After a difficult year financially, your mom and dad gifted us $600 to go to Yachats, the beach town we got engaged in. We stayed at the Fireside next to the Overleaf where I grabbed breakfast from for us.

We had The Green Salmon coffee and sat with different Oracle and Tarot decks. Our favorite restaurant closed, so we had BBQ from a food cart. We too a long walk on the rocks, thankfully stopping for some much needed water, but we did get sunburned. We explored the sandy beach for the first time which I didn’t even know was there, it’s cute! We found the spot where I proposed, and sat remembering how silly I was and how much we love each other.

We almost didn’t go! Can you believe? We planned our official honeymoon for the summer of 2023 to go to England and Scotland. A few weeks before we left, I asked… “We’re going to be right there, why don’t we hop over to Finland for a week??”

The whole epic trip was amazing and long, so I’ll break it up into episodes. Starting with Finland. I liked the idea of trying a Finnish sauna but otherwise wasn’t super interested and was asking primarily so that we could achieve one of your life goals and desires. The language barrier and unfamiliarity was a substantial trepidation for me, though I figured we’d get around just fine with your Finnish and by being American… I had no idea how much I was going to LOVE it there. The landscape, the people, the airports, the air, all the lakes, the fooooood. Grilling sausages with buns and mustard on the grill outside. Watching the reindeer wander past our cabin. Steaming and dunking and steaming and dunking. So purifying. So lovely.

First we have to talk about the airports. Finnish airports leave every other airport in the dust, in ruins! Bean bags, baby grand piano, bird song and bidets in the bathrooms, a 360 degree naturescape relaxation lounge, good eateries without all the fast food franchises, cushioned benches and recliners with No Fixed Armrests! We didn’t want to leave!

We rented electric bikes and had some fun going up and down the hills of Rukatunturi, stopping for a plate of reindeer meat.

We drove down to Seivi to find your ancestors graves, and toured an old schoolhouse turned into museum.

At our cabin we would take the row boat out and eat some sausages. I was feeling very sick, both from my mold and fibromyalgia healing process, but also from the massive jet lag, so you graciously did most of the rowing.

We went to a reindeer farm too meet some amazing creatures, feed and pet them, and learn so much about them, including that every reindeer in Finland is property; there are no wild reindeer. Also the southern half of Finland must keep all reindeer in corrals, but the northern half has them tagged and wandering free, which was great because there were so many wandering the streets and through our cabin property.

Since we tacked on Finland to the beginning of the trip after already purchasing the England flights, we had 11 flights in total, 4 just to get to Finland. I was so thankful I could bring my THC vape through all security checkpoints, cause I needed that SO BAD the whole trip.

We take a stroll through Oulu at the end of our trip and find a market and shops, which is awesome because I lost my wedding ring in the lake at our cabin and needed a replacement asap.

For Part 2 of our trip, we went on a massive tour of England. ADD LINK

And Part 3, we tour Scotland in a camper van. ADD LINK

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