Well, it's time.
I've had a lot of fun in Washington and learned lots of stuff. But it's time for me to go on my next journey before returning home. Fern and I spent the evening reviewing our blog and making sure all our adventures were recorded just right.
Here we are in front of our blog post. See Fern's Rafiki bracelet? I gave it to him. He gave me one too, but I wear mine as a necklace. I'm bringing it with me to remind me of all our adventures. He told me that my rafiki was made in Kenya, and when Fern bought it, all the money went toward education of Kenyan children. Since we're blogging for a school project, Fern thought I'd like that. I'm bringing the tag home so we can track the impact online. I thought that was a really nice gift, and he says I can give it to Ashley when I get back to PA.
But as you can see in the photo, I'm really tired after all this activity. I said Good Bye to Fern and my host family, climbed into my comfy box with all my things, and got ready for my next adventure.
This is your Travel Buddy Bailey, signing off from Washington, heading for New Jersey.
January 21, 2017
I am starting to get ready to go back East. My next host family will be in New Jersey, which is by the other ocean. I will have been coast to coast in Four months! My host family wanted to go on one last adventure before I leave, so here's what we saw:
This is what's left of Mount St. Helens. This is as close as we can get in the wintertime because it's really snowy up there.
Up until 1980 it was just another mountain in the Cascade Range, like Mount Rainier. But on May 18, 1980, the lid blew off. Literally. My host mom explained it with this drawing:
The Cascade glaciers are COMPOSITE volcanoes. It means that one time they erupt they pour out lava that hardens into rock. The next time, all that comes out is ash, so there's a layer of ash. Then another layer of rock, and another of ash and so forth. One special feature of Cascade volcanoes is the glaciers on the top of each one. That's the key to understanding the Mt. St. Helens eruption.
The glacier works like the cap on a soda bottle. If you shake the bottle, pressure builds up under the cap. Take off the cap and the soda sprays out. Volcanoes work just like that. See the pinkish color in the middle of the drawing? That's the magma chamber, where the lava comes up from underground (Fun Fact: magma is just a name we use for lava that hasn't come up to the surface yet). Pressure builds up in the magma chamber before an eruption, just like the soda bottle. But the magma is HOT. The heat from the magma melts the glacier on top, which makes the ice thinner and weakens the cap.
The water from the melting glacier rushes down inside the cone of a composite volcano and turns all the ash layers to slush. Then when the cap gives way and the top explodes, all the slush rushes out and the rock layers collapse onto each other. Basically, when Mt. St. Helens erupted, the whole side of the mountain slid away, and covered the valley with ash slush mixed with water, dirt, rock and debris. This is called "Lahar."
There are really cool lava tubes you can walk through in the summer, but in winter there's just too much snow. I was actually kinda happy that we didn't get really close to it; volcanoes are not my favorite thing. And Fern said at least it was warm in the car. We came home sleepy from our last adventure; time to get to bed; I'll be travelling soon.
December 15, 2016...continued
After we got done in the Underground City, we walked on the sidewalk (and over one of the skylights) to the bus tunnel where we took a bus to Westlake Center. Fern lost his hat somewhere in the Underground City, but I still have mine.
The buses and trains that run through the tunnel are all electric; no smog or exhaust in here. Westlake Center is a big mall. Lots of eating happened there. Learning is hungry work, and the Rhetoric students learned a LOT.
After that we went up and up and up and up....to the Monorail. The Seattle Monorail was built for the World's Fair in 1962, and runs from Westlake Center to the Seattle Center, where the Space Needle is, on a track two stories above the street. It is also electric. It takes 90 seconds to get from one end to the other, and then comes back. It's also jokingly called "The monorail; train to nowhere."
Here we are, with Ben, outside the monorail.
Here we are, riding the monorail.
