Road Report: Day 1

Greetings from Seattle!

Left sunny and warm Chicago yesterday and arrived here to, well, snow. Snow and hail. But I made the best of it, checked into my hotel and then poked around a little bit.

Yesterdays highlights:

1. Running into sweet Nancy Pearl on my flight.

2. Exit row aisle seat. Leg room!

3. Not going up in the Space Needle. It's a few blocks from the hotel, but I kinda freaked in the Eiffel Tower. Decided not to freak in the Space Needle.

4. Dude who tried to get me to sponsor starving children. He looked kind of like a 20-year-old Donal Logue, and tried so hard, but I couldn't commit on the spot. He was way funny, though. Dude kept calling me dude. I talked to him for a while. He almost hugged me but I told him my husband was 6'4" and he said, Dude could kick my ass, right?

5. Took the bus to another neighborhood and poked around some vintage and antique stores, didn't see anything I couldn't live without.

6. Walked all the way home. Didn't really mean to, I was planning to get on the bus at some point, and then as I got closer, I started thinking it wasn't that far, but then as I got farther, I realized I wasn't there yet, and that I still had a ways to go, and that I was pretty tired but now I was nowhere near the bus line I'd taken and didn't really know how else to get back besides walk or take a cab. You know how, in your own city, you think, Ok, I'd obviously never walk from Hyde Park to Wicker Park, but in a strange city, you don't realize how far something is so you think it's okay to walk but then you suddenly become aware that you've been walking for kind of a while? And that you may very well have walked the equivalent distance from Hyde Park to Wicker Park? And that you're really hungry? And there's nowhere to get a sandwich, which is what you really want? Or else there is somewhere to get a sandwich, but they're out of the only kind you want? So you just start looking for any place of any kind where you can take something out? Which results in:

7. Two major donuts. One was chocolate cakey glazey, the other was chocolate raspberry glazey. This raspberry donut was for sure the most delicious donut ever. This basically ended up being dinner.

8. Cable TV zone out. Rock of Love!

9. Check in with Ben. Sounds like his thesis show went well (total bummer that I had to miss it) and he went out and partied down until 1 am!