Washington and Vancouver

Instead of buying one another presents for our birthdays this year,  Ben and I put that money - along with generous help from some loved ones- towards a trip together to Washington state. It's been a busy summer of travel already, so a four day weekend was all we could swing, but man did we fit a lot into those four days. 

For my own memories-

Day one: early, early morning flight with an arrival in Seattle around 12:30 Seattle time. Exploring at The Farmers Market downtown and enjoying all of the delicious food to be had there. We spent the entire day just exploring Seattle, driving until we came across a place we wanted to check out. We finally crashed around 8:00 and were asleep by nine their time after our three hour night of sleep the night prior.

Day two: We woke up, had breakfast, and made the three hour drive to Vancouver. Once in the city, we ditched our rental car and purchased tickets for a hop on, hop off trolley that would take us to all of the stops in the city. We quickly discovered how important this was as we realized that Vancouver is swarming with people, there is traffic everywhere, and parking spots are rare. We enjoyed Granville Island and Stanley Park before meeting our good friend Julie for dinner. So good to catch up with her. Our drive back into the States was long but uneventful. Full day.

Day three: Mount Rainier and The Gorge. This was a highlight of the trip kind of day. We explored as we drove towards The Gorge, which was another three hour drive from our stay in Seattle. (There was so much time spent on planes and in cars this trip!) We loved Mount Rainier and had a great time taking it in. We stopped at our hotel for a quick change and, with advice from the hotel clerk, decided to head to the concert venue early. What we expected to be about a 45 minute drive turned into a two hour process to get from our hotel room to our concert seats. There were people everywhere. (The crowd size was 100, 000 + people attending an outdoor concert in a field in the middle of nowhere. I've never experienced anything quite like it.) It was a great concert. All three acts were pretty great, but Avett Brothers stole the show in my opinion. They are so good. It was late, late our time before we finally arrived back at our hotel room. 

Day four: Olympic National Park, lavender fields, Snoquelmie Falls, and lots of exploring

We woke up pretty early despite our late bedtime because we knew we had just one more day to explore the area before flying home... and explore the area we definitely did! We drove and drove and drove some more, stopping everywhere that caught our eye. It was late afternoon before we finally arrived in Olympic National Park and we loved our brief time spent hiking there. All too soon, it was time to make the long drive to the airport to catch our 1:00 AM flight. 

We arrived back at home around 9:30 in the morning on the fifth day of the trip. I am still shaking my head at the amount of area we covered in four days, and also kind of marveling that we are still awake and functioning! :) I love that Ben is such a great travel partner. We filled our hours of travel time with good music, an audiobook, and lots of talk and laughter. 

So glad that we were able to enjoy this getaway together to such a beautiful part of the world.