...

Thanks, Sony.

The day was February 2nd, 2019. A Saturday to be precise.

This was the day I had planned to drive down to Portland to a small little photography store, called Pro Photo Supply; a hole in the wall sort of shop, right in the heart of downtown Portland, on the west side on the Willamette River.

Why was I driving down there? To purchase the camera I had saved months for. It was the legendary, mighty, highly acclaimed by nearly every YouTuber I watched, Sony Alpha 7 Mark III.

Or as the kids say, the Sony a7iii.

Packing a punch with a full frame 24 megapixel sensor, the camera featured 4K video with leading class autofocus, in body image stabilization, battery life that lasted as long as traditional DSLRs, and a price that shredded the competition: a simple $2000 for the body alone. An absolute bargain.

Now to the uneducated, that might seem like a pretty penny for a camera. Oh but hold on now, for a photographer, that price with the smorgasbord of specs to boot is like pocket change; virtually unheard of. Which of course is why is gained the seemingly endless accolades of every photographer on YouTube. So of course, me being a mere APS-C Canon DSLR user, wanted in on the action. After months of saving up and doing all the research to ensure THIS was the camera I wanted (and believe me, competition can be fierce!), the week finally came that I went to credit union, withdrew the money I needed, and on that Saturday drove down with some friends from church to purchase the camera.

I had called ahead to put it on hold so that I would actually ensure I would own the camera that day, barring that nothing would hinder me from getting there. The day was cold, moody with the rain and the fog that is typical of a Pacific Northwest winter. Dodging the mess of traffic that always inhabits downtown Portland, we swung into the the tight parking lot and strutted into the building like we owned the joint.

Okay, maybe not exactly like that. But needless to say, I was so excited to walk into the store with an envelope full of money to exchange for this glorious piece of hardware. Months of daydreaming and researching and talking about it only hyped the day up for me more, and today was finally that day. A half hour later, we walked out of the store with a camera and some other goodies alongside. We decided to drive up to Pittock Acres Park and take some photos.

My, four years can go by quite quickly.

I've always said that my Sony a7iii is the best $2000 I've ever spent. It is in all honesty a nearly perfect camera. It has aged incredibly well in the five years since it came out. Never once has it truly failed me. It's a reliable, compact, amazing camera that has been a source of joy for four years. I've shot a handful weddings on it, photographed family photos and senior portraits, made some incredible B-roll with its beautiful 120fps video, and I've photographed some breathtaking landscapes.

While this sounds like a sort of memoir that ends with "And now I'm moving on from this camera", it is by no means that at all. Nope. This is merely a thankfulness post that I've had the privilege of owning a truly remarkable camera. I will eventually upgrade to a newer Sony camera (probably the a7V when it gets released in a couple years), but now isn't that time.

Photography has been a season in my life of sorts. Back when I bought that camera, photography was a huge part of my life. I was always bringing my camera everywhere so that I would never miss a shot. Over the years, life has become much busier. Finding time to sometimes obsessively photograph things has been put on the back burner of life, with much more important and wonderful things coming to the front. And you know what, that's okay. But I also want to take the time to photograph more things and to experience the wonderful feeling of taking a photograph you are truly proud of. It's all a balance of life, one that requires me to put first the things that are most important. Thank you Lord for those things I get to put first!

The Sony a7iii might not be the best technical camera anymore, but for me, it will always be one of the best cameras of all time... because it allowed me to grow into the photographer and filmmaker I am. It transformed my ability to create beautiful art.

And you know, that's the best kind of camera; the one that doesn't hold you back from creating what you love. Thanks, Sony.

Ely’s Ever-Changing Playlist - Sat. Aug 31st

You can find the playlist on Spotify right here. The Ever-Changing Playlist is best listened to on Shuffle Mode. I plan on updating this playlist every Saturday, and rotating songs out and in with new releases and whatever’s caught my fancy this week.

Feel free to send me music you like, I’m always open to new songs to listen to and I like literally every genre except death metal and polka. (I’m also not a big fan of musical theater, tbh). But like seriously, fuck polka.

This first playlist is a pretty eclectic mix of new releases and not-so-new releases, in a variety of genres. Probably a little heavy on the rock, to be honest, but that’s the mood I’m in this week. You’ll get whiplash, though, ‘cause there’s some good country and pop on here too.

Song list and comments are under the cut!

Scrawny by Wallows - I love self-deprecating but somehow still kind of cocky rock (like Polaroid by Imagine Dragons). They also have that bedroom rock kind of vibe that I love. Plus I love the line “I’m a scrawny motherfucker with a cool hairstyle” and hardcore relate to the line “I say the wrong shit at the right time.”

Wild Roses by Of Monsters and Men - I honestly didn’t know how to feel about the new album for a couple of weeks. They’ve definitely gone for a more pop vibe to their songs - Alligator was catchy but it seems like a lot of the songs on their Fever Dream album just don’t have the same lyrical depth as songs like King and Lionheart or Wolves Without Teeth or Little Talks. It’s a good song - catchy, like I said - but honestly I was hoping for better when I heard a new album was coming out.

Blame It On my Youth by Blink-182 - This may actually be my most highly-anticipated release this year. For one thing, Blame It On My Youth actually sounds like Blink-182, like you could follow it with All the Small Things and there’d be no real musical shift. Which is honestly amazing, considering how much they’ve been through as a band, and of course, the lineup changes. Hoppus still sounds like Hoppus, though, and the music is still that glorious “fuck you, watch this” guitar that kickstarted the whole early 2000s guitar rock (you wouldn’t have FOB without Blink-182, and you can tell in the early FOB albums). I love to see Nine come out on September 20th - Blink-182 is a legendary band in the punk genre and hearing this song felt like coming home. “I was bored to death, so I started a band/ Cut my teeth on the Safety Dance, my attention span never stood a chance.”

Love All Night (Work All Day) by Yola - You know those gentle 70s rock/soul songs? Vaguely influenced by country, definitely influenced by R&B, leave you with a feeling of home and comfort while also kind of inspiring you to go out and work on some social change? It’s definitely got a Memphis rock vibe, but it also really made me want to listen to The Temptations and Creedence Clearwater Revival. The best part about it is that this album came out this year.

Circles by Post Malone - I’m actually a huge Post Malone fan, because I’m a huge Fleetwood Mac fan. You might be wondering how those two things add up. Post Malone cites one of his major influences to be Stevie Nicks, and in fact his vocal (when he sings, instead of rapping) draws a lot from Stevie’s unique vibrato and slurring of the words. Circles captures this beautifully, but if you really want the best that Post Malone has to offer (in the singing department, I’ll fight people over how good Wow. is), you really need to check out his remix and mashup of Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams from his August 26th mixtape. Check it out here. The unfortunate thing is that it can only be found on Youtube or the mixtape app DatPiff.

Drive by The Cars - So this is on the list because Tim McGraw put out a cover, and I usually like Tim McGraw, but Drive is not a song you can make a country cover out of. You can’t do it. Listen to this one instead of the Tim McGraw version, and if you’re really wanting a Tim McGraw fix, Neon Church is good.

Refugee by Melissa Etheridge - Speaking of covers, this is my girl Melissa’s cover of Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s Refugee, and frankly, I like it more. She goes hard, is the thing, sings every word like she fuckin’ well means it. That’s the thing about Melissa Etheridge, she is passionate about her music. This cover was released on her greatest hits album in 2005 - fun fact, this album included four new songs total, including I Run for Life, written for others, like Melissa, who have gone through breast cancer. It’s a damn good album, I had to recently buy a new hard copy because I wore the first CD out.

Mornin’s Gonna Come by Brent Cobb - I actually don’t know why this hit the Apple playlists this week, considering it was released on the album Providence Canyon back in 2018. It’s a pretty southern-rock style song, despite the country label, and sounds like a party song right up until you’re listening to the lyrics. Turns out it’s about the fact that everything done in the dark will eventually come to light, whether that’s a hangover or something deeper.

Soon You’ll Get Better by Taylor Swift feat. Dixie Chicks - Okay, listen. I love this song. Hearing Natalie come in on the vocals in the background for the first time since 2006 made me bawl. The Dixie Chicks were the main music of my childhood, I grew up with Wide Open Spaces and Fly. Add in the poignant lyrics about watching someone struggle through illness - Taylor opens up in an article that it’s about her parents’ battles with cancer, but we all take something away from music we listen to and it made me cry because I relate to it from a mental and chronic illness standpoint. 

60 & Punk by Death Cab for Cutie - So, Death Cab actually has a new EP coming out and the new single on it Kids in 99 is pretty good, but I’m still stuck on their album Thank You for Today. I don’t know if it was my stint in the Pacific Northwest that kickstarted my Death Cab love, or if I’m just naturally drawn to their music, but I would argue that Thank You for Today may be their best album. 60 & Punk is sad, honestly, about watching your heroes grow old and give into the world around them. But it’s good.

Reaper Man by Mother Mother - Mother Mother is one of my favorite bands, and Reaper Man is right up there in my self-deprecating-but-cocky genre. Released in 2014, and a staple on my playlists since. 

Head Above Water by Avril Lavigne feat. Travis Clark (of We The Kings) - Okay, raise your hand if you can still sing Complicated or Sk8er Boi from memory, because I sure as hell can. I can also do Check Yes Juliet from memory, because I grabbed it off the free iTunes download back in the day before it ever blew up - I’m a hipster. Anyway, Avril’s surfaced with a frankly marvelous album about growing up, getting divorced, and dealing with the devastating effects of Lyme disease. This is a bonus single - you can find her solo version on the album also titled Head Above Water. 

Hollow by Barns Courtney - There’s really no deep meaning to this one for me, I just really love Barns Courtney and haven’t found something they’ve put out that I didn’t like yet. Catchy and rock and pop, this song makes me want to dance.

