Wild Minds Wander

Four days ago we left Banff. That place was just, wow! I truly appreciated our time there, and it was super healing for the soul. But then, our last night in Banff, just when everything felt perfect, Calvin tripped over the cord to our electric cooler and broke it. It was late, and we were nowhere close to anything that could help us anyway. So we just kept the cooler closed and hoped for the best.

The Cooler Crisis & Roadside Kindness

The next morning, we packed up camp and spent some time researching how to get this new cord. We asked people in town, and no one was really sure. We decided to hit the road, as our campsite was about four hours away, so I thought bigger towns along the way could be a possibility. After multiple stops, we weren’t having luck, so we just headed to our destination. There, we stumbled across a store called Canadian Tire. I’m still really confused about it because it wasn’t a tire shop… it literally had everything! I found a super nice man who told me I could repair the item and showed me the kit I would need to do it. I told him I didn’t have any tools to do anything like that, and he said once I paid for the items, he would help. He did! I was so grateful.

We drove the thirty minutes to our next camping spot, and the cooler had been unplugged for thirteen hours at this point. We arrived at Herald Provincial Park at almost 5 PM. It was a super long day on the road with all the stops we had to make, but we did see a bear scaling a mountain while we drove down the highway, so that was really cool!

We got camp all set up, and then took a short hike to a beautiful waterfall called Margaret Falls. And get this, we were finally in warmer weather! The water was actually warm enough to swim in, so after we had just showered, the boys decided to get into the lake in their clothes at 8:30 at night. Just classic!

We then headed over to the campground park, and the boys played while I made dinner in the parking lot. We headed back to camp, and honestly, it was an awful campsite. Super busy, which is fine, but this place was loud. Literally kids riding their bikes through our actual campsite… people drinking and playing loud music until after midnight. Just wasn’t our cup of tea. Oh, and to top it off, there were these teenagers walking around at dark with their faces painted black, staring at people trying to scare them. Seriously creepy.

Reflections on Canada & The Long Haul South

We headed out in the morning to our next spot, which was going to be a super long drive. We ended up on the road for 8 hours that day. We were staying in a hotel that night, so I wasn’t super concerned. Harvey had a breakdown – he was so tired of spending so much time in the car, and honestly, I don’t blame him. But we made it through and arrived in Anacortes, Washington.

A little reflection on my time spent in Canada… it is clean! I was really impressed. Every so often, driving down the roads, there would be pull-off stations with trash and recycling bins. Everything looked so nice. Something else I noticed was how nice the people there were. Everyone was so kind and friendly. Another thing that really stood out was that they use cargo trains still, and there were these massive, massive two-story high cargo trains all throughout Canada. They were really quite the sight to see! Coming back into the United States was such a huge pain in the butt at the border crossing than going into Canada was.

Anacortes & the Whale Tour Wobble

Once in Anacortes, we settled into our hotel room, which was super comfy. Turned on some Bluey and ordered in DoorDash. We had some super bomb nachos, and the boys ate Mac n Cheese pizza that they said was super yummy. I was just glad to not be doing the cooking and cleaning up. I got three loads of laundry done, and then we headed to bed. We had a big day ahead of us the next day!

Our morning started off rocky when we found out the hotel breakfast wasn’t really a breakfast but more so some bread and bagels thrown on a counter. This was incredibly frustrating because I always choose hotels that provide breakfast so I don’t have to stress it, and this was not what we had in mind.

Months ago, I had booked a whale watching tour and was so excited. I thought it was going to be the highlight of our trip… nope… it was not… at all. The kids were so tired of being in confined places, and all you really got to see on the whales was their dorsal fins, so they were seriously less than impressed. Harvey and Calvin literally fell asleep on the tour, it was that exciting! I thought it was super neat and enjoyed myself, but it was hard for them.

Seattle’s Downtown Dilemma

The plan was to do that in the morning and then head to Seattle for a day in the city. The tour ended up being much longer than anticipated, and with traffic in Seattle, we weren’t going to arrive until 5 PM. I started doing some research and learned that my van wouldn’t fit in any of the parking garages downtown and that you should never leave valuables in your car while street parking there because people will break the glass and steal stuff. Well, with a van full of thousands of dollars in camping gear that I couldn’t really remove, we just decided it would be best to skip it.

