Once again, we take a trip to America in July for the summer, to escape the Tokyo heat, and to give our kids a chance to meet up with the US based cousins. This year we plan to go to four destinations: Washington State, Dallas, DisneyWorld in Orlando Florida, and San Diego.

Trouble before we even start

We had some trouble before we even got started: Lisa was feeling sick on Saturday June 22nd, before we left (Thursday, June 27th) and when she got checked out, it turns out it was COVID. So we isolated her – in the bedroom, we don’t have a big place but at least we could avoid staying in the same room. After talking it out, we decided that I would take the two kids, and Lisa would follow and meet with us on July 3rd, about a week later.

This is the first trip I have ever taken of any kind with both kids – I’ve done trips with Alan overnight, or shorter trips with Momo around Tokyo, but never a long trip with both of them an certainly never an international trip! I was pretty concerned about whether people at the airport would think that I’m trying to kidnap my kids without my wife’s consent, but Lisa didn’t think that would be a big problem. Luckily, nobody at the airport asked, and we were able to get through security without any trouble.

Thursday, June 27th

In the afternoon after lunch, we all said goodbye to Lisa, and I took the kids to the bus stop. We took the bus to Shinagawa station, and then the Narita Express to Narita. We were at the airport about three hours before departure – 17:40 or so, an evening flight like usual. We would fly direct to Seattle. We had no trouble waiting for the plane, and got on without incident.

Momo fell asleep on the plane pretty quickly, and didn’t end up eating anything. In the past Alan would sleep on the plane also, but he said he wasn’t able to sleep on the plane now, and he wasn’t. I don’t think I’ve been able to sleep on airplanes since about ten years ago – at least not in economy seats – so we both watched movies and read books. I took Momo to the toilet once or twice, but we managed the flight without causing any problems.

We arrive at Seattle at about 10:30am, which is always a bit of a mind-bender. One of the nice things about Seattle is that you can get through immigration much faster than at places like San Francisco. I think we got through in about fifteen minutes, which is amazing. San Francisco can sometimes take me an hour and half.

We met Dad at the Car Rental facility and rented a car — my dad has been in Seattle for a few days visiting friends — and then headed to the hotel where we were able to check in early. We all got a late lunch / early dinner at IHOP — another place I enjoy immensely, though probably only because I go once a year at most — and went back to the hotel. We tried hard to stay awake until 8pm, but the kids dropped off a bit early. I watched the Presidential debate, which didn’t help with trying to keep myself awake.

Friday, June 28th

We didn’t have anything planned on Friday, and everyone slept in pretty late. The hotel had a pool though, so guess where we spent a lot of time?

Saturday, June 29th

We had a busy day planned for Saturday, first we met our friends for lunch at Elliot Bay Brewery (I wish I wasn’t driving!) and had a great time visiting with the Other Evans Family.

Later in the evening I got us tickets to the Seattle Storm vs. Dallas Wings WNBA game, and it happened to be Pride Night. We drove down to downtown Seattle – only about 30 minutes from our Renton hotel, which was faster than I expected – and went to the new Climate Pledge Arena.

We had the cheapest tickets they were selling, and the seats were fine! This was my first WNBA game, and the kids first game as well.

It was a fun game – the Storm really played well, and won by close to 20 points. The kids both seemed to enjoy the game, and Alan wanted to stay until the end. I think we might try to catch a Wings game in Dallas since it was a fun time. Since it was Pride night there seemed to be a lot of LGBT couples, but I’m kind of curious if that is just general to the WNBA or to Seattle. Hard to tell!

Sunday, June 30th

We slept in late again, but I’m not going to complain about that on Summer Vacation. On Sunday we planned to meet up with family friends for Brunch in Columbia City. They suggested Geraldine’s Counter, so we did that. It was very good.

After brunch, we went to the local park and played around there for a bit. Our friends brought a scooter, which Momo enjoyed a lot, and she made good use of the playground equipment. I had hoped that Alan would talk with Adrien more, but Alan was a bit quiet and didn’t talk much.

After the park we got some ice cream – Molly Moons, I remember Jana telling me that they were good. It was good! After that we drove to Woodinville to meet some family friends and my dad. We visited for a few hours, and had a nice dinner in Woodinville. Alan was missing Japanese food so we tried a Japanese place there – Sora Sushi. It was nice – and Alan certainly got his Japanese food fix, with Unagi don. I had the Chicken Katsu bento which was good, but there was lots more food than I could finish – a theme for America.

