Racism and Police Enforcement

In the last months, the US has gotten international attention. There has been several cases of Black men being killed by White cops. Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York are the most recent cases, two unarmed Black which have moved US citizens to the streets to demand for justice. These two cases are just a reminder of a past being marked by police violence and racial profiling that has marked the US, as well as other countries.

These cases involving unarmed Black men being murdered by police have gotten a lot of attention, due to the fact that there is a significant repeating pattern where White policemen practice enforcement and racial profiling.

The reason why these cases are so important is that they uncover a long history of tensions born from decades of discrimination and inequality. We have to move back to the point when the African Black men and women were brought to America as slaves. They meant free labour in the times of industrial development. There were clear rights differences between the Black and the White. Examples of these rights include the housing, education, health services, and protection.

In the 1950s and 1960s, a big movement in favor of the Civil Rights started. During that period, many nonviolent demonstrations and civil disobedience produced crisis between activists and government authorities. These situations made public the clear inequities of the African American community. As a consequence, official action took place to improve this situation.

• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination based on "race, color, religion or national origin" in employment practices and public services
• The Voting Act of 1965 allowed and protected voting right
• Fair Housing Act of 1968 banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing

But this movement of understanding cooperation and understanding between races was accompanied with violent riots in the 1960s and 1970s. Extremists African American requested political and economical self-sufficiency through the Black Power Movement. This undercut the support of the White community, who moved away from the problems. The Black population lost access to good education, which limits their career opportunities. This led to lack of resources, discrimination and poverty in the Black communities, which is the perfect bed for criminality. This vicious cycle has been developing for generations, and it is gradually difficult to get out of it.

There has been a lot of discussion about this latest events. It is understandable, since it is a civil problem that is still open. But some arguments shared in the public are not practical to find a path of common understanding and to end discrimination.

One example, some people condemn the Ferguson case, claiming that Brown was "such a good kid". Despite this might be true, it is not the reason why Brown shouldn't have been murdered. The reason is that he was a human being and his life mattered. It doesn't matter if he was good or not, it only matters if he acted against the law or not.

On the other hand, there are some people that argue that if Black men are being condemned, they surely where at the wrong spot. Their advice to Black men and women is "Stop giving them a reason to kill you". This could sound like a logical thing to do. However, the argument gets easily dismissed when we look at the statistics. There is significantly more conflicts between the police and Black men than any other race, even in communities where the percentage of black is significantly lower than anything else. In a recent Michigan Radio report, it was stated that 60% of the traffic citations in Ferndale due to speeding in a 16-month period were given to Black. However, the Black population of the town is 10%. These two numbers are too far apart to represent reality. And like this, there are many other similar facts that imply a higher tendency to see Black men as "no good by default". Thus, the argument that "Black men should get away from troublesome situations" is not helpful; it can't solve all the unfair cases, where policemen were moved by racial profiling, and not real justification that explains their enforcement.

Because racial discrimination is an important social issue, it has moved many activists to demonstrate in the street. In Ferguson, as well as many other places, people started marching in peaceful protests, some of them became less peaceful. While violence is not the path to gain justice, it can be understood that people are angry, and this may arise emotional tension that leads to some conflict. But all they are claiming is that they don't want to keep on living in fear. However, the word 'riot' has been used to call these manifestations. A riot is a violent disturbance of peace by a crowd. What is happening all around the country are not riots, but claims for justice, the end of oppression and racial discrimination.

There are two main factors in this equation: racism and excessive law enforcement. To address the first one: anti racism movement is a struggle for generations, and changing the system won't happen overnight. This practice involves access to information (from as many channels as possible, to prevent getting biased reports), acknowledging the problems and searching for common solutions.  To the second one: there is no definition of "excessive law enforcement". Policemen have to use their judgement to considered themselves threaten and take corrective action. Maybe the needed action is to increase the training and define more concretely the need for action under all possible circumstances. Also, allowing policemen to get the experience in the job gradually will enable them to act avoiding unnecessary violence unless completely necessary.

Thanks for reading

Lita & Andres

Thanksgiving in the US

This celebration is one of the most loved by the Americans. The festivity, officially named a national holiday in the 19th century, although it was first celebrated by the pilgrims in 1621, aims to be thankful for the harvest in the precedent year. Although there is some controversy about its origins and whether if this celebration may be founded in the defeat of the native Americans by the European immigrants, there is still a great attachment to this day and its meaning. In the US it marks the start of the so called "Holiday Season", which continues until Christmas time and New Year. 

