Seattle - part 4

At the appt. Dr had mentioned an ice cream that was gluten and casein free. She was raving about it, but as anyone knows - it's not easy to find a truly dairy free ice cream. She pointed us in the direction of the market that sells it and we headed off. This ice cream was GOOD! All organic, natural ingredients and made of coconut milk. Coconut Bliss - good thing it's pricey and only sold at a store that we never go to here. Or else we might be addicted to coconut ice cream.

Anyhow, everyone was hungry and no one was willing to settle on a shared pint of ice cream for dinner. We asked ROSEY to show us what was in the area to eat.

ok Tim here to tell you about rosy. So we start driving deciding that we want japanese food. Rosy has a "points of interest" feature that will give you things near you to look up. So Tara starts looking up japan food. We see one and "hmmm..looks kinda shady" so we skip the closest one we see. Now, it is raining, dark, and we are in a section of Seattle that reminds me of some sections of LA. Probably 50 or 60 years old, some streets that are pretty narrow, especially on the side streets. So we pick a place and ask rosy for directions. "right turn in .4 miles" ok...cool. DING DONG just as we past the street where we should turn. DAMN! "calculating route" thanks. "right turn" so I make that one onto a side street. "right turn on so and so drive" I get to it and it is a different street name. But rosy is dinging so I take the turn. 'left turn in 1 mile" she is taking me back to the main street that I missed the first time. We get there and it is VERY busy, I'm coming out of a side street so I have no signal to stop traffic for me. So I'm going "there is no way I can make a left here", 6 o'clock traffic on a Friday night. Now all the back seat drivers are starting to giggle and give opinions. So I make a right turn and figure that I'll go down and turn around eventually making the left that Rosy wanted me to make.
So I go down to make my u-turn and Rosy is saying over and over "calculating route". She is easily confused if you do not follow her directions. I am waiting for her to say "Will you please just follow my directions!" like my 8th grade typing teacher. Now the opinions and giggles are getting louder from the cast of very experienced back seat drivers. So I head back out on the bearing that she wanted me to make the left for. Suddenly before I am back to where she was taking me in the first place "right turn" WHAT?? Now you have changed your mind?? I'm going the way you wanted me to 3 minutes ago! Then I realize that she has recalculated route. So against my better judgement and mumblings I make the turn as the people in the car are really starting to get their kicks out of this face off between Dad and Rosy.
So now I am headed down a street where we came from the doctor originally. I know this is not where I want to be. The people in my car are mixing in laughter, suggestions about where to turn (mostly on the side of rosy) and some minor grumbling about hunger. "OK, this is ridiculous. I'm going back to 85th street where she wanted me in the first place. That puts us back on track for the hotel anyway. I'm not going down anymore long and winding roads!" Laughter at my frustration and shouts for support of Rosy. ha ha. Thank you all for your confidence. So I turn around and head back for 85th which is where she wanted me to make that impossible left turn. "calculating route" Whatever. Just wait until I get where I want to be and then calculate OK? "right urn in .4 miles" (before I get to 85th) and I tell rosy with much defiance and frustration in my voice " NO! I'm not doing that!" Of course the car erupts with laughter and I had to giggle too. I was winning my battle with Rosy. So I get to 85th and from there it was one simple turn on another major street and we were at our destination. Teriyaki something or other. Looked like a a converted donut shop. OK This is it. You wanted it, we are going here! So I pay 35 bucks for fast Japan food that was the worst I have had. I did not know fried rice could be so terrible. This is my reward for going head to head with rosy, in the rain, in a strange town in the dark with my family rooting against me. Sort of. Over all, it was very entertaining. For them....I guess I had to laugh too. It was a simple route back to he hotel. I already knew my way and did not want an opinion from rosy. Thank God that ice cream was waiting in he car for us!