We headed back to the hotel after dropping off Dad’s rental car – we will have one rental car for the four (and later five) of us going forward. Back at the hotel we got in more pool time briefly before bed.

Monday, July 1st

On Monday we drove from Renton to Leavenworth. We plan to stay with family friends for two nights who have a very nice place just outside Leavenworth. It’s about a two and a half hour drive, which went pretty fast. We got lunch at McDonald’s and arrived at our friend’s place a bit after noon. Some kids came over and played with Momo, Dad spent some time with Jim, and they fixed up his 1941 Chevrolet Pickup – or at least got it running. I reserved a river Tubing trip for the kids for Tuesday, and we had dinner before turning in.

For dinner we had a nice home-cooked stir-fry, and after staying up a bit talking, went to bed.

Tuesday, July 2nd

In the morning we drove to Wenatchee for brunch with some acquaintances of my dad – Ms. Dibble, the wife of his high school Math teacher, and one of her daughters. We were a bit early so did some shopping at Target, and then we spent a leisurely hour and half or so visiting over lunch.

After lunch we went to Wenatchee hospital to visit Uncle Butch (dad’s brother) who was there since a week ago he broke the patella in one of his knees when he was out with Dad and Uncle Jay doing something. We visited for a while, and on the way out met Aunt Gwen who was coming in to visit.

In the afternoon I reserved a session tubing down the Wenatchee River for about an hour. Momo was a bit nervous and scared when we hit some of the fast water at the start, but she was enjoying things by the end. Alan was a bit worried and asked to clip his single tube to the double tube that Momo and I were in, but about halfway through the hour long trip he wanted to unclip and go on his own.

The river trip was lots of fun! As the sole adult, I was pretty worried, and tried really hard to paddle to keep us in the middle of the river. I was so worried that I paddled so much that I didn’t have a chance to drink any of the water that I brought. It was lots of fun though, and the kids really seemed to enjoy it. Alan said that he would do the 4 hour trip next time. Momo said she might do the one hour trip again. As the one that did most of the paddling, I like the idea of one hour more than four.

After that, we headed back to our friend’s house, and later went do dinner in Leavenworth at Visconti’s, which we’ve been to before. It’s a really good Italian place, I highly recommend it.

Unfortunately, I think I got dehydrated on the river. I started to feel sick, got a migraine, and my eyes were irritated because of the sunscreen that sweated into them from all the paddling. I didn’t eat, and went to bed as soon as we got back. I did wake up feeling great though.

Wednesday, July 3rd

Lots of driving on Wednesday. We got up and had breakfast with the Carvitto’s, and left at about 10am. We drove over to Dryden to visit with Aunt Sandee and Uncle Tom for about an hour and a half. I was really worried that Lisa might not make her transfer – she was flying from Tokyo and their departure was delayed by about 40 minutes. Usually those big planes make up the time on long flights, but they landed about 40 minutes late too, and she had only an hour to catch a small jet to Wenatchee. She had to go through passport control, and was very worried about that. The staff helped her out and got her expedited though, and she made is just in time to board.

We picked her up at Wenatchee airport – which apparently has seen a lot of development since the last time dad went there. I think I flew there once on a prop plane, which is never a great experience. Lisa flew in on a jet though, and there were a lot of people that got off! No airways, just stairs to the tarmac. We picked up her luggage, and the kids were super excited to see Mom again. Well, Momo was, Alan doesn’t get super excited about anything at twelve years old.

We drove to Denny’s in town for lunch since we hadn’t eaten too much. After that we drove to Omak, about two hours. On the way we passed Brewster, but I wanted to check into the hotel before we went to the party so that we could just come back and immediately go to our room. We went back to Brewster after about 10 minutes in the hotel – Lisa really didn’t want to fall asleep!

A lot of people were over at Jessie’s. Miguel was on the BBQ making the Carne Asada, which is always amazing.

We visited with people and Momo played a lot with Myra. I was surprised that Jay Jr. was there with his son Jack – same age as Momo! The two young kids were a bit shy but by the end of the night were playing well together. I had planned to head back to the hotel by 9pm or so, but didn’t even notice the time until 9:30pm. It stays light out here until almost 10pm. We finally did get in the car and headed back to the hotel by 10pm or so. 

Thursday, 4th of July

We had a relaxed morning – Lisa woke up first at about 6am, hopefully enough to mostly adjust her to West Coast time –  I got up a bit later and the kids tried to sleep in as much as they could. We made it to breakfast just before the 9am cutoff. 

