On the Road

We have finally left for phase 2 of our trip after 10 days in the Seattle area. Those 10 days were a bit of a whirlwind and left us a little bit dazed but we got a lot accomplished. We spent a few days getting the boat put away for the winter and moved into our home on wheels, we spent as much time with family and friends as we could squeeze out, Brenda was thrilled to have real stores and got a lot of shopping in, and we cursed our way through the Seattle traffic. I can't tell you how much I didn't miss driving in the city...I despise it with a passion. One of my greatest joys of not working has been the fact that I don't have to sit in traffic every day. Anyway, there were quite a few friends that we wanted to see but we just didn't have enough time to get to everyone (sorry if we missed you...we tried). We had to be in Spokane on the September 15th so we had to get out of town. Actually we could have stayed a couple of more days in Seattle but we really wanted to spend some time in the North Cascades National Park before we left the region and I was pretty much done with the traffic, so we took off with enough time to see some of the sites and get some hiking and camping in.

It was pretty interesting to be back in Seattle for a short visit. Now that we are homeless so to speak, it was really strange to be roaming around the city without a place of our own. We were lucky enough to have our good friends Mik and Christina open up their arms and their home for us to use as a home base so we could get our needed things done and not have to live in our camper on the streets of Ballard with all the other homeless people and campers that are lining the streets.  I have to tell you that the city felt very confining after being on the boat all summer. I was ready to move on after the first night back. We felt stagnant and like we were back in the rat race. It was strange to not want to be in my home town even though I know it is one of the best cities on earth. I think that we really were still in travel and fun mode so being back in the city to take care of errands and doctors appointments and maintenance just made us feel like we were back at work...a place I don't want to go back to...ever.

Luckily we were able to have some fun between all of the necessary do-dads that we had to get done. We were able to sneak a great hike in at Rattlesnake Ledge, we ate way too much good food with friends and family, we heard tales of adventure from our good friends who were in town from Australia while taking a short break from their round the world sailing trip, and I was even able to throw a quick last minute fishing trip into the mix and catch a couple steelhead down on the Cowlitz river. We love our friends and family and we really enjoyed the time we were able to spend with them . All in all, a pretty productive 10 days.


So we are now officially on the road and in search of new adventure. We spent a couple days in the North Cascades camping and hiking and had a great time. We'll be in Spokane for a couple of days so Brenda can check in with her family and friends and take care of a few necessary do-dads. After we are done here we will be heading to Yellowstone (another place on my bucket list for too long). We will probably need a few days to get back into the rhythm of travelling again, but once we do, we'll check in with more stories of adventure.


Here are a few pictures from the last couple of weeks.
the tippety-top of Rattlesnake Ledge



Suns-out-guns-out in Winthrop



the tippety-top of Hurricane Ridge with the Captain and Crew of Split Crow


Suns-out-guns-out with a steelhead

a bearded mountain man with a steelhead

Comments

  1. GuzmánsSeptember 17, 2014 at 10:28 PM

    Greatest times anf great friends. Thanks fro posting. Jorge and Kristina Guzman

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Double Birthday and the Italian Connection

Image
There is an interesting thing that happens on this side of the world. When we left Seattle, we crossed the international date line which puts us one whole day ahead of where we came from. Basically, we lost a day. Because we lost a day, Brenda turned the ripe old age of 40 one day sooner than she would have if we were in Seattle. On September the 12 th in Vanuatu, we got to celebrate her big day. But since she says her home is in Seattle, we also got to celebrate her 40 th birthday when September 12 th happened on that side of the world. Basically, she got the longest birthday known to mankind...2 big days long. There is another interesting thing that happens when you are cruising the world on a sailboat. You run into other cruisers that come from all parts of the world and all backgrounds. Where we are currently moored on Aore Island in Vanuatu, there are 4 boats that are from 4 different countries. It's an international coalition. Our newest neighbors jus...
Read more

The Garnet Ghost Town

Image
For years before we left, I had always told people that we were going to sail around the world. Now that we've been out for a few years, I still tell people the same thing. It's a concept that makes sense to the average Joe – a circle around the globe. A start and an end. One complete lap. When a random stranger we meet on the road asks what we are doing, I still answer with, “we are sailing around the world.” But that explanation is and has always been just a quick way to put into words a concept that still doesn't make sense to most people. Because in reality, we aren't going to sail around the world. One big lap of the globe doesn't really have any appeal to us. Although we aren't realistically going to make a big giant loop – with a beginning and an end – we are doing our best to see the world, and we'll be doing it for as long as it takes. So, I think the proper way to explain what we are doing, is to just say that we are out here to see the ...
Read more

A Crossroads

Image
There comes a time in every sailor's life when some hard decisions have to be made. We are at that point. We are currently in a little town on the Baja called Santa Rosalia. It's amazingly different than any other place we've seen so far in Mexico, and after 9 months in the country, we've seen a lot of places. Santa Rosalia is a mining town. Copper was discovered here in the 1860's, and after a few change of hands and some tax breaks and incentives, a French company took over the mines and the town took off. They imported wood from Oregon and Canada, and with that wood, they did something that we haven't seen anywhere else in Mexico. They built stuff...using wood. Nearly everything in Mexico is built from concrete, steel, and cinder blocks, so, without having to use too much brainpower, it's pretty easy to see that this place is different. No hard math or powers of deduction are needed - it's staring us right in the face in the f...
Read more