Then we went to dinner at Toulouse Petit (see photo at right), a block from the hotel. We had some unique dishes. For instance, I had a Garlic-Fennel Boar Sausage with tomato & spices over capellini. During our meal, the snow grew more dense. When we left, there was better than an inch of it on the cars parked in front. It's supposed to snow until tomorrow morning.

After dining, we walked back to the hotel. Then I walked a block to the Safeway to get fruit for the morning - when we intend to loaf.

Looks like the Patriots won Super Bowl LIII. I don't care but B's a big Patriot fan.

Now to relax.

2/4/19 Monday

We woke early of course, still on EST.

In Queen Anne, we found about 2" of new snow on the building roof next door. Lots of closings. Some crashes where cars started sliding downhill but couldn't stop. And tomorrow there's a high wind alert, oh joy.

The picture at right was taken by S out her front window in Fremont/Ballard.

So we loafed in the room with coffee and the i-Things. Later I went down to the in-house Starbucks and brought back pastries. Also got replacement in-room coffee bags from the desk (very accommodating people here).

2/5/19 Tuesday

We did in-room coffee and pastries and computer stuff until we agreed with S that she'd pick us up at 10:30. She did, and took us to the Nordic Museum at 2455 NW Market. It's a fantastic new building with great exhibits. The current visiting exhibit concerns the Vikings and has quite a few priceless items displayed. It's here from Uppsala University in Sweden.

Link to the Nordic Museum pictures. You might want to manually advance slowly so you can read the signs.

I can't say enough about this place. Perhaps the best way is to say that when we return this summer, I'll send the others off and spend two full days here. It will occupy at least that much time. Since there's a nice little cafe in it, I won't even have to leave the building. And admission is free for me because we are members of a reciprocal privileges museum.

I can, however give a rough description of the facility. it has a long high hall down the center of the long building. An auditorium used for lectures and performances is to the right. The cafe and admission are to the left. The visiting exhibit fills the remainder of the left side.

On the higher floor, the exhibits are displayed in order of time from pre-historic to the emigration time to about the '50s - all down the left side of the floor. On the right side are the exhibits from the immigration period to today in the Pacific Northwest.

I'll put up a slideshow when I get home of the wonderful things we saw. For now, I'll tease you with a shot of part of the hall of the old period - at right.

We had lunch in the cafe Freya in the museum. I had an open-face shrimp-and-egg-salad thing and pickled herring to stay in tune with the place.

I'm showing the menu for Freya here, and there's another for alcoholic beverages.

Then we went to S&B's house to chat and to see the grand cats. The grand cats are aging but still active. The alpha cat is still very much the king and proved it while we watched.

S described what's going on in her neighborhood. One thing bugging here is that two houses behind theirs are to be torn down to build townhomes, but in the meantime homeless people are using them. She realizes the homeless problem in Seattle but doesn't want them to have to live that way.

She took us back to the inn and dropped us, since they have a session tonight. We sat around for a bit, but then walked two blocks to T S McHughs' pub on Mercer. Shepherd's pie for D and Fish-n-Chips for me were devoured with drinks. Very satisfactory, and good service by Eric.

Now we're doing little things and waiting for the various appraisals of President Trump's State of the Union address.

Then to read and relax.

2/6/19 Wednesday

Well, the State of the Union address seems to have gone over well with the public, but totally dissed by the Democratic representatives in Congress.

We had a great day. We laid in for a while, then called up a Lyft to transport us to lunch.

He drove a funny route but arrived at Serious Pie & Biscuit Company on Westlake. There we met our favorite tour people, Carolyn and Phil of Inroads Ireland. We've been users of their services on four tours of Ireland and enjoyed every one.

So we had the chance over biscuits and drink to relive some of them and learn about some of their tour changes upcoming. Beyond that, they're great travelers, all over the world, and we always learn something we should do from them. We like to think we give them a little in return. They gave us their best wishes for the remainder of our Yukon agenda and walked off up Westlake to their office. Remarkable people and so much fun.

Another Lyft took us to our daughter's place. My starboard hearing aid's battery ran out about this time, so I took a walk to the nearby Fred Meyer store for replacements. In my absence my daughter and wife filmed some sort of thing on an application called Twitch. When I returned, they were still at it upstairs with talk and laughter. I stayed down and pawed through a cookbook we'd given them and petted a grandcat. Tomorrow I can view the show.

B came home from work. We agreed we'd go to Hy-Life. Once there, we pointed to the booth wherein we'd spent our most expensive lunch ever - when we signed up with Carolyn and Phil (above) last February, to the tune of $5,000+ for the tour this past summer. Carolyn convinced us, then we said ok. She popped out her Square and ran the credit card. Bing!! and done. We don't regret it. And it makes a great story.

The Hy-Life food was good but it was more fun talking with B&S about company things and Bitcoins and what we'll do tomorrow and much more.

Then they drove us back to the Med Inn and we're in agreement about tomorrow. Now to finish this and sleep.