The Nielson 5: September 2009

Day 1: Thursday, August 13th

After spending all of Wednesday afternoon and part of the evening packing for our trip, Bradley decided to head to bed since he would be doing ALL of the driving for the next four days. I stayed up until midnight loading the car and tidying up the house. Once my short 4 hours of sleep were over, we woke at 4:00am and loaded the rest of the stuff that could not be done the night before...i.e. cooler full of snacks, toiletries, oh yeah, and the kids :) Then we were on the road by 5am.

We had made it 5 miles or so, just approaching Chief Timothy, when Brad's mom called us and asked if we would like to take her GPS with us to make our traveling in Seattle go a little smoother. "Heck YES!" we say! So, we turned around and met her halfway back to pick it up. While on the way back, I realized that I had left our itinerary somewhere in the house...oh crap, how would I make it through without a plan?? Luckily, Maria (Brad's mom) was watching the cat while we were gone so she said she would call me that night and read the plan over the phone...yippee! Okay, so I know all of you reading this are thinking..."oh my word, she even plans her vacations???" And all I have to say to that is, "why yes I do ladies and gentlemen"....because we had a lot to do and see, only 4 days to do it in (including 12 hours of drive time), three kids to think about AND a very, very tight budget. I planned our schedule so that, according to all the websites, we would visit the well known places of Seattle during the least busy parts of the day and so that we wouldn't accidentally miss out on something we wanted to see because we weren't sure when they opened and/or closed.

So anyway, by 5:30 we were on our way. We decided to go through Dayton and then hit 124 and go thru the Tri-Cities. This way is I think only slightly longer but a much less boring trip since there are so many small towns along the way...it really feels like we are traveling faster. We stopped in Yakima for breakfast at 8:00 or so. Since Jordyn despises McDonald's for breakfast and we had only allotted enough money for fast food dining we opted for Burger King. Apparently, that isn't much better than McDonald's. So, my little girl ate chicken nuggets and french fries for breakfast...it was great. After breakfast, we were on the home stretch.

We weren't heading into Seattle for the first day since we were staying in Renton and had stuff to do out there. We met Brad's brother Sam and his wife Amy at the Southcenter Mall in Tukwila...and we made it in record time, we arrived at 11:00!!!! For those that aren't counting, we turned a 6 hour drive into a 5 1/2 hour drive AND we stopped for breakfast! It was a great start to the trip...even though Kierra was incredibly tired of her car seat by the time we were ready to leave Yakima.

We walked around the mall for a couple hours and let the kids release some energy. Then, we headed for the Museum of Flight. For anyone considering a family vacation to the Emerald City, I highly recommend purchasing the City Pass Booklets. These booklets let our family of 5 into the main attractions in the Seattle area for 46% off the admission prices you would pay at the gate. Plus, they offer immediate entry and no waiting in line to buy tickets!!! We cashed in our E-tickets at the counter, got our wrist bands and headed for the museum. The kids were in awe! Since we really didn't have much of our itinerary based on this day, we could take our time...that was until we were told that the Concord and Air Force One planes that you can tour would be closing in 90 minutes. We headed straight for those exhibits. The Concorde line was well, non-existent....the line for Air Force One...HUGE! They were only allowing four people on at once and we were a group of 7. Luckily for us, the ticket checker had a soft spot for families and let us all on together. After touring the planes, traveling through the museum, buying our first souvenirs at the gift shop...with a wonderful 10% off coupon courtesy of the City Pass Booklets, we were finally on our way to the hotel.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn in Renton. It was a nice hotel with a pool and not too far away from everything we wanted to see...plus, we got a KILLER deal on the room....only $40/night!!! We had Taco Bell for dinner because the kids didn't want to try anything new and then we settled in to get some rest for the next busy day on our trip.

Here are some wonderful pictures of Day One

The Museum of Flight

Kierra the Astronaut