We arrived in Tacoma late Thursday night, and headed over to Peter and Carmen's. It was too late to go out, so we sat out on the porch of "Plum Cottage" and caught up. It was nighttime when we arrived, but here's a view from Plum Cottage for your reference. View of Puget Sound=awesome.
The next morning, after an awesome breakfast of Pumpkin Pancakes (thanks Carmen!) we picked Peter up from PLU and headed to Olympia for the evening. (After a brief stop for coffee and food). After a failed attempt to investigate the old Olympia brewery, we headed into town for drinks and a show. We discovered my camera was broken but Carmen was kind enough to share her camera with me so I could be touristy and take lots of pics.
After wandering around Olympia for awhile, we headed to McMenamins. (mmm.) The leaves were turning and most of the streets looked like this: Colorful, beautiful, and kind of fuzzy. Maybe that was the beer. ;)
We had dinner at a yummy fish place and then we went to a place called Le Voyuer. The band we went to see failed to show up, but instead we were treated to an awesome performance by Quinn Deveaux.
The night was magical.
Awww.
The next morning we woke up relatively early, enjoyed a continental breakfast (with an awesome waffle maker), got some coffee and wandered down to the Farmer's Market and walked along the water.
Nick is really mastering the "hold the camera out and take a picture of us both" trick."
I think this is the only picture we have of all four of us from the weekend. Aww... BFF.
Carmen thought these were interesting and took a pic. I'm not sure what kind of berries they are...
Otters are cute. Even Denis Leary thinks so.
After our day in Olympia we headed to Seattle. Mmmmm more coffee. We went to the EMP and checked out the art galleries and book stores in the area. Notice how it is hardly raining in any of the pics? The weather was incredible while we were there.
Sunday was all about me and my dorkdom;)
We drove up to Snoqualmie, where they filmed a good deal of the "Twin Peaks" series. Before our tour of Snoqualmie, we stopped for coffee. No kidding!
Our first stop was to Snoqualmie Falls.
I got nice shot of the falls before we hiked down to the bottom. breathtaking!
here's a pic from the show for your reference:
After viewing the falls from the platform we hiked down to the water.
As we hiked through the woods we encountered.. A FUZZY CATERPILLAR!!!
A FUZZY TREE BRANCH!
...and a Tree on a Tree! among other things.
We hiked down to the water and I scrambled out on to the rocks. The scenery was awesome. "Ahhhhhh!"
Don't ask me how I got back to the shore.
More scrambling to an awesome (but slippery) rock at the bottom of the falls.
Nick did not join me on the slippery rock, but he captured the moment. Thanks!
Nick=awesome.
Perfecting that shot again. you can even see the lodge in this one!
Much has changed about the town since the show was filmed, unfortunately some for the worse. Much of the woods were torn down to make way for condos. Ronette's bridge, however, was turned into a bike path. This change isn't as bad as some of the other changes (IMO.)
Bike path:
The R&R Diner (Twede's Cafe) was damaged by arsonists a few years ago. When they rebuilt the diner unfortunately they decided to go for a "newer" theme... so instead of the awesome retro classic diner inside, you have a generic diner with walls covered in Tweety Birds. (I'm not kidding. COVERED.) The pie is still awesome, however the coffee is "damn fine," and the back area has lots of memorabilia and pictures. They are definitely cashing in on the link to the series... as you can see from the sign.
On Monday we spent the day actually in Tacoma, where they are living now.
We checked out the Dale Chihuly works downtown - fantastic!
We got some coffee and went to the bookstore. More coffee, seriously? Ya! Srsly!
We drove around Tacoma and drove through the national park. It was absolutely gorgeous - quite bog-like in fact and not a huge amount different than some of the areas in upstate Minnesota. While driving through the woods, we saw some racoons. OH HOW CUTE! - so I rolled down the window to take a picture. Two racoons quickly turned into four as more approached... 5... 6... 7...
We started rolling up the windows and by the time we drove quickly and carefully away, we counted over 15 raccoons following us. This is the only clearish picture I got, of the first two we saw.
We went to the Hub for dinner (and Peter's Birthday) after getting more coffee and stopped at the Harmon Pub after dinner. I guess that was kind of the running theme for the weekend: food, coffee, beer, coffee, pictures, more food, pictures, beer.
One, two, three - Aww.
All in all it was an awesome vacation... productive (sights-wise) and relaxing all at the same time. I was able to turn my brain off for a little while, so to speak. We got to see lots of places and spend a lot of time with Peter and Carmen. We saw the new place they will be moving to and toured Peter's office at PLU as well. I was a little weepy on the way back to the airport and now I'm I've got a little bit of the post-vacation blues... fortunately I've got a lot to keep myself busy over the next few weeks. (surprise surprise.)
I'm keeping my chin up though.... we're already planning our next trip.