CHAPTER 12: Olympia, Vancouver, and the other Portland

May 8, 2018

From Seattle, we drove around the Olympic Peninsula and entered the Olympic National Park. It’s a magical place where everything is growing, we’ve never seen a place that is so alive before! The huge trees you see in the photos are Douglas Fir, Sitka Spruce, or Western Hemlock, some of which are over 200 ft. tall!

Still wintertime here in the Olympic National Forest.

The last in a series of three tunnels up to the lodge

The Ho Rain Forest. Crazy amounts of airy moss

Holy Moss! We learned that this type of moss absorbs it’s nutrients from particles in the air.

Made it to the Pacific!

Camp fish stew with fish from pikes market we got earlier in the day...it was actually pretty good if I do say so myself.

I just climbed down that rickety staircase to the right.

Made it to Vancouver! Anj has set up his office because he has some work to do...

It was a great visit with Aunt Beth, and Portland is such a beautiful place this time of year.

Some kind of rebar sculpture over the highway.

Don training Lexi in search and rescue. I came along to be rescued at one point. Lexi did great!

We did a driving exploration of the city then drove up to the mansions on the hill (see the architecture page). Most of the houses had this view of Mount Hood looming over the city of Portland. There were houses built on stilts due to the steepness of the hillside.

Since I can’t ski anymore we opted for a cocktail at the base of Mount Hood Timberline Lodge - a National Historic Landmark from 1937

Inside the fortress was pretty impressive

So much snow! Would love to come back to ski. Check out how tall the poles are for snow plowing in the winter!

Packing the car back up is always a process. We packed a lot of stuff!

Found a sweet motel with character for the night since it was raining and I didn't want to camp in the rain with a broken leg 😟

While near Astoria, it only seemed right to watch The Goonies on VHS, in the area it was filmed, while feasting on pizza and wedding champagne. Living large on a budget!

Chapter 11: Seattle & Olympia

April 30, 2018

From Idaho, we scooted over to Seattle and stayed the night downtown. The next morning we woke early and visited Pike’s Place! Yum!!

Fish and Chips, Salmon and Tuna style. Tasted better than it looks.

Monk Fish

King Crab legs!

Rub the pig’s nose for good luck!

Piroshky Piroshky! A famous Russian style pastry shop.

Seattle public library

The wharf

Chapter 10: road trip to WA

April 30, 2018

and we are back on the road! We are lucky to have good friends in cool places. We stayed in SLC with Clean Money West who gave us great recommendations for places to see as we head onwards to the west coast. We then mosied up to Hailey, Idaho where we stayed with childhood friends of mine from hilltop Montessori, Kelsey and Uri. We visited Ketchum and Sun Valley which is a neat ski town area. We also got a private tour of a famous writer’s final home (we’re not supposed to advertise this on social media - so guess who from our picture). Very cool! Good times and good food with great people!

Anj needed meat!

Craters of the Moon, Idaho

Driving I-70 in western CO

Sybil elevating after a long stretch of driving, need to avoid those blood clots!

Camping on the Salmon River in Idaho.

Sybil prepping our supper

Chapter 9: Colorado Part II

April 25, 2018

Two weeks, 1 day, 20 hours and counting with a broken leg. I have been "croutching" (crutching and couching) for all of it.

Luckily, we have been comfortable and able to extend our time with our family and visit old friends.

Andrzej has been able to get some work done for B&McD, participate in person in his class, attend the IEEE conference in Denver and go on a walking tour of NREL (the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO).

While being back in Colorado has been great, we are itching to continue our trip. We're making moves to head west to visit our family out there. Next stop, Vancouver, WA. We're planning on stopping in Sun Valley on the way to see a really old friend of mine from grade school. Perhaps we will make another pit stop in SLC on our way.

While things aren't going exactly as we had hoped (we had hoped to be skiing, hiking and biking more), we hadn't actually made any firm plans. We are working on our "going with the flow" skills and taking things as they come. Our family and friends have all been super supportive and flexible with us as we try to figure out our plans in 2-3 day increments.

