Washington (Thursday and Friday)

From the very beginning I could tell that this was a trip that God had his blessing on. On my 5 hour flight out to Seattle I sat next to a Christian lady who was a stay on home. (with the exception that she was flying to Seattle) She had son in GA tech and one in Southern Poly for CS. Frank may have had some classes with him. It's a small world.

After arriving in Seattle I got my rental car and started driving North to Bellingham for the 2 hours of work I came here for in the first place. Everybody at the University was surprisingly friendly and was probably one of the best punch list visits I had made. Everyone had great advice on where to go for hiking and having some fun in Washington. Everybody also had different opinions one where to go. I talked with the general contractor for awhile while waiting for the man in charge of the project. The university had a coffee shop next to the Chick-fil-a that had been giving the workers free coffee so so the GC and I grabbed a cup while waiting. Little did I know that the GC (who was college age) kinda had a thing for one of the girls working at the shop. So he was standing there flirting a little while getting the coffee and the subject of camping and hiking came up, so I jump in the conversation and pretty much took over the conversation with girl. Later had commented on the fact that I had undercut him on that one. I was like “oh, my bad” I was just trying to figure out where to go hiking.

After work I drove down to meet an ALERT guy that I kinda knew that lived in the area. He is a state trooper and was working the state fair that night. I really didn't want to pay the 9 bucks it would take to get into the fair just so I could meet up with him and eat supper. After all I had already paid 7 bucks just to park. So I tried talking with the nice old ladies at will call hoping they would just let me slide in on something. They were nice but basically said no you're an idiot. So I start walking to the booth to buy a ticket in and a cop from the sheriffs office comes out. I think to myself “What the heck, it's worth a try” so I ask him if he know my friend who is a trooper and explained the situation. He said he didn't know him but I could have the ticket he was holding in his had. Turns out he had a free ticket he was looking to give away to somebody. If that is not amazing I don't know what is.

Friday my friend and I went hiking. There are so many trails, waterfalls and mountain here to hike it made it hard to pick just one. After getting advice from many random and known people we headed out up a mountain. It was beautiful. There were a few waterfalls on the way up and at the end of the hike was a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains and small waterfalls cascading down the side of the mountain. There was still snow frozen on the ground around the lake. God's creation can be breath taking.

My friend from ALERT (which to be honest neither of us could remember what the other looked like, just knew the name) has given me a place to stay, given me breakfast and dinner, (i bought lunch) and took off work so we could go hiking to together yesterday. As we were sitting on couch last night watching a movie eating ice cream it seemed like we had known each other for years and were close friends once again reunited. God has blessed.