Final Note

We really don’t want this adventure to end.  In many ways it feels like we just left Canmore.  But when we look through our pictures and are reminded of all the places we’ve been in the past 4 months, even we are surprised!  We are so grateful that we grasped an opportunity to turn a dream into reality.  It is true that… “You are never given a wish without the power to make it come true”.  We’ve enjoyed this experience so much that we know we will travel again.  The only thing missing during our travels was the company of family and friends.

Many of you have shared with us that our adventure has inspired you to do something new or motivated you to make your dreams come true.  That makes us so happy.  We can’t wait to hear all about your adventures!

“Tell me, what are you going to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Thanks for reading,

Love Carrie, Trevor, Kiah and Trae

May 30th – June 2nd The Last State

Washington had more rain in store for us.  It has been raining since we left San Francisco.  Fortunately, the rain did stop long enough for us to enjoy an afternoon at the North West Folk Festival in Seattle, where we were entertained by music,  dance and mosaic designing.    We spent 2 nights at an RV Park east of Seattle and one night at Deception State Park northwest of the city.  Deception State Park is Washington’s largest park and has great running trails and camping spots.   Unfortunately the beauty of this park is spoiled by the deafening sound of fighter jets flying above.  The park is set across from a Naval base.     The fighter jets sound like thunder roaring across to the point that it is so loud, that you are unable to hear each other speak. 

On June 2nd we crossed the border into Canada and thus have concluded our 4 month adventure.   On the weekend, Trae and Trevor raced in the North Shore Bike Fest.  It was fun for Trae and work for Trevor as the trails were very muddy and wet.  Check out Trevor in the race.  He is plate #356 and can be seen at 50seconds and at 6min.

We are now staying at Capilano RV Park in Vancouver, getting familiar with what will become our new city and bracing ourselves for a different sort of adventure. We have chosen to reside in Vancouver for the next few years and look forward to the next chapter in our lives.

“The world is not as big as the pencil in my hand” quote by Trae Allen

May 24th - May 29th - Oregon

Unfortunately our trip through Oregon wasn’t as long as we had thought it would be.  There was a lot of rain, something we will have to get use to if we want to enjoy living in Vancouver.  We’ve been so fortunate with weather the last 4 months, we’re not sure what to do with ourselves in the rain.  Fortunately it wasn’t raining all the time, so Trevor managed to do some highway biking along the coast and I some running on the park trails.

We stayed at state parks along the coast, including Harris Beach, South Beach and Beverly Beach.  We wandered in the tide pools at Harris Beach and the kids were thrilled to discover all the little creatures hiding in the rocks!   We managed to catch up with our Irish friends whom we had spent a week with on a beach in Mexico a couple months ago.  The kids had been waiting for this reuniting for a long time.  It was fun to hang out and to have a partner to run on the beach with again. 

We got a few deals at the Lincoln Outlet Mall, $5 jeans for Kiah and $15 jeans for me…..and Oregon has no tax, absolutely zero!  We spent 2 nights in Portland, with the main objective to get Trevor’s bike set up the the big race…7 day BC Bike Race.  Again it was much cheaper to get done here than in Vancouver.

Oregon is beautiful and has many great state parks, we wish we were able to enjoy it in the sunshine.  But it’s only 6 hours from Vancouver to Portland, so we can easily return in the future.

May 21st - May 23rd Driving Along The Northern California Coast

From San Francisco we headed north along Hwy 1 on the west coast, destination unknown.  We really just wanted to get out of the wind.  We stopped at a visitor’s center in the small town of Mendocino and we were directed to MacKerricher State Park near Fort Bragg.  This campground is situated along the ocean. 

It has a boardwalk out to an overlook where we were able to watch seals and their pups rolling in the waves and hear them barking away.  There is also a long paved trail (old road) that stretches for miles along the shoreline. Trevor had the pleasure of biking it and I had the joy of running it while also venturing down many side trails to the edge of the ocean cliffs.

 

The following day we drove Hwy 101, detouring along the Avenue of the Giants.   The giants are old growth Redwood trees that can grow more than 350 feet high.  But wait…. didn’t we say that the Sequoia trees were the biggest…true, but the Redwoods are the tallest!!!  We stayed at Patrick’s Point State Park.  Another park located right on the ocean and also inhabited by seals who playfully frolicked in the waves.  This park is thick with vegetation and wandering along it’s trails makes you feel like you are in a dense jungle.  The weather was a mix of rain and  sun and cooler than we expected, around 5-10 degrees C.   Makes us miss the hot and sunny Mexican weather, however we heard snow was expected in Canmore this weekend, so who can complain!!!

May 18th - May 20th Visiting The Birth Place of Trevor’s Bike

We made our way toward the ocean and found a campsite at the very shady Henry Cowell State Park north-east of Santa Cruz. It just so happened that a stage of the Tour of California was to finish at the Santa Cruz boardwalk.  It was Trae’s 5th birthday & Trevor’s lucky day!  Santa Cruz was so excited about the tour that they even let out the schools early to watch the race.  The stage finish was downtown along the boardwalk and it seemed like everyone was out on their bike.  We got lots of free stuff at the event and managed to catch a blurred view of the cyclists as they sped in a cluster toward the finish.    It was a tight finish as 3 of the riders finished within milliseconds of each other.   They’re so fast you literally see a blur of moving color as they ride past.

