Erica's Places: The Travelling Project

Let’s see – I last left us in Victoria…..

After I got my turn to shop in the Needlework shop we found, it was time to continue on our journey. We hopped on a (very, very rough) ferry to Port Angeles, crossing the US border into Washington. We continued on to Seattle and stayed with another of DH’s cousins. The next morning we were up early and after finding the mecca that is Starbucks (I don’t drink much coffee, but I do like one in the morning to get me moving), we began another urban hiking tour. (As a total aside – the coffee in Starbucks in Seattle tasted MILES better than what I get at Starbucks at home – still perplexed at the difference – water? beans? baristas? *shrug*)

We first stopped at Seattle’s library:

It is one of the coolest buildings I’ve ever been in. The architecture is just neat and the interior is all colour-coded – there’s a red floor, an acid green floor, a fluorescent yellow floor…. We rode the escalators all the way to the 10th floor.

Then we hiked over to the older part of Seattle – Pioneer town and went on the Underground tour. It was a very entertaining tour that had us hiking under large portions of Seattle while we were told why it existed (it has to do with them levelling Seattle to get it high enough above sea level to not flood…) and some of its more interesting uses in times past:

When the tour finishes, you end up here:

This portico is used as a bus stop – and it opened when the World Fair was held in Seattle – and I’ve gone and forgotten what year that was – 1920s?

After we finished our tour, we headed down to the piers to wander around some of the shops there. We found a great shop Ye Olde Curiosity Shop on Pier 54. It has tons of really neat and strange displays, including two mummies. Besides selling some odd and neat things, it’s a bit like a museum (scroll through the slideshow on the homepage to see some of the things inside the store). DS#2 found this when we walked in:

A real one-armed bandit…. :-)

Naturally we continued on to Pike’s Place. Doesn’t every tourist go there?

We were lucky enough to see the guys who toss fish around:

They’ll only do it if someone actually *buys* a fish. I was tempted (because the fish all looked so utterly AMAZING), but it never would have made it to our home – we still had a weeks worth of driving ahead of us!

We wandered around the market for a little while, but we still had to make another stop to another Seattle landmark:

The Space Needle!

We rode up to the top and enjoyed the views of Seattle. I have to admit that I was a little non-plussed with the Space Needle, but then again, I live within a 1/2 hour of the CN Tower….. I’m spoiled!

We spent one more night in Seattle, but the next morning it was time to begin our journey home. I have to say that the drive home wasn’t nearly as interesting as the drive out to the west coast – but that was likely because we had to hurry home. It took us 2 & 1/2 weeks to get to the west coast – and we had to make it home in a week!

Anyway, we started driving….. We drove through Idaho: (pardon the blurry shot – very windy!)

We found a hotel just outside of Yellowstone Park. It was definitely one of the more interesting places we stayed. Here’s a picture of the door to our hotel room:

That would be John Wayne on the door. Unsure of just what that meant , we opened the door to find this:

We were staying in the John Wayne theme room….. It was, well, odd. And the bathroom had pink (???!!???) towels in it. I never thought John Wayne was a pansy, but what do I know? The sign in the bathroom was funny too though – it claimed that the toilet paper was just like John Wayne – it was rough, it was tough and it wouldn’t take cr&! off anyone…. :-)

Upon leaving our room, we discovered these two dudes:

Yes, those are life-sized. So much so that every time I left the room, I kept thinking I was about to run into some people. I apologised to them. Multiple times. (I never said I was bright….)

We stopped at the entrance to Yellowstone for the project’s beauty shot:

And drove on into the park a short distance to do a short look around – it was late in the day by then, so we didn’t have tons of time before darkness was going to fall….

We found an enormous herd of elk (a rough count came up with at least 35 animals!) right out front of one of the hotels in the park:

They actually have their own security people – they kept moving the people further away from the animals whenever the elk moved to graze elsewhere. Apparently they don’t need to cut the grass with a lawnmower – the elk do the job quite handily…..

We continued on to see some of the terraces:

The colours and tones and textures of these formations was amazing. DS#1 took so many pictures of these things as he was fascinated with the textures. They were super neat to look at.

The next morning we again drove into Yellowstone but this time continued through the park and stopped at:

Old Faithful

It erupts every 90 minutes (give or take 15 minutes) and it’s quite the thing to see. I was surprised at the force behind its eruption. They keep people pretty far away from it for safety reasons. It shot off amazingly high…. Definitely worth seeing.

We then drove until some ungodly hour of the night (I think it was past 2AM before we made it to our hotel!)….

We were on our way to………..

