When we moved to this apartment back in February, one of the things we missed was the ability to compost like we did at our previous apartment. However, the city of Seattle has required all apartment buildings to offer composting, so now we can compost again. The apartment building also provided us a bin to put our compostables in, something that would have been nice to have had at our old place. It will take a few days before I get back in the habit, but it will be nice not to waste all the vegetable scraps we create and tea bags we go through.

Cascade Pass is our favorite hike in the Pacific Northwest so far, and one that we have done two previous times. We didn't go last summer, so I wanted to make sure to go this summer. We had planned to go last weekend, but the weather was wet, and I feared that we may not have another chance to go hike with sunny and warm summer weather. Fortunately, though, we had beautiful 70 degrees this past Saturday.

It's almost a 3 hour drive to the trailhead, so we left at 7:30 and ate some bagels on the way. The sky was clear and it was a nice sunny morning. The trail starts by ascending for a mile or so through forest. We did this part of the hike with relative ease, it seemed like, I guess because we've been hiking all summer and are in decent shape.

This part of the hike seemed a little longer than we remembered, but eventually the trees thinned out as we approached the treeline. Then we walked along the side of a mountain, over a rocky section. This part reminded me of the Highline Trail we did in Glacier. And, we made it to the Pass at around noon.

Normally we'd eat here and then turn back, but this time we wanted to go farther. I was feeling very good at this point. It seemed like we made good time and I wasn't tired at all.

So, we continued on toward the Sahale Arm that led higher on the mountain toward a glacier and a camp. This part of the trail was at about 5,400 feet and had a very steep ascent. Lesley didn't seem to have much trouble hiking uphill over uneven and loose rocks, but I had to stop a couple times to rest. The view from here was one of the best of the day as we passed through meadows of wildflowers.

After a while we made it to the crest of the slope we were on and could see to the North. There were more mountains on this side, as well as a small lake a couple hundred feet below us called Doubtful Lake.

We weren't planning to go all the way to the camp at the end of the trail, but wanted to go far enough to enjoy some of the better views. Eventually we had a good view to the west as well as the east found a good rock to sit on. We had some of our snacks and water before heading back down.

The walk down seemed longer than the way up, but the views were still great, though some clouds had come in. Lesley was pretty exhausted and sore, but we made it back to the car and through the long ride back home.

We walked about 10 miles and ascended nearly 3,000 feet in elevation, taking five and a half hours, so this was probably the most challenging hike we've ever done. It was definitely a good workout, and I look forward to doing additional challenging hikes in the future.

A couple of years ago, I posted about a new radar on Washington's coast near Aberdeen proposed by the National Weather service. Now, more than two years later, the new radar will finally be up and running next Friday. The only other radars in this region are one in Portland and one Camano Island, which is partially blocked by the Olympic Mountain range. Now we'll have more accurate predictions for how much rain will fall on short notice. This kind of accuracy could have helped people prepare better for the Chehalis River floods in 2007. The radar can take readings as far away as 240 miles off the coast. It is also a dual radar, the first in the nation, which can measure incoming clouds vertically as well as horizontally. It cost $9 million, $2 million more than the proposed cost.

It's fitting, since today is the first day of fall and our rainy season will start in the coming months. We've been warned that this could be another La Niña year, with a wetter and colder winter, but we'll see what happens. For now, we'll enjoy the new fall weather.

One thing that's often apparent when looking at a US map is how many less roads and people there are in the western half of the country, particularly states like Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. What's sometimes not apparent from maps is the natural beauty that makes these places more remarkable than their population counts or locations would indicate.

These three states - Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, are where we took our latest vacation - a road trip of over 2500 miles to see the country's greatest National Parks. We visited Glacier National Park in Montana, and Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks in Wyoming. We also stopped at the Craters of the Moon National Monument and the Sawtooth and Boise National Forests. We were out and on the road for 10 days and 10 nights, and two of our friends were able to join us for the best parts.

We saw a lot of wildlife and scenic beauty, did some hiking, and also did a lot of driving. Overall, it was one of the best vacations we've had and makes me want to spend more time in the outdoors.

Summer is beautiful yet short in Seattle, so it's important to make the most of it. Yesterday was one of those perfect sunny and 70-80 degree Seattle summer days. Lesley had chosen to work overtime on Saturday morning, giving me time to start our slow-cooker meal that we'd have for dinner.

