Family

The day was here - we finally got the chance to meet Jane! 2025-07-30 We had a scheduled induction date for a bunch of reasons, so the trip to the hospital was a lot less hectic than it was with Sara. We woke in the morning and got a call around 7a that we should head on into the hospital. We aimed for the 7:55a ferry and missed (primarily because of me) and we ended up getting on the 8:45a instead. We drove up the hill and parked to head upstairs.

Summary Having spent last summer on an epic journey and needing to juggle work commitments, we decided to spend this summer much more local. To that note, we left for the San Juans at the end of June planning to spend a little less than 3 weeks exploring the smaller islands we haven’t seen yet. 6/29/2024 We spent a few hours on Friday juggling cars so that we had a vehicle in Anacortes in case we needed it. After getting back to Seattle late, we decided to spend the night on the boat Friday night - partly so we could get an early start on Saturday and partly so we could feel like our vacation was starting a little earlier. We departed early in the morning on 6/29 - targeting either Port Ludlow or Port Townsend for the night.

We complete the last major crossing of the trip - rounding Cape Caution - and then we travel back through the Broughtons to Shoal Bay - our last stop before the rapids and fully tuck in behind Vancouver island. 9/3/2023 Early start from Pruth Bay to avoid afternoon weather. It was sad to be leaving, but good to be getting on our way. We got great wind the moment we made it out of the Kwakshua channel - 15 knts of wind at a broad reach. We were going 7 knts as we approached Fury Cove, so we decided to keep going and make it to Millbrook Cove in Smith Sound - about 10 nm further. This will take some distance off of crossing tomorrow and make it possible (but unlikely) that we can make it all the way to Port Hardy in one day. It ended up getting a bit choppy for the last hour or so, but we continued to have the wind so we got out of it quickly.

The second half of our Glacier Bay excursion was heading back south towards the entrance of the park - at a slower pace than our way up to allow for more time to explore. 8/10/2023 We woke on the morning of the 10th still not totally sure what our itinerary would be for the day. Johns Hopkins Inlet was on the consideration list but we were worried about adding 20 nm to our day (10 nm to get there and 10 to get back). We all awoke around 8a and hung out for a while - drinking coffee. At the last minute, Angela decided we should do it. I threw on my clothes immediately and headed up to get going…

It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. But every great journey needs a destination and Glacier Bay is our destination. Unfortunately for us, the forecast calls for rain during most of our stay at Glacier Bay. Fortunately, this place is beautiful even in the rain/fog and we are all in great spirits and ready to enjoy! 8/7/2023 While waiting for Dawn to arrive, we toured the longhouse - a traditionally constructed tribal house off the Hoonah Tlingit people. It was beautiful to see, but the best part was the artist that was showing the place off - Sara had so many questions for him about how to make drums, pendants, totem poles, etc. She asked so many good questions - many were things I didn’t think to ask but resulted in very interesting answers. For example, the green color in Tlingit artifacts is made from oxidized copper mixed with Salmon eggs…

It was of course bitter sweet to be leaving the Galapagos. We had an amazing trip and the Sea Lions saw fit to give us a great send-off. Today was our last full day and tomorrow would be a morning departure from the boat and early afternoon flight back to Ecuador. The day called for a morning hike to Punta Pitt and an afternoon trip to the beautiful white beach on Cerro Brujo. This was another Galapagos moment - with the sea lions this time.

We woke early this morning and headed out pre-breakfast for a photo expedition. It was a lovely morning except for the mosquitoes (which were an unfortunate trend all day). We saw lots of tracks from turtles coming ashore overnight to lay eggs. Amazingly, some of the tracks came ashore and did a loop without laying eggs, presumably to come back in later to find a better place. The tracks carpeted the beach, all from the night before - there must have been thousands of eggs under the sand…

A week after getting our boat, we joined Derek and Diane for an overnight sailing trip to Poulsbo. We packed everything up and headed down to the boat on Saturday morning - We are still working out what we need on the boat and what can stay on the boat and the outcome of which was a slight overpacking for a weekend trip… We planned on leaving around 8a (ended up actually leaving 9:30a). We got some great wind and just the right angle on the first day - spending the first couple of hours on a close reach with 10-15 knot winds, hitting 4-6 knots the whole way and far enough from the wind to maintain only a slight lean. It really was the best of both worlds - fast but comfortable. Sara slept in a bit and opted to start the day in pajamas (which she ended up spending most of the day in - comfy!).

Welcome to Zion! When we had our Galapagos plans fall through, we decided to meet up with the family in Utah for a National park trip - starting with Zion National park. We only spent 3 days here, but we did get a good taste of the park through some canyoneering and biking. Zion is known for Canyoneering - which is where you climb up/down steep walled canyons often by walking through/in the water. We rented gear (big waders & felt soled boots) and took the bus up to the start of the narrows. There were a lot of people for the first 1-2 miles (note the first picture below) but it thinned out as we kept going.

After visiting Hurricane Ridge ski area a couple of weeks ago, I thought it would be a fun trip to go back with skiis and give the $20-lift-ticket ski area a try. It was super fun and Sara had a blast - grabbing onto the rope tow was a learning experience and she realy had to put her whole body onto it to make it work. :) Anyway, more on that later.

And we are off! This was our first big van trip - and part of a bigger vacation. In all, we traveled 1400 miles over 5 days and saw some really interesting sights - and learned some new tricks for longer van trips & van trips in hot weather. I’m going to write this trip up in 3 blog posts - this one covers the road trip there and the other two will cover the backpacking trip we went on and touring around Yellowstone national park.

Our first Van trip as a family - and our first trip with a working battery… :) This was also our first trip with our new inflatable Kayak, which was super fun. Sara and I left early Saturday and got a campsite, bought some groceries, and went on a hike around the south side of deception pass. The hike had some amazing views and we were able to get some play time on the beach as well. Almost a 3 mile hike and Sara did about half of it on her own.

So - we were planning to go on a van trip this weekend, but woke up on Thursday morning to this: ‹ › Snow!! Doesn’t happen very often in Seattle. So that, combined with the van not really being setup for snow driving, meant we ended up staying in the city. But, that doesn’t mean we couldn’t have a bit of fun…

Way back in 2019, I had this great idea to travel to Glacier NP via train from Seattle. The real idea was to bring our backpacks on the train with us and then just go backpacking straight from the railroad station, but a small child and the desire to do other stuff besides backpacking sent us on a different path. Instead, we took the train and Angela’s parents drove out to meet us. Angela and I were going to go backpacking for a few days, and then tour around the park for the rest of the week before boarding the train back to Seattle.

Sara is here! 2017-05-05 Angela woke me around 2a because her water had broken an hour earlier. She took a shower and put on some clothes before waking me up - probably because she knew I would be excited and she wanted to have a calm start to the day which would certainly be fully of excitement. We left around 2:15a and headed up to Ballard. The day start off fairly slow, but the contractions started to get painful around 10a or so and there was some panic for half an hour or so before she could get an epidural put in. After that, it was pretty relaxed for a while - we played cards and chatted about everything ahead that we had no idea how to fathom. Then, at 3:09p, it all went down.