This past weekend, we took a brief break from some epic spring cleaning to check out The Garden Conservancy‘s first Open Days event of the year in the Los Angeles area.

Held all over the United States each year between March and November, Open Days allow you to snoop around other people’s backyards and/or find landscaping inspiration while simultaneously raising money to provide and preserve garden spaces across the country. It’s a fun, romantic and altruistic outing, whether you’re traveling in a different city or simply exploring your own. Traditionally a mapped route of six private homes in one area that open their outdoor spaces to the public for one day, Open Days provide a unique opportunity to experience a neighborhood through its plantings, design, architecture and history. The volunteers who work these special events can generally answer questions about the people who own the homes involved, tales of the buildings and homes that surround it, why certain design decisions were made, what to call that purple flower over there, and stuff you’ll probably only think to ask once you’re surrounded by absolute floral magnificence.

Open Days gardens range from homey affairs to sprawling estate layouts, English country to low-water plantings, and it’s fascinating to see how truly gifted gardeners incorporate fountains, pools, waterfalls, patios, sculpture, lighting and a myriad artistic details into their designs. For garden and travel lovers like us, it’s also just plain exciting when we discover exotic plants we’ve never seen before.

These are some glimpses of this past Sunday’s Open Days event in Pasadena, California. Be sure to check out the entire Open Days schedule to see where you might catch some cool gardens in your area — or on your next vacation.

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Open Days are held around the U.S. between March and November,
on Saturdays and Sundays between (generally) 9am and 5pm.
No reservations are necessary, and all tours require self-driving.
Each Open Days event provides a starting point address where you can pick up a map of the day’s gardens.
Tickets can be purchased online in advance, or in person at any stop along an Open Days route.
Ticket prices: 6 for $25 US for non-members, or 6 for $15 US for Garden Conservancy members.

Travels With Two

Olympic National Park, Christmas Day 1997

There’s traveler’s wisdom in a simple concept: Don’t overplan.

We took our first longer-than-a-weekend, not-to-see-family, multi-destination trip together in December 1997. (And to think, we’d been together three years by then.) We put aside nine days to visit Seattle and Victoria, B.C., and the trip was cold, fun, rainy and exciting.

But when I look back, just about my favorite part was an unexpected side trip to Washington’s Olympic National Park.

That Christmas morning, we awoke in our Seattle University District B&B — the Chambered Nautilus — and felt itchy for adventure. With much of the city closed for the holiday, we got directions from the innkeepers and headed for the mountains.

Hooray for us, Olympic is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Sure, snow was rumored to be “spectacularly high” in the park and our rental car was a little Japanese affair, but you’ve heard the story before: You can’t stop two crazy kids in love.

Our gorgeous 2½ hour drive to the park included a ferry across Puget Sound and not a lot of companion traffic. I have a vague memory of Journey on the radio and some singing at the tops of our lungs…but I could be wrong.

We were relieved to find that the latest snow had stopped the night before, the road up to the visitor’s center was decently plowed, and there were only a few other people. We’d never seen anything like the view from the top of the hill (see above). Snow was a little over twelve feet high, swallowing the bottoms of huge trees. It was an almost perfect hushing quiet and the sun was crystal bright. We tramped around like little kids, lifting our feet high in the air and crunching them down on the powdery crust.

These photos make me laugh. I mean, at this point in our lives, when faced with this much glaring winter, we’d surely have on coats and sunglasses, maybe even boots. This moment was almost the end of the line for my ’80s Papagallo sweater and Adam’s early ’90s glasses, and it was a haircut turning point for us both. But the really tickling part is how excited we are to be together in a new place, far from our regularly-scheduled lives, just the two of us.

This was the trip where we became co-travelers.

Travels With Two

Adam and I traveled to Seattle and Olympic National Park in December 1997,
and someday plan to return
to visit the Museum of Glass in Tacoma and taste wine in some of the state’s 9 wine regions.

Here are some resources to help you plan your own “travels with two”
to Washington State.

WASHINGTON – GENERAL
Guides
Washington State Tourism Guide
National Geographic
Conde Nast Traveler
Frommers
Fodors
Anthony Bourdain
Globe Trekker
Articles
Sunset Magazine: Washington Search Results

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SEATTLE
Guides
NGT: Seattle
NGT: Seattle On Foot Map
Travel + Leisure
Food & Wine
Articles
Conde Nast Traveler: The Best B & B’s in Seven Cities

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ORCAS ISLAND
Guides
Islands Magazine

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MORE WA DESTINATIONS
Articles
Conde Nast Traveler: Whistle-Stop Tours
Travel + Leisure: 10 Coziest U.S. Spas
Travel + Leisure: America’s Latest Vintage
Travel + Leisure: Five More Wine Regions
Cooking Light: Washington’s Apple Country
NGT: Port Townsend

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Washington Travel Agents & Tours
Pacific Northwest Journeys
Natural Habitat Adventures – San Juan Islands
Washington Wine 9

Olympic National Park, December 1997

Travels With Two