I walked downtown and met Lesley there after she got off work. We took the light rail down to Columbia City, one of Seattle's more ethnnically diverse neighborhoods, where there was a "Summer Streets" event that closed the main street to cars.

When we arrived, people were lined up on both sides of the street watching a parade of marching bands, break dancers, and city council campaigners.

We were hungry so we stopped in at a Caribbean food place for lunch called Island Soul Caribbean Cuisine. It was happy hour so we had rum punch and an appetizer to start, then Lesley had the Jamaican Jerk chicken and I had the curry. We could see some of the parade from inside the restaurant, and the parade was over by the time we were done eating.

We then walked in the roadway, stopping to listen to music and then browsing through a local bookstore. On our way back to the rail station, we went to the historic public library building where we picked up a few brand new travel guides for our upcoming trip to Yellowstone and the trip we're planning to Europe for next year.

We then took the crowded train back home and rested there for a while, reading through our books outside on the deck.

Soon, the Sounders game was on and they were playing FC Dallas for second place in the conference. We ate our slow cooker recipe, which included potatoes, carrots, onion, butternut squash, and chicken during the game. The game itself was exciting as the Sounders went ahead early but Dallas had plenty of chances. In the end the Sounders won, so that was good.

After the game we walked to get a custard sundae nearby, which was very good. Then we decided to drive up to Kerry Park and enjoy the nighttime view of the skyline along with a mug of hot tea.

It was a beautiful day and it's a shame it had to end, but hopefully we'll have a few more great weekend days before summer ends.

Last weekend we hiked the Lilm Kiln Trail for the second time. We hiked it for the first time almost three years ago, in October 2008. I remember really liking the trail because of all the neat old artifacts and how it was relatively flat without much change in elevation. We also really liked sitting at the Stillaguamish River at the end of the trail.

Last weekend we had a pretty different experience. I didn't remember horses being allowed on the first part of the trail, but we found lots of evidence they had been there this time. The entire trail was overgrown too, with wild invasive blackberry in several places, which scratched us a few times. The bugs were probably the most annoying part though, which I never thought I'd say since we rarely see bugs in the Pacific Northwest. I guess a hike on a sunny, slightly muggy day in August is bound to include bugs.

It was a good workout and took about 3 hours to complete the 6 mile out and back trail. We sat at the end on the river shore again, which was really nice. Here's a video of the river.

Stillaguamish River at Lime Kiln Trail on Vimeo.

I turned 28 years old on Saturday. Troy took me to the Dahlia Lounge on Friday for dinner and the food was excellent. We started with a glass of wine each and some shrimp potstickers and bread. For the main course, I had the dungeness crab cakes with potato salad, tomatoes, pickles, and a few chips. It was put together very well and tasted great together. Troy had some sort of pasta with zucchini and sun dried tomatoes. Then for dessert I had the doughnuts, fried to order with vanilla mascarpone and apricot jam. Troy had the creme caramel. Both were so delicious! My dessert was free because they knew it was my birthday, so that was nice. Dahlia Lounge is one of the best restaurants I've been to in Seattle. Tom Douglas, the chef, definitely deserves the local fame he gets.

Saturday Troy gave me my birthday presents - Sim City 4 and a butterfly necklace. Then we headed out for the day to Mount Rainier. But first, we stopped to get bagels at Noah's on Mercer Island. We decided to go the opposite way we normally go to Rainier and went through the Northeast corner instead of the Southwest. We got a late start to the day, so we didn't arrive at our first stop until around 11. We went to Ohanapecosh and hiked about 1.5 miles to Silver Falls. The trail was pretty busy, but that was to be expected since the weather was perfect and it was a Saturday in the summer. The trail had a little elevation gain and wound its way through the old growth forest, with several creeks and small waterfalls along the way. We eventually made it to Silver Falls and it was just beautiful. The falls were rushing so fast with white foam and the water was a clear blue-green color.

We continued on another .7 miles to the Grove of the Patriarchs where we saw some old growth forest trees that were estimated to be over 1,000 years old. There was a neat small bridge over the river (the same river that continues down and becomes Silver Falls) to the grove. We were pretty hungry by the time we started to head back, but we forgot to bring a backpack and left all our snacks in the car. I guess we didn't realize how long the hike would take.

