Washington State: Kurt Cobain Memorial Park

 

A view from the park entrance. 

Pretty small, but powerful if you're a Nirvana fan

My wife and I were heading to the ocean and I made it a point to stop by the Kurt Cobain Memorial Park on the way. I heard about this place being built and I've wanted to check it out for a while now. Being from the Seattle area Nirvana and the grunge music was huge when I was growing up. I was a major fan of Nirvana as well as Alice in Chains, Mother Love Bone, Soundgarden, & Pearl Jam growing up. The death of Kurt Cobain hit the fan community pretty hard here!

We stopped by the park and my first impression was that it's pretty small. It's located at the end of a dead end street. I read that Kurt Cobain grew up a couple of blocks away from this park. The park isn't fancy by any means, but I have to say it is pretty cool for a fan to spend some time in the same area where Kurt hung out.

 

The main sign at the park giving a little history

of the area and Kurt. "His spirit flows with the tide

twice daily" 

"Cobain immortalized the bridge through music,

but now the bridge immortalizes Cobain" — Rachel Thomson

Something in the Way

The sign showing some of the lyrics that were

inspired by Kurt's time hanging out under the bridge

Some of Kurt's quotes on this granite memorial headstone

including "Drugs are bad for you. They will fuck you up"

(but the city mayor found the profanity offensive and

had the word "fuck" sandblasted away)

Kurt's Air Guitar

The backside of the "As You Were" memorial

The front side of the "As You Were" memorial

All in all, the park was pretty cool to see because I'm a huge fan. I wouldn't suggest driving to Aberdeen just to see this memorial, but if it's anywhere near a drive you're currently on...stop by and check it out!!

Leavenworth WA: Christmas Lighting Festival

Looking down the main street of Leavenworth with the

crowd and the lights

I've lived in Washington State my entire life with a few exceptions while in the army and as an exchange student. I've even lived in Wenatchee, which is a town just down the highway from Leavenworth. While we've visited Leavenworth quite a few times, we've never checked out the Christmas Lightning Festival.

Leavenworth is a small town with a Bavarian theme located in the Cascade Mountain Range. It's a beautiful little slice of Germany with some amazing scenery. The town features quite a few shops and has some great local wine tasting.

The Christmas Lighting Festival brought about 15,000 people this year to this tiny town that has a regular population of about 2000. The entire town was packed everywhere we went. The sound of Christmas was in the air as bands played Christmas music from the main gazebo/stage in the center of town. Santa and his helpers can be seen throughout the day and there are many extra vendors out selling their products. Snow was plentiful and the smells were delicious.

Parking was difficult to say the least. Because so many people were here for the festival, all the usual public parking spots were full. We ended up parking at the local high school a few blocks away and paid the $10 fee. We ate at King Ludwig's Restaurant right when we arrived. We were starving after the long drive there and just went to the first place we could find. The German food and atmosphere were great, but the price was on the spendy side.

A view of downtown when we arrived

We didn't go in too many of the shops just because of all the people. It was pretty crazy, I've never seen so many people in this tiny town before. We did make it into one of the local wine shops. My wife did their wine sampling and my friend and I had some "Gluhwein", just like we used to have when we visited the Christmas Markets in Germany.

After that we waited until the ceremony which starts at 4:30. The kids choir finished their songs and then the mayor came out and did a little speech. Santa Claus came out and said a few things, then some folks brought some lit up stars to the gazebo from each side of the crowd. They had a count down...and then over half a million lights lit up the town. The site was pretty amazing and beautiful!

A view of the gazebo with the entertainment in full swing

A view to the left before the lighting

A view to the right before the lighting

The lights start to turn on

The lights start coming on the buildings


 

Another view of the buildings and their lights

The gazebo and it's lights

We're glad we went, but probably will never do it again just because there were just too many people there.

Washington State: Olympic National Park (Olympic Hot Springs)

We've lived in Washington State for most our lives, but had yet to visit the Olympic National Park. So we decided to pack up and go for a little hiking adventure. We weren't sure what to see or where to go, so we just picked an address we found on google and headed out.

We ended up going to the Elwha Valley portion of the Olympic National Park. I was surprised that in order to drive up to the trail head that we had to pay $20 for parking. Once parked we headed out with a couple of backpacks, loaded with water and snacks for our day hike.

The trailhead marker at the end of the parking area

We started our hike with nowhere in particular to go, we just wanted to get out of the house, see some nature, and get a little exercise.

The start of the trail is wide and well maintained

The start as you can see above is an easy trail with a slight incline. We headed out and just enjoyed the scenery. Not knowing what to expect and hoping that we may see a waterfall or two. The day was nice and the scenery was amazing.

This was the first bridge we came across along the trail

The first bridge we came across along the trail was pretty big. In the picture above you can see our friend standing in the middle of the bridge. We kept going soaking up all the scenery and nature.'

Here you can see the trail is smaller and trees are everywhere

We continued through the forest...amazed at all the large trees everywhere. In the picture above you can see how small our friends are with all the trees around them.

The second bridge (well more like a large log) that we came across

After crossing the second bridge we decided to take a break and eat snacks...and drink water. This is one thing that is important to bring...water! There are no water fountains or any other service areas out on the trail. This particular spot was pretty cool, we enjoyed the running water all around us and even a little waterfall as well.

Some girls hanging out in front of the small waterfall

After our short break we continued to head up the trail. We then started to smell what I'm going to describe as a strong sulfur smell. We came across the first natural hot spring on the trail. We had already seen a couple people walking back on the trail with towels around them as if they had just finished swimming. We now see that they were probably hanging out in the hot spring. There were a few people in there when we arrived. We had to go up and stick our hands in to feel just how hot it is. It felt pretty similar to a hot tub. This is just one of several hot springs I've read that are located around the park. The water is heated from the earth's interior.

Looking up at the hot spring from the hiking trail

Folks just relaxing in the hot spring

We continued hiking up the trail for a while, but then decided to turn around and head back. We realized we could have used some more water along the way, we finished ours on the way back and were still pretty thirsty by the time we arrived at our car. Our total hike was a little over 8 miles. More than we had planned for a first time here, but we were enjoying ourselves so much that we just kept wandering around. From the trailhead to the hot springs is about 2.4 miles.

When we got back to the car we all drank a bunch of water we had left in the car and ate more snacks. On the drive back we stopped to take a quick picture of what we thought was a dried up lake due to drought conditions, but I later read was a dam removal for the Elwha River restoration. You can take a look at the pictures below to see the dramatic difference now that the dam has been removed.

We all had a blast and look forward to checking out a lot more of the hiking trails that the Olympic National Park as to offer. The place is beautiful!!