Summer Girl by Haim - Everyone I knew back in 2013, in my little pocket of rural America, turned their noses up at Haim. I was like, “Oh my god, they’re amazing!” and my coworkers are like “Why does she sing like that?” It was weird to me because The Wire was named one of the best songs of the year, hit charts all over the place - weird. Anyway, Summer Girl has a super lowkey acoustic vibe, and I love it.

Far From Born Again by Alex Cameron - So Alex Cameron is pretty hit or miss for me - I either hate what he puts out, or I obsess over it. Far From Born Again is an obsess-song, because it’s honest-to-god the best sex worker song I’ve ever heard. Every time a “positive” sex worker song comes out, it’s always something like Porn Star Dancing or Shakin’ Hands or Pay Me. The worker is always over-sexualized and vilified in some way or another, and frankly, it’s exhausting. I like Far From Born Again because it’s super realistic to my experiences - lines like “It ain’t your goddamn business if she does it for pay” and “pays bills while you all still text jerks” and “she’s a woman earning more than a man” - puts the focus where it should be. She’s not some over-sexed nympho doing it for the thrill of it, it’s a job that she’s good at. 

Don’t Call It Love by Quiet Riot - So, literally everyone has heard Cum On Feel the Noize or Metal Health. It’s interesting to see Quiet Riot pop on charts again, especially considering that they haven’t had a founding member of the band in the lineup since 2010. That said, the members currently do include Banali and Wright, who were in the band at the height of Quiet Riot’s success in the mid 80s. Current vocals are done by James Durbin, as the vocalist Kevin DuBrow passed in 2007. Quiet Riot as we know it was revived mostly to celebrate the memory of DuBrow, actually, and on the insistence of DuBrow’s mother.

Last Day Under the Sun by Volbeat - I just really fuckin’ love Volbeat. That unique mix of hard rock and rockabilly, mixed with my frankly inappropriate feelings for Michael Poulson’s voice, gets me every time. I was drawn in by Lola Montez and here we are today.

All Apologies - Live & Loud by Nirvana - So this live album was actually released in 2013, and just popped up on my feed because it was just put onto Apple Music, which is where I get all my music from. You can also watch the whole concert for free, which I can’t bring myself to do yet. Nirvana is my favorite band of all time - literally of all time - and All Apologies has the ability to bring me to tears. I actually have “All in All is All We Are” tattooed on my back. Vinyl is coming out, concert is up, go live your grunge baby dreams with me.

Black Hole Sun (Live from The Artists’ Den) by Soundgarden - So this is a recent release of their 2013 Artist’s Den concert. It’s a bittersweet release for the band, who decided earlier this year to disband after the death of Chris Cornell, following their only concert without him. They chose to release the live album because they remember how much fun Chris had that night, according to a Spin article. Of the major original Seattle grunge bands, that means that only a few remain - Alice in Chains lost Layne Staley, Nirvana lost Kurt Cobain, and Soundgarden lost Chris Cornell. Pearl Jam is still going strong, though. (Technically Alice in Chains is still active, but DuVall has nothing on Staley). 

Can You Feel It? by White Eskimo - Okay, so following all that rock trivia, I was absolutely floored when I found out that White Eskimo had recent music... because I only know them as the band that Harry Styles was in before One Direction. Anyway, it’s a pretty catchy pop-punk song, I dig it. I love that the first actual info I found about them, with current news, was on the Harry Styles wiki. 

Lullaby by Kalie Shorr - Here’s that whiplash again, how about some country? Brand new country, even. I have a bone to pick with country lately about how it all sounds like pop with exaggerated accents and how that pisses me off, but I like the acoustic vibe Kalie Shorr has going on. It’s that good old country song about loving someone you shouldn’t and then letting them go. She honestly reminds me a lot of Sunny Sweeney.

Tennessee Whiskey (Live from City Winery Nashville) by Sara Evans and Olivia Barker - This is a classic country song, written for a half-drunk slow dance with your sweetie at the dive bar (which is honestly the best way to hear it, not gonna lie). The best version is the without a doubt Chris Stapleton’s cover, and this cover is a cover of that cover, but if you want to go back, it was originally recorded by country great David Allan Coe - of “You Never Even Called Me By My Name” fame if you do the bar circuit like I do. It was also recorded by George Jones in the 80s, and then a bunch of other people. There’s a reason Sara Evans is a modern country great.

The Chain (from The Kitchen) by the Highwomen - I got a lot of bones to pick with the Highwomen - I don’t like them and I’m not afraid to say it. I think it comes from the fact that The Highwaymen was created by the pioneers of outlaw country, who were pretty much on the outskirts of country music due to their lifestyles and other factors. The Highwomen have good sound and good writing, but they’re all pretty mainstream, and they should have chosen a different name. Anyway. This is a good country cover. 

The Daughters by Little Big Town - I like this song because it tackles a lot of issues still prevalent in societies in country and rural areas, primarily feminism. A lot of people don’t realize that out here in the sticks, the gender norms are alive and well - if you don’t have a kid by 21 and you’re a girl, you’re out of the norm and you’re gonna die alone. You get a lot of women who get married young, then spend their lives cooking and cleaning and never thinking about anything more because this is all they know, this is what their mothers did. The song goes over the delicate balance a woman plays down here - you have to be strong but not too strong, and you have to “know your place.”

The Louvre by Lorde - I wasn’t a fan of Lorde’s second album at first, because I was very much stuck in the sound of the first. It’s growing on me. 

Remember the Name by Ed Sheeran, Eminem, and 50 Cent - So I’m a big fan of Ed Sheeran, and my mom loves Eminem and 50 Cent. I like some Eminem, and some 50 Cent, but overall I’m not a fan of rap. What I like about this song is that it sounds like an early Eminem a la “The Real Slim Shady” so it’s catchy and easy for my audio processing issues to follow. I also just dig cocky songs.

20 Something by SZA - I started listening to SZA when my brother sent me the DJ Khaled song Just Us that featured her vocal. I love her voice and lyrics, and also the fact that my little bro relates so much to a lot of her music that it sometimes makes him cry (apparently Just Us made him cry). 20 Something is my favorite off her debut album - I mean, everyone I know is a 20-something right now, and the lyrics hit home.

U.S. Music Consumption Up 12.5% In 2017, R&B

Ambient is a method that describes a large spectrum of music. (Typically additionally referred to as the Seattle Sound) A style of other rock inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock. It became commercially successful within the late 1980s and early Nineties, peaking in mainstream recognition between 1991 and 1994. Bands from cities within the Pacific Northwest of the United States, corresponding to Seattle, Washington, Olympia, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, created grunge and evernote.com later made it popular with mainstream audiences. The style is intently associated with Era X in the US, because it was popularized in tandem with the rise in reputation of the era's name. The recognition of grunge was one of many earliest phenomena that distinguished the favored music of the Nineties from that of the Nineteen Eighties. Grunge music is usually characterised by "dirty" guitar, sturdy riffs, and heavy drumming. During the early 70s, the business was earning money however the ball was within the artists courtroom because of album gross sales. The artists were close in age to their viewers and will write music the "children" could like for the sake of the music alone. Music from report albums grew to become the lifeblood of the counter-culture. Singles, on the opposite-hand had been for non-rock artists just like the Captain and remonao552505185.hatenadiary.com Tennille, Sonny and Cher, Donny and Marie and was very formulaic effectively into the 1980s (Disco was a singles recreation). In many ways, MTV killed the radio (AOR) star and slowly formulation emerged for rock that the companies began to exploit (New Wave, Billy Idol fashion punk, glam steel, and many others, and so forth). For a time, in the late 80s rock nearly grew to become the pop music when in 1987, all 5 of the top 5 selling artists were rock groups. However Guns N Roses began dressing down and rock artists rebelled in opposition to the 80s glamour and ultimately, by the 90s rock had grow to be grunge. In Australia, as in other nations, orchestral exercise is on the coronary heart of Western classical music. Orchestras reach the biggest audiences, present the most dependable employment for classical performers, and are sometimes synonymous with the cultural id of a metropolis. There are over ten professional orchestras in Australia and lots of glorious part time skilled orchestras and a few pro-am orchestras. All current common live performance recitals, and plenty of collaborate with other firms, launch recordings, tour, and run workshops. In addition, dozens of youth and group orchestras present live shows across the country. The individuals had been then requested to take heed to and fee 50 musical items. Library examples of musical stimuli from 26 genres and subgenres had been used to cut back the chance that the contributors would have any personal or cultural affiliation with the piece of music. Throughout these experiments, the researchers tested the speculation of empathizing-systemizing. Empathizers were defined as those that have a drive to know the ideas and emotions of others, that means they react emotionally and physiologically to music and while performing it. Systemizers had been extra prone to be analytical, meaning they analyze and deconstruct sonic options and interpret how detailed parts in a music relate to it as an entire when perceiving and deciphering music. Although he died tragically at the age of 33, Sam Cooke left an amazing legacy from his few years as a top pop and soul performer. Many give credit to Cooke for http://www.audio-transcoder.com being a pioneer and founder of what grew to become referred to as soul music when he moved from the gospel world to deal with well-liked music. Sam Cooke was also a pioneer among black performers on the business finish of music. He fashioned his personal report label and music publishing firm. He also became a music chief within the American civil rights motion, lending it considered one of his most stirring songs, "A Change Is Gonna Come," as an anthem.

