Thank You Canada

Thank You Canada!

We loved Canada We easily got over the border and were treated wonderfully by the border patrol going into Canada. All the Canadians we met were so friendly and helpful. I was nervous to take a roadtrip into another country and drive on roads and through cities I was so unfamiliar with, but Canada quickly became our favorite part of the journey. The roads are nice, the views are outstanding, the weather is perfect . . . it was nice to get to know the neighbors finally.

Thank You Canada for your incredible hospitality and for a roadtrip we will not soon forget.

Viewers

Cole Speaking: Good Morning Fellow Viewers. Im sorry to inform you i'm deeply dissapointed in all of you. We currently have 734 views and 13 followers. Last year we had 1746 views and 19 followers. Whats going on? Don't expect fun possitive posts if we dont get views. If your one that checks everyday well you can check twice a day. Theres another thing too Whats going on with commenting? Its not that hard. COMMENT.

I personally want this blog to end with 1000 views. Come through for us. Signing out

roadtripccj.blogspot.com

A Return to Belligham feat. Captain Nick

Cole here: We made it back to Bellingham and spent the night on Martyn's boat ~ thanks again Martyn . . . who is in San Diego. I'm not too sure giving us the combination to unlock the boat was really the smartest thing. I feel like we know Bellingham now. We met up with Nick again and spent the day walking around Fairhaven . . . great place. Nick, Jacquelyn, and I went down to a beach and climbed on rocks and made an awesome Drift wood house.

After that we went cliff jumping. Nick grabbed a camera and video tapped me doing a double back flip off. It was so much fun and was amazing to watch.

Nick was a Great Host and really invited us into his apartment. He told us great stories and brought us out to skate, climb, hike, and jump. Thank you Nick

Vancouver Canada

We made it to Vancouver today. We'll write more later.

The Drive from Prince George to Hope

We always intend to wake up early and get on the road but when morning comes the job of packing the car up takes longer each day. We carry way too much stuff into the hotels each night. We have an air mattress, sleeping bag, three suitcases, coolers, bathroom bag with brushes, hairdryers, and 5 pounds of other things, we travel with a fan if it gets too hot, and then we also have pillows and other food bags that seem to always be in the way . . . not to mention three laptops, cameras, video cameras, iPods, and a 20 pound bag of electronic cords to charge all the electronics and extension cords with extra outlets. The pile of cords is just a little insane ~ it's not easy to find the cord you're looking for and when or if you do it's guaranteed that it's tangled up with someone's headphones ~ I'll try to take a picture and post it so you'll have a visual on that one.

We drove from Prince George to Hope, BC. Another really long drive. We wanted to get as close to Vancouver as possible because we wanted to spend a day there looking around being tourists.
Seemed that we had a million trucks on the road with us today. They all go incredibly fast and lots of them have just too many logs they're hauling! We drove through a town named Boston Bar . . . seemed like a great name for a town (feel like I've been there in another life)

Traveling is different this year than the years before . . . once I was allowed to pick the music now it's all them. So I don't recognize a lot of the music I'm listening to and the volume is louder than I'm wanting. . . . feeling old.

we're back a few days on our posts . . . and plan to catch up before we get back home.

Drive From Canada

We drove all day from Alaska to Prince George . . . roughly a 10 hour drive. I can't believe we made it all the way to Prince George I thought I would cave and stay a few towns earlier.

The return trip to Prince George was just as beautiful as the trip North. We made some photo stops along the way and I kept my purse in the car the entire time. Learning metric has been a task. I continue to see road signs with the speed limit 90 or 100 and I have to remember that's not MPH . . . Cole is my metric converter. He will look at the speedometer and say "mom you should actually be going 60MPH now" He has saved me speeding tickets!

On the map it really doesn't appear to be a long drive but CANADA is HUGE! and the roads we've been on are all single lane with the yellow dashed passing lane.

Where Are They Today?

It's a long drive home . . . but we're on our way!

Glacier Story of the Day!

