Montana

After a month and a half of sleeping in a new place nearly every night and spending most of my time alone, this week I got a little change of pace- a whole week in one bed and the company of 2 kids, 2 dogs, 2 frogs, 2 cats, 3 horses and 20 chickens. Oh yeah- there were 2 adults there too! 

Last night was my last night so we went out. (Just the kids and the adults. No animals.) I got to witness girl's night out in Montana:

They even got out their spoons and did a little dancing.  It was pretty entertaining, but we moved on to something a little more our speed:

A great last night spent hanging out listening to music and eating burgers. Just what I needed to rest up for tomorrow because it just might be a big day. You'll have to come back to find out!

Eastward

Since I went as far north as possible on the west coast, I finally had to head east. One last stop in Bellingham on the way:

I pretty much traversed Washington in one day, spent a day on the river at the border and then cut through Idaho:

Into Montana. Sunny skies, warm weather and some boating, tubing and wakeboarding fun:

Vancouver

I arrived in Vancouver Monday afternoon. I was here less than 4 hours before my car was towed, which basically means I lost my car and my home in a foreign country. There was a bit of panic, followed by the realization that in the grand scheme of life, spending an hour and a half locating my car and retrieving it (for $120) is really not that big of a deal. Plus, I learned my way around the area pretty quickly since my taxi driver got lost. Thankfully I had looked up the directions online beforehand so I could help him find our way. It always pays to be prepared. At least he gave me a discount.

The highlight of Vancouver so far definitely had to be this place:

A 137 meter long pool right on the beach. It's so long, they don't even need to put lane lines in. Everyone just swims one direction on one black line and the other direction on the other. It looks like it would never work, but somehow there is total organization out of what appears to be chaos. I'm kinda thinking that this is support for the fact that if you give human beings a lot of freedom they actually handle it pretty well, because I must say, I've never swum in a pool where people were so nice to each other. Maybe it's the lane lines that make us crazy in most pools.  Hmmm....now if taking the lines off the road worked this well the world would be a much better place.

The Kindness of Others

You'd think that being on the road with no job I'd have a lot of time on my hands. It's been a month now and still just can't seem to find enough hours in the day. Some nights I find myself parked in the van, hiding under the covers with a flashlight writing, torn between not wanting to get caught sleeping in someone's neighborhood and not wanting to forget something amazing that happened that day.

The last two days have been nearly indescribable. The kindness and generosity of other people has pretty much left me looking at the human race in a whole new light.

First I met Li in a coffee shop in Seattle. Four hours later, we finally forced ourselves to stop talking. I left the coffee shop with a list of things to do in the area and plans to meet her the next day. She volunteers at the Center for Wooden Boats so we met there the next day. After I spent some time checking out the boats, we took a rowboat out on Lake Union:

Li, rowing my butt around! Really, I did do some of the work!

Post row, outside the Center for Wooden Boats

Photo by Li

After our row, we hiked up Capitol Hill and made some dinner in the park. I was a little worried about hiking back by myself in the dark, but it was worth the views:

Unfortunately, I couldn't capture the sound in this pic, but standing on a road over the interstate taking pictures is quite the sensory overload!

Yesterday, I headed out to Camano Island to the other Center for Wooden Boats site, hoping to paddle a kayak. They only had doubles so I put on the running shoes and headed out on the trails. When I got lost, I stupidly thought I could just head for the water. Ummm- can you say blonde moment? Needless to say, nearly 3 hours later I had pretty much run the perimeter of the island. If you need any real estate on Camano, let me know. I now know every house for sale on the entire island. I also know a nice realtor who helped me find my way and gave me water!  

After my 3 hour tour, I headed to Bellingham. After a shower at the Y, I headed to the marina to cook some dinner. As I was cooking dinner, nearly everyone that walked by spoke to me. Just as I was marveling at their friendliness, Julie walked up with her dog. She saw that I was cooking beans and invited me to her boat for some "real food" as she put it. 

What came after this was truly amazing.  This awesome woman, who had known me for less than an hour, let me sleep on her boat for the evening. She went home for the night and left me there with her boat, the bathroom code (always essential!), snacks, wine and best of all, electricity so I didn't need to hide with my flashlight! 

Honestly, I don't really even know what else to say except thanks to the incredibly kind people I've met on this trip!

