Papa, Grandma and a Bavarian Village

After stopping to replace our camera, we traveled east to the center of Washington and joined Papa and Grandma at a campground outside Leavenworth. Leavenworth was a town abandoned by the railroad and then by its sawmill early in the century. The town refused to die, though, and in the 1960s, it made itself over as a charmingly decorated Bavarian tourist trap. It's cute, and the town seems to be doing well. The 59 Diner sold over 4000 milkshakes last August, for example.

This is also where we began to encounter mosquitos. Ick.

We found out about the 59 Diner from another camper, and Gloria decided it was the best place to eat EVER because she could dance to 50s music on the jukebox while she waited for her food. So we also took his suggestion to drive up to White River Falls in Snoqualmie National Forest. We drove along to the end of the paved road; we kept driving when it became a gravel road; we got a little nervous, but we kept going when it became a simple dirt road. But finally, there is was: White River Falls campground. We pulled in to a beautiful, small campground and could hear the roar of the falls. It was hard to get a good view of the falls, although we could see tantalizing portions of it as it dropped in a curve away and then back toward us, but that was almost more fun. It felt private and discovered.

In Cashmere, we toured Aplets and Cotlets, a candy company that makes a version of turkish delight with fruit and nuts in it. I liked the Cotlets best: apricots and walnuts. On the way back, we visited a farm with a petting zoo outside Peshastin. Gloria pulled Leona around and around in the wagon: we find heavy work for her wherever we can!

The best part of the week, though, was getting to be with Papa and Grandma again. We're leaving in the morning, but we'll see them again later this month!

The Day of Two Losses

Today we went to our two festivals: the Pirate Daze Festival in Westport and the Sand and Sawdust Fest in Ocean Shores. The girls' favorite "sand castle" had Bruce the shark with Crash and Squirt (sea turtles) from Finding Nemo. My favorite was a camping scene--a really liked the dog roasting a marshmallow.

In Westport, there were pirates everywhere. They take their festival seriously! We wandered through the booths, dancing with a pirate band, and walked along the long fishing pier. We saw fish, lots of crab scuttling around, and even a shark (which was cut loose by the fisherman). We also visited a small aquarium with local marine animals (the catch them in the harbor) and a big touch tank. The girls got to touch lots of anemones and seastars, sea cucumbers and kelp. It was hard to drag them away and their hands were ice cold by the time we left.

What a fun day, and then, trying to get everything and everyone safely into the car, I dropped our camera on the ground and drove off without it. By the time I realized it was gone and got back, someone else was apparently very happy to have a new camera. (I wonder if our pictures were deleted already?) I lost a couple of days of pictures that really bum me out and I feel like an idiot, but I reminded myself that we were safe and unhurt, so how bad could it be?

We drove back to Rosie the trailer for the night. Domestic activity, rowdy kids and dogs covering the small patch of floor. I later learned that Gloria was playing with the door handle and unlatched the door, leaving it almost closed. I put the girls in bed and started washing dishes, but Jackson was whining. I bend down to check on him, and realize that Hank is not under the table with him where I'd assumed he was. Where's Hank?! Gloria began to cry and said she was afraid he went outside after she played with the door. Some very nice people helped me look for him, but Hank found his own way home pretty soon--sandy, wet and happy.

So today, I lost two things: a camera and a dog. If I could only get one back, thank goodness it was our Hank.

The Grand Tour of the Peninsula

Today was a marathon, too full of great things. It should have been a four or five day loop, I think. We played in tidepools along the coast. The girls saw and tentatively touched seastars, anemones, barnacles, and mussels. They climbed on beach logs, and made wishes on "wishing stones"--the round beach stones that have a white line running all the way through them. Gloria's wish every time was to have her family with her. I think my poor girl is getting homesick.

We drove north and into the mountains along a beautiful mountain lake. At the main visitor center for Olympic National Park, Gloria took the pledge and was awarded her junior ranger badge. We saw a movie about the park and a display on the animals that live in the park.

Then, Gloria's and Leona's favorite part of the day, we found the best playground ever in Port Angeles, on the northern coast. It had a tire swing that would spin fast enough to satisfy Gloria and bring out squeals of laughter from her. Volunteers put the whole thing up, and it had a play town and an elaborate fort. The climbed and swung and spun. At a pretend ice cream stand, Gloria and Leona sold each other ice cream for $30 a scoop.

