Postcards from Seattle: Gas Works

I'm a bit behind.  It happens.

A few weeks ago we went exploring in Seattle, and all roads pointed towards the Wallingford neighborhood, home of Gas Works Park, which used to be--I kid you not--a gasification plant.  Now industry and recreation have come together, and I happen to love the combo.  It's clear we weren't alone in loving the park or the beautiful weather.

I was most enchanted with the spring daisies sprinkled all over the park.  If you ignored the industrial elements, it could have been a scene out of The Sound of Music.

We headed up to the top of a hill in the park, and saw a few really awesome views:



  



All in all, Gas Works turned out to be a pretty awesome park!

Postcards form Seattle: We Like Pike

What do truffle oil, harissa pasta, clam chowder, and strawberry balsamic ice cream have in common? 

Seattle!

Several weeks ago the Goodlaffs decided to take advantage of a brief break in the torrential rain to get out and be tourists in our city.  I like to think we did pretty well.

We started at the Space Needle, and found an Angry Bird ready to launch at the evil space piggies. Apparently, it was a promo for the launch of the new Angry Birds Space game (which is awesome--just sayin'.)

The Space Needle was a part of the 1962 World's Fair, and is celebrating 50 years of being awesome, so the Seattle Center is doing a lot of revamping and remodeling to celebrate such a big anniversary. One of the new exhibits coming in is a blown glass greenhouse garden featuring glass artist Chihuly.  The glass is starting to go up.  It's not even done yet, and already it looks cool.



We walked from the Space Needle to Pike Place Market.  We explored the stalls, bought fancy gourmet pasta (harissa-flavored, which was really good!), saw some flying fish, and got suckered in to buying some truffle oil (which is amazing--we are so gourmet).  All the food made us hungry, so we paused for lunch at Pike Place Chowder.  I firmly believe that only real way to eat clam chowder is from a bread bowl:

Right after lunch (and I wouldn't recommend this order of events), we popped down Post Alley to see the Gum Wall.  It was artfully disgusting, or disgustingly artful--I'm not sure which.

We paused on our way back to the Seattle Center to admire some strange plumbing:

And by the time we got back to the Space Needle, the clouds had disappeared and we headed up in the Needle for some seriously great views of the city! Looking towards Lake Union:

Then Downtown with Mt. Rainier peeking out in the background:



We ended our day with a quick trip up to Capitol Hill, where we grabbed ice cream cones (Strawberry Balsamic and Thai Tea) from Molly Moon's.  Tasty!

We are loving exploring our city.  There's so much to see and do--I don't think we'll ever get bored!

Wheezy: Roadblocks

Well, friends, I'm Wheezing it up, but not in a good way.  The training schedule I had so painstakingly laid out?  Totally shot to hell. 

We started running, and that's when it all fell apart. I wasn't stretching well enough before we went, so my leg started hurting halfway through our runs.  After the pain kept up, I took a day off to rest.  The next day it began dumping down rain. 

Then I got a cold. Then Mr. Goodlaff got a cold.  And then, and then, and then.  It hasn't been good.  My cold didn't last as long as the last one, but it seriously affected my lung capacity; I was out of breath walking the 20 feet from my desk to the printer.  Then Mr. Goodlaff got sick.  Then came two weeks of torrential, very cold rain.  The running and the walking completely stopped.

Training in Seattle isn't for sissies, which apparently we are. 

We are slowly getting back on the road again.  We are back to walking, and sometime this week, there will probably be running.  We have just over four months to get to a running-ish shape, and I know we'll make it.  I just don't know if we will be able to run as much as we'd like. 

Well. You know what they say--the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.