Happy Anniversary, Amanda Renee!!!
Amanda and I celebrated our first anniversary last weekend on the Washington State peninsula, a place where few tourists venture because of its distance from Seattle, but unquestionably one of the most beautiful places in the U.S. Seriously, where else do you see sea, land and mountains so dramatically (reference the picture above)?
As you can see below, we started our trip traveling from Tacoma to Hood Canal, where I had a speaking engagement, and drove up the east coast of the peninsula on Highway 101. 
We stopped at Mt. Walker to take in the views of the North Cascade and Olympics on one side and Seattle and Mt. Rainier on the other. It was like taking the vantage point of the Olympics when they stare back at you in Seattle.
We spent the night at Port Townsend, and Amanda loved the town so much that she has since begun a housing search there. Not like that'd ever happen! Still, I'm all for wishful thinking and vacation homes. We stayed at Palace Hotel, a former brothel, that I'd highly recommend.
Then we took a ferry ride over to Whidbey Island.
We stopped on Whidbey Island to enjoy Fort Casey, where I used to have soccer camps as a youth!
From there we continued north and stopped at Deception Pass to hike around and walk on the bridge. Very cool!
As you can see from the photos, the weather was spectacular all weekend... until we got to Bellingham. It was overcast and rainy. Nevertheless, we drank well, ate well and concluded a great anniversary celebration!