We drove on around the peninsula to the east and stopped at the Dungeness Wildlife Refuge to take a walk. If we had been up a ten mile hike, we could have walked to the New Dungeness Lighthouse at the end of a long narrow sandbar. But instead, we walked a mile or so and admired the lighthouse from afar. We took some back roads along the edge of the coast to try to get a better view of the lighthouse and came across a restaurant called The 3 Crabs. It was delicious--a wonderful accidental find. And a couple came by to say how well-mannered my girls are. Gloria beamed. After dinner, we saw a rainbow over the cascade mountains--so vivid it seemed almost flourescent. It was the girls' first rainbow, and they pretended to take pictures of it with the viewmaster.

It would have been the end of a very nice, really long day exploring. But we were still almost 150 miles from home. Fortunately, the girls fell asleep in the car and mom didn't. We made it back to Rosie just before midnight. The headache I woke up with confirmed that the trip would have been better made over a few days, but it was definitely an adventure worth having one way or the other.

Washington's Olympic Peninsula

We are in Ocean City, Washington, in the middle of Washington's North Beaches. We've walked a rainforest trail in the southern part of Olympic National Park. Elk and deer graze in the forest, so it is open enough for some wildflowers to grow near the path and to allow clear sight through the trees. Seedlings often take root on fallen logs to avoid the competition on the forest floor. Eventually, their roots grow through and around the log into the ground. When the log rots away, it leaves space below the tree. You can imagine how the girls--especially Gloria--loved pretending that she lived in the cave-like spaces under the trees. And of course, there was the largest Sitka Spruce in America. We just had to "climb" it.

We also visited Gray's Harbor Lighthouse in Westport--the tallest lighthouse in Washington. We got a passport book put out by the U.S. Lighthouse Society. We got our books stamped at the lighthouse and at the maritime museum that has a fresnel light on display that used to be in the lighthouse on Destruction Island (isn't that a great name?). Once we get stamps from 60 lighthouses, the society will verify the book and send us a patch that says, "I have seen the light!" We are on a lighthouse hunt now. (Janice, you have a lighthouse down there, right? That needs to go on our agenda!)

Gloria just loves the beach, and running in the sand is certainly good for us all, so we walked a dunes trail in Westport, around the jetty at Ocean Shores and with the dogs to the beach just beyond our campground. It was the dogs' first time on the beach, and they went crazy for all the smells! They were ready to go crabbing. There's a sand castle competition here this weekend and a pirate festival in Westport, so I don't think we'll be able to leave right away!

Keep leaving the comments! We love to see who's following along with us.

In and Around Seattle

We headed up to the Seattle area along with Kevin, Chris and Carter. Again, they stayed downtown, and we headed to a small town outside the city, this time in the foothills of the Cascades. We were just a few miles from beautiful and impressive Snoqualmie Falls. We also took advantage of being near farmland to pick some strawberries together from a u-pick field and buy cherries by the road.

Roaming around Seattle, the kids got a kick out of the various decorated pigs and had to be photographed at every one we came across. One very big day, we rode the Duck boat in a land and water tour of the city and Lake Union. The girls favorite thing was waving out to people on the sidewalk. We visited the Experience Music Project (Gloria says "cool!") and the Science Fiction Museum (Gloria says, "a little scary"). The kids enjoyed some of the rides scattered in the shadow of the Space Needle, and then we all rode the Needle to the top.

We said goodbye to the guys and packed up to head for the coast. Gloria is ready for more beaches!

Fun with Chris, Kevin and Carter

We've seen Chris, Kevin and Carter just about every day since we got here. The kids have had a great time together and Gloria and Carter are perfectly matched on the playground: those two know how to play hard! Portland has so many great parks, and we explored whenever and wherever we could.

One day, we drove to the coast and the kids played on Tolavana Beach. Noni didn't like the sand and it took significant effort to get her to stand in the sand at all, but she eventually warmed up to it to play gingerly. We thought they would play in the sand and wade a little, but they didn't care about the cold and Gloria and Carter were quickly soaked. I changed Gloria into a bathing suit and she played until her lips turned blue and she began to shiver. I put her in the van to warm up, we dressed in warm clothes and walked down the beach to see "the big rock."

