VanTrip

Back to back trips! After heading to Utah with the family back in April, Angela has been hankering to get a dutch oven. After some research, she finally found one, ordered it, waited two weeks, and it arrived! We just went camping the weekend before, but you should never let the sun set on a new piece of gear - so off we went. We decided to head back to Whidbey given the fun weekend we had last time. Our trip out was pretty uneventful, picked up some groceries for Angela’s enchiladas dutch oven meal and found our campsite without any trouble.

Back at it after almost a month since our last trip - Sara’s ski lessons, Angela’s sisters trip, and overall sickness created a perfect storm and prevented the adventures for a bit. We went to the north cascades last weekend and spent some time exploring the area around Diablo lake/highway 20 before the closure. I really love this area, it’s relatively close to Seattle (2.5 hour drive) but it’s so remote, especially before the highway opens. Highlight of the trip was the Diablo lake trail as well as finding a new place to explore in early spring/late fall (elevation is low enough in this area that you can explore outside of summer).

Bit a a different trip this weekend, Sara has ski lessons on Saturday morning and I got a half day ticket to ski with her in the afternoon. The plan was to head to a Washington ghost town after that, but more on that later. Sara’s first magic carpet ride with her group lesson - they need to be able to slow down and turn before they go on the carpet.

First trip since Lasik - We had plans to go to Mt St Helens to do some hiking and see the caves/observatory, but I realized at the last minute that Sara needed to get her passport (an appointment I made 3 months ago and forgot about) and I had to take her out to Port Townsend to get it - which is basically the opposite direction. So we packed up early on Friday and headed out to Port Townsend for passport paperwork… After the appt, we headed up to an area called Quilcene - a town of ~500 people that borders against the national forest and national park. We claimed our campsite and headed into town for dinner (decided not to cook given all the chores we had on the way to camping this time).

We had grand plans this weekend of heading to San Juan island to take the Jolly Trolley tour and do some hiking, but after a 3am wake-up to catch an early ferry, I checked my email to find that they had cancelled all but two of the ferry sailings that day. For a minute, we though about just leaving and seeing if we could get standby for one of them - but decided that would be a miserable day (up at 3am to catch the 2pm ferry…). So instead, we decided to go to someplace new.

Another great camping trip - and this time we had some first time campers as guests! We went up to Baker Lake on Friday afternoon and stayed for two nights - with Barun and Roshni joining us just before noon on the second day. But first, let’s check out our beautiful campsite! ‹ › Wanted to get Sara in a couple of those pictures - but she was not having it!

We had soo much fun with kayaking the last trip, I decided we just have to see how much more amazing it can be in good weather. And we had a great trip! Sans a small mishap with the paddle :) So - brief synopsis of the trip. We were planning to go to Joemma beach state park but we didn’t leave early enough and the camp was full. We diverted and headed to Pemrose state park - and got the last campsite! Lesson learned here - start earlier in the morning now that the weather is getting better… The first thing we did once we arrived at camp is to go on a quick hike and have some food.

We did it! First overnight van trip was completed on Dec 22-23. We (Sara and I) went to Wenachee state park and camped in the campground there. It got cold… Down to single digits and I didn’t quite have the camping system optimized for that weather yet so it was a cold night for me! (Sara did fine, she just burrowed down in the middle of my sleeping bag). And during the day she had her backpack to keep warm!