June 14, 2018
This post has been the most requested blog post since Jake and I (Sara) have returned home. It is crazy to think that so many of you want to know all about our trip so we’re so excited to share about it! I honestly don’t know how long this post will be, but I will try to pack as much in as I can!
For those who might not know, Jake and I celebrated our four year anniversary on May 25th. Every year since our wedding, we try to take the last two (mostly one) week off around our anniversary to celebrate. While this can be difficult with being a wedding photographer, our couples have been so sweet and amazing to this request. Michelle’s anniversary is on May 27th, so it kinda works out for both of us to take off!
Since 2014, we’ve stayed pretty local. Only going to our honeymoon destination, Wrightsville Beach, each year. Now don’t get us wrong, we LOVE the beach and really did miss it this year. However, we wanted to adventure out to somewhere we had never gone before. Most people at this time ask, is that how you choose Washington? Hmm, kind-of, but it is sorta funny how we came to pick Washington. So since we wanted to go somewhere new, we had to mark off anything pretty much East Coast and Chicago. Then we started to take off states we didn’t want to go to.
Nothing too hot, nothing out of the country, nothing too cold, nothing that is full of tourist since we’ll be going in May. Hmm. I finally asked the question, what about the West Coast? We actually landed on Washington because of a few things: Jake LOVES rain (his favorite weather), one of our favorite shows is based in Washington, and we have always heard it is an absolutely stunning state. So off we went checking airline prices, car rentals, and hotels. After six months of planning, our trip finally was here for us to enjoy!
Before I get into any details about where we ate or what we did, take a brief glance over our itinerary! This is just a general idea of where we were on what day(s)!
Monday, 14th: Travel to Washington
Tuesday, 15th: Seattle, WA
Wednesday, 16th: Travel to Snoqualmie, WA
Thursday, 17th: Travel to Portland, OR
Friday, 18t: Portland, OR
Saturday, 19th: Portland, OR
Sunday, 20th: Travel to Port Angeles, WA
Monday, 21st: Port Angeles, WA
Tuesday, 22nd: Port Angeles, WA
Wednesday, 23rd: Travel back to Seattle WA
Thursday, 24t: Seattle, WA
Friday, 25th: Seattle, WA
Saturday, 26th: Travel Home
Now that I gave you an overview of our trip, let us dive right in! I am SO excited!!
Day one, we landed in Seattle Washington after traveling for six full hours – it was an early start to the day! Because of the three hour time change, we arrived at 9:15 AM PST instead of it being 12:15PM EST. While being time dizzy and achy, we still wanted to start exploring right away! We found our rental car, drove to find some breakfast (or lunch for Jake), and stopped at Patty’s Eggnest Restaurant. After eating until we were OVER full, we decide to explore a local Indian Cultural Center that had the most incredible view. The sound was peaceful, quiet, and just mindbogglingly stunning. After checking into our hotel and getting cleaned up, we found a local pizza joint and dug in! Day one was a success even with being extremely time confused and sleepy as anything.
Day two was one of the days that I was looking to the most – The Public Market Place!! Jake and I arrived there VERY early, so early that most everything was closed. You would think, oh that’s a bust, but it wasn’t! I don’t know how we ended up there, but we took a right and ended up right on the docks behind the Public Market. It was so calming and peaceful to walk around. By the time we were heading back up, I had to stop at the cutest little Letterpress shop! After purchasing a few cards, we went back up to explore the market place.
Now let me just say that this market is HUGE. It honestly is like a maze. It is about four levels of stores, restaurants, and fish mongers! Jake wanted to stop in every old book store there was and I wanted to eat everything I could. We stopped by Piroshky Piroshky for delicious Russian pastries. Di Laurenti served us coffee and delicious smells of Italian pizza cooking! We tried local fresh fruit from a little farmer stand which made us purchase fruit to go. Then we went off to finally eat a full meal at the Pike Pub!
We’re still on day two here, but after exploring the market we decided to head on over to the Golden Gardens Park. The park is around 20-30 minutes away from the market place, but it is completely worth the drive! Why? Just look at this!
After exploring the park, we decided to head back to the hotel to get changed and ready for dinner! We decided to go fancy and Italian at Lucia’s!
Day three was a travel day from Seattle WA to Snoqualmie WA! It is about a forty-five minute drive and it was stunning! Well, really anywhere you travel in Washington is stunning, so no complaints there! Day three was all about hiking. We took a hike at Twin Falls State Park and at Snoqualmie Rivers! At the top of Twin Falls State Park is a gorgeous waterfall that you get to enjoy because let me just say – that hike was hard. I am not even joking, it was one of the hardest. Well these two hikes are two of the hardest hikes I have ever done, but 100 percent worth it!
