Vancouver, British Coumbia - November 25th to December 6th, 2007

Our trailer was made in the Ontario Province of Canada.  The first month of being on the road we had a lot of things break.  We hear this is normal for new trailers to have a “breaking in” period” but after a while it started getting old.  We got some of the things fixed at a dealer in Central California in September but some parts had to be ordered.  They wanted to know where we would be so they could ship them there.  Well, when you travel constantly and have no idea where you will be that is a hard question to answer.  We really didn’t know where we would be or by when.  We knew we wanted to visit Vancouver, BC so being that it was the next closest dealer for our trailer we had them ship all the parts to Langley, BC.  We figured we’d work our way up there and then go from there.  After spending Thanksgiving with our family in Carnation we had made an appointment at the dealership for the following Monday.  This was probably not the best idea and was not well thought out at the moment.  Crossing the International border on a Sunday evening after a major holiday and THE BIGGEST shopping weekend of the year!  With the decreased value of the American dollar many Canadians were crossing the border to SHOP!  So we sat in the borderline for two and a half hours with all the little “zippy” cars taking advantage of the gaps provided in line by our slow moving rig!  Being that Joss lived near the border in San Diego for half her life, this really didn’t seem so long to her but at that point, with two young boys in the truck we were grateful for the DVD player.  Border crossings are the perfect excuse to use it. 

It didn’t help that Robert is a very honest person, to a fault sometimes (don’t ask him what he thinks of your dress…unless you really want to know!)  The very nice lady at the kiosk window asked the usual questions (where are you from, where are you going, how long, did you bring any firearms, explosives, etc).  Then she asked if we had any tasers (stun-guns) , mace, pepper spray, etc. and Robert said “yes, we have a taser gun in the safe”.  That’s when the very nice lady wrote something on a piece of paper, handed it to us and told us to park the rig and everyone was to go inside the building and “see the man”.

Prior to the trip, Robert debated whether or not to bring a gun of some kind with us.  He researched the gun laws of the states and decided it was too much hassle.  Tasers, however, are legal in all states so that’s what he got.  A brand new, bright yellow M-16 Taser with 8 cartridges.  What he didn’t research was whether you could bring them into Canada.  You can’t!   Several agents took Robert outside to the trailer and asked him where the taser was, how to open the box, what was in our fireproof safe, etc., etc.  We must say, everyone was very polite and understanding.  After an hour, we signed the receipt to have the taser confiscated and destroyed and we were off, 10pm in a foreign country and looking for a Wal-Mart to stay in (our first!).  Oh and to top it off, not a month before, several people were killed in Canada by authorities using tasers!  Talk about timing.

We didn’t know until we started researching living in an RV on the road that most Wal-Marts will let you stay in their parking lots overnight for free.  They have lights, security cameras and most have security patrols in their parking lots, which helps you feel good. They let you stay free but they still charge regular price for all the stuff you buy while you are staying with them.  They are no dummies, they know a campground costs about $20 to $50 per night and most of the time we spend way more then that when we shop.  But, when we need a quick place for a night’s stay, it’s a great option.  For the purpose of having the trailer repaired for two days this Wal-Mart was very convenient.

We got situated and headed into the trailer.  It was 34°F INSIDE the trailer and it was bedtime.  Robert quickly got the propane heater going and within a short time the inside of most of the trailer was warm and toasty.  Unfortunately the master bedroom doesn’t get much of the heat so we have to get cozy under the covers to stay warm.  Thank goodness for down comforters!  Our first stay at “The Wal-Mart”, as Robert calls it, went well.  When we got up in the morning there were little puddles of ice in the parking lot and the kids had a blast “ice skating”.

We dropped the trailer off at the dealer and headed to Fort Langley.  The Fort is very important to Vancouver History.  It was the major trading fort in the area and the birth place of the Colony of British Columbia.  We all had a lot of fun with their interactive and hands on activities to help the kids learn how life was back then.  Please check out our “photo” section and view the photos for Fort Langley.  They are worth viewing especially with your kids to do a little road-schooling yourself.  The kids loved learning about barrel making and the fur trade business.  It was all quite interesting.  Beaver was the main fur they traded but they also traded any and all furs they could, fox, wolf, bear, raccoon and more. 

After the trading post we had so much fun that we didn’t realize we’d totally skipped lunch.  We realized we were starving.  We headed into a cute older part of Langley and ate a café/bookstore.  The food was healthy, unique and really tasty.  We don’t remember the name of it but if you find it we highly recommend the veggie quesadilla. 

