Seattle!!! Tues -- D

All went perfectly on Seattle Day! We woke up early, got to the ferry early and ate our yummy cereal on board. C taught me how to play German Speed. She won. Then we napped until we got into Anacortes Port. It was a GORGEOUS day. Our drive was nice and we made it to the University of Washington about 10am. I wanted C to experience one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in Seattle. We rented a canoe!!!

“C and D’s WILDLIFE ADVENTURE” started with a sighting of a cute duck family.

The Neeter Skeeter Beater Bites were annoying little buggers that got all over us. We saw three turtles and some bigger ducks that may or may not have been geese.



And last but not least --- BALD EAGLES!!!! Really. There were 4 of them circling in the blue sky above us.

After a couple hours, and a delicious snack of watermelon, we needed to be done. It was hot and our arms were tired.


So we returned the canoe and headed to IVARS for yummy fish and chips on the waterfront, followed by soft serve ice cream for dessert.


Pike’s Market was soooooooo crowded. People kept running into us when we moved too slow or took too much time in front of the various booths. The salmon at $21 per pound would have been our dinner, but it was a bit out of our budget. So sad. Aunt Debi was gracious enough to offer the “Rebo Hostel” as accommodations for the evening. We took her a couple of bouquets in appreciation. One had some beautiful peonies and sweet william and the other of fresh cilantro. I have to admit that I was hoping she would make her yummy salsa. And she did. We finished the day watching Enchanted. C went to bed before the movie ended and I went to bed immediately after. It was a long and wonderfully exhausting day.

Oh yeah? Well I am having... fun... too

Or not. Well, I have now turned green with envy at all the wonderful things that my sisters are doing without me. Not that I begrudge them their trip, not at all, I just wish that I could have gone. It is kind of lonely being all the way out here. Next semester, C and I had better go on some awesome trips! And D better get her butt up here to go on some with us.

So, life in Rexburg. Not a whole lot to tell. I have met what seems like thousands of people in the last three months. I met a LOT of cute guys who are afraid of marriage, dating, commitment and fat girls, though not necessarily in that order. It's not bad, though. I am learning, which is something I have long wanted to do... and I may be coming slowly to the realization that I am not as stupid as I feel. One can only hope.

I don't get out much, I did go to Montana, and decided that I could happily live in a car on the side of the highway if it meant that I got to look at those mountains all day. I also went to Beaver Dick Park (yes, that is its real name, and no one seems to know why) for the first time and quickly got my fill of mosquitos. Literally, I was breathing them in. I am sure that I ingested quite a few, but I have blocked that particular detail of memory. I think. I went to the sand dunes, and realized just how stupid show-off-y guys with dune bikes are when they feel like being so.

I need a vacation.

C Falls -- Sunday -- D

Sunday we planned to go to Friday Harbour to go to church. We missed the ferry. It was lame.
We went to the library (free wi-fi) and got a number from the church website for the meeting place on Orcas. We heard from them at about noon. Church was at 8:45. Oh, and church was at the library... ugh! Needless to say, we missed our church meetings that day. Improvising, we went to this beautiful spot on the waterfront and brought our blankets and conference Ensign. We each chose a talk and read it out loud. It was pretty cold, so we covered up with the blanket and ended up sleeping. For HOURS! It was crazy. We slept and slept and slept, and then we slept some more. We finally got up when I had to eat. I had a vision of a chocolate old fashioned doughnut with chocolate glaze and the cute ball sprinkles.



We really needed to get the blood pumping, so we hiked to Cascade Falls. It was only 3 miles round trip. C just couldn't resist and went IN the falls. It was freezing, and I think it affected her judgement, because on the hike back she told me about the day after the alien invasion when some humans will live peaceably with the aliens who wear clothes made of thyrinomine which looks a lot like silver. About 20 minutes later, C falls... I only felt a little bad for laughing, 'cause she was ok. Just a bit scraped up. She likes her war wounds. Get it? C Falls... Cascade Falls... C falls... ha!





We were gearing up for a rousing game of cribbage after dinner, but we fell asleep. At like 8pm. Seriously, after sleeping all day, we went to bed early and didn't get up until about 10am on Monday. And they say that you can't "catch up" on your sleep.

