Hello dear readers! We’re cracking on with another post in the wedding series!
In all honesty this’ll be a pretty boring post as far as the series is concerned but nevertheless, it’s an important part of the story as my time in Washington was theoretically coming to an end.
Before I crack on I’m going to give you a quick reminder on all of the logistics for this trip. I did talk about it in the first post of the series but that was a while ago so let me rejog your memories.
I think any couple getting married have much to think about before a wedding but an international wedding added some further things to think about and in terms of trip lengthy I ideally wanted four weeks in the USA – which my employers were perfectly happy to approve given the circumstances.
I figured having two weeks before the wedding and two weeks after the wedding was a good balance and allowed time for things to potentially go wrong before the wedding (me and my family all had our flights cancelled!) whilst also allowing a bit of time after the wedding to enjoy the first days of married life!
It was a perfect plan but a small spanner in the works was Haleigh’s cousin, Michelle, was getting married in Utah at the end of the month – three weeks after our own wedding.
I wouldn’t have missed their wedding for the world. They’re the cutest couple and I adore them both but it did pose some questions about what I now do about my own trip. Do I push for five weeks off work? Do I want to take five weeks off work for one trip? Do I leave myself less time before the wedding and more time after the wedding to go down to Utah? What do I do?
I’m very mindful of my annual leave each year. Our company offer a scheme that allows you to buy an extra week and with the wedding in mind I took full advantage of this to bump my leave off up to six weeks but for an entire year that is still not enough – give me 26 weeks, please!
I think this influenced my decision making a little so I stuck with the original plan. I was going to Washington for four weeks, flying home for a few days of work and then I’d fly back to Utah for a long weekend to catch the second wedding. It wasn’t ideal but any days annual leave spared this year was a blessing!
Anyway, with all that in mind, this was my final week in Washington. I’d already had three weeks on the West coast by this point so the final week was just about making the best of the time I had left in Washington before we’d separate again. Admittedly I’d be seeing Haleigh and some of the family down in Utah in a couple of weeks but there’d be other family I now probably wouldn’t see until Thanksgiving maybe.
We spent the first half of the week doing the boring post-wedding stuff. The marriage licence, name changes for Haleigh, you get the gist..
The second half of the week was spent enjoying Walla Walla, visiting a few favourite hangout spots and bidding farewell to family I wasn’t going to see any time soon. On Thursday evening myself and Haleigh had ourselves a final date night as I’d be leaving on Saturday and the Friday happened to be Haleigh’s brother’s birthday so we had a meal out planned with a number of people.
It was bittersweet to think that two weeks after getting married it was back to the long distance stuff.
‘Til bureaucracy, immigration laws and visa restrictions do us part” as the famous vows go.
On the Friday I was trying not to think about that and looking forward. Yes, I was leaving tomorrow but when would I be back? What time were my flights to Denver the following Thursday? What time were my onward flights to Salt Lake City? I did the logical thing and had a look!
Now, anyone familiar with the British Airways app will know the first thing it shows you when you open the app are the details of your next flight. I was specifically looking for my London to Denver flight information but up popped my next flight.
“Seattle to London – delayed!”
Wait, what? It’s Friday morning, my flight isn’t until Saturday evening. I can’t even check in yet, how can my flight possibly already be delayed!? I thought it was weird but okay, whatever. Tell me more, how long is the delay – *click*
I was facing a 20 hour delay! Twenty! What the fuck?
Seriously, let’s revisit the plan because what the hell do I do from here? I was flying in to Seattle on Saturday morning and now leaving some time on Sunday afternoon with no accommodation inbetween. I was supposed to be back at work on Monday but wouldn’t be landing in England until Monday lunchtime and for what, a three day turnaround? I’d be back Stateside in just a few days which was arguably illogical to begin with but a huge delay was a real spanner in the works.
Now what do I do? I had six upcoming flights to think about over the next week and a half, I had three days of work to consider and every solution was a form of unnecessary hassle. It’s worth reiterating at this point that BA had cancelled my flight coming here too so they’d inconvenienced me on both ends of the trip.
Of course this nonsense doesn’t happen when it’s one solitary flight does it? Here were my issues:
1) The flight times are what they are. With no changes, I was stranded in Seattle without accommodation for a night. Do I book accommodation in Seattle for a night? 2) If I don’t book accommodation, can I possibly move my domestic flight from Walla Walla to a day later? 3) Either option, means I leave a day late. I miss work on Monday? Is there really any point in going home for just two days of work? 4) Let’s say I don’t go home, how does that affect work? How does that affect the Utah trip? 5) Let’s say I don’t go home, I sort out work, I drive down to Utah with Haleigh and the family. How do I then get home? Do I drive back to Washington with them? Do I try and fly home from Utah? 6) Let’s say I drive down and fly home from Utah? Can I actually fly home from Utah? How do return flights work if you miss the first leg of the journey? I was flying with BA from London to Denver and then with Frontier from Denver to Salt Lake City. It only takes one of those airlines to see I haven’t traveled and not save me a seat for the return flight. That’s conversations with two airlines to make sure I’m not stranded somewhere. 7) Let’s say I drive down to Utah, drive back to Washington after the wedding, when can I actually get home? The wedding was Saturday and my flight home had been Sunday which worked fine with Monday being a public holiday in England. There was no way I could fly home from Washington in the same timeline if I stayed.
The knock-on effect of one flight delay was ridiculous. Also, 20 hours!? Come on!
After much deliberation I settled on a plan. Scrap flying home, I’m staying. I’m not leaving on April 23rd (now 24th), I’m leaving on Saturday the 7th of May. We’ll drive down for the wedding, we’ll come back, we’ll apologetically work remotely and we’ll make it work. Two more weeks in the USA – perfect!
“Computer says no.”
Alaska Airlines couldn’t have made things easier for me. My Walla Walla flight was amendable at no extra cost, infact I actually got a voucher for the difference in flight costs as I guess the flight I changed to was cheaper, and this was all doable online. Bish, bash, bosh!
Go Cougs!
British Airways? Ugh, horrendous! I could change my flight but only for a fee. Hardly my fault that this situation was not of my own making but great, I’m going to have to talk to an actual person.
“Phone says no.” – call back another time, thank you!
I’ll admit, patience was still with me at this point so I waited and called back a little later. I reached the point of being placed on hold at least and persisted with it before eventually getting through to a person.
“BA says no.”
This is a good time to add that this shit-show was discovered entirely out of good fortune. It’s only because I was investigating my next batch of flights that I even spotted this delay. There was no phonecall, no text, no email, no notification of any kind to make me aware that the schedule had suddenly changed so it’s here where things start going sour.
In fairness the phonecall started positively with a “let’s get you home” kind of attitude you want from a customer representative but it was shortlived. I laid out my demands if you will – “my flight has been delayed, can you move it to this date..” and after a first failed attempt, BA were suddenly backtracking.
“Impossible to change the status..”, “you’ll need to speak to Seatac Airport..” and “you should have contacted us sooner..” among a selection of favourite catchphrases. How I was supposed to achieve the latter is still a mystery to me given I hadn’t been informed of the delay to begin with.
I went round and round in circles with the BA rep, insistent that there was nothing she could do beyond cancel my flight with a flight voucher unlikely to cover the cost of booking a new one-way flight.
Now I’m a pretty agreeable person. It’s arguably one of my best and worst traits. I’m a people-pleaser, easy-going. Don’t make too much fuss, you know? So I’ll give myself some credit here for my persistence. This phonecall was not ending without a solution that didn’t leave me out-of-pocket. I was getting increasingly irritated at an attempt to just fob me off but when it comes to travel, I know my rights.
Many “I’ll put you on hold” instances later and my BA rep achieved what had reportedly been impossible an hour earlier. “We can’t change your flight when it’s in this status” seemingly didn’t ring true. They did change my flight, they did so at no extra cost and I got exactly what I’d asked for an hour earlier.
It was honestly infuriating. I’m such an easy-going person but I was so wound up by the end of the phonecall. I’d never want to be the person to take that out on the customer service rep but it’s not easy when you’re being told something can’t be done which seemingly can be done with enough pushback. It shouldn’t take that much pushback and it still leaves a bit of a sour taste.
After an lifetime hour on the phone, it was time to go out and celebrate with the birthday boy. We returned to a Walla Walla favourite, Clarette’s, and had a good time with the family. The next few days were pretty chilled. I had to work remotely for the first few days of the week of course and on UK times but it wasn’t too bad.
Soon enough the out-of-office was back on and we were heading down to Utah! More on that next time!
Hello dear readers! How are things? I was really starting to get in to a blogging groove for a moment there but then ironically the little wedding series was put on pause for a a trip to the US in April.
There was me thinking I’d post again shortly after getting back and yet here we are, almost three months later without a blog post!
Admittedly another trip in May didn’t help. This wasn’t really on the cards for the year and certainly not in the budget but Tottenham in Bilbao for a European final was too tempting to dismiss and another football trip to Spain beckoned – this time with European glory at the end of it!
There is SO much I could say about that experience and believe me I will but that’s a story for another day, for now it’s back to the wedding trip! My other love!
Last time around I wrote about our special wedding day, if you’ve missed any posts in the series you can go back and read them but after a day of celebrating with our loved ones it was time to go and celebrate on our own.
I promise after this trip I’ll stop mentioning the C word, this was the last trip where it had a significant impact, but Covid made it hard to plan much in terms of a honeymoon.
We at the very least wanted to get away for a few days and decided we’d begin married life by popping over to Oregon for a few days.
Portland, Oregon
Our trip didn’t get off to the best of starts. Firstly, as those who read the last post will know, we’d already had to change our plans and unexpectedly check out of our hotel in the early hours of the morning.
We went out for breakfast with the family and then a few people swung by the house to congratulate us again before we hit the road but the consequence of all this was our morning ended up being very jumbled and we weren’t really prepared to hit the road. The result of that was we left with Haleigh not really having much of anything for the trip. Oops!
We said our goodbyes, made our way out of town and shortly after came to the realisation we’d need to make a detour to pick up a few things. So our first honeymoon stop was the infamous Tri-Cities to do a bit of shopping! After a quick shopping detour, we hit the road again and stopped off in the Dalles for a late lunch / early dinner.
Truthfully I don’t know what there really is to do in the Dalles but it’s a convenient stopping point between Portland and Walla Walla. We ate at ‘Cousins’ which is a popular little restaurant in the area, serving up hearty American dishes that go down pretty well. On this occasion they sat us in the bar area which has a different vibe from the main restaurant area but it was still a good place to stop and enjoy dinner.
Cousins, The Dalles, Oregon
Between the Dalles and Portland is the scenic Columbia River Gorge – a beautiful drive alongside the Columbia River. It’s absolutely gorgeous and I don’t think any of my photos would do it justice but it’s such a pretty part of the Pacific Northwest.
I think this drive is pretty in any weather but unfortunately we didn’t have the best of weather for our journey. As we inched closer to Portland, the sky seemed to get darker and darker and the rain was pouring down. The treacherous conditions weren’t helped by having a fancy new car with a million different gadgets which seem to be customary with all cars these days.
We’d decided to rent a car for our trip which was the right decision but we probably weren’t as well equipped for bad weather as we would have liked. Which button gets the wipers to work? Which button makes the car lights come on? How does this work? Ideally these aren’t things you want to learn on route when the weather is miserable but we (Haleigh..) got through it and eventually arrived at our AirBnB – a tiny home in the Beaverton area of Portland.
We got ourselves settled in to our cosy surroundings and relaxed for the rest of the evening. We didn’t really have any plans for Portland, we’d been here previously and the trip was more about enjoying some time together. The downside to long-distance is obviously so much of our relationship has been spent apart and the first couple of weeks of this trip we’d been busy with wedding things and lots of company so it was just nice to have the time to ourselves.
It’s probably for the best we had no plans because we woke up to find snow on the ground. At the time it was the latest date on record that Portland had ever had snow. One of the few things we’d planned was a sunny daytrip to the coast and naturally the weather put some doubt on that idea – in the end we ended up extending our trip by a few more days.
