Orcas Island

At Mount Constitution looking out to Mt. Baker

Hi Blog Followers! This is Liv (aka Girl). This post is about Orcas Island. I hope you like it!

I’m at Orcas Island! We have rented a house. On the way here we got on a ferry (well, two ferries!) and I tried to spot whales but we didn’t see any. It was a short drive to the house after the ferry rides and I got to go with my Grandma Mia, her friend Marla, and my mom’s brother, Mac. My mom and dad road with Stella in the truck. When we got to the house, the view was really pretty. My dad had a good idea. He got out our binoculars and put them on the table outside so we could look for whales in the ocean from our deck.

Biking is hard on this island because this island has a lot of mountains. We even had to walk our bikes down a hill because it was so steep. We road our bikes around town and we took a path to a little, mini airport. We didn’t know we were going there, it was a surprise! We got to see a little plane take off.

Hiking is the best!

Hiking is beautiful on this island. We hiked down to a waterfall. It was steep to the waterfall and then we climbed back up and went on with our hike. Then we saw a few more waterfalls that were amazing. There were little swimming holes at the bottom of each waterfall and the pools looked clear with a hint of teal. After the hike we went on a little walk up to a big, tall rock tower. I got to climb stairs to the top of the tower and saw a beautiful view of the ocean. The boats looked so small in the water that surrounds the island. I waved down to my dad, Mia, Marla and Mac. I said “you all look so small”!

On Saturday we went to a Farmer’s Market. I got my face painted like a pink and turquoise beautiful, shimmery butterfly. And then we looked around at some very beautiful jewelry. I heard a girl, her brother and big sister play violin solos. I got to give her a dollar because her solo was amazing.

Orcas Island is awesome because you can see the ocean view and everyone is kind, sweet and nice. I wish everyone could visit Orcas Island. It was a treat to go to the island and visit with my family that came out to spend time with us on our road trip.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Sequim Bay

Hi Guys! It’s Liv (aka Girl). This post is about Sequim Bay. I hope you like it!

Sequim Bay (pronounced Squim) is amazing. There are many opportunities to hike, bike, boat and be outdoors. Our camp site was really close to the bay. So when I got to take Stella on walks I took her down to the bay. I was looking at the ocean with binoculars and saw an otter. One morning I woke up really late and my dad told me that an otter was teasing him. I told him I wasn’t surprised because otters are funny.

I went on a hike and it was so beautiful. When we got back from the hike we went to the river. There was a really good swimming hole. The water was the prettiest color teal and I liked that I could cross all of the river rocks. My mom did something amazing. She built this tall rock pyramid. She put tiny rock stacks on the rock pyramid. It looked like a rock castle!

After the hike we went biking on the Olympic Discovery Trail. There were many different color leaves on the trail and we could peek at the bay through the trees. At one point we got to get off our bikes and pick blackberries. Everyone of them were a different flavor. They were the best blackberries ever! I felt like a black bear grabbing blackberries and stuffing them in my mouth. It was so delicious. When we finally stopped eating blackberries we kept on riding. After a few minutes down the path we saw some people picking blackberries and putting them in a bucket. It was a great idea!

Not everyone can visit Sequim but if you go to Washington go to Sequim Bay!

 

The Redwoods by Liv

Big Tree, it was a REALLY big tree

The Redwoods are massive and people spend a lot of time looking up. Even my dad ran into a Redwood because he was looking up! So here is my Redwoods post I hope you like it!

Hiking in the Redwoods is the best thing ever! The Redwoods are where I want to live! Like I could live in a Redwood tree, they make me feel like an ant. The 5 days I was there were the best 5 days of my life! All I could say was WOW! Every once in a while there would be benches on the trails made out of Redwood and they had plaques with peoples names, I sat on some of them.

I felt like an ant

Me sitting on one of the benches

I could live here!

Hiking with my dog, Stella

I biked a lot of loops around the campgrounds and campsite 7 was amazing. It had a huge log you could go under. It was the only site that had a log you could go under, but it was a small site. The table and bear bin were really close to each other. Our site 109 was the BEST and 7 might have been the next best.

Everywhere you turn there’s clovers. It’s clover/banana slug heaven. I got to hold banana slugs and they are slimy. I got slime all over hands and wiped it on my shirt and it took a long time to get clean but the slime was still kind of there.

Me with one of the Banana Slugs

Hugging a Redwood

The Redwoods are a place everyone should go. Thanks for reading my post,

Liv

AWE, The Redwoods!

No words.

The Redwoods have always been awe-inspiring to me. It is truly one of my favorite places on Earth. I always remember some of my first big camping trips when I was kid at Jedediah Smith State Park among the ancient giants. I felt such pure happiness and excitement to be able to share the experience and grandeur of these trees with Gal, Girl and Dog. Hearing Girl tell me “The Redwoods are the coolest things ever” and “this is one of my favorite places” makes me one proud Guy. The time spent in the presence of these trees, hiking with my family down fairy tale like paths, dropping beats with our sporks while free-styling awful lyrics and rhymes around our nightly fires (Girl’s idea and it was a blast), biking loops around our Mill Creek campground and relaxing on massive old growth stumps catching rays of Redwood filtered light into our campsite was a magical time that we will reminisce about for years to come.

Always hard to capture the scale of these living giants, but we think this kind of shows it!

We camped in Del Norte State Park at the aforementioned Mill Creek campground. Jedediah Smith was totally booked, but I was pleasantly surprised by Mill Creek. The forest was mostly second generation growth, but there were definitely some spectacular old growth trees. The stumps of the ancients around the campground with the giant ferns and Sitka Spruces really made us feel like we were in the land of dinosaurs. The campsites here were awesome, there were many really private sites but we were able to land the best of them all. We got site 109, which is typically used and reserved for research scientists. We had more room than we knew what to do with under a canopy of trees that were as giant as any other ancient grove.

 

The sweetest of sites

Fun hike off the beaten path

I’m pretty sure I drove Gal and Girl crazy by constantly pointing and saying “Wow, look at that tree” on our incredible hiking adventures, my neck is still sore from all that looking up. I have Redwood bark stained t-shirts and shorts from hugging as many giants as could. Until next time Redwoods! We have been diverted a bit on our adventure due to some crazy West Coast wildfires. We were planning on a few nights near Ashland, OR and on towards Mt. Hood. We ended up staying an extra night in our special Redwoods spot and went to Portland to visit Gals sister and Girls awesome aunt Moya and some childhood friends of Guys. Thanks for the hospitality Mark and Margarita, so fun to see great old friends and family!

Rainy day at the beach in Crescent City didn’t stop us from having one of many beach days after hiking!