Wedding – Jason likes to travel

A wedding in Washington: Idaho, Utah and a second wedding!

Hello dear readers! How are things? Onwards to the next of the wedding blogposts!

Alright, let me preface this by saying that perhaps I didn’t entirely think through the name of this series when I started out. “A wedding in Washington” kind of starts falling apart when you’re then talking about weddings in Utah so yeah, I didn’t entirely think that one through.

In my defence this series was originally drafted as one singular blog post called: “Six weeks, four states, two weddings” which is a much more accurate representation of the trip but really, one blog post? I have a tendency to ramble on a bit and get side-tracked so one post would have been far too long – of course you regular readers know this already.

Anyway, anyone who has been following the wedding series will know that last time out I wrapped up my final week in Washington by not actually leaving Washington. It’s a long old story and it’s easier if you just go back and read the previous post but for reasons, this was kind of supposed to be a four week trip followed by a long weekend trip to Utah a week later with a few days of work sandwiched in-between.

In the end, things didn’t quite go to plan. Circumstances changed which meant I actually ended up staying Stateside and the upshot of that was Idaho!

“Wait, Idaho was the upshot!?”

Alright, so I know that might sound strange to some of you. Who really wants to visit Idaho but it’s definitely on my mind that someday I would like to have visited all fifty states and at the time I hadn’t been to either Idaho or Utah.

We were going to Utah for a family wedding, Haleigh’s cousin (Michelle) was getting married and of course we were going to go but I found myself in a dilemma of how do I travel to Utah? In the end I decided I’d go home for a few days of work and then fly to Utah from London but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered the perks of a roadtrip and the opportunity to visit a new state.

There were other things to consider too of course which is why that ultimately wasn’t the final decision I made but the allure of Idaho was calling me and I guess fate (British Airways..) determined I should stay Stateside and do a roadtrip instead.

It was a roadtrip I’d already missed out on once. Just before Covid shut the world down, myself and Haleigh had planned to go down to Salt Lake City in April 2020 and visit family – via Idaho of course. Alas, that didn’t happen and was the first casualty of the Covid travel era.

Two years on, things were starting to get back to normal and we were ready to hit the road! The plan was for us to leave Washington on Wednesday morning and get to Salt Lake City on Thursday with a night spent in Idaho.

As far as the roadtrip was concerned, there were two clear options for where to stay in Idaho: Boise or Twin Falls. We opted for the latter as it made for a better halfway point between Walla Walla and Salt Lake City and it was also a little bit cheaper to stay there than Boise.

I’ll be honest and say I didn’t really know much about Idaho. It was nice to have the opportunity to spend some time in a new state but it’s not exactly a state that tops many European’s wishlist when planning a trip to the USA. Typically Brits and Europeans are looking at other parts of North America before planning their Idaho trip!

I think my first impressions of Idaho suffered for having spent so much of this trip in Washington, Oregon and then arriving into the absurdly beautiful Utah – honestly, how is Utah a real place!?

Perhaps I’d been a little spoilt on this trip. I went back to Idaho earlier this year and whilst it still isn’t Utah-pretty, it was prettier than I’d given it credit for. Some of it is sparse and in parts of the drive there isn’t much to look at but it’s not all bad either.

My first impressions of Twin Falls were better. It’s probably as “big city” as Idaho gets but it seemed like a nice enough place to base ourselves for the night. Interestingly I discovered that one of the things Twin Falls is most famous for is being the setting of Evel Knievel’s attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon.

I thought it worth mentioning because apparently “Evil Kin-evil”, as I’d assumed the name to be, was actually a real person! I’d heard the name of course but I’d kind of always assumed it was a cleverly named cartoonish villain – like Dick Dastardly!

My limited research suggests ol’ Evel perhaps wasn’t the nicest person so I guess the evil name wasn’t entirely wasted on Mr Knievel but I was a little disappointed to discover he was nothing more than a stunt-jumper opposed to a folklore villain. Apparently he entered the ‘Guinness World Records’ for “surviving the most broken bones in a lifetime” so you might argue he wasn’t that great a stuntman either!

