cloudless in Seattle, link-happy in Burnaby

Today Megan and I took my mum to see Seattle for the first time. It was a great, fun day. I got to shop at two different Target stores, which is my retail mecca - shallow me! I finally got to see the Ballard Locks, which I've always put off in the past in favor of visiting Archie McPhee and the Ballard Ben & Jerry's scoop shop. I got to visit the Pike Place Market (again) and see the guys throwing fish around and yelling at each other and generally goofing off, which is always fun. I fulfilled an important life goal by purchasing a tall, decaf, sugar-free-vanilla latte at the *original* Starbucks location across from the market (I'm sure you will be surprised to hear that it was pretty much exactly like any other latte I've had from any other Starbucks, and that the inside of the shop was very much like other Starbucks, except they have the "original", "naughty" logo outside, and it's very cramped and busy inside).

And...!! The most amazing thing happened. As we were emerging from the depths of Uwajimaya Village, we saw... the sun! On further inspection, we found that outdoors, there was actual... blue sky!! We hightailed it to the Space Needle and happily forked over $13 apiece to get a 360 degree view of Seattle and environs. I'll post some photos tomorrow or sometime. Now I'm going to rescue my son from his very cranky father, and vice versa -- those two have, I think, spent a bit too much time together today.