Seattle again

We made it to Seattle and have no home to go back to, anywhere! It's an interesting sensation.
Seattle was rough on our van, it stayed here a year un-atttended. The rain and humid climate have taken their toll. Some rust is developing, moss is starting to grow in weird places. It looks like the windshield probably has a leak, and that lead to both front footwells getting soaked. Unattended, that resulted in alot of mold growing inside the van. Storing vehicles sucks.At this point, I've managed to clean up most of the mold, and ripped out most of the soaked carpet. It looks like we've caught it before the rust got too bad, but it's gonna need attention quick.

After a couple days waiting on van repairs, we managed to escape Seattle and wrest the van from it's death grip. We cruised through Bend to look at some places as we've been thinking about living there. The areas I had been considering are more remote than they looked on the map, I'm glad we had the opportunity to check them out. Still searching.

Cara had a friend in Bend and managed to go to a 'Jazzersize' (aerobics) class with her at 5:30. AM. Why is she still sleeping at 6:46 AM today? We got out of Bend about 9am heading east. Wow. Central Oregon turns into eastern Oregon quick! Or, alot of Central oregon is just flat plains and boring... I struggle through, almost falling asleep many times. Cara didn't make it, succumbed to the flatness of everything and took a nap.

We made it though Oregon and escaped to Northern Nevada. Just about the same. I'm trying to make it to this line on my map with dots beside it, it's labeled as a 'Scenic Byway'. We're hoping it's not as flat and boring as the last 500 miles have been. We didn't make it...  at about 400 miles the sun was getting pretty low, and Cara had plenty of naps. We grabbed a Redbox DVD and a bottle of wine in 'Battle Mountain' then headed south and found a little campground called 'Mill Creek'. Cara had some wine and fell asleep, I had a few drinks and watched a movie. Sorry, it seems I didn't take any awesome pics.

What now?

Well, we've been in Hawaii for almost 2 1/2 years now and have came to the conclusion that it really is pretty expensive. And I've personally concluded that the beach and the sun aren't my favorite things in the world. I don't think I've actually been in the ocean in 6 months. So it's time for a change. Cara and I have spent the past couple months selling/giving/throwing away most of what we have out here in the middle of the pacific ocean. It has been quite a challenge, but we've managed to scale everything down to a couple boxes to go back to our collection in Alaska and a few bags of stuff to take with us when we make our escape.

Where to now? There have been alot of changes in our life recently, and a lot of changes in our outlook of the way we'd like to live our life. For the time being, we find ourselves kid-less and home-less. My work affords me the ability to take large amounts of time off yet still pays the bills, which are diminishing quickly. So, Kid-less, rent-less, and bill-almost-less we're catching a flight off the rock to rejoin one of our favorite things, the DONK3Y. It's been almost a year since we've seen it and we miss it.




Cara gets a kick out of telling people we're going to live in a van, Down by the River! We plan on spending our time, while I'm not at work, camping and roadtripping around the United States. Both of us having grown up and spent the majority of our lives in Alaska, there are several things on our bucket list we'd like to check off. We will begine by meeting up with Eddie and Kathryn somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, and caravaning with them to Flagstaff AZ to attend the Overland Exposition. Afterwards, a couple weeks spent moseying (can vans mosey?) our way back up to Oregon to check out some possible locations for a new home base.

Vegas Baby!!

I initially planned on clumping all the post Mexico stuff into one entry, but it kinda got carried away. Guess I did a few more things along the boring trans-american drive than I realized. We had a condo rented in LV, so theres not much Donkey content in this post.

We get into town, check in, do some grocery shopping, and head down to the strip. Spencer (my 14 year old) is with us, so we're mainly just walking around checking out all the ridiculousnous.  We retire early into big comfy beds with bathrooms and showers nearby. Watch a little TV and try to plan out our week in sin city.

I want to go see Hoover Dam, Cara wants to go see a show. I've also been fantasizing about driving some fast cars, Cara and I make a deal that whatever I spend on driving said cars she gets to spend 50% on whatever she wants. I've been getting myself worked up about driving a Maclaren, so I agree. We want to go hit Freemont street, we were told everything cheaper and better up there (old vegas). Partway through our second day in LV, my wife has a confesion to make, and she can barely contain herself. She's vetoing my trip to Hoover Dam (WHAT?!) for a day. Well, what are we gonna do instead? Oh, we have to go to the airport. And pick someone up. Wha?? Where is this coming from? We talked about trying to meet some friends in Vegas, but noones schedule worked out.