Snow in Portland, April 2022
Breakfast at Black Bear Diner, Beaverton
We kicked off our trip with a visit to the ‘Black Bear Diner’ for breakfast. I don’t think we realised at the time that they were a fairly big chain of restaurants, I certainly didn’t, but they had promising reviews online and were close to our AirBnB.
The funny thing about dining in America is often how large their portion sizes are and ridiculously that was something Black Bear Diner actually pride themselves upon. They have a little ‘gazette’, which doubles up as its menu, where they boasted about how many to-go boxes they produce.
The breakfast was good but it was way too much food and the idea of that being a bragging point kind of tickled me – “our portions are so big, you’ll have to take some home!” – seriously, why!?
The rest of our day was fairly chilled, literally I suppose because the snow had certainly caused its havoc. We’d considered visiting Pittock Mansion only to find the road up to it was closed and we looked at a couple of other things with a similar dilemma. In the end we made the best of the bad weather and took a stop by the Lloyd Center Mall so Haleigh could pick up a couple of bits – having only really bought summer-y outfits the previous day in the Tri Cities.
Sadly I thought the Lloyd Center felt a bit representative of Portland. It’s a decent sized mall with decent shopping options but the place was deserted and felt like a ghost-town. I think I saw more of that side of Portland on this trip. It’s always given off that hipster, edgy, run-down kind of vibe but I definitely felt it leaned more towards run-down this time around.
I imagine Covid had played its part in that but it felt like a struggling city. The number of homeless people and number of tents on the side of the road was staggering – unlike anywhere I can recall visiting – including on our last visit to Portland.
Perhaps other cities do a better job of hiding it, perhaps I was oblivious to it the first time around but Portland’s struggles felt much more noticeable on this occasion. The homelessness felt out-of-control and with that in mind it’s probably unsurprising the mall was then so empty. Obviously shopping habits have changed over time too but who’s going shopping when the population can’t even keep a roof over its head?
We had a relaxed afternoon before grabbing dinner back in Beaverton which is an area of Portland we both really liked and I’m glad we stayed in. After dinner we went and checked out a nearby brewery who were hosting a trivia night so we popped along for some Disney-themed quiz. I didn’t think my Disney knowledge was that bad but I was pretty hopeless and little help to Haleigh. Some kind folk did buy us some drinks though as “newlyweds” so that was a nice perk and the brewery was pretty nice too.
OMSI, Portland
The next day we swung by OMSI – the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. I think it’s one of the best places to visit in Portland. We’d been here on our previous visit and checked out a few things already, this time we were keen to take in another planetarium showing which was good fun. Afterwards we had a little wander through Portland and Beaverton but it was another pretty chilled day.
We finished off our day by visiting a place called ‘Ex Novo’ who served up good beer and pizza which was pretty good – although again we’d made a mistake in our choice to get separate servings when we could have probably shared between us. One of the greatest things about this place however was the playlist!
I’d joked in my last post that we’d caused an uptick in Madness’ popularity Stateside after delighting our wedding guests with their music (HA), so imagine my surprise when I’m sat there sipping on my beer and Madness randomly come on! After murdering the dancefloor (you guys know Sophie Ellis-Bextor too, right!?) at our wedding, I felt vindicated! Madness rule supreme!
It’s worth adding that I’d seen a Leicester City flag on the wall at the first brewery we’d been to in Beaverton so the Brits are definitely leaving their mark on the area!
The next day we had to check out of our AirBnB. We’d extended our trip but couldn’t book extra nights where we were staying so had to venture over to a new AirBnB in the St John’s area. The area itself wasn’t as nice as Beaverton but it was a better AirBnB with more space than our tiny home so that was nice.
Between checking out and checking in, we ventured over to some pottery / paint place and created a couple of fun little mugs. Haleigh’s effort was much better than mine but given I have zero creative talent I was happy enough with my attempt!
After getting settled in to our new AirBnB, we went over to watch Haleigh’s uncles bowl in their bowling league which was a blast to the past. Me and my sister would frequently spend many a Monday night ‘watching’ our parents bowl in their weekly league. It was a fun evening and, unlike my childhood, I could enjoy watching them bowl whilst simultaneously enjoying a beer or two!
Bowling in Portland
The next day was again pretty chill, we didn’t do anything particularly exciting until the evening when Haleigh’s Uncle and Aunt played host and had us over for dinner which was really nice. Our AirBnB host had gifted us a bottle of wine so we took that with us too! It was nice catching up so soon after the wedding and definitely one of the perks to having family in the Portland area.
Having extended our trip by a few days, our final full day of the trip was spent at the coast. We’d held out hope that the weather would improve and fortunately we were met with beautiful blue skies on our way over to Lincoln City – somewhere else we’d visited on our big summer 2018 trip!
We were looking forward to a day by the beach but Haleigh was also insistent that we return to the restaurant, Mo’s, for their famous clam chowder – “for lunch and dinner” – and I had no intention of upsetting the wife (that’s right, I said wife!) this early in to our marriage so two trips to Mo’s was on the itinerary for the day.
We arrived in to Lincoln City around lunchtime and immediately made way for Mo’s, somewhere that had had a bit of a makeover since our previous visit. It was now much tidier in its lobby area and also much more accessible friendly which was cool to see and of course still home to some delicious clam chowder.
Whilst Haleigh has visited many times over the years, I’d only previously been here the once and that was in August so it was kind of nice visiting in April out-of-season and wihtout the summer crowds. There was a much more relaxed vibe about Mo’s and the coast.
Mo’s, Lincoln City, Oregon
Inside Mo’s restaurant – Lincoln City, Oregon
Outside Mo’s
We had a seat inside by the window and I could have spent a long time just sat there looking out and admiring the view. It’s a lovely setting and in April felt particularly peaceful.
After lunch we drove on down to Depoe Bay, a cute little town nearby with a pretty harbour and a few seafront shops selling bits and pieces. Haleigh was keen to visit Ainslees and acquire some salt-water taffy. I’ll be honest, I don’t really get the fascination with the stuff but I guess American’s would probably feel likewise about going to a British seaside town and having a stick of rock.
Depoe Bay, Oregon
Ainslee’s, Depoe Bay, Oregon
Whale Watching
Whilst Haleigh was splurging on taffy, I had a little wander and noted that there was a little shack offering whale-watching tours. We decided as a treat to ourselves we’d go on one of the tours.
As it was, we didn’t see any whales on our tour. Nevertheless it was still nice to spend an hour or so out on the Pacific ocean, particularly on such a glorious sunny day. We missed out on the whales (who we’d agreed must have taken a lunch break) but it was still a lovely boat outing.
Pacific Coast
Enjoying that boat life!
After our boat trip we drove back up to Lincoln City and stopped in at the ‘Christmas Cottage’, a Christmas shop selling all sorts of Christmas-related items, as you do in April..
We then spent a little time on the beach, making sure to dip our toes in the ocean. The beach itself is wonderful – nice and sandy and clean. It felt nice being at the beach in April, even moreso having started the week with snow!
Haleigh enjoying being on the beach!
We dipped our toes in the Pacific ocean!
Sandy beach at Lincoln City
Following a little more time at the beach spent people-watching and dog-watching (we got chatting to a couple who’d taken their puppy to the beach for the first time ever and was understandably excited!), we went back to Mo’s for dinner.
This time rather than clam chowder, I opted for Cod or Halibut or some other type of fish on the menu, I can’t remember. Sadly a final dinner rounded off our time at the coach and we made our way back to Portland for our final evening of the trip.
The next day it was back to Walla Walla – this time driving along the gorgeous Columbia River Gorge with much better weather than at the start of the trip. The views are stunning and there’s some nice little stops along the way.
We drove past Multnomah Falls, which we’d stopped at on a previous trip, but did take a little detour via Horsetail Falls which we made sure to pull over to enjoy fully. Again, this was undoubtedly helped by being out of season but it was much more peaceful and less touristy than our stop at Multnomah had been in 2018.
Columbia River Gorge, Oregon
Horsetail Falls, Oregon
The rest of the drive was uneventful. The weather was smooth pretty much all of the way until we got back to Walla Walla and found more of the white stuff – the snow had seemingly deserted Portland and made it over to Washington. We made it back safely though and settled in for what was theoretically my last week in Washington.
Hello dear readers! Well, well well, this is the post you’ve been waiting for isn’t it? After teasing you with a few posts building up to the big day, this was finally it! Almost.
Ha! I’ve still got to build you up to it a little bit right? For those of you that haven’t been following this series of posts, go back and read the earlier posts first (linked at the bottom) and then you’ll be all caught up!
Anyway, I’d been in Washington for a week by this point and all that was left were the final bits and pieces before the big day. One such errand to run was paying for the wedding itself.
Ooof, that was not a fun bill to settle!
This was partially in thanks to Covid stopping me doing anything fun (travel, football, events..) but saving for a wedding left my bank looking the healthiest it had looked in a long time. Our wedding wasn’t extortionate, it was reasonable but nonetheless my bank balance looked prettier than it had in quite some time and then suddenly *poof* – all gone!
“That’ll be $$$’s please!”
There was me hoping that there wouldn’t be any problems with the payment going through. You kind of wonder when paying a large transaction such as a wedding bill if those monitoring your account are going to flag it up as suspicious, particularly when it’s a transaction in another country.
Of course, there was absolutely no scrutiny on the transaction on this occasion. My bank make sure to ask me to authorise my £9 taxi booking in Peterborough every fucking time I book a taxi but a massive wedding in another country – “No authorisation needed mate. We trust you!”
So for any fraudsters reading, it’s the big ticket items you want to go and splash my cash on. Go buy yourself a car or a house instead because they’ll probably decline that batch of eggs you want from Walmart (although I appreciate those might be pricey these days too!).
Feeling much poorer, we went and met up with our DJ, David, for a quick drink. It was a chance for us to properly meet in person and also for him to get a better idea of what we expected on the day in terms of music, speeches and so on.
Although I think both of our music tastes are quite varied so we were equally happy to allow requests and were mostly hopeful that people would enjoy themselves. David was free to make his own judgment as to what songs were / weren’t working on the day, with perhaps one exception I’ll expand on later!
The rest of the week was mostly about relaxing and waiting. The biggest drama leading up to the wedding was the bridesmaid dress fiasco. Admittedly had Haleigh not had a hundred odd bridesmaids (“it was nine Jason, 9!”) it might not have been such a dilemma but there were still a few bridesmaids yet to receive their dress which caused a bit of stress. In the end Jenny’s didn’t turn up at all, nor could we find an adequate replacement at the last minute so she unfortunately stepped down – although was still a bridesmaid in spirit!
The waiting was the worst part of the week. Waiting for the big day to arrive, waiting for friends and family to arrive in to town. Haleigh had family and friends dotted all over the Pacific Northwest and Utah, plus a handful of people coming from elsewhere.
Likewise I had a few American friends that were making their way over from the East coast, plus my family coming from England too of course. We’d had some Covid scares and flight cancellations with the family but they were finally on their way and landed in Seattle on the Thursday before the wedding!
The family hadn’t really seen much of the USA. Mum, dad and Natasha (my sister) had only previously been to Florida. Pete (my brother-in-law) had seen a fraction more of the country but only on the East coast so I was excited for them to see and explore the West coast for the first time!
Those of you familiar with Washington will know that it’s stunning! I insisted that the family had to drive at least one way between Seattle and Walla Walla (Haleigh’s hometown) because the views are gorgeous – as it was they decided to drive both ways.
They landed in Seattle on the Thursday afternoon before driving over to Walla Walla on Friday morning. The excitement was building. I don’t know if that was even necessarily about the wedding. The family seemed equally enthusiastic about encountering tumbleweed for the first time and talking pedestrian crossings (“wait..”) as much as anything else!
Anyway.. everyone was keen to meet up before the wedding as neither family had met prior to the trip so after briefly getting themselves settled into their AirBnB for the next few nights, the fun could begin!
First up was the wedding rehearsal! The rehearsal was at the same venue as the wedding itself, Walla Walla’s landmark hotel – the Marcus Whitman. It’s the tallest building in Walla Walla and a quick Google search defines it as a “historic” hotel and apparently it has been listed on America’s “National register of historic places” which makes me chuckle a little because it was “only” built in 1928. Obviously the USA as we know it now is a much younger country but nobody would bat an eyelid at a 100 year old building here in Europe.
