DAY 153 : December 7/22 Wednesday. Tulalip, WA to East Vancouver, BC --- home stretch!!!! xoxox

 

Good morning from Cabela's Parking Lot!!!  

We slept until 6:30am... Ollie came down from the bunk and snuggled us, and then I went and climbed into the dinette and snuggled with Amelia for a bit. 

Made eggs and coffee for breakfast. Kids were eager for Cabela's to open at 9am. We were knocking on the door basically, lol. Kiddos found a giant fish pillow to show the fish in the big tank. They also had a pretend fight with some plastic guns in the children's section. Cabela's kids section is a whole strange realm of hunting and fishing "toys"... 

We left Cabela's parking lot around 10:15am and made a quick diesel stop in Tulalip, then pulled over at the Smoke Point rest stop to dump the sani. 

Saw a flock of swans at the side of the road along the highway, and further along a flock of snow geese, and a few herons. Pretty neat. 

By 12noon we were at the BORDER!! There was zero wait times and we were able to drive right up. What a fabulous feeling to be back in Canada and to see that "Welcome to British Columbia, The Best Place on Earth!" 

Got home to Marshall Street by 1pm. We had not given anyone a heads up on our timing and arrival home as we wanted to just ease into it gently with not too much fanfare. Our house was lovely and clean and welcoming and there was snow on the ground!! Real winter! 

What an epic journey and adventure. Memories to last a lifetime. 

I'm sure that in a matter of weeks we will feel like we never went anywhere!

But oh, what a fantastic trip. 

DAY 152 : December 6/22 Tuesday. Roseburg, OR to Tulalip, Washington - almost home!!

Alarm went off at 7:30am... we actually slept!!! yahoo! Aimed for a quick departure so it was an easy breakfast and pack up. Jonathan noticed some pretty big damage on the rear bumper of the rig :( We have no idea how it happened, but the grey part of the bumper skirt is all cracked up.  Left the site at 8am and filled the rig with water and dumped the sani.  We were leaving the fairgrounds/campground at 8:25am and headed for our surprise for the kiddos - TOREX ATV RENTALS! It was a beautiful blue bird day... cool but so sunny and nice. 

10:15am we were at the Dunes!!  It was super quiet at Torex Rentals... went over all the rules and the map of the dunes and where to stay within bounds to be safe. We were kitted out with all the safety gear (we dressed in our winter gear including waterproof pants for the wind, and ski gloves! Full face helmets and goggles all sized, we were ready to rip! Because Amelia was little, we were switched over to a different ATV than the one we requested because her feet had to be able to touch the floorboards. Jonathan was a little disappointed but the guy assured him we'd still be able to shred in the new one. We met the "shop dog", Stunner --- sweet old collie who was 16 years old!!!

 

We had SO much fun! They escorted us through the track in the woods to the dunes entrance, took our photo and let us go explore. Daddy was VERY excited and got a little eensie bit carried away for a few moments as he ripped up and down some steep hills and attempted some donuts! Kids were mildly terrified for a few minutes until I reminded him that we had two little newbies in the back seat who were speechless and hanging on for dear life!` Oops!  We had the dunes literally all to ourselves for the entire hour 11:30-12:30pm.  We were thankful for our warm clothes as it was 4 celsius out there!! crisp and clear and sunny and beautiful. 

 

After our dunes adventuring, we returned the ATV and gear and climbed into the rig for a cup of tea to warm up! Left Torex around 1pm and had a quick stop in Florence, Oregon at the post office to mail a few last postcards. Hit up the Taco Bell, and then drove across to Eugene to connect back onto the I-5. 

At 4:30pm we stopped for diesel in Woodburn, Oregon. Went to the Safeway to see if they had any infant Tylenol or  Motrin to bring back for neighbourhood babies as we'd heard there was a shortage back home still for cough/cold and fever medications for children. 

I have a note here that Amelia and Ollie were arguing... I've no idea now what that was about, but realizing that being so close to home was bringing on lots of big feelings, I'm sure it was all warranted. 

We set Amelia up with a movie on a phone and Oliver was to finally complete an email to his class that had been lingering forever. 

By 5:30pm we were in Portland and determined to keep pushing ahead to get as close to the border as we could tonight. At 7pm we pulled over in a McDonald's parking lot to make dinner in Wapavine (sp?) and 40 min later we were on the road again....

9:30pm we drove through Seattle! pretty lights in the city and a cool holiday light display on the baseball stadium.

By 10pm we were in Tulalip, WA and drove through the Casino parking lot to admire the gorgeous holiday light display. So stunning! Kids were tired and not super jazzed about it all. We parked at the Cabela's Outdoor store "rv friendly" parking. Amelia slept on the dinette for the night to avoid further aggravations between her and Oliver.  Both were exhausted, but also excited about going into Cabela's in the morning, haha.

