Seattle

Greetings from Seattle! Our voyage has begun. We flew from Chicago to Seattle yesterday, arriving in Seattle approximately 45 minutes early. Our only "incident" involved the fact that since our package included first class seats on American Airlines, it showed that we were entitled to a "snack" onboard. Barb checked at the gate agent who confirmed that it would be a "snack" and not "lunch". It seemed a bit strange, but not flying first class very often, we bought a lunch and took it on board. Since our flight was to depart at 11:25 and was to arrive about 4 PM Chicago time, we knew we would be starved when we got to Seattle. Early in the flight we pulled out our lunches and the flight attendant told Barb her sandwich looked really good. Five minutes later, she came by asking for our choice in lunch! We felt a bit foolish but explained what we had been told and even showed her the itinerary. She was quite surprised at the fact it said "snack."

We enjoyed the evening with our cousins, Deb and Pete Keane, in Edmonds, WA. This morning they asked us what we would enjoy doing today, and having been to the top of the Space Needle and toured the city on other visits to Seattle, they suggested we might enjoy driving up to the town of LaConner where we could have lunch and visit the shops in town. The weather was perfect, and we commented that there was a lot of variety and many items were high quality at a reasonable price. However, our “real” last minute shopping was done at places like Costco and Walmart!

Tomorrow we meet our new home for the 67 days and will settle in on the ms Amsterdam. Much thanks goes to the Chicago Tribune, whose stock I had purchased in the 1980s and whose value had increased quite nicely before newspapers hit hard times. In late 2007, it went private and I decided to take the funds and spend it rather than reinvest it. Having always wanted to go to Australia but not wanting to fly that distance, we decided to take the cruise. A huge "thank you" to our friend and travel agent, Marcia Marcett, in the Joliet AAA office, who put in many hours making detailed arrangements. And thanks also to Dale Sandoval and Pam Floyd, our Lincoln-Way High School friends who have organized adult trips for teachers/friends and with whom we took our first cruise in 2004 to Alaska, followed by a cruise of the Baltic in 2006. Certainly we appreciate friends that are looking after our things at home: Pat Edgett who is receiving and sorting our forwarded mail, Rick Hammond who is checking our homes, neighbors, Sam and Sue Fiore and Gerry Werner for keeping an eye on our houses, and Jen Wozniak, Lincoln-Way sub caller, who we told we would be unavailable for so long, but who indicates she will be calling us again when we return.

Chuck