Lakewood Travelodge Tacoma

... with excitement and apprehension. Curious to see what it will how this will work. Excited for the learning and worried about Isa, it will be a tough transition for her being with other people while I'm in school. Hoping that it nourishes her soul.... 

 This part of the journey draws to a close, I miss it already. Thank you for following us on our way, because of you I knew we were never alone.

With love and gratitude,

Renee


 

... uns nicht weit**helfen... :-(((( Uns bleibt nichts and**es uebrig als das GPS einzusenden und zu hoffen, dass Garmin das Teil inn**halb von v**nuenftig** Frist repari**en kann... :-((( Tja, sieht so aus, als wu**den wir uns Wohl od** Uebel wied** die guten alten Karten zu Gemuete fuehren.... Vancouv** steht nun fu** Morgen auf dem Programm, hoffen wir, dass wenigstens da alles glatt gehen wird... CU Martin & Reto

... making techniques and is considered to be the best glass-blower of all time. Many of his pieces were on display in the main gallery. The goblets were my favorite; one had a spiral inside the cup part. After finishing up at the museum, we headed off to find some lunch. We ended up driving all the way to Steilacoom, the oldest town in Washington. Steilacoom is a quaint small ...

... Still lots of little details to take care of but it looks/feels like we'll be ready when the wake-up alarm goes off at 3am next Tuesday. This is a very flexible, very tentative itinerary. There are a few "anchor" dates, but much of our travel will depend on the weather, our health, and tips we get from locals and fellow travelers. That said here is the current plan: March 11 - Fly into Quito, Equador One week of homestays in Otavalo for language school ...

... was delayed 2 hours arriving, so we just waited at Tacoma Amtrak station. This was no big deal. But once it came, then the really trouble started. We were a couple of hours into our journey and out of the blue the train derailed. We have to count ourselves lucky that we weren't traveling at speed or it could have been nasty. We were pulling into a station and we hit a bit of broken track and it threw us off. We were screwed. It was night time too and they had ...

... to get around. Not to mention I've never even lived in a city before. So. I mentioned that I was between jobs until September. Well, in September I'll be making a quick stop back in Iowa before journeying to South Korea where I'll be teaching English for 12 months. I'm quite close to making a decision on the specific school as well, but I think that's for another entry. Just now, I thought I'd let a few people know that I'm alive and well :)... Cheers ~Bond

... i think its a north american rite of passage or something.. so rocked into a bus stop right near the space needle. awesome weather (which is great luck since it rains A LOT in seattle), so great views. the lonely planet says its a bit dilapidated, its wrong on this and a number of other fronts for seattle, and its the most recent copy.. found our hostel after a little bit of searching (its moved!), a killer spot maybe 70m from the famous pike ...

... for us. We had a great time. I was excited to see some fall trees on the drive from Montana to Washington, since we don't really have any here. Everything here is evergreen, but the first few hours of our drive we saw some amazing leaves. I am going to post the pictures from our trip on Kodak, so I will be sending a link for that in the next few days hopefully. If you don't get, just email me and I'll get it sent to you. We miss everyone!

... eyes engaged, until I happened to look behind and saw one brave seal had ventured close to us. We stared at each other for a few seconds, in a meeting of earth and water, then the seal dove in a flurry of water and bubbles. This seal trailed my kayak, jumpy but curious, and it finally dove and didn't come back, as if the rest of the seals, exasperated with this braver one, called out in however they do, in low sonar below our ...

... space. Of course there was Starbucks available at the top deck (520 feet up), as it originates from Seattle. There is almost a Starbucks on every street corner. Adding to the appeal of this cool tower was the fact that there were heaps of free telescopes around the outside viewing area, giving me a great view of the monorail running around and the large rail marshalling yard down on the waterfront. Following our ascent into space (well almost) we returned to earth ...