Day 9, Everret to Seattle to Buckley, WA

We woke up in a motel with a full-day agenda but no clear plan where we are going to stay for the night. The first was the Woodland Park Zoo, which was similar to many of the zoos, where animals were kept in captivity for loud adults and toddlers’ enjoyment. There were a few rare animals though, including Komodo dinosaurs, Malayan tapirs and orangutans. Most of the animals were dozing off or looked totally bored and listless. Some animals, such as meerkats, were no show at all. We left in less than two hours.

Next was the Pacific Science Center, which turned out to be very pleasant. We loved the many hands-on activities, such as the body section, the circus, even the big checker and 3-D tit-tac-toe game. There was even a working bee hive, with a tube connecting the hive inside the museum with the busy bee collecting honey from the outside. The elegant architecture was designed and used very efficiently with lots of water games built in the lower-level courtyard, and the passer ways on the 2^nd level provide easy access to different buildings for the visitors. We even got to see a very artistic film at the Imax theater.

By 5 pm, I still didn’t know what our next leg of itinerary would be after spending the day in Seattle. A spectacular scenery came up as I flipped through the postcard booklet of Washington -- Mt. Reinier, the tallest peak in Washington, always majest and ghostly-looking in the background of Seattle landscape. Instead of driving hundreds of miles to Lake Chelan, as was originally planned, we decided to visit the famed mountain. Following a stroll of the Public Market at the Pike’s Place, the gross gum wall, and a great dinner on the dock at the Crab Pot, we set off to the mountain, with no clear arrival time in mind. When it was dark around 10 pm, we stopped by a small town called Buckley, and checked in a motel on the Main Street. The innkeeper was very apologetic when seeing us four. “All of our rooms have only one king size bed.” He added, “it has a sofa too.” The kids were overjoyed at the words, because they could use their sleeping bags again. The sofa turned out extendable into a double bed. The rate was only $7 more than the one for our camping site on San Juan Islands. All of us were thrilled that we had a roof over our head for the night again.