At 5pm we picked up the trailer, took it back to “the Wal-Mart” for the night again.  We couldn’t just sleep in the dealers lot because they lock the gates at night and we’d be trapped in an emergency.  Again it was cold and raining this time but the heater worked perfectly.  The next morning we dropped it off for the last of the repairs.  Robert dropped Joss and the kids off at the movies while he got some work done. 

Before we knew it the trailer was done and we were on our way to the Cariboo RV Park in Burnaby, BC, not far away.  The kids were extremely excited to find out that this RV Park had a heated INDOOR swimming pool!!  Whooo hoo, pretty neat in the winter time. 

But even better, and more exciting to the whole family was that on our first day there Robert met a mother and her daughter in the recreation room and we would become fast friends with their family.  Soon after we met Jim, Leslie and their five and a half year old daughter, Yvonne, we were planning activities with them.  Jim and Leslie Orser are from the Vancouver area.  Jim is semi retired from the power company.  He works when he wants and when he doesn’t want to work they travel in their trailer.  They spent two years traveling Canada and America already and were getting ready to hit the road south to California and Arizona for the winter when we met them.  Here’s a link to their blog.  Jim was almost finished with his job in Vancouver (Vancouver construction is booming while they get ready for the Winter Olympics in 2010) and as soon as he was done they would leave.  Leslie is an accountant and works with her clients from the road over the computer. 

She is an amazing woman.  While living on the road she was also dealing with Celiac disease.  Celiac disease is a complete intolerance to wheat products and any kind of gluten at all.  It causes a whole host of problems in the body.  Click on the link above to read the symptoms.  While living on the road, moving their home every four days she somehow managed the time to create delicious, gluten-free recipes, write a cookbook, photograph the dishes and had it published. The cookbook is for people with Celiac disease or people who know someone with it or people with wheat allergies who want great recipes without wheat products.  People who have Celiac disease cannot eat any gluten at all.  So the entire cookbook is gluten free.  Every recipe has a photo and is easy to follow.  She has both a printed book and an on line version too.  We were very impressed.  We know how much work goes into traveling full time and living on the road with children, we couldn’t imagine doing that, working and writing a cook book!  We were quite impressed with this family early on as you can tell.  We had a great time hanging out with them.  They were very easy to be around.  They took us to great places that we would have never found out about if it weren’t for them.  Travel tip:  Always get to know some locals, make friends and pick their brains (put not necessarily in that order).  This is how you find the best places to go.  Robert is a natural at this.  In fact, if it wasn’t for meeting Leslie and Yvonne in the activity room after our first night at the park, we might have left!  Our park was located right next to the main train line serving the port of Vancouver and at 12:30am, a diesel locomotive decided to “park” right behind our trailer with engines running…for 3 hours.  Joss said the entire trailer was vibrating from the sound (Robert slept through most of it).  Anyway, back to our new friends.  Leslie took us on some great walks, Jim taught the kids how to roll a snowman, they took us to an Equestrian Center for pony rides and up to Grouse Mountain for Santa and ice-skating. 

Jim and Leslie also introduced us to another amazing family who had traveled for a year in an RV with their two young children.  They all met while they were traveling in the summer and have kept in touch with each other.  That is easy now since they are all from Vancouver.  Dave and Cheryl Morch traveled for a year in an RV when their son was 10 months old and their daughter was 3 years old.  They did the trip with no tow car or cell phone, including visiting Mexico for some time!  We got together with both families for dinner and shared stories.  It was great getting together with other families who “get” what we are doing and have also DONE it themselves.  They understood us right away.  We had lots to talk about together.  Dave makes amazing sushi and Leslie made one of the chicken recipes out of her book.  We all sat around, talked, ate and shared stories while all the kids played.  We got a lot of great advice and places to visit as well as campsites that were recommended or NOT recommended. 

After dinner most of us went to Grouse Mountain for Santa and ice-skating.  Dave stayed home to put Peter to bed but Cheryl and her daughter Kayleigh came with us.  Grouse Mountain is at the top of a mountain in North Vancouver but only takes fifteen minutes by sky tram.  The kids loved taking the sky tram up the mountain.  The boys particularly liked watching the older boys with their snowboards.  When we got to the top of the mountain it was like a little winter wonderland there.  Joss felt like she was looking at a movie set because with the huge lights shining down on the ice skating rink it looked very surreal.  It was real but it didn’t look real to her. 

We first went to see Santa in his workshop since he was going to leave soon for hot cocoa time.  We were the only ones there in the little cabin with Santa and Mrs. Clause so we had him all to ourselves.  Robby went first and then Sawyer.  Robby told him exactly what he wanted, a robotic dog that he’d seen in “the Wal-Mart”.  He’s a decisive kid.  When Sawyer got onto Santa’s lap, he kept talking and talking and talking.  Towards the end we finally said “and tell Santa what you want for Christmas Sawyer.”  He eventually did but Sawyer really just likes to talk about whatever is on his mind at the moment. Kayleigh had to wait so long after Sawyer that she forgot what she wanted so the other kids started making suggestions.

