15th - 17th July:Overnight train and drive down to Yellowstone

It seemed like a good idea at the time! Get the 10.30pm overnight train to where we could hire a campervan to drive down to Yellowstone National Park. Except overnight actually meant that we arrived at Sandpoint at 2.32am having had to wake the girls up and then walk to our hotel (the taxi ordered by the hotel arrived late and ignored us as we walked down the road in the dark).

It seems we had the last campervan available in North West USA and they upgraded us to a better one due to a complication with an overbooking. What a monster it was - how were we ever going to drive that thing around Yellowstone? It had a separate double bedroom at the back along with shower, toilet and small kitchen AND a generator! Only problem was the size: 29ft long - small by American standards (they all have RV's the size of coaches and tow cars along behind!).

We took a leisurely 2 days to drive down to Yellowstone (and to get used to driving such a monster), stopping at 2 campgrounds on the way - both of them preparing us for the mozzie attacks on our skin (Katy is currently the champion of bites - I think she counted 42!).

12-14th July: Seattle

Yes it did rain in Seattle! But who cares when you have 3 great institutions to visit:

• Boeing factory
• Microsoft HQ
• Experience Music Project (EMP) Museum

The Boeing factory tour was amazing, we actually got to walk inside the hangars where they fit out and join together all the "bits" (can't remember the technical term!) for the 747, 777 and the new 787!! Andy and I found it fascinating and so wanted to see more, the girls were more interested in designing their own aeroplanes in the interactive museum afterwards.

Microsoft, I'm afraid to say was a big disappointment. It was a bit like the PC department in Curry's - really! Just lots of laptops to play on, a few bits of history (the girls actually knew what a typewriter was - they didn't recognise the Sony Walkman tape cassette player though!) and those new table tablet thingies that you see them using on CSI Miami. Hmm, come on Microsoft you can do better than that!

The EMP Museum was a real hit with the females of the party, we had to literally drag the girls away. It is filled with recording labs where you can sing or play along to tracks and adjust the settings. You could also learn a new instrument and then play along to your favourite track. I must admit to enjoying my drumming session with Bon Jovi! Definitely recommended if you visit Seattle.

Just realised that I completely forgot to mention the International Fountain at the Seattle Centre. We just found it by accident, this amazing fountain that is more like a peformance art show to music. Hopefully you can play our video below to see it for yourselves:

Saturday 11th July: Vancouver to Seattle

Back in the land of the living again! Just arrived back from Yellowstone National Park where there are no international phones or mobile reception, no internet... bliss! What a lot of catching up to do on the blog...


After a very brief trip home to check on my Nan we managed to have a coffee in Vancouver with Mark (aka mad Canadian cyclist) who I met on my travels in Australia when I was a very young thing (19!) and again in Sale, Manchester on his travels 12 yrs ago; and his partner Andrea and catch up. Great to see what they are both up to - terrible shame that we were having to run off and catch an Amtrak train to Seattle that evening.
Those of you who have already experienced American trains will already know what a joy they are to travel in. Reclining seats, plenty of space, observation cars with huge windows floor to ceiling to enjoy the views - need I go on. Time to catch up British Rail!

We arrived in Seattle (unfortunately late - maybe Amtrak are not so great...) very tired, and very glad that we had pre-booked a hotel room for the night!

Katy cycling diary entry

We've started letting the girls touch-type their diary entries (they're getting better at this) - this is Katy's entry for the middle cycling day ...

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Before we could go out cycling, Mrs Chatterbox insisted on taking photos, giving us shells and muesli bars, and then didn’t let me take my bike down the blackberry bush path. Finally we were ready to go to the next cottage we were staying in. On the way there we stopped off at the “Fuse” restaurant (the one we had been to the day before) and had lunch there. We had the same as before, except dad had the banana phyllo (they didn’t have that the day before).

We cycled on and stopped off at a rope swing on the side of the trail. We used it for ages but Pippa needed the toilet, so unfortunately we had to cycle until we found one. We stopped at the nearest one (which wasn’t that far away). We carried on cycling until we split up to try and find the potholes (a place to swim).

When we had found out where they were, we cycled to them, locked our bikes up and walked to the potholes. We had to climb down some steep rocks to get there, but when we reached them we went to where the children were, and tried to go in. The reason we tried to go in was because the water was freezing cold. After I had gone in I swam across to the end of a big log and started climbing up it. When I reached the top I got stuck and had to be helped down by dad.

We went back to the bikes and carried on cycling until we had to go on the road. On the main road we went up and down for ages until we reached lilac house (where we were staying).

Tofino to Whistler - 4th to 6th July

Another night in the Royal Scots hotel in Victoria (easily recognisable from the bear in a kilt outside the front door), and we were off by Vancouver Island's only train up to Namaimo, a 2.5 hour train ride. Victoria station was the cutest building you could ever see - I think the hotel shuttle driver must have been offended, because we all burst into laughter when we saw it. The train ride was through beautiful scenery at first, across high trestle bridges.

