Trip Report: Colorado -> Yellowstone -> Pacific NW

[veloandy]

After being quarantined at home for over a year, my whole family was finally fully vaccinated and we were ready to get out and have some adventures! My wife, Liza, had been teaching at a virtual elementary school all year and was excited for summer. My youngest son, Samuel, is going to be a high school senior next year so we thought we’d take in some university tours along the way.

A lot of universities in western states participate in WUE (Western Undergraduate Exchange, which charges students from reciprocal states only 1.5X in-state tuition), so we lined up some WUE university tours (Montana State, University of Montana, Western Washington University, Boise State), I got 2 contiguous weeks off of work, and we decided to hit the road, trying to pack in as many adventures in-between. Here’s our 3300-mile route:

My older son, Alex (who has another year left before he finishes his undergrad in Chemistry here in Fort Collins) is taking an online Physics class this summer, but he wanted to come with and was able to do his course from the road! This was super-exciting for us because the boys had grown up with Westy Adventures

My westy is a 1981, originally air-cooled, now running a JDM naturally-aspirated EJ20 and WBX 4-speed transmission. I’ve done a ton of mods and tweaks over the last decade (several pandemic-era-mods were untested before this trip).

It was a lot of driving with no major problems but plenty of action to keep it exciting…here’s a montage of my dashboard hula girl from the trip:

I’ll be posting a bunch of follow-up posts with details about each leg. They’re going to be a combo of logistics, westy mods, tech stuff, and family travelogue stuff. They’ll probably be way too long and filled with too many family/tourist pics and not enough VW pics (but the pics aren’t hosted on thesamba, so hopefully that’s cool w/the mods). I kind of just want to document this trip somewhere. I hope you all enjoy. Epic trip report threads have always been one of my favorite parts of thesamba.

[veloandy]

Day 1: Fort Collins -> Granite Creek Campground

I80 through Wyoming is desolate, and REALLY windy. It was so freaking windy that a gust of wind from oncoming semi bent my driver’s windshield wiper and cranked it across windscreen when my wife was driving (only my driver’s wiper is from a later van with the wing on it, thanks to the hookup from @dobryan!). Luckily I’ve been a Westy owner long enough to know not just just force the wiper back. We were able to pull over, unbolt the wiper, reset it, and bend the metal arm back to be straight enough to put even pressure on the squeegee.

It was hot outside and the Westy was running a little hot heading up hills. I topped up overflow tank. I was kicking myself for getting rid of outside air vents when I put in in-dash air conditioning from Vintage Air (which doesn’t work right now because I have a refrigerant leak at the o-ring on the evaporator and didn’t get around to pulling the dash before we left). I’m fully going to buy the outside air flap from tencentlife when I get to pulling it. Since we didn’t have outside air, we had the windows down at 80MPH, so it was LOUD and rough and tiring.

Everything changed when we hit Pinedale, WY on Highway 191. The wind stopped, suddenly everything became green and pleasant, and cool. We turned down the 8-mile nice dirt road to the Granite Creek Campground.

The Campground was AMAZING! It was private, cool, shady, and quiet with giant vertical cliffs that looked like castles, next to a roaring river and tall trees. We saw a doe deer and her fawns.

We walked up the road a mile past a giant waterfall to a hot springs pool developed in the 1930s by the CCC, staffed by a super nice old guy with a smoker’s voice who looked like Santa.

We came back to camp and I made a dinner of meatball sandwiches and Liza mixed up a salad kit, and we ate at the nice camp table.

Then we saw a moose down on the creek with her calf romping in the river as birds sang and Samuel played guitar so beautifully!


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I started up my Chinese diesel heater after dinner, but was afraid it would get too hot so we shut it off before going to sleep. Liza and I were downstairs in the westy, Samuel was up top, and Alex was sleeping in his hammock strung between 2 trees. Around 4 it got pretty cold — probably close to freezing, both Liza and I were awake, cold, and worried about Alex. I turned on the diesel heater and we got instantly cozy, and clonked out like muppets until super late - like 8:30. Alex slept in the next morning a lot later and told us he was super cozy in his hammock (even though he told us his feet had gotten so cold in the night he’d put his hat on them)

[veloandy]

Day 2: Grand Tetons National Park, Yellowstone

I made pancakes and bacon for breakfast, Samuel played some more guitar, we packed up, and Alex took the wheel.

I have to go off for a minute on how amazing the roads were all day. Winding, hilly, banked, surrounded by intense and epic beauty, with speed limits ranging from 25 (where there were a lot of pedestrians) to 65. The Westy just ate up the miles and it was a joy just to be on the roads.

Jackson was a lot more built up than when we visited there 10-ish years ago, and there were maskless people everywhere. It was weird being in public after so long. We parked on Town Square, walked around, and had lunch (burgers for Sammo and me, rib tips for Alex, and an insanely delicious Green Goddess chicken curry salad thing for Liza) at a beautiful old former-drugstore on the square.

After lunch I drove us to Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park for a hike that we thought would take an hour but actually took more like 3.

Liza made fun of me for my bear spray and adventure outfit at the trailhead:

Samuel surreptitiously took a picture of me talking with an even dorkier, and even more over-prepared dad (that still felt like staring into a spooky bizzaro mirror for me somehow). We joked about getting a series of photos of Dork Dads, or a series of photos of our Bizzaro doppelgängers.

The water and sky perfectly clear and blue, the hike was lush and verdant and amazing, surrounded by eye popping snowy cliffs and raging waterfalls.

