Here are the day-by-day posts from the trip Jen and I took last August. Pictures and videos will be back soon...

Day 1, Seattle

So, you've probably seen some of the pictures from today (I've spared you some of the really uninteresting ones.) Today was mostly spent around Seattle Center and the waterfront below Pike Place, including:

• The Space Needle. Yep, you ride up an elevator and see stuff. There's one of these in every city. The view from the top of the Space Needle wasn't bad. Bonus point: the gift shop had Space Needle Lego kits. I bought one; I'm not sure if it'll end up in Julia's Lego collection or in mine.
• Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Kind of an odd pairing - I hear it was financially motivated - in a Frank Gehry monstrosity (and I mean that only in the most sincere way.) Some interesting relics in the SF part, including a collection of famous TV and movie robots (R2D2, Twiki, and to the amusement of my wife "Danger" Jennifer Robinson, the B9 from Lost In Space. No Daleks, though.) EMP wasn't bad, with a comprehensive Jimi Hendrix exhibit, a collection of Seattle rock history, and an exhibit of space-themed album covers from the 50s and 60s (if they allowed any photography, I'd have taken some pictures for a buddy back home in an astro-themed surf band, but alas, no pictures allowed.)
• Monorail: Finally, I've found a public transit system that's more limited than the Baltimore Metro Subway. (I kid, I kid.)
• Waterfront: Took one of those one-hour tours of the harbor, including all the industrial whatnot. Utterly amazed that two tugboats can pull a fully-loaded container ship. It was a really nice day for a cruise - warm and sunny with no humidity (a virtual impossibility back home, at least at this time of year.)
• Walking around: We didn't rent a car, so we walked most places (other than the monorail from Seattle Center downtown, and the streetcar for part of the way back.) Pretty easy to walk around Seattle, other than the brutal Pike Place hill climb.

More to come tomorrow.

Day 2, Seattle

No pictures yet (have a few that might come later) but here's what we did today:

• Underground Tour: I'm all about the seedy industrial underbelly of modern America, so this peek into what used to be the ground floor of Seattle before they raised the streets was pretty cool. Sort of reminded me of New New York in Futurama. Fortunately, not too claustrophobic.
• Utilikilts: Jen joked that I should get one. I did, and wore it the rest of the day. Hey, people have seen me dressed (and undressed) in a lot worse. It's actually pretty damned comfortable. A nice fringe benefit of being 6'4", about 300 pounds and unintentionally scary-looking is that people tend not to mess with you, making rocking the kilt just a little easier.
• Seattle Aquarium: We bought the CityPass books for the Space Needle, EMP and harbor cruise. We'd already gotten our money's worth based on those three, so this was kind of a bonus. Seals and otters always make me smile. I don't believe in reincarnation, but if I did, spending my days gliding around the sea on my back, belly up to the sky, wouldn't be so bad.
• Inglorious Basterds: Feet were hurting by mid-afternoon, so after a hefeweizen break we watched the new Tarantino flick. OK, but he's really playing to stereotype at this point. As with most of his films, it's got a great soundtrack, at least.

Tomorrow: TBA in the morning, then the train to Portland in the afternoon...

Day 3, Seattle to Portland

So let's see. Jen slept in a little later in the morning while I picked up a new lightweight rain jacket, something I hoped we wouldn't need but it appears we might (and I misplaced my previous rain jacket on another recent trip.) After that, back downtown. Walked around the stadium area a bit, peeked into the Klondike gold rush museum, and stopped at the Pyramid alehouse for lunch. It's now called "Haywire" Hefeweizen, but it still tastes great.

After that, caught the train for Portland. We shared a table with a younger couple from England that were using up the last few days on her summer work visa. I saved the day MacGyver style by fashioning her keyring into a makeshift bottle opener for the beer they'd brought aboard. (I hope it's still useful for, y'know, holding keys.)

Got to Portland around dinner time, checked into the hotel, and had some Pizza Schmizza for dinner. By that point, several days of more-walking-than-usual had caught up with several days of about-as-much-sleep-as-usual and I made it an early night.

