Washington & Oregon

Family, old friends and … Legos?!

Back at it!

There is just something about spring that I really enjoy, but can’t quite seem to put my finger on… Maybe it’s all the flowers blooming? Winter slowly coming to an end? Or it might just be the fact that the sun finally remembers Indiana exists and starts showing up? Honestly… I don’t know. What I do know, is that with spring comes my favorite break: Spring Break. It’s always a great time to unwind from the stress of school and just reconnect with the world. 

 A couple of friends and I had planned to visit Oregon and Washington to do some trails in Olympic, check out Crater Lake and tour Seattle. It all sounded very exciting and with my camera gathering dust since my last trip in Michigan I was really looking forward to this trip.

Late again?

Vacation time had finally come. We left for O’Hare with what I thought was plenty of time to reach the airport, but with construction delays and heavy traffic near the area, our buffer time was slowly being eaten away. 

We made it to the airport with just under 30 minutes before boarding started, and I was very worried we would miss our flight. Luckily, we were traveling light and had all checked in through the app, so the real challenge was the security line – which we thankfully breezed through and made it to our gate just before they called for Group 1 to start boarding. 

After arriving at Seattle late that night, we picked up our rental van, grabbed some food and started a long 8-hour ride to Crater Lake, with the hopes of making it there early in the morning.

Ice Walls 

With a long drive behind us, we made it early in the morning to Crater Lake National Park. The snowy landscape made the drive pleasant, but I was ready to get out, stretch my legs and do some exploring. 

Getting out of the car felt like I was climbing down from a spaceship and setting foot on a strange new world. Never in my life had I seen literal walls of thick ice, twice my size covering most of what surrounded me. I just had to get a couple of pictures to remember how small I felt that day. 

After the photo op and before checking out the lake, I had to use the restroom – and the only reason I’m writing about this is because it was a very interesting experience to say the least. Going into the restrooms at the park was like walking through a dark and cold cave, mainly because the hallway towards the restrooms were covered under thick ice walls and the actual restrooms were a bit of a ways from when you opened the door. 

Looking back, I think they could make really good shelters in case of severe weather, but I don’t know if I’d like to be trapped in them with that immense amount of snow surrounding me… a tad bit too claustrophobic for me.

After making use of the parks’ facilities, it was time to check out the view of the lake – the main reason we were all there for. So, we made the very arduous and long trek from the restrooms to the lake: 50 meters. I slid and almost fell a couple of times because of all the slippery snow leading to the viewing area and I wish I had brought my spikes, but I had forgotten them – live and learn, right?

The view was nice, but nothing otherworldly for me. Maybe if I had been there for sunrise or sunset my tune would change but not everything is about majestic views and once in a lifetime experiences, it’s about enjoying the moment with those you care about. 

After checking nearby areas and seeing how every other road was caked in snow – we decided to leave early and take the scenic to our next stop: Kalaloch Lodge in Olympic National Park, where we would stay for a couple of days.

Stinky Seals

Driving along the coastline reminded me of what I had been missing while in Indiana. The soothing sound of waves clashing along the shore, and the familiar salty and refreshing smell of the ocean brought back many memories of my beautiful and always missed home – Panama. 

We had quite a drive ahead of us, and every turn along the road gave me more time to reminisce and think about how I could be so far from home but feel so close to it, just by looking out the window.

However, this trip through memory lane was cut short by a sudden pungent smell that seemed to come from everywhere. After a turn on the road, we quickly realized where it was coming from: seals.

With much more road ahead of us and time to kill, we decided to stop by and check out the seals. Honestly, I wish I’d had a mask for that because they were so stinky! 

Olympic National Park

After we ‘sealed’ the deal with the seals, we drove the rest of the way until we reached Kalaloch Lodge where we would be staying for two days, exploring Olympic National Park. I was determined to bust out the camera for more shots and was very excited to see what the park had in store for us and I was praying for the weather to cooperate with me.

Cloudy skies and a grey day were what greeted me the next morning, not too bad as long as it didn’t rain, I thought. I really wanted to get some hiking done and take some shots. What I had seen so far from the park during our drive really made me think I could shoot something good.

But then… it started raining. So, no hiking or camera for me that day. We spent that first day driving around checking out things we wanted to do the next day – hoping of course, that the weather would cooperate. That day I realized we were close to the westernmost point of the continental USA, and thought: why not do it? I had already done the easternmost and we were close to this one, so why not? With that in mind, I went to bed that night really hoping it wouldn’t rain the next day.

The morning came and I was greeted by the same scene from the previous morning, but no rain this time! Just some light drizzles. So, I had a quick breakfast and off we went to the trailhead to Cape Alava – the westernmost point of the continental USA.

I enjoyed reaching Cape Alava, it was different from West Quoddy Head Lighthouse in that you actually had to work a bit to get there, especially when it had rained all day yesterday – the trails were caked in mud and at times were a bit hard to walk around but eventually we made it to the shore, where we proceeded to take some pictures and just enjoy the moment. And if you’re wondering… yes, I did get splattered by the waves - all for the pictures!

