West coast, best coast? (Part 2)

Good news: Our hard drive that inexplicably stopped working during the last post has magically fixed itself. That, or the cord  had a malfunction … whatever it was, we’re glad it’s back.

I spent at least two sleepless nights worrying that the drive was completely dead and we had lost all of our trip pictures forever. When I shared this concern with Toyo he calmly explained that the pictures are still on the camera … clearly I should have discussed this needless worry with him sooner, and known better than to think he’d only store something so valuable in one place. Tech team Toyo for the win.

Here’s the final update on our time out west, complete with photos.

Crater Lake National Park and Diamond Lake

We threw snowballs on July 4^th weekend while wearing shorts and sandals. This is the mysterious, wonderful world we all call home.

Crater Lake is a place that can’t be truly seen or understood through photos, but we took a bunch anyway. The lake was formed when a volcano collapsed and years of rain and snow melt pooled inside. The water is unbelievably blue and — because there are so few boats on the water — it’s incredibly still and almost perfectly reflective.

They get tons of snow here every winter, so it takes a very, very long time for it to melt. When we were there the temperature was in the 80s and the snow was still many inches deep. It’s an incredible place.

Outside of Crater Lake, lies Diamond Lake — a “normal” lake that’s much more accessible for recreational activities. We spent Independence Day there and had a great time meeting really fun, funny people, enjoying an impromptu pot-luck dinner, seeing the most adorable 13-and-under talent show, and watching the best fireworks display of our lives.

The Diamond Lake Resort advertises their fireworks show as the best in Oregon, which we didn’t believe because the place isn’t very big or fancy, but we honestly think they were right. Around 10 p.m. (that’s when it gets dark … crazy!) you watch from the lakeshore, as huge, commercial-grade fireworks launch from a boat about 100 yards away. The result is huge displays of vibrant hues lighting the sky and reflecting off the lake right in front of you, doubling the awe-inspiring effect.

It’s amazing and we hope to return there for another Independence Day celebration in the future.

Oregon: Bend, Portland, Crescent Beach and Willamette Valley

The friends we made at Diamond Lake told us to visit Bend, so we obliged. It’s a really cute town with some great breweries, but we only stayed a night, and didn’t take any pictures. So, on to Portland.

The travel gods smiled on us in Portland. After setting up camp, I checked Instagram and saw a picture of two Tampa friends in Portland, so I asked if they were still there and yep! We met up with Corina and James for dinner at Pok Pok, which many people recommended to us for their world-famous wings, and it was awesome! The food was great, but the surprise and delight of catching up with friends was definitely the highlight of our time there.

Portland is a lovely place, and we enjoyed checking out downtown, spending quality alone time in the incredible Powell’s bookstore for me, and Deschutes brewery for Toyo (sometimes compromise is easy, friends) but what I liked most was all the flowers. There were wildflowers all over the place and gorgeous gardens to explore; Portland is very unlike other large cities for this reason.

We also really loved Ecola State Park and next door Crescent Beach. The landscape of the coast is amazing and the town of Crescent Beach is beautiful and filled with creative little places, such as the hardware store/restaurant where we ate dinner. (Gilmore Girls fans: I had visions of a west coast Luke Danes and Cesar, but did not find them. I’m telling myself we were there on their night off.)

Throughout all these Oregon travels, we were delighted to learn that Oregon has a wine country, too! Naturally, we explored various wineries in the Willamette Valley, demonstrated our ignorance about the industry, and tasted, tasted, tasted!

Unfortunately, we didn’t take any pictures, so the Willamette Valley days will live on only in our memories.

View of Crescent Beach from Ecola State Park.

Selfie game is still weak after many months of practice.

On Crescent Beach.

Wildflowers make highways better.

Seattle, Washington

We arrived in Seattle shortly after Adam and Sona, so we met up with them for a night in the big city.

We kicked off the evening with drinks and apps at the top of the Space Needle, which of course is touristy but we are tourists and the view looked awesome, so we embraced it. We sort of stumbled into a really affordable way to do this, too.

Buying a ticket to the top is about $35 each, but if you spend a minimum at the restaurant at the top, you don’t have to pay the admission fee. The lady who explained this to us said the restaurant minimum was $50, which we knew we’d easily hit with four people ordering cocktails. However, once up top, the restaurant clearly posted that the minimum was $50 per person.

Cleverly, Adam struck a deal with our server that we’d tip her as if we were spending the required $200, but just order the drinks and apps we had planned. It wasn’t dinner time yet, so this worked like a charm, and we were all still hungry for the dinner reservations we had at The Pink Door, which is probably the best Italian food I’ve ever had. Please go there one day.

