Seattle, Washington

 

We just finished up a two week stay in Bothell, Washington which is just outside Seattle.  This was our first stop in the area with an RV and our first chance to meet up with our daughters in-laws.  We never really got a chance to spend any time with them at the wedding so this was great. 

We did some sight seeing of the city before we met up with our daughter, her husband and his parents for the weekend.  First we drove into the city to see if we could with the truck and find parking.  Much to our amazement it was fairly easy to get around in the truck and we found street parking at all the stops we made.

Our first stop was Pike’s Public Market to stroll the booths and have lunch. 

 

  Line to get into the original Starbuck’s.  People there is another one just around the corner!

Next we drove to the Art Museum Sculpture Garden.  Nice park near the water with some interesting works.

  Interesting

Our next visit to the city was to check out the Seattle Center.  This is where the Space Needle is.  Of course we went to the top.

  View from the bottom

Selfie (or is it a groupie??) from the top

That brings us to the weekend where we had dinner with the Hurst’s (our daughter and son-in-law came up from Portland).  We had a great time at their house and spent the night so that we could do some things with our daughter and son-in-law the next morning.  We had a nice breakfast in downtown Kent (where his parents live) and then went into the city to drink some cider.

 

On Sunday the entire group took a Duck Boat tour of Seattle.  Our driver “Marty Graw” was so funny.  It is the best duck tour we have ever taken.

We found out that there were a few wineries very close to our RV park. One of them is Chateau Ste. Michelle, which is a favorite of ours.  So on Monday we ventured out to do some wine tasting.  The grounds for Chateau Ste. Michelle are huge as is their tasting room. 

Just one of the buildings. 

We tasted some of their estate reds and were not disappointed.

Across the street was Columbia winery, so we made a stop.  The also have very nice grounds and a large tasting room.

We were the only visitors in the tasting room and we had fun as we got a host who was on his first day of working the counter.  He was fun and his trainer made it even more enjoyable.  We liked their wine so much I signed up for their club.  If you are keeping track that would be 5 clubs I joined this year but I have cancelled the first two, so only 3 are active.

We had a great time in the Seattle area but did not like the traffic.  It seemed to be busy at any time of day in all directions.  Very frustrating when trying to get somewhere.  Also the weather was very hot during our entire stay, generally in the mid to high 80’s every day.

We have now moved east and have stopped in Soap Lake, Washington for a few days before moving to our friends house in Idaho.

Route:  From Portland we took Interstate 5 north to Interstate 405 to Bothell, Washington.

Portland, Oregon

 

We just finished up a two week stay in the Portland area.  Here is where our oldest daughter and her husband live so it was nice to be able to catch up with them.  We had also made arrangements with our friends, the Sherwood’s, to join us for a few days to do some wine tasting in Hood River, Oregon.

We had a great time visiting with our daughter and husband, tasting ciders, going bowling and taking a hike in a Portland park.

Morning hike in Portland followed by fantastic donuts at Blue Star donuts.

On this trip to Portland we were at the perfect time for the roses blooming at the International Rose Test Garden.  Fran was in heaven walking the gardens and taking pictures.  There are over 500 varieties of roses in the garden.

Our friends flew in and our daughter joined us for three days in Hood River, Oregon.  We actually stayed in a hotel!  This is a beautiful area of the Columbia River Gorge about 60 miles from Portland.  There are many vineyards here along with a number of wineries with a quaint little town.  It is nice as this is a developing area so the tasting fees are minimal and not busy tasting rooms.  We had a great time visiting about 15 wineries over the 3 days.

Our wine tasting friends!

We all agreed that the tasting room where we had the most fun was a downtown Hood River tasting room for Naked Winery.  It was by far the busiest one we visited.

 

We also visited a tasting room for Stoltz wines that was in a former funeral home.

We had a great time with everyone and tasted some very good wines. 

We left the Portland area this past Thursday and moved to Bothell, Washington which is just outside Seattle.

I wanted to add one additional item to this post regarding our travels.  While I was updating our route map I remembered a post that was floating around Facebook a few months ago showing the route to take to see 50 of the top attractions in the United States.  I copied that map and have included it here, along with our trip map, so you can see how we have done.  We have seen two thirds of the 50 spots on their list.

     

Perfect road trip map                                         Our map

Route:  From Seal Rock, Oregon we took US 101 north to Highway 18 east to Interstate 5 to Interstate 84 to Fairview, Oregon.