Washington State: Olympic Peninsula

Overview

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Day 2 (Apr 8): Arriving at Pacific Beach Resort, Pizza at hotel

Day 3 (Apr 9): Pacific Beach, Quinalt Rainforest, Ruby Beach, Forks, WA, First Beach, Second Beach, Supper in Forks, Long drive to Port Angeles

Day 2: Arriving in Pacific Beach

After a crazy end to our time in Seattle searching for my wallet and visiting the Museum of Flight, we hit the road on our way to Pacific Beach around 5pm. We made a quick stop for supper at Dairy Queen in Tacoma before making the long drive (which was even longer with a baby in tow) to our accommodations at Pacific Beach Resort.

It was a very trying day with all the commotion, so after arriving at the hotel, we grabbed a pizza at the only place left open at that time of night and ate it at the hotel room while getting ready for bed. Mark and the rest of the family went out to hang out for a while and check out the amenities, but I was just plum tuckered out and Cashel and I hit the hay earlier than the rest.

Day 3: Pacific Beach, Quinalt Rainforest, First & Second Beach to Port Angeles

We were up fairly early to be on our way for a very jam-packed day touring the Olympic Peninsula! We had a hearty breakfast in the hotel restaurant before getting loaded up and on our way around 10am, en-route to Quinalt Rainforest.

Pacific Beach

We made a quick stop at Pacific Beach first, however, and wandered the beach for a while. We sure wish we'd had more time to relax at many of the places we stopped this day. The views were so breathtaking!

Quinalt Rainforest

After our short stop at Pacific Beach, we hit the road to Quinalt Rainforest. We arrived around 10:30am and explored for a while one of the trails before deciding to make our way on over to the World's Largest Spruce Tree not too far off. We set out afterwards to find some lunch, only to find that nothing was open yet (too early in the season), so we hit the road again to try to find something to eat.

The Rainforest contained the World's Largest Spruce Tree - it was ENORMOUS!


Lake Quinalt

Ruby Beach

After a strange lunch of somewhat decent chicken tenders from a gas station we found leaving town, we hit the road again and made the trek over to Ruby Beach, which we had heard was beautiful! After a short, easy hike down the trail, we came upon this:

We spent more time here than any of the other beaches we stopped at, but we don't regret that - it was incredible! Mark found a couple starfish, which was cool.

Forks, WA

Our next "stop" was in Forks, which we thought was supposed to be really cool, except there really wasn't anything there to see or do. I suppose there would have been if any of us were Twilight fans, but alas, we weren't, so it was just a boring little town that was mostly passed through. Of course, we got a picture of the sign and by the fisherman's memorial, but beyond that, we headed on to find First Beach.

First Beach

First Beach was incredibly easy to find once we drove there - MUCH easier than the other beaches, as we just hopped out of the car and were there. It was beautiful, but after having been to Ruby Beach, we were only somewhat "wow"d by it.

I didn't dare chance taking little Cashel out with me on the branch there, but stayed behind to get pictures of everyone else.


Not bad for 8 weeks after having a baby!

Second Beach

Second beach was a different story as far as ease of reaching it, but WHOA was it ever worth the hike! There's something about an un-touched beach like this that just leaves you in awe. It makes you feel so small and powerless against the wonder of our God and his creation. It just makes your jaw drop and takes your breath away when you first see it.

We still had a bit of a trek that evening, after we stopped to eat at a little diner in Forks, but we made it to Port Angeles before it got too terribly late.

It was a very long day of traveling, hiking, and exploring, but one of the most memorable days of our trip. I know I'm quite the slave driver when it comes to travel planning and keeping to a schedule, but I think I speak for everyone when I say they're all glad I do it, because otherwise we would have missed out on all of the beauty and wonder of the Olympic Peninsula. Of course, we still have plenty to revisit some day, but we had enough :)

Washington State: Seattle

Overview

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Day 0 (Apr 6): Travel, Arrival and Sleep

Day 1 (Apr 7): Show Me Seattle Bus Tour, Pike Place Market, Lunch at Beecher's, Seattle Center/Space Needle, Steelhead Diner, Stayed in Renton

Day 2 (Apr 8): Museum Of Flight, Traveling to Pacific Beach

Day 0: Travel, Arrival and Sleep

We got into SEATAC around 7pm and picked up our rental car. Cashel did great on the trip, but man do you ever end up with a lot of extra stuff with a baby in tow!

We made it to the hotel around 9 and got our stuff unpacked, said a quick hello to Daniel, Iryna and Sophie, then headed to bed.

Day 1: Tackling Seattle

We started out the day with breakfast at the hotel, then got ourselves re-packed and headed into Seattle (from Bellevue, if you recall from the nutshell recap) to catch our bus tour of the city with Show Me Seattle minibus tours.

Show Me Seattle Bus Tour

The tour included 3 hours of commentary and exploring the city of Seattle, covering everything from downtown Seattle, Pioneer Square, Chinatown/International District, The Waterfront, breathtaking views from Queen Anne Hill and Fremont and the Ballard Locks. We were also able to get a few pics of the houseboat featured on "Sleepless in Seattle", which was pretty cool :)

View from atop Queen Anne Hill

Ballard Locks



The boat house from Sleepless in Seattle

The Ogre

Pike's Place Public Market

After the tour, we were getting hungry and ready to explore a bit more, so we headed downtown to Pike's Place Public Market, parked the rental car and explored. Highlights here were observing the fish market, smelling the beautiful flowers, lunch at Beechers, and a vanilla chai latte at the Original Starbucks.

Lunch at Beecher's

The Original Starbucks

Supper at Steelhead Diner

We relaxed near the Waterfront for a while before finding some supper at Steelhead Diner.

Seattle Center/Space Needle

After supper, we were planning on going to see the sunset atop this one taller building in town, but found out it was closed, so we went down to the Seattle Center to explore a bit. We were contemplating going up in the space needle, but decided that $20 was a bit extreme to ride an elevator, so we just wandered around for a bit.

Then, it was getting late, so we got on the road to find out hotel for the night in Renton, where we checked out the pool for a bit before hitting the hay in preparation for another big day!

Day 2: Flight Museum and the long drive to Pacific Beach

After enjoying a strange, but delicious breakfast in a random hotel suite (renovations in the breakfast nook caused them to move it to a hotel suite instead), we got all packed up and hit the road for the Flight Museum.

Unfortunately, as we were arriving, I realized I had misplaced my wallet, so it was tough to really enjoy it too much. We still did enjoy it, but left to return to the hotel to search for it, and Mark miraculously FOUND IT hidden behind the headboard. We're about 95% sure the maid actually swiped it and hid it there, since we had called to report it missing prior to returning there, and they swore up and down that they hadn't seen it. Either way, we were ecstatic that we found it!

Museum of Flight

We enjoyed the flight museum for another couple hours before hitting the road for the long drive to Pacific Beach for the night. We really wish we had spent more quality time there, considering the wallet fiasco ate up a lot of our time :( It was a really neat museum, although I honestly can't say I'd probably ever return.

Here are some pictures from the Flight Museum:

Well, that's it for Seattle! I'm sure there is a ton more to do there, and while we had a nice (albeit short) visit, I don't know that I really have much of a desire to go back anytime soon. As for the rest of my Washington review, however, I'd go back in a heartbeat! To be continued...