After hiking at Twin Falls State Park, we traveled over to Snoqualmie Falls which was right next to our hotel for the evening! Seriously a dream!
Jake and I booked a one night stay at the Salish Lodge that is right next to Snoqualmie Falls! This is the home to “Great Northern” in the TV series Twin Peaks! It was the most extravagant stay I have EVER had in my life. From the warm welcome to the hotel atmosphere to the dinning experience – it was amazing!!
At the Salish Lodge, we dinned at their restaurant and they placed us right in front of their REAL fireplace. It was a dream!
I will be honest at this point, I forgot to photograph our entrees at dinner because I was SO hungry after doing two hikes that I couldn’t be bothered. Thankfully I wasn’t SO hungry that I didn’t photograph the lovely breakfast spread we got that next morning!
Day four included the beautiful breakfast above at the Salish Lodge. After a bittersweet farwell to Snoqualmie, we traveled to Portland, OR! Now for the sake of not making this blog post HUGE, I will condense day four, five, and six together. I will also say that Portland was probably my least favorite part of our trip. It wasn’t our favorite because we didn’t stay IN the city. If you don’t stay in the city then you really can’t find any good parking anywhere. So what we did is off the normal touristy things!
This is us exploring Powell’s City of Used Books!
Jake and I grabbed some food at Cartlandia in Portland!
We explored a look out the Columbia Gorge River!
We also explored the Multnomah Falls but we couldn’t hike it because it was shut down!
After that, we toured another local area that included four restaurants, two bars, a very large food garden, and flower garden! During our time there, we saw two different weddings happening and you better believe that I was creeping, ha! Now onto day seven, eight, and nine which bring us back up to Washington. Not just any old place in Washington, but to the most North West tip of Washington, Port Angeles! One thing that is hard about this is that if you drive from Portland to Port Angeles, it is a 5 hour drive that is VERY long. However, the view makes up for the crazy long drive!
Our hotel for the duration of our stay was at the Olympic Lodge maybe a 5 minute drive from downtown Port Angeles! First the view is just insanely breathtaking. “There are mountains right outside of our window!” We found an amazing Italian (Gordy’s Italian and Pizza Place), soup (Toga’s Soup House), and Thai (Sabai Thai Cuisine) restaurant that we just LOVED in PA! The two biggest things that we did in Port Angeles was hike the Hurricane Ridge trail and explored the little downtown of PA.
Now remember way up above that I said I hiked one the hardest hike yet? Yeah, that was a lie. Hurricane Ridge nearly had me crying. For the most part of the beginning, it was good, but then came the middle and end parts which meant STEEP hills. Now when you are walking up steep hills with no steps, it seriously kills your legs. Plus we got a little sunburned because we were so high up and with the sun shinning on the us the whole two hours, we got a little toasty. However, after I say all of that, hiking Hurricane Ridge was one of the most incredible things to do and I am so proud of myself. Once we got back to the Olympic Lodge we soaked in the hot tub for as long as we could!
After never ever wanting to leave, we set out for our last leg of the trip: days ten, eleven, and twelve. These last three and a half days were spent exploring other parts of Seattle that we didn’t have a chance to get to in our first round. This meant exploring a little bit more of downtown where we found an amazing Mexican restaurant (La Carta de Oaxaca) across from a super busy ice cream shop (Salt & Straw)! My goodness, the tacos I got where SO spicy that my month was begging for me to ice cream which I was totally okay with!
Of course being back in Seattle we had to go back to the Public Market place because I wanted to explore other areas we didn’t have a chance to see! This also gave us the chance to go back to all of the shops/stores that we LOVED the first time around. For dinner we found a Hawaiian restaurant, Kona’s Kitchen, and it was delicious! We actually had to Uber from our hotel because the first time we tried to go we couldn’t find any parking!
On our last full day of our trip was celebrating our four year anniversary. It was one of the most relaxing, bittersweet of all of the days because we didn’t want to leave. However, we did miss our family, friends, and our kitty cat! We spent the early morning/afternoon at Chateau Saint Michelle tasting wines, eating lunch, and walking around the grounds. In between of the Chateau and our anniversary dinner, we started to pack because we had purchased A LOT during the trip. After getting what we could packed up, we set out for Lucia’s to celebrate our anniversary! Yes, we went there during the first round of Seattle, but it was SO good that we couldn’t pass it up.
Day thirteen was the day we left pieces of our hearts in Seattle and set our eyes back on the East Coast. Since Italy this has been one of my favorite trips ever. Would I ever go back to Washington? YES PLEASE. I seriously could see myself (and Jake) living there. I loved every second of and I wish we had traveled there sooner.
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