Trip Ideas

Northwest Bucket List: August

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When you’re a hiker and it’s August, the days are just packed. Blooming wildflowers carpet alpine meadows of nearly every peak in the Cascades and Olympics, and their window of peak beauty is only open for a few weeks. But it’s not just trails of the high country competing for attention on your days off. […]

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Great County Fairs in Oregon

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  I grew up in a small town in southern Illinois that had been settled by Swiss/German Catholic farmers a few centuries ago. Instead of a county fair, we had a fair every August called Kirchenfest on the sprawling church parking lot, and my Dad was in charge of making the funnel cakes. He usually let […]

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Five Great County Fairs in Washington State

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It’s August, otherwise known throughout the USA as Fair Season! My childhood memories from the county fair where I grew up in rural Illinois are coated in sugar. Puffs of blue cotton candy, popsicles colored like the American flag, a plate of funnel cakes dusted with a heavy coat of sweet powder. Go to any county […]

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Quick Escape: Sequim on the Olympic Peninsula

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Most people think the Olympic Peninsula town of Sequim (pronounced Skwim) is a retirees’ enclave with year-round sunshine set in a rural landscape dotted with fragrant fields of purple lavender. And indeed, it is. But Sequim is slowly changing, and offers more to its visitors than sunshine and lavender (not that there’s a single thing wrong […]

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Northwest Bucket List for July

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When I was a kid, we always had lots of sparklers. I couldn’t imagine a 4th of July without them. But we set off loud, dangerous things, too. Bottle rockets and cherry bombs and black cats. One year my brother and I pooled our cash for a roman candle, and we were so excited to […]

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Stay and Play: Mount Baker Farm on Orcas Island

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It’s not too late to plan a summertime visit to Orcas Island!  Dramatic coastline, mountain lakes, pastoral farmland and quaint island villages are calling your name.  And in the middle of it all is a wonderful new place to stay. Presented to our readers by Heather Wallace on behalf of Mt. Baker Farm. There are […]

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Northwest Bucket List for June

Summer is just around the corner now. Are you feeling it yet? For me, I feel it the first warm evening we go out for ice cream after dinner, to my son’s favorite double-scoop shop in West Seattle, Husky Deli. As I type this, wearing a wool jumper, I think we’re not there quite yet. […]

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Quick Escape: Family Jaunt to San Juan Island

Lopez, Shaw, Orcas, San Juan… for many Pacific Northwesterners, these words are synonymous with one thing: vacation! Of the four San Juan Islands reachable by ferry, San Juan Island is my favorite easy family getaway. It’s definitely the easiest island to escape to sans car. The ferry drops you off in the town of Friday […]

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Tips for Saving Gas on your Next Road Trip

Just when you thought gas prices wouldn’t go any higher, they have. I filled up our Volvo wagon yesterday for the first time in weeks and the gas was $3.24 per gallon. Ouch. Several years back, my husband and I made the climate-friendly decision to cut down on our air travel and reduce our greenhouse […]

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Trip Guide: John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

This sunny Central Oregon treasure is the perfect spring escape for hikers and rockhounds. At first glance, you see a stunning landscape with multicolored badlands and eroded pinnacles. And you think, this looks like Utah, or maybe even another planet. But it’s right here in the Pacific Northwest. The John Day River cuts trenches through […]

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