Today was a big day for a certain someone in our family – Charlie turned 50!  We wanted to do something special for him, but we also needed to drive… the driving won out.

We left Omak, Washington heading for the Canadian border.  We wanted to take a drive through Canada that would have taken us up around Banff and Jaspar National Parks, but we finally decided that those would have to wait for another time.  We still wanted to do some driving through Canada, so we opted to take Canadian Hwy 3 through the very southern portion of British Columbia.  It was a beautiful drive, and we were glad we took the time to take it.

We re-entered the US north of Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho and found a great burger place in Bonner’s Ferry for a birthday dinner for Charlie.  After our delicious dinner and another trip into a bookstore where Dominic was able to find a book of Grimm’s fairy tales that he’d been looking for, we started our drive east toward Glacier.

Along the way, we came to a nice-looking pullover that was advertising Kootenai Falls.  We’re almost always up for a waterfall if the hike isn’t too bad, so we decided to take a look.  The waterfall itself was only a ¼ mile hike, so off we went.  And the reward was great! 

After admiring the waterfall, we walked another ¼ mile or so to a swinging bridge.  This bridge was huge and intimidating to some of my crew.  Of course, it didn’t help that the birthday boy purposely tried to scare several of the kids.  However, they all lived to see another day of national parks – or maybe I should say they all lived to be tortured through another day of all of us riding around in our 8-seater Honda Pilot.

We were planning to drive the rest of the way that evening to Kalispell and stay at the WalMart (like we did 10 years ago), but I did a little looking up and discovered that they no longer allow overnight parking at that WalMart.  After a little more internet digging, I found a Volunteer Firefighter park in Libby, Montana, that only charged $10 a night for camping, and we pulled in.  Off to bed we went to be ready for our adventures in Glacier!

Rebecca

We left North Cascades National Park area on Tuesday morning planning a slower drive toward Glacier National Park.  We drove back through the national park and continued on a highway to take us a longer route to Glacier.  We were being picky about which way we were going as we wanted to drive into Canada for a little while.

We reached Washington Pass on the eastern side of North Cascades and stopped at an overlook.  As it turned out, the overlook had a small trail with it.  I took the kids toward the overlook while Charlie went into the RV to make some lunch.  We were amazed by the views that we found at the overlook.  They were stunning!

After Washington Pass we were on the eastern, much drier side of the Cascades.  Gone were the many spruce, fir, and cedar trees.  In this area, many of the trees that we saw were actually fruit orchards – lots of apples and cherries.  My attempts at getting pictures of the fruit orchards while we were driving didn’t turn out so well, but it was amazing to see so many orchards.  We even saw an orchard that was entirely covered in a white netting – yes the netting was over the tops of the trees and enclosing the orchard down the sides also.  Charlie and I could only guess that this was to keep out certain insects, but we weren’t entirely sure.

We also stopped at a fun little town called Winthrop, Washington.  This town had been built to resemble a western town, so we really enjoyed walking around it to see what it had to offer.  AnaClaire found a pair of earrings she wanted.  We checked out a store that had a lot of western wear for sale as well as an ironworks store and a bookstore.  

And we finally made a stop for some homemade ice cream.  That was a treat!  The ice cream place had a great deck to sit outside and enjoy the cool air as well as stools made from old saddles!

Then it was on to Omak, Washington, in the northern part of the state for a sleepover in the WalMart parking lot.  We actually haven’t had a lot of luck finding WalMarts that will allow campers to park there overnight anymore.  I’ve had a couple of managers tell me what a shame that is as Sam Walton was a big fan of camping and wanted his stores to host campers.  However, from what I understand, it isn’t always up to WalMart.  Oftentimes the store buildings are owned by a company other than WalMart or there are city ordinances, etc.  It is disappointing as this has been a low cost way to do some traveling as well as we certainly do go into the store and spend plenty of money in there.

Anyway, we’re figuring it out as we go and having a great time!

Rebecca

Our drive to North Cascades National Park from Seattle was short.  Perfect!  We settled the RV in the campground and drove into the national park.  It was a beautiful drive; we were all exclaiming about the blue-green color of the river that we were driving beside.  Alex couldn’t wait to stop and touch it.

