These are pictures from our trip to Seattle. We first made a stop in Pendelton to break the trip into smaller pieces. It was still a 7 hour drive. The next day we went to Mt. Rainier and camped overnight at Ohanapacosh. The mountain is spectacular and has many beautiful waterfalls. One of the most amazing places there is the Grove of the Patriarchs. It is an area that is unique in that the area gets flooded every spring bringing water and nutrients to the trees. The result are some (if not the) biggest trees of their respective species. You can see the girth of the trees in the picture with the kids. The largest one (in our estimation) was a cedar that was probably around 15 feet across.
Once we got to Seattle we stayed with some friends that use to live in Pocatello. They live in Gig Harbor which is on the other side of the Sound from Seattle. To get to downtown we took the car on the ferry from Bremerton. While we were in Seattle we got the City Pass which got us into several attractions around the city. We went to the Science Center, the music and science fiction museum, the Space Needle, the aquarium, and a harbor cruise. The picture of downtown Seattle was taken from the top of the space needle.
One of the funnest things we did in Seattle was to go crabbing and clam digging. We were quite successful and ate crab one of the nights we were camping.
After Seattle we drove over to the coast so the kids could see the ocean for the first time. We stayed at a campground right off the beach and played in the water even though it was freezing cold!
From the ocean we headed to Mt. Saint Helens. It was fun for Steph and I because the eruption is still so vivid in our minds. The problem was that it was overcast and so we did not get to see the mountain. We did go to the visitor center and enjoyed the information they had on display.
We decided to also go to Portland because Steph has an aunt (Steve's sister) and uncle that live there. They took us to downtown Portland where we enjoyed the farmers market (we bought habanero jellies-- Yum Yum-- HOT!!!!!), the US's largest private bookstore (takes up a whole city block with several stories), and the Saturday market (big fleamarket). It was really one of the highlights of our trip. We had such a good time with Steph's family.
On our way home we made a couple of stops. On the way out of Portland we stopped to see some waterfalls including Multnomah Falls (the second tallest year round waterfall in the US). As you can see it was amazing.
We stopped in Boise for the night after another 7 hour car trip. On the last leg of the trip we stopped in Twin Falls to see Shoshone Falls. Funny, we have lived in Idaho for 7 years and have never seen the falls. It takes us a trip to Seattle to get us there. They are really something but since it is the end of summer water flows are low so they are not as impressive as in the spring.
