The Great White North Part 2 (British Columbia to Alberta)

The Canadian Rockies

The drive from Sasquatch to our next destination was going to be the lengthiest of our trip thus far. Our next major stop was Calgary, which is north of Montana and is smack dab in the low-mid part of Alberta. I really wanted to go to Edmonton, but the drive was far too many kilometres out of the way with little in between to make it worth while. Maybe I'll make it up there when the Oilers are playing to make the trip worthwhile.

The drive was beautiful, and since we had no real plans for the day except drive until we didn't feel like it anymore, we stopped here and there and checked out some of the nice scenery. The Rockies were really pretty up there. The pine trees flooded the mountainside and made the rock peaks stand out all the better against the open blue sky.

We came around many of bends and smelled a great burning smell. At first we were scared and thought it was coming from the car, but it smelled of nothing car related. Soon after the aroma arrived it vanished like Eric Lindros. We would then drive some more and the smell would mysteriously come back and disappear just the same until one time around a bend the mystery was solved. The forest opened up and a river was waiting for us. The water was completely jam packed with cut timber floating about. Logging is one of Canada's major exports, and as soon as I saw the logs the smell jutted back the memory of burning and cutting wood.

Driving the Rockies went very smoothly as Canada on the whole has a very well thought out highway system. Unfortunately they are also doing major maintenance on some sections of the roadways, but we had decent luck maneuvering through them. The road workers were a crazy mix of people. There were a lot of women working construction, and not just holding the stop and slow signs, they were actually working big machinery and working their lady Canadian asses off. I found this very interesting, for some odd reason, that it was such a mixed bag of workers. Signs on the side of the road even said to "watch your speed because my mommy works here" that had a picture of a mom road worker with her kids. There were also a lot of young people, male and female, which were by my estimate were no older than sixteen or seventeen. These younguns were proudly holding the stop and slow signs like they were hockey sticks. It seems like the sign holder was the entry level work and that's why so many young people were working them. All in all the roadways and road workers seemed to be doing well in Canada and it definitely made our time driving along with them an easy ride.

Following the mountainous Rockies we entered east British Columbia, which was primarily open rolling hills that were covered in grass and farmlands. The farming towns were all very interesting and had a very small town tightness to them, all the while being very spread out. If there wasn't a farm or ranch on the horizon there was a lake or river of some sort. The lakes and rivers were plentiful and most looked crystal clear. They ranged in size from slightly bigger than a pond to so big you can barely see the other side. They all looked nice but we had a schedule to keep. We needed to make to at least Salmon Arm, BC. Yes, you read correct the town is named Salmon Arm, like if there is a guy walking around with a salmon in the place of where one of his arms should be.

The drive from Sasquatch to Salmon Arm was roughly four hundred twenty five kilometres. We took a pit stop in Kamloops to stock up on some supplies. We needed butane for our stove and some random food was on our list as well. Finding the butane was a nightmare as we went to about four stores before finding a good camping and outdoors store that had it in stock. Among some of the stores that didn't have the butane was a Canadian version of Walmart called Real Canadian Superstore. Canada has Walmarts but I guess they need their own version as well. After spending way too much time driving around Kamloops we headed to Salmon Arm.

Unfortunately we found no good camping in Salmon Arm so we drove a bit further on the highway since we still had some good daylight ahead of us. We had read of a free campsite along a lake so we set out to find it. The campsite either did not exist anymore or we made some wrong turns somewhere. I am going to place the blame on the people who put up the street signs, since some of them were in really bad locations or not there at all. So, after looking for the campground for a good amount of time, we gave up and drove down the highway some more.

We stopped by a national forest site but there water line was broken and they had some other difficulties on the grounds so we went another twenty kilometres down the road to one last site. If this site wasn't any good we were gonna double back and stay in the national forest.

Luckily, the Eagle Creek Campground was pretty amazing. It was only fifteen bucks and had running water, showers, and FREE firewood. This was easily the best deal and best campground we have stayed at so far. The sites were set up pretty good and we took advantage of the free wood and even took a couple of pieces with us for good measure, just in case we ever get stuck without any. The owner had a great setup and had the perfect mix of bare essentials without all the flash of other campgrounds. If I owned a campground, I think I would model it after the one in Eagle Creek.

