Tales From the Fremont Troll to the Land of Pizza

Flash back to Saturday and I could be found in an overcast Seattle riding around in a Prius with Jimbo and his daughter looking for the Fremont Troll. For those of you unaware of this entertaining sculpture, it is a humongous cement image of a one-eyed troll under the Fremont Bridge that has an actual Volkswagen Beetle in its clutches. I have a tendency to lean toward odd tourist attractions for their sheer amusement factor, and it's even better when it's free of charge to visit. I waited for a few other tourists to snap pictures before I climbed up onto the troll hand to pose for the camera. Lana soon joined me and grabbed a sign that was on the ground to hold up. The sign said, "There is no prize." Whatever that means...
Our next stop for the day was Pike's Place Market. After a few U-turns, we found a parking lot with obnoxiously tiny stalls to park in. It would have been easier to climb out a sunroof than to open a door, but a digress. We ventured over a little overpass that we decided to name "The Catwalk" since there was a bunch of random street art portraying cats. One was supposed to be Marilyn Monroe standing by an air vent, another was a soldier, and then there was an office nerd. Continuing up the street we saw a restaurant named The Spanish Table and a store named Ugly Baby and La Ru. I'm still confused by it all, but I guess that's allowed.

Wandering around the public market on a Saturday probably wasn't the best idea given all of the people, so it was hard to maneuver. I seemed like every shop was burning incense of some form, but that doesn't mean I wasn't thoroughly entertained. I think my favorite part was when we wandered into this random art shop and there were two guys chatting. Since the shop was so small, it was hard not to overhear what was being discussed. Soon I was keenly engrossed in this extremely preposterous story that all started with some dude breaking the back window of this guys car in front of a cop. The guy who broke the window ended up getting arrested and going to jail for an unknown period of time. The man telling the story apparently had to pickup somebody from the airport the day his window was broken, so he was none too thrilled. Whenever the perpetrator got out of jail, I guess he kept telling the man that he would help pay for the $700 worth of damage he had done to the man's car. But that apparently will now never happen because one day the perpetrator, at the age of 42, got thrown out of the window of a building and died. The end, that was all the guy said before asking us if we needed help finding anything. Thankfully Jim answered him because I was too busy trying to stifle my laughter while my back was turned to him. I by no means find it funny that the man died, but the story was just so super random, it was hard not to laugh.
Soon we found ourselves wandering again, stopping in record shops and a book store. Lana and I both looked at kids books. I flipped through the lovely story Everybody Poops while she looked at a book about people farting. Why children's books have to be about bodily functions I'll never quite understand. As we wandered through the store, the clerk began asking us questions and singing some responses. I wasn't quite sure what to make of the situation, but then again, my life is always a bunch of awkward moments pieced together for the world's amusement.
Sunday we went to church, I helped stack some firewood, and had dinner with some other family. Monday was a beautiful sunny day, of course since it was the day before I left. Just to get the torture over with, Lana and I went to the mall to find a prom dress for her. Like me, she wanted to avoid pink and obnoxious sparkles. The thing about the mall compared to a thrift shop, though, is that it's hard to find what could be deemed a dress as opposed to a stripper outfit. JCPenney finally had something suitable in midnight blue, and then we took advantage of the sun and got some food to eat on the terrace. It was weird to actually be sweating while sitting outside. I don't think I've done that since last summer. On our drive home I caught glimpses of Mt Rainier in the distance and we restocked the icecream supply in the freezer.
When Jim got home, he did some yard before driving me to the town of Enumclaw in order to get a better view of Mt Rainier from the local fairgrounds. It was beautiful to see the snowcapped mountain off in the distance, rising up over the farms and pastures. We took the scenic route up SE Mud Mtn before making our way back to Renton.
Yesterday Jim was kind enough to drop me off at Sea-Tac for my flight home. I briefly chatted with a woman in front of me in line at security. I of course was in a line for one of the fancy X-ray machines, but hey, at least the TSA agent liked my mismatched socks, which made the experience not so bad. I read a bit while sitting at my gate until an announcement was made that my gate had changed to one in the other corner of that section of the terminal. I picked up my bags and wandered that way, picking up my book again to make the time pass.
We boarded around 8:30am and soon we were taxiing and taking off, bound for Newark International. I took some pictures of the Cascade Mountains as we flew over them before becoming engrossed in my music and playing Tetris. I saw some of the Great Lakes out my window during the middle part of the trip, too. I read a few pages of Undaunted by Christine Caine, and in no time, we were approaching the Manhattan Skyline. I got some pictures of the Empire State Building and the Freedom Tower. I also caught a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty before we banked right to head over New Jersey. I chuckled to myself as I recognized the one bridge I frequently drive across in order to get to the Lincoln Tunnel into the bustling metropolis of New York.

Once safely on the ground, I informed certain friends of my arrival like they requested before de-planing. I got a call from my brother telling me that he was stuck in traffic by the Holland Tunnel, so I made my way to the food court and made a beeline for Villa, which was serving pizza. I only ordered one slice, but it was huge and worthwhile. As I sunk my teeth into it, I was so happy to finally be back in the land of good pizza. Seattle made some decent attempts, but there is definitely something special about pizza made in New York. And with that, I knew I was close to home, and back where I belonged.