: You're not fun?

Leigh: No, I am SO much fun, not drunk! (clearly upset by the allegation of lushness) I can play games and tell good jokes and be witty, see, fun! (right back to insanely happy and humming and bouncing charmingly in my seat)

Cam: See that's the other great thing about drunk Leigh, she's never upset for very long, everything just reverts to ridiculously happy. She just sort of bobs back up to the surface. 

Sarah: Like a duck!

Leigh : I am NOT a duck! You guys are so mean, I'm not drunk and I'm NOT a duck!

Sarah: No of course not. You're lovely. And very pretty. 

Leigh: Yes, see, thats me. (ridiculously happy again.)

Cam: See, you just flatter her and everything is fine again. 

Leigh: What?! NO! (upset again)

Sarah: No no honey, I wouldn't flatter you. You really are pretty. You are the prettiest duck. 

Everyone then proceeds to fall about laughing, while I just proceed to fall about in my ill advised wedge heeled sandals. For the record, I am not a big person or a big drinker, so the two glasses of wine doing me (mildly) in was just as much a surprise to everyone else as it was to me, until we checked the label of the bottle. 13%. Pretty high for pinot grigio. 

We then retired to our rooms, where we treated ourselves to celebratory "We (actually Michael) drove all the way across the country in three days" dessert of warm cookies, chocolate lava cake and cheesecake and then fell very promptly asleep. 

This morning Sarah and I are plotting out things to do, and then we will explore Seattle all the day long. We are staying one more night here in the Crown, and then tomorrow morning heading out to spend a day in Vancouver, where we will meet Uncle David for dinner. 

Talk to you soon blogosphere!