PACIFIC NORTHWEST: SEA > SFO

Wednesday 26th September 2018 (obviously taken me nearly a month to complete this because I am shite and forgot about it). Day 3 without the Blueberry (see below for reference), without Troy and Gabrielle on repeat and without a staple diet of slightly warm turkey and cheese sandwiches. Life has never been so difficult.

I was indecisive (shock) on which route (pun not intended) to take with this blog post, as I feel a list of anecdotes and stories will only be funny to me and Liv (my glorious American travel twin) yet a ‘travel guide’ seems a little too structured for what I feel I want to share and quite frankly, completely misleading seeing as some days we didn’t know where we were going till we got there so it’s somewhere in between.

The most common word from both Liv’s mouth and mine was ‘pretty’ – often elongated to preeeettyyyyy whilst staring at inconceivable views, some of which you will see in the pictures that feature and the word was uttered approximately 23048393 times over the 15 days.

Seattle, Washington

Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect from Seattle. Initially, I wanted to do a two-day ultimate Grey’s Anatomy tour only to find out that it’s filmed in LA not Seattle so that screwed up my plans to start with, so I settled to learn about the actual history of the city. If you’re in a city with a free walking tour – do it. The guys that put on these tours are relying on the tips so they do a really good job and it’s also a way to get recommendations from locals, leading us to the quaintest Irish pub serving $5 award-winning fish and chips (and more importantly $4 beer).

TOP TIP: Jet lag is stronger than you are, don’t fight it. No matter how much you want to go out to Seattle’s answer to Moo, you will feel sick after your third beer and start to hallucinate.

Mount Rainier, Washington

My first experience of the jaw-dropping scenery the Land of the Free has to offer, and it was a good’un. Exactly what you would expect from the Pacific Northwest, towering pine trees, snow topped mountains and heavy Swedish EDM music. You heard right. We had the delight of starting the trail with another two girls who thought it was okay to play their inappropriate and shite music out of their iPhone 4. Thankfully (or maybe not so thankfully) we managed to get away from them, which leads me on to my next top tip…

TOP TIP: take your time reading the signs to avoid the following: climbing a fair amount of elevation, only to take a wrong turn and descend all the way to the bottom of the trail, ending up back in the car park before realising the horrible mistake you had just made.

Portland, Oregon

I was really looking forward to Portland – Liv moved their in May so she’d had a few months to scope the best places to take me through and allow me to have the ultimate Portland experience. 3 days to see the very very best of what Portland had to offer.

Day one – we were heading to the coast, to Cannon Beach, so first on the list was her favourite bagel shop and her number one coffee shop to fuel our two-hour drive. We walked to Prince’s, a quaint independent coffee shop, only to find out it had burnt down the week before. A shame, but okay, because a few blocks down the road was Bagel Land…which we then discovered was closed on a Monday.

Next on the ultimate Portland bucket list – Powells – the WORLD’s largest independent book store. I’d travelled 4900 miles and was in spitting distance – something I HAD to see. We headed Downtown for the first (and alas, only) time where Liv proceeded to circle the block multiple times in search of a parking space and became increasingly flustered before we headed back to the suburbs without getting out of the car. This was the day I learned Liv does not like parking on busy streets.

To cut a long story short, nothing went to plan in Portland but it was still great because we had a really good fried chicken sandwich and that makes everything better, always.

Bend, Oregon

Ah, Bend. This is one of the stops that Liv put on the list and I’m ever so glad that she did. This quaint little town is dubbed as the ‘up and coming’ Portland, which could never be a bad thing.

We headed out of Bend during the day to Smith Rock State Park for a supposedly ‘easy’ four mile hike. Perhaps the name: Misery Trail should have given us a clue but we genuinely scaled the side of a cliff. We kept crossing the same family as we’d take a break, restart while they took a break and gave each other words of encouragement. You can see us below stopping for one of 139403 water breaks on the walk to the summit.

Now, I can hear you all asking (or probably not, you probably don’t give a shit) how we got this wonderful picture of us two if we’re both IN the picture. WELL. You see that gent in the front? That’s Craig. Craig’s wife, Margaret, was the wonderful photographer who snapped this pic. Now, Margaret didn’t send us this picture on the hike – in fact, the whole family powered on ahead and never to be seen again…or so we thought.

Fast forward 8 hours, my first shot ski experience under my belt, and we headed for JC’s for a game of Giant Jenga. Somehow (probably fuelled by the horrific tequila & lemonades) we got into a 4 against 4 match with a family in the next booth. One of the ladies in the family came up to me and said ‘I KNEW I recognised you’ and showed me the above photo. And the rest, they say, is history. We spent the evening with Craig and Margaret, their son James, Margaret’s brother, Dave, and Dave’s daughter, Annie, more tequila, tater tots, chicken tenders and multiple rounds of Giant Jenga. By the end of the evening we had an invite for Margaret’s 56th birthday the following day. Unfortunately, we woke up the next morning, almost sober, and realised we didn’t really have an extra two days to stick around for the Reid family celebrations so got on the road again.

Crater Lake National Park, Oregon

DON’T go here with anything less than a full tank of petrol. Seriously. Yes, the kind people at the National Park Service have installed two petrol pumps and if you want to also spend over one hour of your precious time at one of the world’s clearest and bluest lakes behind SUSAN filling up her 20 gallon tank at the world’s slowest gas pump you GO AHEAD. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Somewhere between Crater Lake and Lake Tahoe, in the middle of absolutely fucking nowhere.

