Waterfalls

Today was a day of visiting waterfalls! We drove along a lovely little winding road and stopped at numerous places to hike to waterfalls and gorges. It was a popular theme for the day, and we bypassed a few hot spots because there were traffic jams and no parking, and to sit on these skinny coastal roads is a bit treacherous. John has been a saint and taken over the driving after I had a bit of a freak out as we came down Mt. Rainier the other day (I even woke myself up later that night with the panic-mantra I'd started to recite the whole way down, "We're okay, it's okay, we're okay, it's okay.") We stopped at Vista House, a funky little hut with cool stained glass windows and an observation area overlooking the Columbia River. We then meandered the scenic waterfall route, enjoying the stunning displays of steep cliff faces covered in moss, some of it neon green, lush trees and rushing waterfalls, some so hidden we had to hike quite awhile along more treacherous, rocky paths before reaching them. They were idyllic scenes fit for serious romantic and passionate trists, but for the gazillions of people traipsing all over. Two of them reminded me so much of the Jon & Egritt cave scene from Game of Thrones (if you don't watch GoT, the scene was really hot) and I could envision a wonderful night beneath a full moon in the mist of the rushing falls :) Ooo-la-la!

We stopped to picnic before deciding that 3 hours up to Tacoma was looming ahead of us, and if we could beat most of rush hour traffic, that would be a good thing. We hit the tail end of rush hour, some construction and an accident, so it took awhile of slow going, but we finally made it to a Comfort Inn along the freeway, and only 30 minutes from the airport. Tomorrow is an all-day travel day that will suck donkey balls, but we both have reading material, so hopefully it isn't too miserable. We have to return the rental car by noon, then sit at the airport until our 6:00pm flight, and getting to Minneapolis by 11:30pm or so. Blessedly, our pal Chris has offered to pick us up and deliver us home to our waiting kitties, who are apparently very ready for our return. At least, Walter is. He's been snubbing Mum and not touching his wet food, and since Cowboy Cookout is his favorite thing in the world, I think he is wanting his humans back. He is not a fan of our travels and gets very insecure when we go away. He will be Mr. Snuggles (after a brief cold-shoulder) when we get back. We usually don't let the kitties sleep in the bedroom, mostly because Walter keeps me awake pestering me, and Vesta has been known to puke on us in the night, or fly around like a mad-cat, but usually the first night back from a trip we succumb and let them sleep with us. Vesta has been happily taking over Mum's lap and giving her lots of head-butt's, so she seems relatively unperturbed about our absence. And she's been eating her special chicken and tapioca flour gravy which makes me happy. We can't wait to snuggle our own little kitties!!!!
More photos to come!
Love & hugs,
R&J

Mt. St. Helens, Portland, Squirrel's Nest, Eclipse, Salem Volcanoes, Corvallis

Wow! Lots has occurred since we last posted!

After checking out of Fabrizio's lovely mountain escape, we went for a hike at Mt. St. Helens visitor center. We watched a 10 minute naturalist program which was very entertaining, the meanandered the relatively short hiking path through the lush wetlands that surrounded the back side of the volcano. It was neat to see it in the distance, but it would have been really cool if we had more time to explore the whole thing and been able to get up close to it, like we did when we stood atop Kilauea volcano in Hawai'i. There's just nothing like standing on the top of an active volcano that is smouldering. It was interesting that they said that actually Mt. Rainier is the most dangerous volcano right now because of its activity. Fabrizio was even hosting a volcanologist at his place; a nice English lady who said she needed a break from studying volcanoes for awhile :)

Next on the agenda, we checked into the Squirrel's Nest AirBnB in Portland, and it is about as perfect an apartment as you could ever hope to rent or own! Serene, sparkling clean, and so very cozy, we are sad to check out of this beautiful space. They have two kitties here, though so far we've only met one, but she is an elder cat and so extremely sweet that I want to tuck her in our satchel and take her with us ;)

Portland is pretty amazing. I've always heard that Portland will make a person want to relocate, and we definitely caught that bug. It is very similar to Minneapolis in a lot of ways, but less aloof and insecure. People here just seem to radiate this vibe of individuality that doesn't need to compete or judge or be anything other than just being their unique selves. We absolutely love it here, so far. Yesterday was our only full day in the city, however, so we've seen just a bare slice of things. We first went to the giant bookstore, Powell's, which is an entire block and four stories high. It was pretty incredible in there, and we got gifties for Mum and Fi, who are caring for the kitties, and enjoyed looking around in awe of the massive book-nerdiness of the place.

