kandas-adventures

Spring Break Staycation 2014 -- South edition

This time we headed South, toward Mt. Rainier

We went to Northwest Trek, a park featuring native northwest animals in realistic (but too small) habitats. We'd been there before, but Grammy wanted to go again.

 Bobcat stretching and rubbing its back.  We see them in our own neighborhood occasionally.

There are habitats you can walk around, and then there is the tram ride through the big area with a mixture of large animals roaming free.  Being a new bus driver, I was fascinated to watch the tram driver navigate the curving roads with the two trailer cars behind.  You really had to set up well for those turns!  

Sometimes the view from my school bus is like this, although it is deer instead of elk.  There are also areas in our district where people have goats that sometimes get out onto the roadway.

Little K had fun taking photos in her usual spot right by Grammy's side.

Well, Hello!

Some of the trails were steep and extra effort was needed to get Grammy up those hills.

After seeing all there was to see at the park we had a leisurely drive home.  We stopped often to view the mountain on this spectacularly sunny day.  

Little did I know that this would be the last road trip we'd take in this van...

So that wraps up our Spring Break Staycation.  Simple, but fun.

Spring Break Staycation 2014 -- North edition

One of the joys of being a school bus driver is having the same vacation schedule as my daughters. My mom wanted to travel somewhere, but I convinced her that daytrips would be just as satisfying.  Our first day trip was North, to Padilla Bay.
 

It is about an 80 minute drive from Seattle (if there is little traffic).

After lunch at a roadside cafe, we went to the Padilla Bay Interpretive Center, a little jewel on a quiet road along the coast.  It is a magnet for school groups and researchers, not so much tourists.

The interpretive center had displays and educational materials for all ages.  Here we are in the classroom geared toward preschool and early elementary students.

 Grammy scores 100%, which surprises no one!

The aquarium section featured only plants and marine animals that could be found across the road in the   estuary. 

Some of the colors were truly breathtaking.

Various crabs say "hello."

After we'd seen all there was to see in the interpretive center, we lounged around outside, enjoying the sunshine -- an unusual gift in April in the typically rainy Pacific Northwest!  The girls had fun making daisy chains.

On the rolling grounds of the interpretive center, with the bay in the background.

 

Back on the road, we continued north, then had a leisurely drive around Samish Island (more of a spit, as no bridge or ferry was needed to get there).

 

Samish Island has a mix of old fishing shacks and weekend cabins as well as newer mega-houses owned by tech millionaires.

Some of the cottages on Samish Island were adorable!

 

Of course a school bus driver always has eyes peeled for bus sheds, and there were some sweet ones along this rural road.

Wouldn't you love to wait for your school bus in this cute little house with a view of the water, islands, and massive container ships floating by?

It was a tidy little community, perhaps in part because they had these neat dog poop collection stops.

They are very well utilized, or else someone hasn't kept to the collection schedule, because the pail was overflowing.

A funny side note: We were headed south when Little K couldn't find her purse in the car.  Turns out she'd left it back at the interpretive center, so we went back, and there it was, on the grass where she left it.  About 3 miles down the road A realized she didn't have her sun hat.  I turned the van around and we headed back to the interpretive center yet again, and found her hat where she'd left it on a rock, less than 3 feet from where Little K's purse had just been.  Powers of observation were a little "off" today because we were in awe of all the spectacular scenery.

We drove back toward Seattle through the Skagit Valley, and since it was April, that meant Tulips!  

It was early enough in the Season that many Daffodil and Narcissus varieties were still in bloom, too.  We stopped by the demonstration gardens of some commercial growers to admire the flowers.

 

The ravenous slugs, deer, and rabbits in my neighborhood would never allow a display like this in my garden.  I used to try, but gave up after a couple years of having all the buds nipped off days before blooming.

Continuing south back toward Seattle, we discovered a new Botanical Garden under construction!  Note the glass sculptures mixed into the flower beds.

