Strangers in a Strange Land

If blogger would let me have a longer title, I would have have subtitled this post with "you can't go home again."   We're at the Bellevue Embassy Suites.  It's not a terrible place to stay, it's tucked back in an office building complex, so there is very little road noise at night.  The rhododendrons are blooming out in front.

 

It's an atrium style hotel, which I usually don't like due to noise, but there is a door to the bedroom from the living room, so it's very quiet for sleeping.

 

Bedroom.

 

Living room.  It's kind of nice to have furniture.

 

This is breakfast.  This morning we discovered that on weekends untold numbers of parents show up with their kids for a mini-vacation.  Breakfast is free, and the kids roam in packs getting as much food on their plates as possible.  Later they all head for the pool.  We were feeling like aliens among all those children after 5 months in a 55+ RV park.  It was totally unexpected in a business oriented hotel.  I guess it's like a KOA without the RVs.  People can come and let their kids roam the premises while they get some downtime.  Who knew?  At 5:30 they set up a happy hour buffet, and again they're all lined up for chow.  At the moment, the noise level  is unbelievable due to the kids running amok.  It will be good when these people are replaced with business travelers.

This is yesterday in Issaquah.  The weather this weekend is just abysmal.  It's snowing at Snoqualmie pass.

 

This morning we were able to get in a walk for about an hour and a half while it wasn't raining.  I used to work in the office park behind the hotel.  When I was there, this was an open field.  Part of it was a retention pond for water.  Now, there is this.   There is also a multi-story parking structure in the back.  These are Microsoft buildings.  It's amazing to see all of this on what was an empty field.

 

The local pink trees have finished blooming.

 

Now it's on to the white blooming trees.

 

This afternoon we drove out to North Bend, the home of the fictional Twin Peaks.  There is the source of damn fine cherry pie.

 

It was just pouring.  We saw a bunch of bike tourists out in it.  That does not look like fun.

 

Every time we come back to this area, where we lived for so long, we're just astonished at how many more people are living here.  This is a new housing development going up on the east side of North Bend, out in the middle of nowhere.  Homes start at $400,000, which I find amazing given the remoteness of the location.  That's Mt. Si in the murky back ground.

The traffic here is heavier, the parking lots are fuller.  This place is just full of people.  Too many people!