Washington State – Jason likes to travel

A wedding in Washington: wedding time!

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.

P.P.S – enjoy some more wedding photos too!

Catch up on earlier posts in the series:
Introduction post
Week one post

A wedding in Washington: week one!

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!

Stay tuned!

Jason

A wedding in Washington: an introduction!

Hello dear readers! How are things!? I recently rounded off my 2021 travels with a blog post all about my annual Thanksgiving visit to Washington and so onwards to 2022 we go!

Isn’t it great following such an up-to-date blogger? As our third anniversary approaches, I’m finally writing about that trip! I’ve written about some special trips over the years but this was the BIG one. This was a trip that spanned six weeks, four states and featured two weddings including my own!

I put together a draft post a while back that never saw the light of day but without writing an essay, one post was never going to do this trip justice! So I figured I’d throw a series of shorter posts at you!

“They’re still not going to be short are they Jason?”

Alright, you know me too well! I can’t help it! However if there was any trip worthy of a series of rambles then I suppose this is it!

Long time readers will be fairly familiar with much of the “story” at this point so let me give the rest of you a quick summarised version:

Way back in early 2016 I was invited over to Washington State to watch two friends (Maddie & Cassie) get married in the summer of 2018 – two days before my 30th birthday! Naturally I was going and had a big ol’ birthday trip!

Said friends played matchmakers and introduced me to Haleigh in the summer of 2016. We got chatting online and in 2017 I visited Washington State for the first time – one year earlier than planned!

We hit it off so many trips back and forth occurred before I went out to ‘live’ in the USA for 3 months at the start of February 2020!

“Wait.. 2020!?”

Yeah! In hindsight you could say it was bad timing, alternatively you could say it was perfect timing! I’ll let you be the judge of that and I suppose it depends on your perspective but we unexpectedly found ourselves living together in the midst of a pandemic. The intention had been to go over there and spend some proper time together and we certainly achieved that given the circumstances!

Anyway, by the time I’d left Washington I was an engaged man set to get married in September 2021. Alas that didn’t happen because I was stuck in England with the US border seemingly permanently closed and so here we are! Attempt number two!

All being well, this was finally happening! The end (HA!) to long distance was in sight! We’d finally be married and could live our lives (~~in limbo because of immigration laws)~~ together, happily ever after!

A lot of planning went in to this trip. Of course you had the wedding planning, the burden of which largely fell on Haleigh’s shoulders as she was the one in Washington and she did a great job!

Beyond that we also had the travel planning itself. We not only had our wedding but one of Haleigh’s cousins was getting married down in Utah three weeks later. Additionally we were still living in Covid-cautious travel times, plus the usual travel mishaps that crop up which made for some frustrating scenarios – all of which I’ll mention but I’ll end this post by giving you the rundown of what was to come.

The plan!
On Sunday 27th March I would travel to Walla Walla, via Seattle (2ish weeks before the wedding).
Saturday 9th April – get married
Saturday 23rd April – fly back to England. Arrive in London on Sunday 24th April.
Monday 25th April – back to work for three days
Thursday 28th April – fly to Salt Lake City via Denver – no direct flight to SLC, really!?
Saturday 30th April – attend Utah wedding
Sunday 1st May – fly home via Denver. Arrive in London on Monday (bank holiday!)
Tuesday 3rd May – back to work!

In hindsight it probably didn’t make the most sense but I ideally wanted to be in Washington two weeks before our wedding and I was also a bit conscious about my annual leave for the year. I struggled when I’d taken four weeks off in 2018, I didn’t really want any more than that so if I could save some days by working then I was all for it even if it wasn’t particularly convenient.

Naturally, it’s the big trips where things begin to go wrong. You’ll note that this was actually a six week trip so things went awry along the way. All of that is to come, this was just a quick introduction to an unforgettable trip.

Stay tuned!

Jason

Walla Walla – November 2021

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

Until next time!

Jason

Farewell Moses Lake

Hello dear readers! I hope all is well! I’m that far behind on my blogging that this post was actually drafted years ago but my blogging disappearance means it never got finished, nor posted.

The inspiration for this post was partially a realisation that I am never going back to Moses Lake! Last time out on the blog I talked about my trip to Ireland in 2021 and it was unfortunately a bit of an underwhelming trip. I just hadn’t loved Ireland and writing about it was a bit of a slog.

One of the things I ended saying in that series is that I couldn’t really see myself returning to Cork. I hadn’t loved Dublin but I think it’s more likely of the two that I will return there someday but Cork? I just can’t see it. I’d need a really good reason to return because I think I’ll be content having only visited once.

You have those destinations. Some places you absolutely see yourself returning to and even if you don’t, you have that feeling that you will at some point. Budapest is a great example, I said 11 years ago that Budapest is a city I’ll definitely go back to and it hasn’t happened yet. My parents have since fallen in love with the city and have talked about going back for a third time and as much as I joke with them about it, I get it. It’s a magical city.

On the flipside you have other destinations you don’t really see yourself returning to, like Cork, where fate might actually decide otherwise. I didn’t really see myself returning to Köln on my first visit either but have actually visited as many as four times now! I’m not opposed to returning either, more time in Köln helped me find a fondness for it.

Moses Lake though? I am not going back and that definiteness just leaves me feeling a little bit sad. It’s one thing to not know but knowing feels different. Why would I ever return? There’s no reasonable or even unreasonable explanation that will see me go back there.

Long term readers will know a little of my Moses Lake history but anyone wanting a recap, start here maybe?

To summarise: my wife is from Washington State and spent many years living in little ol’ Moses Lake. For that reason my visits to Moses Lake have been many and also memorable. I have a lot of fond memories of that little town in Washington. It felt like a bit of a second home in many ways.

However, Haleigh is not a Moses Lake native. She grew up living in Walla Walla, which I’ll write about in my next post, and went to college in Ellensburg. She has family and friends dotted all over the Pacific Northwest but Moses Lake is not such a place.

I personally have nothing tying me to the city anymore. Calling it a city is generous even, it’s tiny and has very little there to justify returning. It’s just another small town in America of which there are many. Realistically it’s not on the way to somewhere that would give us a reason to stop off there. Anywhere we’re likely to visit in Washington would mean taking an unnecessary detour to Moses Lake to pass through it and for what?

To add a little more context, my last visit to Moses Lake was my longest yet! In early 2020 I’d made the decision to go and spend some significant time living with Haleigh and I felt myself starting to plant seeds in Moses Lake and then I had the most abrupt of Covid departures which meant I didn’t even really get a proper goodbye to Moses Lake. Not that I knew at that moment in time that it’d be my last visit but the US border remained closed for so long that by the time I was able to return, Haleigh had moved back home to Walla Walla.

I think the lack of a “goodbye” to Moses Lake is bittersweet so this post is my own little way of doing that. That chapter is closed but a little piece of my heart remains in Moses Lake (“dude, you should probably go back for that!”).

So farewell Moses Lake!

Farewell to cute dates at Rock-Top, Michael’s On The Lake and Porterhouse Steakhouse. All three restaurants were favourites for different reasons and I’ve got good memories of them all, including a freezing first date at Rock Top.

Top travel tip: if you’re the only outside diners in peak dinner hours then it’s probably too cold to be dining outside! Curse those deceptively blue September skies!

Farewell to Mason’s Place coffee shop. Many an afternoon were spent here with a book, drinking tea and Heather and the team always made me feel so welcome. On that final trip I’d even unlocked “regular” status and earned myself a loyalty / rewards card to stamp each visit – typical that it happened during Covid and I didn’t get to reap the benefits of such rewards but I’ll always associate Moses Lake with Mason’s Place. In a state famed for Starbucks, this was always my go-to spot.

Farewell to Midway Pub – another favourite of mine due to its hospitality. My first and second visits were six months apart but I was remembered nonetheless. A nice perk of being an outsider in a small town. My final visit they wanted to ensure they had a beer on tap that I’d enjoy as they phased out my “usual”. I think the ownership has since changed but this was another place that I unlocked “regular” status and was treated so well on every visit.

