Starr Treks: Alaska trip Monday 6/1/15 Issaquah wa

STARR TREKS MONDAY 6/1/15 ISSAQUAH

We got out pretty early to take our 2 mile walk— cloudy and in the 50’s. While we were eating breakfast, it started raining— not torrential, but just a nice constant rain. We decided to run some errands. We stopped at REI to see if they could tutor Larry on using the GPS that we got for Christmas— I think the guy helped him a little. We are already feeling withdrawals from our internet, Verizon phone, and GPS what we depend on so much now. We’ll just have to see if this GPS gizmo will help us after we cross the border. We needed to get a few groceries for the next few days, but I did not want to buy anything that would get confiscated at the Canadian border. So we stopped at Safeway for a few items. Then we thought we would just drive to Costco because there is one here. There were a lot of people shopping in the rain. Again, we did not want to buy fruits and vegetables till we cross into Canada, so we ended up buying a road atlas that included all of Canada, a bottle of wine(!), and a package of dark chocolate candy that the guy gave us a sample of (really good!!). Then I got in my mind that we should buy a cribbage game since I can’t find the one that I thought was in the RV, so we decided to back track to Target! This was becoming a true impulse shopping trip. Target did not have cribbage, but the guy there told us to go to Barnes and Noble — which is near Costco. So we headed back that way, and I happened to notice there was a Michaels store in that area, so we stopped there so I could browse. We then went to Barnes and Noble, where they had no cribbage game. We finally headed back to the RV about 12:30. Shortly after that, I started working on my journal, and just now— this very moment, I suddenly remembered where I put the cribbage game in the RV and we have it! We are just worried when we have no internet up North, that we may need to play non electronic games together!! Good grief!

Since it was raining, we decided to hit one more museum— the Museum of Flight. They had some planes outside that you actually got to climb into— one was the original jet Air Force One used by Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson (where he was sworn in after the assassination), and Nixon. Another was a Concorde— we were surprised how unfancy and small it was inside, with seats very close together. Inside they had lots of exhibits: a remake of the Wright brothers plane, Amelia Earhart (had a scrap piece of her plane that had been repaired before she disappeared) , Alaskan bush planes, Boeing history, Werhner Von Braun, satellites, Ham the space monkey (buried at our Alamogordo Space hall of Fame), astronauts — Russian and American (they discussed how the first astronauts had their medical testing done at Lovelace clinic in ABQ!), models of the lunar module & voyager.

After leaving the museum (it had stopped raining), we drove to West Seattle to meet a young couple from Alamogordo — James and Shelley Kestner and their 3 kids. James works as an engineer at Boeing — he has been emailing me the past weeks with recommendations on things to do in the area— very helpful. We met up at Marination Ma Kai, an informal Hawaiian eatery near Alki park — you could see downtown Seattle across the harbor. They said that they usually take the water taxi if they want to go downtown— a 10 minute ride— faster than driving for sure!! Their kids are 7,5, and 18 mo— very well behaved, giving us a chance to chat. James was one of our son Brian’s roommate in college— he said that he remembered all the times we took him out to eat in ABQ, so insisted on treating us tonight! They really love the area— they have been renting a house for years and are hoping to purchase it. They are pretty outdoorsy, so really enjoy being outdoors— they said they went camping in the San Juan Islands over Memorial Day. The traffic was not bad at all driving back to the RV park. Shortly after locking the RV up, Larry announced that he lost the car keys(!). We retraced his steps, ending at the garbage can in the kitchen area where he had thrown out some trash from the car— and threw the keys in as well— glad he thought of it before we had dump trash!! Tomorrow we will head north 90 miles to Anacortes where the ferry is.