Sunday, August 18, 2013

To Seattle through the Yakima Valley and the Snoqualmie Pass

We stopped in Baker City for Gas and heard it was a nice place to visit but the entire town had a Boil Water order so we decided to just drive through and take a look and head on to the Yakima Valley. Does anyone know what the little orange thing is that is reflecting in the windshield? (it's the Spot!)

Yakima Valley ahead at the bottom of this really long downhill run. 

The Orange signs say " Runaway Truck Ramp 1 he could be going pretty fast by then. 

Here is the Ramp, Good luck Truckers!

Down in the Yakima Valley youo could see the irrigation viaducts all along the way

A light sprinke began as we entered the Cascades. 

We were hoping the clould would not get any lower, but we kept going higher so?

We pulled off to get some fruit before going through Snoqualmie Pass near Ellensburg for peaches, cherries and apples.

Glad to have light traffic as we started through the pass with one lane closed.

Going down for the last time on the back side of the cascades and the Snoqualmie Pass to Seattle

The Spot was off a bit, I put it on the patio balcony and pushed the button, the black arrow shows where we really are. 

A view of Elliot Bay, this is where I will have coffee every morning.

A stroll through Seattle Center near the Space Needle, Serendipity!, We sat down and helped to fill balloons for the Guinness Book World Champion Largest Water Balloon Fight Challenge. That is Bill in the back ground, he built these balloon filling manifolds where several people could mass produce Water Balloons. Their goal is 300,000 Water Balloons! 

We walked down to Pikes Market to relearn that area aand found this guy playing a Didgeridoo, here is what it sounded like:
To Seattle through the Yakima Valley and the Snoqualmie Pass

The last leg was anything but anti-climatic. We highly anticipated driving through the Yakima valley as the las time we were there was in the winter and we got to see a couple feet of snow and a challenging drive through the Snoqualmie Pass with driving snow. This time with perfect weather most of the way we godd a great look at the Yakima Valley in all it's glory with agriculture of all types, vineyards, and beautiful green vistas as far as you could see.  I was really anticipating the Snoqualmie Pass since the last time we drove though to see our daughter (who was working in Prosser  for the Yakima Herald as a reporter), it was windblown snow and challenging visability with considerable traffic. This time we just had some light rain and a bit of fog or low clouds. I sort of was surprised when we had made it to the other West Side of the Cascades without much of a challenge. perhaps I had Already driven through enough mountain passages that this was not that big a deal, however I know it is not a Winter trip. We dodged a bullet as we came into Seattle as 90 was closed and we managed to squeeze our way into the traffice exiting for 405, a alternative toll road. We were patient and made it at crawl speed through the heart of Seattle and through downtown to our daughters condo where she mest us outside with keys and a short escort two blocks away to our new slip on 1st Avenue in Bell Town in downtown Seattle. She had to go back to work and I started right away unloading our stuff. After several trips up the elevator to the 12th floor we were all in.
We spent the next couple of days exploring our new community by foot. In fact we did not get the car out of the Garage for the next 6 days. How long does it take before a new place feels like home?

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