The Richter Zone: 10 Year Anniversary Trip Continues again...

Our last morning in Seattle we were finally able to make it into the first Starbucks...there's literally like 400 Starbucks in Seattle- and the drinks all taste the same....but we can say we went there :)

We left Seattle to continue our trip into the mountains, first we stopped off at Snoqualmie Falls. We've seen a lot of waterfalls but I would put this one at the top of the list. It was so beautiful and so neat. I loved the way the water fell and almost looked like sheets of water.

We decide to take the trail and hike down to the bottom of the waterfall...which becomes the steepest trail I've ever walked on....and we get to the bottom and see there's a parking lot where you could park your car...oops...looks like we took the long route.

Scott counted his steps going back up...while I was hyperventilating behind him...1100 steps! At the top there was a sign that said that was like climbing a 30 story building. We certainly burned off those Starbucks drinks on that hike!
The drive out to the mountains was gorgeous! We took a little longer route than normal to drive through the cascade mountains. We weren't that far away from our town when we came around a bend and saw this weird cloud in the sky. At first we wondered if it was a storm cloud, but the more we sat there looking at it we realized it was a fire!

I got on the internet and sure enough a few days before there was a lightning strike that sparked a fire. At first it was a small area, but the day we were driving out there the winds had picked up and the fire spread very quickly. At this time this was one of three fires in the state, it is so dry in this area! The closer we got the more scary it became. These pictures are right at the fire, trees were bursting into flames and spreading right before our eyes!

40 minutes after we got to our bed & breakfast we got a call that the fire had closed down the highway...we would have been in the car for 7 hours if we had gotten there any later and had to turn around! WOW!!

Leavenworth was so amazing! This town is packed all the time because it is such a popular tourist spot- there were a lot less people though because of the fires. I wish we had booked a few more days in this area. I absolutely love the bed & breakfast we stayed at- its called the Run of the River.

The best part about this place was the porch. The Run of the River backs up to 58 acres of wildlife preserve, it was like the discovery channel 24/7 from the porch. There's a mama bear and her twin cubs that come out to swim in the water, but there were shanook's flying that area to pick up water for the fire so we think they were scared by the activity. We did see plenty of other wildlife.