Days 34 & 35: Seattle and Portland

Seattle is one of the coolest cities I've ever been to and Portland has always been so hyped that I was so pumped to go. So it stands to reason that we spent almost no time exploring the cities and instead spent time with family and friends. I sound bitter, but it was actually awesome.

Saturday started off pretty rough because none of us got a good night's sleep the last go around on the ferry. Everyone was paranoid about waking up on time, I think, so we were not at our best. That said, we rallied from the departure on ship to head off and spend the afternoon hanging out with one of Dad's friends from the Peace Corps. She worked for years at the University of Washington and every time I see her (last time was 10ish years ago) I leave thinking she's completely fascinating and that I want to be like her.

After a great morning/afternoon with her we checked into our AirBnB and Mom and I crashed for an hour's nap. Mass and then pizza for dinner at this (awesome) hipster place I found with wood-fired Neapolitan pies. Killer.

Today was supposed to be a trip to Mount St. Helens (one of Dad's three requests for the trip, the other two being: drive the Alcan Highway to Alaska [which I botched by re-routing us along the Cassiar Highway for a stretch instead of doing the whole Alcan from Dawson Creek, BC to Beaver Creek, YT and into Alaska] and visit Mount Rushmore [which I haven't yet had the chance to botch]) followed by dinner with Moran cousins. In my eagerness to maximize our time spent out here, I planned a long, meandering route to Mount St. Helens by way of Mount Rainier National Park. Short version: it took too long and we were going to be late for dinner, so we skipped Mt. St. Helens. So basically I'm 0/2 with doing what Dad wants on Dad's Retirement Roadtrip.

Inside Mount Rainier National Park

Mt Rainier (on the I-5 from Seattle we could actually see the darned thing, but clouds rolled in when we were close enough for good photos. Go figure)

Dinner with family was awesome. I got to meet some second cousins and their kids (what is that, even? Second cousins once removed?) that had left the Philly area before I was a real person (around age 8, I'd say that happens), we ate some really lovely salmon for dinner (I guess people could get tired of that eventually, but eating fresh-caught fish for the last two weeks or so has been AMAZING in my opinion), and all in all had a wonderful time. On our drive to tonight's hotel we had a lovely view of Mount Hood from the highway:

Mt. Hood

Tomorrow we drive the Columbia River Gorge en route to Coeur d'Alene, ID!