West Coast Vacation - The drive home

When we started planning our trip, I was really concerned about all the driving.  I thought it would feel like a huge burden, and that Jay would be in really rough shape by the time we were done.  I think he was pretty sore after driving from Hinton to Vancouver, Vancouver to Seattle then from Seattle home, but not as bad as I had anticipated. 

We decided to break up the drive home into smaller portions so we weren't spending ten hours driving each day.  The first day we drove from Seattle to Spokane which was just over four hours.  The drive was probably the most boring stretch of driving we had.  Just outside of Seattle we were in the mountains, then within an hour we were out of the mountains and into sort of hilly, barren, boring driving (though we did have a laugh when we passed by a town called George, in Washington....It took me a moment to think George, Washington, in my mind, and then I started cracking up and finally Jay got it too, haha).   

When we got to Spokane we decided to check into our hotel right away, then go do a bit of shopping.  We stayed at a Quality Inn.  The staff was very friendly, and again, we had to get them to remove the bed frame but it was manageable for a night.  The hotel was quite noisy, with lots of people running and yelling in the hallways, but thankfully we just spent one night there.

In Spokane we checked out a Home Depot, Target, and Walmart.  Jay wanted to poke his nose into an American Home Depot store.  He was a little disappointed to see how much more stuff is available in their American stores, and similar products seemed to be a fair bit less expensive.  Neither of us had ever been in a Target store, so we wanted to see one of those down there.  I think it's kind of funny that we went into a Target, just weeks before we have two locations opening in Saskatoon.  I would say I was underwhelmed.  We did not spend a ton of time looking through all of the departments, but it really felt similar to Walmart or Zellers (though it was a lot less junky feeling than Zellers).  We ended up picking up a number of food items that we are unable to get in Canada. 

(Our American food stash including mint chocolate M and Ms, Reese and Cinnamon Toast Crunch muffin mixes, Andes mint chocolate baking chips, flavored almonds, mint and peanut butter Oreos, Red Vines licorice, Rotel tomatoes with green chilis, peanut butter and cookies n cream Pop Tarts, liquid stevia (natural sweetener), Baileys, vodka and Kahlua)

When we were done, we opted to go to the Olive Garden for supper.  They had a promotion on where you could get two entrees and either an appetizer or a dessert (from a set list of choices) for $25.  Not a bad deal.  We both really enjoyed our meals (especially the great salad and fresh bread sticks to start!).

The next day we drove from Spokane to Great Falls.  It was about a six hour drive, and most of it was through the mountains and it was really beautiful.  I especially enjoyed the area around Coeur D'alene.  Really beautiful mountains and a nice big lake.  And parts of Montana were really nice too.  At one point, I believe we were still in Idaho (I was surprised by the lack of signs indicating State lines), I needed to use the bathroom.  It seemed that each town would have signs along the highway indicating whether they had gas, restaurants, etc, so we pulled into the next town that indicated that it had a gas station.  When we pulled in, we drove down the main drag, it was a tiny litte dump of a town, and the gas station was closed.  And there didn't seem to be any other businesses at all.  So we carried on to the next down and the only business we saw was a dumpy little motel/convenience store with a sign on the door saying the bathroom was for customers only.  I went in and said 'I promise I will buy something, but I really need to use your bathroom.'  She let me do that, and I kept my promise and bought a package of MnMs :P

We stopped for lunch in Missoula, then carried on to Great Falls.  We got there shortly before supper time, and checked into our hotel.  It was not an ideal setup, but we only had one night to spend there, and at least the bed was a good height, so Jay could get in.  We decided to grab a quick supper at Applebee's, which was near the hotel and it was pretty lousy.  We went back to the hotel and just decided to go to bed fairly early.  The hotel was SO noisy!  With dogs barking, people yelling and doors slamming until all hours of the night, we were pretty cranky when we woke up. 

The next day we had another approximately six hour drive to get to Lac Pelletier, SK.  We felt like we had been spoiled with the better part of our trip being driven on divided highway.  Some of the highways we drove on from Missoula to Lac Pelletier were pretty narrow, and once we were back in Saskatchewan, some of them were in pretty sad shape.  We were again surprised at the lack of signage indicating the distance or direction to the border.  We kept coming over hills expecting to see the border crossing, and finally we got to the crossing.  It was such a tiny crossing, and the customs officer was much kinder than the one in BC was.  She asked us a few questions and we were on our way. 

 (I was really impressed with the quality of the highways in BC as well as in the States.  This was the first road in Saskatchewan once we crossed the border, not impressed.)