Anyway, the rehearsal was fairly casual. Our wedding co-ordinator was great and gave us the run down of how things would go, although I seemingly should have paid more attention as I definitely had a little “whoopsie” moment on the day itself.
After the rehearsal we popped over to a nearby Mexican restaurant which was the first opportunity for the immediate family to mingle and spend some time together. The food was good, the company better and we all had a lovely time before heading our separate ways – with leftovers in hand in the case of my family who were a bit unprepared for the portion sizes for meals even as simple as a salad.
“Welcome to America!”
Mine and Haleigh’s final night as an unmarried couple saw us go our separate ways after dinner. Haleigh was staying in a nearby hotel with a number of the girls so they all had their girly get-together and it was always on my mind to do a thing of my own on the Friday too – particularly as Covid had made it difficult to plan any proper stag do. With so many ever-changing restrictions there was never a good time for such an occasion so in the end I kind of decided to forego having one.
This wasn’t a stag really, more a casual get-together with a few of the wedding guests and a chance for my family to meet a few more faces. My mum and Natasha had joined Haleigh, whilst Dad and Pete had joined myself for an evening at a local favourite – the Red Monkey!
I think around 12 of us got together in the end for an evening spent enjoying a few drinks and good company too. We were the last to leave the Red Monkey staying until closing, if not slightly beyond that. Although it closed around 11pm so not as late as you might expect on a Friday night.
Some of us may have been tempted to head onwards but Walla Walla seemingly isn’t the place for a late night on the town. My brother in law optimistically asked “where are we going?” and I misconstrued that as needing directions back to their AirBnB because the reality was that there was nowhere else to go but home!
It was probably for the best anyway. I certainly didn’t want to wake up feeling rough the next morning and perhaps it was better the evening ended on a high for everyone. It had been a fun evening and a good chance for everyone to get to know eachother a little better.
Everyone dispersed in their own directions whilst I headed back to my own hotel for the night, waking up hangover free the next morning and ready to get married!
The next morning I checked out and popped over to the family’s AirBnB so we could all go and grab a wedding-day breakfast together. This being their first morning in Walla Walla I had a couple of ideas on where to take them and show them a little of downtown too.
We headed to Maple Counter Cafe – an optimistic choice for breakfast on a Saturday morning but it’s one of the best breakfast spots in the city. Unsurprisingly they were busy and the wait was longer than we’d have liked. Unfortunately you can’t book in advance either or I’d have made sure to do that.
They do have a kind of buzzer service when you arrive, where they’ll text you when your table is ready but I don’t know how well that works when you don’t have an American phone number. Rather than confuse them with our strange international phone numbers, we decided to try our luck elsewhere.
The next best option was ‘Bacon & Eggs’ which was another block over and fortunately they were able to get a table for us quite quickly. They’re another good option in Walla Walla and are actually currently in the process of moving in to a bigger building which is exciting!
It was a good choice and whilst the family went for more traditional breakfast options, I did let them try some of my ‘biscuits and gravy’ that I’d personally gone for. Always a good choice!
After breakfast we had a brief wander through the downtown area of Walla Walla. It was a chance for the family to get a small glimpse before we headed back to their AirBnB for a relatively relaxed morning. Naturally we found time to watch the football back home. An Arsenal defeat followed by a Tottenham win – what more could you ask for on such a big day?
Spurs have spoiled many a weekend throughout my life but even Tottenham had got the memo for once – perfect!
After the football we started getting ourselves ready which really didn’t take long, had some “getting ready” photos taken and then there was just tons of time to kill so myself, dad and Pete went back to the Red Monkey for a pre-wedding pint.
We extended the invitation to a couple of Haleigh’s family but perhaps it says it all about English drink culture that they politely declined in search of lunch instead. I guess it’ll just be the three Brits off to the pub then!
There aren’t too many differences between an English wedding and an American wedding, I think for the most part the events of the day are similar but there are maybe some minor differences. Even then, some of these are perhaps just couple specific rather than being about the culture.
We had a bit of a later ceremony which meant we did some of the other things a bit earlier in the day. After a quick pint I popped back to the hotel for the “first look” and some more official wedding photos. This was kind of in contrast to any other wedding I’d been to, where you first see the bride in her dress as she walks down the aisle, but it was really nice and you still have that special first moment – although I’d almost inadvertently walked in to one of the areas of the hotel where Haleigh was having some photos before we were supposed to meet! That was an awkward and immediate 180 to scarper elsewhere!
Personally I think it worked better having done some of these things earlier in the day. It meant later in the day, after the ceremony, we could just enjoy the rest of the wedding celebrations without further interruptions.
I think it’s probably credit to our wedding co-ordinator but despite getting family photos and things, we were still ahead of schedule in our timings so we had time to mingle with guests as they were arriving which was also really nice.
Eventually it was time for the ceremony – the important part I suppose!
I was asked a number of times in the period up to the wedding if I was getting nervous and there’d never been a point I’d felt any nerves. Neither on the day or the weeks / months prior, in my head there was nothing to be nervous about. I was getting married because I wanted to, you know?
However if there was ever a time that the nerves were going to hit it was going to be now, the ceremony and all eyes on the couple. I think I must have just blanked out the room walking in, I don’t remember seeing where anyone was sat when walking down the aisle.
One of the reasons you do a wedding rehearsal is to make sure all of these things run smoothly. One of the fun things about an American wedding is that you can have someone of your choosing marry you – think Joey in Friends!
You still have to go through the process of getting ordained of course but we asked Haleigh’s uncle, Rob, to marry us which he was really honoured to do but that rehearsal theoretically helps alleviate any nerves and makes sure everyone knows what they’re doing! Except the groom..
Alright, so the fault of this is nobody’s but my own. I said earlier in the post that I’d had my “whoopsie” moment and I guess I jumped the gun a little bit. People came in one by one, stood where they were supposed to and then the beautiful bride arrives and as she reaches the end of the aisle I play my part in throwing everything out of sync!
There’s a whole process, a ceremony you might even call it! Part of that ceremony is that the bride is “given away” but I’d seemingly skipped ahead and collected “my” bride too soon. Immediate confusion ensued – “too eager son, what are you doing!?”
I said previously that a lot of the burden of wedding planning had fallen on Haleigh’s shoulders because she was the one in Washington. Really I had one job – turn up and get married and I hadn’t even nailed that part!
In my defence though, this was my first wedding! Maybe when you’re several weddings in you know the process like the back of your hand but I was only planning on doing this once!
If there had been any nerves in the room, I’d instantaneously alleviated them. It was a hilarious moment, even if people were only laughing at me rather than with me, but it made for some great photos on the day! If you want candid photos of guests in hysterics, get the groom to cock up!
The rest of the ceremony went off without a hitch, except the part where we got hitched obviously. We were finally married! The only thing left to do was sign the paperwork with the confusing American dates and make it all official!
Let’s invalidate this wedding immediately by accidentally signing it the 4th of September instead of the ninth of April! Luckily neither myself, or my dad, messed things up!
The rest of the day was lovely. Food, fun and games. It was wonderful having so many come together to celebrate with us and seemingly enjoy themselves. We’d had some guests come a long way and it meant a lot to us. I mostly kept it together in my own speech but there were certainly happy tears throughout the day. Weddings are such happy occasions that I often find myself tearing up during them and my own was unsurprisingly no exception.
There were several highlights for me but one definitely worthy of a mention as a fun anecdote for the blog goes back to the DJ. As I’d said, I think our music taste is pretty varied and I didn’t really have any real preference as to what songs were played. Haleigh had put together a playlist but I think there were lots of things that didn’t end up being played in exchange for other songs people had requested, were seemingly enjoying and getting up to dance to. You know, the typical wedding-friendly songs and anthems. I didn’t care too much as I knew I’d dance to whatever. I only had one specific request: Madness!
I don’t know if this is an English thing in general or more exclusive to our own family weddings but I live by the mantra that “it’s not a wedding without a bit of Madness” – I feel like they’ve been played at every wedding I’ve been to and they’re one of those bands you make sure you’re on the dance-floor for!
You HAVE to have Madness played at the wedding! Right, right? No? Well, you’re wrong!
It was a small request and I was sat with a couple of friends who’d come all the way from Maryland and BAM! – “Sorry, I’ve got to go..”
In America however, this seemingly has the reverse effect. BAM – “what the hell is this!?”
Myself, Haleigh (who has been to two English weddings and is properly educated at this point), mum, Natasha and Pete made our way to the dance-floor but it otherwise empties! The only exception was little ol’ Mason attending his first ever wedding, dancing to anything and having the time of his life!
Imagine the DJ’s pain! “There’s lots of people dancing, I guess I’m doing a good job! Wait, where are you all going!?
Now, Wikipedia suggests that Madness went on their first US tour in TWELVE years in 2024 so you might say that the revival started here and they’re now loved by Americans but that certainly wasn’t reflected in this moment. We’d murdered the dance-floor with our strange, strange English music!
It was hilarious to me. We had a room full of confused Americans looking on at a group of Brits that had seemingly lost their mind – “what has Haleigh married in to!?”
Sadly all good things come to an end and as the time passed, things started to unwind – not because of Madness I’ll add! The dancefloor did recover from that debacle and I think people had had a good time but people slowly started saying their goodbyes and heading home. We ended the night with the infamous “We Are Family” as both familes came together on the dancefloor which seemed a fitting song to end the night on.
We’d both had a lovely day and I think we’d have been perfectly happy calling it a night and retreating to our hotel but my family were heading back in to town for another drink, alongside a friend of mine (Alison) from the East coast. Haleigh was keen to join them so suited and booted we walked back over to the Red Monkey – a third visit in the last 24 hours for myself, Dad and Pete!
It’s notable to say at this point that Haleigh isn’t really much of a drinker. She’ll have the occasional drink but it’s not something she particularly enjoys and certainly not on the same scale as us Brits are used to on the pissed up island we call home. Nevertheless Haleigh thought it’d be a really good idea to have a shot with her new Mother-in-Law and on the recommendation of the waitress they both took a “Fireball” shot (I think).
We only had the one drink I think and just enjoyed eachother’s company more than anything but the fireball was not a good choice! It didn’t go down well!
Sadly it was a short and sweet trip for the family. One of the reasons we were keen to join them was because this was one of their few nights in Walla Walla. They obviously weren’t going to miss the wedding but the original September 2021 date had been better around their work commitments, moving to April meant they couldn’t visit Washington for as long as they’d liked so they’d soon be heading back to Seattle to spend a few days there.
We were meeting up for breakfast but said our goodbyes and made our way back to our fancy wedding hotel – the luxurious hotel in the heart of Walla Walla. We’d spent no more than a minute in the room at this point and arrived to find a generous collection of cards and gifts awaiting us in our room.
Unfortunately it was soon after that that the regret had hit Haleigh. “What have I done!?” “I’ve made a mistake..” “I don’t feel good..”
Fear not! The marriage hadn’t crashed and burned this early! Marrying me was the single greatest decision Haleigh has ever made, obviously, but the fireball had sadly started to have its effect!
What can I say? Here we were, in our nice fancy hotel, and Haleigh wanted to be anywhere but. She felt rough. She showered hoping that might help and then we tried to sleep but with no success (ha, let’s be honest. I was probably snoring!). Haleigh just couldn’t get comfortable and wanted to go home and curl up in her own bed.
The vows of “in sickness and in health” were put to the test early on in our marriage! Admittedly, I don’t think it likely that those vows refer to self-inflicted fireball sickness but at silly-o-clock in the morning we were checking out.
“Did you enjoy your stay..?”
We made it back to the house and Haleigh rested up for a few hours before breakfast. By this point I was fairly awake already so as the good husband that I am, I let Haleigh have the bed to herself to rest up and I took the early start as an opportunity to watch some English football back at the house – I guess we all have our sicknesses, don’t we? This was mine!
Fortunately a few hours later, Haleigh was feeling much better. We freshened up and made our way to Clarette’s for breakfast with the family. Clarette’s is a staple of Walla Walla – they’re a diner that have been serving locals for more than 60 years and are an all-day favourite but we wanted to bring my family here on their first visit to Walla Walla.
