Vacation Wrap Up

It’s Monday and I’m back home so let’s wrap up the rest of the vacation. Saturday after Friday’s pub crawl was a long day. We checked out of the hotel and headed to Pike Place Market. Being Saturday it was bustling, I took what should turn out to be great shots; there is just so much character in public markets.We hung around the market and shops until lunch time where we went to Pike Brewing. So I could sample the rest of their beer. We toured the brewery on Friday but only got to taste one beer due to time constraints. Heather ordered her first beer of the whole week since they had Lindeman’s Framboise on tap. In my sampler I had the Pale Ale, IPA, Kilt Lifter Scotch Ale, Nutty Nellie, Bootleg Brown, and Old 89 Porter.Walking around Pikes we ran into Ed and Jennifer from the Beer Cruise, I thought it was odd running into the beer cruisers on a ship with 2000 people but again in the city of Seattle was strange. When we were leaving Pikes we ran into Ryan and Amanda, another couple that was on the beer cruise, granted this was in a brew pub so it wasn’t as weird, but it still was a little. Then on the way up the stairs we ran into another beer cruise couple, this is when I started to thing that we were taking over the city!After Pike’s we walked around the market and downtown Seattle a little more. In our journey we checked out a pawn shop. I never really looked around in one before, the most amusing part of it was that he was selling 3 year old electronics for $20 less than it’s retail price when it was brand new. So needless to say there was no great deals in there, except for maybe the night vision scope, that would if been cool.We also passed Gameworks and wow, that’s a lot of video games. It was at least double the size of the Dave and Busters we have in Pittsburgh. They had some really cool games. They had an Indy racing game where you got in a car which had a rather larger range of motion. There was also this vertical reality system this a where your seat is mounted on a 20 foot tall track and has a 20 foot tall screen, your seat moves up and down the track as you play. They also had a mechanical bull, I’m sure that’s fun once you are drunk.Too bad that Heather and I stopped at the pawn shop and Gameworks, it made us miss a car fire that was just put out, Talk about a missed photo op :(I would have never thought that the six-pack that I bought would feel so heavy after carrying it a few miles. Heather and I went back to the hotel to drop off the beer. We decided to head up to the Elysian Publichouse again since it was within walking distance and we only had a few hours left till we needed to catch our flight. About 5 minutes after we sat down, Ryan and Amanda walked in the door, ok this was just getting spooky. This time at Elysian I had 2 beers that I didn’t have the day before, I had the Jasmine IPA, and their Dragontooth Stout.All four of us then left together, if we were going to keep running into each other, we might as well go together right? Our next stop was the Comet Bar. It was a dive bar that had a very good beer selection, almost 10 micro drafts and more in the bottle. The same style bar in Pittsburgh would only have Iron City, IC Light, Bud, Bud Light, and Coors Light. So needless to say I’m insanely jealous of beer drinkers in the Pacific Northwest.After we left the Comet, we stopped in the Six Arms Tavern. They were another brewpub not 10 blocks from Elysian. We ate dinner and had a few beers. After that it was time to head to the hotel and wait for our ride to the airport.On the way to the airport we passed Boeing Field could see the Blue Angels Performance Jets parked there. They were performing at Sea Fair in Seattle over the weekend. We could hear them when we were at Pike Place Market. Next was Mt. Rainier. When taking the highway to the airport, they built part of it so when you are leaving town Mt. Rainier was smack dab right in front of you and it certainly is a sight to see.Once we got to the airport we checked our baggage, they were sticklers about the weight, one of the bags was 8 pounds over and were going to charge us $25 if we couldn’t get rid of the weight. There were people in line behind us and the lady wouldn’t take them while we were rushing to take clothes from the heavy bag and putting them in other bags. Luckily on my first try I got the bag down to 50.0, yay, it fits. The ironic thing is that the limit for carryon luggage was 40 lbs and both of my beer bags were over that, but they didn’t ever weigh the carryon bags, thank god, because there was no other place to distribute the weight to.The Flight left Seattle at 23:20 PDT and arrived in Pittsburgh around 6:20 EDT. I didn’t get much sleep, my seat wouldn’t recline, either it was broken or if the guy behind me had the Knee Defender. I don’t think he had his try table down, but there was something on the left side of the chair that was squeaky, so I thought that if he was using a knee defender, I should make sure to squeak the seat loudly and frequently.On the approach to Pittsburgh I could actually identify where we were and could see my parents house, every time I’ve flown I always try to identify where we are, and of course you try to see your house, this was the first time that I ever came in from far enough north to see near my parents house.We landed got our bags, went to breakfast with my family, went home, greeted the dog who was super excited to see us, and went to bed.