Such A Nice Time

We finally got to Spokane about 9 hours after we left home. Now understand it should have only taken us 6 hours at the most to get there, but traffic was horrible getting from our home just to the pass, here on the West side of the State. The pass was a bit congested due to construction work, then from the pass on it was smooth sailing.

The first few days in Spokane was spent with family. Of course I felt “Home Again” feelings, but by Tuesday I was ready to get out of Spokane. As I mentioned Spokane is a bitter sweet place for me, a place that will always be home to me, but someplace I could never really live again.

Selena got very confused on our vacation, she didn’t take to the new sleeping arrangements and busy schedule as well as we thought she might. She did have a lot of fun, and enjoyed laying out on the grass for hours in the evenings where she could see the stars, something that is impossible here. She even had her first experience in playing in the rain.

She loved the feel of the rain as it hit on her face and tried to catch it in her mouth. We spent a lot of time on this day outside so she could really experience a warm rain. This was the only day it rained on our entire trip. I should mention our first night in Spokane they had an thunder storm which did scare Selena so we ended up with her in our bed as she cried, sobbed and sat straight up and screamed a few times.

She enjoyed the sights and sounds of the big city and of course you know every city has to have a castle. Spokane was no different, she quickly found a castle the minute we arrived, so we had to take her down town one day to get a closer look at the castle and the downtown life itself. We walked a few of the streets downtown, and while Selena enjoyed the sights and smells, she really wasn’t overly enthused with concrete city life. She wanted her freedom to walk without holding our hands something she learned real quick doesn’t happen in a large city.

She did enjoy some of the art work that we found downtown, and gladly stopped to have her picture taken beside it.

Then Papa misunderstood me, when I told him I wanted to go into River Park Square, he thought I meant Riverfront Park, so we missed trying to find a science museum they are suppose to have for the kids, but the trade off was a refreshing Ice Cone.

Monday was more of a lay back day for Selena and I since Papa went fishing with our son TJ. On Tuesday however it was an all out Selena day with her Uncle TJ. I will share that in a post of its own. It was so fun and meant a lot to me anyway to see my Big Baby and my Granddaughter having so much fun together.

On Thursday we headed to Kennewick, making our trek home. Selena by this time could care less about what a city looked like and didn’t even look for a castle. She enjoyed visiting with my brother Ken and got to meet some of her cousins. We did do some sight seeing around Kennewick, but again that will be in another post. I wish that my brother’s oldest son would have been around, but at least we got to see his youngest and his kids. Selena got along great with the kids, other then she couldn’t relate too well with the younger girl age 2 so hung out mostly with the older boys 6 and 15.

We had a great drive home other then we didn’t get as early of a start as we had wished for. We did however get to see some beautiful elk in Packwood. Selena was amazed over their beauty.

There was a bull and three cows that were grazing behind a service station where we stopped to get out and stretch. They stuck around for a long time feeding before finally someone got a little too close and they moved on through someone’s front yard to head for a more private spot to feed.

Stay tuned for more of our vacation fun! I will tell you now the geography lesson for Selena that I had planned all out was a huge flop. Number 1, with traffic the way it was we did not get to stop everywhere we wanted to, so she didn’t get to see all the things that we had hoped for, and number two we decided, hey we are on vacation so let’s just let her take in what she wants to take in. You will however get to view many of the things we did see and just what our State looks like from West, Central, Eastern, and South Central.

I want to again just thank Leah from Almost Unschoolers, and Natalie from Mouse Grows Mouse Learns for the excellent thought out guest posts they did in my absence. I also want to thank all of you, my avid readers for sticking around in our absence!