Day One | Savannah to Seattle (April 11)
We took an evening flight from Savannah to Seattle, which was nice because I didn’t have to pull the kids out of school early, have them skip, or fly out a day later and shorten our trip. We landed in Seattle around 10pm, picked up our rental, and headed straight to the hotel we pre-booked for 2 nights right by the airport.
We planned this in advance since we knew we’d be getting in late and we figured our first day would be an easy “day trip” from Seattle.
Day Two | Seattle and North Cascades National Park
Even with a late arrival we were up before the sun came up so we readied ourselves for the day and headed to Pike Market.
The market was just opening up when we arrived so we got to walk around and take in the fish and flower stands without much crowd. We ate breakfast at Lowell’s – this might have been the best meal I had during the trip! I got a fried oyster omelet.
After the market we started our drive up to North Cascades National Park (NCNP), which is about 2.5 hours from Seattle.
Along the way we passed a tulip field right off the interstate and so we had to turn around to go check it out. I was in flower field heaven – the kids tolerated me. 😂
When we got to NCNP we realized we were a little early for the season so the park offices were still closed. We drove up the park road as far as we could go before the “closed for season” signs.
Even though the full park was closed we still got to see Lake Diablo and Pyramid Peak.
We drove back to the hotel – stopping at Milk Drunk for dinner. It was a great spot BUT if you ever find yourself there look at the menu beforehand, I was overwhelmed by the sandwich options and standing at the counter holding up the line trying to order so I just went with the basic chicken sandwich and mozzarella sticks.
Day Three | Seattle to Forks
We started our next day with a Hawaii style breakfast at Patty’s Eggnest. I’m a big fan of the eggs, spam, and rice breakfast and this one had the added bonus of Portuguese sausage (which is my favorite!!).
Our goal after breakfast was to find a Walmart or Target to stock up on some grocery items. In case you didn’t know, eating out in Washington is expensive!!
We found a Walmart and stocked up on snacks, drinks, and sandwich things to have in the car.
Once that was checked off the to-do list we started our drive toward Olympic National Park (ONP). Most of this park was open so we visited the ranger station, did a hike to Marymere waterfall, then had a picnic by Lake Crescent.
After lunch we hiked to Sol Duc Falls and finished our drive to Forks. We checked in the Forks Motel then had dinner at Pacific Pizza.
We took a little while to unpack at the motel then drove over the La Push to check out the beach and possibly watch the sunset.
The cloud cover and the wind made sticking around for the sunset not high on the priority list 😂🤷🏽♀️ so after walking around for a little while we loaded back up in the car and headed by to the motel for the night.
Day Four | Forks and Cape Flattery
Day four was another early day, which worked out well because we wanted to hike Rialto Beach and the best time to do so is at low tide. You could hike it at high tide but honestly – it’s a 3 mile beach walk 1.5 miles to “hole in the wall” and 1.5 miles back – and the kids would have been miserable if we’d done it at high tide.
The only thing that kept them interested was the promise of starfish and tide pools at “hole in the wall”.
These starfish were HUGE!!! and there were so many of them. The tide pools had little creatures in them and we all had a good time walking out around the pools trying to find different ocean creatures.
We’d packed for the day before heading to Rilatta beach so we headed straight from there up to Cape Flattery.
Cape Flattery is the north western most point in the contiguous United States. We did the Cape Flattery Hike when we got to town to see the sea cliffs, sea caves, and Canada across the way.
Before we left town we stopped for lunch where we got to watch a ton of bald and golden eagles fight for fish heads the fishermen were throwing out along the bank.
Once we were back in Forks we went to Ruby beach. This beach was covered in driftwood and had lots of abandoned driftwood forts. The kids had so much fun playing in the forts and running around.
On the way back to the hotel we saw a huge herd of elk in a ravine off the side of the road.
Day Five | Washington and Oregon Coast
Another early morning for us as we packed up and left Forks. We drove down the 101 toward Washington stopped in LOOKUP TOWN to walk out on The Worlds Longest Beach.
After the beach we stopped for lunch at REATARUANT and had the best clam chowder!! Christopher and Ada both liked it and Christopher ended up stealing my bowl.
When we crossed into Oregon we were in Astoria so of course we HAD to go see The Goonies house!
Up from the hill the house was on we could hear sea lions barking in the harbor so after I got my Goonies house photo we rode down to find where the sea lions were.
From Astoria we headed to Cannon Beach. We were going to go see SHIPWRECK NAME but there was a traffic accident on one of the bridges and we decided the traffic wasn’t worth the wait.
Our final touristy stop of the day was in Tillamook at the Tillamook Dairy. We got there about 45 minutes before they closed and couldn’t have planned it better. There were no lines or crowds and we were able to see the factory, get the cheese samples, and order some ice cream.