At Namaimo we booked a hire car, and drove 3 hours across to the west coast of Vancouver Island, stopping off at a mountain stream on the way (we would have swum in the crystal clear pools, but sadly the gorgeous weather we'd had since ... London probably ... had just broken, and it was 12 degrees and raining. Yuk. At Tofino we checked into a motel with one small room for all of us, went out for a meal (as always when we leave it too late to eat, there was a lively discussion about where to eat. One of the downsides of travelling all the time is that you either eat rubbish food or expensive food; and sometimes both at the same time).

The next day we went on a walk down to the sea (beautiful scenery spoilt by rain and cold), then in the evening went bear-watching! This involved going out for a 2-hour cruise round the islands of Tofino with a few other people, looking for black spots on the shore. You could tell the tour guide was getting desperate, and Jenny and I were just working out how much we'd paid to see 2 porpoises and a couple of eagles, when at last we found a bear. The photo doesn't do it justice: it was impressive being able to bob about in a boat about 50 yards off shore, watching a bear going about its business (looking for food) on the shore oblivous of us. I'm not sure who was more relieved to see the bear: Jenny or the tour guide.

The next day we gave up on the weather and drove back to Namaimo, caught the ferry to West Vancouver and checked into the Horseshoe Bay Motel. This would have been a low point anyway - it was raining, we were a bit aimless and the motel room was tiny and cramped - but it was made worse when Jenny heard that her Nan was ill. She spent the next 24 hours or so planning how she could return to the UK to visit her (for the record, I did offer that we could all go). Read on to discover how she did it ...

We had a horrible, aimless next day, but eventually ended up renting a car in central Vancouver ("downtown") and driving up to Whistler, where we'd rented a lovely condominium for 3 nights. It was SO nice to have 2 bedrooms and a bit of space! At 1am on the first night Jenny booked her plane tickets, and left at 8am the next morning on her straightforward journey Whistler-Vancouver-London Gatwick-Victoria-Euston-Telford, returning within 36 hours. She gets into London in 3 hours or so, at 7.30 am UK time, just ready mentally to sleep. So if anyone reading this meets Jenny, please:

• Be nice to her; and
• Try to make sure she doesn't drive a car!

Today's been a bit weird without Jenny, but we rented some cycles and cycled round the lakes here, which was nice. The girls are now watching some rubbish US comedy ...

Cycling - 2nd to 4th July

We took a cute little ferry the next day (see photo) up Victoria harbour, manned by an entertaining Aberdonian immigrant who spent the whole trip trying to persuade us that Victoria was THE place to live. At the cycle hire shop, Miss Weird-Laugh (Pippa's name for her) fitted us out, then gave us a lift to near the end of the Galloping Goose trail, an old railway trail which runs along the south coast of Vancouver Island. The really exciting thing was that we left most of our luggage and this computer behind!

Spent that afternoon, the next day and the following day gradually cycling back to Victoria, and I reckon covered about 80-100 km in total (it was easy to count, as the trail had km markers). Most of it was flat and easy, but there were about 10 km on highways with big hills - we were both impressed with what the girls coped with. Everyone agreed that despite punctures and setbacks it had been a great 3 days, and we're looking to do more cycling in the US.

Things we passed: 3 or 4 deer, Sooke pot-holes (swimming holes in the rock in a mountain river), beautiful scenery, a rope-swing. People we met: Mrs Chatty (Katy's name, this time), the owner of the first night's B&B who was obviously lonely, and kept thrusting conversation, reminiscences and gifts on us. Things we forgot: Joanna's coat (whose else) at the second B&B. Accidents we experienced: one of our party fell off her bicycle. Regular readers of this blog won't need to ask her name.

Canada Day - 30th June to 1st July

Bye bye Hawaii! We had a ridiculous flight: the Big Island to Honolulu, then after a two-hour delay to Maui, then a 4-5 hour wait until the overnight flight to Vancouver. When we arrived at Vancouver at 4.30 am (our time) 7.30 (local time), everyone was a bit tired.

What to do? We caught a bus-ferry-bus to Victoria, a picturesque city on Vancouver Island. The island looks tiny on the map, but turned out to be hundreds of miles long. What we hadn't realised until the day before was that it was Canada Day, the national holiday, and Victoria was full of good-natured crowds (see photo). Miraculously, we found a hotel room for the night, then slept from about 3 to 7pm - weird!

We woke up in time to go and watch the fireworks over the harbour at 10.30pm; Sydney's were better, but the atmosphere in Victoria was pretty good. It's a shame we've decided not to make it to the US for 4th July, otherwise we could get a hat trick of national fireworks. The highlight of the walk back to the hotel was when someone threw some liquid out of a hotel window onto Jenny and Pippa (they THINK it was water).