Retroblogging the megatrip: part 8a

So by the time we were rolling into Sidney for our ferry ride on July 16th, I was ready to hit the road again. Not that I didn't have a fantastic time visiting in BC, but it had been almost three weeks since we'd been out on the open road fending for ourselves and it was a part of the trip that I was looking forward to doing more of.

The last day that we had spent roaring around Sidney and Victoria didn't quite go as scheduled. We ended up spending a bit more time than planned doing pretty much everything so we were in a bit of a rush to get to the terminal. We picked up some drive-through for the kids and got in line. Someone immediately dumped a ketchup-laden burger all over themselves and the van and I just about lost it. Or I lost it and just about really lost it. Regardless, everyone eventually got fed, we hit the ferry shop for some ice cream, got out of the van for some fresh air and waited. Eventually, we got on the boat (it was not even close to full - the side ramps loaded cars up onto the second deck but the bottom car deck was almost completely empty) and set up camp. The kids were spazzing out because we had taken away their Pokémon cards on our way into Grand Forks (the boys were fighting over them all the time and it was distracting them from having good visits) and we had told them that we'd give them back on the boat. We figured it would help keep them busy for most of the sailing, but they started fighting again after a short time and gave up on the cards. We took to wandering around the boat even though there wasn't much boat to explore - there was certainly no awesome Passages Gift Shop to explore or White Spot diner à la BC Ferries. After that, Max and I played some Crazy 8s while Leo and Henry coloured.

A few of the highlights of the trip were seeing a yacht along the way that the kids thought was a pirate ship (a picture is below), stopping off at Friday Harbour on San Juan Island - it seems like so many of the other Gulf Islands, it's a haven for artisans and enthusiasts of the outdoors - and checking out the main car deck, where the wind was whipping through hard enough to just about knock the kids over.

This picture is taken in Anacortes, where we took a wrong turn down the main drag and ended up here at a sort of dry dock/shipyard with some massive ships being fixed up or something. A pretty impressive sight to see them out of the water and up in the air like that.

After we got on the road, we knew it would be a long haul into the Seattle area and it had already been a pretty long day so we had a gas station pit stop before hitting the interstate and then the kids all conked out right away. Holly wanted to grab some Zs too but before nodding off, asked me to wake her up when we were getting close so that we could do some Hotwiring on the way into town. So my Spitz, my iPod and I got all the way down to the 405 split-off before we got online and found a nice cheap option in Auburn, a little bit southeast of Seattle. The price was definitely right so we bit. Another pro: we found our first North Carolina plate in the parking lot. Con: they gave us a room with a single bed so Holly had to argue over the booking while someone else was trying (with their "friend") to get an hourly rate. The room had almost 0 amenities...actually 0 if you didn't count everything bolted to a floor or wall. This was the hotel room that duked it out with that hole in Drumheller for the worst place we stayed on the whole trip. Thanks a lot, Cedars Inn Auburn.

The next morning, we helped ourselves to everything the lobby had to offer in way of a "continental breakfast" (let's just say that the free "breakfast" was the same quality as the room) and we scrammed into Seattle. The 5 is such a tease - so much traffic and you're always so close to that beautiful city. It beckons "come visit, it's only 3 miles to the next exit...how long could that possibly take?" (answer: 30 minutes). We eventually got into the Seattle Centre area where most of the tourist attractions are conveniently located. Our first stop was supposed to be the EMP Museum before we moved on to maybe the Space Needle or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Visitor Centre. The EMP is a museum "dedicated to the ideas and risk-taking that fuel contemporary popular culture" and probably one of my happiest places in the whole world. It was very kind of Holly to suggest scheduling this first so that I could be adrenalized by whatever was inside. I'd say that if we were to guess, I would have been 100% satisfied by whatever was going on, the kids maybe 40-60% and Holly in the same range. After going in, here's what they had to offer:

Fantasy: Worlds of Myth and Magic, an exhibit on the inspiration behind fantasy’s most magnificent creations, including maps, costumes, and manuscript pages.