Fortunately this is one of the restaurants you can make a restaurant because this is a popular breakfast spot at the weekend! We’d booked ahead and were soon enjoying a hearty breakfast, plentiful of tea (probably more than Clarette’s are used to serving!) and good company.
It was then time to say goodbye. Myself and Haleigh were heading out of town later today (more on that in the next post!) and the rest of the family would be heading up to Seattle tomorrow. They had one final day to enjoy in Walla Walla and Haleigh’s brother, Ben, kindly played tour guide and showed them the best of the “sights” of Walla Walla.
It had been a lovely few days and particularly lovely to have had the families come together to celebrate with us. I’d met much of Haleigh’s family prior to this trip and Haleigh had met some of mine but they’d yet to meet eachother so it was nice to see everyone get along. More of Haleigh’s family has since visited England and I’m sure it won’t be too far in the future before mine return to the West coast to explore more than they saw in their limited time on this trip.
Sadly, that was that for the wedding fun. Before the day was over, myself and Haleigh would be heading onwards to Oregon! More on that next time!
Stay tuned!
Jason
P.S – I’m going to include all posts from this series at the bottom of each post so you can go back and read any posts that you’ve missed.
Hello dear readers! I thought I’d quickly throw another post at you because the last one was just a bit of a short introduction so it felt only right to treat you with a proper post and begin the actual story!
For those of you who missed that introduction, you can catch up here but essentially this was the beginning of the unforgettable trip that would theoretically result in my marriage!
I say theoretically because as is the case with any international wedding, the first problem is getting there! I think there’d be a bit of anxiety about an international wedding at the best of times but in early 2022 we weren’t in the best of times. Travel was undoubtedly better off than in 2020 and 2021, and I maintain that 2021 was worse than 2020, but we still had some way to go and hoops to jump through in 2022.
We’d already postponed the wedding once. Our plans to get married in Washington in September 2021 were scuppered by the reality that the US border remained closed to outsiders. Those pesky illegal aliens!
People say the wedding is all about the bride so I suppose Haleigh didn’t have to postpone. She could have had a big party in Washington with her family and friends but I dare say that the groom is actually partially fundamental to the occasion so we rescheduled for April 2022 instead.
I’d rather reluctantly booked my flight to Seattle for the Sunday (27th March). I wanted to be in Washington two weeks before our wedding on April 9th but a Saturday flight was £250 more than the Sunday and I just couldn’t justify such a difference for the sake of a day – particularly when any pennies saved were pennies towards the wedding.
Guess what happened?
British Airways cancelled thousands of flights. Naturally mine was affected, along with my parents, sister and brother-in-law who were flying out to Seattle in April. Of course it would happen on this trip wouldn’t it? That little bit of extra unnecessary faff!
The upshot? BA allowed me to move my flight to Saturday 26th at no extra cost. What a stupidly positive resolution. This was the day I’d wanted to fly to Seattle originally but because of the silly fare I wasn’t and now I could just move my flight like that? Make it make sense!
Nevertheless I was pleased. One extra day in Washington, assuming I got there. The other concern at the time was Covid of course. Several weeks before they were due to travel, my sister and brother-in-law caught Covid for the first time. They’d recovered by the time they were due to travel but come on, let’s not do this now!
I’d avoided it myself for over two years and there was that little niggle that I was going to catch it at the worst possible time and not make it to my own wedding for a second time! Any other trip I’d have sucked it up and suffered the consequences of a cancelled trip but I was desperately hoping it wouldn’t happen now.
One of the daftest things I found in this era of travel was that the only concern was with meeting the criteria at a specific moment in time. I was due to fly on Saturday so went and did a Covid test on Friday morning to satisfy the US restrictions at the time but there’s zero concern for what you do after that test.
Our office cancelled our work Christmas party in December and just so happened to have rescheduled for the Friday afternoon before I was travelling. I had to test myself on Friday morning and then I was free to do whatever I pleased for the next 24 hours.
Do I go to the office party? Don’t I? Does it matter? I was just as likely to pick it up in an airport or on the plane or in America. It seemed such a daft flaw in the system.
I’d paid for the express same-day service which fortunately confirmed I didn’t have Covid at that specific time but still, who would really know if I had Covid by the time I landed Stateside?
Anyway with a negative test, I was on my way to Heathrow! Heathrow was a bit chaotic but I made my way through security and could finally look forward to the trip. I made my way towards my gate, scanned my boarding pass and the machine immediately said “nope”. I tried again and had the same pushback – “please speak to an actual human!”
Be it a random security check or whatever, BA verified everything they had to and then printed me a new boarding pass with words to the effect of “enjoy your upgrade”.
New boarding pass in hand, I distanced myself from the peasants at the back of the plane and made way to.. well, premium economy but still – a little extra legroom felt like a win!
There were no other notable perks but it was a nice way to kick off this trip. Perhaps BA knew? It’s the first time I’ve ever received a flight upgrade and it made up for some of the other cockups on this trip!
Anyway, soon enough myself and Haleigh had been reunited in Washington – two weeks before the wedding!
We had a few pre-wedding errands to run before the big day. One of which was buying wedding rings which you should probably do earlier than we did but I think the intention was we’d buy them together in person!
Important to mention because Haleigh came and met me in Seattle. Normally I’d just fly directly in to Walla Walla but on this trip that didn’t happen. We had a late night shopping outing at a nearby mall, failing to buy any rings, but the upshot to staying in Seattle on that first night was a trip to the Cheesecake Factory.
I gave brief mention to the Cheesecake Factory on a previous San Francisco blog-post but thought it worth giving a mention here too because I don’t think my English or other international readers will quite appreciate its popularity.
You see it mentioned in pop culture, The Big Bang Theory for instance, and it’s one of those names that I’d always been familiar with but visiting it is an experience in itself. I think I appreciated that even more here.
Honestly I’m trying to think of an English or British equivalent and I don’t know that there is such a place.
We visited the Cheesecake Factory in San Francisco a few years earlier and had to wait a while and I was like “well it’s summer and we’re in the heart of the city, it’s dinner time. Of course it’s busy” but no, this wasn’t a San Francisco thing. This is a Cheesecake Factory thing.
America is crazy for the place. It’s worth saying here that they don’t just sell cheesecake, America isn’t that crazy. Their menu is pretty extensive and that’s undoubtedly the cause of its popularity because they have just about everything you can think of on the menu.
We were right out by the airport, not even in downtown Seattle, but it was stupidly busy here too. We had to wait a while for a table with people constantly streaming in and out, it’s predominantly a restaurant but the number of people coming in purely for takeout cheesecake was a bit mind-blowing.
Eventually we were seated and it was good. It usually is, I like the Cheesecake Factory but I think good is sufficient enough praise for what it is. It isn’t Michelin Star fine dining but it’s still equally popular Stateside – if you do visit, expect a wait!
Anyway, it was a nice way to start the trip. The next morning we drove through the beautiful mountains and made our way to lovely Walla Walla. Truthfully it was a pretty relaxing first week. There were a couple of things to take care of, last minute bits and pieces but the majority of stuff had already been dealt with.
We did go and find rings eventually. Honestly, I’ve never been one for wearing jewellery.
Also sidenote but curse the Americanised spellcheck because it really threw me that WordPress thinks that I’ve spelt jewellery incorrectly. I had to double check only to discover its another Americanism or probably Americanizm with your silly Z’s, right?
Anyway as I was saying, I’ve never been one for wearing jewellery so ring-shopping was an interesting experience. I think the idea of it and symbolism behind it incase of a marriage is nice so I was always going to buy one but I don’t think I ever believed I’d wear it beyond the wedding day.
With that in mind I didn’t give a huge amount of consideration to all the different options. Maybe if I’d known how much wear it’d get I’d have gone for something more eye-catching and glamorous but I kept it simplistic – a simple gold band – “that’ll do!”
To emphasise the point, they asked if I knew my ring size (psh, no) and then if I wanted it resized. Haleigh went down that route but I didn’t bother. It’s not a perfect fit but I figured it’ll stay on my hand for the probable one day of my life that I wear it.
It’s funny how quickly you become accustomed to wearing it. I can’t imagine not wearing it now, on the occasions it isn’t on my hand it feels strange and it’s immediately noticeable. So if you see an oversized ring sitting on my finger anytime, that’s the story behind why!
We had a few other minor errands to run, such as arranging to get our marriage licence but really it was a mostly stress-free run up to the wedding. We did our best to relax, enjoy our time together and also enjoy the time in Washington.
That’s worth remembering. This was a wedding trip for me, of course it was the fundamental reason that I was here but it was also a bit of a break. Four weeks without work. Four weeks to just enjoy that sense of being free.
I can’t recall where Haleigh had disappeared to, I think she might have met a friend for coffee, but I found myself with a morning to myself and I vividly remember sitting downtown thinking “I could live here..”.
That was never the plan. The plan was that we’d get married and Haleigh would move over to England but not for the first time, I was reminded that Washington really has become a second home for me. I could see myself living in Walla Walla, I could see myself living in Washington, I could see myself living in the USA.
I understand why people are concerned by some of the things that happen in America and some of their policies, I share many of those concerns. I’m not suggesting it’s perfect by any means but I think it sometimes gets lost in the politics that it is still a phenomenal country.
I’m luckier than most. I’ve visited 15 states which is probably more than most Americans and the more I see of the country, the more I appreciate how diverse it is. It has so much to offer and Washington epitomises that aswell as anywhere else in the states.
So I was happy to be here. Not having to worry about work helped of course but Spring was springing (that’s totally a phrase, right?) and Walla Walla was a lovely place to be in the time up to the wedding.
We didn’t do anything overly exciting with our free-time, we frequented a few favourites around the area such as “The Tux” in nearby Prescott and had a couple of jaunts over to the Tri Cities for various reasons aswell as enjoying our time in Walla Walla.
Soon enough we were going in to another week and family and friends were beginning to arrive in to town for the big day. More on that next time!
Hello dear readers! How’s it going? I’m really getting in to a bit of a blogging groove again now so hopefully you’ll see the posts continuing to hit your feed or inbox with some regularity!
I used the last blog post on Moses Lake as a bit of a segue in to this one as it kind of ended the Moses Lake chapter of our lives and subsequently affected this trip too.
On my last trip to Moses Lake, myself and Haleigh had got engaged so the next steps of our long-distance relationship were to get married and then we could finally start thinking about beginning our lives living in the same place (England).
With a Septermber (2021) wedding drawing ever closer, there were other decisions to be made in terms of our future. Haleigh was teaching in the US at the time and as the end of the school year was approaching, Haleigh had to decide whether or not she was committing to another year and simultaneously decide if she’d commit to renewing the lease on her apartment.
In a perfect world, it didn’t make sense to go another year. Consequently Haleigh left teaching at the end of the school year and also gave up her apartment that she’d called home for the last four years, with the plan to temporarily move home and stay with family in Walla Walla.
Alas, this was not a perfect world. Covid continued to wreak havoc on any planning and it became clear that with a US border in no rush to re-open, I wasn’t even going to make it to my own wedding. The US border remained closed and we were forced to push our wedding back and postpone until 2022 with the hope that things would be better by then.
It was a difficult period of change, particularly for Haleigh who’d now been left in limbo a little bit. In hindsight she might have done another year of teaching and not moved out of Moses Lake but unfortunately the situation was out of our hands and Covid always found a way to wreak havoc and made making future plans incredibly difficult throughout these strange times.
Sure enough, soon after we’d postponed our wedding it was confirmed that the US border would be re-opening in November. Haleigh had luckily been able to visit me earlier in the summer but we hadn’t seen much of eachother and it had been over 18 months since I’d last stepped foot in the USA and abruptly said goodbye to Moses Lake. I’d set aside some time in the hope that the border might re-open for Thanksgiving and luckily it did!
From a life perspective, that period of limbo was hard and as I said particularly so on Haleigh. However from a travel perspective, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited at the prospect of spending some significant time in Walla Walla. Whilst I mourned the lack of farewell for Moses Lake and how abrupt that departure had been, I’d only ever really spent time in Walla Walla either visiting family or having Haleigh show off her favourite spots in the area. Haleigh had found temporary employment back home and that meant I’d definitely have some time to explore the city on my own!
