Rover and Dover Adventures

Today was bound to be a full day as we planned to explore Seattle AND leave the country.  The good news is that the boys woke up early so we were off to a good start.  We enjoyed the free breakfast at the hotel and then packed up and headed out, leaving Dover to wait at the hotel while we went downtown.  (Wouldn’t it be horrible if Dover is internally a city camper and we’re continuously depriving it of city experiences?! - Ha!) The drive downtown had traffic, but we were commuting with rush hour so that was expected.  Overall, it wasn’t too bad and pretty soon we were parked near the market.  With the recommendation from Garrett, we stopped to get a second breakfast at Piroshky Piroshky.  It was amazing and we quickly thanked Garrett for the recommendation. Nearly next door to Piroshky Piroshky was the Starbucks.  The line was RIDICULOUS so we did not want to get something there.  But at least we can say that we saw it.  From there, we wande...

This morning we got a late start to the day - we all slept in until 8!  This likely wasn’t our best choice if we wanted to see the Hurricane Ridge area, but we decided that it wasn’t worth waking early to race the crowds only to potentially still not be allowed up into the Hurricane Ridge area.  Because of all the visitors, they have to manage the people coming in both because of the parking and also the bathrooms.   After sleeping in, we got things moving had breakfast and started to pack up.  As we were packing up, our neighbor/friend Martin and his grandmother woke up.  We watched as his grandmother strolled off and jumped in the lake for a morning swim.  Talk about a brisk way to start the day! Once packed up, we said goodbye to Martin and exchanged addresses because who doesn’t want a pen pall from Alaska?!!  Then we headed into town.  Rather than drag Dover up into Hurricane Ridge, we decided to drop it off in town at the grocery store....

The night was a lot quieter than the prior evening.  But the highlight of the night was that the clouds cleared overnight and the stars were spectacular.  While I don’t like having to get up in the middle of the night, this was a reward that made it worth the walk to the bathroom. Today we decided was to be our beach exploration day and so after breakfast, we casually got ready for the day and piled into Rover to head west.  We retraced our steps on the winding narrow road out of camp and then hopped onto highway 101 to get to the coast.  We stopped at a couple of hardware stores in Forks, WA (we learned that this is the home of the Twilight series - who knew?!) to get a replacement latch for our screen door and actually had some success.  Then we headed over to the beach to start our exploring. When we arrived at the beach, the parking lot was swamped.  We were the third car in the line as people tried to find any missing spot.  We gave up on that and...

  Last night was tough for everybody (but me) to sleep.  While it was Sunday, it felt like another weekend night in camp.  It also didn’t help that the Log Cabin Resort is full of lights that stay on throughout the entire night.  On the bright side (pun intended), we woke to a light rain (very unlike the Antelope Island hurricane from a month or so ago) gently landing on the roof of the camper.   I had woken up at 4 AM and came to the realization of just how hard we’ve been pushing for so many weeks.  So, when everybody was asked what they wanted to do on a day that we knew was going to be rainy, we decided to do what, in hiking terms, would be called a “zero” day and really take it easy.  To have a fully enjoyable day, we naturally started the morning with the perfect fat/sugar combination known as donuts!  As we ate, the skies started to lighten and the rain actually stopped for a bit. We used this time to walk up to the lodge with the inte...

  Well, a hope for a good night of sleep did not pay off.  We had some “dudes” in the camp next to us and they were some very loud talkers.  There was also a horn that would go off at consistent intervals (every ~15 seconds).  We decided that it was a foghorn, but it made it hard to get to sleep or get back to sleep.  We eventually all got some sleep, but it wasn’t the best. To start the day, we decided to drive into Westport and get some donuts, fill up the tank, and generally see the town.  We found a GREAT donut shop and while they didn’t have exactly what Robinson wanted, they made him a special one that was a) HUGE and b) right up his alley. After the stop at the donut shop, we went up the observation tower of the town so we could see the ocean.  Then we headed back to camp and saw 4 deer as we went.  The boys then went back to the lounge and started to watch the original Despicable Me.  I did some repairs on the cabinets for the sink - ...

T oday was meant to be another short transfer day as we moved from Olympia over to the coast.  We started by making a LOT of pancakes and then Robinson really wanted to swim from 9:30 to 10:30.  So, I put my suit back on and we started down to the water.  We got a bit distracted though because the camp manager was willing to let the boys get a bit closer to the chickens and goats while they gave them their morning breakfast.  She even taught the boys that the goats really like leaves so they were able to pull a few branches off the trees and give them to the goats. Eventually we moved on to the water.  While I thought it was too chilly, Robinson thought it was just fine.   I waded in and only really jumped in at the very end when we were leaving.  Surpringly, it wasn’t that cold again, though it also wasn’t warm.  At 10:30, as planned, we both got out to finish packing up the camper and getting on the road. Because we didn’t have a huge plan for t...