Photo Dump - Pacific Northwest

Here is a giant photo dump of our trip with a few captions. This is about 1% of the photos I took but since they won't mean as much to you as they do to me, I won't bore you with the 300 of them. :)

These first few are from Vashon Island (Seattle) so they are a little out of order but the rest of them should be in the right order...

 

I got squirted on by multiple gooey ducks.

If you don't know what these are, click the link. Mike Rowe will explain and it will change your life.

Apparently no walk on the beach at low tide is safe in the PNW.  

The driftwood was mind blowing. And beautiful.

Beach on Vashon Island

 

We flew over the Rockies and they were amazing. One day we will RV our way out there. Hello bucket list.

In the Columbia River Gorge...

Columbia River Gorge

Proof that we both went on this trip.

Columbia River Gorge

(Chad spent most of the trip with hot tea in his hands. It wasn't all that cold but super windy. And we made a trip to the Stash tea store our first full day in Portland and he enjoyed it the rest of the trip.)

One waterfall in the gorge.

Another waterfall in the gorge.

Further proof that all 3 of us were there.

Everything is wet and mossy.

Literally. Everything.

A little snow in the higher elevations in the gorge.

Where the Pacific Crest Trail crossed the river (across this bridge). We sought this out just for Chad.

Union Station in Portland. Beautiful old train/bus station. We left on the Amtrak from here.

Lighthouse on Vashon Island

More driftwood.

Mt. Rainer. You can see this exact view from Aaron and Sara's porch. Lucky ducks.

People had made little driftwood huts for fun on the beach. Here is Chad - on the phone - trying one out.

Pike's Place and its famous sign.

I wanted ALL of these. Too bad we couldn't really get them home.

More Pike's Place. Colorful fruit and flower stands were just a prevalent as seafood, much to my surprise.

This begins a series of Chihuly glass. This museum was basically at the base of the Space Needle and we decided to spend our money on this instead of the needle. For this not-too-fond-of-heights gal, I think we absolutely made the right choice. This was totally worth every penny.

Chihuly glass

Chihuly glass

 

There was a whole room full of these glass bowls. They were incredible!

This is a 100 foot long installation in a glass house, made especially for this location.

Outside. Chihuly glass.

Back on Vashon Island. Our last beach stroll for this trip.

This would immediately prior to the aforementioned gooey duck incident.

 

Finally, one of the things on my list was a trip to the Freemont Troll. Check.

 

Enjoy!

Pacific Northwest Day #5 and #6 - Coming home.

Let me preface this by saying that I didn't think that I would have a problem with jet lag because I was so tired all day as we travelled today but here I am - 11:45 at night - blogging instead of sleeping. I've been laying in bed for an hour and a half hoping that sleep would come but have decided to do something a tiny bit more productive than listening to my husband snore.

We got up Wednesday morning and headed into Seattle via the ferry with Aaron as our fearless driver. It was nice to not be at the mercy of the bus schedule or our tired feet and taking the ferry while in a car was a fun experience. (I vaguely remember taking either our camping or a car on a ferry back in the day with family but I'm not sure where it was. Mom?) We didn't have much on the schedule for the day but a couple of touristy stops again. We headed straight to the REI store that is the original/home of the company - which we have lovingly been calling the "motherland". It was a huge store - 3 floors of outdoor goodies - and we had fun just strolling around and trying out the supplies. We only bought a couple of tiny things because if we bought something big we would have had to ship it back anyway...left REI and located the Freemont Troll - a large art sculpture under the Freemont Bridge (photos to come). It was on my list of things to see after having seen it in a couple of movies ("10 Things I Hate About You" anyone?). We then headed back towards the ferry with a stop off for lunch at one of Aaron and Sara's favorite local brewery/pub places (super hoppy beverages - my least favorite of all the ones we sampled - sorry locals!).

We were trying to get back on Vashon Island before 4pm because we wanted to tour the local Russian Orthodox Monastery. They roast their own coffee beans, make their own tea, raise bees, and lots of other cool stuff we wanted to check out. We finally made it back and got a lovely tour from Father Moses. He willingly answered all of our nosy questions in his own quiet way. I bought some coffee to bring back to some caffeine lovin' folks back home and we said our goodbyes to them. Dinner and a movie later, we crashed knowing that we had to get up early and pack our stuff for home. A super windy evening caused power outages so we gladly went to bed in the lovely dark (the island was pretty dark anyway - few street lights and a careful use of resources).

We got up early this morning and Aaron drove us back through Seattle to the SeaTac airport (Seattle/Tacoma - it is about halfway between the two cities). Our flight was delayed about an hour leaving Seattle so we ended up getting tickets for a much later flight out of Atlanta (by about 3+ hours when we planned on a 30 minute layover!). Our pilot must have put the petal to the metal because we made up some lost time and ended up touching down about 20 minutes late. This still meant that Chad and I jogged through ATL from the E terminal where we landed back up to the A terminal and squeezed onto our original flight home just as they made the last boarding call. I am super thankful that I am sitting at home in my PJs instead of just now arriving in the Chattanooga airport.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip. I absolutely love making memories with my guy, seeing places that I haven't ever seen before, taking loads of pictures, and being off work for a few days. I am gearing up for a super busy spring (literally all of my weekends are committed until the end of May) so it was so nice to have some time off and get to spend 24 hours with my guy (though we all know travelling like that isn't exactly relaxing. My mom says that when you get home you need a vacation from your vacation.) Chad actually gets tomorrow off - just how the cards fell - but I have an all day meeting so I wish it was me snoring in his ear down the hall instead of the other way around.

