After many failed attempts, we finally made plans for Brooke and the kids to meet me after a job. I couldn't wait to see killer bee and my little runts out in Washington State. I'd been on the road working for over a week at this point.
My parents stayed an extra day just to take us to the airport.
Ready to go.
Meanwhile I made it back up to Spokane after a day of shooting 360s down in Pullman.
Guess we'll never forget which car is ours.
We stayed the night at the Steam Plant Hotel. I'd stayed here when I shot 360s at Gonzaga University back in the spring. Seemed like a good, cheap option.
The rooms are simple and do the job. I liked that this place provided ear plugs but only because the walls are paper thin. I could hear everything our neighbors were saying. I wanted to stay on Minnesota time and made us get up at 6am. I'm sure our neighbors loved that.
I'm sure we loved that too...
The menu had changed at Rosie's since the last time I was here, but it was still better than your typical hotel breakfast. A lot better.
We did a quick tour of Spokane before heading out. We thought this giant wagon was cool and realized it was a slide. Theo went up to go on the slide and two unhoused people had been in there.
That sounds about right. Especially on the Left Coast.
Then we took US Highway 2 across the barren middle of the state.
Along the way we were attacked by a legion of tumbleweeds. It was like a movie.
We laughed so hard as they kept coming out of no where.
Then we detoured up to the Grand Coulee Dam.
Following the river out of the Coulee Dam things got more scenic.
Truly epic.
I have been wanting to check out Leavenworth for a few years now. So we had to stop on our way to Seattle.
We were going to eat at Munchen Haus when we changed our minds after seeing that it was just bratwursts. We thought we'd try Andreas Keller instead.
The kids felt fancy with their Spezi - Coke and Fanta mix.
I apologize for my kiddos weird face. Also, for some reason I didn't photograph our main courses.
I'm not sure what I was expecting from this place, because I was not really impressed.
I thought it was cute. Had some good German food, fun touristy stores.
We stopped in a few Christmas stores before heading out.
Staying in Leavenworth proper was a little rich for us so we settled on staying in Wenatchee.
Well, technically East Wenatchee. I don't think we ever actually went into town. Our hotel, the Cedar Inn Motel, ended up having a pool to the kids delight.
It feels a little strange to not be camping.
The sunrise light up the mountains well.
The landscape was feeling more like John Day Fossil Beds in Oregon.
I may have made us take a detour through the Yakima Valley to check out Glensheen West. Unfortunately this was about as close as we could get.
What a view! Of nothing. There was no view. It's really strange that their mansion cabin is hidden away in their now monstrous apple orchard.
For a state that calls itself the Evergreen State, there's a lot of this.
Brooke's detour did end up taking us past the drawn down Rimrock Lake on the way to Mount Rainier National Park.
It's always fun to walk out into a dry lake bed. I guess this is seasonally drawn down every year.
As you can see it was once a forested valley.
I guess Theo didn't want to leave.
Heading in along US 12, we could barely spot Mount Rainier.
Originally on this trip we thought we would stay in Spokane and take a side trip up to Glacier National Park. October snowstorms were more likely up there and I wanted to go to Seattle anyway.
We entered on the east side of Mount Rainier National Park at the Steven's Canyon entrance. I had really wanted to hike the Grove of the Patriarchs Trail but it was partially closed due to the bridge being out. The road north of this trail was also closed due to a snowstorm coming.
Or the government shutdown. Not really sure.
The ranger suggested we hike the Silver Falls trail across the street.
Still got to see some big trees.
This would do.
Sorry, I went kind of overboard shooting Silver Falls.
Pretty pretty.
Everything was so, so green. Especially coming from barren Western and Central Washington.
They may not be Redwoods, but the Western Hemlock, Douglas Fir and Western Red Cedar can get massive.
We had big plans to get up to Paradise in the center of the park.
I had planned to take Stevens Canyon Road over to Paradise. With the road closed we had to take a long detour there. Which I guess worked out because we stopped for lunch at Nacho's Mexican Restaurant in Packwood.
It would do.
We were warned that the road up to Paradise would close at 5 after Longmire. We didn't want to take any chances and stuck around the Longmire area instead. By this time it had started raining. We did the Trail of the Shadows across from the Longmire Museum.
Any trail that incorporates history is a plus for me.
It was kind of spooky back here.
We still got to see some pretty big trees.
It was still light out so we did the quick Twin Firs Loop.
Big tree. Silly, little humans.
Theo may look like he's enjoying this hike, but he was whining the whole loop.