But before going to visit the giant heads, we first stopped in Deadwood….. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many casinos in one place – beyond what I’ve seen in Las Vegas. But, they did do a couple of wild west re-enactments. DH got roped into helping out with a re-enactment of the shooting of Wild Bill Hickock…. He played the bartender:

Here he is with Wild Bill and the guy who shot him (whose name is eluding me right now – sorry!):

We left Deadwood and moved on to our hotel for the night.

The next day, we wanted to do some caving, so we found ourselves at Wind Cave. While it was disappointing that we couldn’t roam the caves at our will – it was a guided tour, we still had an enjoyable time there:

The place is full of formations like this:

It’s called boxwork and is very fragile. They actually ask you on the tour to not touch anything as the oil from your hands wrecks the boxwork. The shapes and textures that it takes on are simply amazing.

Once we were out of the cave, we continued on to this landmark:

Now, being Canadian, I have to admit that Mount Rushmore didn’t hold much lure for me. But, understanding how important of a landmark it is for Americans, I wanted to see just what it was all about….

Well, all I can say is WOW!

Pictures just can’t show the awesome size and scale of this monument. It’s amazing to see in person. I was awestruck by how challenging it had to have been to carve this monument. What a sight!

The next couple of days were spent driving. And driving. And driving. And then, just to add some variety – we drove some more. I’m not sure we even stopped for pictures. We eventually ended up in Detroit, Michigan. I remember, by that point, being very tired. I think we got to our hotel in the wee hours again……

We spent our last full day visiting the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. I had no idea there was such an amazing attraction this close to our home. Granted, it’s not a quick hours drive away (more like 6 or 7 hours), but it’s still close enough that I’d consider going just for the weekend…..

Greenfield village is a historic town re-creation (for fellow Torontonians – it’s a bit like Black Creek Pioneer Village), but it’s a bit more focused on the Ford family. Staff are dressed in historical costumes and there’s lots of neat things to look at. In touring Henry Ford’s home, I naturally spied a little bit of needlework:

But, alas, yet again, no one could tell me anything about the pieces. The one on the left is a perforated paper piece similar to what I’ve seen at Black Creek. The one on the right did appear to be done on a very rough linen.

We went for a ride in a Model T:

And both DS’ got to make their own brass candlesticks:

They each only large enough to hold a birthday candle, but the boys just loved getting to work the lathe (they’re standing in front of the lathe).

We continued on into the Henry Ford museum and saw so many old and historically important cars (even the car that JFK was shot in!). The funniest vehicle we saw was this one:

And right next to it, we got to make DS#2 into a hot dog:

(he told us just how to ‘dress’ him – the relish *had* to be on top, apparently…).

After we left the Henry Ford museum, we crossed the border back into Canada and drove home. We didn’t make it in the front door until after 11pm, but it was wonderful to be home and sleep in our own beds.

It was the most amazing holiday ever. I can’t believe all the things we saw and did. DH is working his way through the over 3,000 pictures and trying to cull it down to a more reasonable number for printing.

If you’ve read all the tales of our summer adventures, I thank you for putting up with it all. I’ll now be returning to more ‘normal’ blogging… I’ve got a finish to share and I just received the most stunning exchange. But the camera cable and camera aren’t living on the same plane right now, so once I locate them, I’ll get some more stitchy-related pictures.

In the meantime, how about a couple more pics of the NN stash I bought?

Just some basics – stretcher bars and some neat needle slides… A couple of maris because one day I will try Temari! And a round Kumihimo plate with some thread drops to make working with Kumihimo braids easier.

The hummingbird is actually for holding balls of pearl cotton. It was just so pretty that it had to come home with me. I also bought a scissor fob and thread picker and some canvas pegs (which are in use already and are very handy!)….

And two of the new needleminders from Kelmscott. Also in use already. Aren’t they the prettiest things?

Let's see... I think I'm in Montana.....

It's been crazy since I last posted - we've been so busy! Many late nights and early mornings and some very spotty Internet connections.... I haven't been able to get on-line to do more than read my e-mail in quite a while. I did manage to get the proof for the Fall issue of ANPT and I actually did my proofing while we were driving to Whistler! How's that for dedication to a job?

But, I'd better back up a bit.....After Merritt, we drove on to Vancouver. We stopped at Hell's Gate to ride the gondola over the rapids and poke around a bit.

Then we found a park that had 4 abandoned railway tunnels that we could walk through. They were built around the turn of the century and it was incredible to see how they'd tunneled through solid rock with 1890 technology.....

DH's aunt and uncle live in Vancouver and very kindly offered us the use of a condo that they own in downtown Vancouver while we were there. It was wonderful to see them and it was overwhelming to be able to have such a wonderful space to stay in while we were in Vancouver. The laundry room was a mega-bonus as well...