Welcome to Walla Walla, Washington
First I had to get there. I maintain that 2021 was worse for travel than 2020 was. You kind of at least knew where you stood in 2020. The next year was just a bit of a shit-show with ever-changing restrictions and border openings and closures and it was so much faff trying to do anything. I’d booked the Ireland trip pretty last minute because of the UK’s “travel light” system and as excited as I was to get back to Washington, the anxiety of trip-planning made you question if travel was even worth the effort. For a relationship? Absolutely. For travel enjoyment? Absolutely not.
What are the entry requirements? Do I have to quarantine? What are the restrictions? Are the restrictions likely to change? Who do I book a Covid test with? Will I get the results back in time? Will the US be content with the test results? Will British Airways cancel my flight? How long is it going to take me to get through security?
I ticked off everything I needed to do and made my way to Heathrow which was nothing short of a shambles and truthfully, no better in early 2022 either.
My saving grace was that I hate being late which meant Heathrow being busier and more chaotic than I’ve ever seen it didn’t really matter because when you’re hours early for your flight, you have wiggle room for the nonsense.
Heathrow was a mess and I don’t think it helped that the self-service era of travel means you find a lot of people don’t really know what they’re doing. I sympathise because I always have that trepidation at baggage drop that I have no idea if I’ve done it correctly, I’m always conscious I’m going to arrive in my destination and find that my luggage hasn’t left England or worse that it has but I’ve somehow inadvertently sent my luggage to Timbuktu.
I waved my baggage off, hopeful we’d be reunited later that day and then made my way to security which was also a long experience. I eventually made it through, still with time to kill, because I’m not one of the maniacs turning up four minutes before a flight and blaming the airline / airport for missing it. Honestly, how are you not panicking the entire time before departure?
Things were surprisingly smoother on the other side of the Atlantic. I was anticipating further chaos and the usual border-patrol interrogations I receive Stateside but I recall this being one of the stress-free custom experiences I’ve had on US soil. You had to do a lot of the document / Covid verification before travel and maybe that was why but it was bizarre in a country I’ve often faced hefty interrogation.
At last the stress was over, if nothing else I was in Washington State after a good 18 months away. I still had to get from Seattle to Walla Walla but if anything went wrong there, I could figure out a plan B.
If ever there was further proof needed that car is king in America, this is it. Sometimes Haleigh would pick me up at the airport but given the distance, the need to pass over the mountains and the potential weather disruption and then also work commitments I’ve often made my own way to Moses Lake. I’d usually been able to get to Moses Lake quite easily and could catch a bus directly from Seattle to Moses Lake, sadly there was no such luxury for Walla Walla.
I’m sure there is a way of doing it on public transport with several transfers spanning many hours but it’s much more of a chore getting to what should theoretically be a much more touristy city. There isn’t much to Moses Lake really but it’s conveniently located along one of the major highways in the state, Walla Walla is much more charming and its wine industry is BIG but it’s more of a ball-ache to get to so naturally the transport links are rubbish.
My only option was to fly across the state which meant catching another flight out of Seatac and hanging around in the airport for a little while. I had plenty of time to kill because again, how are any of you comfortable with a short layover? I’m an optimist by day but I prepare for worst case when it comes to travel.
With time to kill I went and found a little bar and grabbed myself a beer. Unfortunately I was robbed soon after.
Alright, let me clear that up. Robbed is perhaps a bit extreme. I ordered a beer and thought little more of it until I was ready to move on and then I asked for the bill. I don’t know if it was the long gap between trips to America, maybe I’d forgotten how expensive it is Stateside and moreso in airports after 18 months away but I looked down at my check and the amount read $12.
“What do you mean!?” – Twelve dollars for a beer! 12!!
Plus tax, naturally. That took my beer up to $13.20 in total and I scoffed how expensive a local beer could be. It’s not even like it was an out-of-state beer that needed shipping over, this was an Elysian beer based out of fucking Seattle!
As if $13.20 wasn’t enough for a solitary beer, I was then in America wasn’t I? Am I supposed to tip here? What’s the tipping etiquette on airport robbery? If you’re not paying your staff a decent wage whilst charging $13 for a beer than you should be in jail.
After tipping (I know, I know..) I barely got change on the $20 and took my grumblings to Twitter. It was time to find somewhere cheaper that might only want a kidney in exchange for a hot meal before my flight.
The flight over to Walla Walla was a late one but short. All in all it takes roughly an hour but you’re only in the air for maybe 45 minutes or so. It’s nice and easy, much nicer in the daytime when you can enjoy some of the views over Washington but soon enough I’d landed with Haleigh waiting for me. I landed around midnight so it was straight to bed from there with Sunday pretty relaxed and spent enjoying some time with the family.
Monday morning rolled around and with Haleigh working I was up and ready to go and explore Walla Walla solo for the first time. I knew my way around Walla Walla a little based on previous visits with Haleigh but there’s something to be said for exploring a place on your own and on foot too!
Walla Walla, Washington
Downtown Walla Walla – Feb 2020
As I said earlier, Walla Walla is charming. Moses Lake holds a lot of good memories for me and I did grow attached to it but from a travel perspective, there is no contest as to which is the better place to spend your time. I adore Walla Walla, how could you not!?
I made my way downtown and downtown Walla Walla is just lovely. It only consists of a few main streets (one unsurprisingly called Main Street) but it has a nice collection of restaurants, shops and 41,782 or so wineries with wineries outnumbering* the locals.
*Probably.
Truly, Walla Walla is famous for its wine. After California, Washington State is the biggest producer of wine in the USA and this is the city to enjoy that wealth of Washington wineries.
Ironically, Haleigh’s hometown is somewhat wasted on her as she isn’t really one for alcohol and although I am partial to the occasional drink, I’m by no means a wine drinker so this wasn’t something we’d ever done on any of my previous visit to Walla Walla.
Nonetheless, I had time to myself and “when in Rome” I figured why not? As tempted as you might be to head straight for the wineries, I grabbed myself a light breakfast at a nearby cafe first and figured I’d then see what all the fuss is about.
The most difficult decision you’re going to face in Walla Walla is where to begin? I joked that the wineries perhaps outnumbered the locals but to offer some actual context, Walla Walla is a fairly small city. Its population is around the 30,000 mark and yet more accurate Google searches will tell you that there are roughly 120 wineries in the Walla Walla area! Why so many!?
The downtown is FULL of wineries and there’s a good number a little further out of town too but without the means to get around, I figured that the 20 or so downtown was probably a good place for me to start. After whittling that down to those open on a Monday I was still left with far too many options or any idea on which to start with! In the end I settled upon visiting Spring Valley.
I’ll start by saying I know nothing about wine. My knowledge extends as far as knowing red and/or white were likely on the menu for the day. Fortunately my host was much more knowledgeable and placed a number of wines in front of me before delving in to the history of the winery, wines and the inspiration behind them.
It was a nice experience. I think it would undoubtedly have been better with company but my friendly host made me feel welcome nonetheless. I’d recommend it for any visitors to Walla Walla and the wines tasted nice to a novice who admittedly knows nothing about wine.
Not content with a “one and done” approach, I figured I should at the very least check out another winery for comparison. Whilst Haleigh isn’t a big wine drinker, the rest of (my) family are much happier wine drinkers and I figured a bit of market research on their behalf wouldn’t go amiss. Unsurprisingly I didn’t have to go very far before stumbling upon winery number two.
I won’t name and shame winery number two because I don’t think the tasting experience is necessarily catered towards solo drinkers but the room itself was a little more intimate, I was the only person tasting and it was all a little more awkward as a result.
My host didn’t quite have the same charm as the previous winery which in addition to my own lack of social skills and lack of wine knowledge just made for an uncomfortable visit all round. I think company would have made all the difference here but it was a quiet Monday in November – hardly tourist season – and so between the two of us we muddled on by until I put us both out of our misery, finished my wine and got out of there!
Reviews online are much kinder for what it’s worth and I think the awkwardness probably wasn’t helped by having to entertain someone with no real care for wine. I’m sure a beer tasting would have been much more enjoyable and less awkward for us both but there was no comparison between the two wineries that I’d been to. The wines at both were nice enough and I now wasn’t opposed to drinking wine – with what had been a red-heavy afternoon – but I settled on that being enough for today.
After a wine-heavy day so far I figured I’d better go and fill myself up with something more substantial – beer lunch! I popped over to what has become a little favourite of mine in recent times – the Red Monkey.
The food in all honesty is nothing exceptional – it’s standard pub fare but I like the atmosphere, the staff have always been friendly, they show some live sport which is nice and the selection of beers is always pretty good. I probably didn’t need the latter – particularly not knowing what my limitations were with wine but c’est la vie.
Due to the time of year, by the time I’d made my way back to the house it was fairly dark and it’s probably safe to say that the wine had caught up with me. As a first-time wine drinker I’d surpassed my limit and was starting to feel the effects. I’m not a bad drunk really, I’m not violent or aggressive nor am I any of the worst traits of drunks you sometimes encounter.
I’m generally a sleepy drunk, sometimes a soppy drunk but Haleigh put this firmly in to the category of “stupid drunk” and I think her sentiments were largely along the lines of “my boyfriend’s an idiot..” – fortunately I crashed soon after so despite the “luxury” and “fortune” of being the one and only ever witness to wine-drunk Jason, I think she was rather pleased to be rid of me for the night!
After sleeping off the effects of Monday’s wine antics, Tuesday was much more relaxed. I don’t think I really did much before me and Haleigh spent the evening together. I didn’t get many photos on Tuesday but my photos suggest that we must have gone out for dinner together on Tuesday evening – wine was not on the menu!
Thursday of course was Thanksgiving so Wednesday to Sunday was largely filled with Thanksgiving and family festivities. This was Thanksgiving number two for myself having attended my first in 2019 and missing 2020 for obvious reasons.
We spent most of these days out at one of the grandparent’s house, eating good food, playing games and mingling with the family. It’s always nice getting together and seeing how Thanksgiving is done Stateside. It’s a big holiday and with a big family, it’s always a fun occasion! 2020 remains the only year I’ve missed it!
We spent most of Friday out at the Grandparents again but on Friday we did escape for a couple of hours and headed downtown for some food at another local favourite – Wingmans!
One of the highlight of this visit was bearing witness to the infamous “Apple Cup” which is contested around Thanksgiving every year. College football is so popular in the States but every* November the two big Washington colleges go head to head. The University of Washington (Huskies) face off against WSU (Cougars) for the Apple Cup and local bragging rights.
Go Cougs!
Much of the family are WSU fans and t seemed so was the large majority of Wingman’s who were showing the game on TV so the place was full of people cheering on the Cougars with a few outliers. It was fun to see a bit of local rivalry in full swing and a really fun atmosphere to boot. The Cougars ended up winning this year which went down a treat both here and back at the house.
* They’ve shamefully moved this fixture so that it no longer falls over Thanksgiving! It’s sad to see that tradition lost! I’m sure for the Washington natives it’s an important clash at any time of year but as an outsider, it was a special part of the Thanksgiving festivities. Who really cares about the “Apple Cup” in September?
Sadly come the end of the weekend the holiday fun was beginning to wind down and people were making their way back out of town and heading home. We had a last breakfast together on Sunday but then people were on their way.
Originally the plan was for me to do likewise but I just wasn’t ready to go and ended up extending my trip a little longer.
Thanksgiving week just always goes so quickly. Particularly with Haleigh working on this occasion too. It felt like we’d barely had more than five minutes together, *cough* not helped by wine-drunk Jason *cough*, and then my trip was over. As fun as the week is, I wanted longer in Washington and fortunately could make it work for a few more days.
So rather then leaving, I stayed. Haleigh still had to work unfortunately but it gave us a bit more time together and myself a bit more time to have some fun in Walla Walla. Another Monday to myself gave me the opportunity to visit another winery.
“Oh no Jason, didn’t you learn your lesson?”
Don’t worry, I did! I grabbed some breakfast and then figured I’d check out one final winery, just the one this time though! See! I did learn my lesson!
