Growing up in Southern California a couple miles from the beach, I am not easily impressed by just going to the beach and seeing the ocean. So when nearing the beach along the Oregon Coast, I thought the most beautiful part was walking through the long grass reeds just before reaching the beach. This picture captures the green grass with the sparkling, blue ocean behind it. The picture alone makes me want to put a towel down on the beach and relax for the next hour. But looks can be deceiving as the early August temperatures only soared into the high 50s on this day along the cool, windy Oregon Coast.

7/26: El Paso to Vancouver
7/27: Vancouver
7/28: Whistler
7/29: The Buchart Gardens
7/30: Victoria
7/31: Victoria
8/1: Pacific Northwest
8/2: Oregon Coast
8/3: Oregon Coast

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Alicia approached me in the Spring of 2007 about the possibility of going up to Yellowstone National Park and the Pacific Northwest in the summer of 2008. As details started to emerge, the trip would take nearly two weeks. This was too long for me to be out of work, and I've never had the desire to go to Yellowstone, so we trimmed it down to 10 days. We decided to go to Vancouver, meet Alicia's parents and grandparents in Victoria, and end the trip along the Oregon Coast.

We departed El Paso at 7:50 in the morning. It was a wet, cold morning as the remnants of Hurricane Dolly dowsed El Paso with a steady rain. Fortunately, the weather was not severe enough to delay our flight, and we enjoyed a smooth flight to Las Vegas where we would change planes.

The clouds parted as we started our decent into Las Vegas, just in time to see the Grand Canyon. As we neared Vegas, I saw the famous Vegas Strip for the first time ever (after living in Arizona for eight years one would think I had been to Vegas before). We arrived in Vegas on time and made our way to the next gate for our flight to Seattle. Like El Paso, Las Vegas was experiencing a rainy start to their Saturday morning. Unlike El Paso, the rain came with scattered thunderstorms, close enough to the airport to delay our flight to Seattle by about 30 minutes. While in the airport, we avoided the slot machines scattered throughout the terminal, enjoyed a slice of pizza, and patiently waited.

We did not see much on our way to Seattle. Shortly after leaving Las Vegas, a thick haze from the numerous Northern California wildfires hovered between us and the ground. Cloudy skies also obscured some of the views. About thirty minutes from landing, the skies cleared and I saw a trio of snowy mountain peaks. We were over Oregon, and shortly after that we started our decent while flying over the Portland area.

We touched down in sunny Seattle a little before 1:30 p.m. local time and proceeded to baggage claim. Duffle bag, check. Golf clubs, check. Large suitcase with all of Alicia's clothes...no where to be found. We soon lost hope as we realized there was likely no more luggage coming down the chute, and we walked over to the customer service counter to start the process of tracking down our lost bag.

The job of assisting those that have lost a piece of luggage must be a thankless job, and one working this job must have a lot of patience. Others filing claims were taking it better than we were, and overhearing those other complaints I heard that everyone else lived in the Seattle area. They had homes to go to and other clothes to wear until their lost bag arrived. Alicia had the clothes on her back and nothing else. After filling out the paperwork, we decided to wait for about another thirty minutes to see if the bag might arrive on another flight that originated in El Paso. After the long, agonizing wait, the baggage finally started sliding down the conveyor belt. After a frustrating wait, I saw the large suitcase. It was one of the first five pieces of luggage to roll off the conveyor belt, and I grinned from ear to ear as I walked the bag over to Alicia.

I already had the keys to the rental car and exchanged some money for Canadian Dollars, so our last stop before leaving the airport was back to the customer service desk to let them know our bag had arrived. Running about two hours behind schedule, we walked to the rental car and finally started our drive to Vancouver. We stopped north of Seattle for lunch at Chipotle (likely our only chance during the trip) and Best Buy (to pick up a travel charger for our iPods). I had no expectations of the scenary we were to encounter along the drive, but I thought the most scenic part of the drive came just to the south of Bellingham, Washington.

We arrived at the border at 7:07 p.m. Tired from the long travel day, we added another hour to the trip in crossing the border. I didn't mind too much; it was a beautiful day with temperatures in the high 60s, and we had plenty to look at with the beautiful Peace Arch Park on both sides of the road.

We finally made it to the hotel around 9 p.m. Our original plan was to go to the Celebration of Light firework show, but we were too tired. We had a late dinner at the hotel grill. We could hear the show start as we ate. The staff was very friendly and had previously asked if we were going to watch the show, so we were very appreciative when they moved us to the second patio so we could get a glimpse of some of the fireworks lighting up the sky in between the Vancouver skyline.

Here's some video of the view from our hotel balcony out into the Vancouver harbor.

I was expecting to be amazed by the scenary on the flight between Las Vegas and Seattle, but the haze created by the Northern California wildfires had other ideas. The haze finally lifted as we approached Central Oregon, and I caught a glimpse of a few snow capped mountains, closely grouped together. I believe these mountains are the Three Sisters near Bend, Oregon. Our flight path took us near these mountains, and the timing would be about right. Check out the video for a view of Three Sisters from 30,000+ feet in the air.