Thanksgiving Holiday

I spent American Thanksgiving with the Gustavsen Family in Walla Walla
Washington. Here are some pictures of the fun we had.

We played games and put together puzzles. Eric and Diane Gustavsen
had already had a visitor from Germany last year. She was an exchange
student who brought them a German flag. I was happy to see my home
flag!



American's celebrate Thanksgiving by remembering the good things from
the last year and having a feast. You can see me with the turkey and
Thanksgiving pies and rolls. I ate so much! Then I watched American
football on TV.

Seattle to Walla Walla

On Tuesday, November 23 we drove over the Cascade mountains into the farm country of eastern Washington State.


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Eastern Washington is much drier than western Washington because the mountains cause the clouds which travel off the Pacific Ocean to drop most of their moisture in the form of rain before they get to the east side of the mountains.

Washington farms grow many things but they are most famous for Apples, Wheat and Grapes for making wine.







To provide water for agriculture and power for northwest U.S. cities huge dams have been built along the Columbia River. These dams provide water for huge circle irrigation systems that go around and around spreading water over the crops. In this google map you can see a dam near where we drove and the green circles of the fields around it.


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Here is what the giant irrigation systems look like.





Washington is also famous for Salmon. These fish need to make their way up the Columbia river each year to spawn. Fish ladders have been built so that the Salmon can get around and over the big dams.

Seattle Space Needle

I went with my friend Laural to the Seattle Space Needle. Here's a picture with Laural and her friends, John, Alex and Jacob. We took a picture at the tourist photo place in front of a picture of the space needle - kinda hokey since the real space needle was right above us. Someone said they have this because it rains so often that tourists want to stay indoors for their pictures.



At the top is an observation deck where you can look down on the city of Seattle. Pretty cool. And they have binoculars so you can into the distance or even look into people's windows close by.



Its pretty high and I got a little shaky when I looked down.



I was glad to get my feet back on the ground.