night at the stanley

ya'll know who stephen king is, right? and remember the book he wrote back in the 70's, 'the shining'?

well... i don't want to brag or anything, but, i was there. at that hotel. but there were a couple things i learned after taking the history tour. stephen king stayed in the famous 217 room while he wrote the book. all of his inspiration came from this hotel in colorado. but it wasn't filmed here! it was actually filmed in like wyoming or something at a more "remote" hotel. pff. still cool tho! there was a miniseries based from the book filmed here tho.. so there ya go.

also.. i know you know harry & lloyd from dumb & dumber, right? the hotel they stayed at in "apsen" was the stanley! name changed in the movie, but same place. racing up the stairs scene, bar scene, outside scene.. i was there. don't be jelly. we landed on the moon!

also.. where are my ghost adventure fan girls at?!

seattle

if you follow me on instagram, you prob already know that we took a quick trip to seattle last weekend and it was so so good. i had never been there before so i was like a little kid when we landed. i wanted to visit the space needle, pike's place market, the gum wall, eat beecher's mac & cheese, munch on cheese curds, gyro's, falafel and everything else that would make a trip to seattle incredibly cliche. but i didn't care. we had about a day and half to do everything we wanted to do and damnit we were going to fit it all in!
after landing at about 8:30am on friday we had a few hours to kill before we had to check in with the army's yellow ribbon (the entire reason we were there) and we headed straight to pike's place. i couldn't believe i was really there in real life! it sounds so silly, but there is something about being in a place that you've only read about or seen in movies that makes being there in person so cool. the first thing we did was head straight for the gum wall. after accumulating gum for the last 20 years, they had scraped it only a couple weeks before so it could start over. which was a bummer but didn't matter because i was starstruck at just being in the alley! and the new gum already stuck to the wall is an incredibly disgusting tradition that for some reason i'm obsessed with.
later in the day we went to a couple thrift shops (because my mom & i are addicted obviously) and found a few treasures to bring home! i wish i had more room in my carry on because there were a couple of chairs i would've loved to bring home... next time.
saturday evening after the convention, we booked tickets for a ghost tour in downtown with 'spooked in seattle' at pioneer square. so cool you guys! i love ghost tours in old parts of cities when they have the city history and spooky stories to go along with it. tyler had some negative reservations about it at first, but he'll tell you it was really cool if you ask him now. he's slowly learning that there's cooler shit to do than the average sight-seeing. anyone watch dead files on the travel channel? they did an episode at merchants cafe in pioneer square and i went to it! to the downstairs and everything. don't be jealous.
sunday we had meetings until noon and our flight was at 5:30pm. so after getting back to our room, packing and heading out, we had a couple hours to bum. we met some friends at woodland park zoo, socialized for a bit and then headed to our last destination. the space needle.
unfortunately, we didn't get to go up, there was just no time. but i did get to stand in awe in front of it for a few minutes and take a million pictures as everyone complained. cause that's just what i do.

anyone from seattle? been there? want to go again? what did i miss that i need to do next time?