The reason why it is so appreciated is that this festivity involves many good aspects: a lot of food, family and friends. Since it is one of the few four-day weekends in the year, many people fly home to celebrate with family or old friends. 

The traditional dinner is centered on the turkey. It is in fact so important, that this day is often called "Turkey Day". Additionally, there are many other typical dishes, like stuffing (usually cooked out of the turkey), mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie etc. Food is abundant for that day and the following, in fact one of the most loved things about Thanksgiving day are the leftovers. 

And how do we celebrate Thanksgiving? Even though we don't relate to this festivity from our culture, it is easy to get get infected by the excitement of the Americans, what is not to like? For the past two years, we have been embedded with the feeling of giving thanks accompanied by friends. We called it "International Thanksgiving", and invited the people that are like us: away from home, with no real tradition for celebrating this day, but willing to spend a day together and eat, drink and laugh. We have a couple of pictures to share, let's go through them.

This year we doubled the number of attendees (last year we were 8). We were supposed to be 22 but in the end we only had 16 people. If we continue this trend, next year we might need to rent a bigger room ;)  The picture above shows a curious behavior that we observe every time that we have people coming over: no matter how big the house is, everybody stays in the kitchen. It must be the different smells....

The turkey needed around 4 hours to cook, a painful time for everybody, but totally worth it. The turkey master delivered the best quality meat to the hungry guests.

Eventually, the wait was too long and people started seating, waiting for the feast to get started.

 This celebration feels like a Christmas dinner with friends for me and many others not used to Thanksgiving. And thinking about it, it is kind of the same feeling: the year is over, we have reasons to be thankful for what we got, and we love to spend hours in good company and with good food. The main advantage of the Thanksgiving celebration is that you don't have to plan and buy presents for everybody!

We hope you enjoyed seeing us enjoying ;) Amazingly, 2014 is almost over, one more year that goes by so fast... We hope for next year to be slower, so we can enjoy better the last third of our journey in the US.

Thanks for reading, 

Lita&Andres

Halloween: from its origins until today

The History of Halloween

Halloween is one of Americans favorite holidays. On October 31, kids walk through their neighborhoods dressed up as their favorite heroes, asking for treats, and you better deliver, or they will play a trick on you. Houses, gardens and public places are decorated with pumpkins, witches, bats, ghosts...

But the celebration has evolved greatly since its beginnings. The term Halloween was first used as a celebration by the Christian community, representing the time dedicated to remembering the death, including saints, martyrs and the faithful departed believers. But according to some researches, the Christians adapted this feast from previous Celtic harvest festivals. Particularly this celebration seems to have its origins in the Gaelic Samhain, and it wasn't until the eighth century, November 1 was designated by the pope Gregory III as All Saints' Day, and the day before was known as All Hallows' Eve.

For the Celtics, this celebration represented the end of the year and the end of the summer. From this day on, the time of harvest was followed by a dark, cold winter, often linked to the death. There was a lot of superstition on this day, which was thought to allow a special connexion between the living and the death. The souls of the dead were also said to visit their homes. People would set places on the table to welcome them. They would build fires and wear typical Celtic costumes. Additionally, there was the belief that the future could be predicted on that day, especially topics like marriage and death.

The first Halloween celebrations in America were extremely limited in colonial New England because of the rigid Protestant belief systems there. Halloween was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies. As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups as well as the American Indians meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included “play parties,” public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other’s fortunes, dance and sing. By the middle of the nineteenth century, annual autumn festivities were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country. In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with new immigrants, especially millions of Irish fleeing Ireland’s potato famine of 1846. It was these Irish influence that helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally. Taking from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today’s “trick-or-treat” tradition.

In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers than about ghosts, pranks and witchcraft. In the early nineties, parties focused on games, foods of the season and festive costumes. Parents were encouraged to take anything “frightening” or “grotesque” out of Halloween celebrations. Because of these efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century.

By the 1950s, Halloween had evolved into a holiday directed mainly at the young. Due to the high numbers of young children during the fifties baby boom, parties moved from town civic centers into the classroom or home, where they could be more easily accommodated. Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating was also revived. Trick-or-treating was a relatively inexpensive way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration. In theory, families could also prevent tricks being played on them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats. A new American tradition was born, and it has continued to grow. Today, Americans spend an estimated $6 billion annually on Halloween, making it the country’s second largest commercial holiday.

Halloween's Traditions Today

The American Halloween tradition of “trick-or-treating” probably dates back to the early All Souls’ Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives. The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The practice, which was referred to as “going a-souling” was eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale, food, and money.