Farewell to Moses Lake’s charming museum. Free to visit, I’d often swing by and check out the newest exhibition on display. Being a small-town museum, it was usually quiet which was an added bonus as a visitor but definitely worth a quick visit should you find yourselves in Moses Lake!

Farewell to Moses Lake’s small Japanese gardens! I was bitterly disappointed to discover these only open seasonally. It’d be nice if it was open year round but my sole visit was nice enough and is one of the few “attractions” in the city.

Farewell to the Basalt Collective and Squirrel Fight Artisan Brewing. A literal farewell. These were both discoveries on my last visit to Moses Lake but unfortunately neither appear to have survived and both are now closed. Nonetheless, I have fond memories of both and the people I met along the way.

Farewell to the bowling alley and Ten Pin Brewing Company. Bowling and good beer on site? Sign me up! I loved the pin-shaped pint glasses and we had a few fun games of bowling here too!

Farewell to Brews and Tunes! This was a solo outing but in February 2020, Moses Lake hosted its inaugural Brews and Tunes festival and I was just in awe. This was the absolute best of small-town community coming together and I left Moses Lake truly inspired. I’m still in disbelief that festival worked but it did and it really made me appreciate Peterborough more too.

It wasn’t just me either. I keep tabs on a few Moses Lake bits and pieces and discovered a new brewery has since opened downtown that I would love to have visited but the fascinating thing for me is they mentioned that inaugural Brews and Tunes as the inspiration for setting up shop in Moses Lake. How cool is that!? Anyway..

Farewell to downtown Moses Lake. It’s a small downtown area but it has its charm. With little art sculptures and murals dotted around among its local businesses, it’s a place that I’ve enjoyed many a day exploring.

Farewell to Moses Lake. The lake itself. I recall having a lakeside wander on my first visit on a nice summer’s afternoon contemplaying how lovely it’d be to hop right in. I later discovered the lake is toxic so it’s probably best that I didn’t but it’s pretty nonetheless.

Farewell to Solara Apartments. It was never a permanent home for me but a second home for sure and where myself and Haleigh had our first real taste of living together. I had good times in Moses Lake but many of them were spent here – I even proposed in that little apartment!

Farewell Moses Lake! My London roots will always make me feel at home in big cities but I still think about you a lot. Thank you for the good times!

Anyway, hopefully you found this post fun! I can’t see any scenario in which I return to Moses Lake but I still keep watch from afar. I’ve seen some favourites close but other businesses open which suggest Moses Lake continues to thrive.

Brews and Tunes has become an annual festival, more breweries have opened, Crumbl Cookies have arrived in Moses Lake and the city even has its first Indian restaurant! It’s bittersweet knowing I’m unlikely to ever visit some of these places but I still have a lot of love for Moses Lake.

Farewell old friend!

Until next time!

Jason

2024 travel roundup

Hello my dear followers! How are things? I think this is the part where I make my excuses for how little I’ve posted in 2024 and vow that 2025 will be much better but is that actually likely? I suppose we shall see.
It’s strange to think that once upon a time I used to post here on a weekly basis, how did that ever happen!?

but maybe 2025 will be better?

In all honesty, 2024 was quite a strange year. Those of you on other social media platforms (“there are others beyond WordPress Jason!?”) will have seen me talk about this at the beginning of the year but life has kind of stood still for most of the year.

We decided back around March time that things weren’t working in England and that Haleigh would move back to the States permanently, which happened in the summer, and now we get to go through all the fun of the immigration process again to get me over to the US permanently.

I don’t envy the process on anyone and we’ve found ourselves doing it in both directions. It’s frustrating, it’s time-consuming and it’s expensive. To the American’s credit, it seems much cheaper going in that direction but the process seems like it’ll probably take longer to get me over there.

I’ll touch on the epiphany moment of making the decision later in the post but we made the decision much earlier in the year and I think because I’m naturally an optimistic and positive person, mentally I’d kind of placed myself in my new life across the pond. My genuine feelings were those of excitement.

The problem with placing yourself somewhere mentally is that in actuality, nothing has changed almost nine months later. I’m conscious people have it much worse and we have no real cause for complaint but life does feel like it’s a bit on pause at the moment. We’re sitting waiting for a stranger to make a decision on our case – “is this person going to be a good ex-Pat or a bad immigrant?” – fine line, isn’t it?

In the meantime I’m living a day-to-day that feels a bit arbitrary and the knock-on effect is that 2024 has been fine at best. It’s a struggle making longer-term plans when they lay elsewhere but you don’t know when that’ll be.

Anyway, getting back on track with the topic of this post. I figured I’d make my overdue blog return to stick with a yearly tradition of an annual roundup of all things travel. Despite a “doom and gloom” feel to this post so far, looking back at my 2023 travel roundup I’d like to think that we did much of what I’d expected and hoped that we would do this year.

We can always hope for more travel and more adventure but during 2024 we managed to see a little more of the UK, visit somewhere that neither myself or Haleigh had been to and naturally we also returned to Washington – one of us with a one way ticket but I’ll get to that shortly!

Here’s a little glimpse at 2024!

February – York
With both of us working the Monday-Friday life, it felt nice to take a Friday to have a long weekend somewhere. We considered a few different options, some more budget-friendly than others and we eventually agreed upon going up to York for a long weekend.

In theory this was a great idea, York is an incredible city and one that everyone should visit at some point. I was keen to show it off to Haleigh but truthfully our timing wasn’t the greatest!

Firstly it fell around that time of the year that kids had a week’s holiday here in the UK. I’m sure I appreciated it plenty during my educational years but do we really need to let the little rascals have so much time off throughout the year? To further exacerbate our woes, I’d neglected to realise at the time that our little weekend away in York actually overlapped with the annual Vikings festival in good ol’ Jorvik.

You could make a case for that being excellent timing or terrible timing I suppose. On the one hand you could make a case that a Vikings festival is the best time to visit York – the city was inundated with Vikings and entertainment throughout the weekend but simultaneously it was horrendously busy everywhere we went so also a pretty crazy time to be in York.

Despite the crowds and the typical English weather, we made the best of our time in York. It’s still a phenomenal city and the likes of the York Minster and York’s Castle Museum are worth a visit at any time of year. However it’d be lovely to go back and explore more peacefully when the likes of the Shambles aren’t.. well, a shambles!

We also had the misfortune of the weather. One of the things I’d hoped we could do was take a river cruise along the River Ouse but with the torrential downpour, ~~all fucking year~~, the city was flooded and consequently we had to settle for a city bus tour instead.

However it was still nice to get away and show off one of England’s finest cities to Haleigh on her furthest trip North in the World!

The Algarve – Portugal
“It’s not that bad” is how I’d often find myself describing the weather here in England. I think it’s vastly exaggerated how bad the weather is in England, much in the same way people speak about Seattle and yet every time I go to Washington I arrive to find blue skies and beautiful sunsets. Where’s this mythical Seattle weather people speak of?

I leap to England’s defence, I promise people it’s not that bad and how is my patriotism rewarded? With endless rain. I think we had about 500 days of rain last year!

“erm Jason, I don’t think a year has that many days?”

Well, I stand by it. The weather this past year has been bloody miserable. You hear extreme headlines of there being “too many people in boats” and yet it’s not the pesky immigrants they’re writing about, it’s your every-day commuter that have abandoned their cars and started rowing to work because of how much rain we’ve had in the last couple of years.

“Who’s exaggerating now?”

Look, it’s not just me saying it. Here’s an article suggesting it was the wettest 18 month period since records began or this article suggesting England was preparing for its wettest summer in 100 years or how we suffered the wettest September for a century. The facts back it up! It has rained and rained and rained and rained and.. you get the point.

Rained!

For a multitude of reasons, we went in to 2024 wanting a holiday. A proper holiday at that. A long distance relationship has meant a lot of our annual leave has been taken up by Transatlantic adventures to visit the other or family or whatever. We squeezed some small, local trips in to 2023 but one of my hopes for 2024 was to visit somewhere that wasn’t Washington State. I love it but I was desperate to just go anywhere else.

Haleigh herself was in much need of a break and we decided we’d chase the Winter sunshine and get away for a full week of sunshine (“what’s that!?”) and relaxation.

