From Bend to the Beach and Portland in between - Week 2

After our two nights in the Deschutes NF, we drove north to spend time with our friends in Portland, OR.  Spencer and Annah were gracious enough to host us for the second time in less than a year.  They now have a beautiful home nestled under some huge sequoias in the southwest corner of the city.  An unexpected bonus, was that Brad Buckelew was also in town the same week and also staying at S&A's place.  He quickly became Hudson and Sybil's favorite playmate.

We spent most of our time catching up with old friends and sleep.  Here are some of the highlights!

Our first visit was with Chuck and Harriet and their two kids.  They invited us out to the Portland Children's Museum and an early dinner afterwards.  As Chuck said, "it's awesome to think that we've known each other since kindergarten and now our kids hang out together."  Perfectly said.  There's something really special about long time friends. 

Hud and I snuck away late morning during a Syb nap to have a trail run in Forest Park.  Zilker is great, but this feels like a National Park in your city with endless miles of trials to explore.

Although it was a brief visit, we were able to stop in with Chelsea's family for dinner and SO MUCH PLAY!  Her awesomely rambunctious brood of three quickly brought Sybil into the fold and were so gracious with sharing their toys and playing together.

As Tom Petty said, "It's time to move on.  Time to get going..."  Hud was clearly ready to head to Claire's beach house for the weekend.

Our first stop was at Pronto Pup.  The home of the corn dog!

It was a beautiful day when we arrived, but the kids were tuckered from the drive and went down for naps giving Hud and me an opening to sneak out for a beach run.  Over 4 miles of off leash smiles and chasing sea gulls.

Kids woke up.  It's time for the beach!

Claire, Cara, and Claire's awesome beach house.  Cara and the house were really repping their U.S.A. pride.

The next day, we went for a train ride with Sybil along the Oregon coast.  It was a quick fun 30 minute ride between Garibaldi and Rockaway Beach, OR.  Train ride combined with ice cream had Syb pretty pumped.  

One of the views along HWY 101 north of Rockaway Beach

On our final day, Cara found another cool beach for us to explore.  This is Oswald West State Park. 

After some tidal pool hunting and exploring we headed back to the large beach.  Since we didn't bring any beach toys, we asked some friendly strangers if we could borrow theirs.  Sybil's favorite beach activity is to fill a bucket, completely to the top, with sand and water.

Our time in Oregon ended at the beach.  We drove north the next day to spend a night with Deb and Chris in Seattle and pushed off the next day to head to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island to meet more good friends.  Portland was a great reminder of how fortunate we are to have so many good friends in our lives.  We can't express how much we appreciate and love you.

Denver to Portland - Week 1

Denver  --> Portland

Greetings from Portland! We're all having a great time on the road trip so far, though it's still up in the air as to whether we're doing permanent psychological damage to our 2.5 year old. Every single day she queries from the back seat, "Are we going home?" And every day, we steel ourselves to tell her the hard truth. "No, hon, we are going...camping,...to Denver/Boise/Portland, or...we don't know." After getting over her disappointment, she entertains herself by sleeping, eating, and putting her toilet seat on her head in what I'm sure is a form of metaphorical protest. 

In 2 year old speak (which is basically all we speak these days), we are turtles, carrying our home with us for the next 6 weeks. Our home is our car, our tent, each other, and the cozy beds and homes that our friends and family have been gracious enough to invite us into (only for us to taint everything with the smell of campfire).  

We stopped in Amarillo the first night of our journey at a cheap and dirty hotel with no A/C in half of the building, where our car was broken into overnight in the parking lot. The damage could have been worse, but still stings. We were relieved of: $10 in quarters, our checkbook, and all of our many gift certificates. Mike was henceforth fired from booking our accommodation. 

We rolled into Denver the next day to stay with Mike's cousin Andy, his wife Melissa, and their two kids, Sophia and Joshua. Sybil really enjoyed playing with their daughter Sophia in their basement toy wonderland, and our streak of pretending like the soundtrack to the movie Frozen doesn't exist quickly came to and end. Syb carried around a Frozen karaoke machine and sang into it like a drunk bachelorette, off key but enthusiastically, for a good chunk of the day. 

We went to the Denver Botanical Gardens with Melissa and Sophia, and then went to stay with Matt, Mike's oldest childhood friend, and his wife Crisnna. They're expecting a child the exact same time we are, early October, so Crisnna and I commiserated about being pregnant and Mike and Matt dutifully nodded. Hudson was in dog heaven going to a huge off leash dog park (Cherry Creek Reservoir) and playing and lying on the couch with their incredible horse-dog and 80's hair band impersonator, Chase. 