We headed back to Brewster after that to the Garcia household for some old-fashioned Schmarō, a Kirk family favorite. It is basically fried pancake globs with peaches and pears and other fruit to suit. Lisa really wanted to have it again, and Jessie usually cooks up a batch on the 4th. 

We visited for a while, but at 11am went out to Main Street for the Parade. We’ve done the Brewster Parade each year for the past many years and the kids always enjoy running out to get candy that they throw out. I’m surprised at how many kids there are in Brewster, that’s nice to see. Marly said that her graduating class was about 74 kids which is pretty high – Dad said he thought it was around 55 when Mom graduated. 

After the parade we visited some more and two friends of Dad’s came by – Bob Fieghton (?) and later Avery Harrison. Alan, Lisa, and Momo started to tie-dye shirts. Dad wanted to go back to Okanogon to meet Maxine and Jim Woods, and later Phyllis and T, but Momo was having a great time with Myra so Lisa and Momo stayed behind while Alan, Dad, and I drove up to Okanogan. 

After visiting with friends we got lunch at Arby’s – I won’t pass up a chance to get a French Dip – and relaxed at the hotel. Then we headed back to Brewster to watch the fireworks from Uncle Jay’s Barndemonium. There was a good group of people up there – Uncle Jay and Aunt Laura, Aunt Jane and Uncle Pat, Jay Jr. and Jack, Joel and Lacey, and three cute dogs. Chaos, a 4 month old Great Dane Puppy (Joel and Lacey’s), Tilly, Aunt Jane’s Border Collie / Corgi mix, and one more Corgi who wasn’t as friendly. Alan and Momo really liked playing with Tilly, and Chaos was more interested in Tilly than the kids.

Alan wanted to play Cards Against Humanity Family Edition – he forced me to buy it a few days back at Target – and we got a group of five together for that. By the time we were done it was getting dark so we broke out some glow sticks for the kids and started to watch the private fireworks as they were going off. 

The Brewster Fire Department fireworks went on a long time – almost an hour! The view up on the hill was very good, better than what we usually have down in town. We will definitely go back to Uncle Jay’s barndeminium if we are invited back. Momo had a good time playing with Jack, and for a while there I thought she would fall asleep as we were watching the fireworks, but she perked up when Jack started throwing his glow stick ring, and was able to stay up until the end. I think the fireworks ended near 11pm. We got back to the hotel a bit before midnight, and I carried a sleeping Momo into bed.

Friday, July 5th

The plan today is to take a relaxed trip to Lake Chelan, check in to the Air BnB at 4pm, and see if we can’t find things to do on the lake. Dad has some friends to visit, and Marcia Knudsen has a boat on the lake, so that might be something we do. Hotel checkout in noon, so we can take a relaxed pace. We also want to stop at Jessie’s to pick up the tie-dye shirts from yesterday and say our good-byes.

We were just able to make the breakfast 9am cutoff, though the place was so busy that most of the foods were gone. Still, we did all right.

We did some shopping at Walmart before checking out – I left our swimsuits at the Carvitto’s by accident – and checked out a few minutes before noon. We drove to Brewster and said our goodbyes to the Gracias, picked up our tie-dye shirts, and a few more cherries, then headed over to Lake Chelan.

We had lunch at Blueberry Hills at about 2pm, which was good timing since they close at 3pm. It is a working farm that has pick-your-own Blueberries, Blackberries, and Raspberries, and Apples that you can’t pick. Momo wasn’t interested in picking any fruit even though I thought that might be fun. The cafe is nice, and they have good views of the farm.

I got the French Dip, which has won some awards. It’s good – I really like French Dips in general, and in fact had one the day before from Arby’s, which I like a lot too. This one was better. Lisa had the burger that had a blueberry sauce which was good too. Dad said the Fish sandwich was nice, and Alan liked the grilled chicken salad. Momo had fruit and liked that. So good all around.

By the time we were done, it was a bit past 3pm, and even though the hotel check-in was at 4pm, I texted them and we got in a bit early. It was actually reserved as an AirBNB but it is a hotel, just with electronic locks on each room. Strange.

We spent about an hour in the outdoor pool, and then went shopping for some breakfast stuff. We got fruit and Alan wanted Cheerios, so now we have a box of those.

For dinner we drove to Chelan to eat at Andante, which was nice. By the time we got there it was 8:20pm, and since they close at 9pm I was worried they might not seat us, but they did. Lisa and I split the Clams in White Wine and Lasagne, Alan had the Sockeye Salmon, and Momo had butter pasta. A good meal all around. Lisa had a nice Chardonnay with her meal. The Lasagne was pretty spicy, and was a nice combination.

