This morning after a wonderful breakfast in our room we continued our drive south. The highlights from today were Yaquina lighthouse, some blow holes along the coast and the little town called Newport where apparently one of those fishing reality shows was filmed. Not sure which one. There was a big group of sea lions making a racket and sunning themselves which was fun to watch. After a beverage at a local pub we headed back to Portland. The next…
Tuesday we took a two day excursion in the jeep down the Oregon coast. We left Portland for Cannon Beach, a couple hours west of Portland. Hung out there and headed south, stopping at various places along the way. One place we really enjoyed was the Tillamook cheese factory. They had windows on the second floor where you could watch the entire process from making the cheese through packaging. Afterward you got to sample the cheese. It really was delicious…
Tuesday we went on a wine tour. We got a driver so we didn’t have to drive and ended up with one other couple from, get this, NJ. Go figure. Unfortunately I don’t remember the name of the wineries we went to but it was beautiful countryside and we had a good time. Click above to see the rest of the pictures.
We arrived in Portland on Saturday and found a nice campground near downtown and right across the street from the Columbia river, which is the river that separates Washington and Oregon. We set up camp and headed downtown for a bite to eat. Well our time in Portland started off with a bang. With the election results still fresh Portland was afire with demonstrations. We saw mobs of protesters carrying signs and yelling along with numerous swat teams but didn’t…
Friday we spent the day in the park. Mt. Ranier peak is at 14,400 but by car you can only go up to about 5500′. We had our fill of climbing after the Inca trail so we just did the driving route along with a fairly short hike. Click above to see the rest of the pictures.
We left Seattle on our way south for the winter and made a stop to visit Mt. Ranier national park. We stayed in a nice state park and on day one just relaxed and visited a small town named Elbe. It was a very tiny town but they had a hotel/restaurant/bar created from old train cars which was kinda cool. There was also a tiny church built in 1906. We had a beer in town then retired to have dinner…
I can’t believe it but it’s been almost 2 months since I’ve updated the blog. We got back from Peru and had a very full October, just not with our motor home trip. The plan was for me to go to Jacksonville for a golf weekend and Jamie to go to Michigan to visit family. Well, I got to Jacksonville just as hurricane Mathew was approaching which was a complete surprise to me. That’s what happens when you’re out of…
Luis came and picked us up around 11 to bring us to his house for lunch. His wife made a great meal of pork and empanadas and potatoes and we had beer and more shots and had a great time. From there we bid farewell telling him to come visit us in Florida and headed to the airport for our flights home. Tiff, Lori and I headed for Florida (I had a golf tournament and some dr appointments that got…
We slept till about 11 then headed out to get lunch and do some shopping at the market. Shopped for a few hours, dropped our stuff off then it was on to another pub. We liked tonight’s much better. Met some people heading out for the hike. Did some shots. Then went back to the place we had dinner the first night. Click above to see the rest of the pictures.
Today we had to get up just a tad earlier. 3am! Arghh we’re not morning people but to beat a long line of people trying to get into the site at Machu Picchu we opted for an early start. We got to the check point around 4:15 and it doesn’t open till 5:30 but by the time it did there was a very long line. Another 2 hour hike and we finally made it to Machu Picchu! It was very…
Another 6am wake up and there’s that butterfly still hanging in there. She put it outside and it finally flew away. Breakfast and off on a hike that Luis said would be easier than yesterday. Yeah, ok. It was up and down all day. Not quite as high as yesterday but still alot and we walked for 12 miles. Quote off today was from Lori, “this is b******t”, lol. But we made it to camp around 5 and it was…
Up and at ’em at 6 am. Luis woke us up and porters had warm bowls of water for washing at our tent and a choice of coffee, tea or hot chocolate. Those guys work their butts off. You can see in the pictures the size of the packs they carry. We cleaned up, had a great breakfast, and off we went. The guide wasn’t kidding about a tough hike. We hiked from 7 am till 5 pm. Remember the…
After breakfast we met Luis at 9 am for our trek to the Inca trail. It was about a 45 min drive to the starting point. There’s a check point everyone has to pass through and show tickets and passports as they only allow a certain number to pass through per day. It took us about 15 min to get through and as you can see from the pictures we jumped right into it. You cross a bridge and up…
We met our guide at about 10 am and it was off to Ollantaytambo, our next overnight stop a couple hours away. It’s the oldest continuously inhabited town of the Inca. On the way we stopped at a town called Pisac to see the ruins there. After that we stopped for lunch then on to Ollantaytambo for a tour of the Ollantaytambo fortress. After the tour we headed to the hotel and checked into our rooms. Then we went to…
After lunch we met up with Luis to begin our tours. First was the ruins of Tambomachay. They don’t really know what this site was originally used for but here’s a website if you want to read about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambomachay. Up and down some hills and stairs and poor Jamie was done. The guide actually told us later he was concerned about her making the hike to Macho Picchu. But she was just jet lagged and maybe a little affected…
After a weekend visiting our friends Bubba and Kim in Houston we set off for Lima, Peru with our friends Tiff and Lori. We got there about 11 pm and headed to the hotel for a couple night caps then off to bed for an early wake up. We boarded an 8:30 flight for Cusco and were greeted at the airport by a costumed welcoming party who sang and danced and offered tea with coca leaves which are supposed to…
Jamie left for Houston this morning for a day of training for work. I wasn’t so fortunate as to have such a day scheduled so I suffered with a day of golf at Chambers Bay golf course, home of the 2015 US open. It was a beautifully laid out and scenic course but I was a little disappointed in the condition. It was designed to mimic the old links courses of Scotland so part of the conditions were intentional but…
We drove into Seattle today. First on our list was lunch at one of the places on our best sandwiches of America list. Since it’s been a while that we’ve been to one of those I’ll explain this one again. There was a show back in 2012 on the travel channel called Adam Richman’s best sandwich of America. He took recommendations from all over America on people’s favorite sandwiches, then broke the country down into regions, then went to each…
Our tour ended around 3 so from there we drove to the two main peaks in Whidbey island, Mt. Erie and Mt. Washington. Mt. Washington was first and wasn’t that spectacular. We hiked around for about a mile which was nice but otherwise were unimpressed. Mt. Erie is the tallest peak with a steep drive up some very winding roads and the views from up there were great. We climbed around on some rocks and really enjoyed useless up there….
We had a pretty full day today so I’m breaking it into two parts due to the number of pictures I took. The morning was spent going on a whale watching tour. Neither of us had been on one before so we weren’t sure what to expect but we weren’t disappointed. We saw over a dozen orcas, many porpoises and seals and one grey whale, which the crew said was a rare sighting this time of year. They probably say…