Playing Hooky

Over the last month or more, Chuck has been working up in Seattle at Seattle Children's hospital. Basically this means no Daddy until the weekends. A couple weeks in, probably the toughest hump to get over, Chuck was fighting a nasty cold but went to work anyway. It was Monday so he'd gotten up early at home after spending the weekend with us to get up to Seattle by 8am. One of the attendings asked how his weekend was and he mentioned that he was fighting off a cold and she looked shocked and disgusted and told him to leave immediately. He was shocked in return, one, because he'd just driven an hour and a half to get to work and, two, because that would NEVER happen at Madigan. You practically have to be on your deathbed in order to "call in sick". He called just after this happened and didn't want to drive all the way home but didn't want to go "home" to his hole Madigan is renting for him and other residents. He wanted us to come up and spend the day with him.
We took our showers and packed some goodies and jumped in the Jeep to have a great time because it was supposed to be a fabulous day! Here's a little bit of what we did.
Our first stop was lunch in the University district (that's where the last video of Aaron counting was taken). This is obviously near the University, about 2 blocks to be exact. Columbia, Missouri would have an absolute laughing fit over this area!!! They had normal stuff like Barnes and Noble and Starbucks but there was also a Crate and Barrel, Coach, a maternity store in which I found a $190 pair of maternity jeans, and many other high end stores. What university student can shop in these stores. We just walked around and snickered at each other...
Our next stop was Snoqualmie Falls. We've been to the Falls before, many times, but I think the last time I went was when I had JUST found out we were expecting Aaron, so it's been a while. There's just a nice hike down to the falls and then the falls themselves.
But first, here is a floating bridge:

This is, in fact, a bridge that floats on the water. So, you got it, when Lake Washington gets all flustered with wind and such, the bridge goes up and down and since it's so close to the water, water tends to splash up on the "bridge deck" and scare all the drivers and cause traffic. The norm.
This is the hike down to the falls. I brought the kid backpack for when Aaron wasn't going to walk anymore. He walked ALL THE WAY DOWN!! That's about 1/2-3/4 of a mile! He was a trooper.

This is below the falls. There's a power plant to get power from the river. Interesting note, this year the area (Washington and the surrounding areas) didn't get enough so, therefore not enough snow to melt and therefore not enough water in the rivers so create power. So it looks like our power bill will go up this summer because God didn't give us enough avalanches. :smirk:


These are the falls. Apparently they are taller than Niagra. I've never seen Niagra but I find this hard to believe.

Aaron checking out the falls.



Then we went to the Railroad graveyard. Washington is a big state for railroads, they still use them all the time here and you see them often. It's kind of cool. In the town of Snoqualmie there's a ton of retired, old railroad cars. Aaron is into trains right now, so we thought we'd make a stop there.









This is an old Army first aid kitchen car. Never knew they existed, myself, but apparently they did. It was kind of cool. I'd kinda like this stove in my cabin when I'm 60.



Hard to imagine THIS holding these big, heavy cars together...


This was a dump car, dumped to the side. It was kind of interesting.

About a month ago, when we had this hooky day, all the cherry blossoms were out in full force, they were beautiful!!

On the way back over the floating bridge you get a good glimpse of the U-Dub (University of Washington) football field. It looks looming, but compared to Faurot, it doesn't even compare.

Near the University there was a little walking area that kind of goes over the lake a bit and though some water foul areas. Walking along the trail, I wondered how many drunk people/students have walked along this path and fallen in the water. Thank goodness it's not very deep all along the path.

Along the way back, a little duck (actually, a rather LARGE duck, I'm sure they NEVER feed them), came to visit us.

Look at this funny looking duck. I'm sure this duck's grandparents were not very happy with their ducklings for parenting this duck. Just think what they neighbors were thinking...

This is the canal that links Lake Washington with Lake Union and then to the Sound, and ultimately to the ocean. It's interesting.

Well, that's about it. I'll have baby pictures in the next post. Aaron is closing in on four hours of sleep and I'm afraid if I go up to get the cord to hook the camera up to my laptop, it will wake him up. That cranky boy needs SLEEP!!!
Just an update, my computer is SO dead. It came back from the hospital to the clinic and was still super sick, on it's death bed. So I'm still up a creek as far as clients go, and I finally got off my lazy tush and hooked up the external HD (hence this post). Please be patient with me!!