Washington or bust!

I am happy to annouce that I finally made it back up to Washington state this month!!! For those of you who don't know, I served my mission in the Washington Tacoma Mission (the best mission in the Church). I hadn't been back to visit since 2004 when my Mom and I spent a week there. This trip was a little different than the last one, but I loved it just the same.

My friend Melissa had some business to attend to near Seattle, so she and I and her daughter Maelee all went together. We arrived on Monday the 11th, and it was raining in Seattle when we landed. I pointed out to Melissa that she should be grateful that it was raining when we arrived. I was on my mission in Washington for two weeks or so before I ever saw any rain! I can still remember getting the "Welcome to WETport" phone call in my first area!

On Tuesday afternoon we headed down to Seattle to see some sights and meet some of the colorful locals. We made Pike Place Market our first stop, and that was a good thing considering it would have been closed for the night had we made it our second stop.

We saw the world famous fish throwers though and I was smart enough to dig out my camera for the occasion this time (I felt too dumb to do it when I went with my Mom).

This girl was on a tour of some kind and someone in the group ordered a fish and she got to go up and catch it. She is a braver person than I am. I don't want anyone lugging a hefty, dead, slimy fish at me with a crowd of onlookers watching my every move (and taking pictures). She caught it though.

Look at this great store front they had there. Doesn't it look right up my alley? Don't worry, their stuff was all way over priced, so I didn't give in and buy anything. I didn't get any Washington cows now that I think about it...

Check out the great graffiti on the building we paid to park by. [As a side note, a person can go broke paying to park in Seattle.]

We decided to see some of the free sights after we ran out of time on the parking permit. We headed to Volunteer Park to see a view of the Seattle skyline from a historic water tower. The view wasn't quite what I wanted, but the water tower and gardens were great.

After Volunteer Park we headed over to Kerry Park on Queen Anne Hill (I think that is where it is). It had a much better view of the city and the Sound. It was at about sundown or so when we got there but thankfully there was a nice wall for me to set my camera on to take some photos to make into a panorama. There was a nice man there from California that loaned me his tripod so that I could snap a few photos of Melissa and I with the Seattle skyline in the background.

We called it a night and headed back to Smokey Point for the night. I think we were halfway back to out hotel when I finally looked at the clock to see what time it was. To my shock it was already 9:30 PM. Based on how light it still was at the time I would have guessed it was 7:30 or 8 PM at the latest. That's what I get for underestimating the length of days in the Pacific Northwest!

Stay tuned for more Washington adventures...