As the last entry indicated, all of our plans and schedules got shot to pieces last week by a combination of two governments, a broken computer and plumbing issues. We put off our travel plans for a week and have been living with the Loski's as we get everything together to make the move. We now have Katie's passport, our computer is back and we are totally out of the apartment and packed up to go.
Before everything went wrong last week, Katie and I had a good trip up
to Washington state to visit her relatives and mine. We arrived Thursday morning and were picked up by Katie's Grandparents at the airport. We then met Katie's cousin Erica and the five of us went to Woodland Park zoo. Katie and I are huge zoo aficionados and I have to admit that the Seattle zoo is very impressive and I strongly recommend it to anyone from both our families visiting the greater Seattle area. From the zoo we headed over to the locks and the salmon ladder. After a full afternoon we went back into downtown and went to a Mariners game against the Anaheim Angels. A very full day.Friday dawned bright and sunny. Katie and I picked up the rental in West Seattle and headed for the Olympic Peninsula. We just made the ferry over the sound and drove up to Sequim our ultimate destination for a 10 mile round trip hike out to a lighthouse which sat at the end of a long spit out in the bay. We started around 12:30 and had plenty of beach and good weather. The funny thing was as we walked out there were several groups of senior citizens coming back and they didn't even look winded. We also got several warnings to watch the tides. We got out to
the lighthouse around 2:30 and had lunch then took some pictures. I got overly excited and instead of the 30 minutes we were supposed to spend out there it was closer to an hour and 15 minutes. When we left at 3:45 the weather had gotten cold and rainy and the race was on to beat the tide and the rain back off the spit. It started to rain with about two miles left to the shore and by then the tide had come in causing us to have to walk on the driftwood. That extra 45 minutes at the lighthouse had cost us. When we hit the shore line Katie and I both let out whoops of victory. Those senior citizens definitely have my respect as I felt that hike for four or five days after. From Sequim we headed back East and caught the ferry at Port Townsend over to Whidby. Once again we just made the ferry and got to my Mom's house around 8ish.On Saturday we had planned to go out to San Juan Island but both of us felt like a slower day would do us good. The weather also had turned and while there would be spots of good weather rain was expected to dominate the day. We slept in and then went with my Mom over to the thrift shop. While Mom took care of some things Katie and I went across the street to the PBY
museum and got to fly a simulator. We then headed out Fort Casey to do some kite flying. There were several clubs out there for kite flying and the winds there are so good coming off the sound that even someone who cant fly kites can. We had dinner at the Chinese buffet in Oak Harbor enjoyed a quiet evening. That evening we discovered that our rental had picked up a nail and had a flat tire. We talked to enterprise and decided to switch out cars Monday morning in Oak Harbor since we didn't want to drive back to Seattle on the spare.The weather Sunday was very rainy and we headed down to Greenbank to see the stores, do some wine tasting and see the central part of the Island. We had planned to do dinner at Deception Pass but the weather made that impossible so we had the cook out at Mom's. Alex came over and we watched The 300 on DVD.
Monday we switched out the rental and headed back to Seattle for
Katie's grandfather's 74th birthday. We took the boat shuttle across from West Seattle over to downtown and walked the public market then had lunch at the Crab Pot. After ice cream we headed to the airport and our flight home.It was when we got home that our troubles started. We had talked to the passport people no less than seven times in the two prior weeks including calls on Friday as we drove up the peninsula and Monday afternoon while we were downtown. On each occasion they had told us everything was still being processed and there were no issues. But on our answering machine Monday night were three messages all asking us to call. We did that first thing Tuesday and discovered for the first time that apparently there was a problem with the application. They had it for 12 weeks and had cashed our check 8 weeks ago but now less than 48 hours before we were to leave they suddenly have an issue. We Fed Ex' d the new application and spent Tuesday cleaning the apartment and getting our stuff out. By Tuesday evening we knew that we would need to push back our flight. We decided to push back our plans by one week to give time for everything to get finished. That evening our computer had broken and that was an additional factor in our decision to push our plans back a week. Dell sent someone out to get it that same night they fixed it and had it back to us by Friday.
We had planned to do Six Flags as a wind down day and last Wednesday we spent the day at the park. By way of comment the last Wednesday before school gets out is the day to do Six Flags there were almost no lines and we got to ride everything we wanted.
We moved in with the Loski's Thursday and have been staying with them while we finish everything and wait on our work permits to get finally approved. Gail and Russ have been great and Stephanie graciously has let us stay in her room. We have been chomping at the bit to get going and this week has been difficult just because things out of our control have determined what is going to happen. Everything happens for a reason and this one week delay has been good because it has given us a chance to wrap up everything and let Katie spend some time with her family. On Friday she got to help her Mother clean out her school room which has been something of a yearly tradition. This week we are pretty much just marking time until Thursday and our departure.
Will update with a post when we get to the Caymans this weekend.