I can giggle, but when my kids in the future ask my what I did in the genre wars I'll have to admit that there's blood on my hands, too. Earlier in 2000, I would arrange Popjustice , a blog that I hoped would struggle the nook for decent pop music. And early on this was pitched as a battle in opposition to guitar music. Puerile can be one charitable means of describing those early years: at one level, Popjustice's homepage featured Richard Ashcroft's face with the word TWAT" written throughout it. Whereas that may or might not have been true, it is clear now that it had no bearing on whether or not the third Steps album was a triumph (which, for the record, it was).This line of analysis implies at least two basic hypotheses in regards to the general trajectory of the favored music system: 1) an increasing complexity of style categorizations over time, and 2) as style-based boundaries of classification techniques break down, genres are replaced as signaling mechanisms by alternative social indicators of taste and choice. Or, put one other way, some latest work in sociology—not to mention Lester Bangs and Bruce Springsteen—(implicitly) level towards a hypothesis about the contemporary structure of widespread music genres: as style boundaries turn out to be more totally porous, and genre as a signaling gadget to audiences and industries grows increasingly unimportant, there should be giant and growing domains of free interchangeability in musicians' selection of genre mixtures in defining their own work.In dance band mento, dwelling-made devices have been replaced by professional saxes and clarinets and basses. Typically, banjo was left behind in favor of electric guitar. Together with clarinet, piano was typically a featured instrument, because the music turned overtly jazzy. Percussion was less rustic, and sometimes had a Latin feel. Virtually the entire rural model's rough edges were smoothed out. Within the Nineteen Sixties, a calypso inflection was typically heard in urban reggae, replacing the jazz sound. Dance band mento seems to have largely died out by the 70s, while the original rural model continued. However, the musicians of this fashion of mento contributed vastly to the jazz that was such an vital component of ska.Back in January, one other stay performance left an RA staff member reeling. "Yves Tumor wants you to battle, to dance, to writhe and thrash concerning the beer-slicked floor with him," mentioned Holly Dicker, after catching his show at De School in Amsterdam. "He is blissful in case you come out of it somewhat bloodied, too." Tumor's show—a mix of grinding electronics and on- and off-stage antics—is as confrontational as Holly's description makes it sound, but it belies the nuance discovered elsewhere in his work. Earlier this yr, he adopted up his glorious 2016 album, Serpent Music , with a free mixtape, Experiencing The Deposit Of Faith , which, like its predecessor, was merely beautiful in places, reflective and soulful, and the inverse of his hostile expressions on stage.The time period "lo-fi home" was coined in 2015 to explain the wave of younger producers who'd had viral success with a sort of house music that was heavy on distortion and unashamedly retro. (Among the artist names were fairly silly, too.) By the top of 2016, the sound's biggest tracks—DJ Boring's " Winona ," Mall Grab's " Can't (Get You Out Of My Thoughts) ," Ross From Pals' " Discuss To Me You will Perceive "—had clocked up a whole lot of thousands of YouTube performs, thoughts-boggling numbers for brand new artists working in underground music. (Immediately, these figures are within the millions.) However as widespread because it was in Reddit forums and Fb teams , lo-fi house was nonetheless largely an internet concern.

On March 27, four Widener English majors–all Blue Route staff members–and two faculty members traveled to Portland, Oregon to attend the annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference. Along with nearly 12,000 other writers, readers, editors, and publishers, the team enjoyed three amazing days of panels, networking opportunities, enlightening readings and keynotes speeches, and of course, the pacific northwest! Read on for a few words from all four senior English majors about their time in Portland!

Kelly Bachich Carlie and I signed up for an hour of manning the FUSE table in the book fair section of the conference. While we were setting up, Carlie nudged me and said, “Kelly, doesn’t that dog on that poster over there look just like the one you wrote about in Historical Fiction class?” Low and behold, I look over and the juxtaposing booth is sporting a poster of Laika, the space dog from the Sputnik II mission that I had just written about the week before coming to AWP. Naturally, I had to go over and investigate. I asked the woman working the booth why Laika was on the poster and she informed me that their book press had published an author who just wrote a biography on Laika. Not only were they selling copies, but he would be there signing them in an hour!

I purchased the book and stood waiting in line, mustering up the courage to ask the author, Kurt Caswell, if I could send him my short piece to read. I am a pretty confident and outgoing person but, for some reason, the minute I was next in line I almost chickened out. I told him about the poster and why I had to buy his book and meet him to tell him that I had also just written about Laika. He handed my book back to me after a really great conversation about Laika and I knew my window to ask him to read my story had closed. Then, to my complete shock, he asked me to send him my story to read and even gave me his personal email to send it to. I was elated.

Later that night, Rohan met a panelist named Shayla Lawson who wrote a poetry chapbook mixed with Frank Ocean songs and got us invited to a “battle of the bands” where she performed her work with her band. One of the opening acts, however, incorporated the song “Space Oddity” by David Bowie into his piece. The minute I heard the lyrics my head snapped over to look at Carlie who was already staring at me, mouth agape. “Space Oddity” is also an integral part of my short story about Laika. In a three-page story there is not much room and for two major aspects to crop up so blatantly at AWP had to be a sign for me to continue working with that piece. AWP is an invaluable resource for English and creative writing majors, it is a hub for creative minds and a space where we can feel important and bond with other professionals.

Vita Lypyak The first panel I attended at AWP was one of my favorites. It was titled “Translators Are the Unacknowledged Ambassadors of the World,” which is a play on the famous Percy Bysshe Shelley quote, “women are the unacknowledged poets of the world.” I speak two languages besides English, so languages and translation is something that always interested me. The final panelist opened my eyes to the Iranian culture and the struggles associated with translating Iranian literature to English. Unlike the first two panelists, she explained that Iran, as a nation, hinders its own artist by utilizing strict censorship and even executing writers. As a whole, this panel made me understand the crucial role translators have in the dissemination of literature. It helped me understand that translating is also a form of creative writing; a translator has to not only present the same meaning of the original work, but also closely match the same style.

In a sense, translators are poets and makers of things, too; they give readers access to things they could have never reached, due to a language barrier. AWP features a lot of intellectually stimulating and educational panels, which are great, but they can also cause a lot of mental fatigue. By attending poetry readings and readings of other kinds, it really helps your mind slow down and recharge, at least that was my experience. At “A Wild Girls Poetry Reading,” I was particularly moved by one poet, who wrote a collection of poetry where she was attempting to deal with the grief associated with her younger brother’s suicide. The stories she told the audience and the poetry she read were so raw and they made me empathize with her so much. I attended this reading on the first day and I could not stop thinking about her work. Her words impacted me the entire trip to the point that on the last day, I went and bought her book. I had to or I would never forgive myself. After I purchased it, I sat outside and read it from cover to cover, and her words continued to move me.

Rohan Suriyage I decided to go to Page Meets Stage, a reading that is a yearly tradition at AWP. This was the best decision I made throughout the time of the conference. The reading consisted of five poets reading and performing poems after one another, “popcorning” in order and choosing what to perform based on what was read before them. The panel was led by Taylor Mali, four-time poetry slam champion and arguably the most famous American spoken word poet, and consisted of other notable poets like Anis Mojgani, Mark Doty, and Shayla Lawson. For the whole hour I just sat there, mouth agape, at the incomparable stage presence and refined performing art they all shared with the room. When it was time for Shayla Lawson to read, she prefaced her poems in explaining they were all from a book of poems inspired by Frank Ocean, an R&B artist and one of my main artistic inspirations. When Shayla finished performing “Strawberry Swing” from her poetry book I Think I’m Ready to See Frank Ocean I struggled to retrieve my jaw from the floor and knew I had to speak to her after. Upon the panel’s conclusion I was able to do so.

We talked about Frank and our common interests, and after we spoke, she invited me to come to a reading she was orchestrating in downtown Portland. Of course, I obliged and I ended up going after the last of the panels of the day. In the library room of the Heathman Hotel, I heard Shayla and 4 of her colleagues read marvelous poetry. All of them are part of an association of writers called the Affrilacians, about 2,000 southern writers strong (per Facebook). Two of them I met and spoke with, published poet and educator Mitchell L.H. Douglas and former Kentucky poet laureate and educator Frank X Walker. Both were incredibly down to earth men who gave me insight on getting published and furthering my education, and I thank them for that. To whoever made the decision to take me as one of the students to go on AWP this year: thank you. Thank you. What I owe you can never be repaid. This was a span of days I can’t see myself ever forgetting, a span of days I firmly believe will prove to be important as I further my writing career.

Carlie Sisco One of the panels I attended was titled “8 Techniques Guaranteed to Take Your Script to the Next Level.” Using examples of films such as “Juno,” “Star Wars: A New Hope,” “Pulp Fiction,” and “Little Miss Sunshine” among others, this panel offered techniques relative to character, scene structure, descriptions, and dialogue. Though I do not write screenplays myself, I have always loved reading the screenplays to my favorite movies and television shows. It makes a very visual experience feel like reading a book. This panel demonstrated the ways in which some screenwriting techniques have the ability to transcend into fiction writing, because, even if I am not worrying about camera angles, it is still storytelling. Screenwriting can sound like a novel just as a novel can read like a screenplay.

Something that stood out to me in particular had to do with a tip on character development: “we watch movies because we want to connect with our characters.” Is that not the same for fiction writers? Shouldn’t I also be focusing on want versus desire, asking emotional questions in scenes, considering symbolism and foreshadowing, making my language visual or finding imaginative ways to introduce my characters? Isn’t it good advice regardless of the medium to think about increasing tension and suspense by slowing down, using misdirection to reveal information, or revealing my characters through their actions? I chose to go to a variety panels on screenwriting and playwriting not because I want to try my hand at either one, but because I know that the techniques between them and fiction writing are interchangeable. I also know that films and television serve as my influence, the driving force that compels me to provide visual detail and intricate characters. I would not have been able to explore what that means to my writing or how related the two mediums are had I not been given this opportunity. My path may not have been the one most fiction writers would typically take, but I think that is what was so amazing about AWP at the end of the day. I was able to find what interested me and gained insight from an influencing medium all while taking my own unique path.

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by Carlie Sisco

Recently our senior staff members attended the 2019 AWP Conference in Portland. Click the link to read about their experience! #AWP2019 On March 27, four Widener English majors–all Blue Route staff members–and two faculty members traveled to Portland, Oregon to attend the annual…

Travel Pre And Post Internet

Travelling Pre Internet:

I've been travelling for over 40 years - simply by thumb in my early days, by boots in the Scouts, any Lambretta came next and then my first old banger followed by newer old bangers to the beaches of the Acantilado Brava.

