2014 Holidays

Lake Quinault Lodge, Olympic National Park

Cannon Beach, Oregon

Sunset over Astoria Bridge, Oregon

I have a bit of an issue here, and something I probably should have made into one of my goals for the year – you may realise I’m often behind on my outfit posts, my last one being from nearly a month before, but what you might not realise is how behind on holiday posts I am. Despite all my good intentions, I haven’t ever posted the pictures from my holiday in New England last July aside from the brief overview in September, and I never finished my series from our East coast trip in September 2012!! The last part was barely half way through the holiday! So, I wanted to talk about the holidays and trips I have planned this year and some places I want to go in future too, but I didn’t want to leave the rest of that September 2012 trip to go forgotten, so some of the more picturesque photos from the rest of the trip not yet documented are going to be here and captioned, so you know what’s going on! Some of these photos I’m pretty impressed that I took!!

At the Tillamook Forest Centre, Oregon

Also at the Tillamook Forest Centre, Oregon (clearly!)

Multonomah Falls, Oregon
So I’ve pretty much got my holidays for this year already booked up – Disneyland Paris with my sister in March (that was my Christmas present from my parents!) and Florida  (and yes, again!) with the family and Ben in April/May. I’m also planning on several smaller trips such as this weekend, we’re going down to Stratford-upon-Avon with Charley and Frankie to watch some plays and spending the weekend in a nice hotel. It’s likely that at some point we’ll also do a weekend in the Peak District (also with Charley and Frankie!) as Frankie’s family has a cottage there and it’s something we do frequently.
I haven’t got anything planned yet, but I’d like to do another weekend with friends like we did in November, somewhere close that’s easy for us to get to quickly and spend the weekend away, but feels like we’re far away from everything. One option could be Shoreline Cottages in Whitby – it’s our nearest seaside town and a lot of fun to visit with the arcades, fish and chips, and, of course, Whitby Abbey and the infamous steps leading up from the old part of the town to the top of the cliffs!

First view of Mount St Helens (from far away at our campground, Silver Lake Resort, where we managed to break their boat :/)

Mount St Helens in the sunset, zoomed in

Approaching Mount St Helens

Obligatory tourist photo overlooking Mount St Helens

Leaving Mount St Helens National Monument (we have seen so many of these sort of signs over our numerous camper trips!)
Because I’m now working full time, I don’t have time for quite as many holidays as I used to! There was one year where I managed to squeeze in about 6, but that was also including educational trips such as Greek Camp (oh yes!). But that doesn’t stop me from planning holidays for the future! The one big one that I definitely want to do (again!) is Yellowstone. My family and I did a trip (in a camper, as always) around Utah, Wyoming and Colorado which included the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, the deserts of Wyoming and Colorado, Arches National Park and Salt Lake City, among many other places, and is to this day one of my favourite trips ever. I really want to do basically the whole thing again so that Ben can experience it, so I’ve got that down as our possible future (nothing planned yet, don’t panic!) honeymoon, just because it’s such a big trip and will need a lot of saving for!

BBQ Pete’s, Kent (yes, of course I had to include a picture of food!)

Puyallup Fair

My and my sister’s arms and legs at Puyallup Fair

Seattle Space Needle

Seattle’s Pike Place Market
So in the meantime, I’d love to return to Greece (I’m just going throw in a picture here of Greece, but see here for the rest of that trip).

Random picture of Delphi in Greece, because I love it!
I spent 3 weeks in Athens and the Peloponnese during the summer of 2011 as part of a group of students from around the UK with the British School at Athens. I was super lucky to get onto it as only 30 of us were chosen and it is the one experience of my life I would happily repeat all over again, but unfortunately, I can’t go back to that same place with the same people and do it again just like it was, but I’d love to return to the country and see the same sights or go to the islands. There are so many ruins in Greece and its islands, Turkey and Italy that I’ve studied but never visited, which leads me on to Pompeii, a place I actually taught about but hadn’t visited! So basically, I need to do a cruise of the Western Med (I’ve got this planned you see :D), starting in Rome, allow myself a couple of days there, then Pompeii, Herculaneum and Ostia, then over to Greece, stopping off at Sicily, Cyprus, Crete, Rhodes, Santorini and any other of the islands in the Med on the way, then all around Greece (I won’t list every place, but definitely Athens, Delphi, Nauplion, Eleusis [my disseration was about there!], and Olympia), before heading off to Turkey for Troy, Ephesus and any other ruins around there, finishing up either down near Fethiye or Istanbul. Anyone able to book that cruise for me?!

Somewhere in the North Cascades (our trip through that part was quite quick!)

Also somewhere in the North Cascades (somewhere high up that my sister felt the need to hang onto me because she thought I might fall off the rock, and also cold, so cold that my ears and face hurt when we got back in the camper!)

Silverline Resort Campground in Winthrop

The town of Winthrop
So, that should keep me going for a little while in terms of travel, but there are many, many more places I want to visit some day. I won’t even start listing them because it’ll just get dangerous when I do, but Japan is probably my next big one.

Spotted Lake, Osoyoos, British Columbia

Grist Mill, Keremeos, British Columbia (which we visited with my great aunt and uncle who live in BC)