We finally did make it to an overlook in the park, but we were way to high above the river to do any touching.  The visitor center film gave us a nice overview of some of the wildlife in the park, the glaciers, and some of the history of the Native American people from that area. 

As we kept driving through the park, we saw snow-capped mountains, rivers, lakes, and lots of fir trees.  It was serenely beautiful and not at all busy.  We eventually made it to a small boardwalk trail that we wanted to do. 

As we walked it, we discovered that it led to another trail that we could take to a waterfall, so we opted for that.  This trail started going uphill a good bit and was getting very rocky.  Charlie, the boys, AnaClaire, and Amelia were quite a ways ahead of Alex, Annette, and I.  When we came across a couple hiking back from the waterfall, we stopped to ask them about the conditions of the remainder of the hike as there were no details given at the beginning of the trail.  When they explained that there was a good bit of steep grade and a lot of switchbacks, the girls and I began to rethink whether we needed to continue with the hike.

We walked a bit farther continuing to debate when we found Amelia and AnaClaire walking toward us.  Charlie had sent them back because the trail conditions weren’t good at all.  The three males of the family managed to finish the hike to the waterfall, which they said was worth it, while all of the girls and I turned around.  It wasn’t a trail that we wanted to tax Alex on too much – not to mention, we hadn’t dressed for a more intense hike; I was in sandals and not everyone had brought water (the initial hike we were going to do was short and easy).

I’m told the waterfall was stunning!  We finished driving through the rest of the park and saw several waterfalls just from the road.  We pulled over to admire multiple lakes that have been created by dams in North Cascades for the purpose of providing electricity to as far away as the Seattle area.

North Cascades is a gorgeous and under-appreciated park.  It evidently has more glaciers than any other national park in the United States.  We thoroughly enjoyed visiting this park and hope to make it back one day.  Hopefully next time we’ll bring some kayaks or paddle boards as this looked like an amazing place to explore by water.

Rebecca

Our time in the Seattle area was wonderful, … except for all of the traffic!  (In my somewhat-experienced opinion, Washington drivers are more rude than Atlanta and Charlotte drivers, but, to my surprise, they are more rude than Chicago drivers too!)  My brother, Rob, and sister-in-law, Parul, have lived in this area for several years, so we were looking forward to spending some time with them!

Friday we left our campground and took the ferry to Poulsbo, a little Nordic town that Rob had told us about.  AnaClaire had been so nervous about riding on a ferry, but once she realized that this wasn’t some little rickety boat that we parked our car on, she was much more comfortable and happy to get out and walk around. 

We walked around in Poulsbo for only an hour or two.  Charlie had finished his book that we brought with us, so we found a bookstore to meander through and a few books in there for him as well as a couple others.  There was a bakery in Poulsbo that I was really eyeing (I am such a sucker for homemade baked goods, especially bread!), but it had such a long line out the door that I stayed away from it.  I knew Charlie wouldn’t have a lot of patience for me standing in a line like that.  Asking him to do any kind of shopping with us is a stretch as it is!

The one other thing that he was willing to do was go into a specialty chocolate store that Dominic had found.  My weaknesses may be baked goods and coffee, but Charlie’s is most definitely chocolate!  We grabbed a boxed variety of chocolates to enjoy over the next couple of weeks and headed back to the car, after I stopped for a coffee. 

After a lengthy drive with lots of traffic and a ferry ride back to Seattle, we finally made it to Rob and Parul’s house.  They had a nice dinner planned for us.  Traditionally they like to sit outside with a fire in the firepit on the summer solstice and watch the sun set at their house on the shores of Puget Sound, so we were planning to do that.  Instead the evening was too cloudy to see the sun set, but we had a nice evening of visiting with each other and playing with their dog, Zoey. 

Several of the kids stayed with Rob and Parul at their house while Charlie, myself, and a couple others went back to the RV for the next couple of nights.  Those of us in the RV spent a good deal of our mornings sleeping in pretty late.  It’s amazing how exhausting traveling can be. 

