My husband and I had high hopes for our anniversary vacation. We were already going to my cousin’s Bar Mitzvah in San Francisco, so after the family weekend, we planned to extend our trip and take a road trip up the coast all the way to Vancouver, Canada. (See my post called Planning the Ultimate Vacation.) During this trip, we drove a total of 2,300 + miles, traveled through three states and spent our first time in Canada. The road trip portion was all done in a mere five days (Nine days total for the vacation). Don’t get me wrong, we had fun on our vacation — but there were definitely times we regretted this road trip decision. It clearly wasn’t enough time to do all that we had planned. We sort of knew this from the start, but we planned on going anyways. We didn’t really realize how MUCH driving it was and how little we got to see of each destination until we actually experienced being on the road trip. Others had told us, well maybe just go to Portland and Seattle and skip Vancouver. Or, just drive to Vancouver and fly home from Seattle instead of driving all the way back to San Francisco. But, we really wanted to do it all and had our minds set on this vacation, so the original plan stayed intact. We had considered driving back to Seattle and flying back to Atlanta from there, but the rental car company would have charged us by the mile instead of having unlimited miles. Being on a budget, we determined that spending $300 + on miles was not such a good idea.

We really enjoyed most parts of our trip, but there were definitely some flaws to our anniversary vacation. Here is a quick outline of our trip for you to get an idea of our schedule:

Days 1 – 3: Family Bar Mitzvah weekend including a dinner, 2 services, a luncheon, the big party and a brunch.

Also on Day 3: The Start of our road trip. We went to a Napa winery, the Redwood Forrest, and Drive thru Tree Park. We stayed over in Eureka, California.

Day 4: Eureka to Portland. Took Highway 101 instead of I-5 for a more scenic route, and because our GPS led us that way. It took 10 hours instead of the planned 7 and we arrived in Portland at night in the dark.

Day 5: Portland to Seattle. We never really saw Portland, but we spend the majority of the day in Seattle.

Day 6: Seattle to Vancouver. No problem crossing the border, but arrived a little late for the activities we had planned.

Day 7: Vancouver to Portland. We had a big long wait crossing the border which caused us to miss seeing Portland again in the daylight.

Day 8: Portland to Marin County. Marin is outside of San Francisco where my family lives. It was a long drive home but bearable. I actually started writing this post on a notepad in the car during the last few hours. It was nice to spend time with my family before heading home.

Day 9: Fly from San Francisco to Atlanta. We enjoyed a Belgian waffle breakfast with Canadian maple syrup that we got for my family in Vancouver and then packed up, returned the rental car and headed home.

One day to rest and then the next day was our one year wedding anniversary. That day was very special. We got each other traditional paper gifts for the first year. Mine was a personalized notepad and his was a picture of our first dance at our wedding with the lyrics of the song around it all in a frame. And we got some other goodies as well. We dined at a nice restaurant and it was a great meal.

Highlights and “lowlights” of our trip by Destination:

Napa Valley and The Redwood Forrest:

We loved visiting wine country and the redwoods. It was all highlights and no “lowlights” on this day. Our road trip started off in Napa. We went to Artesa Winery because I had been there before and wanted to show my husband how beautiful it was. The first time I went, it was fall and leaves were changing. It was truly breathtaking. This time, it was still on the tail end of summer and since it had been so dry the rolling hills were not very green, but it was still a very pretty sight. We shared a tasting and bought a bottle of Merlot that had been my favorite.

Driving through the redwoods was an amazing experience. They were some of the largest most majestic trees I had ever seen. The roads were windy, the trees were massive, and the drive was awesome. We also went to this cool tourist attraction called Drive Thru Tree Park in Leggett, California where, you guessed it; you can drive through an actual Redwood tree. We drove through although our rental car (a Ford Fusion hybrid) was a bit tight and we had to pull in the side mirror! They had really large cut up trees that you could take pictures with and a cute gift shop that even had boxes and other items made of redwood. It was quite an adventure. We also drive up Highway 101 on the Northern California coast and the Oregon Coast before we cut through and went to Portland. It was a very beautiful and scenic drive that we will never forget. We stopped along the way several times and took pictures of the coast.

Portland:

Lowlights:

The problem was we never really saw Portland in the daytime. Since our drive took a lot longer than we thought, we missed out on a lot of the city. Poor planning and unexpected traffic were the main culprits. Arriving in a big city that you’ve never been to at night and trying to navigate both by car and by foot is a bit daunting. We really wanted to eat at a food truck but were parked really far away from them so we ate at a neat burger place called Little Big Burger.

There were a lot of things we did not get to see in Portland, one of them being the Columbia River Gorge. It’s actually outside of Portland and is a beautiful park with majestic waterfalls. It would have been a great opportunity to take some good photographs. We also missed out on another pretty place to take pictures: The Japanese Garden. We really did not get to do a lot of the things we had wanted since we were there such a short time.

Highlights:

One of the few things we actually got to do in Portland was visit the International Rose Test Garden. I have never seen so many pretty flowers in my life. There are rows and rows of roses in all different colors. It truly was beautiful. And a plus, it’s free! I highly recommend going to the Rose Garden if you’re ever in Portland. Plus, they have a really cute gift shop!

