Travelog for: Cronus

Hey! Sorry I haven't updated in a long time, this is the first chance I've gotten to sit down... we've seen A LOT in the last few days and I've been so worn out - when we all get home we all love to just relax on the bed until bedtime because it's just so tiring all the sight seeing we've been doing. Sara says it'll probably take a few days to get all the photos up from the last few days but she'll do her best... what's to come? Well, you'll just have to wait and see...

Saturday, because it wasn't so sunny out we decided this would be a great day to visit Snoqualmie Falls... very famous falls in Snoqualmie, Washington here's me at the top of the falls...



Next to the top of the falls is a hotel called the Salish Lodge, it looks very expensive to visit there - Sara says she's never been in there before...



Straight across from where we were standing at the top of the falls on the observation deck that hangs over the edge kind of - this is the view straight across from us... it kind of puts it into perspective on how high we really are!... See that we're over the top of some of the trees?!



...and this is the view kind of straight down facing the Snoqualmie River... Sara doesn't like heights but I think she said we we're over 300' up over the edge of the falls...



Then we took a trek down to the bottom of the falls it's half a mile down and half a mile back up... it was really busy at the lower observation deck so Sara didn't have a chance to get us all with photos sadly but we stayed safe where there was no chance of us getting knocked out of Sara's hands...



As you can see there are tons of people on the rocks. It was a bit too slippery for our liking so we just took a few photos and headed back to the car, a bigger day was in store for us tomorrow... I'll update a bit later with those photos...

So Sunday was the big day, we went through the Cascade Mountains and all that snow and got to see the Bavarian town called Leavenworth...

First stop, Lake Wenatchee for a family picture... that was a bit broken up and sadly no real good photos turned out (Sara said anyways) but she sure had a good slip in the snow and was bleeding a lot so we didn't stay too long, here's a photo of me at Lake Wenatchee.. isn't it pretty?



As you can see in this photo, 95% of the lake was actually frozen over. Sara's brother Todd was out sitting on the lake for a while before the family photos had started. Me and the other toyvoyagers just sat in the snow and waited patiently (as patiently as you could) for our photo shoot to have happen. Then we were put back in the backpack where it was SO much warmer... I think Sara told it it was 23'F outside where we were sitting... brrr!



Next stop was just a little mountain on the side of the road, I think it looks pretty cool. Sara didn't stay out with us very long though since we were only half way to Leavenworth - still a ways to drive, and a lot more snow to get through before we get there!



...and finally we are in Leavenworth... most of the time we were here we just visited shops and looked at all the interesting things they had, there was so much to look at - we spent a few hours walking through the main parts of the town... here are some of the photos Sara took...






By the time it we were done it was almost time to head home. We had a late lunch at a restaurant called King Lear's. Sara had a German sausage and her dad had a Bavarian Bratwurst... they were really yummy they said... the other two had just a hamburger and soup, so nothing really fancy for being in a little American German town... hehe. :-)

On the way home we stopped at a little shop before we got fully into the Cascades called The Alps, and this is a view from the shops... there was SO much snow, no wonder they've been having avalanches... there were a lot of road signs fully covered by snow... that's a LOT!



Well more updating later... we still one big day to go after updating Friday (when Sara gets the photos off of her dad hopefully tonight)....

Hey... Monday was another HUGE day for all of us... we woke up at 6am and were on the road to Anacortes by 630am. No stops along the way we had to make a ferry by 830am. When we got there one ferry had just left to another route so we just missed a picture opportunity, little did we know how many picture opportunities we were heading towards...



This is me standing way back from a ferry dock. We docked at a dock right next to this one... but this is the one the ferry took off from when we arrived there... there wasn't too long of a wait and our ferry arrived...



That's the view we had from the car waiting to drive onto the ferry, they're HUGE! Sara says there Washington States biggest attraction! It was very exciting to be on something so huge, and so nice!

The moment the ferry took off from Anacortes Sara took all of us outside to the front of the ferry, it was REALLY windy, so windy when Sara took the lens cap off of her camera it blew out of her hand and onto her bag... thankfully it didn't blow into the cold ocean, that'd be no good! So we didn't get a lot of outside photos for fear of loosing us... here I am...



...and here I am in front of the front of the ferry, the captain of the ship looked at Sara a bit funny when she saw her holding us up for some photos, hehe... this ferry's name was the Kaleetan. :-)



Here's some pictures Sara took from the ferry - it was around an hour ride until we arrived at the dock in Orcas Island...






...and now we have arrived at Orcas Island... how exciting! Time to go to the car as were ready to start docking on the island...




First things first... time to get some breakfast, it's now 930am and we had a nice breakfast at a place called the Sunflower Cafe. It was yummy now were on our way to Mount Constitution... a very long and winding road later we were almost there...



