Bring on the Bro's

Since this was the last morning for Mom and Nick, we went out to breakfast to the one place that they wanted to go to before leaving the West coast...Jack in the Box. I thought this was funny, but I do have to say that it is my favorite fast food restaurant. We have eaten there a few times on the trip and it is the cheapest with the best food and options. Before we went there for breakfast we all went to the gym since the Doubletree had very nice facilities. Scott and Steve had gone out to wander the streets and feel the pulse of the city. The one problem was that we were nowhere near the city; in fact, we were 100 yds from the airport.

After a delicious breakfast, it was time for the final pack. Mom and Nick got everything together, then it was off to the airport. I was surprised at the size of the airport. For being a major city, there was only one terminal and all traffic had to enter on 2 lanes. Now even though this isn't a huge deal, it is still a factor when you are trying to decide where you may want to live. But regardless, it was goodbye for Mom and Nick. It was a great trip for the 3 of us to take, and definitely a change from our regular vacations. I would say it was a pleasant change because it was a lot of new experiences that we shared together. It was definitely a good time with them, but it was time for them to get back and do the final preparations before Nick heads off to U.D. I will miss both of them, but spending the past 3 weeks with Nick was definitely the most time we have spent together in a long time and it was a great time. I now know that he is ready to head to college.

Back at the hotel, I found Scott and Steve wired on ~10 cups of coffee all ready with goofy stories from their morning adventures. The story wasn't really that interesting, but I knew this would be the first of many ridiculous stories to be told during the next week. We packed up the car, which was super full, and I knew I needed to ship a bunch of things home. First stop was a UPS store to ship off extra stuff in the car. While, I was doing this, Scott and Steve went off on a geocache mission. I was hoping that this wouldn't become too common, but I guess we will see. After their find and my $80 shipping bill, it was off to the city.

We hadn't really planned too much for the day, but we tried last minute to get to the Seattle Sounders game. I wish this would have worked out, but after a couple attempts at scalping tickets, we gave up and decided to do some sight-seeing. We went to our hostel to check in early, then headed out for a run. A short run along the sound felt great. I went to get the oil changed and grab some lunch. We then took a quick ride to the REI flagship store, which put any EMS to shame. It was pretty awesome, but it was kinda what I expected. After that it was off to Pike Place and then got some dinner. We went out to a couple bars, one of which had a skee-ball table. I was absolutely awful for some reason and Scott and Steve loved every second of it. To quote Steve, "Oh my god, we finally found something that J-Mo sucks at." Haha, it was true. Scott was actually killing it, and for the first few rounds, we played with a bizzaro-Kane and Jess Louie couple.

After that, we called it a night and headed back to the hotel so we could get any early start on our drive over to Olympic National Park. This was our huge outdoor activity for the week so there was a lot of anticipation. Two of my bro's are with me now and at 6 AM tomorrow morning we start our journey to a 3 day, 34 mile hike...ULTRA. ULTRA day 21/39: COMPLETE.

JM