Portland

Our next destination after Tacoma was Portland, which added the 11th state to our list, Oregon.

We did a lot of hanging out in Portland. We stayed with a friend from OSU, Erik, and his wife, Jenny. It was a blast to stay with them. Thanks guys!

Tacoma, Washington

After blasting through Seattle, we chose to stay at the cheapest motel we have found thus far in our travels. It just so happened that it was in Tacoma, an hour south of Seattle. Coincidentally, Tacoma was home to the glass blowing super star, Dale Chihuly, and is now home to the Museum of Glass. With a day to kill before we could go to Portland, we decided to spend it at the museum.

Life is a little tastier in the Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest is a place all to its own. Things are just a little different here. Case in point: coffee shacks. Every little town has at least one, if not a few, of these drive-thru gourmet coffee houses. They take over empty lots like weeds. They are delicious.

Seattle

Unfortunately Seattle is a very short post. We felt the best way to experience the city was to stay with a local, but luck wasn’t on our side despite our efforts. Without a host, we hit the highlights in a day.

We first went to the Seattle City Center, home of the World’s Fair in 1962.  Of course, its most famous landmark is the Space Needle.

Olympic National Park

We left Walla Walla not sure of our ultimate destination, but headed to the Pacific for sure. Our options included Seattle and Vancouver, but as the forecast was showing a four day stretch of unusually warm weather, we headed to Olympic National Park to do some hiking. This park makes up most of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula and contains miles of seashore as well as the lower 48′s only temperate rain forest.

Walla Walla, Washington

Our first destination in the state of Washington was Walla Walla, which, besides having a funny name, is home to some lovely wineries. We needed a place to break once more before hitting the west coast and as Walla Walla is about halfway between Butte and our next (yet to be set at the time, but on the west coast) destination, it seemed like a natural pick.

Driving from Wyoming to Washington

Post Yellowstone, the original plan was to head up to Glacier National Park. Feeling the pressure of time and weather, we decided to head west instead after a little soul searching. We’d still love to see Glacier, but it deserves its own trip, plus we saw similar mountains relatively recently in South America.