... another 10 minutes of winding roads and we were there... besides a steep hike up a snow filled hill, it wasn't easy for Sara to get up from the fall she had had the day before, but we made it up, very slowly but none the less... and wait for it, these pictures are gorgeous!



Now that we're up at the top of the hill it's time to climb up this tower... it was around 300 feet tall in itself and the mountain is around 2500 feet from sea level, so it's the highest point in the San Juan Islands so we got to see everything, this is the view of the ground from the top of the tower...



...and here I am at the top, looking out over the islands...



In the first photo I'm looking out over islands and you can see Mount Baker in the background, one of the three volcanos in Washington state... and the next photo is a photo looking over part of Canada... :-)

Here are the other photos that Sara took at the top of the tower... not all of them, but some of them... :-) Enjoy!





It really was absolutely gorgeous... well with 40 minutes to spare after driving time we headed back to the ferry dock for our 115pm ferry... we got there, and it was full! Dang! The next ferry was 335pm. We had a long wait in the ferry line, instead we went and got some souvenirs and some postcards, and had some lunch at the ferry dock. Yummy!

Finally 3pm rolls around and we're ready to board the ferry to go back home... bye bye Orcas Island... here are some more photos on the way home from Orcas Island...





Well that was a BIG day for all of us... the next day was pretty lazy and slow but that wasn't a bad thing... not much planned as of yet, but on Thursday we're going to Kirkland again to see Sara's family... :-) I hope you enjoyed what you saw of my busy last few days! It was very exciting! I had lots of fun!

Hey! I've been so lazy lately, since we did so much running around and a lot of sight seeing last week, Sara, me and the rest of the toyvoyagers have just been lounging around the house not doing too much... it's not too bad though - I don't mind it so much! :-)

But saying that... today we got a new visitor! How exciting! :-)



Her name is Mel how exciting to meet a little koala bear, who would have known we would meet her in Washington?

I have been slow to update - since it's coming closer to the time were heading back to Australia there's much less going on... but today, we made a 7 layer cookie thing, it looks really yummy! We all helped as much as we could in the kitchen with Sara, but mostly we watched...


First the one cube of butter needed to be chopped up and put in...


We melted all the butter in the oven at 325'F until all the butter was melted and we then sprinkled graham cracker crumbs all over the top of it... yummy!


...and even more graham cracker crumbs!...


Then it was about time to pour the sweet condensed milk over the top...


All done... it's starting to look so yummy... but looks even more yummy very soon! :-)


Then we sprinkled the chocolate chips, and coconut over the top... mmm!


Then sprinkled walnuts over 2/3 of it, because Sara's brother doesn't like nuts, oh well, looks so yummy already though!

...22-25 minutes later...


Out of the oven, still very hot but looks SO yummy! This is a desert tonight after dinner... yum yum yummy! Sara said she wanted to give everyone the recipe too incase they wanted to make it too... so here it is:

SEVEN LAYER MAGIC COOKIE BARS   
1/2 c. butter
1 1/2 c. graham cracker crumbs
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 pkg. semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1 pkg. (6 oz.) butterscotch chips
1 1/3 c. flaked coconut
1 c. chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (325 degrees for glass dish). In a 13 x 9 inch baking pan melt butter in oven. Sprinkle crumbs over it. Mix together and press into pan. Pour sweetened condensed milk evenly over crumbs. Top evenly with remaining ingredients. Press down firmly. Bake 25-30 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool before cutting.

That's not all we did, because we're leaving soon we helped Sara put together her bags for leaving, she reorganizes them a lot, so we we're seeing how everything fit, we'll be on the carry on so we won't be like these other poor saps...


...not sure if you can see, but under my foot kind of is a stuffed toy, a few actually, and the big eye you see is a scarecrow wind sock that Sara got, isn't it cool? This is a huge vaccum seal bag that Sara puts everything in to fit it a lot better than what she'd normally be able to fit...


After all that was done we got a new sitting place for a little bit of time while we're not doing anything... aren't we all just so cute? :-)

Yesterday was our last day in Kirkland, it was all sad goodbyes and everything, but we made it - next stop is Olympia to see some other parts of Sara's family before we head back to Aussie land...

Hey! Yesterday we went to Cabela's a very popular outdoor type store, it's known for its huge display of, well... it's centre piece lets say... it's huge and even has a little aquarium thing within the centre piece, it's very interesting to see all the different wild animals though...


Here's a picture of me standing near one side of the huge centre piece... here are some other photos..










As you can see there we're a LOT of animals on this huge piece, most of them are very old going back as much as 90 years ago for some of them, there was even a huge polar bear and a musk ox!


This is one of the fish that Sara got clearly in a photo in the little aquarium thing they had, this is called a Sun fish and Sara said she used to catch these when she was younger in Wisconsin visiting with her grandparents, kinda pretty aren't they?

