Bryce National Park

We spent the next couple of nights at Bryce National Park. At 8000 feet we could definitely feel the elevation and when we weren't looking over the canyon filled with the goblin-y hoodoos, we felt like we were in Yellowstone. While we were there we hiked down into the canyon among the hoodoos along the Navajo Loop to the Queens Garden trail. On the second day, with frequent thunderstorms rolling through and extreme exposure to them on the canyon rim, we opted for less hiking and more time in the camper van driving from scenic point to scenic point.

Click here for photos.

Escalante National Monument

We left Capitol Reef and ventured even further into the middle of nowhere in the Escalante Staircase National Monument. After eating a delicious lunch at the Hell's Backbone Grill, where they grow all of their own vegetables, we headed further south to find a campsite. The road narrowed to a scary fin called the Hogs Back with sheer drops on both sides and hardly enough room on top for the road. We felt like we were driving on the top of the world before we wound down into the canyon. At the bottom we found an awesome campsite backed up to Calf Creek. We spent the afternoon wading, playing and washing the accumulated sweat from our bodies in the creek. The following morning we hiked to gorgeous Calf Creek Falls. In the late afternoon we climbed the steep road over the Hogs Back up to Boulder to go to the Anasazi Museum where we learned about the Ancient Pueblo people and saw a huge yellow and black gopher snake out back near the unearthed pueblo dwelling. For dinner, with lightning and rain threatening, we were easily drawn back to Hell's Backbone Grill. Yum.

Click here for photos.

Click here for hyperlapse videos.

Capitol Reef National Park

Boy....Isaac is a hard act to follow. After the excitement had subsided and after Jason and I had cleaned fire extinguisher dust from every nook and cranny, we set out at around noon to explore Capitol Reef NP. We first headed up Grand Wash where we went on a hike through a dried riverbed. Aaron was happy as a clam to be back in the desert. After suffering months of desert withdrawal, he steadily picked up dried sand clumps and hurled them against anything solid, watching them explode, for the entire hike. No pauses. We took the scenic loop to the end, enjoyed the view and people-watched a group of German Harley riders. Side note: roughly 70% of the people we saw were Germans the other 30% were an equal mix of Belgian, French and American. The national parks must have a killer advertising campaign going on in Europe, but America seems to have forgotten about them. Next we headed back down to the visitor center where we took the Sulphur Springs hike backwards to the first waterfall. We climbed the short falls and played in Princess Louisa-esque pools carved into the sandstone and watched braver people jump off the cliff into a pool of murky water. Isaac decided he would jump off the cliff instead of down-climb and I reluctantly followed. The cliff was a lot higher than anticipated and, after some debate (and lots of me saying "I'm scared!"), we retreated and opted for the more familiar experience of down-climbing the cliff. Next stop was the Gifford house, conveniently located next the campground, where we enjoyed homemade ice cream. We ended the day with a walk through the apple orchard in the campground where we ate apples straight from the tree.

Our second day brought no catastrophes and our bad luck streak seemed to have come to an end. After snagging a sweet site next to the apple orchard and river, we walked across the road and up the Kohab Canyon trail. We were super excited to find awesome slot canyons with mouth-watering climbing potential. We salivated and tried our hardest not to climb on the perfect jugs above us. We partially succeeded. We then hiked up to the top of the rim and enjoyed the view of the lush Fruita Valley contrasting against the red desert sandstone cliffs. In the afternoon we took a dip in the nearby Fremont River and lounged about in our shady campsite reading.

Our last day in Capitol Reef we spent hiking in Capitol Gorge. The boys found an awesome sandy area to launch into to their hearts' delight. Afterwards we climbed up to water tanks where we saw the ittiest-bittiest frogs we have ever seen. They were so cute. We then drove to see the petroglyphs and to see if there were any peaches left in the peach orchard. Alas, it was picked clean but we did find an open apple orchard so we picked a couple of bags of apples and deposited money according to the honor system. With the combination of desert awesomeness and fruit orchards, Capitol Reef is shaping up to be one of our favorite national parks.

Click here for photos.

Click here for videos.

