Showing posts with label Washington. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Washington. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Home Leave 2015! Whale Watching

Last post from our Home Leave! Time to go whale watching! We headed back up the the San Juan Islands to find some finned friends.

Doing some paint with water while we wait for the cruise to start

The Red Head, our boat for the cruise




Humpack! We saw two of these big beauties!

And then we found the orcas! After about an hour and half of traveling north towards Canada we came upon a resident pod. Supposedly there are about 50 orcas in this pod and we saw approximately 15-20 of them. We got to follow along with them for about 20 minutes, watching them spyhop, breach, and play with each other. It was fantastic!





Thanks for making it through our all the posts of our month long adventure at home in the US!

All of the Home Leave 2015 Pacific Northwest Posts:



Home Leave 2015 Whitewater, WI posts:



Monday, August 24, 2015

Home Leave 2015! Seattle Underground and Ghosts

The Experience Music Project (EMP) Museum in Seattle was hosting an independent video game exhibit that my brother and Paul needed to go check out. There was also a lot of other cool sounding exhibits so I tagged along as well! 

Scottario!

Testing out the indi games. This was their favorite - Love in A Dangerous Space Time. It was two rabbits in a space ship fighting off constellation monsters and trying to rescue other rabbits. Yuh huh. They were both obsessed afterwards and have likely already pre-ordered their copy for when it is finalized and released.

I liked the guitar sculptures!


Later in the day we went on the famous Seattle Underground Tour. The Underground is a network of tunnels and basements underneath downtown Seattle. This was the original ground level back when the city was built in the mid 19th century. Due to poor drainage, tidal flooding, sewage, and a fire that wiped out a significant portion of the city, Seattle was rebuilt and elevated a story or two higher than the original streets. 

Original street front




To continue our underground experience, Mom and Dad took Piper back across the ferry and Scott, Rachael, Paul and I hung out in Seattle until the sun set and we could go hunting for some ghosts.


We were kitted out with some awesome ghost hunting equipment (it was not up to ghostbusters standards, but we felt like real ghost hunters nonetheless).



I wanted to steal this flashlight - how awesome is it?!

We started off our training by watching an episode of Discovery Channels Ghost Hunters. Short synopsis - the ghost hunters spent three nights in the Seattle Underground, and didn't find a single ghost (that's okay, we were prepared to be better ghost hunters than the professionals). We were then trained in the fine art of using our electromagnetic field readers and audio recorders, then taken down into the underground and set loose to wreak havoc on the resident spirits. 



Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Venkman: What?
Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Venkman: Why?
Spengler: It would be bad.
Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal!
Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.


In the end, Rachael and I experienced a ghost knock a laser pointer off the step (or maybe we shook the walkway?), Scott and Paul got a long dead bank teller to sing a song (or maybe it was the sound of a motorcycle going by overhead?). We did not come home with Slimer, nor did we end all life instantaneously, but we had fun!


More Home Leave 2015 Pacific Northwest Posts:



Home Leave 2015 Whitewater, WI posts:


Saturday, August 22, 2015

Home Leave 2015! San Juan Islands Birds

Paul and I took an evening and joined a Bird Cruise up in the San Juan Islands. It was run through the whale watching tour, but hosted by the Port Townsend Marine Science Center. We headed out from Port Townsend towards Protection Island at 6pm. About an hour into the cruise we reached the island and started seeing numerous birds and seals. 

Juvenile bald eagle on the sign

Tufted Puffin


Protection Island

Bald Eagles

Rhinocerous Auklet

Pigeon Guillemot

Glaucous-winged Gulls

Caspian Tern

Caspian Tern catching dinner

Beautiful San Juan Island Sunset


Black-headed Heron


It was a great cruise and we added a few new birds to our life list!


More Home Leave 2015 Pacific Northwest Posts:



Home Leave 2015 Whitewater, WI posts:

Monday, August 17, 2015

Home Leave 2015! Booze and Fish Ladders

Very close to where we were staying on Bainbridge Island was the Bainbridge Organic Distillery. They make organic Vodka, Whiskey, and Gin. Our friends Kathleen and John (you might remember them from earlier in the year - they are our crazy, extreme athlete friends that are on a multi-year tour of the world. They stayed with us in South Africa for a while.) are on a break from their world tour and staying in Seattle at Kathleen's mom's house. So they managed to hop on over to Bainbridge for a night and we all went and visited the Distillery. 


Even Piper got in on the tasting (j/k!)




After the tasting, Paul and I went home with a bottle of Gin and Vanilla Vodka! Packed it up snuggly in our suitcases and it is now being enjoyed here in South Africa!

After our day of drinking, we decided to get back to exploring. We drove the car across the ferry, which is a bit of a process, and visited the Chittenden Locks and Fish Ladder. It was our only rainy day, but we pretended we were locals and enjoyed the drizzle.


We saw some really nice (read - expensive!) boats going through the locks 

And enjoyed seeing the Salmon heading up the locks on the start of their spawning process



From the Locks we went North of Seattle to the Boeing Factory and did a factory tour. There were no phones, cameras, or electronics of any kind allowed, so no pictures of the factory. The factory itself is the largest building, by volume, in the world. We saw 747s, 777s, and the dreamliners being built. It was quite impressive.

No pictures inside the factory, but here are my two favorite people outside the factory!

Piper also got her first haircut (just a trim) while were in Bainbridge. After watching my mom cut her hair, I realized it looks pretty simple and I think I can probably do it myself next time! Sorry Piper!


Piper with her Gramma and Papa!