Anyway, we finally got back to the car and ate our snacks on a picnic table nearby. We had an apple, strawberries, trail mix, a granola bar, some cashews, and drinks. By the time we were done, it was after 3:00, so we headed out toward Paradise. We stopped at a few viewpoints along the way for some photos, but basically continued on without stopping very long. There were lots of wildflowers along the Stevens Canyon Road. I would have liked to do another short hike at Longmire, but it was getting late and we didn't want to be eating dinner at 9:00 at night. We got home around 7:00 and ordered Pagliacci pizza for dinner and watched Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring the rest of the night. We also had some chocolate cake with chocolate icing that Troy had made for my birthday.

Last weekend we decided to hike at Middle Fork Snoqualmie River Trail. We had done this trail one other time, but it started to rain on us shortly after we started, so we didn't end up going very far. With temperatures forecast in the mid to upper 70s, Saturday was a great day to go hike there again.

The trailhead is almost an hour off the freeway, much of it along a pothole-filled gravel road. The trail starts by crossing the river over a nice wood suspension bridge and then follows closely alongside the river. This first part of the trail along the river is the best part, in my opinion. The trail then diverges away from the river for a couple miles. This trail has some ups and downs, but nowhere is it very difficult. Some of the hardest part may be avoiding the mud that sometimes covers the trail while not getting scraped by branches encroaching on the trail.

In a few spots, there are bridges or rocks that provide a path over small streams. This trail may be too wet to do earlier in the year, but most of these streams were pretty small. After a few miles of hiking through the forest, the trail returns back to the river. This would have been a good place to stop and rest and then turn around, but we decided to keep going. Our hiking book showed a waterfall not too much farther ahead. After hiking through more mud and thorny brambles, we eventually realized that there was no waterfall (at least not at this time of year) and decided to turn around. After a brief stop at the river, we walked the three miles or so back to the trailhead.

We hiked probably a total of 8 miles, and while the mud was a little annoying, overall it was a pleasant hike with a good amount of solitude on the trail.

Snoqualmie River on Vimeo.

We didn't really have any major plans this weekend, but we did decide to go to Tacoma for a day on Saturday. We went to Noah's bagels for breakfast on Mercer Island. The three bagels we had were really fresh and tasty and the weather was great, so we ate them outside. Then we headed to Tacoma and had a clear view of Mount Rainier.

We had bought some Groupons for the Museum of Glass that we weren't able to use when we had visitors this summer, so we decided to use two of the four tickets we had bought. In the hot shop at the museum, they're usually making something. This time they were blowing glass elephants, which we watched for a little while before looking at the rest of the exhibits. There was an exhibit on glass objects that were made based on children's drawings, which was cute. There was also a piece made up of hundreds of pieces of glass all arranged together to depict a forest scene with a river and waterfall. It was really impressive. Unfortunately they say you can't take pictures in the gallery, so we didn't. Even though we've seen blown glass a few times the last couple years, the Museum of Glass was still pretty interesting and impressive.

After that we headed to eat some lunch at Tatanka Take-Out, which has bison meat burgers and vegetarian food too, believe it or not. It wasn't that great actually, so we probably won't be going back. At least it was on the way to Point Defiance Park. The weather was beautiful, completely clear and highs in the mid-70s. We parked inside the park and hiked a solid 3-5 miles around the perimeter of the park, stopping at a couple of scenic viewpoints. We could see the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Gig Harbor, and Vashon Island.

I saw they had a rose garden on the park map, so we decided to check it out. We were very pleasantly surprised when we arrived and saw several dozen rose bushes all blooming! They must be blooming late since we had a cold spring. They were very beautiful, all the pinks, reds, yellows, and oranges. We spent almost an hour at the rose garden and then headed to dinner.

We stopped at a place called The Rock: Wood Fired Pizza and Spirits, where we got a 12" pepperoni and pineapple pizza. We also got the beer sampler and the apple crisp with ice cream dessert to share. I don't like beer much at all usually, but a couple were actually not too bad. The pizza was really good and the atmosphere was neat, with all kinds of rock and roll memorabilia around. After dinner we took the streetcar through downtown, which was pretty dead, so we went back to the car and drove home. Overall it was a good day.

