Goodbye to Washington

Tonight is our last night in Washington state for this part of our trip.   We've been here for a month, much longer than I would've thought it would be interesting.   I think I have mixed feelings about Washington.   It can probably be summed up as the most beautiful place I'd never want to live.

The view from Echo Bay on Sucia Island

Nature dominates, and this state has it all -- beautiful mountains, rain forests, great sandy beaches, interesting tide pools, hiking, biking.   The national parks here are amazing, each worth its own vacation.   Still, as beautiful as it is, I don't think I could live here, for two main reasons.   First, the weather is dreary.   We've been relatively lucky, and even with that we spent much of August in long pants and sweatshirts.   It's the coldest summer I've ever had.   Second, the parts of Washington affected by humans are... not great.   The roads are not good, Seattle is a mess and should probably just be bulldozed, and the small towns in the center of the state tend to be very run down and dreary.

Mount Rainier

There are two towns we liked: Port Angeles and Long Beach.   The towns themselves are nice enough, very livable, with access to the perks of modern life, yet a quick escape to remote locations that make you feel like the only person on earth.  But that weather....

Dungeness Lighthouse dwarfed by a distant Mount Baker

Anyone who wants a cheap RV should come to Washington.   We've seen more seemingly abandoned RVs here than I thought existed in the whole country.   They are everywhere.   You could probably just knock on the owner's door and take it for free.   Of course, it may be cheaper just to buy a new one by the time you fix it up, but with that many dead ones, I bet there are a few bargains in there, too.

The Cape Disappointment Lighthouse, looking south toward distant Oregon

Overall, Washington has been great.   Crescent Bay is an amazing place for an RV traveller, and the San Juan Island National Park is a bucket list item for sailors.   Mount Rainier, Mount Saint Helens, Olympic National Park -- breathtaking.   I feel like we've missed so much, even after a month.   Just sailing in the San Juan Islands could be a summer project by itself.  I have a feeling we will be back to Washington.

A couple of dramatic weeks

After all that has happened to us on this trip since we left Minnesota, and all we've seen, we thought we were getting used to scenery and traveling and change.   But these last couple of weeks have been crazy.

My mother-in-law and my older son Reese joined us in Seattle for two weeks.   The first week was spent on an Alaskan cruise, the second week sailing on a 45' Jenneau sailboat.

There were so many cool things that I could write many pages about these two weeks.   I'll try to resist and just do a few of the highlights.

On the cruise, our first stop was Ketchikan.   I suggested to their Chamber of Commerce they should use the slogan "Ketchikan: Catch it if you can".   They said they'd be sure to send the royalty checks to me right away.    In Ketchikan, Reese and I did a rain forest zipline tour.    We soared about 150 feet in the air, above the trees, plus we got to cross a rickety foot bridge.   The longest line was over 700 feet.

A rickety bridge, 150 feet in the air

The next stop was Juneau, another beautiful small town.  On the way to Juneau, we went up a fjord to see a glacier.  The captain spun the cruise ship 540 degrees to give everyone a view of the glacier.   The whole fjord was spectacular in a way that can't be captured in words or photos.   Here's a try anyway:

Around a half mile from a glacier

   

The glacier would calve giant chunks of ice, and we'd hear the booming sound a few seconds later.   The sides of the fjord have waterfalls everywhere, and the mountains were thousands of feet almost straight up.    After a month of seeing mountains, I didn't think I could be impressed anymore, but this took it to a new level.

This doesn't begin to capture the real beauty

Once we made it to Juneau, we did a whale watching excursion, and this may have been the highlight of the cruise.   They took us to a pod of humpback whales that does bubble feeding, a complex group behavior to round up the fish.  There are apparently only about 70 or 80 humpbacks in the world that can do it.  They disappear for a while, then suddenly they all came up at once.   It's hard to capture on video because they give no indication where they are coming up.   Once again, there aren't enough words to explain how cool this is to see up close.   Here's a video, I missed the first rise up, but still, you can see how close we were:

Video of whales feeding next to our boat.

The next day was Skagway -- an unimpressive town.   After a day at sea we landed in Victoria, B.C., and took a tour of Butchart Gardens.   Once again, the words can't capture this.   I never thought a man-made garden could match the splendor of what we had just seen, but this place is amazing, almost worth a trip just by itself.   It's built in a limestone quarry that exhausted its limestone.

Butchart Garden at dusk

A tiny piece of Butchart Gardens in Victoria

So, that's enough for a while, right?   Apparently not.  From the cruise, we went to a sailboat, and sailed the San Juan Islands for a week.  Once again, the scenery is amazing.    We sailed among the tops of underwater mountains, each one with it's own personality.

The view from Sucia.  Notice snow-capped Mount Baker in the background.

The rough shores on Sucia Island

We saw orcas up close, had a great hike on Sucia Island, and stopped at a couple of beautiful marinas.  

By the end of the two weeks, it all seemed like a dream.   There is too much big, too much to overwhelm us.   I think our little brains are not big enough to absorb such a big adventure.

Idaho? Oh, wow, Idaho!