This time I opted for the Mark Ryan winery right on Main St which had stood out previously. I’m sure in the summertime this is a lovely winery to visit as it has a little outside seating which would be perfect for people-watching but at the end of November, not so much. It still is a lovely Winery though. This week’s host was friendly and despite again being the only person wine-tasting, I’d still recommend this as one to visit. Although it’s worth reminding you that my wine-knowledge is non-existent so my winery recommendations are on nothing but vibes alone!
Keen to avoid wine-drunk Jason making a reappearance, I did stop at just the one winery. With 120-odd to visit, I hadn’t seen many but I’d seen enough for this trip and done my share of the “market research” – the remaining wineries would be down to the family to visit when they come to Washington!
I spent the rest of my day mooching around town, grabbing some lunch and having a little wander. The perk to staying a little longer was the Christmas decorations were starting to make an appearance and Walla Walla was starting to look quite Christmas-y. Myself and Haleigh rounded off the day by grabbing dinner at ‘Hop Thief’ across town (technically in neighbouring College Place) where you can pour your own beers so that was a fun outing!
The next day was pretty chilled, relaxing around the house before a busier Wednesday. Beyond the wineries, there are probably two main attractions in Walla Walla. The Whitman Mission, which Haleigh had taken us to on my first visit, and then ‘Fort Walla Walla’. which is an old military fort which was my main stop for today.
Walla Walla, Washington
It depends where you’re staying but ideally you’re probably going to want a car to visit both of these attractions – definitely for the Whitman Mission but I figured Fort Walla Walla was probably reachable on foot. One of the nice things about Walla Walla is that it is mostly flat.
I made some stops along the way. One of the busier roads in the city has a few fun little things on the side of the road that I’d passed in the car many times but I figured this was a good opportunity to see some of them up close. I then stopped for lunch at a bar on the outskirts of Walla Walla before venturing over to Fort Walla Walla.
It’s an interesting place with varying exhibits, some temporary and some permanent. I was mostly interested in seeing the permanent exhibits and outbuildings that tell you more about the history of the place.
Given the overwhelming number of wineries in the area I did somewhat chuckle at the jail for the drunks. The irony wasn’t lost on me either that it was donated by a fellow ‘Reid’. A donation for our drunken sins perhaps.
Anyway, it was a fun visit and I’m hopeful I’ll get back there soon as I think they currently have a World War exhibit going on which sounds interesting.
Nothing notable happened with the rest of my day, nor the rest of my time in Walla Walla really. Myself and Haleigh tried to make the most of our time together as this’d likely be the last we’d see eachother before the big ol’ wedding trip in a few months.
One of the fun things we did do with our final couple of days was check out some of the Christmas decorations around town.
Unsurprisingly, American homes go all out in terms of decorations and some even go as far as putting on a full lights show accompanied by music. Christmas rave anyone?
Sadly on Saturday morning we said our goodbyes and I caught the early 5am flight out of Walla Walla. There is a later flight out of Walla Walla so there are pros and cons to catching the early flight. The con is obvious, it’s a bloody 5am flight. Who wants to be up that early in the day? On the flipside, it means a longer layover in Seattle.
I knew I’d arrive in to Seattle a little after 6am and I wasn’t flying out of Seattle until a little after 6pm which meant I had almost half a day to go and have some fun in the city. Alaska Airlines pushed my baggage straight through to London so I didn’t have to worry about it in Seattle which was all the more reason to head in to Seattle and explore for a few hours.
The one thing I really noticed on this flying visit was the difference between “after dark” and “before light”. I’d been to Seattle before and spent time in the city after dark on previous trips and it doesn’t feel like an unsafe city. I appreciate that some of that is circumstantial and my experience is going to be different to others but I have few qualms walking around any big city late at night. I’ve rarely found myself in a situation where I’m uncomfortable.
However before light is another city entirely. The links from the airport in to the city are pretty quick so given it was early December, it was still pretty dark by the time I’d arrived downtown and let’s just say that the city has a little more character at that time of the morning. I think it’s the first and maybe only time I’ve been in Seattle and it’s felt a little sketchy to me and I was sure to be a little more aware of my surroundings.
I went and found myself a place to grab breakfast, I’d heard good things about Seattle’s five point cafe – a nice little diner in a good location downtown. At the time, the Covid restrictions were a little stricter in Seattle than the rest of the state so this was a hangout spot for the vaccinated only and I did see a few grumble in the short time I was there. It’s a cool place to start the day though and I enjoyed my pancakes and tea!
I hadn’t committed to any particular plans but after breakfast I wanted to go and do something fun. Despite its reputation for bad weather, I’ve often said Seattle’s reputation is unjust. Whilst I’ve visited Washington many times, I haven’t spent huge amounts of time in Seattle itself but it is invariably always sunny when I do. I’ve convinced myself that the Seattle weather is a myth!
Alas, this was one of the rare occasions that the weather gods have let me down and it was a bit grey and dreary with a little light rain. I figured today would be a good day to visit one of its indoor attractions. Unbeknownst to me, most of them don’t open until 10am! What’s that about!? Like, wake up Seattle!
Ordinarily it wouldn’t be a problem, I don’t typically make it habit to be out and about at the crack of dawn but it’s a tad inconvenient when you are and nowhere is open. I’d been to Seattle’s MoPop museum before and didn’t really fancy visiting the Space Needle on a cloudy day so opted to visit the famous Chihuly Gardens and Glass museum which also opened at 10am. I loosely wandered a little but mostly spent the time awkwardly loitering and waiting for the doors to open.
View of the Space Needle from the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum
For what it’s worth, it was a good decision. I hadn’t visited before but I think this is another must do in Seattle. Chihuly is a little more famous in this part of the world but has exhibited his work globally and it’s easy to see why. I thought it was a fascinating museum and one I’d probably return to.
I could have probably spent longer there but I was a little conscious of time and wanted to grab some lunch somewhere before making my way to the airport. All in all, it had been another lovely trip to Washington that went far too quickly as it always does. It was time to go home. The next time I’d be visiting Washington, I’d be getting married. More on that soon.
Welcome back my dear readers! After my much-needed rant on the football last time out on the blog, it’s back to travel and more importantly the final few days of the “big 3-0” trip.
Those following along will know that in the summer of 2018 I’d planned a trip spending 30 days in the USA which coincided with two friends getting married and also my 30th birthday.
Having run around all over the country, this was to be the last big day on the road. We were making our way back to Haleigh’s apartment in Moses Lake, with Haleigh set to go back to work and for me to see out my final few days in relatively relaxed spirits.
Before thinking about Moses Lake however, we had a full day of driving ahead of us. On the previous night we’d made a relatively unplanned stop in Klamath Fall which was our halfway point from San Francisco – a convenient place to break up two days of driving.
One of the attractions to stopping in this particular area was its proximity to Crater Lake in Oregon. We figured it would be a worthwhile stop on the way home.
I can’t really remember why we skipped it. Much of the West coast was up in smoke that summer (as it is every summer really..) so the conditions at the time weren’t the greatest. That might have been one off-putting reason to skip it but I think we were just keen to get going and get on the road early.
In hindsight perhaps we should have just committed to it regardless of how terrible the conditions were. That said, there’s no doubt that much of our future will be spent visiting the West Coast so it’s hard to imagine us not having an opportunity to return in the coming years.
So skipping Crater Lake, we drove onwards and soon enough found ourselves arriving in a city called Bend. Before knowing what the school schedule looked like we had contemplated staying in Bend for a couple of nights and meeting up with Haleigh’s best friend. In the end it didn’t materialise but Bend still seemed like it would be a good place for us to grab some brunch and we found ourselves a little pancake place on the outskirts of the city.
After fuller stomachs we hit the road again and around half an hour later Haleigh spotted a “must stop” roadside attraction – an alpaca farm with baby alpacas!
An alpaca farm in Oregon
Haleigh insisted that we stop so we pulled over and headed in to this little gift shop to pick up a bag of food to feed them.
It’s a funny feeling having alpacas eating out of your hand. It was a first-time experience for me, I’m not sure what I was really expecting. I liked it initially but I think the second or third alpaca I fed was so slobbery that I left Haleigh to it after that. Haleigh laughed at my reaction so it felt like some sweet form of justice when she was getting slobbered on by the same alpaca a minute later.
“Why are you taking photos and not feeding us?”
Feeding time!
We did a full lap of the farm with Haleigh continuing to feed the many alpacas we met whilst I stuck to taking photos. They’re so cute! Although some of them didn’t seem too impressed that I was wasting my time taking photos when I could have been feeding them instead!
Aside from Haleigh getting sneezed on, it was a fun little stop and I’m glad that we’d pulled over. Sadly we couldn’t stay there all day and had to hit the road again.
The rest of the car journey was pretty uneventful. In parts we could really see how devastating of an effect the forest fires had had on the West Coast with burnt out trees becoming quite a regular sight. It wasn’t really until we hit the Colombia river that the scenery started picking up again.
Back to the Columbia River!
Soon enough we were crossing back over the river and crossing the Oregon / Washington border for the umpteenth time on this trip. Back in to Washington we knew it wasn’t too much further to go but the long drives of the past two days were taking its toll on Haleigh and that final stretch probably felt much longer than it actually was.
Good music kept us going for that final stretch before we’d eventually arrived back in Moses Lake after another long day of driving. We’d been away for the past few weeks so had no food in the apartment. Additionally we didn’t feel like heading back out for dinner so in the end we settled for ordering a pizza and finishing off our night by enjoying some Netflix.
Again, it hadn’t been a hugely eventful day with the alpacas being an unexpected bonus! However it was just nice to be back in familiar surroundings and sleeping in a familiar bed again after three weeks of sleeping in various hostels, hotels and AirBnB’s.
The last few days would be spent trying to make the most of the little time we had left together in Washington before I’d have to head home.
Welcome back my dear readers! Thanks to those of you that played along with my recent photo challenge. It was a bit of fun that has helped get me back in to some sort of blogging groove. We’ll see how things go but I’m going to attempt to try and squeeze out two posts a week going forward – certainly whilst we’re in this lockdown era!
Anyway, it’s back to the “big 3-0” trip this time round. Those who have been following this 30 day trip will know that myself and Haleigh were slowly making our way from Washington State down to San Francisco, California!
After a couple of nights based in Lincoln City on Oregon’s coast it was time for us to hit the road again. We still had another 650 miles ahead of us before we’d reach San Francisco so whilst there was still some distance to go, we were inching ever closer!
We effortlessly checked out of our AirBnB in the morning and as a first-time AirBnB experience it had been a positive one. I’d always been a little hesitant to use AirBnB but I’d been somewhat converted – somewhat because I can’t say I’ve used AirBnB since this trip but I’m more open to doing so for future travels.
We said our goodbyes to Lincoln City and started heading South – next stop California!!
California.. I feel like I perhaps do this too often already but I’ve not yet reached that point where the travel opportunities I’ve had don’t still blow my mind a little. In all honesty, I hope I never get to the point where it’s something I take for granted.
My parents did a lot for us growing up and we got fortunate to visit places like Orlando, Florida as kids which not everyone gets to do but I’m very much from a working-class background. A holiday like that took years of savings and sacrifice to make happen.
I digress a little but my point being that if I have a habit of romanticising places a bit too much it’s because deep down, I don’t know that I thought I’d ever visit these places. California always had this allure about it when I was growing up. It was some faraway land that epitomised what I considered to be cool and the pictures of it just looked sensational. To think I’d ever get there in my lifetime was some pipe-dream.
and yet, here we were. In the car and driving South, inching closer and closer to “the golden state”. Ugh even that sounds incredible, doesn’t it?
The drive down was stunning. Winding lanes along the coast offering sea views and a wealth of scenery that is just a dream as a passenger. There’s a ruggedness to the landscape and the fog just added to the atmosphere as we drove along – I truly felt a million miles away from home. I have so many photos on this drive that I couldn’t even tell you where we were but the scenery just left me in total admiration for the West coast.
Don’t mind me, just admiring the view
Somewhere along Highway 101
The perk of driving of course was that we could stop as and when we wanted to. We wouldn’t be in San Francisco until tomorrow so we were in no big rush and could stop for the numerous quirky roadside attractions that the US is famous for.