LOPEZ!!!!!!

okay,so, i know its monday and i suck, but I am finally here :P p.s. its C. so on friday we went to LOPEZ ISLAND!!! we woke up pretty early and ate breakfast, blah blah blah, we got to LOPEZ ISLAND!!! we took the bikes and about died going over the hills we had to walk part of the way because it was just up and down up and down for four miles to lopez village, but when we got there we just relaxed. It was probably the most relaxing day i've had in a long long time. we ate lunch and took a nap in the park before we found this cute little shop with these really nice smelling soaps. There wasn't much in the village but what was there was really cute. there was this organic store that had everything from vegetables to candy bars to meat, and all of the produce and the meat was local :) and it was the only picture we took on Lopez Island :P


then we found a bookshop. it was so cute and the shopkeeper was really nice and we had a great discussion about books, it was really cool because all the books she was talking about i had read so i felt really smart :P anyway, after we left the book shop we made our way back to the ferry. the ride back was a lot easier than the ride there which was really nice...in fact we got there an hour before the ferry was coming...so instead of waiting for our ferry we made a quick change of plans and took the ferry that was already there...heading to friday harbor!!!

so we took a sneak peak of the san juan island we went to another book shop and had another great conversation with the book keeper, we talked about pink martini...it was great! then we had some icecream and walked around. We changed our plans again too. We were going to stay in Orcus on saturday and then come back on sunday but we decided to come back to friday harbor on saturday instead.

So when the time came we went back on the ferry to lopez island and then we were going to catch the next ferry leaving lopez heading to Orcus in an hour. we got back and we waited...and waited...and waited. We chatted with the nice ferry man who was actually the one who convinced us to go to friday harbor and we talked to a sheriff that was going to cannon beach on tuesday! we also played cribbage...a lot of it! because the ferry was AN HOUR LATE!!! we just sat there playing cribbage for like two hours...danita won...

when the ferry finally got there we headed home to our campsite. we got there at about midnight, made our bed and went to sleep :)

...it was a good day!

Orcas, Alpacas and Chinese people

We decided to spend all day Saturday on the San Juan Island. There is a shuttle that will take you all over the island and the lady at the bookshop mentioned the farmer's market... we LOVE those -- so we were sold... and we DIDN'T bring the bikes (my body is still complaining)

After a bit of a lie in we had a delicious breakfast and left to catch the ferry. A little after we left the park we passed 3 hitch-hikers one of them with an adorable smile. We don't pick up scraggly ruffian strangers, although we thought about it. A few miles later we mentioned them again. Now, I'm not sure if it was his smile, or reading the scriptures that made us feel all Christian, but we decided to turn around and go get them. We were feeling pretty good, until we got back to the park and we hadn't passed them. At least we tried to do the right thing...

About 500 yards later was a single girl with her thumb in the air. So we tossed her in the back of the van with the deflated air mattress and scads of unorganized food (including a watermelon that kept rolling around). Turns out she's from Eugene but is living here now, working for the summer or something. Guess she's saving up her $$ for a car?

Anyway, after the delay, we were a little pressed for time and by the time we parked the car and ran down the hill, we could see that the ferry was about to pull out -- we were sooooooo bummed, we needed only 2 more minutes and the next ferry didn't leave for another 4 hrs. THANKFULLY there were 2 ladies closer to the ferry that started running, so they waited and then WE started running. *phew* we barely made it, BUT WE MADE IT!!!!
View from the ferry--


We got to Friday Harbour in time to check out the market for about 30 min. before our shuttle left to take us exploring. We found the most delicious goat cheese and this other guy was selling mustard sauces in about 8 varieties. We bought the dill caper mustard sauce. YUM! You could tell the locals, they all had their baskets filled with market goodies and chatted with the different vendors about how things were going. I got some great ideas for Cannon Beach's own farmers market. I hope I can get a booth.

We made our way back to the dock and found the blue shuttle with the crazy driver. He kept a running commentary about the island and it's locals. He was a bit pessimistic talking about the people who buy houses they don't need and the "dream houses" that satisfy for a year before they are sold again to someone with a different dream. He mentioned more than 5 times the fact that the islanders don't do things the way things are done everywhere else. He seemed so intent on being different. Interesting. C and I saw some standing stones and asked him what they are. "Well they're stones that someone stood up." Enlightening, don't you think? Only someone that lives on San Juan Island would think to stand stones on their end arranged in a circle in an open field?

We passed the lavender farm, no purple... the spring was too wet.




Our next stop was Lime Kiln State Park, aka "whale watch park" We had an hour here and took our lunch on the rocks near the water at the lookout.


A younger girl with great eyesight saw the whale several times before C and I did. It was beautiful. I didn't have binoculars or even my glasses, but I was able to see the Orca whale that swam by. We saw it spout and jump and roll. SO COOL! There was a pod headed our way. Unfortunately, we had to catch the shuttle if we wanted to make it to see the Alpacas and still have a ride back to the harbour in time to catch the ferry. So, we only saw the lone whale and not the whole family, but it was GREAT!!!