The canyon itself is pretty big and one of the first things you’ll see coming in to Twin Falls – I certainly wouldn’t want to jump it! We didn’t do much more than check in to our accommodation, have dinner (at another Black Bear Diner!) and hang out but Twin Falls seemed like a nice little place. We did check out the nearby Shoshone Falls on the drive home which is gorgeous – definitely worth stopping at if you find yourself in the city!

The next day it was finally onwards to Utah! Myself and Haleigh had first talked about visiting during my “big 3-0” trip in 2018 but it just felt a little too out-of-the-way for the time we had and other places we wanted to visit so we scrapped that idea. As alluded to above, we then committed to visiting in 2020 only for Covid to scupper our plans so it was third time lucky in what felt like an overdue visit of the state.

At last, I’d made it to Utah! Having family to visit is a bonus and a wedding was a particularly good reason to be visiting but I figure that Utah was a state, no matter the circumstances, I was always likely to visit someday. You hear so many good things about the State and really, I’ve only seen a fraction of it with a lot of the national parks further South, but Utah is as pretty as everyone says it is.

I was perhaps a bit harsh on Idaho further up, the drive isn’t that bad but sandwiched in-between Oregon and Utah does make a massive difference. I read a book of Bill Bryson’s earlier in the year and he talks about how lovely Idaho is after crossing the Nevada border which, having briefly stepped foot into Nevada this year, sounds much more reasonable but it’s not long after crossing into Utah that the view spectacularly improves.

As you inch closer to Salt Lake City, the view just gets better and better and better. Salt Lake City is surrounded by 360 degree mountain views – it doesn’t matter which way you look, you will see mountains. It’s an absurdly beautiful city.

The thing that struck me most about Salt Lake City was how American it felt. Strip away the mountainous views and there’s no mistake that you’re in an American city.

It had everything that you’d expect of the USA – the big highways and cars and highway advertisements everywhere. The fast food-chains and drive-thru-everything’s, the massive malls and all of this in Austria or Switzerland-like surroundings. I don’t know why but I just found it really endearing, there was an inexplicable charm about Salt Lake City, I was smitten.

We didn’t even really do anything of note in Salt Lake City. We were only in town for a few days which was primarily for a wedding and the free time we did have was largely spent with family. There was no legitimate reason for me to hold Salt Lake City in such esteem or have such a fondness for it but I did. Maybe I got carried away with how pretty it is but it felt like a special city and one that more people should be visiting.

We happened to go back to Salt Lake City earlier this year and got a chance to actually spend some proper time there and explore a bit further and I felt a little vindicated. It’s a wonderful city!

I’ve been fortunate to have visited a few of the big cities in the US and I think Salt Lake City is up there with the best of them. When travelling I often find myself asking “could I live here?” and Salt Lake City is one of those places that I don’t think would take much persuasion – and believe me, there’ve been plenty of attempts at that!

Anyway, back to this particular trip. We got ourselves settled in to our AirBnB and then all we really did on Thursday and Friday was visit family. With the exception of the happy couple, Michelle and David, I hadn’t actually spent much time with the Utah side of the family. I’d only properly met most of them at the start of the month in the run up to our own wedding so it was nice to have more time together.

and just like that, it was time for another wedding!

I first met Michelle and David way back in February 2020 when they’d made the trip up to Washington for a few days and along with Haleigh the four of us had a little Valentine’s double date. We walked away from that evening thinking “we should go to Utah for spring break..”

That didn’t happen of course, Covid scuppered our plans but I think it’s testament to the impression both of them make. I adore them both and as soon as there was wedding talk there was no doubt I’d be in attendance (assuming that I was invited!).