Today, they came out to the Gorge and met Rosie, our trailer. Then we drove east on the Historic Columbia River Highway to Multnomah Falls. On the way we stopped at Vista House, one of buildings designed for travelers on the highway about 1915. It's recently been restored to it original state. We had lunch at the restaurant on the bottom of Multnomah Falls, then we hiked up to the top of the falls--a mile of steep switchbacks to the top and a slippery mile back down. The kids did great. Noni and Carter hiked most of it, and Gloria virtually all of it, on their own steam. For dinner, we went to Tad's Chicken n Dumplins in Troutdale, near where we're staying. It's the only one of the original roadhouses that remain on the Columbia River Highway. The dumplings are soft and as big as softballs. The macaroni and cheese is the best I've ever tasted. Oh, yes, I love it here.

Tomorrow, we're going to Seattle where the kids have been promised more time together. So far, though, the Pacific Northwest seems as cool as I hoped.

Columbia River Gorge

We drove today into the Columbia River Gorge and are staying in a small town just inside the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. It is so beautiful here. So lush you feel cradled by the greenery. We passed waterfalls so tall and slender, they looked like tangles of spiderweb. And this town, Corbett, is perfect--interesting and quaint, but it doesn't seem deliberately so. We just missed the community breakfast this weekend at the fire department. It's a 20-30 minute drive into Portland, but that's fine. I love it here.

From the reactions I've received to the blog, I realize that I have given an incomplete picture of our time on the road. Rhonda often said that Gloria was acting out because she craved more of my attention. I started the trip with the naive idea that, when she had all my attention, Gloria would be less defiant and out of control. Okay, I wasn't thinking clearly. If anything, she is more defiant and unruly than ever. I suspect it's a combination of not having sufficient structured exercise and becoming so secure in my attention--she has me no matter what.

On night, when she would not lie down, was squealing, laughing, throwing the quilts on the floor, and getting her sister very riled up in the process, by 10:30, she had lost her blanket, her pillow, and had to spend a few minutes lying on the floor instead of the bed. She didn't like that, so we finally had a talk and she settled down.

On our marathon day of driving, the girls were amusing themselves by talking, laughing, screaming and squealing and making various animal sounds. After several hours of this, I was feeling a little on edge and asked them to use quiet voices for a while or to play a quiet game. No response. I ask again, and Gloria tries. Noni, if anything, gets louder and acts like she can't hear me. Some of you have seen her suddenly lose her hearing this way. Finally, I say loudly, "Noni, just HUSH please!" Apparently, that hurt her feelings, and she bursts into tears and cries "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy" until my head is going to explode.

So there are times that I think working long hours is not all bad. But being with them all the time is not as hard as I thought it would be. We have a rhythm together that generally works, painful as it is when we get out of sync.

By the way, if you want to see some of the wildlife that the girls fell in love with in Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, check out Papa and Grandma's blog at http://farrisjourney.blogspot.com.

Craters of the Moon

Okay, this is a cool place!

Several times over the last 15,000 years, Craters of the Moon has been the site of volcanic events along a long rift. We learned about the types of lava flows ("pahoehoe" is smooth or ropy and forms when the lava is very fluid; "aa" is very jagged and rough, carrying along rocks in its thick flow). Even our campsite is cleared out of the middle of the lava field.

We wandered through cinder gardens, climbed a cinder cone (called "inferno cone") and two splatter cones (one called "snow cone" that always has snow deep inside--this tickled the girls). Even in early June, the sun on the black cinder and lava fields made it hot, and the girls were happy to find shade anywhere they could. We also explored caves or lava tubes. The girls did a great job climbing over the rocks to get into the undeveloped caves. Although the girls loved the exploring, I think their favorite thing was the butterfly that landed on Gloria's hand and hitched a ride for a while. They are very focused on animals!

Gloria became a junior ranger: her 4th junior ranger badge. And we all loved exploring here. It was such a great contrast to Yellowstone's landscape, but it was still another way to talk about volcanic activity. We all want to come back here again.

After a full day exploring and a second night at Craters of the Moon, we hit the road early for a marathon day of driving and are spending the night in Hermiston, Oregon. We took a break to visit the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City, and Gloria said she learned a lot about the wagon trains to Oregon. They had life-size displays of scenes from the trial and lots of videos in addition to the wagon ruts themselves that record the course of the wagon trains.