On the drive back it we smelled and saw smoke; apparently there was a fire going on somewhere nearby. It put a fog over the lake the next morning.

We didn’t get back to the hotel until 10pm so I expect another late start tomorrow with the late bedtime for the kids.

Saturday, July 6th

It was time to do laundry. Unfortunately, our hotel doesn’t have a guest laundry. I thought they might have, since I walked into the room labeled “Laundry”, but when people asked me what I was doing there, it was apparent that it was the hotel laundry and not for me. So I drove out to the Laundromat at Company Creek Pizza, and did the laundry there. The entire time I was smelling delicious Pepperoni Pizza, and by the time I was done I was starving.

I looked the laundry back to the hotel, and picked up the family so we could go to lunch at Sorrento’s Ristorante. It’s part of Tsillan Cellars, a Winery, and had a really nice view over Lake Chelan. It was really good, I definitely recommend it. Lisa thought the French Dip at Blueberry Hill was better, but I think this one might have been better. Different vibe, both places were very much worth the time.

While Lisa and I (well, Lisa, I was driving) checked out their tasting flight at the winery, the kids got some food to feed the Koi in the garden.

After lunch we went back to the hotel. I folded some clothes and took a nap, the kids watched some TV. A bit later in the evening around 5pm, Marcia and DIck Knudsen piloted their boat across Lake Chelan from their home to Manson Bay, and we spent some time riding on the lake.

It was really nice boating around and looking at the scenery. There are some really nice houses on the lake, going for 1-4 million dollars. Crazy stuff. Dick let Alan pilot the boat for quite a while, and he really enjoyed that. Momo was scared of the boat at first, but enjoyed it by the end. Later on at dinner she even said it was fun. Alan wants to buy a boat now. (Fat chance of that happening – I get seasick pretty easily.)

After our tour of the lake, we docked the boat and went to a local eatery to have dinner. It was a bit loud, since it was more on the bar side of things than restaurant, but Alan enjoyed watching the Euroleague Football that was on TV. We had a nice visit with the Knudsens, and got back to the hotel a bit before 9pm.

I had been promising Momo some pool time, so we got about half an hour in before it got too dark. If you can believe it, this is at 9pm. It is crazy how late the sun sets here. I did get them out of the pool by 9:15pm and in bed by 10pm, which is good, because tomorrow we have an early morning planned – 8am departure!

Sunday, July 7th

The plan today was to drive to Nisqually Lodge by Mt. Rainer. We have two nights here, and plan to go into the park. We’ll meet up with Jana and her family, and another friend tomorrow night before going back to Renton for two days to catch our flight to Dallas.

We made a first stop at the Wenatchee Hospital to visit Uncle Butch, and he was in good spirits. We spent some time with him, and on our way out met up with Aunt Gwen and Kelly, who were on their way to visit. It was great timing that we could spend a few minute chatting before heading to the next stop – a brief visit with Aunt Sandee and Uncle Tom to say our good-byes. Since we are on a timetable – the drive to Mt. Rainer is about four and a half hours – we were keeping things brief.

The final stop before we really started going was the Carvitto household, because I left our swimsuits there last time. We had bought new ones by then, but might as well get our old ones as well. We had a nice visit, and Jo made some amazing grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. We wanted to visit with cousin Alan, and by chance he had bought the house directly across the field from the Carvitto house, so he came over and we chatted. Turns out they are neighbors! It truly is a small world. We spent just enough time to get eat lunch – and then Jo was kind enough to make some great lattés for the road – before finally getting on the main road.

Amusingly, Dad got a notification from his watch that it couldn’t find his phone, which clued us in that he left his jacket there. We turned around and picked it up. That is a kind of nice feature, though usually my phone tells me it lost track of my airPods when I left them in the hotel room intentionally. Nice to see it work for unintentional things too!

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, just a long, long drive. We stopped once for gas and to stretch out legs, and made it without trouble by 16:30, about half an hour about what I wanted, but still completely reasonable! Jana and her crew are scheduled to get here at 17:30, and we hope to go out to get some dinner before our 19:00 appointment for Rail Cycling.

Jana and her family arrived at about 17:30, right on time. It was great seeing her, Marco, and Grayson! We chatted for a bit, and then decided that it would be too much of a rush to eat dinner before our rail cycling appointment. So we took a few minutes to settle into the rooms, and the left.