After seeing Santa we headed to the ice rink.  This was the kids first time skating and Robert and Joss’ first time in a very long time.  They had metal “walkers” to hold onto for the beginners so Joss and Sawyer both used them at first.  Joss quickly got rid of it because it seemed harder with it but Sawyer was having a hard time.  He kept falling and was getting very discouraged.  Cheryl, who is an athlete and in very good shape, noticed that Sawyer was having a hard time.  She started using the walker to push him around, fast, really fast.  He loved it.  She pushed him all over the rink and soon they started pretending to push themselves into us.  She called him Zamboni Boy and they would yell “Here comes ZAMBONI BOY!”  He was having a blast.  When Cheryl would give Joss or Robert a chance to take him around the rink Sawyer would quickly be asking for Cheryl again because she went FAST!  She got her workout that night.  It was a fun night for all and we finished it off with hot cocoa by the Christmas tree in the lodge before we headed back down in the tram.  We learned a few tid bits of Canadian talk, such as: they don’t say the letter Z like “zee” they say “zed”.  They call our dually truck a “hipster,” and when something is really cool they say it is “skookum.”  The skookum we just couldn’t get the hang of saying but you can now hear Robert regularly saying “ey” at the end of his sentences.

We spent a lot of time with Jim, Leslie and Yvonne at the pool, watching videos and playing dress up.  The kids dressed up their first night playing together as fighting pixies.  They put on pretty wings, wigs and boas and tough fighting faces and stances that seemed out of place to us.  We were cracking up with how cute they all were and how serious at the same time.  They were having so much fun together and that is all that mattered.  The RVGypsies took Leslie and Yvonne on some Geocaches to introduce them to the sport.  They were real troopers when one of the caches turned out to be miles farther than we thought.  The kids put on strong faces and toughed it out until we got home.  They were amazing adventurers, with rarely a complaint from any of them.

One morning Leslie and Yvonne showed up at our trailer with party invitations.  Leslie home schools Yvonne when they are on the road but when they are in town they also participate in a home schooling group once a week.  One of her assignments was to hold a party with foreign food theme.  Yvonne made special invitations for the boys to come to her Chinese food themed party.  They were all excited the day of the party.  Yvonne and Leslie had made Chinese lanterns, egg roles and spring rolls.  They played games with chopsticks to see who could pick up the most raisins.  The prizes were Lego toys.  They all had so much fun putting the Legos together that we only did one other game, the piñata.  Yvonne had made a piñata out of a paper bag and decorated it.  She filled it with candy and toys and each kid got to take a swing at it before it broke open.  It was a really nice party and we all had lots of fun.  We love how RV’ers make everything simpler and easier but just as much fun.  We are definitely learning that a simpler way of living can be just as rich if not more than our old life.  We like the simple life, the important things don’t get lost as easy.

We did do a few things while in Burnaby on our own too.  We spent one day down at the Museum of Anthropology, Joss’ pick.  Joss fell in love with the Indian art of the North West area and wanted to see this museum.  It was not quite the kid’s first choice of things to do but they found a lot there that was interesting.  For this you must go to the “Photo” section of the website.  They have some amazing totem poles and carvings that are incredibly beautiful and daunting at the same time.

Sawyer took Joss thorough her favorite room, the big room with the largest totem poles and carvings.  These are amazing and Joss could sit in this room and think about these great carvings at a Potlatch celebration that they used to have when a new totem was to be unveiled.  They had huge carved bowls to carry all the food they would have at these huge celebrations.  And we do mean huge, you have to see the photos of these to believe it.  They had a lot of food at these parties.  When we were heading back to the car we were treated to a FULL  DOUBLE RAINBOW!  It was amazing and a perfect end to a beautiful day. 

Other than having great friends to play with the next best part about our stay in Burnaby was that it snowed at our campsite for three days.  While the rest of Oregon and Washington were getting beaten badly with a huge storm, we were getting a perfect and very beautiful snow.  It was light and fluffy and fun to play in.  The kids loved it.  They couldn’t get enough of it.  Robby and Robert threw snowballs, Sawyer got his trucks out and tried to move it all around and Robby tried to ride his scooter in it.  We all had a blast.  Our new friends from Canada, the Orsers and the Morchs kept telling us to “GO SOUTH, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, GO SOUTH!”  But we’d grown up in Southern California our whole lives and we wanted to be here for snow.  It is exactly what we wanted and we got it in the most beautiful fashion.  It snowed for three days and then it warmed up one day, rained, and all the snow was miraculously gone.  Just like that, it was gone.  We thoroughly enjoyed it while it was there.  Baylee loved the snow more than all of us.  She loves to romp around in it and we really don’t know why but she is so happy when she is in the snow. 