I still feel a little like I am moving from all of the ferry rides and flights so I will be glad with that settles down. I am looking forward to jumping back into a routine and getting back into the gym next week.

Pacific Northwest days #3 and #4.

So we left Portland around lunchtime and hopped on the Amtrak headed to Seattle. It was actually a super cool experience and I would recommend it to anyone. We made about 6 stops between Portland and Seattle but each was very short; it took about 4 hours to get there but it went a lot faster than 4 hours on the plane. There was plenty to see and lots of legroom so it was a very pleasant 4 hours. Chad had run in a little deli before we got on the train and purchased some sandwiches so we had lunch and drinks and just hung out.
We arrived at the Amtrak station in Seattle and easily located our next destination of the ferry dock with a little friendly help from an Amtrak employee. We walked about 6 blocks down to the pier and hopped on board the water taxi to Vashon Island. Sara, Aaron's wife (these are family friends), picked us up at the dock and we headed into town for dinner. After a lovely dinner of fish and chips (my 3rd on this trip - and this girl, not ashamed) we came home and headed to bed.
This morning, we got up and dropped Aaron off at work so we could take the car. We left it in the park and ride and took the ferry back into Seattle. We packed our day with lots of fun touristy stuff - fish throwing at Pike's Place followed by a lunch made up of samples and random foods from the vendors there, a trip on the monorail across town to Seattle Center where the Space Needle is located, and a trip through the Chihuly Glass Museum where I kept thinking how much my mom would have loved to be there with us. Another stroll through the Seattle sculpture garden and a walk back to the pier to grab a ferry back to Vashon. We made it back to the island in time to catch Sara coming home from work and to leave Aaron's car for him; about to shower and eat a well deserved pizza and salad dinner. I am tired but super happy; it was an awesome day with my guy just checking stuff out with no schedule or place to be.

Pacific Northwest Day #2

Got in late last night and now I am awake before my traveling companions so I thought I would do a little morning blogging. (Coming to you from my phone again so it will be another short one).
Spent the day yesterday just checking out stuff we have never seen before...got up fairly early (the 3 hour time difference is more challenging than I thought it would be) and had breakfast here at the hotel. I intentionally booked a hotel that had breakfast hoping that it would save us a little time and money each day and so far it has. After breakfast we jumped in the car and headed out to drive through the Columbia River Gorge. It was so beautiful... I still can't get over how green and wet everything is out here when everything back home us so bleak looking still this the of year.
We stopped at one point and did a little hike to a beautiful waterfall and u wish we could have done a little more hiking but we were sort of on a time schedule because we booked a brewery tour at 2pm. We headed back into Portland just in time to catch the tour at the Widmer Bros brewery which was really interesting. I wish they would have let us in more of the building but i can understand why they can't. After that tour, we tried to go to the history museum but they were only open another hour or so and we didn't think we could get our money's worth so we skipped that one. Instead we headed to the International Rose Test Garden and Oregon Holocaust Memorial. The roses were - of course- not in bloom yet but it was still so beautiful. Lots of other things were blooming (mom, wish you were here....the forsythia is in FULL bloom and there are daffodils everywhere!) And it was neat to see the perfectly manicured garden and imagine what it would look like in full bloom. The Holocaust Memorial was sad and beautiful; the wording was well spoken and they had buried dirt and ashes from the 6 main camps under part of the memorial. It was surprisingly moving and i an glad we pulled off to check it out.
After that, we were all tired so we came back to the hotel for a while. It was nice to just crash for a free minutes before heading back into town. We pulled it back together long enough to go to a traditional British pub for dinner and my fish and chips were delicious. We also had warm brie with roasted garlic and wished my sister were here to enjoy it with us because she makes the BEST brie...we crashed hard after dinner (midnight our time, mind you). Waiting for my fools to wake up now so we can go to breakfast. We plan on wandering around downtown for a while this morning before we catch out train around lunchtime to head to Seattle...having a blast!

Pacific Northwest Day #1

After walking up at 4am EST this morning to catch our flight out of Chattanooga, I can safely say it has been a long day. It is now 11:10 EST and I am gonna try to make some notes before a major crash.

We had a 3 hour layover in ATL which was fine but it just meant we had time to burn. Another uneventful flight later and Megan picked us up at the airport right on time. My first impression of Portland is that everything is wet and so green! Conifer trees are the dominant variety out here and the annual rainfall is so high that it really is shocking to see how full-of-life everything looks here heading to the tail end of winter. We headed downtown to the Saturday market and tromped around in the rain looking at local wares. I bought a couple of little gifts and kept my eyes open for a small piece of art (my usual travel souvenir) but nothing struck my fancy. Lunch at a delicious Greek place - possible the best Greek food I have ever had, a trip to the famous Powell's Book store, the Stash tea store where we stocked up, and dinner at the Widmer Brother's brewery (which we hope to take a tour of tomorrow). It has been an awesome and long day so we're headed to bed. Columbia river gorge is on the plan for tomorrow....