I won’t go in to all of the ins and outs of the day but it was exciting to be here to see the two of them get married. We got ourselves ready in the morning and then headed on over to the venue to help with any last minute preparations so we arrived earlier than most guests.

Interestingly the venue itself was a clay shooting venue so it was quite weird to arrive to the sound of people shooting. The venue was reserved for the wedding obviously so they weren’t there much longer after we’d arrived but it was still an odd experience for someone such as myself, not entirely used to the gun-crazy culture of America.

Shooting facility aside, it was a lovely venue. The ceremony itself would take place outdoors and it was a beautiful day – again surrounded by mountain views because Salt Lake City, you know? Did I mention the city has mountains everywhere you look? I feel like I should have mentioned that.

With everything set up, we were ready to go. It was time to watch two of the loveliest people get married. I know it’s cliche and whatever, you always read or hear memorials of how wonderful a person was after their death and maybe it’s in bad taste to talk ill of the dead but just once I’d love to read the death of somebody reported with quotes of them “being an asshole”

“Dexter? Look, I loved my brother but he was partial to a bit of murder now and then – he only murdered people that deserved it though!”

As ever I’m getting side-tracked but cliche or not, these truly are just a joy to be around and it was evident throughout the day just how much love they have for eachother.

I’m a sucker for a wedding so it’s needless to say that this was another lovely day. The ceremony was beautiful and I definitely teared up a little during the vows and speeches. The venue was stunning, there’s just something special about an outdoor wedding and the mountain views help of course! The bride and groom both looked great and it was such an honour to be there to celebrate with them both. If it wasn’t obvious, I adore them both and it was great to see them so happy on their day.

Sadly, things eventually have to come to an end. We waved off the happy couple at the end of the night and promised to make future plans with our “April anniversary buddies”. It was the perfect way to round off April.

On Sunday (1st May) we made the long drive back to Washington – all in one day. We did stop off in Twin Falls again for lunch and as I hinted at above, took a little detour via Shoshone Falls which made the day a little more interesting than a full day on the road.

Soon enough we were back in Washington and this time it would genuinely be the final week in Washington. More on that next time!

Stay tuned!

Jason

P.S – if you’ve missed any other posts in this series you can catch up below!
A wedding in Washington: an introduction!
A wedding in Washington: week one!
A wedding in Washington: wedding time!
A wedding in Washington: the honeymoon!
A wedding in Washington: the final week!

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

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

JasonLikesToTravel 2.0

Hello dear readers! How are things? I’m sure there’s a few of you wondering “who’s this guy?” or perhaps thinking “I remember him..” because well, my posting regularity has been pretty naff over the last couple of years.

The pandemic eh? So much time, so little posting! This is just my 7th post in the last 12 months but perhaps it’ll be lucky number seven? The one to get me back to posting a bit more frequently?

I don’t know what the cause is, perhaps Covid just sucked all of the fun out of travel-writing for me but I either haven’t ~~had~~ made the time to post or have actually had time but just no motivation to do so.

So I’m thinking I’m going to revamp things around here. Less structured and more “whatever”. Typically I’ve been posting about each of my trips chronologically but I think I’m going to take this a little less seriously and just blog about trips as and when I want to and maybe even throw in some other topics and life updates along the way – so consider this blog 2.0 going forward!

Maybe some posts will be the usual ramble-y ones (“like this post Jason?), perhaps they’ll be shorter. Maybe they’ll cover trips I’ve taken, maybe they’ll just be a handful of words to check in but I DO enjoy being part of this community and I do want to get back to blogging in some form so we’ll see how things go. However if you’re only here for the travel, maybe now’s the time to jump ship and click that little “unfollow” button.

“Okay Jason, I’m on board! What have you been up to?”

Well, it’s so nice that you asked! Those following me elsewhere on social media will have seen that after September 2021’s postponement, I finally got married in April!! That’ll undoubtedly be the big highlight of 2022. What a lovely day it was! I really don’t get the whole nervousness around weddings – it was a doddle and really nice for my family to make their first trip over to Washington State too – they loved it!

