July 31-Aug 30: Washington State

Excited to see more new things, we journey north. There was a lot to take in on our drive out of Oregon, especially around Portland.

We arrived in Washington and our first stop was the visitor’s center at Mount St. Helens.

Then it was off to find our campsite and get settled in for our 3 night stay. We had a front row spot with easy access to Silver Lake.

This was a very exciting day for our family – Mak and Ella both started work at their jobs!

Eager to check out Mount St. Helen, we began driving in the direction of the mountain to get a better look. Turns out you can not get much closer than this without a long hike.

We hiked around Cold Water Lake to take in a different view of the beautiful mountain. This lake was created as a result of the eruption on May 18, 1980.

We decided to get another view of the mountain from on the water. We kayaked around the lake at our campground.

Time to move on, so we continued into Washington making our way over to the coast. We enjoyed a few nights at Copalis River RV Resort, which was on a small body of water about a mile from the beach that you would not want to get in to.

Luckily, it was only a short drive to the ocean. We checked out the shore and even found a local bar hosting a live band playing grunge music.

We went for a drive on the beach, which was incredibly wide. And then we went for a walk near the inlet where because it was low tide we were able to walk on land usually covered by water. Google maps thought we were in the water. They have extreme tides in this area.

We continued our journey north in WA staying on the coast. We traveled through the town of Forks, which we heard is the setting for the Twilight movies.

We landed at our new site, where we were excited to enjoy the beach for a few days in early August thinking it would be warm and sunny. Not exactly! It was foggy, cloudy with air temperatures near 70 and water was about 55. But it was beautiful and very relaxing.

This was an awesome beach for the dogs. They were very happy.

We made our way a little farther north on the Washington coast and ended up in Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula for 4 nights. Our drive to get there was rainy and foggy.

Ella took Friday off of work and drove the 4 hours north from Portland to join us. She came to see us for a few days. It made us all very happy!!

We met up with our good friends Kent and Kathy from Wind Ensemble who live in Washington now. The five of us took the ferry over to Victoria, BC. Addie was under the weather and hanging with the dogs on the rv.

We only had a few hours in Victoria, but did our best to check out the city. It is a beautiful waterfront city with many touristy shops and restaurants. Interestingly enough there were no real signs that we were in another country. We had a fun time exploring the large Chinatown and eating dim sum.

The next day, Ella motivated us to go for an early morning hike in Olympic National Park. Up, Up, Up we went and found some incredible views.

We had no idea how much water actually surrounded this area and were very excited to get to experience so much of it.

We enjoyed a delicious dinner with a spectacular view at Kent’s sister’s house in Sequim, on the coast. It was a beautiful afternoon for a kayak. We were hopeful to see a sea lion, seal or maybe even a whale.

While we were doing that, Ella and Addie had a sister’s outing. They went to see the Barbie movie and enjoyed a yummy Asian dinner.

It was awesome getting to spend this time with Ella. We were sad to have to say goodbye.

We drove from Port Angeles to Fidalgo Island not far as the crow fly but because we did not want to take the RV on the ferry at 6am, it was a 5 hour drive around the Puget Sound taking us through Tacoma and Seattle traffic.

We made it to Pioneer Trails RV on Fidalgo Island and got set up. This was our most northern camping spot on the west coast.

Kent and Kathy stayed close by for the week and we had a great time exploring the area together. Our first outing took us to the boat docks in Anacortes.

We took the ferry over to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island and checked out the town. It was a perfect day to be out on the water. Once there we walked the docks and boat shopped. Such a beautiful place.

We drove a few miles north staying on the coast and explored the waterfront community of Bellingham. And of course looked at more boats. Lots of Indian influence in these communities. Beaches here are so different from the east coast.

We decided to do a little hiking in Deception State Park to try to get a good view of Deception Pass. Another beautiful day that we were given to make the time exploring that much more wonderful.

We had a great week wandering the areas surrounding Fidalgo Island with our good friends Kent and Kathy.

It was time to see more of WA. Our travels took us south and inland and along the way we found smoke from the forest fires in Canada. It gave the sun a mysterious glow and distorted our view of Seattle.

Our next stop would put us in Olympia, WA for about a week. We had a nice spot hidden in the tall trees. Not great for Starlink, but very good for keeping us cool.

From here we were close to Kent and Kathy’s current home on Lake Lawrence. We were excited to have some of Kent’s yummy cooking.

The four of us went to check out Mount Reiner National Park. Addie enjoyed a day at home alone. It was very cool being able to see the glaciers on the mountain.

After that cool experience we needed a refreshing beverage, which we found at Base Camp. Normally packed with hikers and climbers, it was quiet because of the fires and smoke.

We took a day to explore Seattle with Kent and Kathy as our guides. We walked all over the downtown area making sure to see Olympic Sculpture Park and the Space Needle. We even made our way over to West Seattle which gave us an amazing view across the bay at the city.

The main event of the day was our trip through the Chihuly Garden and Glass Art Museum. Even though we had just seen an exhibit of his work in St. Louis we were thrilled to see it again. Such incredible glass work with spectacular colors and shapes.

To round out our city tour we made sure to walk through Pike Place Market on the wharf and in doing so found the famous first Starbucks (opened in March 1971) and the Seattle Great Wheel.

After our days of adventuring it was nice to be able to come back to a campground that was dog friendly. There was lots of space to walk and a great dog park with dog friends.

Shannon is always thinking and planning for the next great adventure and at the top of his list is a bike trip. As part of the necessary research, Shannon and Kent went Adventure bike shopping in Tacoma.

RV Aventis finally got the name recognition she deserves with a new personalized license plate.

Ella came back for a quick weekend visit. Turns out we were only about 2 hours from her at this location. The four of us met up with Kent and Kathy and had a nice walk around Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge.

We worked up an appetite with all our fun exploring and decided to enjoy some yummy local food out.

Our last day with Kent and Kathy was bitter sweet. We went out on the pontoon boat and had an awesome day on the lake with Kent as our boat captain. It was marvelous paddling around the lake. It was awesome to be back on the water together again. So many fun boating adventures we have shared, looking forward to sharing more in the future as we both embark on our next grand adventure.

On our way back to the rv from their house, we were surprised to see that a super kind human was sharing the bounty of this week’s crops. These zucchini were not your normal grocery store veggies.

Unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to Ella. It was time for her to head back for work and for us to continue north.

Our last few days in Washington were in the Lake Pleasant area. The spots were a little tight, but we had a nice view of the water.

We took some time to visit a few of the local wineries in the Woodinville area. We had a nice time tasting wine and small bites at Ste. Chateau Michelle.

We also very much enjoyed the wine and the environment at Januik. These wines are a little more reasonably priced than most of the wines we had in Napa and Willamette.

We even found a local whiskey distillery that people said has an amazing peanut butter whiskey milkshake, so we had to go and try it. They were not kidding – it was super yummy and you definitely only need one!

We made our way east through WA seeing cool things along the way. The landscape is always changing.

Our last night in the state was at Moses Lake, basically just a stopover for a night before venturing into Montana.

It was an awesome month spent exploring all the wonders of Washington, getting to see our dear friends Kent and Kathy and having them show us around their home state, and of course having extra time hanging out with Ella. From here we continue east in search of more amazing adventures.