Our Washington and Alaska Adventure – the pictures
1
Tag Archives: road trip
5 Tips for Traveling with Family
My family just came back from a 12-day whirlwind vacation together. My parents and we traveled to Washington state and went on a 7-day cruise to Alaska to celebrate Tim’s graduation from high school. Here are my tips for traveling with family.
- Have a sense of humor – The first day in the rental vehicle, a Dodge Durango, we found a binky. That binky gave us hours of laughs. We decided that anyone who whined or complained would have to suck on the binky. We were still using the binky-threat at the end of the trip.
- Don’t be afraid to go off the beaten path to explore the area – We have smart phones with GPS on them and we used that GPS to get around. A planned trip to Snoqualmie Falls turned into a roadtrip to Leavenworth, WA, somewhere we hadn’t planned on visiting, and we saw amazing weather phenomenon and other really cool sites.
- Even if it takes all day, go see what you really want to see – Everyone, except for Scott, had never seen the Pacific Ocean, so we got in the car and drove. The ultimate result was that was something I could cross off my bucket list, we had a good time getting there, and I tried a crab and cheese sandwich.
- Don’t let the weather keep you inside – We were in western Washington, notorious for it’s rainy weather. You could stay inside and while away the hours wishing you were having fun or you could get out in spite of the weather – We took one day to visit Pike’s Place Market and the first Starbucks. Sure, it was rainy and it was crowded, but we got to see it nonetheless.
- It’s worth spending the money to do expensive things sometimes – My parent’s gift to us on this trip was a whale-watching tour. My mom did some research on her own and booked a trip with Harv & Marv’s. For a little bit more, my mom was able to get our family our own boat tour. See orcas and humpback whales in the wild was AH-MAZ-ING!!! We got to see humpbacks bubble feeding, which is witnessed locally only a couple of times a season. This was something that was done in the rain as well. See #4.
What tips can you add to this list? Let me know in the comments.
Bok Tower 3/29/2010
Here are the pictures from our road trip to Bok Tower today. After having breakfast, we drove to Bok Tower in Lake Wales. That’s where the majority of the pictures were taken. We smelled strawberries driving through the fields. We smelled orange blossoms in the groves. We smelled oranges by the juice processing plant. We don’t usually get to smell the smells of industry because we travel on weekends, so we had olfactory overload!
There are some pictures of random objects, like a bumper sticker that says, “Got elephants?” There’s a funny truck placard that we chuckled at when we saw the pictures. I didn’t Photoshop any of the pictures, I only cropped them.
Sometimes we can’t get family portraits right when Tim takes the pictures. It takes a few shots. 
I have to say that there are some great shots of Scott.
Tim came face to face with a black racer. They were both a bit freaked out. I was impressed with the insects in the flower photos. One was a honey bee and one, I don’t know what kind of bug it was. The birds were pretty visually illusive today, so I didn’t get pictures of the male and female cardinals or the flickers. I did get a couple of shots of an osprey nest in Mulberry. The delphinium at the end of the slide show really was that electric blue.
I’ve posted the map of our trip today.
