Day 1: May the Forks Be With You

My husband,Tom, surprised me with a trip to the Pacific Northwest for my birthday. (I think he was looking for a remote location to bury my body.) On Friday, we landed in Seattle and drove the scenic town of Port Angeles, Washington.

If you’ve never been to Port Angeles, then you have something in common with 99% of the rest of the world. It’s a small town on the Olympic Peninsula–and there’s NOTHING to do there (although I did take a jog in the hotel’s parking lot). But, this small town DOES have a claim to fame because scenes from a certain movie-series called “Twilight” were filmed there. I hate “Twilight.” It’s a movie where Kristen Stewart stares vacantly, mouth agape, and shakes her head each time she speaks. It’s a film where the men sparkle and werewolves don’t wear shirts when they’re acting human.

(Scene where Kristin Stewart “acts” like she’s going to a movie. Quality stuff.)

ANYWAY. There’s a scene in the movie where Bella (Kristen the Head Shaker) goes to a movie. THAT theater is in Port Angeles.  We paid $10 each for tickets to sit in a theater was laughably old.  I kept waiting for someone to take their place at a piano next to the stage. Although my husband is celebrity-obsessed (to clinically alarming levels), he didn’t take me to Port Angeles for  “Twilight” memorabilia (it’s also 50 miles from Forks, WA, home of Bella the Wannabee Vampire).

He brought me to Port Angeles because there’s a ferry that runs to Victoria, British Columbia. That’s in Canada for the geographically impaired. Which brings me to Day 2.

Day 2: Don’t Pick the Flowers

I don’t think the sun sets in Washington because when we got up WAY TOO EARLY to head to the ferry, the sun was already on its third cup of coffee–because EVERYONE in Washington drinks coffee. Even the pets.

We hopped on the ferry and voila (that’s French for “floated across the water”), we were in the beautiful city of Victoria. A tour guide named Mike drove us to the Butchart Gardens while regaling us with boring details about the area (i.e. median income, demographics, cost of gas–and his opinion as to why gas prices are so high).

My hubbie took me to the gardens to show me what REAL gardeners can do with plants. I’ve been known to kill everything within a five-acre radius of my yard–including rocks, asphalt and neighbor’s trees. But the gardens at this place were gorgeous!

(These will look great in my front yard!!)

Did I mention that my husband couldn’t walk because, the night before we left, our crazy-ass dog took out his knee? So Tom’s hobbling along, walking like he’s 80 years old. It was truly a “slow down and smell the roses” kind of day.

After returning to Port Angeles, we drove to Seattle where I ate my weight in salmon and sourdough bread. And then ate Tom’s weight in pound cake and Washington cherries. Tom rolled me to the car and we drove to a quaint little ex-convent to spend the night.

Now let me ‘splain. There were NO luxuries in our room–including power sockets in the bathroom. We were lucky to have sheets on the bed. And I kept thinking a nun’s ghost was going to appear in the bathroom mirror behind me. And because it was a convent, Tom got nun.

Day 3: Eat, Shop, Play

We started our final day with breakfast at Toulouse Petit, a fantastic French-themed place where I had eggs scrambled with Dungeness crab and asparagus. I want to live there! Then we headed to the Space Needle, which is basically a really tall lightning rod that serves drinks at the top.

The Space Needle was built for the 1962 world’s fair and reminded me so much of The Jetsons that I kept looking for the George and Astro dogwalk.

Then it was off to Pikes Public Market to battle our way through thousands of people looking for fresh salmon, cherries, hand-crafted jewelry and “authentic” souvenirs. I ate crab cakes, chocolate-covered cherries, nectarines, French fries and dark chocolate. I’d still be there eating if Tom hadn’t pulled me away from the market (I think I bit him).

Sadly, we went to the airport to return to Utah: Home of Wind.  I finished off my trip to Seattle with a frozen yogurt parfait, Swedish fish, Sbarro veggie pizza and pretzel M&Ms while waiting for our delayed flight to arrive. We pulled into our home around 2 in the morning and woke up with vacation hangovers resulting from too much good food and too much money spent.

Well worth it.