The Pacific Northwest Pt. 2, Winter 2017 Edition

So, I’ve been back from my trip for a little over 2 weeks now but was extremely busy getting back into the groove of work and so I’ve been slacking on editing photos. Luckily, I had some down time last week so I was able to edit a few photos to share!

Portland in the winter is just extremely wet haha I’ll just share in a short summary of what we did by day so if anyone is ever interested in visiting Portland on the weekend, it’s totally doable!

Saturday

We woke up around 9am (we were supposed to wake up at 5 and drive up to Vancouver, Canada for the morning but we were too tired) and headed out around 10:30am for Seattle, Washington. Our first stop was Mt. Rainier National Park, yay! We had allotted 3 hours for Mt. Rainier but we didn’t account for the amount of snow and the fact that we needed to put on chains so we did not leave Mt. Rainier until 3:30-4:00pm. I gotta say though, it was worth it. Seeing falling snow for the first time was absolutely magical. We were planning on seeing the Narada Falls but there was so much snow, we couldn’t find the trail so we just admired the snow and had a mini snowball fight. We also stopped off and visited the visitor center to get our cancellation for our national park passport.

Afterwards, we continued our drive up to Seattle. It was another 2-hours but it wasn’t too bad. We had wanted to visit the Space Needle and the Pike Place but it was dark already so we opted for the REI Headquarters and dinner with my friend Michael. After my visit to the REI HQ last summer, I knew I had to take Brandon. It was such a cool place and I knew he’d love it. We ended up spending about an hour there and met up at The Patio Thai Cuisine for dinner. Afterwards, we stopped by Victrola Coffee for a little pick-me-up for the long ride home.

Sunday

On Sunday, we had originally planned to visit Bend and Crater Lake National Park but unfortunately, due to weather and time, we didn’t think we had enough time so we settled for just Bend. I had signed us up to take a tour of Deschutes Brewery so we set out for Bend. We didn’t get there until after 4pm because again, we didn’t think we needed chains but of course, we did, so we had to look around to find a merchant that would rent it to us. On the way, Brandon saw these 2 bridges and because he knows I love bridges, we stopped and admired the view and of course took a few photos! Fast forward, we finally made it to Bend and made it in time for our tour. They started off our tour with a sample flight and to my surprise, I actually liked a few of their beers! I can’t remember the names so I can’t recommend any right now but I definitely recommend taking the tour. It’s free and the staff was so friendly and accommodating. After the tour, we went down to the Deschutes public bar and had dinner and tried some of their house beers. I thought their food was just ALRIGHT, it definitely looks better in pictures. After dinner, we didn’t know what else to do because everything around us was already closed with Bend being a small town, so we just headed back to our Airbnb early.

Monday

Our last day in Portland was extremely busy! We had so many activities packed and for once the entire weekend, we woke up on time (somewhat). We were planning on getting The Screen Door for breakfast and then head to Rowena Crest, Multnomah Falls and explore Downtown Portland, all before our flight at 5:30pm.

Anyways, so we ordered The Screen Door to-go and ate it quickly in the car before heading to Rowena Crest. We decided to do Rowena Crest last minute the night before because we had both seen photos of it and thought it was beautiful so why not! It was closer than we thought and we figured we could stop by Multnomah Falls on the way to Downtown. So, we got to Rowena Crest and ugh, the drive up those canyons were so much fun.

Next, we headed to Multnomah Falls and I was hoping it would be frozen but no, oh well! It was still beautiful and we met the cutest, most hyper golden retriever named (Miko, Meeko? Idk) but anyways, we just took in the beauty that is Multnomah Falls and continued on our way to Downtown Portland!

We didn’t get to spend much time in Downtown Portland but with whatever time we had, we spent it at REI, of course! Haha, while at REI, we found out our flight got delayed so we thought we could take our time but that probably wasn’t a good decision.. Anyways, after REI, we went to go grab dinner to-go at Grassa and basically rushed it to the airport because we were about to miss our flight. Long story short, we made it but we nearly missed it by THIS much. The entire flight was waiting for us and they had almost closed the gate but luckily, they waited. Once we boarded, I immediately started laughing but Brandon didn’t find it funny yet, heh!

Hope you enjoyed my little recap of our trip! We had approximately 3 days and although we didn’t get to visit Mt. Hood, we got quite a lot done so if you’re ever planning on visiting Portland (and Seattle) for the weekend, you can do a lot! Here are some more photos from the trip, enjoy!

TTFN!