Seattle, Day 3

Our last day in Seattle we headed over to the Woodland Zoo. Again, we got there pretty early, so the crowds weren't too bad for the first part of our visit. I got lots of great animal photos, so I'm just going to show them off a little.

A jaguar


A toucan


A gorilla (atop the tree)


A brown bear


Haley in a "bear cave"


Bald eagles and their nest


Lots of wallabies


A snow leopard


A giraffe


An ostrich


More giraffes (cause they're so cool looking)


Haley playing a drum in the "African Village"


Then we took a bus down to the waterfront and just caught the 1:30 harbor cruise. It was pretty cool, though Haley didn't listen to the narration at all. There were 3 stories (everybody was in the top 2) and you could sit outside or inside. It was pretty posh!

Of course, I took a photo of the space needle :)


The globe belongs to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer - the big newspaper in the Seattle area


Can you tell I like the space needle?


The skyline was really pretty from the water :)


Of course, the obligatory "we were there" photo :)


After our cruise, we walked further down the docks to Ivar's Acres of Clams, and had an early dinner. for only $20 each we got an appetizer (we both picked clam chowder) an entrée (I had broiled salmon, Haley had acres of clams) and ice cream. Yum!

Then we wandered back to Pike's Place Market. I managed to find the store Kell's had sent me to and picked up 2 six packs of Strongbow hard cider imported from England. Yay!

Seattle, Day 2

On our second day, we headed off to the Seattle Center.

Here's our first glimpse of the Space Needle.



We got a nice early start, so we were able to go up before the crowds got bad.


Next we walked over to the Pacific Science Center. Haley loved this granite ball that she was able to roll herself (yay water!)


In the butterfly pavilion, a butterfly took a liking to Haley.




Then we went to the Music Experience and the Sci-Fi Museum.


Lastly, we took a bus up to the REI headquarters. Like visiting Mecca. I can't believe I made it out of there spending less than $25! They had a bike trail to test mountain bikes before buying, a hiking trail to check new hiking shoes... They even had a waterfall.


Then we hurried back to the hostel for a free taco dinner. Yummy!

Seattle, Day 1

We didn't get out of the Grandparents' until after 10, so we didn't make it to the hostel until 12:30. Following Google's directions, I was able to make it to the hostel and then to the parking garage in one try (no need to loop around the block). We did manage to haul all our stuff (including the cooler and food) to the hostel in 1 trip (yay!).

The Green Tortoise isn't the kind of hostel we normally stay in. We usually stay in Hosteling International hostels, while the Green Tortoise isn't associated with them. It must be political, because the Green Tortoise is a great hostel. We have real sheets instead of sleep sacks. The mattresses are spring (OK, I kind of prefer the usual hostel foam mats). The bunks each have a light, a fan, extra power plugs, and (so cool) curtains around the bunk for a little privacy :) It's nice to be able to shut out the light -- Haley was actually able to go to sleep before dark :)



Once we'd checked in, we wandered down to the aquarium. Very cool!

Haley's favorites were the sea otters.


She was a little unsure about touching some of the critters in the tide pool.


After the aquarium we walked to Pioneer Square and joined an Underground Tour.

This tour was actually primarily underground.


The city was originally built too low, so they raised the street level, leaving an entire street level more-or-less intact below. The original first floors of the old buildings became basements.


There was lots of neat old stuff down in the tunnels.


Then we ate dinner at Kell's Irish Restaurant. I got a bottle of Strongbow with my dinner!

The longest 2 miles of my life

Aka, the Hoyt Arboretum

Our last day in Portland was to be somewhat truncated. We had to pick Mom up at the airport a bit after 3, and then ferry her to the Grandparents'. So I planned an activity that we could do for an hour or two and then be glad to be done -- hiking.

After a visit to the local Apple store (new power supply - $79.99; lusting after all the new equipment - free) we checked out of the hostel and headed over to the Hoyt Arboretum.

So Haley and I planned our hike. We would follow a 2 mile trail (theoretically a 1 hour hike) and then go pick up Mom at the airport.

