Click here to view the embedded video.

Our wine country campsite view

Greetings from Sonoma County, California. Melissa and I have been perched high atop vineyards at the Cloverdale KOA, which is actually one of the best campgrounds we’ve been to. We’ve been here since Wednesday night and we leave in a couple of hours for a day and a half in San Francisco. Our experience here has been just about everything we had hoped it would be, and will be the subject of a post Melissa is already composing in her head. The weather has been amazing, and you know what, after the rain we endured for a week, we deserve it, dammit. The wine has been flowing, and the food has been amazing. Don’t think of wine country as wine country. It is wine and food country. Food is taken just as seriously here, and sometimes I even think more so.

It’s been hard for me to find time to download all of the video we’ve taken to the computer, edit it, and then re-upload it to Vimeo. Campground WIFI differs wildly, which contributes to the delays. What we have here is a 20-plus minute video that captures a bit of our travels through the rest of Kansas, including Hays (my mom’s hometown), Nebraska and South Dakota. You’ll see what Wall Drug is all about, the ‘South of the Border’ of the great plains.

I’ll get us caught up on the video someday. Until then, enjoy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Body heat thief

I type this in the dinette, which is in the forward part of the Airstream, beneath the din of our propane-fired furnace while heavy rain, thunder and hail pelts the riveted hull.

Melissa is sleeping cozily under a stack of blankets in the back. Luna the cat is perched atop of her, as she always is. It’s 7:54 AM. I just brewed some coffee and I’m going to try to squeak out a blog update now before my laptop battery fizzles.

Snug as a bug aboard the ferry Spokane

After ferrying the rig on the Washington State Ferry from Edmonds to Kingston (on the Spokane, a huge vessel that served Red Hook on tap), we are now on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington just off of the amazingly beautiful US 101 at a place called Kalaloch, about halfway between Port Angeles and Aberdeen. It’s a state park that’s open all year, nestled along the coast. And I mean right along the coast. There’s our parking spot, then a road, a fence, a cliff, and the water. Spectacular, even in the rain. Maybe even more so in the rain, because the swells in this storm are 20 to 25 feet tall, and I’m not exaggerating. It looks like a washing(ton) machine out there. This time of year is known as ‘Discovery Season’, when campers can simply drive on in, find a spot, and stake their claim over expansive views of the rugged Pacific Ocean. If you want to see what I’m talking about, have a look here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This form of camping we’re doing is known as ‘boondocking’. No water, no electricity hookups, no on-site sewer hookup, no cable TV. Just you and what you bring in. While it’s nice to stay at full-service campgrounds, boondocking is even more fun. The geek in me likes to see how much battery power we can eek out without firing up our generator. I kinda feel like Scotty from Star Trek. Either that, or the fact that the generator is piled under all kinds of other crap in the bed of the pickup, and I’m too lazy to free it.

Before arriving here, we enjoyed what was our only extended stay in one place since our two days in Montreal back in mid-October. We enjoyed 4 days in the Emerald City – Seattle Washington. Well, let me correct that. Melissa enjoyed four days in Seattle. I enjoyed two days of coast-to-coast airplane rides and two days of unanticipated work-related duties back in Philadelphia. I hope to share more details about what this trip was all about in the coming months. It should be pretty neat. But now, the focus is squarely back on this amazing honeymoon of ours we’ve been privileged to experience.

We’re happy that we got to visit with some good friends while we were in Seattle. Last Monday, before I flew back to Philly, we got to catch a Phillies World Series win (which turned out to be the last one) with my friend Mike Salmon, a Philly transplant. My friend Mike Schlador joined us as well, and It was a quick dinner and a few beers, but it was nice to see them again, despite the fact we saw them a few weeks ago on our wedding day.

Suzanne and Me

After leaving for Philly on Tuesday, Melissa kept busy and spent a lot of time with our friends Mike and Suzanne, and their perfectly adorable daughter Audrey. Suzanne and Melissa browsed boutiques in Ballard and lunched together on Tuesday for the better part of the day. Melissa then browsed the market and hopped around town on Wednesday, and enjoyed a nice dinner with the Schlador’s. Thursday, Melissa successfully got Suzanne knee-deep in an advanced crafting project that required written instructions on how to execute it after we left. Suzanne looked nervous. She’s a smart cookie, she’ll pull it off.

Laszlo, me and Schlador

Heidi and Ryan

Renee and Rachel

What was more amazing was the fact that several of our friends – Renee, Richard and their daughter Rachel; George, Heidi, and their son Ryan; and Suzanne, Mike and little Audrey all took time off from work on Friday morning to join us for breakfast at Mike and Suzanne’s house before we hit the road. It was really, really nice. We wish we could have spent more time with them, but it exemplified how extremely genuine they all are and it was great to see them all again. I miss them.