In the end I spent a total of six weeks in the US and visited four different states – Washington (obviously), Oregon, Idaho and Utah. I’ll blog about that trip in more detail soon but six weeks away was wonderful.

I thought going back to England after so long away would be difficult enough but I only went and took a “souvenir” home with me didn’t I? After two years of avoiding it I managed to catch Covid!

I flew home on the Saturday (7th May) and woke up with a scratchy throat on the Tuesday. I wouldn’t have caught it from anyone inbetween so I’m convinced I caught it in this busy pub in Seattle a few hours before my flight home – oops!

Following on from the CDC guidance changes around mask-wearing I then flew home maskless too so suffering a little Covid-related guilt there. Admittedly I had nobody sat next to me on the flight and I know it’s unlikely I’d have passed it on that quickly anyway but still, typical eh?

Fortunately symptoms didn’t stick around long. I tested negative twice before testing positive and by the time the positive tests started coming I was pretty much over the worst of it anyway. Nevertheless I’ve been laying low for the last couple of weeks, it has been nice to get back among civilisation this week!

I’m heading up North this coming weekend. A friend is celebrating her 30th birthday in a town called Northallerton and I figured I’d make the best of it and booked myself a hotel for two nights in Newcastle. I’ve never spent any proper time in the city so any recommendations are more than welcome! I’m excited to explore it a little bit and I’ll keep you posted on what I discover haha.

Anyway, I’ll wrap this up so this is relatively short by my usual standards. You can see a few more wedding photos over at Instagram for anyone interested. I’ll blog about that trip pretty soon but I just wanted to give some form of update before then.

Until next time!

Jason

The big 3-0: Day nine – Wedding day!

Hey there! Remember me? Last time out on the blog I wrote a bit of a fun tongue-in-cheek post about my new-found fame in China and it seems it overwhelmed me because I haven’t been seen on the blog since!

I’ve got quite good at evading the paparazzi. I spent June locked away, staying at home and social distancing from the world.

All jokes aside, there’s no real reason for my absence on the blog. It was an unintended break from blogging but I’m back and it’s time to continue with the “big 3-0” trip. It’s been a while since I last wrote about it so you’d be forgiven for forgetting where we were at.

It was the summer of 2018, I was turning 30 and spending 30 days in the USA. I’d just spent day eight in the adorable town of Poulsbo, one day before the wedding of the year! ‘Today’ was the big day! This was it!

Two years earlier my friend Maddie had asked me if two years was enough notice to attend her wedding in Washington State – my answer was a resounding “of course!” but without that invitation this entire trip probably doesn’t happen.

Additionally, it’s hard to look back at this invitation as anything other than life-changing. A few months after Maddie blessed me with the honour of attending, I was then introduced to Maddie’s bride, Cassie, and also a bridesmaid by the name of Haleigh. Sound familiar?

“So that’s how you met!!”

I know, right? It’s a nice story but also one that makes you think.. what if Maddie had never invited me? What if Maddie had invited me but for whatever reason I hadn’t been able to attend? It’s an alternate reality that I don’t want to think about at all but it’s ultimately a gesture that was life-changing.

That said, this post isn’t our love story! This is all about Maddie and Cassie!

Myself and Haleigh woke up and a little like the day before, were quickly saying our goodbyes. Haleigh was off to the venue to get ready with the rest of the wedding party, whilst I had a much more relaxed morning.

With the morning quickly ticking away I figured I’d best start getting wedding-ready myself. I had a decent amount of time but I also wanted to make sure I ate before I went over to the wedding as I wasn’t 100% sure what the food options were going to be and I also figured if I then didn’t eat much later, at least I’d had a decent lunch.

In hindsight I should have went to get food first and then got ready. Poulsbo was a small place. Adorable? Absolutely but small so it isn’t somewhere that has a huge number of tourists, even then I expect most out-of-town folk are still from Washington State.

