28th September 2021, Tuesday Death Valley National Park O and I have coffee and muffins at the little coffee shop near Robbers Roost Motel in Green River, Utah. We are on the road by 8:10, heading towards our next destination, Death Valley National Park. Our drive is uneventful, mostly along interstate roads. As we drive westward skies become more and more hazy from the western fires. Mountain ranges are obscured in
18th September, 2021, Saturday Drive to Green River, Utah What a crazy drive! As we are leaving Grand Teton another car, exiting a turnout and heading in the opposite direction from us, drives directly towards us in our lane, while the driver looks over his shoulder for oncoming traffic in his own lane. He looks up just in time and swerves into his own lane at the last second. Whew! Close
11-17 September, 2021 11 September, Saturday This is our last and longest trip of 2021, but still brief compared to the wanderings of 2015-2019. Yesterday was Friday, our usual day to watch A. We drove her home to Newcastle in the evening and enjoyed a delightful dinner of savoury waffles provided by E and K. Along with A came a very nervous Lucy, accompanied by her big comfy bed and
11-17 July 2021 Sunday-Monday: And now for a totally new experience: six days of car camping with S & K and our 14 month old granddaughter, A, not to mention Zephy, a Cardigan corgi, and Lucy our 16 year old Australian cattle dog mix. The drive from Bellevue to LaPine State Park is about 360 miles: 6 ½ hours of driving time. Add to that toddler wiggle time and dog
20-23 June 2021 A week and a half after our Rainbow Falls trip we explore our next park, Larrabee: Washington’s first state park. It’s about an hour and 40 minute drive north of Bellevue and just south of Bellingham, Washington, home of many brew pubs. The park is pleasantly wooded with a cool breeze coming off Sammamish Bay. The sites are small, but our neighbors on either side are pleasant.
6-9 June 2021 After our one year hiatus from exploring North America, O and I are more than ready to continue exploring new areas in Washington and beyond as we figure out how to travel safely in this strange Covid environment. By now S and K are also fully immunized, but we remain concerned that we could inadvertently expose un-immunized A to the virus if we do not continue to
We’re up early and on the road. Along the way we visit REI in Sacramento to pick up a new Thermacell in case of further mosquito attacks. Buying a new one practically guarantees that we will find our old Thermacell when we return to Bellevue. We stop at a bistro with outdoor seating in Fresno for a mid-afternoon dinner, then wend our way up route 41 to find Summerdale, the
For the remainder of this summer O and I will venture out on a series of smaller trips than in the past. We continue to be careful during this pandemic, especially since we spend our Fridays watching A while S and K are both working. We are also testing O’s left knee. He’s been noting some instability there. An orthopedist diagnosed pretty severe arthritis, but a course of physical therapy
O and I are now living in Washington State where we can watch our new granddaughter grow. By the end of March we are immunized against CoVid and ready to test the travel waters again as the country begins to open up. Our first “test trip” is a brief weekend family outing to Deception Pass State Park at the end of April. Somehow I managed to pick the only really rainy weekend
10 October 2019, Thursday: It’s a gray morning at Seawall. O and I drive into Southwest Harbor and enjoy breakfast at Sips Cafe. Then we are on the road towards Gorham with an obligatory stop at LLBean in Freeport. By evening we are back in Gorham where we receive a warm welcome from N’s parents. We head onto Portland to visit N and G’s apartment where we hear tales of