We pondered a few options. Well, actually, I mostly narrowed down the options as my knowledge of European getaways was naturally a little more extensive than Haleigh’s. There was a temptation to look further flung than Europe but with just a week’s holiday I think Europe made sense.

It’s surprising how many coastal destinations aren’t necessarily good beach destinations. We eventually whittled down our options to a few select destinations but the Algarve looked increasingly more appealing plus friendly to the budget.

Haleigh had never been to Portugal before. I’d been to Lisbon ten years prior and loved my first impressions of Portugal but I was excited to visit a part of the country that I’d never visited either.

I’ll blog about it in more detail at a later date but we picked really well. The Algarve is beautiful, the beaches are out of this world and we had the perfect week of relaxation! I’d thoroughly recommend it and this was sadly, probably one of the happiest weeks Haleigh had living in England.

Yeah, not an encouraging sign given we were in Portugal!

Norwich – Easter weekend
With other plans for later in the year, we decided we’d celebrate an early anniversary by taking a trip over the Easter weekend rather than using up annual leave for a midweek anniversary.

Norwich is another nice English city to spend some time in and weather-permitting we might have even squeezed in a trip to the coast for a day. It might not quite be the Algarve but the Norfolk coast is alright, isn’t it?

Alas, Haleigh got sick in the run up to our weekend away and we sadly ended up staying at home. In some ways this epitomised Haleigh’s time in England and felt much like the beginning of the end as far as English life was concerned.

London – May
However firstly, Haleigh had family from Utah coming to visit. Well, truthfully they were taking a cruise that mostly toured other places nearby but they set aside a few days to see us in England too.

Trip-planning for this probably wasn’t as smooth as we’d have liked and there were a few different things to consider which kind of left things more last minute than we’d have liked. Haleigh’s family based themselves in London and one such consideration was whether rather than fork out on expensive London accommodation, we actually travel back-and-forth between London and Peterborough each day.

However we didn’t really want all that faff so committed to spending a full week down in good ol’ London!

Again, this might be a trip I blog about in more detail but if you set aside the cost it’s a phenomenal place to spend a week isn’t it? I was born in London, it’ll always be home to me to some degree and I’m completely biased when it comes to judging London objectively but there’s nowhere like it.

I compared New York City to London in an older blog post and whilst NYC rivals it, I joked in that post that the one thing that gives London the edge is that NYC isn’t London – a completely fair ruling!

It was great to be able to show off “my city” but it was also great to just have some significant time there. The one downside to living so close to London still is that it rarely ever needs more than a daytrip to visit. I can go to the football or the theatre or go to see family or whatever and still be tucked up in my own bed the same night so why pay for accommodation usually? I can catch a late train home and be cosy in my own home.

This was a trip that really allowed us the luxury of enjoying London in all its glory – something we hadn’t really done since Haleigh’s first trip to England.

I didn’t see much point in basing ourselves on the outskirts of London, if we were going to spend a week in the capital I didn’t then want to be spending an age commuting in and out of the city. So we plumped for accommodation in central London – the Paddington area to be precise which proved to be a good base for our time in London.

From there the possibilities were endless. You’ll never run out of things to do in London but a week is also a long time to actually really enjoy it. We experienced a few different things over the course of a week that I’ll write about at a later date but the most important thing was my extended family had enjoyed their time in England.

Whitby – June
We had one final adventure left before Haleigh said farewell to England. Myself, Haleigh, my parents, sister and brother-in-law had made plans for a weekend up in Whitby in Yorkshire! It’s not somewhere Haleigh had been before and additionally wasn’t somewhere I’d been before either so we were looking forward to a nice summer weekend up in Whitby.

Naturally, summertime in England doesn’t really count for anything. You’re just aswell booking in December or January and hoping for blue skies. We’d got quite lucky in London for the week but it was mostly grey and overcast skies up in Yorkshire!

Nevertheless we still made the best of it and it wasn’t too bad (“you keep saying that!”) weather wise. Truthfully dreary days by the coast are the best times to visit, for some reason they appear to be much more popular on sunnier and warmer days?

Anyway, Whitby’s lovely. We made time to visit the Abbey whilst we were up there, brushed up on our knowledge of Dracula and Bram Stoker and also took a rather anti-climatic boat ride out to nowhere but it was a nice weekend away with the family and a good opportunity to spend some time together whilst all six of us remain in the country and perhaps it’ll be the last time we’ll do such a trip.

Washington State – August
There was a touch of irony and coincidence in the timing of this trip but we moved “the immigrant” back home on the 1st of August. In the very same week the UK were hosting country-wide anti-immigration demonstrations and just generally losing their damn minds. Riots and lootings and just general destruction spreading across the country from the *checks notes* patriots.. ?
Nothing says “I love my country” more than wreaking havoc on your own doorstep!

It’s such a weird mind-fuck having Haleigh’s family asking her what it was about England she didn’t like and simultaneously sitting there myself thinking I’ve never been more ashamed of my country. England is a lovely country but it’s harder making that argument when the growing number of Reform racists are running riot.

I wrote a satirical blog post over a year ago joking that myself and Haleigh would be crossing the Atlantic on a dinghy and somehow both countries hatred of immigrants and foreigners seems worse now than it was when I wrote that post.

Anyway, I’d done my civic duty and helped remove one immigrant from the country for good. My reward for such patriotism was getting to spend some time in Washington State. You might potentially call it a holiday of sorts.

It was nice to be back in Washington temporarily. We didn’t do anything particularly exciting but 2024 saw the return of the annual family BBQ and it was nice to see so many of Haleigh’s family again. We did some of the more mundane “moving home” kind of things that needed doing now Haleigh was back but overall it was a nice time away and I even got a glimpse of what a summer looks like in places other than rainy, little England.

Unfortunately only one of us were making the trip back to England as Haleigh began to re-settle back in Washington and we began the arduous immigration process all over again.

One day we’ll eventually be in the same place at the same time but alas that chapter isn’t written yet!

Washington – November
Now this was obvious, wasn’t it? Thanksgiving number five! With the exception of 2020 for obvious reasons, I’ve managed to make it to Washington for Thanksgiving every year since my first in 2019!

An extra holiday is an absolute perk to marrying an American. Obviously it shouldn’t be the sole reason you marry someone but it doesn’t hurt to have extra perks. I always love returning to my second home for Thanksgiving each year.

Unfortunately my annual leave seemed to disappear quite quickly this year and looking back it’s hard to see where it went exactly but this was the hand I had been dealt, I could only return to Washington for a week. Nowhere near long enough but it is what it is.

Weirdly, having applied for a spousal visa at this point I’d anticipated a much more interrogative arrival in Seattle for this trip but no.. Naturally I’d given myself plenty of time in the layover I had and it was one of the quickest ever arrivals I’ve had Stateside.

“Why are you here?”
“I’m spending Thanksgiving with my wife and her family.”
“Where’s your wife?”
“She lives here?”
“Where do you live?”
“In England”
“Why…?”

I don’t know mate, for shits and giggles. What do you mean why?

Seriously, there was just something in the tone of his question that was almost comical. “You’re apart? I mean that makes no sense dude. You should just be together!”

If only it were that simple! Who do I speak to to make this guy the head of immigration?

Pleased with a suitable answer less sarcastic than those going on in my brain, he waved me on through and I was back in Washington!

As ever, the week went far, far too quickly but it was nice to be back in Washington and of course good to be reunited with Haleigh even if only temporarily. Hopefully Mr Border Patrol officer receives his fully-deserved promotion but until such a time we continue to wait.

Local stuff
That just about sums up the bigger trips of the year. I’d say Portugal was the highlight, it is a really special part of the world and certainly one of the best trips we’ve taken together.

I feel like my online presence was much less in 2024 across all platforms but beyond the above, I’ve still been trying to make the best of the year and living my life in England. There were bigger plans for the year that perhaps didn’t pan out as planned but this was a year where I squeezed in more volunteering. I rediscovered a love of some hobbies and discovered others that really aren’t for me.

All in all, my year wasn’t bad and I know others in the world have much more to worry about but fingers crossed for better things to come in 2025!

