This year we left on Friday from Walla Walla and had a foggy drive till we reached the Columbia River. The drive as always was beautiful as we could see the Cascade Mountain Range covered in snow off in the distance. When we arrived at Snoqualmie Pass we took a few photos of Ben's first encounter with snow, although he was more excited to be out of the car than anything else. After we dilly dally in the snow for a while, we jumped in the car and continued west towards Trophy Cupcakes. Traci had reserved 12 cupcakes to pick up as soon as we got into Bellevue to prepare ourselves for a weekend of fun. Once we arrived in Bellevue we noticed that the headlights on the Jeep decided to stop lighting our way so we stopped by a local auto parts store to purchase a headlight switch before the night fell on us. Our friend Ben Blood was kind enough to give us shelter from the cold for the weekend so after settling ourselves we headed towards the Space Needle where we caught the Monorail toward Westlake Center where the Christmas Tree Lighting was to take place. Unfortunately we got there a bit late but we still got a chance to see the ginormous tree among the sea of people.
On Saturday we had the opportunity to visit Snoqualmie Falls with a few good ol' college friends. We walked the half mile trail to the base of the waterfalls but were unable to find the elevator to take us back up. Ben gave us the chance to exercise our upper body muscles as we carried him back up the trail. It was quite nice to stretch the legs and enjoy a sabbath afternoon walk by the Snoqualmie river. The next day was far more adventurous as we needed to catch the early ferry headed to Bremerton. I had read about a lost locomotive that had been buried at Fort Worden then discovered in the 70's and was curious to get a glimpse of it. The two volunteers that I had spoken with had no idea of what I was talking about yet after a little searching we found the small locomotive sitting in an old garage waiting for restoration one day. Fort Worden is a great place to walk around and explore the old batteries, bunk house, barracks or whatever. We didn't get too much time to explore before needing to head back south and visit Traci's cousin in Bremerton. Their kid (Reed) is getting quite big and is able to run around the house at a lightning speed; a glimpse of the days to come in my home. We ate a small meal and as always made a mad dash back to the ferry terminal to catch our ride back to Seattle. The view of Seattle from the ferry is one of the moments I look forward to the most. It has been quite a difficult task to take a picture of the city because of the low light and noise created from taking digital pictures. This then was a perfect moment to test my new camera's high ISO settings and take a few pictures. The one night shot was taken at f2 1/60 at ISO 8000, pretty low noise for that setting. Once we arrived in Bellevue we were hoping to visit the Botanical garden light show but were distracted by the new line of Jeep Cherokees. I'm not sure I will ever accept the look of these new models but on paper they seem to be quite the capable vehicles. So I took a picture of a Cherokee Trailhawk alongside my Cherokee. Interesting is all I have to say.
On Monday we visited the Columbia Center and saw the city of Seattle from above the ground. It was quite spectacular to stand above the rest of the sky scrapers and see the ferries or ships head in and out from the docks way below. We had been tinkering with purchasing a Yakima Skybox for our Christmas trip to Montana to fit all of Ben's gifts so after a short visit to REI we signed on the dotted line. It has been a tradition to visit Kidd's Valley for some veggies burgers so we ate a late lunch and Traci ate the last cupcake before beginning our drive back home. Our trip was quite pretty as the mountain were receiving a fresh blanket of snow then later enjoyed a wonderful sunset as we reached Ellensburg. Once again the trip was memorable and we came back home with the spirit of the holidays. Ben is amazing to travel with, Traci got a dozen cupcakes and I got a ferry ride... yep, living the life.
