For our first wedding anniversary celebration, Aaron took me out on the Spirit of Washington dinner train.
He thought of everything. Before we boarded the train, he helped me complete my look with a Holly Yashi necklace and earring set. Then there were roses waiting for me when we got to our table on the train.
The food was excellent. I had prime rib, and he had the salmon. The wines were exquisite – I particularly enjoyed the whidbey port.
Aaron, my dear husband, I don’t have enough words to tell you how much I love you. You made me very, very happy tonight.
I love you more every day, and I’m so thankful that I get to spend my life with you.
On a lark yesterday, Mr. H and I decided to hit the road and check out Northwest Trek. It was kind of a long trip for a lark, because it’s a wildlife park near the foot of Mt. Rainier, but then we’ve missed the house on our way home and ended up going to dinner in Port Townsend before too. We do odd things when we’re feeling spontaneous.
NW Trek is kind of a cool concept in wildlife parks/zoos, the prey animals live in a 500 acre area that ranges from steep hills, forests, pastures and wetlands. The animals roam freely, the people are caged in trams that are driven about the park by naturalists.
We got some great viewing opportunities, and up quite close to everything from bison, to moose to black tail deer, elk and caribou.
The predators are kept in a much more zoo-like setting – smaller habitats surrounded by fencing and moats. We enjoyed the black bear bathing himself and rolling around in the water, the cats, however seemed to think it was much too hot to come out of their little dens.
We missed the snakes and bugs this time. I think I’ll get over it.
This weeked was the Pacific Northwast Highland Games at the fairgrounds in Enumclaw, Washington. We try to get up there every year, and each time we go we have a blast and get sunburned. This year we were especially careful about using sunblock, staying in the shade and my husband even bought me a hat, but we’re just not used to 95+ degrees and we both managed to get crispy again this year. No worries though, we had so much fun, it was definitely worth it.
For Mr. H’s 30th Birthday, I took him out whale watching… well that was the idea anyways, but apparently the whales didn’t get that memo.
The tour went out of Friday Harbor, so we had an adventure just getting there. We drove to Anacortes, two hours north of home, and then took a ferry across to San Juan Island where Friday Harbor is located.
We tried to have dinner at Front Street Ale House, but the service was so slow – not so much the kitchen, but getting the attention of the waiter (the one with the flat brim baseball hat cocked askew) – so we asked for the food to go and ate in on the boat as it was pulling out of port. The food was a bit greasy, but not bad.
The tour company we used was San Juan Safaris, and I would definitely use this service again. Our Captian was an old sea dog that looked like he’d spent more of his life on water than land, and the naturalist was a young college student who had been born and raised on the islands. They were both very skilled at keeping their guest happy and engaged (there were 20 of us on board) especially after it became apparent that the whales were not going to make an appearance.
We saw lots of eagles and eagles’ nests, rhinocerous oclets (horned diving birds), harbor porpoise, seals, sea otters, and beautiful scenery. The most fascinating sighting was also the most grotesque, we came across a tiny island, maybe 20 feet in diameter, with two young bald eagles on it. In the water below were a seal and her newborn pup. By newborn, I mean minutes old. We came up right after ther birth. The eagles on the rock were displaying their pecking order, the older eagle was eating the placenta, while the younger eagle stood by patiently waiting his turn.
We got back to Friday Harbor in time to catch the last ferry back to the mainland. The 9:55 is the milk run stopping at every island on the way, so we got back to Anacortes by midnight. That 2 hour drive back to Auburn was exhausting.
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