On Saturday, Rob took us on a tour of Blue Origin where he works.  We learned a decent amount about their development of rockets for their spaceflight programs.  Now we just need to go see a rocket launch at some point!

Saturday and Sunday morning the kids enjoyed some time with Rob and Parul walking on the beach, kayaking, paddle boarding, etc.  We managed to see seals and an eagle or two.  I spent an enjoyable time down by the shore just watching the wildlife and the boats go by.  Sunday, Rob took us to Gas Works Park.  It was overlooking Lake Union and just a popular, enjoyable spot for people to enjoy the outdoors.  We were able to watch multiple float planes land and take off – yet another new experience for us.  Saturday night, the kids were treated to an evening of pizza and movies at the house by themselves with Zoey.  Charlie and I went to a local seafood restaurant with Rob and Parul where I was able to partake of some delicious Dungeness crab in a house-made fettucine dish. 

Although we didn’t exactly get much hiking done while we were there, we definitely received workout on the stairs!  Rob and Parul’s house is located at the bottom of over 100 stairs, so our legs were getting workouts going back and forth between our vehicle parked at the top and the house at the bottom.  Still, we’ve heard about this house and stairs for three years or so now, so it was an experience getting to visit there.

Our opportunity for visiting was over sooner than it should have been.  Sunday evening came all-too-quickly.  Rob and Parul had to return to work on Monday, and we needed to get back on the road.  We enjoyed a last delicious meal, took time for some pictures together, and had to say our goodbyes.  It was great to spend some time with them as that only comes once a year at the very most. 

Rebecca

Our stay at Schafer State Park in Washington was very peaceful.  We slept in and began our drive to Olympic National Park on Thursday morning. We didn’t think there would be many places to stop and pick up groceries, especially gluten-free bread, but we were fortunate that we came across a Costco in Sequim, so we stocked up. 

Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to the visitor center at Olympic National Park until around 2:30 in the afternoon, which didn’t leave us as much time to spend in the park as we would have liked.  As a friend said, we’ve been “sampling” the parks.  I think that is a great way to describe our short visits!

The park, according to the ranger we spoke with, was pretty busy that day, possibly due to the Juneteenth federal holiday.  We wanted to make it over to the rain forest in Olympic, but we were told it was going to be about a three hour drive over there and in the opposite direction from our campground that we were driving to next.  The other really good option was Hurricane Ridge, where evidently there are amazing views of the park from a mountain top, but Thursday was also a pretty cloudy day, so it wasn’t certain there would be a view of anything other than clouds.

We opted for a 30 minute drive and one mile hike to Marymere Falls.  A ranger at the visitor center had talked the kids into doing the Junior Ranger program, so they spent the hike busy looking for all kinds of things in nature. It was good for them, despite the reluctance of multiple children.

The hike was very busy, but easy until the end.  We were astonished at how cool the air was too.  With South Carolina dealing with some extreme heat, we were more than happy to have temps in the 50s in Washington!

After our hike, we were back in the RV driving to our campground to spend 4 nights in the Seattle area and looking forward to a few days of being less busy!

Rebecca

On Tuesday, we took a much needed down day.  We were staying at a great campground outside of Newport, Oregon, for two nights.  One of the girls had mentioned that we needed to stop at some of these thrift shops that we’ve seen, so Charlie suggested that anyone who wanted to should go thrift store shopping that morning.  He certainly didn’t have to ask me twice! 

Myself and 5 of the 6 kids went to see what deals we could find.  When I searched for thrift shops in the area, my phone seemed to indicate that most of them were closed on Tuesday.  We did find a Goodwill that said it was open, so we drove over there.  Much to our dismay, it was the first Goodwill Boutique store that we had ever encountered.  Everything they carried in there seemed like it was a little too fancy for our tastes.  We didn’t stay very long.  Then I found one more store that looked to be open, but when we drove over there, the store didn’t seem to exist at all.  Oh well…so much for thrifting.

The rest of the day was spent reading books, doing laundry, making dinner, and walking along the beach.  The slow-paced day was just what we needed.