I knew he had SOOOO many more details in his brain about that night than I do. Yes, we were laughing at him arguing with a GPS, but we also knew that at any point his frustration would take over and without a word would head back to the hotel with no dinner. The next morning we got up and checked out as early as possible. We were leaving Seattle, but no before we visited a couple of tourist attractions.

This is how we roll: it felt a little ghetto - does it look it???

Remember our parking nightmare at Pike market? This time we were determined to find a place. We went back to the same parking lot that we didn't fit into before. Only this time it was mostly empty and we Tim could maneuver the car around into a spot.

Course we hit up the first ever Starbucks. I stayed outside with Snoopy where he attracted quite the attention. I think the overwhelmingness of the situation started here for Snoops.

Pike Market was fun. Crowded and crazy, but fun. I so wish that I had a market like this to go to whenever I wanted for fresh produce and fish.

One last stop before we left Seattle - the space needle. We had been looking at from across the city for the past couple of days so we promised the kids that we'd get a close up look. They wanted to go up in it. You won't get me up there, but maybe someday we'll go back and Tim and the two olders can check it out.

So - we decided not to drive home on Saturday because of the mountains that nearly swallowed us up two days before. It would have meant driving through them in the dark and if the conditions were the same that would not have been good. Tim decided that we would leave Seattle and drive to Portland to stay the night and head home the next day. We got to portland around 4:30, checked into our hotel and relaxed for a bit. We needed dinner and I couldn't see us spending the whole evening with the 5 of us in a hotel room. So we headed back into the city. This time we weren't gonna mess around with some unknown eatery. Outback was a safe choice. So, we continued our family togetherness in a booth at outback.

Here's where the story gets a little tense. I had been looking into getting Will a laptop lunch box for awhile. According to their website there are no retailers in ID that sell them - BUT there were lots in portland. There are a chain of stores in portland called, New Seasons. Really cool store, kind of like a whole foods but not. I won't go into the long drawn out details, but Tim and Rosey had an even harder time trying to find this store. It was horrible. I told Tim to just forget it and go back to the hotel because now I was starting to feel really bad that we were all going through this for a lunchbox! But we were so turned around and far from the hotel that he didn't want to give up. We finally found the store!!! It was not busy because it was about 9 pm. We looked around, I found the lunchbox but decided against because it was too expensive, and Tim found the service manager to talk about our pizza crusts. New Seasons is local to portland with 8 stores. We got information on who to contact about getting the crust into the store. The kids were getting a bit antsy. (I can't imagine WHY) I'm not sure exactly what happened because I was looking at something , but I knew the kids were messing around with each other. Then I heard a loud THUNK on the floor and Tim whisper yell - 'sh*t'! I ran over to see Will being peeled off the floor. He had tripped on his shoes or something and went head first onto the floor. Oh my gosh I was so scared for him! We took him to a chair and I sat with him while he cried and I worried about brain damage. The spot reddened and swelled right away by his temple above his left eye. You could also see little purple broken blood vessals. Tim ran to get some ice and of course it attracted the employees. I sat for awhile holding an ice pack on his head until I felt he was ok and wouldn't need a trip to the eR. Tim and I thanked God that his head didn't split open when he hit. Stitches in the er would not have gone well. for anyone. We left and found our way back to the hotel simply and in silence.

I lied, this wasn't the final leg of our trip. The next day was magnificent. But that's the next post.

Comments

[gramma jayne]

Holey Moley! If that would have been a trip me and Mike took with our 3 kids, it would've ended with me yelling my head off and Mike looking for the coldest 12 pack he could buy! and we would not have had a Rosey to help us find our way! You all are so brave!

[Pam Montazeri]

Gee, I feel bad for for giving Tim a bitchy side kick as a birthday gift! Rosey is supposed to help, not frustrate! That's a pretty funny story...but it has happened to us, too, on occasion. You just need to use common sense with those robots!
Poor Will...can you sue the store for pain and suffering??? It could but a lot of that yummy coconut ice cream!