We were sad to leave our wonderful and fun new friends but we always just know when it is the right time to move on.  We planned on our next adventure to take the ferry boats across the sound to Sequim, WA.  The kids were very excited to see a boat that could take cars and our HUGE TRAILER on.  They almost didn’t believe us and thought we were kidding them.  They soon found out that we were not kidding. 

Seattle, Washington - November 17th to November 25th, 2007

We had so much fun and excitement at the Cedar Creek Horse Ranch we didn't want to leave but we had a lot of fun and excitement waiting for us in the Seattle area too, our cousins! Joss’ cousin, Diane lives in Carnation near Seattle, with her husband Frank and their three kids. Robby and Sawyer couldn’t wait to meet these "new" cousins to play with. We were also excited because not only would we be with them for Joss and Robert’s favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, but we would also get to celebrate Robby’s seventh birthday with his cousins. A lot to look forward to.

Many of the RV Parks near Seattle were booked but Robert found one for us very close to our cousins' house, it was in the town of Fall City. The Snoqualmie River RV Park backed up to a golf course and had eerie looking Dr. Seuss like trees all over the place. In the morning when the fog rolled in it looked like a scene from a Tim Burton movie. It was really cool (not to mention freezing cold).

The first thing we did while there was go to see Joss’ Aunt Linda from Triangle Lake. She was in Seattle for an Art show, “The Best of the Northwest.” We were eager to show the boys her set up for her leather business when she is at a show and to see her again. We had such a great time with them in Triangle Lake that we missed them by now. We spent some time with Linda at her booth and then went for lunch. We got to see almost all of the other artists at the show and they were really the BEST! They had some amazing things there. If we had a house or a yard to decorate it would have been very dangerous. That’s one of the nice things about living in a trailer; there is no room for anything so we don’t buy much. So, as one of our goals for the trip was to get rid of our attachment to material things, we have been successful so far. We are quickly learning that we really don’t need much to be happy. In fact all those “things” we used to buy take away from our happiness because now we have to clean them, organize them and put them away all the time! With less "things" it takes us less time to time to clean our “house.” We are also learning to say “no” when we or the kids want something new. That is the part that will stick with us when we do get a house again someday. We are grateful this trip is helping us with this big lesson. It is forcing us to simplify our lives a lot.

After the wonderful art show where we got lots of great ideas for art projects, we headed to Carnation to see our cousins. Joss hadn’t seen her cousin Diane in about six years; Robby was just a baby at the time. (Joss’ dad and Diane’s dad are brothers.) Diane was thrilled to have family visit. She is the only one of her family who lives on the West Coast. She doesn’t get family visits often enough for her liking so she was very excited to see us. We spent the week catching up and getting reacquainted. The kids played great together especially considering their age differences. Robby and Sawyer love playing with kids of all ages but especially older kids. Natasha is 16, Tanya is 13 and Trevor is 12. The teenagers were amazed at the amount and endurance of energy that our kids had. One of them asked their parents “were we like this when we were their age?” I believe the answer was “YES!” All week the kids played together, made their first strudel with them, and learned how to play ice hockey without the ice. Robert and Frank got to spend a few hours talking and relaxing in the hot tub on Thanksgiving Day (while it was 28° outside) while the kids played outside and Diane and Joss talked while preparing the dinner. It was a great relaxing and fun week for the Gypsies.

The day after Thanksgiving we were blessed with perfectly clear weather so we headed into the city to go to the Space Needle. A side note on weather: We feel we have been magically blessed with wonderful weather the entire trip and are so grateful. People call and email us worried if we are in one storm or another and we always miss the storms and end up in the perfect place away from the severely bad weather. Like I’ve said before we are divinely guided and we listen to this guidance the best we can, sometimes better than others. This trip gives us opportunities every single day to practice faith and trust, over and over again. This whole trip is pretty much about faith and trust. Faith that we are guided to the right places and people and trust that we will end up in the best place for our family.

We have also come at this trip with a positive attitude towards weather. We are from Southern California; we’ve had sunny weather our whole lives. We said when we started this trip that we wanted to experience weather different from what we are used to. So, when we get rain, thunder storms, snow or hail (like today) we embrace it and are happy to learn what it is like to experience and live in real WEATHER! We know that choosing a new place to live outside California means we will have to deal with weather we are not used to and live in it day in and day out. We want to know what that is like before we go and move. Some people say we are crazy and others think it is a smart thing to do. Either way, we are doing what we feel is right and going with the flow.

