Evergreen Air and Space Museum

Today we went to Evergreen space and aviation museum. The main attraction was a plane called the Spruce Goose. Although named the Spruce Goose it was not made out of spruce - it was made from mostly birch. It was built in 1947 and cost 25 million dollars to build. The reason it was built was because the Americans needed a way to deploy cargo and troops during WW 2, mostly to Europe. Called the air boat, the Spruce Goose was six times the size of the largest aircraft (at the time). It could fly, AND float on water.  It weighed 4,000,000 lbs and its payload weighed 130,000 lbs.

 

 

 

 

 

A man named Howard Hughes took on the task of building the Spruce Goose and many said it would not fly being the size and weight that it is. But he proved them wrong by flying the Spruce Goose for a short period.  After he flew it, it was never flown again. Instead it was kept in a specially designed hanger which cost 1 million dollars a year to maintain. He was rich, so he could afford it! Eventually, he decided he didn't want to pay anymore and was going to ship parts to museums then Walt Disney came in and said he would pay for the whole plane. It eventually was placed in Evergreen aviation centre and has been there ever since.

 

Not only does Evergreen have a Theatre, space museum and aviation centre. It even has a water park. The bad thing about the water park was the stairs. You had to take 111 stairs to get to the top. But at the top a plane (747) was sitting on the roof.  All the water slides came out of the plane. They also had wave pools, spa's, whirlpools and a basketball court in the water. It even had an arcade!

Mt St Helens

Today we went on a strenuous drive down to mt st helens. It took 3 hours and our first stop was at the bottom of mt st helens. It was a reserve and we found some interesting facts. Mt st helens was a volcano and is famous for that. When it erupted it blew the whole top off the mountain. It also caused the biggest landslide in history.  It was the cause of millions of trees getting smashed. But the Weyerhaeuser's foundation salvaged about 600 trees a day for at least 6 months. Also 57 people died and 1 person caught the whole thing on video camera. Although the eruption was huge not many people heard it.  When it erupted the sound waves were pushed upwards causing the sound waves to be lost in the sky. The Weyerhaeuser's foundation also planted 18.4 million trees after the eruption. After that we went up the mountain and stopped at a mountain close to mt st helens. we watched a short film on mt st helens then a huge window apperaed and we had a direct view of mt st helens. You could even see the huge landslide slightly. The top of the mountain was covered in snow and clouds were crowded around the mountain. so basically we drove all that way and couldn't even see what we came to look at.

 

The next day we drove down to Washington state. We had some amazing Oysters served many different ways. And then we had the greatest tartare in the world for dinner.

American Flag, Food and People

                                                                                                                                                                                                The American Flag

The American flag consists of three colours - red, blue and white. The colours represent purity and innocence (white), hardiness and valor (red), and the colour of the chief (blue).  The stars and stripes on the flag also represent something. The star is a symbol of the heavens, and there is one for every state. The stripes are symbolic of the rays of light emanating from the sun, and there is one for each of the early colonies. The flag itself represents unity and is nicknamed Old Glory. The flag was first hung up in 1777. Not much has been changed since, the only major change was the amount of stars and stripes. While their is currently 50 stars for each state and 13 stripes for each colony, there used to be only 13 stars for the 13 states. Gradually the amount of stars started picking up. June 14th is flag day and the reason the service members have the flag backwards on their back of their shoulders is because that is what it would look if the flag is carried forward. The American national anthem even mentions the flag quite frequently since it has played such a role in America's history. In just about every great moment in American history, the flag has flown high. Most American's honour and respect their flag.

 

 

The Food

The most famous American food would have to be cheeseburgers and hotdogs. Not to mention Buffalo wings and barbeque ribs! Other interesting fact are that Chocolate Chip Cookies, Smores and Fortune Cookies are all American. But the most famous among most Americans is a Thanksgiving roast. But my all time favourite American food is the awesome bacon. And the all time best candy is Reeses and Hersheys or Wonka products and M&M’s. Some of the all time best places to eat in America would have to be The Cheesecake Factory featured in the Big Bang Theory, Buffalo Wild Wings, Applebee's and IHOP.(International House of Pancakes)

The People

The most famous people from America are usually inventors who invent every day living necessities, like Thomas Edison, who invented the lightbulb. Some of the most famous people are actors and sport stars. Some of the famous sport stars are Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, and Michael Phelps. Some famous actors include Brad Pitt, Robert Downey Jr, and Jennifer Lawrence. Another famous American is Walt Disney and his legacy Disneyworld attracts 17 million people a year.