My thumb, boots, bikes and bangers procured me all over Europe and the UK before finding that some sort of charter flight to Spain on an old 'Connie' gets me to the beaches and bars a lot quicker and allow longer to enjoy the local travel opportunities by horse and carry and the occasional bus and train.

'Go West together with Prosper' seemed to be a good idea so instead of taking an 8 an hour flight I took an 8 day transatlantic traversing from Tilbury to Montreal on the Stephan Batory involving Polish Ocean Lines ensuring that jet lag did not problem my travel plans. Some years later I entered the pond again on a ship but this time it was five times bigger and I travelled in style on the QE2 and dined in the Queen's Grill somewhat removed from my earlier practical knowledge. I highly recommend ocean voyages but cannot see me on one of the modern cruise ships going from port to be able to port with constant line-ups to get on and off to buy tonneaus. However , I have done 10 Windjammers and a Star Dog clipper cruise in the Caribbean which were all memorable (let's intend Windjammer Barefoot Cruises recover from their woes). But I just digress. I had read that Canada is a spectacular united states, from sea to shining sea, and my appearance into the St. Lawrence River to Montreal and then really going west in an old Econoline van from the Great Lakes, ponds, across the Prairies to the Rocky Mountains before ending up whale watching off of the Pacific Coast of Vancouver Island was obviously a trip of wonder to a bloke from London. Now the scenery is still spectacular and the best way to go continues to by road so rent or buy a car, mobile home or motorbike, take the train or tour bus keep in mind the maps, a fly rod, good boots and hurry. My favorite part of Canada / USA for adventure vacation has to be Northern BC / Alaska, to hike the very Chilkoot Trail in the steps of the goldseekers of 1898. The Northwest Territories to canoe the Nahannie Lake and the Yukon to drive from Dawson City to Fowl, Alaska. If you like the outdoors and can put up with a few bugs, team a fly and scale a few hills or get on endless dirt roads sharing the space with moose, caribou, elk, bears and eagles, then these are the main places to put on your list. The pleasures and goes through in driving to Inuvik on the Dempster Highway or even to Prudhoe Bay on the Dalton Highway or even the Canol Roads can only be felt by doing them. I would have brought up the Alaska Highway but now it is an easy drive compared with the aforementioned. Today the costs of driving these distances may perhaps mean that sharing the journey with others is required, yet RVing or simply vanning and camping is a great way to discover beyond the horizon. Some enroute adventures now has to be booked in advance whereas when I hiked Denali and the Chilkoot Pass it was just a case of turning up, registering along with the local ranger office and heading on out. Even more00 planning is needed for today's traveller and cost issues to consider of lengthy flights or drives have to somehow often be countered with more careful planning. In the days of reasonable petrol prices I would not even consider the driving or flying expenditures and have driven to Key West from the northwest shore, down the west coast to the Baja and to the actual west coast from New York. I once even travelled my 1946 Fleet taildragger from the Pacific to the Ocean and back using around 5 gallons an hour connected with avgas. Before the oil and credit crisis I had from Rio de Janeiro to Lima, down to Tierra del Ignición and back to Rio covering over 15, 000 distance of spectacular scenery and with no consideration about the expense of gas. South America should be on your itinerary too! Some other terrific drives that may now require a mortgage with the gas providers include London to The Nordkapp, Norway, Skippers Canyon around New Zealand and the loneliness of the far north with Australia and the amazing coast of Western Australia visiting at Monkey Mia and Wave Rock. We tend to fail to remember that the real cost of travelling is often less today as compared with over the 40 years of my travels. In 1977 my favorite round-trip airfare from Canada to Australia cost in excess of $1700 in 1977 dollars so today it is much less to fly, even with the airlines gouging for power, extra baggage, no service and no pleasure. The 'Big Mac' method of price comparison as developed by The Economist papers gives us a good gauge for most expenditures of today as compared to yesterday but my $1500 cost to get a private aircraft pilots licence in the 1970's seems cheap by comparison to now, but obviously not when using this Big Mac standard. Other travel costs are also far cheaper today but this absolutely should not mean that travellers should disregard the many methods of protecting costs that can then be put to extended or better travel experiences

Travel Post-Internet:

In my 40 years of take a trip I have had to use travel agents to make even the simplest for reservations and buy tickets, not even thinking to ask them if they happen to have "been there, done that? " It was just a instance of there being no other options to buying travel. Now we have indefinite choices and can seek out better travel agents, better prices, significantly better selections and information about anywhere in the world for our travels - without leaving home.

The Internet now gives travellers ideas and selection of Where to go, When to go, Why to go, What to do, Who for you to book with and How to save money and offset costs. We will search and find experts for every travel option. If we are usually comfortable with the Internet we no longer have to go to a travel agent in making reservations and buy tickets except to book with some of your larger travel companies that still produce glossy flyers and offer all inclusive packages or tours that only sell in the agency system. The Internet also allows those of us who are brilliant enough to know when to seek out a top travel agent with experience, experience and expertise (KEE skills) of destinations as well as activities about where to find them. There is no longer any really need to only use our local agents when we can find a person somewhere else in the world. When we do not need 'the knowledge' and can practice it ourselves we simply surf the web so that we can book immediately with tour and travel operators wherever we have went.

Some travel agents operate their own tours, some are both below wholesale and retail, some limit consumer selection by exclusively selling their 'preferred' suppliers and some have professional brokers with years of experience invested in gaining knowledge, experience and also expertise and are worth their weight in gold to the savvy traveller. Beware while, as some are also called destination specialists and some of these designations merely require the agent to take a rudimentary examine offered by tourism offices, destination marketing groups or even visit operators and in my opinion can harm the reputation of the travelling industry. A specialist is not necessarily an expert.

Travel is probably the a lot of used commercial aspect of the Internet and if retail agents prefer to harness this exciting medium to offer 'the knowledge' and the 'kee' skills to a global audience, not just their people, they must embrace the changes that are happening. Travellers now have the capacity to seek answers to the 5 W's of travel as well as important

'How to' save money

and offset costs injury lawyer toronto information just a click away.

And then it occurred to me that also internet travel prices often include a commission element regardless of whether sold directly to the consumer. If we book directly with workers we should not have to pay full retail prices as we are generally doing for ourselves what a retail agent would ordinarily do for us. A dilemma for the operator is that to indicate a both a retail and a cost price method could deter many agents from selling the services like travellers could use an agent for free advice and book instantly with the operator to get a 'net of commission' price. Of course this two tier pricing is not often available nevertheless travellers who do not need advice should also not be penalized by simply retail pricing. A new way had to be found and I think I have found them!

The need for

Deals Points

is why I developed the superior Travel Voucher program at The Top Travel Club and I possibly found a dot com for it. All travel solutions on the site are at 'net of commission' prices for users who handle there own travel arrangements directly with the travel operators linked on the club website using our voucher method.I am inviting travel operators from around the world to join the program, from B&B's, Motels, Hotels, Luxury Lodges, Eco Destinations, Beach Resorts and Tour and Adventure Operators who wish to promote their products and services to travellers who are at ease direct bookings and reservations.I am also inviting Travel companies with knowledge, experience and expertise of destinations along with activities to showcase their skills to a global crowd of travellers and to the members of this new go club. I am leery of 'specialist agents' and only really want experts to showcase their services.This opportunity can be found to the travel trade at no cost except for them to offer world-wide-web, wholesale or outlet prices to club members in addition to visitors to the website using top travel vouchers. I believe this method offers fairer fare prices to direct-booking travellers. The exact operator would normally be paying commission anyway now travellers get the savings because they make their own arrangements.

I moved here for love

New Year’s Day, 2018

Entire swaths of my old identity mean nothing here in Oregon. The fact that I was DC born, DC public school educated, and a DC resident for all but my college years, is an odd bit of personal trivia. Back east, this DC Native thing made me a special, rare being. My intimate experience of being a small marshmallow in a sea of cocoa, a minority in a majority black city, doesn’t register as interesting here. My knowledge of back alleys and short cuts through Mount Pleasant, or Brookland, or Chevy Chase DC is not necessary here. My memories of landmarks in Adams Morgan or Georgetown don’t come up in conversation with other DC natives, because I’m the only one. (Remember the cherry cokes at the fountain at People’s Drug Store at 18th & Columbia Road?) My experience as the one white girl in my journalism class at Penn Center’s Urban Journalism Workshop, where I spent my senior year of high school, means nothing, although I’m convinced that my write up of that extraordinary year got me into Oberlin, since my only extracurricular activity was running away from home. I graduated from high school the same year that Roots played on TV, 1977.

Having lived through the Uprising of 1968 while living in Adams Morgan, and having memories of 9/11’s impact on the Pentagon and DC, might be an interesting anecdote here in the Oregon Outback, but the conversation in which that experience might come up is hard to imagine. The knowledge I have about presidential motorcades (that they always have an ambulance at the end and that’s how you tell it’s a presidential one and not a head of state) is downright peculiar. I know that there are two large helicopters that transport the President out of town, and that one is a decoy. That no planes are allowed in DC airspace, except the presidential ones. I’ve seen senators and congress people in downtown restaurants. The famous people of DC are not movie stars; they are more likely to be journalists. The traffic downtown is different when Congress is not in session. Cherry blossom season means the residents avoid the Tidal Basin and the tourists flock there. Seriously, the best place to see the azaleas in April is the National Arboretum.  

My long-lived, meticulously collected, history of daily life in the District of Columbia has been mothballed.

I traded that history for quiet. For zero light pollution. For a glimpse of the milky way on a clear night. For moonlight so bright that I can see dramatic landscapes illumined by it. I traded my familiarity for wonder.

I’ve left behind traffic. There is no traffic in Lake County. Ever. There is the occasionally cow-choked two lane highway: I have learned how to drive very carefully between enormous bovine fellow-travelers on Route 31. There is the inconvenience of a large truck laboring at the top speed of 40 up the Picture Rock Pass. But I’m not in a hurry. I’ll labor, too, and eventually pass the truck when we get back on the flats.

