States Visited

22 States to go! Here is a map of the states I've visited so far:


visited 28 states (56%)
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Oregon and Washington were the 2 new ones this summer.

Road Trip: Seattle

My "Bucket List" includes visiting all 50 states, so I am happy that I visited 2 new states on our road trip. It was brief, but we made it to Seattle. We timed our drive up to Portland to avoid traffic, but we were not so lucky in the Seattle area. We still got a taste of the area, and I definitely want to go back to see more.

When we arrived, we went straight to the Space Needle. There was light rain that afternoon, and of course my rain jacket was at the bottom of the suitcase. Next time, I will remember to pack better for rain.

Alex enjoyed playing with the telescopes and displays.

What do you do when waiting for the elevator at the Space Needle? Make silly faces!

Next we took the Monorail to the city center to see the Pike Place Market.

The market was closing as we arrived, but that turned out to be okay for us. Alex did not like the fish smell and would have wanted to touch everything if the vendors were still open.

Alex found an Angry Birds hat to buy on the trip and will be ready for colder weather. Alex purposely sat by the Monorail driver on the way back and then got to honk the horn.

We were not sure if we would drive to Seattle until the last minute, so the hotel choices in our price range in downtown Seattle were sold out. We ended up staying at The Heathman Hotel in Kirkland, which was really nice. One the way there, we stopped off by Lake Washington at sunset. I think that one of my draws to Seattle is all the water in the area.

We had more traffic on the way home, but Alex entertained himself with the iPad.

Road Trip: Portland

We started our first full day in Portland exploring the downtown area. We walked along the river and then went to Voodoo Doughnut. We arrived mid-morning and only waited in line for about 15 minutes.

Alex really liked the display of spinning doughnuts. We each picked a doughnut and headed outside to eat them.

Alex chose the one with M&M's (Marshall Mathers doughnut) and I went for the Portland Cream doughnut. Of course, John had to try the Voodoo Doll doughnut. Alex has not had many doughnuts in his four years, but he ate it like he eats a cupcake. He goes for the topping and icing, but leaves most of the cake part behind. In some ways, traveling reminds me that there is still a lot of explore in our new "backyard". It turns out that you can get Psycho Donuts in San Jose and Campbell.

We tried to walk off our doughnuts by going to Powell's Books. We had fun browsing the store and I got lost in there a couple of times. Then we checked out the giant elephant statue nearby.

We still were not hungry for lunch, so we walked from the hotel to the Portland Aerial Tram for some cool views of the city.

We could see another volcano in the distance, Mount St. Helen's, from the balcony viewing area at the top.

We were finally hungry and checked out one of the food carts in Portland. The food was good and I was happy to have some pineapple friend rice.

Alex and I started our second full day in Portland with a yummy brunch while the guys slept late.

In the afternoon we headed to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. My favorite part was touring the SS-581 submarine. Alex liked all of the hands-on activities.

(The visit brought back my memories of COSI, including the over nights there with our Girl Scout troop. I think that this science museum in Columbus, Ohio, is one of the best!)

We enjoyed staying at a hotel downtown by the river. We could see Mt. Hood from our balcony. Alex loved swimming in the indoor pool, especially since it had a large 2 ft. section for us to play. We had a good time in Portland!

Road Trip 2013 - Part 1

Last month John came home with the instructions from his boss that he needed to take a vacation, and we had been discussing ideas for one. We found a week in August that we could both take off from work. For me, it was the week after orientation ended and before the start of the fall semester. We started our road trip on a Sunday afternoon by picking up Uncle Matt (as Alex calls him) in Oakland and then we were on the road.

We spent the first night in Davis and visited friends that I met in graduate school. I was glad that we could reconnect and meet each others' kids. We found a hotel in the area to rest up for our drive to Portland, Oregon, the next day. The next morning, Alex saw a man loading his stuff onto a motorcycle and asked, "Are you Steve Jobs?" The guy looked at us strangely, and we think that he was not from the U.S. based on his accent. We could not help but laugh at Alex's question and the guy did look a bit like the late Steve Jobs in his later years.

We spent Monday driving to Portland with a stop off in Mount Shasta for lunch. When we told Alex that it is a volcano, he was concerned about the hot lava.

We made it to Portland in the evening in time for dinner and to walk around at dusk.

It was a good start to our vacation!