In the morning, following a nice fire cooked egg and sausage scramble, we packed up camp and headed for the showers. The showers looked like they were recently re-tiled and were exceptionally clean. The one improvement I would suggest would be to put a bench outside the shower stall. With all said and done, we thoroughly enjoyed our stay there and if we ever need to camp in that area, you know damn well we will be back there.

Our next day was another grand day of driving through Canada. We planned to stay just shy of Calgary so we had a good four hundred and twenty five kilomtres to cover. We found a Provincial Park On the Bow River in Alberta. We were excited to learn that they had showers, but then bummed when we found out after getting a site that they were pay showers. Since we had showered that morning we decided to save the cash and hold out another day or two. The Bow River was a nice area but the campsites were not so great. The campground was poorly designed as everything was really spread apart except for the sites themselves. The sites were crammed all together and the nearest washroom and trash bins were spread wide apart, as there were only about two of them for the well over one hundred sites they had, plus the main bathroom with the showers at the front, which was another trek in itself. I'm exhausted just thinking and writing about it. Anyways, we made the best of it and prepared for sleep for we had a big day ahead of us in Calgary.

The Great White North Part 1 (Vancouver)

The US - Canadian Border

We traveled up the 5 north to enter Canada for about 107 miles. The border crossing was very easy and we only waited in line for about fifteen to twenty minutes. The young guy working at the booth asked Jen a couple of standard questions about what our plans were and where we were headed. The guy then checked out all of our stuff in the wagon and asked "Is that a hockey stick back there?"

"Yeah" Jen said, "We use it to prop up the hatch."

"Alright, welcome to Canada."

We made it into Canada at about eleven o'clock and stopped at the welcome center to get some maps and information on camping. We scored a very useful catalog of pretty much every campground and national park in British Columbia. It came complete with directions and even an estimate on prices, give or take a few dollars. After the visitors center we got back en route to Vancouver, which was about 70 kilometres away.

Everything in Canada is pretty much like America only slightly different. For instance, restrooms or bathrooms are called washrooms. The main difference, however, is the standard of measurement. Canada uses the scientific standard of the metric system. Growing up in the U.S. gave me basic knowledge of the metric system, as it is very easy to use and convert between itself. This understanding of how it works and how it looks on paper does little for real life use. I know how long a mile is. I can comprehend and feel out a distance that is in miles, but when a distance is in kilometres it is hard to place exactly how far away it is since i have no practice in everyday use. With all of this in mind, we got a lot of use out of multiplying and such to convert into American standard so we could get a grasp on how far things really were. Over time we did grasp the metric system. It really is a much easier method once you get the hang of it.

Vancouver, BC, Canada

Driving the speed limit of 90 kph we made it to Vancouver in about an hour. Vancouver is a very pretty town as its downtown city centre was very clean and buzzing with many people walking the shopping district. There were remnants of the Winter Olympics, from just a short couple of months earlier, all around town. Since we were not in the position to shop we took to Stanley Park.

Stanley Park is a mecca of parks. It is to Vancouver what Central Park is to New York. The park is named after Lord Stanley, and yes that is the same Lord Stanley that the Stanley Cup is named after. We drove the one way loop that circled the park, which killed a good half hour. We used the drive to pick out a good spot to eat lunch and then circled again to dine. We settled on an area that had a series of local tribes' totem poles. The poles were all very ornate and each had a distinct style representative of each tribe. It was easy to get a sense of what was valued to each tribe separately from one another. There was even a real life crane looking bird on top of one of them showing off his nice long neck. Since parking in the park was expensive we stuck around for a bit and then drove around again stopping to look at the various sites on the way.

After the park we kept on our way and started heading out of town as we couldn't afford to stay in the city for the night. We decided to find a campsite somewhere along the way on our long drive to Calgary which was about 975 km away. On our way out of town, we stopped at a bank to get some Canadian money and also made a short trip to the grocery store to get food for dinner and breakfast for the next couple of days of camping. As if you didn't know already, from looking at the back of any book you may have bought in the last few decades, everything in Canada is a little bit more expensive. So we made the best we could with some food and gathered our supplies to move out.

As soon as we crossed a very distinct line in the city, Vancouver went from a nice ritzy town to Bum City. There were homeless people lined up and down the street for a couple of blocks and then they disappeared just as quickly as the came. On the highway, through the old part of town, we found a Value Village. For everyone who lives in or around Vegas, Value Village is the same store as Savers. Same color scheme and everything. They even use the same font to write the name of the store. The store we found was huge. They had so much inventory it had a small upstairs location for all of their bedding items and a small downstairs for sorting and sporting goods and the likes. They had a whole rack of hockey jerseys. We spent a good hour drifting in and out of the aisles and despite having some really good stuff, we left with only a pretty sweet Ontario t-shirt and a couple of little nick nacks like Jen's little maple leaf pin.