... and upstairs, they even had a small African exhibit with some unique and interesting animals...



... the last picture is a White Rhino, which are the less critically endangered of the two Rhino species, it was interesting to see one, kind of sad though seeing all the animals at the same time...


Last but not least we got to see a big cat that resembled me, how strange to see what they really look like. Sara said that she wasn't going to count this as seeing a real cougar, since I'm sure you'd like to see one in the zoo or in the wild rather than on a big centre piece... he sure did look quite fierce though didn't he?

After we left, we went to a house where Sara spent time with some more of her family, there was a crazy dog so we didn't come out much besides to just be seen and that's about it - we had to stay protected in the bag, there was no time for pictures, the dog was just so crazy! But it was a very busy day! I'm glad I'm back home, more relaxing, we fly out on Saturday morning!

We had our last visit around Washington today before we leave tomorrow morning, I'm so excited but so nervous, first stop was in Everett, not too interesting, we had to go with Sara to her step mom's appointment with the neurologist... here we all are... :-)



Then we we're off to Seattle - we went inside a few shops on the Seattle waterfront, and there we're a lot of really cool wooden statue things that we're hand carved... here's one of them I particularly liked! :-)



...we took a stroll down the waterfront and we saw this sign - which is a memorial, it's straight in front of the Argosy cruises for the Lake cruises and the Locks cruises that they have in Seattle! It looked exciting, but not today! :-)



...and then after a bit more walking we got to the world famous Ye Olde Curiosity Shop...



This was the entrance to the store, it was already quite interesting... so I wonder what's inside! I've heard a lot about this store from Sara...



...and meet Sylvester... the most famous well preserved mummy in the world!



...and here's some information about our famous Sylvester, we heard a lady talking about the origin of Sylvester... apparently after the cowboys found him they left him standing on the side of the road for people to see, then one day a traveling circus drove by him and covered him in arsenic which caused his preserved state even more so, and then they brought him with them around the United States on the traveling circus. Then eventually a dentist actually got a hold of him and had him in his office and had him occasionally pop out on some people (mean huh? haha). When the dentist died, the wife called the Curiosity Shop and asked if they'd like him for their museum... and of course they agreed! :-)

...and now it's time to meet Sylvia...



...she is a white, female mummy, probably a Spanish immigrant found in the highlands of Central America. Scientists say that she died in her early thirties from tuberculosis, prehaps contracted during the long sea voyage to the New World...


Here's more information again about both Sylvia and Sylvester... very interesting information really... :-)


Here's an interesting thing - in the middle of the closed off area on the waterfront, there was an actual working carousel that was really pretty! I wanted to ride, but I was way too small! :-P

We decided to get some food at Ivars, the famous seafood shop on the Seattle waterfront, they have a lot here, but they were founded and established in Seattle from 1936.



While we were waiting for our food, we saw some seagulls up close!



...in the background of a second one you see a famous and familiar sight of Washington, the ferries!



Sara thought this was cute... the Clam Central Station across from Ivars!

When we got home we we're so tired, but we had to pack and get everything ready, we're about right on the limit for stuff we can bring back to Australia - so how exciting will this be! :-)



So before we decided to travel, we decided to get up to date with the world... :-) Here I am reading the newspapers from the countries I will be visiting... :-) How exciting! <3



...and here I am remembering all my fun times while I've been in Washington... my favourite was the Wallace Falls hike in Gold Bar, there were so many beautiful places to stop and just relax... I loved it!



...and now it's time to write up my last entry for America then I'm off to Australia again tomorrow! Wish me luck!

Technically yesterday we left for South Korea, at 1240pm we flew out of Seattle... and 11 or so hours later, we are in South Korea, and it's 5pm... just after... so lets start from the beginning...


Here I am at the gate where Sara will be boarding the plane... we only have a few hours to wait now since we managed to get through customs, immigration and all the screening pretty quickly...


We had to check the board to make sure our flight was on time...


After about an hour our plane arrived, and we got to watch it be loaded up with everything and pretty soon we were about to board and go on our 11 hour flight to South Korea, I wonder what we'll see now that Sara has a window seat...

Very shortly into our flight we got to see some gorgeous mountains from the air, Sara says these are the mountains on the Washington Peninsula, they're called the Olympics...



We got to take a nap, and next pictures we're in Japan... here's what we saw...





As you can see we saw a lot of mountain ranges and everything, and even a volcano we flew over... we're not sure what it is called but it sure looked pretty!

Even more exciting we even got to see Mt. Fuji, it's in the far distance, and if you look closely behind the lower engine you can see Mt. Fuji in the middle...



We then crossed the sea between Japan and South Korea, and we started to come closer to landing, Sara got some photos of Seoul...