I had forgotten what major roadside attractions in National Parks were like. SO MANY PEOPLE! Jenny Lake has a ferry across if you don’t want to do the hike, so we ran into a lot of people over their heads hiking back. I’d forgotten how friendly Americans are, always saying “hi”, as we passed each other. Our boys were so good and polite saying “Enjoy your hike” or “Have a great day” as we’d pass folks.

Back at the trailhead, Liza hit the bathroom and the boys headed to the van. When we caught up w them there was a guy (CaliWolfy on thesamba?) talking with them and asking them all about the van. Apparently he has 4 and we could have talked Westies all day, but the day was getting away from us and we had to motor on.

Samuel took the wheel. Damn that kid is a great driver too. Samuel has driven the Westy to work and around town a lot, but not much out of town. His friends really want to go on an epic road trip or camping locally (maybe in the Westy) so he was excited to see how it did on the open road. And these open roads were amazing.

We got to the Fairy Falls trailhead (where we intended to go for a hike that overlooks the Grand Prismatic Spring) but we were running tight on time so Alex just recorded Samuel playing Here Comes The Sun next to a little thermal pool near the parking area. Then Alex took the wheel again.

We were going to try to pop by grand prismatic spring, so Alex turned into the parking lot…it was 7pm on a Thursday so we thought it might not be a shit show to park there, but no dice. After 5 minutes waiting in line to try to get to the parking area, Alex flipped a U-turn and we pressed on. It was about the most whirlwind tour possible of Yellowstone…but we did see:

We gassed up in East Yellowstone, MT and got McDonalds for dinner. It felt lame to not be cooking on the trip, but it was getting super late and we didn’t really have time to cook in camp.

I drove the last 2 hours. The roads were again INCREDIBLE! Rolling and mountainous. We saw a giant harem of maybe 100 elk at one point. We can tell we’re getting closer to the North Pole because it stays light so late. It didn’t get dark until 9:30, and we didn’t make it to Langhor Campground until 10. We switched to night mode and went to bed. Early morning tomorrow to make our MSU tour!

[veloandy]

Day 3: Bozeman, Montana State, University of Montana, Coeur d’Alene, ID

(Not many pictures today, but plenty of quality time in the Westy!)

We got up and rolled out pretty early. I made coffee and an English muffin for Liza and me, but the boys didn’t want anything. Alex drove us the 20 mins to the MSU parking garage, Liza rode shotgun, and I got to sit in the back with Samuel.

Our Montana State tour was pretty great. We only signed up for the 1-hour campus tour, but we stayed for an additional 1-hour residence hall tour. I’m glad we did. I think it helped Samuel picture his life as a student better. At the end of the tour everyone (esp. the boys) was starving! So, Liza took the wheel and drove us to Bozeman’s Main Street to look around and go to a restaurant. Liza got an arm workout parallel parking the non-power-steering Westy.

OMG Bozeman is beautiful and cool! I forgot what a wonderful town it is. We walked around and got burgers at a cool old restaurant named Burger Bob’s (how could Bob’s Burgers fans not go in there?). We sat at a log table by the window. Alex gave me a sip of his coconut shake and it may have been the best shake I had in my entire life! We popped into a really cool record/music/poster store and Alex bought a CD. Liza slipped behind the wheel for the next shift.

We stopped for gas next to a Walmart on the way out of town and Alex popped into Walmart to get some film for his Polaroid. It was such a bummer and a total contrast to Main Street, and we were glad to hit the road.

As soon as we got on the interstate, it was hellishly windy AGAIN! Liza was a freaking trooper, but there were crazy gusts of wind violently trying to shove the westy all over the place and we’d struggle to do 65mph. After about 80 miles I swapped Liza out and gassed up. The wind took our gas mileage down to about 12 MPG.

It was windy when I started my shift driving, but the wind had turned into a headwind and then a rainstorm. At least the wind wasn’t trying to shove us out of our lane anymore, but it was so strong that it pushed down my driver’s side Land Rover mirror (Floppy Mirror Syndrome-style), and I’d have to roll down my window to push it back up in the pouring rain. After we were into the storm the winds let up and it was just easy and nice interstate driving (except for a couple of spots where my almost-worn-out tires hydroplaned on standing water). The landscape was beautiful and hilly and rocky. As we approached Missoula the rain let up and everything was green and quiet.

We didn’t have a tour of University of Montana scheduled. I’d kind of written it off since it didn’t have an engineering program (aside from Computer Science), but we figured we were passing through, so why not drive/walk by it? UM was so amazing and an interesting contrast with MSU. The heart of the student union building is a tropical greenhouse with a fake stream running through it, which has got to feel amazing in the depths of winter. We walked by the main oval and then into the music department (which obviously had some big reconstruction project going on) at first, no one was there and it felt oddly exciting to explore this place like we were the last people on earth. On the way out, we saw some people in the department office and popped in to say hello and see if they had any suggestions to walk by. It was a dean and a professor who taught music theory, music history, and cello. The were young, fit, kind, and enthusiastic. They talked with Samuel about how the music department could fit into the life of a student at MU, unlocked the under-construction auditorium and gave us a personal tour. It was amazing and touching. The professor gave Samuel pamphlets on the department and later in the drive I saw Samuel pouring over them in the rear view.

In Missoula, the Westy was bucking and hesitating at times. I hypothesized all the road spray from the rain splashed some water into my overflow tanks and gas tank. I limped the westy to a gas station (surprised I only got 13.5 MPG, but I was flogging it and fighting a headwind part of the time), got gas and a bottle of Heet and kept driving - I wanted to be at the wheel in case the Westy was exhibiting some other problem.