So.. 2025 plans?
Look, some of this is visa-dependent. We submitted our application in mid October so we’re almost three months into the process. We’ve been advised it could take anywhere up to two years so it’s impossible to say when it’ll happen for us, we’ll keep hopeful that it’ll happen in 2025 but it’s out of our hands.

One goal is obviously to save some money. Whenever it does happen, I don’t want to be heading to Washington penniless but there’s that fine balance between saving all of my money and dying of boredom in the process.

I don’t want to be financially irresponsible and reckless but whilst we are waiting, I still need to maintain a life here in England.

As far as travel is concerned, I’ll obviously visit Washington at some point this year. Haleigh is hopeful to visit England later in the summer too so we’ll still see eachother albeit not as much as we’d like.

More ambitious travel plans, I’m craving a bit of Winter sunshine again. I need to figure out if there’s wiggle room in the budget to take a holiday but I’m tempted nonetheless. Haleigh doesn’t have the annual leave / PTO to join me but I want a little bit of sunshine. I’d be tempted to return to the Algarve again but if I return without Haleigh, that’ll likely end in divorce so I’ll have to consider other alternatives!

I’m also really, really tempted to get back to Finland. I want to see more of the country and it’s calling my name.

Truthfully though, I have no plans other than visiting Washington at some point but I’ve been to Washington so many times that it isn’t quite scratching that itch and desire to travel and see the world.

I suppose watch this space!

Anyway, I’ll hopefully blog more this year so watch that space too. Until next time!

Jason

Washington – April 2019

Hey there, dear readers! I’m back in the groove, blogging weekly so here’s another 2019 adventure for you to enjoy!

I kicked off 2019 by mapping out my travel plans and of course at the top of the agenda was booking a trip to see Haleigh in good ol’ Washington State! April’s always a good travel month for that – public holidays to take advantage of and it’s usually not too busy at work. I figured an Easter break would work quite nicely.

Using just five days annual leave I managed to wrangle 11 days in Washington, kicking off the trip on the Wednesday before the Easter weekend.

I’ve done this journey a fair few times now but as we inched closer to the Canada / Washington border I was just in awe of the views below me. I say below me but barely, we felt that close to the mountains that I’m not sure I needed a parachute to hop out and have some fun in the snow – “Excuse me pilot, anywhere here will do..”

It was a breathtaking entrance in to Seattle. After landing I was keen to breeze through and get to my hotel ASAP – football had occupied much of my thoughts on the flight over and I knew Spurs would be playing shortly after my landing. I was hopeful I’d be able to catch the game.

That plan didn’t materialise. There wasn’t really anywhere near my hotel to watch the game and unfortunately I couldn’t find it on TV anywhere in the hotel – I had to settle for repeated “refresh, refresh, refresh” on my phone and hope that a combination of the BBC, Twitter, friends and family would keep me updated on the decisive Champions League clash with City. I’d watched Tottenham beat Manchester City in London a week earlier so we were just one “good” result away from progressing to our first Champions League semi final for 57 years.

I say “good result”. We actually lost 4-3 but that was enough to see us progress to the next stage. It was a dramatic and unforgettable finish to the game but the important thing was that we had progressed – what a way to kick off the trip!

I’d told myself that I wasn’t going to the semi final in Amsterdam in any hypothetical scenario that saw us qualify but I was ecstatic nonetheless!

Haleigh had her last day of teaching before their spring break so had to work on the Wednesday. She was driving over to Seattle later that day and we planned to spend the night in Seattle before returning East the following day.

Between Spurs victory and Haleigh’s arrival I didn’t really do much. I stayed quite close to the airport out of convenience and couldn’t be bothered making the journey in to downtown Seattle for the sake of a couple of hours. I think that ordinarily I might have squeezed in a nap but I was on too big of a high.

“So Amsterdam..?”
“No, no, no, no, no. I’m not going..”

Haleigh arrived a few hours later and we had a pretty relaxed evening. I don’t think we did much, I don’t even think we went back out for food and possibly had a pizza delivered to our room. I really can’t remember.

At the time Haleigh was living in Moses Lake still but we were planning to spend some of the break with Haleigh’s family in Walla Walla, so the next day we were heading back to Walla Walla with a little detour on the way.

It’s a little out of the way but we decided we’d go and visit a famous picturesque little town called Leavenworth. I say famous loosely as I’m sure there’ll be some of you who’ve never heard of it but Leavenworth is well known for having transformed itself in to a Bavarian town. Here in the heart of Washington was a little slice of Germany.

Leavenworth is lovely. As soon as you arrive you’re treated to picturesque mountain views surrounding the town and driving through you instantly appreciate the Bavarian style architecture.

We found ourselves a place to park so that we could have a look around and one of the first things that I spotted was that the street signs were in both English and German – a nice touch I thought.

Leavenworth isn’t particularly big. Like many American towns, it’s apparently a city but in my eyes barely more than a tourist town with a couple of streets to have a wander along. We popped our heads in to a few shops selling bits and pieces.

Whilst a very pretty place, there isn’t a huge amount to discover in Leavenworth. I think they go all out around Oktoberfest and Christmas and give you the “authentic” German experience of both but in April there’s not much going on and it was pretty quiet.

After mooching about for a bit we went and found a restaurant to grab some lunch at – the “BärenHaus” which was a nice pub restaurant selling typical German-style food. Haleigh grabbed one of her favourites (a Reuben which comes with Sauerkraut) and I probably ordered myself a Wiener Schnitzel because “when in Germany” it’d be rude not to!

Following on from lunch we had one last glimpse of Leavenworth before deciding to hit the road, it’d had been a worthwhile detour and I’m sure I’ll return one day. Hopefully coinciding with either Oktoberfest or Christmas-time to see how Leavenworth really sells Germany for those unable or unwilling to leave the USA to experience the real thing.

From Leavenworth we headed straight to Walla Walla – another drive showing off Washington’s scenic mountain views. I never tire of the drive – perhaps helped by the fact I don’t have to worry about doing the driving but it’s so pretty over there. A few hours later we’d arrived in the familiar setting of Walla Walla and settled in at the grandparent’s house who were kindly accommodating us for the weekend.

We mingled for a bit before calling it a night and relaxing in our room for the weekend. Amsterdam was still weighing on my mind as I went to sleep – ever more tempting as time passed. “Do I go..?”

Having slept on it I decided that I had to. A Champions League semi final featuring Spurs? Come on.. when is that ever going to happen again?

My indecision affected my plans. I should have been straight on it and getting those flights or trains booked up but by the time I’d come to my senses prices had sky-rocketed for both. I couldn’t justify the high prices so in the end found an alternative compromise and settled for an overnight coach trip to and from Amsterdam – bonkers but I had to be there!

All booked. I had to ridiculously start my day by emailing work requesting more time off. “I know I’m in Washington but..”

Amsterdam was sorted, I could finally and fully focus on Washington and the company I had with me. Later in the day myself, Haleigh and her brother (Ben) made the short trip over to the Tri Cities. We usually visit at least once whenever I visit as with the three combined cities (Tri-Cities, duh!) it’s a bit bigger than Walla Walla and a good place to hang out for a few hours.

We kicked off our afternoon with a little time at one of the parks in Richland which sits along the Colombia River. We popped our heads in to a small store with a bunch of art and bits and pieces before strolling along the river. I think Ben and Haleigh did a little Pokemon-hunting whilst I settled for grabbing some photos of the pretty views.

Richland Pokemon — Haleigh and Ben Pokemon-hunting off in the distance

From the park we headed in to the Tri Cities to check out the mall. There’s a decent sized mall in the Tri Cities and it’s much better for shopping and picking up a few bits. We visited a few of our usual favourites including the likes of Barnes and Noble, likely grabbed some food at Olive Garden and then made our way back to Walla Walla for the evening.

The rest of the Easter weekend was spent enjoying time with the family and eating good food.

For such a religious country I find it baffling that there’s little love for the Easter holiday. Unlike the UK, it’s business as usual on Easter Monday so we headed home to Moses Lake on the Sunday afternoon.

