june 3 2008 : portland, oregon, usa
This weekend we drove out to Bend to do some camping. It was about a two hundred mile drive that somehow took Ali and I ten hours to complete. We left Portland on the same route we took to Bend the last time we drove there, down Highway 224 through the Mount Hood National Forest. Just as we were driving out of the last town before the forest we noticed a small sign on the side of the road saying that the road was closed due to snow. We thought that had to be an old sign. Hell, it’s June, how could a road be closed because of snow?

We continued on for another sixty miles, making slow progress through pouring rain on winding mountain roads. There was no snow and no more road closure signs so we became convinced we were fine. Actually we really hadn’t given the sign a second thought. Then suddenly we came around a corner and there it was. Snow. Covering the road completely. I got out and could see one set of tire tracks in the snow leading about fifty feet before backing straight back out. There was no way we were getting through.

So, after backtracking and circling around for five hours we made it to Salem, forty miles away from Portland. And a few hours after that we were at the campground.

We spent the weekend with our friends Berkeley and Maggie camping, riding dirt bikes, and drinking beer. A good solid hillbilly type holiday. Berkeley knew pretty much everybody in the campground and between them all was able to outfit me in full ride gear atop a pimped out 450 for our trail riding. It was a great weekend, and was nice for us to get back into the bus lifestyle. Although thankfully our normal bus life doesn’t involve nearly as much alcohol or bonfire smoke.

june 14 2008 : portland
It has been a pretty quiet few days around here. After weeks of work we are now waiting for the final draft of the book to arrive. We’ve been busy constantly up to this point but now suddenly find ourselves in standby mode. There is not one thing left for us to do here. The bus is ready to go. I’ve stood in the garage and stared at it for hours trying to think of anything at all that I can do to it, and Ali has organized to the hilt. Now we are just waiting for the mail to arrive each day. With nothing left to do I even went so far as to start tearing apart the Porsche engine. The carbs are now sparkling.

june 16 2008 : portland
The other day I bought a GPS. Not a fancy kind with big color maps and talking people, just a tiny handheld GPS. I bought it because I wanted us to be able to update our maps page properly for once, and this unit allows us to simply plug into our computer and upload our tracks to Google Earth. Plus it gave me a fun project to tackle on the bus.

The challenge here was finding a place to mount the thing. I sat inside the bus quite a long time before the solution came to me. Smack dab in the middle of our dashboard, on top, is an ashtray. It is the old fashioned kind with the flip top. The GPS actually fit perfectly inside of it standing upright. All that was needed was a little modification of the cigarette ash tapper inside. Best of all was that by cutting a hole in the bottom of the ashtray I was able to run the power cord right to it. Now when not in use the cord just folds up inside of it. I’m quite pleased.

Anyway, to test out my new tracking system I took the GPS along with us on a walk around the neighborhood. As we strolled down the sidewalk I looked at the screen and had a very strong sailing life flashback. There on the screen was our current speed of 3.8 knots. A number that is seered in both of our minds, as it seemed to be the single most common speed traveled by Bumfuzzle. It’s truly sad to think that our liesurely walking speed, with my mom’s fufu dog in tow, is the same speed that we generally attained aboard our sleek looking thirty-five foot catamaran sailing vessel. We really were terrible sailors.

june 21 2008 : portland
Ali and I went shopping today. Actually Ali shops, and I am the guy that stands outside the store at the railing staring down at the floor below me wondering how a guy can show up to work day after day in order to stitch monograms onto baseball caps, or to harass passers-by into buying hand lotion. Anyway, today Ali bought a shirt for $12.95 and the cashier actually asked her if she’d like to open a store credit card and save 10%. Open a credit card and save a buck-thirty. Who does that?

For the past couple of weeks we’ve been doing almost nothing, aside from waiting for the mail to arrive everyday. See, we’ve been making last minute changes to the book, then waiting for the proof copy to arrive. When it does we immediately notice something absolutely ridiculous that needs to be fixed. We make the change and then spend four days doing nothing but waiting for the mailman again. I’m sure he thinks we’re freaks with no life. He may be right.

june 22 2008 : portland
Tonight we went to McPeet’s to knock back a couple of pitchers of Widmer Heffeweizen. If you’ve never tried it, please do. This beer is in our top ten and is a perennial Portland favorite of ours. While we were sitting outside the bar my aunt’s partner drove by and honked. Everybody sitting outside looked and we waved. We’ve clearly been here too long.