We got to Seattle Center for Winterfest; the rhetoric students wanted to go ice skating. We looked around the Center and saw the Space Needle, Seattle's most famous landmark. It was also built for the World's Fair in 1962, and it has a revolving restaurant at the top. If you ever come to Seattle, you MUST get a lunar orbiter for lunch. YUMMY!.
And here in the Pacific Northwest, Santa's sleigh doesn't have enough snow. Here is Santa's truck, parked at the International Fountain. Santa was away, so Fern and I took a seat and waited.
After that, we went ice skating with the rhetoric class, but we weren't allowed to take photos because not many of them knew how to ice skate. We went home tired but happy, and with stuffed brains from learning all that fun information.
December 15, 2016
OK, wait. Why am I sitting on a TOILET....in PUBLIC? Well, stay tuned for the story, because this was one weird day.
My host mom's Rhetoric class is studying the modern era, and Seattle was founded during that time. Imagine - Washington State is only about 100 years old! Pennsylvania is WAY older. But on this day, the rhetoric class went on a field trip to Seattle. Our first stop, of course, was Starbucks. Fern and I have warm hats today because it's chilly here.
Seattle has a unique history, and toilets actually featured pretty big. Here's the scoop:
Seattle was built by a bunch of farmers from the midwest. They built it on the beach, below a cliff. Bad move! During times of unusually high tide, the whole main street was flooded up to the ankles! And guess what? The outhouses flooded too, and the sewage ran into the Sound, where it washed out on the tide and washed back in....in Tacoma. Pee-YOU! This was called "The Aroma of Tacoma."
When toilets were invented (they were originally called Crappers, after the inventor, Mr. Crapper) Seattle bought hundreds of them and installed them in houses up on the bluff. But all those toilets drained into one six-inch diameter wooden pipe, down the cliff, and into the Sound. Still no solution for Tacoma. But there was a problem: when the tide came in quickly, it would push all the sewage back UP the wooden pipe and build up pressure. If you happened to be sitting on the toilet when this happened, the pressure was great enough that when you pulled the chain to flush, POOM! You got blown off the toilet seat. This was not good at all.
When the Yukon Gold Rush started, Seattle became an important city. This was where all the men headed for the gold fields got their supplies, sleds, and dogs before shipping out to Alaska.
But as I said before, it flooded regularly. So they began building up the streets. Pioneer Square was one of the first neighborhoods in Seattle. Here are Fern and I at the lamppost at the corner, by the famous Pioneer Square Pergola.
In 1889, a fire started in a paint and woodwork shop, and in 18 hours 40 blocks (100 acres) had burned to the ground. Instead of rebuilding the buildings back on the flooded ground, they built the city up on top of the buildings that were there before. Street level was now where the second floor had been, and the doors were actually windows!
You can now tour the Underground City, and that's what we did. Here are some photos:
Outside the entrance to the Underground City there is a memorial fountain for Chief Sealth. He was a chief of the local Suquamish tribe. Seattle was named for him, because he was besties with Doc Maynard, one of the founders of Seattle. Yeah, I know. Sealth, Seattle....doesn't even ryhme.
Here's a window that used to be on street level and is now two stories underground:
It's darker than it looks; we had to take the photo with a flash. It's kind of spooky; there's rats and big spiders down here.
Oh, sorry. This isn't a rat. Or a spider. It's Troy. He's a Rhetoric Student. Rhetoric students are curious and carry phones with flashlight apps.
These "skylights" in the "Ceiling" are actually square glass cubes in the new sky-high sidewalk. People walked across them over our heads while we were down here. CRAZY!
A big earthquake in 1939 sent this bench from a hotel lobby crashing down into the underground city...and there it sits.
Fern and I are sitting in the door of the bank vault. You can see the wall with windows on the right side; this was the original street level.
After all that dank darkness, it was really good to come up to the surface again, where there were even window boxes in the old windows.
Our adventure continued after this; I'll post about that in the next installment.
