July 12--Sunday in Seattle

Sunday, we joined Darrell, Kathy, Mike, Lauren and Lauren’s friend Andrew for church at Canyon Creek Church, which is located about 45 minutes north of Seattle in the area they used to live before moving into Seattle. Mike and Darrell are part of the worship band with Mike playing drums and Darrell bass guitar. While we didn’t know many of the songs, the worship time was great.

We all ate lunch and the Rock, a pizza place with a 70’s rock décor. Alan and Joyce had salad as Joyce was working to make good food decisions and Alan was working to stay under the weight limit for both the zip line and helicopter tours we pre-reserved in Ketchikan. The salads were very good. Burgers were pretty popular with most of the rest of the group.

In the afternoon, Kathy, Lauren, Mike, Alan, Joyce and Sydney decided to visit the Woodland Park Zoo. The zoo is in the same area of Seattle as the University of Washington and pretty near the building where Lauren and Mike have apartments. The animal habitats are large and very natural looking. The day was overcast and rainy. Many of the animals appeared to be sleeping and out of view. We had a great time watching the river otters, gorillas, Komodo dragon, and lion. The lion treated us specially by allowing us to hear him roar.

Jon, Sandi and Paul went to the Museum of Flight, near the old Boeing Field just south of the main part of Seattle.

Darrell and Kathy hosted all the Indiana visitors at their condo for a cook out Sunday evening. Darrell grilled sirloin burgers and brats. We took a CD of video we took at Lauren’s high school graduation 6 years ago, as well as several other family videos. Darrell got Paul on the internet to play a computer game and Sydney watched a video. The rest of us did lots of talking, laughing and catching up on each others lives.

All too soon it was time to wrap up our visit in Seattle. We said our goodbyes and went back to the Hilton. Jon and Alan returned the cars to Thrifty and convinced the shuttle driver to take them back directly to the Hilton. We settled in for a short night’s sleep and got ready for the next part of the adventure.