From Tillamook we cut inland. We were meeting our Oregon family the next day so we drove to Salem and grabbed a hotel for the night.
Day Six | Central Oregon
We were meeting our Oregon cousins at Smith Rock State Park in Redmond to do some hiking before having dinner with the family so we left Salem early and headed to Bend.
But before we got there we went into Bend and Christopher and I “hiked” Pilot Butte while Shauna and Ada played at the playground. About half way up I noticed several cars driving up the butte so I called Shauna and told her to pack Ada up and drive up to meet us (aka come get is so we didn’t have to walk down).
From the top of the butte we could see Three Sisters, Mt. Jefferson, Black Butte and Mt. Hood.
The main reason we wanted to be in Bend before lunch was so we could eat lunch in Bend at Dump City Dumplings. Christopher and I saw this spot on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives when we were in New York earlier this year and Christopher said he would actually try something new! I couldn’t pass up that opportunity.
We ordered pizza dumplings, pad Thai dumplings, and Chinese pork dumplings and I have nothing bad to say about any of the things we got!! I wish we’d ordered more honestly but with more hiking on the horizon I know getting overfull probably wasn’t the best idea.
Our next stop was Smith Rock State Park to meet my mom’s cousin, his daughter, and her kids. We hiked down to the river together and let the kids play while we caught up. We haven’t seen them since 2016 when we all got together in Hawaii.
The last stop for our day was Abby’s Legendary Pizza where we met up with more of mom’s cousins and had a big family dinner. We spent the night in Bend.
Day Seven | Crater Lake and California
Originally our plans included visiting Mount Rainer National Park in Washington when we were in the Seattle area but the weather conditions had the majority of the park closed and we didn’t want to drive all the way out to the park and not be able to spend any time there. So…that meant we had an “extra” day in our trip.
What did we decide to do? Drive to California of course!
We left Bend after breakfast with the family and headed to Crater Lake National Park. The south entrance of the park was open even though the majority of the park was still closed for the season.
Crater Lake didn’t disappoint!! The snow banks were taller than the buildings and everything was covered in snow. We all had fun putting our layers on and playing in the snow. The temperature at Crater Lake was 31 degrees!
Before we lost feeling in our fingers and toes we packed ourselves back into the rental and headed south to sunny California – where the temperature by the end of our day was 81!
We skirted across the Oregon/California border and found a hotel room in Crescent City with just enough time in the day to walk down to the ocean.
Along the we saw a pelican that wasn’t at all bothered by us walking by him.
We chose the stay in Crescent City because it was right outside of Redwood National Park – which is why we decided to go down to California. We essentially traded Mount Rainier for Redwood on our National Park goals!
Day Eight | Redwood National Park and Oregon Coast
Our morning starts were getting later but we were still up before the sun and on our way.
In Redwood we drove through a Redwood tree, hiked TRAIL NAME, stopped at the ranger station, and visited PAUL BUNYON PLACE NAME.
After Redwood we headed back up the 101 along the coast. Along the way we stopped at the Oregon Dunes, Thor’s Well, and Spouting Horn. For our last night in the PNW we stayed in Lincoln City.
I got us a hotel room with an ocean view so we could watch the sunset but 🙃 the sunset behind some trees on the far side of the building 🤪😂
Day Nine | Portland to Savannah
Randomly we ended up staying in the same beach town as our Oregon cousins who were visiting flea markets for the weekend on the coast! After realizing this from my nightly Facebook post we arranged to meet for breakfast. We had a good breakfast and a nice time seeing each other again!
Once we said our goodbyes, again lol, we headed to Portland. We had a whole day to spend in Portland as our flight out wasn’t until 11:20 pm.
Sometimes I’m a good planner and sometimes we like to wing it so I’d love to report all the great things we did and saw in Portland BUT…
We didn’t realize the scenic highway on the Columbia River Gorge was closed for construction and the exit for the giant waterfall parking was closed when we drove by (twice) so we ended up at the Oregon Zoo and when that closed walking around some random park near the airport.
The zoo was nice as far as zoos go – we never mind looking at animals so it wasn’t a complete bust but it was a flat end to our very epic trip. They also had a brand new baby elephant so that was cute to see!!
Our late flight home meant arriving in Atlanta Sunday morning, then flying on the 8am to Savannah. When we got back to Savannah we went straight from the airport to my parent’s house to have Easter lunch, due eggs, and do egg hunts.
Want more?
Interested in other fun travel things we get up to? Check out some of my favorite trips from over the years!
Moab, Utah – Arches National Park and more
and coming soon…EUROPE!!! Chris has accepted a temporary assignment in England so we will be spending 6 weeks in Europe this summer! Follow along via my email list HERE!!!! or by following on Instagram HERE!
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