Three Mini-Road Trips in Under an Hour!

My laptop is back up with a new hard disk and Windows 10, so I was able to put together the video from our recent camping trip to Bella Coola. Jay is always responsible for the camera work.

Our Canon camcorder can record output as mp4 files, but the individual files for each shot are saved into daily folders on its SD card. I must move them all to a temporary folder and use a free program called Mp4Joiner to paste them all together. I never bother with any editing. We like the raw footage and often skip around when playing back. I don't think we make these for others to view but just for our own recall. You, however, are invited to take a look at them right now.

When I get the resulting, large file, I upload it to YouTube. Just to keep track of the details, I generally use YouTube's online Creator to add a few beginning titles. It is not a hard process but something that requires a bit of time. That's why the blog entries for a trip are posted nearly live, but video footage takes a while to get online.

This is how I celebrated my recent birthday.

Bella Coola or Bust, 21:06 minutes, July 20 to 24, 2015


When putting this online, I thought about the last few summers. That was back when I was working, and our trips had to be scheduled for when I wasn't teaching. I'll add them here too. For the last couple of years, we ended up visiting friends in Washington State.

Last year, we drove down to Oregon in order to view the Columbia River Gorge. We returned home though the Tri-Cities and Yakima.

Mini Road-Trip 2014, 16:01 minutes, Augst 22 to 26. 2014

In 2013, we travelled through southern BC and down into Idaho before returning through Central Washington State.

BC/ID/WA 2013 Road Trip, 21:41 minutes, August 23 to 27, 2013

Day 5 - Less Than 1K in Total

We woke up to huckleberry pancakes in the mountains but are now back in New Westminster. Travelling I90, I405, and I5 to Bellingham was uninterrupted except for stop at a highway rest stop. We did a Fred Meyer and Target stop in the US. Oh, and we had lunch there. After, it was a quick trip from the border to our parking space.

Total trip odometer says 944 miles. I thought we might hit, the cooler to boast about, 1000 miles. Well, I guess I could say 1519 km for a larger number.

Ah, home sweet home.

Day 4 - Desert to Mountains

We awoke to sun and I to excellent coffee. It wasn't long however, before we were back on the roads. First, we sneaked over dirt for a half hour to Ellensburg. After a gas up, we followed Joel and Lynne up to the Pass.




While a major clean-up was occurring at the cabin, Jay and I borrowed the big diesel truck and headed to Lake Kachess for lunch at the day-use beach. Yet the day wasn't all play and no work. Well, wait a minute. It was.



We went in search of huckleberries by 4-wheeling. The bushes were plentiful up on the many US Forest Service Roads but the berries were a little scarce this year. Still, although I ate more than contributed, some were left for pancakes tomorrow morning. We dined, talked, and slept soundly with windows to a perfect view.

Day 3 - Unfamiliar Stretch of I-82

Yesterday we only drove 250 miles and today we did considerably fewer.

We only had to travel between the Washington Tri-Cities and Yakima. We had a very relaxing 85-mile trip along I-82. The road was not crowded at all. This might have been due to our travelling on a quiet, Sunday morning. The road was well maintained and it was so easy to get into a relaxing 65-mph cruise. Do you know what I mean? It's the feeling one can get when the tires are turning over smooth highway and the world seems relaxed and organized. I suppose that this enjoyment of driving doesn't occur frequently for many of us.

The grapes and apple trees were just in the green sections of land as we were near the Yakima River and irrigation. The hills behind were a lovely, grassy brown.



We exited in Union Gap to hit a Safeway before heading on to Lynne and Joel's place in the Wenas. It had been years since we'd come in from the south and I made one wrong turn that made our trip at least 45 minutes longer than it needed be. Clouds started developing as we were leaving Yakima.

By the time we got to our friends' house it was coming down in buckets. This area is desert; why did we have to come stormin' in? The torrential rain was accompanied by cooler temperatures. So although this is the place with a pool, we were confined to the hot tub! Still not a bad way to spend part of an afternoon.


Dinner and our catch-up conversations were excellent and meaty. Lastly, we bored our hosts with YouTube video of our spring Near East trip. Bed time was pretty early.

