Our Washington Vacation...Not All Rain

We left Minneapolis in the pouring rain October 16th. I thought this was an appropriate start to a late fall vacation in western Washington. I had done the unconscionable thing of looking at the Puget Sound weather before we left...solid rain...Tuesday through Monday. To our delight and surprise, we flew into a bright, sunny afternoon in Seattle. The car we rented wasn't there! Barb was eyeing a new Jeep that was parked next to our empty slot, when they came back and asked if we would mind taking the Jeep. Barb said she had always secretly wanted one...so the fates smile on her again. We drove down to stay with Jack and Kay Brown in Puyallup, east of Tacoma. Jack and I were stationed in the same unit in VietNam, and again at McChord AFB outside Tacoma. We wound up living in the same apartment complex there, and became like family...the good parts. They stayed there when Barb and I moved back to the Midwest. Jack and Kay both retired this summer, so they were free to spend a lot of time with us. We spent Wednesday and Thursday on their boat...C2B2















The weather started out sunny , but turned to the typical gray rainy Puget Sound I had been looking forward to. ;)

Barb and Jack




















Kay and me.
















We tied up in a marina below downtown Tacoma to stay for the night. Then spent Wednesday afternoon and evening bumming around downtown, and then slept that night on the boat. Thursday morning was forecasting high winds so we took the boat back to their slip, and drove back to Tacoma. Thirty five years ago, when we lived out there, Tacoma was a smelly, deteriorating "rat hole". Now it's coming back, with a large U of W campus, convention center, museums, theaters and lots of things to do.















One of the things I would recommend, if you ever get there, is the Chihuly Glass Museum. I wasn't all that interested in the displays, though the "bridge" was impressive.

http://www.museumofglass.org

However, the "Hot Shop", where they actually work the glass was fastinating. I've done just enough lab glass blowing to be overwhelmed by what they were doing. We sat there for two hours, and could have watched longer. As impressive as their successes were, their work to recover when things started to go wrong, was equally intriguing.















On returning to Puyallup, Thursday night, we were greeted with a "Brown-out'. There were 26,000 homes without power in the southern Puget Sound area due to the winds, but only the Brown's neighborhood in Puyallup. Jack and Kay have a little tear-drop camp trailer. So while Jack got out a generator to keep their refrigerator in the house running, I made chili for supper in the trailer's rear flip-up kitchen. Chili and wine by candle light. :) The four of us used to camp together a lot, so it was sort of like the old days.

Friday and Satuday we went over to the Pacific Ocean.

What to do in case of a Tsunami!



















What "NOT" to do in case of a Tsunami!














The result of ignoring the guy behind the camera yelling "TSUNAMI!".















Some historical sites just don't seem to hold much name appeal.






























Contrary to the original weather forcasts for the week we had sun and rain every day except one. We took a chance of going up to Mount St Helens on an overcast afternoon, and were rewarded with great, though intermittent, views of the mountain, the devastation, and the recovery.


















Our day in Seattle on Monday was mostly sunny. Great for just hanging out. My only goal there was to find a donut shop, "Top Pot", that had been raved about on the Lynn Rosetta Casper's food show on MPR. The rest of the time was spent wandering around Pike Place Market and eating, seeing the new sculpture garden and eating, shopping along the warfs and eating...well Seattle is a good place to eat.




















We had planned a trip up to Mount Rainier for our last day of vacationing. It hadn't been visible all week, so it was a big surprise to wake up Tuesday morning and see it looming out our bedroom window. The day turned out to be, from my flying days: "severe clear". The destruction up there from the 18"/36Hrs rains last December has closed most of the roads around the mountain, but the road to Paradise (ironic phrase) was open. Though nothing was open at the Paradise visitor center (awaiting demolition and replacement) we were entertained by an opportunistic fox stealing a bag of baggles out of the back of someones pickup.




















Peder's sister, Heidi came down from DesMoines (WA), to visit with us at the Brown's, after we got back from Rainier.

The only down side of the trip was not much "down time" during the week. Guess I'll have to take advantage of that on the cruise next August.