Free Range Family

Monday, May 16, 2016

We finally made it to Seattle!

After four weeks in Sylvia, the camper van portion of the trip came to an end. After a quick overnight in Portland where we visited another one of Jason's high school buddies and his family, we arrived in Seattle where Sylvia and Marinero finally got to meet. Not exactly the quickest way to get to Seattle from Montana but it sure was a lot of fun. Sylvia fits right in with all of the other Vanagons in the neighborhood and should feel right at home for the next three months while we sail through British Columbia on Marinero.

Originally we were scheduled to get in on a Tuesday but I saw that the weather was supposed to be 88 on Monday so I pushed for an early arrival. Mission accomplished. We arrived Monday amidst glorious warm weather. What I hadn't anticipated was how hot I would be as I unpacked the camper van, did laundry and moved everything into Marinero. I was a sweaty mess and, combined with all of the food I had ordered from Amazon, it looked like Sylvia had puked all of her insides into Marinero. I'm not sure what I was thinking.

Jason spent the week in the office and we had a hectic time getting everything ready before Grandpa was due to join us for the start of our trip. We spent our first morning putting up a brand new main sail that we had commissioned over the winter. Hand-stitched by a pair of German sail-master brothers, it's absolutely gorgeous and sails like a dream. That evening we met my cousin and her husband for a lovely dinner in West Seattle. The following day marked the first day of my food hoarding. I like to provision in stages so I can see how much room I have left and then I go buy more. Throughout the week I made three stops at the grocery store where I spent an obscene amount of money. The credit card company even shut down my credit card in an effort to save me from myself. It didn't work. We are now provisioned for forty+ nights of food on the boat.

The next few days were filled with lots of activity: catch-up on school, dinners with friends, a little yoga, putting up the newly-fixed jib, buying a new BBQ since our old one had two settings, off and raging inferno. Literally. People thought our boat was on fire every time we used it. Over the weekend, we spent an afternoon on a test sail to make sure everything was in order. And, of course, we had multiple trips to my favorite bakery for cardamom pretzels throughout the week.

On Mother's Day we had one final Sylvia fiasco. We spent a lazy day at the farmers market followed by a cardamom pretzel run and a stroll through the neighborhood. On the way to dinner at our favorite pizza place in Seattle, Sylvia had some technical difficulties. Her idle had been running very rough since we dropped and the adjustment screw for the idle won't budge so we just dealt with having to feather the gas while we were stopped at a light to keep her from dying. On the way to dinner she had decided she had had enough of that. When I climbed out of the van to reserve a spot in line at the restaurant the air hung heavy with the smell of antifreeze. After Jason drove away to find a parking spot I saw a gigantic puddle of antifreeze on the ground. Doh! I got our name on the hour-long wait list and went back to the van. Isaac and I held the bed up and out of the way while Jason peered into the engine. Turns out that the violent shaking of Sylvia's low-idling engine broke an antifreeze line right off. Luckily there was a ReachNow car just around the corner that we could borrow through Jason's magical ReachNow app so we located the nearest car parts store that he could drive to. Aaron needed a bathroom pit-stop so we decided I would wait with him at the restaurant (while enjoying a glass of red wine) and Jason and Isaac would run to get a new anti-freeze line. I think I got the better end of that bargain. Jason and Isaac returned just in time to order pizza with us and then they dashed off to replace the line. They managed to get it back on the engine and squeezed back in just after our pizza arrived. My heroes!

The day of Grandpa's arrival finally came and Jason received a text early in the morning from him. He had thrown out his back and could hardly get dressed that morning. He couldn't sit and was currently at urgent care. Grandpa wasn't going to make it out :(. Sad. Everyone was very bummed that he wouldn't be joining us on the boat for our first week. We are hoping he feels better soon and the stars will align properly and we will be able to get him on the boat later this summer.

Click here for photos.

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Smith Rock, OR

So we rediscovered on this trip that we are not very good sightseers. Driving up Highway 1 was spectacularly beautiful but doing it in the camper van against a deadline made it so we were mostly just driving and not doing a lot of anything else. Each morning the conversation comically went like this.

Jason, the Optimist: So we'll drive (insert destination here). It's only 150 miles so it'll only be 2 1/2 hours.
Me, the Pessimist: No, it'll be 5 hours.
Jason, the Optimist: No. It should only 2 1/2 hours.

It's not Jason's fault. Sylvia was very, very slow to drive on the winding roads and it made every day at least five hours of exhausting driving which isn't as fun as it sounds. Though the scenery was beautiful, we need to be able to get out and play, hike or climb to stay happy campers. So we were very excited that our next stop was a climbing destination.

Smith Rock was our last major destination on the camper van portion of this trip. We visited my sister and her family in nearby Bend, OR while we were there. It was so nice to catch up with her before spending three days at Smith Rock. The climbing there is very different than the climbing we are used to. Smith has more vertical or just-under vertical climbs. Our favorite kind of climbing (and the kind we are best at) is on overhung rock so it was a major adjustment to go from steep, gymnastic climbs with big holds to vertical, balance focused climbs with small ledges. It was a bit intimidating and lower grade climbs were kicking our butts but we persevered. I was too wimpy to lead on the new rock so Jason took it for the team and heroically led up some scary stuff. Isaac also had a good lead. Meanwhile, Aaron carefully studied the climbing guide and found multiple ways to hike up to the top. He managed to drag me up to the top at four different points for spectacular views. He was totally blissed to be hiking steep stuff to amazing views. The final day we completely exhausted ourselves on our last climb. We each climbed it several times until we could get it without a fall. At the end of our stay our bodies were totally destroyed and we were ready to move on to our next adventure.

