Donuts, more food, and walking off that food!

This chubby little thing greeted us after getting out of the car for some Saturday morning donuts at Mighty O.

One donut for each hand. I don’t mess around. Peanut butter and orange blossom! I’m on level 2 of Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred…I deserve donuts!

I spotted this gem after leaving the donut shop. I saw it, stopped the car and put it in reverse. There are a ton of these Little Free Libraries popping up all over Seattle AND the states! Look them up to find a Little Free Library near you!

The Little Free Libraries are free, of course, or a leave one take one deal. I’m going to start carrying some books in my car so I can trade books if I find something I like!

In Fremont there’s a vintage shop we like to check out once in a while. We usually find some interesting items, but I’m also usually too cheap. We picked up a bag of groceries and since we didn’t have enough food already, we went to Bamboo Garden for some lunch! I always seem to get their creamy corn chowder.

Mongolian beef! 100% vegan too!

After stuffing our faces we needed a walk. We ventured around Discovery Park for about an hour. I was sleepy, but I kept on truckin’.

Fort Lawton is in Discovery Park and used to be a missile base. There are some houses that are still lived in by Army personnel. That big ‘ol white thing in the background is a radar tower.

Discovery Park is huge. Five hundred thirty four acres huge! The park is in decent condition, but it could use some loving. Parts of the park are paved paths and some are just dirt. There’s a lighthouse that you can walk to which we did not do this time. I think we it gets a little sunnier and warmer we’ll take the long walk to the beach and lighthouse!

That tree wasn’t messing around!

We’re getting more sun an blue skies! I can’t wait until I don’t have to wear a jacket and socks. I hate socks.

These are old parts of the base that aren’t lived in or used any more. I wish you could walk through the buildings. I get that you can’t leave them open all the time, but having them open at certain times would be nice!

This fun building was the gymnasium!

And a church on the base was poking through the trees.

If you’re in Seattle and haven’t been to Discovery Park, you should definitely check it out! But be cautious…tiny plants grow by the inch BUT die by the foot! What a zinger!

Friday to Saturday.

Friday is my favorite day to go to the thrift store!  I guess I just like going out after work to start my weekend by sorting through old junk.

I found this little crewel gem yesterday! I kill most house plants so now I have a collection of plants that I can’t kill!

Purrito even approves!

Today we went to Seattle for major noms! We ate lunch at Wayward and then did some shopping. But then we stopped at Mighty O before heading home! I oinked it up and had two donuts! The vegetables I bought for juicing are glaring at me from the top shelf of the refrigerator.

Mighty O yes!

I went to Seattle today to pick up some vegan donuts from Mighty O.  Eric didn’t want to make the drive down with me, so he was lucky I made it home without eating all of them!  We used to go to Mighty O at least once a week when we lived in Seattle.  While I miss that…I’m sure my hips don’t miss that sugary fried goodness.

Pumpkin spice, vanilla cream filled, chocolate raised and vanilla raised.

Juniper was waiting for some donuts. Silly baby kitty!!

Have Love Will Travel- Day 1

We stopped at Mighty-O before hitting the road! Donuts are a must for a trip!

We stopped at Frenchman Coulee near Vantage, WA. We’ve been here about a dozen times but we love it every time we’re there!

I put our state map on the car! We traveled through two more states together on this trip so I still have to color those in.

Here’s my Grasshopper donut from Might-O. Mint and chocolate!

We’re in Cougs country! Eastern Washington is home to Washington State University. Go Cougs!

We travel on old roads and through broken down towns.

Palouse Falls!

Buzzy bee.

Near Palouse Falls.

 

I love the desert wildflowers!

Looking down the gorge at Palouse Falls.

Listen!

Someone made these fun metal cutouts of a Lewis and Clark camp.

We brake for trains and train stations!

Welcome to Oregon! And here’s a crappy picture!

Broken down.

We pulled over in Oregon for a stretch break and some photos with a massive dandelion.

I told him to dip me. “That’s a long dip down if I drop you.”

What a gorgeous old hotel!

The first night was spent in Baker City, OR. We brought a little cook stove along with us for this trip! Indian food was on the menu for the night.

Good night from Bakery City!

Seattle donuts!

Eric and I had to make a quick trip to Seattle this afternoon.  Donuts were needed as well.