Today: not entirely sure, but I think we're going to go walk the rose and Asian gardens, and maybe go over to Powell's in the afternoon. Looks like our intended tour to Mt. St. Helens is off, but we might still go tomorrow...

Day 4, Portland

I've always tried to pack light for trips, and now that most airlines nickel-and-dime you for checked luggage, I only pack about 3-4 days worth of clothes max. So, this morning, it was laundry time. We found a slightly funky laundromat/cafe/corner shop, got our laundry done and set out for the afternoon.

Our hotel is down near Portland State, so we walked up the South Park blocks, over to North Park and then across to Chinatown. We spent some time in the Portland Classical Chinese Garden, which is beautiful. After an afternoon nap we walked down to the riverfront for dinner. Very nice down there, especially on a day like today which was sunny and warm, but comfortable with a little breeze. Yes, I know this means rain is coming, but it was still much nicer than it is back home at this time of year.

We've got one more full day in Portland, and it looks like it's going to rain, so we'll probably make that Powell's trip and see what other indoor things we can do tomorrow.

Day 5, Portland

This was the day it was supposed to rain, but only a small sprinkling came late in the day. We spent the morning at the Japanese garden, which is really beautiful - it's up on a hill that overlooks downtown Portland, with a spectacular view of the city. Very green, serene and peaceful.

There's an Italian festival going on this weekend at Pioneer Courthouse Square, so we stopped there for lunch. Then we walked over to the world famous Powell's bookstore for a while. Definitely worth a stop if you're looking for almost any kind of book.

Just as the rain came we stopped at Old Town Pizza for dinner. Delicious!

Today we're checking out the Saturday market, then getting in the train to Vancouver, BC. That'll be a long ride, but at least the rain will be outside...

Day 6, Portland to Vancouver

Most of today was spent on the train from Portland to Vancouver - about eight hours total - but before we left we did get out to the Portland Saturday Market, which is full of all sorts of food and drink and handcrafts and music and whatnot. Fun to walk through, even if it did start raining while we were there.

Since we did spend so much time on it today, I'll take this moment to talk about the Amtrak Cascades train, which runs between Eugene, OR and Vancouver, BC, with stops in Portland, Seattle, and smaller towns along the way. The seats are pretty comfy - with a little more legroom than your average airline coach seat - and some of the views along the way are incredible, especially the parts north and south of Seattle that run right along Puget Sound. Very nice, and affordable too. I really like traveling by train - it's much more relaxing than flying, especially for someone with freakishly long legs like me.

Jen's got some stuff figured out for tomorrow in Vancouver, so stay tuned for the update. It'll probably come less frequently during the day, since two megabytes of mobile data here costs the same as an entire month of unlimited data back home, and we're working solely off the hotel internet...

Day 7, Vancouver

Started this morning off with a visit to the Dr. Sun-Yat Sen Classical Chinese Garden, our third Asian garden visit on this trip. Jen was especially interested because some of her work involves reading Dr. Sun-Yat Sen, so she'll have a fun story to tell her co-workers.

After that, we took the SeaBus ferry over to North Vancouver and then rode up to Grouse Mountain for the afternoon. The best way I can describe this place is if REI ran Disneyland - lots of gimmicky "outdoors" stuff like bears and a lumberjack show, with lots of people and long lines for lousy food. OK, this was the one thing we did all vacation that I didn't really care for, so taking the Mulligan on the second-to-last day isn't so bad. Jen did get to ride some ziplines, which sounded fun (I'm too big to do such things, unfortunately.)

Had some tasty curry at the Lonsdale Quay market, and then back to the hotel for another round of laundry and planning our last day tomorrow. We'll be heading back to Seattle on the train around dinner time, staying over and flying back to BWI on Tuesday.

Day 8, Vancouver back to Seattle

By this morning, my feet were screaming out for relief, so we took a tour bus down to Granville Island for lunch and a little bit of market browsing. After that and a little rest, it was time to get the train back to Seattle. And, well, that's about it for the vacation. Today we're flying back to BWI and, for me at least, back to work. It's been a great vacation overall. Jen and I don't get a whole lot of time together in an average week, so spending this week and a half together has been really special. At the same time, it'll be good to get back into routine, and to see Julia when she gets home in a few days.