Summer Road Trip Part 1

I'm still not done yet with the summer pictures. Old stories but the pictures are pretty cool though, the views are aahh-mazing! So enjoy.

July 12, 2010

In the last entry about our summer travel, I mentioned about us flew to Tacoma, a tiny bit about the navy base, and the little town Poulsbo.  We also did some house hunting before we started our road trip heading to Montana to see Grammy and Poppy. After traveling for a few hours from Poulsbo, we stopped at this rest  area for the night to get some sleep. Not sure where exactly this is but probably somewhere near Portland. 

Woke up to this view. Isn't it amazing? I think it was around 4am. Couldn't sleep very well so went around the area taking pictures. The boys, including the big one were still asleep. 

I think this looks like some kind of alien spaceship or something. But still great view nevertheless.

One of my favorite architectural structures.

Still on my own at this point.

Sunrise

Remember the alien like-spaceship cloud? It changed into this white normal looking cloud now :-(

You'll see more of these in the rest of our journey. Something about the look of these makes me feel mushy.

Island Lake Park

This park to me, is awesome (mainly because of the distance from our house to the park is like 2 minutes by car!). It has a playground, a lake with gravel swim beach, paths, a couple BBQ pits with picnic tables, a picnic shelter, fishing dock, lots of  parking  space and most importantly, restrooms.

These pictures were taken a few weeks ago. Ezzat being silly with the dandelions. As long as it's not at our yard, it's fine. Man those dandelions are such nuisance in the garden.

 

Wild blackberries! There're tons of them out there. Just bring your gloves or something to protect yourself from being pricked by those nasty thorns all over the bushes. 

Found some bugs to play with

 Various views of the lake

Some of the permanent residents of the lake

At the playground

Island Lake, Silverdale - Free Slideshow Creator

Is It Fall Yet?

The idea of experiencing Fall for the first time is intriguing to me. I love fall colors, the nostalgic look of it, the changing color of the leaves, the cooler weather, the crisp crunch sound of leaves under my steps - well basically everything that I've seen or heard on the idiot box. Not that it's not cold here, it is - just that I couldn't tell the difference yet between summer and fall. Everything looks so green, and wet, or wetter or wettest between the days. I'm not complaining, seriously I love it, mainly due to my plants which are still adjusting to their new home. It's just that I'm hoping to see some splash of orange, brown, peach and golden colorings here and there. Just like some icing on a cupcake, that would be nice. 

They're all soaked

Sunday at Pike Place Market

Going to Pike Place Market today was an impromptu idea. But it's the best! I love the market, despite the price of most things would probably leave a dent in your wallet if you're planning on shopping, you know a tourist trap kinda place. There are a lot of pretty nifty little things to see apart from their famous fish market with their fish tossing to the fresh produce, the flowers, the food, the buskers etc etc etc. We got to sample some Alderwood smoked wild king salmon and man, it's good! The price - $29.99/piece. Each piece is at least a pound. We didn't go beyond sampling :-(.

The boys on the ferry. We took the one from Bainbridge Island, which I think is the closest to our place, probably around 15 minutes drive. It can get really chilly there especially when we chose to go up to the sun deck.

View of Seattle from the ferry. It's not as gloomy as it looked in the picture. It was actually a nice cloudy windy day. It takes approximately 30 minutes to get to Seattle from Bainbridge Island.

 Street view on the way to the market.

We passed the Seattle art museum, and there's no way to miss it with the towering Hammering Man at sight, hammering diligently 4 times a minute from 7am to 10 pm daily.

We're here at the market! But this is not where the fun starts, at least not to me :-).

At Crepe de France to get some coffee. Here Ezzat played with his Legos while waiting.

The fun starts here!

With everything and anything that involves food :-)

See the greenish building that looks like a warehouse on the left side? That's Seattle Aquarium.

Supposedly one of the best restaurants  in Seattle.

Has been here since 1930s

 The other side of the market

Some of the buskers or street performers. The banjo guy is pretty awesome and the boys love the guy on the right. They thought he's a real robot.

And they're going to save their money and come back for this.

And they got pretty stoked with the whimsical magic shop. Farhan ended up using his money to buy one of the magic trick kits.

What is it: A display of some of world's monstrous shoes. Not exactly a real museum, but more of a storefront pedial peep show

How it works: To view the giant shoes, put two quarters into a slot and the curtain will open, and you'll get a glimpse of some biggest footwear

Tried the pressed penny machines. The penny came out super flat with elongated shape with Space Needle picture embossed on it. 

 Cool street light.

I heart this place! The smells - intoxicating :-). The price is pretty reasonable, between $1.00 - $2.50 an oz, better than some major chain stores. For tea aficionados, this place also carries a great selection of teas. How it works here: You go around the store, sniffing all the wonderful aroma from the display jars of spices. For each of the jars, there is a written information  about the specific spice with suggestions on how to use them. While you do this, make sure you have a pencil and pad to write down your order. Both are provided by the store. You then give the order slip to the person at the counter and he or she will fill your order for you. You can choose to either have the spices freshly grounded by the store or you can ground them on your own. During busy days, this could take a while, so you can either leave the store and come back later to pick up the order or you can just wait, which could take somewhere around 10-20 minutes or even more. We chose to stay and that was pretty taxing on the boys. Oh btw, they only take cash or check.

See what I mean?

Ezzat lost his tooth the other night.

More from the market

Where we had our lunch

Luckily we passed this place after we've had our lunch. Otherwise who knows what we would get from here

One last shot before going home