Hello! Here I am after all of the exciting things that have happened in the last couple of weeks. First, we left Bamfield. We got out of town on time. We left our house all warm and cozy because the next people were going to move in later that morning. The weather was still dry and totally freezing when we left, and since we went at sunrise, there was a beautiful departing view of pink snowy mountains. The road was in fine shape, ironically. It was tons better than the last time I had gone into town, because it had a layer of snow on it that filled up the potholes. We saw a whole bunch of really long and cool icicles, too. The other thing we saw, surprisingly, was two bears! Big fat guys running down the road with their fat a-jigglin. So I officially update my bear count to a final count of 13.

We got lunch in Port Alberni, and made it to the ferry in Victoria with plenty of time. Not that it mattered-- only about 15 cars went on that crossing, so there was tons of room all the way up until departure time. We were glad that our trip to Victoria was uneventful, but we knew that it might be snowy on the U.S. side....

We had no troubles crossing the border and got dinner from our favorite mexican restaurant in Port Angeles. We decided that although it was snowing, we would be on our way as best we could. We also decided to not take 101 down, but to take a ferry across to Seattle and take I-5. We drove to a town called Kingston, which is where the ferry is on the peninsula, and there we decided to stop for the night. It was snowing pretty good and we knew that our trip to Portland would take too long to do it that evening. We found the one little motel in Kingston, which ended up being the right price and they allowed Max in even without an extra fee, which was cool too.

We took it easy the next morning, then went out to test our chains and get ready to go. We got pastries and coffee right next door to the motel, which made us very happy. Max and I played ball until the ball got lost in the snow-- it snowed about 6 inches there overnight. We had a short ferry ride across, and made our way to I-5. We had seen on the morning news that the freeways were open and passable, and also that there weren't very many people out, which was nice too. It was no problem for us, it was just a slow drive. In Seattle they have an express freeway that goes through the city, and luckily for us, it was open going our direction! We were excited about that because it goes underground! No snow! We went that way, but what we didn't realize was that since the underground was a little ways off, the first part wasn't so great because there weren't a lot of people on it. The regular part of the freeway was travelling faster than we were. Then an unfortunate thing happened. Right when it started to go underground, we accidentally exited! So we missed it.

Our drive down the 5 (rhyme intended) was slow but steady. Most people out were driving courteously and not doing anything too stupid, though we did see people periodically that had slid off the road. The worst part of our drive came on the 205 bridge over the Columbia. The wind was blowing VERY hard from the east down the Gorge, and it was a nasty hurricane-blizzard there. Our truck, although heavy with our stuff (an asset for this particular trip, actually), wasn't best equipped for wind, since we had the canoe on top. The heaviest snowfall we experienced on the trip was also in Oregon. So, for the course of the trip, it really was worse weather the farther we went! That was a bit backwards! We got in to my parents' house at dinnertime, and our drive from Seattle took about 6.5 hours (for those of you unfamiliar, that drive normally takes 3 hours).

The depth of snow on the ground in Oregon City doubled over that Sunday night and Monday. This is my car:


On Monday I had some pain in my belly, so I took it easy. We unloaded the truck and went to visit Spencer's family. By Tuesday morning the pain in my belly had me near tears and I could barely stand, so Spencer took me to the emergency room. I was poked and prodded but the nurses were very nice and my bed was comfy. I also had to drink this nasty stuff in preparation for a CT scan. That was over the course of 3 hours, and then the scan took 5 mintues. My blood and urine tests and the scan all had normal results, so they gave me more fluids and painkillers and sent me home with the conclusion that it was a gastro bug. Later on, a bit of work on the internet led us to find that my illness fit with the description of salmonella poisoning. That also made sense because no one else got sick, and they didn't test for it at the hospital. Out of the 6 or so days prior, there was only one meal (lunch in Port Alberni) that Spencer and I ate different things, so it could have been that (the timeline also fit that). Also, there was recently a salmonella outbreak in BC. I felt a bit better by Christmas day, though very tired and without an appetite, and on Friday I felt marginally better. I think I'm 100% now. This is the second time I've been sick over Christmas-- I had the chicken pox over Christmas when I was 6.

Anyhow, that's how my last couple of weeks went. Things are better now. I'm back to work, Spencer leaves for the southern hemisphere on Saturday, and I go to California next week. I hope you all had good Christmases! I posted a bunch of new photos in my gallery if you'd like to see....