We got to Lac Pelletier by about one in the afternoon, and left by noon the next day.  The last three and a half hours home, went by surprisingly quickly.  It was nice to get home, but I had anticipated that we would be much more anxious to get home than we were.  It was good to see Kiwi, and she was so happy to see us!

 (Nice to see some familiar faces and drink some ice cold water.)

 (Nice relaxing time at the cabin.)

(If I am not mistaken, that is one big dog smile!)

West Coast Vacation - Seattle Day 4

Our last day in Seattle was the one that Jay was looking forward to the most, out of our whole holiday, I believe.  Initially, we had planned our holiday so that we could be in Seattle so we could attend Chase Jarvis Live.  It is an online broadcast that takes place about once/month, put on by one of Jay's favorite photographers, Chase Jarvis.  We were disappointed to learn that the broadcast had to be rescheduled, and would not take place while we were in Seattle.  We found this out before we left for our holiday.  However, the staff at the studio still invited us to come and meet them, and see the studio and even offered to feed us lunch.  On Tuesday we headed over there just before lunch time.

Everyone at the studio was so friendly, and they had this awesome barbecue lunch for us.  Jay was so thrilled to see the studio, and to meet the people he had seen on Chase Jarvis Live.  We also got to meet Chase's wife, Kate, who was really nice.  We spent a very nice hour and a half at the studio, and both really enjoyed ourselves.

 (The studio had lots of nice natural light.  And they opened up the big garage door and it was such a lovely day.  And they don't have to worry about bugs coming in.  It was so nice!)

 (Waiting for the sausages to be bbqed for lunch.)

 (Chase Jarvis staff with one happy Jason)

 (A couple of shots of the studio.  It was a nice place!)

 After we were done we headed down to Seattle Center to check out Chihuly Garden and Glass.  Seattle Centre is a large area downtown where the Space Needle is.  It has a number of museums and other sights to see as well.  We didn't wander around too much, but we did check out the glass museum and really enjoyed it.  It is a number of displays of hand made glass sculptures made by Dale Chihuly.  There are indoor galleries that are beautifully lit, to really accentuate the detailed glass, and there is an outdoor, garden portion, which was neat as well.

 (Unique sculpture next to where we parked.)

 (Amazing hand made glass sculpture.  It musth ave been at least 10-15 feet tall.)

 (This room was so pretty.  The colourful glass in the ceiling, with lights shone through made the prettiest colourful light in that room.)

 (Such intricate detail.)

 (I stood next to this one to give some perspective on how large these chandeliers are.)

 (These bowls had such neat, swirled colour that almost looked like glowing lava.  Initially I thought that the light was inside the bowl, shining through, but in fact it was a spot light on the ceiling that made it glow.)

 (Got a shot of a bee!)

 (Such a nice contrast of colours.  The black part was all these little plants with black leaves.)

 (I photobombed Jay when he was taking a picture, haha)

 (The green thing was also a glass sculpture!  Almost looked like a plant.)

 (This sculpture made me think of rock candy.)

 (This building was the EMP museum.  I believe it is a music and pop culture museum.  Very unique looking.  We didn't go inside.)

After we were done here, we headed back toward our hotel.  We decided to try one more restaurant on the quaint little street in Kirkland where we had eaten at Cactus, Cafe Rococo, and this evening we went to a Thai restaurant called Lai Thai.  Jay enjoyed a nice curry and I had some pad thai.  It was a delicious way to bring an end to our time in Seattle/Kirkland.  

 (We noticed this condo building on Lake Washington on our way to supper and thought it was neat.)

(Supper at Lai Thai in Kirkland.)

West Coast Vacation - Seattle Day 3

One of things I was most excited about seeing in Seattle was Pike Place Market.  It is a farmer's market down by the water front that has been around since the early 1900s and is very popular with tourists and locals.  We got up early Monday morning and headed over there, and this time we decided to take the toll bridge.  It was SO much easier, and straight forward to get downtown.  The GPS did a good job of getting us down there, even with all the oddly angled streets in downtown Seattle.  We had a bit of trouble finding the public parkade at Pike Place but after getting a little frustrated, we found our way around the block and ended up finding a parking spot, within steps of the market!

 (A view of Puget Sound from Pike Place Market)

(We were amazed by how steep some of the roads were in Seattle, and certainly the ones down by Pike Place were the steepest we saw.  It was hard to get a photo with perspective, and this one seemed to work becuase of the straight line of the garage door in the background of the photo.)

