Weekly Recap: Shoshone (ID)

Our stay in Shoshone started off with quite the cold snap. We had already applied heat tape to our water supply hose, but it turned out to be cold enough that we had to get some more for our wastewater tanks as well.

On Saturday we drove to Craters of the Moon National Preserve. This is an area with a lot of volcanic activity, creating some rock formations that were very reminiscent of our trip to Iceland last year. The Loop Road was already closed for the winter, so we walked it instead. The road is not plowed, and there was about 6 inches of snow built up on it. There was a path packed down from previous walkers, so we didn't break out the snowshoes. We did a 4 mile roundtrip walk down the snowy road and then around the Devil's Orchard.

After our hike we drove to Twin Falls, the larger town about a half an hour from our campsite. We picked up some more supplies as well as take out for the night. We added the extra heat tape to our tanks to keep them liquid in the bitter cold as well. We spent the evening eating Thai and playing Gloomhaven. We finally failed a scenario for the first time, after 33 successes.

Sunday we did a relaxed day around the campsite, watching football and then working out (rowing and running) outside afterwards. We made nachos for our post-workout dinner and they were excellent.

Tuesday we went back into Twin Falls to workout at Planet Fitness and do some groceries. We were originally planning on getting a Costco rotisserie chicken for our Thanksgiving meal, but while we were there we discovered a full turkey dinner package sized for 5-6 people. It had everything on our list to pick up, even including the vegetable we were planning on (green beans). We were very excited with the find and picked it up immediately. It saved us buying a bunch of individual ingredients from the grocery store.

On Thanksgiving itself, we started out with a workout in the morning (running outside and rowing on the erg). After that, we started into our charcuterie board (both from Costco) for lunch and watched football and Bryn's college basketball team. While our turkey dinner trays were cooking in the oven, we played some Jaws of the Lion. On top of the main quest scenario we played, we completed a side quest specific to Shawn's character, which was a neat change from the usual team-focused scenarios. We also unlocked the side quest specific to Bryn's character, so we're looking forward to doing that one the next time we play. The turkey dinner trays came out wonderfully, and took basically no work (just an hour and half in the oven).

 

We love the Costco rotating cheese plates and the new turkey dinner was a SMASH HIT

Using a full day off to get through several Gloomhaven scenarios     

On Black Friday we drove a couple hours away to Boise. We worked out at a Planet Fitness (hitting our monthly cap of 10 visits to non-home locations!), and then got lunch at the Warehouse Food Hall. It was a fun location with a good number of vendor stalls. Bryn got a bao appetizer and a poke bowl. Shawn got a brisket and rib BBQ plate. After lunch we checked out the Idaho State Museum. It's a smaller museum, but well worth the cheap entry ($10). From the museum we stopped into White Dog Brewing. They had a really neat feature on their bar: an ice cold steel rail inlaid across the the whole bar length to keep your drink cold. 

The Boise State Museum (and an exhibit on the first ski chair lift)

After a round, Bryn dropped Shawn off at the Boise airport (he's heading back to New England for a week, before flying back west for a business trip).

Weekly recap: Seattle/Portland (WA/OR)

This week was very focused on work. Bryn visited Boston and New York City for several site surveys. Shawn stayed in Washington, but drove the camper to Kanaskat Palmer State Park so it was about an hour south of Seattle instead of an hour north. Then he took the opportunity to visit his main customer's headquarters in Kent and work in the office for 3 days. 

The Bundra has had a slow leak in one of the tires since Rapid City. Topping off the pressure held up for a couple of days at a time, but Shawn took this opportunity of staying at the same location for a bit to get it addressed more permanently. Discount Tire turns out to do free tire repair! It only took about an hour and 15 minutes from the start of the appointment to get the tire fixed for free. They found a nail in the tire. We definitely recommend them if you have a slow leak.

Getting our nails done, uh, removed

Bryn arrived back in Seattle late Thursday night. Friday we worked in the morning and then packed up to start heading south towards Portland. We were originally going to try to get a hike in at Olympia National Park, but the weather wasn't cooperating. Instead we drove a while south and then stopped for an early dinner at a sports bar so that Bryn could watch Villanova play one of their first basketball games of the season. After dinner we headed further south and boondocked at a Walmart in the vicinity of Mount St Helens. Shawn started to feel a little under the weather this day.

Saturday we planned to see Mt. St Helens and do a short hike, but Shawn was feeling pretty weak, so he mostly just slept in the car. We did still drive up the mountain and get some nice views in. After that, and a quick, much needed shower at Planet Fitness, we hitched back up to the camper and moved it further south again to La Uva Fortuna Farms, which is a winery in southern Washington state that is a Harvest Host (i.e. you can boondock there for free for one night with a Harvest Host membership, under the assumption that you'll visit their business). This was our first Harvest Host stay, so we didn't quite know what to expect. Once the camper was set up, Shawn just slept through the afternoon. Bryn went and had a great time in their bar/restaurant. We highly recommend stopping by if you're in the area. Everyone is so sweet and the food and wine selection is excellent!

