Damn It!

Okay.... I just got an important spelling lesson from my husband. Apparently "damn" is spelled "d-a-m", at least when you're talking about water and not fire.

I know better now.

Infurstructure Tour 2011

Aaron and I took a much-needed long weekend last week. We went on a tour of Eastern Washington. Every day we hiked, ate ice cream, and saw something new. For the first time in over a year, we saw the sun. Hello giant orb in the sky!

First, one needs to fuel up. This was at the Portage Bay Cafe in Seattle. We go about once a year. Think this is enough to sustain us 'til lunch?

In no particular order, here's our trip.

We went to Grand Coulee Damn. Overall it was very impressive, though the workers seemed to have a real complex about the Hoover Damn. Apparently, Grand Coulee is bigger and better, but it gets none of the glory as Hoover. We can thank Roosevelt and the CCC for the Grand Coulee. The visitor center is one of the best I've been too and I totally recommend a stop here.

These very cool designs on the wall of the damn are structural, but I loved the design.

Overflow water being released over the damn. I said, "man, that's a lot of aeration". I thought to myself, "wonder about the environmental impact....but, shhhh, don't say anything...it's too much like work." The day we got home we were greeted by a front page story on the water overflow from the damn killing off fish.

Turbines. We toured the damn with 15 well-behaved boy scouts.

On our drive we saw lots of cool stuff, including this wild horses sculpture near Vantage, WA.

We went through a bunch of small towns, all with very cool vintage signs. Turns out every town had an Elks Club, and Rotary, and ....(who knew!?) a MOOSE CLUB!!

We happened along the Blues Festival in Electric City, population 922 people. The festival boasts attracting, "hundreds" of people. Aaron and I figured that that was about the right size for us. We're not totally into the blues, but why not stop by and see the Americana?

I expected a hippy-dippy scene...I did NOT expect to be easily 20 years younger than the average attendee. We were the youngest, possibly the the skinniest, least motorcycle riding, soberest attendees there! Aaron and I sat on the grass eating pizza as the 60 year old, gray-pony-tailed-bikers stumbled along in front of us. It was fantastic. Aaron turned to me and said, "this is absolute debauchery". He was right. It was something else. But not in a bad way. More in an, 'everyone should do this once' way.

We took to the dance floor and were having ourselves a time...you might as well take it all in, we figured. We were about 5 hours from home on the other side of the state. It was Friday night. One man caught my eye. I kept staring through a song or two. Eventually I leaned over and yelled in Aaron's ear, that it was the spitting image of one of my engineer bosses. Aaron say, "No way. It can't be." and dismissed my observation. During a quick lull in the music I yelled his name into the air and the boss-man turned around. Imagine both our shock and dismay. We did the obligatory introductions and then Aaron and I ditched the festival. Partying with the bosses is never a good career move. It was time for bed anyway....we left the festival up to the retirees and headed to our motel.

We hiked every day and I have vowed to Aaron (and now in front of all of you) that I will take some Friday afternoons off and he can pick me up from work and we can go to some close-to-home hikes. It was really nice to get out and walk around a bit.

Love these cool lily-like flowers.

Yes, I'm hiking in pearls. The pearl jeweler commercial says, "she can where them day or night; for casual or special occasion". As far as I'm concerned, hiking with my honey is both casual AND special.

We went to the PSE Wind Farm! This was uber-cool. We're driving along and then come over a crest and TA- DAAAA GIANT windmills surround us! Next to the Blue Fest, the most friendly people we met were at the PSE Wind Farm. They took us on a tour, let us look inside a windmill, let us touch a propeller, and hike in the farm. It was really, super fun. Loved it! AND we got to wear hard hats. (which was ridiculous because there was nothing you could have possibly have hurt yourself on, but I'm not one to shy away from gear.) Notice the pears, again. Maybe next time I'll leave them at home, but when I packed I thought, "these go with everything and my honey made them..." Somehow I also though the blue hoody would be perfect too. Doesn't matter...it was vacation!




Along the way we mapped our route. This is me showing Aaron the way home.
It was a vacation after all....
The end.

.....okay, not exactly the end:

In the past month, we've planed a million things, though the sun won't come out and do it's part.

We've taken Adam to the "Street League Skate Boarding Championship" --- it was 4 hours of awesomeness.

We hosted game night.

I've been gathering donation of experiences for the Brain Cancer Walk.

And Aaron attended a HUGE metal jewelers convention in Seattle. It was really great and he learned a lot. I went to the trunk show they had and the work was simply amazing.

Hope everyone's good.

Hugs, from Shady Seattle.