Chapter 30 - First Time Road Trip to the Pacific Northwest - Part 1

Fremont Troll in Seattle, WA

Hi,

On June 4, 2024, we embarked on a three-week road trip to the Pacific Northwest, a new destination for both of us.  We covered a lot of ground in three weeks, so we've decided to split the blog into two parts. Below is Part 1.

But before we get started, we want to share some sad news.  This was our first road trip without our adventurous furry travel companion, Charlie, who passed away on May 16 at the age of 20. He traveled with us extensively, spending time in Mexico, Canada, and riding shotgun with us throughout the U.S.  Charlie will be greatly missed in our future travels!

As we left, I shed a few tears because it felt so strange looking back and not seeing him in his bed behind us.

Now onto the fun!  Our first stop was in New Rockford, ND, to visit our friend Justin. We dropped by his bar, Buck-Its, and had a great time chatting with many of his friends. Getting together with Justin is always fun with lots of laughs. And, as Justin likes to say, everything is either a 45-minute drive or three beers away.

As we made our way across North Dakota, the wind was incredibly strong gusting up to 50 mph. We stopped at the Geese in Flight sculpture on I-94, west of Bismarck. The video below captures just how windy it was.

This sculpture, recorded in the 2001 Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest scrap metal sculpture, is made from over 5 miles of oil well tanks and pipes. It stands 110 feet tall and 150 feet wide.

 

Next stop was Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the Painted Canyon Visitor Center.

 

Although we kept looking, we didn't spot any wildlife at the park. However, the numerous buffalo droppings around the Visitor's Center indicate they're definitely nearby.

On June 6, we drove through Livingston, Montana. The historic downtown, surrounded by mountains, was really cool! There was a restaurant called Campione, shown in the photo below, that we wished we could have tried, but we were pressed for time as we had to get to Gardiner, MT for our white water rafting reservations later that day.

 

The snow covered mountains in the distance were beautiful! 

 

 

Whitewater rafting was on my bucket list, so when in Montana that is what you do! Flying Pig Adventures, outside of Yellowstone National Park, gave us a great 8-mile experience with lots of fun rapids.

 

These are pictures we took.  Corp was brave and brought his phone on the water to take photos and the video below.

These are the photos we purchased from Flying Pig Adventures.

On June 7, we visited Downtown Butte, Montana.  The Copper King Mansion was very impressive.

The mansion, built in 1888, was funded by wealth from copper mining in the area.

Our next stop was Downtown Missoula, Montana, which turned out to be a fun surprise. We loved the vibe, with its mix of historic buildings and the beautiful Ron's River Trail along the river in the heart of downtown.  As a former city planner, I was impressed by how many great small downtown elements were present in Missoula.  The most unique was the kids surfing in the rapids of the Clark Fork River in the video below.

We also stopped in Wallace, Idaho.  Another surprising small historic town with picturesque mountains all around.   

Wallace, Idaho

Our last stop on June 7 was Coeur d’Alene, Idaho...another unexpected find.  They have a beautiful lake in the center of town.  Schmidty's Burgers was a hit and the boysenberry lemonade cider at the Coeur d' Alene Cider Company was awesome.  

We discovered the Mudgy Moose Trail, which features five life-size bronze statues of Mudgy the moose and Millie the mouse along Lake Coeur d’Alene and through downtown Coeur d’Alene.  I loved searching for them as we explored the downtown.

We only found 2 of the 5 Mugsy and Mille statutes.

Travel Tip:  We also discovered a new app called Atlas Obscura, an online travel guide and magazine highlighting unusual and obscure places worldwide. It features hidden gems, strange landmarks, and lesser-known attractions, sparking curiosity and exploration.  While using the app in Coeur d'Alene, I found a free library in a tree trunk.  

I couldn't resist swapping a book at the coolest Free Library I have ever seen.

On June 8th, we set off for Leavenworth, WA, a unique Bavarian village nestled in the Cascade Mountain Range.  Along the way, we passed through the Columbus Basin, which had tons of apple orchards. While walking through Leavenworth Park, we spotted a little black bear. Unfortunately, I wasn't quick enough to capture a photo. Initially, we thought the person who mentioned seeing a bear was joking; we assumed he was pointing out something small like a butterfly. But as we rounded the corner, we saw the bear cub running away. 

We enjoyed delicious cherry and cream cheese danishes.

Our last stop on June 8 was in Ellensburg, WA to see Dick-n-Jane's Spot, which is described as an outside public display of lots of folk art sculptures, bottle trees, and patterns of reflectors that was started in 1978.    

They really liked reflectors!

On June 9th, we made it to Seattle and started exploring with our e-bikes. 

Travel Tip:  When we visit larger city's, I get a visitor's guide and use Google Maps to look up/denote on the map all the places we might was to visit.  Then I used Google Maps to route them on the most efficient car or bike route.  

Our first stop was the Ballard Farmers Market (BFM) in the Ballard neighborhood, where we enjoyed a bagel and lox at Rachel's. It was just as delicious as the first one we had in New York City. 

The BFM focused on fruits, veggies, and a huge abundance of flowers. 
They were breathe taking when we first saw them.

Then we were off to see the Fremont Troll, Gas Works Park, Archie McPhee's Toy Store, and the Fremont Farmers Market in the Fremont/Wallingford neighborhood.  The Fremont Troll is a large cement troll under the Aurora Bridge. 

