Road Trip!

Chapter One:  Surfin' Safari


Husband and I just returned from a road trip/surfing vacation down the western coast of the USA. There are so many things I cannot wait to tell you, gentle readers.  Where do I start?  


We didn't manage to get on the intended ferry in Victoria so we crossed to Vancouver instead.  Then we waited an hour to cross into the US at the wrong border, drove another hour, waited in another line, crossed the correct border and launched ourselves into our surfing vacation, now over 150 km inland from the coast we hoped to surf.  


'Hey, is that Mount St. Helens over there?'


In true road trip tradition, we took our original plan, folded it into an elegant origami armadillo, placed it carefully on the road, backed over it and let crazy homemade signs and promises of roadside pie lead us where they would.


Mount St. Helens is amazing.  We stopped at every view point (all 14) on the way up to the trail head.  We listened to every talk and presentation.  We pushed every knob and button in all four interpretive centers.  We took the three hour hike out to view the devastation.  We didn't get one photo of the mountain herself.  She wore clouds all day like a veil and didn't willingly give up her secrets but, still, amazing.


We drove to the coast of Oregon the next day and spent the rest of our vacation falling in love with every beach, every cove.  We hiked giant dunes at Rockaway Beach.  We surfed in Newport at Otter Rock.  We descended 200 feet into a coastal lava tube called Seal Cave to hear the bull seals roar.  We stopped at fruit stands to buy cherries and let the juice drip down our chins.  In Tillamook we stood in a dirigible hanger the size of a mountain.  Husband went skydiving in Kapowsin.  We spotted elk next to the Suislaw River.  More on all of this later. 


We also discovered that Americans have absolutely no (zero) sense of humour, wouldn't know irony if it sat down and ate their breakfast, have a strange relationship to biscuits and gravy I will never understand, and are some of the most earnest people in the world.  One lady was actually in tears agreeing with me about how beautiful her town was.  We hugged.  It was nice.


I am glad to be home.  We are dusty and tired and the car smells like feet.  But we are already planning our next trip to what could be the Grand Canyon.


Which likely means we'll end up in North Dakota.