The nice thing about parking in Seattle, is that with a handicapped placard, you can park at any meter without having to pay.  I can't remember what the time limit is, but it is quite extensive....possibly 24 or 36 hours, for free.  This was very handy!

When we first got to the market, it was about 9:30am, and the main market doesn't fully open until 10am.  When we got there, a lot of the vendors were just starting to set up their tables.  However, there weren't too many shoppers in there yet.  I was told before we went that it is super busy, and expect it to be shoulder to shoulder people, whenever you go.  It wasn't too bad.  Even though not all of the tables were set up when we got there by the time we made our way back through toward the van, we got to see them all set up. 

The food vendors were quite generous in giving samples to taste.  While we walked through, we were able to taste different types of cherries, peaches, nectarines and some dried fruit.  There was this one bakery across the street, that had a huge lineup of people down the sidewalk, and it smelled really good!  One of the fish vendors, every once in a while would give a shout to his coworker at the other end of the booth, then send a whole salmon or some crabs flying through the air and his buddy would catch them.  That was pretty cool to see as well.  There were so many sights and smells in that place.  It wasn't all food either.  There was plenty of handmade art, clothing, jewelry, etc.  Pretty neat!

 (Not sure what they were making, but this bakery smelled amazing!)

When we were done at Pike Place we headed over to Glazer's Camera for Jay to do some shopping.  I wasn't sure what to expect, but I think I thought it might be a bit bigger than it was.  I wasn't too interested in shopping there, but Jay bought a few items that he has enjoyed using since we got home. 

After that we decided to try a restaurant that had been recommended to Jay by a lady who works with a photographer in Seattle that Jay is a fan of (more on that tomorrow).  The restaurant was called The Whale Wins.  It was a unique experience.  It was a really nice place inside, and the way it was set up, all of the food is prepared behind counters right in plain sight.  So you watch all of the food being prepared at different stations.  The menu was quite unique.  It was explained to us that probably you should order a number of dishes and share them.  Each dish was about $10-15 and for two people you would probably want to order at least four dishes.  We started with a really tasty croissant with butter and jam.  Then we shared a roasted cauliflower salad.  For our entree, we decided to order the special, as everything on the menu looked a little, um, adventurous...for me.  Things like clams and sardines and some sort of seafood mousse, I think....yeah.  The special, I didn't quite hear what the waitress said, but I heard the word salmon, so figured we would be good.  When it came, it was beautifully plated, but I soon realized that it was raw salmon.  At first I thought maybe it was smoked salmon, it had that look to it, but it didn't taste smoked.  It turned out that it was called salmond gravlax, which when we looked it up explained that it is cured salmon.  I was not feeling too keen on eating it, so Jay had it, and I ordered another salad.  I have to say that the salad I ordered was probably one of the most delicious salads I have eaten!  It was a basic lettuce salad dressed with lemon juice and oil, but it had fresh chives, dill and tarragon in it.  It also had toasted pistachios and fresh parmesan cheese.  It was so flavorful and I enjoyed eating the whole thing!  Mmmm :)

 (Mmmm, love croissants!)

 (Lovely plating for raw salmon.)

When we finished lunch we headed over to Gas Works Park (which happens to be the park we were trying to check out when we ran into the naked cyclists on Saturday, haha).  It is a park with a big hill and nice views of downtown Seattle.  It is called Gas Works because there are old tanks and pipes that were left behind, which gives it a unique feel.  We enjoyed exploring around here for a while, then headed back toward Kirkland.

 (When we were taking pictures of each other, there was this guy taking pictures of us, taking pictures of each other.  We thought this was funny enough, but then he got on his bike and road away, then he went and was chasing some geese.  Not sure he was entirely with it....)

While our lunch was certainly flavorful, I would say that we were not all that full when we were done eating it.  So we decided that we would go for a late afternoon coffee.  When we went to Cactus for supper the previous night, we noticed a coffee shop, Cafe Rococo, across the street so decided to give it a try.  It was quite busy in there, but we snagged a table at the back and had a latte and shared a cookie.  I have to say the coffee was not the best, it was kind of bitter, but it was good to sit and relax after a busy day.  We appreciated that the city of Kirkland had good free Wi-fi, which was nice, since we didn't want to access data in the States.  After our coffee we headed back to the hotel for the evening, and just had some leftover snacks for supper.  We also enjoyed the one purchase we made at Pike Place, peaches!  They were huge, and SO juicy and sweet.  Best peach I have ever had!

 (Yum!)