I love this picture we took it on the side of the road leaving Alaska. I pulled over and set my camera up on the hood of my car . . . my mini tripod broke so I had to use something to balance my camera on. My purse was just the right size to balance the camera so I pressed it down on the front end of the car and took the picture. We drove off and less than a mile down the road ~ a very winding and steep cliffs into rushing rivers road ~ we see a white thing fly up and hit the front window and fly over the car and land in the road. I thought was a trash bag or a grocery bag it happened so fast. I said "what was that" and wanted to turn around . . . Jacquelyn knowing the narrow road said don't turn around. Cole looks out the back window at what landed in the road and says "That was your purse mom!" . . . can you imagine? !!!! seriously can you imagine??!! We may have become permanent residents of Alaska . . . fishing for salmon for dinner . . . no ID, money, credit cards . . . that could have been really ugly!

The N

Cole Speaking, As some know i will soon be joining you all on the road so I've been interested in the rules and procedures of getting your license. So here in Canada to get your license for the first year you must have an adult in you car and have a L sticker on your car that stands for learner. Then you get a N for novice the next year. So this year when we've been driving around everywhere i've been seeing big green N stickers on the back of cars. Its kind of obvious too because they haven't been the best drivers. 1 of them i saw was smashed in an accident and another one was swerving around and struggling. It's interesting and slightly funny how people see the N and kind of shun that car so its isolated from others. I think its interesting how Canada does that - thanks Nancy for giving us the heads up on that one, we spot them everywhere. Signing out

Fudge!

We drove back down from Alaska today and headed back home! We've passed so many fly fishing spots . . . John we should have taken you with us . . . we saw all your people! We're actually getting comfortable seeing bears walking around on the sides of the roads . . . we saw a few today and I didn't even take a picture of one.

One of our favorite things from Alaska was the Fudge store . . . it was 5 maybe 10 large steps from the border first house on the left. Caroline is the store owner and she had the best fudge there that you could imagine. If you need fudge her e-mail is boundarygallery@yahoo.com and we recommend the mocha and the raspberry although they all are good. I'd drive up there just for that!

Saw a Black Bear CLOSE!!

Sunday we arrived in Alaska and went directly to the bear viewing area. We spent two hours there and didn't see any bears. We were told to come back in the morning early to see them eating salmon . . . well our early morning didn't end up being 7:00am but more like 11:00am. When we arrived a black bear walked up alongside the viewing area and grabbed a salmon and ate it right in front of us. It really was absolutely amazing . . . we couldn't have wished for anything more from Alaska . . . We saw the some bald eagles, salmon swimming up stream, bears eating salmon and a big fat Glacier . . . what else is there? I would like to have seen a Killer Whale but some of the salmons were as big as whales so that will have to do.

Camping in Alaska

Monday we spent the day in the very little town of Hyder Alaska. We loved the town and the people who live there . . . and the view goes on forever. The hotel selection was very small consisting to two little motels so we decided to camp. We found the camp that everyone who comes through town uses "Camp Run A Muck" and reserved a spot. We brought a tent and sleeping bags and all the camping essentials ~ When we arrived at the campsite we found it was an RV site and were told we would have to stay in the car because of the Grizzley Bears! We empted the car and put most of its contents in our roof cap and some of it we just put on top of the car. Fortunately we took the middle seats out of the car this year so we only had to fold down the backseats. Cole and I slept in the back in sleeping bags and Jacquelyn reclined the passenger seat and slept there. We used our hot plate and cooked pasta at the picnic table. We had an outlet right next to our car and the best thing we brought with us was an extension cord. Charged all our laptops and actually had a fan in the car at night . . . We really had a great time and had WiFi in the car. We woke up at 5:00AM and it was freezing 52 degrees which was cold. I can't say I had a good nights sleep but we had so many laughs and it really was fun!

Cole checks every night for comments . . . can someone comment to him! He's still annoyed that Jacquelyn received 3 comments on her one and only post . . . and we have to hear about it every day!

ALASKA! we made it!

