Robyn and I flew into
Boston, where we visited Chris, Dave and
Michelle. Going from Egypt to Chris's gay
neighborhood on gay pride day was quite a
culture shock! As were more banal tasks such
as choosing aspirin in your average American
pharmacy with 42 choices of pain reliever.
After a rainy few days of hiking in the White
Mountains and a sunny weekend in Provincetown,
we visited Pete, Anna and Nola in Connecticut.
Next was two weeks with the family in Madison
and Door County where we spent our days
kayaking, biking and hiking—what a
beautiful part of the States! At night
we spent lots of time catching up over great
meals. One of the highlights of our time
together was
getting to know our two awesome nephews.
We flew to San Francisco and rented a car
which we drove over the next month to Vancouver.
We only spent a couple nights in a bed — we
hiked in Tahoe National Forest, Desolation
Wilderness, near Mt Shasta, on St. Helens,
in the upper Cascades and British Columbia.
In San Francisco we stayed with Catherine
and John and caught up with people we hadn't
seen in a few years. In Davis we visited
with John and Heather and saw their new
home and checked out John's chiropractic
business. At Lake Tahoe we visited Theo and
Natalie for Natalie's birthday weekend. At
the foot of Mt. Shasta, we stayed with Alan
and Sarah in their 100 year old house in
a small and charming town. We hiked with
Brian and Sara on St. Helens and stayed with
Nikki in Vancouver.
Seattle marked the end of our coast to coast
tour of REI's (Boston, Madison, Portland,
Seattle). That place is addictive and dangerous!
We have enough "gear" now to last us a lifetime!
It was fun to finally spend some time in
Canada. Vancouver is a beautiful city and
Nikki has a great house a block from the
beach. The city reminds me of Sydney. Great
food, wine and setting. We stayed in Whistler
and hiked to the beautiful Joffre Lakes an
hour north of Whistler. |