The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots. Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightening time. Food supplies often ran low and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constant worry. On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits. On Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place bowls of food outside their homes to appease the ghosts and prevent them from attempting to enter.

From the beginnings until now, this celebration has evolved immensely. But despite all changes, there is a constant, which is people gathering together; some time ago it was superstition and seek for protection, now it may just be to have a good time and laugh at each other's costumes. But we will keep on celebrating, no matter what traditions may change, a party is always a party

Thanks for reading, 

Lita & Andres

Tour de Troit 2014

After taking some vacation off the blog, we are back! Some things have been goig on, and I am not going to count thousands of excuses. We are late, but we are back, and we want to keep in touch with you ;)

Although it was a while ago, the bike tour called "Tour De-Troit" is worth mentioning it. We participated this year, towards the middle of september. It is a ride that explores some of the historic sites of the city. On that day, bikes win the power over cars. This time we made 7,000+ bikers on the roads! Over all it is around 30 miles, which we did in approximately 4 hours at a normal pace, having time to enjoy the views form surrounding buildings and extravagant bikers.

The start and end take place at the magestic train station. Abandoned since years, the Michigan Central Station is one of the symbols of Detroit's history, when cars won over public trasnportation.Today, the monolith still stands as a towering, heartbreaking testament to the grandness of the time before the automobile. Some day it may be used again, repurposed and representing a true value of the city. Until then, it will be a sign of decay that represents the city. 

One of the most impressive parts that we passed was the Packard Automotive Plant. It is a factory of a luxury automobile-manufacturer in Detroit called Packard Motor Car Company. In 1903 it was considered the most modern automobile manufacturing factory in the world. In 1958, the plant had to close, though it was used as a storage area until the 1990s. After that, it has been abandoned, and though it is a provat eproperty, it has attracted numerous grafitti-artists and urban explorers. Lately, remodeling works have started to reconvert the area into several projects. Its owner, Palazuelo, is planning to use the space for residential purposes, offices, recreation and art. He is hoping to bring a manufacturer company into the project in exchange for a couple of years of free rent. We probably won't see it finished, but it is definetely a great start. Although we didn't visit the interior, I will upload some pictures from the internet, I find them worth sharing.

Another spot of the tour was Belle Isle. It is a park situated in the Detroit River, between the United Stated mainladn and Canada. It is joined to Detroit though a bridge, and it is a great park with beaches, a botanical garden, a boat club, a fountain etc. It is well conserved by the Belle Isle Conservancy.

And I left the best for the end. It is Andres' premiere with his GoPro, finally! I hope you enjoy it 

Thanks for reading, 

Lita & Andres

Musical Summer

Detroit  has a long heritage in the musical scene. That is probably one of the reasons why the summer weekends are filled with interesting musical offers, covering all different styles. We would like to share our experience of the last weeks, I am sure that although we have been busy with all these events, we have missed many other opportunities of listening to live music.

The first musical event we attended was the concert of Eminem and Rihanna, at the Comerica Park. We had bought the tickets several months in advance, but time went by and, there we were, about to see a strange but interesting duet. As many of you know, Eminem is from Detroit, and thus the crowd was cheering with special interest when he was singing, although Rihanna surely didn't leave anybody disappointed with her great voice. They also did some songs together, like the one that gave name to the concert, 'Monster', which they sang right at the end. I must say that the sound quality was not the best, which made it difficult to understand Eminem's parts. Maybe it didn't help to be a bit apart from the stage, so we basically were looking at the big screens. But some concerts are not about the music on its own, but the overall experience, which was really good


The following weekend started with our visit to the festival "Arts, Beats and Eats", in Royal Oak. As its name says, there is great offer of artistic creations, international food and varied music. We went on a sunny but windy Saturday, and ate some interesting dished (nothing healthy, but delicious ;)). We also went around the art stands, and did see cool objects and photography.

In the late evening we stayed for a concert of the group "Third Eye Blind". It started an hour late because of some few drops of rain, but in the end they did perform great and even stayed longer than they were supposed to.

