Vacation Part 2

I'm home from vacation! Today was a lazy day, recovering from the long drive home. I have lots of pictures to share, so I'm going to post them as albums. Enjoy!

August 15

We browsed downtown Mount Vernon and strolled the River Walk. It was a beautiful sunny day.

August 17

We went to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. Sadly, my camera battery died early in the day so I didn't get as many photos as I would have liked. Taking photos of the animals was great practice with the camera.

August 19

We hit downtown Anacortis for lunch at a popular local deli. We worked off lunch with a hike around Whidbey Island. The island is on the other side of Deception Pass, so called because Vancouver had mistakenly thought that Whidbey Island was a peninsula. The area has an interesting history. The route was used by Ben Ure and Lawrence "Pirate" Kelly to smuggle Chinese immigrant laborers. Ben Ure would tie the immigrants up in burlap sacks to hide them. If customs agents approached, he would throw the sacks overboard. The bodies of the immigrants would float up into what became known as Dead Man's Bay.

August 22

Seattle was a lot of fun! It was a guys' day with my dad and my brother-in-law. We walked Pike Place Market, I got to see the first Starbucks store, and there was a very talented couple of street performers, or buskers. We ate lunch at a restaurant on the pier and then finished the day with a few races at K-1 Raceway.

August 23

We visited downtown Fairview, which is the old part of Bellingham. Plaques line the sidewalks describing intriguing historical notes. One of the plaques reads "Unknown Dead Men Displayed Here 1901". Apparently this corner was used to display the bodies of unknown dead people.

August 25

The guys got together again to hike Little Mountain, but this time we took the two older boys along.

August 27

We headed home on Saturday morning and started our 20 hour drive.