Here are some pictures from my parents' and Uncle's visit to Seattle a few weeks ago. We didn't take that many pictures because we've been to most of the places we went to before. Troy took several at Fort Casey and I took a few at the aquarium.

Here's a video of the tufted puffin at the aquarium:

Tufted Puffin on Vimeo.

Troy had to work on Monday, but I took the day off. I picked everyone up from the hotel and we went to the Seattle Aquarium for a couple of hours. I'd never been there, so it was nice to see what all they had. Near the entrance we saw a huge water tank with a suited diver inside feeding the fish, which was pretty cool. The aquarium focuses on the northern Pacific Ocean and Puget Sound, but they also had recently added some information about the Deep Water Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. That was probably the most interesting part for me. We also saw a tufted puffin going crazy flapping and splashing his wings in the water and some sea otters being fed.

We tried to go to Paseo for lunch, but apparently they're closed on Monday, which was unfortunate because they have the best sandwich I've ever had there and I wanted everyone to try it. Instead of went to Ezell's, which serves fried chicken that Oprah Winfrey says is her favorite. The chicken was moist and flavorful, the sides were decent, and the rolls were yummy.

After lunch we decided to walk off some calories at Seward Park. The weather was really nice and we all enjoyed walking a couple miles around the perimeter of the park.

Then we drove down to Pike Place market to pick up some souvenirs. Troy met us there after he got off work and we went to eat dinner at Laredos. Troy and I shared the fajitas and nachos. It's definitely the best Tex-Mex we've had so far in Seattle.

After dinner we took a ferry boat ride to Bainbridge and back. Mount Rainier was finally showing itself and we could see it pretty well from the boat. We went to Kerry Park as the sun was setting to end the last full day of the visit.

Both Troy and I had to work Tuesday, but I was able to take an early lunch and meet my parents and Uncle at the Westlake Center. I was able to chat with them a few more minutes and then showed them where to take the Link light rail to the airport. Unfortunately their flight out was delayed due to electrical problems on the plane. They eventually made it home at about 1:00 in the morning after a connecting flight in Denver.

We had a good time visiting with them and wish it could have been longer. Hopefully they'll be able to come back soon.

Sunday morning, Lesley's dad took the bus from their hotel to pick up the car he rented for our drive to Deception Pass. We all had a very good breakfast at 5 Spot on Queen Anne Hill. Lesley had some very sweet and very good cinnamon French toast as well as some fresh fruit. It was Father's Day so we gave Lesley's dad his present.

We headed north toward the Pass, and even though the weather was drizzly with low clouds, it was still quite scenic. At the Pass, we all walked part-way across the bridge and then down to the beach. Lesley and I continued for a longer walk along the beach and in the forest.

We all headed onward through Whidbey Island to Fort Casey. We stopped there for a picnic with several snacks we'd brought with us. While the weather didn't get much better, I really enjoyed exploring the remains of the military base that had been there. We also went inside the lighthouse and climbed to the top.

We continued through Whidbey Island and took the ferry back to Mukilteo. That evening, we ordered Pagliacci pizza and salad for dinner, played some games, and had some ice cream.

We slept in a little late Saturday, which was nice. We went to Top Pot for breakfast and it was really crowded, but thankfully we found a table in the upper level. Troy and I had our usual donuts - the chocolate bar and old fashioned glazed - which were both awesome. As we've said before, Top Pot donuts are our favorite.

Despite the cloudy, misty weather, we decided to go to Snoqualmie Falls in North Bend. Since my parents last visited, there have been some renovations to the viewpoints along the river that made it a lot nicer. The waterfall had the most water flowing over it we've ever seen there. We've had warmer temperatures lately which has melted a lot of the mountain snow and caused the river to swell. It was pretty impressive.

After that, we went to check out the Snoqualmie Casino just a few miles away. Troy and I had never been there, so it was interesting to see. We had actually never played the slot machines, even though we have been to Las Vegas before. I lost all the money I bet after about 30 minutes. Troy hesitantly played with $1 and lost it in about 15 minutes. Sometimes he only bet 1 cent at a time, so that's how it lasted so long. Thankfully we were able to play in a decent sized non-smoking section. It was a fun experience, but I don't think we will be going back any time soon.