Our first full day in Vancouver had us being urban hikers and we walked over to Gastown and enjoyed browsing in the various shops and stopping to watch the steam clock do its thing - it has a bunch of steam-powered whistles that play the Westminster Chimes every 15 minutes.

We continued our hike over to see the Olympic torch from this past winter olympics. It's huge! We also happened upon a team of guys making an enormous sand sculpture. We watched them work for a while as it was really interesting seeing the process.

Then we walked all the way over to Stanley Park. It's a beautiful place with the most amazing trees - I've never seen anything that large. Here's DS#2 being a tree hugger....

We spent some time wandering the park and enjoying the sights and sounds. It's hard to believe that this park is right in the center of town.

The next day, we drove to the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge (it's very much like the Capilano Suspension Bridge, but has the attraction of being free!)... We had fun walking across the bridge and back again.

We spent the rest of the day playing at the Telus World of Science in Vancouver (again, thanks to the Ontario Science Center pass we have!). Here's DS#2 holding up the geodesic dome at the Science center. There's tons of great exhibits as this science center and lots of hands-on activities for young and old alike.

DH's aunt and uncle hosted a lovely dinner for us and we were able to catch up with DH's cousin and his family as well. It was the perfect end to a wonderful, fun-filled day.

The next morning we were off to Whistler.

Once we arrived, we wandered around a bit and looked at a few shops and figured out where we needed to be for the days big event. We were going to ride the zip lines. Now you have to understand something. I'm afraid of heights and I hate roller coasters. How did I agree to this zip-line thing?????

Clearly being of no sound mind at all, I did it anyway. And I discovered that zip-lines are fun and not at all scary. They're actually quite gentle. The view was stunning from the lines and I enjoyed every second (except the first second when you have to step out into nothing to get going on the zip line.....that's a little unnerving, but after that it's fine....)..... The zip-line tour took us about 3 hours to complete and by then we were starving, so it was off for dinner.

After dinner the kids wanted to go swimming, so DH took them to the hotel's pool while I wandered around the various shops. There are lots of really neat shops in Whistler. It's unfortunate that my budget didn't allow for much buying. Thankfully my eyes work just fine, so I looked at lots of stuff.

The next day had us riding ski lifts all the way up to a glacier. It was the last day for snowboarding and skiing on Blackcomb mountain, so there were lots of guys and gals with boards and skis heading up for a last day of runs before everything closed for the season. We were able to ride the ski lifts all the way to the top and then we rode the same lifts back down again. DS#1 and I decided to have a snowball fight. In July. While wearing shorts and t-shirts! Surprisingly it wasn't *that* cold.......

After heading down from the glacier, we rode the peak to peak gondola that goes between Blackcomb and Whislter (and discovered in the process that it's much faster to ride from Blackcomb to Whistler than the other way around - the lineups at the Whistler end were ENORMOUS!). We managed to get onto a glass-bottomed gondola (there's only 2 of them). The view was wonderful. Gorgeous mountains and trees and rivers everywhere you looked.

In one shop the kids found one of the bobsleds used at the Winter Olympics. Naturally they had to do a little horsing around.....

Once we finished playing in Whistler, it was time to find the ferry that would take us over to Victoria. Unfortunately when we got there, there was an enormous lineup. We ended up waiting over 2 and a half hours to get on a ferry. I, naturally, had a great way to occupy my time, and a great view out the dashboard of the van:

I couldn't help but feel sorry for folks who didn't have a hobby to occupy their time....

The day after getting settled in Victoria found us driving out to Butchart Ga rdens:

Oh, the gardens! This one is called the sunken garden:

The flowers and blooms and colours abound:

I could have moved in. Gorgeous.

Sadly, we did have to leave and head out to visit Craigdarroch Castle. This castle was full of gorgeous carvings, stained glass and furniture. True to form, I did find lots of needlework, but sadly, no one could tell me anything about the pieces I saw. It's very frustrating too when they put things so far away - most things I couldn't get close enough to determine just what type of needlework was done. I'm pretty sure most things were needlepoint, but I did find some beaded bags and I think an amazing crewel screen..... I won't show all the pictures I took there now, but here's a couple.....

And being me and seeming to have radar about these things.... I found this:

It was closed when I found it, but I got to go back the next day. Yes, stash was bought. No, I can't show you just yet as I've managed to separate the stash from the camera and the camera from its battery. I didn't really buy much though as the shop catered mostly to antique and primitive samplers which aren't really to my taste.... I bought more fibres than anything...

We left Victoria and boarded the first of two ferrys that would take us to Seattle.

.....and there's tons more pictures to show, but it's waaayyy past my bedtime. I'll have to share more about Seattle next time. We'll be home by Wednesday next week.