On our wedding day, hubs and I made several promises to one another. But one promise that wasn't in the ceremony was our promise to travel. To travel often and to unknown places - particularly on our anniversary.
This is how it works - we pick a location we haven't visited together and alternate between international and national locations. It could be close or it could be far, as long as we were together and away from our city of residence, all would be well. Our wonderful three years together have found us at:
- Honeymoon - Greece
- First Year - sipping wine & bourbon in the Lexington, KY area
- Second Anniversary - Kansas City to see two of our closest friends get married
- Third Anniversary - Seattle and Vancouver!
With high hopes of a fantastic time, we made our way to Washington state! There was great food, friends, family and sights to see during our ten day vacation - and we soaked in every moment. I was extremely excited to indulge in West coast food and all of those posts will come later, I promise. Right now, a photo recap of the the first half of the week!
We began our trip just north of the city and visited my father-in-law, his girlfriend, and their two adorable dogs. The landscape was beautiful to see as I ran in the morning and just as enjoyable sitting outside watching my FIL work the grill. We walked through the woods and took in all the sights - it was so relaxing.
We picked blackberries among the spikes, spiders, and slugs (the three s') for a dessert that my FIL made - blackberry and rhubarb torte. I had no idea what an amazing cook he was, but the grilled prime rib, cake, corn, egg scrambles, fresh sourdough bread, homemade jam - you name it, all the meals were fantastic and showed what a great cook he truly is!
We made an attempt to visit the San Juan islands, but fog got us down on the one rainy/foggy day that we had. Yes, we only had one rainy day in the Seattle area - and it wasn't even that bad of rain! Instead, we took a drive to Deception Park to see Deception Pass - this high bridge over a river - though once again, that fog...
During our time north of the city, we also made the quick trip to Canada to visit Vancouver - a city we fell in love with on tv during the Olympics. An interesting city with Eastern European influence and Western flair, we saw so much culture through the food, sights and people of the city. Granville Island was a district where we sipped some beer (more to come on that) and did a little walking in their public market.
The city really was beautiful - we took in the landscape and sites that were all around, including Chinatown and the beautiful Chinese Garden, Stanley Park (including the totem poles) and the sites from the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic games: the Olympic Clock, the Cauldron and Inukshuk - which was the symbol/logo used for the Vancouver games.
On our actual anniversary (September 29th in case you are wondering!) we made it onto the ferry to Friday Harbor, San Juan Islands. The ride was breathtaking - Mt. Rainer was gorgeous as was the weather on the sunny day. We walked around the town, ate a fresh seafood lunch, sipped wine at a local vineyard, petted a camel (not many islands can say they have a friendly camel, more on that later...) and finished off the day with some ice cream from an adorable quaint harbor spot that had 72 flavors - it was the hardest decision I made all day...a scoop each of snickers and butterfinger won. Hubby got two scoops of coconut cream (I think I won the selection.)
After the ferry - we found our way to a small harbor town called LaConner, where we accidentally (but happily) pulled directly in front of the brewery where we sipped some local beer. We then relaxed on a bench, a fish bench to be exact, overlooking the harbor. Relaxing on that bench was maybe one of the best parts - just hanging with the hubs in a perfect landscape. We grabbed some dinner at a Guy Fieri recommended Triple D spot (if you recall - I enjoy finding these when we travel) and then got to bed as we anticipated some great days ahead in the city that we've been talking about for years...Seattle!
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| Happy Anniversary Hubby - I adore you! |
Oh - did I mention after these few days, I decided that when we have a huge yacht, I'll be naming it "Curiouser & Curiouser." Wonder why...
Labels:
2010 Olympics,
Alice in Wonderland,
Anniversary,
Brewery,
Friday Harbor,
Granville Island,
San Juan Islands,
Stanley Park,
Travel,
Vancouver,
Vancouver Chinatown,
Washington State,
Wine
There were so many great seafood starters to choose from, but I settled on a cup of the chowder that hubby and I could share. New England style, it was creamy and rich. Fresh clams from across the island filled the bowl to it's brim, and the buttery soup warmed my belly. It wasn't as thick as I like my chowder, but pretty close.
For lunch, hubs ordered the halibut fish and chips - he couldn't resist the fresh halibut versus the cod option (though I'm sure the cod was also fresh.) A generous portion of tempura battered fish was piled high on fries which were crisp and seasoned well, but the fish was the star of this plate. Though the batter was golden fried to perfection, he striped most of it all just to get to the halibut. This halibut was fantastic - cooked well for sure. Hubs even said he wished he hadn't gotten it fried, and that he could have eaten more of it (and I concur!)