One of our goals on the Oregon coast was to check out tidal pools for cool sea-life.  We missed our low-tide opportunity to do that on Tuesday, so we planned our departure around it on Wednesday.  We left the campground Wednesday morning in coordination with the 25 minute drive to the Yaquina Head Outstanding National Area and the tide schedule. 

When we got there, we jumped around a bunch of rocks looking to see what we could find.  We saw several sea anemones and just a couple sea stars. 

Then we went to the Interpretive Center and learned about the wildlife of the area as well as the local lighthouse. 

Before leaving, we decided to drive down to the lighthouse.  That’s when we found the much better tidal pools for viewing wildlife and were able to see sea urchins in addition to what we had already seen. 

We were even able to see Harbor Seals swimming around and sunbathing on the nearby rocks.  I was only disappointed that I had left my binoculars in the car again.

By the end of the day, we had driven the entire way up the Oregon coast on Hwy 101. It was a beautiful drive and highly recommended. Washington, here we come!

Rebecca

We made it as far as Medford, Oregon after we left Crater Lake last night.  This morning after a coffee stop at a place the girls had been wanting to try called Dutch Bros, we made headway for Redwood National Park along the northern coast of California.  Being that our license plate indicates we are from South Carolina, they decided to give our RV a thorough exterior inspection at the agricultural inspection station as we entered back into California.  There was no inspection station when we originally came into California in the Death Valley area, so this was the first time we had been through one on this trip.  Now, we’re good for a couple of weeks!

After a few hours, we entered Redwood State and National Parks.  It was gorgeous, and everything we thought Sequoia would be.  In Dominic’s words, “It’s so lush!”  The forests were filled with Redwood trees, ferns, and so much other greenery.  We drove south in and out of the park for a little while as there wasn’t a whole lot of driving we could do on the north side of the park while in an RV.  Many of the roads on the north side were closed to RVs. 

On our way south, we found a nice little pullover where Charlie and the kids hopped out of the vehicles to see the beach.  Although I wasn’t able to get any pictures (Charlie did though), we even saw two ponies walking along the beach before we managed to park.  Charlie and kids completed their mission of touching the Pacific Ocean so that they’ve touched the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific on this trip.  I, on the other hand, stayed in the RV trying to book us a campground for a couple of nights while I had a little bit of cell service.  I had just finished when they were coming back into the RV, so I decided I would forgo the beach for now and put my feet in the water in the next couple of days. 

Back in Redwood National and State Park, we stopped at a trailhead where we could park the RV and headed forward on foot. The trail was great.  We all loved walking amongst the trees towering over our heads with the ground covered by ferns all around us.  We took picture after picture.  I found yet another spot that looked like a perfect place to cuddle up with a book.  I’ve always wanted an amazing tree to sit in while I read a good book – maybe one day. 

We finally reached our destination of The Corkscrew Tree which was supposedly three trees that had grown together and twisted around each other.  The kids had a great time climbing in it before we were walking back to the RV to begin our trek north into Oregon and up the coast.

Charlie’s one hope for driving up Hwy 101 along the Oregon coast was to see a sunset over the Pacific Ocean.  Early in the drive we were following along by the ocean quite a bit, but then the drive took us more inland, and the sun was going down quickly.  Just as Charlie was losing hope of seeing the sunset, we rounded the corner, realized we were back at the coast, and saw a little pullover all at the same time.  We parked at the pullover with just a few minutes to spare before sunset and had a gorgeous view…with children once again complaining about how cold it was.  We made it to our campground a little after dark and settled in for two nights. 

Rebecca

Saturday was pretty much just a long day of driving. We checked out of our campground near Yosemite and started driving toward Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California.

We decided on our way that we would try to attend a Saturday vigil Mass since we would pretty much be in the middle of nowhere on Sunday. We found a great, older church named Sacred Heart in Red Bluff, California. And even better, we found a place to park the RV. That’s not always easy, especially when the church is in a downtown area like it was in Red Bluff. After Mass, we drove the rest of the way to our campground.

