D and S

We have a red eye flight back tonight so we still had some time today. The Museum of History and Industry was just around the block from our hotel and today Microsoft was hosting an event there which had the museum open free to the public. Paul Allen and Bill Gates of Microsoft fame made this museum a reality. All types of history items about Seattle and a quirky exhibit on Chocolate (Mary Ann's personal favorite) on 2 filled floors with a lot of interactive exhibits. Walked along the waterfront and decided to ride the Great Wheel during the day to watch the activity on the bay. Navy vessels, pleasure boats, sailboats, kayaks, ferries, container ships, and Coast Guard vessels were all out on the water and again we watched the Blue Angels fly overhead. Fairwell ... read more

Started the day off at the Space Needle climbing 520 ft to the top in an elevator. Skies were bright and clear so many great views. Blue Angels gave us a real show with a 4 team formation and a 2 team formation buzzing near us for a long time. Then headed over to the Chihuly Exhibit which is an incredible array of blown glass sculptures - hard to imagine the skill and talent required to make these. Headed to an Underground Tour in the Pioneer Square area to see the city that lived below the streets for a time after the great fire in the 1880s - creepy and cool at the same time. Topped the day off with a night visit to the Space Needle to see the beautiful lights of the city and ... read more

We stayed in town today to do a couple of our City Pass tours. Headed out on the Argosy cruise of the harbor seeing the waterfront area, learning a bit more about the history of cruise ship tourism which is relatively new to Seattle, the 1962 World Fair which brought the Space Needle to life, the massive amount of grain that is exported from this area to the Pacific, the Coast Guard and Navy presence, the massive ferry system which can take up to 2000 cars each way to Bainbridge Island, and the advent of the Pikes Place Market when produce prices were soaring. After our boat tour we headed to the Seattle Aquarium where they had many varieties of fish, jellyfish, squid, sharks, seals, sea otters, and the cute puffin. Boys went for a swim ... read more

Today we traveled nearly 400 miles round trip to see both Mt St Helens and Mt Rainier. We traveled 36 miles over the winding Routes 25 and 99 to the Windy Ridge lookout. Not for the faint of heart. Mt St Helens peak is just about 2.5 miles from the lookout and there are great views of Spirit Lake along the route. After 30 years you can still see the path taken by the blast as the trees fell in the direction they were blown. We got to the lookout in time to hear a Park Ranger talk about the events leading up to the blast in 1980 and the transformation since that time. An incredible story and an incredible sight. We headed back down the mountain and north to the west entrance of Mt Rainier ... read more

We took the Amtrak Coast Starlight train from Seattle to Portland, OR today. This train goes from Vancouver, B.C. to California which includes bi-level coaches and sleeping cars if you are making the journey to CA. Travel speeds are slow compared to the Northeast Corridor. The scenery along the coast was beautiful and we crossed over the Columbia River along the way. Both Union Stations were quite pretty and very clean as compared to what we are used to on the East Coast. We've not been to Portland before and we were pleasantly surprised at the vibrance of the town. We took one of those hop on hop off trolleys for a 2 hour tour of the town, the expansive parks, and the waterfront area where there was a Brewfest event. On the way back to ... read more