Every year we try to take one big family vacation. Until 2017 rolled around we sort of had our annual trip already planned out at least a year in advance. In 2015, we spent a week in Tahiti for our honeymoon and in 2016 we ventured to another tropical destination, Bali, to attend a wedding. Both of those vacations were pretty plug-and-play and didn’t require a lot of logistical planning on our part. So imagine my surprise when we emerged from the fog of the 2016 holiday season and realized that we didn’t have a big, pre-planned vacation destination for 2017 on the horizon. Not only that, but we had to consider that our family was growing and Cosmo would be a factor in our decision.
At first, we were leaning towards doing a three week New Zealand road trip but we dropped that idea when we discovered that they have very strict (and necessary) animal quarantine policies and we aren’t ready to leave Cosmo behind for that long just yet. Since the early days of our relationship, Alex and I had talked about doing an epic road trip around the Pacific Northwest but we had always dismissed it for one reason or another, but this year just seemed like the right time to grab the Sasquatch by the horns (do they have horns?) and hit the road.
The planning process was half the fun. I have been very fortunate and done a lot of traveling in my lifetime but I have never experienced the thrill of planning my own personalized itinerary with such flexibility. It was a fun, collaborative project that Alex and I worked on and anticipated for months. It sort of felt like planning our wedding again with all the details we had to consider, and just like our wedding a few things ended up not going to plan. Even with the setbacks, we rolled with the punches and ended up having the time of our lives.
24 days. Los Angeles to Vancouver, BC and back.
Since the entirety of our trip won’t fit in a single blog post, I’ll be posting about it in installments.
Days 1-3: Ashland, Oregon
The day was finally here. I had printed out all of my lists and woke up that morning ready to pack. I love mornings and I love packing (by the end of the trip I would be singing a different tune), so it was like a perfect Kristin-pleasure-storm. Three hours later our car was loaded and we were hitting the road for our first destination: Davis, CA.
Davis was really just a stopover point for us to sleep and relax after our first day on the road. Our full trip itinerary allowed for a couple of these one-nighters in less touristy cities so we could rejuvenate and not feel a ton of pressure to get out and explore after a long driving day. And that’s exactly what we did. We ordered dinner, watched South Park, and went to bed.
Cosmo has stayed in hotel rooms and AirBnBs before but he was understandably a little nervous on our first night away from home. We reassured him with treats and cuddles and he eventually settled down. By the end of our trip, he would become an expert at settling into any new environment.
The next day we got on the road and started making our way to Ashland, OR (just across the California border). You guys. California is like, so big. I never realized how massive our home state is until we drove the entire way. It took us almost two days of driving to make it from Los Angeles to the Oregon border. Like, whoa. Sometimes the thought of how massive our entire country is actually overpowers my basic brain circuits sometimes. On the way to Oregon and throughout our entire road trip really, I would find myself imagining what life was like in all of the different little towns we would pass. Every middle-of-nowhere to us was a somewhere to the people that lived there, and all those people have their own troubles and triumphs and stories. It was humbling to be reminded that Los Angeles isn’t the center of the world, and I’m not the center of anything.
The brown landscape that surrounded us throughout the drive up the 5 North gave way to that famous PNW leafy green as we rolled into Ashland. A couple years ago we spent a very memorable weekend in Ashland together and were excited to return to this adorable town with Cosmo in tow. Ashland is the home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and we spent the next couple days strolling around, spending time with some local friends, and seeing a couple shows. We stayed in an interesting AirBnB just outside the main town. I have decided that I will refrain from “reviewing” our hotels or Air BnBs in these blog posts unless they were absolutely spectacular. Airbnb has its own rating system and we left many honest reviews for future travelers and hosts on that platform. That is all I will say about that.
By sheer coincidence, we ended up leaving Ashland on the morning of the total solar eclipse (remember that?). The path of totality was near Ashland and so it came to be that on the morning of August 21st we stood on our friend’s front porch and gazed into modified cereal boxes to watch the moon overtake the sun. I’m too cynical to describe that moment as anything other than “super neat-o”, but even with my aversion to wonderment, I couldn’t ignore how singular an experience it was. I was glad I got to see it.
When the sun had mostly reappeared from behind the moon, we bid beautiful Ashland farewell and made our way to Portland.
The next installment can be found here!