Sasquatch Provincial Park, BC, Canada

After cruising the very pretty surrounding scenery we decided to sleep in the ever so cool, Sasquatch Provincial Park. Even though I kept a good eye open for the beast, he eluded us and kept out of sight. After setting up our tent the park ranger came around to check us in. We chatted it up a little bit about the states and the difference in the bills and coins that the countries have. He spoke of some counterfeit issues in the country, which brought up our little story of our magic fifty that we had. He said we were justified and that made us feel better. The ranger was a good guy and was fun to talk to.

In the night it got pretty chilly, as we were on the cusp of the Canadian Rockies and the meters were starting to climb a bit in elevation. I think the news said there was a low of about ten degrees Celsius. We woke up and got the fire going and made some eggs for breakfast. We packed up our gear and traveled out of the park. On the way out of town we came across a nice little second hand/antique store called Rusty's 2nd hand store. We stopped in to have a peek. I wish we had a trailer for all the cool little things we have been finding at all of these stops, but since we are traveling, we left with just some little stuff to bring with us or as gifts. One of our favorite things to look for in these stores are old post cards, so be on lookout for one to arrive in your mailbox. If you're lucky that is.

Random Facts

Sasquatch sculptures/murals found in and around Sasquatch Provincial Park = 5

Walmart count = 10

Money spent on fire wood = $0

Number of times someone in another car said bless you after I sneezed = 1

Sleeping in Seattle

The Oregon-Washington State Border

"Believe me Jen, Forks is really out of the way."

"Yeah, but I can make a lot of my girlfriends jealous if I get a picture there."

Jen and I had this conversation at least three times as we worked our way towards the Washington border. The only good thing about going to Forks would have been visiting the Hoh Rainforest, but since we have already been there, I considered it a waste of time and gas. For those that don't know, Forks is the setting for the Twilight books and movies. Jen was somewhat disappointed, but she accepted it. If it is any consolation to her and her friends, we are pretty sure we passed through Forks on our previous drive through the area about four years ago.

Olympia, WA

Following the few minutes of cold shoulder Jen gave me, we headed up towards Seattle. On the way up we decided to stop in Olympia to stretch our legs and take in a bit of walking. We chose to find a thrift store. Upon discovering one, we found a parking spot and walked to the meter. It turns out that Olympia has a free grace period of parking where the first twenty minutes is free. We hit the button for free twenty minutes and out printed the receipt. Free parking is always good, but unfortunately it was to no avail, because the thrift store was a bust. It was more of a Buffalo Exchange with hipster clothes that were all overpriced. They had some good things there but just nothing that we were interested in.

We left the thrift store to stumble upon a street corner that proved Olympia, WA is the face tattoo capital of the world. On that one corner there were at least three people with face tattoos and we are pretty sure there was a fourth. This amount of people with tattoos on their faces is more than total that I previously have seen in my life. A face tattoo says many things about a person and none of them include them being a friendly and approachable human being. Congratulations goes to Olympia as you have a population of people that literally does not care about how they look to other people.

Seattle, WA

We arrived in Seattle shortly after passing through the circus known as Olympia, which was a very quirky and semi cool place. I called my cousin Christianna and told her we were fairly close to the house. She made sure we had directions using our fancy phones and mentioned what I thought to be her saying that she was almost home. Twenty minutes or so after getting off the phone with her we arrived at her house.

There was no car in the driveway, but I thought that I remembered her saying previously that she walked to work and thought little to nothing of it. We walked up and rang the doorbell. A split second or two later we heard a dog barking. Jen and I said to each other, "ooh, they have a dog." We wait a minute and nothing happened but a little more barking. We rang the bell again and knocked a couple of times, for good measure. Still we received nothing but barking. Immediately we made sure the address was correct. It was. We rang the bell one last time and some really tall guy answered the door, in a towel and T-shirt and it was not Christianna's husband, Heath.

"Hello?" the guy said

"Hi...Is Christianna here?" I asked

"She's at work, I'm her brother."

"Oh, I talked to her a bit ago and she said she was off."

"Oh, Ok."

"Cool, do you mind if we come in?"