Grammy was too tired to get out of the car, so I moved the car to several spots where she could have a nice overlook while the girls and I explored.  This spot is above Daffodil Hill.

I love this old red farmhouse.

Little Sister Photobomb!

The gardens surround the Freeborn Lutheran Church, built in 1900.  We wandered the gardens and cemetery until sunset, then got back on the freeway to head home.  It had been a satisfying day of appreciating nature and architecture, discovering new things, and being together.  

 

Summer 2013 Recap

This post shows a few of the things we did before summer ended.

The neighborhood church is still under construction, but they had a summer festival out in the parking lot.  The fire department came with a truck and "christened" the new building with so much water that the gutters couldn't contain it, and the kids ran to stand under the eaves as the water spilled down on them.

Great fun on a hot day! After spraying the building's roof, the firemen then directed the hose high over the parking lot and the kids ran through the water for another 10 minutes.  Both girls got soaked to the bone.

I took the girls to a series of outdoor lunch concerts (mostly jazz and acoustic) in our suburban downtown area.   Each concert was in the green space of a different office complex, mostly for the benefit of downtown office workers.

We ventured into the big city of Seattle to explore some new parks and playgrounds.  This one is in a sketchy area of the city that by night you wouldn't want to be in.  It is an oasis in an area overrun by poverty and crime.  There is a community center and beautiful ball fields and wonderful play equipment, and park staff running recreation programs in hopes of giving the local youth something to do and keep them out of gangs and crime.

We got together with my brother and sister in law, and niece and nephew.  After a picnic in a park Grammy pulled out these "disinfecting wipes" to wipe chocolate cake off the kids' faces, and I stopped her, pointing out the "not to be used on humans" warnings all over the package.  My brother and I are always after her for not reading labels (especially expiration dates), and we had fun teasing her about this, and of course the kids joined in with expressions of horror over her error.  My sister in law and I both had babywipes at the ready to clean up the kids.

I took my mom in for some surgery.  I'm spending more time with mom at medical appointments.  I'm grateful that I'm not working full time, and live close enough to be there when she needs me.  While we wait in various waiting rooms I watch so many elderly people arrive alone, coming by cab or medi-bus, and facing their medical challenges without support of a loved one.  

At the Humane Society I got to hear Jackson Galaxy (of the TV program "My Cat From Hell") speak about the unique needs of cats adopted from shelters, and how to ease the transition to a new home, and correct problem behaviors that might make a cat unadoptable.  I wish I had been video recording the talk because he said something by mistake that caused the audience to gasp and he went bright red with embarrassment.

He had been picking people from the audience and having them come up and demonstrate cat behavior, and the person from the audience would pretend to knead with their hands, hiss, arch their back, etc.  He wanted this woman to demonstrate cat greetings, and how a cat might approach their human.  He referred to a cat rubbing its head against your leg as "giving head," and then realized what he said!

My girls and the other kids in the audience didn't get the joke, and kept asking what was so funny.  I didn't explain.


Little K went off to Oregon with her best friend for 10 days, the longest she has been away from us.  We are very close with the parents (they are the ones that went to Sleeping Lady with us), so I had no qualms about letting Little K go with them.  

First they spent a few days in Portland (yes, they went to VooDoo Doughnuts), then camping near Joseph, Oregon, in the NE part of the state.  They rode horseback to their campsite in the mountains, went for some amazing hikes, and saw billions of stars at night.  I'm so grateful that Little K has a best friend she can create good memories with through travel.  The girls talk about when they are grown up, how they will travel the world together.  Not sure what the future holds, but they are off to a good start.

While Little K was away I took A to the grand opening of a new city park.  It used to be farm land, was parcelled off, and then the land was pieced together again over the years through acquisitions and donations.  Flat land like this is a rarity in our community, and is highly desirable for developers.  It is a miracle that it did not become paved over and covered with strip malls or multistory condos.  I am so proud of our civic leaders and the community members who made this park possible.

