Pacific Northwest - Summer 2023

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Mount Rainier National Park - Summer 2023

By the time we got to Seattle we were nearing our one year retirement anniversary. We finally started hitting our stride with this retirement thing. This new life is pretty spectacular. No stress, no alarm clock, every day is Saturday. Heck, days of the week don't really matter any more. Once we got all settled in to our adorable cottage, we found a great 5 mile walking loop just down the street. 
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The iconic sign
The Gum Wall - Yuck
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Space Needle, Seattle Washington

It's time for something SUPER cool! At the end of May 2023, we made our way to to the port in downtown Seattle and boarded the beautiful Norwegian Encore for a 7 night Alaskan Cruise! Here's a picture, but there will be a separate blog post on the cruise.
Norwegian Encore

After the cruise, we wasted no time and found a great gym at a community center near our accomodations. We got into a great routine of gym 3 days a week and walks or hikes 2 days a week. We visited the Tacoma Glass Museum which was impressive. We loved watching the glass blowers in action. Very interesting and a beautiful art-form. 
Tacoma Glass Museum

Tacoma Glass Museum
Tacoma Glass Museum
Tacoma Glass Museum - Live Glass Blowing

Western Washington is beautiful! We had a great view of Mt. Ranier on our walking loop and we always got excited when the "mountain was out". It's a common saying there because on cloudy days you can't see it. We visited and hike at Mount Rainier twice. We did these hikes in lake July. There are countless trails and trailheads at Mount Rainier National Park. We visited the "Sunrise" side on the North and the "Paradise" side on the south. The Sunrise side still had snow at higher elevations during our visit. Seeing the snow at the same time as wildflowers is unique. Nature is something else! We saw a couple Marmot on our hikes, which was a first for us.
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Mount Rainier 

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Marmot

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Snow in July!

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Western Anemone - Reminds me of Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

The views are just breathtaking!

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Mount Rainier Waterfall

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Our park pass was good for 7 days, so we went back to hike another trail! This time we went to the Sunrise Visitor Center. It was foggy, but it made for very dramatic photos. We hiked to the Mount Freemont Fire Lookout. 

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We made it to the top - Mt. Freemont Fire Lookout

foggy lake

The Pacific Northwest is well known for Starbucks, so naturally we visited the Starbucks Roastery in addition the The First Starbucks location. Aside from Starbucks, the rest of the coffee shops and roasters we tried were excellent. 
The First Starbucks Store - Downtown Seattle

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Starbucks Reserve Roastery & Tasting Room

A Delicious Starbucks Reserve Roastery Latte



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Starbucks Reserve Roastery - Seattle, WA

In addition to coffee, there are excellent beer breweries in Washington. The eastern part pf Washington state grows a lot of barley and hops, which are used in beer production. We visited multiple and they did not disappoint. They even make Bourbon! We did a Whiskey tasting at Woodinvillle Whiskey Company. They make great Bourbon, Whiskey and Rye. I recommend checking them out!
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We also made a visit to the Museum of Flight. If you are at all interested in aviation, I highly recommend a visit. The highlight for me was being able to see and get onboard a Concorde. I really hope to experience supersonic travel in my lifetime, if not, being able to see this wonder up close and personal was unforgettable for me. There were many other neat aircrafts on display as well. 

British Airways Concorde Cockpit

British Airways Concorde Passenger Seating

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Le Concorde

The Queen of the Skies - 747



The food scene is great as well. We enjoyed our share of Korean and Japanese cuisine! In addition, we also had great seafood. There are also some locals favorites that you should check out if you visit; Dick's Drive-in for a burger/fries/shake and Wally's Chowder House. Dukes Seafood in Tacoma was a great place as well, sitting by the water and enjoying excellent Clam Chowder & Dungeonous Crab "Un"cake on my birthday is a memory I won't soon forget. Each of these restaurants have multiple locations spread all around the area. 

Ramen & Karaage Chicken

Duke's Seafood

Duke's Seafood - Clam Chowder

Being summer; there were numerous festivals, outdoor music events, community events, car shows, Mariners & Raniers Baseball Games, Sounders & Reign Soccer Matches, etc, etc. We multiple community events, concerts, cars shows and 2 Mariners games! It was a busy and fun-filled summer! 
Summer Concert - Brian James

Rhubarb Days Festival - Sumner Washington






We made new friends while in the Pacific Northwest, also nomadic early retirees like us. We went to a meetup through a Facebook Group called Go With Less. The group brings together like-minded people who are interested in and/or participating in early retirement, travel, house sitting. Since meeting them we've stayed in touch and we even got together a few times when we crossed paths in Mexico City (more on that in a larer post).

In August of 2023 we took a little side trip to Bend, OR to house & pet sit for this little cutie. This will be a separate blog post as well, but this little girl had our hearts for 10 days.
Minnie

Bend is lovely and I can see us coming back to visit. After 10 awesome days we drove back to Seattle and got back into our routine for a few more weeks before it was time to pack everything up and prepare for another road trip!

After a wonderful summer in Washington it was time to head back east. We have BIG plans....

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