Then we went to take the Aerial Tram, which is this tiny little gondola-type pod that shuttles people from the ground up to the OHSU, Oregon Health and Science University, and apparently was built mainly to shuttle staff up and down, but now also shuttles tourists on a constant rotation. It is pretty scary when the pod goes over this tower thingy; an announcement comes on to warn you to brace yourself for the rocking that occurs as you cross the tower. WOAH! 500ft off the ground and swaying like that on a thin wire is pretty thrilling :) We had lunch down at the bottom at a little Korean-Hawaiian food truck (food trucks are everywhere out here, as are craft breweries) so John had a classic Hawaiian "plate lunch" that brought back memories of our trip to Oahu and the Big Island, and I had a vegan teriyaki rice bowl which was ded fantastic!

Then it was off to Washington Park for a lovely but a bit grueling hike in the 90 degree heat. The park goes on and on and on, and one thing about Portland is that their maps and directions are not as clear as other cities'. Blessedly, they had a free shuttle back to the top of the park, so we enjoyed an air conditioned ride back. Back on the train to the City Center, we stopped for a beer and beer nuts at Deschutes Brewery, which is one of our favorite craft breweries. Then back to the Squirrel's Nest to rest our dogs and watch the latest Game of Thrones again. Another perfect night's sleep was had!

The previous day was the eclipse!! Waking up at 4am and on the road by 4:30, we made the night-lit drive to Salem, the birthplace of John's mum, Jan. John had gotten us tickets to the Salem Vocanoes baseball game, which is a "low A" team (minor league), and they had a whole major event planned. They had scientists from NASA there to answer questions and they had all kinds of great presentations and the vibe there was just so fun and exciting. They opened the parking lot at 5am, breakfast was served at 6, than we just hung out, wandered around the small park until the big event. And what a fucking event. To see that full eclipse was more magical than I could have imagined. The corona was so ethereal, and though we took photos, it could not get the true wonder of it (especially with a tiny iPhone). The moon was solid black against a bright, silvery star-shaped corona (the atmosphere of the sun) backlit the moon. It was truly magical to witness, and we felt so blessed to have been able to make this special trip and share in its wonder together :)

After the game, we checked out Salem to honor Jan (L'Ma). It was really a cool little place, sort of like Winona, MN. We took some photos, wandered the park and then headed down to Corvallis to see my first-stepmom, Nancy, her mom, Ruth and our mutual friend Lee who was visiting from Minneapolis. I had not seen Ruth in 35 years, when I met her in San Francisco when I was 10. See is an incredibly sweet lady, and had fantastic hearing for someone in their 90s! It was great to catch up with them and have dinner over there. We had last seen Nancy when we visited her in DC, so that has been many years. They made us "Yumm Bowls", a really groovy dish of rice, guac, salsa, black olives, pickled veggie salad, teriyaki chicken and this super-delicious sauce called Yumm Sauce that was invented by a local restaurant. It was fantastic to have something besides peanut butter for a change :) After catching up with them, we made the long trek back to Portland. Because of the volume of traffic and construction and an accident, we got back to the Squirrel's Nest in two hours' time. Time to flop into bed!

So now we will be checking out of this lovely little haven and heading for a small road trip along the Columbia River Gorge, which is home to many waterfalls and spectacular sites! I'll try to blog some more tonight when we find a place to crash!
Love & hugs to all,
R&J

Yurt to Posh Mountain Escape

We enjoyed a leisurely last morning in our yurt with coffee and reading material, then began the relay of public transit connections from shuttle to water taxi to train to airport car rental place and picked out a funky little red Ford Focus. As freaked as I was to drive in Seattle traffic, I insisted that John navigate because he is the master navigator. It seemed the journey took forever as we were delayed a few times due to re-paving of double-lane highways, making them single lane, and thus, a massive pain in the ass. We just rolled with it, however, and rather then get uppity about it, we just shut off the engine and enjoyed the silence.

Fabrizio's AirBnB is a bit out in the sticks, but we finally made it only 30 minutes later than we expected. Fabrizio has several rentals on his property, one or two within his home, the one we are in that is attached to it and a separate, private apartment, and then the most charming little Hobbit Hole, that apparently he lived in for 20 years before he built the larger home. I think I had checked the Hobbit Hole for availability but it was booked, and this place is rather awesome. The Hobbit Hole, while perfect for my size, might have been a bit annoying for tall John. It's been very nice to have solid walls again, and his property is gorgeous. We picked fresh blackberries for snacks! They were amazingly sweet, I'be never had blackberries that sweet before! He's got two Siamese kitties, and a sweet pup called Amaryllis. The kitties will have nothing to do with us, snubbing us every time we try to coax them for a pet, and they are very interesting in something that seems to be living in the blackberry bush.