The final copy of the book arrives Wednesday. I don’t think we should even look at this copy. If we do we’ll just find another error or something else that should be changed. No, this copy is it. This is Bumfuzzle the book.

june 23 2008 : portland
A friend of ours here in Portland is producing a television show called Drop Everything, about people who drop everything and take off to do something a little different. He’s also shooting a movie called The Happiness Movie, about, you guessed it, happiness. We shot a couple hours of film, which might score us a minute or two on one show or the other. Either way, we had a good time talking about our travels and exploring a little bit about what makes us so happy.

june 25 2008 : portland
Sorry for the extremely long delay between postings. We’ve been pretty lax lately. However, we are on our way again, and are rededicating ourselves to life, love, and the pursuit of adventure. Something like that anyway. We’re off for Alaska and the continuation of a couple of years worth of VW bus travel.

We’ve written a book about our sailing adventure and really are hoping that you’ll all buy and enjoy it. For those of you overseas the book can be shipped internationally, or if you’d like it can also be downloaded as an e-book.

june 26 2008 : fort stevens, oregon, usa
It felt good to be back on the road yesterday. We slipped right back into the lifestyle as if we had never left it. Driving what we thought were the back roads to the coast we were a little surprised by the amount of traffic for a Wednesday afternoon, but dealt with it by pulling over about every three miles to let a new line of cars and trucks fly past. The logging truckers out here are pretty insane. These guys drive around like they are in a Porsche instead of a twenty year old diesel belching semi with a million pound load piled up on top. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of seeing one of these bearing down on us as we putter along the curvy one lane forest road at five miles an hour under the speed limit.

After hitting Macca’s for lunner we pulled into a National Forest campground for the night. It is a really nice place, especially at half the price of the KOA across the street. After setting up camp (i.e. parking and pulling out two chairs) we went through the usual practice of talking to a few inquisitive older gents who at one point in their lives owned a bus. There isn’t a campground anywhere without a couple of them in it. The nostalgia factor is off the charts with a bus.

Today we visited a couple of areas around the park for views of the infamous Columbia River bar entrance. A literal graveyard of sunken ships, the bar has claimed over 2000 ships in the past century. From shore it wasn’t all that easy to see why, though we could see one area of standing waves. Down the road in Astoria we visited the Maritime Museum where we got to see a movie that made it pretty clear just how nasty that stretch of water can be.

The town of Astoria always brings a smile to our faces. Not because it’s an especially nice place; in fact it sort of has that run down Pennsylvania mining town feel to it. For us it goes back to when we were twenty-two. Ali and I took a vacation that summer, flying out to Oregon, renting a car, and then driving along the coast from Coos Bay all the way up to Seattle. Along the way, in Newport, I proposed to Ali while we sat in the sand on a cliff along the beach. She always makes a point of making it less romantic by pointing out that an hour beforehand we’d been at a restaurant eating pizza and drinking pitchers of beer. Which as it turns out is exactly what we were doing the night we decided to sail around the world. Coincidence? I think not.

Anyway, further up the coast in Astoria a couple of days later we were walking around town and decided to duck into a random neighborhood bar for a couple drinks. I noticed when we walked in that we got a lot of looks from the rather rough looking crowd, but chalked it up to us being outsiders. We bellied up to the bar and ordered two beers. About halfway through the beers Ali suddenly stood up, grabbed my arm, and said we had to go. I dutifully followed her out, assuming the stares from the guys had been too much. Once we were out the door I asked what was wrong. She looked at me like I was full of crap and then asked me, “Didn’t you see that girl next to you?” I told her no, I hadn’t really been paying attention. “That was a strip club!”

Turns out the girl sitting right next to me had on a g-string and a fish net shirt, and at least one other girl in plain view was wearing something similar. I thought it was commendable that I hadn’t noticed, but Ali just thought it was more evidence that I didn’t pay attention to anything.

