A few more sights in Seattle before we head further north.....

                          Seattle, Seattle and more Seattle...

Yesterday morning we awoke in a beautiful new Hilton Hotel and started the day with a trip to the Space Needle. We took the awesome monorail that was built for the 1962 World's Fair and arrived in about 10 minutes.   After a 43 second elevator to the top of the needle we were treated to the best views of Seattle that can be had.  What a fun, interesting and easy to navigate landmark with great views!

 

 

 

 

 

                                  The Chittenden Locks and fish ladder were next on our list.

The Army Corp of Engineers did a remarkable job building the only lock system in Washington.  The fish ladder was really interesting to learn about and it was really cool to watch the salmon swim up the ladder from the underground viewing area.  Bizarre how they operate on instinct alone and just know what to do.

                                        

                                          Once again, Ted was mad at one of his siblings.....

 

Not far away from the lock was Bruce Lee's gravesite with his son, Brandon, next to him.  Unexpectedly, there was a solid stream of people visiting the site and leaving items on both graves.


        

The final stop was Kurt Cobain's (Nirvana front man, for those of you that don't know!) former home  and the park next to his home where a large vigil was held after his death.  In the park sits a single bench that continues to draw Nirvana fans who inscribe messages to Cobain.  There is a large wooden gate closing off the homes driveway in front of the house, so Mark sent Thomas up to the gate to stick his hand under and take a picture, it turned out quite well!

 

 

Beware Port Townsend, you're next...

Portland, Mt. St. Helen's and Seattle

                                          PORTLAND!

We arrived into Portland on Wednesday and made our way right to the Pearl District for the famous food cart pods for lunch.  After perusing the many different carts, we settled on The Grilled Cheese Grill....The jalapeno popper sandwich was awesome!

We did a little exploring around downtown Portland, it's an interesting city! 

The homeless population was quite a shock to the kids, and to Mark and I also, with all the city parks filled with make shift shelters.  After shopping, eating and walking miles, we were pretty tired so we had an early night in back at the hotel.

                                   WASHINGTON

Yesterday we drove north to Mount St. Helen's National Park.  It was a fantastic drive.  I don't think we have ever seen surroundings quite as green!  The weather was beautiful, so volcano viewing was great!

 

 

 

 

 

 

It definitely looks nothing like the ash covered devastation that I remember from news coverage in 1980!


We were then on to Seattle.  It seems that every one of our trips is not complete until we stay in one hideous hotel.  The first night in Seattle was that night.  It was too late in the day to find something else, so we were stuck.  We didn't want to take our shoes off or touch anything, the air conditioning sounded like an air compressor turning on and off all night long and it was still about 1000 degrees in the room!  I did find us a MUCH better hotel for the second night.

We visited Pike Place Market where we watched the fish mongers throw a few fish around checked out the chewing gum wall!  Ick! 

                  We caught Rose actually looking out for her little brother in the busy marketplace.....

The EMP Museum which is a pop culture museum that had some very fun exhibits like Star Wars, Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix and Chuck Jones of Looney Toons fame.

Observations from the Road

 Observations from the road:

1. However much over the road truckers get paid, it is NOT enough.  To share the road with these people is nothing short of amazing, if not completely terrifying.  We traveled through mountains yesterday and to see them inch their way up the hill and then inch back down the other side with constant signage for them on the sides of the road, about the steep decline and runaway truck lanes.  We saw multiple UPS truck with three trailers attached to one cab!  Our questions is always, "How DO you back those things up?"  We automobile drivers think traffic back ups are bad, imagine driving one of those beasts at a snails pace and all the while having to put up with the rest of us and our terrible driving!

 

 

 

            We questioned, "Is this a place for parents that just can't deal with the kids any longer?"

2. This was our second time through Idaho and all apologies to any Idahoans that may be reading this blog, we don't feel the need to ever come back. 

 3. When we travel such long distances, we always have to have a few days that consist of nothing but driving.  Yesterday was one of those days.  They can be long, painfully boring days, but we always know there is a light at the end of the tunnel, per se.  Our light yesterday was quite dim...Pendleton, OR.  Let's just say that Pendleton is the town that civilization forgot. 

Portland is the destination for today.  The drive is short and quite beautiful.  Mt. Hood is guiding our way.

State number 47, check!

The lone van in a sea of motorcycles in our hotel parking lot!

 

 

Today was a driving day.  We crossed the state of Wyoming from corner to corner!  We had planned on an 8 1/2 hour drive, but ran into a bad traffic jam from a car accident up ahead and we were delayed about an hour.

 As we got closer to the Utah border, the mountains began to grow and grow!  This is sign number 47.

                                      Park City is beautiful!  Every street looks like a picture....

                                                              Ted found a new friend.

 

 

                                           The kids are doing great.  They are real troopers!

Sturgis, Devils Tower and Sundance

We arrived in Sturgis bright and early this morning and there were a few motorcycles milling around. We had breakfast and by the time we were done, it was wall to wall motorcycles!  Way too hard to move around with four kids, but Mark got a little bit of time to look!  Best people watching outside of the Minnesota State Fair!

 

Devil's Tower was next. It is the first national monument in the United States, dedicated by Teddy Roosevelt.  We love Teddy and all he has done for this country and it's park system!   We weren't expecting what we saw.  It was amazing!  We walked a trail around the monument and watched many climbers that were going up and coming down.

  Today's weather has been beautiful!  About 80 and sunny with no humidity...perfect.

There is also a prairie dog town near Devil's Tower also...they are soooo cute!

It's to bed early tonight...no sleep last night is catching up with me.....

How can there only be 2 states left?

The Kyllo's are on the road again!

We left Hopkins about 9:30 tonight, and after two stops back at home for some forgotten items, we are headed west to Sundance, Wyoming.  Sundance is not far from the South Dakota border, which is not far from the 75th anniversary celebration of the Sturgis motorcycle rally. When we planned the trip back in December I didn't realize that the Sturgis rally was opening this weekend, with more than a million people and their motorcycles, leather jackets, bandanas, booze and tattoos expected to converge on the area, my first thought was to find a different stopping point, but then I thought, "Ahh, what the heck, it might just blow the kids mind!!"  After all, they have been on the Vegas strip at midnight on the 4th of July, walked down streets lined with abandon buildings at 10:00 at night in Buffalo NY, been on Hollywood Blvd and exposed to scores of other questionable situations, so what could shock them at a motorcycle rally?

We have only two states left to complete our journey, Utah and Washington State. We'll take our time making our way west this week and will be staying in a home in Port Townsend, WA for a week, and then making our way back home east through Glacier National Park (if it hasn't burned completely down) and Big Sky, Montana. 

We are all so excited to be back it!  It's our favorite time of the year!

We decided to start out our drive by doing an overnight in an attempt to avoid SOME of the traffic heading west. The kids watched a movie and are now falling asleep. Ahhhhhhh.....peaceful bliss.