WTF is up with Idaho?

At the start of this trip, we were pretty excited about Idaho. Folks kept telling us about how beautiful the panhandle is. We were ready for some good times. Wow did Idaho surprise us!

It started with the lack of available campgrounds. Idaho seems not to do first-come-first-serve camping. Also, everyone, and their mothers, kids, dogs, and cows, books up all the campsites. Ok. So we get to McCall, which from the map you'd assume is this little town kind of in the middle of the woods. Not so fast! It's a crazy Poconos-style resort town complete with Dirty Dancing families cutting you off and then ironically waving at you. It didn't take long for us to feel the urge to run screaming into the hills, so we did. We took an innocuous-sounding road that wound up being a 16 mile trek through gravel to the top of a mountain. Awesome! We got a (free!) site at Seven Devils recreation area, visited the (oddly stocked) alpine lake, and got to see some pristine night sky. In the morning we hiked along amongst the cows (feels just like California!), awesome wildflowers, and freakishly prolific butterflies in Hells Canyon area, and after packing up drove to Heaven's Gate lookout for a glimpse of a canyon deeper than that boring one in Arizona. Hilary eventually regained the use of her hands after squeezing the door handle a little tightly on the way up to the lookout. (height phobia is not fun in the mountains)

We had to leave our site since there was no water, and frankly we're fond of showering. Lots of state parks in Idaho that are not in McCall, so on we drove. There is a lot of hay in Idaho! One wonders why they feed cows corn when there is that much hay in the world. We made a short driving day of it and stopped at Winchester state park, where a random cancellation got us a 1-night site near the lake. Again with the three-generation camping complete with dogs. Idaho started to get weird. (don't worry, there's more) We jogged around the lake in the morning and set off for some of the very-panhandle parks in northern Idaho. There must be wilderness up there, right?

Haha, no! Every single state park is totally booked. We stopped at two, drove past two more with "full" signs, called one that only exists on a very long gravel road that was also full, and even stopped at a full private campground (poorly marked down yet another gravel road). Everyone in Idaho must have this week off? Who is baling all that hay? After driving just about to Canada looking for a shady spot to pitch a tent, we gave up in Bonners Ferry and looked for a motel. Haha, no! Only two rooms left in the whole town, even though downtown looks abandoned somehow everyone is staying in motels. The first room had no windows, a teenager downstairs equipped with a "quiet" X-box, and an unusual odor. Pass. The very last room was at a B&B where there was a 1971 high school reunion going on. Sold! Turns out the place is an old school, shut down in the late 90s, and the owner and the reunion folk all went there as kids. Cool! Excellent remodel job. Got dinner in the empty downtown with beer (o man, we needed beer) and huckleberry cheesecake. Mmmm. Tomorrow we head to Canada and hopefully leave the insanity behind.

Idaho recap: looks pretty on a map, full of vacationing WASPs. Very nice scenic drives, enough hay to light a bonfire seen from space, great spot for sunburnt dudes in their aluminum boats fishing or driving around on ATVs (so many ATVs here!).

Good news: no new future habitation locations found in Idaho. Oregon still on top. Hells Canyon is cool, next time we need a boat.

Map Link.

Time to Move East-er

Well it was inevitable. We're sort of sick of driving around the west coast. It's beautiful and all, but at a certain point you don't really want to see more of the Cascades from your tent/car. We've started saying things like "this looks just like Olympic only drier" and "this is just like Rainier (or insert other mountain)" and other banalities. Time for a change. So we're halting the southward progress and turning east.

After our stop south of Crater Lake, we drove east through the Oregon Outback (named thus by the helpful "scenic byway" signs on the only road available). More high desert: cattle country dotted with irrigated farms. It's pretty in its own way, but not a place we'd like to spend a lot of time just the same. There were even some dunes; who knew Oregon had so many? We did pass several shallow and seasonal lakes, very salty, and drove along the Malheur River for awhile. The river valley was full of small farms and secluded houses. Again, very pretty. Again, not stopping. We passed several "towns" which consisted, so far as we could tell, of depressingly singular things such as: a highway maintenance station (Alkali Lake), a billboard saying "you just missed it!" (Riley), or a closed motel (don't remember that town name). We did stop along the way for a late lunch at a classic country diner. Hilary insisted on getting the chicken fried steak, having never eaten such a delicacy before. The all-day-breakfast order consisted of the chicken-fried steak floating on and topped with white gravy, two eggs, three pancakes, and two rolls. For balance we also split a salad. We did not eat dinner later.