It must have just been water in the tank b/c the Westy ran like a champ after that! The rain cleared and the drive just kept getting more and more amazing — the interstate smoothly slalomed through green forests, dancing with rivers. We crossed into Idaho and it continued with vertical, lush, fir-tree-covered rounded hillsides rising impossibly high on either side of the road.

I feel bad that the boys and I keep getting once-in-a-lifetime, bucket list driving shifts and it turns into a windy hellscape every time Liza takes the wheel.

It had been another long day. We had been pumping for a long time, and Liza was struggling. She hadn’t been sleeping well on the trip so far. The campsite I had reserved (Bell Bay) was an hour off the interstate, down a beautiful scenic road, but we were wiped out. Another campsite (Beauty Creek) was just 2 miles off the interstate and had some first-come-first-served sites that we were hoping to get instead.

When we rolled into Beauty Creek, we were bummed to see the “Campground Full” sign. I was low on gas, wasn’t sure we had enough fuel to make it to our reserved campsite and back to the interstate, and we were exhausted. I parked by the Campground sign and started looking for hotel rooms on my Hotel Tonight app.

Just then the camp host walked by. Liza said “too bad you’re full tonight”, and he said it was our lucky day - one of his reservations had left because his trailer wouldn’t fit in the tent site he’d reserved, and we could have it. Then the camp host told us how he used to have a 1988 westy that his family had had all kinds of adventures in as his girls grew up, and that his dad had a 1959 microbus that he had driven his family from CA to CT when he was a boy. It was a really cool connection, and I suspect the only way avoided some corporate hotel was the Westy hookup.

I made whole wheat penne, meat balls, marinara, and a salad kit for dinner. Liza had bought a bottle of the Snoop Dogg 19 Crimes red wine, and all 4 of us ate and drank til our hearts’ content. Samuel set up a tent. This camp site had cell service, and I’m sure he was excited to have some long and private conversations with his friends. We walked around the campground a little bit and all felt much better. Samuel talked about how he was so excited for Seattle. It got suddenly cold. I fired up my diesel heater, but after about a half hour it shut down with an E05 code (Never figured out what was up with that…had plenty of fuel and electricity and it worked like a charm for the rest of the trip)

[veloandy]

Days 4 and 5 Seattle!

We took off from Coeur d’Alene. Liza drove, hauling the Westy around the freeway onramp like a boss and bouncing off the rev limiter (that girl is such a hottie!). The driving was easy and chill. Spokane was pretty, the middle of WA is a lot like Eastern CO or NM…dryer and flatter and fewer trees, but it wasn’t windy and the driving was easy. Dropping down toward the coast was amazing! Just 45 miles from Seattle there were huge vertical bald mountains piercing walls of evergreens and glacial looking lakes and fog. It felt like we were heading into Alaska! It was misty and wet and I was worried about getting more water in the tank, but the Westy ran like a champ!

Traffic in Seattle wasn’t that bad for a major metropolitan center. The scary part was the last 4 blocks heading steeply down to our hotel (the Alexa Royal Sonesta on 1st), which I initially missed so I went down to Alaskan Way and had to climb back up. I’d gone over grades that steep off road in Moab, but nothing remotely close on wet slimy pavement . It felt like driving up/down cliffs!
( In the video I’m counting down the walk sign, hoping I don’t have to come to a complete stop!)


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We got checked into our big, beautiful hipster room and took some badly needed showers, stretched out in real beds, and got to veg on our phones for a bit.

Seattle is taking COVID super seriously. Everyone was wearing a mask. Masks are required in all public places. Alex said Seattle was the first metropolitan center to vaccinate 70% of its residents. The super-nice lady at the hotel’s front desk told us about a cool hidden place at Pike Place Market called Matt’s at the Market, and I was hell bent to find it. PPM is a crazy vertical dreamscape of a place and I looked and looked and looked but couldn’t find it. Even though they we’re getting hungry, my fam was super patient with me and knew I had to look for way too long. Eventually I gave up (which they knew I would) and we went to an Italian restaurant, and got some incredible food.

After the main course the boys took off to explore the city, and Liza and I sat together, finished our bottle of wine, and split an order of tiramisu. Liza got to tell me how the trip had been really hard for her and how she sometimes felt bad about how hard it feels to her to go on adventures like this. I told her I felt the exact same way. We agreed we’re doing it in one of the most uncomfortable and inconvenient ways. Even though we didn’t bicycle out here, it kind of feels like we did. We were both glad we did it this way so it’s an epic part of each of our hero’s journey and so Samuel could see how big the country is and how far away some of his options are. All of that is lost in soft, bland, sameness if we just flew out and stayed in generic hotels near schools. It was really great to connect with my girl.

I didn’t sleep very well…it’s always hard in a new spot, and I was worrying relentlessly about trying drive the Westy up the impossibility steep hills without burning up the clutch, especially if people were stopping on my tail and if the westy was misfiring from all the water that probably is in the gas tank.

The next day it was nice to not drive for a change. Liza and I got up, got breakfast for everyone at Starbucks (Liza is always swimming in Starbucks gift cards from being an elementary school teacher). We ate in our room and headed out to walk to MoPop with our 10:30 tickets. It was a beautiful sunny day and we loved checking out all the street scenes.

MoPop itself was amazing!

They had a Minecraft exhibit so in the lobby they had a life sized big boss dragon (I took a pic of Liza to blow the minds of her Minecraft kids)

It was really cool going through the Nirvana and Hendrix exhibits with Samuel. He didn’t need any of the informational placards— he was like “OMG! That’s a shard of the guitar Jimi Hendrix smashed in 1967! Or “OMG! that’s the jacket that Kurt Cobain wore at this show and that show!” It was really cool to see the story of how Nirvana turned from backwoods kids to a culture-changing international sensation, especially with Samuel forming his first bands now. But both exhibits left us feeling heavy and sad about Kurt’s and Jimi’s fates.