December 10, 2016
Today was a big day! My whole host family piled in the Suburban to head to the Hunter Christmas Tree Farm to get their Christmas tree. As you might imagine, Christmas with 8 people in the family is a big deal.They start the season with a 45-minute drive to Lacey, to a Christmas tree farm that has real reindeer and the best trees anywhere!
Today it was cold and we had to wear our matching hats.
Lacey is only a short drive from the state capitol, so on the way they took us there. Here are Fern and me, on the road again.
Most people think that Seattle is the capitol of Washington, but it's really just the largest city. Washington became the 42nd state in the United States on November 11, 1889, and the capitol was established at Olympia. Olympia was named for its view of the Olympic Mountains. Outside the capitol building, we stopped at the WWII monument.
It was just a short drive to the capitol building.
And here we are with Christopher on the steps of the capitol building.
We just stopped for a short, touristy trip. Here are some fun facts about Washington:
It was the first state to grant women the right to vote, in 1883, but it was taken away in 1887. In 1910 women again won the right to vote, and this time it stuck.
The Grand Coulee Dam was the largest Dam in the world when it was built.
In Washington, it is illegal to use an X-Ray to fit shoes; to spit on a bus; to harass a Bigfoot; and to paint polka dots on the American Flag. All lollipops are banned, and this is what the law says about trains: "When two trains come to a crossing, neither may go until the other has passed."
Laws are good, but some laws are just goofy.
Hunters has a great view of Mount Rainier, but unfortunately the day was cloudy and we couldn't see it. But here's what we did see:
While we were waiting to take our photo in the sleigh, we had free hot cocoa and lollipops. I guess Hunters hasn't heard about the Lollipop Law. But finally it was our turn.
After that, we were all really cold, so we loaded up the perfect tree and headed home to Kent.
November 30, 2016
Today it snowed! I mean, I'm from Pennsylvania, so I didn't even hardly notice the little bit of snow, and Fern didn't even wake up, but everybody out here went crazy. It only snows here maybe once a year, and it did not snow at all last year. But this morning we woke up to a light dusting of snow. All the kids were out trying to sled, public transportation came to a screeching halt, and people were staying home from work all over the place.
(Because there is not much snow here, they don't have snowplows, so even a little tiny bit of snow closes schools and businesses). The snow was all gone by lunchtime but they had fun while it lasted.
November 18, 2016
It's been a while since my last post. We have been very busy with schoolwork, making gingerbread, and learning more fun stuff.
This afternoon one of the kids had a heart doctor appointment in Tacoma, so my host mom told me to hop in the car and come see the city. Fern had already seen Tacoma about a million times with the boys and Uncle, so he didn't come with us this time.
When you fly to Seattle, you fly into SeaTac airport. The "Sea" in SeaTac is from Seattle, of course, and the "Tac" is from Tacoma.
Tacoma is a city 32 miles south of Seattle. It's like Seattle's little brother, always wanting what Seattle has and trying to outdo it. The name "Tacoma" comes from a word the Native tribes use. The tribe that settled in this area is the Puyallup Tribe (say Pyoo-AHL-up). Their word for the peak we call "Mount Rainier" was Tahoma, which in their language means "Snow Covered Mountain." Tacoma is another way to say it. In the city of Tacoma, there is a museum of Glass, the LeMay Car Museum, the Tacoma Dome arena, a ferry dock, a paper mill (which stinks like CRAZY), a zoo and aquarium, and lots of other stuff.
Seattle is known for coffee. Tacoma is too, but in a smaller way. My host mom took us out for coffee here in Tacoma:
My favorite drink is a raspberry zebra mocha. My host mom had an eggnog latte and we took a peppermint patty mocha home for Fern.
One thing Tacoma has more of then Seattle: murals. There are murals on a lot of walls. Here I am, getting my ears scratched by the creation mural on hospital hill.
We didn't stay long in Tacoma after the doctor's appointment. Fern and I were going to play Awale at home, and he was ahead 3 games to 2.
