Annapolis with the Mugs

April 27th - April 29th

What do these pictures have in common?

You may think nothing but all of these items were found in this AMAZING place we had the chance to stay in with the Mugs. Ok, let me back up a minute. Joe and Shauna sent us this amazing, awesome, super fun invitation a little while back for us to get together and spend some time together exploring an area together. We decided on Annapolis and then Jed and Shauna found this place...

http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p151554

It was perfect for us. A ton of character, space and a good location. I would definitely recommend this place anytime someone is looking to stay near downtown Annapolis. It isn't walking distance but it didn't matter, it is worth it.



Jed, Shauna, Joe and I with our favorite items from the house

 Jed and I have never been to Annapolis before. It was a really fun city to explore. Friday night we just spent time catching up with Joe and Shauna and exploring all that this house had to offer. We laughed and laughed as we catch up on life and reminisced about days of old.

Saturday morning, we got up and made a fantastic breakfast before loading up the car and heading downtown. Our first stop was Bacon sail. Tell me that place doesn't sound amazing! Who doesn't love bacon. I was a little disappointed when we got there and it was a sailing store. It was a cool place but I didn't find any bacon so I was a little disappointed. Joe picked up some used sails to make some recycled bowties which is just super cool. I hope it works for him. Then we were off to the Naval Academy.

We were able to take a tour of the yard and I learned so much! It was so much fun to walk around and hear all about life in the Navy. The tour took us into Dahlgren Hall first. This building was huge with a ton of history. They have an old ship hanging from the ceiling on one side and the first airport purchased by the Navy from the Wright Brothers hanging from the ceiling on the other side of the building. 

Our next stop was Bancroft Hall. This is their ridiculously large dorm. Every student lives in this building for the entire time they are at the Academy. They say it is the largest dorm in the world! They would only let you in the main area and they had a mock dorm room so you could see there living quarters.



Bancroft Hall



After Bancroft Hall, we walked around the courtyard and stopped in front of the Chapel by Herndon Monument. We got a lesson in a graduation ritual involving Herndon Monument and getting the "dixie cap" off the top of the Monument. It really made me want to try and climb the Monument! Our last stop on the tour was The Crypt of John Paul Jones. He is considered the Father of the US Navy. He was actually buried in Paris and they went and got his remains and brought them back to the Naval Academy to give him a proper burial in honor of all he did for the US.



John Paul Jones Crypt

After our tour, it was time for a snack. So we headed back to the car and raided the cooler of veggies, hummus and fruit. It was the perfect light snack before hitting up the ice cream place and the cupcake place! First stop was the ice cream place, Storm Bros. Ice Cream Factory. They make there own ice cream and it was AMAZING! We tried the Muddy Sneaker, it was really good. I also got a lemon cupcake to eat later from Sugar Buns in the Kitchen. The presentation was pretty bad but the cupcake was ok.

After our snack break, it was time to head to the boat show. We had so much fun exploring a ton of boats and day dreaming about owning boats and just sailing. The boat that Joe took on a sailing trip last summer was at the boat show so we got to walk around on it and have Joe tell us stories about what they did and where they went. It was really neat.

Jed & I lounging on "our" yacht

After the boat show, it was time for a light lunch and drinks. We found a place called Pusser's Caribbean Grille Restaurant on the dock and hung out, laughed and just watched the boats. It was really fun.  We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the shopping area checking out the stores and trying on silly hats & mustaches.

It wasn't long before we had to head back to our house to get changed and ready for the evening festivities. We were even able to squeeze in a few games of Ruckus before heading out to dinner. We had reservations at Aqua Terra. I really liked this place. It was right downtown, tiny little place with a ton of atmosphere. And the food was great! After dinner, the plan was to head to a jazz club we had read about, 49 West Coffeehouse but the crowds, live music and atmosphere of Stan & Joe's Saloon was too great for us to pass up. (That and Stan & Joe's didn't have a cover.) We had so much fun people watching, hanging out and we even whipped out the Ruckus cards for a few rounds!

After the first set of live music, we decided to call it a night but not before running into one last souvenir shop to just check it out.

On Sunday we spent the morning making breakfast and cleaning up our house and getting packed up for the drive back. Once we left the house, we thought we would explore other parts of Annapolis. We saw a cute little area called, West Annapolis with cute little shoppes. We thought we would go check it out. Unfortunately, West Annapolis was still sleeping when we got there. So we decided to head back down to downtown Annapolis. Downtown was packed with people. We decided that we would try and go back to the Naval Academy and go to the Naval Museum that we didn't have time to go to the day before.

I really like the museum. The staff of volunteers were so nice, helpful and knowledgeable. They were amazing. I learned a lot about boats, canon balls, the Don't Give Up The Ship flag and so much more. I think the most amazing thing there were the models of the boats. They were so detailed. They had to be since they were made to scale so they could build the actual based on these models. They were amazing but not as amazing as the models that were made from the bones left over from there meals! These models were tiny and extremely detailed. I still can't wrap my head around it but they were just so incredible.

