Instalment 3: Portland, OR to Seattle, WA
Sunday, June 23rd 2019
Before visiting Portland we planned another day on the road to explore the Columbia River Gorge with its countless waterfalls. We drove along the Historic Columbia River Hwy. As it was Sunday, everything was extremely busy. For example, there was no parking at the famous Multnomah Falls which was really annoying. We drove all the way to Hood River before heading south to drive along the Mount Hood Highway. We stopped at Trillium Lake where we walked around and waited for a clear shot of Mount Hood. We were very lucky to get a picture of Mount Hood visible, as it was a cloudy day. It was then time to head back to Portland and check in to the Porter Hotel, Curio Collection by Hilton. A nice bottle of white wine as well as chocolate strawberries were waiting in our Corner Room. We went to have dinner in downtown and then went back to the hotel for a few drinks at the bar. Of course I had to try the Aviation Gin which I really liked.
Monday June 24th 2019
A full day to explore Portland. My wife is a bookworm so it was obvious to visit Powell’s City of Books. We also went to the Rose Test Garden as well as visited the Japanese Garden. We had lunch at the 10 Barrel Brewing Portland. We like it most to explore new cities on foot, so our iPhones showed 26k steps. Since the hotel had a pool and sauna, we made use of it in the evening to relax and spend some time at the outdoor area by the fire.
Tuesday, June 25th 2019
It was time to hit the road again! Today’s destination was Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. Just after leaving Portland on I-5N we crossed the bridge across the Columbia River which also is the border to Washington state. We spent a couple of hours exploring this gigantic area and learnt a lot about the history of the eruption at the Johnston Ridge Observatory. I can only recommend to visit this place – it was truly worth it. It started to rain in the afternoon, so we got back to our car and drove to Olympia, Washington’s capital. Of course the only reason to visit is to take a selfie in front of the capitol – otherwise Olympia is just another US town. The downtown area seemed a bit dodgy to be honest and there was not much to do either.
Wednesday, June 26th 2019
Another day exploring the beautiful nature of the Pacific Northwest! The plan was to go hiking near Mount Rainier, but unfortunately, the weather was pretty bad almost during the whole day. We decided to drive to Paradise to visit the Henry M Jackson Visitor Center and then continued to Seattle. We were stuck in traffic for about an hour as we arrived during rush hour. We had planned an early Boeing Factory Tour the next day, therefore we decided to stay north of downtown near Everett that night. For dinner we opted to try out Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, where I had a milkshake and a vegetarian burger. It was really delicious.
Thursday, June 27th 2019
We had an early start as we were on one of the first Boeing Factory tours of the day. Unfortunately, there are no pictures from the tour as photography is not allowed. However, we were lucky enough to see two of the four Boeing Dreamlifters parked right near at the Boeing Future of Flight Museum and even saw one take off:
The tour itself was well-organized and very interesting. Around noon we left Paine Field and drove to Bellevue, where we checked in to the Hilton Garden Inn Bellevue Downtown. Hotels in downtown Seattle were at least 50% more expensive and we didn’t really want to pay that much to stay in downtown Seattle. The HGI was a perfectly adequate hotel for our two night stay. We spent the afternoon exploring Seattle’s Pike Place Market, the world’s first Starbucks and the downtown area with surprisingly steep roads. I wasn’t really aware of this before, as I only knew San Francisco had steep roads, but didn’t really think of Seattle. Instead of visiting the Sky Needle which would have involved a 45 minute wait for the next elevator ride up we opted to go to the Sky View Observatory - Columbia Center which was not only cheaper but also much less crowded. We had a drink in the bar on the top floor and enjoyed the amazing views this observatory had to offer. We then went to Kerry Park for skyline views. By now we got hungry, so drove back to Bellevue and went for dinner at Maggiano's Little Italy.
Friday, June 28th 2019
We had booked a full day whale watching tour – leaving at 8am from Seattle returning at 9pm or so. It was one of the highlights on this trip as we saw a lot of wildlife during the day. See for yourself!