...and now we've landed in South Korea...



When we got to Korea, it was a lot of running around, and a lot of  long lines but we stopped for a moment to see the beautiful Korean sunset that was happening right before our eyes...



Funny enough our terminal was the same terminal last time that we were sleeping at before, so the picture looks extremely similar, that's because it was the same exact area... here's our next plane to Sydney...



We've got another long 10 hour flight ahead of us, and then a day in Sydney to plan, we'll see how that goes... we're off to board the plane!... see you in Australia!

After a long and turbulent 10 hour flight we've made it to Sydney, we got through customs and immigration almost at record time (for Sara anyways)... first things first, we got to visit Botany Bay, here I am in front of the bay on the side of the road... so pretty isn't it?



This is a photo just by itself, the little peninsula sticking out is actually the airport runway, so we got to watch some planes landing and taking off it was quite interesting...



What's even more interesting is... this is the plane we all arrived on from South Korea, and now it's going back - not even 2 hours later! It was interesting to watch the plane that had only just arrived, seeing it take off back again... how cool is that?




We took a bit longer on the road and we got to one of the proper beaches, we had to go to the beaches with the shark nets, we stopped at the first one and had a bit of a dip (well I didn't, I don't like the water!) in the Kyeemagh Baths...



Here are all of us on the beach...



...and here I am out in the water, Sara was holding me because she knows I don't like the water, it wouldn't be good for my fur!



Here are some seagulls, there we're quite a lot of them really!..



We took another bit of a drive down the beach to the next bit of the shark nets, and we even got to see the Sydney skyline... as you can see, even for a Monday morning there we're a lot of people at the beach... and this is just where we were...



...another 2'ish hours later we we're on the road to Orange, which most definately is not coastal... so no more pretty beaches, but that doesn't worry me too much... but we stopped off in the Blue Mountains and got to see the famous Three Sisters...



There were lots and lots of people sightseeing there when we all visited there... but we got in and got out pretty quick, we all just were very tired and wanted to get home!

Today we went to Blayney and on the way to Blayney we all got to see an emu, what a famous Australian animal. :-)



...and when we got home we met up with another toyvoyager,

Mulalu how exciting, he came all the way from South Africa, so we had a group photo together, now I can also introduce you to everyone, most you've seen before, but there are a few new faces that we met up with when we flew into Sydney...



From left to right it's Mulalu, Luke, Mel, me, Alpina, Leo Lion, Benni, and Charity Bear... the walrus, lobster and turtle are soon to be toyvoyagers... :-)

Pretty soon I'll be ready to leave Sara and go to my next host, I'm getting so excited to see even more of the world! :-)

First things first, we had to all say goodbye to Benni and Charity Bear... it was pretty sad, but we all know they're going to have fun and going to a safe place. I had a few more hours and then I got ready to go to Costa Rica... how exciting!...



We went to Blayney, we've been going everyday to feed the animals at Sara's father-in-law's house... no photos with those animals though they're too crazy. But we stopped to see the local emu, we're not sure if he's a wild one, or someone owns him... but we think he just got stuck in the paddock since he was younger, he comes and goes... he's SO big though...



Next stop, our destination... something kinda unique about this though is - it's one of four marsden cottages they were built for the workers of the wealthy Marsden family. They're listed on the national trust and heritage as historically important. The house in front of me is the one that's most intact and in best condition of the three of them and has most of the original everything that was originally in the house. The house was built in the mid 1870's. We heard a lot of stories from Sara about some spooky stuff that's happened there, she lived there for 10 months with her father-in-law before moving to Orange in May 2006...



Animals are fed... so next stop... Church Hill...



Church hill is a large hill in the middle of town, so Sara got some photos of Blayney from a bit higher elevation... it was a nice clear and hot day so we didn't spend too much time there before moving on...

I got the okay then to get my journal and get in my travel case to go to Costa Rica... here I am about to go to the post office!...



Wish me luck! I'm off to my next destination! I had a great time but I'm ready to see more of the world! :-) Talk to you soon mom!

Oh hi there!

I've been in Costa Rica for a while now but it's been kinda rainy all this time, also my host wasn't feeling very well but now we're gonna start going to cool places!

Anyway, even if she was on bed I've been managing to play and play and play! We were to Puntarenas and there's kinda of a farm there, but without the animals, so the fields were all for me to play... and that's what I did, running in the flowers. I also chose the cutest rose for mommy <3

We also went to some other place called Miramar, and Shirley told me that means "ocean view", and I could see the Pacific Ocean from there! It's very nice and also has lots of trees and stuff like Esparza.

Shirley said we get to go to the zoo next week, yay!

I helped Shirley write some Christmas cards today, and also I got to send a card to Mommy, yay :-)