Olympic National Park, Victoria, British Columbia, and Seattle … again

Toyo’s parents joined us in Washington, so we picked them up at the Seattle airport, with the RV in tow, and headed straight for Olympic National Park. We had an amazing dinner at the Lake Crescent Lodge (please go there, all of you, and get the artichoke, crab bisque and salmon. You’re welcome.) The next day, we drove through the expansive rainforest to the coast, where we saw La Push, First Beach and Second Beach.

Quileute Days, a celebration of the local Native American tribe, was in full swing at La Push, and though we missed the parade, we caught sight of a few floats and large crowds gathered for local food.

Second Beach was highly recommended to us, but no one ever told us about the tough hike to get there. We covered some serious altitude and climbed over dozens of huge logs separating the sand from the forest but it was worth it. The place is incredible, and arriving at low tide allowed us to explore a deep shoreline.

On the way home, we stopped at a restaurant on the outskirts of Forks, Washington, of Twilight fame and I managed to keep my teen girl fandom in check, though Toyo was coerced into taking a few pics for my fellow vampire-romance enthusiasts. (For the record, I know those books are bad, but that didn’t stop me from reading every word.)

The next morning, we hiked to Marymere Falls, then caught the ferry to spend the latter half of the day in Victoria, British Columbia. Though not the favorite part of the trip for any of us, it was fun to explore the city and see the Empress Hotel, which we all thought was a little over-hyped, but you never know these things until you visit.

Not over-hyped, though, was the ferry to/from Victoria because WE SAW A WHALE! If you really work for it, you can see a little spray of water and whale tail action in the water pictures below.

We spent our final night with Toyo’s parents in Seattle, where we went to Pikes’ Place Market and saw Toyo’s cousin Matt and his wife Deana. Their local insight led us to a great restaurant with a lovely view of Shilshole Bay. It also gave us lots of time to catch up … the perfect way to end the parental visit, I think.

One of my all-time favorite pictures!

Our nephew Jackson would have LOVED this!

Pike Place Market

Live entertainment at The Pink Door … we went back for drinks and apps.

Vancouver, British Columbia

Ahh, Vancouver, a delightful place to visit, and a real pain to drive to with an RV. That, and our failure to research or plan to help make it seamless created a bit of a perfect storm of inconvenience and delay. Here’s what transpired…

At the border crossing, a guard asked us a series of questions about what we had in the RV and apparently our answers were unsatisfactory because we were flagged for a search. As you can imagine, it takes two guards quite a while to search a Suburban and RV, which is built to take advantage of every nook and cranny for storage.

When they finished the search, they called Toyo up for two further questions: (1) was he in the military, and (2) would he please just hand over the gun because they “know” he has one.

This is funny for a few reasons, the first is that Toyo has never served in any armed forces, but they thought he did because his clothes were folded so nicely. I take delight in wondering what they must have thought of the comparative slob he lives with … my clothes always start out folded but it never lasts long. I don’t know what he does to prevent them from sliding into one big pile in his cabinet, but I don’t do it, and clearly the difference shows.

The second reason this is funny is because there really wasn’t a gun in the RV. We’re not sure why they were so convinced they’d find one, other than the fact that we have Texas license plates, but they did a second search, just to be sure. We did have a taser and pepper spray in there, which apparently isn’t allowed, but since they never asked us about those items and we honestly didn’t know crossing the border with them was a no-no, this was no trouble. They just confiscated them and we were finally able to go on our way.

Obviously, that experience got us off to a not-great start in Vancouver, and our travel companions Adam and Sona were in the same boat after experiencing border-crossing delays of their own — FYI: You now need a passport to get into Canada. Fortunately, we banded together to recover and still had a delightful trip.

We had dinner and several drinks in downtown Vancouver. That part of the city is really beautiful and well kept, and they have great public transportation, for which I am always a sucker. But my favorite thing we did was exploring Capilano Suspension Bridge park.

This park has a huge suspension bridge over a big gorge, but that’s only the beginning of the fun things to see and explore there. After crossing the bridge, you enter this spectacularly elaborate maze of trails, ponds, tree houses, and tree-to-tree bridges all hidden in a thick forest. It’s like something out of a childhood fantasy … they even serve ice cream.

Unfortunately, returning home to the good ol’ USA was also a major hassle. We waited in line for nearly three hours to cross the border and when we did, we were again flagged for a search. This time, the search was quick, as they were really only looking for forbidden produce and plant life.

Apparently, firewood is an impermissible item, and six pieces qualifies you for the “it’s too much for us to confiscate and discard, so you’re going to have to cross the border back into Canada, leave the firewood there and then cross back into the U.S.” category. No lie.

Thankfully, our border agent was understanding and merciful when we explained that doing so would prevent us from making an important last-minute flight, so he took our firewood, an apple and three limes and let us continue. We’ve decided never to drive the RV across borders again; surely the hotels in Canada are lovely.

In summary, we cherished all of our time on the west coast and definitely see the argument for its superiority, but we also know there’s lots to love back east. Stay tuned for more on our drives east and south…