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Tuesday,
May 16th
Left
work early today, we were on the road by 3pm heading north
on I-5. By 9:00 we were in Grants Pass, OR. We hadn't eaten
dinner yet and everyplace there seemed to closed at 9 so
we found a Denny's and had our dinner at 9:45. We found
a motel called the Sweet Breeze Inn to stay the night. The
woman that checked us in asked us about 20 times if we smoked
or not and told us every time after we said no that if we
wanted to smoke we would have to do so outside (I think
that her wig was on too tight!).
Wednesday,
May 17th
Wake up
at 6:00 take a shower and drive to Brandon's Aunt Gail and
Uncle Rick's house, they live in Grant's Pass. We woke up
Gail and her son Troy, no one else was home, so we visited
for a while and then went on our way by 8:00. Stopped at
Burgerville for lunch, umm umm. We passed thru Seattle about
4:30 and drove up to Marysville to Seven Lakes Pizza & Grinders
Etc. We were so hungry, we ordered a huge pizza and only
had 2 slices each. Jason and Mark (we were staying at Jason's
that night) meet us at the pizza place and we followed them
to Jason's. We talked for a while and then Jason and Mark
left to go work on their rigs for the trip the next day.
We set up our air mattress and watched TV until we fell
asleep.
Thursday,
May 18th
Wake up
at 5:15. Get up and out of there in 5 minutes, we have to
catch the ferry (No shower)! We headed to Anacortes for
the 7:00 ferry to Sidney, British Columbia on Vancouver
Island. We had to wait until 7:45 to board. I took a Dramamine
to calm my tummy and ended up sleeping the whole way to
Sidney, until 11:15! We drove south to Victoria and stopped
to eat at The Pantry restaurant, it was okay. By 2:00 we
were at camp in Sooke. By 2:30 we were all set up and left
to go to Victoria and get food, water, and a tarp (it was
starting to rain). We probably got 5 miles from camp when
the water pump in the truck blew, grrrrrr! We waited for
half an hour until a man named Mike drove up in a Nissan
pickup. He took Brandon into town to get a new pump. It
took a while, but a guy that Brandon knew from the Internet,
Wil, stopped by and stayed to help. I got to stay inside
the dry truck for those 3 hours thanks to Wil. That night
it rained a lot, until about 11pm when we were all going
to bed.
Friday,
May 19th
Woke up
at 5:30 to sprinkles. Brandon's grumpy. We got all our stuff
put into the rainproof containers that we brought, rolled
up our sleeping bags (to keep bugs out), and went into town
for some hot chocolate. By 9:00 we were ready and waiting
to go on the first trail, Hacker. There were 2 spots that
were tough; otherwise it was a pretty easy trail. Mark's
fan tore into his radiator; Cain & Mike did some patchwork
on the radiator so he was going again after about an hour.
We were done with the trail by 4:30, so we went to go check
into the bed & breakfast that we had arranged to stay at
that night. It was right on the main road in Sooke called
Constable Matheson's. It is the towns old jail converted
by the owner, Sheila a felt artist, into a home and bed
& breakfast. The way it is set up it's like a little house
of your own it has a living room/hot tub room, kitchen,
bedroom, and bathroom. I fixed myself a little dinner then
we went back to camp so Brandon could have his dinner, provided
by the event, hamburgers! After dinner we went back to the
B&B, chatted with Sheila for a while and then each got to
take a nice long hot shower (it had been almost 3 days!).
Then we got to go in the hot tub. Brandon added some bubble
bath and turned on the jets to make a mound of bubbles that
almost reached the ceiling! I got out and went to bed.
Saturday,
May 20th
We were
up at 7:00. I cooked ham, eggs, and fresh oj (provided by
Sheila in our fridge) and ate cereal myself. We were on
our way back to camp (about 2 miles) by 8:45. Today's trail
was Morning Side. This was basically a mountain with 100
different ways to get up it so after a while everyone went
there own way and you would run into people all the time.
Brandon broke his first birfield today, he had a spare and
thanks to Mike and Wil (again) he had it changed out in
about 45 minutes. Lots of people breaking down today, Cain
& Krissy had to go to someone's house to get a replacement
leaf spring after only about 2 hours on the trail, but they
were back for dinner. We went to the 17 Mile House for my
dinner (it was very good), and then back to camp for Brandon's
dinner and the raffle. We didn't win anything in the raffle
but we did win the Iron Butt award for traveling the furthest
to the event (about 1000 miles). It's been raining all evening,
we setup a tarp to sit under tonight instead of standing
in the rain, much more enjoyable this way.
Sunday,
May 21st
We slept
in today until about 8:30. We got packed up, said our goodbyes,
and left for Victoria to do some sightseeing. De-ja-vous:
It's band tour time in Victoria. I had been in my high school
band and 10 years earlier we had gone to Victoria to be
in the Victoria Day Parade. It all looked exactly the same,
bands all over the city some being tourist and others entertaining
the tourist by practicing in front of the Parliament building
and on the waterfront, all thing I had done 10 years earlier
(very strange). We ate lunch at a place that Brandon spotted
once the rain really started coming down called Hugo. It
was a great restaurant, great food, and very inexpensive.
We walked around for a while but the rain wasn't making
it much fun. We drove north to get the ferry to Vancouver
and then drove to the Lundy's house right near the border.
The Lundy's are a family that Brandon met online and invited
us to stay with them, they are: Rob, Kim, Annalee, Breyden,
and Coleton. They made a great dinner for us and let us
take showers!
Monday,
May 22nd
Woke at
8:00. Rob made us all a big breakfast. By 10:00 we were
on our way to Seattle for some sightseeing. We found a hotel
called the Pacific Plaza and checked in. We walked around
a lot and found a place to eat dinner, the Rock Bottom Brewery.
We bought a Growler of Brown Bear Beer to take home (the
first we'd seen since Alaska). We were both very tired and
were asleep soon.
Tuesday,
May 23rd
Today
we explored Seattle. We meet Mark and Jason for lunch at
their work in the Key Building on the 58th floor, what a
view!!! By 5:00 we started to head home wishing that we
could stay longer. We listed to Memoirs of a Geisha on CD
to pass the time, a very good book on tape. Stopped at Fudruckers
for dinner, a serve yourself burger bar (not as good as
Gilligan's in Alaska). We drove until 11pm and then found
a hotel for the night.
Wednesday,
May 24th
Left down
5 at 8:00am and arrived home at 5:00, what a long drive!
We had a great time but it was nice to be home. his is work
in progress, just thought I would post something. Unfortunataly
I did not take many pictures but I did get some good video
that I will convert to clips as soon as I can get ahold
of a capture card. Story to follow, and in the meantime
look at these pictures and the following links for more:
Mike
"Crash" Kash
Shannon
Cupper
Awesome
video clip - bc4x4.com
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