Seattle Debrief Part 2.
As promised, part 2 of my Seattle trip. I received my camera today, so I have photos posted on flickr I’ll be linking a few of them here, so no need to rush off and look yet – I’ll even relink it later in the post.
As I said in Part 1 we decided to go to Twin Peaks on Sunday. So after we woke up we packed Holly in to the car along with snacks and water and camera gear, and head out East. Twin Peaks is not really a single place, but it is a number of locations located in the towns of Snoqualmie and North Bend, WA. We visited a few of the external sites of the show, but also spent time admiring the stunning views.
Our first stop was at the water falls, which was also the external location of the Great Nothern, where Agent Cooper stays in the show. Here is the best shot I got of the falls and the hotel, which is actually the Snoqualmie Lodge, and quite nice – more on this after the photo:
We spent some time shooting the falls, and Steve attempted to wrangle Holly in to a photo to mark her 16 months of life. This took a while because babies, well, once they learn to walk, evidently that’s all they do. Eventually he was satisfied, then we went over to the Lodge for breakfast.
The Lodge has two restaurants, evidently. The dinging room and the “Attic”. The latter is more casual (not that the dining room is formal) but wasn’t yet open. So the dining room it was. A table for two and a high chair – well, that will be 15 minutes. A table for 2, right after of us? 45 minutes or more. You’d be tempted to say we just got lucky, but the place wasn’t that packed and the service didn’t seem that busy (although the service is really good, so maybe that was part of it), but we think Holly’s cuteness just charmed them. They offered her a crayon while we were being seated and Steve said “How do you feel about her drawing on the table cloth?” “Oh, that’s OK.” “Give her the crayon!”. They had an extra cloth on the floor under the high chair, and after we were seated the offered to bring her a fruit cup. This turned out to be very nice with some crackers, a breakfast roll, and a good variety of fresh fruit – and they didn’t even charge us for it. Our food was really good too. The coffee came out with shaved chocolate, which was a nice though, and was, uhm, a damn fine cup of coffee. I had a mushroom and spinach fritatta, which was delicous. The included herbed potatoes and biscuit were also great. Not a cheap breakfast, but it was definitely worth while.
After breakfast we got in the car and used a combination of a the More in Twin Peaks website via my iPhone and Steve’s GPS, we headed out to see some other sites. Thankfully Holly fell asleep soon after breakfast and so we just left her in the car and took turns taking pictures at the next couple of destinations. First up was the Road House.
They’ve renovated since the show, but it was still pretty cool looking. Plus there was a firetruck there when we got there, pure excitement!
The next destination we decided on the Packard Mill. It turns out that it had since been purchased by Weyerhauser, and so a bit of google maps allowed us to figure out it’s approximate location. However it’s down a bunch of backroads, so getting there was tricky. We got lost a couple of time but hey, we found a nice little lake to take pictures at:
Note that this is looking Southeastish, and the mill would have been about due East of where we were. But it took us another half an hour to get there.
The mill itself is in a nice state of decay, which actually leads to some neat pictures:
One nice thing about the mill is that it is a two-for-one destination. The “Sherrif’s Department” exterior is actually the mill office.
Note that the best views of the Mill are from the road on the way down (ore back up), but you can’t see the office until you get to the bottom.
Our final destination was the nearby “Double R” diner, now known as Twede’s cafe. We decided to make a stop there for a little snack (read Cherry Pie) and relaxation before heading back to Sammamish.
The pie was actually pretty decent, but the service was abysmal. Not a destination location, but the outlet mall is right down the street, so I can see locals stopping by for some pie after a consumer driven afternoon.
Anyway, after the cafe we drove back so that Holly could finish her nap and we could shower. After hanging around for a while, we headed over to Jum’s brother Jon’s house, not too far away. He has a really nice, big house. Holly seemed to like it there a lot. Jon, Steve and I played a bit of a boardgame that Steve had recently purchased, and then Jum went and picked up Thai food for dinner. After dinner we played a bit of Xbox, but soon it was time for little Holly to go to sleep, so we went back to Steve’s house. Steve and I ended up reading a bunch about early pay TV that night, such as ON-TV. Interesting stuff. Eventually it was midnight and since Steve had work the next time, it was bed time.
Monday Steve left early as he had a 9am meeting, so I hung around with Jum for a bit before she brought me to the airport. The flight was fine, and soon enough I was home, and noticed my camera was missing. I swear that thing hates me!
As promised, my flickr gallery.