Little K came back from camping and summer officially ended with our annual neighborhood picnic on the driveway of the abandoned house.  We do one at the end of school to signal the start of summer, and one just before school starts at the end of August.

Sewage Treatment Plant Summer Camp!

What kid wouldn't want to go to camp at a sewage treatment plant?

Well, maybe this kid.  But, since her best friend was going, and this was Little K's last opportunity to attend daycamp (next year she'll be "too old"), she consented.  Of course she had a wonderful time!

We had visited Brightwater before, and their state of the art education facility and partnership with Islandwood Environmental Education Center promised a good time for campers, even if it was located within a sewage treatment plant.

They spent most of the week outdoors learning about wildlife, but plenty of time was devoted to the water treatment plant, too.  In addition to a full tour, they got to spend a lot of time with the exhibits in the education center.

Visuals and hands-on activities are the best teaching tools.

The camp "counselors" were all advanced graduates in education and environmental sciences.  Their passion was obvious and their enthusiasm contagious.

It was a day camp, and each day we watched another swallow jump from the nest near the education building door.  Sadly, on the last day, the final hatchling had waited too long, and was abandoned by the parents who had moved on to the field with the older siblings.  The kids were all traumatized to see the dead baby bird below the nest, but it was a true lesson in nature.

While Little K and her best friend were mucking about at camp, my daughter A and I did some "mommy-daughter" things.  We looked looked at antique stores.  We did some back-to-school shopping at thrift stores.  We took long walks and talked.

 
We went out for brunch at an impossible-to-get-into bakery cafe where even on a Tuesday the wait for a table was 90 minutes (on weekends the wait can be 4 hours or more). 

The camp was a bit far from home for a daycamp, but I was convinced it was worth the drive.  No other program of its caliber existed closer to home.  I felt a bit guilty burning up all that gas driving 45 minutes to an hour each way, given that it was an environmental camp and the kids were learning all about pollution, waste reduction, and how to conserve.  At least we were a carpool!

It is sad to think that day camp is over for my girls.  There just aren't many options for daycamp once a child turns 13 or enters middle school.  We looked into the few offerings for A (who is 13) but they all involved trips to paintball and laser tag facilities, or competitive sports she doesn't care to participate in.  Sleepover camp is not an option for A due to her medical condition, but K can do them, so maybe that is what will happen next year.  Or more than likely, we won't be able to afford camp at all, and we'll just have to enjoy each others' company!

Chicago

Ah, Chicago traffic.  We pulled into Chicago late in the afternoon on a Sunday, and there it was.

The traffic was at a standstill so many times that I had plenty of time to pull out an old fashioned paper map and plan which way to go.  Ultimately I decided to stay on the freeway, slow as it was, as we learned the hard way about surface streets on our way out of Chicago a week before.  

We checked into a Residence Inn out near O'Hare.  We had a 2 bedroom suite with a kitchen which cost less than a single room in the city center would have cost.  It still wasn't cheap, but this was Chicago after all.

It was late evening and we decided to treat ourselves to dinner at the Chipotle Mexican Grill near our hotel.  We ate outside and watched the trains go by.

Monday morning we left the rental car parked outside the hotel and took the free hotel shuttle to O'Hare airport, where we boarded an El Blue Line train to downtown Chicago.  Grammy wouldn't have been up for the trip, so she stayed back at the hotel.  It was supposed to be a restful day for her, but she ended up dealing with backed up plumbing and a maintenance man who made things worse, and then a maid who didn't understand the "do not disturb" sign and insisted on coming in anyway while my mom tried to nap.  I hate hotels.

Having taken lots of public transportation in Europe last summer the girls were keen to compare the experience.  It wasn't as clean, there were some creepy characters who boarded as we got closer to downtown, but overall it was surprisingly pleasant for major inner city transport.  I found it frustrating that I couldn't purchase a student fare for Little K from the vending machine at O'Hare, and had to find an attendant to sell me a ticket for her.  Apparently local youth get a youth transit card through school, and buying them in the stations at Kiosks is not an option.