Chapters 6, 7 & 8 - Ridgway, Easter, Big Sky

April 14, 2018

Two weeks have passed and quite a few things have happened. A recap: We spent time with Andrzej's sister Agnes' family in Ridgway; We went back to Denver for Easter with Andrzej's brother, Adam and his family; We went to Big Sky, Montana for a recently planned rendezvous with our friend's from back east (which is also where I broke my leg); Not discouraged by this unfortunate event, we continued onward to Yellowstone National Park where we saw lots of wildlife as well as the Mammoth Hot Springs; We made it back to Denver to figure out what is going on with my leg; Now we are back in Winter Park, where Anj is riding with our friends who also happen to be some of his Portland co-workers, and I am camping out at our friends' flat catching up on our blog.

Chapter 6:

For several days got to experience how life in Ridgeway feels and see our niece and nephew grow before our very eyes. Ridgway is very much a laid back western community with lots of outdoor activities such as ice climbing, mountain biking, skiing, hot springs, etc... It is also growing fast. I saw a lot of “modern western” styled houses where there hadn't hadn't been anything 5 years ago. We went back to Denver for Easter where we attended a full evening Polish Mass just to go and get our food blessed. 2.5 hours !!! (in Polish) Need I say more?

In Judaism, we sell "pre-blessed" food in the grocery store!

There was an easter egg hunt that Adam, Tanya and their girls participated in while we watched. We had lots of fun eating candy and playing in the park afterward.

Chapter 7:

We then continued our adventure with a trip up to Big Sky, Montana. We stopped for a night on the way in West Yellowstone. It is a cute little western town on the, you guessed it, west side of Yellowstone National Park. Our lodging was at quite an interesting place. It was completely full of taxidermy. They said they had animals in there that were over 50 years old. The animals were huge - which gave me some trepidation about wandering around Yellowstone Park on ski trails. It was still cool nonetheless to see these animals up close.

The Stage Coach Inn, West Yellowstone, MT

Following our evening at the Stage Coach Inn we headed on up to Big Sky.

Oh Big Sky....you were amazing!

Let's just say it has some of the most incredible ski terrain I have ever seen and been able to access. It is HUGE! We had a great time skiing with our friends for the weekend and watching the Sam Adams Freestyle ski event.

UNTIL... I fractured my leg, on the last day, on the "last run" (yes, I stupidly called it) after everyone had already left.

Chapter 7: Yellowstone

We did not yet want to be discouraged after the revelation that my leg was fractured. We decided to still check out Yellowstone National Park since we were so close and I knew it would be handicap accessible to some degree. Only the northern section of the Park was open, which was just fine with us. We visited the Mammoth Hot Springs, a series of hot springs with lots of colors from the deposited calcium carbonate. They had an extensive boardwalk system in and around the hot springs with both stairs and accessible ramps. We also drove into the park a ways, where we saw a lot of wildlife from the car window, Bison, Elk, a Brown Bear, and even some wolves in the distance! It was totally worth my sore armpits after "hobbling" around on my crutches trying to see everything. I am thankful we were still able to see the Park.