So after Astoria today we continued north up the 101. Nothing too exciting unless you are a big Lewis and Clark history buff, as this was the end of the road for their westward journey. By late afternoon, after covering a whopping 158 miles we were ready for a camp. Shortly afterwards we drove by a sign on a lone stretch of highway that seemed to indicate some sort of camping area. Amazingly we pulled in to find a very nice campground free of charge that even had firewood piled up for the taking. Quite the score when we’re on the road.

june 27 2008 : vancouver island, victoria, b.c., canada
The Olympic Peninsula was a new area for us, and man was it beautiful. Right along the road were crystal clear lakes with dark green pine covered mountains rising straight up out of them. On the ocean side we found huge stretches of beach with driftwood piled up like matchsticks. We really weren’t sure what we were going to do today, thinking we might just find a nice spot along one of these lakes, but instead decided we’d go to Port Angeles first and check out the ferry to Vancouver Island. If we made the ferry great, if not, great too.

It turned out we arrived just thirty minutes before the afternoon ferry, so that made up our mind for us. The ferry loading went smoothly enough and before long we were on the top deck enjoying the blue skies, calm water, and snow-capped Olympic mountains lining the U.S. horizon.

A couple of hours later we found ourselves in line for Canadian customs and immigration. I can’t even count how many times we’ve crossed borders and dealt with these officials, and this was Canada after all, so we weren’t expecting much of a hassle. Yet right before we pulled up to the guard I said to Ali, “I bet we get searched today.”

Sure enough, after answering a few questions we were told to pull off to the side to speak with another agent. We answered a few more questions and then the agent disappeared into the building to run our passports. While we waited for her to return two more agents arrived. They asked us to set our car keys on the dash and step outside to the front of the car. They started grilling us with more questions, trying to trip us up with our answers, which wasn’t hard to do. See, Ali and I never go into these things with a plan.

Officer: “What do you do for a living?”
What we should say: “We’re travel writers, doing research for a piece on camping in British Columbia.”
What we say instead: “I’m a trader.” (me) “I’m a secretary.” (Ali)

Which leads to: “When are you expected back at work?”
The answer if we had said the right thing: “Two weeks.”
Our answer instead: “Ahh, well, you see, actually I’m self employed and she’s not really working. Nobody is really expecting us back anytime soon.”

Officer: “How long do you plan to be in Canada?”
What we should say: “Two weeks.”
What we say instead: “Ahh, well, I don’t know, a while I suppose. We don’t really have a plan. I’m not sure.”

So by now they are pretty well sure that we plan to live in Canada forever, mooch off of their medical system, probably apply for some sort of assistance program, and live in a van down by the river.

It’s no surprise of course when the lady officer returns with the news that there is a problem. The problem being that I am a criminal. Not like a wanted fugitive or anything, but in the eyes of the Canadians I’m an unsavory character. Back in my college days I tended to act like a typical midwestern state college beer drinking frat boy. Though at my college only sissies were in frats, the rest of us just partied in dank basements night after night, or snuck into any of a dozen bars perched on the edge of campus. Anyway, one particular night I had a few too many, ended up in a semi-fight with a guy I didn’t know in which no punches were actually landed, and had the cops arrive. I then exacerbated the problem by handing over my fake i.d. (I was twenty at the time) to the cop, which he did not find at all amusing. Long story short, a couple of misdemeanors. Not something I’m proud of, but also not something I’ve really given a whole lot of thought to in the 14 years since.

Well, maybe I should have. Turns out these are major offenses in Canada, equivalent to felonies I was told by the officer. When I thought of how many of my friends would have been convicted felons for trying to sneak into bars at nineteen years old I had to cringe. So anyway, Canada wouldn’t let me in.

By now the search of the bus had turned up nothing but a copy of our book, “Hey, you guys sailed around the world?” And everybody was getting along much better. Eventually a solution was presented. Turns out for just $200 I could buy myself into Canada. They don’t want hooligans here, unless, that is, the hooligans have money. So into the office I went, filled out a Temporary Resident Permit, paid my dues, and was set free to raise havoc on our favorite neighbors to the north. I’m wondering now if maybe since I’m a resident I qualify for unemployment benefits.

june 28 2008 : vancouver island, chemainus, b.c., canada
Our latest foray into Canada has not been going very well. After our shake down at the border we continued through Victoria, which was a surprisingly large city. Without a map or a guidebook our only information on Vancouver Island rested near the back of our 1997 U.S. Road Atlas given to us by our friendly insurance agent all those years ago. Obviously not a wealth of knowledge. I could make out only that there appeared to be one main road from the top of the island to the bottom. I took that to mean that this was just a quaint little place. What we found wasn’t quaint at all.

