Olympia round 2, and Renton, Washington – August 18th to 21st

After convention we headed back to Tumwater (part of Olympia, or just next to it) to stay the night with our friends Derek & Sara – and although Wes & Lianna were planning to head south towards Oregon straight from convention, we managed to convince them to come along with us, although they were definitely going to leave early the next morning. As the night wore on I’m fairly sure that plan changed a little, but 3pm-ish isn’t too bad right?! We had a great time all together anyway J

On the Sunday night we had a relaxing time on Derek & Sara’s new raft the Socrates, created from their 2 canoes, a large hinged piece of wood, a lovely little electric motor, and various other accessories on top such as a hammock stand and hammock on this occasion! We saw the nearly full moon shining across the ever so still water, took a bunch of photos, and then after packing it all up into the separate pieces again, headed back to Derek & Sarah’s for some chocolate, ice cream, and an Aussie song courtesy of Wes & Lawrie. Soon followed by rather sleepy chatting and much appreciation of the hammock there, then dragging oneself off to bed!

Evening on the Socrates

Aussies and Kiwi chilling out on the Socrates

Derek and Sara

Awesome evening :)

Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport...

Sleepiness and singing

The morning emerged a little earlier than we would have liked, as we were all pretty slow and tired! Apart from Derek who had gone to work... But we had a lovely breakfast of delicious crepes, and were eventually off trying out (again for us) Sara’s awesome electric bike (Lianna, I love the difference in expression from when you got on to coming back to the house!!), the other cruiser bikes, and long boards – which involved both much fear (on behalf of Lianna and myself) and glee (Lawrie & Wes)!

Re-organising (finding?) our things

Perhaps it's time to get some new sunglasses...

Lianna discovering the cruiser bikes - I don't have a photo of the expression of glee after trying out the electric bike!

Gleeful Wes & Lawrie after trying out skateboard towing with the electric bike!

Lianna trying out longboarding

The awesome cruiser bikes

Wes loving the Harley Davidson style

We had a delicious lunch at a local Italian sub shop, and headed to the Tumwater Falls Park nearby, in much less rainy weather than the last time we went there! Wes & Lianna then grudgingly head off, and Lawrie and I had a much needed sleep… Then after Derek came home, we headed out to the lake on the Socrates again, for a picnic dinner – so this time with a little table and camp chairs – it was fantastic!

Picnic style on the Socrates

It was with much reluctance that we again said goodbye to Derek and Sarah in the morning, and headed up towards Seattle – although we managed to take our time and didn’t get there until evening (it’s possibly as much as 1.5hrs to drive?!)

On the way we stopped in at a shopping mall in Olympia, then at the rather excessively sized Cabelas store in nearby Lacey – Megan & Justin had told us about this a few years before, and we were just as impressed! Not so much in terms of buying stuff, but that was mainly because we weren’t really looking for extreme camping, fishing or hunting gear, or gun safes etc. BUT clearly there are lots of people who are, and who already have – there is a multitude of stuffed animals in there, artfully arranged in a massive display in the middle of the shop, as well as countless heads displayed on the walls of the shop – mainly north American animals, but there’s also an African section which has not only a stuffed rhino, ferocious looking lion and various wildebeest, but a full size African elephant, which massive doesn’t go a long way towards describing. We weren’t the only ones taking lots of photos inside the shop…

Main display inside Cabelas (many more to see)

From Cabelas we finally got on our way to Renton (just south east of Seattle city), where our friend Luisa is living with her sisters Kimberley and Makayla, who we’d finally met at convention. We had super clear views of Mt Rainier on our way, which we hadn’t a hope of seeing from Seattle when we were last there, so that was cool, and also views of the very snow covered Mt Baker in the distance.

Clear view of Mt Rainier in the distance

Slightly less clear view of Mt Baker

We spent the night with Luisa, Kimberley & Makayla at their apartment, and had a yummy dinner at the nearby Renton farmers markets – not to mention delicious fresh raspberries and blackberries (why don’t we have more of these at home??!). Then Luisa showed us a coffee shop that makes coffee like back home (American coffee is definitely way different…). For some reason I didn’t take any photos when we stayed with the girls in Renton, which was dumb, but we had a great (although far far too short!) time, and hope to catch up again before we head home in December…