Day 17: Journey to the San Juan Islands, WA

We woke up very early this morning to pack up the car and leave the Coleman’s home to explore the San Juan Islands, which are in the Salish Sea (a geographic term for the Strait of Georgia-Puget Sound-Strait of Juan de Fuca region). We had a bit of driving to do in order to catch the 11:50 ferry leaving Anacortes. Getting through the small towns near the ferry dock took a little longer than we had anticipated; we ended up sprinting up the boarding ramp with our tickets in hand as the final boarding horn sounded. Wide-eyed and out of breath, we hustled up the stairs to find a seat on the outer deck of the ferry. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and we knew we had a beautiful day ahead of us.

The ferry ride was about an hour long, and docked in Friday Harbor, which cradles a picturesque sea town in its arms of conifers and pine needles. The town had almost a sort of Mediterranean feeling to it with people zipping around on scooters and bicycles. Cafés and eateries hugged the shoreline and booths were set up all along the streets offering kayaking, scooter and bicycles rentals. We learned that the waters around the small island are regular routes for orca whales, and that there are three well-known pods in the area nicknamed “J,” “K” and “L.” Kayaking is a great way to get around the island and appreciate the landscape, so we signed up with a small company called “Discovery Kayaking,” for a half-day tour of part of the coastline. Our friends, the Kunzs, recommended them and we’re so glad we took the suggestion! We had a great tour guide who grew up around the San Juan Islands, and she was really able to cue us in to all the different types wildlife in the water and on land. There was only one other couple in the group so we were really able to pick our guide’s brain with random island inquiries. We were as amused by this awkward couple as we were with our non-Illinois surroundings. Every so often we stopped to admire harbor seals, jellyfish, bald eagles, and to nibble on sea kelp. We learned that there are many, many types of edible seaweeds and kelp.

After returning slightly burned, in spite of our sunscreen efforts, we grabbed a quick meal of island burgers before catching the return ferry to Anacortes. This time we caught the sunset over the islands – it was gorgeous. Mt. Rainier was visible in the distance too.

We rested for the night close to the Canadian border at Birch Bay campground. The sky that glowed above us was absolutely magical.

We arrived late at night and had to check ourselves in and pay via a metal deposit box anchored to the ground. We were exhausted from the day’s activities, and the only thing on our mind was our cozy blow up mattress that was currently deflated and packed up tightly in the cold trunk. We started a stopwatch, jumped out of the car, and threw our home for the night together in about seventeen minutes. Three minutes later we were snuggled up in our goodwill blankets and drifted to sleep, thinking of the orca pods we unfortunately never saw.

Day 16: Exploring Tacoma's Glass Museum, WA

During our day in Seattle yesterday, we learned from a glass-blowing vendor that the state of Washington is known for its glass-blowing schools and artists. Furthermore, the city of Tacoma just happens to be the home to several expert glass blowers, one of which is no big deal really: Dale Chihuly!! We’d been to the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York when we were younger and we were excited to see another museum. We realized we had no choice but to check out downtown Tacoma’s Museum of Glass, which holds the exquisite work of famous glass blowers like Preston Singletary, Dale Chihuly (obviously) and guest artists from around the world. Singletary’s exhibit was the first one we went through and we were blown away (no pun intended) by his work. He is a Native American artist who draws much of his inspiration from his heritage. His pieces reflected many stories about ravens, orca whales and other spirit creatures that are a part of the Native American traditions.



Another section of the museum that we really enjoyed was “Kids Design Glass.” This display was filled with glass productions inspired by children’s creative illustrations. Every illustration chosen to “come alive” was crafted in the museum’s studio, in front of the young child artist and their family. Two identical pieces are created; one gets displayed in the exhibit, and the other was given to the child. Each piece was unbelievably colorful and had a picture of the original drawing and a description by the child. It was impossible to pick a favorite – some of our favorites were: “pickled bandits,” “coyotes with rainbow socks,” “banana on wheels” and a “pizza cat.” We thought it was such a cool idea. Just imagine how proud a child is to have their design picked and brought to life by glass artists.



As we came to the end of the exhibit, we entered a huge glass studio shaped like a cylindrical cone. There was theater seating, along with a catwalk that encircled the round room so that everyone could really get a 360-degree view. Several of the visiting/resident glass blowers were hard at work, scurrying to and from the giant molten glass furnaces with Kevlar gloves and masks. We were told that the furnaces are kept at 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit. Each artist had an assistant and it was amazing to watch how smoothly they worked together. Someone was always blowing or pulling or stretching the glowing yellow-white material, amazing us with the properties of molten glass. A man who worked for the museum spoke into a microphone to explain exactly what was going on at each of the artist’s stations. We sat, mesmerized, for over an hour as we watched and learned about the art of glass blowing. We’d love to take lessons now!