Sports

A week ago I started my first swimming training at Lake Oswego. I was placed in the highest group and started getting back into it. One of the bad things about the swimming pools is that the lanes sizes are not the same. Most pools here are 25 yards - the lanes are narrower, and crowded. I banged up my hand and my ankle so far. Everybody in this development squad is extremely fast and some are training for the Olympic trials. I can barely keep up, even doing my best stroke - breast stroke. Training goes for two hours and normally consists of half an hour of land training, followed by an hour and a half of swimming. The land training is pretty straight forward doing sprints and lots of drills. Then in the pool we always have to do lots of IM pull which is the hardest thing I've ever done. It is especially hard when Coach makes you use your arms only to do the butterfly!

 Today we went to the Portland Timbers soccer game. It was basically a play, what with all the fake injuries. The Timbers played Chivas and won 3-0. Every time the Timbers scored a guy would cut a section of a log out marking one goal. The crowd also was pretty into it especially on the west grandstand side. People were yelling and jumping about. Whenever a goal was scored green smoke would erupt from smoke machines and it smelt pretty bad. It also covered the goalies so someone could have had a quick goal.

 

Seattle is Sunny!

Today we visited Seattle and it didn't rain! Seattle is in Washington State, on the west coast. 

  We went to the largest building in the world called Boeing which builds airplanes. The factory is so big, you could fit fit 12 empire state buildings, or 5 Pentagons or 5.1 pyramids of Giza inside of it. We went on a tour and we saw the workers building airplanes, which was pretty amazing. Then we saw the inside of the new plane the dreamliner. The Dreamliner is supposed to be the biggest and largest plane ever - it has bigger seats and windows. It is also quite eco-friendly as it is built using special lightweight carbon fibre material. It also only costs around $202 million to purchase,  which is not too bad. But you still have to buy the engine and paint.

I learned a few interesting things about Seattle while we were visiting. 

1. The Space Needle is an Iconic landmark in Seattle. So it must be the most photographed object in the city. One random fact a few tour guides like to point out is that it actually comes second. A giant Pink Elephant car wash sign on Battery Street and Denny Way downtown come's first.

 

2. More people bike to work in Seattle than in any other city in the U.S. - and Seattle was the first city to put cops on bikes, too.

3.Several major companies were founded in Seattle including Boening, UPS, Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks and Costco.

4.The happy face was designed by a Seattle aid agency in 1966.

 

5. Seattle's nickname is the rainy city although many cities in the US have much higher rainfall.

San Juan Island - Friday Harbor

Today we visited the San Juan islands which is off the coast of Washington state, near Canada. We stayed in Friday Harbor which is famous for their awesome mussels and clams. Right next to our hotel was a whale museum which showed you how killer whales came to be according to old Indian tales. We also got to see the comparison in brain sizes between an everyday Whale, Dolphin and Human.  We also learnt that the main cause of Killer whales dying is because their main source of food is being taken away. They eat salmon, and humans also love salmon, and we've eaten a lot of it.

Later, we went kayaking around half of the big island. The water was cold enough to make your hands go numb. We got to see jellyfishes, starfish, sea cucumber and a porpoise.One of the best things about kayaking was you got to see a view of mountains coated in snow. 

Plus we got to see the epic houses along the cliff face. We saw a house that was once owned by Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise.    

