A few months ago, I got a text from my good ol' buddy Holly, who I have known since elementary school. She had found out that Poison and Def Leppard were doing a concert near where she lives in the Seattle area. Holly and me were both kind of metal heads back in high school, so she was wondering if I would want to come up to Seattle and make a weekend out of it. I told Preston it could be my birthday present, and so he agreed to hold down the fort while I headed out for a long overdue high school reunion with Holly and our friend Sandy, who now lives in Alaska.
I got up extra early for a Friday morning flight. It was weird to be on an airplane by myself...I haven't done that for a while! Holly met me at the airport, and it was funny that we were wearing the same outfit (a grey v-neck t-shirt and dark jeans). We hung around the airport for a bit, waiting for Sandy's flight. It was fun to see the girls again! I have been keeping track of them through social media and the occasional holiday visit when they would come back to Utah, but we hadn't been together for, like, a decade or something.
We headed into the city for lunch at a yummy little Mediterranean place downtown. It was so fun to hang out with these guys, they are the bestest! We did a little shopping, and then wandered around Pike's Place, where we picked up some hot, fresh donuts (yum!). We then headed over to the waterfront, where we decided to ride the big Ferris Wheel called the "Great Wheel of Seattle." We finally got around to taking a picture about now. Here we are:
We don't quite look as young as we did in high school, do we? But I think we are still cute. It started to rain while we were on the wheel, cuz, Seattle, but the view was still good from the top:
By the end of our turn, it was starting to clear up. We ate some more donuts in celebration:
After our fun ride, the girls humored me and we walked over to check out the Chihuly Glass Museum, which was near the space needle. I love to go to art museums and such, and I usually don't get the chance.
The museum was really cool! I was also very glad I hadn't brought my kids with me, since obviously everything in the museum was glass and therefore very breakable. I don't think it would have gotten along too well with Dax. Here is Holly and Sandy in front of an ocean-themed sculpture. It had glass fish, octopuses, etc. on it that were beautiful!
There were several pretty amazing large sculptures inside, and one room had a stunning ceiling all covered with colored glass shapes:
There was a sun room kind of thing that was really pretty also. You could look up through the ceiling and see the Space Needle:
There were also outside "gardens" with real plants mixed with glass "plants." It was pretty fun.
We watched a little glass blowing demonstration too, which was impressive. Before we knew it though, it was time to head out of town to the concert.
I got a first hand look at the Seattle traffic I had heard so much about. Just getting out of downtown took FOREVER! Then Holly's driving/navigation app, called "Waze," tried to help us avoid traffic and sent us all over creation on various detours. I joked to Holly that someone was probably trying to write their name across a map with her car or something. We finally got out to Auburn, where the concert was, and accidentally turned in the wrong spot right outside the venue. I had to bribe a traffic control guy with two pieces of gum to let us back in the line of cars, but we finally made it!
Wahoo! Poison was up first. I immediately regretted that we hadn't made more of an effort to dress up for the show. Some people there had clearly raided their closets for outfits that hadn't seen the light of day since the 80s. Oh well, we were there to rock despite our soccer mom outfits!
The Poison set wasn't too long, but they hit all of the highlights..."Nothin' But a Good Time," "Talk Dirty To Me," even "Your Mama Don't Dance," and of course, "Every Rose Has It's Thorn," which is one of Holly's all-time faves.
Next up was the main attraction, Def Leppard. During the intermission I found out that Holly is so hard core that she thought that the correct spelling for the jungle cat was "leppard," and not "leopard." Awesome.
Once the band came out on stage and appeared on the giant screens, it was clear they had aged a little since the glory days. But they still sounded great! I also loved the fact that one of them still had his peroxide blond, curly mane of magnificent 80's rock-star hair. They played a couple of new songs (did anyone know that Def Leppard put out a new album in 2015? Me neither), but mostly stuck to the stuff we came to hear. I was surprised that I could remember the words to most of the songs. I loved "Armageddon It," "Rocket," "Hysteria," etc., but of course the highlight of the night was "Pour Some Sugar On Me." It was such a fun show!
