the great Pacific northwest

I've been asked to tell about our Vacation Without Kids. I got so busy catching up when we came home that I didn't get back to blogging right away, and then the moment seemed to have passed. But I will post a few photos and tell a bit about it now.

We flew to Seattle and hung out two evenings there, one with CD's cousin at the restaurant he owns. Great Thai food. He lives in a houseboat too. I was fascinated with the lack of Stuff. There just wasn't room for much. He has a 5 yr. old and a part time resident 16 yr. old and the four of them manage to live in about 400 square feet.

We then crossed on the Bainbridge ferry and drove around US 101 North through Port Angeles. We stopped at two wineries (plan was for four, but at 2pm, two is all I could have handled!). We arrived at Lake Quinault just at dusk. This is the view from our room:

The Lodge is across the street from old growth rainforest and lots of hiking. They'd had a tornado last winter that left lots of trees down. Amazing to see how old they were. We took a lot of photos of Big Trees and Tall Trees:

We spent one day at the coast, at and around Ruby Beach, and ate dinner at Kalaloch Lodge while we watched the sun set:

We stayed at the Lake Quinault Lodge for five nights. They had a massive fireplace, lots of leather sofas, and good (if pricy) food. We hiked, read, worked on a shared jigsaw puzzle, and met some other travelers. We went to sleep on Eastern time and woke to Pacific time. We had primarily dry days, a few with sun and a few with mild showers, all in the 60 degree range.

The last day we continued our way around US 101 through Olympia. We visited a salmon ladder and ate well in town, the night of our actual 10th anniversary.

We returned to Seattle to stay near the airport the last night, preparing for the long flight back to Atlanta.

I missed my babies, but we needed the whole week. It took several days just to remember how to relax. We enjoyed a different pace of travel without children. We could talk in full sentences and could enjoy each others company. We phoned home enough to know that all was well in our absence. Coming home wore me out (3 hr. time change!) but the trip was well worth it.