We slowly pulled ourselves together Sunday morning and got moving. We never unhitched so it was a pretty simple pack up, made difficult only because Shawn was sick and Bryn had FAR too much wine the night before. We drove south again, to Troutdale, OR, in hopes of getting a free spot at a Love's that allows overnight parking. Unfortunately, we gave up the one free spot to a truck driver in desperate need of sleep and ended up paying for a campsite with full hookups a short drive away. 

While we weren't happy to be paying, it wasn't terrible to have power and water, get a hot shower, and organize a bit. We headed into Portland for the afternoon and stopped at MeKha Grill for pho before continuing on to Powell's City of Books. We were incredibly excited to visit and buy some used books. We both purchased some books that are the next in different series we are reading. Bryn found a 2023 planner she really likes and Shawn also picked up a Christmas gift. An efficient and fun trip!
After Powell's, we headed to Deschutes for some beer and then onto Bamboo Sushi for dinner. Shawn was still sick, so he dropped Bryn off and headed home. Bryn had a delicious dinner followed by some creamy, flavorful ice cream at Salt and Straw. Thank you to La Uva for these recommendations!

Monday, Shawn was still quite sick. We did laundry and showered again, then packed up camp to move. Winds were high so the first bit of our drive was very stressful, but it died eventually and we had an uneventful trip all the way to Nampa, ID. We boondocked once again in a Walmart parking lot and worked a bit the next morning before finishing the drive to our campground by check-in time. 

We are settled in for a long stay (2.5 weeks) in Southern Idaho for the start of winter, which means heat tape for our water hose, anti-freeze in our grey and black tanks, and layering up to save on propane heat. We are excited to explore the area!

Weekly Recap: Burlington/Cascades/Vancouver (WA)

The drive to our campsite north of Seattle was stressful but uneventful. It was rainy and windy, we chose a very unfortunate gas station to refill (it was SO tight to navigate with the trailer), and as we drove to our campsite we realized our Starlink wouldn't work due to the dense tree coverage. We set up the the POURING rain while trying to avoid the massive puddle in the middle of the campsite. 

Once we were able to dry off and warm up, we knew we had to make a game plan for Monday morning. Bryn had an early meeting at 7:30 and we really needed to do laundry. Our campground is pretty remote, since we wanted to be close to the Cascades, so we had a 40 minute drive to get to a café in Burlington with internet. So 6:00 Monday morning we were up getting ready. We found a Starbucks next to a laundromat and arrived in time to set up and eat before our meetings started. We worked and traded laundry duty until lunchtime, then transitioned to a Panera for the afternoon. From there, we headed to Planet Fitness to workout and shower. We were craving something, even though we had already eaten out all day long. We found this fabulous Texas BBQ spot in Sedro-Wooley called Double Barrel which had the best coleslaw and succotash ever. We enjoyed it immensely.

With the massive trees all around our campsite, we needed to spend basically the whole week working outside of the camper to access internet. We didn't want to spend an entire week sitting in Paneras/Starbucks, so we decided to try a library for the first time. The public library in nearby Concrete has free WiFi so we gave it a shot for the afternoon and it worked great. We plan to visit more libraries going forward. After work was the one rain-free evening predicted for the week, so Shawn ran along the nearby rail trail (the best running route in weeks!) and Bryn rowed on her erg.

Wednesday we returned to spend the day working in Burlington and worked out at Planet Fitness afterwards. From there we drive down to Everett to meet up with our friends who moved to Seattle in July. We met up at Crucible Brewing. Bryn and our friends got dinner from the poke food truck that was there for the night and Shawn picked up pho from the restaurant next door. Once again it was great to see friends, and we planned to go for a hike together in Olympia the following week before we head south from Seattle.

Thursday we returned to the library in Concrete. Afterwards Shawn finished the remote D&D session he had started while Bryn was in Denver, and Bryn tried out the Hub, a bar next door. The Hub was, quite surprisingly, a historic site with Washington's longest and oldest mahogany bar top.

On Friday we worked at the Burlington public library, which reinforced our plan to try to mix in more libraries going forward. After we lifted at Planet Fitness again and got dinner at Double Barrel a second time. It was delicious once again!

