Tag: Washington

Day 22 – The Road Home

We got up after a good nights sleep and got ready for the day. Then headed down to breakfast. We had purchased a “breakfast package” so went for the buffet rather than the snack shop that has coffee and muffins/cookies/donuts.

Jude found the waffles and ice cream and made a breakfast sandwich; and Siah worked on a pile of bacon. Cause nothing says “Good morning” like a bacon coma.

Jon and his wolf ears enjoyed an omelet.

We had picked up our wolf ears the night before and at first the boys were too cool for them but I’m not sure how it’s possible to be too cool for wolf ears.

After breakfast, Jon and I packed up the room and the boys headed back to the water park.

While Jon took our bags back to the trailer, I took the boys clothes and went to find them.

They eventually noticed me and came out to get dressed. They LOVE swimming but they also want to go home. So it wasn’t a tough sell to get them out of the water, this time.

Yesterday, they got caught by this bucket of water dumping on them unexpectedly. We were headed to the hot tub which is sort of behind this structure and when Jon and the boys walked passed, it dumped on them. It was perfect timing. Not planned at all. It’s a lot of water.

We were going to take a selfie but a sweet lady offered to take a photo for us. Not sure that’s a wolf, maybe an eagle. I dunno but it was nice to get a photo with all of us that wasn’t a selfie. The wolf ears are just a bonus.

We got in the truck for our last family selfie before we hit the road home. It was just a short 3.7 hours to home.

It’s weird to be thinking that tomorrow we’ll wake up at home in our bed and not be driving anywhere. There are no more routes to plan or RV parks to book; just regular life stuff.

I’d love to brag about this guy for a moment. He has driven almost every one of the 9919 kms on this trip. He fixed the RV when it was broken. He hooked up and dumped every black water tank. He stayed calm and present when we dealt with frustration and meltdowns. He white knuckled our way through every wind gust and kept us on the straight and narrow. He had plans and strategies for issues that never happened but if they had, we would have been totally taken care of. He was a rock star and I’m so very thankful for him and the way he takes care of us.

This particular drive seemed to fly by. We missed traffic in Seattle which was fabulous and as we neared the border, everyone was excited to get home.

When we crossed the border, Siah exclaimed. “It even smells like Canada; smell that fresh smell of cow poop.”

Welcome to Aldergrove!

We got home and began to unload the trailer. Somehow it’s always more fun and seems easier to load a trailer than it does to unload it. We made quick work of it though. Siah was a HUGE help and made a number of trips packing boxes of stuff from the trailer to the house. It probably only took 45 mins to empty it into the foyer, front room and kitchen of our house. And now we begin the process of putting it all away. That’s a HUGE job.

We managed to get good portion put away and most of everything is in close proximity to where it should eventually go. For example all the food and kitchen stuff is in the kitchen, bathroom stuff is on the counter in the bathroom and 18 Hundred loads of laundry and bedding are in the hallway upstairs next to the laundry machine. Since we got home, I’ve already done 5 loads of laundry and haven’t even hit the bedding yet!

Gia was happy to have us home.

I laid down on my bed for a moment and was so thankful to be home; and even more thankful for the wonderful opportunity to get to go on a road trip like this. Being able to spend this time with my family and being able to see where Jon grew up and experience things that he’s talked about and shared over the past 27 years, was so special.

This time was truly a gift and definitely a cherished and Core Memory that we will hold onto forever

Oh, I hear the laundry calling me!

Day 21 – 3 Weeks on the Road

It’s crazy to think that we’ve been on the road for 3 entire weeks, as of today. So far we’ve travelled about 9,000 km and by the time we make it home we should be close to 10,000 km.

We left the Pendleton KOA just after 9am and we were headed for Grand Mound, Washington. We planned to wrap up our trip with a night at the Great Wolf Lodge.

As we left Pendleton, we had crazy headwinds and lots of clouds but as we carried on towards Portland, the clouds burned off but the wind intensified

We drove along the Columbia River and noticed the incredible rock formations along the river; Jon and I pointed them out to the boys as looking fascinating and wondering what they were.