Bloomin’ flowers and eatin’ donuts!

The flowers have been loving the Seattle sun this week!

 

I noticed today that even the lupines along the highway are in bloom.

 

Eric had a dentist appointment today so I went to Mighty O and snagged some donuts for us! Spoiled spoiled vegan!

 

 

Day trip to Frenchman Coulee and Taunton- part 1

Yesterday Eric and I went on our first day trip to central Washington this year! I love the Washington desert! I took about 230 photos and I’ve whittled it down to 125 or so to share with you. I’m going to split our day into two separate blog entries so you’re not overwhelmed with photos! Also, Eric and I have a travel blog called Hey I’m Over Here. Click the link to visit our travel blog for even more fun and photos from our trip. We have a Facebook page for our travel blog too! Feel free to like us to stay up to date on our adventures!

We headed east on I-90 through Snoqualmie Pass. As you can see they still have a ton of snow in the pass. And that snow isn't piled up snow from plowing...that's just normal snow fall that hasn't melted!

These are ski cabins for rich people. I bet they don't dig themselves out.

In Easton, Washington we spotted this guy. Eric's a train guy so we stopped for some photos.

We were even able to walk inside of the train car!

This was also in Easton.

Roslyn, Washington. This is where Northern Exposure was filmed!

Roslyn had some fun murals. I think this one looks like Ron Swanson from the show Parks and Rec!

Marlon Brando.

Back on the road we spotted some windmills. Over the past few years Washington has been installing more and more of these in the central part of the state.

We were chasing down this train to snap a shot of it with Eric's Holga camera. A stop sign in the middle of nowhere made us abort the operation.

More windmills. There was a visitors center for the Wild Horse Wind Farm. Apparently that's what they're calling the windmills. We stopped by to check it out though.

These things are huge!

The drive to the visitors center was three miles out of the way, but we've driven longer distances to see less exciting things!

Windmills!

In the distance to the right you can see Mt. Rainier. And in the distance to the left you can see a tiny bit of Mt. St. Helens!

Mt. Rainier.

Mt. St. Helens!

It was warm and sunny and windy on the top of the hill.

Hedgehog cactus! See them there in the middle of those rocks?

Look how big the propellers are! Scary big I might say!

We brought Mighty O donuts along with us on the trip! It was donut time after we got back to the car from the visitors center.

Here's the Columbia River! There used to be a ferry here so you could cross the river. That was many many moons ago and now there's a big fancy bridge to take you to the other side.

This is looking down the Columbia. The fancy bridge is way off in the distance.

Old ferry waiting lines.

We drove a short distance to a higher elevation, but in the same area, to go to the Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park. Those chunks on the ground are actually petrified wood!

Petrified wood and desert flowers.

Looking up the Columbia again. Those trees at the bottom left is where the ferry used to pick up the cars.

We had petrified wood here AND petroglyphs!

These are not their original location though.

These were originally a few miles north of here.

Someone decided to build a dam and if these were still in their original location they would currently be under water. Dams are destructive.

These are just awesome!

More chunks of petrified wood.

The Ginkgo Gem Shop is right beside the Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park. They have a store, but behind the store they have a bunch of rocks and petrified wood that you can sort through and buy!

Petrified wood! We have a piece of petrified birch wood we bought a few years ago.

And of course the gem shop has some dinosaurs in front of their building!

Dinosaur friends!

A lovely day, no?

Come back for part 2 tomorrow!

Record Store Day, vegan goods, and the Space Needle! Fun in the sun!

After racing through Silver Platters for Record Store Day we went to Wayward Vegan Cafe for some food.

While at Wayward Eric found out that it was only $1 to go to the top of the Space Needle today! It's usually $19, but today was some sort of special day and they were apparently feeling generous. We ALSO saw today that they repainted the Space Needle to the original colors from the 1962 World's Fair! This is incredibly awesome! But sadly it's going to stay the original colors for six months. How weird. I love the "galaxy gold" Space Needle!

I found what appeared to be some yarn bombing near the Space Needle. Eric thought it was some sort of permanent installation though.

Today was a lovely Seattle spring day!

Eric took a few photos of the fountain near the Needle with his Holga camera.

Blue!

Here's part of the new permanent Dale Chihuly glass museum right beside the Needle. I like the glass, but I'm not really a huge Dale Chihuly fan.