The Fremont Troll was much larger than expected. 

 
Gas Works Park is built on a 19-acre gas plant from the early 1900s.  At the park, we admired the numerous boats on Union Lake and the impressive skyline featuring the Space Needle. 

  

I wished we had a kite to fly on the big hill.

At Archie McPhee’s toy store, we picked up our new Crabby & Chipper Travels mascot, who we named Crabby.  

 

Close-up of Crabby, our new blog mascot!

The Fremont Sunday Market offered a lot of vintage clothing and retail items.  

 

I found a really neat bud vases made out of vintage knife handles.  

Afterwards, we visited the iconic Space Needle and explored downtown, including Pike Place Market. 

The huge International Fountain and glass flower sculptures at the Chihulu Garden & Glass were great surprises.

Perhaps it was the end of the day or the huge crowd, but Pike Place Market was okay.  We quickly realized it was all tourists when we didn't see anyone with shopping bags.

By the end of the day, we had biked a total of 15 miles. We were pleased to learn that Seattle is named among the country's top cities for biking.  It has more than 25 miles of bike lanes, though the shared streets and bike lanes made navigation a bit confusing at times.

Biking across the big bridges was nerve wracking at times.

On June 10, we decided to check out Pioneer Square and Chinatown before leaving Seattle.  Both were a bust.  We were surprised by the large number of beggars in downtown.  We really liked the neighborhoods in Seattle, but would skip the downtown next time we visit.  

Our next stop was Port Ludlow to see Ludlow Falls.  After a short hike, we could hear the falls and after about 1.5 miles we could see the multi-level falls.  It was so pretty! 

 

While hiking back to the car we came across a patch of berries.  We used Google L ens and discovered they were salmon berries.  They are edible so we each popped one in our mouth.  Very bitter.

Next waterfall stop was Murhut Falls, which was less than .50 miles from the road.  It probably had a 40-foot drop.  It was one of two stunning waterfalls we saw in Olympic National Forest.   

 
And then we went to Rocky Brook Falls, which was a 25 minute drive on a dirt road up into the mountains.
 

The multi-tier waterfall was beautiful.

The flowers on the hike to the waterfall were beautiful! 
I couldn't resist a photo with the wild azaleas.

Next stop was an overnight in Shelton, WA.  We found a fun bar that was playing bingo so we had to join in on the fun.

 

Corp won two of the four games.  Their prizes were interesting.

 

On June 11, while traveling to Olympia, WA, we spotted an RV dealership and decided to make a quick stop to look at a few sprinter vans. A state trooper followed us into the parking lot and asked us a few questions due to our sudden stop. Fortunately, we didn't receive a ticket, and he even offered us a few tourist suggestions. 

 

Later that day, we met our friends Janet and Mike who live in Olympia.  We met them in Mismaloya, Mexico a few years ago and stayed in contact through Facebook.  Janet showed us a ton of sites, including Tumwater Falls, the Washington State Capitol Campus, Percival Landing on Puget Sound, their downtown historic district with some cool wall art/murals, and Squaxin Park.  We really enjoyed Olympia and can see why it's such a desirable place to live. 

 

Beautiful flowers at Tumwater Falls.

Tumwater Falls with the fish ladders.  The salmon use them to move up the river to spawn.

Corp and Janet, our friend and tour guide for the day.

Fence of lockets.

Corp and I with all the beautiful flowers.  
Washington definitely has a lot of beautiful flowers in June. 

Corp and I in front of Tumwater Falls.

The Washington State Capitol, completed in 1928, was very impressive.  The House and Senate Chambers were closed, but we were able to see the State Reception Room, which featured the most beautiful Tiffany chandeliers.   

 

The rotunda was enormous! 

Percival Landing featured some interesting metal sculptures and amazing views of Puget Sound.

The large marina was so picturesque with all the boats. 

 

 

 

Downtown Olympia has a lot of fun wall murals and street art.

Janet, Mike, Corp, and I enjoying a walk through Squaxin Park.

Before we had a great seafood meal at Tugboat Annie's, we were walking on the docks and saw this crazy looking jellyfish.  It's called an egg yolk jellyfish.  There were a lot of them in the water.

Close up of the eye yolk jellyfish.

Corp loved the clam chowder at Tugboat Annie's.

The seafood sauté was outstanding.
The broth was so delicious that we requested French bread to dip into it.

Miscellaneous random cute/funny/interesting/weird pics/videos below…

During the first few days of our trip, we encountered some interesting cars. One was a Ford Ranchero, which Corp despises because it was the only car available to him to drive to school in high school. Another was a DeLorean, which we had never seen actually driving before.
 

 

Along the way, I picked some roadside flowers, which we call "road flowers," and kept them in a water bottle in the front of the 4Runner.

 

My road flowers consisted of foxglove, daisy's, sweet pea, and azaleas.

We also stopped for lunch one day and came across this self-take flower stand.

 

The flowers were stunning!  I wanted to purchase one, but we just didn't have the room and it was pretty inconvenient when we were in a different hotel room everyday.

Well, that's all for Part 1 of our Pacific Northwest adventure!  

 

Stay tuned for Part 2 coming out soon.

Until next time, safe travels and happy exploring!

Corp and Tammy