We are currently waiting out a rain storm overnight in Southern Oregon after the first leg of our Road trip up and down the West Coast of the United States. The forecast for most of the trip was supposed to be sunny, but it is apparent that we didn’t check southern Oregon’s weather. We are ok with the delay though, as road trips are best when things don’t go as expected.
As we listen to the thunder and see the lightning through our very small motel room window, we started talking about our week and how
relaxed/busy it was. After arriving back from Las Vegas in Seattle, we were car-less and spent the night in a hotel so we could rent a U-Haul the next day (Tuesday) to pick up our belongings that we shipped from Bethel (basically just 12 small boxes of odds and ends and my electric guitar) and get them to our storage unit. Things went pretty smoothly, but we did get reminded of how bad traffic gets here. It was like a race against the clock to get our stuff into storage in Redmond and back down to Sea-Tac (where we rented the U-Haul) before the real traffic started. We then got to experience the Metro area’s public transportation offerings. We spent about $25 to take the bus, light rail and ferry to get back to Bremerton in time to have dinner with Angela’s family and her Uncle and Aunt that were up visiting from California.
On Wednesday, we meant to get up early and get a good start on our primary goal for the week: FIND A CAR. But we lollygagged and didn’t get out of the house until the afternoon. So we decided to run a couple other errands and then went to visit Angela’s brother at work right before he was getting off for the day. Angela’s brother works at a Volkswagen Dealership, and he had been on the lookout for cars for us and helping us find a good car, but so far we had not had too much luck. But when we went to pick him up, he had a surprise for us. His dealership had just got a trade-in that was exactly what we were looking for: A 2003 4-door Volkswagen Passat. We bought it after a quick test drive and drove our new car home that night. We really owe it all to Angela’s brother and want to thank him for all of his help. Freedom is just another word for having a car!
The next night we picked up our nephew in Bremerton so he could stay the night with us in Poulsbo for an early start to our adventure on Friday. We woke up early on Friday and drove to the ferry to walk on and ride to Edmonds to visit the “Rick Steves’” Travel Consultants and buy our Eurail Passes for our Europe trip at the end of the summer. We’ve been reading Rick Steves’ travel books for about 3 years since we started getting serious about our trip to Europe. We love his advice and information in his books and are really basing the core of our trip on his advice. So we made an appointment with one of his consultants to take a look at our itinerary and get some questions answered about our trip we still had. We had a nice breakfast and coffee in Edmonds before our appointment and it was a really nice day. Out appointment went well and we got our questions answered and then bought our Rail Pass tickets for Europe and left Edmonds feeling pretty excited about our trip. Our nephew wasn’t feeling 100%, however. He was a trooper for the entire trip though and we thought it was a lot of fun to have him with us.
After we took the ferry back to the other side of the water, we took our nephew back to his house and then ran a few errands before meeting up with Angela’s family to see the opening night of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2”. It was the first time we got to see a movie on opening night in longer than I can remember and it was great! We loved the movie. It reminded Luke that he had read “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” right after its release during our Honeymoon in Kauai, Hawaii.
On Saturday, we drove over to friends’, Lindsay and Mark’s, house in our old town, Kirkland. They had just had a baby girl a couple months ago and this was our first chance to see her in person (as well as our friends of course). We got to go to Lindsay and Mark’s wedding last year in March in Colorado and we really like hanging out with them. After spending some time interacting with the baby, Mark and Lindsay took us to a great little Cuban place for dinner in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle called “Paseo”. It was delicious, and the first Cuban food we had eaten in forever. After eating, we went to the nearby Golden Gardens Beach Park and took a long walk and caught up some more on what’s been going on in all of our lives.
On Sunday, we slept in a bit and then headed off with Angela’s family (brother Nicholas, sis-in-law Angie, niece Paloma and nephew Jude) to the Lavender Festival in Sequim, north of Poulsbo. For some reason we had all been anticipating the Lavender Festival (maybe because it was the first “festival” we had gone to in a while). When we got to Sequim, however, they were trying to charge us a ton of money to visit the Lavender farms… at some point you realize the value you do (or don’t) put on seeing a Lavender Farm. We decided to skip the farm tour and went straight to the middle of town for the actual Festival Area. There was live music, and Paloma got to take a pony ride, and there was food (we were all pretty hungry by the time we got there) and that was about it. We didn’t even really see much Lavendar. The weather was not great, either. So we packed it up and headed back to Poulsbo… however it appeared that so did everyone else, because we hit very bad traffic and the ride home was pretty tough. Being with family makes things much more fun, however, so we still chalk it up as a good day… I don’t know that we will ever return to the Lavender Festival in years to come though.
On Monday morning we woke up early so we could get a quick start to our road trip. The plan for the road trip was to mosey through California and see family and friends on the way down and back up. After doing so much planning for our trip to Europe we really liked the idea of just driving and seeing where the road took us. We brought a tent, just in case things got campy. But mostly we figured we would stay with friends, family and a motel or two. We realized we had a couple errands to run before leaving town so we started on the errands and didn’t get to leave the area until about 1pm and then Luke had to stop at a Best Buy in Tacoma for something important (anything you buy at Best Buy is important, according to Luke).
Luke drove, and booked it south through southern Washington and northern Oregon. Angela needed some refueling in mid-Oregon though, so we stopped in Eugene at a little diner and tried to come to a decision on how far we would go before spending the night. The rain really made the decision for us in the end and we stopped in Grants Pass, Oregon and listened to the storm as we fell asleep in our little motel. We are looking forward to the rest of the road trip and are excited about our next adventures as we head into California.
