the great pacific northwest

I'm back from our trip to Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver and it was fantastic. We started the trip at Salish Lodge which is about an hour outside Seattle.

Before I even got there I was excited because the hotel sits next to a waterfall...a waterfall featured in the opening credits "Twin Peaks". One afternoon we hiked down to the bottom of the falls.

I really do love a good waterfall...there is nothing like being up close to one.


The Lodge was gorgeous with an in-room fireplace and jacuzzi. But it's really famous for it's brunch. So, as my two favorite meals are brunch and dessert, I knew I had to try it. It started with juice and some absolutely delicious coffee served with the most amazing accoutrements I had ever experienced.

In case you can't tell, that is the normal sugar, fake sugar, cream, chocolate shavings, and homemade whip cream. I meant to take pictures of all four courses of the brunch but I was so distracted by the deliciousness that I forgot. But, in summary, the courses were:
- fruit yogurt parfait with homemade granola and a pastry
- oatmeal with a mango peach chutney syrup
- scrambled eggs with bacon, ham, sausage, and a biscuit
- buttermilk pancakes
Before you are too appalled, no, we did not clear our plates every course. It was more of a sampling thing. But it was DELICIOUS.

The next day we stayed in downtown Seattle. We really loved Seattle because it was gorgeous and was just the right mixture of hipsters and professionals. We did the normal tourist stuff like Pike Place Market and the Space Needle.

The market is really great with fantastic produce and the biggest flowers I had ever seen.


We headed to Vancouver after that and after spending an hour and 30 minutes at the border crossing (that would be 3/4 of a mile in an hour and 30 minutes), we made it to Canada. Unfortunely, we weren't too into Vancouver. The downtown was ugly as hell and parts of it were so crowded that it reminded me of Times Square. (fyi, that is not good.) We checked out the Vancouver "beach" and I was thoroughly amused by this lifeguard:

I don't know if I'm just used to huge lifeguard towers in Southern California but this guy kept cracking me up because he thought he was so rad guarding the 2 swimmers in a bay with no waves. Awesome. The greatest thing about Vancouver is that they have gelato everywhere and I took full advantage.

After that we made our way down to Portland to stay with our friends E&S. S is pregnant but totally low maintenance and adorable.

Pregnant women can really wear overalls. Portland is nice...perhaps there are one too many hippies, women with really long leg hair, and drum circles...but it's nice. We (okay I) enjoyed some bacardi and diet cokes then we made our way to an arcade where I engaged in some intense air hockey.

It was a great trip and now I'm looking forward to wedding number 3 of the summer this weekend.