Then we went to the Pearl Jam exhibit and it was amazing! Huge and full of life and wonder! Original lyric notebooks, a hand written letter from President Obama to Eddie Vedder, and a lifetime of rock and positive social change that keeps on going.

The sci fi section was really cool too. I especially liked hanging out with the original Greedo and seeing the original ships and bases from Alien/Aliens

Then we left MoPop for lunch and ended up at a really delicious tiki/sushi restaurant called Ohana Belltown on 1st street. Our waiter was super nice and reeked of weed. I got some delicious loco moco (think Hawaiian not Spanish ), Alex got an amazing seafood soup, Liza got some fabulous fish tacos, and Samuel got the spider sushi roll.

Liza and I split up from the boys and got lost wandering around Pike Place Market. That place is insane with its stories upon stories of shops and ledges and ramps and stairs, all piled on top of one another with no order. I tried to find a liquor store we had walked by last night and couldn’t find it. But Liza did finally find Matt’s on the Market — she was pointing at the sign but I couldn’t see it until we walked through the door. Very magical. We loved it all, got some sweatshirts, and headed back to the hotel to take a nap before having dinner with my father and stepmother (who live outside of Seattle but I hardly ever see)

Samuel had to bust out some Pearl Jam on guitar with just-a-little hammed-up Eddie Vedder vocals:

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We had dinner at Von’s 1000 Spirits, which was beautiful, lively, and delicious. Then the boys headed off to explore, my dad and stepmother headed home, and Liza and I got to head out for a nightcap

[veloandy]

Days 6 & 7 Western Washington University and Lopez Island!

I’d planned a route out of downtown Seattle to avoid the crazy climbs and only had to do one skid-row grade block and then headed up 1st to Broad, past the Seattle Center and Space Needle, and in to I-5 North. 90 minutes later we were in Bellingham to tour WWU, but everything was closed, and it we were turned away from two convenience store/gas station bathrooms before we found one we were allowed to use at a food coop (kind of weird).

WWU is beautiful, but all the buildings were closed and locked up tight. We brought a printed guide, but we asked an older lady passing by if she had any suggestions, and hit the jackpot. She led walking tours from the senior center and had retired to Bellingham because she loved it so much. She showed us the art and talked about the Italian architecture and the stained glass windows in the library. I think WWU is Samuel’s #1 choice now.

We had lunch at a delicious wood fired pizza place, and headed off to the port to catch our first ferry! We got off the interstate and will be off it for a while. It started raining again and I started to worry about more rain getting in the gas tank. We made it to the ferry holding area with time to spare. I was really excited about talking the ferry for the first time! It was rainy and foggy, but it felt SO cool to be with my family and westy on a freaking ship!!!

I went to the top deck with Liza and later Alex and he took some Polaroids.

We landed and drove to our campsite in Spencer Spit State Park. It was amazing with ferns and steep hills and trees and moss and giant slugs.

Samuel played guitar and talked with his girlfriend on the phone. Liza, Alex, and I walked down a steep trail to the rocky, driftwood and shell covered seashore.

We talked to Dan, the super nice dude who ran the shack on the beach that rented Kayaks and bikes, and headed back up to camp. It was pretty drizzly, so I set up my tarp. The boys each set up a tent.

We had pizza left over from lunch from dinner, fired up the diesel furnace, and were super cozy that night.

The next morning we slept in, drank coffee, had oatmeal and granola for breakfast, and eventually made our way down to the beach to rent kayaks from Dan.

I thought it would be a low key recreational thing, but Dan taught us all kinds of stuff (from how to get in and out, to kayak adjustments, to paddling techniques) before we hit the water.

We circumnavigated some small islands, saw deer, crabs, starfish, and a bald eagle.

On the way back we went by a rock with a bunch of harbor seals! They were so cool with their puppy faces and flabby fishlike bodies. I thought we were keeping our distance (approaching slowly on kayaks and stopping at maybe 50 yards, but on the return ferry I saw a poster instructing people to stay 100 yards away, so I guess we got too close and were harassing them. Sorry seals!!! We were actually further away than it looks in this pic b/c I’m super-zoomed in). Some of the seals flopped into the water and curiously swam towards us. Others sat on top of the rocks, looking at us and not giving any effs. It was so cool seeing all their puppy faces poking up out of the water. It reminded me of of our sweet dog at home.

We got back and went to camp. I took out the Westy’s expansion tanks. The caps weren’t even attached! No wonder they were collecting rainwater like funnels! I pulled off the seals, popped them on on the tanks, put on some gorilla tape for good measure and got the fittings back on. They seemed water tight enough for the rest of the trip, and I’ll get some new seals from RMW once I get home. Ironically we didn’t hit any more serious rain.

That night we tried to do a fire, but the firewood was too wet. We had brats and baked beans and clementines for dinner and cooked s’mores on the single burner propane stove at the campsite’s picnic table.

That evening, Liza and I took a walk on one of the trails through a tunnel of green ferns, moss, flowers and trees before hitting the sack.

[Howesight]

That's a great trip report so far and appears poised for more. I really appreciate those who post their trip reports here on the Samba. Mrs. Howesight and I have learnt a lot about places in the US we had no clue about prior to these reports and other posts on the Samba.

Enjoy the rest of the trip!

By the way, do tell all of us how one gets young adults to join their parents in a Westfalia - - mind control? Bribes?

