Tues and 9 miles of walking

Nathan came over about 9 am to join us for breakfast at the B&B.  The special was chocolate chip waffles. Very good breakfast.  Then we headed off for a morning tour of the school.

I am very happy with this B&B.  I think we will plan to stay here at Nathan's graduation next year.

We drove over close to the school and parked at the garden.  These are metal irises in front of the garden gift shop.  

We walked to the school

Went through Nathan's school

A picture on the wall in the Nicholas school

a close up.  

This is the building where I went to PT school.  

On the way back to the car we had more time to wander through the beautiful garden

This white headed water fowl had a call that sounded like a peacock.  Strange.

We had to hurry back to the car because we had not had lunch and we had a 1 pm tour at the lemur center.  We made a quick stop at the Green Leaf for healthy wraps.  Mine was a very good panda wrap with spinach, pears, blue cheese, walnuts and cranberries with poppy seed dressing.  Once we got to the lemur center we watched a short video (this gave us time to eat our lunches) and then we took a walking tour. 

Duke has the highest number and most varieties of lemurs anywhere other than their native home of Madagascar.  They are prosimian primates. 

looks like a raccoon but it is a monkey, a ring tail lemur

very cute monkeys.  This one is a red ruff lemur.  After visiting the lemurs we went to Ben & Jerry's

Interesting restroom sign.  It looks like polygamy is ok.  

Then we went to find with the school of Physical Therapy is now.  It is a doctorate program.  Much bigger than when I went to Duke.  We saw a class of "12 year old" students.  Gosh they get younger every year. I could not take a picture because there were patients in the room as well.  The supervisor took us on a little tour.  That was nice.  Very impressive.

gorgeous day to be out walking a round but I was starting to drag so we went for hard cider tasting at a very interesting place.

the 2 on the right were my favorite. Sweet Carolina Smooth Hoperator and the Honey Sweet American IPA.

they had a large Jenga set there.  we had fun with that

Oh NO!!

Then it was time for dinner.  We went to Blu Seafood.  Yummy.  Nathan had salmon, George had trout and you guessed it,  I had steak with an Oregon Pinot Noir.  

Nathan dropped us off.  He still has school work to do.  We found our nightly glasses of port and chocolate truffles waiting for us.  Gosh I like this place.  

Monday, Mar 14 Durham, NC

Up at 4 am to catch our early morning flight.  We flew Southwest to Chicago and then on  to Raleigh/Durham, NC.  We arrived a little after 4 pm.  Nathan met us.  We were meeting some relatives for dinner.  It did not make sense to go to Durham to check into the B&B and then back to Raleigh for dinner.  So we went to the Umstead park near the airport and walked a ways on a trail. Ended out being nearly 3 miles.

very pretty trail. Then we went to my cousin Nell's house for dinner.  Yummy.  Delicious meal of appetizers then dinner of chicken salad, fruit salad, bread and carrot cake and plenty of wine.   

Cousin Jeep with his wife Mary Ann

My cousin Nell, and her husband Joe.

the drive to the B&B was quite challenging.  Lightning storm and lots of rain and hail.  

Look at the size of the hail stones!!

We are staying at the King's Daughter Inn.  This is my kind of place.  

complimentary port and chocolates

nice sized room

even great art on the walls.  

Ah! 

Drive Home

It was good that we were well fortified before our drive home.  The roads were not too bad but the traffic was bad.  Cars had slid off the road and in the ditch along side of the road.  It was snowing pretty heavily around the Tacoma area.  But we got through it ok.  It was pretty clear by the time we got to Kelso.  Then our neighborhood was bad again with snow on the road.  Of course, people from other parts of the country would not have thought that it was bad.

our back yard

Blanca did not stay our long

We had a very light lunch we got home and then George was busy trying to get caught up on things he had not had the chance to do.  Back to work for him tomorrow.  Nathan and I took down the Christmas decorations.  They are all boxed up but not put away in the attic yet.  But it is nice to have that taken care of.  

All in all we had a nice trip to Seattle and Mt Vernon. The snow was a surprise.

Sunday, Jan3

The Hotel Nexus was fine.  It was clean and in a good location.  We checked out around 9am to head off to the Portage Bay Cafe for a fabulous breakfast.  We have been there before and really like it.  We had reservations.  Joyce, Tye, Patty, Marianne and Sam met us there.  Most everyone ordered some type of Benedict.  I had the classic, Nathan had the crab and George had the salmon.

Cup of whipped cream to top the hot chocolate

my classic benedict

Marianne & Patty

George

Sam and Marianne

Tye and Joyce

Joyce and me

After breakfast we decided to head off to Portland right away since we were hearing about snow in Portland.  Just as we were heading away from the restaurant we saw a motorcyclist spin out of control.  We pulled over to call 911 but other people stopped to help so we left.  We saw the guy get up and walk so I guess he was not hurt too bad.  Kinda scary though.  After the few days of nice clear skies it is hard to think about snow. Nathan is excited.    

Cider Tasting, Dinner and 10, 9, 8

Around 6pm we headed back to Sharon and Michael's to pick up Sharon.  We went to the Schilling Cider House to do a cider tasting.  Gosh that was good.  I think I like almost all the hard ciders.  We bought a few bottles to take.  The most interesting one was a lemon basil cider.  I did not like the ginger ones.

After tasting we called in an order to the Thai Tom restaurant.  We drove back to Sharon and Michael's.  We picked up dinner on the way.  After dinner - which was fabulous by the way, we played a game of 10, 9, 8.  I won!! surprise, surprise!  No more pictures.

Back to our hotel.  Nice evening.

Saturday, Jan 2

After a leisurely breakfast we packed up and got ready to leave.  Then we did a neighborhood walk to the lake.  It was a mite chilly out.  

Then we packed up the car and left Debbie and Joe's to go into Seattle.  We met my niece, Sharon and Michael at a Kukai (Ramen Bowl) restaurant which was very tasty.

Chicken Ramen with egg

Then we went to Sharon and Michael's.  We left Michael there and we went to Greenlake to walk around.  What a nice day to be walking around.

Then we drove to Molly Moon's ice cream/Chocolati for refreshment.  I had hot chocolate from Chocolatis and everyone else ice cream.  I met my nephew, Ross, from Portland in Chocolatis. What a surprise.

We took Sharon back to her place and then we went to check in to the Hotel Nexus, which is not far from Sharon's place.