We made it to Alaska today, Cole and Jacquelyn have been asking me for years and I always told them there was no way I would drive up to Alaska . . . well I did it! Now that we've driven to every state be prepared Jeff . . . they want to go to Hawaii next! We left Prince Rupert and drove up to Hyder it was about a 6 hour drive but one of the most beautiful we've been on. We saw a bear cross the road right in front of us. We stopped the car and got out and took pictures at almost every turn . . . all except the one the bear was at (those photos were taken from inside the car) I really wanted to see a bald eagle and then sure enough I saw one swoop down close to the road. No chance to grab the camera and take a picture . . . I was thinking I'd never get a chance to get a photo of one. Then a few miles down the road I looked out and saw two sitting on a large dead tree branch . . . pulled the car over and quickly slammed on my telephoto lens and jumped out of the car hoping not to scare them away. We watched them and walked closer as they watched us. They were not really happy with us walking out close to them but when they flew off it was breathtaking! I have to say that was the highpoint of my day today. I was finally thrilled to make it to Alaska but my God how am I going to get home? 3,000 miles today (half of those are actually kilometers!) I usually have my sister or parents house to rest at before I tackle the journey back . . . I'm hoping to have a restful day tomorrow and build up the energy to start the journey back . . . bring on the Coffee! If anyone wants to fly up and help out with the drive I'll share my chocolate with you.

The Drive

Cole Speaking, Going through Canada has been breathtaking. We have had amazing scenic stretches of road and I have been captivated starring out the tinted window in the back seat. The glare of my beading eyes on the window but on the other side of the window are tall towering waterfalls, large lakes surrounded by tall jagged mountains, mountains peppered with trees, and summits still coated with snow. And right in the middle of it all is a small 2 lane road with large logging trucks and RV's flying through at top speed, often other tourists from the states like us. Flying by as at these incredible speeds, it makes me think... Do they notice that it says 100 kilometers per hour not miles. Because 100 kilometers is only 63 miles per hour.

(Post road photo tonight so don't forget to check back in)

On the road we traveled yesterday we saw a train traveling on our side we drove as the train weaved in and around our road. I looked over and ding I think. "What if We Used The Air Horn Sign On The Train?" Jacquelyn Quickly signs on to this idea. We both roll down the windows and go for it. Starring at the man running the train we see him begin to crack up laughing and reach over and TOOO TOOOO! (thats the best train noise i can make so no complaining if you have a better one than let me know) We die laughing in shock of our success. "YESSS" we scream and roll down the window to give the man a large thumbs up. It was a high point of my trip so far. Signing out

Not in Alaska YET!

We stayed in a cute little hotel last night and had a great breakfast this morning. We thought we had a 6 hour drive to get to Prince Rupert but it ended up being longer because of all of the stops. We stopped at a First Nation fishing hole where a tribe was fishing. We were told that the only permits they allowed were for members of their tribe, and that they weren't allowed to sell the fish to anyone outside the tribe. It was amazing to watch them fish with long poles with a metal hook on the end (called gaffs) they seemed to effortlessly put them in the water and pull out huge salmon. I wanted sushi!
It's 10:00 pm and the sun just went down. Cole said he would post in the morning.

Canadian Bear

Jacquelyn and I were talking about everyone telling us we would see bears and that we haven't seen any . . . moments later we looked out the window and there was a black bear. That was the high point of our day.

I was thinking today about just how populated the earth is and how cities are overcrowded and roads are packed with cars and traffic. When we drove through Portland Oregon we sat for hours in traffic . . . and they told me that this was the norm. Well while driving through Canada today I discovered the solution . . . MOVE TO CANADA there's tons of room up here! Every other person could move up here and there would still be room left over and probably no traffic. So if you're feeling a little too crowded, please know there's space up north in Canada . . . and it's beautiful here too.

Nancy, the chances that Jeff will ever see that chocolate we bought for him at Rogers Chocolates are getting slimmer as the days go on. . . . I'm betting he'll never see it.

BC 99 North, Sea-to-Sky Highway, North Vancouver To Squamish

They like climbing and I like taking pictures . . . works out well for all of us.

click the play button


Today we tried to drive up to Prince George but we made way too many stops to actually get anywhere and then our GPS informed us that we would be in Prince George at 10:20PM and I thought that might be late to look for a hotel . . . although it may still be light out here. So tonight we stopped in Williams Lake, BC.
We met some great people along the way. I spoke with Alma and Jenna and they told us to go to Lake Joffrey and the birds would come right over and land on us if we put a piece of bread on our heads and walked around the lake. Sooooooo we go to the lake and people are around hiking and taking pictures but nobody is feeding any birds because there are no birds around. I'm thinking that we know a local secret so I get out the bread and PUT IT ON OUR HEADS!!! We walked around with people looking at us strangely and not viewing a single bird. When people would ask . . . we would inform them that the Wiskey Jacks are going to swoop out of the sky and eat the bread and land on our heads without hurting us. Well that never happened and I now believe that Alma and Jenna are sitting somewhere in Pemberton laughing . . . because they got another car full of Californians to walk the lake with bread on their heads. Cole started looking for the web cam . . . we're probably on some Canadian website.