I worked long hours in various social service positions in D.C., hanging out all day with people who had cancer, or dementia, or ALS. In Lake County, I work about 28 hours a week. A little over 3 days. This schedule is … there are no adequate words… luxurious.

My old self was cosmopolitan, and oriented to alphabetical streets, with avenues named after states, the biggest avenues named after the original colonies. Northeast and Northwest DC encompassed most of my world. My idea of wilderness was Rock Creek Park. The beaches of the Atlantic are sloping and the water is warm during summer. I’ve traded all of that for a state that apparently has almost every sort of land and weather the United States seems to offer, in microcosm. Except the waters of the Pacific are very cold, and the beaches are embraced by cliffs.

I am still me. I am an anthropologist from the East Coast, eyes wide open, taking notes for this blog. I moved here for love.

___

People who live in Lake County tend to ask me why I moved from Washington, D.C. to Paisley, Oregon. Depending on the context, I may or may not come out to them, because the answer can be, because I have lots of family here (although they do not know that the family is not actually my kin) or because I have a partner here (and she is originally from Bly.) I may then get asked, how did you meet her? I may well inform them that she and I were both members of a listserv for women who were married to men while figuring out that they may be ‘not strictly heterosexual.’ I knew her as a woman who wrote beautifully and was very funny.  Valerie lived in Germany at the time with her youngest child in high school. She referred to him as the Tall Monk. Her husband was a civilian chemist, serving the Army base. She’d figured out she was pretty darn lesbian some years before, but didn’t have anyone to focus on as a potential female partner, and had this son to finish rearing and launching. We met online as fellow confused gay women, in 2004. We didn’t date until 2011.

In 2003, I had fallen in love with an old friend, a butch woman who lived in Chicago, while I was still in DC.  My husband had given me permission to pursue this woman, following his shocking heart attack at age 43, which drove home the idea that life can be very short indeed. His great gift of permission was one we both occasionally regretted, but it led us to more authentic lives, just separately, by 2006, when I moved out of the only home our kids had known. My children were 11 and 9 at the time. This old friend and I managed a five-year relationship, long distance, until we broke up.

Valerie and I had met once in person back in 2006, and later that year, I’d made her an offer: if she’d come to DC to help me prepare the apartment that I would soon be moving to as a newly separated woman, I would pay all her expenses. She accepted, and we got the one-bedroom apartment ready for moving. I thought she was adorable, and I was very grateful. Off she flew back to Utah, where’d she’d moved by then, still coupled to the chemist.

In 2011 I was single, and training for a half marathon. I don’t know who started what but by late Spring, she and I were contemplating a romance. In June, she was a firewatcher for the Forest Service at Indian Rock in eastern Oregon. By August, I was there, visiting. A more dramatic locale for a first date I can hardly imagine. I stayed a week. The lookout was way up in the air, affixed to a pointy rock much like the one from the Lion King, jutting out into the Malheur Forest. It had 50-mile views, and mountain goats for company. Because I’d been running faithfully in my training, I had no trouble with the altitude. It was a magical time.

I guess because Valerie now had a girlfriend, she wrote letters to her husband, adult children, and siblings announcing she was a) gay, b) leaving her third husband and c) moving to DC for the winter. Needless to say, minds were blown. As soon as fire watch season ended, she moved to DC. By then I’d bought a house in the Edgewood part of northeast. Over the next five years, Valerie would winter with me and then fly back to Oregon to work on the Hyde ranches, or set up a weed whacking business with her youngest granddaughter.

My kids moved back and forth between their parents’ houses, and grew up beautifully, if I may say so. Their dad, Brian, began a relationship with a funny, talented, cheerful and 100% heterosexual woman who lived in the bungalow across the alley from our old house. We six would celebrate Christmas morning together, and go to school events as well. I was active at the church I’d started attending in high school, and Brian worked there for years as Parish Administrator.

Over the course of our relationship, Valerie and I talked about various scenarios. It was clear early on that having her move to DC permanently (including the sauna-like summers) was not going to work for several immutable reasons. One was the heat: Valerie’s multiple sclerosis is not a huge variable in her life most of the time, but when it’s very hot, she decompensates, and becomes a stuttering, lurching mess. Plus, all of her family is in Oregon. I don’t have much family: there’s my beloved sister, who lives in Philadelphia, and her amazing sons, who are wandering young people, just like mine are. I have lovely cousins who are all west of the Mississippi, so I’d be closer to them if I moved west.  Valerie has children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces and nephews in Oregon and northern California. Lastly, although officially retired and receiving social security, Val has several jobs she can do part time in Eastern Oregon that don’t exist in the urban context. There is little demand inside the Beltway for tending cows, irrigating, and general fence maintenance.

When I began accepting that the best thing was to move west, I knew I’d wait until the kids were out of the house. At one point I told her, you know, Valerie, if I’m pulling up all my roots and moving where I know no one besides you, I want a ring on my finger. She considered my depth of feeling and was respectful. She didn’t say no way. She didn’t propose either.

When I’d visit her for 10 days each summer, we’d travel around the state. We considered Ashland OR as a possible place to settle as a couple. She’d lived there when she was a student at Southern Oregon University, taking care of three kids and her grandmother as her husband also studied. It’s a bit of a resort town, known for its theater. It has an Episcopal parish we visited, and a dear friend of Valerie’s who’s a professor. We decided against it because it’s really too hot in the summer. And pricey.

Our next choice was Eugene. It’s a progressive college town, and we already knew 3 people: a former coworker of mine, and Valerie’s first husband and HIS husband. We settled on that place, despite my concern that it is so very white. The entire state is so very white.

In the last couple of years I lived in DC, I felt myself slowly withdrawing. I kept in touch with my good friends, but I no longer pursued people I thought would make good future friends: I’m leaving soon, I thought. I need to prioritize. My work as a hospice social worker was more stressful than I thought it would be and not because my clients were dying at a fast rate. It was the Medicare-induced stressors around compliance with a thousand regulations, and productivity pressures.  

At church, I agreed to be on the search committee for a new Senior Priest, and proceeded to pour heart and soul into a very time consuming and conflict-ridden process. My faith community of 40 years got the last bit of oooomph I had left, and once the process was finished and the priest chosen, I was kind of done. I never thought I’d feel that way about that place. And I probably would still be there, enjoying the fabulous liturgy, the kind people, and the new directions I know he is steering it toward. But knowing I was moving west ‘soon’, I could let go of being a part of those adventures.

My children’s father made it easier to contemplate leaving the city of our children’s birth when he decamped for Tucson Arizona in April of 2017 with his long-time girlfriend. He’s originally from California, and Jenny’s folks and sister live in Tucson. They sold their homes in Brookland DC and bought a much bigger home outright.  

Jonah was ensconced in Brooklyn, and making a living as a music video director. Clara was a rising senior at Oberlin, and not at all sure where she’d be after graduating in 2017. So all it took was a particularly terrible staff meeting at Hospice one day in July 2016, and I was ready. I started looking for work in Oregon as a social worker. I got all the paper work together to get licensed there. I found a job, interviewed over Skype, and accepted the position as a care manager in Eugene. Within 2 weeks, I’d resigned at hospice, lined up a mover for mid August, and started packing. In early August, my new job evaporated: they said they couldn’t wait so long for me to get there. Valerie told me, come out anyway, we’ll stay in Paisley, and figure something out. And so I did.

Looking back, I don’t know how we considered any place besides than Paisley. For one thing, living in the home that Valerie and her son rehabilitated means rent free living for me. I didn’t realize that being a licensed social worker made me such a hot commodity in a county that is so rural, it’s called ‘frontier’ in the public health nomenclature.  My being queer doesn’t seem to matter, thanks to the Eastern Oregon-born status of the well-respected Valerie, and the fact that Hope was right: no one really cares.

We probably won’t marry, although I have fantasies about a really fun wedding. Maybe someday, if, and I mean if, I feel as though there is a community, IN Paisley, that would commit to our well-being as a couple. She’s had 3 marriages to my one: getting married to each other is unnecessary.  Meanwhile, I’ve come to see how loyal Valerie is, and how much she loves me. I thought maybe she’d regret my having moved into her world, bugging her 12 months out of the year instead of 6 or 7. But she has lots of places to go while I work, lots of family members to help paint a house or construct a room, and dear friends to ranch for when needed. I spent this past summer driving to Fort Klamath, Beatty, Brothers and Chiloquin. We took the train to visit her brother and sister in law in Lotus, California. If Valerie needs a break from me, there’s lots of opportunities. And I can binge watch Netflix without her ever-so-mild disapproval.

It’s all worked out remarkably well.

I moved to Paisley for Valerie, and a slower, kinder, quieter life. It was a good decision. Even though I still miss Black people, Jews, Ethiopian food, free museums, gingko trees in the fall, and liturgy with an enthusiastic thurifer…

The Olympic Peninsula is known around the world for its beautiful mountains, its beaches and the Twilight Saga.  Well, there’s more to it than that.  We’ve spent countless days exploring the OP and not just visiting our old favorite haunts we’ve known all our lives, but also exploring places that are new to all of us.  That’s the joy of the Olympic Peninsula and why we’ve got a handy guide to get you familiar with our favorite region of the Pacific Northwest.

So, why visit the Olympic Peninsula over the Oregon Coast or the Eastern Seaboard?  Well, quite simply there are fewer tourists here and more opportunities to be in the middle of nature with nobody around.  The quietest place in the USA is on the Olympic Peninsula.  The original metropolitan center of the Puget Sound area is on the OP.  The largest successful dam removal project in the USA is on the Peninsula.  So many reasons to visit!

