Blogs from Skagit Valley, Washington, United States, North America

After I took a last swim in Skagit Bay, we finished loading the Tesla, and started off on our EV road trip! (My plan is to swim every day on this trip....) The trip to Portland was uneventful. It's a generally boring drive, with often bad traffic, but this time at least the traffic wasn't too bad. This part of the trip gave us a chance to figure out more about the navigation system, and we were able to add multiple stops in the correct order! We stopped to charge up in Kelso and arrived at Bill's cousin John's place in the late afternoon. He lives in a beautiful Portland suburb, in a house full of Japanese artifacts he's collected over the years. He previously taught in Japan, in an English immersion program. We had a ... read more

Unsere erste Station im Nordwesten der USA sind die North Cascades - ein Teil der Rockies, der etwas schroffere Berge als in anderen Teilen zu bieten hat. Mit dem Wohnmobil, das sich teilweise etwas wie ein Schiff fährt, ist das Fahren manchmal gewöhnungsbedürftig, insbesondere, wenn man geschotterte Wellblechpisten fährt; das Geschirr tanzt dann für uns Samba. Und heute ist im Schrank irgendwas aus dem Fach rausgehüpft und hat sich so verkeilt, dass wir den Schrank nicht mehr aufkriegen; mal sehen, wann wir einen Weg finden, wieder an unsere Lebensmittel zu gelangen :{ Die erste Tour hat uns auf einen Pass und weiter zu einem Sattel mit Blick auf einen hübschen Gebirgssee geführt; eine nette Einstiegstour, bei der uns fette Murmeltiere, lustige Chipmunks und niedliche Pikas begegnet sind. Ausserdem hatten wir tolle Ausblicke auf kleine, aber steile ... read more

Happy New Year to you all.....wishing you peace, health and joy in the coming months! In sitting down to write this year's new year greeting, I find myself tired of the "what a wonderful life we've lived this past year" format. While that is true, and we do truly love our life here on Skagit Bay, you've already heard enough about our kayaking, biking, hiking, gardening... Our sons are doing well, and our grandson is exceptional, of course. We are both actively volunteering (Bill is with Hospice now); we sleep late, eat well, read newspapers daily, watch Stewart/Colbert/Maher/Louie C.K. most evenings and frequently feed our House Hunters International addiction as well. Bill would like to watch many more movies on our big screen, but Lynn is always reluctant to commit.... Our travels have been documented here ... read more

We are heading off to Japan on Sunday...the second trip for me and the 6th for Bill. We will be staying with my brother Matt. Our last trip there was in 2002, before I started blogging, so I have only memories as reference. It was one the most fun trips we've taken. Japan takes silliness seriously, from clothes to fads to TV game shows. Everyone we met was so very helpful. One man actually walked us from one train to another (far out of his way) to make sure we got on the correct train line. Work and school hours are long, streets are packed at 11:30 pm, trains are crowded and no weekend culture is part of the tradition, but there is much energy everywhere. Can't wait to get back! We hope to visit Nikko ... read more

Hello Everyone, We are off to Italy in a week...it will be a real change for us and a return to the travels of our youth. After having spent all of our travel time recently (except for the trip to Canada) in Hispanic (or in Lynn's case, Kenyan) cultures, this will be a different sort of trip. Of course, with the heavy Italian influence in Argentina, we have built in a bit of a segue.... Please unsubscribe if you are not interested! Here are few recent photos...... read more