I entertained myself on Monday whilst Haleigh worked. I wandered in to town and paid a visit to some of my Moses Lake favourites that I have a lot of love for. I grabbed myself some tea at my favourite coffee shop, enjoyed some lunch downtown and then had a wander along the lake before calling it a day.

Monday evening and Tuesday was pretty relaxed. It’s nice to have a home base to enjoy a trip and not have to think about work, just sit back and relax a little. I had such a busy start to 2019 and there was no sign of that letting up in the weeks ahead so it was good to have some proper downtime on this trip.

On the Wednesday I ventured back in to town. Much like Monday I just mooched about a little, grabbed some lunch and then popped in to Moses Lake’s museum for a little while. It’s free to visit and the perk of visiting every so often is that the exhibit had usually changed in-between trips. On this occasion there was an exhibit based on the history of the local school which was pretty cool to learn about.

In the evening our friends, Maddie and Cassie, popped in to town so we went for dinner together at a favourite local restaurant called Rock Top. I hadn’t personally seen Maddie and Cassie since their wedding so it was nice for the four of us to catch up whilst I was in Washington. We had a nice evening before they made the drive back to Ellensburg and we headed home.

On Thursday evening we had another outing. There was some career fayre kind of thing going on at some school in the Tri-Cities which Haleigh wanted to attend so we decided we’d go and spend the evening in the Tri-Cities. One of Haleigh’s teaching friends ended up joining us for the trip so in the end they attended together and I was left to amuse myself.

I didn’t want to be a million miles away from the school and there wasn’t an awful lot in the vicinity but one thing that caught my eye was a nearby brewery which I thought would be perfect spot to wait.

It wasn’t the easiest to find actually, it’s in quite a bizarre location on the suitably named ‘Railroad Ave’. There was actually some cool street art on route that made it an interesting walk but the brewery felt like it was otherwise in the middle of nowhere just on the other side of the tracks. It was a little too quiet for my liking – very little traffic and I’m not sure it’d feel the safest walking there after dark but fortunately it was light out.

Location aside, the brewery was lovely. It felt very off-the-beaten-path but still busy as I walked up with a few cars parked up and a lively atmosphere with a few people enjoying a beer outside. I walked in and first impressions were good. I took seat at the bar and ordered myself a flight. Along one of the corridors was various bits of train-inspired artwork and memorabilia which I guess correlated with the brewery’s location. All in all, it was a good place to hang out for an hour or so.

I think originally myself and Haleigh had talked about doing something together in the Tri-Cities but as Haleigh’s friend had tagged along we ended up just grabbing some food on the road and driving back to Moses Lake.

Unfortunately it didn’t seem like Haleigh had really had the chance to enjoy any time in the Tri-Cities and the school-career-thingy was a bit of a bust too so a wasted trip for Haleigh – although I very much appreciated the brewery visit haha.

Friday was a pretty chilled day. We enjoyed our final evening together and just hung out before calling it a night. The next day Haleigh drove me back to Seattle in time to catch my flight. The mountain views were as pretty as ever on the drive back – lots of snow on the mountains which was cool!

I left Seattle with mixed feelings. Being in a long-distance relationship is always difficult and of course I was going to miss Haleigh, not 100% sure when we’d next see eachother. It was bittersweet to be leaving so soon.

That said, I also knew that I had two imminent trips coming. I had two further trips to look forward to in the next ten days! Just one week of work and I’d be off on my travels again!

I was SO excited to be going to Amsterdam but before that? A first trip to Finland!!!
That story will be next up on the blog. Stay tuned!

Jason

2022 travel roundup

Hello there dear followers! I hope that you all had a lovely Christmas! Happy New Year too! I’m determined to get back on track with regular blogging in 2023 and what better way to start than with the annual “travel roundup” post?

I’ve managed to bash one out every year over the past few years, so if you’re interested in giving those a read I’ll link the posts below:
2017: Travel roundup
2018: A travel round-up
2019 travel roundup
2020 travel roundup
2021 travel roundup

Anyway, onwards to 2022! I actually offered a rare half-year post this year so some of you will already know what I got up to in the first six months of 2022 but for the rest of you, fear not because I’ll do a little recap right now to catch you up!

A wedding in Washington State – March & April
The first trip of the year was the big one! After postponing our September 2021 wedding we moved it to April of 2022 and so come March I was ready to head over and finally get married!

Covid restrictions added a new level of problems for travel planning over the last two years but having Covid restrictions wreak havoc with a wedding trip? Yeah, that’s stressful! I’d avoided Covid entirely for two years so I was waiting for the inevitable, something to go wrong just before I flew out to Washington.

Fortunately my immune system held out for two months and I didn’t catch Covid for another couple of months. I was good to go!

I will write about the trip in more detail at a later date but the wedding went swimmingly. It was a great day and absolutely a highlight of 2022. All the waiting and stress beforehand was worth it and as much as I’ve always loved a wedding, enjoying your own is another level of joy that I can’t really explain.

10/10 – would do again (same bride.. don’t worry, jeez.)

Honeymooning in Oregon – April
The uncertainty of Covid traveling, plus the cost of a wedding meant we only really planned a small break after the wedding. We decided we’d head from Walla Walla out to Portland for a few days and hopefully squeeze in a little time at the coast too.

Alas we made our Westbound drive and the weather took a turn. The rain was hammering down with rain on our drive to Portland and sure enough the next morning we woke up to snow – not quite what we’d planned for!

We made the best of the weather and enjoyed our first few days of married life! We extended our trip hoping to end the week with better weather and luckily it paid off – ensuring we got to enjoy a sunny day on the Oregon coast.

Again, I’ll delve in to this part of the trip in much more detail in a future blog post but it was a lovely break despite the weather and nice to experience some new things in Oregon.

Oregon Coast — Honeymooning in Lincoln City, Oregon

Idaho or no? – April
On the 9th of April myself and Haleigh finally got married in Walla Walla, Washington! On the 30th of April Haleigh’s cousin Michelle got married down in Salt Lake City (ish), Utah!

One month – two weddings – three weeks apart!

The problem for me was my intentions for our wedding was to arrive in Washington two weeks before the wedding and leave two weeks after. A second wedding so soon but not soon enough in some respects made for some tricky travel planning – keeping in mind that I was employed full-time.

Haleigh and family were planning to drive down from Washington but the timing of the Utah wedding gave me a tricky dilemma. Do I try my luck at getting five weeks off work? Do I even want five weeks off work for one trip? What about the rest of the year?

Joining Haleigh’s family for a roadtrip had its pros and cons, flying back to England only to return again so soon also had its pros and cons. Decisions, decisions..

The only certainty was that I was going to this Utah wedding. The logistics of how to do that was the only complication but one way or another I was going to Utah. In the end I decided that I’d fly home on the 23rd of April and then fly back to Utah (via Denver) on the 28th of April in time for the wedding.

Alas, come the 22nd of April I discovered that British Airways had kindly delayed my flight by 18 hours! The consequence of which meant a massive headache and the likelihood that I wouldn’t be getting back to England until the 25th. I considered my options and had a long and frustrating conversation with British Airways which went roughly along the lines of “this is your problem mate. Why are you (the customer) only letting us (the airline) know about our delayed flight at the last minute? Where’s your crystal ball?”

There aren’t enough words to describe my anger for British Airways in that moment. I can accept cancellations, delays, blah blah blah but BA’s willingness to throw the blame back upon me in addition to the lack of desire to find a solution did not sit right with me and left quite a sour taste for a while (I’m over it, honest..).

After much deliberation and back-and-forth I decided to extend my trip and stay in the USA for two further weeks (having to work Stateside) so long story short – roadtrip!

So a change of plans and an opportunity to see a new state! We broke up the drive and spent a night in Twin Falls, Idaho – a nice little town with, you guessed it, waterfalls! We obviously didn’t spend much time looking around but it seemed a nice enough town and we made sure to see Shoshone Falls before leaving too. It’s very pretty!

A wedding in Utah – April
Myself and Haleigh talked about visiting Utah a couple of times in the past. Firstly on my big 3-0 trip as we contemplated driving to San Fran via Salt Lake City. In the end we decided it was too much to do in too little time.

