California Dreamin'

Saying so long to Portland, Oregon our crew hitched the trailer and rode back out to the country. Before crossing into California, we decided to visit the world’s deepest lake at Crater Lake National Park.

An even more pleasant surprise was the beautiful Broken Arrow campground run by the U.S. Forest Service. From our site, we rode the excellent eleven mile bike path around Diamond Lake. 

The California coast was socked in when we finally arrived, but that didn’t stop the boys from enjoying the surf. 

The main attraction for us in Northern California wasn’t the water. It was the trees. 

Redwoods State and National Parks made us feel like Lilliputians. The trail we walked in the Prairie Creek area gave us a great sampling of redwood majesty.

The drive through Avenue of the Giants further south almost made our wagon train feel small.

Hiking off of the Avenue also gave us some great new perspectives on the redwoods. 

The redwoods have been one of our favorite parts of this trip.

Shifting gears significantly, we dove back into city mode with a visit to San Francisco. We hit a number of tourist highlights including a ride across the Golden Gate Bridge, people-watching at Fisherman’s Wharf, a steep cable car ride

and a visit to Chinatown where we enjoyed an authentic meal and also witnessed fortune cookies being made.

Down by the water, Atticus joined right in with a street musician’s rendition of the YMCA. 

After he finished dancing, we walked into a great, off-beat find: The Musee Mecanique. 

The museum was more like an arcade than a museum, but it mainly showcased fully-functional antique amusements. We gave each boy a handful of quarters and let them be entertained by these machines—some nearly 100 years old.

Four dollars in quarters gave a great return in this unique spot.

Next up is SoCal, but before signing off, here’s a parting shot from our visit to Yosemite National Park along the way.

Urban Adventures

Glad to be back south of the 49th parallel, we meandered through the Pacific Northwest over the course of two weeks. With so much to see and do, we opted to spend the majority of our time taking in the fun urban offerings. However, we did squeeze in a few more beautiful mountains too.

We couldn’t just settle for distant views of snow-covered Mounts Baker, Rainier, and Hood. So we drove to the heart of the Olympic mountain range in Olympic National Park and hiked to get great panoramas of Mt. Olympus and the salt water border around the peninsula.

And while bike riding on the peninsula we discovered that it was prime blackberry season. One stretch along the Olympic Discovery Trail kept us busy until we could pick no more.

In downtown Seattle, we discovered a National Park we’d previously not known about: Klondike National Historical Park. In our brief visit, we learned the importance of Seattle as a launching point for gold prospectors. The boys interacted with the exhibit enough to complete their Jr. Ranger booklets and earn a badge.

Nearby at Boeing’s airstrip, the Museum of Flight enamored us all even if portions were over some of our heads.

Highlights for us included the kid-oriented Flight Zone and the Airpark where we could board planes as unique as the Concorde and this retired flyer:

Of course no visit to Seattle would be complete without a visit to Pike Place Market.

We bypassed the line for the original Starbucks but did enjoy watching sockeye salmon tossed between fish mongers. Our sampling of the city gave us positive vibes, but not quite as much as our next stop.

Portland. Arriving on a weekend, we were able to scoot into the city with minimal traffic and parking issues. We spent hours strolling the Saturday Market (even though it was Sunday) where we shopped from local artisans, sampled foods, watched peaceful protests, and then ultimately let the boys beat the heat at one of the city’s fountains while Shelly explored the Pearl District on her own.

We met back up for four spoons and ten scoops that vanished quickly.

A day later, we found ourselves in the stands at the Little League Softball World Series watching the Southwest USA team topple the Asia/Pacific representatives from the Philippines. When the game let out, the thermometer read 106 degrees so we visited a cool spot in the Pearl District.

And on our last full day in Portland, we took advantage of two-for Tuesdays at Oaks Park—a classic amusement park some claim to be the oldest, continuously-run amusement park in the country. Rides ranged from the extreme

to the tame

but it was the moderate that had Shelly saying “Never again.”

To finish our day at this classic park, the boys got their first old-time skating experience at the park’s roller skating rink. Complete with pipe organ, this rink was the real deal.

Shelly and I even got to skate a couple laps—holding hands—during the couples’ skate. Old fashioned romance.

As cities go, Portland suited us. Portlandia could riff on my laundromat experience: Switching over laundry, I overheard one guy from New York telling another guy from Washington that he’d driven across the country with his girlfriend so that they could live in the most bike-friendly city in the country. The Washingtonian mentioned that he was in Portland because he was going to bike mechanic school to start a second career as a concierge bike mechanic. When he offered up free bike tunes I joined the conversation and wound up having him come to our campsite to tune up one of our bikes. [Could be another addition to the Good Sam post.] Some of the stereotypes are either true or are self-fulfilling prophecies. 

Either way, the Pacific Northwest has been good to us and Portland the best.

O Canada!

You probably picked up from our last post that our decision to hop the northern border was a good one. But it came with some challenges. We noticed quickly that expenses ran higher in Canada--everything from food to gas (over $5/gallon) to park entrance fees exceeded our norms. Permission to burn a campfire cost an additional $8 nightly on top of campsite fees (we decided to do without the ambiance). And no fault of Canada's, but the Trans-Canadian Highway was where we dragged bikes for a second time on our road trip. O Canada! You're getting expensive!

Perhaps it was the mounting expenses. Perhaps it was jadedness from seeing so many beautiful places back to back. Whatever the reason, Shelly and I found ourselves almost daring Canada to impress us. So we drove to Banff National Park to see what it had to offer.