Wound up in Ontario, Oregon. Got ourselves a motel after the longest, by far, driving day yet (400 country road miles). It's a little sad since on our way west in 2004 we drove about 1000 miles in one day, through the pouring rain and towing a U-Haul, from Philadelphia to Milwaukee. Apparently we're getting old. Time to buy an RV and turn in the tent. The Ontario Inn we found based on billboard directions is great! The room is big and clean, there's a fridge and microwave, continental breakfast, friendly staff, and a fuzzy grey office cat who loves people. Got a bottle of wine to sip while we just sat in the bed. Nothing like a week in a tent to make you appreciate a bed.

We'll head across the river to Idaho today and take our time moving up through the forests and canyons. Map Link.

Eastern Oregon Cascades

We hit firmly on the eastern side of the Cascades after Mt Hood. We could finally tell it was quite a bit drier. That feeling eventually turned to glum acceptance, but at first it was kind of nice. We drove down through the high desert, stopping for lunch along the very windy Deschutes River outside Warm Springs. We stopped at a park north of Bend, and for the first time got skunked on a site. Apparently this area is popular, even during the week. So we kept going south, stopping for a beer and snacks at Deschutes Brewing. The bar was very crowded and we honestly liked Full Sail better for the ambiance, food, and beer. We did make a pilgrimage to Mirror Pond, however, out of respect.

After we left Bend, we found a camp site at La Pine state park. In the park was the largest Ponderosa Pine ever recorded. Apparently we're a bit jaded on the big trees, as our comment was "huh, big tree" and we didn't even bother with a picture. The camp was pretty good, though rather cold at night as it is in the desert. In the morning we hiked along Fall River, an offshoot of the Deschutes, and eventually found the falls after much side- and back-tracking.

We drove south again through the desert, turning west along the (thankfully open) road to Crater Lake. Most of the hikes to viewpoints were closed, but the rim road and north entrance were open to traffic. We drove the long way around the lake, stopping often for views. We tried to go to Cloudcap, but the road was eaten by snow about 500 ft from the rim road. We made a side trip to the Lost Creek campground and almost got a site, but were chased away by the gimongous mosquitoes. We finished the loop around the lake and continued south to look for a campground. After a short stop at a primitive camp populated mostly by flyfisher-men, we settled on Collier State Park. Best park ever! In addition to hot showers, there was a laundry room that was not exorbitant. We also met a couple from Merced at the end of their 2-month road trip and shared the last bottle of 2006 Orange Blossom mead with them (been dragging that thing around for too long!). They brought us a real axe to split our wood (after laughing at Hilary and the hatchet) and even fed us. Best park ever!

Week 2 Stats

Week 2 is over already! Here are the stats:

Miles driven: 1066.9
States/provinces visited: 3
Trails/roads snowed in: 2
Old friends seen: 2
Meals stretched out of Vancouver dining: 5
Viruses battled: 1 (contest not yet decided)
Car repacks due to leaking cooler: 2

The second week was a learning experience. The trip is not going to play out like we expected at first, but that is ok. We are going to skip some things, and do more hanging out in one place. Pitching a tent every day gets old fast. Also, more visiting national forests and less battling strollers and children in national parks. Families are nice and all, but they sure are slow on the trails.

Mt Hood, Portland, Hood River

On Saturday we drove to Portland. We met Sara and Audrey for beers and munchies, our first "see old friends" stop of the trip. It was great! After two weeks of just the two of us, it was so nice to hang out with people at a bar in a city and feel a little bit like "normal". We'll probably rearrange our trip going forward to have more people in it, even though we do like the nature stuff too.

Sunday we spent randomly driving around Mt Hood National Forest. The ranger station was closed and we had no map, so we just picked a road and drove. We stopped at the Dog River trailhead for a ~5 mile hike up along the streambed. The folks we met at the bottom before and after the hike said it was mostly a mountain biking trail, but we only saw one hiker while we were walking. It was pleasant walk, though we had to cut it a little short since we didn't bring enough water for a longer hike.

After we came back down, we decided to keep driving toward the peak. We turned off randomly to the east (away from Mt Hood) since it seemed like a good idea and there was a suggestive sign about an alpine meadow. Unfortunately after that the signage was damaged, removed, or just plain wrong. We wound up on some roads that we couldn't continue along due to the rocks and trees along them, and wound up backing down two roads since we couldn't turn around either.

