Travel Buddies

Half the fun of a journey is in the planning. It is the anticipation of new places and new people and all the details ... I love it. With our passion for travel, it has been wonderful to have friends to share the journey. Marty and I love our times with Jeff & Terri, whether it is a weekend hangout or halfway around the world, we just travel well together.

We all wanted to travel a loop from Seattle, up through Vancouver Island, back down the far west coast of Washington, Mt. Olympus, Mount St. Helens, Mt. Rainier. Beautiful part of the US. When I was in Uganda, the final details of the plans for a long awaited trip to the northwest came together - thank you, Marty, Jeff and Terri.

Here are the hightlights. First stop Seattle and Pike's Market.



From Anacortes, we took a 3 hour ferry trip to Vancouver Island.




Lunch at the famous Empress hotel and then we had fun touring Hatley Castle (set of X-Men movies) and the beautiful gardens



After a few days, we took another ferry to Port Angeles - on the far west coast of Washington and found a lovely house on the shore. Lots of beach to explore.


This part of Washington is a rain forest ... not exactly tropical, but lots of moss and tall trees.


Our last minute "splurge" was a helicopter ride up the valley to Mount St. Helen's (still active) volcano. Definitely worth the trip. And to "justify" the extra, we found a cheap place for the night ... it was clean!





Then on to Mt. Rainer for some hiking, picnics and the traditional nightly game of Spades. I'm sure the girls always won.




And then back to Seattle and home ... flying right over Mount St. Helens and Mt. Rainer.


We are thankful for Jeff & Terri as well as other close friends that we share our journey with.

For the entire slide show, watch this:
(Or double click on picture and view as an album)