The first day of our honeymoon began with the grating sound of my alarm clock buzzing at the unreasonable hour of 4:00 AM. Why we decided to catch a 6:15 AM flight for our honeymoon (which presumably is all about relaxation) I’ll never know. This was made somewhat worse by my notoriously slow and meticulous packing the night before, which may or may not have seen me stay up till 1:00 AM to make sure everything was perfect. (Libby was perhaps not as excited as might be expected to learn of this neurosis).

After tossing the bags in the car, I decided to install our brand new GPS system which was an essential buy for the honeymoon. Having eyed one for quite awhile and having convinced Lib of it’s necessity, I was giddy as I handed it to Lib to help navigate our trip to the Fort Wayne Airport. Pretty soon, however, instead of receiving orders from just one women I started hearing a running commentary on my speed from another woman. The unit apparently has a speed sensor that not only displays your speed, it also displays the speed limit and flashes red when you exceed it. Four AM, three hours of sleep, and I am now receiving demands to turn left and slow down simultaneously from two women. Welcome to married life. The GPS unit has turned my wonderful side seat driver into my very own speed cop.

Upon arriving at the Fort Wayne Airport, we prepared for what we assumed would be a quick trip through security and then a short wait at the terminal. I mean, there are only 3 or four planes leaving that early, and none of them hold many people, right? That was where we ran into our second surprise of the day: The Fort Wayne terminal now has the new body scanners (described as a mechanical strip search in today’s USA Today, oddly enough). That, combined with a fluke overbooking on all the flights that morning meant that the normally quiet concourse looked a bit like O’Hare with its winding security line. Fortunately, we still made it though security in plenty of time, and boarded what I’m fairly certain is the world’s smallest airplane for the first leg of our journey (I nearly hit my head on the ceiling while sitting).

We landed safely in Seattle and of course after devouring an entire large pizza, (we hadn’t eaten in 15 hours) our first stop was REI. We were slightly disappointed at first by the size of the tiny store – it looked like a small strip mall shop on an otherwise wooded block. In our heads we had envisioned a utopia of tents, headlamps, boots, and camping knick-kacks – this was, after all, the home of REI. Even more puzzling: as we wandered around the store front, we couldn’t find an entrance anywhere. Eventually we stumbled onto a path in the woods, and began to notice signs like: “Hiking path”, “Mountain bike test path”, “Mountaineering test wall”, “Kayak trial grounds”, etc. Somewhat confused, we continued down the path until a massive build came into view; apparently, the entire wooded block was the REI store – a 5 or more story building, built into a hill, complete with paths, waterfalls, streams and outdoor climbing walls. I was in absolute heaven – only the 1 hour parking limit on our car saved Libby from spending the rest of the day there. I did manage to convince her to get another Garmin that I’d been eying for even longer than the one in our car: a GPS running watch and heart rate monitor. It was then that I realized that I was no longer a true nerd. Libby told me I had a choice between the watch, and replacing my broken Gameboy that I’d brought to play on the long plane and car rides. I chose a heart rate monitor over a video game system.

After leaving the store (and literally sprinting to the car to avoid getting a ticket), we made the short drive through beautiful scenery to Snoqualmie Falls where we are spending our first week, to our hotel (which is truly very nice), where we collapsed for a well earned night of sleep.

Signing off: Mr. and Mrs. (speed cop) Kady

Travel question of the day: Vacation home in the mountains or on the ocean?