We start the day easy because I have a work meeting this morning. We scheduled it for today knowing we would take today easy. I get through my meeting successfully and we head out to see Black Widow at a fancy theater in Seattle. Before we get there, we grab five guys for lunch. Gideon ranks all his burgers he ever ate on a rating scale that is calibrated by five guys. It is the most elite burger. We are glad we a five guys near the theater, but as we are about to find out, finding parking in Seattle is...interesting. We find a commuter lot across the street from the mall with five guys in it. I convince Adam, Mr. Rule Follower, that even though we are not "commuting", we will be ok to park here quickly. The lot is 65% empty. We have an uneventful lunch, I take the annual belly boy photo, and we get back to our car safe and sound. We now head towards the theater.
We see the theater and there is parking right next to it. Abby says it is the wrong theater but the GPS clearly shows us the right theater so we go in the parking garage and squeeze into a spot. We get up to the theater and Adam notices "oh, its not the right theater" so Abby gets to say "I told you so!". But no worries, the right theater is just a block down the street. We get in and grab our snacks, grab our seats in a near empty theater and settle in for what turns out to be an absolutely excellent movie. No spoilers here but it was entertaining, emotional and full of humor. Next we are headed to Target so Gideon can pick his own presents out. We find one on the way to the Ferry and put it in the GPS. Our plan is to take the Ferry over Lake Washington to get closer to Olympic National Park for the night. It is a full moon tonight and it is supposed to be clear so we plan to head to the park at a lookout spot around 11pm in order to get a shot at seeing the milky way and the stars. It gets dark around 10pm but not fully dark until 12am.
The Target is one of those ones with a parking garage beneath the store. We park and start walking in while Abby serenades us with her giggles and excitement about parking beneath the target. We have a few other items to grab in the store before we get to the toy section so we are picking those up first. My leg/hip feels much better today but I am taking it easy so that I don't get worse. There is a section of the store that is down some stairs. Adam and Abby head down there and Gideon hangs with me. He is behind me while I watch Abby choose which bobby pins to get. I turn to look at Gideon and he is gone. I step over a few aisles to see him because he knows not to go far. Nope, he is not there. I say "Gideon" loud enough to get nasty looks from some shoppers. I look down into the area that Adam is and make eye contact. I'm not panicked yet but let him know through parental eye-talking that Gideon is missing. I walk to another section of aisles and still...nothing. I now say very loudly "Gideon!" upsetting a few more women and their children and two target employees. It was at this point that those women and employees asked if they could help find Gideon. Nope, just kidding! They all ignored me. I look back at Adam with the now panicked look. He throws what is in his hands to Abby and runs up the stairs. Without talking yet again, we somehow know to split the store and both go our own ways yelling "Gideon!". I go back to the beginning of the store where we had done some shopping assuming that he maybe wanted to check out the swim goggles again. Nope. At this point, I am now crying because I am 100% certain he was abducted in Seattle at a Target. I drove across the country to let my son be abducted in a Target where you park below the building. I round the corner and see Adam walking with Gideon in hand down the main aisle. Now I am really crying and yell at poor Gideon "what were you thinking!!?". Apparently, our family adventure has made him a bit more adventurous too as he ran off to find the toy section himself. After repeating "thank God" about 300 times, hugging him for 15 minutes and coming back to a normal resting heart rate, we go to the toy section. Gideon picks out some stuff and we head out of the store.
We are now on our way to the Ferry and should be able to catch the 6:25 Ferry or the 7pm. The GPS is strange because it notes 20 miles and 45 minutes. We keep driving and then we see a HUGE long line to get on the Ferry. That's expected, no worries, so we'll get the 7pm ferry. Then we see a sign "3 hour estimated wait for Ferry". Woah. That is just to get to the Ferry, then there is a 25 minute Ferry ride and 1 hour to get to our hotel. Adam does the GPS to see that it would be only 3 hours total to just drive there instead so we forgo the Ferry (oh well) and head to the hotel. We get there before we would have even gotten on the Ferry.
We check-in at 10pm and then get all setup in the hotel room and head out to the lookout point at Olympic National Park. It is a one-hour drive, 30 minutes of which are in the park. It is very dark but not dark enough to miss the beautiful deer on the side of the road. We stop and talk to a few of them. On the way up Adam explains what the milky way will look like to us. He has seen it before, but the rest of us have not. We listen intently until we reach the lookout point which is very busy! Lots of families here to see the same thing. We get out of the van and walk over to a few benches and point out the constellations we all recognize. The big dipper is in the wrong spot (compared to home) but is so easy to spot and find. Gideon picks it out right away! (proud parenting moment). We also see Cassiopeia (one of my favs), Cepheus and Scorpio. Not pictured was Orion who we can always find back home. We figure out later that is because he was below the horizon line (details, details). It is almost 11pm and we are still waiting for the sun to go fully down as there is residual light and pink shining through the horizon. We wait about 30 more minutes and then look again and now the constellations are surrounded by HUNDREDS more stars than before and then we see it...the edge of the milky way. A big shining bright mess of white tangled throughout the stars and shining across the sky. It is an incredible sight that fills you with awe and wonder and humbles you greatly. I walk over to Abby and it's her turn to be verklempt. I had every opportunity to tease her after she teased me yesterday but instead, we hold each other and stare in awe of the beauty we are seeing. I can tease her in the morning instead.
We say goodbye to the edge of the galaxy at about 11:45 and head back to the hotel. The first 18 miles were down the mountain and entailed holding the brake pedal for almost the entire 18 miles, no gas needed. On the way out this time we see a car on the side of the road. We stop and they are waiting for a tow truck (that sucks) but they are ok. We get back to the hotel around 1am (or 4am home time) and we have to get up early for a long day in Olympic tomorrow, but it was so worth it. We hop into bed, set an alarm and get ready for another fun day tomorrow.
Summary: Gideon is getting brave, Orion moved and we're nothing compared to the universe. Ending the day at the Holiday Inn, Sequim, WA.