After the show it was pretty amusing (and a little concerning) to watch some our fellow metal heads stumbling (literally) around the parking lot looking for their cars. Luckily, we got out of there with no incidents. By the time we got back to Holly's house, it was pretty late...like 2 a.m. or so? I was ready for some sleep.
Sandy and I slept in like crazy people! It was awesome!
Holly's fam fed us breakfast and then her super-nice husband Justin drove us to the top of a biking trail Holly had wanted to try. Actually, Holly's 15-year old daughter drove us, since she has her learner's permit. It was hilarious for me to sit by Holly in the back seat and watch her low-level freak out as she tried to let Justin do all the coaching from the passenger seat. We made it there safely and I will add the Abigail is an excellent driver!
The bike ride was 20 miles long or so, with a 2+ mile long train tunnel at the start. I hadn't been on a bike much for the past couple of years so I was a little nervous taking a ride through a pitch-black tunnel, but I decided to give it a try! We saw a bear in the parking lot at the top of the ride, which didn't seem to decrease my nerves any.
Here we are, ready to set out. I hope we make it to the end alive!
Here is the tunnel. Can you see that teeny tiny dot of light in the tunnel? That is the other end. It was FREEZING in there! It seemed to take a really long time to get through the tunnel. I was gripping my handlebars so hard that my hands were aching, but we eventually made it!
So happy to be alive and un-crashed! As you can see, there was a big group of scouts also going through the tunnel. We saw a couple of groups of scouts along the way, I think they were trying to get their biking merit badge or something.
We were by ourselves for the most part though, and the rest of the ride was SO PRETTY! We got to go over a few railroad bridges, and the forest all around was so green and lush. It was a perfect downhill grade, not too steep, but not too much peddling was required. It was a really fun ride, and the 20 miles seemed really easy! (I found out later they do marathons on the same trail...I might have to look into this).
After the bike ride, we headed out to a delicious dinner at a place called Pogacha, I had the seafood risotto, and it was amazing. Then we headed over to Snoqualmie Falls as the sun was setting. So pretty!
Cheese! I know I'm blinking, but the rest of the picture still looks good.
After that we re-enacted a typical high school weekend by standing in front of a RedBox and trying for way too long to figure out which movie to rent (it used to be a whole Blockbuster Video Store, but still). None of us were ever good at making decisions. I had seen "Lion" and loved it, but I warned the girls there would probably be crying, at least by me. We weren't really in the crying mood, and the only one we all hadn't already seen was "Split," which is a scary movie. It was very freaky and I won't be able to look at James McAvoy the same again. Yuck. Should have gone for LaLa Land even though I've seen it twice already.
Anyways, the next day was our last day, but we still had some things to check off the list. I went for a quick run in the morning (so much oxygen!!) and then enjoyed a delicious breakfast hosted again by Holly's family. Did I mention they also left mints on my pillow at night? Such service.
After breakfast we headed out again...first stop, Rattlesnake Ledge. It was a really cool, but super crowded hike. The views from the top were pretty amazing, I can see why it is so popular:
Breathtaking! (the view, not us).
After this hike we went on another one, to Franklin Falls. Bike riding, hiking, aren't we just all sorts of outdoorsy!?
Look at the size of this tree! It deserves a hug.
Hiking in the PNW is pretty fun!
Before we knew it, it was time to head back to Holly's beautiful house and pack up. Boooo. Holly was nice enough to drive us back to the airport, where as we checked our bags I realized that I forgot to bring the fish that Sandy had brought all the way from Alaska in Holly's freezer. You are welcome, Fletcher fam. Enjoy my fish. Consider it payback for your hospitality.
It was a really fun weekend. I'm sad that these girls live so far away from me, I wish I could hang out with them more often than once a decade!
