Axel and Laurie

Call us crazy, but with all this prime outdoor real estate around here, it just made sense to go spend a few nights under canvas. We were also excited about spending some quality time with Mr. Henry the dog. So, we went to our friendly neighborhood camping outfitter and geared up! Although we plan to eventually do some real backwoods camping carrying everything on our backs, we decided to try the crawl, walk, run approach, so we are starting with car camping first. Axel picked a campground in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness just East of the Pacific Crest Trail at an altitude of 3400 feet. The Wilderness is located in the Wenatchee National Forest which covers enormous swaths of western Washington State from Oregon to the Canadian border. We packed up Laurie’s Mazda with all our ... read more

Since arriving in Seattle 18 months ago, several people have raved to us about Victoria, British Columbia, telling us about the city’s charm and savoir vivre. So, faced with our impending departure from Seattle for good, we decided that now is our chance. Axel did virtually all the planning with a few guiding principles from Laurie: 1.) Good eats is key. 2.) Fun is important. Friday, 10 July 2009 Leaving on Friday morning, we first took Mr. Henry to his hotel, and then headed North to the town of Anacortes where the ferry terminal is located. The two-hour ferry ride to Sidney, BC took us right through the picturesque San Juan Islands. Victoria is the largest city on Vancouver Island, the largest island on the Pacific coastline of North America. Victoria enjoyed a golden age in ... read more

Today we drove to Dublin, our last stop in the Emerald Isle. As happenstance would have it, Laurie’s younger sister Patty lives in the city where she is studying at Trinity College. We made good time crossing the width of the island on motorways. We made our way straightaway to our hotel, a hip boutique called Dylan located just a few blocks from St. Stephen’s Green. Patty came to find us and took us on a short tour of downtown and Trinity College. Trinity is a world-class university and Ireland’s oldest and most storied, having been founded way back in the 16th century. Ironically, (in a country predominantly Catholic) it was initially an exclusively protestant institution. We visited the College’s splendid museum collection of medieval religious texts which includes the famous Book of Kells, a gorgeous ... read more

Our touring day in the Burren highlighted something that we noticed on our very first day in Ireland: the odd system of road signage. On our first day, we observed Laurie’s favorite sign: Walking on Water. The road signs, though, proved even more intriguing. Other than the fact that many intersections have no signage whatsoever and that many small country roads are not numbered, the signs that are present are wholly inconsistent. No two signs seem to agree on something as basic as the spelling of town names. The town we stayed in while in County Clare was variously spelled as Lahinch and Lehinch on road signs. Similarly, Ballyvaughan is also spelled Ballyvaghan and Carran is spelled Caran. Although Ireland uses the standard European road signage, most road signs also have an English and Gaelic explanation ... read more

Having made the reservations, Axel was excited about the next stop on our Irish adventure: Moy House. It certainly looked very romantic online, but sometimes pictures can be deceiving! The four hour drive from Dingle took us up the West coast of Ireland across the River Shannon into County Clare. Crossing the Shannon required a ferry crossing as Ireland still relies on ferries rather than bridges to cross many of its rivers. Despite the fact that we were at least 20 miles inland, the weather front from the previous day made our crossing a windy one. Since we were the first car onto the ferry, we sat nearest to the bow ramp which meant that waves and spray crashing over the bulwark doused the car on several occasions. The wetness combined with the pitching and shaking ... read more