The first border crossing, Fire ball and Giants..

After 4 months in Whistler we and a few friends decided it was time to leave the bubble we'd been in and go on a bit of a road trip! We decided to rent a van, cross over the border and visit Seattle..just for something different.

The road trip begins

After picking up the wheels for the trip, the 7 of us crammed into the people mover and hit the road.The road trip was half the fun of it and even though the 5 hr trip took us about 9hrs by the time we had stopped at just about every fast food place on the way, we did finally make it to Seattle.


The border crossing was also quite eventful..  we weren't entirely sure where we were heading or which lane to get into as we were coming up to the border, there were 3 lanes, two weren't moving anywhere and one was flowing freely.. we must've missed the signs that told us which was which and we jumped into the free flowing lane. It wasn't until we were about 100m from the border that we realised the lane we were in was for Nexus holders (which is like an etoll i guess for the people and lets people who regularly cross the border, cross quicker). We realised our mistake, saw a gap in the bollards seperating the two lanes and jumped across to the correct lane..avoiding about a 2 hour wait. We all felt like the guards were going to come get us or that the people waiting in the queue behind us would jump out with baseball bats.. but the rest of the crossing was uneventful and after surrendering our finger prints, we made it across unscathed!

The weather there was rather depressing to say the least, but we were all so happy to be out doing something different that it definitely didnt damper our spirits.

After arriving and getting all dolled up, we chatted to the concierge and tried to work out what to do on our first night in town. We ended up dining at a little Thai restaurant and ordered a few bottles of wine.. that wasnt enough though appararently so Tim made his way down to the liquor store and bought a bottle of fireball and we were all doing shots at the table... After paying the bill, taking most of the free lollipops from the jar on the front desk and leaving seductive notes on the bill, we left and headed to the bottle shop for another bottle (or two) of fireball.

  

Drunken shenanigans on the way to the bowling alley

We took our paper bag goods and the shot glasses the cashier at the liquor store had so kindly given to us, an started to make our way to the bowling alley. It probably ended up taking us about an hour to wander there due to unexpected events including a pretend 'wedding', car parking assistance, silliness with traffic cones, chin ups, fairy lights and a lot more fireball shots along the way! After we finally made it to the bowling alley, we realised how much fun bowling was and how good it felt to be doing something different! We didn't last very long though as the fire ball shots kinda caught up on us pretty quickly but it was a fun night none-the less.

We woke up the next morning and eagerly went down to free breakfast at the hotel before heading outdoors (with umbrellas this time) and making our way to the EMP music museum. The museum was amazing, there were displays on the history of Nirvana and Jimmy Hendrix, as well as a huge statue of guitars, a room where you could play and record music on guitar, keyboard and drums (and i manage to work out the riff to Jump by Van Halen which was awesome!) It sadly reminded us how much we missed playing music at home.. the piano and guitars that we left behind..

After the music museum we caught the monorail over the Pike Place market and the first ever Starbucks! The Starbucks was packed but we managed to get a photo outside it.. just to show that we'd been there! The Market was also pretty cool and had lots of arts and craft stands as well as a huge food section with lots of fresh fish and seafood. There were some MASSIVE crabs and fish and the guys entertained us by throwing the fish around between all of us, barely missing our faces!

The 'gum wall'

After walking around town for the day and making our mark on the 'bubble gum wall', we headed back to the hotel and chilled out in the hot tub and pool area for the night!


Then it was time to start the journey back to the north.. We jumped back in the van and headed down to the water front for a walk before the long  trip home..

We stopped in Vancouver to pick up some groceries and other goods and then headed to the Giants game.
We had decided to get dressed up for the game, so after buying our painting onsies and spray painting letters on them in the car park, we headed into the stadium.

We were sitting directly behind one of the goals and made a big effort to make it onto the big screen as much as possible!! We looked cool.. so cool that one of the organises came up to us just before the 2nd intermission and asked if we wanted to be park of the entertainment and ride around the ice on a ute! We were stoked so ..but sadly there was only enough space for the girls. We realised that without the boys; we spelled "GAS!" so made sure we sat on the back of the van this way! We met one of the teams managers, who offered us free tickets to the next game if we promised to dress up, and Jack, the team mascot, before our 5 minutes of fame on the ice!

After the game, we all jumped back in the van and it was back to 'reality'.

BUNGEEE!!!

Those of you that know me would know how exctied I was when I saw this sign posted in our staff room at work..

Bungee would have to be one of those things I’ve always wanted to do but never really had the chance to do and what an opportunity it was at $10!

So it was real, I was going to jump off a bridge, the only thing I needed to figure out was how to best  capture the moment! The GoPro was the obvious choice, but I had to work out how to hold it to get the best angle and of course, not drop it into the river below!  One of the guys from work though had set up a pretty sweet pole, so after hed jumped and his go-pro had survived,  we swapped our go-pros over, I strapped it to my hand (although i think strapped is probably a bit of an understatement) and I was so ready to go.

We were a pretty big group so I stood around for what felt like hours watching the rest of the crew jump before it was finally my turn and the harness and bungee were attached to me! The nerves didn't really kick in until the guy told me to walk out to the edge and put my toes on the edge.. it was then that I realized what I was actually doing!  I looked down, said a few choice words and jumped..

To say i liked it is a bit of an understatement; it was the biggest adrenalin rush I think i've ever had and was definitely one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I was totally buzzing when I got to the top and asked if I could jump again; sadly there was a group after us so we didn't have time, but I think I'm hooked so there will defiantely be a next time... apparently if you jump naked you get the jump for free!.. something to think about!

Rhys made me a cool video too, which you can check out at https://vimeo.com/60214252