A guy we met on the ferry mentioned to us that the Tall Ships were in town. He also told us that it was a huge holiday weekend, with July 1st being Canada Day. He said all this as if we were the luckiest two people on earth. It was actually just the opposite. Downtown Victoria was a zoo, Highway 1 to the north was in gridlock, and every campground in the area was booked full, unable to even squeeze in a VW bus. We eventually found an RV park community with something like three million spaces near downtown. They were full too, but for thirty bucks would let us park next to the house. And that’s how we spent our first night.

Today we set out early figuring we’d drive north and stop in at any of the dozens of Provinial Parks scattered around the island. The drive north on the 1 was wholly uninteresting. We knew we were on an island only because we had taken a ferry to get here, otherwise we could have been in any suburban strip-mall lined area anywhere in North America.

We stopped in at a couple of parks but were told that all the campgrounds in all the parks on the island were booked solid through the holiday. The girl actually had the computer screen in front of her to tell us this. That left us with the option of boondocking or private RV campgrounds. Boondocking seems pretty out of the question here, as we have yet to see any sort of secluded area. They may be out there somewhere, but we haven’t found it. And so this evening we are once again in an RV park with a view of absolutely nothing except hundreds of other RVs. This really hasn’t been our best two days on the road. Fortunately the bus, as always, has drawn lots of visitors and a few of them have been locals from here on the island. They’ve given us some tips on where to go, and we are going to check them out tomorrow.

june 30 2008 : squamish, b.c., canada (107 nights in the bus : 17,245 miles)
The next day we were on the road determined to find a particularly great place that a local had told us about. By late afternoon we hadn’t found it. Though we did find a much more scenic road running along the water’s edge through small towns on its way north.

At one stop during the day we got into a conversation with an older couple. They’d had a bus back in the day too. We got to talking about travel, as they had once done a sixteen day tour of Russia and asked us if we planned to travel overseas at all. We told them that actually we’d finished a sail around the world about a year earlier. “What, in like a thousand foot ship or something?” “No, actually it was just the two of us in a 35-foot catamaran.” With an incredulous look on his face he said, “A catamaran?”

He paused for a minute and then made a bobbing back and forth motion with his hand. Clearly he did not think these new fangled catamarans were capable of sailing across oceans. Far too tippy. Even after talking a while I still don’t think he really believed us.

We never did find that wondrous spot that we’d been told about, but eventually did find a nice enough place to spend the night. At least it was on the water, with snow-capped mountains lining the horizon on the mainland side.

Today we woke up and decided that this island just wasn’t working out for us. It seemed like a great place to live, but we weren’t finding it all that attractive a place to travel. At least during the Canada Day holiday weekend. We decided to get off the rock and continue the march towards Alaska.

The ferry was as uneventful as always. It disgorged us south of Vancouver and we jumped on the 99 for a drive through town. Vancouver looked like a great city, a lived in city. On the outskirts it reminded me of Portland with a steady stream of cool neighborhoods that have obviously undergone some serious urban renewal. And then we hit the bridge that carried us over the water and into downtown. I have never seen so many condos anywhere. That is all the skyline was. Coming across the bridge all you could see were the top half of all of these buildings and it gave me the sense of flying through the air a’la George Jetson. For three o’clock on a Monday the city was absolutely hopping. That’s when I noticed another thing I’ve never seen so many of, mountain bikes on top of Subaru Foresters. This is definitely one active lifestyle city.

Five minutes outside of downtown we were in the mountains. The scenery was spectacular, unfortunately so was the road construction. For thirty miles we had beautiful views all around us but couldn’t stop anywhere to enjoy them, locked as we were in a one-lane row of orange cones. Then in quick succession we drove past both a tiny Provincial Park and a Taco Bell. Clearly a sign that it was time to call it a night.