If you're looking for a beautiful scenic drive that you must take . . . don't actually drive to Canada, I recommend flying to Vancouver and driving BC 99 North, Sea-to-Sky Highway . . . It's difficult to drive because you want to be looking around and taking pictures instead of looking at the road. I just googled the Sea-to-Sky Highway and lucky for you someone videotaped the whole drive . . . it takes a long time to load but it's a lot less time than driving up here . . . and his camera is actually pointed at the road not around to the left at the blueish green lake and scenery . . . but again it's still better than having to drive all the way up here. Nancy and Lucielle thank you for the tip on going to Pemberton . . . we loved it there.

Hello fellow blog followers! This is Jacquelyn writing! Sorry for not writing this entire trip, but I promise I will write more often. We have had such a wonderful trip so far, and have meet so many new people. Thank you so much to everyone who has participated in making this so enjoyable for us.
This blog post is going to be a little different from the rest. I'm going to tell you about our highlights of the trip! The first memorable experience of our trip, was all the crops driving up Northern California. It was so cool seeing the grape vines up so close! Highlight number two. . . Staying with my mom and dads good friend Janet! She was so hospitable, and so much fun to be around! She also introduced us to a great new pizza place! I sure hope they can deliver to San Diego. Our next great experience, was meeting our new best friend Franz at the Fog City Diner! He couldn't have been nicer. #4 Staying in Bellingham on Martyn's boat, and visiting with our cuz Nick! And last but certaintely not least our amazing lunch and tour with our friends from Vancouver Island, Nancy, Lucille, Ken, and Don.
Thank you to everyone for making our trip great, and following us so far on our 2010 blog!

Whistler, Canada

Made it to Whistler today. Wow the drive was breath taking. The mountains, the snow, the water it was all stunning. I'll post more photos in the morning.

Ava the dog cell message was so funny we laughed about it all day . . . take good care of Taffy for us!

Victoria, BC

We took the Ferry over from Washington to Vancouver Island and our good friends Nancy and Lucille picked us up at the Ferry Terminal. They were waving as we walked off the boat.

Nancy brought us on the most incredible tour of Vancouver Island ~ which we finally realized is different than Vancouver the city. I don't think Vancouver Island should allow Nancy to do tours . . . If you all had the tour she gave us, we would all be moving to Vancouver Island. Truly we had the most amazing day and the most amazing tour. We went to the top of Mount Tolmie and saw an overlook of the island and all the little islands around, and then down to the beach, we drove though the university grounds and saw the most amazing bunnies (more on the bunnies later) we walked around Fishermans Wharf and fell in love with the little house boats homes, we walked though the tourist part of town and ate chocolate at Rogers Chocolates (amazing) www.rogerschocolates.com, we saw the Victoria Government Parliament Buildings and the local juggler.

We went to both Nancy & Don's and Lucille & Ken's homes. Nancy made us a wonderful lunch with homemade potato salad and a carrot cake better than we've ever had in our lives.


I had the most miserable time going through border patrol after our relaxing day . . . apparently I have an outstanding parking ticket in New Mexico from 3 years ago and that was enough for the Border Patrol to give me the biggest hassle. We almost missed the ferry because of the whole interrogation . . . Nancy we almost became your new long term house guests. I'm a little leary about going back up to Canada again today . . . the Canadians are wonderful with you visiting their country but getting back to the US is really unpleasant!

Our ferry made an extra stop and had a delay because of another ferry crossing and we didn't get back to our car until 10:00PM. . . . met a couple on the ferry who needed a ride down to the docks where their car was . . . it was only a few miles but we're using that as our pay it forward from the Fog City Diner! They were really nice people and we may have scared them with the condition of our minivan. . . . it looks like we've been living in it for a few years. Got back to Bellingham at 11:00 and snuck onto Martyn's boat . . . we were ever so quiet crawling on board.

Thank you Nancy, Don, Lucille, & Ken for a great visit . . . please come visit us in San Diego soon!

