Day 7 A Caldera of Awesomeness Today we woke to more rain and clouds – so no dune buggies. I think Shelby was more disappointed than Stephen. Weather reports promise partly cloudy skies with lots of sunshine so we head out to Crater Lake. We take the scenic highway - of course trying to see as much as we can. Scenic highways are really curvy highways. They are slow highways and they are yawn a thousand times highways. They are the longer highways. They are the twist and turn highways. They are the up and down highways. But by the end they are truly the exceptional vista highways. Today’s scenic highways did not disappoint. The first followed 2 rivers through gorges with numerous rapids. The ro... read more

Day 5 Diversified Diversified – ‘being composed of different elements’. I cannot think of a better way to describe the Olympic National Park. In one day we traveled from the mountains, to the city, to the lake, to the beach, to the rain forest, to more beaches and beyond. There are not many places in the world where you can see so many different elements or ecosystems in one small area. Diversified – yes that is a good description. Today began early for me, as all the other days have – around 4am. I just cannot seem to sleep past 4 regardless of how tired I feel. I guess I am still not accustomed to the Pacific Time zone (or I miss my own bed and pillow). After getting everyone else up (yes, I let them ... read more

Day 3 Today began with clear skies and long roads. After breakfast we packed our luggage and checked out of the hotel heading north to Sequim. As we get on the interstate we spot Mt Rainier – the mountain we could not see the day before due to weather. We could tell that today would be a great day on the mountain since the skies are so much clearer and briefly debate going to back to Mt Rainier before heading towards Olympic. But decide that an extra 5 hours in the car would not be the wisest decision, so we take a picture of the famous mountain (from the car window) and pursue with our original plan, taking the scenic route, but Garmin did not like it. “Recalculating” - GPSs – you love them and hate ... read more

Day 1 The family is off on another summer tour. This time we are on our way to the Pacific Coast, visiting Washington, Oregon and California. The first day was filled with airports and time changes. First stop – the Atlanta Airport. We arrive at the ATL about 3 hours before our scheduled flight time (Donald likes to be extra early). We check our bags and get through security with no issues – it was actually fast, which I found surprising since it is a holiday weekend. We board our plane and take off. Donald immediately starts to feel ill – he does not do well on flights. But the plane soon levels off and he is fine. The descent down was even harder on Donald (he kept humming ‘blue courtesy bag to the tune of ... read more