Friday Day 3

 Friday morning we noticed a Sharis Cafe so went there for breakfast.  It is kind of a tradition when we are in the Northwest.  

Now, I think we headed to the highlight of the trip for Hayley.  We drove to downtown Portland to the Powell's City of Books.  I've never been in such a big bookstore.  It went on for floors and rooms.  Each room a different color with different subjects.  I don't know how long we were there but for a good hour.  Hayley bought a lot of books and was so excited to be able to wander around this huge bookstore.  

From the bookstore we drove to Multnomah Falls.  That I think was one of the highlights for me.  What a beautiful falls.  So majestic with the surrounding greenery of the pines.

This picture below is Annie talking to Abby.  Fun that she got to talk to her.

I hiked on past the bridge and got this picture of a bi-plane going by.

This was looking out from the top of the trail, across the Columbia River.

I was coming down off the trail and took a picture of Annie and Haley taking a picture of me!

I bought this huge chocolate chip cookie and had to take a picture for Neal.  $5.00 worth of cookie!

We still had a little time before meeting Justin, CJ, Domoni and Diane so we decided to head to the zoo.

That was a disappointment.  No animals out, and very little to see.  It was kind of sad.  We wandered around the zoo a couple of times and then called it good.  We did hit the gift shop before going out.  

Some fun pictures of out meeting with the family.  We had a great time and of course dinner was on Justin.  It was absolutely delicious.  

Just try getting your mouth over that!!

Stayed and visited until well after 10:00 and then had to say our goodbyes.  It was sad to leave but so happy that we got to spend some time with them.  

Thursday - Day 2

Thursday morning we got up fairly early and headed to the Ferry to cross over to Bremerton.  I do have to share a funny thing here.  When we were settled in our hotel room Wednesday night, Annie made the comment, "I need to call the ferries.  I've never called the ferries before."  Well the way she said it and how she said it just about did me in.  I laughed until I had tears on my face and I literally could not breathe.  Every time I would think about it, I would start laughing again and again and again.  I'm sure Hayley thought her Gam had lost it and I just about had.  I do love laughing that hard.  It is good for the soul!

We weren't sure how the traffic would be at the dock so we actually got there about an hour and a half early.  We had not had any breakfast, so we locked the car and walked along the streets of Seattle.  Nothing was open that early in the morning but we did find a Star Bucks.  We bought hot chocolate and some breakfast sandwiches.  We wandered slowly back to the ferry and took a couple pictures along the way.

When we got back to the car we saw the ferry coming in and passing a huge cargo ship.  It was fun to snap a picture as the ferry passed the cargo ship.

The ride to Bremerton was about an hour.  Just long enough to get out of the car, take some pictures, find the bathrooms and stand on the front enjoying the beautiful scenery of Seattle.

As we drove off the ferry, Annie noticed a building that said Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and also notice a huge aircraft carrier docked near by.  We thought of Emmi, who is now on an aircraft carrier for three weeks.  So we pulled into the shipyard to take a little closer look at the boat.  A security guy came over to the car and Lynda Ann explained to him that her daughter was in the Navy and we were curious about the ship.  He told us that it was the Kitty Hawk.  We were all surprised because that is the air craft carrier that my brother Donald spent his career on.  

From here we headed to find Stadium High School.  Another movie icon.  Hayley was very excited when we drove up to it and got out and walked around.  Apparently the high school is still in use and students were in school so we weren't able to go in the building but spent some time walking around it.  It is a beautiful old building.  

After walking around the building and seeing the football field we climbed back in the car and headed to Puyallup.  Hayley was born in Puyallup, Washington but was a baby when they moved back to Utah so she doesn't remember much about her life in Washington.  She wanted to see the house she lived in.  

The home looked very much the same as it did years ago.  It did have a red door, which was new.  But, it basically looked just the same.  I think we made the lady who lived there a little nervous.  Her dog was going crazy and as we climbed in the car to leave we saw her come to the window.  Good time to head out.