The Original Flag

After a few hours in the museum it was time to start the drives home. But we tried to stall as much as we could so we stopped for a quick lunch at The Big Cheese. I love cheese and this was really good, pretty pricey but really good. We got a fancy sharp cheese and a fancy gouda with baguettes and headed over to the water to sit and enjoy each other and the view one last time.



Jed & Joe by the docks "learning" about Annapolis

 On our drive home we made a quick stop to hang out with Brian & Alayna before hitting the road. Our drive home took us really close to Fredericksburg and we got sucked into Carl's. I LOVE this place and it has recently opened for the season. Chocolate milkshakes are the BEST!

Our last stop before we got home was to pick up a quick dinner. We had seen the billboards for "The Best Dang BBQ in VA", so we decided, why not try it out. The restaurant is in Smiley's Fuel City building. This place is so cool. It is in a gas station and full of locals. It was a lot of fun to go and be a part of it. There wasn't much on the menu for me to eat but Jed did enjoy the brisket (I think). He says it is the Best Dang BBQ in a VA gas station.

We had an amazing time with friend hanging out and exploring a new city. I can't wait to see what our next adventure will be with Joe and Shauna.



Our Last Day in Washington

April 24th

Our last day in Washington was jam packed. Like all good mornings, it started with donuts. We found a place just north of Seattle called Mighty-O donuts. It was in a really cute neighborhood and would have been a really fun place to just hang out for a while, but we had a lot to see today so we grabbed the recommended French Toast donut, lemon poppyseed donut and the chocolate peanut butter donut. There best seller was the lemon poppyseed and it was spot on! I also gave Seattle another chance at the chai but I was disappointed again. Apparently coffee is there thing, on the only thing they can do for your morning caffeine fix. That was ok. The donuts more then made up for the sub par chai. It was better then yesterdays...

After donuts, we were on a mission. There is this town called Fremont just outside of downtown Seattle and from what I could tell, it is right up our alley. Our first adventure was to find the Fremont Troll. This thing is AMAZING! It is something everyone should see in person. He is just so cool. He hangs out under the bridge and apparently grabs cars.

That is a real VW bug under his hand! Check it out!!

After the troll, we headed to Fremont's downtown area. This is definitely a place I would like to come back and explore more another time. It just seems so chill. But in what I think is the center of there downtown is the Center of the Universe! How amazing is that? We have now been to TWO centers of the universe! This one and one in Delphi, Greece.

Fremont, Washington

Delphi, Greece

We found two last amazing things before leaving Fremont. The first was a very large statue of Vladimir Illych Lenin. No, not the Lenin you would think, the Communism, and the former Soviet Union, yeah, weird.

The other amazing thing we found we Sweet & Savory Pie. It was so good. We tried a Key Lime Pie and a strawberry rhubarb pie. So good and a really fun find.

After our quick stop in Fremont we had a very important stop back in Seattle. I was super excited about this place and it was worth backtracking a little just to go to The Yellow Leaf Cupcake Co. This place just sounded amazing and I had to try there cupcakes.

Jed just dropped me off at the door for me to run in and get ONE cupcake and then hit the road. I knew I was up to the challenge of picking ONE cupcake and heading out but when I got in there it was a completely different ballgame. Oh man! I knew the ONE cupcake that I had to have as soon as I saw it. Pancakes N Bacon. I mean, really, is there any question. It is a cupcake with bacon. Clearly a no brainer. But then all the other cupcakes were calling my name and I couldn't resist. So the caramel delight had to come with me too. Even though I was only going to walk away with ONE cupcake, I was pretty proud that I only walked out of there with two. It could have gotten a lot worse!

Oh and they were AMAZING! I could eat these everyday.

So after a quick cupcake stop, we were back on the road with a ton of options to check out. We were going to go to the Skagit Tulip Festival or Snoqualmie Falls but we wanted to hit the Canada border first. We figured we would head over the border, get our passports stamped, grab some lunch just over the border and head off to other places in Washington. But somewhere along the drive we learned about Capilano's Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver. And then we found this Diners, Drive In and Dives place, Tomahawk Restaurant. So then we just had to go.

Our first stop was Tomahawk Restaurant. This place was unique. They have "Yukon bacon". I have no idea what that really means but it looked like huge pieces of ham as opposed to what I know as bacon. I didn't love it but I think it is a place everyone should try.

Just down the road from the restaurant was Capilano's Suspension Bridge. It was kind Swiss Family Robinson for adults. It was a lot of fun but really expensive. We didn't have long before we had to start heading back to Seattle to catch our flight in the evening so we paid the crazy entrance fee to hang out for about 2 hours but we had a great time.

We left North Vancouver around 3:30 in the afternoon, plenty of time to get back to Seattle and even time to explore the waterfall or the tulips if we played our cards right. Then we hit our first hiccup. Traffic. Oh boy was there traffic. It was crazy traffic and we were not moving. We stared at the GPS and watched our estimated arrival time to the Seattle Airport get closer and closer to the when our flight was supposed to leave. It took hours to get through the traffic but after superb driving by Jed we were finally clear of the traffic and only one last small obstacle til we were back in the states and home free. We were both pretty excited to finally see this sign.

