Washington

This last week was headed up to Washington for a few days.  We loved the misty, rainy, overcast weather.  We headed out to the coast the first day by driving north and heading for Astoria which was one of the first cities established.  The homes were all older and wedged in between all the thick stands of trees.  Next we headed south cannon beach where you can see sea stacks out in the water, the largest one being called the haystack.  These seaside towns were so stinking cute.  I loved the little surf shops and outdoor patios to eat at.  We continued down highway 101 for another hour and were amazed at how many areas there were to pull off the road a check out another beach or take a hike through the trees.  

The next day was spent cruising around back country roads checking out waterfalls and seeing some quaint little towns on the way towards the south side of Mt. Saint Helens.  On Thursday we went to the visitors center on the north side of the mountain to check it out.  I totally loved seeing how beautiful and green everything was.  It reminded me a lot of Alaska other than there was only one mountain instead of mountain ranges everywhere.  I thought it was similar to looking out over a green, lush grand canyon.  We could see a couple herds of elk running around down below and hear the roaring river that quickly dropped in elevation as it came off of the mountain.  We stopped and visited a few other information areas and walked through a lake with lily pads all over then made out way back to the airport.  It was so relaxing to be able to just ride around and enjoy the cool weather.  I totally fell in love with the state and it made me realize how much I would love Alaskan weather.  I would much rather have cooler temperatures and rain than the dry hot desert weather we have all the time at home.  I also think sometimes we love something because it's so different.  I never want to come home but also find myself seeing more of the beauty in the places around us where we live after leaving and coming back.

That sea stack in the back ground is called the haystack, it was enormous.

I think it was right about now I was thinking that I could live somewhere like this. 

So, I am not big on selfie portraits, but they are totally convenient, next time, I'm making Dave hold the camera, so he can look twice as big as me, my face is almost double the size of his in this one, oh well.

So sad the battery in the camera died by the time we made it up here so these are heavily edited from Dave's phone, they could have been so much better, wahh!

We were laughing as we started to count how many of these do not step off the trail or you'll be fined a $100 that we could count and then we saw these three right together, I think there were fifty total. 

Someone was very nervous as his wife held the his precious phone over the water.