Driving, Driving and More Driving....

Alrighty. Well, nothing too exciting to report. We've been driving a lot!





We left San Diego Monday, March 15th and drove 17 hours through Arizona and New Mexico to spend the night at a rest area in Western Texas. It was a nice, but long drive. I've never been to the Southwest, so the landscape was new and exciting to me. It's too bad we didn't have more time to stop and explore :(






We arrived in Austin Texas the following day after another 3 or 4 hours of driving to visit with a friend of mine from high school. It was a lot of fun. We wanted to make it by Tuesday evening so that I could see my favorite band play at South by Southwest (SXSW). We did indeed make it and had a blast! (For those who don't know, SXSW is a huge music/film/art festival hosted by Austin every year. It brings hundreds of bands to the area). The following few days we saw a couple more bands and explored the city a bit with my friend as our guide.





We left Austin Saturday, March 20th in order to arrive in Indiana Sunday night. We drove 15 or so hours Saturday in hopes of hitting a rest-stop for sleep. The rest-stop was closed, so we ended up driving a few more miles and stayed in a little motel parking lot in the middle of Missouri. It's a good thing we had what little awareness left as we did because we almost parked on a semi weight scale for the night. EEK!



The following morning we drove 6 more hours and arrived in Bloomington Indiana to visit with a friend from college. We stayed their the night and headed to Terre Haute the following day to say hello to some friends and professors. That same day we drove up to Chicago and have been here ever since. We haven't been doing too much. Mainly getting some exercise after sitting in the car for so long and I have once again taken to playing piano considering I've been without a musical outlet for months!!!

We are on our way to central N.Y. Saturday (another 12 hour drive, blaaa) and finally to Vermont! Sadly our trip is winding down :(


In the next edition: (to replace my idea of a top 10 list)

"Living in a mini-van: The Psyche and the Pyscho."

Abstract:
This qualitative analysis will demonstrate the peculiarities of the mini-van environment. Simon and Amber will discuss their 3 month journey traveling the United States of America whilst living in a mini-van, and the insight they gained.

Materials: 1 Simon, 1 Amber, 1 mini-van





(Our van found its soulmate. If you look closely the other van has a "I Love Vermont" sticker... hehe!)

San Fran, San Diego

I am becoming a real slacker with this blog thing. I will try to redeem myself.

Here's the gist of what's happened since the last I've blogged:

1. San Fran
What a great time! We were fortunate enough to know some people who live in the area and they recommended some great things to do, not only in the city, but also near their house located just outside the Muir Woods. We did a day hike the second day we arrived, a mountain bike ride the next and visited the city twice. The woods were incredible and the city was a lot of fun. The first time we visited the city we walked around Golden Gate Park and the botanical gardens. The second time we visited Ghirardelli square and Italy and Chinatown. My favorite new find in the city was Musee Mecanique. It's a fun warehouse-like room located on the water, packed full of old coin-operated games.








2. Down the coast we go!
We left San Fran Wednesday to try and make it to San Diego by Friday. The drive down the coast was remarkable. At one vista point, we were able to see elephant seals and their pups sprawled out along the beach. We also stopped in the Big Sur region and did a 12 mile overnight loop in Los Padres National Forest. It was a nice hike. We had amazing views of the ocean, rolling hills and spring wild flowers. The two downfalls were that it got a little colder at night than we were expecting and the ticks were AWFUL! We had to stop every minute to flick 3 or 4 off of our pants. Simon did get bit once, but apparently they do not carry Lyme disease, so hopefully no worries about that.






3. San Diego:
So here we are in San Diego. It just keeps getting warmer and warmer. I think yesterday was the first time this whole trip that I actually sported a t-shirt. We arrived in town a little sooner than we were planning because I really wanted to go to the zoo. What surprised me the most about the zoo is that along with your typical tigers, giraffes and hippos, they have many rare species and endangered animals. I don't think I could have dreamt up some of the animals we saw. Also, their conservation efforts are astounding. It made me feel a lot better about paying the $37 entrance fee. It was well worth it; a HUGE zoo! One of the largest in the world and we were determined to see everything. It took us about 7 hours, not including breaks, but we did it!















We are going to stay in San Diego probably until Monday morning at which point we will head out to Austin, TX to visit my high school friend. We are planning on hitting the Grand Canyon on the way, but want to be in Austin no later than Wednesday. Why the rush you ask? Well.... that brings me to my fourth and final point:

4. PEACE CORPS
So, I blogged about a month ago about our Peace Corps failure and how we did not get the nomination we waited over a year for. HOWEVER, what I failed to mention is that our recruiter decided to put our application on the back burner for a little bit longer, just in case any snags appeared. We had little hope that anything would happen and so did he. But, just last Monday, while we were in San Francisco, Simon received a voice mail from our recruiter who said he was able to nominate us. We were utterly shocked. He nominated us for a Sub-Saharan African program where Simon would be doing an agriculture project and I would be doing a community service, primary education project. Now, nomination doesn't mean we are in. It means that we have made it one further (AND WAY BIGGER) step. We have to pass all of the medical and legal clearances and continue to make ourselves competitive by volunteering and so forth. It is a very nerve-racking process, but we are excited and going to give it all we've got in order to get the invitation to go!

So, in a bittersweet way, we are headed back to Vermont. We are sad that we have to end this trip so soon, but we need to be in Vermont to get our medical and legal forms in order. However, our expected departure date isn't until February 2011, so we have quite a bit of time to kill.

Until then...

Long time no post!

OK. I'm going to try and recap all that has happened since the last time I blogged.

Here it goes:



1. Salem
On our way back from the Olympics we made a pit-stop in Salem Oregon to visit Simon's relatives once again. We initially planned on staying just a few days, but after taking our van for an oil change, we found out that the rear brakes were a mess and stayed for more than a week (almost two?). After deliberating for days, we decided to get them fixed. Many $$s later, we were on the road.

Despite our van troubles, we did have a great time in Salem. We caught up on Olympic action, sleep and showers. We went for an awesome hike called the "Cascade Head Trail." It was a marvelously nice day. Actually, the weather while we were in Salem was mostly amazing. Sunny sun shine for 4 or 5 days in a row with temperatures reaching in the 60s. Beautiful!




2. Dunes
After Salem, we headed down the Oregon Coast to the Umpqua Sand Dunes for a days exploration. They were incredible! They are the longest coastal sand dunes in the U.S. Just amazing! Though it was a rainy day, we had an absolute blast!




3.Crescent City
On our way from the Dunes to the Redwoods, we stopped in a decent size town called Crescent City, located in Northern California along the coast. We decided to sleep there for the night and head for hiking in the morning. We ran into a few interesting folks along the way. One guy was super excited about our bumper stickers and said he had never seen as good a collection as ours. In fact he had only seen 30% of our stickers. After telling us to "keep it political as hell," he preceded to take pictures of the back of our van.

That night we decided to park in a small lot right on the ocean. I was worried about parking there because a sign clearly read "No overnight parking." Simon, intent on hearing the lulling ocean waves as we fell asleep, didn't seem concerned and we ended up staying. Well, that is until around 2:30am when I awoke to an extremely bright light in my face. I soon realized that it was a police car with its spot only a foot or two from my face. I instantly realized we had some xplanin' to do, but before we could think of our escape from a ticket plan, he sped off. We decided it was best to leave that area and find new parking. About 10 minutes later as we started to drive, we watched a tow-truck and a K-9 unit headed the same way we came. Now, I shouldn't assume this hullabaloo was for us, but there appeared to be nothing else happening within that area. Pfew....

The following morning we woke up and decided to head to the Crescent City information center to find out about Redwoods hiking. We asked the ranger if she could recommend any overnight, backpacking hikes. She told us that she could, but a lot of the beach access hikes would be closed. We wondered why and she said because of the tsunami warnings. Of course, being that we are pretty out of touch with society at the moment, we had no idea an 8.8 magnitude earthquake shook Chile that morning. It's funny, because I kept joking with Simon that I hated parking by the ocean at night because "what if a tsunami came?" He said we had a better chance of winning the lottery. I'm going to go play my numbers now....

We actually tried to watch the tsunami make it's arrival along the coast from a vista point, but we either missed it (it was traveling at 600mph!) or it was pathetically small :( Too bad, we waited all afternoon.



4.Redwoods!
Wow! My neck hurts just thinking about these trees. We hiked 8 miles in old growth at Prairie Creek State Park and viewed amazingly tall trees all along the way. I will admit, we both expected some of the trees to be much wider, but the height!! Don't get me wrong, many trees were extremely wide, but probably very few reach the 6 foot diameter that you read about.




5. On our way!
We're still traveling down the coast. (gees this state is big!) We took highway 1 the other day, just for the heck of it and were quite surprised by its remoteness. Some sections were some of the curviest roads I've ever driven.

Simon has been working like mad the last couple days and I've been hanging out. Yesterday we were in Fort Bragg and today we are in Santa Rosa. We are less than an hour from San Francisco and plan on hanging out there for a few days.

So all in all, things are good. We are becoming more and more settled in the van and learning the rules of the road.

Until then...

Vancouver Winter Olympics

Departure: Thursday, February 11th, WA
Arrival: Thursday, February 11th, Vancouver, BC

Departure: Saturday night, February 13th, Vancouver, BC
Arrival: Saturday night, Feb. 13th, WA

Departure: Monday, Feb. 15th, WA
Arrival: Monday, Feb. 15th, Salem, OR



From the start of our trip, Simon and I planned on making it out to Vancouver for the Winter Olympics. I will admit, I wasn't too excited about the idea like Simon was. I knew it would be pure madness and getting tickets would be nearly impossible. Even though these things turned out to be true, I am so glad we went.

We, or should I say Simon, originally wanted to get tickets for an event in Whistler where a lot of the skiing is being held, but most tickets sold out many months ago.

Then we thought that maybe we could go to the Olympic venues early and there would be some practice runs we could watch. That didn't happen either.



So two days before the opening ceremonies, we sat in our van and debated the idea of going up there. We had no idea what to expect. We assumed border crossing would include hours of waiting and parking would be booked for miles. We actually looked on Craigslist for reasonable overnight parking and found a few opportunities. We contacted one of the listings, but he raised the price as soon as he understood we were very desperate. We were both fed up. All we wanted to do was walk around the city and be there for the experience. That night we decided to sleep on it and would make our final decision the next day.

When we woke up the following morning, I had what I like to call, a genius idea; long-term airport parking. It was cheap ($15 daily) and there is public transportation that takes you right into the city. So after crossing the border (which only took 5 minutes) we arrived. We were nervous though. We had no idea what the parking would be like; if there was security everywhere, if you had to pay before you went in (we had no idea how long we would stay), if you had to show proof of flight purchase, more paranoia etc.... Pretty silly questions now that I think about it, but you have to think about all these things when you live in a van. Yet, it turned out to be perfect!

We took a shuttle from the parking lot to the train that led downtown and it was nothing but fun! Even the transportation was reasonable. We bought two day passes so we could ride all day long and any of the transportation lines, but didn't even use them the first day because the train line runs by the "honor system." You buy a ticket, but there is no turn-style to walk through. Oh those trustworthy Canadians!



Vancouver is a gorgeous city. We actually splurged on a travel book and learned that they are ranked the 3rd highest quality of life in the world. It is extremely clean, very little crime and everyone was very friendly (maybe this was because their country was hosting the Olympics, but who knows). It is also a very compact city. We were amazed that if you go about 10 miles south, it is pretty barren.



So we arrived in time for the opening ceremonies. They were being held downtown, but we were subjected to watching it a few blocks away in an overcrowded, Canadian flocked bar. Before the ceremonies, we spent the day exploring the town and all of the free events offered. In almost every major section of downtown, there were huge gathering places chock full of things to do. We also walked around the art museum for a couple hours which was offering free admission.








The following day we adhered to a similar schedule as the day before; more walking, exploring, experiencing. It was just incredible to be there. Everything was bustling and there were people from all over the world. We also experienced some of the natural side of Vancouver and walked around beautiful Stanley park, where we were surprised to find out the supposed "wild" animals were the most tame I've ever come across. A raccoon actually walked up to this couple begging for food, and at one point as when I was quacking at some ducks, two swans came within inches of my face. Pretty strange.







That night we stopped into a restaurant just in time to watch the women's mogul competition and Hanna Kearney take home the gold. Our claim to fame is that she's from the upper valley and a friend of a friend! It was a pretty somber mood in the restaurant, considering the Canadian skier was a big hopeful for their first gold on Canadian land. After eating, we walked back to the city center just in time for some craziness. The Canadians weren't giving up yet on their gold potential. Suddenly, hundreds of young Canadians came stampeding through the city center, dressed in insane outfits, dancing, and many with boom boxes blaring the Journey song, "Don't Stop Believing." It was hilarious.







At that point, we decided we had seen enough and we were beat. We headed back to the van and then back to the border. I would love to visit Vancouver at some point when it isn't as crazy, but it was a GREAT experience.







So now we are back in Oregon and have a home base with Simon's relatives for a couple days. Showers! Laundry! We hope to do some skiing, possibly tomorrow and then down south we go! No exact plan for the next few weeks, but definitely want to see the redwoods and do some hiking on the coast.



















Until then...


PICTURE CAPTIONS:

Top Right: Olympic Torch. Simon and I went to see the torch the day after the opening, but they had a chain link fence 50 feet or so away with a fabric covering. It was really silly. I got this picture by sticking my camera through it. Simon tore off some of the olympic fabric that was already ripped as a souvenir!

2nd picture Left: Countdown to opening.

3rd picture Left: Welcome World!

4th picture Right: Vancouver Art Museum all decked out.

5th picture Right: One of the many gather places. This one was in the city center. The skating rink was open to the public and I think free.

6th picture Left: Just silly. I was trying to make a scared face (I don't ski). I look scary... not scared.

7th picture Right: Watching the Opening Ceremonies at the bar. Crazy Canadians.

8th picture Left: View of the city from Granville St Bridge. Pretty crummy day. We never did see the mountains :(

9th picture Right: Decentralized Dance Party.

10th picture Left: More downtown craziness.

11th picture Right: Near the flame. You can kind of see it in the background.

Seattle

I'm trying to report on these last 5 days of being in Seattle and I honestly can only think of a handful of things we have actually done.

Let's see....




1. Pike Place Market. Pretty cool. We went two different days. Definitely the highlight of the trip for me. I love the hustle and bustle of open markets and the variety of goods. We didn't even actually buy much, just a few used books. We had lunch one day overlooking the market (as pictured). It was a great view and a fun place to people watch.

2. Visited the downtown public library. Pretty amazing... ten floors! Of course, we got there with only a half hour left to spare, but it was fun to see while it lasted.

3. Many, many, many coffee shops. Mainly for WiFi access, but occasionally the cup of joe.

4. Extreme parking. Probably the most stressed out I've been the whole trip. Five days in Seattle and a different place to park each night and all the nightly questions related to parking... is this place too sketchy, too dark, too light, too secluded, do they take their towing signs seriously, define camping in your vehicle?




5. Space Needle (what else?). Mainly to walk around the park and get a picture for Abu (he was begging). Thoroughly enjoyed, but did not pay the 17 buckaroos or whatever amount to ride an elevator to the top.

6. We visited a community trying to develop an eco-housing unit right outside of Seattle. It was pretty interesting and we have plans to visit more along the way.


Well... once again my life is revolving around store hours. Must go now!



Coming soon... Amber's Top 10 List (maybe even 15 or 20... let's see how carried away I get) "Why living in a van is so..... special."

On to Vancouver!

Hiking and more...

Departure: Oregon Coast, Sunday, Jan. 31st
Arrival: Olympic National Park, Washington, Sunday, Jan. 31st

Departure: Olympic National Park, Wednesday, Feb. 3rd
Arrival: Port Angeles, WA, Wednesday, Feb. 3rd

Departure: Port Angeles, Thursday, Feb 4th
Arrival: Seattle, Thursday, Feb 4th.



When we last wrote, we were on our way to our first official backpacking experience of the trip in Ecola State Park. When we hiked in, we were surprised to see three other people and two of the three lean-tos had been claimed. We were relieved there was at least one left, considering we didn't bring our tent. We unpacked, made dinner and relaxed. A few hours later another group of four people arrived, two of which had a tent. The other two we told they could stay in our lean-to. Later in the night, we started to make a fire and talk to a few people when suddenly a boyscout troop appeared! We were all pretty surprised being that it was dark out and nobody was expecting so many people to be camping. So, as the story goes, an hour or so later another group of about four people arrived and let's just say, no sleep was to be had. We were disappointed, but packed up the next morning and went on a five mile hike somewhere else in the park. All in all, it was an experience, the park was very beautiful, and the weather remained tolerable.



Hiking experience #2:
On our way to Olympic National Park we stopped in Astoria, Oregon for the night. We parked to get some shuteye when we suddenly heard a strange barking noise. I joked with Simon that it sounded like a seal. Two seconds later, we heard it again, looked at each other and said "I think it is a seal." Sure enough the parking lot we were sleeping in faced the harbor and there were about 20 seals barking all night, not to mention huge cargo ships blowing their horns. At one point I decided that one ship was never going to stop blowing its horn, so I lay there sleepless and counted for 48 seconds until it finally stopped. It was, an experience.




Olympic National Park however was an AMAZING experience. An REI employee suggested we hike the HOH river valley trail. It was perfect, besides the monumental fees. The trail is situated in the Hoh rainforest and it certainly lived up to its name. Although it didn't rain as much as I'm sure it was capable of, everything was consistently soggy. We had a really hard time keeping most things dry, but made sure we always had at least one dry outfit.


















We also discovered that the trail was quite the obstacle course at times. Though it was fun, I will admit I was a little hesitant at times, especially when it came to the balancing on large logs over a river part.






The first day we hiked in 9 miles and set up camp at a place that had bear wire and water we could filter. On the trail we ran into a herd of Elk. We were told they may charge if you get too close, so we stayed back and watched for a while. We also saw plenty of cougar prints, which was a little unsettling for me, but we were told that though the cat is a very large one, he has never been seen.









The following morning we took a 12 mile hike with day packs to Elk Lake situated on the trail. It was a picture perfect day; mild and sunny and we had amazing views of what we believe was Mount Olympus. The next day we hiked the 9 miles back to our car and headed north. We were pretty sore and tired by the end of it, dragging our feet the last mile, but we are excited for more hiking to come!

After hiking, we started our car and the check engine light came on. We checked our fluids and added dry-gas and everything seems to be fine now. The light went off yesterday so fingers crossed, everything is OK. We also hear a bit of squeaking in one brake. I hope our house isn't falling apart!

And now we're in Seattle. We don't have a definite plan about how long we will stay, but probably a few days. Then to the Olympics!

Finally, we would like to add one note of disappointment, We heard from our Peace Corps recruiter today that it seems we are not going to be placed. It is really tough news to bear. For about a year now we have been waiting to hear about a placement opportunity, but nothing fit our profile. There are many things I could say about this right now, but I think we both just need some time to process it all.

Until then... we will continue loving this trip!

Oregon

Departure: Sunday 24th Spokane, WA
Arrival: Sunday Jan. 24th Portland, OR

Departure: Monday Jan. 25th Portland, OR
Arrival: Monday Jan. 25th Salem, OR

Departure: Thursday, Jan. 28th, Salem, OR.
Arrival: Thursday, Jan. 28th, Unspecified locations on the Oregon Coast.


Greetings from balmy Oregon! I am trying to wrap my head around all that has happened since our last blog. OK, I'll give it my best shot, here it goes:

Our first destination since we last talked was Spokane, Washington. We spent the night in our van after walking around town, stopping to view the popular outdoor ice rink (no skating was involved on our part) and duckies swimming in a park pond.

After Spokane, to Portland. Our drive along the Columbia River Gorge was soggy and we were expecting it to be a sign of things to come, but the weather has actually been very fair (knock on wood!).

We arrived in Portland Sunday night and after finding overnight parking, walked around the city for some cheap Mexican food that we had read about online. We searched and searched for “ Taco Del Mar” (I am pretty sure now that this is the NW equivalent to Chipotle) and after walking out of a underground parking lot in hopes of finding it, we ran into a young person interested in what was in that mysterious underground tunnel, who eventually suggested another restaurant and said that the place we were searching for was for Yuppies. Good thing, we wouldn't want to be caught dead in a yuppie environment. I've heard that Starbuck's might be a Yuppie place. If that's the case, we'd better stop going.



We ate our meal at the suggested sketchy and wicca themed, but delicious Mexican restaurant and then headed back to our van for sleep. The following morning we hiked for 2½ hours through lush, green forest and only a few miles from our downtown parking spot. This park, conveniently named Forest Park, is the largest city park in the U.S., and is not your typical green grass, throw a frisbee around park. This park had dense forests, beautiful clear streams and wildlife. Besides the occasional distant train whistle, if I didn't know it, I would think I was in some very remote location.




After our hike we set our for Powell's bookstore, the countries largest new and used bookstore. I think we could've spent 5 more hours here than we did, but our parking meter ran out :( After the bookstore we stopped by “Voo Doo Donuts”. Definitely a tourist attraction, but well worth the humiliation of carrying a dozen donuts around town in a huge pink box. Yet another wicca themed place. Hmmm...

From there we were off to Salem, just an hour or so south of Portland to visit Simon's cousins. We spent three nights in this location, and dare I admit, indoors with a comfortable bed and hot showers. It was heaven. Living in a van makes all the little things that much more enjoyable!





We had a great time in Salem. We were challenged to many rousing games of memory-match (all of which I lost miserably to two seven year olds) and Blokus (I probably don't need to mention that I lost), but it was all very fun. We had three delicious, hot suppers with the family and got to catch up on family news and such. We made a day trip while in Salem to Silver Falls State Park and it was well worth the trip. This park has ten gorgeous waterfalls, all of which we were able to see on our 7 mile hiking loop. By the last few falls I was almost desensitized to the beauty, being that there were so many.




We said goodbye to the cousins yesterday and headed first to REI, to pick up a few more things for our backpacking extravaganzas. We are really anxious to use our equipment and go on some major hikes, but Oregonians have had a tough time suggesting any such thing for the winter. At REI, the sales clerk made a few suggestions, but didn't seem too hopeful that we could do some backpacking. Well.... we did our research and found a place along the coast that seems fruitful. It is a 10 mile hike with a small loop that we will be able to bakpack into for the night. We are headed there right now and will let you know how it goes. So far, no major rain to speak of! (again the knocking on wood thing)





We're on the ocean!


All in all, everything is great! We are looking forward more and more to Vancouver and our Seattle trip is just around the corner, probably within the next few days.

Signing off...