Tale of Two Cities

or the fun adventures of my hubby's birthday!

We start out our grand adventure in Portland! Actually we got up at 6:30am so that we could catch the train in Portland at 8:30.

We took the train all the way up to Seattle! It is a 3 1/2 hour train ride. I decided that we would do this for Blair's birthday because he had never been on a train before and I had never been on a train in the US.

From the train station we walked 1.2 miles to the monorail station. That 1.2 miles just about did us in, because we checked the elevation during the planning stages of the trip and thought that wan't too bad. Well, as we found out, the top of the hill was about 3/4 of the way there, so we ended up walking uphill both ways at a much steeper angle than we had anticipated.

We took the monorail to Seattle Center and went up the Space Needle. Blair had never been up it before so it was kinda neat to go and see the view of the whole city. After the Space Needle we went into the Sci-Fi / Music Museum. We only had enough time to see the Sci-Fi part, which was really awesome. I was just amazed by all the things they had on display. We definitely need to go back and see it again and check out the music part too. It was totally worth it! The only down side is that they don't allow cameras inside, so I will have to leave it to your imagination.

After that we did the whole trip in reverse. We rode the monorail back, walked the 1.2 miles back to the train station and rode the train back to Portland. It was a very awesome trip, though very exhausting. We think next time we will go and spend the night up there or a couple of days and then ride the train up to Vancouver, BC. Riding the train has definitely opened up some options.

Blair's Birthday 08

The train was awesome for knitting and reading and napping and avoiding traffic jams. We did manage to hit Seattle on the weekend that the Dalai Lama was visiting and there was a Mariner's game that evening, so traffic was a bit crazy. Of course I knit all the way up and back, but I can't share the photos here quite yet. Though you can see them in Ravelry. If you would like to see the rest of the photos that were taken by my husband, you can check them out here.