Everett Day Two
One good thing about taking the kid on a trip, decent motivation to get an early start on the day. It was funny, we kinda heard him moving around in the playpen thing we brought so we both looked over at the same time and this smiling head popped out. By the look on his face you’d think we were going to Disneyland or something. We got a pretty early start on the day.
After grabbing some drive thru we went straight to Seattle. The kid wasn’t very happy and it wasn’t until we got good and lost that he finally took a nap. Now in my defense I didn’t get much sleep, couldn’t find my map, didn’t prepare as well as I should have, and wasn’t used to juggling an upset baby and semi-frantic requests for direction every few minutes while trying to plot a route.
What it really boiled down to was a misleading sign that simply said “Westlake” with an arrow. Was the sign pointing towards Westlake Mall the central mall downtown and one of only 2 monorail stops? No, it was pointing to a road that takes you far away from everything over a bridge into residential hell.
So if it was my fault it was a mistake of poor planning and preparedness.
But I pulled it together at the end, I found us reasonably priced parking within walking distance of the needle and the monorail which took us to Westlake Mall and within walking distance of the market and The Cheesecake Factory. Speaking of the market I picked up a sweet Doctor Who key chain - I could feel Jon’s jealousy growing as I bought it.
After picking up the cheesecake we got the hell out of dodge. Along the way back we stopped for some Jack in the Box But I fell for that Ultimate Cheeseburger thing again. Mindi saw a sign for a state park and decided it might help calm the kid. A good idea except she neglected to notice it was several miles away…on an island. After a bit of driving I pointed this out and we settled on a small park we stumbled upon.
I took the kid on the swings and he had a good time but soon as he got back in the car his mood soured again. We decided to run for the border only stopping for Krispy Kreme. Once we got to the border we discovered a 30 minute wait. Or rather that’s what it would have been had countless scores of jerks not taken the Nexus lane and then tried to wedge into the front of the regular line at the last minute.
These jerks, we call them ‘wedgers’, added at least 15 minutes to our misery and made such misery more stressful as some of them seemed more than willing to risk a collision in their mad quest not to follow the rules. No one got immediately in front of us though.
We got through the border without further difficulty and I relaxed knowing home and an end to the kid’s torture would soon be at hand. Or so I thought. Once we got home Mindi’s parents, whose generous loan of the car had made the whole trip possible, wanted all of us to come by for a visit. We could hardly refuse but the kid was so upset I came very close to putting my foot down on his behalf.
Thankfully the visit was mercifully short and we got a ride back home afterwords. All told it was a good trip but I do feel bad about the demands it put on the kid.