Two years later I met Michelle and David for the first time and we had a lovely Valentine’s Day double-date in Washington. They’re the loveliest couple and we agreed that we’d come down and see them over the 2020 Easter break. Yeah, 2020.. Needless to say, that didn’t happen either!

So third time lucky! I was excited to finally visit Utah and specifically Salt Lake City. It felt long overdue and I was particularly excited to see Michelle and David get married – our April anniversary buddies!

We weren’t in town for long and much of that was spent catching up with Haleigh’s family and then of course the wedding itself. The wedding was lovely. I’m such a fan of weddings so an outdoor wedding in a state as pretty as Utah certainly ticked the right boxes – it was a lovely day!

I have to say Salt Lake City was a nice surprise too. We were so busy with family stuff that we didn’t see much of the city or the downtown area but there was just something about it that was endearing. This was the USA in all its glory but with 360 degree mountain views. It left an impression on me and I couldn’t shake the feeling that this had the potential to be one of my favourite American cities – despite seeing so little of it. I can’t explain it! We returned to Washington at the end of the weekend but Salt Lake City and Utah had not disappointed.

Back to Washington – May
So from Utah it was back to Washington for a little longer. It was nice having that little bit more time with Haleigh, although extending my stay did mean I had to work remotely at the end of my trip – not ideal working UK time on a PST timezone!

However we made the best of the extra time. We even squeezed in an overnight trip to see our friends in Pullman which meant I swapped working in Haleigh’s kitchen for this pretty AirBnB view in Pullman – it was nice watching the sun rise in the peaceful early hours!

We headed back to Walla Walla for the final couple of days. After six weeks myself and Haleigh were finally parting! The immigration process had begun but I probably wouldn’t be returning to Washington until Thanksgiving..

Washington State, again – June
Oh.. Maybe a little sooner than Thanksgiving then. This wasn’t the plan, I hadn’t intended to come back and certainly not so soon but you can only hear “How’s married life?” so many times before wanting to rip your ears off.

That was undoubtedly the question of 2022 and it probably wasn’t helped by having as long as six weeks together but I think by the end of May I was already sick of being apart.

A lack of annual leave meant it was going to be a short and sweet visit but I decided that I’d go and surprise Haleigh and visit Walla Walla for her mid-June birthday. A wonderful idea in theory, in reality Haleigh was talking about heading out of town for the weekend and spending time with friends.

So I came clean. I didn’t really fancy a surprise trip to see my wife if my wife wasn’t actually going to be in town! The trip flew by far too quickly but it was nice getting to spend a bit more time together. I also squeezed in a few hours in Seattle which was lovely!

Hopefully the next time we’d be seeing eachother would be when that pesky visa comes through (HA!) and we’d finally be together!

Newcastle – May
Alright, let’s go back a step! In-between Washington trips I went up North for a weekend. My friend Sarah was celebrating her 30th birthday and that was a great excuse for a weekend away!

The 30th birthday celebrations were in a small town called Northallerton which I contemplated for all of five seconds before deciding it’d be better to base myself elsewhere. Excluding watching Spurs hungover at St James’ Park I’ve never really spent any time in Newcastle so decided I was going to visit the land of the Geordies for a weekend.

The birthday celebrations were wonderful. Sarah had hired an Abba tribute band to play and keep us entertained with Abba tunes all evening which was a fun way to celebrate.

Getting to explore Newcastle was an added bonus to the trip. On my first morning I met up with a fellow travel blogger – Sam – who along with her husband Adam were great hosts and it was so nice to finally meet up.

Newcastle itself is a cracking city too. I quickly fell in love with it. It’s easy romanticising anywhere on such a short visit but it instantly felt like one of those “I could live here” kind of cities. It was 100% my kind of city and that was without even really enjoying the Newcastle nightlife that its renowned for. I highly recommend a visit and it’s somewhere I’m certain to return to.

Sheffield – July
As many of you will know, football happens to be one of my biggest passions and it just so happens that this summer England were hosting the women’s European Championship.

Women’s football is rapidly growing in England and as soon as tickets went on sale I applied, blindly, to go to a couple of the games. There were two considerations for any games I wanted to apply for. Either they had to be weekend fixtures or they had to be accessible midweek games (London).

I looked at the various weekend games being played throughout the course of the tournament and contemplated which location tickled my fancy most. In the end I decided I’d go and spend a weekend up in Sheffield, visit Bramall Lane for the first time and watch teams C1 & C2.

I’d blindly booked tickets without knowing which teams were competing at the time so it was pot luck. More than anything I was keen to support the tournament and visit a new stadium in the process. As it was the game ended up being the Netherlands vs Sweden so two of the better teams in the tournament and two of the most colourful fanbases too with their orange and yellow shirts on display across the stadium.

The weekend was pretty much all focused on football and friends. Two of my friends (Hayden and Jenny) moved up from Peterborough to Sheffield a while ago and it was the perfect excuse to meet up with them. Ironically Hayden was actually down in Peterborough for the weekend but Jenny was kind enough to give me the grand tour of Sheffield on my first morning in the city. It was nice catching up and seeing a little of Sheffield in the process.

Later in the day I met up with my friend Natalie who was pretty much touring the country throughout the tournament and pretty much attending all of the games, or as many as physically possible (there were some games played at the same time). We had a few drinks and had a good catch before heading off to the ground where I reunited with Sarah and her dad.

All in all it was a fun weekend seeing a mixture of friends and enjoying a few beers along the way.

The land of dinosaurs – July-September
Well, I don’t know that this really counts as part of a travel roundup but some of you will recall I had a busy summer volunteering over at Peterborough Cathedral.

Peterborough Cathedral were hosting a T-Rex exhibit featuring many life-sized dinosaurs in their beautiful cathedral. An unusual setting to say the least and certainly raised questions about the relationship between god and dinosaurs but it was a bloody cool experience to be a part of.

I didn’t even leave my home town but mentally I was transported to another world that resembled something out of Jurassic Park with roars echoing off the cathedral walls. So many visitors came and enjoyed the exhibit and it’s one of the best things I did this year so couldn’t forego mentioning it. I blogged about it a little halfway through the experience (link above) but I loved it and I believe they have something just as exciting lined up in 2023. Watch this space!

De-Sa-lou? – October
Oh forgive the terrible pun WordPress but I could not help myself! For the most-part I’m pretty good at remembering where in the world I’ve visited but I’ve never been fully convinced on where in Spain we went to on a school trip back in 2002.

Don’t get me wrong, I remember enough about the trip that I’m 90% certain it was Salou. We visited the “famous” Portaventura theme park, we took a trip to Barcelona and saw the Camp Nou and La Sagrada Familia and a few other things. I remember wandering down to the beach from our accommodation and it being a quick and easy walk.

It was a fun week away in Spain but nevertheless I don’t exactly remember where we stayed and I’ve always been of the belief that it was Salou. All of the evidence stacks up that way anyway.

Fast forward twenty years and I was invited on a friend’s stag do away in Europe – a weekend in Salou! Instantly I had a feeling of de-ja-vu – I’ve been there before, right?

Anyway, as far as the plans were concerned.. the timing that they wanted to book the trip wasn’t the greatest – right before I was due to get married so I bowed out of a group booking and said I’d sort myself out later in the year. True to me word I did that and the result was I ended up going for a day longer than most of the group.

I’ll eventually do a trip about the post but I’m sure you have a general idea of how things went. Simplistically put it was a few days of sunshine and many beers.

I’m still none-the-wiser if Salou was where I went in 2002. I’m convinced that it was but it was unrecognisable on this trip so who knows?

Salou itself was nice. Very touristy and by touristy I mainly mean catered towards Brits who want a cheap and boozy weekend away in “Spain”. There are an endless number of English-speaking pubs and restaurants to take your pick from and I dare say we visited our fair share.

For a relaxing break / stag do it was perfect but if you’re wanting an authentic Spanish experience it’s perhaps not the top Spanish destination to visit.

Another wedding in Virginia – October
I know! A third international wedding! A third on US soil and another new state to visit! It’s a good job I love a wedding, eh?

