Spa..ahhhhhhhh Portland

The RV has been returned! We've had a wonderful vacation and lots and lots of adventures and learned a lot about each other while enjoying one another up close and personal. Fantastic family memories were made, goal achieved. Nothing can make you appreciate a nice hotel quite like 10 days in an RV. We have been using the shower facilities at whatever place we "parked/camped" at for the night. Rushed showers using tokens in 3 minute increments just isn't the same as a soaking tub with a dimmer and grapefruit shower gel, a clean towel and a fluffy robe when you are done. (Plus, let's not forget the absence of the necessity to wear shower shoes.) A king size bed! A big deal, when you have spent 10 days sharing a full sized bed (even with someone you love very, very much!) Yup, I could get used to this. I don't even want to go home. I just want to stay in this hotel for a while.



Since we were back in Portland, with an afternoon to spare, what better way to indulge than a stop at the Voodoo Donuts second location. Especially since we had to have some quick service done on the Subaru in the very same neighborhood-- how handy. Our very lovely Subaru service lady got our car in and out in 30 minutes, directed us to a very hip, retro restaurant (Doug Fir) around the corner. I like to think she was so wonderful to us since I offered her a bribe of the extra cheese from the RV that would go bad if not stored in a fridge. I mean, other than me, who can turn down an offer of Tillamook cheese? William decided he wanted the bacon/maple bar donut. I think it looks so gross. But he assured me it was wonderful. I guess for William (and Bill) bacon really does make EVERYTHING better.

We checked into our lovely hotel and took off for an afternoon walk along the waterfront. We all rejoiced to find a plethora of blackberries growing along the path. We ate as many as we wanted straight from the bush. They were juicy and sweet (as sweet as syrup, which is fantastic for this chic with a wicked sweet tooth!) Portland, with it's vegan friendly choices at almost every restaurant (did I mention that I had Vegan donuts at Voodoo--much healthier, right?) , the focus on recycling, reusing, reducing, and grungy/thrifty style is very appealing. It wouldn't be a trip for us if we didn't start asking ourselves, "Do we like this place enough that we would want to live here?"
If only the sun we have been enjoying stayed around more often, this would be our perfect city.

Cruisin’ Back To America: Seaquest Park, WA

Tonight we are at the foot of Mount Saint Helens. When Romney found out we were camping close to a volcano, he replied “That doesn’t sound so smart.” We assured him we would have lots of notice if it were going to erupt during our visit and that our “tent” had a motor we could run away from any scalding lava that may come our way. He felt better.

We started the day in another country, but not for long. A border crossing at Peace Arch took us quickly away from beautiful/cruel Vancouver, and into Washington state. Tomorrow we turn in the RV in Portland, so we knew that today would be a long day of driving to get us from Vancouver all the way to Mount Saint Helens, or about 60 miles from Portland for our early return time in the morning. With all the driving we needed to do, we only had a few hours to spend in Seattle. We googled “Top 10 things to do and see in Seattle” (we can do that again, because we are in the U.S.!) Other than the famous Pike Market Fish Market, the only two things we felt we “had” to do were the Space Needle and the Monorail. With 2 hours of parking (we had to park on the street in our big beastly vehicle) we weren’t sure exactly what we would come back having actually done.


The space needle was easy to get to, easy to buy tickets, easy to get on the elevator to the top and lots of fun to look around from up top. We can say we have “seen” all of Seattle in only 2 hours with the co-operation of the sunshine and virtually cloudless sky.




The view was stunning and clear, and from what we understood fromt the elevator operator that can be a rare occasion. Stating the obvious, in the Pacific Northwest even the sunny days often start off cloudy.

We finished “seeing” Seattle from above and jumped on the monorail to downtown to hunt down some lunch. The monorail runs through a tunnel created by the bits and pieces that make up the Music Experience Building.




Our luck granted us seats up front with the boys sitting next to the monorail driver looking out the front window. (Not sure how lucky the monorail driver felt.)


We grabbed a quick, but delicious lunch and raced back to the RV before our meter expired, loaded up and headed out of the city to our camping spot for the night: Seaquest State Park. Another few hours in the car, and we were there. It is a beautiful, primitive camp spot (with lots of bugs!) We stopped at the Mount Saint Helen visitor center, which had closed 15 minutes before our arrival. Not too sad, since the path around a wetland lake full of lilly pads was open and a much nicer way to stretch our legs than sitting listening to a park ranger give us facts that our brains just really can’t process right now. We walked the path to completion and got settled for the night in the RV, with the boys riding around on their bikes while Bill and I made dinner.


