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totchipandaDay 6 (Monday) was spent more or less travelling. We dubbed the center part of Washington "The Great Nothing". I drove down it in 2011 on the way to Reno, but Nicole kind of didn't believe me when I said how awful it was. There is nothing. Some scrub, a few farms, scattered herds of cows, tons and tons of smokey haze (I'm still thinking good thoughts for the firefighters and the people affected by the fires! It was so awful as a tourist, it's so much worse for residents and workers :( ) and NOOOOOOOOOOTHING ELSE. We stopped briefly at an overlook of the Columbia River (so smokey), stopped in Ellenburg for lunch, and then finally began to cross the mountains and see things taller than 2 feet. And the air cleared. AMAZING.
We hit Olympia-area around 5pm after managing to get caught in I-5 traffic (at 3:30...) where we hunkered into the hotel for naps before meeting![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
maeveth for supper. I love it when it's been 2.5 years since you see someone, and it's like you last hung out yesterday <3 Wonderful end to a long day of travel.
On Tuesday we headed up to Seattle to meet some more of my friends (from Calgary. The irony is not lost on me that they live 3 hours away and we had to meet up in Seattle) for lunch. Holy crap y'all, driving in downtown Seattle is BANANAS. I was so glad to find the garage I'd picked online and park. We had a yummy meal at Cheesecake Factory before parting ways. They went to check out the market, Nicole and I went on to the EMP museum for the Star Wars costume exhibit. It was not quite what I expected but so very very very neat to see real costumes from the movies (both trilogies) and some of the displays had fabric samples to touch! Then, because (A) we'd paid for 3 hours of parking, (B) had 3 more hours until we were meeting another friend for more cheesecake, and (C) the museum admission was for the whole museum and the costume exhibit was an add-on, we checked out some of the other exhibits. SO COOL!! The sci-fi exhibit had props and costumes from many movies and tv shows. The horror exhibit was much the same. The fantasy exhibit was also the same, and was our favourite because they had costumes from Game of Thrones, the Princess Bride, and Labyrinth! YEE!!! So cool!! Then after driving around Seattle trying to find a way back downtown that didn't involve I-5, we met Erin for more cheesecake, and then rolled our happily fattened bodies back to Olympia for the night.
I gotta say though, driving an unfamiliar highway at night while attempting to maintain the speed limits around locals and the really really aggressive Washington drivers, was NOT FUN.
On Wednesday,maeveth was a total dear and picked us up to drive with us out to Mt St Helen's. (I was totally happy to take my car, but then we figured that she's already been out there, and we really benefitted from having a local taking us around! More on that in a bit!) I have a very small bucket list, and seeing the volcano I was round-aboutly named after* was at the top of it. And, WOW. WOW WOW WOW. It was a bit hazy that day, so as we were getting closer and got our first glimpse, you approach it from an angle where you can see both sides of the crater. But it just looked like two mountains in a range from there. Then you drive for a long-ass time and you start to realize that it's the same mountain and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. At the observatory, we listened to a talk about how the eruption occured (the whole north face of the mountain slid free in an earthquake, which released the pressure of the chamber, and that's why the explosion was so terrible. He had a montage of different photographs of the ash cloud, it was so enormous), then went inside for a 16-minute movie about the eruption, and came back out to just stare at it some more, and take in a second talk about the science part of the eruption. Different types of lava, there's a glacier in the back now, that sort of thing. Utterly fascinating.
After that, we headed back into Olympia to do some local shopping! We hit up a Hot Topic where we found WAY too many nerdy things, had a deeeeeeeelicious fast-food lunch, and then popped into a yarn/textiles store really quickly. Then we went to a yummy bakery where we bought a giant cookie and a giant sticky bun for like $4. $4!!! That bun alone would have cost me $7 in Canada! Then we rolled our butts back to the hotel to begin preparing for the long drive home.
Thursday morning was spent hunting down all the interesting junk food and drinks we can't get here (or can, but for $26 Cdn a case, as opposed to $3.50 US) and a Hancock's, because McCall's patterns were on sale. We stopped in Bellingham for one last American meal and then headed on to the border. I took the long highway around to my geepa's place, and we stopped in for a bit before heading out to crash in the most comfy bed we had the entire time we were gone. It was like sleeping on a marshmallow.
This morning we stopped in with Geepa one more time to see all of his car collection in the daytime, and then began another looooooooooooooooooong-ass drive home. We left him at 9:46 AM BC time (10:46 Alberta time) and I dropped Nicole off right around 9pm (AB time). My hands and wrists are so sore from holding the steering wheel. We hit patches of construction where it made more sense to turn the car off while we waited for traffic to start moving again. It rained pretty much all the way to the edge of the mountains. But once we came down out of the passes and the prairie opened up before us, with roads that were mostly straight and the most interesting thing about them was the hills and occasional turn (instead of the 40 km/hr hair-pin turns 300ft up at the top of a sheer drop into a glacier-fed river), no mountains or heavy trees to close us in, oh, our little prairie-girl hearts sang.
I had SO MUCH fun in Washington, and I would move there if it was at all easy to do cross-border moves, but I am SO HAPPY to be home.