"No, come on in, I just got out of the shower."

I would be lying to you if I said it wasn't a little awkward. I started to wonder if he was Heath's brother or Christianna's. I couldn't remember if Christianna's mom had another kid or not so there was a bit of a mystery to solve, and troubleshooting for answers is my middle name. The dude went back towards the bathroom, since he was still dripping when he answered the door, and left us to hang with the dog. So we sat there for about five minutes petting the dog and looking at each other for answers on how to approach the deciphering of who this guy is. When he arrived from the bathroom, he introduced himself as Josh. Following some spurts of small talk with stretches of silence in between,n a car pulled into the driveway.

Christianna and Heath rolled out of their old maroon Volvo station wagon and came into the house. We said hello and chatted for a bit, all the while the brother mystery floated around. Christianna never mentioned that a brother would be staying there, so my first inclination is that Josh was Heath's brother, but why would he say that he was her brother, in which the “her” refers to Christianna. There were mixed signals thrown at us as Heath talked more to Josh than Christianna did at first. After some snooping and process of elimination, the mystery was solved as Josh shares a mom with Christianna. After the awkward meeting between us, Josh turned out to be a cool guy. He is a bit younger at twenty one, but was laid back and was cool to talk to once we got to know each other better.

We caught up with Christianna and Heath and we found out that they had a date night planned and made plans to go out to dinner together. Since we too had a sibling stay with us we knew that a break every now and again was nice, and told them not to worry about us. They split to go eat dinner and we found out there was a three dollar cinema not too far away. Christianna and Heath told us to check out old town so we drove down to grab some food.

We noticed as soon as we got down to old town that we weren't going eat there, since all the restaurants looked a bit pricey for a couple of unemployed fools on a journey across the country. With the new information we decided to head towards the cinema and grab something that sounded good on the way. We stumbled across a little fast food/diner looking place called Kidd Valley. The place reminded me of In-n-Out Burger a little bit. Jen liked it because they had a wide variety of shakes. She looked over all the possibilities and decided on boysenberry. I have to hand to Kidd Burger because not only was the shake really good, but the burgers and fries were pretty excellent as well. After killing our hunger we pressed forth to the theater.

The Landmark Crest Cinema is an old movie theater that has been revived and made into a discount cinema. They showcase second runs movies, but also had one or two newer movies as well. Jen and I went there to see Splice. It is a science fiction movie about the perils of creating a new species and the ethics behind cloning and creating new life from scratch. All in all it was very well done, disturbing and a bit crazy at times, but its message was well perceived and they went about the movie in an interesting way. After the movie we headed home, for it was late and we needed to rest up.

Saturday started off with a great and hearty breakfast of homemade waffles, compliments of Heath. He made three different kinds of waffles; buttermilk, wheat, and gluten free. Heath is a waffle connoisseur and he has a very professional looking waffle iron, as it heats and flips for an even distribution of cooking. Heath also brought out some fresh maple syrup of which he delighted us with, along with the information that maple syrup was going down in price, like it was a stock. The waffles and syrup tasted great and they were almost over shadowed by the bacon. The bacon was cooked in the oven, which turned out to be amazingly good, as well as less greasy and much easier to cook.

Shortly after breakfast concluded, Uncle Richard drove up. It has been four years since we had seen him, and we played catch up for a bit as we sat around talking. After telling of our recent adventures and him telling us of his, Christianna decided that we should all walk to the park. Heath grabbed a frisbee and the dog, Boris, and we all proceeded to walk down to the park. As we walked, my allergies decided that I wasn't allowed to have as much fun as I wanted to. My nose went into hibernation, as the snot and mucus did that weird thing where it gets so stuffed up that eventually it starts to run out of space to be stored, so it just runs out of your nostrils.

We arrived at the park and Heath busted out the frisbee, that was of championship quality. It was a clear plastic disc that had a rubber like angled edge, which made it a little softer than regular Frisbee. The frisbee is also not supposed to be used in conjunction with Boris. This caused a dilemma, since all that Boris wanted to do was play with the frisbee. Our frisbee tossing turned into a game of keep away from Boris. The fun part was getting to a missed catch before he did. After a while of frisbee, Boris grew less and less energetic about chasing the disc and slowly became more excited about laying in the shade. This also prompted some trick catches of the frisbee, since there was no longer the threat of a dog eating it. Then, a funny thing happened as Josh threw the frisbee that sailed in between Richard and Heath. Richard went jogging after it and suddenly looked down at his leg as Heath ran by him.