The museum also had a lot of neat outdoor displays, one of which is the famous Chihuly Bridge of Glass. It’s a 500-foot-long pedestrian bridge linking downtown Tacoma to the city's waterfront and has three different parts: the Seaform Pavilion, the Crystal Towers and the Venetian Wall. The shapes, curves, colors and reflections cast by the artwork were so beautiful.









We explored Gig Harbor later on in the afternoon; this quaint town was the perfect place to spend the rest of the day and enjoy the late afternoon sun. We came across a small cafe with a pottery studio in the back of the building. Here you could chose a ceramic plate, mug, or small statue and use any of the glazes or paints to decorate your piece. The room was full of creativity and dedicated young artists. We skipped out on the painting and found a table outside to sip our chi tea and plan our next day’s adventures on the San Juan Islands. For dinner, we found an outdoor grille right on the water and watched the boats come in and out of the bay. It was the first beautiful evening in a long time, and Mount Rainier was visible far off on the horizon.

Day 15: 4th of July in Seattle, WA

This was a day that we were looking forward to for some time. Many friends have told us about all the great places to visit in Seattle, so we left early in the morning to ensure enough time to visit everything and beat the Fourth of July traffic.



The first stop we made was to the famous Pike Place Market. Immediately, we were in awe of all the hustle and bustle of the place; the colors, smells, styles and textures of the two-level market were a complete sensory overload. Artists, chefs, farmers, florists, fisherman, butchers and bakers had all their goods displayed, happy to tell you about their colorful backgrounds and where they were from. Street performers and musicians were on every street corner, creating a friendly and inviting atmosphere. The thing we noticed the most were the smells – smells coming from every door. Fresh breads and pastries from the French bakery, seafood from the wharf area, Indian spices, Greek foods and olive oils galore, fresh fruit and vegetables grown locally, a cheese shop crafting vats of cheese in front of an audience and Asian cuisine cooked-to-go in giants woks in front of you were all enshrouded with the fresh scent of the ocean less than 100 feet away. The fish vendor portion of the market was very impressive in and of itself. Rows and rows of tables were packed with mounds of ice on which every shape and color fish imaginable lay, fresh and chilled, waiting for its chef to come hand-select it for his menu that night. Tanks of live lobsters and crabs lined the front of stalls; we almost stepped on a giant crab crawling across the pavement that a vendor had let lose in order to show a crowd of staring kids. The variety of fresh flowers available were also staggering; the colors were vivid and petals exotic. It was unreal that the huge bouquets were being sold for just $10 - $15. We soon realized that one day alone was nowhere close enough to the time needed to experience the complexity and diversity of this wonderful city.









We came to Seattle with the mission to find a good European bakery. Little did we know just what a treat we were in for when we stepped in the door of a French bakery called “La Panier, The Very French Bakery.” We were instantly transported to pastry heaven by the smells that wafted from the ovens. We stood in line for the longest 15 minutes of our lives before we were able to place our orders. By this time we had only added to the countless face and hand smudges left on the outside of the glass deli cases. We shared a chocolate-filled croissant, a kiwi-strawberry-blueberry fruit tartlet and the best slice of rhubarb tart we’d ever had.



As we were strolling down Pike Street, we came across one “performer” we wish we hadn’t. A grungy looking man had a small stand with a cat in a sweater perched on it. There was a small crowd, so we approached out of curiosity. He was speaking with a woman about diverse cat names, and as we reached out to stroke his cat, he quickly broke off his conversation with his cat comrade to bat Martina’s hand away. He explained that he was not a bum and that we needed to make a donation to his cat club if we would like to speak to him and his cat.



As some of you may know, Seattle is also home to the very first Starbucks which is located in the heart of Pike Street itself. It is also the only shop that has the original mermaid logo - she appears a tad bit more revealed than her present-day counterparts! The line for coffee was out the door all day long, but this didn’t stop Martina. According to her, the 15 minute wait for her skinny caramel latte was well worth the wait. Just a note: the number of Starbucks in Washington is staggering. In downtown Seattle, it wasn't unusual to see more than one shop on the same city block!!



We also came across a wonderful Italian wine and truffle shop called La Buona Tavola. Martina was overwhelmed by all the Italian wines; it immediately brought her back to her days studying abroad in Florence where she took a wine-tasting class. The highlight of her day was finding a wine that shared her name! It was a must-buy and we never hesitated making the purchase.



We had both been craving sushi for some time, so after being pointed in several different directions we came across a Japanese restaurant called the Umi Sake House. We felt a bit out of place as we trudged in with wet jackets and hair from the rain outside, but quickly fell to business ordering our fresh sushi and edamame. To say the fish was good would have been an extreme understatement; it was phenomenal! It's understandable that a sushi restaurant four blocks from such huge fish markets would have a remarkable quality of food.