The first instance of this were some 20-30 foot roadside dinosaurs that immediately caught our eye. We quickly pulled over for a closer look and made sure to grab some photos. The dinosaurs were part of the Prehistoric gardens attraction in Oregon. We didn’t check out the entire area but checked out the gift shop and managed to grab a few cool photos before hitting the road again.
Making friends at Prehistoric Gardens, Oregon
We continued our journey South along highway 101 which took us through a host of cute cities and towns. I think my favourite we passed through was Coos Bay.
We stopped for lunch somewhere along the way, however we didn’t want to slow the journey down too much so stopped off at McDonald’s for something pretty quick.
Now, having become quite accustomed to temperatures between 30-45C (85-115 F) all summer, we were quite unprepared for our brief stop at the Antarctic! I don’t think I’ve ever walked in to a colder restaurant / bar! I’d love to visit London’s ice bar for some comparison, although I suspect it’s a few degrees warmer than this McDonald’s was! Even anticipating a quick stop, Haleigh ran back to the car to grab herself a jacket! I decided to brave the arctic conditions but was hoping McDonald’s would live up to its reputation as “fast food”.
With fuller stomachs it was back on the road but more importantly, back out in to warmer climates! The scenery continued to impress and soon enough we were approaching the state line – I had to get a photo!
Oregon – California state line
Admittedly it’s not the greatest effort but in a moving car I thought it came out well enough. It was a landmark moment! State number 3 with Haleigh, state number 6 of this trip and my 12th visited state in total! 12!!
The latter sounds so weird to me, three years prior the only state I’d been to was Florida and now I’d been to twelve!? That doesn’t include the likes of Wisconsin, Arkansas or Maryland either which I’ve only really traveled through rather than stopping anywhere. How have I been to twelve states!?
Anyway, we were here! We were actually in California! We wouldn’t be in San Francisco itself until tomorrow but only had another 25 or so miles until we were in our stop for the night – Crescent City.
It wasn’t a city I knew anything about but it was a good resting place between Lincoln City and San Francisco. Soon enough we’d arrived at our home for the night – again opting to stay in an AirBnB.
After checking in and dropping our things off we took a little drive to see what was in the city itself. We parked up down by the pier and admired the views but there wasn’t too much in the area – other than a fun-looking children’s park which had a few kids playing.
Crescent City, California
We popped in to the nearby visitor’s centre but it was fairly late in the afternoon by the time that we’d arrived so whilst there’s probably a lot more to do in Crescent City if you have a full day in the city, there wasn’t a huge deal open at that time of the day to make it worthwhile visiting.
The big attraction of Crescent City was its proximity to the Redwoods which we knew we’d be passing through on our drive tomorrow so in the end our only takeaway from the visitors centre was having overheard discussions about some food options for the evening.
We decided to grab dinner at some brewery called Seaquake. The food wasn’t anything special but I was pretty pleased with the beer selection and particularly intrigued by the ‘Citra’ as I often drink a beer of the same name at my favourite pub back home.
After dinner and a couple of drinks we contemplated what else to do with our evening in this sleepy city. We remembered that we’d passed a bowling alley earlier which was close to our AirBnB and felt like that could be a fun way to spend our evening. Sadly it wasn’t actually open for whatever reason so slightly scuppered our plans.
In the end we decided we’d just head back to our AirBnB for a relaxing evening. It’s not like we’d come to Crescent City for something in particular, it had just been a convenient stopping point for the night so an evening relaxing seemed pretty appealing.
Our AirBnB was nice too. We had a decent sized space to ourselves and found some rubbish TV to watch in-between all of the commercials. It was a nice evening and set us up perfectly for another South-bound journey tomorrow – San Francisco via the Redwoods!
Welcome back dear readers! Last time out on the blog I hinted at getting back in to the groove and therefore the posts would start coming thick and fast!
Consequently, you’re getting no big introduction this time! If you don’t know what happened in the first 17 days of this trip you’ll just have to go back and find out, won’t you?
On the previous evening myself and Haleigh had arrived in Lincoln City on Oregon’s coast and we were ready to explore! Other than go for dinner we hadn’t really done anything since arriving on the coast so it was our first opportunity to see what there was to do locally.
Or my first opportunity anyway. Haleigh had been to Oregon’s coast a few times on family holidays growing up but for me, this was my first trip where I’d really been able to see any of Oregon. With Haleigh’s knowledge of the area a little better than mine we hopped in the car and drove up to a little place called ‘Tillamook’.
Tillamook is a small ‘city’ with a population of 5,000. I don’t know what rules there are that determines city status but a lot of places I’d consider towns in the UK refer to themselves as cities over there – who am I to argue?
Tillamook Creamery, Oregon
Anyway the main attraction of Tillamook, and the reason we were visiting, is the “Tillamook Creamery” which is open to the public. As we began approaching the site it was clear it had changed quite a lot since Haleigh’s previous visit. I’m guessing they’d expanded to some capacity but it was much bigger than Haleigh remembered.
In what was quite a busy car park we eventually found a spot to park up and then made the walk in to the heart of the creamery. It’s free to visit which was a nice little bonus.
The building is split in to three main sections. The first area we visited was the more educational part of the place. Having been in business for more than 100 years you get the opportunity to see and learn about the various processes that help create their products with a little behind-the-scenes look at the production line. It’s not a particularly big area but it was interesting nonetheless.
The next main area and undoubtedly its most popular is its cafeteria type room. Specialising in cheese and all things dairy, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the big attraction is to “sample the goods”. With a range of lunch options to tempt us we decided we’d both get something to eat.
As a fussy child I grew up “not liking” cheese. I’m much less fussy now and I’ve no doubt that I would eat some cheeses today but it’s generally a habit that has stuck with one exception – pizza of course!
Fun fact – I was horrified when we made pizza at school one time and discovered we were using cheese to make it!
“Mum..? The pizzas we eat don’t have cheese do they?” – shockingly they did!
Anyway, I digress! The point being is that I’ve never been too cheese-adventurous so whilst Haleigh’s lunch options were a bit more vast, I played safe and ordered their cheese-inclusive-pizza.
I can’t remember what Haleigh opted for but we both enjoyed our lunch choice. The last area to take a quick look at was its gift shop. Neither of us ended up buying anything but it was nice to have a look around and see what they had on offer.
Tillamook gift shop
Before making our getaway we returned to the “other side” of the restaurant area where they specialise in another dairy product – ice cream! We couldn’t leave Tillamook’s creamery without seeing how their ice cream held up against their other products so we joined the queue and licked our lips at all of the different flavours on offer.
Haleigh, again, had much more difficulty deciding which flavour she wanted with all of the options on display. Ordinarily I’d go straight for the strawberry but I thought I’d mix things up (like the crazy kid I am, right?) and opted for their huckleberry ice cream – a wise decision! Although I’m sure I’d have enjoyed their strawberry too!
With much fuller stomachs we said our goodbyes to Tillamook and its wonderful food and hit the road! It’s probably not going to prove a hugely popular attraction for the vegetarians and vegans but we’d enjoyed our visits.
We made our way back to Lincoln City, zigzagging through the one lane roads surrounded by greenery and had soon arrived back to familiar surroundings on the coast. Pondering what to do next we had a little look around before Haleigh suggested we visit Lincoln City’s ‘famous’ Christmas Cottage.
Unbelievably it was August and I found myself visiting my third Christmas store of this trip! Myself and Haleigh had already been to one in Oregon City a week earlier, meanwhile myself and Crystal had also popped in to one down in New Orleans in the first week of my trip! Would I be all Christmas’d out by the end of this trip? It’s not even Halloween yet!
After some more Christmas-browsing we hopped back in the car and decided to make the short drive down to Depoe Bay – supposedly home to the world’s smallest harbour!
Depoe Bay, Oregon
I don’t know how accurate that statement is but Depoe Bay is certainly a small little place. We parked up on the main street and then wandered towards the harbour Depoe Bay is ‘famous’ for.
It’s a pretty little place but I can’t say there was a huge amount to it. It’s apparently the whale watching capital of Oregon but I can’t say that we saw any whales either. We spent the bulk of our time browsing the small little independent stores lined along the main street. Haleigh made sure to pick up some treats to take home with her too including some saltwater taffy – America’s answer to a stick of rock I suppose.
Depoe Bay, Oregon
Content we’d explored all there was to do here, we snapped a few more photos and then made the short walk back to the car with the intention of returning to Lincoln City. It’s a nice drive, particularly with both Depoe Bay and Lincoln City being coastal cities. It wasn’t long before we’d found our way back and popped in to our AirBnB for a little relaxation before dinner.
Although Lincoln City has plenty of restaurants and places to eat, as we were only in town for two nights we decided to return to Mo’s. I decided I’d get a different main on this occasion (still seafood) with some chowder on the side which went down as well as it had the previous evening.
Mo’s in Lincoln City, Oregon
A relaxing night followed on from dinner which rounded off our time on the Oregon coast perfectly. Oddly enough we hadn’t actually spent much time in Lincoln City itself but it had been the perfect base for us to explore locally.
Whilst very different from British seaside towns, Lincoln City still had that charm and it’s a place that I’d like to return to. I could see why it had proven to be a family-favourite destination for Haleigh and her family.
In the morning we’d be saying farewell to Lincoln City and heading further South. Next up we’d be crossing the border and heading in to California! Stay tuned for more on that!
Jason
P.S – if you want to catch up on previous days of this trip, see the links below!
Welcome back dear readers! After slacking off a bit in 2020, I’m trying to get back in to the blogging groove this year. Consequently posts for the rest of this trip should start coming thick and fast!
I feel like I need a Netflix-style recap option on WordPress and similarly a “skip recap” option for those of you bored of the story but for any newcomers to this story (go back to day one!) then let me catch you up for the umpteenth time!
Two friends were getting married in Washington State just days before my 30th birthday in the summer of 2018. With two reasons to celebrate and a big birthday, I wanted to celebrate big! So I planned and mapped out a 30 day adventure in the USA! This was going to be by far the biggest adventure I’d ever taken and proof of that is this story!
I say that because we’re only just passing the halfway point in this adventure and yet I felt like I’d done and seen SO much already. Arriving in Chicago on day one seemed such a long time ago – “that was on this trip? Wow..”
After running around five different states in the first couple of weeks, last time out on the blog I’d actually managed to slow down a bit! Myself and Haleigh had spent a long weekend in her hometown of Walla Walla, Washington.
The halfway point on this trip just so happened to coincide with Haleigh’s family’s annual BBQ – a perfect opportunity to slow down, enjoy the company, get to know Haleigh’s family a bit better and just spend some time in one place with very few plans.
So after a relatively laid-back weekend, I woke up on Monday morning feeling recharged and ready to go! We’d had a nice weekend but it was time to get back on the road and back to adventuring!
When this trip first came up I anticipated that it would be my first trip and possibly even only trip (HA!) to Washington and the West Coast so I was adamant that other than the wedding, the one place I HAD to visit was San Francisco. I couldn’t go all the way to the West Coast and not visit San Francisco.
As it turned out, this ended up being my third trip to Washington but nevertheless that thought-process remained. I had no idea who I’d be spending this trip with, I had no idea where else I wanted to visit on this trip but San Francisco was non-negotiable. Fortunately Haleigh was more than OK with that plan and so a roadtrip was formed.
We said our goodbyes to Walla Walla and hit the road – San Francisco, here we come!
San Francisco – here we come!
Well, in a few days anyway. Walla Walla is up in central-ish Washington and San Francisco was more than 750 miles away so we had a long way to go. Worse yet, I don’t drive so I’m a pretty useless roadtrip companion. With multiple drivers doing the journey in shifts it might have been doable in a day but with just Haleigh at the wheel it made sense for us to make it a relatively slow drive and to stop off at various points along the way.
Today we were heading for Oregon’s coast. Oddly enough it had only been a week earlier where we’d done a similar journey. Somehow on consecutive Monday’s we found ourselves leaving Washington State in the direction of Oregon.