Locale of the Olympic Peninsula

You can drive to or take a ferry to the Olympic Peninsula depending on your starting point.  If you’re visiting Seattle and want to explore the OP you can hop a ferry from either downtown Seattle or from Edmonds.  You’ll have to drive about a half hour to cross the Hood Canal Bridge and from there either head south along Hood Canal towards Lake Cushman and the Pacific Ocean or head north to loop around the Olympic Mountains on Highway 101.  The other option from Seattle is to drive around through Tacoma, but that takes forever with Tacoma’s awful traffic.

If you’re coming from the north, such as Victoria or Vancouver BC, you’ll also need to take a boat.  From Victoria BC, you can drive onto the Blackball Coho Ferry for an hour boat ride into Port Angeles.  From Vancouver BC you’ll need to cross the border into the US up near Blaine/Bellingham and then drive south towards Whidbey Island.  Head through Anacortes and across Whidbey to the Port Townsend ferry.  Boom!  You’re on the Olympic Peninsula!

Tip:  for either the Coho (Victoria) or WSF boat (Whidbey Island) you can make reservations for your preferred sailing.  We highly recommend reservations for either otherwise you’re at the mercy of every other traveler.

Port Townsend: a Victorian Seaport

The perfect start to an adventurous visit to the Olympic Peninsula is with a day in Port Townsend.  Established in the 1800s as the primary seaport for the Puget Sound (prior to the railroads declaring Seattle as such), the town was built to be beautiful and have all of the features of a keystone city:  Victorian downtown, mansions uptown, amazing courthouse complete with looming bell tower…and a castle. Eventually Fort Worden was built and then eventually decommissioned… but then became the backdrop for the movie An Officer and a Gentleman.

Today, it’s got everything that a tourist could want.  Local beer (PTBrewing), local wine (Fairwinds Winery) and cider (Alpenfire) are available throughout the town.  The NorthwestMaritime Center is right on the water and ready to pull you into wooden boat culture.  Fort Worden has beach, woods and WWII bunkers for exploring, as well as the Point Wilson lighthouse and the most amazing field for flying kites.  I didn’t get into all of the shops in the downtown, because that’s its own day, but hit up what I just mentioned and kids and adults are set for fun.

Tip:  if you can set aside two days for the Port Townsend area you’ll be good to go.  It’s the perfect seaside town for relaxing and exploring, and weekends really are best.

Beaches of the Olympic Peninsula

We live by a beach, but we are really far into the Puget Sound, so there aren’t actual ocean waves.  Also there’s not a ton of sand. Cue the Olympic Peninsula…

Such cool beaches:  enormous drift wood at LaPush or the Dungeness Spit, the softest sand ever at Salt Creek, tide pools on the Strait of Juan de Fuca or at Ruby Beach in Olympic National Park.  What makes the beaches here so different and fun is that they are playable with kids.  The sand isn’t dry and blasting your eyes with from the wind.  The shore is gradual, so there’s lots of sandy space.  The waves aren’t the size of tsunamis straight from Japan so you can actually play in them when it’s warm.

The beaches of the Olympic Peninsula are great for spotting wildlife too.  We get a lot of seals all around the Puget Sound area, and the sheltered beaches on the Peninsula are prime places for raising young seal pups.  Also, we’ve seen grey and humpback whales just from the shore on several occasions; you just have to keep a look out.

Tip:  bring binoculars year round to watch for passing grey, humpback and orca whales.  We’ve been able to see whales with the naked eye in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and off the beaches of Olympic National Park.

Tidepools on the Olympic Peninsula

We’re a bit obsessed with the ocean and not actually being a mer-family we have to enjoy it in ways other than living underwater.  Luckily, our kids are just like us dads.  They love to play in the water and sand, but now they’ve been exposed to something even better: tide pools!  Tide pools, for those who don’t know, are the low spot in rock outcroppings that are full of water after the tide goes out.  This means that there is an environment that can hold life even at low tide. 

For a child who loves the sea, this is the perfect spot to see all of the tiny friends that normally are out in the water.  We often see hermit crabs, anemones, sculpin (fish), chitons, huge barnacles feeding. limpets, mussels…  Also, the rocks are home to many pelagic seabirds, so it’s great for bird watching at low and high tides. The tide pools on the Strait of Juan de Fuca are really fantastic.  They are easy to traverse as an adult or child, or as a parent wearing a baby in a pack (with caution).  

Tip:  the best shoes for tide pooling are sandal-type shoes with a little traction.  They’ll provide good footing on the rocks and then dry fast.

Alternative plan:  if the Olympic Peninsula isn’t close enough when you’re visiting Seattle or Portland, check out Whidbey Island’s tide pools, or if you’re south, the Oregon Coast has a plethora of opportunities for them.

RULE:  do not take anything from a tide pool.  Example: an empty snail shell might actually be a hermit crab’s home.  Would you want somebody to take yours?

The two best tidepool areas we’ve found on the Olympic Peninsula are Salt Creek Recreation Area and Ruby Beach at Olympic National Park.

Hiking on the Olympic Peninsula

The Olympic Peninsula is where the mountains literally meet the sea.  What this means is that you can either hike hike or walk hike.  For hardcore folks they can traverse the Olympic Mountains from all sides, climbing Mt. Rose or heading up out of Staircase by Lake Cushman.  For those of us with kids, we’ve got some other options.

The Hoh Rainforest is one of our favorite places because it makes us feel like we’re walking with gnomes.  I know, silly, but when you’ve got little kids to entertain along the way, it’s nice to be able to look for gnomes.  The Hoh is so dense with moss and fallen trees that it’s almost like another planet.  The streams are full of algae and other plants; they look like alien rivers.  Sol Duc Falls is also absolutely incredible for the lush forests and totally PNW experience in Olympic National Park.

Other easy hiking includes heading to the beach areas for walks in the sand or if you’ve got the time and energy, trekking all of the way out to the Dungeness Spit lighthouse.  There’s such a variety and with something different to see at each stop, you can’t go wrong.  Hurricane Ridge just outside of Port Angeles is also a great day hiking spot, with views going all the way to Victoria, BC and Seattle.  Beware of mountain goats at Hurricane Ridge.  They’re not indigenous and are still angry about it, so they’re not friendly.

Tip:  despite being called a temperate rainforest, the Hoh can actually be rather hot and dry.  Be prepared with lots of water and the energy to carry little people, as the mugginess can be draining.

And another thought if you want to go hiking with toddlers and younger:  for younger kids, having an actual hiking child-carrier is very helpful and will make you all feel much better about your adventure when you realize how much more comfortable it is than just a standard baby pack, such as a Bjorn or Ergo.  Kelty Kids and REI both make great child-carrier hiking packs if you need to invest in one.

Whale Watching on the Salish Sea

There are a few approaches to whale watching.  1.)  Set up a chair on a bluff or beach and wait for the whales to swim by, hoping to catch a glimpse.  2.)  Hire a random guide in a marina in Sequim or Port Angeles to take you out on a small boat and hope that they are whale-wise and responsible.  3.)  Spend the extra money to go on a whale watching expedition with a company that guarantees sightings.

It sounds weird that they can guarantee sightings, but here’s why:  the reputable companies all work together to share whale locations as they’re spotted, thus making for quicker sighting and more positive guest experiences, thus building their businesses and awareness of whales and their plight.  It’s all a rather good set up.  Since the tour companies are regulated and the Fish and Wildlife chaps are out in their boats monitoring, the whales are treated well and given wide berth for going their own way.  The experience is great and there’s nothing like seeing the wonder in your child’s eyes when an orca jumps out of the water in front of them.

Tip:  excursions are typically 4-5 hours, but it’s worth the time to be on the water and see such beauty, regarding the sealife and sights.  And there’s no shame in being prepared with a little entertainment for younger kids, as boat travel isn’t always the most exciting part of the day.

There is, of course, far more to do and see on the Olympic Peninsula.  Native American culture thrives in several areas, so watch for totem poles.  The Twilight Saga was filmed on the OP and going out of Port Angeles and Forks, you can go on Twilight themed tours.  There are some beautiful National Park lodges to visit or stay at from Lake Quinault or Kalaloch up to Lake Crescent. And camping!  Everywhere! Seriously, you could do a two week vacation here easily and everybody in the family will have an amazing time.

We have all kinds of other ideas for visiting the Olympic Peninsula including more hiking recommendations and options for where to stay.  If we were to break down the must-see sights for a tight vacation schedule, here’s what we’d say to do:

Port Townsend – Victorian charm, great food, local beers

Hurricane Ridge – hiking and epic views across the mountains

Sol Duc Falls – the most lush waterfall trail on the Olympic Peninsula

Cape Flattery – the Northwesternmost point of the continental USA, incredibly beautiful

Ruby Beach – sea stack, tidepools, beaches, driftwood, eagles…

So are you totally ready to explore the Olympic Peninsula?  If you ever have any questions, we know our way around the OP really well and have tons more to share.  Send us a note if you need hiking, kayaking, lodging, dining, or just relaxing recommendations.  We’ve got you covered!

Go ahead and save that nifty infographic above or something from below so you don’t miss the must-see sights when you come for a visit.  And feel free to pin this for later too!

The Olympic Peninsula of Washington: visiting the Pacific Northwest’s playground The Olympic Peninsula is known around the world for its beautiful mountains, its beaches and the 

New Post has been published on Pagedesignpro

New Post has been published on https://pagedesignpro.com/travel-pre-and-post-internet/

Travel Pre And Post Internet

Travel Pre-Internet:

I’ve been traveling for over 40 years – by thumb in my early days, by boots in the Scouts, a Lambretta came next and then my first old banger followed by newer old bangers to the beaches of the Costa Brava.

My thumb, boots, bikes and bangers took me all over Europe and the UK before finding that a charter flight to Spain on an old ‘Connie’ could get me to the beaches and bars a lot quicker and allow more time to enjoy the local travel opportunities by horse and cart and the occasional bus and train.

