Monday, August 27, 2012

Pacific Northwest Trip Part 3 - Seattle and Vancouver

The last leg of our trip was going back up to the Seattle area, where we spent a few days with some dear friends, but on the way, we stopped at the recreation of Fort Clatsop, OR, where the Lewis and Clark Expedition stayed during the winter of 1805-1806.

 Writing with quill pens.  Harder than it looks!

 Then we drove a little further north to visit the Astoria Column, which quite high above the city of Astoria and provides quite the view.  Of course, there's no elevator, so we all took the 164 step spiral staircase.  It was not so much difficult as slightly scary, especially the up part!

One of the views from the top

Our dear friends, the Morrisseys, hosted us for a few days.  On Sunday, we took a trip in Seattle and visited the SPU campus, where Mayson, Laura and Philip met...and were I was later introduced to Philip while visiting Laura.  Here are the SPU-ites with their progeny.

Next we went to Discovery Park, which is my favorite place in Seattle.  You get a beautiful view of the Olympic Mountains over part of the Puget Sound.


We then headed downtown to the Pike Place Market to cruise around.  The boys were not impressed.

The next day we hopped back into the car and drove to Vancouver.  It's a very pretty city.  We spent most of our time in Stanley Park.  This is the Borckton Lighthouse, which is there in the Park.

After spending a lazy afternoon in the Park, we headed off the find the 2010 Winter Olympic Torch.  It was pretty cool to get to see it and it's certainly set on an incredible backdrop.

 The next day we went to the Vancouver Aquarium, our first ever trip to an aquarium.  Caleb was particularly thrilled to see Beluga Whales (behind him) for the first time.  We also saw a native kind of Dolphin, seal lion, sea otter, and African Penguins.  We spent several hours just watching the shows and presentations on each of these animals.



Then back to Seattle for two more nights.  Laura and I have been friends now for 17 years!

The Morrisseys currently have a one-eyed frog named Rocky that one of their daughters found outside of Costco.  He was apparently very entertaining.  I think they are all hoping he's going to eat a fly.

On our last morning, we went to a local park and met up with an old friend of the Hines family who really wanted to meet the boys.  It was a lovely visit!  
Then off to the airport we went for the most hectic and stressful two hours of the whole trip.  Bottom line: Sea-Tac needs more fast food restaurants and needs to better label where they are located for families traveling with four hungry boys.  Oh yeah, and we should have allowed ourselves 30 more minutes.

However, on the flight home the boys got to see the incredible mountains of Montana, Glacier National Park, the Badlands of North Dakota, Lake Michigan and Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Then, I am happy to say, it got dark and everyone just stayed in their seats. :)

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