My friend Shay invited me (and Haleigh) out to her wedding in Virginia and, again, as if I’d possibly refuse such an opportunity! I was 100% committed to going, the only uncertainty was whether we could find a way for Haleigh to join us.

Unfortunately we couldn’t make it work and Haleigh wasn’t able to attend so in the end I went anyway and rocked up solo for my third US wedding of the year!

This time the venue was a cosy house in Fincastle which coincidentally happened to be run by a fellow Brit! It was a lovely venue, wonderful to see Tony and Shay get married and also great to finally meet in person. Definitely another highlight of the year!

Roanoke – October
The wedding was in a tiny town called Fincastle. The nearest city was a place called Roanoke which I’ll admit I knew little about prior to meeting Shay. I wasn’t entirely sure where I wanted to base myself for the trip and pondered spending a bit more time in DC or elsewhere but in the end I committed to spending a few days in Roanoke and a couple of days in DC.

Roanoke was a pleasant surprise. It’s situated in a beautiful part of the state so I had mountain views from my lovely AirBnb downtown. The whole downtown area was entirely independent too. Independent shops, independent restaurants, coffee shops, bars, breweries..

No Starbucks, no McDonald’s, none of the big-name brands you know are situated anywhere within the downtown area. It was wonderful!

Again I had to work remotely a couple of days whilst I was in Roanoke which wasn’t ideal and meant that I didn’t do too much in the city but it was a great place to relax, check out a few breweries and just find joy in this adorable little city.

Washington DC – October
For this entire trip I weighed up where to base myself. I wasn’t sure if Roanoke would be interesting enough to spend my entire time, plus I couldn’t fly there directly anyway so I had to fly in to somewhere else.

DC was the city that seemed most obvious, however I’d been to DC before so had to consider whether visiting somewhere new might be more tempting. Alas DC was much cheaper to fly to and made a lot more sense logistically so I committed to a couple of nights in DC.

Fortunately I think DC is one of the most underrated cities in the US and I was keen to see a little more this time around. On my first trip I’d been sick through most of my stay and the warm weather meant I was quite keen to just do outdoorsy things on that occasion. I missed out the many museums that DC is famous for.

I already had a real fondness for DC and I think a return only really cemented those feelings further. It is a fantastic city, easily one of my favourites within the US. I visited some new neighbourhoods, ,visited some of those museums I’d missed first time around, checked out some new restaurants, met up with some friends on one of my evenings there and just loved my time in the city.

DC’s one of those places that I always thought that I probably would visit but never had any real desire to and I’m so pleased to say that I was 100% wrong to underestimate it. I fully recommend a trip and I’ve no doubt it’s somewhere I’ll go back to with Haleigh one day.

Another Thanksgiving, another Washington visit – November
and from one Washington (DC) to the other (Washington State), it was back to Washington again in November.

I love having an extra holiday to celebrate each year and escaping England in a cold, dark and dreary November is an added bonus. I don’t think I’d care for Thanksgiving so much if it was in I don’t know, let’s say July. Thanksgiving is a good mood-builder in the run up to Christmas and the festivities.

Due to visa issues, which are finally sorted!!, I hadn’t actually seen Haleigh since June. I was so short on annual leave that I couldn’t make a trip to Washington work and she wasn’t able to travel overseas due to the ongoing visa stuff so it had been a long time apart before reuniting for the holidays.

We didn’t do anything particularly special, Haleigh was sick for the first half of the week I was there and the second half of the week was occupied with family stuff for Thanksgiving but it was nice to spend some time together, eat food, catch up with family and just spend a little time in Washington.

I even managed to meet up with a friend from nearby Union Gap which was long overdue. News of my visit even made it in to local news – I’m now a Yakima / Union Gap celebrity! Maybe..

Overall it was a lovely week away. My only real gripe about the trip was that Alaska Airlines have cut their route from two services a day to one which wreaked havoc with my plans.

Firstly, I couldn’t actually get to Walla Walla on the day I arrived in Seattle which meant flying to a different airport a little further away.

I had no such trouble going the other way but they scrapped the early morning flight from Walla Walla to Seattle. Ordinarily I get half a day’s exploration in Seattle, such as I’d done in June earlier in this year but on this occasion I only had a four hour layover which wasn’t worth leaving the airport for.

I think they do intend to bring the second service back but it was bitterly disappointing to miss out on any time in Seattle on this trip. It’s part of my “heading home” routine usually and I did feel a little glum that I’d missed out on this particular trip.

2023 plans?
I hate to end any blog post on a downer so lets look ahead at what I have planned for 2023.

Honestly, not much..

I’m flying out to Washington at the end of January, Haleigh will finally be moving to England so I’m flying over there to help her move some of her things over. No more long-distance – hurrah!

I think one of Haleigh’s cousins is getting married in the summer so we’ll likely make another trip back to Washington in the summer. I also think we’ll probably make a third trip later in the year around the holidays so Washington will again likely dominate the travel plans for a lot of the year.

However beyond Washington I would honestly just want to go somewhere that isn’t the USA at this point. I love the place but it has dominated my travel a bit too much in recent years. I stretched my luck a bit this year and somehow managed to pack in nearly 10 weeks in the USA from just six weeks of annual leave (am I a magician?) but it left little time to go anywhere else. I was pleased to at least visit three new states this year (Idaho, Utah & Virginia) but I’d really like to spend some time in other parts of the world.

I don’t know that it’ll happen this year but I’m also really keen to step foot on some new continents. Africa, Asia and South America are calling my name. I’ve seen a lot of the US, a lot of Europe but the other continents continue to allude me. I’m very, very tempted to book a short trip to Morocco this year.

My final hope is to get back to Finland. I need to look in to it a little more but I’m quite keen on the idea of going there for my birthday in August. I grew up living with a Finnish grandmother who I also shared a birthday with and so it’s a day that I’ll forever think of Finland – I think to be in Finland on that day would be special but that’s just an idea at this moment in time.

Anyway, thanks for indulging me and my ramblings WordPress! I’ll write about each of these trips in more detail at some point and hopefully I’ll be a little more active in 2023.

Happy New Year!

Jason

Time for some travel..

Hello dear readers, how are things?

I’m sure many of you can relate but I haven’t really had the motivation for blogging for much of this year. What good is a travel blog if you’re not traveling? Credit to those of you who’ve consistently put stuff out to your audience but I just haven’t been that interested in writing.

Travel has been very limited this year for a number of reasons so I’ve spent the majority of 2021 at home in Peterborough.

As most of you will know, I’m a Londoner at heart. I was born in North London and it’s the city that will always be home to me. That said, I’ve really grown to love Peterborough and that’s probably never been truer than right now.

Living in the US for a couple of months last year certainly helped, as did a pandemic which has really made me embrace all things local. As the country has began relaxing restrictions and opening up, I’ve made a real effort to find things to do locally. If I could find things to do in a tiny town such as Moses Lake for two months, surely there’s plenty happening in Peterborough that I’ve been missing out on?

So those of you following on Instagram will see I’ve been pretty busy in and around Peterborough. Nevertheless, I’ve been itching for some ‘real’ adventure. I did have a few days booked down at the coast in June and then a handful of days beforehand the hotel cancelled, advising that they wouldn’t be open, which completely scuppered my hopes of visiting the coast – I couldn’t be bothered re-planning things so settled on a day trip to Bury St Edmunds (surprisingly nice) so that my day off wasn’t completely wasted.

Having got my second vaccine dose at the end of July, I’ve been holding off as long as possible making plans for the second half of the year but I’ve finally settled on what I’m going to do with my time off.

September

The original plan was to get married in Washington State this month, so I had four weeks booked off of work. That obviously isn’t happening, we’ve postponed to April (fingers crossed), so I was left with all of this time off and nothing to do with it.

I was hoping that I could hold off nearer the time and perhaps get out to Washington anyway, just without the big celebration. As it is, the border remains what feels like indefinitely closed. 18 months later there’s still no sign of the US opening its border, whilst Americans fly off to anywhere in the world (space included!). It’s quite frustrating haha. On the plus side, it did allow Haleigh to finally come this way and spend ten days in England in August after 16 months apart!