Fire Cabinet By Isaac

Fire in the hole! (Or some other similarly stupid title)

After brushing my teeth at the public restroom at the Capitol Reef Campground, Dad and I headed back to the van while Aaron brushed his teeth. We got back to the campsite, and of course, we smelled something weird. Dad thought it might be a campfire, and after glancing into the van, I thought it might be from the small flickering light that I could see reflected off our plates in the cabinet. The sink pump appeared to be working pretty hard, even though the counter-top was closed. "Dad," I said as dad moved across the van to open the counter-top. "Dad," I said as he opened the counter-top. "Dad," I said as he stared at the running faucet. "Dad," I said as he tried to turn the faucet off with the floor switch. "Dad, it's on fire."

I'd been staring at the flickering light reflected in the plates as I carried out this interesting and moving dialogue. At first, I thought that the burner must be on and that it was reflected in the plates, but the plates were in the cabinet and the burner was on top of the counter. Unless photons had x-ray capabilities, that couldn't be it. So next, I thought that there must be a light on in there. But why would there be a light in a cabinet, and why would it be flickering? I was finally forced to admit that the cabinet was indeed on fire. As Sherlock Holmes once said, "Once you have ruled out the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." Thus, I produced the informed remark that was outlined in the last paragraph.

So, I attempted to carry out logical reasoning in the course of a tenth of a second. My brain immediately thought to use all available resources to carry out my priorities as best as possible. First priority happened to be picking up the chihuahua. I leaned into the van to snatch Pika, while dad threw a pair of flaming kitchen mitts past my legs. I extricated Pika from the van as dad grabbed the fire extinguisher and blew a large cloud of pressurized dust into the flaming cabinet. Before he did this, I caught a glimpse of the inside of the cabinet; a small electrical fire was calmly eating the wires controlling the automated water pump. Then it was gone in a spray of dust. I turned around; on the pavement, the kitchen mitts were on fire. Dad extinguished this fire as well. As a precaution, Aaron emptied a water bottle on top of them. And then started to freak out at dad for playing with fire.

We ran out of water as dad tried to get the pump to stop running.

It turns out the the problem arose not because the pump had heated up from over exertion, but because the floor switch had been designed to be on for short periods of time. Being on for ten or fifteen minutes was too much for it, and it obligingly lit on fire to show its disapproval.

Let's see now; broken fuel pump, broken engine, wheel fell off, and innumerable other problems have plagued Sylvia. Luckily, this was the first, and hopefully last, fire we've had in Sylvia. Nothing worse could happen. Right? Right??

Sylvia Back in Action

I should begin this post by informing you that Sylvia never fully recovered from what was ailing her before our spring desert trip. We had a minor wiring issue we were scheduled to bring her into the shop for before our sailing trip, but when Jason tried to fire her up to bring her in, she wouldn't start. Uh oh. Eventually she started and made it to the shop but she never came home. Jason would occasionally call from the sailboat to see if the shop had figured out what was wrong. On one such occasion they told us that they didn't know what was going on even though they had one mechanic in the engine and another standing on one foot with a bible in his hand praying. At long last they reached the conclusion that it was finally time for a new engine. After much research Jason decided on a GoWesty engine and placed the order. So long story short, after four months in the shop, we have a new, and improved, Sylvia back and we were definitely ready to hit the road. After weeks of debate about where to go, and repeatedly giving the answer "we don't know" to the question of where we were going, we decided to head to Capitol Reef NP with two days to spare.

Day 1: We drive to Provo.
Day 2: Jason checks the tire pressure in the morning and discovers a screw in one of the tires. We have the tire fixed while we browse a farmer's market. We drive to Capitol Reef and secure one of the last campsites.
Day 3: Starts like this...After Isaac and Jason return from brushing teeth and I depart to the bathroom Isaac says to Jason, "Ummmmm, Dad? Why is the cupboard glowing?"

To be continued......