For Trae’s 5th Birthday we walked the Santa Cruz boardwalk and road one of the rides as it was getting to closing time.   For dinner,  we had Trae’s favourite…cheeseburgers and birthday cupcakes!  We celebrated in the trailer as we decorated it with signs & balloons.   We actually tricked him into thinking that his birthday was tomorrow as we had to take the time to get the trailer set up.  When he entered the trailer, we all yelled surprise.  He was in a little shock as he believed that his birthday was to be tomorrow.  Once he found out that today was the 18th, he replied that he knew all along and that he was the one who tricked us!!! Oh, 5yrs old and knows it all.

The following day Trevor and Trae toured the Santa Cruz bike factory while Kiah and I were treated to a  view of dolphins playing in the ocean on our stroll along the seaside!  The factory is humble in appearance with no flash or even a sign to indicate.  Trevor & Trae got a personal tour and Trevor managed to hold his dream bike. 

The following day, we travelled the coast to San Francisco, over the Golden Gate Bridge and found an RV park just north of the city from where we could catch a ferry to downtown.   We caught the ferry in the afternoon and managed to ride a cable car, see the world’s most crooked street, look in a few shops, watch a couple street performers, eat dinner in China town and catch the second last ferry of the day back to our beds.  Needless to say, we were all spent as we hit our beds about 10pm.  The following day Trev did a long bike ride over the Golden Gate Bridge and was able to get 4hrs in on the bike.   The weather in San Fran started to get windy, wet and cold, so we took it as an opportunity to get back on the hwy and travel north. 

May 15th- Sierra Nevada

We drove up the long and climbing road to the north-west Big Stump Entrance of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.    We were greeted at the top to snow patches but the weather was warm and sunny.  We were right on time to join a park ranger in a tour of General Grant Grove, home of one of 75 groves of the earth’s largest living trees.  Some of these trees are over 2,000 years old and I think they can live for over 3000 years!  The older ones have a ground circumference of over 100ft!  One tree, named the Fallen Monarch, was once used as a home and then a horse stable and we were able to walk right through it.  We enjoyed breathing in the smell of earth and trees as we listened to the park ranger and wandered among these majestic giants.

Later we drove the 36-mile descent into Kings Canyon, descending from 2008m(6589ft) to 1412m (4635ft).  It is the deepest canyon in the US.  The road down is very steep, narrow and winding, and the scenery is spectacular. However the drive took about an hour to descend the 36 miles.    Breath-taking waterfalls await at almost every turn and at the bottom the fierce Kings River flows back-dropped by moss-tinged granite walls that stand thousands of feet tall.  Kings Canyon is surrounded by rugged wilderness and unlike Zion and the Grand Canyon, surprisingly, there were very few tourists here.  There is a trail called the Pacific Crest Trail that runs through Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and stretches from Canada to Mexico.  Maybe next time we visit Mexico, we’ll take this route!!!

We  got a campsite at the bottom and end of the canyon and enjoyed a Canadian camping feel by the fire that evening. 

We hoped to do some hiking the following day but we only managed to see a few viewpoints along the roadside before the rain started coming down hard.  We decided to drive to the top and stay at a campsite up there.  After a very scary drive up the edge of the deepest canyon in the US in the heavy fog and rain we decide it was best to continue down to the foothills so that we didn’t awake to snow the next morning.  We had planned to visit Yosemite, but with the cold weather in Sequoia, we decide instead to head west toward the coast.  Because we had such a late start we ended up driving into the evening and finally found an RV park close to Santa Cruz.

May 14th Leaving Las Vegas….Again

We decided to stop at a place just south-east of Las Vegas called Lake Mead Recreation Area where we were able to camp for $10/night.  It’s strange to see this lake in the middle of the desert.  It draws many boaters but it’s not our idea of paradise, however it is definitely hot and sunny, even at 6am!!!  We made a stop at the Las Vegas Outlet Mall, (not too many bargains found here, although groceries at Walmart were the cheapest we’ve seen so far).  Then we continued on westward, destination…. Sequoia National Park.  Sorry, no pictures as Vegas is just not our type of town.

May 10th – May 13th: Zion National Park – Utah

We approached Zion from the East entrance and as such we had the pleasure of driving the Zion – Mount Carmel Highway.   This is a gorgeous road from the top of Zion Canyon, through two long tunnels and down several switch backs to the canyon floor.   Unfortunately, when we arrived, all the camp sites in the park were taken and it was only 2pm.   We did find a spot at an RV park just outside the south entrance.  The hefty price of $42/night made us get up early the following day to find a site for $16/night in the park, where we spent another 3 nights. 

We loved Zion!  We did a family bike ride along the river path and Trevor and I each had an opportunity to enjoy a hike with the kids.  They joined me on a hike to Emerald Pools and with Trevor to The Watchman, two beautiful trails within the park.  Kiah and Trae are really starting to become excellent hikers!  They enjoyed Zion as much as we did.   They were amazed by the wild turkey we had the pleasure to see wandering through the campground.  Trae wondered if we could eat it.  It was pretty fat!

 

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Trevor got in a few bike rides at places just outside the park on trails called Gooseberry Mesa and Guacamole.   He managed to do one of the rides with a few Calgarians who were on a bike trip.  I did some running on the Zion hiking trails, including an epic day when I ran two popular hiking trails: East Rim Trail to Observation Point and Angels Landing.  I ran more than 22km, to the rim of the canyon and back twice, in about 3hours.   Needless to say my quads were a sore for a couple of days. Trevor also had the joy of running the canyon trails.  The running itself was so easy, because the scenery in Zion is so inspiring, you don’t notice time go by.  It's a place where pine trees and cacti co-exist and geckos and squirrels live in harmony.  It was so quiet on one of the trails that I could hear the flapping of a bird’s wings as it flew over my head.  It was hard to leave this magical place but we must continue our journey north!!!

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