More Boats

I can't seem to get enough of boats lately. Seattle makes it easy. A few of my favs from the last few days:

Washington

Some pics from the last few days:

One last stop in Oregon on Mon. morning to check out this shipwreck on the beach.

Bike trail pretty much all to myself near Long Beach, WA

Monday evening walk on the beach, Rialto Beach, Olympic Peninsula

Salmon Cascades, Sol Duc, Olympic Peninsula

Lots of cool boats, Fort Warden State Park, Port Townsend

View of Mt. Baker from the top of Mt. Erie, Anacortes. The lady at the visitor center told me I wouldn't want to ride the bike up here. I only had to push it once!

Busted!

When you’re traveling alone, some days are really quiet. Yesterday was one of those days for me. In fact, one of the only conversations I had all day was with a billy club wielding cop.

Really, I swear there was a cop out there who found it necessary to approach me with his billy club ready. I can tell you one thing- it’s really hard to look a cop in the eye when he talks to you while holding a weapon. In fact, I really can’t tell you a thing about that cop’s appearance except that he was bigger than me and was holding a billy club. I can, however, tell you how I came to be talking to a cop with a billy club.

It all started on Saturday night. I found a sweet spot to park the van on a street that had a hotel and restaurant on one side and a day-use state park on the other. It was also about 100 yards from the beach, where there were about 30 groups of people having bonfires. It was perfect- if anyone saw the van they’d figure I was either a hotel guest or someone who drank too much at the beach and caught a ride home. Plus- the state park had a bathroom for the morning.

The sweet spot proved to be sweet for a good night’s sleep on Saturday to gear up for Sunday’s long trail run. Well, that long trail run became over 4 hours of running plus another 45 minutes of tree climbing, bushwhacking and mudsliding. Needless to say I ended up exhausted and covered in what appeared to be a pint of blood, a gallon of sweat and about 5 pounds of mud.

While the public bathroom sink made for a halfway decent shower, it couldn’t wash away the exhaustion so I headed back to the sweet spot for another night. Apparently the locals didn’t think me staying there for two nights was so sweet.

Luckily, the restless legs from Sunday’s adventure on the trail had me awake at 6 am when the pounding on the van started. (The billy club, I’m sure.) I figured it had to be a cop, because even if someone was stupid enough to break into the van in broad daylight, he probably wouldn’t knock first. So, I did what any mature adult would do when the cops are looking for her. I hid. I pulled the blankets over my head and held my breath and hoped like hell that since I couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see me. When I didn’t respond to the banging, he shook the van a little too, just in case that might actually make me admit I was in there.

After a few minutes, he gave up. When I heard the car pull away, I got up, threw on some clothes and jumped in the front seat.

I should’ve just headed out of town, I know, but there was a bathroom right around the corner and like every morning, I’d awakened feeling like I’d somehow swallowed a gallon of water in my sleep. Just as I parked in front of the bathroom and started to get out, I noticed the city cop car pull up behind me. I watched in the mirror as the cop got out and cautiously approached my van, billy club ready. I had no choice but to open the door this time.

Now, imagine you’re a tough guy city cop ready to do battle with your billy club and you discover that your opponent is all 115 lbs of me- smiling. Yeah- pretty disappointing.

I mean, I’m sure the bedhead and puffy eyes made me look slightly fierce, but clearly he was disappointed.

Oddly though, despite his obvious size and power advantage, he never did put the billy club away.

So we had our obligatory “if you’re going to sleep in your van can you at least pull outside the city limits so the residents have to call someone other than me to complain” conversation while he held his billy club and I held my gallon of pee.

Needless to say, I was pretty agreeable. One, he was bigger than me. Two, he had a weapon. Three, you know how a guy will tell a girl just about anything she wants to hear in the heat of the moment if he thinks he’ll get some sex? Well, I will tell you just about anything you want to hear if I have to pee and you’re impeding my progress to the john.

Thankfully, I’d barely gotten my, “Sure, no problem,” out when a dirty guy with dreadlocks stumbled up from the beach right next to the sign that said, “No sleeping on the beach.”

Some people have impeccable timing.

So, while the cop made a beeline for the dreadlock boy with his billy club ready, I made a beeline for the bathroom with my bladder.

Pics (sorry, none of the cop) and travel updates coming soon. Lots of beautiful stuff in the Olympic Peninsula!