After spending 6 days in the 90+ degree temperatures of the Phoenix valley, I went to the low 50s and rain of the Pacific Northwest, visiting with my sister in Seattle. We flew in from Phoenix and arrived at SeaTac just after 9:30pm PDT Sunday evening, but by the time we got to her apartment downtown and were ready for bed it was almost midnight. Time for Week 2 of my epic 2026 spring sports trip.

Day 7 – Monday, March 16

Since I didn’t have enough PTO time to cover my entire trip, I had to work a few days remotely. Monday was the worst, schedule-wise, since we didn’t get to bed until just before midnight and I had to be up at 4:30am to work Eastern time hours. By the time my sister was leaving to head downtown to her office, I was already four hours into my work day. I’d done this in the past, so the schedule wasn’t necessarily new, but it was the first time I was doing this at my new job. There’s a lot going on at work right now so I ended up easily working all the way to 5:00pm PDT which meant three hours less of PTO I would need to charge later in the week. Once my sister got home from work, we ran out to the store to pick up groceries for the week then cooked dinner and decompressed. I tried to go to bed early to catch up on sleep since …

Day 8 – Tuesday, March 17

… I had to get up at 4:30am for another work day. As my morning started, I got reports from my family in northeast Ohio about the meteor strike that shook their houses, (my sister joked it was just Superman crashing on Earth), crazy! Other than that, it was a normal busy work day and just like yesterday, I ended up going all the way until my sister got home. Then we changed into our hockey gear and walked up the hill to Climate Pledge Arena to watch her Seattle Kraken take on my Tampa Bay Lightning (game #7) in a St. Patrick’s Day matchup. The Bolts spoiled the Kraken’s green celebration with a dominant 6-2 victory.

Day 9 – Wednesday, March 18

Another 4:30am wake-up, but today I only worked the normal 8 hours and  called it a day at 2:00pm PDT. I watched some basketball, switching back and forth between Miami (OH) and SMU in the first round of the NCAA Tournament (Miami won a tournament game for the first time in 27 years) and the Dayton Flyers in the first round of the NIT (where they dominated Bradley).

Day 10 – Thursday, March 19

I was supposed to have today off, but some scheduling issues at work meant I had to run some meetings at 9:00am and 2:00pm EDT (so 6:00am and 11:00am my time) so I basically worked a half-day (while my sister had the whole day off and got to sleep in). Once I was done, around noon, we grabbed some lunch at the Queen Anne Coffee Company (I highly recommend the turkey sandwich on the house-made challah-pretzel roll) and then hit the road to Vancouver, BC. We had estimated about a 3-hour drive, but with the rainy weather and traffic we were crossing the border into Canda around 3:00pm PDT, then got stuck in tunnel construction traffic south of the city. Once we were finally downtown trying to get into our hotel, we ran into more road construction and closed roads which caused us to make few loops araound before we figured out how to get into the parking garage.

After all of that though, we were in our hotel room by 5:00pm and still had time to go across the street and grab drinks at Boston Pizza before walking (in the rain) over to Rogers Arena to see my Tampa Bay Lightning take on the Vancouver Canucks (game #8). This was my first international hockey game and it was very cool seeing all the other Tampa Bay fans in attendance (and staying at our hotel!). Unfortunately for the home team, the Bolts came in hot and beat the Canucks 6-2 (same score as the Kraken game!). I also ended up winning two autographed Lightning jerseys in an auction … I really didn’t think I would win since I was the opening (minimum required) bid, but I underestimated how many Lightning fans would bid and I won both: a Dave Andreychuk 2004 Stanley Cup jersey and a Marty St. Louis retro jersey (the first number the Lightning retired, back in 2017). At least I “saved” a little money due to the exchange rate. 😉

Day 11 – Friday, March 20

Rather than take advantage of the free breakfast at our hotel, we walked a few blocks to Tim Horton’s for coffee and donuts (when in Rome, right?). We checked out of the hotel and drove over to Stanley Park for a scenic morning walk (and drive) around the seawall trail. Did you know there’s a cannon that fires every evening at 9pm? For lunch we drove over to the Public Market on Granville Island and had pierogies and polish sausage from Kaisereck Deli. We also ended up picking up some things for dinner (like soup from The Stock Market) and local souveniers (maple syrup, of course).

By 2:00pm we were on the road back to Seattle. We made one more stop, before the border, at Peace Arch Park to take some photos and actually walk across the borderline. It only took about 20 minutes in the car line to get through customs and back into the U.S. (and afterwards discovered that our Global Entry cards would have actually worked in the faster NEXUS lane). The rest of the drive back to Seattle was uneventful, except for a ton of traffic on I-5 stuck going north. Checking the internet, we discovered that a huge landslide had blocked the lanes on the interstate! It apparently happened several hours after we passed through yesterday, due to the rain. Yikes!

We made it back to my sister’s apartment around dinnertime and ate our imported Canadian food while we watched “F1: The Movie” (fun, but predictable), did laundry, and re-packed for the next leg of our trip that starts tomorrow.