As the sun gets brighter through the windows of the trailer, I must leave the keyboard and jostle Melissa into consciousness. We have a rainy drive ahead of us today, but the payoff should be a cheese-filled visit to the Tillamook County Creamery Association. We’ll soon be sittin’ pretty in cheddar city. Oh, and I might as well try and keep my quest to end up with the gout alive by finding some dungeness crab somewhere.

Toodles. More videos are on the way, including footage of Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.

US 101 in Washington

Also, watch Greg’s Uncle Dan demonstrates what makes him so special.

Here it is. Or, watch it at Vimeo.

Click here to view the embedded video.

gorgeous.

Wow.  So today was supposed to be my day to drive.  You see, each day Greg and I take turns at the wheel to demonstrate partnership and respect for one other.  Well, actually, we do it to allow equal time to catch up on blog entries, photographs, videos and wedding thank yous.  This particular morning, we opted to traverse a winding scenic route through Big Horn National Forest rather than the extremely windy and boring interstate jaunt  from Sheridan, Wyoming to Livingston, Montana.  It has been the most beautiful drive we’ve had yet–well, so far…  I am currently enjoying the drive from the the luxury of the passenger’s seat with my chronically narcoleptic cat after white knuckling it UP the mountain.  Not only was I a bit nervous about the giant drop-offs to our right and then our left, but I was also freaking out about how beautiful the drive was.  After several longing glances at my camera, I was delighted when Greg offered to take the wheel so I could snap some shots.

Longing for her camera

He is so good!  Boy, was I relieved, because it was time to descend the 9,340 feet of switchbacks and 10% downgrades.

Hairy, any way you drive it.

I let Greg worry about the logistics while I continued to document the glorious vistas framed by the dinky limitations of our windshield.  As our brakes began to smoke, Greg asked himself aloud, “What would Stew do?” and knew the answer would be, “Let your transmission do the work.”  And so Greg obviously guided us skillfully and safely down the other side of that mountain because now we are galloping along in Montana.  All this business may have caused my camera to start smoking as well.

Greg's side of the mountain.

Last evening was our first night out in the west so you can imagine we were seeking a saloon-type situation complete with an arm-gartered piano player and an upstairs brothel.  What we found was a perfect western watering hole called the Mint Bar on the main street, which also housed custom saddleries, closed boot shops (it was after 6 pm so each front window was smudgy from my face pressing and drooling) and an old timey JC Penney.

ye olde time.

We lassoed our horses to the hitching post (we wish) and stepped on in to what may or may not have been Wyoming’s premier museum of taxidermy.  The Mint Bar boasted a stamped tin ceiling and the walls were papered with what looked to me like hieroglyphics, but were actually wood panels displaying all the local ranchers’ brands.  The animals, frozen in time, ranged from a giant antlered rabbit to Greg’s new Christmas wish list item:  a stately moose head.  Do you think our Paco at home (yes, we have one mounted deer head already) would feel out-antlered?

stuffed with beer. stuffed with cotton.

Real cowboys sipped their draughts at the bar and I imagined them to be discussing rodeo tactics or cattle birthing.  They looked very hardened, their skin weathered by sun and wind, and their hats tattered and dirty from long days on dusty ranches.  Here’s the ugly truth:  real cowboys sometimes wear mom jeans (unbeknownst to them).  Yes–high waisted, belted, and tapered-legged wrangler’s, lee’s and levi’s can easily become mom jeans when fitted snuggly over cowboy boots.  Out of respect and fear, Greg and I kept our giggles hushed and concentrated on dumping coins into the jukebox to further enhance our western night out.  We punched in our favorites from Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline and the Dixie Chicks, and it wasn’t until Greg’s Journey selection began playing that the bartender decided to trump the jukebox with her own bar speakers.

After a few beers and enough time to properly admire each animal, we headed to a local rib and chop house on a friend’s suggestion where Greg enjoyed a fine 12 oz. filet and I devoured cedar plank salmon and huckleberry viniagrette dressed greens.  We were actually too stuffed to order dessert.  Contemplating a night cap back at the mint bar, we decided to return home to the trailer to get snuggled in and enjoy one of our favorite wedding gifts –thank you Rinaldi family–home made basil liqueur!

We awoke this morning to a party of peacocks scurrying by, with one lone male displaying all his glory to a cluster of less than stellar lady peacocks pecking at each other.

passing through.

That brings me to where we are now, on our way to Livingston, Montana to boondock on a friend’s ranch since she’s got a billion gorgeous acres to spare and share!  Greg just wisely delegated the remaining juice in the brakes to avoid obliterating an unexpected deer who was apparently lolligagging behind his dear deer friend in the field across the highway.  WHEW!  I guess Greg earned the Rush marathon play time he somehow managed to sneak onto our stereo when I wasn’t looking.

We are really looking forward to some serious boot shopping and beer drinking while we hunt down another memorable western bar– one that is hopefully into watching the World Series.  Go Phillies!

drool worthy.

11/24/09 – an update: here’s the video detailing our drive. Greg was able to edit the footage and get it posted online:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Or, you can watch it on Vimeo directly. The choice is yours, compadre.