After dinner, our last night RV’ing was spent eating, reminiscing about our trip, building a lego model of the Space Needle and watching Star Wars Episode One.





Family time!

Cruisin’ Canada: The Mean City

Vancouver, beautiful and lovely, filled the with rudest people I have ever run across in all my travels. I love this city, I am not a fan of it’s residents.

We decided to spend the whole day biking the city, exploring and having fun. We made our way into the downtown area, staying on the perfect bike paths that surround this lovely place. Too bad on these perfect paths are populated by the rudest creatures. These creatures would jump bike straight for you in a game of chicken as fast as they could, even though the rest of the path was clear. These creatures would walk on the bike paths and bike and the walking paths. They would fly by the people (namely: us) who would actually walk their bikes in the sections that were marked “walk bikes only” loudly cursing us for being in their way. The creatures would hiss at us as they walked blindly in front of us (on the bike path) as a pedestrian. I heard a 20 year old girl screaming at a older man on a bike that he had done something she didn’t like. She kept yelling obscenities at him for another minute as she passed him on her bike. The servers are rude, the people in the parks are rude, the store clerks are rude. People it is sunny and gorgeous outside take a chill pill!

We biked all along the water line of the city, through Stanley Park and took a break to play at the playground that looked too fun to miss.





After our park play we continued along the water and found ourselves in front of what looked like Epcot Center at Disney World. It was the science center museum and the boys were excited to enter. We thought it would be perfect-- we could spend a couple of hours there and then head to the lunch spot just a few blocks away that was pre-chosen (a raw food restaurant called Organic Lives that had been recommended).

The Science Center was amazing. The exhibits were all perfectly kid friendly and plentiful. The kids favorites were trying to sink a pirate ship, bug skee-ball, the disco room, the skiing game, the mind control game,








panning for gold, searching for treasure with a metal detector,











lifting hippo with a lever and folcrum,












racing to save the planet by taking mass transit, learning where our food comes from and where our trash goes,











making a bass drum beat with the electrical current that makes their heart beat. The crowd was manageable and the boys still had tons they wanted to do when we left a few hours later.

We left to eat some lunch (the raw food, not such a big hit at this restaurant for the boys) and kept riding along the edge of the water to the People’s Market. Selling everything from fish heads to flowers, all things local and fresh could be bought here. We had some local raspberries while we perused the stalls of candy, baked goods, treats and sweets, and chocolate. All of us stayed strong and kept with our raspberry treat and moved along through the local artisans and back outside.

We decided to turn back and let the kids have a bit more time in the museum, they just weren’t quite finished yet. We stopped to take in the giant bird statues in the Olympic Village area, and then parked the bikes and headed inside for an hour.


And this is where the city gets downright mean...

Bill came out to grab the water bottles for a refill when he discovered someone had cut our lock and stolen his graduation, one of a kind bike! When he came inside he just showed me cut lock, no words necessary. His face said it all. He called the police to file a report, while I gathered the kiddos and filled them in. The boys were so worried and sad for their Papa. Bill came out from using the phone, calm and collected and together. I was so proud of him. The impression it made on both boys that Bill was so upset (I mean, we all know how much he LOVES that bike!) and yet there wasn’t any hysterics coming from him. They knew he was sad and mad, and yet didn’t take those emotions out on anyone else around him. The lesson that example taught them was priceless (thank you, Bill for being so amazing!) Bill took the bus home, while I biked back with the boys. We are all devastated for Bill.

Like I said earlier, this is a beautiful, cool city with much to offer a visitor. It just happens to be populated by some very mean people.

Cruisin’ Canada: Vancouver, B.C.

Another Ferry ride off the island today meant sun, fresh air, peace and quiet, and an hour of alone time with Bill. Leaving from a new port (Swartz Bay), we had promised the boys they could use their DS on the boat in an attempt to help William with his sea sickness. We sat them just inside the window and Bill and I sat on benches on the other side of the glass. They were in heaven and so were we. The water was much calmer today, and no one had any queasy feelings. The sun was out the wind was light the sky was blue, the scenery of tiny pine covered islands as we drifted by was spectacular and the company (as well as lack of it for a few minutes) was perfect. We are all enjoying being together experiencing all these new things as a family. So far any annoyances have been minor and short lived. However, 10 days of 24 hour togetherness later, Bill and I enjoyed a moment of silence together out on the water.


