wanderlust

Lower 48

Tacoma, WA to Cannon Beach, OR – February 24th

30 March 2015

Road trippin’ with Chris is great (except for the beef jerky that smells like poo; it should not be allowed in cars/airplanes/confined spaces). Last month we spent 10 days in the Pacific Northwest and drove around a lot. We ate some fantastic food and spent quality time with good people. Here’s some of our wonderful moments we had on the ro-ad.

Our first stop was in Olympia, WA at a little food truck village. We were hungry. And Arépa provided us with some nice Venezuelan cuisine as well as a super neato star wars mural on the wall.

The aforementioned beef jerky. Sick.

One of our best stops was in this super magical forest with wonderfully splendid trees. We unfortunately didn’t take the nice camera with us on our hike, but fortunately the iPhone takes pretty grand photos. Wow, I loved our journey through the forest.

Chris’s face means he doesn’t want to smile for pictures anymore and wants to keep walking.

We saw lots of beauty all over and would just make perfect little random stops.

Cape Disappointment was a great stop. It was beautiful and it was fun seeing another lighthouse. It’s nice to read plaques and info cards at the places we go, but that doesn’t always happen. When we were here, there was a nice lady just seated on the ground, looking up at the lighthouse and doing some sketches. What a good time.

After we crossed the Colombia River from WA to OR, we hit Astoria! That meant we booked it to THIS GOONIES HOUSE and also the elementary school from kindergarten cop, what a classic.

And then came Seaside, Oregon for a little sunset and dinner. We couldn’t find a place open that we wanted to eat, so we had gelato to dinner. What a delight!

Lower 48

PNW!

3 March 2015

We just got back from ten superb days in the Pacific Northwest! It was most excellent. Very beautiful with lots of yummy food. It was a trip with some work and lots of play and my bestest friends! I loved cruising around with Carla and Chris. Oh it was the best. More pictures to come soon, but these get the message across for now. I LOVE THESE KIDS and ice cream!

Lower 48

My first trip to Wyoming

3 February 2015

Another note: scroll through this little gallery of photos.

This adventure happened in May 2014. After I graduated last April, we stopped in California for a week to visit my sister and fam and grandparents and fam, then we spent time in Utah with Chris’s side of the family, and then we drove to Colorado to visit Chris’s sister, sister in law, and their precious little girl. I’d never met them before, nor had I ever gone on that drive from UT-CO and I really loved it all. Sometimes I forget about a lot of that trip though because we don’t have too many pictures of it. But I did come across these fotos and I was reminded of some of the wonderful goodness that occurred!

We were in Colorado for a few days, and it was so nice getting to know our family better, and to have sweet little baby Lucie around. She is so very loved. We went to the zoo, saw cool animals, ate yummy food, and I recall watching plenty of Shark Tank. :) I really enjoy staying with people and having people stay with us. It just so nice to get all that time together.

On our drive back to Utah, we took a different route and went though Wyoming. It was soooo windy. And then there was like a blizzard in Casper, WY. Funny and random and coooolio. The highlight of that journey was Martin’s Cove. The Gourleys, our Mormon pioneer ancestors through Chris’s mom, passed through Martin’s Cove. And actually, that statue/sculpture of the family pulling the handcart, is of the Gourleys! I want to learn more about our genealogy. The stories are inspiring and the people are real. Anyway, Chris went to Martin’s Cove and did parts of the same path as the pioneers when he went on his stake youth trek. I’m so so glad we got to go there, check out the visitors center, and gain appreciation for the pioneers and for the wondrous perfect gospel.

Also… we stopped at Independence Rock. Cool! Reminded me of my Oregon Trail days on the old apple computer. :)

Alaska, Favorites

Adventure isn’t far

21 January 2015

Chris and I wanted to go on a little outing. We packed our puppy, camera, sleeping bags, warm clothes, a couple books, PBJ supplies, an excessive amount of fruit snacks, and got on the ro-ad. We headed north and after a couple short hours we arrived at our destination, Hidden Lake. We had no reception, and Chris intentionally left his phone behind, and it got dark. So we ate and then took a nap, at like 7 pm. I tried to keep Chris from sleeping by coercing him to play alphabet car games with me. We did the ABCs of countries, US cities, maybe animals, and at some point Chris was ready to sleep. We just laid our sleeping pads (I mean sleeping pad, since we forgot one) and cuddled in the back of the car with da pooch Edelweiss.

At like 10 pm or so, we were done napping, so we got some granola bars and headed out for an icy walk under the starry skies. Edel was read for adventure and we fortunately have a great glow in the dark ball for her that we launch and chuck and throw and project, and she still has energy to fetch the ball ten hundred more times. Our walk was so nice. So lovely to disconnect and feel the world around you.

After an aokay night’s rest in the car, letting Edel out many times in the middle of the night to prance around, we got up to b-e-a-utiful surroundings. Here in Homer, the weather has been oddly warm and lacking snow. So it was so nice seeing some white around and to have a chance to wear my snowsuit! Awesome.

We went on one of the greatest hikes ever, with nature delighting us with so many wonders, and my cozy snowsuit eventually got waaaaay too warm. So I did the old snowsuit trick of unzipping and letting the top half of my suit dangle behind me. Chris and I took pictures all along the way and it was absolutely splendid.

Cooper Landing called us next, and we saw a bit more snow there, which was exciting. There were definitely some winter wonderland moments. One of our stops was Widman’s, where I got some hot cocoa and burned my tongue, and Chris got his cream soda. Edel had some water, and she was happy with that. She’s pretty much usually always happy.

This little trip made Chris and I happy too. There’s a lot of wonderful wonderment around us, sometimes it pops up right in front of you, and sometimes you have to just look for it.

Here’s a whole bunch of lovely photos.