Ockey Family Adventures: Seattle Day 8

View of North Cascades behind the Visitor Center

We were really tired to start this day! We did sleep in a little, but we still got some hiking done. After breakfast at the Buffalo Run Inn, we drove back into North Cascades. We did a few short hikes right around the Visitor Center including one to a rock shelter used by Native Americans hundreds of years ago, and another that was a gentle nature walk through the cedars. The boys really enjoyed spotting slugs on that one!

This is the rock shelter.

We saw a ton of slugs on this trail.

Our last day walking through the rainforests.

This leaf was as big as Dax's head!

This was a different type of slug we had never seen before.

Seth especially loved all of the slugs along the trail.

This bridge was at the end of the hike.

Mom likes to prove she was around sometimes.

Next we drove back to the powerplant, where we did a walk to the waterfall. Back in the early days of electricity, this waterfall and the gardens were lit with colored lights and music played for visitors. We wished we had known because they have added the lights back to the waterfall, so we could have visited the night before. Today it wasn't as exciting, but the waterfall was still busy.

The kids were getting a little tired of hiking.

They used to have beautiful gardens and pools to enjoy.

This is the waterfall that is lit up at night.

Our last plan was to drive out Cascade Creek Road. This would take us into a different section of the park to do a seven mile hike. Since the road washed out a few days ago, we knew we couldn't do the hike, but we could still drive a good distance out there and try to spot an animal. Of course, we didn't spot any animals, but we did have a nice drive. This is the only time that we were actually in the National park. The other times we had been exploring Ross Lake Recreation Area.

We finally entered North Cascades.

This Tahoe was a good rental car!!

We got back to Seattle around 4 o'clock and got everything up to the hotel room to repack it. We didn't hang around long, though. We quickly drove over and parked next to T-Mobile Park. Tonight we had tickets to the Mariners vs. Rangers game.

Since we're big Red Sox fans, the boys were excited that they were showing the Red Sox game on the jumbo-tron until our game started. We didn't really care who won out of the Mariners and Texas, but we did have a favorite player. Seth's baseball coach has a brother who pitches as a reliever for Texas. We went to the bullpen to see him when he came out.

We love going to baseball games.

They had a little Mariners museum. We stopped to say hi to Randy Johnson.

And also Ken Griffey, Jr.

Our seats were right by the foul pole.

We had the best time at the Mariners game!

Seth's first baseball!

As luck would have it, you can stand right by the pen and watch the pitchers warm up. While we were waiting for Joe Barlow, who threw warm ups with Seth at a practice before his call up to the Major Leagues, the Rangers pitching coach tossed Seth a ball. He was so excited! We continued to watch, but Joe never showed up. Eventually, just before the game started, another coach handed Seth a ball!

We quickly headed to our seats for the first pitch. After the top of the first, we saw the relief pitchers moving over to the bullpen. We made a mad dash and caught Joe's attention. He came over and gave Seth a few minutes. He handed him a third ball (one for each boy!) and took a photo right there in the bullpen with Seth.

The game was all tied up when Joe came in the bottom of the 8th. He pitched a clean inning and then the Rangers led off with a homer in the 9th! We were sure we were going to see Joe get his first win. But the Rangers blew it and had to upset Seattle in the tenth inning. We weren't too upset, though. We'd had an amazing day at the ballpark. It isn't every day you take a photo with a big leaguer and then walk away with three baseballs!