Tacoma, WA: July, 2001
Remember, you can click on any of the below "thumbnail" pictures to enlarge them.
We (me, my wife Kristine, my stepbrother Quincy, and his wife Kimmy) traveled to Washington State to visit my brother Scean, his wife Monica, and their four darling children: Kelly, Megan, Nicole, and Sarah.
Our adventure started in MD at BWI (Baltimore-Washington International Airport). I purchased our tickets through a web-based ticketing agent (Travelocity) and our flight to Sea-Tac (Seattle-Tacoma Airport) was via Frontier airlines. We arrived at BWI early to check our bags. As we walked up to the Frontier desk the ticketing agent announced that they were closed. I was confused and said, "how can you be closed? Our flight doesn't leave for an hour." The agent then asked about our flight number and told us that that flight left the gate 15 minutes ago. Apparently, the flight time was bumped-up a couple of weeks prior and no one notified us. So, the next flight to Sea-Tac did not leave until the following morning. We took our bags and decided to stay at a hotel (since our flight was at 6AM).
We arrived an hour early the next morning and waited in line. Slowly we moved forward as our flight time approached. We finally reached the counter as the ticketing agent told everyone left that the flight would be closed (due to time) and that we would all have to catch the next flight (THAT EVENING!) I almost exploded... Then, I realized that they were going to let us board. So, we rushed through check-in and ran to our gate.
We made it, and the flight was uneventful. Unfortunately our baggage did not make it! ARGH! We stood at a Frontier baggage complaint desk for over an hour and tried to communicate calmly with a frontier representative (unfortunately, she was not the sharpest tack in the box [I doubt she could have popped an over-inflated balloon with a blowtorch]).
We arrived at Scean's house in Tacoma expecting our luggage sometime in the next 24 hours! YIKES!
Enough about our adventure... The rest of this trip report is relatively mild. Here are my four nieces (Kelly, Megan, Nicole, and Sarah):
Click here to see a video of Sarah (who is 2) swinging herself.
Here Scean is showing off his broken leg and dislocated ankle (yuck!)
Below, Scean is trying to explain how terrible his accident was... I was not buying it.
Click here for a video of Scean limping along (it shows how much pain he's in).
Quincy and Kimmy wanted to drive to the Olympic National Park and Kristine and I wanted to see the San Juan Islands (in the Puget Sound). So, we split up for the day. Below are pictures of our trip that day:
I could not help but stop and take a picture of this store... You tell me what it says?
All of the following 6 photos are of Deception Pass. It was beautiful.
Here is the 29 foot RV we rented for 3 nights to drive along the Oregon coast and into central Oregon. We drove 1000 miles during those 3 days and 3 nights!
Here is moonlit Astoria, Oregon as seen from Washington across the Columbia River.
Here is our first night's campground. We could not find any available RV spots... So, we had to park at one of the stables!
Here are some water falls in Silver Falls State Park (outside of Salem, OR). The bottom fall has my niece Kelly standing at its base.
Here is a picture of the kids (Nicole, Megan, Sarah, and Kelly) sitting on a bed which is over the cab of our RV.
During our trip, we celebrated Nicole's 4th birthday!
Megan, Scean, Quincy, and Kimmy crossing the Detroit Dam.
This is Mt. Jefferson.( ;
These 2 shots are of Mt. hood from different angles.
Here are Monica, Nicole, Kelly, Scean, Sarah, and Megan.
This is me and Kristine with Mt. Hood in the background.
Click here to see a video from the above view point.
Below are the only pictures I was able to get of Smith Rock State Park... As you can see it is getting dark. For more pictures of this phenomenal climbing site visit: http://www.smithrock.com/aboutsr/gallery/index.html and http://www.spiritone.com/~summit/sr2.html
We finished up our RV trip by stopping at Mt. St. Helens. As you can see by the picture on the left, the blast devastated everything for miles. (Those things that look like dropped toothpicks are gigantic trees that it pummeled). Also, you can see the newly forming top coming out of the crater in the right picture.
-VFR 07/24/2001