Hi,
We arrived in South Lake Tahoe late this afternoon.  It is very cold here.  I think it will freeze tonight.
Since the last writing of the blog, we have taken a tour of the Boeing Airplane factory with Kyler and Marie.
We along with Curt and EunJu and family left early Saturday morning on our trip towards Yosemite.  We saw a segment on the food channel about a "funky" donut  shop in Portland, Oregon which would be near the freeway we were traveling on so we had to stop and take a look.  As you can see it is a very popular place.  It is called Voodoo Donuts.  Their specialty is making a fried pastry made like a voodoo doll.  It is filled with raspberry jelly (looks like blood), frosted with chocolate icing, decorated like a voodoo doll and a pretzel stick stuck in the body.  They also have numerous toppings for donuts. eg: fruit loops, maple glaze with fried bacon.  Chalk it up for an experience. 
We arrived in Crescent City, California late afternoon after traveling about 500 miles.  We are traveling in two cars because for Curt to rent a car back would cost more than spending gas for his car the whole trip.  It turned out to be a good idea because the luggage would not have left much room for all of us.
The next day was spent viewing sea and trees.  The ocean views along the Hwy 101 were fantastic and the Redwood trees in Redwood National Park were unbelievable.  They were huge!  They grow only this way in this part in the world.  We had to drive through one of course.  We are having a fantastic time with the kids and we are seeing some outstanding scenery.
Jan and Don

Hi,
Today was one of those perfect days to visit Mt. Rainier National Park.  The drive and scenery were incredible, stunning, etc.  I don't know if it was Mount Rainier, the clear blue sky, the temperature in the 70's, the tall dark green pine trees, the abundance of wild flowers blooming, there not being too much traffic, the slow speed zones, or what it was, but it was one of the most beautiful rides we have had. 
The pictures of reflections in the lakes are at two different lakes.  The first one with the wild flowers was at Tipsoo Lake and the other ones at Reflection Lake.
We left at 8:30 and came home at 5:30.  We drove around the mountain and saw all the sides of it.  The drive was about 150 miles. 
Jan and Don

Hi,

We have been busy watching Kyler play soccer with his team.  They had a four day tournament.  We had to get up at 5 AM and drive over an hour to get to the soccer fields.  There were lots of campers, motorhomes, trailers and tents all along the soccer fields.  There were thousands of players and hundreds of teams.  The teams were from as far away as Spokane.   Kyler's team kept winning so we had to go every day.  The last day the game was played in the rain and they won so they had to play the last game at 2pm that afternoon.  They won!! and it was sunny.  
On the way home on one of the days there was a "you pick" blueberry field so we stopped to pick some.
We also have been busy playing games.  Kyler and Marie love to play.
So far the weather has been cloudy but not too cold.  In the sixties.  We have only seen the mountain once.
Jan and Don

Hi,
We arrived in Maple Valley, Washington about 5pm yesterday.  The trip on the ferry was very nice. The temperature was 95 degrees
and today it started out raining and it did not get above 72.  Late afternoon the sun came out and it cleared up nice so we could see the mountain (Mt. Rainier) The photo was taken from Curt's front door.  The mountain is about 60 miles away!
We are having fun getting to know our grand kids again.  Playing lots of games.
Jan

Our day today consisted of driving a short distance from Victoria to Sidney to the ferry, waiting for the ferry, riding on the ferry to Anacortes, and then driving to Maple Valley, WA where our son, Curt, and family live.  Another beautiful day!