From there we headed to Oregon.  We wanted to meet Diane for dinner at Justin's food truck and had just enough time to get to Oregon, check in our hotel and meet Diane.  We had such a fun evening with Diane and her daughter.  We had a delicious meal - compliments of Justin - and had a wonderful visit with Diane.  It was so good to see her and get caught up on what she is doing.  

Justin's food truck is the blue one in the back.  There was a continual line the whole time we were there.  we stayed and visited until about 10:00 and then back to the hotel where we were all ready for a good nights sleep.

 

Hayley's Graduation Trip

 I was lucky enough to be invited to Hayley's graduation trip to the Northwest.  Her dream was to go to Oregon to the biggest bookstore in the United States.  I was excited to be invited along for a couple of reasons.  First, the chance to be with Hayley and become a little more acquainted with my granddaughter and I also love the Northwest.  There will always be a place in my heart for Seattle, Washington.  I was born there and raised there until I turned 8 years old.  It is always like going home.

Our trip began at the new Salt Lake Airport.  We were there in plenty of time, even with the long lines to go through security.  I breezed through without a problem, gathered my suitcase and waited for Lynda Ann and Hayley who I thought were right behind me.  After waiting for a very long time, I got a text from Annie telling me that security would not let Hayley through with her pictured learners permit.  They pulled them aside and told them they would have to wait for the person in charge to let them through.  The time was ticking away and we became more and more nervous about missing our plane.  Annie mentioned to the lady that we were going to miss our plane and she basically told Annie that she didn't care.  That wasn't her problem nor her concern.  Needless to say, that did not make Annie very happy.  Finally, the person in charge came and asked Annie if she had anything with Hayley's name on it.  Annie had her insurance card, produced that and the security guy let them through.  They also went through all of Hayley's luggage which slowed us even more.  By the time Annie and Hayley got to me we literally had 5 minutes before the gate would close and we would miss our flight.  To top it off, the gate we needed to be to was B11.  Have you been to the new airport?  Do you know how incredibly far away the B gates are from security?  There was absolutely no way we would make that flight.  But, we didn't give up.  We grabbed our luggage and literally ran through the airport.  I've never been that exhausted or stressed.  By the time we got to gate B11 we saw that they had not started loading.  I don't know what the delay was but I felt like we had some help from above.  We made our flight!  

We landed in Seattle, rented a car and our trip officially began.  Our first stop was Pike Market.  It was almost sad to see so many different venues closed, but we still had fun wandering through the market and even bought a few things.  When we got to the doughnut vendor she had one bag left of 6 doughnuts.  We bought them.

From there we headed to the Elliott Bay Book Company on Broadway of downtown Seattle.  This was one of the places that Hayley was anxious to visit.  We spent some time wandering through the bookstore and also experienced downtown Seattle with all the homeless issues.

From there we headed to the Fremont, Seattle and found the troll that was in the movie 10 Things I Hate About You.  I've never seen the movie but might have to watch it after seeing this crazy troll underneath the overpass.  Actually, kind of creepy.

It didn't take me too long to decide that I'd had enough of this creepy statue.  We did notice lots of people driving up and wanting to take pictures.  I was happy to let them at it.  

From there we went drove to Bellevue to see the Seattle Temple.  It is beautiful and so peaceful walking the grounds and taking lots of pictures.  I love to see the temples.

The grounds were gorgeous and trees and flowers in full bloom.  What a beautiful setting.

Me, being silly.

The day was fast coming to a close and we had done a lot in one day.  We were getting hungry so found a place called Lil Jons and had dinner and then to the hotel to settle in for the night.

As we were leaving the restaurant we notice a Deseret Book across the parking lot.  We wanted to go in but they were closed.  I saw this saying in the window and fell in love with it.  I'm sure I can find it here.

That pretty much sums up our first amazing day.