Yay, vacation!

Dallon and I spontaneously decided to go on a vacation a couple months back. After very little planning we went and it was SO MUCH FUN and so nice to get out and have an adventure.

Before we left I cut my hair

and I bought a groupon to the place where I get my eyebrows threaded, but this time it was for a full face thread! Now, I didn't think I had that much hair on my face but she found it! Wow, it hurt! ha. It was really neat though and I would suggest it. Your face feels sooo weird afterward. 

If you don't know what eyebrow threading is click on this sentence to go to a youtube video I found!

On to our trip!!

I have about a million pictures that I’m going to put on here. We went a little camera crazy because everything was so beautiful.

(Just count on this being very long. You don’t have to commit. I won’t be offended.)

We left after work on friday (like 6pm) and drove to Boise where we stayed in the Howard Johnson Boise Airport motel. It was cheap and scared Dallon. I think he's used to Marriotts and never had to stay in a cheap motel. Though the room was a little stinky (or so Dallon said) I thought it was fine and we survived the night!

eating lunch at a rest stop on the way

In the morning we headed to the columbia river gorge highway to hike beacon rock and see some waterfalls! It was so beautiful and I can't believe how green it all is!

After seeing some barges and trees and whatnot we crossed the bridge of the gods over to the Washington side. We hiked beacon rock and it was a lot of fun! Beacon rock is a core from an old volcano and a whole, like, 800 ft above sea level! It’s a pretty easy and busy hike that provided some beautiful views! 

Bridge of the Gods

Beacon Rock 

 at the top:

Then we went looking for some waterfalls!

This was probably my favorite part of the whole trip!!

I’m a little bit lazy, so when I stumbled across this video titled “Accessible Adventures.” It was exactly what we were looking for. Accompanied with the website we were able to get an easy list of waterfalls that required little or no hiking. Though I wouldn’t consider most of them ADA friendly, it was easy for us to get there.

We were able to see six waterfalls along the Historic Highway. 

1. Bridal Veil Falls

Upper fall: 60-100 ft, lower falls 40-60 feet.

This one was our favorite. There was something so beautiful about it. Maybe because it was the first one we saw or because it was just spectacular!? The hike was a quick, but steep switchback down to see the waterfall. Everything around it was so green and alive. It was amazing! You could also get right down to it or onto a big boulder right by it.

so much green growing on everything!

2. Latourell Falls

249 Feet

This one was pretty big but you couldn’t get up close to it. There was a short walkway up to a viewpoint and a hike that went up higher and closer to it. We didn’t want to hike though so we just called it good enough to stop and look!

3. Sheppards Dell Falls

Upper: 35-50 feet, Lower: 40-60 feet

This was literally right off the road! It went down so you could see a cool old bridge the old highway was built on and you could get right up to the part between the two falls.

Cool old bridge that's part of the historic highway.

4. Wahkeena Falls

242 Feet

This one didn’t seem that impressive until we hiked up to it. The trail put you right by it! It was cool to have it roaring and spraying you in the face. It was a nice cool off after the steep hike too!

5. Multnomah Falls

620 Feet

Of course! This is what everyone’s been waiting for, right!? Multnomah is huge and beautiful! We actually saw it before all the other ones when we got lost trying to find how to get to the historic highway. Even from the road it is impressive! Because of Memorial Day it was super busy! We drove slowly along the road wishing we’d parked miles back and just walked. We went to turn around in front of the lodge just as someone was leaving! We got front row parking! That’s amazing in itself! We were feeling pretty lucky, especially after some of our previous parking “spots” when seeing the other waterfalls. Multnomah was beautiful! I have to keep reminding myself it’s not MultInomah. It’s just Mult-nomah. Try saying that. It’s hard!

It’s something better to see in person but the pictures turned out beautiful too!

Dallon stopped and took a picture of a hole in a tree, which we thought was super cool, but as we moved on other people behind us were stopping and looking in the tree. haha. 