We are about to spend a week together at a cabin with our 22-year-old daughter who WILL NOT ride in the Westy if Mrs Howesight or I are driving. Something about "scary driving" or other unsubstantiated allegations.
_________________
'86 Syncro Westy SVX

[veloandy]

Day 8 & 9: Whiskey Creek Beach and the Hoh Rainforest

We got up, made coffee, packed up, and rolled out at 9 to queue up on the side of the road for the 10:15 ferry back to the mainland.

While we were sitting and waiting forever, Samuel read to us from his “Sing Backwards Weep” book by Mark Lanagan while the boys ate pop tarts and Liza and I ate granola and yogurt. The book was pretty dark and disturbing, but it made me happy to hear Samuel read and to listen to the excitement rise in his voice like it used to do in mine when I was a little guy telling ghost stories.

We made it on the ferry. It was sunny and beautiful this time. The boys stayed in the van and Liza and I went to the top deck and took goofy pictures and Liza got a cafe mocha from a vending machine and read all the posters about wildlife in Puget Sound.

We disembarked and drove down Whitbey Island. It was really beautiful. I was at the wheel and we were getting hungry and had plenty of time so we swung by a little shack called “The Caribbean Lunchbox” near a navy base in a Carpet One parking lot with a few servicemen chatting outside. We walked up and talked with the owner, a super-nice young black guy with a fabulous Caribbean accent who told us that he gets up every morning at 4 to start smoking the meat. We all got the same thing: Jerk chicken and jerk shrimp with a side of coconut rice and fried plantains. It was insanely good

We drove to the next port to catch the Ferry to Port Townsend. We got there super early, as the ferry departing before our reserved spot was loading. The nice guy at the ticket booth said we could get on the earlier ferry, and he told us to get at the front of Lane 1. Unfortunately the ferry workers never waived us on so we had to wait another couple of hours for the next ferry. Samuel read us more of his book (which just kept getting darker), and it rained a bit and cleared up. We ate our lunch and picked up the Westy a little bit. FINALLY we got on the ferry. The boys and I stayed in the van while Liza hit the head and explored a little. After the 30 minute voyage we disembarked to Port Townsend and made a bee line to Safeway. Despite my initial excitement about the ferry system, all the waiting made me feel pretty done with them.

We drove another hour to our beautiful tiny cabin at Whiskey Beach. Even though we’d only done about 90 minutes of actual driving, waiting in the van all day made it seem much longer.

Our cabin and the beach was beautiful! I took a walk to the ocean while Liza took a rest. After taking a panoramic photo, I heard Alex call down to me. There was a pod of orcas swimming right past us! We could hear them breathing through their blow holes!


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We came up, Liza had done a great job unloading the westy. I cooked us Camping Thanksgiving (insta-spuds, turkey stuffing, and canned chicken with craisins cooked in a turkey gravy packet with a walnut pear salad kit). We sat in front together the cabin eating. Samuel played guitar and I captured what is maybe my favorite video of him playing ever.


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I tried (and failed again) to get a fire going (no air circulation in the cabin’s fire pit). We cleaned up and went to bed.

We slept in. Liza got up and meditated on the deck of the cabin while the boys slept and I made coffee. We ate some chocolate muffins for breakfast that we picked up from Safeway, and started packing up. I think everyone is getting tired and wanted to just hang out at the cabin longer.

All our camping neighbors were super chatty. Liza and I got all packed up and got the Westy tidy again, took a quick walk down to the beach one last time, and hit the road with Liza at the wheel for the 2 hour drive to the Hoh rainforest.

The drive was amazing, beautiful, and required a lot of attention. Liza is such a bad ass driver. I put on Alex’s orchestral “Study Buddy” Spotify playlist. We stopped by Crescent Lake to take some pictures.

When I checked, the Hoh rainforest was all first-come-first-serve, so I booked a $20 campsite at the Hard Rain Cafe at the edge of the park as a backup plan. Liza drove us down the amazing road into the park and it was a bit of a madhouse at the visitor center at the end.

I went to the visitor center and secured a campsite while Liza made us some super yummy turkey sandwiches for lunch (using leftover salad from our dinner last night). I drove us to our campsite and Liza was exhausted and wanted to lie down before exploring.

There was an older guy with a Westy near our campsite. While I was talking with him his friend showed up with a pickup and R-Pod and got in a shouting match with a rage-o-holic guy in a class-B econoline. Apparently rage guy passed R-Pod guy on a double yellow and cut him off, so they had to have a road rage shouting match.

Liza took a nap in the top bunk of the westy in our pretty cool campsite.

I was feeling a little down on people in the national parks. I could tell Liza and Samuel were especially tired and kind of just wanted to be home. Alex and I explored the campground a little bit and I set up a camp chair and journaled a bit. Samuel explored a little and played his guitar.

When Liza woke up all four of us went on an amazing hike the nice ranger girls recommended. Spruce Trail. It had a lot of “nurse logs” where a young trees sprout on a monster felled tree, and the felled tree eventually rots away, leaving the younger trees standing in a line with their roots above ground, forming a kind of a fossil of the dead tree.

At one point we got to the riverside where we saw a bald eagle fishing and I got a quick video of us hustling to see it that gives a good sense of perspective on the trail (but you can’t see the bald eagle very well)


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Looking up at the massive moss covered trees was amazing. We were lucky to have a rare totally sunny day with bright blue skies

We headed back to camp. I got a fire anemically burning and went to the westy to cook our fried rice dinner, which was delicious and a total keeper! When I came out with dinner in-hand, Alex had the fire raging! That kid’s the boss!

We ate, made some s'mores over the fire. Samuel played a fun game where he’d ask us to shout out a topic and music genre and write/play a song on the fly, totally amazing all of us!