I love the Needle!

More glass. You can't really tell from this photo, but the purple glass on the left looked like raw gemstones. It was quite lovely!

Hey Monorail!

The Monorail goes through the Frank Gehry building on the other side of the Space Needle.

Parts of the Frank Gehry building are very unattractive, but this part is gorgeous. Most of this other buildings have these same metallic waves.

And the Monorail comes out of the other side of the Frank Gehry building.

There's the monorail!

Bye!

We sadly didn't go to the top of the Needle today. There was at least a two hour wait. The whole area around the Needle was packed today because of festivities for the 50th anniversary of the World's Fair. There were plenty of food trucks there including Mighty O Donuts! Vegan fun!

Love!

I tried to take our photo with the Space Needle. Eric tried to steal my donut.

We drove to a park in Queen Anne that overlooks the city. This was our first time at this park and the view is incredible! Note AWESOME Mt. Rainier in the background?

This is looking south at Alki Beach.

I love our city! And our orange Space Needle.

The Fremont Bridge was up on our way back through town.

Record Store Day finds! Foster the People and Grouplove! And Juniper!

Awesome clear yellow vinyl.

Of Monsters and Men AND Fun.!

Fun. had some fun glittery gold shaped vinyl!

Today was a fantastic day in the city!  Eric wrote about his Record Store Day experience too!…click here to read it!  

Sunny Seattle Saturday!

Turtle enjoyed the sunshine on the way to Seattle today.

We started the day with some vegan donuts from Mighty O! I love them so much! The donut on the left is a peanut butter chocolate and the one on the right is a raised chocolate cream. OMG!

Cuteness!

Cupcake Royale in Ballard FINALLY has a vegan cupcake.

Hey creepy french fry guy!

We stopped by Wayward Vegan Cafe for lunch. They have a new menu so I tried the Wayward Burger. I approve!

I'm making a padded insert for my camera bag. I need foam to do this. Luckily Seattle has a Friendly Foam Store! How could I not take advantage of this?! They are super friendly and they have foam. They couldn't have picked a better name for their company.

Since it was warm and sunny we went to Carkeek beach park. I miss living in Seattle. We live in such an awesome part of the country!

There were a ton of people on the beach today.

There's the Olympic Mountain range.

It was low tide when we were at the beach so we were able to spot a few shells.

Barnacles!

Even though it was a little windy the sun was warm on our lily white faces.

A train was coming around the bend. Many people ran to the train bridge to wave hello and to take pictures. Eric is up there in the crowd.

There he is!

There was a crazy Seattleite swimming. Brr!

Shell.

Cute!

Eric was rather sweet at the park. We were walking across a wet and swampy part of the park. He stopped and motioned for me to hop on his back. He carried me across the marshy land. He earned major gold stars for that one!

Quack quack!

On the way home we stopped at the Root Beer Store. Eric took a photo of our haul at home. Junie needed attention as you can see.

Eric also wrote about the Root Beer Store over on his blog Little Black Star!  Click and check it out!

A busy Saturday indeed!

Today Eric and I went to Seattle for some donuts and Christmas shopping. We also met up with a friend of Eric's at Mighty O.

A raised donut with coconut! And a gingerbread donut!

We stopped by Jive Time and the vintage store in Fremont. I saw this awesome yellow table!

This table was kind of cute as well.

Banana covers. Andy Warhol's famous banana! The sign on the box said..."Don't ask."

Bananas? Why not.

We ate lunch at Wayward Vegan Cafe in the U-District. Here's a blurry photo of what I ate. I had a Tempeh Reuben sammich.

While we ate a Santa bar crawl strolled past the restaurant.

A company called Sweet and Sara sells their vegan marshmallows at Sidecar in Seattle. Sidecar is the vegan grocery store here.

I purchased some vegan white chocolate at Sidecar. I'm trying to get fancy with my chocolate covered pretzels. More on that later...

Tonight was round two of chocolate covered pretzel making. I've successfully coated one pound of pretzels!

Eric gave Juniper a soy curl with nutritional yeast on it tonight. He wiped some of the extra nutritional yeast on the top of her paws. Best paws ever!

Holy God what happened?!

This was a minor success for vegan chocolate making.