Chapter 8: Recovery and back to Winter Park Ski Resort

Today Andrzej is riding at Winter Park with our friends from back home in Portland, while I am catching up and resting my leg comfortably in the home of our very kind friends, DJ and Kayla. It is where we started this trip. I will try to catch you up on the leg now. I have been trying to ignore how it affects our trip since it happened, nearly 5 days ago. I fractured the upper part of my Tibia just under the knee on Monday afternoon. I was excited to ski the lower half of the mountain in a section of woods I had been looking at since the beginning of our trip. The woods were off below a catwalk we used after skiing down the Lenin and Marx runs from the tram. It was our 5th run of the day after riding the tram twice and hiking twice. We did the Snowfields first thing that morning, which require taking 2 chairlift rides and the tram to get to. From the Tram you start down this bowl that can only be described as BIG MOUNTAIN SKIING!!! It had snowed about 4-6 inches overnight, there were about 6 tracks that had skied in before us, and it was magnificent. The only trick was that at the bottom of the first section you had to make sure you got left before you reached the cliffs. From there you had a long leg burning section of open bowl that was literally breathtaking. Our hearts pumping and full of admiration from that amazing descent, we continued our aggressive attack on the mountain. It was, after-all, our last day at Big Sky and we wanted to leave early so that we could get to Yellowstone Park before dark. We continued with two hikes from the Headwaters lift up along the ridge. We did one chute called Firehole on the right side of the ridge and then rode up again and did Upper Pinnacles on the left side. The hike can be treacherous, especially with high winds. It reminded me of a slightly shallower version of the hike at the top of Tuckerman's Ravine. After Upper Pinnacles we rode down to get back onto the tram. We took the trail named "Marx" down to the catwalk I described earlier. Andrzej then led us down further past the catwalk onto a completely untracked wide open trail where we spread our arms out wide and just enjoyed being there doing what we were doing. After that heavenly run, came the fatal run. The run we should have known better to avoid. We split up shortly after entering the trees. Usually, we are able to rendezvous a few times in the woods while we ride our own lines through the trees. I wasn't going too fast, but I noticed the snow texture had changed and was "grabbier", so I took the warning to slow down and be more careful. Not a second later I went down a dip and saw a tree right in front of me and tried to turn right to avoid it. My left leg wasn’t able to make the turn in time with the added pull of the snow and my left knee smacked into the trunk of that tree. From there Anj had to find me and then helped me out of the woods and partially down the trail we had come across. After some time, I became so tired and my leg hurt so much that Anj called for a sled from the dispatch number on the map. They came shortly after and took me to ski patrol. They recommended X-rays and an evaluation at their facility, but gave us other options. We opted for the urgent care clinic in Bozeman, an hour drive away, because we thought it might be less expensive. We no longer have our health insurance through Andrzej's work. Instead, we have World Nomads Explorer health insurance. This insurance basically covers up to $100,000 in reimbursable expenses for medical claims, and it includes all sorts of traveling insurance reimbursements such as luggage or trip cancellation coverage. We do have to pay for everything out-of-pocket first however. I have learned that paying out-of-pocket does provide some benefits such as 40% off medical bills at some locations and discounts on MRIs and other imaging services. Long story short, I fractured my Proximal Tibia and am waiting to schedule an MRI to see if there was any tissue or ligament damage or even for other fractures they couldn't see in the X-rays. I am hoping to get the MRI next week. For now, my prognosis is 4-6 weeks on crutches and continued RICE, which stands for: rest, ice, compress, and elevate.

Before

So happy to be skiing such an incredible mountain...

After....Ouch!

Chapter 5: Utah Part II

March 28, 2018

Chris Wilder, aka “The Godfather” convinced us to visit MOAB on our way down to visit family in Ridgeway, CO. And so, without any real time constraints for once in our lives, we decided to go.

dKGKeFYuQv+%H2gTqblxkw.jpg — The Lazy Lizard

We stayed at the "Lazy Lizard" which is an apt name for this place. It was filled to the brim with everything from the 50's (carpeted walls, plumbing fixtures, and owners) to current day necessities (wifi and power strips). I cooked one the worst meals I have ever cooked. I read somewhere that it is good to save pasta water to thicken the pasta sauce. Our dinner was basically tomato soup with noodles made from a pasta sauce jar, but we ate it anyways, lol.

Moab was impressive and definitely worth the visit. We visited Arches National Park, which was really neat and luckily still cool enough for 7ish miles of hiking. We saw the most famous of the arches (Delicate Arch as seen on the Utah license plates), and vast views from the hiking trails. We also saw the "Double O" (2 arches stacked).

