Portland, OR

Pramod and I spent a week with Marty in Portland, Or. Similar to our time in Missoula, I didn't blog at all due to the fact that we were really busy relaxing! We had a really great time: saw some great views, met some nice people, and had very nice time with Marty.

Marty had our time already planed for us--which is great because neither Pramod nor I are great planners and we've had to put in extra effort as we travel to make sure that we actually get out to see the places that we're at.

We arrived on Thursday (9/2) afternoon and went to a soccer game that evening with Marty and Kirsten. It was pretty exciting because they were tied 0-0 until our team won in the last few minutes. Pramod and I were both pretty impressed by "the army": a section of seating filled by fans dedicated to supporting the team They had songs/chants, sunflowers, confetti, etc. We'd like to be that into some sports team that we supported them like that. It was pretty fun.

Friday: Pramod and I went on a tape tour of the gorge and all the views and waterfalls along the way. I wish we had allowed more time to do it because it was so beautiful. That evening we met Marty in the gorge for a Misty River concert-blue grass stuff. They were great! It game me some ideas about songs I'd like to do with Ben, Jon & Mom and I now have some ambitions for renting a space to perform after some time rehearsing as a group. Exciting stuff. Something to look forward to!

On Saturday Pramod, Marty, and I went to the Beaverton farmers market which had lots of awesome free samples. Then we went and hiked Mount Hood. We drove to a lodge that was at the top of the Mountain (6000 feet elevation) with a view of the snowy top. There's skiing up there all year round.

We went to see the Pacific with Marty and Kirsten on Sunday. Pretty cold water but some interesting land formations--different than what I'm used to on the East Coast.

For the next three days we had a yoga class led by Pramod, went into the city, watched some movies and cooked. Wednesday was Kirsten's 21st birthday so Pramod made an Indian feast and then we went out to celebrate with her and some of her friends.. It was a great trip to Portland.

...Every entry where we're leaving a place seems to end that way--but we are really having a great time and we've been extremely lucky to have such great hosts along the way!

Calendar

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Seattle - Day 3

Yesterday was our last day in Seattle. I'd say it was also our best day there too. We started the day at the Chittenden Garden which features the locks and dam between Salmon Bay and Putrid Sound. I'm not sure how much Pramod liked it, but I thought it was really interesting. I learned a lot about the migration and life cycle of salmon. They have a place where you can watch the salmon trying to swim upstream. It seemed really hard! Yesterday we also walked the Alaskan Way 0n the waterfront, which had some nice views and fun shops. One thing I noticed was that they seem to be capitalizing on the fact that the Twilight series takes place in a town in Washington. Some of the shops, one in particular, had some fun items and books having to do with fantasy creatures like vampires, zombies, mermaids, etc. If Pramod wasn't with me I probably would have spent more time checking these things out.

Part of the reason why the day was so much better was that we found a free parking spot with no time limit! Sure it was over a mile away from anything we were doing, but the peace of mind was worth it. Someone told me that they heard that it's cheaper to dock your boat in Seattle than it is to park your car. It's expensive and we had to be very aware of the time, which is not very much fun for a vacation.

In the evening I went on a 2 hour walking Ghost Tour of the old part of the city. I really enjoyed it! Pramod didn't go because we didn't know if he'd like it and we figured we'd rather save the money than have his boredom ruin both of our times. So I went by myself. It wasn't very creepy, but there were some great stories! A couple on the tour with me said that it was dramatized a lot less than the others they'd been on (with made it less fun) so I'm looking forward to taking more tours elsewhere, especially because I did really like it.

Even if I hadn't liked the stories, I think the tour was worth the money just because the walk through the city in the night time. It was really nice.

Seattle - Day 2

Second day in the city, it rained. Lucky for us, we have reserved the camp site for another night so we don't have to pack up our tent in the rain. Also, the tarp over the tent was set up very well, thanks to Pramod, and we didn't get rained on in our sleep!!

Rainy day, we went to the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. It was great! We got to see some glass work in action while a team worked on a flower--Putting glass together, another team worked on a tiger--making textured glass & shaping it, and the last team was blowing glass bowls. Very cool. I liked it more than the museum itself. There were some pieces out that were designed by kids and made into glass by professionals. Those were really fun. The gift shop also had some amazing stuff that was just too expensive and breakable to bring home with us.

We then drove to China Town/the International District to walk & eat. It was like a different world there, and the parking was a little cheaper.

Since it was still somewhat rainy, we decided to go see a movie. Not very Seattle specific, but there's only so much touring one can do before they need to relax (and I don't mean the 1/5 days in Seattle--I mean the 2 months that we've been traveling). There was a theater by our camp site that had $2 movies! Only $4 for the two of us. What could be better than that? How about $1 Tuesdays? So we decided to see two movies: Day and Knight and The Last Airbender. We liked them both for very different reasons.

Seattle

We arrived in Seattle around noon. Because we dropped mom off at the airport at 5 am, a 7 hour drive got us there pretty early. We had some errands to run: getting the car oil changed, finding a FedEx to return Pramod's broken phone, and checking into our campsite. None of this was actually done in Seattle. We camped about 30 minutes south of the city in Federal Way.

After those errands, we went for our first tour of Seattle. I don't even like to drive in Boston, so I knew it was a mistake to be driving into Seattle. Those streets heading down to the water are scary! I'm glad they checked out our breaks when we had the oil changed -- not that anything was wrong with them, just for peace of mind.

The parking situation is expensive. The very illusive street parking is $2.50 per hour. Other advertised parking was $8 for 2 hours. After driving around for a while, we settled for $9 for 3 hours. Now I guess that's not too bad, but I don't know what we'll do when we come in for a full day tomorrow... ugh money stresses me out!

While downtown, we checked out Pike's Place Market. It reminded us a lot of the market in Mysore: lots of people, noise, things to see, and strong smells (fish, food, and flowers especially).

Missoula, Montana

I haven't blogged the entire time we've been in Missoula. I've been much too busy relaxing and spending time with family. What can I say? I'm a home body. I love spending time with people I know and doing a few spectacular things mixed in with mostly the every day.

One of my favorite things to do was Grandma's physical therapy exercise with her. Bill made this great tape with her exercises put to classical music. While these were exercises designed for an older woman, we put in additional movements to make it more difficult for us (Mom, Pramod, Bill, Marty, and myself). We did things like doing a sit-up with every leg raise. It was really fun!

After the exercises, we usually all did a short, easy yoga class after.

Grandma would rest during the sun salutations then join us for the seated poses. It's amazing how well she gets around on the floor!

We also had a great tubing trip, volley ball game, tennis practice, and some very nice meals.

It was really nice to be comfortable for the last week! Thanks to all you Andersons (and Heard)!

Yellowstone National Park - Wyoming

Yellowstone National Park is amazing!!