Working on this page Washington State

After parking our rental car on the Ferry (first time) we made our way to Port Angeles to spend three days at Olympic National Park.  The ferry was an experience just in itself.  I was very thankful that the police calmly explained to us what we needed to do as I almost drove on to the pier without realizing it was a ferry.  Gotta love GPS! We visited both the HOH & Quinault Rain Forests,  Marymere and Sol Duc Waterfalls along with Rialto and Ruby beaches.  We even stopped in Forks.  The Olympic Peninsula is truly a jewel!

After Olympic NP we made our way to Mount St Helens NM.  This is where we learned that it is important to plan your hike ahead of time.  We did a short guided hike with a ranger (the Hummocks Trail) and decided to continue on the trail alone.  No map, no supplies and no idea of what to do or where we were going.  We came to cross road junction where the sign was missing. Do we follow the trail left or go straight? Luckily we chose the correct way.  We found out later that if we chose the other way it would have put us on a 15 mile trail away from our car.  That is the last time we hiked without a plan in place!

After Mount St Helens, we spent the next  morning & afternoon at Mt Rainier.  Just the drive and pullouts were amazing. We did manage to do a short, easy and very popular hike the Grove of the Patriarchs trail after that we made our way back to Seattle

After Mt Rainier we spent three full days exploring Seattle.  We rented  great two bedroom apartment in Kirkland via AIRBNB and one of our first stops was Snoqualmie Falls.  Since we love nature hikes and waterfalls we loved this place.  You can view and walk around the falls from the top and the bottom. You can hike or drive to both, we drove.    We started at the bottom, there is a nice picnic area at the bottom where we relaxed and  had our lunch, then we drove around to the top. 

We love wine tours and have been on a few in different states.  However this time we skipped the multiple vineyard tour and made this our one an only stop.  Chateau St Michelle is one of my favorite wines so I was very excited.  While the actual vineyard is in a different part of Washington, this is where the wine is made and bottled.  The tour and wine tasting were excellent.  The Ethos Reserve Muscat 2016 is Yum Yum Yum!    We also took a full day tour of Seattle, this is something we like to do when we get to a big city.  What better way to see the sights and hear the history, Seattle has a very interesting and checkered past.   

Wow, Wow, Wow  this place is worth every penny.  My mom still talks about visiting this place with ooohs and aahhs.  Way better than the space needle and right next door.  Only disappointment was that you can't touch anything and all of it screams to be touched.  If you ever make it to Seattle don't miss it.