And you know, even though we had been struggling quite a bit on this trip, during our drive, we were all smiles planning our next adventure back to the Canadian Rockies. The boys want to spend a whole month camping in the Banff area next summer… and I’m totally on board!

So, after a quick stop at Trader Joe’s on the drive over to refill our snack supply, we just headed straight down to Tacoma where we would be staying the night in another hotel for our “city day.” The hotel was fantastic. They had a pool, and the kids swam for an hour, which was a nice way to burn off some energy after a long day of sitting on a boat and then three hours in the car to the hotel. We watched a movie, cooked some chicken nuggets, and then went to bed. We woke up, ate a yummy breakfast at the hotel, and then went back up to our room where I took advantage of the late checkout time of 11 and just relaxed. My body definitely needed rest, I was so tired. Honestly, I still am. And probably will be until I get home.

Olympic National Park: Coastal Magic & Tent Tetris

We stopped at the store for some essentials and then took off to Olympic National Park. We are spread out between two different campgrounds during our time here, but our first and second night are at Kalaloch Campground. When booking campsites, I literally just had to take what was available, so I didn’t even research the campground and had no idea what I was coming into. As we got closer, we realized the campground was right on the coast of the Pacific Ocean… we were so stoked, and the kids were squealing from the back seat… so was I!

We went to check in, and turns out they had double-booked our site. The ranger came back and said if we could fit the tent in this spot that she actually had an even better site. Turns out the loop we were in, the bathroom and water were out of order, and it was right off the highway. The new spot was right on a bluff overlooking the ocean… Needless to say, we made our tent fit. It’s tight, but we’re here!

We got camp set all up and then headed straight to the ocean. If you have never been to the ocean, I’m not kidding, it’s magic… like pure magic. I can’t even explain the feeling I get when I see it and my feet hit the sand for the first time. It’s just ahh. We played at the beach for a while, then came back to camp, ate dinner, and then I learned that apparently the Tree of Life is right on the beach where we are camping, so we went down and checked that out. It was super neat to see and a great reminder of resilience. I may have shed a little tear.

After that, we went and listened to a park ranger program that was all about trees. Harvey said it was so cool, and he loved all the new facts that he learned, and he didn’t realize that trees are so cool! We headed back down to the beach for sunset, and the tide was super low. The beach was nearly empty, and the boys were able to find so many sand dollars! Alive and dead. They kept the dead ones and had fun looking at the alive ones!

The Unvarnished Truth: Car Fights & Deep Reflections

Wow, this trip sure is an emotional journey. I’m not kidding, they spent 95% of the time fighting… especially when in the car! I think we hit 60-something hours in the car today, and they really do fight pretty much the whole time in the car. It is one thousand percent exhausting. And a reminder: we are doing it completely screen-free, so it’s even harder for them.

And I hope they look back on this trip and don’t remember all the fighting in the car but remember all the really special moments like the bear scaling up the hillside and the bike rides around the campground and finding sand dollars on the beach at sunset, and playing in the rivers and lakes, and staying up so late we can’t keep our eyes open, and the beautiful waterfalls and the joy and the laughter. Because while those moments aren’t as often as the fights, they are the ones that make your heart swell to ten times its size and your tummies do flips and the adrenaline rush through your body. I hope they remember those.

A couple of days ago, I was following behind Theo, thinking about how people always say that they don’t want to take their kids on trips or vacations because they will never remember them. And it made me sad for a moment looking at him all smiles, and I thought, wow, he is not even going to remember this trip. But that moment was fleeting because my very next thought, with the biggest smile on my face and my heart racing, was, “but I will.” I will remember this for the rest of my life, and it will be one of my most special memories, and they may not remember it, but it will shape the person they become. It is our job to instill the sense of adventure, respect for nature, passion for animals, curiosity of other cultures, and the beautiful sense of wanderlust into our children. I really hope I am doing that. I want nothing more.