We arrived at Tsawassen Quay just outside of Vancouver and drove through downtown getting a first look at the city. Vancouver lies at the base of some spectacular snow topped mountains like Salt Lake City. However, Vancouver has the edge (in my opinion) beauty wise because of the water that surrounds it. (And the funny signs they post at lunch counters.)


We grabbed our bikes, after checking in at the RV park (and it is an RV park with all the visual connotations that come along with that-- tightly packed RVs on a gravel lot). We picked our “parking” spot in Vancouver because it was backed up onto the bike paths that meander through the city. Those paths will lead us all over Vancouver, from downtown to Stanley park and all along the water. We biked over famous Lion’s Gate Bridge and found our way to Stanley Park to check out the Aquarium. A very nervous Bill locked up our bikes on the rack so we could enjoy a couple of hours watching the boys watching fish watch them.

The Aquarium is really lovely and well done. We all enjoyed checking out the section of aquatic life native to this part of the world, as well as their amazon section, the sea otters, the beluga whales and our favorite, the dolphins. The boys thought the dolphins leaping up out of the water for the dolphin show was awesome.


Romney enjoyed talking through the glass to a giant sea turtle and watching him sift his food out of the gravel on the bottom of the tank. The octopus was a big hit with both boys as were the sharks. The sloth hiding in a tree was a nice surprise, one that was hard to find. All in all, a great couple of hours roaming through an underwater world.


Back onto the bikes we found our way out of the park in a maze of miles and miles of trails that lead off to every imaginable corner. We rode along the water looking at baby ducks, cranes, Canadian geese (of course!) and a plethora of birds I have no idea what the names of are. We rode past a lake completely filled with lilly pads. The most amazing part was watching both boys cruise on a gravel path uphill for quite a ways-- Bill and I were both stunned by their stamina and unwavering effort. They both felt pretty proud of themselves as well.


We made it to the top of the hill and enjoyed a moment at lookout point before crossing back over the Lion’s Gate bridge to drop the bikes and hunt for some dinner. We ate at a “chain” restaurant that uses local fresh foods and had a good laugh at the 3 TV screens all showing the exciting sport of .... Curling. Oh, Canada! How thee makes me laugh! Really, curling, eh? The uninspired sport of choice was balanced out with the most amazing fresh, personal sized blueberry pie that came as part of our dinners. Your sports may be bad Canada, but your food is oh, too good! I am going to have to keep riding my bike many, many, many more miles to make up for it. (Thank goodness this city has the trails to provide all those blueberry pie burning miles.)

Cruisin’ Canada: Victoria

Romney’s big joke is to call Canadians “Canadans” and call Canada “Canadia”. This has cracked him up all day and has become contagious to the rest of us. I am sure we sound completely intelligent and educated walking around the city talking about what we enjoy about “Canadia”.
Up and at ‘em the usual way again this morning. We picked up a city map on our way into town (in order to find our accommodations for the next couple of days.) The handy-dandy laminated fold-up map included the recreation paths around the city, so we thought we would try them out with our bikes (otherwise, it would be a total waste to have drug them across the border with us, extending the length of our already long, and difficult to maneuver vehicle.) We are pretty sure (only pretty sure because Bill didn’t have his odometer on his bike for this trail.) we did around 10 miles. We thought we would end up at what we thought would be a beautiful and large city park (according to the handy dandy laminated fold up map). However, we missed the “park” because it was not a park at all, merely a small gravel path around a lake. We did however make it to a grocery store for water and granola bars, which made our tired boys very happy.

After recharging the kids’ batteries with food and water (We are great parents to give them that stuff, no?) we dropped off the bikes at the RV, took the water ferry to Fisherman’s Wharf and got them some real food (ice cream and fish and chips, ya’ know real bad for you food.) We hunted down the double decker bus service that provides tours of the city, and hopped on. The boys thought it was super cool to be riding that high above the street and without a roof over them as well.



