Sunday, October 23, 2011

Seattle - A warm cookie and a tall glass of...

A warm cookie and a tall glass of shut the hell up. The thing about travel is its unpredictable. You could plan every moment that you will spend on a vacation but the forces of nature and the travel gods will guide you no matter what. What we can do is check a vacation off of our list. More specifically vacation sans child, sans family, where we went where the wind took us. Enter soon-to-expire frequent flier miles and a much needed break from our daily routine and Seattle is where we landed. A weekend away that we could discover a new place, together. No time schedule, no planned events and completely guided by our stomachs.
When asked what we did in Seattle the answer will always be, we ate some great food, morning, close to noon and night. We ate well and to me that defines the best vacation, best weekend, best time spent with my husband. Away from daily life chatter we could talk and actually listen to each other over a beer or glass of wine or cup of coffee and a great meal! It doesn't happen often, this vacation thing, This sit down and eat together and talk thing. Hell it's been three years since our wedding and this is the first we've ever gone away together. We've pledged to each other to make it happen once a year, an adult vacation that we can just be us as a couple.
Back to the warm cookie...
So as a not so frequent flyer to the west coast, I had never flown on frontier airlines which is who we got our free cc point tickets from. Thank you American express for all, the hard earned money I've spent with you to earn my plane tickets and hotel stay. Wait a second...who should be thanking who? I know I know, but I'll be damned if I don't use my point effectively! I think I took it over the edge with our 8 "free", warm chocolate chip cookies. So apparently this is a frontier airlines thing. We serve you a drink offer you some for purchase snacks and then come back in 20 minutes when all the aforementioned food and beverage are gone to hand deliver you a warmed chocolate chip cookie. The cookies are probably leftovers that have aged to a crispness unknown to the human palate so they zap the suckers in a microwave or easy bake oven for a few minutes to freshen them up for their valued customers. I was down with the free chocolate cookie, it coulda used some milk...but for my nearby passengers on each and every flight I want to order them a tall glass of something else.
Talky McGee and farmer Jo started the trip out from Austin to Kansas city with a whirlwind of conversation that did not stop. I would have rather a screaming child in our row as at least they give up after a good 20 minute screaming fest. And I say this about a screaming child because I remember not so fondly the day 2 year old Kendall refused to buckle up on our descent. However much that attendant requested we get our child buckled she pulled a bucking bronco-esque technique to wrestle out of the belt all while screaming bloody murder. Yep we were those people! Everyone at some point will experience it. But back to our most recently flight...hearing someone's life story -- eh hem overhearing someone's life story because they are talking louder than the engine roar to over share their life with the entire plane. They were obnoxious. A cookie didn't mend my broken ears and when the attendant finally announced we had arrived in Kansas city claiming frontier airlines- a whole different animal, I couldn't agree more.
And by the way, the Kansas city airport is a whole different planet. We had to de-board our flight with the connection to Seattle and the inside of the airport was reminiscent of an abandoned warehouse that they would keep aliens. Area 51 anyone?
We finally made it on 'a whole different animal' to Seattle and were pleasantly surprised to find the public transportation convenient, useful and cheap. For $5.50 we were dropped off two blocks from our hotel. Having not eaten anything but our free cookies and some beef jerky throughout the day we were in downtown Seattle by 6pm local time and we were starving. We settled in to the hotel and rested until our stomachs led us directly across the street for some Thai food. Pumpkin Prawn Curry. Yes, my mouth is watering again already. Dustin had Pad Thai and our empty stomachs were grateful for the deliciousness. Back at the hotel we made no plans at all other than our first food stop for breakfast at Dahlia Lounge for brunch and roaming the Pike Street Market.

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