Ian has always played independently very well. He also uses toys for their intended purposes. He was never one of those kids who wanted to play with pots and pans or slobber all over my cell phone. I suppose it could seem like he’s unimaginative in how he uses his toys, but I love to watch and listen to him play. He’s constantly talking and making believe, all while enjoying his toys and not having to be entertained 24/7. Yes, I am flat-out bragging. I love that he sits and plays toys rather than whining or needing electronics all the time. I cherish every minute of this time.
I intend to write several different blogs about my Seattle/Vancouver vacation, because there are various aspects I’d like to discuss/mull over.
Seattle blog #1: Travel
My little buddy on the way to the airport. Jeremy’s mom Sandi took us to and from the airport.
The more I fly, the more I realize Tampa International Airport is THE best airport ever invented. The hub-and-spoke design (or I prefer “the spoke-hub distribution paradigm”) makes everything fast and efficient. And no, those two aren’t the same thing.
Jeremy enjoying the tram at TIA—part of the lovely SHDP (spoke-hub distribution paradigm).
We flew a Delta MD90 from Tampa to Minneapolis. I sat on the aisle, which was nice because I like to stretch out my right knee. Jeremy sat by the window. The flight didn’t have those little TV’s, so we were antsy and bored, even with books, iPods and such at our fingertips. I think we were just anxious to get to Minneapolis, knowing we had an equally long flight from Minneapolis to Seattle as we’d had from Tampa to Minneapolis.
Minneapolis isn’t high up on our travel priority list, so flying over the Mall of America is the closest I’ll probably ever get to it.
My 20 minutes in Minnesota:
The flight from Minneapolis to Seattle was quite different. Jeremy let me have the window seat this time, and we were on a bigger plane—a 757. We flew Delta on all our flights. I highly recommend being choosy with your plane when you book a flight. You WANT the little TV’s, trust me.
My fav feature of the TVs was the in-flight map:
Let me just clarify that I have trouble reading on the plane. So I’m not that lame that I can’t live without the TVs. But between the in-flight map, the TV channels and the music channels, which I listened to on the way home more than I actually watched TV, it was awesome!
By the way, make sure to take your own headset. With all the cut backs, they charge a small fee ($2.00 on Delta) for a crappy headset. (Jeremy and I did bring our own)
Here’s a song I played over and over on the flight home…a blast from the past-Jordan Knight! Such a pop-y song, but I couldn’t resist.
The best part about the flight from Minneapolis to Seattle was that I could see the ground! Usually, you just look down and see a bunch of clouds, which is what we saw on the flight back from Seattle to Atlanta (looooong flight).
I looked down at one point and saw like…nothing. No people or houses. I laughed and said, “We must be in Montana.” I checked the in-flight map on my TV and yep, we were.
The best part was when we got to the mountains. I was spellbound.
Rocky Mountains over Montana:
Mountains over Washington:
Of course, I was super excited when I got my first glimpse of Seattle:
SeaTac Airport was pretty nice, and I was excited to take a pic of anything that said “Seattle” for a quick mobile upload:
We lugged our stuff a LONG way to the Link Light Rail (train) that took us downtown (our hotel was downtown). Then we had to walk several blocks to our hotel. I love walking, but looking back, we should have taken a cab with all that stinkin’ luggage.
Train:
Us on the train:
First view of Seattle from the ground/train:
We rented a car to drive from Seattle to Vancouver. It was a cute little red Chevy Aveo. Quite small and scaled down, but it had what mattered—A/C and an aux jack for my iPod. :P
So, that’s how we traveled. Delta, the train in Seattle, such as from the airport and from the baseball game at Safeco field. We had a rental to go to and around Vancouver. Other than that, we did a lot of walking, even in Vancouver. We never had the chance to take a ferry. We never got around to needing the bus either. We splurged one time and took our hotel’s driver (Lincoln Town Car) to the baseball game. Nice.
I should be thankful that our flights were smooth and the pilots made great landings. Jeremy planned everything to perfection, so we didn’t miss a beat…but Jeremy’s awesomeness is another blog subject…
ETA: View from the plane on the way back from Seattle to Atlanta. Gorgeous! And much cloudier than our arrival.
