Where's Abby (+ Dylan and dogs)

In pure Dylabby fashion, we had a very informal plan to head east to see the Painted Hills, John Day Fossil Beds, John Day River, and desert time, but then as we were packing up the car that morning, we changed our plans and decided to head north to Colchuck Lake in Washington. More chance for seeing the Northern Lights? Autumn colors? Less chance of rattlesnakes biting our dogs? Those were a few of the random reasons that were thrown out there.  We booked a hotel on the drive up for Wenatchee, WA near Leavenworth-- Leavenworth was crazy expensive, later to find out the Oktoberfest reason why. And booking camping in Washington is not fun. If anyone has tips that don’t involve having to book 6months (or even a month) in advance or having to do a whole lottery to get a permit, please let us last-minute travelers know. We did get a good stop in Leavenworth for some German beers, people watching, and a beautiful river walk right in town, and a lovely sunset dinner view.  The next ...

It's been over a year since being back in Florida. I started thinking of some of these comparisons shortly after returning, but now I have even more to add. And it's more comparing the Oregon Coast to this area, of course. If you're new here, we were in Pacific City, OR a little old town of ~1000 people. Now we're in Atlantic Beach, FL.  1. The amount of laundry. I'd say 3 shirts a day in the summer is typical for this Florida heat and humidity. Go for a morning walk, change shirts...  Plant some flowers. Gotta change... Workout, definitely change. Shower, dog walk-- one more change before the night's done.  2. The bank and post office are open on Saturdays here! And restaurants don't close for the winter.  3. Florida neighborhood strolls: Seeing 10+ humans on every walk compared to often only 0. I love the community here! Lovely neighbors, gym rats, baristas. Even my parents! The Padres moved 40 minutes away vs 2.5! Yahoo! Pacific City was just so empty. On...

          It's been a year since our arrival to our new west coast home and here's my first update! I just found a draft from October where I vowed to myself I'd write a monthly update and here we are. And now I have the task of summarizing a whole YEAR. How to cover it all? "Plan some themes for a couple different posts? Organize your thoughts? ... Just start writing and figure it out?" Let's do this. You can click here to read about our roadtrip out here (also 1 year late), and you can check out Dylan's flickr for more pics.  Oregon Arrival          On May 15th, 2020, we saw our first signs for Pacific City. We drove through national forests, by picturesque rivers, on one way bridges, until we spotted the big old ocean rock in the distance (Haystack Rock), and drove up to our little blue house. We were kind of skeptical before arriving about what the town and house would be like-- exploring Google maps before had given...