Richard asked if anything had hit him in the leg. I am not 100%, but I am pretty sure Heath did not drop down and punch Richard's calf muscle, but you never know. At first it seemed like a temporary charley horse, as he came down on his leg wrong, but after a couple of minutes Richard could barley put any weight on his leg. This put a damper on things as Heath left to fetch the car with Boris, in order to pick Richard up since he could not make the walk back to the house.

The rest of us walked a little more of the park and made our way to the beach and the open water of the Puget Sound. It was very pretty there and I was enjoying it thoroughly, until my allergies flared up even worse. As if the stuffy/runny nose wasn't enough, my allergies decided that my eyes should itch a ridiculous amount. This caused a little rubbing, which in turn caused some puffiness and redness, which in turn caused my utter annoyance at my allergies. I'm not sure of the root of the allergies, but I do know that it worsened as we neared the ocean anywhere in the Pacific Northwest. It must be some coastal plant or tree that is more abundant near the waters.

After walking back from the park, it was time for dinner. This meant it was time for some BBQ. As Heath was cooking, Christianna checked online for a diagnosis of her fathers injury. We weren't completely sure, but it seemed like Richard pulled his muscle. He then kept his leg elevated and iced for the evening and was told by a medical friend to stay off of it for at least a week, which meant he had to get some crutches. The crutches meant that he could not partake in his scheduled bike trip that he had planned for the week. I could see the devastation in his eyes as this was a minor hit to his independence and would hinder his ambition, and anyone who knows Richard, knows that this is his Achilles heel. So we took it easy for the rest of the night.

Sunday was a bit of a lazy day as we sort of cruised around the neighborhood and checked out some thrift stores. Unfortunately the one we were headed to was closed, so we re-routed our trek to a different store. After looking around a bit, Jen found a pullover sweatshirt as Christianna and Richard went to a farther Goodwill to pick up some crutches. The day concluded with Jen going to see the new Twilight movie, Eclipse, with Christianna, Heath, and a friend of theirs. Josh and I hung out at the house and watched a little TV and caught up on some internet happenings. I then needed to shower for our days in Seattle were coming to an end in the morning. We had a nice, laid back weekend hanging with family, and it was much appreciated. We want to thank Christianna and Heath for letting us stay and also a thanks to Josh and Boris for being fun to hang out with while we stayed there. Sleep came, and in the morning, the good-byes were said as our adventure took us into the country that hockey built, Canada.

Random Facts

Loads of Laundry Done at Christianna's House = 2

Face Tattoo Count = 4

Pictures Taken in Washington = 0, Jen forgot to take her camera out.

The Oregon Trail

An Open Letter to California
Dear California,
I have some bad news for you. It turns out the best beaches on the west coast of America are in Oregon and not in your part of the country. I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but someone needed to tell you. You've been rather full of yourself for the past few decades or so and America has decided that it was time to set you straight. You might have had a reason to be so full of yourself and snobby, if maybe your beaches were swimmable, but even in the southern most part of San Diego, a wetsuit is recommended. So, by that token, swimmability is thrown out the window. By shear strokes of beauty and character, Oregon upholds the most beautiful beaches on the west coast. Oregon has you beat on differential of surroundings as they have broken cliffs that extend out to the ocean allowing the waves to crash up against. There are also giant rocks that shoot up from the 50 yards out in the water, while having the stark beauty of the evergreens and such in the background. If this picture of grand mountainous rocks and cliffs with fabulous trees were not enough, Oregon also has nice sandy beaches reminiscent of the Jersey shore, complete with sand dunes and its dune grass. Let's not forget that that beautiful forestry is always in site when at the beach as well. Once again California, I am sorry to inform that your reign as the King of Beaches on the West Coast has been revoked. Please return the trophy so that it can be distributed to Oregon.

Best Regards,
Mike and Jen Reilly along with the rest of America

The Oregon Coast
Needless to say, Jen and I enjoyed the crap out of the Oregon Coast. It started as we came up over the state border from California and pulled off the highway as the sun was setting. It was quite nice and rather late as the farther north you get the sun likes to set later in the day. Apparently, Oregon forgot that eight o'clock should be about the time that the sun should either be down or at least almost there. They say, to hell with that, we like to set the sun around 9:30 or 10. This takes a little getting used to. It also was somewhat good for us, since our mission for the night was to find a place to sleep. We had found a state park that we wanted to stay at and it turns out that they were all filled up. The ranger lady at the window told us that the nearest place to camp was about 55 miles up the coast. Traveling that far did not sound too appealing as we had already driven a decent amount that day. The lady then told us that we could stay across the highway at the rest stop, as long as it was in our car.