Tomorrow, we'll head toward Portland to see Kevin, Chris and Carter. Gloria has been asking for days when she will get to see Carter. It can't happen early enough for her.

On Our Own ... and Near Disaster!

We left West Yellowstone and the security of Papa and Grandma and made it four hours down the road before we ran into our first near disaster. I wanted to go to some sand dunes in San Anthony, Idaho--just 12 miles off the freeway and good, fun exercise for all of us. I was a little leery of the day use parking lot because the long entry looked sandy, but it was the official parking lot, I saw people driving out and there were signs everywhere prohibiting parking on the shoulders. So I started into the lot, got about 25 feet down the entrance road, and sank abruptly in the sand, almost the to the floorboards. I tried prying boards and mats under the tires, but everything sank.

I walked out to the road where I could get some limited cell phone access and had just gotten the numbers for two local towing companies when a hero pulled up in a big white pickup with a long horse trailer behind. "Do you need some help?" Dad and others promised me that people would help when we needed it, but this was better than I had reason to hope for. His family piled out and unloaded the six horses, he unhitched his trailer and roped his truck to the rear bumper of the trailer and hauled us out while I reversed in the van (for what that was worth).

From the kids point of view, the best part was getting to pet the horses! Apparently, there had been so little rain that the usually firm sand had gone very soft. Where the horses often exercised, they now sank up to their bellies!


After offering thanks and taking pictures, we ignored the signs and left the van and trailer on the shoulder (half on the asphalt road) while Gloria raced up and down the sand dunes until sudden big drops of rain sent her back into the van. Then we drove on to Craters of the Moon National Monument and gratefully hit the sack.

We Love Yellowstone!

We've had a wonderful time in Yellowstone. The kids now call all bison "Gloria's bison" and elk are all "Noni's elk." We saw bald eagles flying up to their nests and a baby eagle peeking over. We saw a black bear foraging no more than 100 feet from the road. We've seen baby bison, moose, elk and dear (the kids especially love any baby animals). Today, we saw a coyote alongside the road, which Gloria said was "nearly as good as seeing a wolf, but not really." Gloria is enjoying her birthday binoculars from Grandma and Papa.

We visited the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, where Gloria became very interested in wolves. And she was a Keeper Kid at the Center; she and about 20 other kids went into the bear enclosure with a naturalist (while the bears were out, of course) and hid fruit and vegetables under rocks and behind stumps for the bears to forage when they came back out. We got photos of the bears finding her food. The 8 grizzlies at the Center were orphaned when they were too young to survive alone or were removed as nuisance bears (getting into trash, etc., they become too aggressive with people and property) and were taken to the Center instead of being destroyed. Bear management officials kill many bears every year, and there's tremendous emphasis here on being sure bears can't get to any human food: "a fed bear is a dead bear" is the slogan.

The girls have been great hikers--not always happy, but usually so. Gloria was all grins when we hiked to Mystic Falls, despite a pretty good knock on her shin from falling hard on a sharp stone in the path. (She expends a little extra energy while hiking.) Noni was very upset by a fall in the mud on the way to Mystic Falls. But she and Gloria made it down to Red Rock Point and back up the the top of the cliff you see behind them above the stairs. I was far more out of breath at the top than either of them. The view of the Lower Falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is beautiful from Red Rock Point and the girls were very proud and excited when we got there. But getting back out is a climb! Dad looked at us like we were crazy for doing it. For her last full day in Yellowstone, though, Gloria wanted to go back to Old Faithful because "it is SO BEAUTIFUL when it blows up into the air." She was not disappointed either because, just before the eruption, the wind changed and we got sprayed. Gloria giggled and threw out her arms. Noni started to cry and hid her head against my neck. It was an exciting end.

Dad has put in our new furnace, and he is planning to install our new water heater tomorrow. In another day or two, we should be heading west. Next stop (a brief one) will be Craters of the Moon National Monument, then we continue west hoping to meet up with Carter et al.

By the way, Kevin and friends, I've used the crock pot several times and I love it. And the first aid kit has come out repeatedly. Adventure girls have to deal with splinters and scrapes pretty often, but we're prepared.