Some people, and I am one of them, are lucky enough to find a group of college roommates who become best friends. Now we're all spread out across the nation, but three of us got together for the 4th of July weekend. First, Amy came in from Las Vegas. I picked her up at the airport and we went straight to the Ballard Locks. I haven't been there since I was a little kid, so I made sure to check the maps carefully. After all that, there were signs posted telling you where to turn and everything.
We watched the boats coming in the big lock. The gate to the lakes remains closed while the gate to the Puget Sound is opened. Then the boats come in and fill up the lock. They tie themselves side by side, paying a lot of attention to getting the lines pulled tight enough so that no one will shift around a lot when the lock fills up with water. The locks fill from a nifty system underneath the surface of the water (a sign tells you all about it) and then the gates open, letting the ships into the lakes. This took most of an hour. Then the process is reversed, with ships traveling from the lakes coming in and waiting to be let out into the Puget Sound.
We also walked across the pedestrian bridges to go see the fish ladder. Big salmon were trying to swim upstream. From above the water you couldn't see very much. Okay, I couldn't see anything - but there is an inside room with windows where you can watch the fish fight to make it from one section of the ladder to the next. There are only two entrances between sections of the ladder - a fish can swim along the top of the water and make it over the gap in the wall, or it can swim along the bottom and make it through the hole in the wall down there. The kids near us were cheering the fish on.
We wandered through the botanical gardens for a bit before heading back to the car. We saw some cool flowers (like these ones, I think). We followed a path and then came to a little nursery, where Amy tried to make friends with a squirrel.
As we left the gardens, I just had to take one more picture. I didn't know these still existed! Yes, that is a real phone in there.
Next we started looking for dinner. We ended up getting hot sandwiches from Safeway - the guy making the sandwiches was really nice and let us switch out parts of the meal for potato salad (not me) or add extra blue cheese (me). We ate and then went to meet the sisters-in-law plus one of their younger sisters at the chocolate cafe, but it was closed. This was very sad, but we rallied and made ourselves a fondue night instead! Chocolate on bananas, strawberries, cookies, marshmallows, caramels, and gummi worms! And lots and lots of talking.
The morning of the 4th we first went to my ward's picnic with the most perfect flag raising ever - there was a trumpet to play the national anthem and the scouts presented the flag. We saluted, we sang, and that was the program. Along with a pancake and sausage breakfast. Amy and I left soon after the picnic and drove down to Steilacoom, where we waited to see another one-time roommate Jennifer. Amy and I found parking and headed downtown to see the parade - we were looking out for the librarian book-cart drill team with Jen in it! There were little kids, big kids, girl scouts, soldiers, political parties, tons of really cool cars, and more. It's hard to even figure out what parts of the parade to show you - it all seemed so cool!
MUSIC
CARS
PEOPLE
LIBRARIANS!
After the parade we had a fun dinner with Jen's family - one of her relatives provided the after-dinner entertainment with card tricks and stories. Then we headed to another relative's house on the Port of Tacoma, where we had a gorgeous view of various fireworks displays around the port. The commentary on these movies is, perhaps, lacking - but we were having fun!
Then, after all that, we went back to Jen's place and watched Northanger Abbey (the new BBC version, I think). And Persuasion. Just like old times.
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