An exhibit on Nirvana bringing punk music to the masses

Block By Block: Inventing Amazing Architecture, an exhibit on some of the world's greatest buildings built to scale using LEGO bricks

Spectacle: The Music Video, a sprawling exhibit on the history of music videos "as an important and influential art form in contemporary culture"

and all the rest of the standard awesome music stuff that's on display year-round.
Needless to say, our satisfaction levels all reached 100% within the first hour or so. We spent the rest of our day there and never made it anywhere else! I almost started weeping; it was all so beautiful. Here's what we got up to:

Leo hamming it up outside the EMP. The building itself was designed by famed architect Frank O. Gehry. The grounds around it have lovely public art everywhere.

In the Fantasy: Worlds of Myth and Magic exhibit, they had some very cool interactive games - one gave you the opportunity to determine which fantasy archetype you embodied and another gave users the chance to design a map of their own fantasy world. All of the boys' maps were awesome.

Here are some of the cool costumes and artifacts they had on display: this is from The Wizard of Oz

Prototypes of cards from Magic: The Gathering

Cersei Lannister's gown from GoT

Tyrion Lannister's doublet from GoT

And the pièces de resistance for Holly: a trove of goodies from The Princess Bride

The boys in the Sky Church, taking in some performances on the insanely large screen.

Yep, that's a scale model of the Space Needle made of LEGO. Some of the buildings on display were stunning.

Not only did they have all sorts of buildings constructed by a professional designer, but they had bins and bins of LEGO for anyone to use to make their own buildings and put on display.

It's possible Leo enjoyed himself in the Lego room

Henry was definitely getting in on the action too.

The boys kicked back and watched a documentary about Dan Parker, the guy who built the scale models, and his passion for LEGO in general and how he built it into his livelihood as a LEGO artist.

Leo listening to the art piece "If VI Was IX"

A close up of the crazy tower of instruments

The boys loved all of the guitars.

Leo, getting exposed to some of the greatest music videos of all time. This is the display for a-ha's "Take on Me".

Leo and Henry, mesmerized by their tenth viewing of "This Too Shall Pass" by Ok Go!.

Naturally, they had a whole shrine dedicated to local boys Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.

This is a map of all the places around the state where they filmed their videos.

One of the LEGO constructions used in the White Stripes' "Fell in Love With a Girl" video.

Henry rocking out under shots from the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" video.

On the top floor of the EMP, there are a bunch of sound stages where visitors can try their hands at playing guitars, keyboards and drums. There was also this giant table in the middle of the floor where if you passed your hands in the various lit spots around the table, different sorts of percussion would play. Henry spent almost half an hour playing here.

And then there was Max.  The poor guy spent something like 20-30 minutes for his turn in one of the private drumming rooms.  I'm not sure what the hold-up was, but he was desperate to play.  Eventually, he got his chance (while I took the other boys to do the thing pictured below) and Holly captured him in all his Whiplash glory.  You tell me, IS HE RUSHING OR DRAGGING???

There was a giant computer station set up in the hallway on the top floor where visitors could select a category (like "Best song to wake up to") and search through a massive database to nominate a song. The nominated song would get posted on the screen along with your name for other people to see (and maybe vote along with). I think the system tallied votes over the course of a day and then reset in the morning. When we stopped by, "The Pokemon Theme Song" was killing it in the "Best Breakup Song" category (huh?) The above pictures show the four songs we threw up on the big board.

The boys' first official viewing of "Gangnam Style".

Leo, watching Bjork's stereoscopic 3-D video for "Wanderlust"

The big boys, popping' tags with only $20 in their pockets.

Hmm. I bet this smelled like R. Kelly's sheets...but it was 99 cents!

Well, Seattle, it was short (way too short), but it was so sweet. I can't wait to come back again. Next time, on top of spending a day at EMP, I'll be sure to schedule in a few more days to see the rest of the beautiful city.

Holly adds: John could easily have spent a full day taking in all of the music videos. I think Kerry's mind would also have been blown by that exhibit. It was one of those days that we just needed more time without those pesky things like eating and napping. Definitely a highlight of the trip for all of us!

Next up: eastern Washington!