Anyway, back to the travels.. I’ve held off and held off and held off but the US isn’t happening. I cancelled a week of my holiday but with three weeks off this month I was still determined to go somewhere – anywhere!

I’ve looked at a number of options and finally settled on a first trip to Ireland. I’m off to Dublin and Cork this week – flying out tomorrow! I’m excited to finally be getting on a plane and going somewhere outside of the country.

I might yet go elsewhere in September but I haven’t planned that far ahead. I might just enjoy a few day trips in England instead – watch this space I suppose?

However, Ireland for the first time! It’s surprisingly a country I’ve yet to visit. If you have any recommendations for Dublin, Cork or suitable daytrips from either – let me know?

November

I also have some time off in November and it’s keep your fingers crossed time. Will the US open their borders? I’d like to think yes but then half of the country can’t be bothered to go and get vaccinated so who knows? The situation is by no means perfect in the UK of course but there’s at least some assurance that the vast majority have been vaccinated here.

I’m hoping that I’ll get to Washington for Thanksgiving but I was saying the same thing a year ago and settled on a trip to Gibraltar in the October instead.

Plan B this time around is Slovenia. After stepping away from football I’ve already been sucked back in. Admittedly I did actually give up the season ticket, a painful decision but the right one. Nevertheless another season of European football has its hold over me.

With Tottenham’s participation in the Europa Conference League confirmed, I was hoping for an adventure to some of the more obscure parts of the continent. Tottenham were drawn with Rennes (France), Vitesse (Netherlands) and NS Mura (Slovenia) last week.

Slovenia seemed the most attractive of those so I was hoping it’d overlap with my time off in September. As it was, we’re off to Rennes in September, which didn’t have quite the same appeal to it but.. the Slovenia date lines up with Thanksgiving which I already had booked off work anyway.

So Thanksgiving 2021 will be spent in either Washington State or Slovenia dependent on what happens with the US border (and UK restrictions of course).

I really want to say it’ll be Washington but we’re inching ever closer to November and it doesn’t feel like much time before then if the US are going to open up. With Canada opening up this week, my hope is the US will soon follow suit but I guess we’ll wait and see.

Anyway, that’s what I’m up to. If you want to keep tabs on what I’m up to in Ireland, Instagram will probably see it first but I’ll be back with photos and thoughts on the blog in the near future (hopefully).

Hope you’re all doing well!

Until next time!

Jason

The big 3-0: Day sixteen – the Vegas finale!

Welcome back my dear readers, I hope your 2021 is off to as best a start as can be in the current circumstances.

It’s back to the “big 3-0” trip on the blog today with us entering in to the second half of the story! Those of you not familiar with the trip (get caught up!), it was August 2018 and I’d turned 30 years old. As a means of celebrating I planned a 30 day trip in the USA which coincided with two friends getting married in Washington State just days before my birthday!

Anyway, in the last blog post of this trip I’d been enjoying family traditions and specifically the big annual BBQ that Haleigh’s family host every year. It had been a great success with lots of food, wonderful company and plenty of fun throughout our Saturday.

Sunday ended up really being the slow farewell as the stragglers that hadn’t yet left town could get together for one last hurrah before heading home and in their separate directions.

Myself and Haleigh woke up at a decent time in order to go and join the breakfast festivities at the grandparents who’d served up the American favourite – “biscuits and gravy”. This may seem a peculiar combination for any British readers out here but don’t worry, it’s not what you think! They aren’t actual biscuits.. so no digestives required here!

Ironically Wikipedia suggests that ‘biscuits and gravy’ emerged just after the American Revolutionary War. Now I don’t want to suggest that war started over the meaning of the word biscuit and that the subsequent tea-spilling was caused due to disagreements on whether a biscuit should be tea-dunked but can the timing be purely coincidental? I’ll leave you to be the judge.

Anyway, back to breakfast. It was nice and a good way to round off the weekend together, this would likely be my last visit to Walla Walla for some time so I appreciated the opportunity to have somewhat of a ‘farewell’.

WhitmanMission — Walla Walla, Washington

We moved away from breakfast and on to the living room where we relaxed ahead of the weekend’s big climax! Much of Saturday’s entertainment had revolved around tournament play of a game called ‘Vegas’.

Five players, five rounds, five winners. Each winner would qualify for the “grand final” in the hope of claiming family bragging rights for the weekend. Unfortunately one of our finalists was long gone, resulting in one of the hosts of the weekend – Haleigh’s grandpa! – taking up an honorary seat at the final table.

With four finalists ready and raring to go, the race was on for finalist number five (Haleigh’s brother, Ben) to retain his place in the grand final! Threats of forfeiting due to late arrival were banded about but luckily Ben arrived shortly after the scheduled 12pm start time! It was gametime!

Sadly I’d failed to qualify for the big finale and could only look on as an intrigued spectator, seeing who could hold their nerve in this high-pressure tournament and take home the family bragging rights.

Perhaps the long wait had caused some nerves among the other finalists because the late arrival, Ben, was crowned champion! Controversial perhaps given a delayed start but there was no question it was a deserved victory in a truly impressive final performance.

After the game fellow finalist Gina went shopping with Haleigh, leaving me in the company of her family. More importantly it meant a seat at the table had been vacated, another seat opened up quickly after and allowed myself and Rob to swoop in on one last game of Vegas this weekend.

With the actual final over with, the pressure was now off and all that there was left to play for was personal pride. Perhaps I’d benefited from a spectator’s role in the final to really hone in on each player’s weaknesses but I really came in to my own in this game. I ruthlessly blew away the opposition and finished with a weekend high-score, showing little mercy to the family I was supposed to be impressing this weekend!

Oops..

Some light-hearted threats followed with Haleigh’s great Aunt in particular suggesting that perhaps a phonecall to immigration was in order? I’d overstayed my welcome and it was about time I left the country!

TheBig30-Journey — Banished and on the next flight home!

All jokes aside, I felt that I’d mingled with Haleigh’s family pretty well and hadn’t made a terrible impression. It was satisfying to end the family-filled weekend on a high and with a win under my belt too.

The afternoon wound down pretty quickly. Everyone began saying their goodbyes and heading off in their own direction, hopeful that it wouldn’t be too long until the next family gathering.

Myself and Haleigh had already made our own plans with another member of the family, Casey, who we’d yet to see this weekend.

We picked up Casey and drove over to this bar across town to grab a late lunch at. I’d already met Casey back in February when we’d gone to lunch with her and fiance (now husband!) Daniel. Sadly Daniel wasn’t in town this time around so it was just the three of us but it was still a nice afternoon and good to catch up with Casey before leaving Washington.

The food itself was good and the service was decent too, the waiter seemed enthused to have a Brit in town and as ever left me feeling like somewhat of a celebrity when visiting the smaller towns and cities of the USA.

After dropping Casey back off at home we returned to Haleigh’s home and just relaxed for a few hours before one final outing on this Walla Walla adventure. Myself, Haleigh, Ben and Haleigh’s mum went out for dinner. It was a nice way to end what was a really lovely weekend.

It ended another chapter on this trip. I was really excited for what was coming next – me and Haleigh would be making our way down to what was a dream bucketlist destination for me personally – San Francisco!!

That said, despite that excitement I was also sad to be leaving Walla Walla so soon. I wasn’t sure when I’d next be back but knew it’d be 2019 at the earliest which felt like a long time without seeing my second family and second home. It was a bittersweet feeling.

Nevertheless, the adventure had to go on! On day 17 we were hitting the road! Stay tuned for that!

Jason

P.S – if you wanted to read about the rest of the trip, you can find links to all posts below!
Day one – Chicago bound
Day two – exploring Chicago
Day three – Minneapolis
Day four – Why I visited Minneapolis!
Day five – New Orleans!
Day six – The real New Orleans!
Day seven – Goodbye New Orleans, Hello Washington
Day eight – Exploring Poulsbo!
Day nine – Wedding day!
Day ten – To Portland!
Day eleven – the actual 3-0!
Day twelve – Oregon City and Portland
Day thirteen – Walla Walla bound!
Day fourteen – Walla Walla
Day fifteen – The family BBQ!