A week later... I'm out from under emails, work demands and the like, so perhaps I can take a few moments to talk about the recent vacation, no?
The Longest Day Ever To make our flight out of Orlando, we had to get up around 3 a.m. This is midnight, Pacific Time. We were in Seattle by 1:00, and tried forcing ourselves to stay up until a decent, local bedtime. This proved easier than we anticipated, because sunset was so much later than here. Even now, it's reasonably dark in the 8-8:30 timeframe. It was closer to 9:30, out there.
You Can't Escape... We fly clear across the country to get away from it all, and within minutes of loading the rental car, we see someone with a Princess Minnie antenna topper. But wait, it gets better. Not only was there the bar incident reminding us of home, but we kept seeing Disney Vacation ads on TV, a full pull-out section in USA Today advertising, and finally, on Friday, Regis not-so-LIVE (on the West Coast) broadcasting from Disney World. And when we lamented it out loud, turns out there were two other Orlandoites in the hotel who had just arrived the night before. Downright inescapable.
Not that we didn't try. We hiked out to Cape Flattery, which is the northwesternmost point in the continental US. In other words: the diagonal opposite of Key West. It also dawned on us: On our cruise in January, we went to Key West, and to Mexico. This trip, Cape Flattery and a side trip to Canada. I figure to complete the map I need a trip to Maine in September and one to San DIego for the holidays.
The Picture Of Romance Our coastal lodging: a log cabin, with Franklin stove, on a bluff 10 feet over the beach, facing the ocean, in the forest. No phones, no television. While I read and watched the waves, Dan watched a movie on my PowerBook. To his credit, he also made fire (in the stove) — twice.
One Man's Hiking Is Another's Batan Death March OK, it wasn't really hiking so much as walking in the woods, or on the beach. We did two trails in the Hoh Rain Forest (and made snide comments about Upper Hoh Road and Lower Hoh Road), hiked to a couple of beaches, and of course, Cape Flattery. By the end of the third day of hiking, I was clearly informed we were done with said activity. Oops.
Oh, the food. And I have the extra, won't-go-away weight to prove it. Not to mention the amount of chocolate and dried cherries we bought to bring home.
Shop Till It Pops We also hit many of my favorite stores... IKEA... Eddie Bauer Outlet... the Pike Place Market... and bought things under the premise that I could just ship stuff home if I had to. Except, I forgot this until it came time to leave, and no shipping places would be open. My main suitcase was bulging, and weighed in about 1/2 pound less that the maximum allowed.
999 Words There were more things worth writing, but they (naturally) all escape me now. Instead, just go look over here for the photographic proof of our journeys.
Very nice pics! It seemed a bit cloudy most of the time except for the day you did BC... then I see a bit of sun... and a cute man in a black shirt in one pic! ;-)
ReplyDeleteAfter looking at many of the forest pics, all I could think of was Harry and the Hendersons... sorry... beautiful part of the country.
I wish we still had an Eddie Bauer store here :-(. Love all your pictures :-). Glad you enjoyed your vacation.
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