Our Journey to Juneau!

Hey everyone! So if you haven't heard, Andrew and I are working as "driver-guides" in Juneau, Alaska. Basically this means that we drive buses and talk non-stop. All. Day. Long. It's great fun, we're meeting people from all over the world, but it is also very exhausting.

Speaking of exhausting, I am SOOO behind in this blog. I need to tell you all HOW we got up here in the first place.

Well, first we had to pack up our apartment, at the last minute of course. HUGE thanks to our friends Tory & April Parson and Justin & Elizabeth Dascanio. Seriously could not have done it without you. The night before we left out we finished our packing and cleaning (by the skin of our and our friends' teeth!) and sacked out on Justin & Elizabeth's couches.

The next morning we hit the road and drove straight through to Seattle, WA. Andrew and I were graciously invited to stay with the Tobourg family. They are old friends of Andrew's who used to live in TX, but have lived in Seattle for about 12 years. Rebecca was so welcoming and even served as our tour guide the next day, showing us the highlights of the Seattle area. It was such a blast! Andrew had never been there before, and I hadn't been since I was probably 9 or 10, so it was great fun being back in the area. We went to the Pike Place Market, the original Starbucks location, the Space Needle, and this great little park (can't recall the name at the moment) with a terrific view of the city. I think my favorite part was going up to the Space Needle. I remember going up there with my parents when I was younger, and I just had to go up with Andrew, and I am so glad that we did. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Space Needle, so to celebrate they have painted to top back to the original color of "galaxy gold" (aka ORANGE).

Drinking a strawberries and cream frappuccino from the original Starbucks at Pike Place Market :)

On top of the Space Needle

At KERRY Park! That was the name of it!

From there we headed ou tto Snoqualmie Falls. Secretly, this may have been my favorite spot. It was so beautiful and they had just had a heavy storm a few days before we got there so the water was fuh-lowin!

After Snoqualmie we went to this AMAZING restaurant called Thai Ginger. Perfect for me. We took the food back to the Tobourg's place, which was really nice because we got to meet the rest of Rebecca's family and talk to them for a bit.

The next day we drove to Bellingham, where we got on the ferry, but along the way we stopped at Tulip Town and took TONS of gorgeous pictures. Here's just one. There were rows and rows of tulips- it felt like we had just stepped into Holland!

After getting muddy at Tulip Town we bee-lined for the ferry terminal. The whole ferry experience was...interesting. It's not something I would like to do again, but unfortunately it is a necessary evil. I suppose it's better than swimming home, sigh. It took us 2 days and 16 hours to come out here on the ferry the first time, but on the way home (for some mysterious reason) it is supposedly going to take 3 days and some hours. Oy. Luckily that won't be until September, so for now we don't have to worry about it. We can just relax and enjoy all of the beautiful things to see and do here in Juneau!

XXOO,
M