 

A day later we were listening to some of the best jazz musicians in the world, in the largest free jazz festivals worldwide. Settled in the Hart Plaza and Campus Martius Park, it runs for 4 days, with more than 30 different concerts. Our cultural knowledge concerning jazz artists is very limited, so our strategy was to visit all the stages at some points during the day (basically, we more or less chose randomly the concerts that we were going to attend). But the result was splendid: all the concerts we listened to where phenomenal, we felt glad for having chosen that particular artist, and at the same time we wondered what we had missed on the other 3 stages ;) Two artist I would like to mention: The first one is  the saxophonist Joshua Redman, son of Dewey Redman, who gave an incredible concert, finishing with the best version I have heard of the song "let it be". The second would be the group of the French singer Cyrille Aimée, whose incredible voice left us astonished from the first song. 

As a European, the best thing of these festivals is to see so many people walking on the street. Normally everywhere you go in the US, people commute from place to place by car. They may need to walk from the parking lot to wherever they are going, but there's not so much of wondering around without any specific goal. As a change to everyday's not so crowded streets, this kind of events gather a numerous group of people with very varied lifestyles: students, artists, Bohemian, alternative, all wanting the same thing, spend a good time under the sun, get some tasty bites and enjoy the cultural offer of artists and singers... It is a nice way of getting the best out of the Labor Day Weekend.

The last event for this entry is the one we went to yesterday. Its name is "Dalley in the Alley", Detroit's largest community festival, located in the Cass Corridor District, in Midtown Detroit. This event is solely organized by volunteers, and contrary to the prior ones described, it is pretty laid back and relaxed (like its name suggests). While it also offers arts, beats and eats (like the festival in Royal Oak), but this one has a very different personality, much more student-like. In fact is takes place around the students' dorms. I would say that one of the main differences is in the music offer: much more alternative, covering very varied styles, and the whole brings somehow the "community" feeling, you feel more part of "it". Also some of the artistic stands show a lot of personality, there are many "new and used" stands, that trade clothes, discs and other restored objects. Many T-shirts with Detroit slogans are sold, along with old Motown albums and interesting pictures from the city. But the main point for which I would recommend to visit this event is the variety of people you see. Much more extreme than in the prior events, you feel like bring in a composition of the whole world (at least the Detroit world) concentrated in a corridor. It is a great atmosphere to spend a couple of hours listening to music and drinking beer (the official drink of the fest :))

Well, this concludes the entry about our musical experiences of the last weeks (hopefully more will come). We recommend you to visit all of them, but if I had to choose, I would say the Jazz Festival: you get a great experience, wonderful artists, and a lot of love from the city.

Thanks for reading, 

Lita & Andres

Environmental Sustainability in the US and the World

Robert Barthelmes – Goldenrod (2006)

One of the big issues in the world in general, and in the US in particular, is the use of the natural resources. Our day starts with a paper coffee cup, our snacks are packed in plastics,  we buy plastic bottles of water, everywhere we go we drive in our car, etc. We don't usually realize that our day to day life decisions affect the planet, because we are just so used to it. That's why I decided to touch some aspects of the environmental sustainability in this entry, so we can become more conscious of the effects of our decisions.

The term sustainability refers to things that keep going sustaining themselves and continue forever. In a perfect sustainable earth, humans could have access to clean air and water, food, and other resources needed to have a high quality life, allowing this same conditions for future generations. What is happening in reality is that we are abusing the resources, without considering the consequences of our product choices to the planet. There is an interesting website where you can "measure" your footprint in the planet. It also tells you how many earths would be needed if everyone in the planet would share your lifestyle (for me it was 4 earths, which is really shocking).


Sustainability is mandatory to ensure the future of the planet and the human beings. And this requires a better use of the resources, and a minimization of the waste, in fact, there shouldn't be a waste; rather the waste from the production of one product should be used as resource for the next, and so on. The so called "cradle to cradle" concept, instead of "cradle to grave".

The problem

There are many scary facts about waste, some of them we don't even realize. I will focus on US data because that is where we are living, but many places are not far from these numbers:

• Americans generate 760 kg of waste per person per year, about 2 kg per day
• 10% of rich countries’ greenhouse gas emissions come from growing food that is never eaten.
• Nearly one billion hungry people could be lifted out of malnourishment on less than a quarter of the food that is wasted in the US, UK and Europe.
• Every year nearly 900,000,000 trees are cut down to provide raw materials for American paper and pulp mills.
• Average worldwide annual paper consumption is 48 kg per person, average per capita paper use in the USA is 333 KG. Approx. 324 L. of water is used to produce 1 kg of paper
• Americans discarded about 2,900,000 tons of aluminum in 2012. The largest source of aluminum in the MSW stream is used beverage containers and other packaging containers.
• Americans consume over 80,000,000,000  aluminum cans every year.
•  Each year American throw away 25,000,000,000 Styrofoam cups. Even 500 years from now, a foam coffee cup will be sitting in a landfill.
• Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour, most of which are tossed away.
• Americans throw away about 28,000,000,000 bottles and jars every year.
• Americans also discharge 220,000,000 car tires every year
• It is estimated that Americans waste 2,000,000 gallons of fuel each year due to under-inflated tires
• About 200 million gallons of used motor oil is illegally dumped in the US each year. A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

Municipal solid waste (MSW) production, kg per person per day, World Bank 2012.

