May Trip to the Northwest - Redding photos

At the end of each “Amazing Race” TV contest, Phil the host lists the highlights of the winners’ accomplishments.  By the end of our trip we felt like we just completed a long but fun journey, so here’s a recap of our Northwest trip a la “Amazing Race”:

• 2600 miles driven in 3 states and one province
• Stayed in 7 hotels/motels and 4 guest rooms
• Visited 2 aunts, 9 cousins (plus spouses), and 5 friends
• Celebrated Greg’s birthday at his cousins’ near Hood River, OR
• Celebrated Barbara’s brother’s birthday in Portland
• Celebrated Joyce and Craig’s anniversary in Nanaimo
• Researched genealogy in the Seattle Public Library, Vancouver Public Library and the BC Archives in Victoria
• Visited 9 museums (no churches this trip!)
• Attended our first Seattle Symphony concert in Benaroya Hall
• Visited 1 national monument (Mt. St. Helens), 1 national park (Redwood) and 1 garden estate also visited by Queen Elizabeth II
• Took 3 ferry rides

Our last stop on the way home was Redding. 

Here are some photos of the amazing Sundial Bridge

designed by Santiago Calatrava for pedestrians and cyclists - no cars!

May Trip to the Northwest - BC photos

Vancouver has lots of interesting buildings. 

Note the boats at the corners of the roof of the building on the right.

This is the main library where we did some genealogy research.

Dr. Yat Sun-Sen Chinese Garden

We saw several of the painted Chinese warriors around town.

View from Stanley Park back to downtown at very low tide

Several cruise ships on their way to Alaska

North Vancouver

Totem poles in Stanley Park

The Lion's Gate Bridge

Horseshoe Bay - where we took the ferry to Nanaimo

We toured the gardens and had tea at this house near Qualicum Beach.

We stayed with our friends, Joyce and Craig. 

They have an amazing garden with dozens of rhododendron bushes. 

Here are photos of a few of them.

Victoria

May Trip to the Northwest - Washington photos

We made a detour off of I-5 at Mount St. Helens and drove up to several different viewpoints.

We stayed at my cousin's house on Bainbridge Island.  This is the view from her beach.

View of the Olympics as we left Kingston on the ferry to Edmonds.

If you look really hard, you can see Mt. Rainier and the Seattle skyline.

Mt. Hood in the distance

Views from our hotel in Seattle.  Our friend, Donna, lives in a houseboat

about in the middle of the photo just below.

 This is the view from her houseboat back to our hotel

(white and tan building in the middle of the photo).

  It's been 50 years since the Century 21 World's Fair,

 and we went to a exhibit with lots of souvenirs from it.

Greg's grandfather was the head of the water department in Spokane. 

He was on the committee, made up of water departmets around the country,

that arranged for this fountain on the fair grounds.

A Chihuly garden and museum were about to open so we could only peak through the fence.