06-30SEP10 - Monroe, WA (thumb twiddling)

Monday morning, 06SEP, it was back to “our” all most permanent RV spot at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds, resigned to the fact that nothing will happen on the building of our house this summer or fall. Our only accomplishment after four months, other than a lot of thumb twiddling, was to get a 450 foot ditch dug from the road to where we want to install the “temporary” power needed for the building of a house.

Now-a-days the power company wants all power lines buried on your property, while being run through a 2 inch PVC conduit. So it was off to the nearest home center to buy 45 10-foot sections of 2-inch gray PVC pipe. While transporting the 45 sections of PVC, Dan lost the load on the busiest road in Monroe (US 2); even though he had it tied down with four different ratcheting cargo straps. Turns out there is a reason contractors transport pipe in pyramid shapes, or place boards between each row of pipe! Luckily no one was injured, & no cars were damaged. Many drivers immediately jumped out of their cars & began throwing the pipe onto the sidewalk. Dan thought they were being helpful, but they didn’t want their commute made any longer than necessary. Soon he was all by himself with the Toad parked on the sidewalk, reloading the pipe.

The next day we spent all day laying & joining pipe in a four foot by two foot trench, & then running a 1/4 inch polypropylene line through it. Fortunately our worked passed the PUD inspection. Now we wait for the power company to connect us to the grid, run 550 feet of primary power line, & bury a transformer on our property.













Sunday, 12SEP, we traveled into Lynnwood where we had a nice brunch with Dan’s brother, Shawn, & Cindi. They are both doing very well, & Cindi now has her own Harley so they can go biking together. In fact they had just completed a several day trip to Montana. (See the below BLOG for our last visit with them.)

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2009/08/23-25aug09-monroe-wa.html

A week later we visited & had dinner with Dan’s cousin Bob Harris, son of Aunt Madeline who we had recently visited on 20AUG, & wife Patty. They had just recently finished a large garage & shop building on their property. So we spent hours trading Snohomish County permitting & inspection horror stories; as well as being treated to a delicious home cooked meal!

This has not been the best summer for Seattle & the forecast for 22SEP was for warm & sunny day; so we decided to head into Seattle. First stop was Pike Place Market for some chowder at (are you ready for this original name?) Pike Place Chowder. Turns out their New England chowder has won several awards including contests in New England! We had a sampler of four chowders, all very excellent; & a crab roll (over priced, mostly roll & lettuce). Then we spent several hours walking about the Market; as always a very enjoyable time as long as the crowds aren’t overwhelming like during the tourist season.

http://www.pikeplacemarket.org/

Dan noticed many “Asian” tourists heading down a street called Lower Post Alley w/their cameras. Dan followed them & discovered the world famous “wall of gum” where people stick their used gum on a brick wall. There is even a gumball dispensing machine if you don’t have a wad of gum in your mouth to contribute. Supposedly one of the “germiest” tourist attractions in the world!

From the Market we headed to the Olympic Sculpture Park. The park is a free outdoor art display sponsored by the Seattle Art Museum. The land is a brownfield project where an old oil terminal was situated between Puget Sound, railroad tracks & several major roads. The park is in an unique “Z” arrangement & partially elevated, so that it does not interfere with the railroads or traffic & still connects to the waterfront.

http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/visit/osp/

The last day of September was a glorious sunny day so we once again headed into Seattle for lunch at “The Attic”, an alehouse & eatery. Why The Attic for lunch? Because as their motto says – 50+ years; your grandparents drank here, why not you? Dan’s grandparents didn’t drink there, but his dad & most of his dad’s sisters & brothers drank there! So you could say it is part of Dan's heritage!

http://atticalehouse.com/

After a nice lunch & walkabout around the neighborhood, we drove along Lake Washington Blvd, south toward Seward Park. Lake Washington Boulevard is a scenic, approximately 8-mile road, that hugs Lake Washington for much of the drive. There are views of the lake, small sections of rainforest, meadows, and views of the Cascade mountains. This is an extremely beautiful drive along the western shore of Lake Washington that can be extremely frustrating on nice days during the summer or weekends; but since school was in session & it was a weekday, it was very enjoyable.

We finished the day by visiting the newest Seattle area Uwajimaya store located in Renton. As we stated in our BLOG of 11-26AUG08 - Uwajimaya started in the International District of Seattle selling Japanese and Chinese products and groceries to the large Japanese and Chinese population. They have since expanded to include items from Korea, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Hawaii, Samoa, Fiji, etc. We find shopping at Uwajimaya is like being in Asia without taking a twelve hour flight.
http://www.uwajimaya.com/