One of the main reasons for us to get the Mercedes wagon was that if we had to sleep in the car, it would allow for us to both stretch out and lay in the back fairly comfortably. So, after eating a little soup and sandwiches for dinner, we decided that a free place to sleep without having to drive and miss the scenery was a definite plus. We started to move everything from the back of the car to the front seats and onto the roof in our cargo bag. After some deliberating on what should go where, along with a little tetris mastery, we figured it out and laid down for sleep. It was about 9:30 or so and the sun was still lingering around. Since becoming nomadic people, we've taken on the way of the Native Americans. We rise with the sun and sleep when it's dark. It has worked out very well for us, but this travel to the coast threw as a curveball. Little to say we slept amazingly in the back of the wagon and woke up ready to battle the coast.

Since we had two days to kill before we needed to be in Portland, we took our time and meandered our way up the 101. First stop was breakfast while overlooking the ocean. We busted out our little one burner butane stove and started cooking. On the menu for that morning was an egg, sausage, and cheese sandwich on a bagel. It was our first egg breakfast in a while and was a great welcome back. All the while we were cooking and eating we had been stared down by a shifty eyed seagull. He wanted our food as he crept closer and closer ever so slightly. When we made eye contact with him, he coyishly would turn around like a child who got caught doing something he wasn't supposed to, all the while playing it off like he had no idea what was going on. Unfortunately, the gull was short on luck that day, for we ate everything in sight.

After eating, the wind picked up a bit. The weather was still very nice, so we hung out at our picnic table looking out at the ocean. A gust of wind came out of nowhere and picked up one of the plastic bags that were on the table. Jen turned around to try and grab it, and kablam. She fell off the bench of the picnic table and when laughter came from instead of swearing, I knew all was well, and it turned from an uh-oh to a ha-ha. Now, before we proceed, things must be established about this picnic table. In Jen's defense, the bench on the picnic table did not go fully to the end of one side. The bench stopped roughly a foot in from the end of the table about where the support for the table was from the ground. The only possibility for this to be functional is that it might be for wheelchair accessibility, but other than that it is very poorly designed. So her falling off of the bench is excusable and is blamed on the picnic table and its designer not on Jen's clumsiness.

When we had our fill of ocean gazing, we pushed on, up the coast. We made frequent stops at various points and made a day of site seeing. Our first pullout was to the sight of a giant Tyrannosaurus Rex standing in the parking lot. We instantly pulled off the highway and stopped to check it out. It turns out; it was a walk back in time. There was a bunch of replica dinosaurs all spread out upon the Oregon rainforest. We were hoping we could both get in for about ten bucks total, but it would have been about twice that. So we took advantage of the free pictures with T-Rex and pressed on. On the highway there were many billboards and flyers telling us to check out the sea lion caves. We thought it might be cool, if it were not too expensive, so when we finally came to the pull off. We parked the car and crossed the street to check place out. Turns out it was fourteen dollars a person. This is like going to a zoo that has only one animal, all the while paying the full price of a normal zoo. We opted to not go, which in retrospect, I can swear that I remember my grandma telling me it was a big waste of time anyways.

It was now getting late in the day and we were in need of showers and found a KOA in Waldport. It was moderately priced for a KOA but we were stuck in a corner patch of land next to the playground. Luckily, there weren't too many kids that wanted to play on the jungle gym. We had some camp mates that were really nice and started up some simple conversation. They were a nice family on a little vacation away from the home life in Salem, Oregon. We told them our story, and they shared theirs with us. We started to get hungry and decided to make some quick dinner. Since we had slept in the car last night, we had to wash dishes from the night before. We had opted to wait until we had some running water to make it easier on ourselves. We had walked over to the water spicket that was weirdly placed right next to a cabin. There were some older people at the cabin, sitting out front, in some camping chairs. The whole time we washed out few dishes, they were giving us the stink eye. We cleaned up the dishes rather quickly. We finished cleaning in less than five minutes, despite being gawked at the whole time. We had felt a little bad about washing the dishes, with it being so close to their site, but after the stare down we received the bad feelings were shifted towards annoyance and anger.