Back in the US

We reluctantly bid farewell to Canada and headed across the border to Roche Harbor to check back into the US. It's always strange to re-enter the US here after we've grown accustomed to Canada. Somehow American culture seems really in-your-face in Roche Harbor and it's a bit of a shock after six weeks of sailing the waters of BC. We stayed only long enough to check in, refuel and grab a few groceries before we wound our way through the narrow waterways of Mosquito Pass to Garrison Bay and picturesque English Camp on San Juan Island. This spot was occupied by the English during the Pig War, a war where the only loss of life was a pig who met its fate as a side of bacon during a boundary dispute. Unsure whom San Juan Island belonged to due to confusion over which strait was the established boundary, the English and Americans remained in a standoff on the island until the border dispute was resolved peacefully. The English really picked quite a lovely spot to spend twelve years during the "war". We spent the following day checking out the living history at English Camp where we played a rousing game of graces before hiking to the top of Young Hill. After dinner we paddled into shore at sunset for a summer solstice hike. The following morning, after much debate as to whether to spend another night here (since we loved it so much and there were more trails to explore) or leave, we opted to leave when we discovered that the orcas were nearby. As we entered Haro Strait we saw a mass of boats which could only mean one thing, orcas! We made our way out and joined the mob scene, slowly drifting in the direction of the orcas. We watched them from afar like all the other boats and realized that we had been spoiled. In the past we have seen them in the distance while under sail. When we heaved-to to watch them they came closer and closer until they swam under our boat. The boys even peered down into a giant orca eye as it turned sideways and looked up at them from beneath our boat.

We spent the next couple of nights in Griffin Bay where we sat out a day of rain which allowed us to rest and catch up on school and work. We spent the next day, no big surprise here, hiking. Then we were off to our final stop in the islands, Watmough Bay. This is where we celebrated Jason's birthday in a very similar fashion as Mother's Day a month earlier. After our day of hiking, we watched as a family of otters worked their way back and forth through the water gathering and eating their dinner. It was super cool to watch them so close and for so long. After our dinner and birthday strawberry shortcake we were roused from the boat by shouts from the beach. The boys and Jason witnessed as a man danced around on the beach naked yelling "woohoo! I'm enjoying my nakedness!" His mortified family appeared to be trying to retreat away from him by climbing higher up the rocks that flank the beach. Thank you, Naked Man, for supplying us with weird memories for Jason's birthday.

The next day we had a wonderful sail as we crossed the Strait of Juan de Fuca, beating into 20-25 knot winds. Once in Port Townsend, we happily settled into the tea shop for tea and scones with clotted cream. The next day we made the final leap and arrived back in Seattle suntanned (even our surf-huahua's fur was sun-bleached) and relaxed. We settled back into our slip and spent the next week in Seattle while Jason worked. Over the week we managed to sneak out for a couple of gorgeous sunset sails after work. At the end of the week we finally climbed into the car and headed home after nine ridiculously gorgeous weeks on the boat. We'll miss you Marinero, thanks for keeping us safe and happy on our latest adventure.

Click here for photos.
Click here for a video of crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Bowen Island to Sidney

With the memory of our last crossing of the Strait of Georgia from Bowen Island seared into our brains, we pushed past our PTSD and reluctantly left the dock at Snug Cove. There was really no need for any worry with more lovely weather in the forecast, it was only the haunting memory of our stupidity to leave a day after 70 knot winds raged in the Strait of Georgia, shutting down the beefy BC ferry system and ravaging Bowen Island, that rattled our nerves. We set out on another uneventful sail across the strait, but as we reached Gabriola Pass we heard a mayday come across the radio. It was a 50 foot power boat on fire south of us near Active Pass. A short while later a huge plume of smoke was visible in the distance. Luckily all three people and a dog escaped unscathed, I can't say that about the boat however. We eventually dropped anchor at DeCourcy Island just on the other side of Pirate's Cove. In the 1930's DeCourcy Island was the home a the cult led by the infamous Brother XII, a crazy self-proclaimed prophet who swindled wealthy followers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars as well as their wives. Once followers reached the island, husbands were relieved of all of their money and separated from their wives who went to live in Brother XII's love nest. We spent a day hiking through the premises of the former cult and looking for wayward wives.

Our next stop was Wallace Island where we hiked to the old cabin to deposit the driftwood sign we had made for Marinero, leaving it among all the others. Next, it was on to Ganges where we hid from the rain in bookstores and coffee shops. By evening things had cleared so we walked over to Hastings House and through its manicured grounds. Winter Cove at Saturna Island was next on our list, where we relaxed and enjoyed the weather and leisurely strolls through the forest to watch the rapids that separated us from the Strait of Georgia. A few days later we pulled up anchor and headed to our final destination in Canada, Sidney-by-the-sea. While in Sidney we enjoyed a day at Butchart Gardens where we, once again, stuffed ourselves silly at high tea. Luckily we were wise enough to only order two high teas this time instead of four. Our aching bellies thanked us.

Click here for photos.