If my accent wasn’t already going to make me stand out, my outfit certainly did. It was a nice, family friendly establishment with what appeared to be a local crowd. I walked in suited up and instantly stood out.

I felt completely out of place and should have come here before getting ready but never mind. Better to be overdressed than underdressed, right?

I found myself a place to sit and had myself a decent lunch to fill my stomach before planning my journey to the venue.

I figured it wouldn’t be too difficult but it proved somewhat more challenging than it should have been. I figured a taxi would be easy enough to order but my phone in our hotel room seemed un-workable (I was probably just being an idiot), I asked reception who were equally unhelpful which gave me my first problem.

I eventually decided I’d just take the hit and use my mobile, any international charges would be minimal for the length of time to order a taxi? Voicemail! No response! Great!

For the first time I thought I’d use Uber and downloaded the app. It turns out, before you can use Uber you have to verify your phone and they’ll send you a code to help set up your account. There was no sign of that text ever coming through. I was at a dead end with both my options of getting to the venue!

Eventually a friend of the girls (Aidan) came to my rescue and volunteered to come pick me up! I really appreciated it, although Aidan was unwilling to accept any contribution from me towards the inconvenience I’d caused. We then stopped at a shop to pick up a couple of things on-route and was just as unwilling to allow me to buy those either. It was just a kind gesture with no expectations. It was also a good opportunity for me to chat with another guest at the wedding haha.

Soon enough we’d arrived at the venue. I say venue loosely. The ceremony itself was outdoors and the setting was in a small state park. It was beautiful! A location fit for such a wonderful occasion.

Poulsbo40 — Wedding party mingling and getting ready

The wedding party itself were all getting ready in a small wooden hut. We had another hut which was to be used as the wedding reception so with people still getting ready and other guests yet to arrive I just had a little look around and snapped a few photos.

Poulsbo58

In addition to the natural surroundings we were also right by the water and it was nice, I felt a million miles away from the rest of the world.

A short while later it was time for the ceremony. I love a wedding, I can only encourage more of you to get married (and invite me!) so that I have more weddings to attend! Fortunately we had perfect weather for an outdoor ceremony and it was as beautiful and as perfect as you could hope for it to be.

Poulsbo47 — Such a pretty place for a wedding!

I know it’s cliche and all that but I say it with sincerity, Maddie and Cassie compliment eachother so perfectly and I couldn’t have been happier to have witnessed the start of this chapter in their lives.

I won’t fast-forward to the end of this trip, there’s still lots to come but at the end of the summer I felt humbled and privileged and happy and perhaps at no moment was that more the case than on this particular day.

The ceremony was lovely and I think after that I spent the rest of the day on a high that I can’t adequately describe in words. I felt so honoured to be here, so proud even. Even now, two years later, I feel warm and fuzzy thinking back to that day. It was a special occasion for two incredible people.

Following the ceremony the wedding party moved down to a spot by the water to get some official photos, the rest of us ventured over to the hut where the reception was taking place. It was a cute place, nicely decorated and fitting for a celebration.

The rest of the day was bliss. I was introduced to a few people at various points, a handful of which I’d also met on previous trips to Washington, but inevitably I spent the bulk of my time with Haleigh which was also nice – our first wedding attended together.

We danced, we (I) drank and most importantly we celebrated a wonderful couple and occasion. It was a lovely day and it was undoubtedly the highlight of this trip. I’m so grateful I got to experience it and it’s a day that I’ll always look back on fondly.

Poulsbo87 — Washington State – as pretty as ever!

Myself and Haleigh got some nice photos too which helped mark the occasion but eventually it reached a time for us to call it a day and sadly say our goodbyes. In the morning we’d be saying goodbye to Poulsbo and heading for Oregon.

Stay tuned for more on that!

Jason

P.S – If you haven’t been following the trip so far, you can catch up on the other days 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!