The map above shows the waste production per country. It is amazing to see how big our contribution is to the total waste.

But the way we produce waste is not justified only because of high consumption of goods (which sometimes we can't avoid); another important reason for waste is the design of the product over its lifetime. There are many products that have been designed for the "first life", and have to be disposed after that, as waste. If, in the contrary, the product had been designed up to the end, all components that form a product would be reused for a different purpose.

The solution

www.dcwastemanagement.co.uk

There is still a lot to do to minimize our footprint and approach a zero-waste life. The Waste Hierarchy shows, from the top to the bottom, the most favored options towards avoidance of waste generation.

The first and most important thing to do is a reduction of the products we consume. In our everyday lives we often don't realize that we can avoid using certain products. The best example, because it is also the biggest waste, is the food. We need to reduce the amount of food that gets thrown away. Another example is the amount of canned beverages, there is an interesting article that shows the effect that we could have if we have one less can per week, starting small can also have huge effects!

Reusing products is also a great way of enlarging their lifetime. Talking to friends and neighbors, you can find out that somebody wants to get rid of a good you'd like to acquire. The perfect example is books and school material, because once you've used them, they are still good for other people. Another example, if you know that somebody is having a party, you can let them know that you have stuff from a previous party they can borrow.

The third step in the hierarchy is recycling. This one has a lot of potential, because we can virtually recycle 100% of paper, aluminum cans, some plastics, etc. The fact that we are still not doing it tells us that we need to change our mindsets, but also that some changes in the infrastructure is needed to facilitate the recycling task. A trendy way to recycle is to reuse the trash located nearby to make new objects, like the instruments in the picture. If you are interested to know the cycle of recycle, follow this link, it explains how materials like paper, plastics, metals, and glass are recycled. 


Energy recovery from the waste is the fourth step in the chain. According to the EPA, energy recovery from waste is the conversion of non-recyclable waste materials into usable heat, electricity, or fuel through a variety of processes, including combustion, gasification, pyrolization, anaerobic digestion, and landfill gas (LFG) recovery. Municipal solid waste landfills are the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States, accounting for approximately 18.2 percent of these emissions in 2012. Instead of escaping into the air, LFG can be captured, converted, and used as used to generate electricity, replace fossil fuels in industrial and manufacturing operations, or upgraded to pipeline–quality gas where the gas may be used directly or processed into an alternative vehicle fuel.

The last step and least favored option is the disposal of products and goods in landfills. This is where the waste should go when there is no possible use of it nor its energy, and has to be stored in a safe way to avoid contamination of the surrounding landscape. Some of the goods, however, are banned for disposal in these facilities, such as paints, cleaners/chemicals, motor oil, batteries, and pesticides. Some communities account for safe drop off sites for these products, but there is still many regions which don't account for it. Sincerely speaking, the only thing you can do as of now is to reduce the usage of these products as much as possible. 

Conclusion

The world's development has focused on fast, growing production, to satisfy the current needs and even ensure an increasing demand. On the way, we forgot to minimize our footprint in order to live in a sustainable way. Some people say that the concept of "sustainable development" is not possible, because all development tries to rise the demand, and will not be neutral to the earth and its resources. While I am not sure of that, I can say that we didn't even try really hard, and there is a lot to do in this aspect.

There is lots of information regarding these issues in the Internet, so I am not going to give you a list, I just wanted to share a general overview, hopefully you found something interesting in it.

Thanks for reading,

Lita & Andres

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P.S.You can find the sources used in this entry here:

- http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/
- http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTURBANDEVELOPMENT/Resources/336387-1334852610766/Chap3.pdf
- International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), Discussion Paper (IIED, London, September 1996)
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1997
- http://www.recycling-revolution.com/recycling-facts.html
- http://resourcefulschools.org/facts/

West Cost - Part 2

After the first entry of our vacation in the west coast (click on the link if you missed it), it is time to describe the highlights we found driving thought the Oregon and Washington states. Having had only 10 days overall, it is impossible to visit all spots that these states had to offer. However this didn't discourage us, and we tried to take the best out of it. The pictures talk for themselves, the beauty of the coasts, the nature and wildness surrounding the cities in these states are unarguably beautiful. If you also are lucky with the weather, as we were, you can't really ask for more.