After a while of the back and forths, we just parked the car along some random trail and started walking. We found a sign, maybe someone can figure out where we were?

Three miles from the Fifteenmile Campground. Ok, sounds good. We did see a biker on the trail, so it must not have been too far in the middle of nowhere. The forest was very strange. The trees were all, or mostly all, dead. No fire damage, just dead trees. Not sure what that was about, but it made for an interesting looking forest. After some walking, we did find a meadow; must have been that one the missing signs were pointing to. The dead trees allowed lots of groundcover flowers to bloom, very pretty.

On our way back we got a few pictures of Mt Hood. Gotta say, Mt Hood is just prettier than Mt Rainier. Oregon wins again! Stopped in Hood River and wandered around until we found Full Sail. Got a beer sampler, a beet salad, and the beer/cheese soup. Yum! Watched the kite and wind surfers scoot along the river. Hood River would be a nice place, we should move here. Map Link.

Back to Oregon

So far we love Oregon the most. Washington was nice and all, but Oregon is great. My only big complaint is the full-serve gas. At least this time through we didn't even try to get it ourselves and avoided the chastisement of the station attendants.

We drove down a forest road which took us past Mt St Helens. The road to an overlook near the peak was closed (snow again), but we got some spectacular views just the same. We also finally got a view of Rainier without too much cloud cover. The weather finally seemed to be summery, which was a welcome treat after a week and a half of cool, rain, and clouds.

We zig-zagged out of the forest and wound up along the Columbia River. We crossed at the Bridge of the Gods, though didn't stop to figure out why it was called that. Looked like a bridge, and cost $1 to go across. The Columbia River Gorge is beautiful, perhaps our favorite view of the trip so far. We drove east along the gorge and stopped at Viento State Park, arriving just before the weekend visitors ate up all the available spots. Hung out on the river bank, stopped in Hood River for a few supplies and to spray some of the dirt off the car. The forecast called for 80s and sun, a miracle!

Escaping Vancouver, Exploring Rainier

We liked Vancouver. Went to Stanley Park and walked around; definitely our kind of city. Perhaps a little too far north, the sun set around 10pm which is a tad odd. I'd hate to be there in January when the sun sets at 3pm.

Unfortunately the things we wanted to do in Vancouver all involved spending more money than we had. So we left Canada and drove back to Washington, this time down the east side of Seattle and to Mt Rainier National Park.

Mt Rainier was socked in with snow. We got a site at one of the lower elevation campgrounds on the east side of the mountain (Ohanapecosh or something like that). The next day we walked along the river since most of the trails in the park were under 8 ft or more of snow. The river was full and there was a 1/4-mile or so long section of rapids/cataracts called Silver Falls. It was really gushing.

Naturally we did not climb over the barrier for a closer shot. 

Aaron had a cold, so the hiking was fairly short. We continued along to a boardwalk in a grove for lunch and turned around. Brought the extra sleeping bags into the tent at night for the 40-something chill.

Week 1 Stats

I meant to post this earlier, but internet has been sketchy. Post it while you got it!

Here are some stats for the first week of the road trip:

Miles driven: 1109.8
States visited: 3
Brewpubs visited: 4
Brewpubs open when we got there: 2
Number of times we tore apart and rearranged the car: 3
Kombucha consumed: 1.5 pints

Scooby Update

Since everyone really loves Scooby our kombucha culture, here's an update. :)

We pulled our first road-trip-kombucha over the weekend. It was not as sour as the stuff we made in Oakland, so we didn't like it quite as much. Probably too cold (low 50s at night and 60s during the day) lately and it didn't fully convert. Scooby also looked a little sad, but we fed him again and we'll try to drive to warmer places.

Leaving the US

...for now. We broke camp in Sequim Bay and headed toward the Port Townsend ferry. A short sail later and we were on one of the islands in Puget Sound. Definitely moving to the islands in Puget Sound, they are great. Stopped for lunch at Deception Pass which was a wonderful idea, very beautiful.  No, Hilary does not have a back problem in this picture- she's looking for rocks to skip unsuccessfully (okay, sometimes successfully) in the surf.

Drove back onto the mainland across a few bridges and through the last bit of Washington. Took the side road across the border since the big magic billboard told us the wait was shorter. After confirming we didn't have any guns, the border patrol told us to have a nice time in Vancouver. It was weird leaving the mountains, islands, and hills of Olympic and Seattle and then driving across the flat floodplains leading to Vancouver. On the plus side, Vancouver is proving to be warmer and drier.