The alpacas were SO CUTE!!! Their little faces have so much character. The littlest one was only 4 days old. While we were fawning over their cuteness, a lady came out to feed them apple slices for a snack and wet their legs. They LOVED that. The ladies and babies were first and they were so polite they took turns and everything. The gents were in a different area and loved the water as much as the girls did.










Our last stop was Roache Harbour. We saw a marina and the old lime kilns and a wedding. Not much else was there, but it was charming in it's own right. Before we knew it, we had to go back to Friday Harbour. We had a bit of time to kill and found the storefront for the lavender farm. Household products and goodies all with lavender. We bought ourselves some almond lemon lavender cookies and lavender lemonade. We browsed a GREAT used bookstore called Serendipity. I found a collector's copy of Jane Eyre and C and I each closed our eyes and picked a book off the shelf. Just in case it became our new favorite book. ummm... i got one called The Fat Man, I read it and it is not my new favorite book.





We had a great day on the Island and finished the day relaxing at camp. Oh, I just realized that I didn't tell you about the Chinese people. Our interesting guide for the 1st leg of our journey told us all about the days when the San Juan Islands were used to smuggle things from Canadia into America. Things such as booze, wool and Chinese people who were used as slave labor to build THE railroad. There you have it... our day of Orcas, Alpacas and Chinese people.

hiking through the wilderness

Okay, so last night when we got here we unloaded the car and set up our bed, which look amazingly comfy, we then grabbed some water and headed off to hike one of the many trails in this beautiful park! it was about three miles around one of the lakes and it was gorgeous! we started off at a boat house and followed a trail that twisted its way through the forest, but gave us an amazing view of the lake.

every once in a while we saw something special, towards the beginning of our trip we saw an amazing reflection of a couple trees in the lake and then later we saw what looked like a bonzi tree growing over the lake, which i promtly started to climb until I sat on a branch directly over the water. i almost wanted to fall in because the water was so beautiful but alas I did not.


Another time we saw a squirrel that I named fred, we took some cool pictures, we then saw three deer, its funny cause it seems like the animals here aren't very afraid of humans, we got pretty close to all of the animals before they slowly walked a few feet further away, it was cool


our hike took about fourty-five minutes and before we knew it we were back where we started. It was nice to get out and strech our legs after being cramped up in the car so long :) we felt really good.

After the hike we went back to the car and ate some dinner, a yummy bagel, an orange and some cold veggies (we didn't want to cook anything:P ) after dinner we read for awhile and then went to sleep. I love it here! it's so relaxed and I can't wait to do some touristing today!

CAMPING!!!

Hey all!

C and I are on another adventure, a bit shorter this time. After about 12 HOURS!!!! of travelling, we made it into our fabulous campsite at Moran State park on Orcas Island. Our day started sooooooooooo early... we left home at 6:30 am and afer a few errands (like stopping at Bagels by the Sea) we were on the way!

We got to drive along the Columbia River for a while and it was gorgeous! I am almost absolutley for certain that I saw a bald eagle. We really do live in one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.

We did what you usually do on a road trip. I read while C drove until she couldn't stand it anymore and we talked and talked and listened to music and talked. We decided that we would cast real people in our make-believe movie based on Stephenie Meyer's book The Host. We didn't get very far. We couldn't remember people's names and had a really hard time so we finally gave up. WHERE'S J WHEN YOU NEED HER???? Oh yeah, studying her brains out since she's a COLLEGE GIRL now. We wish J were here... although I'm not sure where she'd sleep.

We never did find a tent. How, you may ask, do we go camping w/o a tent? Well, there are several choices... maybe stringing up hammocks in trees -- but since it rains so much NO. or we could make a lean-to shelter out of tree branches and bracken, or perhaps find a cave that will keep us dry. NEGATORY. Mom had a brilliant idea. "Why don't you take the van and your air mattress?" YES!!! we are sleeping on an air matress in the back of the blue mini van. Our cooler full of food sits on the passenger seat while the bags sit on the driver's seat. The bikes have found a home locked together under the tree at the edge of our site.

Anyway, after we got to the ferry terminal we had to wait 3 hrs until we got on the ferry. So we napped... We made it safe and sound to the islands in the Puget Sound (is it still the PS?)

I am so excited for our adventure!!!! The last time I went camping, it was in my friend's parents front yard. The time before that is a another story all together. Jen and I were on our way to camp in the Gorge when the car started acting up. We had to turn around and go home, but our camping spirit refused to be dampened -- We unloaded all our stuff in the backyard. Since we couldn't very well light a fire, we ran a bright orange extention cord out to our site and our toaster oven became the campfire... GOOD TIMES! As fun as it was, it wasn't really camping. So this week is much anticipated and much needed.

I'll let C tell you about our fun last night.