Scrambled eggs, oh you've got such lovely legs

 Here we are, set for 2022's birthday adventure.

The lead up to this trip has a lot of twists and turns. Initially I was to fly Calgary - Toronto - Doha - Amman on Qatar Airways. This was cancelled by the airline and I was offered a refund and compensation (are you paying attention, Canada?). I chose to rebook Seattle - Doha - Amman because I still wanted to fly Qatar and hey - I work for an airline and I love adventure! I can get to Seattle!

The plan to fly direct to Seattle was kiboshed by my own cheapness. I didn't want to pay full fair or 50% off to get there so I flew standby to Vancouver. The hope was to get to Vancouver on one of the earlier flights and catch a bus to Seattle. There was a small buffer built in to this plan to catch any one of three flights to Vancouver. I ended up on the first one which was great - but my bag was on the second one. It was only about an hour later but man that sucked; it reduced my bus options by half. By the time my bag got to Vancouver an hour or so later, I was confused with all my contingency plans and got on the wrong Skytrain. Instead of taking the bus to Seattle, Google Maps got me well and lost through a seedy park in a construction zone under an overpass to get to a train station. At the train station, there are two bus options and the train itself. The train station was very poorly signed and instead of taking the bus, I ended up on a train. 

The upside of being on a train is that they are HUGE. They also generally take scenic routes through the back sides of towns you don't normally see. When they get to a station, there is no room for nonsense - you're either there and on the train or you're not.  The downside is they take over an hour to go about 4 km inside city limits. They also have shitty wifi.

My birthday always lands on or around an election in the US. This is odd to me but then again so is their entire election system. That said, I do like the placement of ballot drop boxes at transit stations.

I didn't want to get a closer/better picture of it because it is dark and Americans are kind of crazy when it comes to politics. I was honestly surprised there weren't people out there blocking access/protesting/"protecting" it with guns. I don't support the insanity but I do support the access.

At this point, it's about 2230 and it starts to Seattle - it is now drizzling and all I would like to do is get to a bed. Google maps once again gets me lost on what should be a fairly straight path to a hotel. To be fair, it does get me on a straight path that would work either two weeks before my trip or in another year or so: it leads me to a road blocked by construction. It's a dang conspiracy to get me to take a cab. I manage to find my way to the hotel and get a good night's sleep and breakfast. 

Next: well, someone lied and onward.