To most of the country, Idaho is associated with one thing: potatoes.   So my expectations were low when we planned a few days here.   What a pleasant surprise!   The scenery has the soothing beauty of northern Wisconsin, combined with the drama and majesty of the best of the Rockies.   Every turn is a new surprise.    Idaho is one of those places that I probably would've never made it to without this  RV adventure.   I'm glad I got a chance to see it.

Canoeing on the highest navigable river in the US

Bike path across the river

Beautiful campground, Heyburn State Park

Under way again.... oops, delays again... and we're off....

So we finally got out of Hoffman, MN.   From there we drove to a crappy little RV park just outside Bismarck.   The spots were so close together, our slide out went over our neighbors water connection.    The guy there lived there, and had piles of junk, a lawnmower, a tiller, and a couple of old Halloween masks in the pile of junk.   He liked to talk to us through the window of the RV.   I called him "Mr. Level 3".

From Bismarck, it was on to Little Big Horn, where we learned a lot about the famous battle.   This was just one of those tragic marks on our country's history.

Then, we found a place in Billings, MT that could look at our RV and replace the shocks - we thought that would be the end of it.   It turns out, there was a serious problem with one of the wheels, which explained why one of them got so hot and we had a shimmy.   Basically, several of the pieces were out of true, and the wheel couldn't rotate freely.   They had to replace the rotors, but also do several other things to get it back to rolling.   There were a couple other things, but that was most of it.

The good news is, the place we took it was very friendly.  They let us stay in the RV in their yard, to save us from hotel bills.   It wasn't the best view of the trip, but it was still convenient.  There was a Target, a movie theater, a mall, and several restaurants within walking distance.   For day two, they lent us a car and we got a bonus side trip to Beartooth Pass (just north of Yellowstone), which was spectacularly beautiful.

Finally we got back on our way and made it to somewhere near Butte, MT.  It was a cute place with some pretty mountains nearby.   But we mostly just drove in and got on the road the next day.

Then, it finally started to feel like our RV adventure was beginning.   We made it to West Glacier, taking back roads most of the way.   The RV site was buried deep in the trees.   The next day we went to Glacier National Park and took the shuttle for Going-to-the-Sun Road.   It was an overcast day, and we drove up into the clouds.   Heavy clouds.   It was about 40 degrees, windy, and near zero visibility at the top.   So that didn't last long.

Then we moved to a new campsite, more spectacular than anything we'd had so far.   It looked something like this:

Glacier National Park and the surrounding area may be the most beautiful place in the US.   It will be hard to beat, because it has everything: dramatic mountains, thick forests, waterfalls, lazy rivers, beautiful lakes, giant rock formations, and of course glaciers.   How can anyone else compete?

Day 1: Delayed

After our tour of Wisconsin, we took the RV in for a tuneup and general safety check.   We figured a day or two.   Nope, they had it all week, and ended up staying in a hotel all week.  Finally, on Friday, we got it back and we we left our house for the last time, and were supposed to be on our way.   We made it about 60 miles before the RV started shaking so much we thought it would fall apart.   Fortunately, we had signed up for roadside assistance.   Unfortunately, it was late on a Friday, so everything is closed until Monday.   The place it was towed to called about 9PM, which was a nice surprise, but they didn't really have good news.  They are busy until July, but will try to sneak us in before then.   Until then we are stranded with relatives.    It's not the worst place to be -- on a lake, nice weather, etc.   But I am getting impatient to get going.

The first test complete

We completed our 12 day visit to Wisconsin, living in the RV.   The RV living was easy, and my family was amazing, keeping us entertained and getting us around to do things.    We saw a Madison Mallards game, toured the capitol in Madison, toured a 3000 head dairy farm and a greenhouse.   We spent lots of time visiting and chatting.

The RV survived, but we found a few things that bugged us.   Before we left we had made an appointment to take it in this week, and the Wisconsin trip showed up what needed to be done.   The good news is, they have fixes for the things that bothered us.   The bad news is it is going to take 3 days to get it all fixed.   We have no furniture at our house, so we are living in a hotel.   To complicate things, Erin apparently has Lyme disease and the flu, so she is on antibiotics but having trouble keeping them down.

All this means a lot of the things we were hoping to get done will be on hold for a day or two, and the RV is going to have a big expense.    I'm trying to take this all in stride, but at some point I'd like to hear the phrase "that is going to be cheaper and easier than you thought...."

Hitting the road

So far, our "adventure" has been cleaning houses and living in an RV in our yard and getting rid of stuff that doesn't fit.   I guess that is probably a reasonable literal match to the title of this blog, but it's not really what we had in mind.

But now, we've actually taken our first tiny steps toward the lifestyle we signed up for.   Yesterday, we packed everything up and hit the road and drove to Rice Lake, WI to visit my brother John for a couple days.

We are also starting our home schooling.   We made our first dot on the giant map we bought to track our trip.   And today, we toured a massive dairy farm.   The kids loved it.  Based on that first experience, I think the home schooling thing will work.

Anyway, it's starting to feel like the adventure we signed up for.   I think it will really begin once our house is sold and we are going places where we don't know anyone, but this should be a lovely transition.