The Day in the Coffee Shop

We spent the ENTIRE day in the coffee shop today. I didn't think it was possible to spend a whole day in a coffee shop but it is! Martyn brought us there in the morning while he had his tire fixed and we checked e-mails, he read the paper, Jacquelyn read her book. An hour or so later we dropped him off at the tire place and we returned to the coffee shop and continued on with our stuff. I had some Phototrax work to do and Cole was on Skype for a while. We left and went to lunch and went back to the Coffee shop for the afternoon. We moved our seats independently of each other . . . sometimes searching for comfy chairs, or electrical outlets, or quite corners, or sun outside. Nick showed up and actually took a nap at the table next to me. I fell in love with Woods Coffee Shop in Bellingham and as funny as it all was I'll never forget our coffee shop day.



We met a girl at the gas station who needed some help with opening her gas cap. Cole tried to fix the problem with some duct tape. We were hoping that this could be our pay it forward good deed. Amazingly she was from Escondido, CA, so close to us.

more Bellingham

We have two friends here in Bellingham. Nick lives on top of the hill in college central and Martyn lives a mile away at the bottom of the hill on his boat in the harbor. We showed up last night and Martyn gave us the guest room . . . Cole stayed at the University with Nick while Jacquelyn and I stayed on the boat. Martyn made us a great meal and we sat and chatted on the boat it's amazing that the sun doesn't set until 9:30 PM . . . seems so strange to us that it's so light out so late. and the sun came up at 5:30AM . . .

Bellingham, Washington

We drove up to Bellingham Washington today. Beautiful town right on the water . . . had to dig out the sweatshirts again. Loving the cool weather though . . . it's easier on our three coolers in the car. Nick met us and gave us a great tour of the town. He brought us down a trail to a beach and gave us a tour of Western Washington University where he's going to school. Nick can climb ANYTHING and does while he brings you on a tour . . . it's not unusual while he's talking to you to look and he's climbing up a sculpture in the middle of campus . . . and continues the conversation while he's climbing. Thanks Nick it was a great day.

Up North

Cole Speaking: Today we headed even farther up north. After a refreshing clean sleep at our hotel we woke up ate some breakfast and took off. Driving on the 5 we have seen a recurring billboard and I don't care who you are when you see a billboard that many times you almost feel like you have to stop. So we stopped at Oregon's Wildlife Safari. This was a drive through version of the wild animal park. The animals are in a very large area where they can walk up to the cars and explore our synthetic environment. We saw giraffes, buffalo, elephants, llamas, and many more.

It was such a fun experience for us to be up and close to the animals watching them looking at us curiously, watching giraffes run which in itself is really fun to watch, and watching running herds of cantaloupes oh oops i mean antelopes

We Finished up by driving a long solid drive up almost to Seattle to stay for the night. Don't Forget to follow us...

Made it to Oregon

Last night we made it to Oregon . . .
. . . after leaving the Golden Gate where it was 60 degrees and we had piled the sweatshirts on we were shocked when we got out of the car at the gas station and it was 103 degrees out! Aggghh . . . thought we had walked into a furnace. The drive from San Fran to Oregon was beautiful it was strange driving in 103 degree heat and looking ahead and seeing a huge snowy mountain! Looked it up on Wikipedia and found it was Mt Shasta . . . really beautiful area . . . Lake Shasta (at the bottom of the mountain) just as beautiful as the mountain (I recommend the drive) . . . can't understand why the snow hasn't melted?? seriously how can it be 103 and snow so very close?

Day 2 in San Francisco

Coral Writing: Today we left Janet's house and headed back to San Francisco to look at the Golden Gate bridge. We spent a few hours looking around the city, we went to take some pictures at the bridge . . . it was so cold we had to dig out the sweatshirts. We drove up and down the incredibly steep hills ~ it makes me a little nervous when I'm balancing at the top of the hill at a stop sign afraid to put my foot on the gas or break . . . feeling happy I wasn't driving a stick shift! We found Lombard Street and had to drive down, just for the fun of it. (if you click on the photos you can enlarge them)

Cole wanted to find the Fog City Diner and go in and have something to eat. We drove around for a while looking for a parking place filled the parking meter and went in for a bite. We sat at the bar and chatted with Fronz, he said something that lingered with us today. He said it's going to take aliens showing up on earth eating people for us to realize that we're all humans and all get along. He said it in humor and I probably didn't quote it as well as he said it . . but it really resinated with us and we decided it would be our quote of the day. Sad that it's probably the truth . . . hoping the aliens don't show up and start eating humans until after we get back home. The high point of our day was when he ripped up our tab and said our check was on him . . . we were so flattered that we decided to pay it forward and do something nice for someone else on our trip. So thank you Fronz for your conversation and kind gesture we hope this will inspire our readers to pay it forward to someone they don't know. We'll post what we do to pay it forward.
We headed up over the Bay Bridge and drove for hours until we finally crossed into Oregon. I've put 920 miles on my car in two days. We'll write more tomorrow . . .

Thank You Janet!

Coral here: We stopped in and visited our good friend Janet last night. It was such a wonderful visit with a friend who I haven't seen in years. She gave us her beautiful guest room and we had a great nights stay. Thank You Janet, I know Jeff, Charese and Candace all wish they were along with us to visit with you.

Headin' Up To San Francisco

Cole here, Today we entered into the ever so beautiful San Fransisco at 1:00. Wow we made some distance. We pulled into the city seeing the fog layer lingering over the the busy landscape waiting to strike. We encountered a heat rise as we drove today. We started off this morning at a low maybe 65-70 degrees then slowly inclined up to about 95 but as soon as we entered San Fran it seemed to be our safe haven and protect us from terrible sun in the city the temperature was back down to a 68.

After entering we began the parking search. We found a nice spot right next to pier 39. We wentinto the Fisherman's Warf and got a hardy lunch chop full of seafood. We enjoyed Clam Chowder, Fried Clams, Calamari, and got a loaf of sourdough bread. We walked pier 39 saw the seals checked out a few shops and looked off the pier towards Alcatraz and The Golden Gate.

We later got back to the shiny tired mini van and were lucky enough to not get a ticket from the red flashing parking meter. We got in the car buckled up and wandered our way to the Golden Gate and snapped a few pictures, and that wraps it up. Don't forget to follow us

The Early Morning Start

Coral writing finally: Yes it was an early morning start and two of my passengers were sleeping for the first hour. We passed Disneyland at 7:00 am and there are parents lined up to enter with their kids and here I am pulling the car over so we can look at the vegetables grown on 5 North.
I know the sign said: No Trespassing . . . but you can't really see what's growing unless you actually trespass. While Cole and I were taking pictures Jacquelyn helped herself to a sample of the produce? . . . we went to a the fruit stand up the street and bought some fruits and vegetables to make up for the two they will find missing off their vine tomorrow.

We stayed with a good friend in San Francisco last night . . . I'll post pictures in the morning.

Early Morning Start

Cole Writing, So this morning we woke up dark and early to launch off on the adventure of a lifetime. It's pretty hard to be in a good mood when its 3:55 in the morning. I'm actually more annoyed looking at my alarm a'clock blaring Bob Marley into my once quite room. I looked over and said "great look what i got myself into". Who's idea it always is to get up this early I still don't know but i swear we slowly get up earlier and earlier every year. but that is a separate story I'm not going to get into right now. So we have left the house and we are now off to I'm not telling you where. Expect another post when we settle in tonight.

We were thinking about changing the trip up...
But that might not work out so well judging on the fact none of us can drive. Keep following us

Packin'

Hello, Fellow viewers. it's Cole and yes it's been a year. So sit down, get some coffee, and prepare yourself for another year of "The Roadtrip Adventures" where we're going:

confidential who is on board: me, Jacquelyn, and Mom. What will happen: Currently unavailable. So this last week we have discussed and planned and most of all Packed for this trip. And when i say Packed i mean PACKED!

Some of the things we have packed includes: pillows, air mattress, maps, GPS, clothes, DVD, kitchen utensils, FOOD, a fan, batteries, car activities, blankets, cameras, iPods, mobile devices, and some small animals here and there. We take all of these items and place them in the ever so incredible amazing MINI VAN! Even though we don't have a Honda this video is a perfect example of our roadtrips.

So the trip will begin shortly, buckle up lean back and prepare for turbulence and remember your seat can be used as a flotation device. Don't forget to follow us......