A friend visits the Northwest

My friend Lisa came out to visit me from Virginia. We grew up there together and have kept in touch ever since I left for college. I was maybe a little too excited to finally have a visitor from VA, so I made sure to show her as much as possible in the few days that she was here.

I wanted to give her a good sample of what the beautiful Northwest has to offer. We started right away, not even an hour after her plane landed. I had a small window of opportunity to show her a lesser known view of Seattle from the top of the Columbia Tower, our tallest skyscraper. The hours that we could access the observation deck gave us just enough time to get up there and see the city on this beautiful day.

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The next day I took her whale watching, because I knew we were both obsessed with whales as kids (I still am I guess). We climbed aboard the Mystic Sea, a comfortably sized boat that took us from Anacortes, WA out to the San Juan Islands and practically into Canada. I chose the Mystic Sea Charter company because the price was good for the amount of time spent on the vessel and because Anacortes seems more convenient than bothering with ferries. I was happy with our distant sightings of breeching Killer Whales, but not happy with the quality  of the lens I chose to borrow for the trip. It’s the longest one I could get my hands on right away, so I’m grateful that I at least had some reach for those long shots. Anyway, we had a great time and the crew was extremely nice and informative.

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Next on our agenda was camping. Lisa had never been before, so I thought I would ease her in at the nice campground at Deception Pass… and it was really close! No pictures of that because I was pretty busy setting everything up and cooking a yummy campfire dinner. She seemed to be okay until she remembered the stories she had just been told about bears and serial killers from WA. Silly Lisa! Anyway, she was fine after awhile and crashed pretty hard after our long day.

The next day we headed north and paused in Bellingham (my old college town) for a coffee. Then we continued driving on to Mt. Baker so that Lisa could see her first waterfall and go on her first hike. Like I said, I wanted to show her as much of the best of the Northwest as possible! We stopped briefly for Nooksack Falls, a waterfall that wasn’t far from the road. Then we continued along the spectacularly gorgeous road that ended at Artist’s point, where we started our hike to Ptarmigan Ridge. I’m not sure how far we made it on the hike, but we weren’t hiking for very long before we decided to stop and eat. We made it far enough for me to show Lisa what I wanted her to see; the magnificent views of Mt. Baker and Mt. Shuksan. I had planned on taking her here specifically because of the nearly panoramic views of our mountains, which can’t be compared to anything she’s ever seen before. She said the hike was her favorite part of the trip!

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By the end of the hike we were pretty tired of going, going, going. Unfortunately, we still had to GO back home! So, I allowed Lisa to sleep while I drove… afterall, she was still on VA time, 3 hours ahead. The drive wasn’t too terribly long, but we did take it easy for awhile after we got back to Seattle. The next day was going to be another full one!

I wanted to show Lisa the sites of Seattle. I took her to the Ballard Locks, Alki, Kerry Park, Husky Deli (mmmmm!!), and the Fremont Troll. I just love Seattle and all it’s little parks and viewpoints, but I didn’t get to all of my favorites. Of course we also went to Pike Place Market, which she had heard a lot about. I’m never that excited about Pike Place because of the crowds, but it was relatively painless that day since she wasn’t too interested in shopping. I remembered to try and find the famous gum wall again. I had failed once in the past and forgotten to look every other time. This time I was successful and happy with this new (to me) discovery at Pike Place. Lisa seemed to be fascinated by the wall of gum too. I’m not sure why everybody likes it so much, but it is pretty intriguing… and disgusting!

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After the troll, we were pretty spent. I know that Lisa had fun though, so I’m glad I subjected her to so much Northwest activity in a 3 and 1/2 day period! Thanks for coming Lisa! You’re awesome! 🙂