Everett Day One
We started out reasonably early in the day, stopping at McDonald’s before hitting the border shortly after 11am. We took the truck crossing and filled up just past the border. I may not agree with government subsidies for the oil industry but I’d be a fool not to take advantage of it. We traveled along back roads until joining the I-5 at Bellis Fair, although we didn’t know it was Bellis Fair at the time but that was fine as it was never a destination for us in the first place.
Not long after we hit that area where the radio is fuzzy for both Vancouver and Seattle stations so I began to play music directly on my PDA and the volume and sound quality were surprisingly serviceable.
We saw lots of inflatable gorillas and duckies along the way and I waved at a guy in a funny outfit promoting a furniture store of all things. No man in a chicken suit unfortunately.
We stopped at the premium outlet which was the busiest I’ve ever seen it. I got a spring jacket from Gap for $40 and a $10 shirt for the kid while Mindi dropped $70 on kid’s clothes in one store. That took quite awhile so I b-lined to the Kenneth Cole store and picked up a nice golf shirt for $20.
Earlier we had passed by a very busy (line out the door) pretzel place but despite being busy they were handing out samples which were very tasty. On the way back to the car we noticed it was no longer busy and decided to get a snack but the bastards didn’t make a Parmesan variety. Trying to look past this crime against God and man I got an original with cheese sauce only to discover the ’sauce’ was Cheese Whiz.
Pretzel Maker they weren’t.
By this point the kid’s patience had run out so we went straight to the hotel. Upon arrival I went to check in. There was an older man ahead of me being helped by a girl in a white hoodie (with the hood up) behind the desk.
“This is really upsetting” he kept saying.
“I’m sorry but there’s nothing I can do” the clerk kept replying. After awhile he left and as the clerk helped me I tried to commiserate with her.
“So how long was he bothering you?” I asked, “he seemed to like repeating himself”
“Half an hour at least” she said.
“Wow,” I said “what was his problem?”
“He has some kind of disease” she responded calmly.
“Ooookay” I said and waited for her to elaborate but she didn’t so I prompted her, looking at my hands resting on the counter “so, um, do I need to Purell?”
“Good idea!” she said and shared some she had behind the counter with me. She never did explain any further.
We went to the room and after I checked it out and took some pictures for TripAdvisor the kid was very happy to crawl all over the place. It was a little after 4pm so I turned on the TV expecting either a countdown to the Wyoming results or perhaps the first few precincts reporting only to discover 96% of the vote was already in. So I missed the fun but Obama won so I didn’t mind overly much.
We both took showers as we tried to convince the kid to take a nap but he won that battle. While Mindi was in the shower I checked my e-mail because the talking heads weren’t even mentioning the day’s vote.
We headed to Izzy’s for dinner and it was busier than I’ve ever seen it, we even had to wait but they brought us snacks and we fed the kid which drastically improved his mood. Once we were seated a good time, and food, was had by all. Afterwords we went to Ross and had to choose from lots of neat stuff at crazy low prices. I started with 8 shirts which became 6, 4, and eventually 2: a CK and a Kenneth Cole each for $20.
Then it was back to the hotel and an early night. Unfortunately I made a rookie road trip mistake and forgot to pack earplugs so I didn’t get much sleep. This would have consequences the next day.
