First things first though, we took a flight to Seattle and spent a couple nights near the airport to visit some friends that live in the area.
Mike went for a walk to visit his friend Marty who lives in Des Moines, WA, a suburb of Seattle. Very confusing because there's a Des Moines, IA as well. This is a picture of the construction of a raised extension to Seattle's Light Rail system. Basically it's just a small train that goes north from the airport into the city and they're extending it south where this picture was taken. It looks like they lift up all the blocks and then slide them into place.
Do you remember geocaching? We did that one time when you visited us in Champaign, it's where you go looking for things that other people hid all over the world. Mike went to find a few as he walked through a park on the way to Marty's, unfortunately, the tree cover was so thick that the GPS coordinates went very accurate. He couldn't find anything before the mosquitos chased him back onto the trail.
Still on the trail... now we've got a problem. Which way do we go? As it turns out, following the yellow line is the way to the end of the park, but there are no exits until you get down to the waterfront. It took Mike and Brownie quite a bit further than they'd intended to go so they had to loop back around to meet up with Marty.
The next day we spent the day at Chris and Emily's place before heading north of Seattle to Ballard (another suburb) where we'd spend the next few nights. Above, Brownie helps Mike keep track of his resources while playing Eclipse with Marty, Chris, Emily, Mitch, and Jeannette. Eclipse is a very complicated space game, but it's super fun.
This trip also took place during the 2014 World Cup. The World Cup is a soccer tournament for all the nations in the world and it only takes place every four years (sorta like the Olympics).
The next day in Ballard, we found this amazing place called Cafe Mox. It's attached to a board game store called Card Kingdom. Anyways, you can borrow a ton of different games for free and play them while having lunch/dinner in the restaurant. It's way better than any other boardgame store Mike and Jeannette have ever been to.
Outside Cafe Mox is a giant piston from an engine. It looks and feels real, like maybe from a large ship engine, but it's always possible it's just a sculpture as well.
On the south side of the locks we found a metal sculpture that looks like a bunch of octopus tentacles sticking out of the ground!
Here's Mike, back in the botanical garden. Behind him and Brownie is a "dawn redwood" tree. This is Mike's favorite kind of tree and we have five of them (much smaller) planted in our yard back home.
In this picture we are just at a local sports bar watching another one of the World Cup games.
Another day we stopped by a small place that had a few pinball machines. Here is Mike's co-worker (who lives in Seattle) playing a Twilight Zone pinball machine.
A couple pictures Jeannette took of the really cool architecture in the train station.
This is a view west from the train, but we don't remember exactly where it was taken. Most of the trip up included beautiful scenery.
Once in Vancouver we checked into our hotel to get settled in. Our room was on the 21st floor and had a balcony so we could step out and see the city. Green roofs are pretty popular in Vancouver, that's where they plant gardens, grass, or even trees on the tops of buildings. The building Jeannette is looking at is the top of the library.
Not far from the hotel was the art museum. We didn't go in, but outside a street artist was making some AMAZING chalk drawings on the sidewalk.
This is just a curiosity for Uncle Mike. These are the steps on our hotel lobby... why does the railing bend out into the stairway like that? What's the point? We still have no idea.
Look at all the deliciousness!
Here's Aunt Jeannette grabbing the bull by the horns!
We were headed up to do some hiking and stopped for lunch. The fireplace mantle was pretty cool and had a place for Brownie to sit by a carved wooden animal... I think it was a mountain lion.
So here's something interesting... the new Canadian paper money has a clear section. Here's Brownie peeking through a Canadian $20 bill.
Next stop was the Capilano Suspension Bridge. Laura would hate this, but it's really beautiful and totally safe.
Here's Jeannette holding on! She got a lot more comfortable as we went along.
Mike even took a short video.. you can kinda see how things sway and move around a bit, but it's quite stable!
Really tall trees.
On the opposite side from where we started they've setup a whole walkway among the trees! It's super fun and really pretty.
Look at the size of those trees compared to the people!
Here's a look down at the top of other trees.
Back on the original side we have the Cliffhanger. It's a suspended walkway attached by cables to the cliff face. Extremely solid, it doesn't flex like the suspension bridge does.
Nice little walk around the cliff before looping back to the starting point.
After the suspension bridge we went over to Grouse Mountain. We knew there was a hiking path up, but had planned on taking the sky tram thing. However, they wanted $55 PER PERSON to take the tram up. "No way!" we said, we'll just hike up. We knew it would be hard, but we also workout pretty regularly.... well... we did it, but we weren't completely prepared. The next few pictures document the journey up the mountain. They have a timer thing at the bottom that you can use with a smart phone to track how long it takes since some people race to try and set the record.
Starting out pretty easy as we'll later learn.
Here's a look back down.
Still going.
And going... some place we had to kinda crawl up rocks and stuff without any real "steps."
Here's Jeannette at the very end.
It took us a total of 1 hour and 25 minutes. The average time is apparently 1.5-2 hours. Whew! Feels good to accomplish it though!
Luckily Mike had a bandanna in his pocket that he would normally use as a hankerchief, he used it to keep sweat out of his face.
Jeannette at the top with Brownie.
Looking down at Vancouver. There's a catch though.... they force you to take the tram down, but only for $10/person one-way.
A pretty picture from our hotel balcony.
The residential section of the Vancouver skyline is a little bit boring. All of the buildings look very similar.
This Mike just thought was cool. It's a concrete truck with a double set of front wheels and the back is painted like a bundle of asparagus. Why? No idea. :)
Brownie getting his picture with a cardboard cutout of Clint Eastwood.
Giant sparrow statue!
We finally found him. (If you don't get it, ask your parents.)
After Vancouver, we took the train back to Seattle for a day before catching out flight back home. In Seattle we were able to visit the Seattle Pinball Museum. Mike had a chance to play a "Tales of Arabian Nights" which is one of his favorite pinball machines of all time, but they're pretty rare.
Whew! Lots of pictures and it was a great trip!
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