After Denver we booked it through Wyoming to northern Utah and found an awesome and secluded spot in the Cache National Forest off a logging road and pitched our tent for the night. If you don't know about dispersed camping on public land, you should. It's free, secluded, dogs are allowed, and it's typically stunningly beautiful. 

We left Texas for the summer partially to escape the heat and mosquitos, but weren't quite ready for temperatures in the upper 30s and mosquitoes the size of quarters. Thankfully, someone had camped off this road before and built a nice fire ring that we took advantage of. And the only one to be phased by the mozzies was Hudson, the worst camper in the family (by far). 

We wanted to camp for the next few nights in southern/central Idaho, but constant rain was in the forecast. Hudson was having none of that, so we booked a hotel in Boise for the night. We decided to try to get ahead of the weather front and camp in Oregon the next few nights.

We ended up in the Deschutes National Forest, just south of Bend, after some excellent research by Mike (who was afterwards rehired as our accommodation booker on a probationary basis). It was still cold, but no mozzies, and it was gorgeous. We were surrounded by a Ponderosa Pine forest, one of my favorite trees, in an area called Pine Mountain. Sybil and Mike were enthusiastic and skilled wood collectors (another benefit of dispersed camping is that you can collect wood), and Syb had a blast making a Father's Day card for Mike and doing acrobatic moves on the sleeping pads in the tent. 

We explored the Newberry National Volcanic Monument the next day, a caldera with beautiful lakes and waterfalls. We were a bit ambitious in our hiking goals, and were reminded that trying to make an all day hiking/exploring agenda with a 2.5 year old is a futile endeavor. Humbled, we scaled back our plans and settled for a short waterfall hike and lunch by a beautiful crater lake. 

More campfire time, short hikes, delicious camp meals, not one but TWO different flat tires (Bend Tire Shop is the shit!), and card playing ensued.  

Since we're depriving her of her normal routine of school, friends, and normalcy, Syb has taken to filling up her backpack every day and claiming she's "going to school". 

On the particular day pictured above her school was in a stand of Ponderosa Pine trees. I was feeling conflicted about taking her out her comfortable routine of life in Austin at her current developmental stage (a typically difficult one for lots of toddlers to navigate), but if her school is among pine trees, mountains, far away friends, and extended family, I can happily live with that. 

Road Trip 2018 - Sybil and Hudson go Northwest!

Another school year has passed and summer travel has begun!

Here's a quick recap of our school year (10th for Cara and 12th for me).  Sybil had an awesome second year at Zavala with great teachers and really sweet kids.  Many mornings should would exclaim, "yeah!" when we pulled up to school.  The year seemed to fly by staying busy with Sybil adventures, taking a trip to use Syb's last free flight to visit friends in Portland, OR, spring break road trip to west Texas to meet friends for a Big Bend adventure,  lots of great cousin and family time, Cara helping to organize the first year of the Austin Torch (women's semi-pro ultimate), and myself training and playing with the Sol.  Oh yeah, and we have another little girl on the way, nicknamed Pepita, that is scheduled to join our team on October 1st!

When planning for this summer's adventure we nixed international travel due to the pregnancy and also thinking that a family, friends, camping road trip would provide lots of 2.5 year old adventure opportunities for Syb.  The idea of northwest road trip started with Tessa and Damien's gracious invitation to join their family on Friday Harbor for a few days of island living.  This is the second year we have been invited and couldn't pass it up again.  With that as our first major destination we decided we would be too close to Portland to not stop in again as well as head through Denver to see Matt and Andy's families.  After spending time in the Northwest, the plan is to drive across the top of the country through Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota seeking outdoor adventure along the way.  We'll then continue east and return to civilization by meeting more friends at the second annual SNIT weekend!  We'll spend time with Granny Bea and Aunt Faye in Arkansas for our final stop before returning home to Austin. 

Well that's the plan at least.  Traveling with the whole crew will definitely pose some new challenges, but we are ready to put in the energy to reconnect with friends, family, nature, and each other.

Let the trip begin!  Below is our day 1 recap.

Day 1: 490 miles Austin to Amarillo
Early start around 6am (after a late night packing after the Sol game).  A nice picnic lunch break at a Park in Lubbock, and then capped off the day with a hotel swim and reading time in a big king size bed together.  Next stop is Denver to see Andy, Melissa, Matt and Crisnna.

ps HUGE thanks to the Nanas, Opah, and Papa for helping us this week with Sybil and preparing the house for the arrival of Pepita in the fall.  We love you.