Week Eleven - Seattle

The plan for this week was to stay with Kelli and Don for a couple of days then to head down south as the weather cools. Well you know the saying about the best laid plans of mice and men!

Unfortunately I brought a cold with me off the cruise so we decided to hang around Seattle for a bit longer before moving to Olympic National Park however, Kelli and Don invited us to stay with them for a while. (No one had told them that that was a fatal mistake!!) As it turned out we stayed a week and had a fabulous time with two lovely people and two gorgeous dogs. Greta is a two year old St Bernard and Guinness is an eleven month old black Labrador. It was such fun!

Don and Kelli took us down to the locks on the river in Seattle on Sunday. We also visited Pikes Place Market which is pretty famous and has appeared in several movies including Sleepless in Seattle. Whatever you may want to buy you can just about guarantee you will find it at the markets. Norm bought a Chicken Hombow - interesting taste. The pastry is a bit sweet with the savoury chicken inside. Then we went for a stroll along the water front. Guinness needed some practise!

Monday, Kelli took us up to Snoqualmie (pronounced Snow-kwol-me) Falls just out of Seattle. A really lovely spot although the work being done to improve the hydro electric program was a bit of a mess and we couldn’t walk down to the bottom of the falls (can’t help bad luck)!

We had dinner with Sandra and Bruce (Sandra is the other Bruce’s sister - Bruce and Mary) on Tuesday night. Mary had forwarded all the books Norm had ordered on line to Sandra’s home so we picked all of them up. We had a lovely dinner and met their grandson Indy.

Wednesday night we had dinner out with Kelli and Don and their daughter Amy and five month old grandson Mason - gorgeous little boy. It was Amy’s birthday and we ate at Red Robin. All you Aussies out there if you get a chance to have a burger at Red Robin I urge you to do so. I have tried two of their offerings and their burgers are to die for!!! Just beautiful - you could call them gourmet burgers - they are sooooo good!

WOW!!! Kelli had agreed to feed Greta’s puppies for the breeder while they were away so on Friday Norm and I accompanied her. WOW!!! Greta had had two puppies about seven weeks ago and had adopted an Irish Wolfhound pup as well. The puppies were just gorgeous except for the wolfhound which is quite ugly really. Kelli and Don are keeping one of the St Bernard puppies for themselves when the pups are old enough. BUT the thing is that these people had three St. Bernard puppies, an Irish Wolfhound pup and ….. wait for it….. five full grown St Bernards and two small terriers!!!!!! Dedication with a capital D!!

After feeding the pups and ‘relieving’ the two ‘inside’ St Bernards and the terriers we set off for the Oktoberfest!!!! We visited the Puyallup Fairgrounds and had a wander around. Norm had a dark ale - he is really developing a taste for the stuff and we had some lunch. Norm and I weren’t game to try the sauerkraut and played it very safe with some clam chowder - not very German at all! But still very yummy!

And Don, you have really started something! Norm bought a pack of that 'Black Butte Beer' you gave him the other night! But he is still only allowed to have two in the fridge at any one time!

Saturday was the highlight of the week for me. Kelli and Don train guide dogs for the blind and Guinness is part of the program. I can’t remember where we went but it was somewhere in Oregon where there is a Guide Dogs for the Blind program. We had front row seats for the Graduation Ceremony - but wait - it is the graduation for the dogs.

It was a very emotional ceremony with the people receiving the dogs telling how they became blind and what it would mean to them to have a guide dog and then the trainers would speak. I have to say it was with a great deal of admiration for all these people that I sat there. To take a puppy and train it for more than a year and then to have to hand it on would be so difficult and I know they are being trained for that purpose but I would find it very hard to give up a dog that had been such a huge part of your life for that time. What the trainers have to do in that time is amazing. Don takes Guinness to work with him everyday! It is a 24/7 task to ensure these dogs are ready to work with a blind person. I have a new found admiration for the work these volunteers do in getting these dogs ready. They are an amazing and selfless group of people.

Anyway, Sunday Norm backed the fiver out the driveway while we stopped traffic both ways and we headed off to Olympic National Park. OOPS sorry changed that! Before we got to interstate 5 we changed our minds and decided to go to Mt Rainier National Park and Mt. St. Helen but that is next weeks episode so………

See you all next week for the ongoing adventures (or otherwise) of two very fortunate Aussies who are having the time of their lives.

And thanks to Sandra and Bruce and Kelli and Don for their hospitality and kindness.