Don

Hi,

We had our GPS do the work for us today.  We had intended to go to Pacific Coast but it was too far and besides most  of the trip would be on a winding road through trees.  Instead we went to all the small towns along the Georgia Strait on the east side of the island.
We started the day by visiting the Nanaimo Bakery.  Wow that was a good one.  Too bad we just had breakfast so we weren't hungry.   We decided to buy something sweet and they had crusty rolls with Edam cheese.  We bought two of those too for our lunch.
First stop was Chemainus.  About two dozen buildings had murals painted on the side.  They were really nice.  We then stayed on the road along the coast and ignored our GPS and ended up in Geona Bay.  The road ended there but it was perfect place to eat our lunch.  The gift shop sold coffee to go and there was a picnic table too.  The rolls were really delicious and we wished we had bought more.
A few more interesting towns and then we drove to Victoria.
We staying overnight in Saanichton north of Victoria and about 10 miles from Sidney where we will board a ferry to Anacordes in the state of Washington.
Don and Jan

Hi,
It is still 90 degrees here on Vancouver Island.  The humidity is low though so it is bearable and feels good.
We went to Duncan Christian Reformed today and afterwards some asked us to come to their home for coffee.  We had a nice visit with them.  The picture of the church is not Duncan Christian Reformed Church but a church we saw outside of Duncan.  The other picture shows miles of traf
We went driving along an ocean side road but the road was lined with trees and was very very curvy so we decided to go back to Nanaimo to our motel.
Jan

Hi Everyone,

I am filling in for Jan.  She was too tired last night to write.
We spent Saturday alternating between driving short distances, waiting for ferries, and riding on ferries.  We were on ferries a total of 3 hours, waiting for ferries perhaps 4 hours, and driving the rest of the time.  From Vancouver we went as far north as Powell River then took our last ferry across The Strait of Georgia to Comox.  We then drove south on 19 to Nanaimo where we are staying for the night.  It was a pleasant trip and the weather was wonderful, but we expected to explore some of the old villages along the way and found the old villages to be quite modern.

Don & Jan

Hi,
We rode on the trolley today and got off at certain areas.  The trolley is a "hop on hop off" one.  We toured Stanley Park most of the day.  We got off at the one of the stops and started walking on the seawall surrounding the park.  We intended to get on back on again at "the point" about a mile and half away.  When we got there, there was a huge rocky cliff and we couldn't climb up it nor was there a stair so we kept on walking hoping there would be a break in the cliff to get back to the road.  Well there wasn't so we finally ended up walking five miles before we could get to a trolley stop again.  Fortunately it was a beautiful day.  Sunny, temperature in the mid 70's and a nice ocean breeze with a beautiful scenery.
We then got off the trolley near Granville Island and took a cute aquabus to the island.  We went to the market there and had lunch.
We went back again on the trolley just in time to catch the last one of the day.
Vancouver is a busy and beautiful city full of tourists.  We are not going to be sorry to leave the hectic crowded city.
Our accomodations were great.  We didn't need our car for two days.
Jan and Don

Hi,
We started the day out with a breakfast of a Dutch pancake.  If you don't know what that is, it is a very thin pancake which covers a dinner plate and has various toppings on it.  The Best Western is owned by dutch people and they had a dutch restaurant next door.  According to the yellow pages, there was a Vanden Bosch Pasterie Belgie Bakery.  When we arrived at the address, it
wasn't there.
We had reserved a hotel in downtown Vancouver with parking underneath the hotel on first come first basis so we went there next with hope of parking there while  we explored Vancouver.  So now our car will be there for two days.
Yesterday we bought a day pass on all public transportation for a day and trolley tickets for two days.  We first went on the sky train.  We stayed on it to the end and came back.  It lasted two hours.  The train is driven by computers only. 
We then went on the seabus to North Vancouver and back.  Very efficient.  It will unload and then load about 300 plus passengers in about five minutes.  One will leave the dock every 15 minutes.  We then went on the two trolley routes for about three hours.  We also went on the city bus for a while.
Vancouver is a city of apartments as you can according to the pictures.  Vancouver has mountains to one side, ocean to another and rich farmland in another direction.  They didn't want to use up farmland for dwellings so they are going up for living spaces.
We walked quite a bit too.  We are tired and looking forward to going to bed.
Jan and Don