Only Four Times a Year

"We only get a perfect day like this about four times a year," Mary glowed.

We were walking along the waterfront in Edmonds and it was, indeed a perfect day.

It had started a couple of hours earlier, having breakfast at the hotel with Ellen and Rob, our last chance to have breakfast together (the hotel does not have a crab option on its breakfast buffet!).  The two of them were headed south to Portland, where Rob was going to be judging a stamp show.  They wanted to go by way of Mt. St. Helen's and so they wanted an early start.

Mary came to the hotel and at 9:30, we loaded them into their car, had our hugs all around and they were off.

Walt and I finished our packing and checked out of the hotel, then we met Mary over by the water and went for a walk.  We decided this would be preferable than trying to "do something" or "go somewhere."  And it was.  It was a gorgeous day, sunny, warm, but with a cool breeze, so you didn't overheat.  The sky was blue and the air was clear and you could see across Puget Sound to the Olympic Mountains.

The path we were walking is beautiful, with many planter boxes, all a riot of color.

When we got to the end, where all the boats were, we saw this guy, who looked like a modern day version of Gulley Jimson, from Joyce Carey's novel "The Horse's Mouth."

We finally headed back to Anthony's restaurant, where we ate outside.

No crab on the menu, but the fish and chips were delicious.  Mary and Walt tried to figure out how bad the traffic was going to be on our trip to the airport.

We finally said our goodbyes to Mary and headed out toward SeaTac airport.  Yes, traffic was bad, but not that bad, and it had the perk of gorgeous views of Mt. Ranier ahead, along side, and peeking through the trees at times.

(if you look above the mountain you can see an airplane headed in for a landing at the Boeing air 

field, I assumed)

We filled the rental car with gas and turned it in, then headed off to the airport itself for our 6:30 flight.  Oh how trusting we were...  I loved our welcome to the concourse:

When we arrived at the gate, we found that the time the flight had been delayed to 7:30.  I was in a wheelchair again (I am now officially a card-carrying disabled person, for that flight anyway)

We had to go through security, of course, and what a mess that turned out to be.  My boarding pass indicated I was prescreened, so could bypass all of the removing shoes, etc.  Walt's was not.  So there we were in the prescreen line, he's pushing me, and the TSA agent insisted he had to go through another line.  I asked her who was going to push me.  They did let him push me out of the way, but then we had to go through the x-ray screening and because Walt came through the non-prescreen line and he was pushing me, they had to unpack MY suitcase because of the computer in it.  TSA agents have no sent of humor.

But we finally arrived at the gate and then the delay messages started arriving.  It seemed that every 30 minutes or so there would be another message that our flight was being delayed.  The plane was coming from Las Vegas and I don't know what the problem in Vegas was, but the last delay put our new departure time at 8:30.  

We had peanuts and pastry from Starbucks for dinner (I had a muffin, Walt had a cheese Danish)

I sat in the damn wheelchair for about five hours and spent the time finishing my book ("The Rosie Effect") and occasionally taking sneak pictures of people around, like a guy with the best moustache I'd seen in a long time, and two little girls who were the cutest kids ever.  I didn't get a good shot of the bald woman in the Buddhist robe, pacing back and forth in her Adidas.  She smiled at me whenever she passed me.

We finally arrived home sometime around 10, and just in the nick of time since the battery was almost out on my Kindle, on my cell phone, and on my iPod.  The 'perk' if there is one, of all the delays is that it was "cooler" when we got home, though since it had been 107 during the day, 99 wasn't all that cool.  

The dogs were happier than usual to see us.  I figured that our disappearance so soon after Sheila's must have been a bit disconcerting for them.

So it's all over.  I had considered not going at all and am SO glad that I changed my mind.  It was a perfect mini vacation.  Thanks, Mary!!!