An hour later we emerged above ground near the historic Marshall Field's department store (now Macy's).  We had a few minutes before we were due to meet our friends so I suggested we go in and use the toilets there.  I'd seen old flagship department stores like this before, but the girls never had, and they were impressed!  So different from the compact mall version of a department store.  This location is actually the second largest department store in the United States.  The ornate decor reminded us of the PBS series Mr. Selfridge, and the girls were excited to learn that Mr. Selfridge himself had worked for a time at Marshall Field's before moving to London and opening his own store in 1909.  

The ceiling is stunning.

Big department stores have big bathrooms!

We headed to Millenium Park to meet our friends.

 

We planned to meet at the "Bean."  The mirrored sculpture is actually called "Cloud Gate," but most people refer to it as the Bean.

We saw all types of people playing with their reflections, from a group of monks...

To laughing babies.

The girls had endless poses to try.

Backbends take on new meaning when reflected.

The view upward from beneath the center of the bean was especially interesting.

Cloud Gate wasn't the only sculpture in the park.  We couldn't decide if these were supposed to be bears or pigs.

Next up was the Crown Fountains.  My friend had told me to bring swimwear for the girls so they could run and get wet, and I'm so glad we did!

Having the freedom to get absolutely soaked, and have dry clothes to change into later, was such a gift.  Our day wouldn't have been nearly as fun if the girls had been able to only get their feet wet.

The glass brick fountains (there are two of them) have LED lights inside which project the video images of local Chicago residents.  The faces range in their expressions: smiling, laughing, scowling, and finally, puckering up, at which point kids come running because that means the spray stream will begin, as if being spit from the person's lips.

It was a hot and muggy day, so the cool water was a welcome relief.  I was impressed at how clean the park was for being located in the heart of the city.  We were only approached by a panhandler once, and he quickly moved on.  We never did see any cops patrolling.  So different from downtown Seattle, where you're constantly badgered by agressive panhandlers, and most parks are filled with homeless encampments and littered with bottles and needles.  I'm sure Chicago has plenty of those, too, but it was refreshing to find something so family friendly in a downtown environment. 

After a good long soaking, the kids settled onto beach towels and played an "I dare you" game with Jelly Belly "Bean Boozled" Jelly Beans.  Identical colored beans came in 2 very different flavors.  Would it be Barf, or Peach?  Is it Dog Food, or Chocolate?  Popcorn, or Rotten Egg?  One girl started retching and ended up vomiting all over the beach towel.  All the other kids jumped up and backed away in horror.  Game over.

Anyone still have an appetite for lunch?  My awesome friend, a Chicago native, arranged to have Lou Malnati's authentic deep dish Chicago pizza delivered to the park for us.

We found a nice grassy spot and dug in.

I had never tasted anything quite like it.  The crust was soft inside, but not yeasty or undercooked, and crispy on the outside with a cornmeal crunch.  Whole stewed tomatoes swam on top of a thick layer of cheese. It was amazing!

Our friends were headed to the Art Institute and invited us, but I wanted to get on the El train before rush hour, and get back to my mother who was sitting alone in the hotel room.

Within minutes of getting on the El it was naptime for Little K.  It took nearly an hour to get back.

We got back to the hotel around 4:30 with enough time for the girls to get in a swim before dinner.

Our hotel served dinner M-Th and tonight was baked potato night.  I'd planned to take us out for an evening drive because I felt sorry my mom had been stuck in the hotel room all day, but mom wasn't feeling well and wanted to lie down for a few minutes after dinner.  It wasn't long before the sound of her snoring made me feel sleepy, too, so as the girls settled in front of the TV to watch an episode of "Love it or List it" I lay down on my bed and fell instantly asleep.  Grammy and I woke up just as the sun was going down, about an hour later.  We decided to call it a night and rest up for tomorrow.