We really enjoyed Powell’s City of Books. Being an avid reader, I thought it was a really cool place. They sell new and used books and are the largest independent book store in the world. It takes up a whole city block. They even have a machine that will print and bind books so that you can re-print a rare book or publish your own manuscript.

On the way back from Canada, we stopped in Portland again, in the dark. We set out to have dinner at this popular Vietnamese place called Pok Pok. Well, they had a 45 minute wait and we were starving, so we chose another place. We ended up eating at an Indian Restaurant called Bollywood Theater and we’re so glad we did. They had quick service considering the line was out the door and also delicious food. You order at the counter and then they bring it to you. The place was nicely decorated and they even had ingredients for Indian dishes that they sold so you could cook them at home if you wanted. It was a very good restaurant and we had a wonderful time.

Seattle:

Lowlights:

We always seemed to get caught in traffic on our trip, and we found that Seattle was one of the worst places for traffic. Parking was also an issue. Finding it and paying high dollar amounts for it. We parked in the Target parking deck near Pike Place and didn’t want to pay again to park later in the day, so we only saw a small portion of the city. When we left Pike Place, we were stuck in rush hour traffic at 5 p.m. so that pretty much kept us from exploring the city further.

After we left the city, we went to see the Olympic Peninsula. Rather I should say attempted to see the Olympic Peninsula. The traffic ended up being so bad that we would have never made it before dark. And you have to be there in the daylight to really see anything. We ended up driving about an hour to get there just to turn around and sit in even more traffic. We were a bit bummed and so glad to finally make it to our hotel room.

Highlights:

Pike Place is the place to be. Known for the fish throwing and being a wonderful marketplace, we loved it there. We walked in right as two seafood workers were in the act of throwing the fish. Pike Place has an assortment of goods from fish, to flowers, to fruit, to seafood restaurants, to crafts, souvenirs and boutiques. It was a very busy and happening place with multiple levels. We ate delicious seafood at a small place called Market Grill and later in the day we had ice cream in giant waffle cones at one of the candy shops in Pike Place. It is also the home of the very first Starbucks Coffee, which surprisingly didn’t have as long of a line as we expected.

Olympic Sculpture Park was neat. We walked from the Market to the Pier to the Sculpture Park. We saw some abstract artwork (sculptures) and even got a good view of the Space Needle. It was very unique and cool and definitely worth the walk.

Vancouver, Canada:

Lowlights:

I had picked a hotel to stay at because it was close to the Capilano Suspension Bridge and it because it was a good deal. Before we crossed the border, I checked on Google to find out what time the Suspension Bridge closed and it said 8 p.m. So we went to Stanley Park first and then around 5 p.m. we pulled into the suspension bridge parking lot. The first thing we saw was a sign that said “New hours, closing at 6.” It was rather expensive to enter the park and we didn’t think it would be worth it to stay for only an hour. I was mad beyond belief. So, then we decided to head to Grouse Mountain only to find out that it was too cloudy to be worth the trip on the Skyride. The activities in Vancouver were kind of a bust, but we ended up having a good time driving around the city and eating at a nice Italian place that the hotel concierge recommended.

My husband and I walked into a grocery store in Vancouver. The employees suggested we got to Wal-Mart or the Dollar store to buy souvenirs because they didn’t have any at the market. To our dismay, neither Wal-Mart nor the Dollar store had souvenirs either.  We ended up going to the duty free store right before crossing the American Border and getting shirts and other souvenirs there, but we were a bit mad about the time wasted.  It was a lot easier crossing the border to Canada than it was to re-enter the United States. We got asked more questions on the way into Canada than the way out. The line of cars was incredibly long. It took about an hour and a half. And of course our line was the slow line. The line did not move much so people turned off their cars since British Columbia is an “idle free” province. Each car is X-rayed before you cross the border and we did not know this. We did not declare our unopened bottle of wine because we got it in Napa. Apparently alcohol loses its citizenship when leaving the country and you need to declare it. Who knew?

Highlights:

While on our road trip, we forgot to exchange some US dollars for Canadian dollars. So, during our adventure for souvenirs at the grocery store, my husband asked the clerk, “Do y’all take credit cards?” She knew we weren’t from around there and gave us the tourist discount when we checked out. They were especially helpful. When the clerk suggested we go to Wal-Mart to find souvenirs, I said, “I didn’t know that you had Wal-Mart.” The guy behind us in line sarcastically said, “We have everything here!” Haha. Guess we sounded like stereotypical Americans.

Stanley Park was very beautiful. Even just driving through the park is worth it. The views of the city were pretty awesome and it was really neat to see the totem poles. I wish we could have stayed there longer.

Overall, we are glad we did the trip and saw a lot of places we had never been before. We covered a lot of ground in a short period of time. We had good experiences and some bad, but we did it. We completed our road trip, all 2,300 miles, and we now know what to see when we come back to the Pacific Northwest.

What’s your favorite place in the Pacific Northwest? Leave me a comment.