Ruth's Super Secret Story Blog

So, I started a blog a few weeks ago, kind of a "choose your own adventure" blog. I started it and, besides facebook, didn't tell anyone about it. I certainly didn't advertise it well.

But I'm telling you now!

Go to this blog and vote for title you most want to see written out by one of our "staff writers."

The comment function wasn't working, but I think I fixed it. And you don't have to be a blogspot member to leave a comment. So leave comments to your heart's desire!

I make no promises that any of the stories will be good, but they may be entertaining.

Oregon Coast

We recently took a little trip to the Oregon Coast during the 3-day weekend. We heard that the Sea Lion caves have been visited by almost all of the San Francisco sea lions, leaving pier 39 very empty. So we went to see what we could.

The day was cloudy and windy, with just a little rain. The cave was very full though. When we were there, there were about 500 sea lions in the cave. The smaller darker ones are the ones from California. The bigger Stellar Sea Lions don’t like the California sea lions taking their spots on the rocks, so there was a lot of fighting.

It was also high tide when we were there. At the mouth of the cave, a large group of sea lions were floating in and out of the mouth of the cave with the waves.

We headed north and made a stop by a sea spout, a cave on the shore that has a hole in the roof. When it is filled with water and a wave comes, it shoots out and looks like a geyser.

Ruth also had some fun making the waves obey her commands.

We finished the day with a stop at Devil’s Punchbowl and Cape Foulweather. It was more windy and cold up there. Then we got some delicious taffy from Depoe Bay.

All in all it was a great day at the beach, in January.

Last Week in Rhode Island

We are now back in Vancouver. We had a great time in Rhode Island and we always wish we could stay longer. Our last week was very nice. We were able to spend more time with Ruth’s friend Cheryl and her friend. We all went to the Roger Williams Zoo in Providence together.

We saw some great animals there, including the barn owl above and some giant anteaters. I had to add this photo of a flamingo after I saw Ruth's sisters blog post.

One of the biggest reasons I wanted to go to the zoo was to see the American Burying Beetles, which is very endangered and this zoo has a breeding program for. But we were surprised to see their display consisted of a Tupperware and some paper towel, much like how I sometimes keep things.

This video is of the snow leopard. It was doing just fine in the cold weather. We also saw elephants, giraffes, a red panda, seals, a tree kangaroo, and many other fun animals. It was a good day at the zoo, plus there were only about 8 other people there.

We also got to see the world’s largest bug, this giant termite:

We spent a day with Ruth’s mother and made a stop at Dighton Rock in Massachusetts. It is a large boulder with strange markings on it with unknown origin. It was a neat thing to see.

Our last day we took the opportunity to spend some time at Ruth’s beach near her house.

It was a great trip and we were sad to leave. Thank you to Ruth’s parents for letting us stay for so long.

A trip to the other Washington

Between Christmas and New Years we had the opportunity to go to Washington DC. We volunteered to transport Ruth’s brother, Dave, to Virginia, so that he could drive to Provo with a friend and then take a shuttle to Rexburg to start school at BYU-Idaho. We were happy to take him down to Virginia, because that gave us the excuse to see Washington DC.

 

We spent a few days seeing as much as our feet and the cold would let us. One of my must-sees is the National Natural History Museum.

This is me in front of a giant squid. We thought this was pretty big until we went around the corner…

 

…and saw the female. She is contained in the large box everyone is looking into.

We were also able to meet up with Ruth’s old roommate, Emily, who lives in Baltimore. She is the one that introduced us to each other. She is a big fan of Lincoln, so we went to Ford’s Theater.

We also did the monument parade:

Jefferson

 

Lincoln

and some of the war memorials

We also visited the Botanical Gardens, Portrait Gallery, walked around the Capitol, and went inside the Library of Congress. I ran down to see the Supreme Court building, but we had to leave soon after, because there was reportedly a dangerous man nearby and they were setting up snipers on the steps of the Library of Congress. We just got on the Metro and left.

We also saw the National Christmas Tree set up in front of the White House.

 

Before heading home we went to Manassas National Battlefield. That was a really interesting place neither of us had been before.

Back in Rhode Island we had another snow storm. I was able to make a small snow man on New Years Eve, and he is still out there.