Father “Daughters” Time (Jennifer Comes To Visit)

Last week my youngest daughter Jennifer flew out from Wisconsin for a weeklong visit with her sister and me. She came out so we could celebrate her 36^th birthday which was on July 22. Where have the years gone by it seems like yesterday were just young girls. Photo of them when they were in their teens in New Jersey with Philly in the background.Here’s one when they were much younger, just little babies. Here’s one of them today when we visited Mount Rainier. We have always been so lucky, because they’ve always been best of friends and have gotten along great almost all the time.

Are they not beautiful young ladies I’m so proud of them both!!

When Crystal and I were over in Europe I let Jennifer know if she could get the time off I would flyer out so she could spend time with us since she didn’t get the go to Europe us. She flew into Seattle and we picked her up around 7:30 in the evening, and as it was a beautiful night, I said why don’t we check out the Space Needle, none of us had ever been there.

Here’s a photo they took of us before we went up in the tower. You can add different backgrounds and change them as you like and then print them out, a nice feature.

For the price of 30+ dollars which I think is a little high, you get to ride the elevator to the top where you can go out on the open deck and take beautiful views of the city and Puget Sound off to the distance.

They also have several spots where you can take selfies, download them later from your phone or tablet. You scan your ticket and wait for the countdown and it takes a picture of you with the background here are several of them we took.

There are beautiful views of the city and landscape in many different directions.

If you go down one floor you get to stand on the revolving glass floor. Of course, the girls had to take some pictures of themselves laying on the floor suspended high above the ground below.

One really cool thing where these daddy long legs painted on the roof of a neighboring building, they look so real.

We stayed up past sunset and got the see the city lights come to life.

In the tower looks different when you come down from it in the sky is dark. We spent a couple hours in total and I’m glad we did it but I’m not sure it’s worth the cost.

The next day we headed out to Northwest Trek a wildlife park between here and Mount Rainier. This is a 720-acre wildlife Park with native Northwest animals of many sizes and types. 435 acres of the park, are a free-range area where they keep the large animals like deer, elk, bison, caribou, moose, bighorn sheep and mountain goats. There is a tram tour that takes you on a 45-minute informative ride of this open space area here are a bunch of photos of some of the animals we saw. Caribou

Elk and Bighorn Sheep.

Bison.

We spotted some of all the species except the moose, which were well hidden today. The rest of the park featured large enclosures where they housed wolves, bears, wild cats of different sizes and types, birds of prey and many other species native to the Northwest. I did not take many pictures of these animals but I did get a good one of the bobcats as he came for treats that the caregiver was giving them.

This is a very nice wildlife Park and very well cared for and managed it was reasonable at 20 bucks a person. The next day we woke up the sun shining clear skies and figured it was a good day to drive up to Mount Rainier so that Jennifer could see the spectacular peak. On a good day like last fall when this photo was taken this is what you get the see up at Paradise just below the summit, the highest point you can drive to in the park.

But this is what we got to see that day; this photo taken in the same spot as the one above. You can’t even tell there’s a mountain there.

We did do a little hiking and take in some of the beautiful waterfalls and got to enjoy the sunny but cool day.

I was down at the viewpoint of this fall and the girls walked around and stood on the bridge.

Over the next couple of days Jennifer stayed by her sister’s place, and she, Crystal and Josh did things together as I had some doctors’ appointments to take care of. One of the other days the three of us took a ferry out to Anderson Island which is a good size island, and the one further south in the Puget Sound just outside of Olympia. We did a little driving around and some hiking, just enjoy the peace and quiet. The bonus was that the mountain was out (as they say here). You can get some great views of Mount Rainier from different points around Olympia here’s a couple photos showing that, these were taken from the ferry.

At least Jennifer got to see the mountains from town.

We had a great week, did a little exploring and a lot of just hanging around playing games and sharing each other’s company. But as it always happens, the time went by way too fast and Jennifer is now back home in her state of Wisconsin. On a “side note” on the medical front, I am scheduled for stomach surgery on Monday the 29^th, It’s not quite and outpatient procedure.  I will have to spend one night or so in the hospital. But overall the recovery time should be quite quick and painless. The plan is I will have to spend the next two weeks, after the surgery on a soft food, liquid diet like I’ve been on for the last month. But hopefully after that I’ll be able to eat the foods I love and be back to a normal lifestyle “wish me luck”. That’s it for this post best wishes and safe travels to all, Rick

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