We landed at Sea-Tac early on the morning of December 18 after an overnight flight from Tokyo. We had heard rumors of some impending snowstorms, but were not quite prepared for the sight that greeted us. For those of you not from the Northwest, Seattle doesn’t really get a lot of snow, but when it does the city becomes pretty much immobilized. Our city has a lot of hills and not a lot of snow-removal equipment, which is not the best combination. So, our planned ride home from the airport wisely stayed home on top of Capitol Hill and we found ourselves at baggage claim with yet another transportation challenge: how to get home in the snow with all of our stuff. And this was how we found ourselves crammed onto a standing-room-only #194 Metrobus heading into Seattle with our packs at our feet. We ended up standing right next to a couple that had just spent three months in SE Asia, so we had a great time trading stories and barely noticed the one-hour-plus ride along random side streets (because I-5 was a no-go) into downtown Seattle.
Once we were dropped off at Fourth & University, the new challenge became finding a bus up Capitol Hill. Typically this is an easy task, but the buses were not running on a typical schedule and we were carrying more than our typical load. Eventually we caught a #10 up to Broadway and then walked the remaining six blocks up the hill to our apartment. It was quite the adventure, but worked out just fine and we both felt it was a fitting conclusion to our four-month adventure. If we weren’t ready to be contestants on the Amazing Race before that leg of our journey, we certainly are now!
It was wonderful to finally walk into our cozy apartment that had been well tended by Allison while we were away and decorated beautifully for Christmas by Dan’s parents just before our arrival. As I write this, my backpack still sits in my bedroom untouched since we got home. It will take some time before I am ready to even look at its contents again. While the snow in Seattle has created some roadblocks to seeing friends and family, we were successful in driving down to Portland with Dan’s parents to celebrate an early Christmas at his sister Karen’s house. After three nights in Portland, we caught a window of good weather yesterday, headed back north on I-5, and are now safely back in our apartment in Seattle.
Rocking out to Rock Band with Karen and John in Portland
Thank you to everyone who followed our blog and for all of your good wishes and greetings. We loved hearing from all of you while we were away and can’t wait to see many of you in person very soon. We wish you the happiest and warmest of holidays!