I gotta throw a post together because I haven't written anything this whole month of July. I haven't skipped a month since I started this little blog of mine, so I can't miss one now!
So I will tell you a bit about our recent family vacation to Washington. We decided to go to Seattle this year because our plans to go to San Diego fell flat when Chelsea got her mission call to Southern California. Even though she has been there before (hello! we lived there for 3 years), we didn't want to ruin the "newness" of it for her by vacationing near where she will be serving. So we thought of other fun places that we could visit that are in a day's driving distance. I've wanted to go back to the Seattle area for a long time, and since the kids had never been there and our friends, the Hammers, just moved there, Seattle became our destination.
I love planning our trips. This one fell together nicely.
Day 1 Drive to Snoqualmie, dinner with Hammers, visit Snoqualmie Falls, see their new house.
Day 2Hard but fun morning run through the woods with Hammers, awesome afternoon hike up to Rattlesnake Ledge, swimming underwater with my eyes open at the hotel pool (feeling like a kid again), ate some serious pizza at Serious Pie downtown Seattle, added gum to the "Gum Wall", 10:30 pm up the Space Needle
Day 3 Drive to Mukilteo for a really interesting Boeing tour (no pics could be taken in the hangers where they build the airplanes), seafood lunch at Ivars, 1 1/2 hour wait to get on ferry to my old stomping ground Whidbey Island, found my old house and school in Oak Harbor, skipped rocks at Deception Pass, dinner and sleep in Anacortes
There's my beach (photo taken from below the bridge)
My beautiful girls
My kids skipping and collecting rocks in the same place I did 30 years ago
My fam at Deception Pass
Remembering the days of being eight years old and running around this very spot
Eclectic (and spendy) food at Adrift
Day 4 Walk onto ferry to San Juan Island- Friday Harbor, BBQ lunch, 3 hour super cool whale watching adventure with Western Prince on their "Western Exporer" coast guard-like boat, ferry 1 1/2 hours back to Anacortes' Ships Harbor Inn all worn out
Getting off the ferry at Friday Harbor
We looked pretty funny in these suits, but we stayed warm out on the water
Here's the company owner, Captain Ivan
There's our awesome naturalist, JB, standing up behind me
Thanks to Ivan, the Captain, we have some good pics of the wildlife we watched. He had the right lens to capture the action up close. He emailed us the following six pictures of our excursion that day. Watching the eagles fighting in the air (over who had dibs on the seal carcass on the rocks) was so cool. I'm glad Ivan got those memorable pics. We found the whales up in Canadian waters. We followed them for an hour.
Emma taking in view of the ferry from Ships Harbor Inn
Day 5 Enjoyed scenery while driving south to Seattle, had a blast seeing "Seattle By Segway" 1 1/2 hour tour, walked around Pike Place Market, enjoyed watching the Mariners play the Indians and ate yummy ballpark food
That's one happy guy!
Matt loved keeping score in his new score book
Day 6 We had a great brunch at Issaquah Cafe and then said good-bye to the greenery and drove home to brown Meridian. It's nice to be home, though. Home is where ever we are together. I could live anywhere, really. There's good and bad to every place. I'm grateful for all of the moving around the country that I have experienced. I'm glad I have been able to go back to most of those towns. Maybe next summer we can go back to Colorado Springs. Garden of the Gods sounds fun. Hmmmm. I think the planning has begun!
My buddy and neighbor, Natalie, moved far far away from me this past weekend. My pre-move denial is officially over because she is really gone now. She's not coming back. Her house has been taken over by somebody else, and I can no longer wait outside for her to come out of that red door so we can run together.
I will miss the annual Christmas caroling, the 4th of July bike rides, Cross Country and track meets, Boise River floats, birthday lunches, morning chats while running, dinner/movie date nights, and so much more. I wish we could do a 2nd annual ugly sweater party together. The first one rocked. We were meal group members, Primary presidency workers, trailer co-owners. Good times!