Just a quick stop at the border to show our passports and answer a few simple questions and we should be on our way to dinner and a red eye flight home. That is until we got to the border stop... When we got to the border stop they asked to typical questions, "Why were you in Canada?", "What did you do?", "Where are you from?", they put a neon sticker on our windshield and told us to go a different way then every other car. It brought us to a parking lot with what looked to be a closed building in front of us. There were only about 3 other cars in the parking lot and we were really confused. We had no idea what we had done and what were were supposed to do. We drove around the parking lot and found a guy in a uniform at a little hut thingy. We figured he could help. Through a lot of confusion, we learned that we had to go into the closed building and talk to people in there. They required us to fill out paper work to declare the $2 worth of post cards we purchased and then took our keys and searched our car. But no sweat, it only cost us about another 45 minutes to an hour to our trip. When we finally got through it all we HAD to stop and get this picture.

I think Jed summed it up best when he said, "We can't be the only people to drive up to Vancouver for lunch on a Tuesday.... Well, maybe we are." Definitely an event that I will not soon forget.

As we set off to hustle to the airport we saw this and HAD to make a quick stop to get this picture.

50th State!

Jed did a great job of getting us back to Seattle in record time. We even had 20 extra minutes to make a very quick stop at a Jamba Juice (the best) and the local favorite, Dicks Drive In. It was no In-N-Out, but we were glad we got to try it.

Seattle was a super fun place and I look forward to making another trip out west to explore more of it.

Seattle (Day 2)

April 23rd
Seattle, WA (Day 2)

For our only full day in Washington, we had a lot to cover and the perfect way to start was with donuts. We went back to Unique Sweets for ideas. Top Pot Doughnuts was only a block away from the hotel so it was the obvious answer for a great breakfast.

The best travel advise we ever received was to ask the people working what they like and what is there best seller. We ended up getting a blueberry (based on there recommendation), chocolate covered and a cinnamon roll. The blueberry was the best. Wise chose to listen to the lady that helped us.

After breakfast, we headed back down to Pike's Place Market. We had a lot of unfinished business down there. On our way down there, we stopped for a pack of grape bubblegum. Our mission was the Gum Wall. Before we made it to the Gum Wall, we stopped to check out the very first Starbucks.

After a little confusion, we were able to stumble upon the Gum Wall and it was glorious! It was so cool and so gross. As long as you didn't think about what you were looking at, it was great.

We added our contribution to the wall and we headed to our next stop, The Underground Tour. The tour was a really fun. We had a great tour guide, Richard that was fantastic. I would highly recommend this tour. It was amazing to see and hear why there is a city under the city.

After the tour, we headed back to Pike's Place Market to find a fun lunch. Jed was looking for fish and chips and found them at Jack's Fish Spot. They were good, I even tried them! I chose to go with fresh bread and cheese. We found great bread from Three Girls Bakery and headed back to Beecher's for cheese. It was a perfect lunch.

After lunch we decided that we wanted to get on the water so we headed to the docks and hopped on the WSDOT Ferry. It only too about 45 minutes to get over there and we had a great time hanging out on the deck and checking out skyline on the city.

We took the ferry to Bainbridge Island. It was a cute little island and after checking out all the things we could do over there we decided on hanging out at a coffee shop and take in the views for a little while. We only had an hour before we had to catch the ferry back to Seattle.

We found a super cute coffee shop called Pegasus. It looked perfect, great location, perfect atmosphere, disappointing baked goods and terrible chai. We got our drinks and sat outside for a little while but the disappointing chai and lack of baked goods was just too much for me. Don't think I would venture back there.

When we got back to Seattle, it was time to go find pie! Once again we found a great looking place using Unique Sweets called High 5 Pie. It was quite a walk to get to High 5 Pie. It took us about an hour but it was absolutely worth it! First, High 5 Pie's was amazing. Jed and I tried a marionberry pie. It was GREAT! We also got an apple pie on a stick for the road.

And secondly, on our way to get pie, we found this.....

I was so incredibly excited. This place was AMAZING!! I can not say enough great things about this place. The shop was super cute and the cupcakes were to die for. Just so good. We got a red velvet pop and Compost cupcake. It had coconut, coffee grounds, potato chips and chocolate. It sounds so weird and gross but it was AMAZING!!  If you are ever in Seattle, this place is a must in my book.

After our long trek back to the hotel, we decided it was time to head to dinner. I know it sounds ridiculous since we just came from pie and cake, but it was true. We decided that we were going to try a Diners, Drive-In and Dives place. We found a place called Bizzarro Italian Cafe. It absolutely deserves that name. It was such a unique restaurant. Crazy decor, and bathrooms you have to see to believe. It was a really fun place and the food was superb! We loved it.

After a talkative cabbie's gave us a ride back to hotel we spent the rest of the evening in the hotel lodge working on all the things we were going to do tomorrow. It is going to be a crazy last day in Seattle!