Taking Rob to the land of Starbucks. And Frasier. And Microsoft.

Wow. What a cool, cool, awesome, cool (if maybe a little warm) weekend. For those of you not quite "in the loop", Rob came out to Seattle this weekend to visit us.

On Friday Rob left work around 11:30 for the trek to Midway airport (first time there!). Went smoothly, though the Orange Line train stops so far away from the actual airport that they should have another train running between the two. Rob felt like he was in an old McDonalds commercial with MJ & Larry Bird... "Up the stairs, over the bridge, through the parking garage, down the walkway, through the doors,... nothing but net." Since Rob had taken advantage of Southwest's online checkin, once he was through security he had quite a bit of time to kill. Checked out the Battle of Midway exhibit for a bit, got some grub, then eventually got onto the plane for the first leg of the trip... Oakland!

California in his little universe now consists of a hotel, a couple of restaurants, and TWO airports (it was just one airport before this weekend). He hung out at the Oakland airport for a bit longer than he wanted to since his flight to Seattle was delayed by like an hour and a half. By the time he finally got to Seattle (around 9:30 Pacific Time), it was dark and he couldn't see any of the cool sights from the air. However, I came out to pick Rob up in my way, way cool new car so it was a nifty ride from the airport to Duchek Inn West. Stayed up 'til 1 or so (I think) visiting and discussing plans for the rest of the weekend.

Saturday morning(ish) we got up, and BD & Rob headed out to one of the local farmer's markets so he could see what we keep raving about in all our e-mails to him. It's a very nice, small market, with maybe a couple dozen vendors selling everything from fresh fruits & veggies to flowers to crepes and donuts!

After some discussion and some lounging (this is vacation for Rob, after all!), we headed out to the Museum of Flight next to Boeing Field. OHMYGOD, Rob has found his west-coast paradise. He'll post pics later this week, but among the very many notable planes there were a Concorde (!), an old Air Force One (used by JFK among others), the prototype 747, the prototype 737, an M-21 Blackbird/D-21 combo (imagine an SR-71 Blackbird and its baby), an RQ-3A DarkStar recon drone, a bunch of WWII planes (including some REAL rarities!), and... okay, I'll shut up now. Wait for his pics. They're cool.

Following the museum I took us on a little tour of the Microsoft MSN campus. Wow. That so does NOT seem like a business... more like a college campus! It is absolutely amazing. Say all the bad stuff you want about Microsoft (Rob sure won't stop ya!), but they definitely do know how to make their employees comfy! We then went back to Chez Duchek and had dinner (I apparently made some really tasty lasagna!!!!) and Rob helped rearrange some furniture (or maybe that was Sunday... I don't remember). We watched some TV and talked until not terribly late (so as to get a bit of an earlier start the next day), then called it a day.

Sunday we started with a cool breakfast at a Southwestern-type place called Desert Fire. Not bad!! Then we stopped at Pike Place Market, which was really neat. All sorts of different shops and food places (including some very amusing fish-sellers). After that we took a two-hour boat tour of the lakes around Seattle. Got to see neat stuff like all the floating homes (including the one from Sleepless in Seattle... don't remember the movie that well, but I guess it made the house famous), Bill Gates' house (HUUUUGE!), the world's largest floating concrete structure (a bridge), and a ton of other nifty things.

After that, it was back to Duchek Inn West for more lasagna and a relaxing evening of TV and talkin'. Couldn't stay up too late 'cuz it was a school night.

Monday morning we got up early and Rob said g'bye to BD as he went out for a pre-work run. I gave Rob a ride to the airport (in the kewl car!) before heading back to work. We hit NO traffic (unexpectedly... traffic in Seattle sucks ass), so we got to the airport in plenty of time to catch his plane... especially considering that it was 45 minutes late! He got a fantastic view of Mount Rainier on the way out of town. Took a couple of pics of it (which he'll post later). Made it to Vegas, where he had just about enough time to get off the plane, walk down three gates, and get in line for the flight to Chicago. So much for his first trip to Las Vegas being all exciting! He'd been hoping to at least have a chance to walk around the airport a bit. Oh well.

Anyway, on the way out of Vegas Rob was treated to a beautiful overhead view of the Grand Canyon. Truly spectacular. No pics, unfortunately, as he couldn't reach his camera (it was too far under the seat in front of him). Well, despite leaving Las Vegas almost half an hour late, he still made it in to Chicago on time. Pilot-boy must'a been pourin' on the coal or caught a nice tailwind or something. After an hour and a half or so of train rides, he finally walked back in the door at home.