We wiped off our dishes (the campground prohibited dumping grey water). Alex headed to his tent, Samuel climbed into the top bunk, and we all went to bed early, planning to head out around 8 to get coffee and breakfast at the Hard Rain Cafe on our way out of the park the next morning.

[veloandy]

Days 10 & 11 Aberdeen and Seaside, OR

We rolled out early with Alex at the wheel. I slept well but Liza didn’t. On our way out, a nice backpacker girl who was heading out gave us some super yummy sausages they hadn’t opened the night before.

We got to the Hard Rain Cafe, but it was closed. It was really cute. Its front door said “we usually open at 8 or 9. Sometimes as late as 9:30. If we’re not here we may have gone fishing” Haha’ oh well!

We continued toward Aberdeen (birthplace of Kurt Cobain from Nirvana and a definite destination for Samuel) with Alex at the wheel. We saw a turn off for a beach, parked at the lot, and I made us coffee and a sausage egg scramble with the backpacker girl’s sausages, and we finished off the chocolate muffins. We ate at a seaside overlook, put the dishes back in the Westy, and hiked down the little trail through the rainforest to the beach. Alex teased me: “Oh my god! There’s a Nurse Log. Dad is going to lose his freaking mind!”, and Samuel pulled out his phone and said “Wait, let me get a selfie!”, intentionally blocking the lens with his hand while giving me a sly look. Those goofballs !

The beach had coarse sand, a lot of little gelatinous clear squid egg sacks, and some tide pools with mussels and sea anemones.

The final bridge to the beach was made of driftwood was especially cool, and we had to use a knitted rope to descend the final cliff to the ocean.

We pressed on with Alex driving the amazing road. He said it was the first time he felt chill driving the Westy. Samuel pulled up a Nirvana fan tour guide to Aberdeen. The Olympic Peninsula and the beaches 10 minutes away from Aberdeen were so beautiful that I thought Kurt Cobain must have just been being a drama queen about needing to escape his hometown so much. Besides, as a lifelong land-lubber, I’d never seen a seaside town that wasn’t beautiful or picturesque.

Then we arrived in Aberdeen. It is, indeed, quite rough and working class. We drove by the rough house where Kurt grew up and the couple blocks to the bridge where he used to escape to play guitar. The bridge is a memorial now and fans leave flowers, graffiti, offerings of cigarettes, and used hypodermic needles.

Samuel sat under the bridge and played some Nirvana songs. I filmed the first one, I but left so he could play others in privacy.


Link


It was very emotional for him. Later he said he felt like he got into Kurt Cobain’s head like he never had before.

We got gas and stopped for a yummy lunch of fresh fried cod and fries at Breakwater Seafoods and Chowder. The girl at the counter was super nice, and we ate outside on the wooden deck overlooking the river, next to a bridge on a busy street.

After lunch we went to Sucher & Sons Star Wars shop, which Samuel had found. Apparently Star Wars fans drive hours just to get there, but it was really weird — it had a huge collection of what seemed like every broken Star Wars toy in the world and was full of huge, crazy homemade signs about how COVID is a hoax and how masks aren’t required even though WA requires them

Aberdeen definitely had a dark, haunted vibe, so we got out of there and pressed on to OR.

We crossed into Oregon over the mile-long bridge over the Columbia river at Astoria. I was at the wheel. It was a little gusty in the middle of the bridge and whenever the wind would rock the Westy it gave me a little jolt of fear “OMG! Was that a misfire?!? Don’t die here Westy! There’s nowhere to pull over!”

The roads between Astoria and Seaside were busier and had a much less chill vibe than WA’s Olympic Peninsula.

We made it to the “Ashore” hotel in Seaside. It seems like it used to be a dumpy 1970s motel that was recently hipster remodeled and is actually really cool now. The boys got their own room on the first floor and Liza and I got the room above theirs. Our rooms were great; we got unpacked; Liza, Alex, and I relaxed in our rooms; and Samuel headed out to explore the town.

Samuel came back full of excitement. The town was walkable and full of fun touristy shops. He bought a $20 Seaside hoodie with an octopus on it and a tiny harmonica keychain and some candy and had walked to the beautiful and huge soft sand beach. We all headed out together and Samuel acted as our tour guide. We ended up eating at a picnic table outside of Big Kahuna Burger (which was irresistible for us 4 Pulp Fiction fans). I got clam chowder with thick toasted slices of beer bread, and everyone else got delicious burgers. Then we kicked off our shoes, walked along the beach, got ice cream cones, and went back to our hotel rooms. On the way back, both boys agreed that Seaside would have been heaven on earth for them if they were still 10 years old. They’d fill up on giant pretzels, saltwater taffy, and spend all day in video arcades, playing bumper cars, and cuddling.

Liza and I had some of the red wine from the box we brought in from the Westy, watched the first episode from the 2nd half of Lupin on my iPad, and we all slept hard.

The next morning we got coffee from the lobby and had a breakfast of granola, peaches, and Noosa yogurt from the Westy.

Alex had school work to do, and Samuel just wanted to bum around the motel and Seaside, so Liza and I left the boys and headed 15 minutes down the road to Cannon Beach to look at tide pools and the big “Haystack Rock” from Goonies. Parking was a nightmare, we drove around forever looking for a spot. At last we found the tiniest legit parking spot along the side of a dirt alley. Liza had to get out to direct my parallel parking job…it totally seemed too small for the Westy, but the damn thing fit!

The beach was really fun. We saw some tide pools, but I mostly just enjoyed walking along the beach, chatting with my special girl.

After the beach we got some monster sandwiches at a cafe, popped into a store for ice and wine, and headed back to the hotel.