We woke up Sunday in the cool air of northern California.  I relish the cool air in places like this, knowing how hot and muggy June can be in South Carolina.  Some of the girls took one step outside and started complaining about how it’s too cold, but I absolutely love it.  I still dream of being able to spend an entire winter in someplace like Maine in the middle of a forest.  Anywho (as Isaac and Granny B would say)…

Since today is Father’s Day (Happy Father’s Day to all of you men out there who are fathers in any way!), we slept in a bit.  When Charlie got up for his walk, I lugged my lazy self out of bed and started on a breakfast for him: bacon, hashbrowns, and fruit.  The kids all were able to wake up to the smell of bacon sizzling in the cast iron frying pan.  That’s a pretty great way to wake up in my opinion!

After breakfast, we drove to Lassen Volcanic National Park.  This was a park that I had wanted to see 10 years ago, primarily because I enjoy learning about volcanoes and because I had never even heard of it prior to finding it on the map on that trip.  This was the kind of park that I had thought Sequoia, Kings Canyon, and Yosemite would be – heavily and beautifully forested. 

At the very beginning to the park, we found a great information center – just billboards with all kinds of history, geology, tourist, and wildlife information for the park.  The road through the park looked like it was pretty curvy, so we ditched the RV there and took the car into the park.  Unfortunately, when we reached the entrance fee area of the park, we were told that only 9 miles of the road were open due to heavy snow drifts of 12’ in the higher elevations.

Well, we’ll take what we can get, so we drove the 9 miles in to a parking lot called the Devastation Area.  There we were able to read about two explosions of Lassen Peak in 1915 and the damage that they did.  We also walked up the closed road for a little ways to just get some nice views of the area. 

Back to the car, we headed to the visitor center and museum where we were able to watch a great movie regarding the national park and the fact that it has four different types of volcanoes present in the park: shield, plug dome, composite, and cinder cone.  Well, we weren’t able to see as much of the park as we would have liked, but we were definitely happy that we came.

Having picked up the RV, we started going north toward Crater Lake.  While driving through Lassen National Forest, we stopped at Subway Cave.  This was an opportunity to walk through a lava tube cave, something that I didn’t even know existed until 10 years ago when I saw them on a map at Mt St Helens.  We weren’t able to see them 10 years ago, so I was most assuredly excited at the prospect.  Caves have always been a thing of mine.  It was quite cool in there (temperature wise), and well worth the stop to experience it. 

Next we drove toward Crater Lake. We still had a good bit of the day left, so we were hopeful that we could go ahead and see Crater Lake. The drive between the two national parks took us past Mt Shasta, so we were able to have some beautiful views of it.

When we reached Crater Lake, we once again noticed that a good bit of the rim drive was closed to vehicles because the snow had not yet cleared. Unfortunately, the kids weren’t able to get their national park stamp of Crater Lake due to the fact that the visitor center was already closed.

We were able to get up to the lake and finally see it. 10 years ago when we had visited, the lake hadn’t been visible at all due to fog, so the kids were excited to finally see the beauty and uniqueness that is Crater Lake.

Rebecca

We were all rejoicing pulling into our campground on Wednesday night, knowing it would have showers and WiFi.  The campground (Yosemite Lakes) was huge and had nice facilities, but if you wanted WiFi, you had to go hang around the laundry facilities for a connection.  The kids turned out to be all too happy to volunteer to do the laundry while we were there for a few days so that they could hang out and be connected to the wider world.  The lack of WiFi for the last several days of being in remote parts of California has really put me behind in being able to get my posts up, but the disconnectedness has also been a blessing!

Yosemite was our goal for the next couple of days, and we decided to visit Yosemite Valley first.  Wow! 

We were not prepared for the amount of people in Yosemite Valley and really struggled to find a parking place.  We did a bit of driving around in the valley, had a picnic, watched a film at the museum, wandered around their displays, purchased our trinkets at the visitor center, and got the heck out of there!  It was waaaay to busy for our liking. 

We were trying to find something to get out and do that wasn’t so busy, so we found a spot called Glacier Point that involved a small amount of hiking and gave us some great views.

The next day we debated between some hikes up in the Tuolemne area and going to the southwestern side of the park to see the sequoia grove there.  When the kids heard that the Tuolemne area had lots of bugs flying around at this time of year, they decided they wanted to see more sequoia trees! 