Some of my favorite landscape pictures come from Olympic – and that day, during the hike, I realized why. There were many sides to Olympic, on one hand you had the beautiful, green patches of land that extended for miles, all seemingly frozen in time – the enchantment only breaking when the moisture drops dripped off of the leaves. On the other hand you had the more dull and rugged yet intriguing shoreline with its many rock formations and maze like features. Olympic was quickly becoming a favorite of mine…

My only regret? Not enough time. Not enough time to explore and connect further with the park. The next day, we were gone – on our way to our last destination before our break came to an end. Seattle.

The Rainy City & Legos

I was very excited to be in Seattle for the last few days of the trip. I had family and friends that lived close to the city and I really wanted to catch up with them. But before meeting everyone we had to get to our rather very interesting and quirky AirBnB that I was really waiting to see, because I was sure the pictures they had posted on the app didn’t do it any justice. 

We arrived at what I will now refer to as the ‘Lego Mansion’ – the place was amazing! I will let the pictures do the talking, but I was very impressed with how they integrated Lego’s into the house décor. 

They even had games where you could look for certain Lego character’s or designs on the many walls! It was a lot of fun spending time there and just looking at all the Legos and some of the great designs. 11-year-old me was certainly impressed! But we didn’t make it all the way to Seattle to just stare at Legos!

The morning after we arrived at Seattle. My brother and I went to the 1st Starbucks location in the States and bought a mug to commemorate the visit, even though we don’t drink coffee hahaha. 

After that, I really wanted to check out Pike Place Market, more specifically, this fish stand where they throw their fish around to pack them and impress their customers. I had first seen a video of this during orientation training back at Purdue and I wanted to get a couple of videos to send my friends from orientation. 

I was not disappointed.

We decided to leave before getting slapped across the face by fish and my brother and I went to check out the bubble-gum wall. It was as disgusting and as dank as it sounds, and I’m baffled as to how this started and why it kept going…

Once we were done checking out the wall of dankness, I met up with a college friend for lunch. I hadn’t seen her in a couple of years, so it was great to catch up after such a long time. Writing this makes me want to go back and visit!

With the early lunch down, we met up with my friends and off we went to the tour. I won’t bore you guys with the factory tour details, but I had a good time and learned a lot about the construction process of the planes. After the tour, we called it a day and headed back to the Lego Mansion, to talk about the day and hopefully find more of the hidden Lego characters.

The Zoo

I’m not happy to admit that I woke up around 11 the next morning. But I was so tired after yesterday’s city exploring and night shenanigans that I just couldn’t bother myself with setting up an alarm. Clearly, my friends shared my thoughts as they also weren’t awake. So, I did the only logical thing to do when you wake up that early: get back to bed.

I got woken up by my brother about 30 minutes later and begrudgingly agreed to get changed. After, making myself some breakfast I woke up my friends and we talked about what we wanted to do that day. One of my friends wanted to take pictures of planes and the rest of us wanted to hang at the Zoo – so we compromised and dropped him off at a nearby local airport for him to take pictures while we went to check out the Zoo.

I’ll be honest with you; I absolutely loved the Zoo. It was a great time to bust the camera and just take pictures of subjects that wouldn’t (and couldn’t!) get mad at you for taking too long to take the pictures. This part of the trip made me glad that I had taken my camera along, because I took what has to be one of my favorite pictures of all time.

Every time I look at this picture, I smile – because not only is the bird so colorful, but I feel like it just posed for me at that moment and it made me forget about everything and just focus on what was happening. 

After taking that picture, we strolled around the whole zoo and checked out the other areas. My favorite one though, was the bird section because it was so fun trying to catch them in a good pose.

We stayed until the zoo’s closing time, headed back to pick our friend up and ordered some pizza to spend the last night as a group, eating and chatting before falling asleep.

Mt. Rainier & Home

We finally made it to our last day of vacation. We left our AirBnB (but not before taking tons of pictures of it!) and headed for our last destination before flying out: Mt. Rainier. We wanted to check out the park before leaving and it wasn’t too far out, so we decided to just go for it.

On the way there, I stopped by my Aunt and Uncle’s house for lunch and had a great time catching back up with them and my cousins. Always love some good family time! 

After that, we drove up to Mt. Rainier. The road up to the park was pretty clean, but you could see the snow towards the sides, stacked up very high. 

We stopped multiple times on the way up and around the park to take pictures and just hang around. 

When we made it to the top, we were fortunate enough to see a group of hikers leaving the meet-up area to go climb Mt. Rainier. They all looked so determined and made me want to join them. Glad I didn’t though because I was very ill-prepared!

Once we had enough of the view and got too cold, we decided to drive to the airport, and thus finish our great trip through part of the west coast.

I’ll have to say – after this trip, and having been on both coasts…

West coast, best coast baby!