We all spotted souvenir shops from the bus, and the kids had been begging us to take them to some more, so we hopped off in Chinatown and let them spend their money Romney picked a stuffed moose, William picked a t-shirt, a stuffed moose, a keychain and a double decker bus toy.




I picked a fleece jacket to keep me warm in the cold of the evening, and Bill still didn’t find any “junk” he wanted to take home with him. Romney treats his stuffed animals as if they are alive still. I find it very charming and innocent (I hope he stops by the time he is an adult, that is no longer charming, that is mildly insane). He lets his moose shake hands with the giant statues we see around town. “Moosie” gets a front row seat at lunch, on the bus, and shopping around town. He talks to Romney and Romney talks to him. It is very endearing. William picked a stuffed moose to play with Romney’s “moosie” as one of his souvenirs.

We knew we would try and find our lunch in Chinatown, since that is where we were at the time hunger hit. What we didn’t know was that I would score and find a hidden little raw food cafe just as we were deciding where to go. Horray for me. I had a delicious raw pizza, half a slice of raw blackberry cheesecake and a superfood ball. Bill had the same, but instead of the superfood ball, he had a cherry truffle. The boys had a plate of apples, berries, carrots and raw crackers (and Romney had as much of the raspberry cheesecake as we would let him steal from us).

It felt good to have had such a great lunch, and we were all recharged and ready to see more. We strolled along the streets taking in the sights and then jumped back on the sightseeing bus for the entire tour.




The tour was an hour and half drive through Victoria. We saw both sides of the island (and a gray whale along the way, that was a highlight.), took in all of the downtown area, and then the parts of town our feet were too tired to take us to themselves. We drove past the “castle”, which was really just a mansion a very horrible person had built, and learned a lot of folk lore and history about the area. It was really a high point of our Victoria trip. The boys were a big fan of not having to walk to all of those places on their own two feet.

Dinner was chosen as a thank you to the boys for being such great sports about our raw food lunch. (Old Spaghetti Factory, if you are curious. Yeah, they don’t exactly live on the edge when it comes to their palates.) We knew the boys (especially our youngest) wouldn’t make walk home from dinner, so we had an adventure and got our selves back to the marina we are staying at via the city bus system.

Laundry and a Pokemon movie are on tap for tonight. It is our last night in beautiful Victoria. A lovely island, full of beauty and grace and people who say things like “sore-ry”, “for shoore”, , “right oun”, and “you bet”.

Cruisin’ Canada: Victoria Island, B.C.

Cruisin’ Canada: Victoria Island, B.C.

Today was a RED LETTER day: William and Romney earned their first stamp in their passport today.

We started the day by waking up to the sun shining over the Crescent Bay in Port Angeles (aka: the Salt Creek Recreation Area) There was a thick fog hanging over the water, but the sky was clear, blue and gorgeous and the temperature was perfect. It was time to pull out of our little heaven, and head to the ferry to hitch a ride to Victoria, B.C.


We arrived two hours early, parked the RV in the que to board and headed out to explore the farmer’s market that was happening downtown Port Angeles.

I always like to find a cool piece of jewelry as a souvenir of the places I have been. It’s my own little version of the t-shirt with the name of the place stamped on it. Then every time I wear that piece I remember where I was when I picked it up. The farmer’s market was a great chance to shop for that piece, and support a local artist. This trip’s piece is an enormous silver and rough hewn emerald ring. I picked it because I loved the sudo-victorian embellishments (for the Victoria part of the trip) as well as the color of the stone, which perfectly matches the color of the water of the lakes and rivers we have been exploring.




The farmer's market had this wonderful art piece in the center of the square. The boys were wonderful sports and let me take their picture in front of pretty much everything that wasn't moving.





After celebrating my find and grabbing a farmer’s market lunch, we raced back to the boat to drive the RV onto the ferry. The size of this ship was mind-boggling in the same way that a giant cargo aircraft is. How does it manage to stay on top of the water with as much weight as it holds? We walked around the deck of the ship, until the waters got pretty rough and William got pretty woozy from motion sickness.



Bill and I were also feeling a bit “off” for a half hour or so. Only Romney seemed to not be bothered at all by the intense ups and downs and side to sides we were experiencing on the ferry. The waters calmed and so did everyone’s queasy feeling. The sun and wind felt amazing and it was such a treat to be “on” the water instead of merely admiring it from the shore.






