Friday, July 29
Our flight was from Baltimore to Seattle on Friday evening,
and we arrived around 7:30 pm local time.
As I've explained previously, when we are selecting seats, C and I
almost always choose an aisle and a window seat because I typically fall
asleep, while he likes to be able to get up and stretch. It also means that about half of the time we
fly, we have an empty middle seat between us, which is fantastic. If someone does sit in the middle seat, we don't
care because, again, I usually sleep for the duration of the flight.
On this particular flight, we had an unaccompanied minor
sitting between us. She was a rising
eighth grader flying home to Alaska after visiting family on the east
coast. All I can say is that she was a
complete sweetheart! She chatted with us
about school, movies, traveling, and a myriad of other topics, and gave C
strategy advice for the games he was playing on his ipad. She was so incredibly personable and polite! At one point, I fell asleep, and when I
awoke, she was leaning over sleeping on my leg.
Adorable! When we landed, the
flight attendant told her to stay in her seat until all of the passengers were
off the plane, so when we were leaving, I said, "Good luck in 8th
grade!" and she replied, "Good luck in 5th
grade!" Ahhhhhhhhhh! So cute!
On our way off the plane, we made a point of telling the flight
attendant what a delight she'd been. Of
the countless flights where we've had someone seated between us, this was
easily our favorite.
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| Cascade Mountain Range |
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| Mount Rainier |
Saturday, July 30
We woke up early – thanks, jetlag! - and drove to Olympic
National Park. It was completely
breathtaking. It was our first time
visiting and we found ourselves wishing we could spend more time there. We also went to Forks – which is where the
Twilight series takes place. Back in
2008, most of my sixth grade girls were reading the books and repeatedly asked
me to read them so we could talk about them.
I finally gave in, and while they won't win any literary prizes, they
were pretty entertaining. We drove past
Forks High School so I could take a photo of the sign, which is the same as the
one used in the movie, even though that is not the actual building where they
filmed the scenes at the high school.
Regardless, I was pretty pleased to see the sign! After Forks, we drove to the rainforest
region of Olympic NP and the trees were humungous! It seems silly to say that I love trees,
because really, who would say they don't love trees, but I love trees. I hugged a few as we hiked and explored and
couldn't reach even halfway around most of them. It was so peaceful.
We left the park late in the afternoon and drove to Astoria,
Oregon, where we stayed for the night.
Sunday, July 31
We stopped to take a photo of the town sign before starting
off of the day. Why? Because Astoria is the town where The Goonies
takes place! Actually, Kindergarten Cop
also takes place there, and we found the elementary school where it was filmed,
too!
Our day consisted of driving down the most beautiful
coastline we've ever seen – and we've driven the coast of California many times
and love it there, too, but Oregon is just…wow.
We also stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory for lunch, and had the
most delicious ice cream! It was a fantastic
day and then we spent the night in Florence.
Monday, August 1
We spent the day exploring more of the Oregon coast and
tried two restaurants we'd never been to before, both of which are apparently
very common and popular on the west coast – Dutch Brothers Coffee and Black
Bear Diner. I really don't know why, in
all of our trips out west, we've never been to either of these! So good!
It was another great day of sightseeing before spending the night in
Medford.
Tuesday, August 2
This was a little bit of a crazy day because it was mostly
spent in the car. We drove to Oakland to
go to Fentons for lunch. It is such an
awesome place and absolutely worth the 350-miles we drove to get there. It may just seem like a regular restaurant to
some people, but to me, it is completely magical. We sat at the counter and there was an older
lady having lunch alone a few seats down from us, so we told the server that we
wanted to pay for her lunch. We were able to do this the last time we were at Fentons, too! It's the best feeling to surprise someone,
and this time, the server kept our identity a secret, so I just heard the lady
thanking the server repeatedly when the server told her that her lunch had been
taken care of. It's funny how when you
do a good deed for someone, it not only brightens his or her day, but yours,
also.
After lunch, we turned around and headed north because our
hotel was in Vacaville, which also happens to have another Fentons location, so
we went to that one for dinner. I would
call this day an unqualified win!
Wednesday, August 3
We had quite a long day of driving ahead of us, so we got a
pretty early start and headed back to Oregon.
On the way, we passed a lot that had large trucks painted in a rainbow of
colors, and I lamented about missing out on a photo of them. C kindly got off at the next exit and
backtracked and we cautiously approached the lot where they were parked. The gate was open, so we drove right in and I
took a few quick pictures. As we headed
to the exit, we realized that suddenly the gate was closed. Yikes.
We thought maybe there was a sensor or something and that if we
approached the gate, it would open, but no such luck. I now felt terrible because if it hadn't been
for me wanting a photo, we never would have gotten trapped in this crazy place. Might I mention that there was not a soul in
sight and we had no idea how we were going to get out of there? We were also confused because the gate had
just been open less than five minutes earlier!
