That Time Of Year

Autumn is most definitely my favorite season!!

I LOVE everything about the fall!! I love the smells (cider, cinnamon, leaves, pumpkin), the crisp cool air, coming home after a long day in work clothes and putting on sweats and a hoodie and best of all the beautiful changing leaves and colors!! Nothing better!!
When I was up in Washington, we had a few different people ask us where we were from. We of course told them the great state of UTAH and a few of them had some cool things to say about our state. Well mostly about our mountains. Two of them talked about times when they had visited or passed through the state and how amazing and close the Wasatch mountains were! I, surrounded by new scenery, told him that his state was SO beautiful thought with all their amazing green-ness, water and pretty views. His response was something like, "well, yeah, that's true but I see it every day. You guys get to see the amazing colors on your mountains when the leaves change in the fall."

Was he not right??? All 5 of the pictures above were taken someone in the mountains of Utah! I particularly like the last one..... fall colors in the front..... snow on the mountain in the back! Haha, classic Utah weather (much like today).

Anyway, it just got me thinking.... just about how I probably take our pretty mountains and the changing colors and season for granted!! I LOVE going to new places and seeing new scenery, but I had never thought about the fact that people who don't live here love what we have, especially this time of year!! It has been interesting driving to and from work everyday this week! I have been more aware of the mountains, and how huge and pretty they really are, even if they are covered in snow and it's still only September!!

Adventures In The Evergreen State

It's been awhile since I've been on any kind of vacation..... well, for me any way! Traveling is one of my most favorite things to do, so I was really excited about this trip! I have been wanting to travel to the Pacific Northwest since about last August, and I was happy to finally be going!!
My awesome friend Christine agreed to go with me, and after finding some really good deals on a lot of things we decided to do it!

Our plane didn't leave until Wed night and it was such a long day waiting! All I could think about were the 50 things I needed to get done before I left! Of course I wasn't packed, so I was rushing about right until the time Christine came to get me for the airport!!

We didn't get to Seattle until pretty late. It was about 9:45 p.m. Seattle time which meant I was pretty tired because it was almost 11 my time. But our hotel was right next to the airport, so we were able to hang out and relax not long after arriving. I was SO excited for the next day and for our trip to really start!

(This is how close we were to the airport..... literally right outside our hotel room!! But I never heard plane taking off or landing! It was awesome!!)

But what would a vacation be without bumps in the road! We woke up the next day feeling like everything was perfect, because up to that point everything had been great!! We walked down the street to Thrift so we could pick up our rental car, and that is when the trouble started! We had booked our car online a few weeks before and our total was about $177. Well, the lady had me going through a bunch of stuff, and said that they would have to add some extra fees on. Well, our new final price was going to be $495!! Holy crap!! That is what I was thinking in my head!! There was no way that we were going to pay that price for a stupid car (it was more than double what our plane tickets cost us) so we had to walk back to our hotel. Stupid Thrify! We got back to our room and for a long time we tried to find some good deals on cars! We were in the city of Seatac, so we were about a half hour from downtown, so we HAD to have a car or we'd be stuck and the airport for 6 days! At one point we even considered renting scooters!! Haha!

After not really finding anything great, we just decided to get ready for the day, and talk to the front desk to see if they could help us. It turns out there was a free shuttle so a nearby, HUGE mall, so we decided to take it! We had so much fun hanging out and shopping!! The mall seriously was huge! Two big floors and on the third level there is movie theatre! We ate in the food court and went into lots of different stores! I was able to find a battery charger (I'd left mine home) and Christine found some cute shoes!! We also decided to see a movie while we were there (Julie and Julia), which cost us TEN BUCKS!! Jeez! And we even saw it before 6:00! Those poor people are getting ripped off!! But the movie was cute, and it was definitely better than hanging out in our hotel room all day!!

After a fun day of shopping, we went back to our hotel room and we were finally able to get our rental car situation figured out! We also got online and booked our Forks hotel room!!!

So the next day, we had planned to spend the morning in Seattle because we couldn't pick our rental car up until later in the afternoon. But, again we had more bumps in the road!! We'd already had car troubles, so I guess it was time for some hotel room troubles! We found out that morning that our Forks hotel room hadn't been booked because the hotel was full. Just great!! So we had to do some quick thinking and plan changing and we decided to head to Forks that day!

But more on that later!!

(This is us trying to figure out what to do after we found out our Forks hotel room feel thru)

After our fantastic road trip to Forks, we were on to Seattle! I was excited to be going to downtown and too see famous landmarks like the Space Needle!! Our first stop was Pike's Market! If you have never been there, it's hard to really explain how cool it is!! There are little stores all over, but people can come in and set up little booths too! You can buy everything from fish to flowers, necklaces to coin purses and fruit to pastries!! So awesome!! One of my favorite things was the flowers!! There is a whole, big long section where they sell fresh bouquets of flowers everyday! The flowers are amazing; the colors were so bright, and they have every single kind you can think of!! Some I'd never even seen before!! And then best part..... you can get a HUGE bouquet for only $5.00!!!

A popular part of the market though is the fish shops, which makes sense since Seattle is right on the water!! I was not a huge fan of the smell...... actually I HATE fish, so I held my breathe most of the time when we walked by those shops!! But, Christine told me about smoked salmon and she told me I had to try some! I was very very nervous about it and really planned to just swallow it whole! The guy gave me a HUGE chuck (to big to swallow) and I thought there was NO WAY I was going to be able to eat it. BUT................... it was AMAZING!! It didn't taste fishy at all and then I was pretty happy to have my big chunk!! Am I ready to eat other kinds of fish though......... uh............... probably not!!

Something else we did that was pretty cool, was an underground tour of part of the city. We went got to go down a lot of creepy stair cases and walked down a bunch of alleys while learning some pretty interesting stuff about how the city was started. The best part though was walking under the sky lights!! They are pieces of glass (that have turned from clear to purple) set into the sidewalk that let light in from above!! At one point our guide turned off the lights and it looked awesome!!


(From above)

(From below)

And a trip to Seattle wouldn't be complete without visiting the Space Needle!!

It's a lot taller than I thought!! I always love going places and seeing famous landmarks!! The Needle has a restaurant on the top that actually rotates and Christine and I debated for awhile whether or not to eat there. In the end, we decided that we were on vacation, so what the heck!! The food was crazy expensive, but it was pretty dang yummy!! When we were done, we got to walk the rest of the way up to the top!! We were there at night so the view was amazing!! All the lights were on and we could see lots of ferry boats and cruise ships going across the bay!! It was pretty chilly up there and it was the one time I didn't have a jacket, so we didn't stay outside to long!! (Hanging out on the top of the Space Needle. I look AWFUL, but it's the only picture I have of us up there!!)

The best thing about Seattle though was the scenery!! They are right on the water and because of all the rain there are SO many trees!! I mean, you drive on there freeway and it feels like you are driving through the Utah mountains!! And when you are actually IN the Washington forest.... holy cow!! There are SO many trees and so much greenery!! I loved it!!

This is driving on the FREEWAY between two major cities!!

A sunset view of Elliot Bay from Pike's Market. I LOVED just staring at it every time we passed it!!

I love this picture because you can see Mt. Rainier in the distance!! It is HUGE!! The first time I saw it, it shocked me for some reason.... I don't really know why!! Probably just because I am used to being surrounded by the mountains, and in Washington they don't really have huge mountain ranges, so this one just sticks out like crazy!!

This is the view from our downtown hotel room

The view from the top of the Space Needle
This is Mt. Rainier from the air. No, that is not snow!! Sure looks like it though huh?!?