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Alcatraz

A few weeks ago we visited Alcatraz in San Francisco. When we first got there we went into a long strip of building to watch a short film on the history of Alcatraz. Next we picked up an audio guide and started walking around. We learnt about the worst criminals in Alcatraz such as American gangster Al Capone who was one of the most famous gangsters in history. Alcatraz was not only home to prisoners, many guards and and there families lived there.The jail is large and took up most of the island. The reason Alcatraz is so famous is because nobody has ever escaped and lived. First you have to break out of your cell then swim or catch the guard filled ferry across to San Francisco.  Most would die trying to cross the icy cold water. We eventually found out that the prison had a library, outdoor field and special cells which had thicker bars and substantially larger amount of space.  According to the prisoners the worst thing about Alcatraz was that they could often hear laughter and joy coming from nearby San Francisco. Plus it seemed close enough to swim but would most likely end up with death.

 One of the most famous stories of how people escaped was from a spoon and a paper mache head. The prisoners all had to go to sleep at 10 and every night 3 men would chisel away at a rusty vent no wider than a computer screen. Gradually they would make a substantial hole big enough to climb through and escape using the paper mache heads as decoys to pretend they were asleep.

Carolina Hurricanes vs the NY Rangers

Today, we visited yet another hockey game but this time it was special because it was Carolinas last home game of the season. It was also sponsored by Chevrolet and they had 1 dollar hot dogs and 2 dollar drinks. They also had the slap shot challenge and obstacle courses etc. Carolina was facing off against the New York Rangers and the Rangers needed to win to secure a spot in the playoffs. 

At the end of the 1^st period it wasn’t looking to good for the Hurricanes. The Rangers were up 2 to nothing but in the second period Carolina came back and scored 2 goals to tie it up. Then suddenly at the end of the third period it was 3 all and was going into overtime. Rangers scored a lucky goal by slap shooting it into the boards and it went in off of our own goalie!  Early into the overtime period Carolina hit the crossbar. Then Rangers had a breakaway along the right side of the rink from the counter attack. Rangers shot and it hit the post in the top corner and went in.

The next day we visited the Olympic white water rafting centre. They also had mega zips and mountain biking as long as massive jumps, eco trekking and obstacle courses in the trees. Sadly it rained and we didn’t do any of it. The white water rafting was fake and didn’t even compare to the one we did earlier. 

North Carolina

We're in North Carolina, so I've looked up some interesting facts about this state.

 Some facts about North Carolina are:

• The population is approximately 8.1 million.
• Pepsi cola was invented in North Carolina around 100 years ago in 1898.
• The state’s bird is the cardinal.
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•  In 1903 the Wright brothers took the first flight in the Outer Banks of NC.
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• The largest city is Charlotte with about 550,000 residents.

Ice Hockey Game - Islanders vs Hurricanes

Tuesday we arrived in North Carolina and went to an exhilarating ice hockey game. We had great seats up at the boards and it was the Carolina Hurricanes vs the NY Islanders. At the end of the last period it was 3-3 from a lucky last minute goal from the Islanders. The game went into overtime and still nobody scored. Finally made it into shootout and North Carolina got two goals – Nash and Skinner scored goals to win. The Island didn’t score any goals in the penalty shoot out.  During the breaks for TV, a series of games were played like Buffalo wings eating contest and slap shot challenge. They even had a bowling game on the ice, where you would sit on a pad and they would sling shot you down the ice at large bowling pins. If you knocked over all the pins, you got a prize.

At the end of the day, it was one of the best days I’ve ever had.

To make it even better Buffalo beat Pittsburgh in ice hockey last night. 

Houston Museum of Science

Monday we visited the Houston museum of science. We learnt about how the earth’s centrifugal force can make a pendulum swing back and forth constantly. We also learnt about the different type of gems and rocks. We saw how they turned some gems into jewelry in the gem vault. We also got to see how an astronaut prepares for space. But the best part of the science museum was the planetarium that they had. The person who directed it showed us all the star formations – Scorpio, Taurus, Cancer, Orion and others.  

We also visited the theatre inside the museum to see a video about the ice age. The video showed a dead wooly mammoth baby that was found almost perfectly intact, under some snow and ice, in 2007. That was pretty amazing, as there have not been wooly mammoths around for at least 40, 000 years. They named her baby Lyuba. 

Texas is BIG!

Now we're in Texas, visiting my aunt, uncle and cousin.

Here's some things that are interesting about Texas.

• It's at the bottom of the United States, on the border with Mexico. It used to be part of mexico.  

