That Was One Creepy Dragon.

On Friday afternoon, right after Justin got of work, we packed up the rest of our stuff and hit the road. We had about 6 hours of driving to get to our hotel for the night. That doesn’t sound like much, but I had been packing all day and Justin had been working so we were both already exhausted.

One thing we’ve learned about driving is that it’s SO much better to do it during the day. You miss out on so many amazing things when you drive at night. Not to mention it’s lonely on the roads we drive and can be pretty scary. To prove how creepy it can be….

Around 11pm we were driving through Oregon. It’s pitch black outside and there aren’t many cars on the road. We can barely see the mountains that are surrounding us, but know they’re there based on the curvy, steep roads. This is seriously the middle of no-where.

As we’re driving, all the sudden Justin yells out “look out your window”! I glance up in time to see a GIANT dragon statue right outside my window. It’s even light up with a spot light making it even creepier…as if that was possible. I freaked.

Just when I think it can’t get weirder, we notice a couple of lights in the valley below. It looks like a really small town with just a few houses. I mean maybe 4 or 5 houses at most. Right above the “village”, in a sea of darkness, is a bright circle of light and weird clouds. It was like a giant evil eye of light. Sound weird? Well, it was. I was so freaked out I told Justin to bust a move and get us out of there.

I managed to find a picture of the dragon. I didn’t take it but I found it on the internet. You tell me it wouldn’t weird you out to see that in the middle of no-where at night!

This is during the daytime. Photo borrowed from google images.

As for a picture of the creepy clouds/light, I found something similar. If you look at the pic below you’ll see a circle of clouds. Imagine if you saw that circle, but the rest of the sky was pitch black. Scary, no?

Anyway, we made it to our hotel and crashed for the night. The next morning I think I weirded out the guy at the check-out desk when I asked him if there was a “dragon town” somewhere close by. I tried to explain, but he just keep looking more confused. I guess I’ll always be the “weird dragon girl”. Hehe. We continued on our way and headed for our first stop at the University of Oregon to see, you guessed it, the football stadium. It was pretty stinkin’ nice!

University of Oregon's football stadium.

Our next stop was Oregon State about an hour away. The entrance to their football stadium was so pretty. We ended up circling the whole thing so we got a few great pics.

Oregon State's football stadium.

It turns out that Oregon State was having their spring game. (Random trivia, they make you buy tickets for the game. How strange!?) Justin tried to get the ticket takers (in the right corner of the above photo) to let him in, but no dice. We kept driving around and finally found someone who let Justin sneak in for a few pics.

Oregon State's football stadium.

Oregon State's football stadium.

Oregon State’s campus was also gorgeous. We found an awesome little Hawaiian restaurant that had THE best sauce we’ve ever had. It was like a soy sauce/tariyaki combo that was insanely good. They even had signs in the restaurant saying it was a crime to steal the bottles of sauce! A quick lunch and we were back on the road. And what a beautiful road it was…

While we were driving we saw this gorgeous field of yellow flowers. I wanted a picture of it SO bad. When we realized we would be passing it again to go back to the interstate from campus, I begged Justin to pull over. I’m so glad he did. I think this is my favorite picture I’ve ever taken. It’s definitely getting framed when we get a house! (P.S. I didn’t even photoshop it!)

A few more hours on the road and we made it to Washington. I have to say, the one thing we noticed about the state is all the stunning bridges. As soon as we crossed the state line, we started going over bridges. And then more bridges. Every single one was beautiful.

And of course we saw a couple random things along the way. These giant wind vanes for example.

Finally, after 12 hours of driving, we caught our first glimpse of Seattle! It looked just like we imagined…overcast :).

We’re so excited to explore our new home! Check back tomorrow for pics of our new apartment…

Alcatraz.

We had a great post planned about Alcatraz, but time got away from us. Instead, it’ll be a picture post. Don’t you love those? I know they’re not as fun as a post with stories and random trivia, but it’ll have to do. A couple weeks ago we took a boat to visit this infamous island. We decided to take a night tour and are SO glad we did. It really provides such a unique view of life on the island.

The ship we rode over.

The gorgeous view of the city behind us.

Looking back on San Francisco.

This was the first thing we saw....creepy.

I love the old, rusted building against the gorgeous backdrop. So ironic.

Pulling around the back side of the island to the dock.

Gorgeous colors in this pic.

This building is just about falling down.

The Indians wrote this when they "overtook" the island.

Yep, that's me at the end. I didn't realize I was in the picture.

Even the birds were "behind bars", hehe.

Look how small those cells were!

My favorite picture Justin took from the entire night.

Justin locked me up. He's been wanting to do that for a while I'm guessing.

My turn! I did let him out after a while :).

The bullet holes from the infamous escape attempt.

Inside someone's old cell.

How sad would it be to see the city from a distance?

I'm "visiting" Justin in jail.

A stunning view of the city. I'd hate to have that view though!

The history of Alcatraz is really interesting. If you want to read up on it, check it out here. Sorry we don’t have more time to share everything we learned!!

Did you?

Did you happen to fly out to San Diego and put a starfish on my pillow?

We went upstairs the other day, and found this little guy on my pillow.

Look on the train pillow. See it?

I’m creeped out.

Anyone else?

Justin is convinced it fell off of a shelf that I somehow knocked into–without remembering.

A shelf that is built-in and out of reach.

I’m not convinced.

I think someone broke in just to put this on my pillow and scare me.

Any other ideas?

P.S. Yes, that is a kiddie train pillow case. It was Justin’s growing up and I use it now. I’m dang proud of it too :).

He’s a What?

*****UPDATE: My mom should be on a flight first thing this morning!!*****

In other news, we thought we’d share with you another “what the heck is that” pick.

This one is really creepy.

Seriously.

He’s about 4′ tall and serves as the handy dandy vacuum cleaner cover.

That’s right. A vacuum cleaner cover.

Of course, it’s most important purpose is to scare the ever loving mess out of us!