With exhausted legs, we found or parking complex as the sun went down and battled the holiday traffic to make it to Lake Union for the 10:15 fireworks show. We watched as fireworks lit up the entire sky from the barge they were being shot off of. The bangs from each explosion were so violent, that several car alarms began screeching. We fell asleep two hours later, having fought our way back through outgoing traffic, images of our own fireworks bursting in our heads.

Day 14: Mt. St. Helens & Mt. Rainier, WA

Today was the day to explore two very cool mountains in the state of Washington. Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier are only about an hour and a half apart, so we planned to visit both of these today; we had strategically picked Packwood to stay in overnight because of its location almost completely smack dab between the two sites. We left the lovely Hotel Packwood early in the morning and drove south towards Mt. Saint Helens. The volcano erupted back in 1980 and created an incredible amount of damage. Even though the eruption happened 30 years ago, the mountain is still being affected by the eruption; scientists here have the unique opportunity of watching how a habitat damaged by ash and smoke slowly resurrects itself into a functioning ecosystem. Just picture this: As one of the explosions blows laterally out of the side of Mt. St. Helens, all the snow on that side of the mountain instantly melts into thousands and thousands of gallons of water. This torrent of water whips down the mountain and blows all the fallen timber in front of it down into the small lake at the base. As a matter of fact, SO much water rushed into this lake at one time that scientists say the lake rose instantly by 200 HUNDRED FEET. We were shocked to see that even after these 30 years, thousands of logs are still floating in the lake below. Since temperatures are so low, the logs don't really rot or decompose in the water. The lake’s water level increased SO much that scientists and engineers worked together and formulated a plan to keep the body of water from bursting over its natural dam, washing away the mountainside. They used a huge earth-drilling machine and drilled sideward into the lake to install a mechanism almost like a sump-pump to keep the water from overflowing. The temperature outside was about forty-five degrees, but it was probably much colder at the top of Mt. St. Helens, which stands at 8,365 feet in elevation. There were not many opportunities for hiking as we drove further up the mountain, so we enjoyed feeding the ridiculously plump chipmunks at most of the scenic overlooks. Every person that comes to visit the mountain must feed these critters, because they were extremely fat and very brave.

We drove through Packwood again on our way to Mt. Rainier, and the landscape was a bit different as we neared the national park. We were saddened by news we had heard the night before: a climber was lost on the mountain while climbing with his friends and two days had already passed. At 14,00 feet, Mt. Rainier, is the highest peak in Washington; sadly, every year a handful of climbers become lost or fall while rappelling the snowy slopes and perish. A park ranger we spoke to informed us that the climber would most likely not be found since the top of the mountain is almost constantly surrounded by fog, making it both dangerous and difficult to navigate a helicopter in search of missing climbers. With this information, we stayed put on the ground, and marveled at Mt. Rainier from a distance. There are only a few paved roads to the base of the mountain, and to get closer you must hike and climb. The higher you ascend, the more technical things become, requiring ropes and teams of experienced climbers.

For the next three nights, we are staying with friends of friends, the Colemans, who live in beautiful Tacoma. We are very lucky to have such friendly people in our lives. We grilled out with some company, and were able to watch an early firework show that was taking place at the baseball stadium - we had a view from the backyard!

Day 13: Lewis & Clark Museum and Packwood, WA

content="Microsoft Word 2008"> We started out with an excellent morning because our plastic sack window was traded in for a real-life glass window. We were greeted very early by Tanner and his black lab companion Razz in their mobile glass-fixing truck from Astoria. After an hour and a half of knocking, banging, whirring and wiggling, our new window was in place. With new found enthusiasm, we packed up in the rain and headed for Astoria, which is about fifteen minutes away. Along the way, we saw one of the funniest garages we'd ever seen - it was covered in old buoys the owner must have found along the beach. Our parents should never complain about our pack-rat tendencies ever again.

It was another rainy morning, but this didn’t dampen our spirits, because we were on our way to visit the house where part of The Goonies was filmed. The house looked a bit different, but we loved it nonetheless.

We didn’t spend too much longer in the town, but we did squeeze in time to snatch a few chicken and black bean burritos from TacoTime, which is Oregon’s version of Taco Bell. The lady who made our burritos used a huge metal pastry gun filled full of guacamole to top off our lunches; we were in awe and thoroughly wished we could take such a good idea with us in the car to make every day a chips, salsa and “guac” day! No more having to DIP your corn chips! Soon enough, we were on the interstate heading into the state of Washington.

