Chris and I talk about traveling A LOT. It’s one of our top priorities in life and it’s one of the things we bonded on from the very beginning of our friendship. Truth: we basically travelled the world in our very first talk-until-the-sunrise, running the gamut both latitude-ly and longitude-ly. So, it goes without saying that we have a longgggggg list of places that we want to go, and we probably would have gone to many of them by now if it wasn’t for… oh, well, you know…life. Our jobs, Chris’ bands, my photography, our furry family, our home – there are a lot of things that stand in our way on a daily basis. If you factor in that we’re both more dreamers than planners? That’s a GREAT benefit if you want to travel and have little to no responsibilities, but troublesome if you have the ones we already mentioned.
But, SOMEHOW, we made it to the west coast in August for a full week-long adventure that was truly out of this world. We were fortunate to be traveling to Oregon already for a good friend’s wedding, and some other good friends of ours, Chase and Meredith, were going too. Visiting them up in Boone one day, we tossed around the idea of making a bigger trip out of it, and then slowly, over time, the idea became more real. We talked more, purchased plane tickets, lined up a house-sitter, set up the rental car, and then before we knew it, it was time!! Many thanks to the planner of our group, Meredith, who for being so on top of things, is remarkably still one of the most easy-going, composed people I know. I don’t think it would be a stretch to say thatshe was, most certainly, the main reason the trip happened. And to my fellow dreamers-not-planners out there: may I suggest a traveling partner with a talent for the same?
So, this is my run-down of the trip. I have a HORRIBLE memory, so these posts are going to function not only as a culled scrapbook of our adventure and a way to share our trip with others, but also as a way for me to remember our day-to-day. You’ll have to forgive the wordiness. I want to remember everything
We flew into Oregon on the Friday before the wedding, and after a hefty day of flying (and almost missing our connection due to a poorly timed meal – again, many apologies to those we joined on the plane 10 minutes before take-off. We were unaware that “boarding time” meant…well, boarding time), we were in Portland! We had pizza delivered to the hotel room, and practically fell asleep sitting up with our faces stuffed full of pizza, breadsticks, and marinara (I blame the time change?). This was also when Chris gave FedEx a call to verify that our camping gear had been delivered, only to discover that it wasn’t to arrive until Monday. A slight kink in the plan, given that we were supposed to camp at Mount St. Helens on Sunday night, but nothing we couldn’t work around! Besides, we were too tired to do anyth…. ZZZzzzzzzzzzz.
The next day was filled with all things wedding! Meredith and I dropped off Chris and Chase for their pre-wedding groomsmen activities, and then headed off to our next hotel room to primp for the occasion.
Unfortunately for the blog, I did not get any photos of the wedding with my camera. I decided to leave it at the hotel for a couple reasons: #1 out of respect for the photographer that was hired for the occasion, and #2 because I was planning on having, er…too much fun to keep track of it. Very valid reasons, I think? But I did get quite a few on my phone, a few of which I will share here for the sake of the story at hand:
We had a wonderful time at the wedding; congrats to Van and Megan. It was beautiful, sweet, and we loved partying with both of them and all of their friends and family. Best of all, despite our good time, we were easily resurrected the next morning with merelya couple cups of coffee! On the agenda: Mount St. Helens. But first, the rest of the group headed to their own breakfast while I took a detour to visit my friend Amelia. We had an incredible meal at a fantastic restaurant (though the name escapes me), and I felt like I really started my day off right.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the gang didn’t quite make it to breakfast before they popped a tire on our rental car. Oops. Alright, no big deal. Spare tire on, they picked me up from my breakfast, and we headed to another great food spot in town (there’s a lot of them in Portland), WAFFLE WINDOW!!!!! If I wasn’t stuffed to the gills I would have gotten more food for myself, but I still got to drool over theirs:
All of the waffle-eaters had rave reviews. So now that everyone was refueled, and we had four tires on the car, we were off to Mount St. Helens! Well, kind of. First, a detour to Sauvie Island to visit the rumored lavender farm! Finding the pickable pieces was kind of like a treasure hunt. And maaaaaaan did it smell good out there.
Once we had all gotten our fair share of lavender, we headed on our way. Halfway there we think we saw a faraway view of the volcano from a bridge, but it was hard to tell if that’s really what it was. There are, after all, many mountains in the area. Now, this is where we get another kink in the day because we were GPSing ourselves to – what we thought – was an attraction right near Mount St. Helens. Unfortunately, it was not that at all, and also put us out something ridiculous like an hour and a half out of the way. After our popped tire that postponed breakfast, and our Sauvie Island detour, that left us a very short window to reach any of the outlooks leading to the mountain. So we zipped on up to the one that had the best view – with a momentary stop to take the photo above, to the right. That’s North Fork Toutle River, which was covered in volcanic ash after the eruption in 1980, and is still clogged with sediment. Many of the trees around the river were destroyed, so there was also a lot of erosion over the years. It’s an incredible view, and we had a hard time stepping away:
(Enjoy that peace sign? I was trying it on for size, but don’t know that it’s my pose.) And then we were zipping up the mountain again, fast as we could! Finally, we made it to Johnston Ridge Observatory. Suddenly feeling a little more relaxed, we soaked up the view:
Hearing the history of the volcanic eruption and the effect it had on the surrounding area was very cool, but seeing the effect first-hand was indescribable. Though the vegetation has come a long way in the last 33 years, you turn in the opposite direction and see whole trees and their remnants laying across the mountain, unmoved from where they were blown back over three decades ago. The picture above was taken 5 miles away from the summit of Mount St. Helens. I don’t know if that seems realistic from the computer screen you’re viewing this on, but we could NOT fathom that we were that far away from it. It just seemed so close. So, rather than go on with words that cannot convey the beauty we experienced throughout the rest of the evening, I’ll close West Coast | Part 1 out with what you really want, more photos:
