The Epic Road Trip - August 2013 Edition - Day 8 - Planes, Planes and Shopping

After quickly packing up the tent, our first order of business was to get gas and breakfast - not necessarily in that order.

Throughout our roadtrip, we relied on Starbucks to keep us fueled, and as a good way to get milk into Mr P - he likes that he gets to drink out of a cup that looks like ours. He also enjoys their banana muffins and oatmeal and bagels, so it's always a safe bet.

After a quick bite, we were on our way to Seattle. Through its maze of overpasses and underpasses, we finally made our way to Boeing Field. Mr T is always excited to go, but this was Mr P's first time. He is obsessive about airplanes AKA "airpwame" in toddler talk.

We had decided we would stick to the free displays outside of the Seattle Museum of Flight - the museum inside is just a little too crowded with people (and priceless displays) for the Toddler Tornado. When we go Mr P out of the car, he was almost in a coma - and pretty dizzy after spinning in circles and seeing airpwames everywhere.

Mr T got really excited when he saw there was B-17 bomber AKA Flying Fortress. There was a gate and ropes around it, and you had to be at least 12 years old to go in. Sucked, but we'll get back and hopefully there will be another plane for him to take a tour of.

There was a few other planes around outside, and he had a blast running around looking at them.

The best part of the museum is Boeing Field is right there. Which means there are a bunch of planes that are still in testing phase. And there's a airport where business jets are taking off all of the time. We sat there an watched planes take off for probably 30 minutes.

Here is the Indian Navy's Posiden for Maritime Patrol. It's behind barbed wire, but you can still see stuff. Pretty cool!

We went into the museum briefly to go into the gift shop - T-shirt! And of course a toy plane. AND a book about planes. He was in total heaven.

We'll go back in a couple of years when Mr P is old enough to go into the museum and look at the displays and enjoy the moon rocks.

After the museum, it was off to the Seattle Premium Outlets. It was always our plan to go there and pick up the boy some new threads. It's pretty cheap. We also wanted to get him some new shoes, and there is a wicked shoe store in the States - Stride Rite. It's a shoe store for kids. We were pretty sure Mr P needed wider shoes, but we don't have much of a selection where we are. They sell shoes in different widths. Turns out not only were his shoes too narrow, but also too small - by a size and a half. Poor dood.

We grabbed a couple of pairs for him, some good shirts and pants and more Starbucks. Then it was back on the road - we wanted to be back in Canada by nightfall. We have a campground we've stayed at a few times, just off the Trans-Canada - Dogwood. It's definitely a good place for a one-night stay.

We got to bed pretty early again - the next day was going to be awesome. A trip to my favourite store I've never been to, and a visit with old friends :)

The Epic Road Trip - August 2013 Edition - Day 7 - Voodoo Delights

Waking up in Marysville, Mr P was in a much better mood.

He ate heartily and won the hearts of all of the other diners at the continental breakfast. And he was excited to get into the car. "Go, go, go!!!" he chanted again with toddler glee.

So off we went. We skipped past Seattle and headed straight for Portland.

Now there are a number of reasons for visiting Portland. 

1 - It's a very nice city.

2 - If you've ever caught Portlania on IFC or Netflix (we're avid watchers - to the point of knowing dialogue), you're naturally probably a little curious about the city. If you haven't seen the show, please watch the video below. If you don't find it funny, you're probably not enjoying any of the posts on this blog.

3 - Two words. Voodoo Donuts.

If you don't know what this is - hit Google Images immediately.

This is kind of one of the big reasons we go to Portland:

Now. When you go, the first address on the box is the original store. This is the store we always go to. It's fun and magical and always surrounded by an eclectic mix of buskers. This time it was a dancing gorilla. Yes. You read that right. Dancing gorilla. 

Mr T was anxious to get Mr P away from said dancing gorilla, so I didn't get to snap a photo. Just know that it was epic and awesome.

So - I ordered six of the delicious confections. First - the Voodoo Donut. It's awesome. Second - the Maple Bacon. Yup. Maple. With strips of bacon. Ahhhhhmazing. After that, there were too many to choose from in the rotating display case, so I just told the guy to choose the next four. And he was bang on.

He chose a blueberry cake donut for Mr P. Excellent. Then a Milk and Cookies donut. A delicious concoction on a yeast donut that includes crushed Oreos. And then a Peanut Butter Crunch - another yeast donut slathered with chocolate icing, drizzled with peanut butter and then dipped in Rice Krispies. The final donut was the Devil's Food. It's a devil's food cake donut, dipped in chocolate, decorated with a red pentagram and the hole was stuffed full of chocolate chips. Yum!

We were so excited to dig in, I didn't take a photo of all of the donuts. Just what was left when we got to our campground - Paradise Point in southern Washington State.

We've stayed at this campground before. It's just off the highway, but super nice and has some nice and easy hiking so Mr P can enjoy it too.

We also got there early enough to have some time doing fun things with Mr P, like playing smash up derby with his Matchbox cars.

We went to bed a little later that night, but that was okay, because it was just a short drive to our first destination the next day - the Seattle Museum of Flight and Boeing Field.

The Epic Road Trip - August 2013 Edition - Day 6 - Crossing the Border

Waking up in Victoria, we had just one thing to do before we hit the ferry - laundry.

This is how we keep the vehicle relatively light. Only bring enough clothes for four days (in the case of Mr P, a little more, because toddlers can go through three t-shirts in a 15-minute period).

So, after camping for two days, it was an scheduled hotel stay and laundry day. It also gave Mr P to have a great nap before we got on the ferry.

We were a little smarter this time - seeking out the kid play area almost right away. We did shoot for Mr P spending a little more time outside enjoying the fresh ocean air.

This wasn't a very eventful travel day. Ferry to Vancouver (waiting in lines). Then to the Peace Arch (more waiting in line) and then into the States. We decided to alter our sleeping plans a little bit, and grabbed a hotel just north of Seattle. Mr P was done with being in the car, and so were we.

The Epic Road Trip - August 2013 Edition - Day 5 - The Island

Mr T and I have gone to Vancouver a number of times since we moved west six and a half years ago.

We've visited the island zero times (in real life. Mr T has spent days there via Google Maps). This year that all changed. We decided we would pony up the cost of the ferry and go to Tofino.

Anywho, we left of on Sproat Lake - which is on the Island. We woke up the next morning. Spent another few minutes gazing at the firefighting plane and we were off. The road to Tofino isn't AS winding as Highway 99, but it's still got some curves to conquer.

We zoomed through lush green forests (and fog... don't forget the fog) to make our way to the town to get breakfast.

The first place we tried seemed a little like the set of "Lost" and the yogis saluting the sun freaked Mr T out a little. So off we went to find somewhere else.

Here's our view from Tofino's Best Western restaurant (which has the most delicious, healthy flax French toast ever).

 Yup. That would be the Pacific Ocean in the background. Awesome.

Mr P had enough of breakfast before we even got in the restaurant. He just wanted to be outside. So after 20 minutes of Mr T and I dodging flying cutlery and French toast, out we strolled. On to the most awesome beach I've ever been on.

 Mr P was excited at all of the open space he had to run. However, he's not a fan of open water, so going into the ocean was a big NO for him (which means me too). However, Mr T got to do what he wanted to do - dive into the ocean.

Meanwhile, Mr P had fun exploring the sand and the things playing in said sand.

 I decided to be a dorky tourist, and do something usually reserved for tropical beaches (the palm trees in Tofino could fool you into thinking you were in a tropical area... if the damned ocean wasn't so cold).

Tofino is an interesting little town. Kind of hard to find a tshirt in Mr P's size, but after scouring all of the surf shops we finally found him one. And then we found some excellent ice cream.

After that, it was time to get back on the road - we wanted to be comfortably checked in to a hotel in Victoria by the evening, so we could take the ferry back to Vancouver in the morning. 