Retroblogging the megatrip: part 7c

OK, this is it. The last instalment in part 7: our longest one-place stay on the whole trip. We'd already gotten up to a lot on the Island, from beach time to an ecotour to strolling in downtown Victoria...but there was a big adventure left before we'd set sail for another country. When we were visiting April and co. in Sooke, they showed us their amazing camping trailer and mentioned that they'd be going camping on the weekend. Better yet, they mentioned that they'd have a spare tent so that if we wanted to crash for an evening, we could join them at the campsite. SCORE!
The morning of July 14th, we set out for one of Holly's favourite spots in BC, East Sooke Park. The park is on the south shore of the Island, just across the Juan de Fuca strait from Washington State. We were treated to another day of fantastic weather and we had the opportunity to play on the beach a bit, explore the coastline and, best of all, do some rock-pooling. Here's a look at what we did:

Nutrition factor: 0. Quiet in the van factor: infinite. Neither the first nor last time that we resorted to the slushie-as-pacifier on the road.

Four year prior, we used this exact carrier to trek Max down to the same beach. It was pretty cool to see Henry in there this time around.

Two boys, a beach and a pizza bun. Sounds like a good afternoon to me.

Leo loved the beach...

...Henry seemed to think it was OK too.

Holly in her happy place.

Henry and I tackled some tide pools amongst the rocks while Leo and Max went with Holly. Max was determined to find the biggest anemones and it frustrated him to no end that Leo actually found the biggest specimens (not pictured here). Surprisingly nobody brained themselves while clambering across the rocks.

Henry got a big kick out of recognizing his name anywhere - scrawling it in the sand blew his mind. He still loves writing and reading the letter H as much as possible.

Leo got to go on a special expedition with Holly and they took this picture at a lookout.

Max was so sad that he couldn't bring his seaweed skipping rope in the van. Sorry bud, there was NO WAY that was happening.

After getting our fill of East Sooke Park (OK, maybe not our "fill" as we could have stayed a lot longer!), we headed up the highway to go meet up with everybody else at the campsite. I made a slight detour on the way to show Holly and the boys where I spent a number of camping trips back when I was much younger: Sunny Shores Campground. As with most everything in life, it seemed a lot smaller than I remembered. I think this was my first time back since a camping trip with my dad and brother back in 1993. Lots of memories, from crab fishing to mini golf to flinging flaming marshmallows at trees to crib competitions with my brother to see who would have to sleep closer to the snore machine (a.k.a. my dad) in the tent to almost losing my hand to a seal (not quite like Buster Bluth). Good times.

Carrying on up the road, we arrived at our destination: French Beach Campground in French Beach Provincial Park. I've done a lot of camping in BC in my time and I have to say that this was a gorgeous little spot. There were beautiful, tall trees forming a nice canopy over everything, a fairly large play structure for the kids, some nice trails for walking and a massive rocky/sandy beach area with a view of the Olympic mountains. Plus, the others arrived with an insane amount of amenities so our camping ended up being upgraded to glamping. Here are some of the things we did in those 24 hours.

When we showed up, a card game was going on and I was invited to sub in at one point. What is this card game, you say? Crib Wars. Essentially triple-length crib crossed with Snakes 'n Ladders. Insanity.

Rick brought a craft project. If memory serves, it was mini crossbows made of popsicle sticks (you can see the glue gun, plugged into the lighter, kind of by the beer.

So, oceans are cold. The kids went down to the water a few times on the afternoon of day 1, but it was pretty breezy and the water wasn't very warm so this is pretty much what everyone looked like when they took a dip.

The kids had a great time clambering all over this tree.

No, Max, it's still cold.

Yes, Max, it's warmer up there.

Henry and Dad exploring the seaside.

Sisters...sisters...Those who've seen us know that not a thing could come between us...

I think this was Max's first up-close-and-personal with a wavy ocean beach. Clearly, he was impressed.

No, really, kids find these comfortable.

A boy, his mom and the waves.

Max, Leo and Scarlett decided that they would try to go around the campsite offering highlighter tattoos to anyone who wanted one. Shockingly, not everyone said no and it was certainly a good way to meet the other people at the campsite.

In particular, we would have never stopped to talk to these Nerf gun fanatics who let the kids take a few shots. Max and Leo certainly love their firearms (WHY!?!??!)

The food at the campsite was FANTASTIC. Dinner involved make your own shish kabobs with beef, pork AND chicken done over the campfire (this is leftover meat cooking for the next day) and breakfast in the morning was crepes (!!!) with all sorts of fruit, custard, Nutella and whipped cream. Rick's sister Lindsay whipped up the crepe feast early in the morning after a very late night of playing games by the fire - she was a rock star. High five glamping!

