Seattle is cold and rainy but beautiful and green

Hello folks. I type this entry from Seattle, Washington. Stop 1 of 2 on our voyage to the island of Hawaii. We got into Seattle yesterday morning at like 10:15 after a 36 hour train ride. I almost just broke the table I am writing this on. Woops. Anyways, I love the train. It's a beautiful ride starting out in Minneosta (although we got on at 11 at night so kinda missed most of Minnesota landscape) and going through North Dakota where there are tons of beautiful animals to look and tons of flat space that goes on forever and ever. Kinda soothing to me to watch. I never did get bored staring out the window. After North Dakota we're pretty much in Montana for the rest of the time because Montana is a hugeeeee state. Montana is even more beautiful because it has amazing rolling hills and more texture to the landscape. Soooo greeen. Then we get to go through glacier park and it's amazing and we go right through the cascades and it's amazing. The mountains are magnificent. Really. Ben and I made some friends on the train. Alex and Kim. They were fun! Kim is going to a farm too. She just graduated from Macaalester and it turns out we had a billion St. Paul connections..of course. And Alex was from Madison and was our age and was taking a year off and he was just tight as hell. We all played bananagrams. It was sweet.

Yesterday we just hung out in Seattle. Hangin out with the grandparents and the auntie. We're at patty's now. Ben and I staying here. My grandma is doing better than I thought but still not very good. She can hold conversation pretty well..most of the time..kind of. My grandpa seems sad and depressed but I know it cheers him up to hear about our trip. Patty,Ben, and I went to the Pike street market because I love it done there. We tried like 1500 kinds of jam. Garlic-Jalapeno game, Pomegrante-Habanero jam. Beer jam! So delicious. We also had some delicious pico de galllo. Yum. Lots of things to see and Lots of interesting people to talk to down at the market. Seattle is a place where just watching people walk by is interesting because you'll see a nun, a guy with dreads, a yuppie, a hippie, a anything all within 5 minutes of eachother. I love the diversity. We went to a pho restaurant for dinner and it was a delicioso place.

So far it still kinad feels like just a trip to Seattle and not like we're leaving for Hawaii in 2 days. We'll see how it goes. Ben's in bed. I'm gonna go give him a hug. Good morning folks. I love you all.

Namaste.

P.s. julia, i love you!