We skipped lunch since we had donuts for a late breakfast, so we were pretty hungry for dinner. We went to my Dad's favorite restaurant, Palisade. We were able to get a table close to the glass and some of us had a nice view of the city and the bay. I had the salmon and Troy had the prime rib and both were delicious.

After dinner, we drove over to Fremont to show my Uncle the Troll and Gas Works Park. Then we went back to the apartment for more pie. My Uncle had mentioned playing some old video games like we used to play together when I was a kid, so we played Donkey Kong Country for a while. I also introduced him to Mario Kart Wii, which he actually played pretty decently.

Lesley and I both took Friday off from work. She went with her parents to Cafe Besalu for breakfast, where they had quiche, croissants, and hot tea, which was quite good, I'm told. After my morning doctor's appointment, we all met up at the Olympic Sculpture Park. People were setting up for an event, but we were able to walk through the park and enjoy the waterfront view. Afterward, we went to Discovery Park and went for a brief but very enjoyable walk through the forest.

On our way to lunch, we stopped at a western viewpoint in Magnolia to enjoy the view of the sunlit sound and Olympic Mountains. We went to the Space Needle for lunch, which everyone enjoyed.

After lunch, we came back to our apartment where Lesley and her uncle played more games and her dad and I walked to the grocery store to get some peanuts before the baseball game.

We left early and took a bus through the ride free area to the game. We were one of the first 20,000 fans so we received the Ichiro jersey that was being handed out beforehand. Our seats were along the first baseline fairly close to the action and far too many Phillies fans. It was a pretty good game and it was exciting to see the Mariners win and the Philadelphia team lose.

We took the light rail back downtown and then I drove Lesley's family back to their hotel.

My parents visited us for the second time this past weekend. My Uncle Bob was able to come with them, which was really nice. They took an early flight and arrived in Seattle in the morning. They took the Light Rail to downtown from the airport and said it was a nice, cheap way to go. Once downtown they took a cab to their hotel in Lower Queen Anne and then rode the Monorail back downtown. I took a half day off work and was able to leave at 11 to meet them.

We had really good weather that first day and they were very happy that they were in our 65 degree weather instead of 100 degrees in Texas. The first thing we did was walk to Pike Place market to eat lunch at Beecher's. We each had grilled panini's and my parents shared some of the famous mac n' cheese. We saw the flying fish, the gum wall, and all the flowers and fruit for sale. My parents bought some white nectarines and some Taylor gold pears to eat for later. They also got a few piroshky pastries from Piroshky Piroshky.

Then we walked by my office building so I could show my Uncle where I work. After that we made the long trek to our apartment on foot. Everyone seemed to like our apartment, especially more living room space and the deck. After hanging out for a bit, we took them to their hotel so they could check in and get settled. We picked them up around 5:30 to go to Djan's Thai restaurant in Wallingford. My parents had been to Djan's on their first trip here and liked it. Unfortunately the traffic was very bad on Mercer and it took about 20 minutes to go maybe 3 blocks. Needless to say, we were all pretty hungry once we got to the restaurant.

I got the yellow curry and Troy got some kind of noodle dish. My Dad and Uncle both got the pineapple fried rice, which I had a bite of and it tasted awesome. My Mom got the cashew nut dish with chicken like she got last time. It was all very good food. Now I want to go back again soon and get my own pineapple fried rice.

We took a slight detour on the way to Alki Beach through the U District to show them the University of Washington and Husky Stadium. The view from Alki was really nice, so we walked around there for a little bit before heading back to the apartment. I made an apple pie and a blueberry pie for them, so we had a few pieces of pie before we called it a night. It was a fun first day and a great start to their trip.

Seattle has the largest international film festival in the United States and we've attended a few films at each year's festival since we've been here. Some films have been quite good and a few have been disappointments, but they've always been interesting.

The first movie we'd planned to see this year was called Page One: Inside the New York Times. We had purchased our passes ahead of time and wanted to get to the theater 30 minutes early. This was our first time to the Egyptian theater, which is a few blocks from where we live. When we got there, the line was halfway around the block - hundreds of people had tickets and were in line to get in. We got a seat in the balcony and as people entered the theater to fill all the seats, the palpable energy of the audience reminded me again that this festival is a much bigger deal than just going to see another movie.

