Pacific Northwest, Part 2

Continuing on with our Top Ten:

7. The Pike Place Market.

This place is the major tourist hub of the city, but still worth checking out. Hey, we like markets. And this one just feels like a farmer's market on steroids. We walked by countless stalls of beautiful flowers, colorful fruit, honey, jams, breads, and peppers. That is also where you'll find the first Starbucks.



We enjoyed perusing the market for picnic fixins, and found all kinds of yummy (albeit a bit overpriced) food for our...

6. Trip to Bainbridge Island.

The dock to the ferry boats is a short walk from the Pike Place Market, so we headed right there after buying our lunch stuff. In Seattle, ferries cross the Puget Sound regularly, headed for all kinds of different islands and things on the other side. We so enjoyed getting out on the water and appreciating the beautiful scenery from that angle.

Once we got to the Island, we enjoyed our lunch in a nearby park, and then I took a nap in the grass. Heavenly!

And on our return boat trip, the sun started to set. Beautiful.



5. The Columbia River Gorge.

Josh did his research on this one, too! If you ever go to Portland, MAKE SURE you visit this area. It is only a few miles down the road from the city and it completely breathtaking. Just off the highway is a big, lush canyon with a wide, blue river running down it. It seems to stretch for forever in both directions.

And for you history buffs, this is the river that Lewis and Clark paddled down to reach the Pacific Ocean.

We explored this area first thing in the morning. Living on Eastern Time in Oregon will do that to you every time! But we were SO thankful we did! Despite the FREEZING CRAZY COLD, we totally loved watching the sunrise over the gorge.



And spaced in between look-outs over the gorge were other delightful natural wonders -

4. Waterfalls.

In the span of about twenty miles along the gorge, you can find a number of really impressive waterfalls. I think we visited four. Some required a bit of hiking, but most were the pull over and marvel type. Of them, Multnomah Falls is the most well known. But we enjoyed them all - and it was nice to see a variety, too.

But as it was still SUPER early, it was also SUPER cold. And we'd failed to pack appropriately. Check out my four shirts - it was stylin'.



Something else that struck me about this area? BIG trees. Look for Josh in the bottom right picture.