Back in the U.S.

Visiting with Mary and Katie

We finally have a minute to give an update.  We finished up our time in Port Hardy with a second trip to Cattle Island.  This time we camped overnight since the kids decided they wanted to "build shelters and sleep outside, set up stores and gather their own food."  Jackson was successful in catching a spring Chinook which we cooked up over the fire, but the kids ended up sleeping in the tents with us.  Asa said in the morning "I'm glad the adults came along."  Scott and Dianne planned a beach potluck for us the last evening so we could see some more friends.

Chemainus murals
We then headed down Vancouver Island.  We stopped in Chemainus to see the murals before making it to Victoria that evening.  Conrad and Magdalene graciously let us stay at their place even though they had Anna and Christina and their children visiting also. It was so good to catch up and be a part of the family.  We caught a ferry from the island to Anacortes, Washington and made our way down to Kent.  And that's when the honeymoon ended….

We got to our motor home bright and early on Friday morning in an absolute downpour.  Rain like we haven't seen in years.  They began to attach the towing mechanism from the Jeep to the motor home and realized the tow kit on the Jeep was missing 2 brackets.  No one in the Seattle area had the missing pieces.  Jerry got the number for the original owner of the Jeep in Anchorage and sure enough he had all the pieces.  The second owner had not been interested in buying them and had neglected to let us know about them.  Anyway, our options were to wait until the special order could come in on Monday or drive down to Wilsonville (Portland), Oregon and pick them up.  Which is what we elected to do.  Jerry left for the 6 1/2 hour round trip while the boys and I stayed behind and loaded up the motor home from the camper van.  Jerry made it back by 4:30 pm (before closing time) so that they could install the towing and we could be on our way.  Because of the delay, we had to cancel our plans to see Craig in Kamloops which was disappointing but we'll catch he and Barb later for sure.  

Saying goodbye to the van!

The trouble continues
The following day started with a rush to switch over the California plates to Alaska plates before we hit the border of British Columbia.  Unfortunately, the plates were put on with a theft resistant screw.  Jerry got ingenious since stores did not carry a screwdriver to remove that kind of screws.  He bought a hack saw and got just enough of an indent to use a regular screwdriver!   We met Scott and the girls to transfer the camper van to them.  That process had it's own set of challenges, too many to mention; but, Scott kindly offered to take care of them and allowed us to carry on back to the U.S. We were a little downhearted and as we travelled, this song came on the radio.


It was such a good reminder that we are just "pilgrims passing through" and that this life is bumpy at best!  Here's the link to our theme song for the year.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1p-QfgkLow So, with the trouble we had getting started, I deemed yesterday our first official day on the road!  It was a better day.  We made it across the state of Washington and to Coeur d'Alene for the night.  We stopped at a neat state park called Ginkgo Petrified Forest and really enjoyed the Eastern Washington landscape of sagebrush and desert.  The boys decided that would be a great place to live and ride go carts!  People are always interested in seeing our Alaska plates.  The funniest comment so far was "you can drive all the way to Alaska?"  But in all fairness, maybe I wouldn't have known that 5 years ago either!!!

Fresh peaches and cherries!

Day one.  Thanks for the shirts Gail!

Across Washington