So, crazy or not, we went to the Space Needle and had beautiful fall weather. The skies were clear and we stayed long enough for the sunset. It was magical. We had the sunset on one side of the tower and the moon on the other. Check out the photo section to see the pics. Robby’s favorite thing about the tower was the FREE binoculars they provided at practically every step. He even found one in side, out of the wind, that he sat at for a very long time. It was a wonderful day and a perfect topping to Thanksgiving week.

The day before Thanksgiving this year was Robby’s seventh birthday. He told us exactly what he wanted, a party at Chuck E. Cheese and an ice cream cake from 31 Flavors. Diane helped a lot with the preparations. Joss was having trouble scheduling the party on-line so Diane scheduled the party for us and helped it all come together. Robby was so excited to have his cousins there. Even though they were probably a little old for Chuck E. Cheese they did a great job of making the best of it and we hope they had fun too. They seemed to. The girls spent much of their time in the photo booth. We all took turns taking photos in different poses and combinations of cousins. Robby loved all the attention he was getting from his “BIG” cousins. He definitely felt like the King of the day. We had fun playing all the games and collecting more and more tickets. At the end of the party Natasha, Tanya and Trevor gave all their tickets to Robby and Sawyer so that they could get really COOL prizes. Robby got two big squirt guns that he has been making good use of...even in the winter. He brags that it is the most tickets that he’s ever had at Chuck E. Cheese. We all sat down for pizza and Chuck E. came out to sing with us for Robby. He loved every minute of the day.

After our time was up we all loaded up in the cars and headed to Diane’s house for opening gifts. Robby’s favorite gift of all was a hammer and wood that Diane and his cousins had picked out for him. The hammer had four screwdrivers hidden inside the handle and he thought this was the best gift he’d ever gotten. He uses it all the time to build stuff. He had told Diane he wanted wood and she listened. He also got Avatar DVD’s, lots of books and a whole dozen cans of silly string from mom. Before we could all decide where we should go to have a silly string fight Diane had opened up a can and started pelting us all with it. Then for a good ten minutes we doused each other with silly string and had a blast. We saved a few cans for Frank and Trevor since they were away at an ice hockey game. We got them good later on. The silly string was a blast and Diane got Joss really good in the hair. It took Diane a good 20 minutes to get it out. The rest of the clean up was easy; Sawyer decided he was going to make a big ball of silly string so he started collecting it all over the rooms and before we knew it, it was all cleaned up. Way to go Sawyer. Joss has another silly string fight planned soon; it will be a surprise.

The following Monday we had an appointment for the trailer to get some repairs in Langley, British Columbia so we knew we had to be better prepared for cold weather. We hit the outlet stores near Carnation and geared up with jackets, long underwear, turtle necks, and warm socks. We felt much better prepared and excited to go to Canada, our first foreign country on the trip. We hoped for snow and we got it! After a good-bye dinner with our cousins at Red Robin we headed for the border. Read on next time to find out why Robert and the family were detained at the Canadian Border for two hours by the border patrol officers and find out what it was they confiscated from him.

Onalaska, Washington - November 16th and 17th, 2007

We drove from our campsite in Kelso (which got flooded in a huge storm while we were in Canada) for about an hour and a half to get to Onalaska, just ten or so miles off the highway.  Apparently there was a lumber mill named Onalaska and now there are several Onalaskas around the country, named after it.  One of the most exciting parts of the trip is when we leave a location and move on to a totally new place.  We love the adventure of not knowing what it will be like, who will we meet, what will we get to do and see?  It is one of Joss’ favorite parts of the trip.  She feels the excitement every time we leave for a new destination.  Other than the time the radiator blew on the truck and we ended up in the “toilets,” every other adventure has been wonderful.  (Reread the Los Banos update if you forgot).  It is an excellent lesson for us in “trust” and living in the moment.

 

This time Robert knew who we were going to see but that was the extent of what we knew.  Robert worked with Jim Wells in the early ‘90’s at Weber Marking Systems.  Robert always liked Jim because he was a straight shooter (in more ways than one).  Jim had a huge territory to cover and he did it with his own style…and he did it well.  When Jim was hired at Weber,  Robert remembers looking at an atlas (remember those paper and ink things) and thinking “where in the heck is Onalaska, Washington?”  Turns out it’s not too far (when you’re traveling the country by RV)!

Like Robert at the time, Jim was and still is, a sales rep for Weber but he also raises Quarter Horses, owns the Cedar Creek Horse Ranch and has written and published two books.  Robert had read his first book, Ultimate Justice but didn’t know the second book; Justifiable Actions was already in print and on Amazon.com.  Jim and his wife Tina had a daughter Robby’s age and the kids were excited about that.

