Don't you just cringe when friends invite you over for dinner and then bore the crap out of you with vacation pictures and then talk about that adorable little places/bed and breakfast/greatest meal/awesome scenery/wistful maybe we could just move there/the weather was great blather while you tactfully try and figure out a way to end the evening early?
I had never been to Seattle and my memories of the Pacific Northwest were pretty hazy so off we went. It is hard to give an accurate description of a city during a short visit but it was a place of sensible shoe wear, fashion, lovely hills and little wasted space.
My apologies in advance this is a bit photo heavy.
If I was a real photographer or an artist, I could easily envision myself being entranced by the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, and wanting to stay for the inspiration. I loved the concept of the "expresso shacks" everywhere with cutesy names, the idea of living in a city where one could actually walk and ride a bike. When we lived in Memphis, it was in one of the few neighborhoods where one could walk or ride a bike, the rest of the city is very anti-pedestrian, a rather telling commentary on the state of modern urban areas in the US today.
Naturally we did typical tourist things. Pike's Market was full of characters, fresh food, cafés and shops.
Hipsters....
Fish guy...
Musician...
The market pig....
A few city scenes...
During dinner with Jessical, who is one of the most self aware, thoughtful,
and intelligent people I have met recently, my husband declared that I had to promise that I would go on at least one hike without the camera. Ironically enough, when I finally did that he said, hey, why didn't you bring the camera?
We then left for a few days on the Olympic Peninsula. We stayed in a bed and breakfast but not just any bed and breakfast. It was a caboose in Sequim. We ate gut busting breakfasts in a dinning car. Our caboose was the "western" style one, it looked scary on the outside and was pretty nice on the inside.
Of course, we had to go hiking in a few places in the Olympic National Park. We climbed up Hurricane Hill.
The next day we drove to the Hoh Rain forest further along the coast. The green lush moss was very mysterious, I kept expecting the trees to talk to us, or strange beings to pop out and cast spells upon us.
We also stopped to appreciate the shoreline as the day faded...
There was also a night in an upscale lodge, we arrived looking muddy and vaguely out of place, but the scenery was worth the pursed lips.
I came back wishing I was painter so I could have captured the beauty of the land.
Thanks for having a look at my attempt to show a gorgeous part of America. I really have no understanding of why anybody would take a family trip to Disneyland or one of those other so called family excursions when all of this is available.