Where's Abby (+ Dylan and dogs)

One unique story out here is the story of Bayocean . The tiny strip or "spit" of land between the Pacific Ocean and Tillamook Bay. This little area sparked some investors' interests in the early 1900s and long story short-ish, (because click that link for deets), they built up this whole resort town with a hotel, fancy pool, bowling alley, tennis courts, dance hall... a full set up for such a tiny town. It sounded like a blast for the wealthy to come vacation here (with quite the excursion to make it here at that time with lack of roads, trains, boat troubles). The one name to share is F.D. Mitchell, the guy that put all his heart and soul (and investments) into this resort, only to have it totally destroyed by nature. The homes, hotels, store... everything is totally gone now. And it looks like this!    The unfortunate thing is this F.D. needed a north and south jetty put in to protect the spit from the water coming out from the bar into the ocean and make boat passage e...

For both of our birthdays this year, we found ourselves in the wonders of Washington.  We celebrated Dylan's 37th with a trip to the Olympic Pensinsula with the first hike up to our campsite at Lena Lake. It was a beautiful hike and lake spot, but the camping aspect was not the most comfortable with two big dogs. Luckily we kept them out of the lake so they weren't two big, wet, stinky dogs. The next morning, we hiked on down and drove up to Port Townsend where we stayed two nights at the Palace Hotel.  It was the cutest little room that we could've lived in. This little lofty apartment had a view of the Port Townsend Bay's ships and historic street. Its history was entertaining too, as it used to be a brothel, with the rooms named after "the girls." Port Townsend was quite a cute town as well with good walks, gardens, views and friendly kids.       The second day, we were awe-struck by our Badger Valley hike in the Olympic National Park. From the slightly ...

Well hello, all! Remember back in May 2021 when my goal was to write a post a month? Here we are, 11 posts behind. BUT I think I've actually gotten the motivation now, folks. I've got a slew (?) of posts written and saved in drafts to grace your eyes in no time. You just wait. You can read all about our Washington birthdays, our Fairytale Forests, visitors' escapades, the peculiar story of Bayocean, Portland times... it's coming. So thanks to friends, Kaila and Chad, we made it on a skiing trip in January 2022. We were all booked for a lovely stay in Leavenworth, lift tickets purchased, dogs booked for their stay to just drop off for the weekend. It was just all so convenient! We were set!  Then the snow just kept on falling til the roads were closed to the mountain and resort, foiling our whole plan! We had a late, complicated night of 6 people trying to coordinate a new last minute plan. The crew came up with and followed through with a trip to Crystal Mountain the ne...

          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...

Neptune Beach, FL --> Gainesville, FL--> Apalachicola, FL --> Dothan, AL --> Natchez, MS --> Austin, TX--> Santa Fe, NM--> Colorado Springs, CO --> Telluride, CO --> Page (?), AZ--> Park City, UT --> Boise, ID --> Pacific City, OR!  Our Oregon Trail             Last May, we spent 18 days traveling across the States during the weirdness of the pandemic to get to our new home on the Oregon coast. Most places were very shut down so we were getting lots of takeout, wondering strangely empty streets, "living the yuppy condo life and ordering Grubhub" at an Airbnb in Texas... Certainly not ideal for our big plans, but it was fantastic nonethess.  We started off with a quick visit in Apalachicola, FL, a town special to my Grandma Jeanne, on the way to visit Pa, Grandma, Dennis and Dede for a few days. Got to take Dylan to their old farm and farmhouse on Coe Road (our family name) that is actually still dirt. ...