Right over the border, we were in the vicinity of the trail that Lewis and Clark blazed in their search of the Pacific Ocean in the very early 1800’s. We were both interested in this long journey, so we stopped at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center to learn more. The museum was set up as a long timeline, and we got a better understanding of the hardships endured as we walked and read our way down the timeline. There were some really interesting artifacts from the actual excursion, making it hard not to feel as if you were right there with the explorers, toiling and struggling through the mountains and swamps. After some time in here, we enjoyed the nice weather outside on a balcony overlooking the infamous Cape Disappointment.

We still had a bit of driving to do before we would reach our resting place for the night, so we left the beautiful view behind us, and hit the road. Along the way, we passed a stunning lake called Mayfield Lake; the mountains hit the water at 45-degree angles while the trees were mirrored in its glassy water. Right after we finished taking pictures of the lake, a huge rainbow came into view right in front of us. Unfortunately though, no gold.

When we reached the small town of Packwood, we realized it only had three places to eat. We took our best bet and dined at the local pub where the townies told us have the best pizza. Here we kicked back for a few hours and did some more planning before heading to the Hotel Packwood. This was a cozy bed and breakfast, and we felt very at home in the historic building. The place was run by “Marilyn,” an older woman who had her grandchildren staying with her at the time. We found rocking chairs on the wrap-around porch to sit in and slept under quilts.

Day 12: Columbia River Gorge

Today we awoke to rain; we have been lucky enough to somehow avoid having to get ready in morning precipitation the entire trip. The Columbia River Gorge, which runs along the border of Oregon and Washington, was our destination for the day. Again, since we had planned to leave by nine, we left at ten. This has been a normal occurrence for us during the last two weeks or so. It was also the first full day we were able to try out our new plastic passenger side window. Even though we had done our best to tape it down as tightly as possible, the wind whipped it around like crazy, tempting us to rip it out and strangle ourselves with the plastic. Our ears were ringing after just 10 minutes on the interstate!

As we drove along the gorge, we saw hundreds of windsurfers taking advantage of the strong winds that are trapped between the high cliff walls and whip through the gorge over the water. It was an incredible sight to see – the bad weather did not stop the windsurfers. We arrived at the famous Multnomah Falls, eager to get out of the car and do some hiking to stretch our legs. We couldn’t believe the type of clothing the majority of people wore to walk the 100 feet to the base of the falls, have their photo taken and then head straight to the snack stand. There were women in tube-top dresses, heels, faux fur shawls, knee-high Converse shoes and disco-style pants. Remember… it was raining out. The higher we climbed up the falls trail, the less crowded it was and we got a chance to take some photos. The falls were spectacular; it was broken into two levels, both of which were completely covered in gorgeous green moss and ferns. The back of the falls was composed of different layers of volcanic rock.







We chose our next stop in hopes of avoiding any more herds of tourists: Bonneville Fish Hatchery! It was surprisingly interesting. There were buildings designated for egg incubation, long troughs where the baby fish (called fingerlings) were raised to adolescence, and holding ponds for the adult fish before they were released. Salmon, trout and sturgeon were all raised there. The most interesting part of the entire visit was the viewing the aquarium full of sturgeon and a few rainbow trout. We were in awe of the immense size of the fish. The star of the show was a sturgeon named “Herman.” If Herman was released into the wild, he would definitely be mistaken for a killer whale or shark. He was about around 8 feet long, 60 years old, and 750 pounds. Sturgeon can get up to 20 feet long, 1,000 pounds and 100 years old.









After the hatchery, we booked it to the east side of the gorge to learn more about the area at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Museum. We thought we would have plenty of time here, but turns out the museum closed at five o’clock, and it was ten past five. Since we had missed out on the one place we had been planning to visit the whole day, we did the next best thing and drove straight to Portland to catch the 7:30 showing of Eclipse. We needed a fill up on gas, so we pulled into the nearby 76 to visit our trusty friends. This time next to the pumps, we noticed 76’s entertaining version of public service announcements explaining how to identify smashed bugs on a windshield and easy ways to loosen up sore muscles. While our car was being serviced, we got out of the car and stretched out for the drive ahead of us, and thanked the station for their useful signs. With a tank full of diesel, a fresh cup of free coffee (thanks to the “buy a tank, get free coffee” deal), and a toothless grin from our gas attendant, we battled Portland rain and traffic to get up close and personal with our favorite vampires.



Since we’re beginning to get fed up with paying for ice, Martina has developed an excellent solution. We have now resorted to stopping at outdoor motels and filling up plastic bags with ice from the ice machine, and dumping these into our warm cooler. One man watched her in her sneaky attack, and gave us a thumbs-up. Apparently she's not the only smart thinker around here.