 First Station - Oregon West Coast

Leaving the Redwood National Park behind us, we drove the Highway 101 North, our journey was going to pass along the coast until reaching a small town called Florence. On our way, we were very close to the coast, which made the drive enjoyable, leaving us the opportunity to stop every few miles to take pictures. We saw whales from the distance, unfortunately it was difficult to take pictures of them.

Not only the beaches were magnificent, also the weather was quite warm, at least to enjoy the views. But, as you can see, there were not many people actually on the beach, so maybe the water was too cold after all.

The Oregon beaches frequently have many rock formations near the shore. The geological origin of these natural features seems to be the lava coming from volcanoes emanating from the Grand Rode Mountains 10 to 17 million years ago. Arguable the biggest formation is the Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, unfortunately we didn't have time to visit it. Some of these formations were joined to the coastline, but erosion separated them apart from it.

One thing to notice is the micro climates that form along the coast. In matter of minutes, it can pass from sunny and warm to covered by clouds and windy, you can almost see the cloud approaching.

 Near Florence we spent some time around the dunes. They are not very big, but they go along for miles. We (I must say especially the boys of the family) wanted to rent quads to drive around, but we came too late for that day, and wanted to leave it for the next day. Unfortunately, we didn't have a chance, since from the moment we had dinner it started raining, it rained through the night and morning. By the time we wanted to leave we realized we were not going to drive any quads, so we headed directly to the next station.

Second Station: Portland

For our 2-night stay in Portland, we had rented a house boat north of the city, in the Hayden Island. It was great; not only to have a house instead of a hotel, which gives much more opportunity for a group to be together, but this location was great to enjoy the river and the sunlight

The glass doors to the outside gave a sense of brightness and space.

We even had the chance to have a BBQ while watching the boats come and go ;)

The bad part of the house is that it was so cool that we focused more on enjoying the house than on exploring the city of Portland... We were just one morning in the downtown area, and could see some nice buildings just walking around.

The state of Portland is known by the high amount of breweries, in fact, with 53+ breweries, it has more than any other city on earth. Knowing this, we had big chances of finding good beer. And we did! Precisely that weekend the Oregon Brewers Festival took place. That was definitely going to be our place for lunch ;)

There was good live music, nice varied food from different places, and although the beer may have not been the best one, it did made us happy, which is the whole purpose :)

One of the things Americans like of the summer, is that they can drive their old beauties. There are many car concentrations, which brings joy to the owners and all the others that would like to own them. On our way out of Portland, we accidentally took a wrong turn, and suddenly were in the middle of a Buick Car concentration. We took this as a sign of the destiny, and made this visit as part of our itinerary.

 Third Station: Boeing Museum

On our way to Seattle, we would have wanted to visit many places like Cannon Beach, the Columbia Gorge, or the Mounts St. Helen and Rainier, but time was our enemy, and these places really needed one day on their own... So we decided to visit the Boeing Museum instead, which is located near the SeaTac Airport. It is very impressive, both the size and structure and the content.

They have a good collection of aircrafts, from the very first ones to the high-tech and state of the art.

One of the most impressive parts is the World War I and II. They show the main planes used for both, along with interesting information regarding both conflicts. 

Fourth Station: Seattle

Our visit of Seattle started in the Pike Place Market. It is one of the most visited places in Seattle, and especially famous is the fish market, where they pass on the fish throwing them among the fishmongers.

You can see them in action in the picture above. Andres almost got the fish on his camera taking the photo.

Just walking around the market makes an enjoyable time.

Later on that day we went up to the Sky View Observatory, in the Columbia Center, the highest skyscraper in Seattle. It costs 12$ per person to get in, but the views of the city are worth it.

We even had the chance to see Mt. Rainier from the distance, it was cloudy all around it, but its beauty is still noticeable.

We finished our daily visit in the Seattle Center, where the famous Space Needle is located. We spent an or two hour in the gardens, there was some shows going on, and many people seemed to be happy to enjoy such a nice day outside. 

And that is the end of our short but busy vacation on the west coast. Unluckily we left out many places, but on the other side this made it possible to enjoy the time with the family along with exploring new territories. I hope you enjoyed the story and the pictures, and if you keep reading us we will surely come up with many more places that are still out there :)

Thanks for reading, 

Lita & Andres