when i left off, i had just taken the kids on a little side trip to great basin national park. while we were having adventures, and driving to and from that park, derek moved along down the highway to the nevada border, which is where we met up with him for a night. the town […]
food
great basin national park.

initially, we were pretty sure there was no way we were going to squeeze in a trip to great basin national park. it’s a little off the beaten path, and the internet isn’t so hot, so with derek starting his new job, it wasn’t looking like a possibility. then, we had the bright idea that […]
mostly mount st. helens.(and some travel day pit stops).

our departure from mount rainier marked a crazy whirlwind week of travel, taking us from rainier to salt lake city by the end of the week. our first stop on the itinerary was a two day visit to mount st. helens. the travel day from rainier to mount st. helens wasn’t too long, but the […]
seattle tourists. (etcetera).

after our whirlwind cascades trip, we moved on down the road a bit, to monroe, washington, which we planned to use as our base for traveling into seattle for a couple of days. we only had two “must see” spots on our list. everything else was up in the air. when i think of seattle, […]
north cascades national park. day one.

after our time in sequim with jenn and brandy, we had a LONG drive around the puget sound and then back up to north cascades national park. this would be our first stop on a whirlwind week at north cascades, exploring seattle and then moving down to mount rainier (which is where i am typing […]
a (mostly) rainy week in quileute.

so. it rains a lot in the pacific northwest. no surprise there. but it really really rains a lot on the coast near la push, washington. and we mostly chose this campground due to its proximity to the hoh rainforest, but on our hike to hole-in-the-wall, some friendly hikers informed us that a road had […]
lake quinault adventures.

this might just be my fastest ever turnaround from doing a thing to posting about it. this past weekend, we moved further north up the coast, to ocean city washington. it’s not really near much of anything and there’s a dead whale on the beach at our campground, so, well, we are mostly laying low. […]
camp jackson.

on our travel day, from seaside to ocean city, we decided to take a big detour and visit our friends, the jacksons, who were staying about an hour and a half away. jenn planned an epic day of fun and sugar for the lidkids, making this their favorite travel day pit stop of all time. […]
goonies never say die!

as a child of the 80s, i grew up during what will likely be looked back upon by historians as the greatest decade in cinema of all time. one such example of superior movie making is the goonies. so, when we found ourselves at a campground near the locations where the goonies was filmed, i […]
tillamook creamery.

after our time in portland/vancouver, we headed back out to the coast, to seaside, oregon. it’s a little bit south of the washington state line and a little bit north of tillamook, home of the tillamook dairy products. so, naturally, when we found out there was a cheese factory you could tour and sample, we […]