• It's BIG! At 268,601 square miles, Texas is the second biggest state in the U.S. (only Alaska is bigger). Texas is larger than many nations of the world, including every country in Europe. If it were a country, it would be the 40th largest country in the world, after Chile and Zambia. The largest city in Texas is Houston. It is also the fourth largest city in the United States.
• It's not really clean. If Texas were a country, it would rank as the world’s 7th largest producer of greenhouse gases. Additionally, Texas emits more greenhouse gases than any other state in the United States.
• The flag is cool. The Texas flag is called the “Lone Star Flag” and has three colors: red to represent courage, white to represent liberty, and blue to represent loyalty. It was adopted in 1845 when Texas became a state. The large white star was first used on Texas flags in the 1830s during the battles between Texas and Mexico. 

Today we visited main event. Main Event is a big place that has numerous games. It has an arcade, pool tables, bowling and a massive laser tag room - unlimited play for only $10!! 

First we played bowling and I got a strike. Just as we were finishing the bowling the lights went on and it became disco bowling! Next we went into the laser tag room which consisted of two floors. The were numerous obstacles such as walls and barrels. There was also the option to play as a team or free for all. Plus there were 4 bases, red, yellow, green and blue. We played two games one of each. 

Later, we went to the arcade and my favorite game was a game in which you had to touch the 36 buttons when they lit up. It was all about reflexes. I then played another really good game called deal or no deal and won 100 which was the second most! After Main Event we went to a burger place called beck's prime which had some world famous burgers. YUM!

Our Whitewater Rafting Experience

The highlight of the week -  we visited OARS for a thrilling white water rafting experience! White water rafting is an exciting activity in which you sit in a strong rubber boat which you paddle manually.  The day started off by getting up early, then driving for around 5 minutes to the meeting spot. Before you go white water rafting you have to watch a safety video and fill out a form. We were told to put on PFD’S, body suits and water jackets. They made it seem like all the possible worst case scenarios were going to happen to you. Nobody fell out but I came close while paddling up front. The water wasn’t too cold but more cold when the wind started to pick up. The best part of the trip was when we went down a 3 ft drop and the whole boat almost flipped! We got to see the Tulomne River and while we were rafting we saw a bald eagle. 

The next day we went to an old fashioned town where we got the chance to go panning and sluicing for gold. We were taught how to properly pan for gold then showed how to work the sluice. A sluice is an artificial channel for a flow of water that is controlled by a valve or gate. This helps speed up the process of finding gold. The way you work a sluice box is by shoveling the bottom of a river into a bucket with a strainer which helps to separate the big rocks and the rest. After that you shovel the stuff that is in the bucket into the sluice. Gold is heavier than most of the things in the bucket which means it can get caught at the bottom of the sluice while most of the other stuff runs off the edge of the sluice. Then you collect all the excess sand and whatnot into a bucket to be panned. You place a basin underneath you pan so any gold that is dropped can be caught. The way you pan is by shaking the pan underwater then slowly rocking the pan back and forwards causing the light materials to fall off, since gold is heavier. Then there is most of the gold. 

 

We ended up finding only about 20 dollars worth of gold and a couple shotgun caskets. Have you ever heard about gold fever? Gold fever isn't actually about being addicted to gold mining. The term actually means getting sick. In the old days people would use cooking pans as pans for finding gold. They would also use a substance called mercury to help find gold by pouring a whole lot of it into a body of water. It will then latch itself onto the gold causing it to be extremely easy to find. Next they would use sheepskin pads to rub the mercury off. But they had to find the gold somehow, so they used pans to pan. That’s why it’s called gold fever. Because after having gold covered in mercury in your cooking pans, they wouldn't always wash it off to well meaning they would die of mercury poisoning. Gold fever.     

Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks

Earlier this week,  we visited Sequoia National Park. It was pretty much a park with lots of really high trees. I thought it was boring but it was made a billion times better with the recent snowfall. The trees were covered in snow, which looked really cool. There was a gigantic tree there named General Sherman, which is the biggest tree in the world. It was hard to admire that big tree with a snowball hitting you every second though .

