Our Family Vacation: Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula

We're back from our big family vacation and we're glad to be home. By the end of the trip, we realized it was a little too long with a little one, but we made the best of being exhausted and now have lots of memories! Here's how our trip went...

Day 1: We were up bright and early to board our 7:45a flight to Seattle. Carson only slept the first 30-45min of the flight, but thankfully wasn't too bad on the plane. As soon as we got our rental car and headed out, he crashed! First up on our agenda was meeting up with my former boss. He has a little girl one month older than Carson, so we got the kids together to play around and let the adults catch up a bit (I forgot to take pictures :( because my phone was about to die). The weather was a little dreary, so we were fearful our camping trip might not turn out to be so fun. After hanging out at the park, we headed to lunch at Cactus in Kirkland. We wrapped up the day with some Emerald City Smoothies (yum) and everyone was asleep by 7pm (really 8pm to us)!

Mt Rainier and Mt Adams on the flight into Seattle

Airplane selfie

Lunch at Cactus

Best smoothies in the PNW

Little dude's first Emerald City smoothie

Day 2: We set out for the Sounders game today and rode the train into downtown. Carson was a hot mess on the train and the only thing that made him happy was walking up and down the train stairs (hard to manage on a moving train). Thankfully the train staff was nice and let us move around. We got to the game and still had the dreary, misty Seattle weather. But coming from Denver where it had been super hot, it was kind of refreshing. After-all we had our raincoats with us! Carson did surprisingly good at the game and for the most part sat on my lap and watched. We also met up with one of Reid's law school classmates at half time. It's always good to see a familiar, friendly face. After the game, we headed back on the train then took our car on a ferry across the sound to the Olympic peninsula for the remainder of our trip. Carson had lots of fun splashing in the puddles on the ferry ride.

Trying to keep someone happy on the train with food

Rainy Sounders game

All smiles after they won!

Ferry ride to the peninsula

Day 3: After getting to the campsite late the night before and setting up, we realized we picked the wrong campsite. Apparently our camping neighbor didn't appreciate Carson waking up early and made some not so very nice comments towards him. He really put a damper in our mood so we got our stuff together for a hike and left. We headed out to the Hoh Rainforest to hike the Hoh River Trail. I could not believe how brilliant green this trail was. There was also a tremendous diversity in vegetation which made this trial one-of-a-kind, as did the ginormous trees. I guess that is what you get when you are located in the wettest part of the United States. We also decided to move our campsite, so after our hike we packed up (annoying) and moved across the grounds. We still had a lot of time left in the day, so we decided to drive to a nearby beach for a walk. We settled on Ruby Beach where there were some scenic rock formations.

Big mossy tree

Reid thinks this photo looks fake

Lunch by the cedar trees

The water was a steel gray

Sea of ferns

Little rock towers at Ruby Beach

Day 4: Carson did so well sleeping in the tent (granted we did have the pack-n-play with us). Our adventure today was in the Sol Duc Valley to hike the Sol Duc River Trail. We were looking for some elevation gain and good mountain views! This hike was a mixture of forest and rainforest and both Reid and I claimed this one our favorite. We hiked the first mile to Sol Duc Falls and then it was another 3 miles to Deer Lake. Already a long day, we decided to keep trekking on to High Divide for the great views of Mt Olympus we were told about. I think we went on another 2-3miles with lots of elevation gain and ultimately decided to stop short. Reid was exhausted with carrying little dude and we could see some rain in the distance. At our turnaround point we ran into some horses on the trail and followed them back out. We got a nice surprise on the hike out with a bear sighting. He was much closer than we ever anticipated being to a bear, but still a good enough distance for safety. After the hike we stopped at the Sol Duc Resort for a dip in the hot springs. We didn't stay long because I couldn't take the smell and all Carson wanted to do was walk out in the chilly weather.

Day 5: We packed up camp today started our drive down the coast. On the way we made a side trip to Lake Quinalt to find the World's Largest Spruce Tree. We drove through a quaint little town to find the trail and decided to let Carson hike himself since we had plenty of time. He did so good (even though we had to re-direct him a few times) and made it all the way to the big tree! After that we walked on the lake shores a bit and spotted some bear tracks. Then we got back in the car and headed for our hotel in Ocean Shores. Now the rain had caught up with us :( so we were hoping our ocean stay wouldn't be a complete bust. We needed to each some lunch and had some camp food left over, so we found a park with a covered picnic area and hung out while we waited to check in. At least the rain scared away other picnic goers so we had a nice quiet lunch. By the time we checked in, the rain had moved out so we took a walk down to the beach. It was very windy and Carson avoided the water like the plague. We all got nice warm showers/baths, went out to eat a good meal and were ready for a good nights sleep.

Rainy picnic

Catching raindrops

Running away from the ocean

 Day 6: It was beautiful out in the morning so after we packed up and checked out of the hotel, we drove to the beach for another walk before driving back towards the airport. We had plenty of time to kill so once we got in the Seattle area, we stopped at a park near the marina in Des Moines to play and have some lunch. When it was finally time to make our way to the airport, we arrived 3 hours early (no need to rush around) and discovered that the Frontier desk was CLOSED and wouldn't open for another hour! Seriously Frontier?! Frantically we found a little restaruant and had a drink to pass the time. By now Carson was out of control. Even wandering wherever he wanted in the airport wasn't making him happy. We were THOSE people with THAT kid :( Never a good way to end your trip. After making it through security, I found a play area in the airport where Carson and I hung out until time to board. Unfortunately on the trip back, he did not fall asleep at all. He would get so close and drift off, but something would keep him from actually falling asleep. Thankfully he wasn't screaming, just using Reid and I as a jungle-gym. But as our luck would have it, literally as the wheels touched down in Denver he conked out for the night.

Hey Mom. Daddy found me a clam shell!

Baby feet in the sand

Goodbye Seattle!

We had a great trip even though we were all tired and over vacationing at the end of it. Washington you will be greatly missed. It's no secret around our house that I want to move back, but this solidified everything. I hope to be a Washingtonian again someday...but we will see!