Victoria is a breath-
takingly beautiful jewel of a city.
It is bigger than I expected, and much lovelier than I imagined.








With hanging baskets of flowers from every street light, wild blackberry bushes, hydrangeas, roses, and every other imaginable flower (since I have pretty much named most of the flowers I know by name, not having much of a green thumb.)



We walked the entire length of the walking path that runs around the bay area (though Romney’s legs were pretty much done by the half way point.)





We watched the moon come up over the bay. We rode a bay ferry, stopped into shops, visited the famous Empress Hotel and dined al fresco, just trying to get a feel for the city.




All 3 of my boys are completely worn out from the day’s adventures. It is a lot to cram into one 24 hour period, but the city girl is much more in her element and has a plethora of energy still to spare. That being said, this city girl is most happy with her (notice I said “her”, since it is true the idea came from me alone.) choice to do this trip in an RV, and not how we had originally thought we would do it with our car and hotels. There are places we never would have seen or thought about seeing if we had stayed in only major cities on the way here. We would have missed some of my favorite places (Salt Creek, Ft. Stevens to name my favorite rural spots so far) and it would have been limiting to the experiences we’ve had. It has been a pretty fine balance of “rural” and “city” so far, the best of both. A yin and a yang to our vacation if you will. I am trusting we will all arrive home content, bringing that balance back with us.

Cruisin’ Washington: Salt Creek Tide Pooling

Oh Twilight fans who may read this, I feel it necessary to apologize in advance for not being fans, not even a little bit, never having even read the back cover of even one of the books, nor watched an entire trailer of any of the movies and therefore our Twilight encounter was wasted on us.

With that out of the way... another long day in the RV, but with sunshine streaming from above, all seemed right and warm in our mobile abode (Ewww... that kind of sounds like a trailer home, which I would not enjoy living in. Another Tara quirk: Creeped out by mobile homes.) We drove again along the coast on the 101 north passing through very few towns at all. It felt extremely remote for this part of the drive. However we did pass through Fork, OR. I believe this town (according to Wikipedia after Bill and I googled it) played a significant role in the Twilight series.

We knew to google it after seeing sign after sign welcoming Twilight fans and shops selling all things Twilight-y and then we were sure something was up when we passed a shop called Dazzled by Twilight. At least in my defense, I knew it had to do with the Stephanie Meyer’s series, and not the old Twilight Zone T.V. show like Bill originally thought. It was a dumpy ol’ logging town that was excited for the fresh income coming with all the fans. Not really all that picture-esque as far as towns go. (Although the pine trees surrounding the area were lovely.)

Water the color of an aquamarine greated us around the bend from Fork as we drove for miles and miles of stunning Crescent lake. The glacial lake was the most beautiful Bill and I have ever seen. Even from the road, the water was so clear we could see all the way to the bottom of the lake.

Crescent lake was just a taste of the beauty that was to come. We arrived at Salt Creek Recreation Area, our site for the night, greeting by a family of deer. A doe, a baby, and it’s father were all grazing on the small meadow next to our RV site. The daddy kept watch as I approached with the camera to get a shot of the deer. The boys were impressed with how close I was able to get, but with the sun where it was and the parents getting antsy, the shot looks like just a grassy field, but I can attest there were 3 deer in the shot, and if you squint just right, you just might see them too.


Exploring the area was an extra special treat after spending more time than we thought we would need to to get here.


We followed the path along the strait of San Juan de Fuca down to tide pools that had been carved in to the rock surrounding the cliffs.




The four of us marvelled as we spotted all kinds of life: sea anenomies, thousands of tiny hermit crabs, awesome clams and muscles, sea weed, fish, kelp.





We found shells and rocks polished smooth and shiny by the waves.








Bill thrilled the boys by getting one of the rocks to skip 4 whole times. (Romney wanted to make sure I included that detail).





















We spent hours exploring and hiking around the area, finishing up at some abandoned bunkers, enjoying the remaining sun of the day. We now sit watching the cruise ships pass through the strait from the warm and cozy confines of our cruisin’ mobile. Though still reserving my final verdict on the whole RV experience (not to be confused with the Experience of the Jimi Hendrix variety), I am finding myself thoroughly relaxed and enjoying our slower paced adventure into Canada).