Adventure #6

This was by far our biggest adventure of the summer! We spent 9 days in Washington and Oregon. We drove up for Shaun's brother's wedding, and made a vacation out of it. That is the farthest I have ever driven (my parents were not into driving on long trips when I was at home). It wasn't too bad though, and travelling with only 2 people, who are both adults, is pretty easy.

Somehow we didn't wee a drop of rain the whole time we were there! The weather was a constant 75. It was so perfect. It was hard to come back to 90 degree weather in Logan.

We bought Seattle City Passes, which are a great deal. Any time you take a vacation to a big city, they are definitely worth checking out. We saved 50% off ticket prices of the top 6 attractions in Seattle, plus skipped waiting in line since we already had our tickets. The website also gives you lots of detailed info, like parking, least crowded times to visit, etc. I will try to wittle down our hundreds of pictures to a bearable post.

Our VERY packed vehicle. We hauled a bed frame and a bunch of wedding gifts up there, bedsides all of our luggage and camping equipment.

We saw this place called Big Jud's on the show Man vs. Food about a year ago. Since we were going through Boise anyway, we stopped to get their largest burger. It had 2 lbs of hamburger, plus bacon, and all the normal toppings. It was good, but we never did finish it, even after taking the leftovers and working on it for a few days.

We stayed at a KOA in Pendleton the first night. Shaun thought it was so funny to pretend to pee on the "P". :)
The night before the wedding we were at Emily's parents' house. (Emily is Nate's fiance/wife). There were TONS of the itty bitty frogs all over in the grass and we had fun catching them.
Look how tiny they are!!!!
Shaun and Isaiah - Emily's son (and now Nate's too!)
Grandma Iris did NOT want me to take her picture - she's shaking her cane at me!! We love her so much! I told her I just needed a picture of Shaun holding her purse, and she tried to walk out of the picture, lol.
Emily and Nathan
The Experience Music Project, which was combine with the SciFi museum......random.
View from the top of the Space Needle
Us at the top of the space needle

We saved a lot of money on this trip by camping, eating cereal and peanut butter sandwiches almost every day. But we decided we had to have seafood while we were on the coast, so we splurged at Elliott's one night. It was delicious! We spent $80 on one appetizer and one meal!

I was queen of pulling out whole pieces of crab meat :)

At the Seattle Aquarium they had dive shows going on all the time. Scuba divers would actually get into the tanks with the fish and feed them and stuff. They even had microphones inside their masks and could talk to us while they were underwater!

The touch pools were so cool! We got to touch starfish, anenomes, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers.

This was on a ship that we took an hour long harbor tour near the Space Needle.

Woodland Park Zoo. So much different than Hogle Zoo. It was more of a sanctuary. The animals had such huge, pretty habitats. Not as good for viewing, because sometimes they were so far away from us, but good for the animals.

The orangutans were beings so cute while we were there. There was a smaller one with a blanket that was wearing it like a cape and covering its face, and then it would keep peeking out at us.

We paid to feed an elephant. I'm not sure it was worth it, we were still a lot farther away from them than we thought we'd get to be. Oh well, it was still another experience.

The penguins were our absolute favorite animals to see. They had a TON of penguins. And they were so interactive, they would swim up to the glass to see you.

After the zoo we headed to Portland, OR. We stopped at Powell's Book Store. It takes up a whole block. Inside there are like 8 different colored rooms and each room has a different theme. It was pretty crazy. I don't think we were there long enough to really grasp the hugeness of it.

Portland temple. There were so many trees that you couldn't take a picture of the whole temple, because if you got far enough away fit the whole temple in the picture, there would be too many trees between you and the temple!

We went to the International Rose Test Garden. It wasn't as impressive as I was imagining. But there were way more types of roses than I ever thought there could be.

Multnomah Falls

It was a steep 1 1/4 mile hike to the top.

Us at the top. The hike took you to a platform that was seriously right at the top of the waterfall. We were so close to it that you couldn't really even see it, it was right underneath us.

We went to the Bonneville Fish Hatchery and Dam. This is Herman the Sturgeon. He is about 70 years old and 11 feet long!

This creepy thing was swimming up the fish ladder along with the salmon. It is called a lamprey, and they rest by sucking onto rocks (or windows). Check out those teeth!

Our last night. We stayed at the Cascade Locks KOA while we were in Oregon. It was a really nice one. We were so tired the last night that we built the fire to cook our hotdogs before it even got dark, and then went to bed.