Jude pipes up from the back seat and nonchalantly says, “Oh that’s basalt.”

What??? So I google and sure enough the Columbia River Basalt Group is what we were looking at. Basalt is a dark, fine-grained volcanic rock that sometimes displays a columnar structure. (According to Wikipedia)

How did Jude know that?

Gaming.

Apparently, Basalt is a type of rock found in more than one game that he plays. It’s been incredible to have this time together. There is so much that both boys have shared that I had no idea that they knew and lots of the information is stuff that I didn’t even know.

Click to see the whole photo

One of the sights I have loved seeing is the graffiti on the different train cars. We saw a surprising number of trains on our travels. I took these two photos yesterday but these are not even remotely the most complicated nor the most colourful tags we saw. There are some incredibly talented artists out there playing with shapes and colours in stunning ways.

We made it to the Great Wolf Lodge around 3:30pm and were able to check in a little early as our room was ready. The boys were thrilled to have a real bed, decent wifi and to go crashing in the wave pool. I only got 2 photos of our time in water park. We were just too busy having fun.

Jon and Siah went on a water slide that free fall dropped them down a chute; and they said it was AWESOME!

This was a great ending to a fabulous trip. We have one more day of driving to get home. It’s exciting and sad that our trip is over. I kind of love the duality of life. That we can hold space for conflicting emotions and that it’s okay to be both happy and sad in regard to the same event.

Day 2 – Oregon

We headed southeast through Washington aiming for Oregon.

We drove up and over the Snoqualmie Pass. It was gorgeous and cold. There was SO MUCH SNOW.

We stopped and grabbed a quick bite to eat and shook out our legs a little before carrying on.

We needed gas and came across this fruit and antique mall that was right beside a gas station and while Jon and Jude filled the truck; Siah and I ran through all three floors in a time that would have made Grandma Rathjen proud.

It was huge and filled with amazing treasures. You could have easily spent hours looking through it all.

Dad, you would have LOVED looking through it all!

Siah particularly liked the jewelry and he’s pretty sure he needs a cowboy hat to go with his black trench coat.

Seriously! 3 floors of wonder and treasure. Amazing. We boogied down the amazing stairway and flew across the parking lot just as Jon was getting back into the truck.

As we got closer to Oregon, you notice the lack of evergreens as the land flattens out to more rolling hills and flat land.

I happened to be looking at Google Maps as we approached Oregon and was warmly welcomed by this little pop up. We made it to Pendleton, Oregon and had booked a reservation at an RV site at a KOA Campground. We pulled in, hooked up and the boys immediate jumped on the internet to “relax”. Ha ha!

Our site backed onto a gorgeous view of the Blue Mountains and after a late dinner, we shut it all down and headed to bed.

Everyone is still mostly happy and happy to be on this epic road trip; but there’s still time for that to change, eh?

Road Trip

Well, when adventure calls…….you answer?

We have talked about doing a road trip for a while and in the last week, we managed to pull it all together and we are on the road.

We bought a trailer on Monday, packed like coked out squirrels on Tuesday and actually managed to get on the road around 5pm. We had booked a space in Birch Bay for our first night and wonder of all wonders, we managed to arrive around 7pm which is when I had guesstimated that we’d show up. We unhooked, set up and settled in for the night.

The boys were in bed and down for the count before 9pm. Which, if I’m being honest, freaked me out a little because they are both night owls

Jude drew a mushroom – which was the daily prompt. I started and gave up because I was also too tired. Jon and I read for a bit before turning the light out.

Our mattress is spectacular and by spectacular, I mean that even with 2 fluffy blankets under the fitted sheet you can still feel the springs. I’m thinking we will probably need a mattress topper of some sort. It was an experience, that’s for sure!

Jude was awake for the day at 5am. The rest of us started the day around 7:30am.

Jon made our first pot of percolator coffee and it was amazing! There was a quick game of Spot it! to start the day and then we packed up and headed into Bellingham.

We stopped at T-Mobile and grabbed new SIM cards for the month and now we are headed to Oregon.