Later on that night, we stuffed the kids in the camper and they watched a movie until the wee hours. Then they cranked the radio and had a rave up while the grown ups played a board game and enjoyed some refreshments outside. This is Leo, equipped for the late-night dance party.

And this is the scene of the crime: THE CAMPER.

The next morning, it was a bit chilly. Leo got to borrow my shirt.

Mister "I'm never tired" and "I get up at 6 a.m. no matter what" turned heads by staggering out of bed at 9:00. More fresh air/rave combinations in the future, I guess.

Henry was also a happy camper in the morning.

Nom, nom, nom.

Too much sleep! So punchy!!

At some point, it appears we did up some marshmallows.

Now that's a fine mallowselfie.

Henry and Mom back at the campsite.

Leo learning how to play Simpsons UNO.

Some play structure time was in order before heading down to the beach.

I think this was my favourite picture that I took that day. It reminded me of The Walking Dead.

Max and Henry monkeying around with rocks.

Oh come on, it's not that heavy.

Yes, this is foreshadowing for the next few pictures. People got close to the water. Then they got too close to the water. Off came a layer of clothes. Repeat.

Yeah Henry, this is fun! Get a little closer!

Yay, your feet are wet! Try a little closer!

Oh shoot, now what?

Aha!

A beautiful day on the ocean. We are very lucky people.

The sun, glittering on some wet rocks.

This kid and his dad were building rock barricades, trying to create dams, streams and diversions. It reminded me a lot of doing the same thing at Jordan River when I was young.

Introducing....Leo! Sabato! Junior!!!

A quick snack stop and...

...one more selfie before packing up and moving out.

It really was a wonderful (albeit brief) stay. I'm not sure we'll ever get back and I'm not sure how long the kids will hold on to the memories of that camp-out, but it clearly had a big impact on them. In fact, once we got back to the North Saanich homestead, Max insisted on sleeping on the floor of his bedroom so that it would be like he was still camping. But before we got back to the house, we had one more stop to make: the Sooke Potholes. The Potholes are these connected, shallow lagoons where some good swimming can be had. Unfortunately, it was a very hot day and, now that summer holidays had started, it didn't matter that it was a Tuesday - the place was very crowded. We did get a good dip in though - it was significantly warmer than the ocean. Pro: Max got to slide into the water off the side of a rock. Con: Holly gouged her hand pretty badly on the washroom door bolt. Ouch.

I don't think many of the swimming areas we saw were much deeper than 8 feet. Most was much shallower, but still rocky so you'd rather swim than walk around.

A very far away shot of Max sliding into the water.

Henry cruising the shoreline.

Leo wasn't too fond of swimming at this point. He was just fine on the shore. It was hard work to keep him from throwing rocks into the water (near swimmers, not at them).

This was it - the goodbye picture!

On our last day on Vancouver Island, we had a couple more things we wanted to do before leaving. Our hosts, Auntie Jan and Uncle Brian, recommended a trip down to the waterfront in Sidney. The strange thing about the waterfront is that on one side of the pier, there is almost no beach glass. On the other side however:

I love it - now I remember why some kids are semi-sockless in these pictures. They were using their socks to hold their booty. I just know that some shady deal is going down in this picture.

We had a great time hunting for treasures. Although we called any piece of blue glass "the prize in the popcorn", the real trophy was one beer bottle bottom that Holly found with the word CANADA still clearly legible. After combing the beach, we headed into town to check out the petting zoo at Beacon Hill Park. The kids had a great time seeing some animals other than what can typically be seen at local fairs or Ray's Reptiles. In particular, they liked grooming the goats.

Yes, that is a peacock very high up in a tree.

Well, that pretty much wraps up a week's worth of pictures at the westernmost point of our journey. The only thing left in our day was for me to get home and pack everything up while Max and his mom went out for a swim. Once we all got back together, we drove into Sidney to hop on the ferry to Anacortes, Washington. So that's what I'll tackle next time.

A HUGE THANKS to Auntie Jan and Uncle Brian and to April, Rick, Chandler, Scarlett and family for their hospitality and generosity. We had so many wonderful adventures over the course of our stay on the Island and can't wait to get back out there!!