Sometimes, not planning in advance where you will be sleeping turns out absolutely wonderfully (case in point will come later) however sometimes the old phrase of ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’ shows its true colours.

Picture this; 8pm, the most gorgeous deep orange sunset you’ve ever seen over the stunning Oregon farmlands. Private farmlands. Private farmlands for miles. For days, we’d driven past campsite after campsite and the one night we needed a walk-up campsite to rest our weary heads (and slightly hungover, thanks DAVE), do you think we could find one. Hell no. But thankfully, in this day and age, we had the technology to point us in the right direction, and that direction was south, south for 100 miles to the nearest campsite. Thank god for Google, hey.

After asking for some local advice from the nice lady at the reception of Wild Goose Lodge, who informed us of the freeze warning issued for the night, we handed over $62 and a safely bolted the door. But what’s a trip to America without spending a night in a sketchy roadside motel?

Lake Tahoe, California/Nevada

Ah Tahoe, the land of bad decisions. We came, we drank, we left swiftly the next morning feeling extremely worse for wear, but stopped for a cracking view before we left.

Yosemite National Park, California

Now, we apparently don’t have much luck with ‘four mile hikes’. First, ‘Misery Ridge’ and then the ‘Four Mile Trail’ in Yosemite. This was a lie, it was 4.8 miles, and that was just to the viewpoint, and then you had to turn around and walk all the way back and to top it off it was THREE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED FEET UP HILL.

About half way up, we were informed that there was a bear on the trail and I won’t lie, I was shitting myself. I had three turkey and cheese sandwiches in my bag and I was convinced the bear would take one sniff and it would have been the end of me. But due to my below-par fitness levels and the lingering Tahoe hangover, by the time we got to the point it had been spotted, it was long gone.

Genuinely one of the most difficult things I have ever endured but it’s got a reputation for a reason. LOOK AT IT.

Highway 1, California

After a delightful 8 hour drive on some seriously sketchy cliffside roads, we made it to the coast to see the jaw-dropping views of the Pacific Coast Highway and it did not disappoint…the second time we drove down it. The first time we sort of missed it and almost got to Carmel-by-the-Sea before realising so turned around and drove back down. The views are MUCH better driving north to south just FYI. BUT when you do actually stop at the vista points – oh my god – preeeeeeety.

TOP TIP: Go to Kirk Creek Campground and get there for about 1:50pm – they will have a sign that says CAMPGROUND FULL and that is a LIE. They just put that up so they aren’t inundated with campers looking for a view like the below for the bargain price of $35.

Some beach that isn’t on Google Maps between Santa Cruz and San Francisco

Now we stopped here partly because it was too expensive to spend another night in San Francisco and partly because out of the planned 9 days of camping we had managed 1 and in order to not feel like complete failures in yet another aspect of our lives, we found another campsite en route to San Fran. Best. Decision. Ever.

Reason #1 – The campsite had a shower (it had been a couple of days) and flushing toilets.

Reason #2 – The campsite had goats that you could pet.

Reason #3 – The campsite had a trail that led to possibly the most beautiful beach I have ever seen that made me feel like we were the leading ladies in the latest movie based on a Nicholas Sparks novel.

THEN to top off the evening, there was a bloody sea lion just chilling on the beach. I thought it was dead at first and I nearly cried then it moved and we got all excited (see evidence below). We named her Baby and then watched her for 3 hours while being pelted in the face with sand.

THEN we walked back to the campsite with the most glorious sunset I ever did see and it was just the best day.

San Francisco, California

The final stop, San Francisco.

We basically based our trip here on this blog so for ease, read that for some great tips because I’ve lost enthusiasm for writing at this point. Although, I must mention that Ms. Doubtfire apartment was seriously underwhelming. Partly because we had dressed for windy San Fran and got 30 degrees and absolutely no breeze, then Google Maps said the 15 minute walk was ‘mainly flat’ which was another lie. We climbed another fucking mountain, got to the top, realised there was a descent to get the the apartment (what goes up, must come down and what have you) but I’d committed. Liv really couldn’t care less about seeing it so, to save face, I walked down alone, got an awful picture, got stopped to ‘talk British’ to an old couple from Minnesota, then had to walk BACK UP Mt Kilimanjaro. After the ordeal I treated myself to a cracking iced coffee at Blue Bottle – strongly recommend.

Speaking of coffee, we almost ruined our second day in San Francisco thanks to the stuff. When I say ruined our day, I mean we nearly died. We were in desperate need of some caffeine so on our way to explore Haight Ashbury, we stopped for an iced coffee which consisted of ice cubes made of pure espresso, 4 shots of espresso and a little espresso ice cube in the shape of a gun just for fun (America, hey). Fast forward two hours, we are back in our hostel, spaced out but wired at the same time, both silent and both trying to control our heartbeats (e.g. keep it beating). Bloody dreadful.

We somehow made it to Alcatraz (a must) that evening thanks to the mounds of fresh pasta we discovered in Little Italy which soaked up the excess caffeine and had a WILD last night (in bed by 10:30).

Before we knew it, it was all over, Liv drove me to the airport, we hugged and I cried, then continued to cry alone at the airport for approx 30 mins because the best two weeks of my life were over. BUT we’ve agreed to a two week reunion every two years, no matter what the circumstances, which is now written and binding for eternity xoxo