Hubby was in California for the weekend, at the AOPA Aviation Summit in Long Beach. He and two other pilot friends flew down in a private plane (this will be important later). So Andrea and I made plans that involved Picasso and Harry Potter. Two things that Hubby has absolutely no interest in.
Our plan:
Friday night - Andrea would get the West Coast Express from Downtown to our place. Dinner while we watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Saturday morning - early start, use NEXUS to cross border, Picasso Exhibit at noon, lunch, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in the IMAX theatre at 420pm, Harry Potter Exhibition at 700pm, then grab dinner on the drive home.
Both Picasso and Harry Potter were timed exhibits, you buy your ticket for a particular time slot, and you must enter no later than 20 mins after your assigned time.
Umm, so things didn't quite go like that. Why not? Let's see, shall we?
Friday Mistake #1 - bought noon tickets to Picasso, but couldn't print them. The printers run through the desktop, the desktop died before hubby left for California, he didn't have time to do anything about it. Called the Seattle Art Museum, they refunded the tickets.
Friday Mistake #2 - Andrea and I decide not to worry about buying any of our tickets online, we'll just wing it.
Friday Mistake #3 - Andrea arrives at our place and discovers no passport. She has to go back downtown to get it (about an hour each way)
Friday Mistake #4 - after Andrea got back with her passport, we went ahead and watched Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Meaning we went to sleep kind of later than planned. Which led to...
Saturday Mistake #1 - slept in. Left home later than planned around 830am
Saturday Mistake #2 - not really a mistake. Andrea doesn't go to Seattle often so hasn't had a need for a Nexus card. We had to wait in the regular line up - that wait was 90+ minutes.
Saturday Mistake #3 - we arrived into Seattle later than planned, so decided to skip Picasso and just have lunch and go Harry Potter at the Pacific Science Center. We parked at PSC and walked down to Pike Place Market. Remember we hadn't pre-purchased our tickets. From the car park to the Pike Place, we walked right pass the PSC, why didn't we stop in and buy our tickets then? No idea. We are not stupid, really!
Saturday Mistake #4 - Pike Place was crowded - of course it was, it was a Saturday and the weather was good. Couldn't find the Pike Place Brewery. (it was like a block from where we were standing). Walked up to Rock Bottom Brewery instead. Should have just asked some where Pike Place Brewery was, it would have saved us 20 mins of walking.
Saturday Mistake #5a and b - after lunch we a) stopped into Anthropologie. That wouldn't have been so bad expect b) I decided to buy a necklace and we had to wait in the really slow cash line up. It took like 10 minutes. Should have just left it and bought it online. Except they charge a fortune for shipping.
Saturday Mistake #6 - back at PSC, we join the line up to buy tickets to the IMAX movie and the exhibition. They had 4 automatic ticket machines that we ignored. I didn't have a US credit card on me which meant couldn't activate the AT&T card in my iPad. So we waited for the human ticket seller. The couple in front of us, bought the last two tickets for the exhibition. Every single time slot for the exhibition for Saturday was now sold out.
Lesson learned - if we had have done any ONE of the following we would have been earlier enough to still get tickets for Saturday:
- get up earlier or
- buy our tickets when we parked the car or
- had lunch at Pike Place instead of walking up to Rock Bottom Brewery or
- Not waiting to pay for necklace at Anthropologie or
- Used my iPad or the automated ticket machines to buy our tickets
Oh well. After some umming and ahhing we settled on going to see the IMAX movie. And luckily we didn't think about that for too long, because that sold out too just a few minutes later. We also decided that we would stay the night, and see both the HP and the Picasso Exhibition on Sunday. And finally we did something right. We bought our HP ticket then and there before we went into the movie. Tickets to the 10am entry, the first entry of the day.
The rest of the night went smoothly. Found a hotel near the Science Center with free breakfast and free parking and even better free toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, soap and shampoo. Had Mexican for dinner and did some shopping at Macy's.
Sunday was going swimmingly, we'd been to Harry Potter and Picasso (more about those later), eaten lunch, done a little more shopping and had just got on the I5 to head for the border. Remember how I said hubby had flown to California in a friends plane and that it would be important later? Well know it's important. This is the series of texts Hubby sent:
325pm: In Sacremento. Figuring out flights or cards to get home. Bad wx (weather) ahead.
328pm: Is Andrea with you? You have the Yaris? We're looking at 11pm flight in SEA (Seattle airport)
332pm: We (3 guys) have a suitcase each, plus small bag. I don't think we'd fit. I'll let you know in 10 min. Steve is trying to book.
401pm: Flights sold out. We're out of plans. Might be driving home.
403pm: We looked at everything. Even renting a car here (Sacramento) and driving to SFO (San Francisco)
410pm: (you and Andrea) Head home. We're going to figure something out.
420pm: Call Me
Out come of the phone call was... Hubby and Steve rented a car in Sacrament and would drive to Seattle. They'd return the car to Seattle airport, I'd get a hotel and wait for them and drive them the rest of the way from Seattle to Vancouver in time for Steve to be at work. Why don't they drive all the way to Vancouver? Because if you have a Canadian Drivers License you cannot take a US registered car across the border.
Andrea needed to get back to Vancouver so she opted for the 600pm quick shuttle from Seattle back to Vancouver. I found a hotel at the airport, had some dinner and then tried to sleep.
728pm: In Redding CA now. Showing about 8-9 hours to SEATAC (they'd already been driving for 3 hours). In Seattle between5-6am.
419am: Wakeup.We're a block away. Getting gas, then we'll be at room.
Needless to say I didn't here that last message at 419am. I was fast asleep. The first I knew they had arrived was when hubby was in the room turning on all the lights and telling me to get up.
We had breakfast, returned their car and were on the road by 6am and back home just before 9am. I went to bed and hubby went to buy a new computer.
