More Washington

Pictures:Lemurs at the Tacoma Zoo, Space Needle in Seattle, Our feet touching the Sand on the Pacific Coast, The sunset over the Pacific, Gabe's big drop in.

From Mt. Rainier to Seattle was a short rainy drive. We hoped that the weather would at least give us some relief from the rain even though the northwest is known for this type of weather.
Our first day here we decided to visit the Zoo/Aquarium in Tacoma. It was a full days worth of exploring. The Sea Otters and Walrus get the award for our favorite animals. The weather so far here has been cool and quite nice. We have had the heat on almost every night as it gets that cold.
After the Zoo we hit a local skatepark in a town called Seatac. Home to one of the many Boeing locations. We thought about touring the Boeing factory but it would have cost us almost $300 for our family of five. I guess they are trying to make up for their loss in gas prices.
Seattle was a really cool city. The first day there we hit the Space Needle and Seattle Center. This part of the city is really quite amazing with a lot to see and do. The views from the Space Needle were far and wide. We could even see Mt Rainier. Bowen says it looks like a painting. We explained how God is the ultimate artist. We visited another skatepark near Seattle. Gabe found out how brave he was by dropping in from a 12 foot wall (a concrete bowl). It was a little scary to watch but he got a bunch of board slaps from other skaters for this accomplishment (skater lingo).
We decided to stay another day in the area and visited the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. Let me just say this place was insane. We could barely walk through the market it was so packed with people. They were selling everything from fish to flowers and everything in between. Walking through Seattle was similar to New York City in that it had a lot of the same upscale stores and eccentric people.
After the city we headed to Alki Beach. The kids and I enjoyed the Puget Sound while John attempted to find a place to park. After over an hour of driving around he never did find a parking place so we jetted out of there. Seattle has a lot to offer and would be a cool place to live were it not for the weather.
While here we went for an ultrasound to check if we were having twins as so many people have predicted. Indeed it is just one baby in there and to our delight and much surprise it is another BOY. God Bless Jadon with three brothers.
From Seattle we decided we wanted to see the ocean and skipped out on visiting Mt Olympia. We stayed two nights in Ocean City Washington which was located right on the Pacific Ocean. We were amazed at how long the beach is here and how much bigger the waves are than the Atlantic Ocean.
The cool thing about the beach here is that we get to drive right onto it. They actually allow cars to just cruise along where ever you like. We drove onto the beach at night to watch the sunset as it sets into the ocean here. The kids also discovered a dead sea lion-yuck. It was enormous and smelly. I hope while we are on the west coast to see at least one live sea lion. We also took some time to clean up trash while on the beach. Unfortunately there was a lot of trash. We assume the majority of which washes ashore.
Now we are currently in Fort Stevens State Park in Oregon. It was magical to finally get to this state. This was where we wanted to be when we traveled 15 years ago. Dreams do come true and for us it is more special to share this journey with our three kids.
This area of the Pacific Ocean is known as the Graveyard of the Pacific for the immense number of shipwrecks that have occurred here. Over 2000 since 1792. We went on to the beach yesterday and there is a shipwreck there that went ashore in 1906. Pretty cool to see. There is a lot to discover in this area and we will be here until Friday. After that we will be going to Multnomah Falls which is east of Portland. We forgot about it being Labor Day weekend so we are hoping someplace will have at least one campsite open.