‘Go West and Prosper’ seemed to be a good idea so instead of taking an 8-hour flight I took an 8-day transatlantic crossing from Tilbury to Montreal on the Stephan Batory of Polish Ocean Lines ensuring that jet lag did not trouble my travel plans. Some years later I crossed the pond again on a ship but this time it was 5 times bigger and I traveled in style on the QE2 and died in the Queen’s Grill somewhat removed from my earlier experience. I highly recommend ocean voyages but cannot see myself on one of the modern cruise ships going from port to port with constant line-ups to get on and off to buy t-shirts. However, I have done 10 Windjammers and a Star Clipper cruise in the Caribbean which were all memorable (let’s hope Windjammer Barefoot Cruises recover from their woes). But I digress.

I had read that Canada is a spectacular country, from sea to shining sea, and my entrance into the St. Lawrence River to Montreal and then heading west in an old Econoline van from the Great Lakes, across the Prairies to the Rocky Mountains before ending up whale watching off of the Pacific Coast of Vancouver Island was a trip of wonder to a bloke from London. Today the scenery is still spectacular and the best way to go is still by road so rent or buy a car, motorhome or motorbike, take the train or tour bus but remember the maps, a fly rod, good boots and take your time.

My favorite part of Canada / USA for adventure travel has to be Northern BC / Alaska, to hike the Chilkoot Trail in the steps of the gold seekers of 1898. The Northwest Territories to canoe the Nahanni River and the Yukon to drive from Dawson City to Chicken, Alaska. If you like the outdoors and can put up with a few bugs, cast a fly and scale a few hills or drive on endless dirt roads sharing the space with moose, caribou, elk, bears and eagles, then these are the places to put on your list. The pleasures and experiences in driving to Inuvik on the Dempster Highway or to Prudhoe Bay on the Dalton Highway or even the Canol Road can only be felt by doing them. I would have mentioned the Alaska Highway but now it is an easy drive unlike the aforementioned.

Today the costs of driving these distances may mean that sharing the journey with others is required, but RVing or simply vanning and camping is a great way to see beyond the horizon. Some en route adventures now need to be booked in advance whereas when I hiked Denali and the Chilkoot Pass it was just a case of turning up, registering with the local ranger office and heading on out. A little more forward planning is needed for today’s traveler and cost considerations of lengthy flights or drives have to somehow be countered with more careful planning. In the days of reasonable gas prices I would not even consider the driving or flying costs and have driven to Key West from the northwest coast, down the west coast to the Baja and to the west coast from New York. I once even flew my 1946 Fleet taildragger from the Pacific to the Atlantic and back using around 5 gallons an hour of avgas. Before the oil and credit crisis I drove from Rio de Janeiro to Lima, down to Tierra del Fuego and back to Rio covering over 15,000 miles of spectacular scenery and with no consideration of the cost of gas. South America should be on your itinerary too! Some other memorable drives that may now require a mortgage with the gas companies include London to The Nordkapp, Norway, Skippers Canyon in New Zealand and the loneliness of the far north of Australia and the amazing coast of Western Australia stopping by at Monkey Mia and Wave Rock.

We tend to forget that the real cost of traveling is often less today than over the 40 years of my travels. In 1977 my round-trip airfare from Canada to Australia cost over $1700 in 1977 dollars so today it is far cheaper to fly, even with the airlines gouging for fuel, extra baggage, no service and no pleasure. The ‘Big Mac’ method of price comparison as developed by The Economist newspaper gives us a good gauge for most expenditures of today compared to yesterday but my $1500 cost to get a private pilots license in the 1970’s seems cheap by comparison to today, but obviously not when using this Big Mac principle. Other travel costs are also far cheaper today but this should not mean that travelers should disregard the many methods of saving costs that can then be put to extended or improved travel experiences

Travel Post-Internet:

In my 40 years of travel, I have had to use travel agents to make even the simplest of reservations and buy tickets, not even thinking to ask them if they had “been there, done that?” It was just a case of there being no other options to buying travel. Now we have unlimited choices and can seek out better travel agents, better prices, better selections and information about anywhere in the world for our travels – without even leaving home.

The Internet now gives travelers ideas and options of Where to go, When to go, Why to go, What to do, Who to book with and How to save money and offset costs. We can search and find experts for every travel option. If we are comfortable with the Internet we no longer have to go to a travel agent to make reservations and buy tickets except to book with some of the larger travel companies that still produce glossy brochures and offer all inclusive packages or tours that only sell through the agency system. The Internet also allows those of us who are smart enough to know when to seek out a top travel agent with knowledge, experience, and expertise (KEE skills) of destinations and activities about where to find them. There is no longer any need to only use our local agents when we can find one somewhere else in the world. When we do not need ‘the knowledge’ and can do it ourselves we simply surf the web so that we can book directly with tour and travel operators wherever we have decided to go.

Some travel agents operate their own tours, some are both wholesale and retail, some limit consumer selection by only selling their ‘preferred’ suppliers and some have professional consultants with years of experience invested in gaining knowledge, experience, and expertise and are worth their weight in gold to the savvy traveler. Beware though, as some are also called destination specialists and some of these designations merely require the agent to take a rudimentary test offered by tourism offices, destination marketing groups or even tour operators and in my opinion can harm the reputation of the travel industry. A specialist is not necessarily an expert.

Travel is probably the most used commercial aspect of the Internet and if retail agents want to harness this exciting medium to offer ‘the knowledge’ and their ‘key’ skills to a global audience, not just their local community, they must embrace the changes that are happening. Travelers now have the ability to seek answers to the 5 W’s of travel and the important ‘How to’ save money and offset costs by having information just a click away.

And then it occurred to me that even internet travel prices often include a commission element even when sold directly to the consumer. If we book directly with operators we should not have to pay full retail prices as we are doing for ourselves what a retail agent would normally do for us. A dilemma for the operator is that to show a both a retail and a cost price option could deter many agents from selling the services as travelers could use an agent for free advice and book directly with the operator to get a ‘net of commission’ price. Obviously, this two-tier pricing is not often available but travelers who do not need advice should also not be penalized by retail pricing. A new way had to be found and I think I have found it!

The need for fairer fare prices is why I developed the Top Travel Voucher program at The Top Travel Club and I even found a dot com for it. All travel selections on the site are at ‘net of commission’ prices for members who handle there own travel arrangements directly with the operators linked on the club website using our voucher program.

I am inviting travel operators from around the world to join this program, from B&B’s, Motels, Hotels, Luxury Lodges, Eco Resorts, Beach Resorts and Tour and Adventure Operators who want to promote their products and services to travelers who are comfortable with direct bookings and reservations.

I am also inviting Travel Agents with knowledge, experience, and expertise of destinations and activities to showcase their skills to a global audience of travelers and to the members of this new travel club. I am leery of ‘specialist agents’ and only want experts to showcase their services.

This opportunity is available to the travel trade at no cost except for them to offer net, wholesale or outlet prices to club members and visitors to the website using top travel vouchers. I believe this program offers fairer fare prices to direct-booking travelers. The operator would normally be paying commission anyway but now travelers get the savings because they make their own arrangements.

The Top Travel Club opened in mid-April 2008 offering thousands of top travel vouchers for travel in over 70 countries with around 150 travel operators onboard. Every week we add more travel operators with more choices for members. Currently, you can get savings on accommodations, adventure travel, boat charters, culinary tours, hike, bike and dive tours, auto and RV rentals fishing lodges and guides, safaris, vacation rentals, single travel, women only and dude ranches. Members get the vouchers free of charge by paying an annual membership fee and non-members can buy the vouchers on the internet at Top Travel Sites at deeply discounted prices to the face-value. The future growth will include restaurants, travel clothing, travel insurance and the opportunity to access air ticket consolidators who want to deal directly with consumers.

The way I have traveled and the way I see travel is that consumers should have unlimited access to every travel opportunity with the ability to do their own due diligence or to find a professional who can offer quality advice and services at fair prices, and to find all of this without needing endless hours of searching.

Travel Pre And Post Internet

New Post has been published on https://beingmad.org/travel-pre-and-post-internet/

Travel Pre And Post Internet

Travel Pre-Internet:

I’ve been traveling for over 40 years – by thumb in my early days, by boots in the Scouts, a Lambretta came next and then my first old banger followed by newer old bangers to the beaches of the Costa Brava.

My thumb, boots, bikes and bangers took me all over Europe and the UK before finding that a charter flight to Spain on an old ‘Connie’ could get me to the beaches and bars a lot quicker and allow more time to enjoy the local travel opportunities by horse and cart and the occasional bus and train.

‘Go West and Prosper’ seemed to be a good idea so instead of taking an 8-hour flight I took an 8-day transatlantic crossing from Tilbury to Montreal on the Stephan Batory of Polish Ocean Lines ensuring that jet lag did not trouble my travel plans. Some years later I crossed the pond again on a ship but this time it was 5 times bigger and I traveled in style on the QE2 and died in the Queen’s Grill somewhat removed from my earlier experience. I highly recommend ocean voyages but cannot see myself on one of the modern cruise ships going from port to port with constant line-ups to get on and off to buy t-shirts. However, I have done 10 Windjammers and a Star Clipper cruise in the Caribbean which were all memorable (let’s hope Windjammer Barefoot Cruises recover from their woes). But I digress.

I had read that Canada is a spectacular country, from sea to shining sea, and my entrance into the St. Lawrence River to Montreal and then heading west in an old Econoline van from the Great Lakes, across the Prairies to the Rocky Mountains before ending up whale watching off of the Pacific Coast of Vancouver Island was a trip of wonder to a bloke from London. Today the scenery is still spectacular and the best way to go is still by road so rent or buy a car, motorhome or motorbike, take the train or tour bus but remember the maps, a fly rod, good boots and take your time.

My favorite part of Canada / USA for adventure travel has to be Northern BC / Alaska, to hike the Chilkoot Trail in the steps of the gold seekers of 1898. The Northwest Territories to canoe the Nahanni River and the Yukon to drive from Dawson City to Chicken, Alaska. If you like the outdoors and can put up with a few bugs, cast a fly and scale a few hills or drive on endless dirt roads sharing the space with moose, caribou, elk, bears and eagles, then these are the places to put on your list. The pleasures and experiences in driving to Inuvik on the Dempster Highway or to Prudhoe Bay on the Dalton Highway or even the Canol Road can only be felt by doing them. I would have mentioned the Alaska Highway but now it is an easy drive unlike the aforementioned.

