Tuesday, August 9, 2016

West Coast Summer Trip


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.



Cascade Mountain Range
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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