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I've finally managed to find the time to design a book that tells the story of our big summer vacation from last year. It's quite a walk down memory lane. I hope you all enjoy the slideshow.
Posted by Greg on April 22, 2008 at 8:00AM.
Filed under coates family and summer vacation 2007.
Riding the Lithia Park Merry-Go-Round
Sunny and beautiful
Rachelle, Ariana, and I had never attended a live performance of a play before, so Crystal graciously agreed to hang out with Emily while we saw Tartuffe. We experienced something that I will never forget. Professional actors, great writing, and fabulous comedy made for an excellent production.
This was the end of our trip. :(
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Posted by Greg on October 22, 2007 at 8:00AM.
Filed under coates family, photos, summer vacation 2007 and trip reports.
Touching Wahkeena Falls
Mostly sunny.
Seeing six big waterfalls in one afternoon is a special experience. There aren't too many places in the world where this is possible, but the gorge is one of them.
We found a bird's nest on the restroom building at the Bridal Veil Falls parking lot. We were able to see the mother bird fly in several times to feed her hungry babies.
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Posted by Greg on October 19, 2007 at 8:00AM.
Filed under coates family, photos, summer vacation 2007 and trip reports.
Rachelle in the Lovejoy Fountain
Varied. We got a bit of rain one morning, and it was partly cloudy to sunny the rest of the time.
We decided to try some new foods when we ate at the Heathman in downtown Portland. Crystal ordered rabbit, and I ordered quail. Both were excellent.
When we were in Chinatown, we asked a police officer where to find the best authentic Chinese food. He recommended a restaurant, and we were treated to the best Chinese food I've eaten.
The Old Church in Portland contains a Hook & Hastings pipe organ that was originally installed in 1883 and restored in 1997. I was given an opportunity to play this beautiful, historic instrument.
The venue for the Pepe and the Bottle Blondes concert included a dance floor that was largely ignored by the spectators. Rachelle walked around asking all of the kids in the front of the crowd if they'd like to dance. She and the children filled the floor for three or four songs.
The Portland Children's Museum offered face painting as an activity for its visitors. First, Rachelle painted Emily's face. She like that and decided that she wanted to paint the faces of her sisters. They are great sports, so they let her. Several minutes later, I had three paint-covered daughters. They spent the rest of the day walking around Portland as highly decorated siblings, drawing looks from most passers-by.
Portland gets the award for nicest big city that I've visited. In fact, it is the only big city that I've visited so far where I feel I could actually live if I was forced to move to a city. It was clean, it was beautiful, and they have great parks and a great public transportation system. The police officers that I spoke too talked about the low crime rate in the downtown area. And it's close to an absurd number of beautiful natural settings.
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Posted by Greg on October 17, 2007 at 8:00AM.
Filed under coates family, photos, summer vacation 2007 and trip reports.
Rebirth in the Monument
Cloudy at times. Foggy at times. Rain the first night.
The ranger talk that we attended at the visitor center was highly informative. I was amazed at the amount of regeneration that has occurred in the park since the eruption. Also, I found the land surprisingly beautiful in spite of the past destruction.
We never did get to see Mount St. Helens because of the clouds and fog.
This was our last campground of the trip. We all immediately started suffering from camping withdrawal.
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Posted by Greg on October 15, 2007 at 8:00AM.
Filed under coates family, photos, summer vacation 2007 and trip reports.
Mount Ranier from Reflection Lakes
Partly to mostly cloudy. Foggy in Paradise. Rain one night.
We grilled beef and vegetable kabobs over the campfire one night. We had learned from past mistakes and had proper tools so we didn't burn them this time. I think this was the best camp meal of the entire trip.
Beauty abounded on the Nisqually Vista hike. The wildflowers were blooming profusely, and the greenery was abundant. Whoever named Paradise did so appropriately.
We focused on family time on this trip, including a lot of time playing games. In our campground here, we played Scrabble. Other games we had with us included cards and Yahtzee. Lots of family bonding occurred as a result of our focused time together.
Worship in the natural cathedral of the forest seemed fitting. The experience was special.
I didn't pay enough attention to the National Park Service website when I planned this part of our trip. We arrived at Mount Ranier pretty late because we wanted to miss the traffic through Seattle. We got to the road that we were planning to take through the park only to find it still closed because of severe flood damage. The detour took over two hours, and we didn't get to camp until after midnight that night. But at least we had reservations and didn't have to sleep in the van!
