Surprise Weekend in Coeur d'Alene

This past Thursday I took the train up to Seattle to be the witness at the courthouse marriage of my pals, Julianna and Ben.  Unfortunately, Julianna's grandmother was ill and had to be admitted to the hospital, so we took an impromptu trip over to Coeur d'Alene (a 5 hour drive from Seattle) to Julianna's house.  That means, the wedding was postponed... luckily though, Julianna's grandmother was treated and released on Sunday and we drove back to Seattle that day.   Here are some pictures from the drives.  I especially enjoyed the scenery because I got to see SNOW!  It may sound silly, but not really having had what I consider snow this Oregon winter, I was happy to see it on our drive.

Here are some pictures from driving through the pass and into Idaho:

Here are some pictures from our drive from Idaho back to Seattle:

ABC gum

I forgot that I had a few more Seattle pictures I wanted to share... behold the alley of chewing gum:

Eagle Landing Park

Before the Superbowl, Ben, Julianna, Ben's father, and I went on a long walk at Eagle Landing Park in Burien, WA.  It's a beautiful forested park located on the Puget Sound with trails on the beach and in the woods.  It's a pretty hilly area though, with the drop off from the parking area to the beach at around 275 feet...talk about some fun hundreds of stairs to climb.

Here's just a glimpse of the stairs we had to climb to get back up to the street.

I was pretty high up in this picture, unfortunately though it only looks like I am a couple feet off the ground here.

Seattle Street Shots

One of the things I noticed while driving around in Seattle was the crazy amount of wires.  It was interesting to look up at the sky through a web of black lines.  There were also a lot of birds on the wires.

We went to Pike Place Market.  The picture on the left is the street between the market (on the right) and small shops, including the original Starbucks.  I was able to tame this wild hog outside Pike Place, unfortunately though, my ride wasn't very exciting nor very comfortable.

And this bare-breasted beauty?  She's the original Starbucks logo lady, who now has her tatas covered up at all other Starbucks locations.

It was really pretty at night in Seattle.  On the left is a portion of the sidewalk downtown covered by an enormous arched glass ceiling.  The photo on the right is just a light structure that I thought was pretty neat.

Northwest Flower & Garden Show

Last weekend I went to the Northwest Flower & Garden Show with Julianna, Ben (her boyfriend), and Ben's mom.  It was mostly sample gardens, plants, and garden merchandise.  It was pretty neat but it was sooo big that by the end of walking through it all, we were pretty exhausted.

Here's a gate I thought was cool looking. Unfortunately, the picture came out a little fuzzy.

I was very excited to see this triceratops at the show.

I liked this sign so much that I kept yelling "Butt Chart! Butt Chart!"

Here's a cool fountain.

Here's a cool sculpture.

I liked this Barbie display but for some reason everyone else I was with just walked by it.

I thought this thing was pretty cool too.

These following mini gardens were made by school kids.