We just got back from two weeks in the Northwest where we visited both Seattle and Portland. Both Seattle and Portland are both on the list of possible places for Amy and I to retire. While we liked Seattle, we preferred Portland over Seattle. Seattle was just too crowded and hard to get around in comparison. We did like the islands surrounding Seattle and the suburbs. It is unlikely that we could find a house we could afford in Seattle or in Portland, so we’d likely end up in the suburbs in any case.

We spent one week in each city. For a few days we’d look at neighborhoods and homes, and for a few days we’d play tourist. It was a lot of driving, but worth finding out if we’d want to live somewhere before we actually moved there.

Here’s some pictures from our trip.

You must start our with the Seattle Troll. It lives under a bridge.

We took the Seattle Underground Tour. The city was originally located on a mudflat and prone to a wide range of problems, most notably exploding toilets. The response was to fill in the streets until the second floors became the first floors, and the first floors became basements. The underground tour takes you through the basements.

One of the days in Seattle, we took a ferry and toured the islands.

We visited Coupeville, and nice seaside town. You suppose to be able to see whales from there, but there were none to be seen the day we showed up.

We visited the Snoqualmie Falls, which is a hydroelectric dam / waterfall. It is really nice, but it would have been better to bring a stroller instead of carrying Adrian down the trail. He gets heavy really pretty quickly.

There is a place called Deception Pass. It includes a bridge that allows you to walk across. It also has some trails below that you can take.

We stumbled across Fort Casey State Park. I didn’t know that there were forts in Washington before WWI. It has beautiful views and I can imagine being stationed there just watching the sunset. I’m not sure I’d want to be there in the middle of a bad winter.

We left the islands on the ferry as the sun was setting. It allowed for some great pictures, although it is hard to have a steady camera at night on a moving boat.

After all the fun in Washington, we headed to Oregon. I didn’t take as many photos in Oregon as I focused on watching Adrian as we ran around. We did get to see some beautiful waterfalls that are located east of Portland.

Overall the trip was good. At the end we were ready to come home. We ended up being stranded in Houston due to weather. There was terrible fog back home, so our flight was cancelled. We ended up “sleeping” at the airport and flying into Mobile. From there we rented a car and drove to the home. Not the ending we were hoping for, but it did get us home only one day late.