(I started this post on March 19th and was too busy to finish it)

It has been a great time the last few days. Angie and Alexis came out to visit and we have been all over the place.

The first few days we stayed at the Hotel 5 in Seattle. It is a pretty cool boutique hotel downtown near the Space Needle, the Five Point, and many other fun and interesting things to see, eat, and do. I would (and will) stay there again and I recommend it to anyone.

We went to the Pike Place Market – always a good place to visit for great food and people watching. After that we went to the Five Point for some food and then headed back to the hotel to kick back a bit and figure out where we were going when.

The next day we went to the MoPOP (formerly the EMP). Alexis is a Kurt Cobain fan so she had to see the Nirvana exhibit. It’s a good thing we went when we did because today is the last day of the exhibit. Our timing could not have been better. It is traveling to Brazil, then back to here to be displayed again in some form but probably without some of the things we saw. There was a volunteer guide who was a huge Nirvana fan since ’92 that did a guided walk through the exhibit. It was very interesting to hear some of the things she talked about.

We left there and went to the Waterfront area and walked around. Seattle is such an awesome place.

The next day started out with decent weather in Seattle and then turned poopy as we headed southwest toward the coast. Lots of rain. Copious amounts of rain. We went to Aberdeen, WA…Kurt Cobain lived there as a kid. We got to see the park named for him and it is just down the street from the house he grew up in. I have been through Aberdeen a few times before and it ended up being an interesting place to visit.

We worked our way up the coast and their first-ever view of the Pacific Ocean. We got to Ruby Beach and did some beach walking despite the weather. We tried to find some tide pools but did not see anything – possibly this was due to the rough water.

We ended up getting a room in Forks, WA. Yes…THAT Forks. It was just a place to stop for the night and not hunting for vampires or werewolves. We found a decent, older motel for a decent price. Tomorrow’s destination was to get to Port Townsend and then get back to Seattle a day early to avoid not getting a ferry and them missing their plane.

We headed north and east from Forks on US 101 and stopped at Marymere Falls for a hike. We went through Port Angeles and Sequim and stopped there for Angie’s first taste of Thai food at Sawadee Thai. We then headed on towards Port Townsend for some sightseeing, shopping, and walking. Such a cool town to visit and hang out in. Afterwards we got on  the Bainbridge ferry – another first for Angie and Alexis. The water was pretty good so no scary ride this time…other than the hordes of prom-going teenagers. Not on e of the girls had a sweater, jacket, etc. and it was definitely not a warm day.

We made our way to the hotel near the mall and we found our way to that mall the next day after we went to visit Jimi Hendrix’ grave.

It was a good visit and we had fun. They got to see many things, but there is so much up here to see and do.