Even though I've grown up in Portland, I have never had the opportunity to visit Spokane, which is about five hours NE in Washington State. Thinking about it, I had never even been to Eastern Washington before! When David's cousins Paul and Megan moved last year we were excited to go visit, and we finally took a long weekend road trip last month!

On the way up we stopped in Kennewick Washington for lunch at a super yummy cafe called Foodies' Brick & Mortar. Before I became a vegetarian I loved hot dogs (so gross I know!!) so I was so excited to see veggie dogs on the menu! Kennewick was a really cute little town and the perfect halfway point between Portland and Spokane.

Our cousins live right on the Spokane River, and their apartment had the most gorgeous views ever. The leaves were right in the middle of changing colors and we enjoyed walking along the river and checking out the scenery!

We had a lot of family time and down time over the weekend, which was exactly what David and I needed to relax and decompress from work and life back home. We played lots of JackBox games (we are completely obsessed!!) and laughed so hard all weekend.

Besides all of the time at home we also managed to enjoy the beauty of Spokane and explore the city. We had a fantastic happy hour/dinner at Veraci Pizza, a great brunch at Central Food, and one of the best meals ever at Mizuna. On Saturday we drove to Coeur d'Alene for a few hours, basically so I could knock Idaho off the list of states I've been to! I'm just kidding, it was a very beautiful city but I want to go back in the summer- it was extremely rainy, windy and cold! We had a delicious lunch and some yummy beers at Crafted Tap House + Kitchen- the vibe was super cool and it was nice to have a hot meal after such a cold walk along the river! We spent most of Sunday exploring the small, but super adorable, downtown area.

Saturday afternoon we drove back to Washington and went to Arbor Crest Wine Cellars, a gorgeous winery set high up overlooking the vineyards. I'm so jealous I don't live closer to Arbor Crest- the grounds were absolutely amazing, the wine was of course fantastic, and apparently they do lots of great events as well!

We ended our trip on Monday morning by exploring Manito Park in Spokane. I loved the greenhouses there and seeing all of the fun plants they had there. The grounds were beautiful in general, and seeing all of the beauty there was the perfect way to end our perfect trip :)