We then made some dinner, consisting of hot dogs and some white rice, which was not only easy, but very tasty despite its simplicity. The KOA campground map, said there was a sea lion watching area. We were intrigued and skeptical, but decided to take a walk down. We took the overgrown trail to the beach and surprise, surprise, there were no sea lions. The bay's beach was fairly crappy as it was under a bridge, so we turned back around and headed for the camp. We were now ready for showers. We grabbed our stuff and walked to the showers. Interestingly enough, there was a nice little dishwashing station near the bathrooms. This little fact brought up the question of why the old people gave us the stink eye. Now, it seemed that the stink eye was justified, because they obviously knew about the dishwashing area. This begs the question of why they did not simply let us know that it was there, instead of gazing at us with daggers in their eyes. Jen was disappointed, especially after our camp neighbor told us that the old guy had said something to him about us washing our dishes there and not in the dish washing sink. All was well and Jen decided to leave a nice note for the people in the morning as we left.

The Oregon Coast Aquarium was our first stop in the morning. The aquarium was very nicely set up, as it sort of twisted and turned and made good use of the small amount of area that it had. They had some nice exhibits but overall it was rather small. One highlight was huge Japanese king crabs that were the largest species of crab in the world. They also had a couple different species of jellyfish which are always fun to look at. Overall the aquarium was nice but a little overpriced for the amount of exhibits they had. From the aquarium we headed towards Salem. As soon as we arrived in Salem, we decided it was a weird city and not much was going on so just as quickly as we arrived, we left. If only there were a witch burning or something of the likes of what happened on the eastern version of the city, would it have been fun to stick around.

After Salem, we drove into the southwest end of the Mt. Hood National Forest to grab a campsite. We found a nice little place that was just off the bank of some small river and was nice and secluded from other people. This wasn't of much need as there were only about two or three other campsites being occupied. It was nice to sleep to sound of the rushing water as we both slept through the night. We woke up to it being fairly cold out and worked our way north on the highway to Portland.

Portland, OR
In Portland we were supposed to meet up with our buddy Nick later on that evening, so we had some time to kill before 8:30 when his bus got into town. We found the main library in the city to pick up some internet access. The library was really set up nicely and was an old building that was fabulously decorative. It was four stories tall and each story had its own section of books. The black granite stairs, which almost looked like obsidian, had etched pictures and designs cut into them that were just fantastically ornate. It was almost a shame to be walking on them. After sitting around for a bit we decided to move on and traveled up to Washington Park to eat some lunch and take a walk.

On our way up to the park we stumbled upon a giant used bookstore that piqued our interest. Powell's bookstore is huge, as it clocks in at an area of about a city block. They had tons of books and we could probably have spent a day and a half looking through all of them. Jen picked some up at decent prices, while I still had some books to read in the car so I passed. We then continued on to the park for some sandwiches and a walk through the rose garden. After completing our time in the park it was still a bit early so we found a movie theater. We went to see the movie Cyrus, with John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill. It's a dark comedy about a middle aged guy that falls in love with a lady that has an odd twenty two year old son. The son wanted to keep mom to himself and chaos ensued. The movie was well done and really entertaining. Probably one of the best new movies I've seen this year. Shortly after the movie ended, Nick was due into town. We scooped him up from the greyhound station and headed to the hotel.

Nick checked in and let us crash with him for the two nights he was in town. After settling into the room we decided to hit the town for a bit. We walked over the Burnside Bridge and into old town Portland. Jen and Nick wanted to grab a beer or two so we found a little pub and sat down for a bit. They went to the bar and were ordering some beers while I grabbed a table for us to sit at. They came back with their drinks and a story. It turns out there was a guy that told them that one time a guy had bought him and his girl a drink at a bar and that he was going to do the same for them. So they failed to correct the man and received some free drinks compliments of the drunken guy at the bar. Shortly after arriving a guy crawled up on the corner stage and started playing some rather heinous acoustic songs. This prompted us to finish up and call it a night.

The next day started with our walk to Voodoo Donuts. Voodoo Donuts is known for its crazy donut concoctions. They have a deal where you can order the Voodoo Dozen and the cashier picks 13 donuts of his choosing for you to eat. I really wanted to try the maple bar with real pieces of bacon laid on top so we ordered them up. In our dozen we received donuts of the likes; one with fruit loops on it, Butterfinger crushed into the frosting, m&m's, and sweet tarts to name a few. The best one we ate had to be the bacon maple bar followed closely by the Butterfinger. The shop also had donuts with cocoa puffs and rice crispies and other various sweets and cereals placed on them. Their signature donut is one in the shape of a voodoo doll. It comes compete with a pretzel stake to stab it with and is filled with raspberry jelly to resemble blood.