Big day of driving!!!! 785km today. Whew!!!!!

DAY 151 : December 5/22 Monday. Moonbeam Farm Corning, CA to Roseburg, Oregon

 After a chilly night of waking up and putting more blankets and towel layers on Amelia, I woke up at 6am. Amelia was on the floor of the rig still in her "punishment bed" of her own making. She was cold and crawled out from the layers to snuggle in the back bed with me and Jonathan. 

Eventually I got up and made some coffee and then climbed up to the bunk to snuggle with Oliver for awhile. After some nice snuggles, I made more coffee and cocoas for the kiddos and we checked google maps and apparently there was a big rig crash at 5am on the I-5 causing a full closure just north of Redding... this adds a 1 hour detour on our trip north.  It's icy out there with trucks and rigs spinning out on the ice. Yikes.

It's 9c outside! brrrrrrrr. Cloudy but crisp. Amelia and I went outside to look more closely at the lavender and loofah fields. Super fascinating about all the different kinds of lavender, and how the loofahs grow on the vines. 

By 9:20 we were on the road again headed for the I-5 and as far as it would take us. At 127070km on the odometer, we took exit 680 to the CA-299 Lake Boulevard and on to Hwy 89 as our 1 hour + detour involving a mountain pass.  

By 10:15am the temperature outside was 8celsius and it was raining. We watched the temperature drop as we drover further along Hwy 299 around Mt. Shasta Forest. It was now 6.5c!

At 10:55am the temperature was 4c and literally colder each minute we drove as we climbed the mountain pass. We were now seeing vehicles coming towards us with snow on them. Lots of snow!

11am it was 3.5c outside and there was snow on the roadsides at Hillcrest.  Another 5minutes and it was 2.5c out. 

At 11:30am we took a left at Four Corners onto Hwy 89... Snow everywhere but a little rainy. We were headed for another pass, and saw signage for big rigs to put chains on. We drove a very narrow pass with tall trees on either side with big dollops of wet melting snow falling off them. By Noon we reached Dead Horse Summit at 4489ft above sea level!!   It was zero degrees out... we pulled off the side of the road down a small snowy  road for a much needed play in the snow as moods were dull. 

I was super pumped to drag out the snow gear I'd packed under the back bed and not used (except coats and hats in Shenandoah briefly). I got out winter coats, toques, ski mitts .... Ollie finally used his welly boots. Yay!

 

 

Jonathan made snacks while I built snowmen and tried to coax smiles out of the kiddos - success! We made a fabulous snowperson and also got some smiles. Daddy came out and threw some snowballs and totally demolished the side of our snowman's head, lol. oops. 

Around 12:30pm we were back on the road again as we had a lot of driving ahead of us. We carried on through Shasta Trinity National Park and Forest... our sensor on the gas tank was telling us we needed to refuel soon. 

Feeling a little vulnerable about the diesel situation, we pulled into the Valero Station in McCloud around 1pm and they had diesel! whew!!! $5.639 USD/gallon. 

At 1:25pm we were merging back onto the I-5 finally after our big detour... and started a movie on the phone for the kids. 

At 1:50pm we saw the sign, "Leaving Shasta Trinity National Forest"... and there was no more snow. 

2:30pm we saw the Welcome to Oregon sign!  Getting closer!!!  We drove another pretty high pass with snow and 2c temperatures (Grant's Pass, I think).  We looked up the Medford KOA for $49/night, or the Harvest Host option of the Gather and Feast Farm 3.5hour from Torex, along with Paradise Point State Park 3 hours away.   Not sure of what to do and none of these options seemed perfect.

By 4:30pm we arrived in Roseburg, Oregon and drove to the Fairgrounds RV Park. This was just what we needed. $28 a night in a quiet little RV park just outside of the town. We made a quick beans and rice dinner to stave off the hangries and around 6:20pm we decided to go into town for a grocery shop.

We shopped at the local Safeway and in the milk and yogurt department we encountered an older lady in a sassy outfit and she was dancing to the grocery store music. Very fun. Made us smile. Ollie did something funny (I can no longer remember what exactly) and she said to him, "you go girl!!!"  :)

We stopped at Love's Diesel - a huge big rig place and the kids went into the store to look around with Jonathan. Bought some gummy worms. 

We then decided to go to Carlo's Mexican Restaurant and had a delicious apres dinner snack and some very large and delicious margaritas!  The place was pretty authentic, our little mural'd booth was cozy and fun, and the food was yummy. Our server was quite serious. Kids loved the deep fried churros and ice cream the best. 

 

 

8:30pm we were back at our campsite after our long day on the road. Bellies full of yummy food and drinks and 127663km on the rig. 

We put Empire Strikes Back on the laptop and tucked in to watch half of it before bed... I think Jonathan and I both fell asleep through most of it.