We pulled into the ranch, quickly had introductions of the wives and kids and the fun began almost instantly!  We immediately spotted a car that said “FERRIER” on it.  “Oh boy,” Joss said, “we can watch the ferrier in action.” Joss and the kids had been reading about ferriers in some of their “Old West” home schooling books.  This is what this trip is all about, living it, not just reading about it!   Tina showed us the barn and we got to watch and ask the ferrier questions.  It was really great to watch him at work on Jim’s prized stallion.  Jim told us all about his horses and especially his pride and joy, Lucks Easyfanta Boy.  Jim had a rare opportunity five years ago to buy Fanta Boy, the only AQHA Supreme Champion in the world.   The Supreme Champion award is the most difficult to achieve because a horse must be a proven race winner, a halter champion, and a top performance horse.  Lucks Easyfanta Boy is all of those things.  The man who owned him was ill with cancer and wanted his special horse in the hands of someone who truly appreciated what a Supreme Champion stallion was and to someone who would educate others as to the importance of the title.  Jim was just the guy to do that.  He is very proud of his stallion and it shows.

After a tour of the barn and watching the ferrier, the boys found their daughter Billie’s Barbie Jeep.  Oh boy, was that a treasure to find.  Robby and Sawyer had fun for hours on that jeep, they could have cared less what color it was  (and we all know pink is their favorite color anyway, but don’t tell anyone.)  They would never have stopped riding in that Jeep if the battery hadn’t run down. 

Joss took that as an opportunity for a lunch break and invited everyone for lunch in the trailer before Tina had to go pick up Billie from school.  Joss made turkey sandwiches for everyone and proceeded to poison Jim with her “health nut” bread that tasted like cardboard, to Jim that is.  Lucky for us Jim had at least ten gallons of Dr. Pepper to wash it down with or he may not have survived at all!  Jim and Joss had many debates back and fourth for the whole 24 hours we were there about health food versus “normal” food.  Nobody won, but they had fun teasing each other about it, especially Jim.  Jim doesn’t know it but Joss secretly snuck Tina some of her health food recipes for her to try on him later, but don’t tell him.

When Billie got home from school even more fun broke out.  Billie has her own pony named Snickers.  Each kid got to take turns riding Snickers around the yard.  Sawyer even got to ride one of the Palominos bareback out to the pasture, that was FUN!  The kids had a blast with each other taking turns riding and leading the pony around the yard.  I think Robby actually liked leading the pony better than riding it.  When they were done riding Snickers they all loaded up in the Barbie Jeep and tooled around the ranch again.  The ranch was better than Disneyland.  Billie showed the boys her little motorcycle, they got to ride in Jim’s loader, “A REAL LOADER” (Sawyer almost peed his pants in excitement) They also got to ride in Jim’s real dump truck!  Man, if this is what farms are like, we want one!  All Sawyer could do after that was talk about the ranch HE would have someday and all the animals he would have on it.  He talked about all the goats he would have and how he would feed him all his shirts, “because goats like to eat clothes.”  He was serious, he cracks us up!

 

Another highlight was when Sawyer got to climb on Tina’s lap on the “gator like” quad and deliver hay to the horses in the fields.  They have three separate pastures for the horses that are pretty big so she rides the hay out on the quad.  Oh boy, did Sawyer love this.  He was so excited not only to ride on the quad but also to actually feed the horses himself.  He was so full of excitement he could barely contain himself.  It was fun for us to watch him experiencing a little bit of what horse ranching is like.  Sawyer has talked about having horses from a very young age (and he’s only 4 now) so the sooner he knows what it’s all about, the better.  He still wants them.  Maybe we need to have him clean the stalls and test his conviction! 

After determining that all parties involved, health nuts and otherwise, liked Mexican food, we headed out for dinner. At dinner we learned even more interesting stuff about our Dr. Pepper loving host.  Jim’s sister is married to a big Hollywood producer, a really big one.  Jim has met big names like Richard Gere, Henry Winkler, (who Jim said was opposite of his character, the Fonz), and many other big names who he didn’t really care for.  He kept us tuned in all night with interesting stories about Hollywood, horses and his newest book, an edge-of-your-seat revenge based thriller.  Robert can’t wait to read it.  Robert loved the first one so he was excited to know the newest one was already in print.  Jim is already working on his third novel about a health food eating, green-crazed Gypsy woman who gets framed for the poisoning of an unsuspecting salesmen who lives on a ranch and dies from an overdose of Dr. Pepper.  What a great plot, it sounds so real,  wonder if it was inspired by real life at all……Hmmmmm….

