My One Day Trip to Vancouver, WA

I still can’t believe I went alll the way to Washington and back in ONE DAY. The main reason I went was to be there for inspections for the house we made an offer on (which ended up not working out-I’ll explain don’t worry!) I’m going to share everything I did later in this post, which was mostly driving around and looking at photography spots and getting a feel for where we’ll be living soon, but first just let me tell you the timeline of this trip. I have NEVER had a trip this short! I woke up at 3 am in order to get to my flight on time, got there about 10 am, had to be at the airport in Portland at 4 pm, and then didn’t get home and in bed until 1 am. I just want to call your attention to two things: 1. I was awake for almost 24 hrs straight and 2. I really only had 6 hrs to actually spend in the Portland/Vancouver area. I still tried to make the most of my time though!

Stop 1: Government Cove Peninsula

The first thing I did was drive to Government Cove Peninsula. This was a spot that came up in my own research of cool areas to do sessions, and I also had another photographer in the area tell me she does a lot of sessions there, so I definitely wanted to check it out. It was, of course, a very rainy day so I just had to roll with it and explore in rainy and muddy conditions. I’m sure it’ll be old news soon, but I’m definitely not used to it yet. Even with the rain, it was BEAUTIFUL. It was so green in spots it was almost fluorescent. And there was this gorgeous fog rolling off the mountains that just added to the whole moody scene.

Tree branches covering a big rock with moss at Government Cove Peninsula

Fog rolling over mountains with a lake at its base in Columbia River Gorge

Trees and rocky landscape at Government Cove Peninsula in the Pacific Northwest

A green shore, big river, and mountains in the background at the Columbia River Gorge

Stop 2: Bridge of The Gods

This was something I had no clue even existed, but it’s a metal bridge spanning the Columbia River so that you can cross from the Oregon side to the Washington side. It has a small toll of $3 which I happily paid to experience this cool bridge over the river. I tried to take pictures of the view off the sides of the bridge, but couldn’t do that very safely and I wasn’t getting good images anyways so I quickly gave up.

Stop 3: Heritage Park in Camas

This was another park that had come up as an option for where to do outdoor sessions. I’m honestly not sure if this is a good option for me-it’s a really cute park, but it’s surrounded by houses and has a playground that is VERY visible. I know from experience that this can be very distracting, especially for my younger families. So we’ll see if I end up using this little park for sessions or not. It did have these cute flowering trees with really light pink blossoms which I thought was really pretty.

Two flowering trees with pink flowers at Heritage Park in Camas, WA

Close-up of blossoms from pink flowering tree

Stop 4: Lunch at La Provence

Holy yum. I’m that nerdy person who checks for new restaurants to go to when I’m in a new place, and I also check the reviews. This one had a solid 4.5 stars so I was expecting it to be good, but probably not anything more than that. Boy was I wrong. It was DELISH. I got a sandwich and the soup of the day, and I was so sad I couldn’t get the rest of that soup to go because I would’ve happily had that as leftovers. And I didn’t even get to try any of their bakery items! Because of this experience, I’m kiiiind of getting the impression we just might be moving to an area with excellent food and I am so excited.

Stop 5: The house

I really really wanted to try and make it to one more possible spot for sessions, but I was so tired at this point that I just decided to head to the house. Even just driving by it was nice to see in person-I thought it was a dark navy blue but it ended up looking more plum purple which was a surprise. I drove around the neighborhood to get a feel for it, then waited for my realtor to get to the house. As I walked the house I was just trying to have a good attitude but . . . I didn’t love it. The layout wasn’t my favorite and the way the windows were in the main room made it very dark which made it feel a bit smaller. I was still thinking, “It’s ok, we can make this work.” That was when the inspector started telling me everything that was wrong with the house. To give you some background, the backyard was very steeply sloped with two huge trees, and that slope was stopped by a retaining wall that separated the yard from the deck. Yeah, turns out we would need to replace the retaining wall and the entire deck because of all the pressure from that steep slope causing everything to start to fall and warp. On top of this there was also erosion from the soil so that it was contacting the house higher than it should be, the trees would either need to be removed for $3-5k each or upkept for about $5k a year, and the heater would need to be replaced very soon. All that added up to feeling like this house was a money pit and we decided to back out. It was a bit frustrating to make all the effort to travel out to see a house that we ended up not wanting, but at the same time it was really good that I saw it in person. And everything worked out! We got a house that I feel a lot better about.