Day 11, July 20: Return to Seattle

We checked out of the hotel in Vancouver this morning for the trip back to Seattle for the Noll family reunion. Before leaving Vancouver, we drove through Stanley park. The park is named for Lord Stanley who was (the first?) Governor General of Canada. He promoted hockey and created the Stanley Cup to present to the championship team. The park is a large, beautiful area with lots of hiking paths, jogging and bike paths as well as an auto road that goes through the park. The park has lots of art work including totems and a flower garden. I attached the pictures to the Vancouver album.

Although the day started out only mostly cloudy, by the time we left Vancouver, it started to rain fairly steadily. The further south we went the more it rained. By the time we got back to the border crossing, most of us had to go and Mary and Sheila also wanted to stop at the duty free shop just inside Canada at the border. There was a 60 minute wait for the crossing, so we knew we had to stop to go! We didn't find anything to buy there, but when we left the parking lot, we found that we could only get back into a special express lane to the border that is supposed to be for permit holders only. As a result, we zipped past the stopped traffic to where we could merge into the regular lane and got through the border in less than 15 minutes. I felt (momentarily) kind of bad about going past all those people waiting, but we weren't the only ones in the same situation. Otherwise, getting back into the United States was uneventful.

The rest of the trip to Seattle was through constant and fairly heavy rain. We stopped at the Hampton we had stayed at earlier in the week to pick up my spare camera battery and charger that had been sent from Billings. I did mention that I left them there didn't I? Oh well, it doesn't matter since I was able to get everything back today.

From there we headed down to Bellevue (just south east of Seattle) to the Marriott Hotel for the Noll Family Reunion. We all had a great time as evidenced by the volume of the laughter. It was great to see so many family members again. The Seattle contingent really went all out for tonight's gathering.

Tomorrow, Mary and I are planning to head over to Olympia National Park. Then we will be back in this area for an evening barbecue in a park. Rain is forecast, so we will need to keep our fingers crossed that we will be able to enjoy the day.