West Coasting! :: Days 6-8

On to day 6 of my trip! Chris officially arrived Wednesday night and we were ready to hit the state! What better way to start off our trip than a walk around the big old town of Wilkeson! Luckily, Chris seemed to adapt pretty well. Take someone from a city of 8 million and go to a little over 400 and you don’t really know how they will react! He actually enjoyed my mom’s little town a lot though and was pretty impressed that we had a coffee shop right down the block. I also caught him taking quite a few pics of the scenery (which he NEVER does) so all was good!

After a little tour of the town we headed to our bigger little city of Enumclaw to the world famous, Kettle. We talked Chris into ordering a full order of a scramble and boy was he impressed! He also realized even with his appetite it was enough for 3 days…

After we were stuffed to our gills with homegrown goodness, we headed to Seattle!

We really lucked out because the weather was absolutely perfect! Don’t worry I let Chris know our weather is ALWAYS that great. Year round ;-) After adventuring around Pike Place and Westlake we headed down to the waterfront to see what the new ferris wheel was all about.

I have to say I think it’s a pretty great addition to the waterfront! Great views of the city, water and if the clouds would have rolled out of the area probably the mountains too.

After riding the wheel, we walked along the waterfront and then walked up to Seattle Center.

Once we made it to the top of the hill from the waterfront we found some great grass below the Space Needle that was calling our names to rest. Not a bad view either huh?

We spent the rest of the afternoon adventuring through Seattle Center, which would become Chris’ favorite part of Seattle we visited.

For the evening, we had to take a 3 hour break for Chris to draft his fantasy football league from a Barnes and Noble.. true story. Then we headed to Serious Pies for dinner before ending the night in Green Lake to visit with my friend Lindsey for some delicious fro-yo. As our trip to Seattle came to an end I realized there is so much more exploring I need to do in our own great WA city! For living so close to it growing up, I certainly don’t know my way around or many of the neighborhoods. One day… one day…

On day 8, we were off to the mountains! AKA Big Foot land. I was really excited about this part of our trip because something that is seriously lacking in New York, and something I desperately miss, is MOUNTAINS!

By the time we made it up to Paradise, the clouds had taken over Mt. Rainier but we couldn’t complain about the beautiful weather up there, clouds or no clouds. It felt so good to get out into nature and appreciate it in all of its beauty, and the air smelled amazing! You really can’t compare anything to fresh mountain air. I wish I could can it and bring it back to the city!

After a fun adventure-filled day we headed toward Alder Lake to meet up with Hardersens to camp for the night! I hadn’t been camping in years and Chris had only been once, in his WHOLE life! So we were pretty excited for camping and to see the Hardersens! They were so generous to us during our trip by allowing us to borrow their car and join their camping trip and we truly couldn’t be more thankful!

After we made it to the lake (which is BEAUTIFUL, by the way) we were off to pitch the tent! After a little struggle, mostly on my part, we finally got it up properly! Woh hoh!

After all of the real hard work was done it was time for some relaxation, an amazing fish fry for dinner and smores around the fire! I must add that the Hardersens don’t just camp they go “glamping”! Let’s just say I’m not sure ordinary camping will ever be able to compare now that I have “glamped” ;-)