Alex had been furiously working on his physics class all day and seemed pretty stressed out. Samuel had been having a grand time checking out all the tourist shops.

Liza has told me a bunch of times how vacation in her mind often means going to a beach or something in the morning, having lunch, taking a nap at the hotel, and then going out to dinner — so she was especially excited about a nap at a hotel. While she slept I hung out with the boys. We finished the Juneau DVD they had checked out from the lobby. Then Alex studied some more while Samuel grabbed his guitar and I grabbed my kite and we headed to the beach. Samuel played while I tried to fly the kite, but it was too windy for the my kite to do much more than spin in circles horizontally from me down the beach. It was fun trying though.

After Liza’s nap we went to a chill restaurant called “Sam’s Cafe” and got some fried fish, a salmon sandwich, and some chowder in a bread bowl. The boys left early so Liza and I got some time with just the two of us to enjoy a 2nd beverage, split a slice of peanut butter chocolate pie, and talk it over some more. We headed back to the hotel, packed up in anticipation of our early departure, watched episode deux of Lupin, and slept hard again.

[veloandy]

Days 12-13 Seaside OR -> Back Home

We got up and rolled out of the hotel at 8 to meet Liza’s dear friend Eleanor from her college days for brunch in Portland at 9:30. I took the first driving shift because I was worried Portland might be a congested apocalyptic urban traffic jam. The drive to Portland was amazing and beautiful. The traffic in Portland wasn’t bad at all. Even though the entrenched homeless camps are blatantly shocking, Portland is still an amazingly beautiful city.

We met a a place called the McMenamins Kennedy School, which is a grand ancient school that was about to be torn down when McMenamins bought it and turned it into a hotel/restaurant/theatre. It was REALLY cool! It seemed like the kind of place that’s haunted by good ghosts. The restaurant is in a sunny room that maybe used to be the library. The bathrooms have old original hexagonal tile. Everything is proportioned in the grand scale that lets you see the sensibilities of American architecture from the turn of the last century

Portland is so cool with such a proud history of advocating for social change, but it’s really tragic to see right now. I’m interested to see what happens in the future. In the meantime I’m glad we saw it all right now with our own eyes, and I’m a-ok not shipping my youngest kiddo off to Portland State next year.

After a leisurely brunch we said our goodbyes and headed east along the Columbia river gorge. I drove again, anticipating more potentially hairy urban driving, but again it was fine. The landscape dries out pretty quickly out side of Portland. I-84 follows the Columbia river, and has a lot of graceful curves and beautiful vistas. The river is vey wide at points and full of windsurfers and the occasional barge or dam that look like props from Star Wars. We had a vey strong and consistent tailwind that made driving quiet and smooth and easy and (along with Oregon’s ethanol-free premium fuel) returned my best fuel economy of the trip: 26.5 MPG!

I-84 goes East and then south through OR for hundreds and hundreds of miles. After we got out of the Columbia River gorge and after we crossed the Snake river into Idaho it got hotter and dyer and more barren, but we still had a nice tailwind that made for easy driving.

We finally got to Boise around 7:30 PM mountain time. Boise was much bigger than I expected. The drivers were much more erratic than the excellent WA drivers I’d gotten used to. Boise actually reminded me a lot of Albuquerque where I grew up. The boys were sweating in the back of the van - Samuel with his shirt off and Alex with his face all red. We headed directly to a Mexican restaurant near Boise State and staggered into the refreshing air conditioning. Liza had a giant icy strawberry lemonade, and the boys and I had giant glasses of horchata. We got impossibly giant platters of food - fajitas, chimichangas, and chicken mole enchiladas. It hit the spot. We really needed to be still and recharge a bit.

After dinner we headed to Boise State to do a self guided walking tour in the cool of the early evening. We split up. Samuel found a cool bridge. Alex and Liza were looking for hotel rooms - after such a long hot day in the car we thought it would be really nice to be in a hotel. Samuel said Boise State was nice and could be good but was not his style. A-OK with me — crossing schools off the list is an important part of finding the right one.

Unfortunately, all the hotels between Boise and Pocatello were booked for some massive championship for 7-year-old baseball players. Liza was getting worried about where we’d stay…I also really preferred a hotel but wasn’t too worried. I figured worst case: we could pop the top and crash out at a rest area or dirt side road somewhere along the way. Luckily, Liza booked the very last room in a Motel 8 in Burley (2.5 hours down the road) for $250. Even though that was way more than I expected (and not much cheaper than our swanky hotel in Seattle or beautiful cabin on the beach), we were all really happy she got it.

I was fried from driving the previous 8 hours so Liza took the wheel as the sun set, leaving a beautiful red horizon behind us, as bugs splattered on the windshield. We listened to the “Pulp Fiction” and “Oh Brother Where Art Thou” soundtracks and finally checked in around 11pm. We took showers to wash off the salt from sweating all day and slept hard.

The next day was Father’s Day! I got up early and snuck out to get us coffee and check on the Westy. We were 1.5 quarts low on oil and I’d used up most of my spare oil topping us up throughout the trip, so I drove to the gas station next to the Super 8, scraped the bugs off the windshield, gassed up, bought a $12.49 quart of oil, and got everything in order. As I was checking the tire pressures, Alex came walking up. He gave me a big hug, told me happy Father’s Day, whipped out his Polaroid camera and took this pic

That kid is so great! We went back to the hotel. The boys gave me a really sweet card they bought back in Seattle and they wrote amazing and sweet things in it. Liza gave me a sweet card, new wallet, and VW Rabbit T-shirt she’d been lugging around since before the start of our trip. I felt really lucky for my family.

