John Bafford's Journal

Alaska Vacation - Day 1 - Seattle
Thanks to my car troubles,

arterich gave me a ride up to my parent's house. Our Eberron game Tuesday night ran a bit longer than we were expecting, so we didn't get up there until shortly after midnight.

Got up at 3:30 am to get a shower and have breakfast before leaving for the airport at 4:20 so we'd have ample time for the 6:45 flight to Seattle via Dallas. We got there to find a long line and massive disorganization and confusion at the ticket counter because American Airline's online check-in system was broken, so no one could check in prior to getting to the airport. And, there were only four people at the ticket counter, so it took quite awhile to make it through the line. It also didn't help that one of the attendants was shouting things like "Anyone behind that woman is LATE!" and "All flights from Dallas are CANCELLED!"

Eventually, we got our tickets and made it through security to the terminal and sat down and waited for the flight to be boarded. it wound up being a short wait, because of the ticket counter delays. It was at this point that we discovered that my Dad's watch was running slow. Which is a good thing, because he was already somewhat anxious about getting to the flight on-time as we were winding through security, and it's likely he'd have been bouncing off the wall if he actually knew what time it was.

The flight from BWI to DFW was uneventful, but I was somewhat surprised that American didn't offer any free food at all to the non-first class passengers. There were free sodas, but a bag of chips, a cookie, or a bag of trail mix was $3. I caught up on sleep on this leg of the flight and just listened to my iPod.

We had about an hour and a half of layover at DFW, which, for some reason, my Dad seemed to think was only half an hour, so he was in a frantic rush to get to the terminal. We grabbed "lunch" at an horrendously overpriced TGI Friday's to-go, took the tram the long way around the airport instead of walking to the terminal by taking the advice of the person we asked, and then waited for an hour at the terminal for boarding the (delayed 10 minutes) flight.

The TVs at the terminal were showing the ~~news~~ entertainment, and revolved mostly around a police chase in LA causing a four-car accident, the massive wildfire at Lake Tahoe, and Paris Hilton's upcoming interview on Larry King Live. They also ran a quote from Obama, who reportedly said something to the effect of "I won't comment on Hillary Clinton's qualifications, but I believe that only her husband is capable of picking up the job on day one." Gotta love those politicians.

The 3.5 hour flight from DFW to Seatac was uneventful. I mostly continued working on the backplot for the D&D campaign I'm working on.

We waited around awhile for the luggage to show up, and it looks like I got lucky that it showed up at all. When I needed to actually use suitcases, I've been using really old suitcases my parents had long ago (before the advent of wheels, telescoping handles, and shoulder straps). One of them developed a gouge in the lid; the other lost its handle — with the tracking information on it — so I'm lucky I got that suitcase at all, and the both, I'm realizing just now, lost the identification cards we attached to the handles.

All Day 1 Photos

We got checked into the hotel in Seatac. We're not even there for half an hour and my Dad's already made arrangements for us to take a tour with one of the local tour operators. They must have already been on their way to pick other people up and we just lucked out, because the tour van got there about 15 minutes later.

The tour, conducted by a retired Seattle firefighter named Tom, was relatively interesting, and certainly entertaining. My Mom later commented that the city itself was relatively clean; we didn't actually notice any litter anywhere (save for under the sewer grates, which had thousands upon thousands of cigarette butts).

The second or third stop on the tour was the Pike Place Market, which is the oldest continually-operated public farmer's market in the US. The street level was primarily occupied by a number of different fishmongers and seafood venders, local produce vendors, and flower arrangement shops with huge bouqets of very pretty flowers.

Later, we stopped at Commodore Park, which included the Ballard Locks which connect Lakes Washington and Union to the Puget Sound, and an adjacent salmon fish ladder. The fish ladder was pretty neat, since it was designed such that you could view the steps both from above and from the side. We saw a great many salmon, but the good show of fish jumping six feet out of the water apparently isn't until later in the summer when a different variety of salmon returns to spawn.

We returned back to our hotel after five hours of touring around and went to eat dinner at a local place, Dave's Diner. The "help wanted" sign should have set off warning bells, but I guess we were too hungry to think about it. The food itself was great — I had a teriyaki hamburger (hamburger + pineapple ring + teriyaki sauce) — but i don't think I've ever seen such slow service before. After that back to the hotel for sleep — barring a couple of short naps, I'd been up 22 hours.

Current Music: The Hut On Staffin Island / Johnny Wilmot's Fiddle / Frank's Reel-The Syncopaths-Rough Around The Edges