Jon's house is small (larger than ours of course), with an ocean on one side, an old growth forest on another; and it's surrounded by beautiful gardens. Sunflowers tend to grow like weeds in the suburbs of Seattle. We noticed that the air in Seattle is noticibly fresh. It rained the first two days (a nice rain, mostly) and then remained sunny and cool the rest of the week.

On Wednesday the 22nd we visited James Ernest, progenerator of Cheapass Games. James, his wife Carol, and assorted nonstop devoted sweatshop lackies inhabit their gigantic (and growing) house of games and toys. They also showed us the Cheapass offsite office, where most of their products are shipped to customers.

We had lunch at Cafe Flora with James, Carol, and Jon. Cafe Flora is a pleasent yet expensive restaurant with a vegetarian bent. Our waiter made sure we knew that all the water was filtered, including the ice. We had great fun after that, joking about the filtered icecubes, cheese, coffee, silverware, and table. We interogated everybody at the table (and everyone during the rest of the trip) about why they moved to Seattle, what they like about it, etc. James never ceases to be entertaining and Carol is subtly quick, very intelligent, and not so subtly pregnent with a little girly fetus, whom they haven't named yet.

After luch we let the Cheapass family go back to work, while Jon took us to Volunteer Park. Our first stop at the Park was at the Asian Art Museum where we intended to just use their restrooms, but we ended up browsing their lovely exhibits of ancient pottery, statues, glassware, furniture, and jewelry.

We left the museum and went outside to an outdoor display of dahlias presented by some Seattle dahlia growers' club. It's amazing how much variety occurs within just one species of plant.

We continued past the dahlias to a huge greenhouse, filled with tropical plants, orchids, and cacti. quite a display; we highly recommend it.

Leaving the greenhouse, we walked through the pouring rain to an old brick-enclosed water tower, which luckily had an inside. We climbed to the top and surveyed some of surrounding Seattle. The rain didn't let up, so we trudged through it back to the car.

Jon then took us on a drive through downtown to see (among other things) the Seattle pigs - statues of decorated pigs around town. Seattle streets on are curvier and more hilly than I expected.

We returned to Cheapass Central for their Game Night - I participated in two playtests for games James is working on, one is called Head to Head, and the other is tentatively titled Marketplace. James gave me a copy of Marketplace to fiddle with later. I also played a German economics game called Chinatown (and finished at a surprise close second). Gina played Nexus, a tiling game(?). We also played a three-team game of improvised Time's Up! (Celebrities). My teammate Dave and I improved throughout the game, but lost miserably.

Thu 23:
Visited Melissa (Jon's sister) She was growing a whole lot of sunflowers. I really like sunflowers. It rained some more.
Bought a dij
Walked around Seattle Center, there was a cool fountain that refused to give us it's full diplay.  Looked at the space needle, music museum (what Jon calles a pile of psychadelic poo), looked in the windows of a great pottery place at all the amazing pottery. Walked to the Bamboo Garden Restaurant, kind of a sister to our Vegetable Garden.
Fri 24:
Schmidt Park
12:56 & 1:27 61st & Alki, bus 56
Citizen Bane
"3$ for MD" We were walking around the Pike Street Market, and I saw these strange looking little colored log type things at a produce stand. They were dried fruit rolled in coconut, so I decided to get some. I picked out a bunch, and as John paid the man, the man said, "Three dollars for Maryland." Quite shocked, I replied, "How did you know we were from Maryland?" He said, "Your accents!" Even more shocked, I protested, "But I've only lived there for 9 years!" "Well, you picked it up fast," he said. John and I can't figure out if we said anything that tipped us off without realizing it, but we don't think we did. We also can't figure out what a Maryland accent is. Nobody ever mentioned it before, and it's not like we're from Baltimore, hon. 
Jon's Party - Dani & Rich, played Wise and Otherwise
Coffee!
Sat 25:
Gina sees emus
Outdoor market - saw Tara The one person I know well in Seattle that we didn't plan on seeing, we ran into. Jon's ex-wife Tara walked up to me and grabbed me by the shoulders as I meandered around the farmer's market. I should have known it would happen, but if I had predicted it, it probably wouldn't have. She said she was doing great and going to art school.
Fishies @ the locks
REI - Tour backpack
Gravity Bar - salads & juices
Wajimaia
Seattle Cosmic Gamers - Zendo, Rambots
Sun 26:
Trip to Whidbey Is.
Gravity Bar and wandering.
Saw sign: STOP FOR ME, IT'S THE CLAW
Mon 27:
Lake walk w/ Masooma
Breakfast @ Sunlight Cafe
Bamboohardwoods
Freemont area (just Ginohn)
Troll
Gasworks Park - seaplanes & Sundial
Tup Tim Thai w/ Dani & Rich
Monty Python