Seattle

We just returned from a week in the upper northwest and what a trip it was! We spent time in the city doing all the touristy things you can think of and also spent time out on the Olympic Peninsula in the high mountains, temperate rain forests and on the Pacific coastline. We went to the aquarium, the top of the Space Needle, the Seattle Children's Museum, Pacific Science Center and Boeing's Museum of Flight. We saw boats being raised at Ballard Locks and fish swimming upstream to spawn. We took ferries, cabs, monorails, ferris wheels and airplanes. And we finally saw the sun after three days of typical Seattle weather! I took over 350 pictures on this trip so I'm going to just pick a few from our city adventures…

While our visit to Seattle itself was all about the things we did, our trip out to Olympic National Park was all about the things we saw. I would rank this park up there as one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to. And amazingly, as we drove out to the peninsula, the sun came out and stayed out for the rest of our trip! The weather was amazing out west, staying between 60 and 70 degrees; definitely a climate we could get used to. But it did drop into the 50s when we took the long, twisty drive up to Hurricane Ridge to see this…

I have to leave that fist picture of the Olympic Range a little bigger, although every picture I took of this spot does it no justice. We saw deer grazing in the fields and hiked through some piles of snow, much to Christopher's delight. We went from snow one day to sand and rainforest the next, as the following pictures will show…

While we were in the park, we stayed at the Lake Crescent Lodge which, as it happens, is located next to Lake Crescent. It was a beautiful old national park lodge and we really enjoyed our time there. The main lodge had a cozy fireplace that Christopher wanted to sit by every morning and evening and, like last year's trip to Hawaii, had resident friendly ducks that got rather close to us around dinner time!

That last picture was the view from our room… On our last day at the lake, we hiked up to Marymere Falls and saw some enormous moss-covered trees along the way…

On our last night, we returned to the city, found a fast food place with all vegan food (not unusual in this city!) and prepared to head back to the midwest. It was an amazing trip!