Jana found Mt. Rainier Rail Cycle and I made an appointment for our group. They basically have these cycle train cars that four people pedal on a historic rail track built during WW2.

The trip started innocently enough, going downhill for about 3km. You didn’t really have to pedal that much at all, and it really picked up some speed at certain points. I even had to brake a bit. On the way down – though, since these are trains, the grade wasn’t all that steep – we spotted a deer, and lots of smaller animals.

At the stopping point, everyone got out, and the staff turned the vehicles around using a jack type thing that was set in place. They had electric drills to jack the cars up. Two cars had chains pop off on one of the seats – rare apparently – which they also fixed while one of the staff talked about how the railroad was built during WW2 as part of the war effort with POWs, and now is owned by a non-profit that fixes up the tracks and is working on fixing some trains too.

We then got back on the rail cycles and headed up to the starting area. That was a lot harder. It got me thinking about the power to weight ratio for car engines – there is a fixed weight for the carriage that we are on, and then we each provide power, like a piston. You can put larger engines in your car, which increases the weight, but should increase the power, but you need to look at that tradeoff. Perhaps a lighter engine would be more optimal overall than a heavier one that puts out more power. Of course, carrying this analogy further, our engine had one cylinder out that wasn’t providing any power at all.

We went out on the 7pm trip, and made it back to the start at about ten minutes to 8pm. The other cars made it back faster than us, three were ahead of us, and two behind that were jammed up behind our slow car. So that was a blow to the ego.

We went looking for a restaurant, but it turns out that almost all places nearby close at 8pm. We tried a few alternatives that were open until 9pm, but it turns out they were not. Open. We finally found a place that was open – it was a bar that was open until midnight – and got some dinner there. It was about a 40 minute drive back to the hotel, because there just really was not anything nearby that was open.

If we do this again, we will stay in Packwood over Ashford, because Packwood is a bit larger and has things that are open until the suns sets – granted, a tough bar to set in Washington State in the summer.

I think it was past 11pm by the time we got back, and it was another late night skipping showers for the kids. I’m sure this shower skipping is going to catch up with us at some point. I did take a late night shower because of all the sweat I worked up on the Rail Cycle.

Monday, July 8th

We reserved entry to the park for the 7am – 9am slot. That was very optimistic for our group, but we somehow managed to get up and get in the cars by about 9, but there was a long enough line that we had a good alibi.

Unfortunately, Momo had come down with a slight fever the night before, so Lisa and Momo stayed at the hotel while the rest of us (Jana, Marco, Grayson, Dad, myself, and Alan) went in to the park in the morning. We expected Momo to feel better in the afternoon so we would pick them up for lunch and a second trip to the park.

Both cars got through the line without incident, and we planned to drive up to the Paradise parking area to check out the information center. It is a pretty long drive – about 45 minutes – but I made an early turn and we ended up in the Paradise Picnic area. That area had some dirty snow drifts, which the kids were super excited about. I can’t stress how excited the kids were about dirty, icy snow.

We must have spent close to an hour in this parking lot with the snow. While the kids were pelting us with snowballs, we tried to figure out what to do with the rest of the day. In the end, we came up with a plan for lunch and the afternoon. We decided to go to the Summit House Restaurant for lunch, about an hour and half away, and then in the afternoon do the easy Myrtle Falls hike from the Paradise Parking lot.

So we went and got Lisa and Momo, who was feeling great. On the car ride she heard about the snowball fights from Alan and Grayson, and there was nothing in the world more that she wanted to do than have a snowball fight. So that was another item added to our checklist.

After a bit of drive we arrived at Crystal Mountain Resort. There is a cable car up to the top where there is a great view and a restaurant (very pricy tickets though – check the website, but it was like $50 per adult and $30 per child).

There are great views of Mt. Rainier – and the weather cooperated with us both days we were there.

The prices at the Summit House restaurant are quite reasonable, unless you consider the cost of the tickets to get up there. Apparently, it is possible to hike up there, so you could avoid that if you were insane.

We had a very nice lunch with everyone, and spent some time looking around before heading back down via Cable Car.

We headed back to Paradise via a slightly different route, and on the way found another dirty snow drift. We spent more time here in this turn-out than you would expect as well.

We took the easy hike to Myrtle Falls. There was lots of snow on the way. It definitely took us longer than the 30 minutes it should take if you didn’t stop and throw snowballs at each other every time you found snow.

It was a very nice hike, and easy enough for the kids. We chose a good time, probably around 5pm, there were not many people on the trail with us.

