Washington Part 2: Rock Conquering and Wine

So I think I've decided most of the reason for writing this out is for my own benefit. I forget what I did yesterday all the time. Ask a sister or a co-worker; it's true. And vacations are something I definitely want to remember, so to me, it's worth finishing our tale. Even though I procrastinated a really long time before I finally sat down to put the pictures in this story so I can actually post it. 

I left off at Leavanworth. We stayed at some hotel Sunday night - of course I forget the name. If I remember I'll update. After we showered and I got all four of us to do pigeon pose on the floor in the hotel room, we went out for dinner and large German beers at this underground restaurant called Andreas Keller. The big pretzels were pretty awesome, and the special was good too. 

We passed out pretty early that night to prepare for what would be one of the most awesome things Patrick and I have ever done. If you don't know me, I am terrified of heights. That being said, I freaking climbed a rock. Like not a little baby rock (well, I guess it was more of a beginner climb, and I only got halfway up, but whatev), but like for-real rock climbing. Given the right people (Mike's brother John is an avid climber and we felt completely comfortable with him around) and the right shoes, I'd totally do it again. See super awesome pictures below. The dog is Murphy; he could hang. And climb rocks.

 Marisa kicking butt.

 Me overcoming my irrational fear of heights. 

 Ha. This is how I felt when I got back down. Relief. 

 Murphy! And me reading my Kindle. 

The hubby killin' it.

That afternoon, wine was calling our names. We visited a few wineries and the Redhook Brewery. Visiting wineries in Washington in August and sitting on patios drinking free wine or paying for delicious tastings is a a great thing. Especially after rock climbing during the day. It's certainly a treat after living in Florida almost my entire life. We learned about the word quaffable. And used it annoyingly profusely thereafter. After eventually tearing ourselves away from the beer and wine and buying a few bottles in the process, we dropped John off at his house in Seattle and headed up to Kingston, WA to Mike's house. (And no, it didn't get old saying it in a butchered Jamaican accent.)  Side note: Special thanks to John and Jen for letting us crash at their house during this trip! They have one of those houses where it's so comfortable you can just get cozy on the couch with a blanket and drink coffee all day.

The view from Mike's house is gorgeous! I could definitely wake up to that every morning, minus the cold. I don't do cold. Tuesday we decided to do a relaxing day, where Mike took Marisa on a tour of the town she'll be moving to in January, so Patrick and I stayed back at the house. I did some P90X yoga and read a lot. On a Tuesday. It was glorious. That afternoon/evening we decided we needed an activity to earn our beer that evening, so we went down to the Puget Sound and rented paddleboards.  To say it was pretty is an understatement. We were paddleboarding in the Sound surrounded by Evergreen trees with Mount Rainier in the background covered in snow.

 aforementioned evergreens. 

Yes, that's Mount Ranier. Awesome. 

While we were in town, we bought a few wine platypuses  to prepare for our hiking adventure the next day, and ate probably the best pizza I've had in my life. Sorry Bonzo's.

We ended the day with an awesome round of one handed croquet so we could hold wine with the other hand. There are a bunch of ridiculous pictures (thanks babe), but I chose this one because Marisa is modeling with the beautiful view from Mike's backyard in the background.

On Wednesday, we started on another awesome Washington adventure. We drove the winding mountain (maybe hills, but to me, they're mountains) roads from Kingston through Port Angeles (without stopping at the bookstore Bella went to, unfortunately), and made our way to Shi-Shi Beach, where we then proceeded to hike 1.7 miles to the beach. This is the first view we saw when we got there, before we walked down the cliffs and onto the beach.

We reached the beach and kept on walking for another mile. I made us stop and take a picture because we're barefoot on the beach with hiking packs on. Pretty awesome, and not something we'd do in Florida. I also shot a little crappy video of our campsite. The views were amazing and this video does not do it justice.

Little tide pools started popping up in the evening at low tide, so we started on a little adventure, walking another mile down the beach (can you tell I was pretty tired of walking by this point?). There were starfish everywhere! And we saw a couple seastars, some otters, and we were hoping to see a whale but didn't. And what's a camping trip without a campfire picture?

Since we were there, and you can't really pass up such a unique opportunity, and because the boys were more excited than we were, and because Marisa and I just can't help it - we drove to Forks. Forks is this bad ass town where vampires roam and werewolf guys walk around with their shirts off all day long looking all hot. Just kidding. Forks was kind of not cool, but we had to tell everyone that it's awesome and they have to go there. It was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, with a lot of the buildings looking pretty old. We did stop at an Italian restaurant, ate some Porta-"bella" mushroom ravioli...ha...ha... and took pictures in front of Forks High School, the Welcome to Forks sign, and Bella's trucks (one from the movie, and one from the book), which the woman at the Chamber of Commerce proudly told us that they came straight from Forks' own junkyard, and a few bottles of red spraypaint later, they were sitting in front of the building as a tourist attraction. Overall I have to admit it was totally worth going and we enjoyed being total tourists for the afternoon. 

On Friday we went running over a mountain. OK, so like a 3 mile trail run that was really hilly, but still. Our other big adventure that way was visiting the Fresh Market where we bought stuff for dinner and (surprise!) drank some wine that night. 

There's no such thing as relaxing when you're visiting Washington. Or maybe it's when you're visiting Mike. Thanks Mike (and Marisa!) for being such amazing hosts! We absolutely loved our vacation, even though it took an entire day to recover on Sunday because I was so exhausted.