A WONDERFUL WEEK (AND A HALF) IN WASHINGTON

We’ve traveled a lot in 2024, with one trip still to come. But even with all the awesome experiences and places on this year’s itinerary, the ones in this post were probably my most anticipated — not only because this marked my first time in the Pacific Northwest but also because Washington’s National Parks are next-level beautiful. Not to mention diverse — with coastline and rainforests, waterfalls and alpine lakes, wildflowers and towering peaks (one in particular, of course). And from the tiny “Twilight” town of Forks to the top of the Space Needle in Seattle, we took in a little culture along the way, too.

– motion pictures –

select snapshots set to song

day 1 • 08.23.24

Kansas City >>> Seattle

While we’d originally planned to fly out on a Saturday, a canceled flight led to us leaving on a Friday afternoon instead. That combined with a longer-than-planned layover at the Denver airport meant our first experience of Seattle was in the dark and the rain — and we fully expected the latter would be a pretty constant companion throughout the trip. (But spoiler alert: It wasn’t!)

day 2 • 08.24.24

Olympic National Park & setting foot in Forks

We set out this day for Olympic National Park, stopping at Lake Crescent and hiking the Marymere Falls trail before continuing on to Forks, which would be our home base for hitting the highlights of this park over the next few days.

One of those highlights is a rain forest, but it wasn’t on the itinerary until later. So I was super surprised to encounter so many mossy trees and such a magic-forest feel even outside of that iconic spot. An iconic spot I had expected, of course, was Forks — and yes, I realize “iconic” may be overstating it for anyone who wasn’t ever enamored with the books and movies that put it on the map.

Seth and I historically had no strong feelings about “Twilight” — but because we’re responsible travelers, we did make a point to watch all five of the films in preparation for visiting the town where it takes place. The Airbnb rental where we stayed had some subtle “Twilight” details, including a movie box set — so of course we decided we should rewatch the first one while actually in Forks. And as silly as that may seem, it actually was pretty awesome to see green, mossy forest scenes and to have a new connection to those after having been in just such a forest ourselves.

day 3 • 08.25.24

Beach Day Beauty

In keeping with the “Twilight” theme that continued throughout our time in the Olympic Peninsula, we started this day with a stop at the treaty-line sign on our way to Rialto Beach, which is part of Olympic National Park. We’d timed our visit for low tide in order to do the Hole-in-the-Wall hike — and while the destination matching that name was neat, the simple act of hiking along a beach with ocean on one side and forest on the other was undoubtedly the best part.

After Rialto, we continued our beach day in Olympic by heading to Ruby Beach. Hitting it near high tide, we weren’t able to explore the tide pools that are one of its famous features. But seeing the sun set over the ocean while waves crash against giant rocks will never be a bad way to wrap up a day.

day 4 • 08.26.24

Mossy Magic & ‘Twilight’ trucks

This was the day for our trip to the aforementioned iconic rainforest. It was such a special occasion in my mind that I dressed us up a bit — knowing the photo ops called for it.

And Hoh Rainforest didn’t disappoint! It seemed like something out of a storybook as we hiked the Spruce Nature and Hall of Mosses trails, with tree limbs that looked like they could be related to the Grinch.

We had light, sporadic rain during our hikes — very fitting for a rainforest experience — which turned to a downpour as we were leaving. It was still raining hard when we arrived back in Forks and stopped at the Chamber of Commerce for our daily dose of real-life “Twilight.”

Parked outside are two vintage trucks — the one actually used as Bella’s in the movies and another like her truck as it’s described in the books. And as a cherry on top, we realized we’d inadvertently dressed to match them! My coral coat was close to the color of the movie truck, while Seth’s red coat went with the other one. So while I’d picked our outfits for the rainforest specially, it was a nice instance of serendipity that they also worked so well for this second photo op.

day 5 • 08.27.24

Hurricane Ridge hiking

Leaving Forks this morning, we stopped by a couple more “Twilight” spots. First the 1905 farmhouse now called the Swan House, which inspired the one described in the novels. And then Forks Community Hospital, where a parking spot is marked as reserved for Dr. Carlisle Cullen.

We also made one last stop in Olympic National Park, at Hurricane Ridge. There we did the Hurricane Hill hike, which reaches an elevation of almost 6,000 feet — something pretty notable given that just a bit farther west, this same park is at sea level! Also notable on this hike was that our phones entered Canadian cellular space, and we could see Canada across a body of water.