SIFF has gotten some criticism because it has so many movies, not just the very best. And with more than 3 weeks of movies playing all hours of the day, every day, at 7 theaters in the region, it's amazing that so many of them generate the crowd we saw at the Egyptian and at other theaters other times we've gone.

This movie looked at how the Times operates and documented how the print media industry is struggling to react to the growth of online media sources. The documentary focused on some rather interesting news stories that the Times was covering, people with unique personalities, and a fairly balanced, if shallow, touch on the issues. It was was one of the best films we've seen at SIFF.

Tomorrow, we'll be going to see a movie about Sushi, which sounds like a really interesting movie to me. And later we'll be seeing the only international movie we're planning to see at this year's festival - a French animated film about a cat in Paris - called A Cat in Paris.

While we do miss out on a lot of mainstream movies in theaters, we have enjoyed broadening our perspective in participating in the major event that is SIFF.

We slept in on Tuesday and checked out of the hotel around 10. Thankfully they were able to hold our bags at the front desk until later in the day before our boat ride back. Victoria is the capitol city of British Columbia, so they have a Parliament building there. We took a self-guided tour of it and even sat in on a live session of the legislative assembly for a few minutes.

The next stop was my favorite part of the whole trip - Afternoon Tea at the Empress Hotel! We arrived a little early, so we took it easy and strolled around the hotel and some of the gift shops. The hotel was actually built between 1904 and 1908 by the Canadian Pacific Railway. Several British monarchs and other famous people have stayed at the hotel. We had reservations for noon and were seated a little early. We started out with a cup of strawberries with cream and then our tea came. We had a choice between several options that all sounded good. I ended up getting their Empress black tea blend, which was the best tea I've ever had.

Then we got a three-tiered food tray that started with some finger sandwiches, including a curry chicken sandwich, an egg salad croissant, some kind of cucumber sandwich, and a few others. The second tier was the best part - a currant scone with cream and strawberry jam to spread on it. It tasted so good! Finally we got to the dessert and all of us were starting to get pretty full. The dessert included cheesecake, chocolate & vanilla cake with marzipan (also known as Battenberg cake), a lemon meringue pie, a chocolate truffle, and a piece of shortbread. It was quite possibly the coolest eating experience I've ever had. It was pretty pricey, but definitely worth doing once in a lifetime.

Then we went exploring more of Government street and all the retail shops, including a specialty tea shop called Murchie's and an Irish themed store. After that we split up again and Troy and I walked around more of downtown and went by a cathedral we'd seen briefly on our city tour bus the previous day. We met up with his parents again and went to eat dinner at the Spaghetti Factory before grabbing our stored luggage and taking the Victoria Clipper back to Seattle. Fortunately there were plenty of taxis waiting for us, so we took one back to our apartment so we could pick up Troy's parents' luggage before dropping them off at their airport hotel.

Victoria is a nice small city to go to, with several great things to experience such as the Butchart Gardens and Afternoon Tea. We might go back some day, but probably not any time soon. We want to go back to Vancouver first. We had a nice trip and a nice visit with Troy's parents.

We woke up really early for our ride to Victoria on the Victoria Clipper. It left at 7:30 am, so we had to be there at 6:30 am. We woke up around 5:15 am to meet Troy's parents and catch the bus to get down to Pier 69. We finally boarded and were served a decent continental breakfast which included yogurt or cereal with milk, a blueberry muffin, a small cheese wheel, crackers, and Craisins. Thankfully the weather was decent, although not totally clear. We couldn't see any of the mountains that I knew surrounded us, but at least it was partly sunny and wasn't raining.

We arrived in Victoria around 10:30 and it took forever to get through immigration. We finally got onto our tour bus around 11 and had a short tour of the city before heading to the Butchart Gardens. We happened to be there on Victoria Day, so there were lots of festivities and a parade going on near the waterfront, so the tour bus had to avoid that area unfortunately. It didn't take long to get to the gardens though. We had about two hours to meander through looking at tons and tons of nicely landscaped scrubs, bushes, and flower patches. There were tulips everywhere. At the end we stopped in the gift shop and I actually bought some souvenirs, which I don't normally do on trips. The Butchart Gardens were pretty impressive. I could have stayed there another couple of hours probably.