Natalie, Kris, and I have been BFFs for about 7 of the 8 years that I have lived here in Meridian. It is sad that we will be separated, but thanks to texting, phone calls, and road trips, we will stay connected and continue to always be friends.
Here we are having one last run together just the other night.
And here we are through the years. I love these girls!
More fun times to come!
In the meantime... I will miss you, Natalie!
I need to finish up our India adventure by telling you a little more about our time in Delhi. I already wrote about our snake charmer moment here. Check it out if you haven't already.
Our highlight of being in crazy Delhi was taking a rickshaw ride through the old part of Delhi... hence the name Old Delhi. Here is the video I took while riding with Benson, our travel agent from Abish Travels. He's a local of Delhi. Matt was in the rickshaw behind me. What a fun ride! It was in the late morning, so shops were just opening and the thick crowds of people hadn't formed yet. Watch and notice the mess of wiring above these alleyways. AMAZING. How'd you like to be an electrician here? How does one make sense of it all? Maybe they don't.
We got off the rickshaws for about 30 minutes so that we could visit the spice market. When I say spice market... I mean THE spice market that sends spices all over the world. Remember Christopher Columbus set off to go to India to get spices? They definitely have lots of yummy spices. POTENT, I tell ya! We were sneezing and having a hard time breathing in deep without coughing when we were down in the maze of the market. Benson took us up a steep, dark staircase that led us to the rooftop overlooking all of the action. So cool. We could see spices drying out in the sun. We watched men lifting and transporting heavy bags. It was a neat vantage point. People live around the spice market which I find crazy. It's such a loud place and it is hard to breath right there. I don't think they get used to it because I saw men who work there coughing.
Here is a guy that was in that dark, scary staircase. I guess he found a cool place to take a snooze.
Here is the view we first saw.
You'd never know that this is a world famous spice market, would you?
See the chile peppers in the picture down below. Notice the man in white taking inventory or adding something up on his calculator. Benson said usually the market smells mostly of peppers. I'm glad it didn't that day. Otherwise, I would have had even a harder time breathing.
Then Benson took us back downstairs to a spice shop where we spoke with the owner about his spices. We bought a bunch and look forward to sharing them and using them in our cooking.
Here are some more happy rickshaw drivers!
After our morning rickshaw ride, we met our Delhi tour guide, Ankit. His name means "something written that can't be rubbed out"... in other words, permanent. I love it. He was a quiet, young man in his early twenties who has been an official tour guide for only two years so he was obviously not as experienced as the other two guides we had.
He took us to the Mahatma Ghandi Memorial Museum. It was interesting to read about him and see many pictures of him as well as seeing some of his personal items including the blood stained "homespun" that he was wearing when he was assassinated in 1948. Last night, Matt and I watched the 3 hour movie "Ghandi" which was filmed in 1982. We both wished that we had watched it prior to going to India. We would have understood so much more about him and the history of India.
Next, Ankit took us to see the Indian parliament/government buildings. We were both hot and both beginning to have more serious stomach issues, so we weren't very attentive or interested. Just down that main road is India Gate. We walked up to that which is located in a family friendly park where people come to picnic and hang out. Got swarmed by street peddlers.
We drove through crazy Delhi traffic to get to the Baha'i House of Worship, a beautiful lotus-domed structure. Spectacular and unique.
After stopping to buy some cricket balls at a small sporting goods store, Ankit took us to the Mehrauli Archaeological Park. It is best known for the Qutb Minar tower which was started in 1193. It marks the first Muslim kingdom in North India. We would have liked to have spent more time exploring this amazing site with ruins of a palace, tombs, mosques, and courtyards. It began to lightning and then rain, so we had to get going.
Here is a picture of our driver who took us around for four days in northern India. He always had a smile on his face and never got frustrated in this chaotic indian traffic.
After shopping some more in a textile shop, we said goodbye to Benson at our hotel. Matt and I stayed one more night and headed to the airport early the next morning. Thus ended our India Adventure. But India remains in my heart, and someday I will go back. Namaste India!
