Vancouver to Seattle

Dick's notes are so good for today - I can't say it any better! :
Vancouver-disembark. Bus to SeaTac and Hertz

We experience our first day of steady rain.

I have breakfast with B&J, Room service for Nancy, walk down to the Wheelhouse about 7:30 to wait for Gold 1 to be called. (8:30) Leave boat but wait in a corridor for buses to return from airport.(9:30) Load bus, the door is sealed for border security, and begin the drive to Seattle. We are driving through very nice residential neighborhoods, not like main streets at all. The reason? Driver is lost. After two stops for him to read maps, I dig out Nuvi. It has trouble finding satellites.. John from San Francisco beats me to it.

Enter highway 99 to the border -10:30. Passenger in front is chilly, driver turns up heat, now the rest of the bus is an oven and the window is so fogged the driver can’t see out.

We get to the border at 11:05 and get in line behind a bus with WiFi. It takes over an hour to clear customs. We have folks on the bus with 12:15 and 1:45 planes to catch, they ain’t gonna make it. The nice thing about being behind a bus with WiFi is that the folks in front of us could log on and change their tickets for tomorrow.

When I attempt to take a picture of the US flag at the crossing, I discover that the camera is broken again. What is it with cruises with the Sniders and our camera?

The drive from the border to the airport takes over 2 hours. Once there, they drop us off at a special bus parking lot. Luckily, we got a chair for Nancy and a cart for me. All she had to do was ride and talk, all I had to do was follow Andrew. She tipped him $5 for the ride, I gave him $5 for leading the way. [We liked Andrew]

We got our tan Camry, loaded the bags in the trunk, the motel in the Nuvi, and away we go! We remember our last trip to Seattle when we drive past the Doubletree where we stayed and the Denny’s where we ate with Tom and Peter. We pull into the Comfort Inn and Suites–Airport and - - - the girl at the desk says we don’t have reservations!! What the HELL! I CHECKED THEM LAST NIGHT! It turns out that there is another Comfort Suites Inn-Airport that is in Tukwila.

When we go there, the place is in an uproar, everyone had to evacuate their rooms and a fire truck soon pulls into the drive. Some one burned up a bag of popcorn in a microwave. We don’t care, just give us a room and tell us where to eat. We have had nothing except a cereal bar since 6: this morning.

There is a Mall nearby where we order more than we can eat at Red Robin, ship our dirty cloths home by UPS, restock our library, and drive down the street to a Travel Bug Motel and launch our Washington coin. Back at the motel, the room is the best we’ve been in on the trip. Tomorrow is another day.