Anyone that has known me for awhile knows that Seattle has been my top place to visit for quite some time now. I have always been intrigued by it and the allure of lots of rainy days has always made it a must in my book.
So when a couple of our friends invited us to go on a road trip that would involve stops in Oregon and Washington, I knew this was finally my chance to make my dream come true.
We started off the first night of our trip camping near some awesome sand dunes in Oregon. We had a lot of fun exploring the dunes and taking lots of pictures and videos. It was so incredibly beautiful. We got to enjoy our dinner and s'mores around the campfire before it started to rain. And it rained all.night.long. Thankfully, our tent kept us dry and the sound of the rain actually made it quite easy to fall asleep and stay asleep.
On our way!
The dunes
My friend K.M. and I
The boys being crazy
The next day, we drove up to Seattle. As this was my first time in both Oregon and Washington, I was pretty excited passing over the state lines. We were able to clean up and head out for a night on the town. We ate at this really awesome restaurant called Local 360 (I highly recommend it if you're in the area). My mom had told Josh that we needed to try the king salmon when we were in Seattle, and lucky for me, it was one of the specials of the day at the restaurant. And let me tell you, it was amazing! After our amazing dinner, we went up the Space Needle! I was super excited to do this, even though it's a pretty tourist-y thing to do. The views from the top were incredible. After that, we walked to a place called the Pie Bar, which is just what it sounds like. We lucked out and were able to get seats inside, which was hard as they were super busy (and the place is really small to begin with). We each ordered a different kind of pie and a beverage to go with it. We left there incredibly full and very happy. Every pie I got to try even a small taste of was delicious. And you can order it to go!
Local 360
View from the bottom
And from the top
Desserted Island pie with strawberry champagne
The next morning, we got ready and headed back into the city. We started our day trying to find the original Starbucks. We got the address wrong at first and ended up at a different Starbucks, but soon figured out it couldn't have been that location. So we walked down to the Public Market and finally found it! It was well worth the 30 minute long line just to get in the store. It was a very tiny location with no seating inside or outside, but they had some fun finds that you could only purchase there, and they treated everyone that walked into the store so well. I'm so glad we were willing to wait for experience that.
First Starbucks!
I had to get a mug to commemorate our visit
We continued to walk through the Market and stopped to watch the famous fish guys do their thing. As it was a Saturday, the Market was really busy but we were able to walk through the whole thing and check out all the cool stuff there. We wanted to eat a cheaper lunch, so some of us bought food from street vendors and others of us had chowders from Pike Place Chowder (which was incredible). We continued our day after that by walking around the city some more and ended up taking a ferry over to Bainbridge Island. As it went from pouring before we got on the ferry to being extremely warm when we got off the ferry, we didn't stay on the island too long. We walked down to the waterfront and hopped on the next ferry to take us back. After that, we walked to a bakery I had looked up before our trip that was supposed to have incredible cupcakes and macarons...and it did not disappoint. We then headed back to our hotel, as we had done a lot of walking that day, and ordered pizza for dinner. We ate our goodies from Yellow Leaf for dessert and went to bed semi-early, as we had more driving to do.
These guys are hilarious
On the ferry
The macarons we bought at Yellow Leaf
The next morning, we packed up and headed for Oregon. Before arriving in Portland, we stopped at the Multnomah Falls. It was so beautiful there. We were able to get some great pictures of the falls and enjoyed our little pit stop there. We then headed into Portland and grabbed some lunch from some of the food trucks downtown. It was incredible how different it felt to go from Seattle to Portland. After lunch, we headed to Distillery Row and bought passports to go tasting at the different distilleries. The passport allowed for each person to taste at six different distilleries, and you didn't have to visit each of them in the same day. As six would have been a lot to do, we decided to only try four. We had a lot of fun and it was really nice that the ones we choose to go to were all within walking distance of each other. After that, we headed to our hotel to check in and get freshened up before dinner. We went to Deschutes for dinner and it was amazing. After dinner, we walked around downtown Portland a bit. We tried to go to a fun ice cream place for dessert, but the line was super long.
Our whole group in front of the falls
On the bridge
One of the cocktails they made us at one of the distilleries
The next day, we headed back to downtown Portland and walked along the waterfront while one of our friends that went with us (who is a professional photographer) did a quick photo session with a couple he knew. After that, we headed to Voodoo Donut and each ordered two amazing donuts. We then walked around downtown for awhile and headed into Powell's Books. It was a little overwhelming, as it has multiple stories and tons and tons of books, but it was definitely my kind of place. After doing some more walking around, we decided to head to Por Que No for lunch. I wish I could say that I enjoyed it, but I didn't. I think part of it was because I wasn't feeling the best at that point (I think the heat and all the walking was really getting to me), but I also think I'm a little spoiled where I live to have some really good Mexican food. And to me, this was more mediocre. Since I wasn't feeling the best and everyone else was tired of walking, we headed back to the hotel to take naps and rest a little. It was much needed and I felt so much better after. Later that evening, we headed over to Salt and Straw and got ice cream (this is the place we tried to go the first night). They had some crazy flavors (like Pear and Blue Cheese) but even the weird sounding ones that I tried were good. I ended up getting a scoop of Birthday Cake and Blackberries, and Strawberry with Cilantro Lime Cheesecake. So good! After that, we headed back to the hotel and ended up getting some dinner a little while later (nothing exciting for dinner).
We had to wait in a little bit of a line to get into Voodoo
And the next day we headed home!
Overall, I can definitely say that Seattle is my kind of place. Portland was fun to visit, but it wasn't really my most favorite place. There definitely seemed to be some other interesting places to eat that we didn't get to try, but I felt like we got to see most of the popular sights there.
I am so glad we were able to take this trip and experience these fun places with good friends. And now I can check Seattle off my Bucket List!
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