.seattle and onward.

Oh man...I have been remiss in my blogging as of late...considering Amy and I roadtripped back in...May? And school is already back in. *sigh*
So...Seattle. After Cannon Beach we headed back north, and we found Eric's relative's house where we were staying, but no one was home, so we decided to hit up a mall to kill a bit of time. There we discovered stirrup pants. But I also found very beautiful shoes that make me feel sexy, and Amy and I found a few tops and stuff, so it was good time killing...even if not financially.
Amy called Eric's relatives, but the only name she had was Ruth, and a guy answered the phone. Amy's connection wasn't very good and she couldn't hear a voice, just that the phone stopped ringing, so she said "Ruth?" and the guy was like "Nooooo" haha. Anyways, they were super nice, and it was wonderful to stay with them. We also got a personal tour of all the non-downtown touristy sites like Lenin and the troll.
The next day we borrowed change from grandma to take the bus downtown. We went up the tower (way over-rated), took pictures of funky sculptures, walked around Pike Place and saw the original Starbucks, and went on an underground tour. The underground tour was super interesting; I feel like I really learned a lot about the city and how it was founded. Which was mostly funded by prostitutes (aka "seamstresses" with no sewing machines). We walked around hotels where you could pay by the half hour, and one of the guys on the tour quipped that maybe the businessmen just wanted "power naps" haha.
After the tour we wanted to buy flowers for our hosts, but the market was closed, so we found a little flower shop nearby. The man who worked there is a major jerk. He kept insulting us and calling us stupid and ugly. He gave us a discount on the flowers, but if he wasn't the only flower place open we totally would have left.
Anyways, we were trying to find the right bus stop to head back, and it was kind of confusing, but this nice Seattle Ambassador on his bicycle gave us clear directions and we found home easily.
We decided to drive home through Montana, and what a wonderful choice that was! It was a beautiful drive, and I'm fairly certain that I would rather live in hills than mountains now. I mean, mountains are beautiful and stuff, I'm not denying that, but I really loved those hills! We stopped in Kalispell for the night, and chose a hotel with a hot tub and breakfast.
The next day we headed home, but the road was not clearly labelled...plus we didn't have any maps with us. So we drove around trying to steal wireless internet to check out google maps, haha. We were successful!
Then we wanted to go on Going to the Sun Road, but it didn't open until June, so we were given general directions of "keep going for a while, when you see this, veer left, but not sharp left" etc. But first we stopped to get huckleberry somethings...there was a store full of huckleberry honey, huckleberry jam, huckleberry tea, etc.
On our way we saw some really cool trees and stopped to climb them.
Our wait at the border was non-existent which was lovely.
And then we stopped at Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump to take some photos.

So...it was a lovely road trip. We had lots of adventures, but I must say...I'm glad to finally be done blogging about it! haha.

.cannon beach.

So...back to my road trip.
Amy and I left Portland to drive on a beautiful road to Cannon Beach. We got there, drove to Sarah's house to make sure we could find it, and then went back downtown hoping to find a bathroom. It began to rain so we decided to duck into stores until we found one with a bathroom. We went into one that had some amazing photography and paintings, and there was a cafe in it too, but it was closed. But we still got to use the bathroom, cuz the lady there took pity on us. Then we went next door to the next store, and as we were browsing around all of a sudden I heard Sarah's voice, and she was like "Meghan? What are you doing here?" It was awesome...we accidentally bumped into her at her job when I didn't even know she worked in a store there. So then Amy and I kept wandering around in art galleries and shops until Sarah got off work.
We went to a local restaurant for dinner, and as we were leaving the guy working there was like, "see you later!" and I said, "probably not!" but it was supposed to be under my breath. Oops! It was bad though, cuz I think Sarah was shooting his son's wedding the next weekend.
She's got the cutest little house right near the beach. Oh, I adore walking barefoot on a beach! Bliss. It was really cold that night though, so we bundled up before our walk on the beach. We saw some crazy kid dive repeatedly into the ocean, and I chased some seagulls.
It was too cold to go surfing, plus there were sharks apparently, so the next day Amy and I naturally decided to go to a cheese factory instead. The Pacific Coast Highway is gorgeous. We had a nice drive, and we pulled over to stop at a thrift store. We parked at a deserted pizza place next door to it, and this guy popped his head out the window to yell at us for taking parking spots from his non-existent customers. We told him we wouldn't be long, and he said, "half an hour?" and I said, "probably 5 minutes?" and, well, based on the incredible finds at the thrift store, my guess was a lot more accurate than his, haha.
Oh, at one point we saw a cop driving behind us, so Amy put on the cruise control at the speed limit to make sure he couldn't pull her over. But he put on his flashing lights anyways and pulled us over after a few minutes. We were pretty confused as to why, and kind of freaking out a little, but as he approached the car he looked pretty sheepish. He told her not to bother getting her license out or anything and that we could just keep going. I guess he ran our plates and didn't notice that they weren't from Oregon, but my license plate is the same as a stolen vehicle in Oregon.
That night after a delicious dinner we set out to make a fire on the beach. Sarah had claimed a fire pit near her house as her own for the summer after some college students built it a few weeks earlier, but her recycling had just been picked up and we didn't have any paper to start the fire. We had some wood, but only little pieces for making a teepee, nothing really to burn once the fire got going. Plus it was really windy. So we searched in the dark on the beach for things to burn, and Sarah went to get cardboard boxes from her store. Mostly the fire was a cardboard fire, haha, but we did get a pretty decent blaze going after a while. Fire + beach + stars = great night.
We also went for a hike with Sarah down a cliff near God's Finger, and we got some fun pics. It was so great to see her again! It was a quick visit, but totally worth it. I love that girl!