6. Horsetail Falls

176 feet

Last of all was Horsetail falls! It was also right off the highway and we made a quick trip to see it before we headed to a camp spot. There was a cute Labrador swimming in the water at the bottom of the falls chasing sticks and he was shivering so bad the water was so cold! It’s crazy how many dogs we saw on all the trails!  I think since most of the canyons by Salt Lake are watersheds no dogs are allowed so I’m just not used to seeing them! They were all so cute and happy though! Who wouldn’t be!

On to a campsite!

The park I originally wanted to stay in was nonreservable and by the time we were done with everything there were no more sports left. So we went and stayed in a KOA!

Have you ever stayed in a KOA? It was our first experience and it was a good experience! The people there were so friendly. Like, way way overly talkative probably never mind their own business friendly. Which I liked! We soaked our feet in the hot tub after cooking dinner. There were a lot of friendly people in the hot tub! If you ever are going to stay and explore an area I would highly suggest staying at a KOA, even if it’s just to meet the local people staying there. Everyone had really good suggestions of things to do, places to eat, and hotels/koa’s to stay in!

green on everything!

After showering and chatting with our super friendly neighbor (who was never able to have children so she raises puppies but she can’t do shows because she’s too busy with the horses even though her friend really wanted to train her to train show dogs so she could take her over since her friend was getting older……) we packed up the tent and got out of there pretty early in the morning.

We went to the Bonneville Dam and the fish hatchery right next to it.

I think the dam was created as part of The New Deal just to make jobs for people in the area but when WWII started they needed the electricity to help aid in war efforts.  It’s crazy how powerful hydroelectricity can be! If the dam was running at full capacity it could power 900,000 houses (I think… but it’s A LOT). That’s like WAY more than a windmill can do, but they only run when needed and very rarely at full power. I don’t know much about power or the politics behind it but it seems kind of sad that one dam can generate a ton of power but it’s not being used while everyone is fighting about windmills. But maybe I’m missing something??

A dam picture of us. (ha. ha. ha) 

They also had a fish ladder to help salmon get through the dam. It was cool to sit and watch the fish try and swim up stream! 

Lampreys! 

ew

Then we went to the fish hatchery to see Herman the Sturgeon. There was trout in a bunch of ponds and food you could buy to feed them.  

This is Herman. He is 10' long, 425 pounds and over 60 years old.

big flower!

Then we headed into portland to see Kate, each lunch and then head to the coast. 

We got lost and took the wrong exit so we saw a little bit of portland, but not much. 

We ate at Lardos where Dallon had the best burger of his life! (They were pretty good!) It's the only place I've eaten at in Portland but I would suggest eating there if you're passing by!

Then we headed out to Tillamook. The drive was really pretty but the 55 mph speed limit is a little ridiculous. Especially when you get stuck behind someone doing 45! Hello Oregon drivers, you’re speed limit is already ridiculously slow you don’t need to drive ten under!

We got to the Tillamook cheese factory but the factory was not running :(.  So we looked around a little bit and got some yummy ice cream. Jenifer was very helpful in telling the people behind us in line that the line was actually closed so I think we all got an extra scoop! 

moo

Then we headed to Cape Lookout state park, right along the coast! A storm was blowing in while we were in tillamook and when we got to the beach it was slightly raining. Despite the cold it was SO much fun to run and play in the ocean. 

THE BEACH!

the water was very cold

It started raining harder 

and got even more cold and windy

Cooking was very cold too and we ate spaghetti with half raw noodles for dinner!

The wind got worse

We slept in our car instead! Kate's little tent held up really well though! 

When we first got to Cape Lookout it was packed! As the storm got worse people were dropping like flies and tents were threatening to blow away.  When we woke up in the morning the park was mostly empty! 

The weather was beautiful in the morning! 

Cape lookout is a vey nice park! 

Dallon found this along with a TON of sand dollars. He found like 15 and I only found one!

Since everything we had was wet and sandy we decided not to camp the next night but to just head up the coast then into Bremerton. 

A random train in a random tiny town!

Haystack Rock through the binoculars

cannon beach

Then we headed up the coast to Astoria! 

Astoria Column. 164 steps up!

our car looks so little from up here!