After adding mountains to our list of sights seen in Olympic, it was time to head toward Mount Rainier National Park for a major mountain!

day 6 • 08.28.24

Meeting Mount Rainier

I’d tried to temper my expectations for this park, knowing that it’s not uncommon for cloudy conditions to keep visitors from seeing its namesake mountain at all. My hope was to see Mount Rainier at least once over the course of the three days we’d be there — but never did I expect sunny skies and an awesome mountain view the entire time!

Seeing Rainier all of a sudden appear on the horizon for the first time was exciting, with its 14,000+ feet towering over the surrounding scenery. Given that the lowest point in the park is just 1,600 feet above sea level, a massive stratovolcano really stands out. And really, even with it constantly on display, this view never got even a little less impressive the entire time we were able to enjoy it.

Also on this day, we saw waterfalls and hiked to alpine lakes. One of those, Bench Lake, we made the steep trek to twice — simply because clouds largely covered Mount Rainier in the background on our first arrival.

But that really was the only time our perspective of it was obscured. Even a 40-minute drive away for dinner that night, the mountain stood tall on the horizon — and was arguably the best view I’ve ever had while eating tacos.

day 7 • 08.29.24

Just another day in Paradise

This was our day in Mount Rainier National Park’s Paradise corridor, where we hiked a portion of the Skyline Loop to the Paradise Glacier trail. Despite this being a really popular area of a really popular park, we had the world almost all to ourselves by the time we trekked a few miles. And although it was undoubtedly an optical illusion created by a false summit, by the time we reached the trail’s end, it seemed as though we were tantalizingly close to summiting Rainier.

That didn’t happen, but what did was a fairly lengthy photo session of a marmot furiously eating against the backdrop of the mountain. And speaking of photo-worthy moments: We bookended the day with stops at Reflection Lakes, where we’d also gone the day before. The third time was finally the charm when it came to finding the water still enough to live up to its name — creating a great Rainier reflection during golden hour.

day 8 • 08.30.24

A sunny day in Sunrise

Our last hours at Mount Rainier were in the Sunrise corridor. I couldn’t believe we’d gotten a second completely cloudless day or that the mountain actually was even more impressive and imposing from this part of the park than from where we’d experienced it before.

With several hours to drive to our next destination, we had a relatively short window to soak up last looks. But we took in all we could along the Sunrise Nature and Sourdough Ridge trails, trying to commit the unreal stature of Mount Rainier to memory (or at least to camera cards!).

day 9 • 08.31.24

North Cascades National Park

This was the day for checking off our final park for the trip: North Cascades. It’s supposedly one of the least-visited National Parks — but especially going in with that expectation, we found it surprisingly busy on this Saturday of Labor Day weekend.

We still enjoyed seeing the beautiful blue-green bodies of water and getting in one last hike — trying to appreciate every step of our almost 5 miles on the Blue Lake trail, since this would be our last time in the mountains for a little while.

After the hike, we drove North Cascades Highway to Washington Pass to take in the pretty panoramic views as the sun set. This point in a trip is always bittersweet — but it helped knowing we had one more day to experience before our plane ride home.

day 10 • 09.01.24

Seattle sights

Leaving the tiny town of Concrete, Washington, to return to Seattle was definitely quite a contrast. It was also a notable difference being back in a big city after more than a week spent mostly in nature — but we were excited to spend a little time seeing iconic Seattle sights.

At the top of that list, of course, was the Space Needle. We once again found ourselves with fairly sunny skies, which gave us great views from observation deck. We spent longer than expected there but still had time to squeeze in a quick visit to Pike Place Market before heading back to our hotel.

During the drive, I suddenly noticed Mount Rainier looming over the interstate ahead of us — a massive presence even 60 miles away.

day 11 • 09.02.24

A send-off & stunning skies

Maybe the atmosphere heard Seth’s lament that we hadn’t really gotten the quintessential Washington weather experience — because we woke up to clouds and rain this morning. Still, after our plane gained enough elevation to rise above the clouds, we had one last chance to see and say goodbye to Mount Rainier.

And the Kansas City sky must have had a sense of the melancholy I tend to feel coming back to a mountain-less, ocean-less Midwest — because it really pulled out all the stops for the sunset this evening and gave us quite a colorful welcome home.