The tour bus dropped us off at our hotel, the Royal Scot, which is just a block away from the waterfront. It was a nice hotel, despite being a little dated. We quickly headed out again and were pretty hungry, so we went to a place I'd read about called Red Fish Blue Fish. The line to order was intimidatingly long, but we waited anyway... and waited... and waited. After about 45 minutes, we finally ordered and got our food about 15 minutes later. Troy and I shared the 2 piece halibut and chips (for $20) and it was awesome. I can't say it was worth the wait, but it came close.

After that we walked through Chinatown and the big retail area. Troy and I continued on to Beacon Hill Park while his parents took a little rest at the hotel. I enjoyed walking through the park and sitting on a bench to rest for a while. We eventually found the Mile 0 marker for the Trans-Canada Highway, which is almost a 5,000 mile long highway that stretches all across Canada to the Atlantic Ocean.

We were a little hungry by then, so we stopped for an ice cream sundae at The Soda Shoppe on Government Street. We got a scoop of cookies & cream, strawberry, and chocolate, topped with marshmallow cream, whipped cream, pecans, and two cherries. It was a little overpriced (as was pretty much everything in Victoria), but it was nice to rest a bit and the sundae actually was very good.

After that we were pretty tired, so we headed back to the hotel and played a few games of pool and shuffleboard with Troy's parents before calling it a night.

We were happy to spend time with my parents last weekend on their second visit to Seattle. They arrived last Saturday and we spent some time in town before visiting Leavenworth and then visiting Victoria.

They arrived around lunch time, so we went to Red Mill, our favorite burger place in town. While the music was rather loud this time, the food was good as usual. From there, we headed to Pioneer Square to walk around and take the Underground Tour. This was Lesley's and my third time to take the Underground Tour. Each tour guide has his or her own stories to tell and different areas to show so it hasn't gotten old yet. We also spent a good amount of time at the Gold Rush Museum, which is a rather interesting and well-done museum.

We then visited the Central Library, which is an interesting architectural landmark. We visited the red floor and traveled along the lime green escalators before going to our apartment. There, we ordered Pagliacci Pizza and watched our Netflix rental (The Verdict) together before taking my parents back to their hotel for the evening.

The next day, we met for breakfast near their hotel before heading to Leavenworth. We rented a car for a more comfortable ride for everyone and then made the 2+ hour scenic drive over the mountains to the Bavarian village east of the Cascades. We enjoyed the town and had German food for lunch before heading back and visiting Bellevue Square. That evening we had apple pie that Lesley made and had a light taco dinner at a place called Tacos Guaymas in our neighborhood.

The next couple days we visited Victoria, British Columbia, which we'll write about separately. I'm happy my parents were able to come and really enjoyed visiting with them.

We went to the annual cheese festival at Pike Place Market on Saturday. The weather was amazing all day with highs in the lower 60s and mostly sunny skies. We met some friends from church there and walked around sampling all the different cheeses. It seemed like there were fewer stands this year than prior years, but there were still plenty to choose from. I generally like milder softer cheeses and Troy likes the stronger harder cheeses. We each got a cheese we wanted and we also bought a wedge of Cougar Gold, which we buy every year. I got a cream cheese from Sierra Nevada Creamery that I also bought last year and Troy got a Fontina cheese from Oregon. There were so many different kinds I liked, but we knew we had to limit ourselves.

While at the market, we also bought some flowers and some really good Taylor's Gold pears. We also browsed through a Spanish store that had a huge selection of wines from Spain, Argentina, Portugal, and several other countries. After that we went to our friends' apartment, which is just down the street from the market and hung out for a while. We played Super Mario Brothers Wii for an hour or so. We also enjoyed looking out their windows at the amazing view of Elliott Bay and had a chance to see some of the tugboats out there for the Maritime Festival.

After a while we were a little hungry for lunch, so we decided to head down to the waterfront for a Chowder cookoff, which is part of the Maritime Festival. After trying clam chowder at 7 different restaurants, we all decided that Anthony's had the best. It wasn't too thick or thin, wasn't too buttery or peppery, it was just right. I think it will be a while before I want to have chowder again.

Once we got home, we took the car to get its annual washing and vacuuming in preparation for our visitors that are coming soon. Now it almost looks like a brand new car with a nice dark green paint job. Then we watched the Sounders-Timbers game, which ended in a tie unfortunately.

It was nice to hang out with some friends and have a chance to enjoy the nice weather on Saturday.