Right away, we could see beautiful Rocky Mountains as beautiful as we had seen.

And the bear-watching hit new heights (a total of 18 we think).

Famed Lake Louise in Banff impressed us with its turquoise waters and mountainous amphitheater.

Trail riding along Lake Louise's Bow River was perfect for our family and beautiful to boot.

And by far the best stretch of road we drove was the Icefields Parkway between Banff and Jasper. Dozens of miles of gorgeous views are enough to seriously distract a driver.

We stopped along the parkway to explore the Athabasca Glacier in the Columbia Icefield.

We walked on it, jumped from it, and drank from the glacier as it melted in front of us.

So we dared Canada to impress us. And now I have to confess, O Canada! You are beautiful!

Leaving the Country Again

In our post Natural Wonders we noted Yellowstone National Park as the capstone of our park visits to date. The wildlife and scenery amazed even the two of us who had previously visited Yellowstone. Before leaving, we hopped into the "boiling river" where the natural underground runoff from Mammoth Hot Springs merges with the cold water of the Gardner River. We were able to adjust the temperature of our bathing by moving a few inches left or right. I liked it best somewhere around 100 degrees.

Leaving Wyoming, we drove to Montana's Glacier National Park with cameras still clicking away at great wildlife and panoramas. We marveled at the work of the CCC as the park shuttle took us to the top of the incomparable Going-to-the-Sun Road where we disembarked to hike the Highline Trail.

Along that hike, we encountered big horn sheep and mountain goats.

We had heard from a few friends that a trip to Glacier isn't complete without visiting the other half of what is an International Peace Park. Canada's Waterton Lakes National Park borders America's Glacier National Park. So we checked the dates on our passports and once again left our native land, this time to see what beauty Canada had to offer.

The lakes gave a different look to the mountains than our vantage from the U.S. side had. The boys struggled to grasp the idea that the mountains rising up from the Canadian lake they were swimming in were actually in the United States.

Waterton also gave us the best bear viewing to date.

Add a bike ride and a dip in a freezing river, and that wrapped up our visit to Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

But before returning to the States, we figured we might as well check out a couple more Canadian parks. Though it might be hard to believe the scenery gets better. We'll save that for our next post. . . .

Good Sam

It’s been over two months since we left New Hampshire. Our camping adventures have brought us in contact with a good cross-section of the population from grandmotherly types to a gun-toting libertarian. The boys have met dozens of adults and played with even more kids they’ve come across along our stateside journey. For those who have followed along our blog since Guatemala, you might have an idea what kind of theme our people-encounters have followed.  Here are a few encounters.

In Colorado, Shelly and I needed to do some research about our next camping spot so we used the WiFi available at a local shop on Main Street. The boys entertained themselves by playing with pebbles on the sidewalk in front of the shop. Two ladies were sitting at a table in front of the shop. One of them had recently gotten off work at a bakery next door. She decided the boys might be happier with some sidewalk chalk so she went and fetched some from the closed bakery. The boys heavily decorated Main Street while Shelly and I figured out our next move.

In southern Utah, we found an inexpensive campground with ample amenities. The boys were tickled to find a basic playground there, but were even more thrilled when a group of teenage boy scouts invited them in to their game of pickup baseball. The scouts helped Baxter and Atticus feel like they were stars.

In northern Utah, our family attended its first rodeo. We had no idea what to expect but thought it would be a great experience with local flavor and would be worth the indulgence for tickets. Walking from the parking lot to the ticket booth, I heard a woman behind me call “Hey mister!” She had to call twice before I realized she might be calling to me. When I turned around, she asked if we had tickets yet. She told me she had five reserved seats she wasn’t going to use. We weren’t planning to buy the more expensive reserved seating tickets, but I asked her how much she would like to sell them for. “Oh I don’t want any money for them, mister. I just didn’t want them to go to waste. Take all of them so you have an extra spot to put down your bags.” We thoroughly enjoyed the rodeo and having some unexpected pocket change to buy some treats.

In Idaho, we tried our first “boondocking” adventure where someone opens his private land to campers to use. Having found out about this boondock online we weren’t fully sure what to expect when we rolled in with our trailer. Ironically, this location shares a fence line with the local KOA which charges over $40 a night. We spent two nights next door for no charge while we were checking out Craters of the Moon National Monument.

The host who opened his land to us went by the nickname of Scar. He bought this parcel of land and named it Honey’s Park for a sickly dog he had promised a park to. 

Though Honey has passed on, Scar has two more dogs who live with him in his trailer on the land.  Our boys loved playing with the dogs. 

They loved the four-wheeler rides Scar offered them.

We shared a few meals with Scar at his picnic table, lingering to socialize. I asked Scar why he opens his land to strangers for free. He told me that he’s helped run homeless shelters in the past and doesn’t see why he shouldn’t share what he has with people who might not have. And evidently he’s been down on his luck before and wants to do what he can to provide for others while he can. It also seems to guarantee a unique social element.

Scar gave us more than we expected. And he expected nothing in return. He is a sweet man with a big heart. Oh, that gun-toting libertarian I mentioned at the beginning—that’s Scar.  We couldn’t be happier that our path crossed his.

At times, it would be easy to take a skeptical view of the world and guard ourselves against the ill-intentions we could assume others might have. But we keep meeting people who are genuinely kind and it encourages us to look for kindness and to find ways to pay it forward.