Summer Vacation Report

For the first time ever I took a two week vacation from work and Dan and I traveled west. We spent a few days in Salt Lake City, UT, a couple in Jackson, WY, and a week in Seattle, WA. We had a great time, with only one regret, not getting to visit Mark and Lacy. That must means I need to take another week off soon and go out again.

We spent one evening with Jodie and Shaun and their two boys. It was great to get caught up with them, and they showed us two new party games that we liked a lot. Whoonu and Hit or Miss. We actually went shopping the other day and bought them both.

We spent one day and drove up Big Cottonwood Canyon and spent a few hours walking around Silver Lake and enjoying the fresh air and mountain scenery. I can’t put into words how much I’ve missed it!!

We spent another day up Little Cottonwood Canyon at Snowbird. They have a tram that we rode up to the top of the mountain. Included in the tram tickets were unlimited rides on their quad chairlift, which we took advantage of twice. Being up so high on the mountain gave us some great views that we enjoyed a lot. While driving up the canyons Dan enjoyed taking pictures from the moving car.

We took one day to drive up to Jackson, going the long way that took us by Bear Lake. The lake was really pretty, but we didn’t stay too long.

We spent one day in Grand Teton National Park. We went up the tram in Teton Village, and then we spent some time at Jenny Lake.

The next day we drove through Yellowstone, got to see Old Faithful erupt three times, and explored the geyser basin.

On Saturday we drove back from Jackson and flew out to Seattle to visit Dan’s cousin Greg. A few days after we arrived the heat wave hit the city, so we got to see what it was like to have the temperature up over 100 in a city where most people don’t even have fans, let alone air conditioning, in their homes. Luckily Dan’s cousin had a fan, and he was a great host and let us hog it. We tried to purchase another fan, but everywhere was sold out. The only ones Greg was able to find was some flower shaped ones meant to plug into a USB port on a computer.

We visited Snoqualmie Falls. We then drove into downtown Seattle and visited the Sci-fi Museum and the Experience Music Project. Then we took the ride up the Space Needle and admired the city from up high. Despite a minor snafu where we deleted all the photos we’d taken the first half of our trip, we had a good time. Luckily Greg gave us good advice not to use the camera any more, and look into the possibility of recovering the files. Luckily, it worked like a charm, and we were able to recover most of the photos, only losing a few of the pictures we’d taken earlier at Snoqualmie.

The next day we drove to the Ocean Shores beach area, and fought the Pacific Ocean. It was extremely cold in the water, but after the heat it was refreshing, if bracing. The next day we went into down town Seattle to visit the SAM, the Seattle Art Museum. We spent the next day being lazy in the nicely air conditioned rental car, wandering around the Everett Mall, and seeing the new Harry Potter movie, in an attempt to beat the heat.

The next day Dan and I went whale watching for Orca whales. The boat ride was great, but the sea in among the San Juan Islands was much choppier than we’ve experienced when we went whale watching off the coast in MA, and we had a bit more problem with sea sickness. While the boat was going out to the whales, and then when it was on the way back we were fine. It did get a bit cold on the way back, but again, after the heat it was welcome cold. The sunset out over the ocean was really pretty. It was a great vacation, and we had some great times. You can see some of the photos we took on Shutterfly. The first slide show has pictures of Dan and I in them, the second one has a lot of our good landscape pictures.

Pictures of us

Landscape Pictures
Silver Lake
Snowbird
Bear Lake
Jackson Hole
Grand Teton National Park
Yellowstone National Park
Driving back to Utah
Snoqualmie Falls and Space Needle
Whale Watching, Anacortes, WA