Click here for photos.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Redwoods

Our original plan for our trip through California was to go to Yosemite after Bishop but both passes across the Sierra Nevadas were still closed and the thought of so much extra driving (along with hoards of crowds) persuaded us to skip it. We'll have to visit another time.

As we drove up Highway 1 we planned to go through the Redwoods but when we hit Mendocino we were totally fried on driving the camper van on such winding, insane roads. We seriously contemplated skipping them altogether and just heading to the interstate. In the end we bucked up and finished Highway 1. What can I say about the Redwoods? Obviously they are ginormously tall and super old. It's mind-boggling to think about all the human history that has passed during their lifetimes. It was really quite awe-inspiring to think about as we wandered around feeling tiny as an ant at the base of their trunks. I'm so happy we didn't wimp out and shared time walking with the boys among these ancient, immense living things.

Click here for photos.

Thursday, May 5, 2016

Mendocino

Once upon a time Jason and I owned a Porsche 911 Cabriolet that we drove down Highway 1 when I was six months pregnant with Isaac. That's a story within itself. I gripped the door handle in one hand and my poor belly with baby Isaac in it as Jason careened us around corners. We camped our way down the coast from Seattle to Sebastopol (where the air hung heavy with the smell of ripe peaches) except for one night that we stayed in a B&B in Mendocino. We have fond memories of being there. I remember walking out onto a bluff in the dark with gigantic, roaring surf below. It was magical.

We wanted to share that experience with the kids so we were contemplating a stay in a B&B in Mendocino. A side note here: A Porsche is not exactly the most comfortable car to drive (extremely bumpy and loud) but it handled the corners with grace. This may come as no surprise to you but it is utterly and absolutely exhausting to drive the camper van up Highway 1. Highway 1 is so twisty and narrow, and up and down, that I am seriously beginning to question our sanity. (I think I am sensing a recurring theme here?) When we arrived in Mendocino we really just felt like camping so we tried to get a site at the state park campground. Being a weekend we had no luck so we drove to a nearby commercial campground. We drove through the campground and picked out the least crappy site. I was being kinda snobby because the campground was kinda crappy. The sites were crappy and crammed together and the whole campground had a, for lack of a better word, redneck feel.

We stopped the camper van by the office as we tried to make up our mind about what to do when an old grizzled surfer guy approached us saying, "Montana," you know, in the way that every person from outside of the state says it, "Moooontana". The conversation went like this:

You from Billings?
Nope.
Butte? (At this point I knew he must be a character if those were the only two towns he knew in Montana.)

His story goes like this. I have omitted all of the colorful language so feel free to insert expletives where you see fit. He turned down a scholarship to play football in Billings back in 1973 because he was a surfer from SouthernCal and he couldn't survive the cold winters or the big farm boys creaming him. Instead he went to Spain and played rugby at some crazy-ultra-orthodox-Catholic-opus-dais school that he said made BYU look like Berkeley. You can imagine how well a long-haired surfer from Southern California (and all that that implies) would do at a school like that. He then proceeded to tell us drunken story after drunken story about his time in Spain while moving closer and closer to the van until he was casually resting his arm in the window. All the while I just stared at the scar tissue around the miniature dagger that was stabbed through the middle of his ear. Generally we enjoy talking to interesting people but I can only listen to so many stories about alcohol and pot before I am ready for it to end. When he started talking about how he made himself a priest suit to sneak into the girls dormitory I started to actively pray for him to leave. Miraculously my prayers were answered and he finally left.

How can he remember so many drunken stories from a time before we were born? It makes me feel inadequate and worried about my own memory that a grizzled, pot-smoking surfer who is three times my age remembers more about his inebriated freshman year of college than I can about last week. It was a surreal scene watching his leathered face in our window as a guy in a tank-wheelchair controlled by a hand grenade on a stick rumbled by in the background. We took this as a sign that we should stay in a B&B for the night. Not being ones to argue with the winds of fate we dialed the Didjeridoo Dreamtime Inn and secured their very last room. I hardly slept a wink as inebriated, ancient hippies partied through night. Mendocino is beautiful but weird.

The next day we desperately needed a day of rest. The epic Highway 1 driving had totally drained us so we spent a mellow day in Mendocino. We explored a gorgeous bluff above crashing waves before finding a sweet campsite in a state park campground where people seemed mostly functional. We spent a relaxing evening around a fire before snuggling into Sylvia for a good nights sleep.

Click here for photos.

Monday, May 2, 2016

Sylvia the Wondervan

Congratulations Sylvia! We did it. Combining our trip from 2011-2012, we have now made it coast to coast! Thanks for so many adventures! Here's a recap.