SEATTLE

So at the end of our epic train journey we reached our grand destination of Seattle. Andrew and I had never been there before but it was one of those places we wanted to visit so it was rather exciting to finally get there. My iPhone tells me that we walked over 21,000 steps the first day of exploring in Seattle so we definitely covered a lot of ground.

Our first port of call was Pike Place Market and in particular the first Starbucks. The market itself was actually much more impressive than the Starbucks. It turned out to be pretty crowded and busy. I'm definitely glad we came early on because it had a huge line down the street by midday. The market place was bustling but in a good way. We could buy just about anything there from art work to fish to dog toys to memorabilia to second hand books to flowers. There was so much to look at that we spent the rest of the morning wandering around. 









After lunch we went by monorail over to where the Space Needle was and spent some time at the park over there. It's a crazily retro building that really throws you because it just doesn't seem to fit the skyline. But it was definitely fun to see. We also went to the Olympic Sculpture park and walked along by the waterfront and piers.








As you can tell Andrew was rather excited by the monorail! He rather lost the plot during the ride on it. I wish I could say I was ashamed by his behaviour but I was rather enjoying the ride myself. Just not at his level. At all. Ever.

The next day we spent visiting Boeing's Museum of Flight and wandered round Seattle again seeing some of the areas again in more detail. Andrew has promised to write a blog post about the museum, but I wouldn't hold your breath. You know what he's like!

Overall though Seattle was amazing. We have so many photos from the place, which we would never be able to show you all, so I'll simply say just go visit if you can. It's amazing! 
H

MACINTOSH MONDAY

Last week Macintosh had the opportunity to hang out with two more of his doggy buddies; Barkley and Becky. We took them on a walk first to tire them out. It ended up being a 4 mile walk which left all the dogs rather parched! But there were lots of smells out in the desert that kept them entertained! Once they'd been exhausted they crashed out on the sofas (spoilt dogs that they are) and slept it off. Becky tried to keep playing for a bit longer but eventually the tiredness got to her too. 

They look so adorable altogether and they get on really well. I must say the two beagles gave you double vision but it was sweet watching them snooze away together. I must say the owners enjoyed the peaceful sleep too because it enabled us to crochet and watch Gilmore Girls in peace. It was such a success that we are going for a repeat doggy playdate this week too!
H






PS Those ears....I am in love! 

THE EPIC TRAIN TRIP: PART II

Finally you get to hear about the part of the train journey that I was most excited about...the sleeper car. 



This was our Amtrak train. We were catching it at close to midnight, hence the terrible shot, and we were staying in what is called a roomette. It's a small room that has two chairs in it which fold down into a bed and there is a bunk attached to the wall which folds down. As soon as we had clambered onto the train we climbed into our roomette and after snapping the obligatory "I'm on a sleeper train picture" we promptly fell asleep exhausted!



As you can tell from the photo, it really wasn't the biggest of spaces and perhaps not as glamorous as I had hoped for or built it up to be in my mind. However I slept well so that's good, but the best was yet to come. Waking up in the morning was amazing. You were whizzing along at speed through the most amazing mountain and forest scenery and you could just lay there and watch the sunrise. We didn't snap many photos of it and to be honest it was pretty hard to do so but it was spectacular. 


Shortly after waking up we crossed the state line and entered Oregon! I had, up until that point, never left the state of California so I was watching our progress on google maps ready to leap out of the train at the first Oregon station stop to touch the floor of another state and tick it off. 


Having just woken up and not showered yet I don't think we look too bad...ish. 

So the rest of the journey up through Oregon and into Washington (state number 3!) consisted of us lounging in our roomette or in the parlour admiring the views, with our breakfast, lunch and dinner served in the dining car. How swish! 








By the evening we had cruised into Seattle and were ready for the our next adventure! 
H



MACINTOSH MONDAY

For any of you following us on Instagram you may have noticed that this past week we had a lovely house guest staying. Her name was Penny.



She is super cute and she was a fantastic house guest. She entertained Macintosh brilliantly. They played lots of games of chase and tried to take the toys off each other. It took a while for them to eventually learn to sleep near each other because initially one of them would adjust their sleeping position and the other would take that as an invitation to play. But eventually they got it and so once they'd played together and exhausted themselves they would sleep peacefully. 




Walking two dogs at the same time was certainly interesting at first. I had to walk them on my own the first time so I was aware how entangled you could get. When it was Andrew's time to walk them obviously I came along, just to photograph him struggle!



Shortly before this photo was taken Andrew had gotten himself entirely tangled up with the dogs almost running circles round him. I was laughing too hard to take the photo and then by the time I had got my phone out and ready he had untangled himself. Apparently he thought it would have been too embarrassing! 
But the issue with two leads and two dogs going different ways obviously got Andrew's brain working and before long he had solved the problem by creating a two in one dog lead...


The dogs had a whale of a time together so much so that they were really upset to be separated as you can see from the photo below. Macintosh really was distraught. But don't worry Mac saw Penny on Sunday and he was super excited! He was bounding up the path to her front door. Plus they are going to hang out again this week too, so its all good!
H



EXPLORING...

The first leg of our epic train trip landed us in Oakland and gave us two days of exploring. We chose to spend a day in San Francisco and the following day in Sacramento. It was fun to re-visit places that we had been before and see the sights again, or in some cases new sights. 

In San Francisco we spent the morning focusing on the cable cars. We took a few rides on them and then went to the cable car museum. Andrew and I had never actually been to the museum and that was quite fascinating because its actually the place that runs the cable cars. All the cables come back to that spot as its the engine hub of the city's cars.





The afternoon the family went off to see the Golden Gate bridge whilst Andrew and I did some shopping and mooching around in coffee shops! After a rather large evening meal we did stumble across an interesting science experiment in the city. It was two big concrete structures where if you sat in one and talked you could be heard by the person sitting in the other, despite a huge gap in the middle. It certainly made us chuckle.



The focus of Sacramento, unsurprisingly, was a railroad museum. As Andrew and I had already done this museum we opted to again wander around and amuse ourselves. I therefore don't have any photos of the museum and the family inside it. Sorry. But I do have photos of us exploring the capitol building.





As you can see we were carrying luggage with us because we were that very evening catching the next train...the sleeper train!! 
H

THE EPIC TRAIN TRIP: PART I

Last Monday morning we all made the trek down to LA's Union Station to begin the first part of our epic train trip; LA to Oakland, CA. It was a pretty early start but most of that was forgotten when we arrived at the station. It is totally stunning! So much more impressive than some of our English stations, or at least the ones I've seen. 


After a quick look round and some breakfast we were on the train travelling up the Californian coast. For most of the journey you follow the coastline so the views are truly spectacular. Andrew and I have driven some of that costal road ourselves but it was lovely to both be able to look at it and appreciate it at the same time. 








Perhaps the most exciting part about the whole train trip for me though, was the chance to dine in the dining car! I have never been on a really long train journey so this was something I'd never done. I may have got a tad excited about the whole thing, but it was fun! 






The food was pretty good, I'd even go as far as to say it was better than aeroplane food. The fact you got to sit eating as the train gently rocked and you could look out at all the amazing scenery whiz by was really cool. It definitely got me excited for the second part of the epic train trip because that involved another new experience....sleeper cars!
H