Hi, friends! Today I am so, so excited to (finally) start sharing with you the adventures we went on over Spring Break back in late March! For our week-long trip, we had the opportunity to explore Olympic National Park, Seattle, and parts of British Columbia. So over the next couple weeks I’ll be doing 1-2 posts on each place we traveled and sharing all the fun things we did at each!
To start things off chronologically, today is all about grabbing breakfast in Tacoma and hiking through Olympic National Park. So let’s begin!
We flew into Seattle really late on Wednesday night so that we could have a fresh start on Thursday morning. I’m one of those people that would much rather fly in super late the night before than really early the next morning. (We’re all about those cheap flights!) So while we may not have gotten a full night’s sleep, we were pretty excited to go exploring in the morning!
First things first on any road trip (or vacation for that matter)…breakfast! We flew into the Seattle-Tacoma airport and stayed in a hotel nearby to give us the best chance of a good night’s rest (limiting the amount of extra driving to do when we got in). It was super convenient to get there, but if you’ve ever looked at a map, its smack dab in the middle between Seattle and Tacoma (and not really near any points of interest itself). So we packed up our things in our rental car and headed into Tacoma for breakfast.
Since we would be going hiking later in the afternoon, I wore clothes that were comfortable yet cute for the casual morning of driving we had planned.
We stopped at an amazing breakfast place called Shakabrah. And guys, if you are ever in the Tacoma area, you have to go there! It was so, so good and I’m still having dreams about our breakfast there! I didn’t know it at the time, but doing a little perusing on the internet, apparently they are known for their larger-than-life pancakes. Next time! 😛
The place has a really small town vibe, which you know Allen and I love. While we were waiting on our food, I enjoyed just walking around and snapping a few pictures of little details around the place.
Oh hi there, handsome!
Vacation time means latte time! I love getting vanilla lattes or chai lattes when we are out trying new places for the first time–every place has their own special take on the drink. And not only are warm lattes great for waking yourself up in the morning, but they’re also fun to have on the road while you’re sight-seeing.
For breakfast, Allen got some kind of potato-egg-chorizo scramble (they are also known for their seasoned shakapotatoes–so good!) with a homemade biscuit and I got the Denver omelette (of course, right? :P) with wheat toast. All of it was So Good!
After breakfast, we walked a little along the main drag, looking at all the unique signs around town.
We then jumped back into our rental car and hit the road for Olympic National Park. Around this time, Allen put on the song “Downtown” by Mackelmore and Ryan Lewis and we both had a good time belting out the lyrics and being silly. (Mackelmore is from the Seattle area haha.)
At any rate, we took our time on the scenic route to Olympic National Park. We were really in no hurry and just wanted to soak in as much of our surroundings as we could. For me, this was my first time in the area, so I enjoyed feeling dwarfed by the giant trees surrounding us and the beautiful mountains in the distance.
It only took a few hours to make it to the north side of the park, near the Hurricane Ridge entrance where we were hoping to get into the park.
As a disclaimer to this entire trip, Spring Break (March) is not typically peak season for Seattle, WA or Vancouver, B.C. for that matter. It just happened to be where both of us wanted to go and when we both could take the time off for travel. 🙂 So most of the park was still closed for winter, too snowy to pass. And as an added complication, we were also exploring the park on a weekday when park roads aren’t plowed. Darn! But that’s ok because we found the Lake Angeles Trail right outside the park entrance on the northern side that winded and weaved into some of the park’s prettiest scenery.
We’d love to go back in the summertime when we can explore more of the park, especially since as with most National Parks, the majority of the park is inaccessible by car. But this small little taste was good enough for now!
This place is seriously so beautiful and covered in every shade of green imaginable. No exaggeration. I’ve never seen so many different shades of green surrounding me in my entire life. And these photos don’t do it justice!
Everywhere you looked, there was something beautiful and fascinating to take in.
One of my favorite parts of the forest was the fluorescent green moss painting the trees and mountain side neon. It really was striking against the already monochromatic background. Something that these pictures don’t do justice and you just have to experience for yourself!
I also loved finding little pops of color in the dainty flowers that lined our walking trail.
The trail was mostly dirt (except for when we hit snow and ice later) and was a fairly easy walk. Nothing too strenuous and one which I would definitely recommend for just about anyone. I was coming off of a particularly stressful time of midterms, meaning I had had zero exercise lately. And I did just fine (if that is any indication 😛 ).
Allen exploring, testing his (and my) limits. I actually love how much of an explorer he is. He has this amazing ability to bring out the adventurer in me (which I generally stifle thanks to a busy lifestyle and just naturally being cautious). But its something that really attracted me to him and makes me love and appreciate him more each and every day. When you can find someone who brings out the best in you, hold on to them forever!
Here’s some more of that fluorescent green moss! So, so pretty!
And me stretching tall and mighty like the trees around us. Perhaps it’s because I lived in Texas and Oklahoma (plains) and now Colorado (mountains, but also plains!), but these tall gorgeous trees made me so so happy! I’ve never seen anything like it before. And everything was so incredibly lush, especially for being in the middle of winter still.
Tree hugger! Nature is my happy place. 🙂
One of my favorite pictures from our trip (below). Don’t you just love how everything, even the rocks!, are covered in a beautiful green layer of moss. Allen seemed to think so too. 😉
We also found this tree with a bunch of holes in it. I can’t remember what we decided it was from, whether it was a wood pecker or beetles, or some other type of bug. But all the little details of life in the wild are so beautiful and interesting to talk about on our hikes.
And once we got deep enough into the trail, we started to see streams from the snowy runoff in the mountains. There was even this amazing bridge made out of a tree to cross at the deepest part. I loved that bridge, and may or may not have walked across it several times. It was so neat to see the rushing water right below your feet.
How incredible that we were surrounded by so much green, and yet there was still snow on the ground! Not something you would typically see (at least for us!). It was a rain forest for sure!
We also walked by this giant root wad that had been unearthed when a tree had downed. For size, you can see Allen in the picture below. It’s ginormous!
Once we hit a pretty icy part of the trail, we decided to turn around so that we could make it back before sunset.
As a little side note, I had just gotten this cute little backpack for our trip. After hearing that Seattle and B.C. were both very rainy (and unpredictably so) during this season, I wanted to make sure to have protection for my camera. It ended up being the all-star my things packed for this trip, and especially so for our little hike through the forest on this day. Big enough for a raincoat, gloves, camera, and phone! The perfect size if you are in the market for one.
That evening we stayed in Port Angeles to make our morning ferry ride to Victoria, B.C. a little more pleasant (since the ferry left out of there at dawn). So on our way back to the hotel, we stopped at a little Italian restaurant for dinner.
We each splurged on a soda–Allen a root beer and me an Italian cream soda!
For dinner I got the vegetarian lasagna and Allen chose the chicken fettuccine alfredo. Yum!
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel for a movie in our pj’s and a little homework on my part. (I had a midterm project due that Friday–yuck!) But we had such a wonderful first day exploring Olympic National Park and already can’t wait to go back in the summertime one day! It was a great way to start off a week full of adventures on our Spring Break trip through Washington and southwestern British Columbia.
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