Ridiculous Day!

Have you ever had one of those days that just didn't go right? You know, everything you tried to do just didn't work out as planned? Well, that was my day yesterday. Each time I tried to do something it just didn't work...

I tried to start this post last night, but I realized that as I was telling all the details, it sounded a lot like complaining, when in fact, as the day progressed I kept laughing more and more about how ridiculous it was! So, imagine me writing this with a grin of disbelief on my face!

My plan for the day was to go to Victoria, BC. It's the one big thing that's still on my list of things to do here, and today was the day set aside for it. I know someone who works on the Victoria Clipper and when he offered to help me get on it, I thought the offer was just to make sure I got a reservation. It turns out he was also able to let me go at a greatly reduced price. VERY NICE!

The boat leaves downtown Seattle at a very early time (8:00am -which is pretty early for a night shift worker!). I got up REALLY early and had planned in plenty of extra time for traffic. Or so I thought... Only a few minutes down the road I knew I was in trouble. What are all those people doing up at such an hour? I called the Clipper and told them I was on my way, and according to my trusty GPS "Garmin" (that's her name) I was still supposed to arrive with time to spare. Well, traffic just got worse and worse. As the cars got slower and slower I got more and more nervous. Garmin's "estimated arrival time" kept getting pushed farther back, and after a really long, slow drive, I arrived at 8:01, just as the boat was pulling away from the dock. How disappointing! This is something I had really been looking forward to, and I just missed the chance by minutes! Agghhh!

Well, I knew there was nothing I could do about, so I decided to just pick myself up by my bootstraps and move on. I was just down the block from Pike Place Market, so I decided to head there as I contemplated what I'd now do during my unexpected free day. I found a parking spot, paid for it, and then immediately found the place that was cheaper.

I headed inside and realized Pike Place maybe wasn't the place to go, because not much is open at 8:10 in the morning, so I decided to grab some breakfast as I now had all this parking time paid for. One of the good things of the day was eating at Lowell's for breakfast -they make a mean omelet! And, the view from their third floor was great!

After breakfast, I wandered around a while waiting for some of the stores to open, but when only a few did by the time my parking expired, I decided to just head out and go somewhere new.

I had been to Ballard in the past, but hadn't spent much time there at all and people had been recommending it. I had no specific plans, so just typed a few places into Garmin to see where it would bring me. I assumed I'd get to a place that seemed like where everyone was talking about, but lets skip ahead a few hours and lots of "wrong" places and I finally went to the Ballard Locks and Conservatory. It was nice, but this time of year not quite what it is in the summer. I was able to find someone to tell me about the stores, and I found a few fun ones.

Here are some of the pictures from the locks and conservatory:





Finally about 2:30 I thought about heading towards home before traffic got much worse. Last week Jill and Merrily and I had stopped at Peet's Coffee and Tea, and I had the best Peppermint Hot Cocoa I'd ever had. I decided that would be a great way to end my not-so-great day, so I typed Peet's into Garmin. It first brought me to 100 Mercer Street, which turns out to be a grocery store that used to have Peet's inside. That took a while to realize since I kept looking for something that just wasn't there. So, I went to the next Peet's on the list, which was at 10008 Aurora Ave. It seemed pretty far away from where I remembered, but was only 5 miles down the road, so I decided to try it. Well, since it brought me onto stalled I-5, it wasn't the best decision, and I was pretty disappointed to finally arrive and find that that Peet's no longer existed as well! Agghh! By that time, I was DETERMINED to get the Hot Cocoa I had been dreaming about and I KNEW Peet's existed. I decided to just drive around and look for it where we had been driving last Friday. There it was, just where I thought! And, now I KNOW the location is on Queen Anne Ave, right at the top of the hill.

When I got inside (finally around 4:00), I was chatting with the barista's and ended up telling them about how much I had wanted this Hot Cocoa. One barista told me he had just been on Peet's website and realized that their location list wasn't updated with the stores that had closed, and this new one that had just opened a few weeks before. Since that's how Garmin gets me places, I understood why I had just spent the last few hours driving around....

The thing that made me finally burst out laughing loudly, was when I got back to my car (a block away) and started driving away, I decided to finally taste the really hot Hot Cocoa. It turned out to be a Peppermint Mocha! Agghhh!!! Most people that know me know that I REALLY don't like the taste of coffee, so to have this great Peppermint Hot Cocoa turn out to be a Peppermint Mocha, was a HUGE disappointment! By that time, though, it just seemed like how the day should've ended... I was able to manage a few swallows, and was thankful to have ordered whip cream on top, but couldn't quite finish the whole thing. Humph...

After dealing with LOTS of traffic on the way home, I finally made it back to Puyallup two hours after leaving Seattle. It's normally a 45 minute drive. It was good to be home!

So because I really was trying to think of all the positive things about this ridiculous day, here's a little list for you:
1. I didn't have the chance to get motion sickness on the Clipper.
2. I didn't have to walk around an unfamiliar town in the rain.
3. I still have an open space in my Passport for going somewhere else!
4. I didn't have to worry about exchanging currency rates in my mind.
5. I got to eat at a new restaurant for breakfast, and would go there again.
6. I was able to see a lot of greenery at the conservatory.
7. I found a couple of unexpected Christmas presents.
8. I didn't add unnecessary calories by finishing a Peppermint Hot Cocoa.
9. I got to listen to a LOT of the 199 Christmas songs on my i-pod.
10. Christmas music at the right time puts me in a GREAT mood!

I don't know if married people suffer from this, but most single people I know confess to talking to themselves once in a while (or a lot in some cases!). So, I'm sure I looked funny last night on the way home either singing loudly to Christmas carols or working on that little list aloud. I also had a big grin thinking back on the crazy day.

Since I was close to Kerry Park on my way home, I wondered what a skyline picture would look like at night. What do you think?

Thanks for sticking with this long post! Even with how long it was, I still skipped a lot of the little things that went wrong, all adding to the ridiculous day...