We had clear views of the mountain most of the time we were in Seattle and the San Juan Islands. We only got fleeting glimpses of the mountain while we were in the park, and we never were able to see it up close from Paradise.
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Posted by Greg on October 12, 2007 at 8:00AM.
Filed under coates family, photos, summer vacation 2007 and trip reports.
On Top of Mount Constitution
Sunny and beautiful
Coastal Washington is filled with places to buy smoked salmon. Crystal ordered a smoked salmon dish at the seafood restaurant in Eastsound which tasted divine.
One night, we gave Ariana and Rachelle the responsibility of making dinner. They chose to make tacos. They were delicious! They were so good that Ariana ate five of them.
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Our campsite bumped against the edge of Cascade Lake. It was peaceful and beautiful. Our stay there coincided with the full moon, and the light shining on the lake's surface at night was particularly nice.
On the hike around Mountain Lake, I carried Emily in a toddler backpack. She fell asleep and awoke several times on the hike. Each time she awoke, she asked me to give her kisses. I contorted myself to bring our faces together but ended up kissing her on the hand instead.
The view from the observation tower on the top of Mount Constitution was mind-boggling. We could see several other islands in the San Juan archipelago, mountains in Canada, and the Washington mainland. Our visited coincided with sunset, so the light was beautiful as well. Being on top of the world is amazing.
The ferry rides to and from Orcas Island win the transportation coolness award for this trip. What other mode of transportation allows you to drive your car onto a boat and then walk around and look at the scenery while being moved across a huge body of salt water and then be dropped off on an island?
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Posted by Greg on October 10, 2007 at 8:00AM.
Filed under coates family, photos, summer vacation 2007 and trip reports.
Crescent Lake
Sunny during the day and cloudy at night.
We were going to take a ferry from just north of Seattle over to the Olympic Peninsula. When we arrived, the wait for the ferry was over two hours long, so we decided to drive around instead. That was a huge mistake. The traffic through Seattle, and it took us over three hours to make the drive. By the time we got to Olympic National Park, the campground we had planned to use was full. We drove back to Port Angeles only to find that every hotel that wasn't horrifically frightening was also full. We ended up sleeping in our van in the Safeway parking lot.
Partly cloudy with some fog. Light rain one night.
Ruby Beach was beautiful. It featured huge rocks, driftwood, and a tidal creek. Emily, Ariana, and Rachelle met a little girl who promptly attached herself to them. The little girl followed them everywhere they went for the entire afternoon.
We found a small log sticking out of the ground next to the Hoh River. It screamed, "Ride me!" So, we rode it. We took turns sitting on the log while someone else yanked the loose end up and down. Yeeeee haw!
Hurricane Ridge inspired awe. The flower-filled meadow next to the parking lot and the snow-capped mountain range in the background made for the best mountain view of my life. It brought tears to Crystal's eyes.
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Posted by Greg on October 5, 2007 at 5:00PM.
Filed under coates family, photos, summer vacation 2007 and trip reports.
Space Needle
Sunny with a few clouds. No rain.
We discovered Red Robin. Even though it's a chain restaurant, we enjoyed the burgers and chicken sandwiches so much that we ate there twice.
The Experience Music Project has an area called the Sound Lab where visitors can play their own music. We drummed, sang, strummed guitars, and generally enjoyed making music. We didn't even scare any other visitors away.
The Pike's Place Market was amazing. Filled with fresh flowers, vegetables, meat, and fish; it was a feast for the eyes and the camera lens. It was also filled with street musicians, including the first street musician I've ever seen playing a piano! Pike's Place is also the home of the nation's first Starbucks. No, lattes were not on the menu that day, although Rachelle ordered of the best cheesecakes I've ever tasted from a cheesecake specialty shop.
The fish ladder at the locks was fascinating. The engineers kindly installed glass windows instead of concrete sides along part of the ladder. Plenty of the fish had grown to several feet in length, and the fish swam up the ladders in abundance.
We searched and searched for a souvenir to purchase for Emily. She picked a beautiful flower necklace in a shop on the Seattle waterfront. Her excitement was so cute and sweet!
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Posted by Greg on October 2, 2007 at 11:45PM.
Filed under coates family, photos, summer vacation 2007 and trip reports.
Cloudy with rain/mist at night.
Crystal and Rachelle were playing in the surf at Harris Beach. Crystal was wearing regular shorts because her husband forgot to pack her bathing suit. (Oops.) At one point, a rather large wave took her shorts down to her ankles. The wave receded, and all of the people looking in her general direction got mooned. They all thought it was hysterically funny, but I was bummed because I missed the whole episode!