Day 2 - The Columbia Gorge

As our motel didn't have breakfast, we ate the breakfast supplies we picked up during yesterday's MAX trip downtown. We were up at a reasonable hour and on the road early. When leaving Portland, we went east and ended up on I-84 without even trying. As soon as we'd come to Troutdale we exited in order to take part of the Historic Columbia River Highway. Also known as Historic Oregon US 30, the route was carved through the lowest part of the Cascade mountains with Model T's in mind. Many viewpoints were amazing.

As well as the lookouts over the river and I-84, there were a series of waterfalls. We travelled slowly and stopped many times for little walks. Obviously hiking is a common past-time for the urban Portland folk. Crown Point Vista House and Multnomah Falls are must-sees.

Before the trip we'd checked out accommodation in the city of 'The Dalles'. I'm glad that we didn't decide to stay there as we arrived at the town along the Columbia River before mid-afternoon. By this point, although only 90 miles from Portland the geography had turned dry. We decided to continue up to where US 97 crosses the river and continue along the Washington side of the river.

A large sign on Washington State Highway 14 offered a warning that they're be no services for the next 80 miles. It was fascinating to see the views which included the river, wineries, the Oregon side of the river, trains, and the drier landscape. The maps showed Kennewick, WA would be a place to hunt for a place to stay.





We had picked up a traveller's accomodation guide from an I-5 rest stop. We had quite a bit of difficulty finding the Super 8 we were looking for. This wasn't all bad as we ended up driving around the Tri-city area. The coupon worked well and the motel had obviously been recently updated. We used the hot tub and pool after consuming far too much at an Old Country Buffet which was within walking distance.

We will sleep well.

Day 1 - Down the Road in PDX

We're sitting almost exactly 500 km (300 miles) south of where we were this morning. I'm typing this from Portland, Oregon.


Highway planners probably never figured that I-5 would ever be so over capacity. We spent at least an extra hour and a half creeping along the six or more lanes at less than 30 mph. I really hadn't considered I'd have spent so much time in second gear while getting to Portland.

We found a cheap hotel along Interstate Ave at around 4:30 pm. The LRT Yellow Line runs right front, so we were in downtown Portland in a matter of a few minutes. We paid up for day-passes as they were only $5 each for unlimited travel.



An Italian Festival was happening at Pioneer Court Square. We bought breakfast items in a city-center Target and walked familiar streets and down to the River Front Park.

We will be back in the truck tomorrow exploring the Columbia Gorge.

Off for a Few Days

I'm a little excited to hit the road tomorrow. It seems like a long time since the old pickup has had any long-distance exercise. There are at least nine sets of traffic lights on my 7-mile commute to the BCIT Buranby campus, so I hardly ever achieve speeds of 100 kph. It's been a while since we left the Lower Mainland at all. Last month, we must have made a shopping trip to Bellingham but that usually necessitates spending more time waiting in queue at the border than at highway speeds.

More exciting than just the driving is the fact we don't know where, exactly, we are heading. A couple of days with friends in Washington state is the only definite part of the journey. I wonder where we will sleep tomorrow evening?


Pioneer Courthouse Square in 2009
I wonder if we will get down to spend any time in Portland, OR? That city along with Seattle and ours makes the perfect Northwest trifecta. It has been quite a while since we stayed in the City of Roses. The first time must be coming up upon a decade ago now. I am pretty sure we also visited in June of 2009 when their Pride was on. That is already five years ago!

Of the two, trip itineraries I posted the day before yesterday, I think I'm learning towards #1. It's time to run over a big chunk of I-5 asphalt!

Drive South or East First?

We have planned a few days off for a little road trip. We checked with Lynne and Joel earlier in the month for reservations at their place in the Wenas. We try to make getting there an annual summer pilgrimage. In fact, it was almost exactly a year ago when we went through southern BC and crossed into the Idaho panhandle and routed ourselves through Spokane WA to visit them.


This time we had originally planned to go down towards Portland, OR and travel up the Columbia River Gorge towards their desert place. This week, we've also considered travelling over to the British Columbian Okanagan as it seems like a very long time since we enjoyed our closest area of vineyards and Canada's only desert. From there, we could travel straight down Highway 97, almost directly towards Ellensburg.

So, should we travel on the first or second routing option? I guess we can make a final decision at the very last minute. In fact, maybe we should take the weather forecasts into consideration. Which ever way we go, we expect to be lounging near their pool, by the map's yellow star, on Sunday and Monday!