The finished product

So this video takes us back to driving through Edson, Hinton and Jasper, Alberta before crossing into the BC border (day 2 of the epic trip).

Please keep in mind this is my first kick at:
a - using the GoPro
b - using the GoPro software
c - using and editing in iMovie
d - doing video editing of any kind!

It's about 8 minutes long, but if you've never been to Jasper, it's a pretty fast way to see it :)

Let me know what you think in the comments below!

The rest is coming, I promise

There are still days left to document of the August 2013 Epic Road Trip, but I've been fumbling my way through GoPro and iMovie software.

You see, finally, after almost two years in the box, I decided it was time to break the GoPro out. So it captured roughly 10,000 photos (no lie), and I'm trying to piece together a time lapse video of the road between Edson and the BC border.

So after I get that fixed up, I'll get back to writing up the awesome trip :)

The Epic Road Trip - August 2013 Edition - Day 4 - Whistler and beyond

The weather was still a little dreary, but we were raring to go. Not only was it time to visit Whistler, it was also a day to go on a boat!

We had decided a week or so before heading out to ditch our original plan of going to Portland via Montana and Idaho to go to Vancouver Island instead. We had been to Vancouver a number of times in the past six years (including the August 2012 road trip), but we always thought the cost of the ferry crossing was prohibitive.

We loosely strapped Mr P into his car seat and packed away the tent. He sat contently drinking water, eating crackers and throwing his cars around until we were done. We drove into Whistler. Which is a bit of a deceiving town! Everything (restaurants, stores, etc) are hidden away from the main highway. It's a nice way to build a city (everything looks so clean!), but hard for the spontaneous to find breakfast.

After finally tracking down a place, we decided we should see SOMETHING from the 2010 Winter Olympics, and decided to take a short detour to the Whistler/Blackcomb resort where the downhill ski events had been held. Here is where we ran into one of the few drawbacks of travelling with a toddler.

I'm sure it's very nice.

We were still (and continued to stay on) Alberta time. Which means Mr P woke up at his usual 7:30 a.m. time. It just meant 6:30 a.m. in BC. So when we went to go take a look around the resort (and buy a tshirt!), we found it all closed up. It wouldn't open for another couple of hours. We wanted to catch an early afternoon ferry to the Island, so we decided not to wait around, and headed into Vancouver.

I don't know why, but I always pictured ferry travel to be not very popular, and thus was surprised by the lineups to get on the boat. Granted, we were going from one of the most popular ports to one of the most popular ports, but I still didn't expect a two-hour wait.

So close...

Confession time - besides a canoe, I'd never really been on a boat before. So this was kind of new and cool to me. Mr P was a take it or leave it kind of guy, but was really excited by the whole driving onto the boat thing.

Oooh. We're moving.

Well I don't like this one bit!

The view from the ferry. What a beautiful country I live in.

Umm. So over this. Can I go inside now?

Mr P really didn't care that he was on a boat. He didn't want to be outside (too windy). There wasn't much to do inside, until we found...

What?!? I can go down these things on my belly?

The ferry crossing is about one and half hours. We were about an hour in when we found the kid area. It had a slide! That was the best news ever for our boy. He spent the rest of the crossing here, having fun and being a kid.

Once off the boat, it was time to pick a place to stay for the night. Back to our handy BC Parks Guide, I picked Sproat Lake. Little did I know how completely awesome it was going to be. My kid (and Mr T) LOVE airplanes. So when we got to our campsite and saw this, I knew it was going to be one of the best campsites ever.

The Martin Mars - used as a tool in forest fires. Check out the link here for more info.

It was a beautiful site with a rock beach to play on, and of course an airplane to stare at all day long. Sproat Lake Provincial Park is also home to some Petroglyphs, which are kind of cool. More info here.

It was an early night to bed - the next day was going to be exciting - we were off to a place Mr T had wanted to go for a very long time - Tofino.