Always Onward Adventures

Summary MS bike ride. Round 2. Ten years later. Ten years ago, we did the MS bike ride with some friends - the ride starts and ends at the Skagit county fairgrounds and it broken into two days. You have the option of doing up to 150 miles, but most people do a lot less than that. Despite not having done this ride in 10 years, Angela and I decided to give it a shot once again. We headed out on Friday evening and met up with the crew for dinner and stayed at an airBnB in someone’s basement (complete with very low ceilings). The next morning, the real fun began.

Sara and I decided to take a backpacking trip for the long weekend - probably our most ambitious to date. After some deliberation, we decided on Ross Lake - which is just north of Diablo lake in the North Cascades National Park. We arrived on the night of Aug 31st to pickup our permits - only to discover that they closed at 4p and weren’t going to open til the next day. No big deal - we slept in the van at a beautiful boat launch and then headed over at 7a to pickup our permits. We were planing on staying at Roland creek camp and then rainbow point the second night. This was going to be a 7 and 9 mile push with over 1k feet of elevation change in two separate days (with a shorter day in the middle) - and Sara was carrying some of her stuff now… We will see how this goes!

The last 4 days of our trip were very different from the first 6 - we went mobile. The mobile camp felt much different from the lodges, although not due to lack of amenities - we were not roughing it. Our guide at this camp prided himself on being so far out there that we would not see another car - and he held to it. We were on our own when it came to what we wanted to do, where we wanted to go, and what we wanted to see. It also meant that we had to find our own wildlife, instead of relying on the radio network from the other trucks in the area.

We continued our African adventure at Camp Moremi. The camp is located within the Moremi game reserve - which is a separate reserve from Savute in the Chobe National park, but still within the larger Okavango Delta. We spent 3 days here, exploring a very different ecosystem which was much more wet and lush than Savute. 8/6/2024 Our drive from the airport to Camp Moremi was relatively uneventful, we got stopped twice by elephants in the road and then by Bush Buck - which is a new type of antelope that spends most of it’s time in the water. They are also very fluffy and cute…

Africa - here we come! After about a year of planning, Angela and I along with Derek and Diane are off to Africa for 2 weeks on an epic Safari. We will be traveling to 3 locations across Botswana - including Savute, Moreimi Game reserve, and a walking Safari and a float trip in the Okavango Delta. This post will include the trip to Africa and the first camp - Savute Safari Lodge. We are very excited for this adventure!

Taking advantage of the long weekend, Sara and I went for a backpacking trip on Sunday/Monday out to the Ozette triangle on the Olympic Peninsula. As expected in a rain forest, it rained the entire weekend - but we still had fun. The Olympic coast is a wild place and it’s amazing to visit in sunny weather and not. 5/26/2024 Ozette Triangle After a change of plans where our sailing trip was cancelled, Sara and I decided to go on a different kind of adventure. I’ve been wanting to do some more backpacking this summer - having fond memories of the few trips we have done in the past. This weekend, we did the Ozette triangle - a trip that I have been meaning to do for a long time. Back in 2012, I did a solo 4 day trip along the Olympic coast from the south end of the Ozette triangle all the way to oil city - which is the entire length of the trail, with the exception of the coastal leg of the Ozette triangle. I found the Olympic Coast to be magical back then, and it still is today.

Sara has gotten really into biking after she got a new bike from her Grandma for her birthday - so we took advantage of some great early May weather to go on some “adventure” bike trips. I don’t usually write about day trips, but Sara was so excited about these trips and we are working up to an overnight bike trip - so I thought they would be worth writing about. The first ride was just a little under 17 miles on a mostly gravel trail and the second was a little under 18 miles on mostly paved trail. Sara proclaimed after the first one - “This was the most Awesome Bike Trip Ever!!”.

Sara had her Spring break last week and we decided to take a very low key sailing trip for the week. Our original plan was to sail up to the San Juan’s for the week, but the combination of inclement weather, small craft advisories during 2 of the 5 days, and other commitments had us put that plan on hold for the actual summer. Instead, we just bumped around the Puget Sound for the week. On the plus side, we had lots of wind and we able to sail for all of the trip (except for the few minutes for docking and undocking). It felt really good to be sailing given how little we did on the Alaska trip last summer.