The rest of the day was filled with touring around the city which included visiting The Japanese Garden. It turns out it was rather boring and not all that interesting. It had some pretty scenery but other than that it didn’t have much else to offer. Besides, they only had one koi fish, and in my book you need at least seventeen koi fish to call yourself a Japanese garden. Nick wanted to do some beer tours/samples of the local breweries, so we tagged along and had a good time visiting various local pubs and such. After some lunch at Rouge Beer's distillery, where Jen and Nick sampled some beer, we pressed to the east side of the bridges to visit the other side of Portland.

We made use of the public transportation traveled to a nickel arcade. The place consists of many various arcade games all in the denomination of nickels instead of quarters. There was a small entrance fee, but most of the games were cheap enough to counterbalance it. The place was a lot of fun. We even found some weird asian game that was like a race, and you got to smash into your opponent. The only controls were a joystick on a half circle swivel. Both joysticks could travel around the whole half circle, which is what allowed for the crashing into your opponent. After our nickels ran out we walked over to the Hawthorne area and found a very random and weird dollar store. The store had everything from used books to standard dollar store paraphernalia like fake poop and vomit. We browsed through all of the stuff, but left only buying a sweet postcard.

Later on in the night we grabbed some decent pizza that was a steal at four dollars for a giant slice and a soda. Nick then wanted to try out some more beers, so we traveled over to a place called Deschutes. They seemed to have a better selection at Deschutes than at Rogue. From there we had walked around a bit and then met up with some of my old Vegas friends, Brian and Seth. They had played a show that night, which we were going to go to, but we lost track of time and missed it. Jen was tired and wanted to be dropped off at the hotel, so Nick and I met up with them at a bar not too far from the hotel. We had a good time catching up and hanging out, mostly talking about music, movies, and comic books. Before we knew it, time was slipping by and our eyelids started to get heavy. We said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel.

The next day we all woke up and needed to check out by eleven. We headed into town for some breakfast. We had seen a variety of street vendor carts lined up in various places around the city and were told that most had good food. We picked up some breakfast burritos and then parted ways with Nick, as we needed to go north and he had a bus to catch later in the day. We had a great time hanging out with him and hopefully will get to see him soon. He leaves for Japan in a couple of weeks to teach English to a bunch of elementary school children in a small town south of Osaka. Nick is a great guy whose independence is mind blowing. He is fun to be around and is always down for pretty much anything, which is highly respectable. I'll miss him a bunch and maybe we can fall into some money and visit him in Japan, which would be amazing.

Columbia River Gorge, OR
We traveled east in Oregon to see the magnificent Columbia River Gorge. I had heard good things of the area and figured it would be a good way to kill a day before or landing in Seattle. We drove the highway around the Columbia River just like Lewis and Clark. The scenery was really pretty and I only wish that it were springtime as some of the grasses were a little brown. Other than that it was quite pretty. We then made into the northern part of the Mt. Hood National Forest to camp out again. We found a campground near the Hood River called Sherwood Forest and found it to be a nice enough place. We couldn't figure out how to pay though. The sign had misleading information on what and were to put your money. Plus, we had no cash except for a dollar bill and some twenties. We had been using checks for camping as its easy and always exact change, but this was a problem as it had no info for using checks. We decided to chance it, since the campground was pretty empty, and skip on paying unless someone came to bother us. Luckily no one came looking for us so we got a free night out of it. Sorry National Forest Services, but we have paid for some overpriced campsites of yours, so I think it all evens out. The next day we traveled back along the Columbia and stopped at a couple of the various trails and waterfalls along the way. I think I have seen more waterfalls in that week than in my whole previous life. They were all very beautiful, but after a good amount of them, they are all just waterfalls. We had a great time traveling along the River and we moved on towards the next step on trip to visit Christianna, Heath, and Richard in Seattle.































Random Facts

Nights Camped - 9

Nights Slept in Car - 1

Times Jen has Fallen - 2

Bug Bites - annoyingly too many.

Mike is desperately allergic to something that grows along the Pacific Northwest Coast.