So we followed the trail. When we ended up back at the visitor center in 10 minutes, we looked at the map again and then walked along the right trail. And walked. And walked. There was lots of neat scenery. Like this awesome cherry tree:



Did you know there's an archery range in the arboretum? And lots of houses back up the the arboretum -- very nice to have the cool shade and birdcalls behind your house :) But we kept walking and walking. The trail didn't seem to have much to do with the map in our hands, nor did the maps posted beside the trail. But eventually we staggered back to the visitor center. We spent a few minutes doing our best to suck the water fountains dry and then dousing our hair with water. When we got back to the car we found out it was 97˚. Ouch.

Portland, Day 2

The best laid plans... So we wandered over to Lloyd Center, as planned. We arrived just at 10, when the public skating was beginning. Haley was really excited to go ice skating! I figured that I had a book in my backpack, so if I got bored I could entertain myself for a bit before we headed over to the water park.

In theory, we were going to hang out for a couple of hours. But when I suggested going to the water park, Haley begged to keep skating instead. So we ended up hanging out at the skating rink for 6 hours. I wandered over to a bookstore and bought myself another book to read!

Here's what Haley looked like most of the time:


I helped her get out to the middle, and threatened to leave her stranded there. She was almost amused...


It helped that she met some friends who would have rescued her :)


Finally the rink kicked us out, and we went to explore the pirate store next door. It was pretty cool :)


Finally, here's a little video of our awesome hostel room. We have our own little nook and an in room bathroom!

Portland, Day 1

Well, it didn't take us long to get off schedule. Yes, I've planned a detailed itinerary, and we're already behind! I don't regret a bit of it though. We left the grandparents' around 10:30 and got to our hostel around 12:30. Our room wouldn't be ready until 2, but we were able to park our car in their lot (YES!) and put our food away in the kitchen before we set out to explore.

We had to hurry to walk to where our walking tour was supposed to begin. We got there and found a whole crowd of people! Why, no, we hadn't pre-booked over the internet... Luckily a couple of people didn't show up, so we got to go anyhow :)

The Underground Tour of Portland is a walking tour that is only partly underground. But they talk about nefarious doings in Portland's past for the entire 2 1/2 hour tour -- thus the name. There really are some tunnels under the streets of Portland, dating back to when it was necessary to bring goods from the lower docks up to the warehouses. Apparently they didn't have winches but they did have miners.



One of the places we got to visit was a Chinese apothocary. There were all kinds of herbs and such on the shelves.



Some of them had extremely bizarre contents!



It was a fun tour, and afterwards we had to revisit a couple of the places we'd walked past. First stop: VooDoo Doughnuts!




I ordered a Cock-N-Balls (triple creme filled) and Haley ordered their famous Bacon Maple Bar. We agreed to split a doughnut with chocolate and peanut butter on top. We took our delicious booty to Kell's Irish Pub.



They have lots of money on their ceiling -- once a year they scrape it off and donate it to charity :)



Haley ordered a root beer and I ordered a pint of cider. Yes indeed, we totally blew our dinner money on doughnuts and beer :)



Haley decided she liked the bacon maple bar!



Finally we took a street car over to Powell's Bookstore and spent lots of money on books :) The bookstore takes up an entire city block! They have to color code the areas so you can navigate the building!

At last we staggered back to the hostel, finished our doughnuts, and had some fruit to fill in the cracks. We did not make it to Lloyd's Center to go ice skating -- I guess we'll have to do that tomorrow, before we head over to the water park :)

The Great Haircut

So we finally did it. Haley and I cut our hair. Not a little. No, no. These were massive, extreme haircuts. We both had hair past our waist.



We had a few reasons for our cuts. We knew we'd be traveling up to Portland and Seattle, where it's a lot warmer than Crescent City.

Also, if we were going to cut our hair, we wanted to cut off enough to donate to Locks for Love. (make that a weblink) That meant that we had to cut off a minimum of 10 inches, which would help to make a chin length wig. Obviously, the longer, the better.
Finally, we wanted to make sure that even with our radical new haircuts, we could still get the hair into a ponytail.

To donate hair, they want it to be in a ponytail or (even better) in a braid. So I pulled Haley's hair into a ponytail (so I knew how long her hair *had* to be, and then put another ponytail holder in to make a braid below that. Then I just cut off the braid. Finally I took out her ponytail and evened up her haircut a bit.



I got Andrea to do the same thing to me:



Here's the finished result: