Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
All in Vacation
Every year we travel to the Los Angeles area to celebrate New Year's. As usual, we left a couple days after Christmas and returned on January 2nd. We stocked up on warmth and sunshine, and have since returned to cold and overcast on some days, colder and clear on others.
Having spent our last night in Kelso, we decided to swing through Cape Disappointment State Park again to see some of the things we missed the first time through, after which we went home.
After having spent several days going to state parks, we decided to try hiking in the Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument since we've heard enough people say that the trails are still accessible. The weather was supposed to be nice, so we were hoping that we would get some good views of the mountain. This was also a longer hike, so we were thankful the forecast had no rain.
Another morning which started with a trip to the breakfast room followed by checking both the weather and if anyone knew what would be open or closed due to the government shutdown. We settled on a hike which was in a state park, bypassing federal parks and making use of our state park pass.
With the government shutdown, there has been lots of conflicting information about what will be open and what will be closed. We decided to go with a trail which didn't require a pass, figuring it would be OK, so we packed up and headed up towards Mt. St. Helens to hike the Hummocks trail.
This year Melody and I decided to head south for our vacation, centering the trip around Mt. St. Helens. The trip was planned thinking that there wouldn't be much rain, but ends up we did some rearranging of our itinerary to accommodate the weather.
We're now on the train home from Portland. The second half of the week was no less busy than the first half.
The reason for coming to Portland is so I could go to a conference, which meant that was most of my week. I did get a chance to get out a bit, however, and Melody did quite a few things during the week.
I'm in Portland this week so I can go to OSCON, the O'Reilly Open Source Conference. Melody came along so she could do some sightseeing while I'm at the conference, which I guess is only fair since for three years (two in Europe, one in San Francisco) she was in a conference for the better part of a week, time I spent playing tourist.
Our last full day in Vancouver picked up where we left off on the previous day's walking tour, then we worked our way towards Granville Island for lunch, followed by exploring the shoreline.
Our second full day of playing tourist consisted of going to the botanical garden and walking around the west end, including hitting the beach.
We both got a good night's sleep, and after grabbing breakfast, we were ready to start our day. The only thing we had planned for was doing a walking tour of Gastown and Chinatown, but we ended up also going to the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Vancouver Christmas Market.
We had the opportunity to purchase two-for-one Amtrak tickets, so Melody and I decided to make another trip to BC, Canada, this time to Vancouver. This makes the third vacation trip we've taken this fall, each for three or four nights. After having done long vacations the last few years, we chose to break it into smaller chunks.
Our last day had us driving from Port Townsend, along Hood Canal, then through Olympia with an impromptu visit to the State Capitol building.
Having seen many of the sites on the west side of the Olympic Peninsula, we set off towards Port Townsend to explore the north side.
After a tiring hike the day before, we did less strenuous hikes on our second full day, all around the La Push area.
Our first full day on the Olympic was dedicated to hiking along the Hoh River Trail.
Our second mini-vacation of the month is to the Olympic Peninsula, on the other side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Victoria.
Our last full day in Victoria included the Royal BC Museum in the morning and a walking tour of Old Town and Chinatown in the afternoon.
Our second day in Victoria centered around Butchart Gardens. We got up early enough to shower, eat breakfast, and head out to the bus stop. We decided to take the bus since the tours give you a couple hours at the gardens, and we figured we would want to stay longer than that.