Fabrizio, a friendly, chatty Aussie guy, recommended we check out this place called Crystal Mountain where you can take a gondola way up to the top and view Mt. Rainier's peak from there, plus grab lunch at a restaurant up there, so we got up early and made the 2 hour drive. It was so incredible, I can't even believe it! It was so beautiful up there, and we got loads of photos. The gondola was a bit scary at first, but really only taking off and landing were the worst, and when the winds got stronger at the top YIKES. And it was freezing up there! It was in the 80s down at the base, it was probably in the 60s and with the winds felt truly icy. There was also this huge Ragnar running event going on, so we were surprised when we arrived to find thousands of sweaty runners and their tents everywhere and loads of other activities going on. We didn't see any mountain goats or any of the other reported big animals in the park (bears, elk, cougars, mule & black tail deer) but we did see a number of very friendly and FAT little chipmunks that went from lawn chair to lawn chair begging for nuts! So cute! We did have a couple of deer or elk run across the road as we left, though, but we were well away from the park and in a little town when they went racing across the highway.

I'll have John post photos now because you just have to see these photos!!!!
Love & hugs to all at home,
R&J

Raccoons & Rick Steves

We both woke up around 3am this morning to the raccoons up on the roof of the yurt, making their noisy way over to the grapes that are growing at the yurt's doorway and on the rooftop. We had a good giggle about it, though I kept checking to make sure they didn't fall in because it sure sounded like they might! I was really hoping for a photo opp, but no, they were completely up above the sight line of the "windows" (patches of screening that are loosely covered in brocade curtains) and I think I startled them when I flushed the toilet, anyway. We didn't get much sleep after that ruckus, so we had coffee and breakfast and were rearin' to go just after 7:00am, but there is seriously zero point in getting involved in Seattle rush hour if it can at all be avoided, so we stretched the leisurely morning until the 8:10 shuttle was due. So, there is this quaint little beach area at the base of the hill and where the shuttle begins and ends called Alki Beach, and it is like all of the best of city living with all of the best of beach living. The apartments are very Hawai'i beach or California beach looking, but they are surrounded in amazing, jungle-like foliage. They definitely earned the title "The Emerald City". The view from the beach over the Sound is so pretty and cool. We've even seen jellyfish swimming about in the water! Pretty freakin' cool!

Not too much on the agenda for the day, so we decided to go with our original plan of heading up to Edmonds to check out the Rick Steves store. We are total dorks for Rick Steves. If you don't know who he is, just Google him and you should find loads of very helpful travel tips videos on traveling in Europe. He is awesome! We even went to one of his talks when he came through Minneapolis, and like star struck fanbies, we took an ecstatic selfie with him in the background! It has become a family joke with my sister and brother-in-law because we kept blathering on to them about his travel tips, pushing his videos on them before we went to France, and now we refer to him as, "Our Lord and Savior, Rick Steves", so this was our pilgrimage in his high honor. Speaking of high, this whole town seems to be on drugs. The bus ride, an hour and two buses, was quite the experience in itself. And with all due respect to Rick Steves, who himself is a very vocal proponent of legalizing marijuana, the legalization of pot here has undoubtedly created some initial hype in its availability and for the people who would cash in on its distribution. I have mixed opinions on the subject, which I'll table for another time, but suffice it to say that it was like a bus ride into a Bob Marley song, mixed with a little Patti Smith. You smell dope being smoked EVERYWHERE, and there are people lying in the streets EVERYWHERE and the homelessness is even worse than I could have even imagined, even after already seeing quite a bit of it. Anyway, the ride was pretty interesting, and it was good to hit the 'burbs. Edmonds is an incredibly quaint little slice of the Emerald world, and we both began imagining a life of retirement there. We grabbed some local newspapers to price out some property :)

We had lunch in a lovely little cafe, then wandered down to the beach to watch all the kids playing in the sand and the lineup of cars all waiting to board the ferry to the town across the way. Incredible, that. They do that down here all day; vehicles driving onto these massive ferries built to shuttle people and their cars from port to port. It is something I don't want any part of, but fascinating to watch how swiftly they can get these things moving, considering the cargo and chaos. I have commented numerous time how awesome I think it would be to work on a tour ferry, like the one we went on yesterday, or even just the regular water taxi's that we've been taking every day.

Another long ass bus ride back into the city, with this bus encountering engine problems the entire ride and had to several time just shut off the engine to wait it out. Relieved to finally get close enough to downtown to catch another bus, we jumped off and caught another one to take us to Ebbet's Field, a store that sells vintage baseball and sports gear, so John could swap out a shirt he bought yesterday for a better fitting one. Then we made our way to the pier to grab a couple of Frappacino's, we hopped the water taxi home. Dinner was a lovely pub-style affair with comfort food and beers, and now we're beaching ourselves in the yurt for our final night. I wonder if those crazy raccoons will be back tonight to eat more grapes :) I'll try to snap a photo!
Love & hugs,
R&J

Harbor Tour, Mariners, Ivar's, Underground Seattle

What a fabulous day! We woke from a chilly night in the yurt all snuggly in our four-poster bed, enjoying that vacation bliss of not having to get up at a certain time. Although, since we are still on Central Standard, we still woke up really early Seattle time, which gave us a leisurely timeframe for enjoying coffee and breakfast before our harbor tour at 9:25am. John woke a couple of times during the night to strange sounds, once was likely people using the sauna right next to our yurt, and the next time he said he heard scratching and hissing, that was the neighborhood raccoon (as confirmed later by the owner, Lisa, who also mentioned that there is now a little black stray kitty in the mix of interesting animal interactions in the yard! Ha!) Since I wear earplugs to bed anyway, I heard nothing :) Although I would have liked to snap a photo of the raccoon!

