our dear kat moved to washington state in march, and a few weeks ago alex, jeremy, and i flew out to spend a long weekend with her.

kat and brett live in tacoma, so we decided to have one nature day to traipse around a national park and one city day to explore seattle. it was a perfect balance of everything the pacific northwest has to offer, and it’s no exaggeration to say none of us were ready to leave that glorious weather and return to the heat and humidity of memphis.

nature day: mt rainier national park.

one of the highights of the area – and there are plenty – is the proximity to three different national parks and countless hiking trails. for our nature day kat chose the spray falls trail at mt rainier national park. after breakfast with brett at honey [that fried green tomato blt!] and a stop at the grocery store to scavenge some food for lunch, off we set for the park.

tacoma was super cloudy when we left, and most of the drive was pretty gloomy, but as soon as we got into the park the skies cleared and we had beautiful views. our first stop was mowich lake to marvel at the crystal clear water and to take lots of pictures of ourselves with the gorgeous backdrop. from there we headed into the forest.

the 2-mile hike out to the waterfall was fantastic. it was a fairly steady up-and-down, with one really tough uphill, and a little over halfway there was a viewing platform to get a look at the mountain. it was a great place to have a breather, and it was a beautiful view.

we made it to the waterfall and created a nice little picnic spot for ourselves, settling in with our snacks right next to the water. we rested our legs and fueled up for the walk back and took some photos with the falls in the background.

by the time we got back to the car and then back home we were all pretty wiped, so we gave ourselves some time to rest and get ready for dinner. we met brett at pacific grill and enjoyed some delicious pasta and seafood and drinks before heading home.

city day: all around seattle.

on sunday we made our way into seattle [about a 40 minute drive from tacoma], opting to park in capitol hill and wander around. we had a delicious brunch at bar melusine before stopping in at the elliott bay book company. kat had no specific plans after that, so we walked all around the neighborhood and popped into whatever place struck our fancy: we ogled furniture at blu dot, fawned over plants at glasswing greenhouse, and treated ourselves to delicious ice cream at salt & straw.

once we exhausted capitol hill we took off to the pike place market, strolling through the stalls and marveling at everything on offer, especially the [what felt like] miles and miles of flowers.

continuing on our journey we drove past the troll under the bridge [yes, you read that correctly] and made our way to little tin goods & apothecary cabinet in ballard for a drink. once we finished it was over to fremont to check out some goodies at pipe and row and grab a drink at the barrel thief [obviously my choice]. we closed out the night with some delicious thai food at kwanjai and then very slowly made our way back to tacoma.

we packed a lot into our two days in town, including a drive through point defiance park on monday morning before getting ready to head to the airport, a lot of house scoping so that all of us can move in together, and some episodes of it’s always sunny. it was the best weekend i’ve had in a while, and i am already looking forward to our next holiday adventure.

xx

*most photos are mine, but some are borrowed from kat and jeremy, with permission.

**yes, there are lots more pictures from the hike. there will be a full photo dump of those soon, because they’re just so darn pretty.