Arrived in Vancouver mid-afternoon. Checked into our one night of hotel (we're spoiling ourselves in the last west coast city destination), and headed across the bridge on foot to dinner at Vij's. Thoroughly stuffed ourselves there and tomorrow we'll visit the local parks.

Map Link

Seattle and Olympic NP

Seattle is gorgeous. We're moving there, at least until we see something else that is also beautiful. Let's wait a few days and see what happens.

Went to a wedding in West Seattle. It rained in the morning but cleared up a few hours before the ceremony. We watched with baited breathe as the rain crossed the sound, but it held off until we started walking to the reception across the street. Hooray! The wedding was super cute and the setting was beautiful. There was even an osprey carrying off a fish as vows were exchanged. We'll presume that bodes well.

Seattle was great. We parked near the wedding in the early afternoon and took a bus to downtown. We visited Pike Place market (of course) and were rather sad that fish doesn't keep well on the road. Such great looking fish! We visited a little shop and got some temporary road trip wedding bands since the lack of rings was driving us slowly insane. Had the sampler at the Pike; the beer ranged from ok to fairly good. The city itself was great, we loved the hills, the green, and the water.

Stayed the night in Tumwater again, then set off for Olympic National Park. We drove up the east side and got a camp site at Sequim Bay state park. [the state parks tend to have showers, the national parks most often do not.] The forecast called for a couple days of dry weather, so we chanced booking two nights at our site. That afternoon we drove down a random forest road (not the one we intended to, but the signage was not particularly great) and found ourselves at a trailhead for Mt Zion. We hiked to the summit along a great 1.8 mile trail, only 1300 feet vertical. Great views of the Olympic mountains through the misty fog and it only rained on us a little.

After a night of solid rain (forecast for dry...) we left camp and traveled to the west coast where there is a strip of park along the beach. We walked along Rialto Beach until the tide hemmed us in, and had a picnic lunch. After that we drove down to the Hoh Rain Forest and walked through the mossy trees. Maple trees were common, that was surprising. The moss was pretty intense and we are planning on coming back here to do the rainforest-to-glacier trail: a 37 mile round trip hike. Someday when we have a warm house to return to later.

It was actually sunny-ish and fairly warm, so when we returned to camp our stuff was mostly dry. We decided to head out the next morning before more rain moved in.

Holing up in Tumwater

Stopped in Tillamook for part 1 of the US Cheddar Tour. It was a total zoo! We did get a sample of the Sticky Bun ice cream (quite good) and a walk along the cheese tasting line. Got to say the cheddar here is pretty weak. Their special 15-month aged Extra Sharp was on the high side of mild cheddar. Ah well. We did buy a small brick of the oldest stuff we could find, a 2-year white cheddar. It was a nice medium cheddar and went well with our soggy found-wood campfire, bread, and the last bottle of wine we brought with us (a William Hill Cab).

Map Link

So we're hiding from the rain. Yesterday we checked the forecast and it said Friday would be dry. We found a random little county park to hang out at. It was pleasantly empty and even came with showers. The forecast was unfortunately quite wrong. It rained all night. It rained all morning. It rained in the afternoon. Now we're holed up in a Motel 6 in Tumwater, and we'll use this as base camp for a couple days and day trip it to Seattle for the wedding tomorrow. Assuming it dries out, we plan to find a place to camp at Olympic NP.

The Oregon Coast is....wet

After several days of driving, we finally escaped the Great State of California (with its $35 no-showers-included campgrounds). Yay! Time for Oregon.

The southern Oregon coast is gorgeous. We've decided to move here. Perhaps take up fishing? We should probably see the rest of the country first...

Stopped at Whaleshead Beach on a whim, and it was great. Big rocks offshore, several streams emptying into the ocean (one frigid, one warm), and lots of cool colored pebbles. A little further up we camped at Sunset Bay state park. Lots of families, but it was a good campground. $19 with as much hot shower water as you want. Go Oregon!

Yesterday we found the rest of the tourists on the coast. Apparently it's a popular place to drive your RV, considering the towns we found (and drove 20 mph through) were about 60% RV park and 40% kitsch shops. And the people driving through the central coast area are idiots. Turn off your GPS and look out the window! Those 40 cars behind you? Yeah that's your fault. Needless to say, it was a frustrating travel day.

