Alki Lighthouse

  Since we are moving soon we are trying to do the few things in West Seattle we haven't gotten to yet.  One of them was seeing the lighthouse just down the road from us.  It's only open for tours June through August on the weekends from one to four, so we needed to go soon.  Avery was really funny.  She kept saying that she wanted to go to work with Daryl at the white house, or so we thought.  We finally figured out that she was talking about our upcoming trip to the lighthouse.  That made a lot more sense.

   The lighthouse is run by the Coast Guard Auxiliary which was having it's 75th anniversary that Saturday we visited.  It started in 1939 when the government started arming anyone with a bigger boat than 40 feet with depth charges and machine guns on the east coast to deter German submarines.  They never did sink a sub, but they successfully guarded our eastern seaboard during World War II.  

   Today the lighthouse is still in operation from when it was first in service in 1913.  It is automated now, but the commander of the local Coast Guard lives on the grounds, which is why the visiting hours are so short and few.  The lighthouse is not very tall, but there is a steep ladder up at the top.  Young children aren't allowed up, and this was not pleasing to Avery and Harper.  Especially Avery who had been excited to go with her Daddy.  Daryl and I took turns going up instead, and thankfully since the lighthouse is quite small the tour wasn't very long.  Avery and Harper were annoyed until we took them to lunch at McDonald's, and then they liked us again.

I feel like both my Dad and my Aunt Joanne wanted me to take this picture of the door mat on one of the buildings on the lighthouse grounds.

The stairs going up.

The ladder to the very top.  It's a good thing they don't allow kids up there.

We got lucky and Mount Rainier was out.

There's downtown Seattle including the Space Needle.

The Olympics and Bainbridge Island.

I went up to the lighthouse last, so Daryl started to take our restless children out just in time for me to snag a picture from the top.  Do you see how Avery's arms were crossed?  She was a little grumpy about not going up.

Daryl and Emery let me take a picture of them, but you can see Avery hiding behind Daryl still grumpy.  Harper didn't even make it in the picture.  She was busy tying to fake a bathroom trip to get out of there faster.