Joss loved watching the kids enjoy the fun of the ranch but her favorite part of the visit were her talks with Tina.  Tina would sneak into the trailer now and then when the men and kids were busy and they’d talk about all sorts of stuff, they really hit it off quickly.  Joss misses her friends from back home it was really nice to get some girl talk.  Thank goodness for email, they’ve been able to stay in touch for both the moms and the kids too.  Joss and Tina would conspire in the trailer on ways to get Jim to eat healthier food until Robert and Jim would find them and interrupt their schemes. 

We stayed over night but had to leave on Saturday because Joss’ Aunt Linda from Triangle Lake, was expecting us to visit her at an art show in Seattle.  Jim made us a huge breakfast in the morning and we packed up and headed out.  We were sad to go so quickly.  The kids really wanted more time to play and Tina and Joss really wanted more time to conspire, aah we mean visit, but this time we had a commitment so we said our good-byes and headed out. 

Robby was thrilled; he was $10 richer from all the Dr. Pepper cans he’d collected from inside the dump truck.

We had a quick but amazing visit, better than Disneyland! We are truly grateful for our time, short or long, with all of the amazing people we are meeting on this trip. 

A big huge thank you to Jim, Tina and Billie Wells at the Cedar Creek Ranch in Onalaska, it’s because of people like you that this trip is so magical for us.  You are great! 

 

 

 

 

 

Mt. Saint Helens (Kelso), Oregon - November 14th to November 16th , 2007

We left Portland area and moved just a bit up the highway to stay two nights near Mount Saint Helens.  This is the first time we’ve done a quickie two-night stay.  The kids were excited to see a real volcano.  We spent some time at the visitor center watching a movie about the eruption that brought back memories for Robert and Joss.  They both remember when Mount Saint Helens erupted and all the talk about it happening and what a big deal it was.  The movie at the visitors center was amazing and had interviews from people who had been near by and survived the eruption.  We looked at all the displays and learned as much as we could about the mountain and the eruption and helped the kids understand.  Their favorite exhibit was an underground “volcano” that they can walk down into and see fake lava moving around. 

But the biggest and coolest day with the mountain was a very rainy day.  We went to the Ape Caves on the south side of Mount St. Helens.  Our friend Candia had told us that we HAD to go to the Ape Caves, so we did.  Again, a MUST SEE!  We do not recommend this attraction for those of you with very young kids.  Sawyer loved it but he is very adventurous and quite brave for four years old (if we do say so ourselves!).  The caves are completely dark and the walk can be long.  What are Ape caves you ask?  The Mount Saint Helens Ape Cave is a huge lava tube that was formed 2000 years ago by an eruption.  This is a normal eruption for, say, Mauna Loa on the Hawaiian Islands but not for a mountain chain volcano.  It is not the norm to have the flowing type of eruption but 2000 years ago it did and it formed this huge lava tube that could fit our RV in parts.  It is called an Ape cave because the hikers who discovered it were part of a rock-climbing group called “the Apes.”  There are now stairs to get down into it but no lights of any kind.  It is recommended that you bring three kinds of light for each person and possibly head gear, pants, hiking boots and jackets for the fifty degree temps.  The rainy cold season was the perfect time to do this.  We avoided the crowds and it was already cold and wet outside so it didn’t change at all when we went into the cave!

 

Any potential worries about whether the kids would like this adventure left completely when we got into the cave.  We were all speechless at the size of the cave and pitch darkness.  Thank goodness we had extra lights because sure enough Joss’ flashlight went out.  This lava tube has one entrance but two paths you can choose, beginner or expert.  We took the beginner path, which did not have any rocks to climb over and was very easy for kids our children’s ages (4 and 7).  Even being the easy path we did not finish the whole thing before we decided Sawyer was too tired to go on and turned around.  We were in there about an hour and a half or more.  We could have gone longer.  But, that is the nice thing about this tube, you can decide to turn back at any time if want to.  The upper path is much harder and takes two to three hours.  In that path you have to climb over many piles of rocks to get to the end and then must exit out a hole at the top and hike back down to the entrance above ground.  We were glad we choose the beginner path this time.  Maybe we’ll go advanced when the kids are older.  It was definitely an amazing excursion.  We felt like true adventurers.

When we left our campsite in Kelso, we put our Washington State sticker on the back of our trailer!  Yeah!  Another state.  Whoo Hoo, we are moving along.  We had no idea that we’d still be in Washington State all the way until Christmas and New Years.  Hmmmm….. Is the Universe trying to tell us something?  We have fallen in love with the North West and many of the places here are on the official list.

 

On our way to the Ape Cave we called a former co-worker of Robert’s from his job at Weber Marking Systems.  He lived not far up the highway and Robert had always wanted to see his ranch.  It turns out Jim and his family were up for a visit so we squeezed in an unscheduled stop, those are usually the best kind.  This one turned out to be well worth the time.  Tune in next time for our update on our visit to the Cedar Creek Horse Ranch in Onalaska, WA. 