*My full name is Crystal Dawn. I was born 2 days after the mountain exploded. I have a slightly conflicting story about the origin of the name, in that it was perfectly clear the morning I was born, either before or after the ash had moved in or out (mum says it was after, dad said it was before). But either way, that's where it came from, and now I have seen its provenance :3
We hit Olympia-area around 5pm after managing to get caught in I-5 traffic (at 3:30...) where we hunkered into the hotel for naps before meeting
maeveth for supper. I love it when it's been 2.5 years since you see someone, and it's like you last hung out yesterday <3 Wonderful end to a long day of travel.On Tuesday we headed up to Seattle to meet some more of my friends (from Calgary. The irony is not lost on me that they live 3 hours away and we had to meet up in Seattle) for lunch. Holy crap y'all, driving in downtown Seattle is BANANAS. I was so glad to find the garage I'd picked online and park. We had a yummy meal at Cheesecake Factory before parting ways. They went to check out the market, Nicole and I went on to the EMP museum for the Star Wars costume exhibit. It was not quite what I expected but so very very very neat to see real costumes from the movies (both trilogies) and some of the displays had fabric samples to touch! Then, because (A) we'd paid for 3 hours of parking, (B) had 3 more hours until we were meeting another friend for more cheesecake, and (C) the museum admission was for the whole museum and the costume exhibit was an add-on, we checked out some of the other exhibits. SO COOL!! The sci-fi exhibit had props and costumes from many movies and tv shows. The horror exhibit was much the same. The fantasy exhibit was also the same, and was our favourite because they had costumes from Game of Thrones, the Princess Bride, and Labyrinth! YEE!!! So cool!! Then after driving around Seattle trying to find a way back downtown that didn't involve I-5, we met Erin for more cheesecake, and then rolled our happily fattened bodies back to Olympia for the night.
I gotta say though, driving an unfamiliar highway at night while attempting to maintain the speed limits around locals and the really really aggressive Washington drivers, was NOT FUN.
On Wednesday,
maeveth was a total dear and picked us up to drive with us out to Mt St Helen's. (I was totally happy to take my car, but then we figured that she's already been out there, and we really benefitted from having a local taking us around! More on that in a bit!) I have a very small bucket list, and seeing the volcano I was round-aboutly named after* was at the top of it. And, WOW. WOW WOW WOW. It was a bit hazy that day, so as we were getting closer and got our first glimpse, you approach it from an angle where you can see both sides of the crater. But it just looked like two mountains in a range from there. Then you drive for a long-ass time and you start to realize that it's the same mountain and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. At the observatory, we listened to a talk about how the eruption occured (the whole north face of the mountain slid free in an earthquake, which released the pressure of the chamber, and that's why the explosion was so terrible. He had a montage of different photographs of the ash cloud, it was so enormous), then went inside for a 16-minute movie about the eruption, and came back out to just stare at it some more, and take in a second talk about the science part of the eruption. Different types of lava, there's a glacier in the back now, that sort of thing. Utterly fascinating. After that, we headed back into Olympia to do some local shopping! We hit up a Hot Topic where we found WAY too many nerdy things, had a deeeeeeeelicious fast-food lunch, and then popped into a yarn/textiles store really quickly. Then we went to a yummy bakery where we bought a giant cookie and a giant sticky bun for like $4. $4!!! That bun alone would have cost me $7 in Canada! Then we rolled our butts back to the hotel to begin preparing for the long drive home.
Thursday morning was spent hunting down all the interesting junk food and drinks we can't get here (or can, but for $26 Cdn a case, as opposed to $3.50 US) and a Hancock's, because McCall's patterns were on sale. We stopped in Bellingham for one last American meal and then headed on to the border. I took the long highway around to my geepa's place, and we stopped in for a bit before heading out to crash in the most comfy bed we had the entire time we were gone. It was like sleeping on a marshmallow.
This morning we stopped in with Geepa one more time to see all of his car collection in the daytime, and then began another looooooooooooooooooong-ass drive home. We left him at 9:46 AM BC time (10:46 Alberta time) and I dropped Nicole off right around 9pm (AB time). My hands and wrists are so sore from holding the steering wheel. We hit patches of construction where it made more sense to turn the car off while we waited for traffic to start moving again. It rained pretty much all the way to the edge of the mountains. But once we came down out of the passes and the prairie opened up before us, with roads that were mostly straight and the most interesting thing about them was the hills and occasional turn (instead of the 40 km/hr hair-pin turns 300ft up at the top of a sheer drop into a glacier-fed river), no mountains or heavy trees to close us in, oh, our little prairie-girl hearts sang.
I had SO MUCH fun in Washington, and I would move there if it was at all easy to do cross-border moves, but I am SO HAPPY to be home.
*My full name is Crystal Dawn. I was born 2 days after the mountain exploded. I have a slightly conflicting story about the origin of the name, in that it was perfectly clear the morning I was born, either before or after the ash had moved in or out (mum says it was after, dad said it was before). But either way, that's where it came from, and now I have seen its provenance :3
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no subject
Date: 2015-08-31 06:58 pm (UTC)I must say, though, if you find WA drivers aggressive, you don't want to drive anywhere else in the US. I've lived in five other states, and driven in probably 25+, and Washingtonians are the least aggressive drivers I've ever encountered.
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Date: 2015-09-01 05:40 am (UTC)I'm sad too. Next time! :-) i adore Washington, I would move there in a heartbeat if it was easy to do so, I will be back XD
Oh goodness, that is terrifying D: I thought drivers here were bad but it's mostly because they drive big trucks, but there it was just about anybody. It's the least terrifying? Eeeeeek!