Over a beautiful spring weekend in March, I and my 11-year-old son went to the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington State. It also happened to be the weekend of the first annual Coastal Celtic Music Festival, held March 22 through...
3 “Not to Miss” Stops in Olympic National Park

Olympic National Park encompasses nearly one million acres— an outdoor playground of temperate rainforest valleys, alpine meadows, and sixty miles of undeveloped wilderness coastline. Last spring we spent a full week on a road trip perimeter loop around Washington’s...
Tenino, Washington: History Lessons and a Beautiful Quarry Swimming Pool

Tenino, Washington is oddly famous for two things. First, the United States Army has used a geographical map of Tenino as a standard in map reading/training since the mid-1970s (due to the variety of different symbols used on the...
Twilight Road Trip: Visiting Forks and La Push

As reluctant as I am now to admit it, the Twilight Saga book series by Stephenie Meyer somewhat influenced our decision to relocate to the Pacific Northwest from the Midwest in 2015. Scenes from the original 2008 Twilight movie featuring...
Finding Cape Flattery, Washington

Presented with a full week to fully explore Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula, finding the the northwesternmost point in the contiguous United States consumed a full afternoon. Named by British Explorer James Cook in 1778, Cape Flattery lies at the...
Exploring Leavenworth, Washington

Leavenworth, Washington is a popular tourist destination built into the edge of the Wenatchee National Forest about a two-hour drive from greater Seattle, Washington. We made a short detour into downtown Leavenworth on our way home from Lake Chelan last...
10 Destinations for Families in Olympia, Washington

Some of our favorite road trips have been to capital cities. Often presented with a mix of history and social studies, capital city road trips are a civics lesson just waiting to unfold. Olympia was no exception to this trend;...
5 Ways to Explore Chelan, Washington in Spring

Chelan, Washington is a wonderful family vacation destination. Why? Lake Chelan and the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest offer year-round opportunities for outdoor recreation from fishing, hiking, kayaking, biking, and even bird watching. And because it’s located in the heart of...