my brother and his girlfriend staci came by for the second annual hang out during st. patrick's day (the last one we went to dublin for a very cool but very cold, guiness filled experience).now, if you look close enough at the buildings in this picture~~^
you'll see one black building thats taller than all the rest of them (if you follow my brother's head straight up. he's the one in the middle). that's the one that i signed up my brother and myself to climb on the morning after st. patrick's day. there were two categories: the take your time, and the timed race. why would anyone take their time climbing 1,300 stairs? after about the 30th flight, i looked back and thought that my brother was going to die. i gave him a good three days (all of them work days for him) to train and prepare for it, so expectations where a bit unknown. and the team we were signed up for had a group of guys that are climbing the tallest mountain peaks in the world (and just returned from kilimanjaro? could be way off, but one of those). he came through strong though in 16 minutes. nice job.
we got this seattle pass were we did everything that i've always wanted to do in seattle but never did. it was definitely worth it. one of the coolest things i have ever seen:
i have no idea why but i could look at these guys for a long long time. little cows. little cows that look like pandas. a few of my friends have not been impressed by this and i feel like i'm taking crazy pills.so after the seattle sites, we though a quick trip to canada was in order. pretty much consisted of random places, strange people, and me making a fool of myself. along the way we spent a night in port angeles, which for its impressive location of right at the base of the olympics and on the water, is a town with not much to do. we thought before dinner we would do some bowling and apparently we were the only ones that had that idea:
i think it was the only time in my life where we were the only people in a bowling alley. the only other person there was the bartender. i just don't see how a bowling alley in port angeles could be profitable.in victoria we did a lot of hanging out. with the butchart gardens, where my brother had the great idea of buying and planting giant maple trees in las vegas. until he found out that you couldn't take those seeds back to the u.s. probably the thing that we shouldn't have done was the underwater observatory right in the victoria harbor area. my uneducated guess of octopi is that they live the hermit life. so when the sign says "no divers show/feeding today", it should really say "you won't be seeing an octopus today". we didn't see one. but we did go to the creepy wax museum! i would agree with my friend ryan, it might not have been the wisest choice of location for the torture scenes. right next to the disney and kid scenes. a little further down the walkway we saw a child still traumatized by the display of torture. he didn't want to walk past christopher columbus. although, maybe the more fitting place for him would be in the torture room.
it was really good to see the family and i'm liking the travel somewhere on st. patrick's day tradition. staci says the next place has to be warm (after ireland and canada she is ready for a hotter location), but for some reason i equate adventure to cold. i'll have to work on that...after i go to antarctica.
have a good day
your friend
chad.