             

 The next day we visited Yosemite National Park. (yo-sem-IT-e – I thought it rhymed with Vegemite, but mum kept correcting me). We took a 1 mile walk which should have taken 40 minutes. Instead we got partly lost and it ended up taking 3 and a half hours! The up side to that was that we were able to get within touching distance of seven deer. Strangely the only animal-related deaths in Yosemite are from deer. We heard about two deer – related deaths - one was from a deer kicking someone and the other was from a deer impaling a person with its antlers. The main attraction at Yosemite was two really high granite rocks. One is called Half Dome and the other is El Capitan. We decided not to walk up either of these, because it takes almost 10 hours to climb up either one and you can’t do it at this time of year as there is still snow up there and it’s dangerous.  We saw pictures of some daredevils  who decided to climb the rocks. These peaks are so high that most rock climbers set up a hammock halfway up, to camp the night out. That’s about 1800 ft. (about 600 metres) in the air, hanging against a mountain, like a bug!

I am thinking about bringing back the ingredients to make an American delicacy - S’MORES! We are staying at Evergreen Lodge, where they have a campfire every night and provide all of the ingredients to make S’mores – they are so good. S’mores consist of Hershey’s chocolate, special marshmallows and Graham Crackers. Usually, you melt the marshmallow over a fire and put in onto the graham cracker and chocolate and make something like a yummy chocolate marshmallow sandwich. I’d love to make them with my class, but we would have them with un-melted marshmallow and chocolate (raw) unless Mrs. MacDonald lets us have a campfire in the middle of the classroom. Fingers crossed.     

Finally in America!

After a grueling flight of about 13 hours, I arrived in America. When you fly that long, a strange thing happens to the time. I went back in time to yesterday which was today.  We left Sydney on Friday and arrived in Los Angeles on Friday, before we left. We picked up a hire car at the airport and drive to Santa Clarita. We went shopping, and then had a very early night. The shopping is good. Joggers are so much less expensive here.  

On Saturday, we went to Six Flags, Magic Mountain. Six Flags is a roller coaster theme park consisting of rides that are really fast - one of them goes over 160 km/hr. It has 18 roller coasters including, vertical, hanging, drops, rotating, suspended and wooden. It also has a water park. Six flags is home of the tallest, fastest most looped ride in the world. The park has three sections - bugs bunny world, DC universe world and neutral.

Later I went to a cool restaurant named Denny’s which had a whole menu dedicated to bacon. It even had maple bacon sundaes and milkshakes. There was also a restaurant named TGI Fridays which has been referenced in many movies. Strangely nothing happens when it’s Friday. We were there on a Friday and asked them! They have really good food and bottomless cups, so you get unlimited refills on your drinks and they'll even give you a cup to go (a free drink in a takeaway cup, on the house).

Next we are heading north to Sequoia National Park.        

First Stop California

Our first stop is California, the 3^rd biggest state (after Alaska and Hawaii) in the United States. Over 38 million people live there, which is nearly twice as many people as live in Australia. California is on the west coast of the USA.   Two of the most famous cities in California are Los Angeles and San Francisco, and we will visit both of these!

 Now here’s some interesting things you may not know about California:

- Los Angeles is also known as The City of Angels, as Los Angeles translates from Spanish to English as The Angels.  

-   Los Angeles has 90 theatres and more than 300 museums, greater than any other state in the US. 

-  The Gold Rush during 1848 to 1852, created the highest mass migration since the history of the world began. During the time, California's population went from 14,000 to 223,000!

- California has more theme parks and amusement parks than any other state in America. Bearing in mind how popular Florida is, this one came as a bit of a shock! Knott's Berry Farm is the oldest theme park in America. It was originally opened in 1940.
- Walt Disney had an apartment built in the legendary fire station in Maine Street for his family and himself, so that he could keep an eye on the progress. The staff would know when he was in residence as he would leave a light on in the window. Since his death, that light has been left on permanently to remind everyone that his spirit still lives on in Disneyland.

Hollywood is a part of Los Angeles, like Lambton is a part of Newcastle. The Hollywood sign originally read Hollywoodland before it was altered in 1949.