On Saturday we did a second truck-only trip into Canada. This time we planned to stay overnight instead of just a day trip, so Percy got a massive pile of hay before we left to hold him overnight. We also remotely fed him pellets from his feeder while we were out that night. Super thankful we brought his wireless feeder along! Then we drove up Vancouver, arriving in time for lunch. Our first stop was Granville Island. We walked around for a bit and then got food from a couple of vendors in the Public Market. Afterwards we stopped into Granville Island Brewing for a quick sampling before heading to the Museum of Vancouver. We spent a couple of hours checking out this museum, which covered history of the Vancouver area with sections on the First Nations era, the European settlement era, and up through modern times. It was refreshing seeing a museum with exhibits covering recent history like the 60s.

After the museum we did a drive around Stanley Park, checked into our hotel, showered, and enjoyed a couple of to-go beers we had grabbed at the brewery earlier. Then we started walking towards Rogers Arena and popped into a pub about halfway there. We had dinner and then finished the walk to the arena where we attended a Canucks-Predators hockey game. Despite not caring about the teams, we had a great time and the game came down to the shootout (the Predators won). We did some bar hopping after the game, taking advantage of the fact that neither of us had to DD for once.

 

Sunday we were up early with the time change and got some Tim Hortons to recover (10/10 the BEST hangover cure) then packed up and headed to Jade Dynasty for Dim Sum. The food was incredible, especially the shrimp dumplings.

Shawn dropped Bryn off at Vancouver Airport as she began a week-long trip to Boston and New York for work. Then Shawn sat through 80 minutes of traffic at the border before reuniting with Percy and preparing for the next day.

Weekly Recap: Glacier National Park (MT)

Bryn flew back to Missoula from Denver Sunday. Her first stop was PetSmart because Percy chewed through his soft carrier. Our solution is a hard plastic carrier which, so far, he has been unable to destroy. Shawn was watching football until Bryn landed. We met up and drove north to Columbia Falls, Montana. The drive was beautiful as our route took us along the eastern edge of Flathead Lake. We got to enjoy nice views of the mountains and lake. Our campground was nice, though next to a very busy road. It had the cutest little car and trailer sign to advertise the campground!

It was a pretty quiet week of work. We worked out at the camper (running and lifting the weights we brought) and worked extra each day so we could take off early Friday. Shawn did some errands in Kalispell but otherwise we enjoyed staying put. Wednesday night we went out for dinner in Whitefish, which was a nice childhood throwback for Bryn, who used to ski in Whitefish as a kid. 

 

Friday we left our campground just after noon and drove to Apgar in West Glacier. They allow primitive camping (or dry camping with no hook ups or electricity) for a small fee. We set up quickly, grabbed our snowshoes, and left for Huckleberry Mountain Lookout Trail. We had seen a review on AllTrails about too much snow at about 4 miles into the trail and we thought it would be the perfect time to try out the snowshoes we purchased right before we left. What fun! There was just enough snow to test out our new gear for a bit and we had so much fun! Friday night we had planned on playing Gloomhaven, but unfortunately forgot to take it out of its storage spot which is blocked when the slide out is in. So instead we ate and snuggled up for Star Trek. No complaints!

Saturday we slept in and did a short but scenic hike along the west Shore of Lake McDonald then hopped in the car and drove to Polebridge, a very small 'town' in the northwest of the park. We took some pictures, got cookies and hot chocolate, then headed back to the camper. 

We broke camp and were on the road shortly before 3 pm MDT. Our plan was to drive as far west as possible so that our drive to our campground Sunday wouldn't be too burdensome. We were boondocking Saturday night anyway, so it wouldn't be a big deal to just park and immediately go to bed.

Well, what an adventure we ended up having! Between realizing we'd gain an hour of time via crossing into PST, a stressful, winding drive through a mountain pass in northern Idaho, and itching to do something for Halloween, we decided to go party after we parked. Our first plan was Spokane, but our target Walmart there no longer allows over night parking. So we pushed ahead and ended up in Moses Lake around 9:30 PST. We parked, leveled the camper, and off we went to Ten Pin Brewery/Casino/Bowling Alley. What a night! We donned some simple Halloween outfits and had a few drinks and a shot at the bar before deciding to bowl a few rounds. Shawn won, but it was very close every time. Bryn tried to chase him down at the end with a Turkey! It was an exciting end to the night. 

We awoke Sunday crusty-eyed and hungover, with dead phones and quite a few hours of driving ahead of us. No regrets! Bryn went across the street to get some Starbucks to fuel our first leg while Shawn prepped for leaving. 

Sunday concluded with a rainy, windy drive through a mountain pass and a SOAKED set up. We realized when we arrived at our campground that we wouldn't be able to use Starlink because of the tree coverage so we cleaned the trailer and packed up our laundry and work stuff. Monday morning we got up early to get to a Starbucks in Burlington, where we knew we could comfortable work for the morning. 

Thus kicked off a week of very damp, quintessentially PNW weather just as we arrived to Seattle.