We did stop near Umpqua Lighthouse and walked on the dunes and the beach. Dunes? Yep, Oregon has dunes, and lots of them. For $200 we could have rode an ATV around on them, but decided to eat for a few weeks instead. We wound up at Cape Lookout to camp for the night. After a frustrating day of driving, we took ourselves out to Schooners in Netarts (pronounced NEE-tarts, apparently). It was AWESOME. They had Oregon beers on tap (got a Mirror Pond and a Dead Guy), a wood-fired oven, and oh yeah sat right on the ocean. We ate local oysters and clams, very home-made and very excellent chowder, and a pork shoulder that fell apart if you blew on it and was crispified in the aforementioned oven. Definitely eating those leftovers today.

And it rained. Not surprising that it happened, but the timing could have been better. We had to break camp this morning in the rain and stow a bunch of drippy gear. Our boots are still wet from the Redwood Creek crossings. Time to find some deserts. But wait! Next stop is the Seattle area and the largest temperate rain forest on the continent. At least it's summer?

Road Trip Begins

It's our first stop at a Starbucks with wifi on the trip. Time to update the blog!

Day 1 we drove out of the Bay Area and north on US 101. We stopped in Ukiah at Mendocino Brewing for a beer and a late lunch. We arrived at Humboldt Redwoods right after the ranger station closed. We were tired from the frantic last-second packing in the morning and decided to go for the $35 campsite after all. It was a good site with hot water pay showers and a nice fire ring. The campground was quiet and the DEET kept the mosquitoes at bay. (DEET does however attack rubber. Like sandals. And watch bands. Good to know.)

In the morning we rearranged the car to make it easier to find stuff. As a result we got another late start , ah well. We continued along 101 and stopped for lunch along the Elk River. We tried to visit Six Rivers Brewing north of Eureka, but unfortunately Monday is the day they don't open until 4. Too bad, we wanted to try the Chile Beer. Further along 101 we arrived at Redwoods National Park. We got a permit for backcountry camping (free!!!) and hiked down to Redwood Creek. Several river crossings and a giant tree across the river later, we found a nice sandy spot to camp. They even let us light a fire on the bank of the creek. The creek was deserted and we didn't see anyone hiking in or out. We were however awoken to the sound of ravens trying to open our bear can. Fortunately for us the birds haven't figured out tools yet.

The hike out was good, other than the toad who decided to camp in Hilary's boot. We visited Lady Bird Johnson Grove and walked around in the trees (very huge!). On our way out of the park we took the scenic alternate route for even more trees, and now we're in Crescent City where we got some Thai for lunch and are enjoying some hot beverages. Good trip so far!

Map Link

Say Hello to Scooby

Time to unveil the third member of our road trip party: Scooby the SCOBY!!


Scooby is our kombucha colony (aka mushroom aka SCOBY). Making kombucha in the car is about the most Bay-Area faux-hippie we can get. This picture shows Scooby being trimmed for the first part of the trip. We're taking what's in the jar and leaving the rest behind for our subletter to use for his own batch. We started him from a commercial bottle about 2 months ago. It took quite some doing to get him out of the jar.

Scooby is our official road trip mascot. That's a little creepy since we'll be eating little bits of him along the way. Hilary is now grossed out. Mmmm, Scooby!

Goodbye NDC

Wow. Last day at NDC. I can't describe how weird that is. Mostly it feels like a Friday; I wished folks a good weekend, said "see you later" and that was that. I don't really feel like I've left at all. At the same time, I know the trip starts in two days and I'm definitely gone. It's a very pit-in-your-stomach kind of feeling. I still am not sure if I'm being brave or just stupid with this whole world trip idea. I know it will be awesome, but at the same time I really want to turn around and go back.

Thanks NDC for a great two years.

Budget cuts? Holy Cow...

As a school teacher, you'd think I would already have a lot of respect for the budget crisis in California.  So why it should bother me so much to discover/notice that it costs $35 to stay in a state park here, I am not sure.  I guess when you're dealing with a budget as tight as ours, spending that much for a camp site suddenly becomes something to notice. 

Yeah.  I think we'll be backpacking until we get to Oregon.

Farewell Weekend Tour

Had an awesome Farewell Dim Sum yesterday at Joy Luck in Oakland. Thanks to everyone who came to say hi. Today I'm having beers with some coworkers at the Trappist, and tomorrow (July 4th) is the annual company party/luau which I am personally considering my official goodbye party.

I think it's finally hit me. We're leaving. A few more days to frantically pack and get everything else in order, and then we're in a car and off. Yesterday we went over the places we're thinking of camping during the first week. That made it real. Gotta say, I'm freaking out a little.