By the time we got back to our car we had the same problem we did last night: all restaurants we could easily get to would be closed by the time we could get to them. We found the Packwood Brewing Co. was open until 8pm, and we could get there in time, so that is where we went for dinner. When we got there, they had run out of a lot of their food, but did have hot dogs, which worked for us. They also had nice tasting flights of beer that Lisa, Marco, and Jana could enjoy. There was an ice cream truck as well, so we were able to get some ice cream too.

The outside area was wide and had games like corn hole for the kids, so they enjoyed that. Alan came over and told me that he thought one of the families there was Japanese, and when I told him to go introduce himself he said he was too shy so I went over with him and introduced us. The family was indeed Japanese, from Portland. They had a son about 3 years younger than Alan, and a daughter that was Momo’s age, so we chatted for a bit and the kids played together. It was really nice, and surprising to find another mixed Japanese family to talk with. Alan later said he really enjoyed speaking Japanese – we have been here for about a week and a half at that point, so it seems like he was missing the prevalence of Japanese that we have back in Tokyo.

We said our good-byes, and got in the car for the drive back to the hotel. It was long enough that we didn’t get back to the hotel until about 11pm I think.

Tuesday, July 9th

In the morning at about 10am we said goodbye to our Hotel, the Nisqually Lodge, and goodbye to Jana, Marco, and Grayson who headed back to Portland. Our remaining car went back to Mr. Rainier National Park for a trip to the Reflection Lake and the Visitor Center when it was open. Alan was interested in seeing the Longmire Museum so I thought stopping there on the way out after lunch would work.

Reflection lake was very nice and lived up to its name. We got out and walked around the lake for a bit. Would you believe it? There were dirty snow drifts here and there! So the kids enjoyed those.

After that we visited the Visitor Center and did some shopping. We watched a nice 20 minute movie about Mt. Rainier, I recommend that. Then we decided to get lunch at the historic Paradise Inn Restaurant.

Service was a bit slow, but that just meant that we had more time to talk. I wanted to get to the hotel by about 4pm, but we were running behind schedule – it is about a two hour drive to the Seattle area from Mt. Rainier. We packed up and made a stop at the Museum – it is really tiny, so that didn’t take long at all. There are restrooms, which we made use of, and then we started the long drive back to Seattle.

We checked in, and had dinner with Jon Evans at Endolyne Joe’s at about 7:30pm, getting us back to the hotel in time to actually get the kids in bed by 10pm. I can’t believe we usually go to sleep at 8:30pm back home – hopefully we can get back on that schedule when we get home!

Wednesday, July 10th

We finally had a relaxed morning, going down at about 8:30am to get breakfast and meet with our friend Tomoko at the hotel. We had a nice leisurely breakfast and visit, and relaxed until it was pool time. While the hotel said the pool was heated, it sure did not feel like it. Still, once you got in and started moving around, it wasn’t too bad. We stayed in the pool for about an hour, then got out, showered, and go ready for dinner.

In the late afternoon we piled into the car, and visited dad’s friend Joanne. Her sister had just arrived from Shanghai that afternoon. We spent about half an hour at her place, and then headed to dinner with Miriam Garcia at Din Tai Fung, in nearby University Village. Momo really loves the Garcia girls, and has been excited to see them all year. She had a lot of fun with Myra and Marly in Brewster, and now we got a chance to meet up with Miriam. Momo took a while to warm up to her though – as usual. Alan was pretty talkative as well! It was lots of fun spending time with Miriam.

I ordered a bunch for the table, and definitely ordered too much. My family was really excited to get Din Tai Fung – it is a favorite of theirs back in Japan – and since we’ve been subsisting on a diet of pizza and hamburgers, something with rice was really appreciated for a change.

After dinner there was a Molly Moons ice cream shop nearby so we had to get some of that. Very good ice cream.

We dropped everyone off at the hotel, then dad and I returned the rental car and took an Uber back to the hotel. Early day on Thursday, with a 5:25am shuttle to the airport!

Thursday, July 11th

We have a 7:30am flight from Seattle to Dallas Love Field, so the plan is to take a shuttle at 5:30am from the hotel. That should give us plenty of time to check in and get through security at the airport. We will rent a car at Love Field, and go back to Dad’s place in Plano, where I hope we can settle in and go to bed early. While it was a bit tight, we did manage to make the shuttle, and the plane, and arrived in Dallas safely.

That wraps up the first part of our vacation. We did a lot of driving!

The rest of the trip continues in Dallas, but I’ll start a new post for that one.