Summer of 2019...

The summer seems to have whizzed past, this time particularly fast! Just like that...before we even realized it, Raya is in third grade...Rayan is a big boy...finally potty trained😆and making us roll in laughter with his words of wisdom. Though he is not as much of a chatterbox as Raya, he does have an absolutely quirky sense of humor !

This summer was all about spending quality time with family and friends. Kids got to spend a lovely summer,bonding with the grandparents. Raya did her share of camps and socializing...and amidst of all of that, in case you were wondering, yes we did manage to appease the wanderlust in us along the way. No summer is complete without taming the travel bug in us, is it !?🙂

This summer wanderlust took us on a roadtrip along the Pacific NW of the United States. The beauty of the Pacific Coast of the United States along Route 1, south of San Francisco is much talked about, written about, photographed and visited.... Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, Saint Lui Obispo...et.al...What often gets overlooked is the beauty of the coast, the mountains and valleys north of San Francisco along Route 1, and beyond...Other than being captured by Hollywood and the likes of Anthony Bourdain, a major part of the pristine beauty of the Pacific NW is vastly unexplored by the larger masses(which may be a good thing or bad, based on how you look at it!🙂). The Pacific NW of the United States was indeed the destination of our journey this summer (yeah yeah it is meant to be paradoxical! 🙂 ). We had already done a road trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco  along the coast a few years back.... this time it was about continuing to drive north of San Francisco....

Two weeks...more than 2100 non interstate  miles...coasts...cliffs...vineyards...mountains...valleys...beaches...lakes...hikes....trails...breweries...great weather...good food...great company (caught up with quite a few old buds along the way!). First leg...San Franscisco, Carmel, Sausalito, Napa, Sonoma, Bodega Bay, Mendocino...we were back in this area for the third time and it hasn't lost it's charm, for sure! "The Girl and the Fig" in Sonoma is not to be missed, if you are looking for a good meal. Mendocino and the drive to it was dreamy, misty, beautiful. That was followed by a tryst with the natural wonders of the Pacific NW...the surreal Redwoods...the beautiful Southern Oregon Coast ...Crater Lake....Mount Hood...Smith Rock...the quaint towns of Brookings and Bend in Oregon ! The "Riverhouse on the Deschutes" is highly recommended for a stay in Bend...so is this eclectic eatery in Bend called "Spork"....I could go back to Bend just for the pepper infused voda + basil based cocktail they served(was it called Maui Z!?)...ooooh! One of the hidden gems of the Southern Oregon Coast is the area included in the Samuel H. Boardman State park....pristine beaches and landscape...dramatic cliffs...gorgeous sunsets....Whaleshead beach and Harris beach are absolute must dos....Also don't skip the Redwood State Parks. While the national park trails are beautiful, groomed and well maintained, some of the Redwood Trees within the State parks had an element of surreality, unexperienced so far....invariably gave me goose bumps!

The last leg of the trip...Portland, Northern Oregon Coast , Mount Rainier and an absolutely wonderful , relaxing end to the vacation in Seattle with lovely family friends of decades !!!

DD and I have done quite a few road trips, specifically coastal drives in different parts of the world, over the years...each coast and drive is of course unique...but the one along Route 1 this summer in the Pacific NW ranks somewhere up there in the top of the list....

We often get asked how we end up doing such long roadtrips with kids. First of all it helps, that both 'DD' and I enjoy driving. So the driving aspect of it is really not stressful at all. We also love doing off the beaten path things, when on trips. Roadtrips enable that, to say the least. While a major part of our trips is planned, we leave quite a few things unplanned and a roadtrip provides the perfect avenue to explore unplanned paths. We wouldn't have discovered some of the beautiful pristine locales of the Southern Oregon coast  had we not just been aimlessly driving around🙂 This trip, we also discovered that our kids really enjoy hiking and nature trails, provided they are not too long. We also give kids their time to adapt and adjust. Roadtrips always invariably start with kids poking us every half  hour...."Mamma/Baba...when are we reaching our destination?" However, by the time we are into our third day of driving, the kids get pretty used to 3 - 4 hour drive times...all that they need is good music, some sugary treats and the bait of some promised time in the pool/beach at the end of the day!🙂....(Anytime there's news on the radio in the car instead of music, Raya invariably has a headache and Rayan a tummy ache...Oh well!!...Of course all aches go away as soon as the news channel transitions to music....LOL )....So yes, for now we do make sure every lodging we book has a pool to give the kids some water time....Also on any one day, we make sure driving time is restricted to 4 hours, to the extend possible...and of course, then we plan for enough days in between where there's no driving at all or minimal driving....this seems to have worked pretty well in all our summer road trips the past few years! So fingers crossed for future trips!

The following quote from Anthony Bourdain pretty much sums up how I feel each time we come back from one of these trips,"

"It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn. Maybe that’s enlightenment enough - to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom means realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go." 

Leaving you with some snapshots of the beauty of the Pacific NW....and with dreams of the next stop and destination....whenever, wherever that might be...Happy Friday!