A week ago the wedding festivities were over with so we said goodbye to Poulsbo, Washington in search of Portland, Oregon. After a few days in Portland we came back to Washington for the family BBQ and then after a few days in Walla Walla it was back to Oregon.
Admittedly the back-and-forth was a little inconvenient but we wanted to make the best use of our spare days between the two events. In an ideal world they’d have either been closer together (back-to-back) or further apart so we could have traveled more inbetween.
On the plus side, we were really getting to see a lot of the two states! Usually when I leave Walla Walla it’s to return to Moses Lake or to head further West and on to Seattle which is a particularly scenic drive as you pass through the mountains. Those drives usually take you North out of Walla Walla, this time we’d be heading South and across the border.
The scenery in this part of Washington is really unlike the Western side of the state. It’s desert-like and long-time readers might recall my fascination at the deadly tumbleweed on a trip here six months earlier. There’s no sign of the “Evergreen state” in these parts so in addition to enjoying Haleigh’s company, I spent a good chunk of our drives snapping photos.
Wait, this is the evergreen state?!
Soon enough we were back in the Dalles, we’d stopped off here for lunch on day 13 and taking essentially the reverse journey back to Oregon it made sense to stop off here again. We returned to the family-favourite restaurant, Cousins, and enjoyed a decent lunch before getting back on the road.
Those of you that read day 13’s post might recall our disappointment that we’d not been able to stop off at Multnomah Falls as the carpark had been full. Well luckily our back-and-forth itinerary meant we were presented with a second chance and this time we were in luck!
I don’t know if it makes a difference what direction you’re heading, what day of the week it is, what time you arrive but traveling from Portland to Multnomah Falls on a Thursday morning had proven unsuccessful. Traveling from The Dalles to Multnomah around Monday lunchtime had proven a little more successful so my advice would be..
I don’t know. Travel East to West maybe? I imagine most of Multnomah’s visitors are coming from Portland so perhaps the carpark stays open going the other way?
It certainly wasn’t any less busy in the carpark. It’s probably one of Oregon’s better known sights and its proximity to Portland makes it a particularly popular one. We could already see it from the carpark but obviously we wanted to get closer to see it in all its glory.
It is stunning! It was busy, probably inevitably so in August, but it is definitely worth paying a visit to if you’re in the Portland area. I think forest fires, among other things, mean some of the trails are no longer accessible but even those of limited mobility can get close enough to get some decent photos and enjoy it up close. I got a fair few, including probably one of my favourites of the entire trip.
Multnomah Falls, Oregon – August 2018
We didn’t hang around for too long. There’s a little gift shop and I think cafe that you can stop at if you’re feeling peckish. I picked up a couple of postcards but we didn’t stick around too much longer as we were hopeful of trying to beat the Portland rush hour traffic.
Surprisingly I didn’t think Portland itself was too bad but we started hitting traffic once we’d got to the South side of the city. Even once you start getting away from the Portland traffic and on to the highway, we seemed to hit a traffic light what felt like every 100 yards and you could be damn sure they were red on every single occasion.
I was feeling sympathetic towards Haleigh as we’d already been on the road a while by this point. Between the excessive number of traffic lights and the constantly changing speed limits we didn’t really seem to be getting anywhere – there can’t be many slower highways around!
Slowly but surely we were creeping towards Lincoln City and the scenery was getting prettier by the minute. Much like Washington, Oregon is bloody gorgeous! So green too! I was selfishly quite pleased that I can’t drive and that I could just sit back and admire my surroundings.
It’s so green and pretty in Oregon!
Once I saw a sign for the infamous Mo’s restaurant I knew we couldn’t be too far from Lincoln City and so it proved to be! Soon enough we were driving through this pretty coastal town with shops, restaurants and hotels lined up along the main street of this small little place.
Our trusty friend Karen (our Satnav) guided us to our AirBnB and we were quickly being greeted by our host for the next couple of nights. Despite all of my travels I’d never actually stayed in an AirBnB before. I’ve always been a little bit sceptical and I’ve heard enough horror stories, including from people I personally know, to steer clear.
That said I’ve obviously heard plenty of good stories too and if they were that bad, AirBnB wouldn’t have had the success they had. Whilst I’ve always been a hotel or hostel traveler, AirBnB was a good option for Lincoln City so I was just hoping for a good first experience. The fact our hostess was home to show us around was a good start at least!
It was a nice place, close to the actual coast and with an outdoor patio with sea views! After dropping off our things in our room we stepped outside to enjoy those views.
Mo’s in Lincoln City, Oregon
It was early evening by the time we’d arrived so we didn’t really plan on doing much. Haleigh had obviously had a fairly lengthy drive so we both just wanted a relaxing evening. Our only plan was to go out for dinner and experience Mo’s “famous” clam chowder!
I’d never had clam chowder before but I’d heard enough about Mo’s to suggest this was the place to have it. Whilst it was my first time in Lincoln City, Haleigh had come here on many occasions for holidays at the Oregon coast with her family and Mo’s was a particular favourite so had acquired somewhat of a legendary reputation!
We made the short drive from where we were staying and found the queue leading out of the front door! We had a bit of a wait but it was a pretty good sign that Mo’s reputation was justified. If nothing else, it was situated in a stunning location overlooking the beach and the sea.
The view from Mo’s, Lincoln City
Mo’s is a fairly decent sized restaurant so the queue moved pretty quickly and we were soon seated. We both went for the clam chowder, I was intrigued to see what all of the fuss was about.
It was pretty good and I’d certainly recommend stopping off at Mo’s if you’re ever in Lincoln City or passing through. As ever, I don’t think my reaction at the time gave any impression I’d actually enjoyed it. Haleigh was unconvinced I’d liked the chowder but I’m just really bad at portraying my enthusiasm I suppose haha, I insisted I had!
So the clam chowder had won my seal of approval, even if it hadn’t looked particularly clear that was the case. Although even as a new chowder fan, I don’t think it’ll be replacing fish and chips on the menu back home any time soon.
Still, it had been a good start to our time at the coast and I’d finally experienced the legendary Mo’s! After finishing our food we headed back to our AirBnB and just wound down by watching some Netflix which was definitely a perk of staying here rather than a hotel.
Every time that I’d been to Washington up to now I’ve tried to impose some British comedies on to Haleigh. Having successfully converted her as a fan of a few different shows, such as Black Books, I was intrigued to see what else we could find to watch.
I think in the end we settled on Fawlty Towers which I’d not actually seen myself. We watched a couple of episodes which kept us a little amused before we turned our attention to making a plan for tomorrow. We were both excited for the fun to start but you’ll have to wait for the next chapter of the story.
Stay tuned,
Jason
P.S – if you want to catch up on previous posts in this series, see the links below!
Welcome back dear folks! For those of you who haven’t been following along with the “big 3-0” trip, I’ll leave links to all of the previous posts at the bottom of the post. However for those of you who have been reading, you’ll recall last time out I was rounding up mine and Haleigh’s time in Portland.
We woke up on the Thursday morning, gathered our bits and pieces together and were saying our temporary goodbye’s to Haleigh’s Aunt Gina and Uncle Rob who’d kindly put us up for a few days. It had been great having somewhere to stay whilst in Portland and it was also lovely meeting more of the family ahead of the weekend shenanigans.
On Saturday would be the “famous” annual family BBQ in Walla Walla so whilst we were heading ‘home’ on Thursday, Gina and Rob would be driving over on Friday after work to join us in Walla Walla.
So we said our temporary goodbyes and then began our journey to Walla Walla. Walla Walla is over on the East side of Washington State so we had a bit of a drive ahead of us. We wanted to make an early start as we were keen to stop off at Multnomah Falls along the way. I’d seen a few photos online and it looked breathtaking so we were both hoping to see it.
Multnomah Falls, Oregon – August 2018
Multnomah isn’t too far from Portland so it’s easy to link in with a trip to Portland. Unfortunately the car park for it was closed / full and we’d already passed the earlier exits where you can get a shuttle. It didn’t seem worthwhile turning back and we knew we’d be back in Oregon later in the trip so were hopeful we’d get another opportunity to visit.
We were still keen to stop somewhere and a little further along we started seeing signs for Bonneville Dam which seemed like a good alternative to our original plans. The Bonneville Dam was a huge project on the Colombia River that seperates Washington and Oregon. It not only helped flood-control in the area but it created a huge number of jobs in America through the ‘Great Depression’.
Bonneville Dam, Oregon State
It was a cool place to stop at and the visitor centre had plenty of information on how it had shaped American history, plus the benefits for the cities and states that sit along the river. One of the cooler things you can witness is the ‘fish ladder’ that was built that allows various fish to pass on through the dam.
After a little time at the dam and a few photos we got back on the road. We were feeling a little bit peckish so started thinking about grabbing lunch somewhere. We stumbled upon a town called ‘Cascade Locks’. We stopped at the first road-side restaurant we came to. However it wasn’t really what we were looking for and had more of a cafeteria / buffet type feel to it where you picked up a tray and queued so we passed on this place and moved onwards.
Bridge of the Gods, Oregon State – August 2018
Before getting back in the car I couldn’t help but grab a quick photo of this cool bridge. I didn’t know this at the time but a Google search tells me that this is called ‘The Bridge of the Gods’. I’m not sure what the significance of the name is but it looked cool.
We hopped back in the car and quickly found another restaurant which looked to be linked to some hotel and thought we’d take a look. It had an absolutely awful stench as we walked in and unsurprisingly the place was empty. There were also no staff to greet us as we entered which wasn’t too encouraging. Even on a relatively busy highway they clearly weren’t anticipating any custom so we skipped out on eating here too.
Deciding this town was a bit of a dud we just hit the road and decided lunch would wait until we arrived in ‘The Dalles’. We ended up visiting a place called ‘Cousins’ which Haleigh had visited on previous family trips to the Oregon Coast. It was a nice little family-friendly place offering the typical American favourites and the food was decent too.
The weather was scorching though and a sign of things to come in Eastern Washington. We stepped out of this nicely air-conditioned restaurant and the heat hit me instantly smack in the face. Temperatures were in to the low 40’s (celsius obviously) so it was just ridiculously warm. Fortunately we were quickly back on the road and in a lovely air-conditioned car. I remember checking the temperature at one point and well, see for yourself! Welcome to a summer in the Pacific North West!
42 degrees!!
The rest of the drive back to Walla Walla was pretty uneventful. We got stuck behind some slow-moving vehicles, typically on single-lane roads, that slowed us down a little bit but soon enough we were crossing the Colombia River and heading back to the familiarity of Washington State.
I’d only been to Walla Walla once at this point, for a few days back in February, and the one thing that had blown me away on the approach was seeing the mountains as you drive in to the city.
“Oh.. we’re THIS close to the mountains?” – on that February trip we were staying with Haleigh’s grandparents and you could see the mountains from their yard or kitchen window or whatever.
I was looking forward to the weekend as a whole but I was also looking forward to that approach back in to Walla Walla. It never gets old seeing that view and it is the one that makes you think.. yeah, I’m home now. I do have a real soft spot for this piece of Washington.
Walla Walla Mountains – Feb 2018
Sadly on this particular trip nature had other ideas and denied me the luxury of that view. I’d been daydreaming about that view for weeks, if not months, but Washington, Oregon and California had spent much of the summer on fire. I hadn’t really experienced the effect of that so far on my trip but from here on out I was going to have to get used to hazy skies.
Disappointingly there was no sign of the mountains as we arrived in to Walla Walla. It was still warm but the views were lacking, haze was the only word on the weather report. The sun was somewhere up there but who knew where.
Anyway, Halegh had soon parked up the car outside of her family home where we dropped off our things and swiftly headed back out of the door. We went and paid a visit to the first set of grandparents we’d be seeing over the next few days. It was nice to see them again and hear how’d they been.
A little while later me and Haleigh headed out for dinner with Haleigh’s mum and brother. We returned to what is a popular restaurant in town called ‘Clarettes’ which I’d visited previously. Again, it was a nice family-friendly place with good American dining options on the menu.
The rest of the evening was pretty relaxed. We didn’t do anything particularly noteworthy and just crawled in to bed ahead of another day in the familiarity of Walla Walla. More on that next time!
Jason likes to travel 