We went on on an actual vacation! We headed out to the Olympic Coast Thursday morning for a long weekend, which was so needed and so wonderful. The last time we spent a night away from our house was the beginning of October when we went camping in Lynden, which was five months ago. Before that, we went camping in July, but that has been it in so long.

Now that the weather has started to get better and COVID numbers are getting better, we definitely want to get out more. It had been too long since we’d left our house, and while we might not be leaving the state for a while yet, long weekend trips are very much needed these days.

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Friday’s Frugal Five

1. Instead of camping, we rented a travel trailer listed on Airbnb, located in a small “resort” and campground outside of Forks, Washington. Of course, because it’s in the Forks area, it has quite a bit vampire paraphernalia, but it’s still a great spot to visit.

The nice thing about renting a cabin or trailer is that we get access to a kitchen to cook our own food and have a place to hang out with the kiddo for some down time. We used to go on weekend adventures almost every month pre-COVID, so going for a long weekend felt like a little tiny taste of normalcy.

If you haven’t stayed in an AirBnB before, I would highly recommend it. We love the flexibility it gives us while traveling as a family – full kitchen, laundry, and extra bathrooms, and it’s usually considerably cheaper than a hotel, especially when you travel as a group. If you’re new to AirBnB, here’s a link for $65 off your first stay

2. Forks is a good three and a half hours away from Kirkland, so we drove my Camry hybrid instead of my husband’s truck. His truck is definitely comfier for longer drives and has plenty more space, but my car gets a lot better gas mileage, so we take it for our travels as much as we can. Of course, that changes when we are camping, either in the back of the truck or in our tent.

My car does have a car top carrier that we got for free when my parents bought a new home and it had been left behind by the previous owners. We did have to buy the top rails for my car, but that setup has definitely been worth the cost.

3. The Olympic Peninsula means hiking time, and we went for a long hike on Saturday in the Bogachiel Rain Forest, which was absolutely magical. I’ve shared a few photos already, both here on the blog and over on Instagram, but no photos does the area justice. It’s a fairy wonderland.

We went over to Rialto Beach multiple times during the trip, and caught an absolutely incredible sunset. Rialto wasn’t a new spot, but Bogachiel was, so another trail ticked off for my goal of 24 new trails in 2021.

4. Even though we did cook most of our meals in the trailer (purchased at some of our favorite local grocery stores out on the peninsulas), we did also buy a few meals from local restaurants, which shouldn’t be surprising in the least considering my goal of the last year of supporting our struggling local restaurants.

5. I did actually spend most of the trip offline! I bought a grown up coloring book from a bookstore in Port Angeles as well as a couple of hard copy books, which is rare for me. The kiddo also picked out Parcheesi, and we had so much fun playing together.

Between Women’s Personal Finance, my restaurant support group, and helping find people COVID vaccine shots, I’m spending so much time online these days. I realize this is a moment of time (that has now lasted a year…..), but I very much needed some time away to recharge. Four days was wonderful, but I sure would have loved an extra day or two.

Exercise Update

Friday was spent walking Rialto Beach multiple times, and catching that fantastic sunset. Saturday was the fairyland through the rainforest. Tuesday I went for a run at 6pm and IT WASN’T DARK. Wednesday was a long working meeting walk.

Thursday the kiddo and I hopped the ferry to Kingston with my mother in law, and we spent the day walking around the downtown and over to the beach park around the bay. Nothing strenuous, but I did end the day around 17,000 steps.

Have you taken any weekends away? Any in the works?