I had Jen destroy it before we left so no one else would have to look at it.

It took 38 hours to get there but there was a lot to see so it turned out to be pretty fun. Once we were in Seattle, we spent a few days walking around the city. I’ve grouped the things I found interesting into this picture:

After that Jenn’s cousin Sarah took us on a two day trip to Victoria BC. Victoria is on a peninsula so the easiest way to get there is via ferry. We went north from Seattle, crossed into Canada, took a ferry south to Victoria where we stayed overnight, took another ferry south to the US, drove south to Tacoma and then north back to Seattle.

The best part of our trip was going to Mount St. Helens with Jenn’s aunt and uncle. On our way there we stopped at the “Charles Bingham Forest Learning Center.” Standing outside the learning center there was a forester giving a little speech so we decided to stop and listen. As we were listening this lady walked up next to us, she stood with us as the forester explained how after the eruption in 1980 the government sold off all the destroyed lumber. Then right in the middle of his next sentence this lady interrupted by saying in a real bitchy tone “they should have left those trees right where they were, the greedy corporations just pressured the government into selling them so they could rape the environment.” It was at that moment that I realized that this lady was a actually a guy, I was just thrown off by his long ponytailed hair. This led me to realize that I was in the presence of a real live hippie. I was shocked, I’d never seen one in real life before. I thought about peeing on his shoes or maybe kicking him down the mountain but decided instead to see what he would do next.

When he was finished with his BS environmental rant he went inside, Jenn and I followed him. We made sure to maintain a safe distance because once indoors he kind of smelled like swiss cheese. He pretty much went straight through the learning center over to the information desk where he wrote on something and then left.

I went to investigate and found this:

I’m sure you can’t read it in the picture (and I want the search engines to pick it up) so here it is typed out

The way he signed it makes it seem like he had his family along but I didn’t see anybody with him. Maybe they found an opportunity to ditch his stinky ass.

I thought for sure someone would have taken them by now.

We went to breakfast the next day with Rod and Heather. I wanted Tara to come out too but she lives in Ely (two hours from Duluth) and hates me so she stayed home =/

Spackle came with us but didn’t have much fun since he spent the majority of his time in the hotel watching HBO

It was nuts!

Dead tired, we slept for maybe two hours and went back to searching and posting fliers until the sun came up. Once 8am rolled around we went to the shelters and animal clinics to see if maybe someone had found him. No one had. We went back to searching. Finally around 4pm (23 hours after he ran away) animal control called, they had him in custody. We picked him up and he was in pretty rough shape so we took him to the vet and they fixed him up with some bandages and a new collar

Spackle’s pretty pissed about the cone; I figure it’s a good punishment for running away.

On the right is a paper Jenn had to write for a college class and on the left is a paper I had to write in my training class.
So Yea.

North Iowa can have everything south of Saint Cloud, including the Twin Cities.

Anyway.

We didn’t get into KC until 2 in the morning, so we got a hotel and went to the dealership that morning. I couldn’t find anything wrong with the car after test driving it so we bought it (2004 Chevy Aveo 5 w/ 27,000 miles)

Once we got about two miles away from the dealership I turned on the radio but instead of music, I got prompted for a four digit unlock code. Unbelievable. I didn’t think to see if the radio was locked during the test drive. So I started in on it, 1111… 1112… 1113… 1114 and so on. Two hours later, I typed in 5241 which unlocked the stupid radio.

now all I have to do is find somebody to buy the Saturn.

That was my weekend. Now I have to go do my taxes.

Here is part of the cardboard hallway that leads to the chair jail

The party was pretty cool, there was an open bar until midnight and they took everyone’s picture, here’s mine.

Actually its a bobble head.