Before school starts we decided to cross a few more things off of our "bucket lists" in the Northwest. We wrapped it up as an early Anniversary trip and we were off. John and Diana graciously allowed us to borrow their Toyota Camry for the trip so we didn't have to pay that much more at the pump with the truck!
Our itinerary: Travel down to Tillamook on Sunday, continue on to the small town of Beaver, OR to stay at the Powder Creek Ranch B&B. Drive to Canby, OR on Monday for the dahlia festival and then continue on to Portland for our official anniversary dinner. Head up to Vancouver, WA on Monday night to spend the night after dinner (it's cheaper to stay in Vancouver). Then, head home on Tuesday. It was a wonderful blur of a trip--not too many miles between each place so it was quite restful.
Our drive down was a breeze. We reached Portland in what seemed like record time.
We stopped about 20 miles outside of Tillamook for our picnic lunch overlooking the creek. Wanted to eat a little something so that we weren't quite as tempted to completely gorge on cheese.
Then we packed up and headed for an all-together PACKED cheese factory.
Since it was Sunday there wasn't much going on in the factory except packaging up the "forties" (40 pound blocks of cheese).
We enjoyed the historic pieces while waiting in line for the best part: free samples.
Look at the people! I swear they were breaking fire code.
But it was so worth it for the cubes of deliciousness!
Mmmmm!
Once we filled up on cheese we waited in yet another LONG line for an even better part: ice cream.
We choose a 3-mini-scoop sampler. Me: caramel toffee crunch, white chocolate raspberry yum and strawberry. Tom: cookie dough, peanut butter and something chocolatey...
We continued down along the coast on the scenic byway since we had lots of time to make it to the B&B.
We actually drove past the B&B turn off to check out pacific city and the gorgeous beach.
Once we arrived at the B&B we dropped off our bags and set off for a little walk around the 350 acres of land that it sits on.
We didn't make it far since it was all uphill and I was wearing a skirt and flip-flops but we enjoyed the sights and sounds of the fields and the surrounding forests.
Here is a far-off view of the Powder Creek Ranch B&B. It was serene and beautiful and made possible thanks to my mom and dad! What a huge treat!! We enjoyed dinner at the house in addition to breakfast the following morning. So when we literally rolled out in the morning we were ready to walk around a bit.
We drove about 2 hours and came upon the fields. It might not look like much in this view but it's breath taking, I promise you!
Here comes a whole lot of flower pictures of some of my favorites--keep scrolling :)
Some were bigger than my head!
See, this one could ear Tom's sunglasses!
Here was our shot at some panoramic pictures--they look better all blown up.
This one seemed like a pillow to me.
One of the "checkers" variety dahlia fell off and was lying on the ground. I thought it looked like patriotic bunting or a boutonniere.
After wandering the fields we dined again with a picnic lunch of PB&J's while overlooking the fields.
I couldn't leave without some to take home and since I can't have a garden, cut flowers had to do.
Our plan when we left the fields was to drive up to Vancouver, check into our hotel and then drive the quick 20 minutes back down to Portland for dinner at 6:30. Well, all the northbound interstates were LITERALLY a parking lot. After 1.5 hours of sitting (as seems to be our theme of 2013 summer) we decided to flip a u-turn and just go to the restaurant. This required getting changed into our dinner attire IN THE CAR in the parking garage of the restaurant. It was kind of a joke ducking when a car would drive through the garage and trying to keep the fresh flowers from falling over and keeping them in water...it was nuts. We didn't really feel fancy or well dressed after stepping out of what was now a disaster zone of a car but we tried to reset and get in the right state of mind. This yummy strawberry cocktail helped with that goal.
We were a little disappointed because we made reservations but were still told it would be 30-40 minutes til our table was ready but we waited it out and when we got there it was personally dressed for our occasion! How cute is that?
Our table was in the corner so we had a gorgeous view of the city. We were able to watch it turn from late afternoon to sunset to evening during dinner--sunset on one side of the building and the moon rise on the other. Lovely!
The hostess even offered to help out my lovely flowers by storing them in cold fresh water in the cooler while we ate. After dinner both Tom and I felt refreshed and lovely. It was truly a great dining experience!
We arrived in Vancouver in only a few short minutes and were pleasantly surprised by our $60/night hotel room. It was neat, clean and comfy and we were thrilled to have a suite with a mini-fridge to keep the left overs cold for our lunch the next day.
After spending some time together in the gym at the hotel in the morning (working off all that rich food we'd eaten all weekend) we were ready to call the weekend to a close but there was one last stop: the Nike Clearance Store in Centralia!!!
I can't believe it's been 4 years. Our 3rd year brought a ton of adventures as we started graduate school and I'm sure year 4 won't be any less adventurous!
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