We decided to drive around the lot in hopes of finding someone to help
us, when a pickup truck appeared from behind a building and gestured for us to
follow him. He must have had a remote in
his truck, because he opened the gate and we followed him out. Thank goodness he appeared when he did
because I was on the verge of freaking out.
Other than almost getting stuck in some random truck parking
lot off the highway, our drive was pretty uneventful, with a stop for lunch in
Medford at another Black Bear Diner, before arriving at our home for the next
two nights in late afternoon. We stayed
in a small cabin just outside of Crater Lake National Park, and in a move that
is very uncharacteristic of me, I failed to take any photos of the interior
before we moved all of our stuff, so I only have one exterior photo of the
cabin to share! This speaks to the
urgency we felt about getting to the park.
Since I took a lot of photos of there, I devoted a post just to Crater Lake, which is why I am skipping ahead a couple of days now!
Friday, August 5
We packed up our stuff at the cabin and drove to Crater Lake
one last time before heading to Portland.
I was so sad to leave Crater Lake!
We will definitely have to return soon!
After a quick stop in Bend for lunch, we drove to Portland and spent the
evening wandering around downtown. We
ate dinner at a place called Killer Burger, which we chose because it seemed
pretty vegetarian-friendly. I got a
veggie burger that had peanut butter and pickles on it, which might sound
bizarre, but it was amazing! SO
yum!!!!! We also went to Powell's
Bookstore, which pretty much takes up an entire city block. I could have spent days roaming around in
there…paradise for any book lover!
Before heading back to our hotel, we stopped at Voodoo Doughnuts because
it seemed like just about the most touristy thing we could do there. Well, the doughnuts were really good and I
would say they lived up to the hype!
Saturday, August 6
We left Portland and drove north to Seattle, which took
longer that we'd planned because we ran in to quite a bit of traffic, but I
can't really complain because we were so fortunate throughout our trip in terms
of traffic and weather. I was anxious to
get to Seattle because we were meeting up with a friend of mine, Dan. We met 16 years ago attending Space Academy
for Educators together, and on a coincidental family trip later that summer, we were able to
hang out in Seattle. However, I had not
seen him since! 16 years! We had lost touch for a few years, but reconnected
on facebook, and I wanted him and C to meet after all these years. We met downtown, took the monorail over to
the Space Needle – again, another very touristy thing to do, but I really love
the Space Needle – and then went to dinner.
The two of them hit it off, which did not surprise me at all, and it was
a fantastic afternoon and evening! I
certainly hope we don't let another 16 years pass before we get together again! It was so fabulous to see him. He is one of those people that I must have
known in a past life because I really feel like we were destined to be friends.
Sunday, August 7
We checked out of the final hotel of the trip and went to
Voula's Offshore Café for breakfast. C
had been there before with my brother on one of his visits to Seattle while my
brother was attending University of Washington, but it was my first time
there. I was excited because it had been
featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, and I did indeed order one of Guy
Fieri's "choices" that was listed on the menu. It proved to be a wise decision – it was super
delicious and so huge that there was no way I could finish it. After breakfast, we went to Pike Place
Market, which is always insane and as has happened during past visits, I
questioned why we bother to go down there.
However, I was on a mission to visit the original Starbucks location to
buy a mug. A 30-minute wait ensued, but
I finally did get my mug! I also bought two others on this trip - Oregon (featuring Crater Lake!) and Seattle (featuring the Space Needle!) - but it is the Pike Place Market mug that I really wanted! We also
wandered through the vendor stalls and the fresh flowers on display are
incredible. From there, we drove out to
Everett to the Boeing Factory for a tour.
It was fascinating to learn all about how their large jets are
manufactured! Finally, we stopped at Top
Pot Doughnuts for a bite to eat before heading to the airport for our red-eye
flight. We were able to use airmiles to
get first class seats for both legs of our flight home, which was such a treat!
Monday, August 8
We changed planes in Dallas very early in the morning, and then flew to Baltimore. Our connection time was already very limited, and we were late getting into Dallas, so we were worried about missing our plane, but we made it with a few moments to spare. We were also concerned about our luggage, but when we landed in Baltimore, ours were the first two bags off the plane, which I don't think has ever happened before. Kudos to American Airlines!
On our drive home, my mom texted me this photo of Ginny. While Maddy and Sadie slept, Ginny kept a vigilant watch of the door in anticipation of our return home. So cute! And speaking of my mom, ten-plus days of watching our girls is deserving of a prize! A huge thank you to her for everything!!!
Final thoughts: 1) What an awesome trip! and 2) I simply do not understand why you can't pump your own gas in Oregon. Ridiculous!
Happy Tails to you!
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