They have a whole regimen here for conservation, recycling, composting, etc., so the morning shower in the tiny shower was only a little strange in that you have to turn on the shower and catch the water in a tub while it heats up, then the water goes to a trickle until you get in and pull the lever and then the hot water is released into a heavenly spray from one of those nice shower heads. They provide everything for a shower: organic/vegan bath, hair, skin and sunscreen product, Qtips, cotton balls, toothpaste, mouthwash and tons of other stuff that I never use. We totally have to hit Trader Joe's when we get home, that's all I know. They have this incredible citrus body wash from Trader Joe's that was awesome. Oh, and for those of you who just wait with baited breath to know about how my walnut bladder is holding up (Harold), I have to say, having no uterus has the best thing that has ever happened to me, I do believe. I not only do not have to worry ever, ever, ever, EVER AGAIN about dealing with my "dot" on the road, but it also removed all the fibroids (four of them) that were blocking my ability to pee/poo normally! No more peeing every ten minutes (not even exaggerating), no more walnut! It's more like a teacup, maybe :) But seven hells, I will take a teacup. I only need to empty my teacup about 2-3 times a night at the most instead of my previous 7-8 times! Sometimes only once! Huzzah! And, I must give Seattle props for having Biffy's everywhere. There are loads of tourists, and quite a few homeless people living along the piers and under the freeway, so the porta-potty's are a sensible option. Now, if San Francisco and Minneapolis would figure that out, it would be a happier, and more sanitary, world. Ahem. I digress.

So we jumped onto the free shuttle down to the pier, hopped the 10 minute ferry over to Pier 50, grabbed our tickets for the Argosey 1-hour harbor tour and only had to wait a few minutes to board. It was a narrated tour with lots of interesting facts and sights to see. We even ran into a fellow Minnesotan who was working on the boat. I'm always amazed at how sports stuff seems to unite men from all walks, and they always comment on John's hats or tee shirts with their sports facts. So right away the guy saw our Twins gear and began MN polite chit-chat lasting no longer than 5 minutes. That's the way we do it, yo. I took a ton of photos on the boat, and we began dreaming of what property we'd love to live in if we relocated. After docking, we decided on fish and chips from Ivar's for Second Breakfast (10:30am snack). Tons of giant seagulls come swooping in to beg nibbles and one of them was screaming so loud, I wish I'd have gotten video, it was so funny! We had a very polite seagull begging from us, so I got a photo of that one. So cute :)

Then we headed down the road to catch the noon Mariners game versus the Baltimore Orioles. What a cool stadium with AMAZING food. Like, real food. They have tons of options for really yummy stuff that is prepared fresh there, pizza by hand to order, even vegetarian and vegan places. But we decided to again have Ivar's seafood, since it's a big thing here and we both really wanted to try the chowder. So John had the chowder in the bread bowl and I had a bowl of it and we shared the bread. We wandered the stadium for most of the game, our seats were in the full sun, so we walked all over, then crashed another shadier section and the usher let us sit in some posh, cushy seats in the shade which was awesome. I have to comment on the niceness of people here. They are very polite. We only witnessed one incident of road rage so far, which is astonishing considering their unbelievable traffic jams. I would not want to have anything to do with Seattle traffic, like ever. Oh wait, I think I'll be driving us out of here in two days, so...ugh, I have that to look forward to! I need John's mad-monkey navigating skills, so I offered to drive us to Mt. Rainier on Thursday. Oh, and the Mariners won!

After the game, we went on tour of Seattle's underground "tunnels" that was really cool; a recommendation from John's brother, Bill. It was cool to traipse around under Seattle, but as you might imagine, musty as all sin. It was a very interesting history of how Seattle was built and how much people screwed things up knowing nothing about the tides or how to build functional sewer systems! Yuk. It makes the tossing of chamber pots in middle of the road sewage "system" of old England look completely sterile in comparison. They have other tours, too, so if you're in the area, I would highly recommend it for a nifty something different.

We hopped on another perfectly timed ferry and shuttle back to our haven in the yurt. We met the other kitty and I got photos of both of the sweet little nutters. I'm passing this off to John to post loads of photos!
Love & hugs, R&J