We've landed in the U.S. and are quickly adjusting to the new time zone, new weather, new language. Okay, not really a new language, just one we haven't heard so much of in the last two years. Our flights from Osaka to San Francisco to Seattle were uneventful and I'm glad they're over. I'd have to go back and really count carefully to be sure, but I'm pretty certain those flights are numbers 50 and 51 since we started our travels in August 2014. That works out to about one flight every two weeks. Enough is enough, for now anyway.

We landed on Thursday. We had one of those odd time warp things where we left Osaka at 4:30 Thursday afternoon and arrived in Seattle at 3:00 Thursday afternoon. Despite that we quickly settled into sleeping at night and being awake during the day. On Friday we spent the day shopping for a car, quite successfully I would say. Tomorrow they're delivering to Zach's apartment our brand new sea glass green Prius V. The road trip starts once we load her up with our suitcases.

But before then we've had a great time visiting with Zach and Cierra. On Saturday we went into the city and toured around. We walked by the aquarium...

...then took the ferry to West Seattle where we ran into some pirates. Apparently it's the beginning of some summer festival in Seattle and the pirates were part of the celebration. The skies were overcast so we couldn't see any mountains but Cierra assured us they were there, hiding in the clouds.

This morning (Sunday) we drove out of the city and climbed Little Ci, a nice little mountain in the foothills of the Cascades.

It was a gorgeous day with lots of sunshine and views of Mount Rainier as we drove out of Seattle.