Our adventure hasn’t ended yet – we’ve just been enjoying time with family in Seattle, and then recovering a bit from all the fun. There should be daily updates from now until we return home a week from today. (I am so blessed to work for the company I do. 3 weeks of vacation is an absolute joy, and it should keep me going until at least September!)

We had an absolutely wonderful view of roughly 27 fireworks shows from our hotel window on Wednesday night – everything from neighborhood displays to the 3 professional displays over Red Mountain. I realized all that was missing was the patriotic music. Phone to the rescue – patriotic songs pulled up on a music app. A few card games after the fireworks ended, and we called it a night. We had a relatively short drive to Seattle, but we were both anxious to get there and see family.

We opted for the state highway 243 over the interstate for the beginning of the drive. Right on past the Hanford Nuclear Waste site. Fortunately the road didn’t go directly by it. As we wended our way through the Columbia River Valley, we passed miles of apple orchards, sprinkled with the occasional vineyard. We stopped briefly at Wanapum Dam for a pit stop.

As we started on I-90, we passed another “Little Brown Sign” for the Petrified Ginko Forest. I didn’t have to ask twice if we should check it out. The forest itself would have required a bit of a climb up a steep hill, and it was rather warm. We opted to pass on that for this trip, and headed back toward the museum and gift shop instead. Interesting information sprinkled throughout what is mostly a gift shop for rock and gem collectors.

We made a second pit-stop at Thorp Market for fresh off the tree Ranier and Washington cherries and a few gift items. By this point, we were both anxious to get to Seattle and out of the car. The drive over the Cascades was beautiful, and relatively easy compared to the Rockies. Traffic into Seattle was light (at least in comparison with Atlanta area traffic!) We found the hotel easily, unloaded the car (well, technically the bellhop unloaded the car), and had parked it for the next three days.

We met my brother briefly for a beverage and snack before he had to head to a pre-wedding function. We were joined shortly thereafter by my daughter, and eventually my husband. We found a great Italian restaurant around the corner from the hotel which was open late. A bottle of wine, some amazing pasta, and a cannoli for dessert. A perfect end to the first half of the roadtrip! And the view for the next 3 days was pretty amazing.