Washington Road Trip

We took a road trip to Washington for our last bit of summer fun before school starts again. We did so many things, and had tons of fun! Get ready for a picture overload!

I love road trips, but I must admit that I have to stop a lot to use the rest room. At one point on the beginning of the trip, I had to pee REALLY bad. We were kind of in between towns. I got to the point where I told Mark he had to find a bathroom fast, because I had to go really bad. I didn't even care if it was a scary, run down gas station bathroom. He pulled off into a small town, and this is the only gas station there was! What are the chances!?! We thought it was pretty dang funny!

This was literally all there was to the gas station!

On our way to Seattle, we stopped at Snoqualmie Falls. I had seen pictures of it on the Internet, and it was even more grand in real life!

Snoqualmie Falls

We spent our first day in Seattle. It is such a fun, family friendly city. We crammed so much in, and I still wish we would have had another day there.

Our first stop was Alki Beach. We walked along the beach, while Bailey gathered "treasures."

The beautiful Seattle skyline from the beach.

Our next stop was the Freemont Troll, under the Aurora Bridge. Sawyer saw it in his Ripley's Believe it or Not book, so he wanted to find it.

Freemont Troll

Next we went to the Ballard Locks. I remembered going there years ago with my dad, before Sawyer was even born. The Locks are like an elevator for boats. They go from salt water to fresh water (or the reverse). The boats drive into a canal area, and tie up to the side. Then the water level either raises or lowers (depending on what way you are going). Once they are level with the other side, the gate is opened, and they can drive out. It's pretty cool to watch. They also have a Salmon ladder there, with an underwater viewing area.

The Locks

Then it was time for the Space Needle! We took the elevator to the top for a spectacular view of the city, and the water.

Space needle

The kids were looking for our car through the telescope. They found it!

After the Space Needle, we headed to the water front shops, and Pike's Market. We could have spent an entire day here. We aren't used to the hustle bustle of a big city, and that's exactly how it was. It seemed like there was someone playing the guitar on every street corner, and there were people on every inch of the street. It was fun for a visit, but I sure wouldn't want to live with that every day.

We stopped at Ivar's for some fish and chips. I think the seagulls got most of the chips :)!

Sawyer and Bailey made lots of loud, obnoxious friends!

The kids got drawings done of themselves. The guy was super funny, and did a great job.

At the market, we bought chocolate pasta. It sounded so strange, so we had to get a bag. It came with a recipe, so we tried it after we got home. You cook the chocolate pasta, put ice cream, raspberry sauce, and whip cream on it. It was really strange! Sawyer didn't love it...he couldn't get past the texture. Bailey loved it, and ate hers in about 10 seconds. Not something you get to try everyday, that's for sure!

After our long, eventful day in Seattle, we took the ferry across the water to the Olympic Peninsula.

The ferry ride

The next day, we met up with my dad, and headed to the Dungeness Spit.

We had to take a short walk through the woods to get to the Spit. The woods are what I loved most about the area. The beaches in CA that I grew up by were surrounded by big cities. Everything here was surrounded by the forest. It's awesome to walk through the thick trees, and be at the edge of the water.

Bailey, Mark, my dad, and Sawyer on the Spit.

The Spit is a five mile long, narrow beach, covered in drift wood, that has water on both sides of it. There is a lighthouse at the end of it.

There were some really cool pieces of drift wood. We could even look across the water and see Canada. And just for the record, I got a great picture of Bailey spitting on the Spit! I thought maybe it was a little too gross to post on here :)!

This is the lighthouse at the end of the Spit. We took this picture with our camera, through the telescope.

Later in the day, my dad and Kathy took us sight seeing around the area where they live. We went to Fort Flagler, which is an old military fort that was built to watch for Japanese subs during World War II. We also went beach combing at Marrowstone Point. I think my kids could walk along the beaches for hours without getting bored.

Fort Flagler

The next day we took a long drive to the Cape Flattery Lighthouse. I'm sure the lighthouse was beautiful, but all we saw was fog!