As we listen to the thunder and see the lightning through our very small motel room window, we started talking about our week and how
relaxed/busy it was. After arriving back from Las Vegas in Seattle, we were car-less and spent the night in a hotel so we could rent a U-Haul the next day (Tuesday) to pick up our belongings that we shipped from Bethel (basically just 12 small boxes of odds and ends and my electric guitar) and get them to our storage unit. Things went pretty smoothly, but we did get reminded of how bad traffic gets here. It was like a race against the clock to get our stuff into storage in Redmond and back down to Sea-Tac (where we rented the U-Haul) before the real traffic started. We then got to experience the Metro area’s public transportation offerings. We spent about $25 to take the bus, light rail and ferry to get back to Bremerton in time to have dinner with Angela’s family and her Uncle and Aunt that were up visiting from California.On Wednesday, we meant to get up early and get a good start on our primary goal for the week: FIND A CAR. But we lollygagged and didn’t get out of the house until the afternoon. So we decided to run a couple other errands and then went to visit Angela’s brother at work right before he was getting off for the day. Angela’s brother works at a Volkswagen Dealership, and he had been on the lookout for cars for us and helping us find a good car, but so far we had not had too much luck. But when we went to pick him up, he had a surprise for us. His dealership had just got a trade-in that was exactly what we were looking for: A 2003 4-door Volkswagen Passat. We bought it after a quick test drive and drove our new car home that night. We really owe it all to Angela’s brother and want to thank him for all of his help. Freedom is just another word for having a car!
The next night we picked up our nephew in Bremerton so he could stay the night with us in Poulsbo for an early start to our adventure on Friday. We woke up early on Friday and drove to the ferry to walk on and ride to Edmonds to visit the “Rick Steves’” Travel Consultants and buy our Eurail Passes for our Europe trip at the end of the summer. We’ve been reading Rick Steves’ travel books for about 3 years since we started getting serious about our trip to Europe. We love his advice and information in his books and are really basing the core of our trip on his advice. So we made an appointment with one of his consultants to take a look at our itinerary and get some questions answered about our trip we still had. We had a nice breakfast and coffee in Edmonds before our appointment and it was a really nice day. Out appointment went well and we got our questions answered and then bought our Rail Pass tickets for Europe and left Edmonds feeling pretty excited about our trip. Our nephew wasn’t feeling 100%, however. He was a trooper for the entire trip though and we thought it was a lot of fun to have him with us.After we took the ferry back to the other side of the water, we took our nephew back to his house and then ran a few errands before meeting up with Angela’s family to see the opening night of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2”. It was the first time we got to see a movie on opening night in longer than I can remember and it was great! We loved the movie. It reminded Luke that he had read “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” right after its release during our Honeymoon in Kauai, Hawaii.
On Saturday, we drove over to friends’, Lindsay and Mark’s, house in our old town, Kirkland. They had just had a baby girl a couple months ago and this was our first chance to see her in person (as well as our friends of course). We got to go to Lindsay and Mark’s wedding last year in March in Colorado and we really like hanging out with them. After spending some time interacting with the baby, Mark and Lindsay took us to a great little Cuban place for dinner in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle called “Paseo”. It was delicious, and the first Cuban food we had eaten in forever. After eating, we went to the nearby Golden Gardens Beach Park and took a long walk and caught up some more on what’s been going on in all of our lives.
On Sunday, we slept in a bit and then headed off with Angela’s family (brother Nicholas, sis-in-law Angie, niece Paloma and nephew Jude) to the Lavender Festival in Sequim, north of Poulsbo. For some reason we had all been anticipating the Lavender Festival (maybe because it was the first “festival” we had gone to in a while). When we got to Sequim, however, they were trying to charge us a ton of money to visit the Lavender farms… at some point you realize the value you do (or don’t) put on seeing a Lavender Farm. We decided to skip the farm tour and went straight to the middle of town for the actual Festival Area. There was live music, and Paloma got to take a pony ride, and there was food (we were all pretty hungry by the time we got there) and that was about it. We didn’t even really see much Lavendar. The weather was not great, either. So we packed it up and headed back to Poulsbo… however it appeared that so did everyone else, because we hit very bad traffic and the ride home was pretty tough. Being with family makes things much more fun, however, so we still chalk it up as a good day… I don’t know that we will ever return to the Lavender Festival in years to come though.
On Monday morning we woke up early so we could get a quick start to our road trip. The plan for the road trip was to mosey through California and see family and friends on the way down and back up. After doing so much planning for our trip to Europe we really liked the idea of just driving and seeing where the road took us. We brought a tent, just in case things got campy. But mostly we figured we would stay with friends, family and a motel or two. We realized we had a couple errands to run before leaving town so we started on the errands and didn’t get to leave the area until about 1pm and then Luke had to stop at a Best Buy in Tacoma for something important (anything you buy at Best Buy is important, according to Luke).
Luke drove, and booked it south through southern Washington and northern Oregon. Angela needed some refueling in mid-Oregon though, so we stopped in Eugene at a little diner and tried to come to a decision on how far we would go before spending the night. The rain really made the decision for us in the end and we stopped in Grants Pass, Oregon and listened to the storm as we fell asleep in our little motel. We are looking forward to the rest of the road trip and are excited about our next adventures as we head into California.
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