The column, built 1926

After the Astoria column we stopped and ate at Rogue Ales Public House. It was right out on a pier and pretty fun. Dallon got a burger and I got a chicken wrap that had feta cheese on it and it was the first time I've enjoyed feta cheese!

The goonies house is also right there in astoria. 

clip from the movie. Click HERE to see all the places in Astoria where the goonies was filmed!

Then we took the scenic drive up to Bremerton to stay with Sarah and Tylor. 

Bremerton has a Naval base.

Me, Sarah, and Bear (he was such a sweetie)!

After eating some pancakes with Sarah in the morning we headed out for the ferry! Well, first we were going to tour one of the ships but we got lost and confused about parking and just ended up in line for the ferry.

The Bremerton-Seattle Ferry was only about an hour. I wish it was longer, it was a lot of fun! Dallon and I hadn't planed what were were going to do in Seattle yet other than reservations at the space needle.

I love this picture Dallon got!

that ferry looked exactly like the one we were on!

When we got off we realized were were pretty close to Pikes Place so we headed there to see the shops.

We bought a little space needle made from the ash from Mount saint helens!

I even ate salmon while there!

After a short visit at pikes place, because we didn’t want to pay for parking over an hour, haha. We headed a little bit out of town to the Future of Flight aviation center. It was a place we saw on the brochure from the ferry. It is a Boeing factory! There are tons of Boeing 747s as well as their other planes. It was pretty cool (though a little over priced). You couldn’t take cameras on the tour but they took you into the factories where they assembled the different airplanes. The 747s are HUGE! They take up four stories! Everything about this place is huge! It is the world’s largest building by volume (472,000,000 cubic feet or 13,385,378 cubic meters)!  

I just found this picture online, but this is what it looks like inside the factories. 

After the tour we realized we were running late for our 5:40 dinner reservation. We drove back to Seattle, got very lost and frustrated on the one-way roads then eventually found the place where we were staying!

After talking to a girl at work she convinced me to try airbnb.com. We found a guy who rents out his spare room with private bathroom for $120 a night (that’s about the same cost as the cheaper hotels in that same area). Wow, his place was nice! We were on the 20th floor with the space needle literally right out our window. It was the tallest condo building in the area and had amazing views all around. We were even able to park in his private parking spot in the garage underneath and walk everywhere. 

Then we rushed off to the space needle!

We rode that fun elevator to the top and were seated at our table by the window. we spun around a couple times and took our time eating and enjoying the view.

Our formal picture at the Sky City Restaurant 

Wild King Salmon

sunchoke, stinging nettle puree, morels, asparagus

Jidori Chicken

smoked mozzarella, basil, speck, spinach trenette, morels

Sadly, my chicken was better than Dallon's salmon. The chicken was really good! 

Dallon got cheesecake for dessert (of course!) 

I don't remember what mine was called but it was SOO GOOD. It had a cookie like crust, then caramel then LAVENDER chocolate!

Even though it is definitely overpriced I would recommend it! It was a fun experience that we'll never forget!
After the amazing dinner we headed back to our room and just relaxed!

The view from our window

In the morning we ran to a gas station for the cheapest breakfast we could find! then headed down a couple blocks and walked on this walkway. I forgot what it's called but it has a bunch of modern art on it! haha. 

A typewriter eraser, Dallon had never seen one before! 

on a pier 

Then we went to the pacific science center. It was a lot of fun but definitely a place for children! There were kids everywhere!

Dallon trying to reach his toes. 

The butterfly house was awesome! 

one landed on dallon's leg!

Dallon loves bugs (NOT, only fake ones) 

really tall building! It was really pretty and tall!

is this where the superbowl was? 

leaving seattle. 

We left seattle after eating at a yummy cafe right at the bottom of the condo building and headed to my Aunt an Uncle's house. We stayed the night with them then drove 12 hours home! It really wasn't that bad! We left early and didn't get in until about 9pm. Now the regular drives we do seem really short! 

It was a great trip and probably not another one we'll do for a long time! I have to admit I loved the waterfalls and the coast the most! It was so great just to get out and have an adventure too!