Even though we didn't get to see the lighthouse, the walk out to the viewpoint was awesome! It was foggy, and eerie looking in the woods.

The foggy coastline looked so cool. We could look down at coves all along the way. We saw lots of starfish stuck to the rocks.

My dad, Sawyer, and Bailey

This is our beautiful view of the lighthouse! There was also a rock right out in the water that the seals hang out on. We couldn't see that either. I loved the fog, but I wish it would have cleared out for just a few minutes. We would spend time each morning straightening Bailey's hair, and within 10 minutes of being in the damp air, it would start turning into a big, frizzy mess. It would get bigger and crazier as the day went on.

We spent some time each day touring the Twilight sites. We went to Port Angeles, Forks, and La Push. The area is exactly how I pictured it when I read the books.

In Port Angeles, we saw the movie theater, the dress shop, the book store, the alley where Edward saves Bella, and the Italian restaurant where they ate.

There was a Twilight shop there too. One of the workers was a James look alike. I had the hardest time not laughing! He was a nice guy, but I think he took his job a little too serious. He even had fangs!

In Forks, they have all the stops mapped out for people. We went to the Cullen's house, Bella's house, the police station (to see Charlie's car), the hospital (to see Dr. Cullen's parking spot), Forks High School, and Forks Outfitters (where Bella worked). It was so funny, because every place we stopped had other people there taking pictures too.

Bailey with Bella's truck.

Sawyer thought we were so stupid! He kept rolling his eyes at us, and he wouldn't get in any of the pictures. At one point, he was even walking on the opposite side of the road as us :)! My dad took this picture of him, so I told him I was going to post it on my blog, and say that he was just hurrying off ahead, so he could make it to the Dazzled By Twilight store before all of us :)!

This is the treaty line as we entered La Push.

Bailey sitting on some drift wood at First Beach.

Twilight fan or not, this beach was gorgeous! The kids stayed by the water for about an hour, and wouldn't come up to the car.

Jacob Black's house. This is exactly how I pictured it when I read the books!

I LOVED the forests! When I looked into them, I could totally understand how she came up with the warewolf idea.

They filmed most of the movie in Oregon. On our way out, we drove past a lot of the movie sites, but we didn't stop. We only stopped at the High School from the movie.

We said goodbye to my dad and Kathy at First Beach, and headed out to our next adventure. We stopped at Ruby Beach on the way out. It was so pretty! From this short drive along the WA coast, I've decided that we need to do the Oregon Coast drive next year.

Ruby Beach

The next day was VERY dissapointing. We went to Mount St. Helens. Bailey had learned about it at school, and she was so excited to see it. In fact, we were originally going to take this trip over spring break, but the sites at Mount St. Helens would have still been closed for the season. So, we changed it just for this day. And all we got to see was FOG! We even waited around for a couple hours, thinking maybe it would clear off, but it only got worse as the day went on. So sad!

This is a lake that formed from the erruption. We were still low enough at this point, that we could see some stuff...just not the mountain.

Here is where we stood for a couple of hours, just hoping to catch a glimpse. You can see behind Bailey how think the fog was! It's so frustrating to know that it was RIGHT THERE, and we couldn't see anything but white!

We had a LONG drive home from Portland on our last day. We took a 30 mile scenic byway along the Columbia River Gorge. We stopped at about 6 waterfalls along the way.

Latourell Falls

Bridal Veil Falls

This is Multinomah Falls. It was so big, it was hard to get a picture of all of it. And the sun was in the wrong place, so my picture doesn't do it justice.

We made one last stop in Boise on the way home. Sawyer loves to watch Ghost Adventures, and Ghost Hunters. One of the shows featured the Idaho State Penitentiary. It's a very old haunted prison. I wish we would have made it there early enough for a tour. It was still kind of creepy seeing it at night. We are going to go back and take a tour sometime.

I was hoping that when I loaded this picture onto the computer, that I would at least see eyes, or a creepy face in one of the windows :)!

And that ended our wonderful road trip to Washington!