VanTrip

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.

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!