PNW Bucket List

I never really saw myself living in the Pacific Northwest.  I was born in California, raised in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, then university in Virginia.  The PNW was kind of "off my radar" and never really crossed my mind.  Now that we live here, I can't believe I never was adamant about visiting the area.  There are so many things we want to explore!  It's such an amazing part of the country with lots to do and beauty to see.  Most of these places I had never heard of before moving here, but now, I have a new appreciation.  Take, for example, the Oregon coast.  It is a completely different beach experience than the Outer Banks, North Carolina.  In July and August, you may find yourself wearing a fleece and eating s'mores by a fire on the beach in Oregon, definitely not putting more than your toes in the water (if you're like me).  At the same time in the Outer Banks, you are laying out with a little bathing suit in the heat of the day, diving in the ocean throughout the day, and still hot outside by 6pm.  I used to look at ads with people wearing cute sweaters on the beach in summer wondering, "where are these people...clearly not in North Carolina!"  Both are beautiful and fun, just so different.

(Mount Hood)

(Leavenworth, WA)

Camping at Clear Lake

Back in September, just after Maddie's birthday, we tried our hands at camping again.  We thought about going closer to home or closer to Mt. Hood or even in the Columbia River Gorge, but with it being last minute, many campsites were full.  We found this one on the map and decided to try it out.


This camping trip wasn't nearly as great as our first in Bend.  First off, it was much colder than we expected, especially at the campsite.  I think I've mentioned this before, but in Oregon, even in the warm sunny months, there can be a stark difference between standing in the sun versus standing in a shaded tree area.

Mt. Hood

Second of all, we got there before lunch and wanted to hike around Clear Lake after eating.  It's not much of a lake and you can't even get near the water's edge because of the thick layer of mud and muck.

So we had a bit of hang out time at the campsite, which was more primitive than the other.  No playground, no flush toilets or sinks, and the running water was not very clean to be washing our dishes.

Oh, and we forgot matches!  Luckily, the campsite director had some for us to use (but I felt like an idiot asking for some).

One positive: we brought the hammock.  At least one kid was on it almost the whole time.

We didn't many warm clothes, so we stopped at the Dollar Store for hats.  Geez, we need some practice :-)

And then we drove home on Sunday to warm sunny weather.  We laughed to ourselves because the kids probably would've been just as happy staying at home...plus it would've been 10x easier for us.  My heart screams, "but the memories"!  Then when the kids don't sleep great, it's cold, and the campsite isn't that great, my mind screams, "let's just go back home and enjoy the next couple weeks of sun before rain sets in for the next 8 months."  (...?...maybe the joke is on us...)

Angel's Rest Hike

The Columbia River Gorge ("the Gorge" around these parts) is a short drive from our house.  It's full of hikes with lots of beautiful waterfalls.  We've hiked at the most well known waterfall, Multnomah Falls, as well as Latourell Falls, and even a hike with falls at Mitchell Point.  Recently, we did my new favorite hike in the gorge: Angel's Rest.

The trail is 2.4 miles to the top passing two waterfalls, over a bridge, and the most amazing views at the top.  Maddie was such a big girl.  She basically ran the trail for the first 1.5 miles playing the chasing game.  Every time Daddy and Matt got near, she turned and ran further...until she got worn out and asked to be carried.  

Our good friend, Matt, was in town for the weekend.  He moved to Bend and we miss him.

The top is a huge bluff with 270 degree views.  It's a pretty scary drop so we didn't let the kids roam without holding our hands or being carried.  It was pretty crowded.  Lots of people were eating and hanging out at the top.

Not poop or dirt on his hands...chocolate! :-)

Weekend with Uncle Brad

(SIDENOTE: I'm sorry for the lack of blogging for you sweet readers out there who are still there!  I have all these pictures and posts lined up as I try to play catch up--from so long ago--of our last few months in Switzerland up til now.  Just stick with me while I take you back...)