On the way to Mariposa Grove, we stopped to see the Wawona history center.  There we were able to meet the last of Yosemite’s stagecoach drivers. 

He talked to us some about growing up in the area and suggested we check out a swinging bridge that was just down the road.  This wasn’t listed in the Yosemite brochures that we had been given, so we were grateful for the tip. 

It was a nice, easy hike back to the swinging bridge.  The people who were there taking advantage of the swimming hole left soon after we got there (hopefully we didn’t run them off).  And then we had the area to ourselves for a little while – that was definitely more our speed!  Kids were going back and forth over the swinging bridge, jumping around on the rocks, and getting their feet wet in the river. 

I found myself this perfect little shady nook in the rocks overlooking the river.  I wished so much for a book to just sit down and read while enjoying the sounds of the rushing river and the kids playing.  Since I hadn’t brought a book on the hike in with me, I settled for just watching and listening.  It was perfect. 

Next we made it to the Mariposa Grove and took a couple mile hike around the sequoia trees.  The first half of the hike was full of people, but since we took the longer route back to the base of the hike, we enjoyed next to no people on the second half of the hike. 

One of our biggest disappointments has been how little large wildlife we have seen since being in Rocky Mountain National Park.  Here in Yosemite, we did finally see a few deer in the Mariposa Grove.  And on our two hour drive back through the park to our campground, we spotted a black bear in a meadow.  That was definitely a treat.

While Yosemite was beautiful, it most definitely was not one of our favorite parks – just too many people.  When talking to the kids about where their favorite parks have been, we have usually seen a consistency in that no one loves the really busy parks.  Here’s a summary of AnaClaire’s favorite parks and why (although this was written a little while ago, so it doesn’t even include the more recent parks.)

My favorite place we have gone so far has been Rocky Mountain National park. I loved seeing all of the different views at the Rocky Mountains. I loved seeing all of the moose. I loved seeing the glaciers and the snow. I enjoyed having a snowball fight with my siblings. 

Bryce Canyon is my second favorite place we have gone so far. I loved the view and seeing the animals. I loved hiking and going down into the canyon. I liked learning the history about the Native Americans. I love taking pictures of the beautiful things I have been seeing, but unfortunately I forgot to take it on the hike at Bryce Canyon. 

My third favorite place is Mesa Verde. I loved seeing all of the different treehouses. I loved learning about all 21 tribes that lived there. One of the things I learned was the different tribes never went into each other’s houses and if they did they felt like they were going to die. 

-AnaClaire 

Sequoia National Park shares a border with Kings Canyon National Park, so that was on our agenda for Wednesday.  We were driving the RV that day though with nowhere to leave it, so we drove to a different entrance into the park instead of driving through Sequoia to get there, hoping that it would be less curvy steep roads going around Sequoia.  The roads around Sequoia were filled with large orchards, many trees that I wasn’t sure about identifying. We finally were able to tell that many were citrus trees, and I’m pretty sure we saw lots of olive trees.

The first bit of the park wasn’t very impressive.  We did get to go to another sequoia grove and see more trees, but we were wondering what all of the hype was about with this park. 

A ranger in Sequoia had told me the day before about a privately-run cave that was just outside the border of Kings Canyon and that it was worth it to go check it out, so we decided to drive a ways out to get to the cave and were treated to an amazing drive.  In the end, we decided not to explore the cave because we didn’t feel like we had time and didn’t think Alex was up to doing the steep climb that was required to reach the cave. 

We had a few more miles to go before we reached the end of the road in Kings Canyon, and it was worth every minute of that drive.  The views were gorgeous.  It is an area that isn’t as well visited as other parts of the park, so it was refreshing to be in this remote and beautiful place that wasn’t overly full of people.  We didn’t get to see any interesting wildlife, but the roaring sound of the Kings River and the view of the waterfall were all more than enough to satisfy me.

On to Yosemite (which my older children still love to pronounce as YOHZ-M/EYE/T: hopefully you can figure that out).

Rebecca