Trip to the Pacific Northwest

My husband and I just got back from a trip last week to the Pacific Northwest.  We drove a total of 2,915 miles!  It was insane!  Our plans were to drive to Port Angeles in Washington and then take the ferry over to Vancouver Island.  We were then going to drive the 101 coastal highway down to San Francisco and cut across California and come home to Utah.  After driving the 101 for a couple of days, we totally changed our plans because that road is so curvy and slow  and we could not even see the ocean much of the time because of all of the trees, so we changed plans and cut back to the interstate to come home!  But, the drive up to Port Angeles was beautiful and so was Vancouver Island, so it was worth all the driving!  

As I mentioned yesterday, I got a new camera before we left on our trip and I took over 500 pictures and videos!  It was so fun to learn to use my new camera with all of the beautiful places we visited.  I apologize  in advance for all of the pictures, but I did put a lot of them into collages, so you can see several pictures all at once!This picture is taken at the Port of Handsport.  It was one of the ports along the way on our way to Port Angeles.  I was in total HEAVEN with all of the flowers everywhere we went!  I was completely amazed at how beautiful they were and how many there were!Another thing that I loved were all the beach side cafe’s!  We obviously don’t have these in Utah and I loved being out in the sun and the wind enjoying the beautiful scenery while we ate!  We visited Port Townsend and then drove over to Sequim.  I saw this lavender farm and had to stop!  There was a sign in front of the flower garden that said pick your own bouquet -$5.  Are you kidding me??  A bouquet of FRESH flowers for $5…count me in!  There are many lavender farms in this area and it was so fun to visit this one.  I got a bouquet of flowers, 2 candles, some lavender essential oil and a lavender massage oil.  I have been putting the massage oil on my arm where I cut it and it feels sooo good.  This was a really fun place to stop!This is my $5 flower bouquet!  I put it in our hotel room for the 3 days that we were here and they smelled so wonderful the entire time.  When we got ready to leave, I told the girl that was cleaning that she could just take them home and enjoy them for a few more days!We also drove through a wildlife animal park that was in Sequim.  It was fun to feed some of the animals and to be right among them!  This bear was posing for his picture and he sat there for quite a long while and let me just take his picture!  Isn’t he the cutest?!We spent 3 days in Port Angeles.  It was so beautiful!  I love seeing all the ships and harbors and the beautiful coastlines!  One thing that really impressed me were all the flowers along all the streets in town.  There were hanging pots everywhere.  But I think the thing that impressed me the most were the businesses that had flowers planted like, McDonalds, (really) the gas station, every restaurant and store!  I had so much eye candy everywhere I looked and I was soaking it all in!We then took this ferry over to Vancouver Island for the day!  I have to admit that I was a little bit scared to do this.  We drove our vehicle into the bottom of the ferry and then we rode on the top.  After we were loaded and going, I decided that it was not so scary, but it was a fun adventure and again, the scenery was spectacular!We drove around Victoria a little bit, but then decided that since we were only going to be here for one day that we would do the Hippo Tour!  This is a tour that goes on land and in the water!  It was fun to see all of the famous sites and to hear all of the great stories about this town.  We then drove out to Sidney which is on the north end of Vancouver.  It is another beautiful port town.  We ate at one of the local pubs and the food was delicious.   We tried to eat at local places everywhere we went to get a flair of the foods there.  I do not think that we had one bad meal on our trip!Of course I had to go to the famous Butchart Gardens and I was in 7th heaven!  I could not even imagine a place like this…every place you looked flowers were blooming!  There were ponds and walking trails and secret gardens and beautiful yards.Look at all of this goodness!  It really was unbelievable to me!Here is one last collage!  I cannot imagine all of the work that this takes to keep everything so pristine and beautiful.  I am so glad that I got the opportunity to see all of these glorious flowers and blossoms.  The smell in these gardens was out of this world wonderful!  I just kept inhaling all of the goodness and looking in every direction to see all of the beautiful scenes of nature!After a great day of exploring Vancouver Island, we got back on the ferry and headed back to port Angeles.  It was a beautiful day!We started down the 101 coastline highway and we did get a few glimpses of some beautiful scenery, but they really were far and few between.  We went through Forks, Washington but did not see any vampires or werewolves!  :)

We drove for a couple of days straight to get home.  Our last night was spent at Lake Tahoe and it was another gorgeous place to see!  So in spite of all the miles that we drove, we got to see some beautiful country.  The people were all so nice and friendly and my husband and I had a great time together! 

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