In late September, Uncle Brad came all the way from the Washington D.C. area to visit us in Bulach (for the second time!).  Maddie was so excited to see him.  He came for a long weekend.  Carter warmed up to him once he was almost ready to leave, unfortunately.  But that's the difference between Maddie and Carter at this moment in time :-)

His visit landed perfectly with the alpabfahrt in different mountain towns of Switzerland.  This is a traditional "cow parade" when the farmers bring the cows back down the mountain to the lower pastures for the colder months in Autumn/Winter/Spring.  Then again in late Spring, the cows will go back up to the mountain pastures for grazing in the Summer.

We could not leave Switzerland without experiencing one of the cow parades.  We decided to go to a little town in central Switzerland called Kerns, just about an hour away from Bulach.  It was pretty neat to spend our 7 year anniversary at a cow parade in a teeny picturesque town in the middle of Switzerland.

It was so cool!!!!! Each farmer paraded the cows around the main block in the tiny Swiss town.  The bigger the bell, the better producer the cow.  Seriously, I'm so glad we were able to go see this.

It's always nice being "off the hook" with carrying a little one!

We really wanted to take him on a hike to this place right near Kerns.  We read about it and it looked really fun.  So we decided to chance the weather...

That's the only picture I got because we were literally hiking in the clouds the whole time.  Oh well.  Apparently we missed the good weather by a couple hours.  We got there after lunch and they said it was nice all morning.

The next day, we hung around Bulach, hiked up the hill in town to the overlook where you can view the alps, and grilled out.  It was a beautiful day to be outside.  It's funny that the kids are so easily pleased while us grown ups are bummed so easily.  They were happy as clams just hanging close to home and building a fire.  We were not as pleased because we wanted to be up in the mountains again, but one big drive per weekend is about the limit for them.  It's a little much to drive 1+ hours two days in a row.  Now that I'm sounding all negative, here are some pictures of our fun, relaxing day in Bulach with Uncle Brad.

He got plenty of time playing with Maddie-reading books, doing arts and crafts, and wrestling.  So cute.

Weekend trip: Austria

This post is from one of our last weekend trips in Switzerland.  When we found out that it would be our last couple months there, we made plans to visit Austria for a weekend.  I just had to get it on the blog (even if months later).

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We drove to St Anton am Arlberg because we had heard that it's a great skiing area with tons of mountains.  It was beautiful October weather in small towns along this valley and mountains on all sides.  

It was perfect autumn weather.  We had planned on exploring and hiking up cable cars to the higher elevations.  Unfortunately, we didn't know that the mountain lifts are closed in between the summer and winter seasons.   Oh well!  

We found a nice little apartment in one of the teeny towns a couple minutes from St Anton am Arlberg.  We took walks around the apartment and right up the side of the mountain on a famous trail.  We went to an amazing bakery.  We even found a forest road that went quite a ways up the mountain.  Then we parked at one of the lift stops and hiked up to get an amazing view of the mountain.

On the way home, we stopped at another little mountain town closer to Switzerland but still in Austria.  It advertised as having an open lift that went to a nice mountain top restaurant and play area.  We had our hopes up to take the cable car up and got there to see that it was closed.  Huge bummer.  So we found the forest road and took it as far as we could (before some construction).  Then we strapped the kids in the backpacks (with very limited snacks and water---bad idea).  We ended up hiking to the top which took a couple hours and we found the (closed) restaurant and play area.  The kids did great.  It was one of those, "should we keep going?  or should we just turn around? how far do you think it is?" hikes.   Luckily there was only one major meltdown from our sweet girl.

This picture is deceiving...I carried her most of the way.  

Oh my gosh, his hair looks so....euro here.  Get that kid a haircut stat!

It was a long, tiring hike.  My sweet husband also took the lead on some very steep shortcuts which helped with time but had us carrying both kids most of the way.

We ended the trip on a good note: stuffing ourselves with McDonalds afterwards.  It was so beautiful!  One friend jokingly (but half serious) said that Austria is Switzerland but cheaper.  It's on my list of places to go back to but hopefully during the winter so we can ski down some of those amazing mountains.