Cloudy and/or foggy both days. Foggy/misty the first night, clear the second night.
I woke up in the tent and looked over to see a giant smile on Emily's face. This melted my heart almost every day on this trip. This particular morning I watched my wife jump between Ariana and Rachelle's air mattresses and then proceed to tickle and kiss them until they were awake and begging for mercy.
Emily kept asking to "Take walk!" (To hear this in your mind correctly, you have to pronounce the k's like you are speaking German.)
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Posted by Greg on September 28, 2007 at 8:00AM.
Filed under coates family, photos, summer vacation 2007 and trip reports.
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Raining cats and dogs.
Our campsite was beautiful. It was secluded and huge. Also, it stopped raining long enough for us to pack without getting drenched.
We followed our plans to camp here in spite of scattered rain showers in the forecast. After all, it was California in July. How bad could it be? Unfortunately, we had overlooked a major factor in the weather: the Coates Camping Curse. This curse has followed my family since I was a small child. You see, it is nearly impossible for any Coates family member to go on a camping trip without getting rained on or having some other natural problem. For example, not too long after Crystal and I were married, we went camping with my parents in Tennessee. It was nice until the day we packed up to go home. We woke up to a torrential downpour. We hurriedly loaded the car. After about five minutes, we didn't care about the rain so much because it would have been impossible for us to get any wetter. We learned later that the entire campground had washed away when the nearby creek flooded. On another occasion, we took my parents to Crescent City to camp in the Redwoods. A tsunami warning was issued while we were there. Are you starting to get the idea?
When we arrived at the state park, it was cloudy, but the clouds didn't look too bad. We dug the tent out of the van and erected it. No sooner had we installed the rain fly when the rain started. By the time we had our sleeping bags and mattresses in the tent, the sky had opened up completely.
Varied. We got beautiful sun one day and rain the other two as well as light rain each night.
We had burgers cooked over an open campfire one night. They were extremely good, but if you want to try this yourself I suggest that you use something more sturdy and less likely to melt than a plastic fork to turn them. You'll be less likely to catch them on fire like we did.
We got to pet starfish, anenomes, and sharks at Ocean World. There was also a great sea lion show.
Redwoods are big. Really big. They are so big that I told Emily we were going to see "honkin' trees." She kept asking about honkin' trees for days after we left.
We saw four giant bull elk right next to the road when we drove in to the Fern Canyon trailhead.
I woke up sick the first day in this campground. It was not fun, but at least I recovered quickly
We narrowly missed a pretty nasty car accident on the drive to the trailhead. The car behind us got hit by a tire and axle that came off a semi truck in the lane going the opposite direction. We stopped to help and everyone was okay.
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Posted by Greg on September 26, 2007 at 5:00PM.
Filed under coates family, photos, summer vacation 2007 and trip reports.
Riding Voodoo
Sunny.
I rode the Road Runner Express, a small roller coaster, with Emily. She kept saying "Whee!" as we flew up and down the hills. When we disembarked, Emily wanted to keep riding. She said, "More whee! More wheee!"
The animal shows proved how talented dolphins and whales can be. The dolphins can leap several feet in the air. Both can be trained to perform a mind-boggling range of behaviors on command. One of these behaviors is swimming along the edge of the pool and splashing the audience. Rachelle was splashed thoroughly during the whale show.
Rachelle volunteered to pull the ripcord that released the swing when she, Ariana, and Crystal road the Skycoaster. She was instructed to pull the cord when the operator counted to three. He counted to three, and nothing happened. She inquired, "What?" Everyone yelled at her to pull the cord, and finally she got the idea and released the swing.
Rachelle and Ariana rode a ride called Cargo Queen with Emily and Cheyenne. The teenagers taught the younger kids to raise their arms and scream just like the teenagers would scream while riding a roller coaster. How adorable!
All of the older riders loved the Velocity roller coaster. It shoots riders to a speed of about 70 miles per hour in a fraction of a second.
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Posted by Greg on September 4, 2007 at 5:00PM.
Filed under coates family, photos, summer vacation 2007 and trip reports.
We're home from our big trip! It was truly the vacation of a lifetime. Here are some highlights from the trip.
We have tons of photos to edit, and I'll post details of the trip along with photos as we process them. Stay tuned!
Posted by Greg on August 16, 2007 at 6:00PM.
Filed under coates family, summer vacation 2007 and trip reports.
