Seattle, WA

The first stop on our journey north was Seattle, Washington. We drove around Seattle’s city center for nearly an hour before finding a parking place that would accommodate our 26’ truck and camper. We ended up with a pretty good spot.

Ordinarily, we would not have taken the time to stop in Seattle, however today was no ordinary day. It was the Fourth of July and a certain five year old boy was expecting fireworks. We’d celebrated the previous Fourth of July on the waterfront in San Francisco. It was an amazing spectacle – a massive street carnival on steroids – that proved to be the best Fourth ever. We were hoping for something similar in Seattle.

Our first order of business was to locate R.E.I.’s flagship store. It was supposed to be impressive, with a towering rock climbing wall and other features that made it the biggest, baddest R.E.I. on the planet. I’d looked up the location online before we left home and made a mental note of where it was located. Unfortunately, mental notes don’t work as well for me as they once did.

After wandering around for fifteen or twenty minutes while reassuring Darla that “it will be obvious” and that “it’s around here somewhere,” I agreed to let her call the store and ask for directions. As it turned out, it wasn’t obvious and it really wasn’t close either. Since there was absolutely no chance I was going to drive there and abandon our parking spot, we got to go on a little hike across downtown Seattle.

R.E.I.’s flagship store was every bit as cool as I’d heard it to be. From the street, it was barely visible through the vegetation. As we wandered down the path toward the entrance we discovered bike paths and hiking trails where visitors could try out the latest outdoor gear.

From the top of a stairway, the store emerges through the trees with a waterfall below and the Seattle skyline a short distance away.

The Boy was particularly fond of the elaborate shoe-testing course. It involved climbing up and down hills and boulders, and crossing bridges. It was soon apparent that he felt his shoes needed lots of testing.

No shoes were allowed on the indoor play structure. The Boy was OK with that too.

On the upper balcony, giant Swiss watches listed the local time at iconic mountains around the world. Denali, where we would be in exactly one week, was an hour ahead of Seattle.

We ate dinner at Anthony’s Pier 66 on the Seattle waterfront. Lewis decided to do a little coloring while we waited for our food. Darla and I were happy to see this since The Boy was often reluctant to color out of a concern that he might not get all the colors perfectly within the lines – as if further proof was needed that The Boy was not adopted…

We decided to watch the fireworks from a pedestrian overpass above Alaskan Way, the street that runs along the waterfront. Not knowing exactly where the fireworks would be set off, this seemed like a good spot. I didn’t want to wander too far from our vehicle since, at the conclusion of the fireworks, I planned to drive several hours north and cross into Canada.

Although there were lots of people, the atmosphere was nothing like what we enjoyed a year earlier in San Francisco. Part of it was that we were not close enough to the action this year; the other part was that Seattle isn’t San Francisco. We still had a great time.