Adventures with Travel Gourmand: Pike Place Market & Snoqualmie Falls

We spent our last day in Seattle exploring with Travel Gourmand (other bloggers that we didn’t get to meet, we’ll try and meet up next time, there’s a time and place for everything) and she surprised us with a dose of nature before we departed the west coast for good. Continue reading

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Lower Avatar Grove

Lower Avatar Grove was our favorite of the two, it seemed greener and quieter. Avatar Grove can be visited all year long, we were here in early October. The trails can be steep but it consists mostly of boardwalk so it’s not that bad. Someone with bad knees won’t be so happy. I didn’t mention the roads in the Upper Avatar post. You will need a 4 wheel drive, the roads can be really bumpy and uneven. It would be best to get a vehicle with high clearance from the ground. Continue reading

Upper Avatar Grove

Avatar Grove is located around Port Renfew. It has Canada’s gnarlist tree and big red cedars. The trees are 500-1000 years in some areas. There are two portions to Avatar Grove: Upper and Lower. We chose the Upper Trail to explore this rainforest. Continue reading

Botanical Beach and Tidepools

Botanical Beach and it’s tide pools are one of our favorite hikes. It was relaxing compared to Parkinson Creek Trail which we were all hurting from the day before. By the tide pools, we rock scrambled a little to get to the other beach that connects to the trail. It was a nice change of pace climbing along the shore. Continue reading

Parkinson Creek Trail and Payzant Creek

We have been working our way along the Juan de Fuca Trail with Toni on this trip as well (hiked some of it last year). It’s a lovely trail in the very beautiful British Columbia on Vancouver Island. Last year we saw China, Mystic and Sombrio. On this day, we hiked our way through Parkinson Creek Trail to the beach with monster sized drift wood and Payzant Creek with little waterfalls. Continue reading

Was that Beau Bridges at Ayland Farm?

Yes it was, we bumped into Beau and his family eating lunch while we were nature walking with Toni from Rainforest Tours. I thought Toni was walking over to a group of friends (Vic recognized him), turns out she was walking over to the the other guide in her company and the group she passed over for us because we reserved her months in advance. We are touched we were priority since we booked forever ago but it’s Beau Bridges. We told her she has to frame his disclaimer form and that she should have brought them to Port Renfew with us. We really wish we could have asked for a picture but you know, respect the privacy of celebrities, at least we got to meet them. Continue reading

Bear Hug

After three years, the grizzly cubs leave their mom but sometimes some siblings are so bonded they hang out for an extra one or two years, then go off on their own. Here my friends, are two bonded grizzly bears. Continue reading

An Aboriginal Journey

We booked our Grizzly tour with Aboriginal Journeys, a First Nation owned company. They bring you to Toba Inlet where it will be just your group and the guides. It was foggy, rainy, and quite beautiful. Our journey to mainland British Columbia and First Nation Lands was ethereal. The wild and rugged beauty of BC keeps us coming back, the rawness of nature and you’ll know who is in command – her majesty, Mother Earth.
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Sombrio Beach

All the elements were in our favor: fog, mist, drizzle. There was a magic about Sombrio the day we visited. Continue reading

China Beach

China Beach is a short little hike of first-growth forest Sitka spruce, Douglas fir and western red cedar. After Mystic we had some time remaining so we opted to check out China as well.

It’s about a 15-20 minute leading to the beach. Continue reading