Then we went to the Hotel’s complimentary breakfast that was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with super unhealthy, barefoot COVID super spreaders. We grabbed some food (of dubious healthfulness), mostly ate it in our room, and hit the road.

Alex took the first 4.5 hour driving shift. I sat up front with him and talked it over while Liza and Samuel sat in back. Alex was so cool and so funny. He’d noted the ETA according to Google Maps and was hellbent on beating it. The landscape got less desolate and more verdant when we crossed int Utah. By the time we hit our first gas stop in Ogden, Alex had dropped our ETA by 17 minutes and he told Liza and Samuel “You’ve only got 17 minutes to use the bathroom and buy snacks before you blow our lead! Go! Go!”

The drive though Utah was beautiful and forested as we merged onto I-80 before becoming desolate again just before crossing into WY.

On the UT side of the border we saw a sign that said “Rock Springs 106 miles”. 15 minutes later, just into WY we saw a sign with the same mileage. We joked that WY didn’t want to pay for a sign so they snuck over the border one night and stole Utah’s. Every time we’d see a subsequent sign for Rock Springs, Alex would joke: “Only another 106 miles to Rock Springs!” I had so much fun with that boy at the wheel. Liza took a nap in back. Samuel was having a great time in back, sitting next to the snacks and USB outlets, snapchatting silly selfies to his friends. Alex finally switched me out when we had exactly 4 hours of driving time left.

I took the wheel, Liza sat up front and finished her travel journal while the boys sat in back. I had been dreading this leg because the wind was so awful on the way out, but it was really easy (but still a desolate wasteland).

Liza finished up her travelogue as we approached Laramie. She finished with some highlights and a list of all the wildlife we saw and felt really grateful. She turned around in her seat and addressed us all: she said the Westy was amazing, and that I was amazing for building it and planning this multifaceted adventure. She asked everyone to list off some of their highlights. Everyone felt really sweet on the Westy and said it had been such “a boss” (which surprised me somehow…I thought maybe they’d be sick of it and ready to burn it to the ground at that point!). Cool grey storm clouds filled the sky and it started to sprinkle, cooling everything down and bringing the delicious smell of fresh rain on a hot dusty day. We turned onto 287 and rolled home, arriving 5 minutes later than Alex’s Google Maps initial ETA.

[veloandy]

[Alaskaberrys]

Great read, thanks for posting!

Jealous of you guys getting out and adventuring, our westy is stripped currently so no trips this summer We kept it in Port Orchard for quite a few years so we have explored those same areas in the PNW - great to see them again.
_________________
'91 Westfalia, Bordeaux Red Pearl 2.1L 2wd Auto
'91 T3 Syncro Doka, Escorial Green 1.9L TD AAZ “Gremian” (to provoke, irritate, exasperate, vex...)

[veloandy]

[Alaskaberrys]

That area has so many options. We had such a great trip north - ferry to Victoria, camping on logging roads up Vancouver Island (could spends months exploring that island) ferry from Port Hardy on up to Bella Coola (now 1 day non-stop). After Williams Lake we then headed north but one could loop back south many different ways. Beautiful country and so many remote spots.

(…I gotta get that van back together! )
_________________
'91 Westfalia, Bordeaux Red Pearl 2.1L 2wd Auto
'91 T3 Syncro Doka, Escorial Green 1.9L TD AAZ “Gremian” (to provoke, irritate, exasperate, vex...)

[pnwkayaker]

Awesome trip report, glad that you and your family had a great time, especially visiting the PNW region.

There're 3 other National Parks around Seattle besides the Olympic Natl Park: North Cascades, Mt Rainier and Mt Saint Helens, but it's imposible to fit them all in a single trip - you still managed to visit a great number of places while here.

As a father of 2 boys younger than yours, it was almost like taking a glimpse to future trips to check colleges, I hope we end up having as much fun as your family.
_________________
87 Syncro Westy EJ25 ("Tardis")

Seattle Meetup at Marymoor (link)
A collection of Simple Useful Mods (SUM) (link)

[mikemtnbike]

Great, great trip report.

I learned more camping with my dad as a young man than I ever did as a child.
I was mature enough to pay attention finally, realizing that the amazing experiences I grew up with didn't just "happen" they required planning and effort which itself could be enjoyable. Reading your report made me think of those times with great fondness. Thanks.
_________________
1991 Vanagon GL 2.1 AT Westfauxlia. "Frankie" Totaled https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=764510&highlight=carnage
1995 Eurovan Camper "Marzivan"
2020 GTI SE manual

[dobryan]

Awesome trip! It is great that you all enjoy traveling together.
_________________
Dave O
'87 Westy w/ 2002 Subaru EJ25 and Peloquin TBD

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." Robert Louis Stevenson

MD>Canada>AK>WA>OR>CA>AZ>UT>WY>SD
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=620646

Building a bus for travel in Europe (euroBus)
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=695371

The Western Syncro build
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=746794

[brickster]

Thanks for sharing an awesome travel log from your epic journey!

[Sodo]

Wow setting the bar for trip reports.....
For awhile I was thinking...
if I could do half as good as our other trip reporter goldtooth.....
Anyway, real nice.
Now I have to do a long sitdown and read...

Samba members love trip reports!
Even those without mechanical problems
Thanks so much for putting in the time and congrats on a great trip.
The map synopsis in the first post is really great too!
_________________


'90 Westy EJ25, 2Peloquins, 3knobs, pressure-oiled GT mainshaft, filtered, cooled gearbox
'87 Tintop w 47k 53k, '12 SmallCar EJ25, cooled filtered gearbox
....KTMs, GasGas, SPOT mtb

[jimf909]

Holy Toledo! That's a great trip report of a great trip.