Vacation Update: The Rest of it All

Sorry to take so long in between Vacation Update posts.  I am trying to take advantage of the last few weeks of summer before I switch in to Teacher Mode to get as much of my grad work done as possible.  Speaking of if you haven't done so please help me out with my stats project by filling out this survey.

Now on to the rest of my vacation recap:

After whale watching vacation was unscripted... and Adam got sick.  We spent a lot of time just hanging out on my parents couch relaxing.  It was divine.

Our last weekend the weather perked up (it became partly cloudy) and we headed out to take a hike.  Cle Elum affords any outdoor enthusiast multitudes of places to explore.  There are lots of lakes with trails wandering off in every direction.  Adam had never been to Cle Elum in the summer time (we usually only go there during Christmas) and so we had to show off it's beauty to him.  Mom and I decided to take him out to Thorp falls.  It's a bit of a drive on some roads that in reality are probably dry creek beds but it is worth it.  This time the dry creek bed was blocked by downed trees (there is a moth epidemic right now pulling trees down in groves) and landslid/avalanched rocks so we had to walk in a lot more than planned but it was worth it because the huckleberries were RIPE.

Mom and Adam walking down to the river.

Huckleberry on the bush.

Picture does not do the falls justice.

I picked my way through the path when we had to detour around downed trees.

Mom teaching Adam about huckleberries.

Me above the falls.

Mom and I

To end our last weekend we borrowed my mom's truck and roadtripped to the Palouse to visit our college alma maters.  It was great to see how things had changed as well as reminisce of our days on campus.

This was a somber moment on our trip.  4 names from the "war on terror" and all friends and also knowing that more should be on there but have yet to be added.

Me on the I bench.

Admin clocktower.

That's the tower I lived there my Freshman year (as did Sarah Palin) but the biggest thing is that there used to be a big building in front of it where I was an RA and it is gone. *tear*

Engineering/Physics building... spent some time here.

Iconic

Me with the Bookman in front of WSU library.

Eventually, our trip came to an end and we had to head back to Seattle Tacoma International Airport.  This turned out to be harder to do because there was a 14 car pile up being cleared RIGHT AT OUR EXIT and it was stressful to watch the clock tick past the time we were planning on being at the airport but we made it with plenty of time.  The flight was miserable because we were surrounded by unattended babies who's parents ignored them allowing them to BAWL for 10 hours.  It sounded like a McDonald's play land.  The kid in front of me kept putting my window shade up and waking me with a burst of sun to the face.  I wanted to shake their seats.  We needed to sleep to stave off jet lag... didn't these people know this?  When we arrived at Seoul we still had a 4 hour drive to our home in the dark.  We arrived home to a house with no power.  There had been a few Tropical Storms blow by while we were gone and apparently one had flipped our breaker.  What this really meant is that our fridge had been HOT for weeks... and it was nasty.  It smelled so bad.  BUT it was 2 am so we saved the smell/mess for the morning.  It was disgusting... did you know that hamburger will liquify?  Anyway, we tried to deoderize the fridge in everyway we possibly could without any luck and last week we had to go to Housing on Post and ask for a replacement, which they gave us.  What a horrible way to end our wonderful vacation though.

Anyway, hope y'all enjoyed my recap.  I have a couple of more weeks till I turn back in to Mrs. W and I am really dragging my feet.