Evidently, behind my back, my wife had contacted my cousin (my favorite relative) and he bought a ticket that day and was arriving the next day. She tried to hide it from me, wanted to do some surprise candid camera appearance. Unfortunately, his ittenary didn't work with our planned schedule so she had to spill the beans. And she knew he was a geek and history buff like me and would enjoy the hoover dam.

We all enjoyed the 'Damn' tour, enjoyed checking out alot of what vegas has to offer, and my cousin wound up winning enough at craps (that I taught him, after teaching myself the day before) to buy himself a Nexus tablet he'd been wondering if he'd like.

Also, it was freakin' COLD in Vegas!!  Well into the 20's several nights, barely above freezing some days. We were poorly equipped for the cold, this was supposed to be an awesome mexican vacation! The water feature in our pool had ice glaciating on it. We still hit the hottub a couple nights, icicles be damned!

I don't seem to have too many pictures from Vegas....  but everyone knows what Vegas looks like.

Wall art

A little fist bump

<<  These Guys >>

Elegant Lunch the Wifey made me.

The Wifey, she likes Blue.

 

The Bellagio and us.

 As for the cars, the Maclaren was off-site, so I drove a Ferrari and a Porsche, My cousin didn't fit the Ferrari so he wound up in a Ferrari Scuderia and another Porsche. We also found a car museum, I'll probably put the car pics in a seperate post sometime.


After leaving Vegas, our trip was pretty uneventful, we trekked over to Barstow then turned north, following 99 to Sacramento then I5 through Redding on into Oregon and on into Washington. We met some of Cara's friends and spent the night with them near Centralia, WA. Then Up to Seattle. We camped out at Gary's place our last night then caught a flight home to Hawaii.


That was January 23rd, I've been back in Hawaii working since then. I finally got motivated enough to catch up with these blog posts because tonight, we will be getting on a plane and flying to Alaska, where the Donkey has wandered on ahead to meet up with us.

I may keep blogging, I may not. We will have a good time, regardless.


Cheers, Aloha, Ciao, whatever!

The Eagle Has Landed!

Well, Eagles, Cara counts too. But we're not really eagles, or even birds. It was kinda an euphemism...   no wait, Google says thats wrong. I had to look it up because I can't think of the right word. Nevermind.

The point is, Cara and I are in Seattle! We caught the redeye out of Hawaii friday night, enjoyed an overnight rest in some undersized airline seats while being serenaded by a 2 year old in the next seat crying almost the entire flight. Caught the Light Line train the next morning to my Gary's house and eventually picked up the Blue Donkey.

While we were at North Westy (the shop that fixed up Donkey for our trip) Eddie and Kathryn showed up. I stole some pics from Eddies Facebook because he wouldn't give them to me....

 

After an exhilarating test drive with Kirk, the head honcho at North Westy, we all caravaned back to Gary's for some Drinking. Um, I mean planning and refitting of the Donkey. While we (Eddie and myself) watched, Gary began building furniture by flashlight until it was too late to continue annoying the neighbors.

We had some delicious dinner the girls prepared and experimented with my portable icemaker. Thats my kind of living! Eventually we called it a night and crashed. Tommorow should be a productive day.

 

First night camping....   OK, Gary let Cara and myself stay inside. Hopefully we'll get the heater installed today. Donkey will be ready soon!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Day two in Seattle.

Rain.

All day.

Rear hatch makes a decent roof, but it drips into the cargo area. With Gary and Eddies help we made great progress, but underestimated the job ahead of us.

Beginning stages of a rear cabinet....

Gary and Eddies work in the main cabin, Gary has some great carpentry skills.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Day three in Seattle.

More Rain. Alot. Floods in full effect in Washington. Do you know where your Ark is? We're still working on cabinets, Eddie completed his Clutch master cyl instal, helped Gary install a new Master Cylinder on his truck. Mostly finished and painted cabinets. I screwed up my project several times, Gave up and went to  North Westy for some time on the lift to replace some front end stuff. Kirk is the man for letting us use his facilities and tools to finish prep Donkey prior to our trip. We replaced the front CV's and tierods, a couple other small items and a good pre-trip shakedown. Kudos to Kirk for helping us out, Thanks!!

Donkey continues to run great, having a proper boxer is enjoyable. Cruising at 65 is cake.

My heater is installed, but I still need to run the fuel lines.

We'll see what tomorrow brings, hopefully theres less rain. We haven't even thought about packing yet.