Washington and Oregon

The Pacific Northwest: a land filled with beauty, wildlife, and jaw dropping sights. We loved our trip to Washington and Oregon and would hands down do the trip again. I mean, who doesn’t love this area: from coastal areas to mountainous regions and rainforests, how is there not something for everyone?!

Washington

On our trip to Washington, we flew into Seattle where we spent the morning at Pike Place Market. Here there is fresh seafood and fruits, a giant gum wall (I think they took it down though), and the very first Starbucks location! We then walked around downtown before heading to our hotel called Staypineapple Watertown Hotel. If you’re going coming to Seattle, you HAVE to stay at this hotel. They have a motto called the "Naked Experience", which emphasizes how clean and comfy they keep everything. In the afternoon, we went to Gas Works Park, which had a great view of downtown Seattle and a cool playground. Near the park they also had hot tub boats that you could rent to cruise around in the harbor, which looked really fun and something that my dad really wanted to do. We also had nearby Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, which was delicious. For lunch, since my mom is obsessed with huckleberry, she found a place called Uneeda Burger that had huckleberry shakes. It was pretty good, and it was in the Fremont area so we were able to see the Fremont Troll walking to lunch.

After an AMAZING night’s rest at Staypineapple, we headed out of Seattle to Oak Harbor to meet my mom’s best friend from high school. We stayed at their house overnight before heading off to North Cascades National Park. North Cascades is in the North, almost central, part of Washington right by Canada. This is one of the least visited national parks, but I have no clue why. North Cascades is one of my mom’s favorite national parks and a top for the rest of the family as well. We stayed at a place called Ovenell’s Heritage Inn and Log Cabins in the small town of Concrete, Washington. There is not a ton of amenities in this area, so if that’s how you like your national parks, don’t come here. Our first day, we hiked Maple Pass Trail, which is an amazing 8 mile trail with 2,168 amount of elevation gain. I highly recommend this hike - it is a must do. Another hike we did was Baker Lake Trail; this was a nice peaceful hike with a low amount of crowds. The other thing that you must do while here is visit Diablo Lake and go swimming in it! The color of the lake is a gorgeous turquoise color and the water feels great after a hike. Also, if you're into paddleboarding, I recommend bringing your own blow up paddleboard and going and exploring the lake. For food we mainly cooked our own for both lunch and dinner, but we did good to Birdsview Diner in Concrete which had incredible milkshakes. My brother and I both got an Oreo Marshmallow shake - it is a must get. After spending three nights in the Cascades, we drove back to Oak Harbor to spend time with our friends. We spent two nights in Oak Harbor before heading off towards Olympic National Park.

We took a ferry from Coupeville to Port Townsend, and then drove to our lodging called Sol Duc River Cabins. These were nice cottages by a river, right off the road but not near a town. This was a great place to stay, but if you are in Olympic National Park, I recommend staying at Lake Crescent Lodge which is on Lake Crescent and just has drop dead gorgeous views. If we ever come back here, we definitely will be staying here. For meals, we ate breakfast at the hotel, packed lunches, and then ate at the town of Forks for dinner. Forks is a small town that is famous for its scenes in the Twilight series. We stayed in Olympic for three nights and packed a lot into our stay. Our first morning we did a hike called Hole-in-the-Wall from Rialto Beach, which is a tidal pool hike and a unique way to experience the ocean side of Olympic. You have to time your hike with the tides, because at low tide you can go through the "hole", but beware because at high tide you can get stuck! We also went to Ruby Beach and enjoyed the waves crashing. After beach time, we headed to Hoh Rainforest and did a short hike. Then we went to Lake Crescent and went swimming (this is where that blow up paddleboard comes in handy). The next morning, we went to Hurricane Ridge for a hike. This area was really crowded and the hike was along a paved road, which I didn’t really like. On the other hand, my dad loved this hike, and the views were pretty good from the top. Later, we did some more exploring of the town of Forks and then we rested back at the hotel. The next morning we headed off towards Oregon!

Oregon

The hippie state, and I can definitely confirm this after visiting here (lol). We came here in 2023 after visiting Washington. We left Olympic National Park in the morning and did a full day’s worth of driving from Olympic down to Crater Lake. Along the way, we stopped right outside of Portland for lunch at a place called Burgerville, which is a famous fast food restaurant in the Northwest. We took the route in the central part of the state for a more scenic route that involved seeing Mount Hood and Bend, Oregon (a city on my dad’s retirement list). We arrived at Crater Lake about 9pm and went to the top of the ridge to see the lake at sunset. When we got up there, a blast of wind blew my brother’s new souvenir hat off his head and down the ledge to a place we could not retrieve it! So, if you go there, be looking for his hat. We stayed at Mazama Village in Crater Lake, one of the few places to stay in the area due to the remoteness of this national park. My parents and brother woke up early the next morning to hike Discovery Point Trail around the rim. We then grabbed lunch at a little market next to our hotel before heading off to our next hike. The name of this hike was Cleetwood Cove Trail and is a 2 mile hike down to the shore of the lake. Once down there, you could go swimming in the lake and also do a 15 foot cliff jump into the lake. The water there is freezing cold (55 degrees when we were there) but it is such a pretty blue, who could resist jumping in? We had dinner at Crater Lake Lodge which had a great view but the food was nothing special. I will say that this is one of the more remote national parks, so don't expect many food options or amenities. Overall, I would say that Crater Lake is worth a visit but visiting places like Bandon Dunes and Bend would be amazing destinations as well!

Awards

Best Place We Ate At: Original Starbucks

Favorite Place Visited: North Cascades

Prettiest Place: Olympic National Park

Favorite Activity: Whale watching