Chapter 5: Utah Part I

March 28, 2018

Possible snow storm heading to Utah, could be epic!...or possibly not

And so we went...

This is May

We met up with a group of our ski buddies who live in SLC. We stayed with our friends Corey and Mariska in their home with their pup, Chewy, and a friend's uber cute 4 month mini aussie, May. I would love one of these furballs!...Anj

The snow wasn't quite what we were hoping for (not what our friends referred to as the "Utah 18"), but the drive was beautiful from Denver to SLC and the company was great. We got the chance to spend a good amount of time with the Clean Money West contingent. We had lots of fun with the crew lapping Brighton, Snowbird and Solitude, eating good food, meeting new friends, playing with pups, and catching up over the three days we stayed there.

Chapter 4: Colorado Part I

March 20, 2018

We made it! After another hairy driving adventure, this time 2/3 of the way across the country and through a storm, icy roads, and nonstop driving we arrived just in time for 12” of fluffy white powder at Winter Park! We were super stoked to ride after 31 hours of driving and felt beat up by 4 o’clock. We stayed with Anj’s brother, Adam and Tanya and their girls Emily and Charlotte and we definitely passed out before the girls. The next night we stayed and rode with Anj's long time friend DJ and his wife Kayla. We got 14" of snow over the 3 days we rode and it was awesome. Feels good to ride on big mountains again (sorry New England!).

Old friends color coordinate!

Planning his line.

hitched a ride back to the mountain after another awesome run down the Lower 40 at Winter Park. Another Great Day!

Chapter 3: Road Trip!

March 18, 2018

Road trip!

Probably overpacked! But we have a lot of climates and activities to pack for.

And we managed to squeeze it all in!

Chapter 2: Maine

March 14, 2018

Maine

Our trip to Aruba was great, however, our trip back to Maine was a bit hectic. When we arrived at the Aruba airport we were informed that the second leg of our flight, from Baltimore to Maine was cancelled do to an approaching nor’easter, and the next available flight they could confirm us for was in 1 week out! So what did we do? We booked a one way car rental for the Baltimore-Portland drive, we weren’t going let a cancelled flight stand in the way of us and a 2 foot powder day! We made it back home after an epic 9 hour drive from Baltimore narrowly escaping winter storm Skylar. The following day, we packed up our ski gear and continued to the mountain for the best ski conditions of the season. We stayed at a lovely Bed & Breakfast called 4 Stanley Street in Kingfield where we feel like we are on our 2nd honeymoon since it’s so beautiful and peaceful here. Good to know that we love where we live and will want to return after our travels this year 🙂.

#powderloaf was a amazing!!!!!!

Chapter 1: Aruba

March 14, 2018

Aruba

Well we decided to make a last minute (6 days prior to departure) trip to Aruba to unwind and recharge our batteries before embarking on what we hope will be a life changing and memorable experience. It was definitely satisfactory. We hung out with my mom and step-dad on the beach taking turns in the morning at 5 am to snag a "chi chi", by the beach. Yes, 5am! A chi chi is a palapa shade structure and the ones with front row views of the beach are high demand. You have to stake your "chi chi" very early, or you don't get one, or you may find one in the back near the pool. Otherwise our trip was fairly uncomplicated and smooth. I did have to do some blog research and I am still learning, so please bare with me as Anj and I work through the kinks.

Other than hanging by the beach, we rented a trucks and did some "off roading" on the winward, east side of the island, aka the backcountry of Aruba. Anj drove of course and my parents chose to join us in the back seats. It was quite a bumpy adventure, but we came out okay. Had to give the car a dusting off before returning it. Apparently, we were not supposed to go "off roading" with it. There is no development on the east side of the island other than an old church, a old god mine and some fishing shacks.

We also ate lots of seafood, grouper is the local fish, and got lots (too much) sun. It was a great start to the trip. Anj will post more about the energy stuff in that section of our website, and I will post some architectural insights in that section of our website. Stay tuned for the next chapter of our big adventure.