Well, we may have taken a wrong turn once along the way.
On our drive to our hotel at Nisqually Lodge we spotted what looked to be a good restaurant. Copper Creek Inn Restaurant. Good thing we had spotted it as almost no other restaurants were open. There was a also a boil water alert in the area so we couldn't fill up our water bottles.
This is the oldest continually running restaurant in all of Washington state.
Soup sounded so good after our cold rainy hike.
I got the lobster chowder, but the star of the show was the huckleberry butter on their homemade rolls.
My old friend Morgan had moved to Washington years ago and had a baby this year. I hadn't realized she lived near the coast. So we made plans to meet up in Tacoma for breakfast. We decided to meet at Elmer's after seeing they had big pancakes on the menu.
I guess it's mostly an Oregon chain, with a location up here.
We hadn't seen each other since Theo was a baby and we hadn't met her husband Nick yet either.
We couldn't get over how much Victoria looked like her cousin Pippa.
She is so cute! Makes you almost want to have another kiddo.
Babies still scare me.
Ha.
It was so nice getting to see each other even for a few hours.
I wanted a picture with Morgan and Theo had to jump in too. We did a photo with both of our babies.
Then we made our way up to Seattle to see more friends.
We've been meaning to visit Ben and Jordan out here for years. Our good buddy, Tyler also just happened to be in town.
Ben and Jordan have the most amazing view.
Meadow was bored already.
After a quick catch up we walked around Lincoln Park.
It was just down the road from their house.
We then met up at Old Stove Brewing Co for lunch and drinks.
Down by Pike's Place Market. We took a scenic route, so we were a wee bit late.
Good beers, good food and some of our best friends from days gone by.
It was warm in the sun but cold in the wind.
Theo's in there, if you were wondering.
Seattle had recently buried the Alaskan Way Viaduct connecting Pike's Place and downtown to the waterfront.
We then did touristy things and walked along the water.
The city has some rad architecture and public spaces.
Then we checked out Ye Olde Curiosity Shop.
Ben, Jordan and Tyler headed to another brewery to watch the Mariners play. I wasn't interested and wanted to keep wandering instead.
We went up the hill a bit until Jordan let us know that the best ice cream place was back on the waterfront.
We had to stop by the old ferry building to get ice cream at Molly Moon's.
As soon as we sat down it started down pouring.
But we had our amazing ice cream and a solid roof over our heads. Jordan apologized about the rain. Surprisingly, they rarely have downpours out here.
Oh, man, I think I'm falling in love with a new city.
We then checked into our apartment hotel before deciding what to do next.
Even though we didn't want to pay the hefty price to go up, Theo needed a souvenir for his collection.
Theo had been obsessed with it every time we spotted it through the city streets.
Ben, Jordan and Tyler met up with us after the game and wandered around the old World's Fair grounds.
Hopefully the next time we come out here we can hang out more. Alas, this was just a quick long weekend.
The kids favorite part of any vacation.
The next morning we went back to Pike's Place Market since we just barely passed by our first day in Seattle.
"I found my name!"
We got here a little too early as most things weren't open yet.
But the bagel joint was open.
Meadow and I got mini donuts next to the bagel stand.
Brooke's least favorite food!
Afterward we took the kids back to the playground for a bit.
Yesterday this place was packed with kids. Today they have it all to themselves.
They loved this playground especially without the crowd.
We made our way back to the market since more places would be open at this point.
Then we found the famous gum wall.
We found some cute stores in the market like MarninSaylor. Meadow had to get a Pastry Pet sticker.
I can't remember where but I remember these machines from when I was a kid.
Next we checked out the Olympic Sculpture Park, which was just OK.
But there was a meadow.
We just stuck to all the places that Ben, Jordan and Tyler had suggested. The playground at Discovery Park would do.
We passed a forest school on the way and one of the kids looked just like toddler Theo.
On the way to the park we drove by a teriyaki restaurant and knew we had to stop back for lunch.
Sunny Teriyaki if you were wondering. One of the Seattle-style teriyaki mainstays.
So simple yet so good. Meadow said this was the best meal she ever had.
I don't know about that, but it was pretty good.
We ended our brief stay down in Pioneer Square.
We saw a cute shop yesterday and wandered around to try to find it again. Guess it's only open by appointment as all the dresses are handmade.
Mr. fancy pants ditched us to sit up in 2nd class.
For the record my ticket was purchased separately, so there wasn't anything I could do about it. Not that I was complaining.
While we sat back in steerage.
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