4th of July in the Northwest

I had a nice trip to see Ralph & Janice Gillespie for the 4th of July while Derek worked back in Seattle. I took the train down to Vancouver WA to avoid the 3 hour drive on the holiday weekend. There was a little hiccup in the train ride down as another train earlier in the day hit a car ahead of us on the tracks. We ended up picking up 180 people in the middle of the woods as their train was not allowed to continue. Outside of that excitement, I had a nice time catching up with Ralph & Janice, enjoying a BBQ party and then watching a spectacular fireworks display right outside their condo's balcony.

Derek had a much more exciting July 4th. He got to fight a big fire on Lake Union near our old house. They got called in at 2am and had to stay a number of hours into the next shift until they were relieved. Its been a long week for him. He worked a 24hr shift on tuesday, thursday and will work on sunday too. But he got a new car this week (2006 Acura TL) so maybe that takes the edge off.

Here's a picture of Derek's new car. He's looking into getting different rims as the lighter colored ones don't seem to match the car very well. They're a very light grey and the car is anthracite (dark grey). FYI - Derek added this post. All Merrie had to do was buy me a car to get me to post here - just kidding honey.





Time-lapse video of the Lake Union fire
Watch as the fire runs along the Lake Union NOAA pier in Seattle as captured from the KING 5 Queen Anne Tower Cam.



Must see video of 4-alarm Lake Union fire
A four-alarm fire broke out along Lake Union early Wednesday, damaging an old creosote-soaked government pier, three boats and a building on the east side of the lake, and slightly injuring five firefighters.