Portland, Oregon - November 3rd to November 14th, 2007

We had such a wonderful time in Triangle Lake Oregon, thanks to our Aunt and Uncle and the many wonderful people we met there; it made it very difficult to leave.  However, our camping spot would be getting flooded soon when the big rains hit and we knew we had to get back on the road.

People often ask us what the hardest part of the trip is and we would have to answer: having so much to do and so little time to do it in.  It’s a big country and we know that in a year we can’t possibly see everything we’d like to.  We do the best we can with the time we have.  We get to a new place and there are so many things we want to see and do and experience and we know that we have a whole big country to see. 

Think about when you go on vacation to a totally new place.  Do you sit and hang out resting every day or do you go, go, go until you’ve seen all the “sights” you wanted to see?  We have to balance our time between the two; resting and sight-seeing, otherwise we’d be way too tired to drive.  So, we go by instinct.  We follow our hearts and Divine guidance and we end up where we are supposed to be and with whom we are supposed to be with!

Sometimes things just don’t go as we hope and we have to deal with it just as if we were at home in Chino Hills, we take whatever time we need to work it through.  When traveling with young children we find we have to take plenty of time to relax, play with Legos, go to the park, ride bikes, play Tinker Toys, dig in the sand and even watch DVD’s.  We’ve found it helps “ground” the kids and helps get them back to “normal” when their home is constantly moving.  This is kind of what happened to us when we got to Portland.  There was so much to do and see when we got there that we had a huge list of great places to go.  Most of them didn’t get done. 

Portland was a challenging week for us.  We usually write about all the fun stuff because we figure you don’t want to hear about the difficult stuff!  But, challenging seemed to be the theme for our time in Portland.  It didn’t help that we traveled there the night of daylight savings.  We sure don’t like that it gets dark so early now.   It’s even worse for us Southern Californians because we’re so far north! We really wish the country didn’t do it anymore; just switch back in the spring and then stay that way.  (Click the picture at the left to go to a site that is promoting just that.)

The whole week we all seemed to feel “off” in some way.  We couldn’t describe it but we all felt it.  The kids were fighting more than usual, we were all more tired than usual, more sights were closed due to things like rock slides and we just couldn’t seem to get ourselves organized.  We’d have plans and nothing would get done.  It took about a week before we realized that daylight savings had taken a good two hours off our sight seeing day and messed us up good.  We kept missing the sunsets because we kept forgetting what time it was.  It took quite a while for us to adjust to the new time change.  I can’t imagine what will happen when we head into a new time zone, look out!

We did manage to see some of Portland and Vancouver, Washington, which is right across the Columbia River.  We had a wonderful dinner with Joss’ friend and healer, Candia Sanders and her new husband Dale, straight off the plane from their honeymoon.  Candia gave us a huge list of great places to see and things to do as well as places to shop and get Joss’ hair cut.  Her 16-year-old son was nice enough to let the boys play on his drum set.  That made their night complete!

 

The highlight of the trip would have to be the spectacular sunset we had one night along the Columbia River Gorge.  We stopped at a parking lot under the ‘Bridge of the Gods’ to buy some smoked salmon and elk jerky from a vender and we got the view of a lifetime up and down the gorge. The whole family was so captured by the view and the sunset streaming down on the barges and trains moving up and down the gorge that we must have stayed there for at least an hour.  We actually got in the truck a couple times to leave and ended up getting back out because the sunset would change and be even more beautiful.  It was amazing.  Being at the Gorge made it simply stunning to watch.  A gorge is a very large canyon but they call it a gorge instead.  It was carved out by the Columbia River and is quite beautiful to see, like the Grand Canyon is but with green trees and waterfalls all around it.  It is definitely another MUST SEE! 

Our pictures will tell more of the side stories so check back when we have the photos up for Portland.  We drove up and down the Gorge seeing the beautiful sights and got to tour the Bonneville Dam.  At the dam we finally got to see actual salmon swimming up a fish ladder.  In Washington Park, we toured the world famous rose gardens which were still beautiful even in the fall.  We had a blast playing with the kids at Portland’s amazing Kids Museum and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.  Joss took a day off and went to the Body, Mind, Spirit Expo while Robert and the boys got to be on our first ever episode of the show “Cops.”  (Check our press page for times and dates as to when the show airs with them on it.)  We got to climb up close to the Multnomah Falls, the second highest year round falls in the country and we got to see a replica of England’s Stonehenge, right here in our country.  (Watch for the photo page to see more pictures of all these adventures.)