Today the costs of driving these distances may mean that sharing the journey with others is required, but RVing or simply vanning and camping is a great way to see beyond the horizon. Some en route adventures now need to be booked in advance whereas when I hiked Denali and the Chilkoot Pass it was just a case of turning up, registering with the local ranger office and heading on out. A little more forward planning is needed for today’s traveler and cost considerations of lengthy flights or drives have to somehow be countered with more careful planning. In the days of reasonable gas prices I would not even consider the driving or flying costs and have driven to Key West from the northwest coast, down the west coast to the Baja and to the west coast from New York. I once even flew my 1946 Fleet taildragger from the Pacific to the Atlantic and back using around 5 gallons an hour of avgas. Before the oil and credit crisis I drove from Rio de Janeiro to Lima, down to Tierra del Fuego and back to Rio covering over 15,000 miles of spectacular scenery and with no consideration of the cost of gas. South America should be on your itinerary too! Some other memorable drives that may now require a mortgage with the gas companies include London to The Nordkapp, Norway, Skippers Canyon in New Zealand and the loneliness of the far north of Australia and the amazing coast of Western Australia stopping by at Monkey Mia and Wave Rock.

We tend to forget that the real cost of traveling is often less today than over the 40 years of my travels. In 1977 my round-trip airfare from Canada to Australia cost over $1700 in 1977 dollars so today it is far cheaper to fly, even with the airlines gouging for fuel, extra baggage, no service and no pleasure. The ‘Big Mac’ method of price comparison as developed by The Economist newspaper gives us a good gauge for most expenditures of today compared to yesterday but my $1500 cost to get a private pilots license in the 1970’s seems cheap by comparison to today, but obviously not when using this Big Mac principle. Other travel costs are also far cheaper today but this should not mean that travelers should disregard the many methods of saving costs that can then be put to extended or improved travel experiences

Travel Post-Internet:

In my 40 years of travel, I have had to use travel agents to make even the simplest of reservations and buy tickets, not even thinking to ask them if they had “been there, done that?” It was just a case of there being no other options to buying travel. Now we have unlimited choices and can seek out better travel agents, better prices, better selections and information about anywhere in the world for our travels – without even leaving home.

The Internet now gives travelers ideas and options of Where to go, When to go, Why to go, What to do, Who to book with and How to save money and offset costs. We can search and find experts for every travel option. If we are comfortable with the Internet we no longer have to go to a travel agent to make reservations and buy tickets except to book with some of the larger travel companies that still produce glossy brochures and offer all inclusive packages or tours that only sell through the agency system. The Internet also allows those of us who are smart enough to know when to seek out a top travel agent with knowledge, experience, and expertise (KEE skills) of destinations and activities about where to find them. There is no longer any need to only use our local agents when we can find one somewhere else in the world. When we do not need ‘the knowledge’ and can do it ourselves we simply surf the web so that we can book directly with tour and travel operators wherever we have decided to go.

Some travel agents operate their own tours, some are both wholesale and retail, some limit consumer selection by only selling their ‘preferred’ suppliers and some have professional consultants with years of experience invested in gaining knowledge, experience, and expertise and are worth their weight in gold to the savvy traveler. Beware though, as some are also called destination specialists and some of these designations merely require the agent to take a rudimentary test offered by tourism offices, destination marketing groups or even tour operators and in my opinion can harm the reputation of the travel industry. A specialist is not necessarily an expert.

Travel is probably the most used commercial aspect of the Internet and if retail agents want to harness this exciting medium to offer ‘the knowledge’ and their ‘key’ skills to a global audience, not just their local community, they must embrace the changes that are happening. Travelers now have the ability to seek answers to the 5 W’s of travel and the important ‘How to’ save money and offset costs by having information just a click away.

And then it occurred to me that even internet travel prices often include a commission element even when sold directly to the consumer. If we book directly with operators we should not have to pay full retail prices as we are doing for ourselves what a retail agent would normally do for us. A dilemma for the operator is that to show a both a retail and a cost price option could deter many agents from selling the services as travelers could use an agent for free advice and book directly with the operator to get a ‘net of commission’ price. Obviously, this two-tier pricing is not often available but travelers who do not need advice should also not be penalized by retail pricing. A new way had to be found and I think I have found it!

The need for fairer fare prices is why I developed the Top Travel Voucher program at The Top Travel Club and I even found a dot com for it. All travel selections on the site are at ‘net of commission’ prices for members who handle there own travel arrangements directly with the operators linked on the club website using our voucher program.

I am inviting travel operators from around the world to join this program, from B&B’s, Motels, Hotels, Luxury Lodges, Eco Resorts, Beach Resorts and Tour and Adventure Operators who want to promote their products and services to travelers who are comfortable with direct bookings and reservations.

I am also inviting Travel Agents with knowledge, experience, and expertise of destinations and activities to showcase their skills to a global audience of travelers and to the members of this new travel club. I am leery of ‘specialist agents’ and only want experts to showcase their services.

This opportunity is available to the travel trade at no cost except for them to offer net, wholesale or outlet prices to club members and visitors to the website using top travel vouchers. I believe this program offers fairer fare prices to direct-booking travelers. The operator would normally be paying commission anyway but now travelers get the savings because they make their own arrangements.

The Top Travel Club opened in mid-April 2008 offering thousands of top travel vouchers for travel in over 70 countries with around 150 travel operators onboard. Every week we add more travel operators with more choices for members. Currently, you can get savings on accommodations, adventure travel, boat charters, culinary tours, hike, bike and dive tours, auto and RV rentals fishing lodges and guides, safaris, vacation rentals, single travel, women only and dude ranches. Members get the vouchers free of charge by paying an annual membership fee and non-members can buy the vouchers on the internet at Top Travel Sites at deeply discounted prices to the face-value. The future growth will include restaurants, travel clothing, travel insurance and the opportunity to access air ticket consolidators who want to deal directly with consumers.

The way I have traveled and the way I see travel is that consumers should have unlimited access to every travel opportunity with the ability to do their own due diligence or to find a professional who can offer quality advice and services at fair prices, and to find all of this without needing endless hours of searching.

New Post has been published on Vin Zite

New Post has been published on https://vinzite.com/travel-pre-and-post-internet/

Travel Pre And Post Internet

Travel Post Internet:

I’ve been traveling for over 40 years – by thumb in my early days, by boots in the Scouts, a Lambretta came next and then my first old banger followed by newer old bangers to the beaches of the Costa Brava.

My thumb, boots, bikes and bangers took me all over Europe and the UK before finding that a charter flight to Spain on an old ‘Connie’ could get me to the beaches and bars a lot quicker and allow more time to enjoy the local travel opportunities by horse and cart and the occasional bus and train.

‘Go West and Prosper’ seemed to be a good idea so instead of taking an 8-hour flight I took an 8-day transatlantic crossing from Tilbury to Montreal on the Stephan Batory of Polish Ocean Lines ensuring that jet lag did not trouble my travel plans. Some years later I crossed the pond again on a ship but this time it was 5 times bigger and I traveled in style on the QE2 and died in the Queen’s Grill somewhat removed from my earlier experience. I highly recommend ocean voyages but cannot see myself on one of the modern cruise ships going from port to port with constant line-ups to get on and off to buy t-shirts. However, I have done 10 Windjammers and a Star Clipper cruise in the Caribbean which were all memorable (let’s hope Windjammer Barefoot Cruises recover from their woes). But I digress.

I had read that Canada is a spectacular country, from sea to shining sea, and my entrance into the St. Lawrence River to Montreal and then heading west in an old Econoline van from the Great Lakes, across the Prairies to the Rocky Mountains before ending up whale watching off of the Pacific Coast of Vancouver Island was a trip of wonder to a bloke from London. Today the scenery is still spectacular and the best way to go is still by road so rent or buy a car, motorhome or motorbike, take the train or tour bus but remember the maps, a fly rod, good boots and take your time.

My favorite part of Canada / USA for adventure travel has to be Northern BC / Alaska, to hike the Chilkoot Trail in the steps of the gold seekers of 1898. The Northwest Territories to canoe the Nahanni River and the Yukon to drive from Dawson City to Chicken, Alaska. If you like the outdoors and can put up with a few bugs, cast a fly and scale a few hills or drive on endless dirt roads sharing the space with moose, caribou, elk, bears and eagles, then these are the places to put on your list. The pleasures and experiences in driving to Inuvik on the Dempster Highway or to Prudhoe Bay on the Dalton Highway or even the Canol Road can only be felt by doing them. I would have mentioned the Alaska Highway but now it is an easy drive unlike the aforementioned.

Today the costs of driving these distances may mean that sharing the journey with others is required, but RVing or simply canning and camping is a great way to see beyond the horizon. Some en route adventures now need to be booked in advance whereas when I hiked Denali and the Chilkoot Pass it was just a case of turning up, registering with the local ranger office and heading on out. A little more forward planning is needed for today’s traveler and cost considerations of lengthy flights or drives have to somehow be countered with more careful planning. In the days of reasonable gas prices, I would not even consider the driving or flying costs and have driven to Key West from the northwest coast, down the west coast to the Baja and to the west coast from New York. I once even flew my 1946 Fleet taildragger from the Pacific to the Atlantic and back using around 5 gallons an hour of avgas. Before the oil and credit crisis, I drove from Rio de Janeiro to Lima, down to Tierra del Fuego and back to Rio covering over 15,000 miles of spectacular scenery and with no consideration of the cost of gas. South America should be on your itinerary too! Some other memorable drives that may now require a mortgage with the gas companies include London to The Nordkapp, Norway, Skippers Canyon in New Zealand and the loneliness of the far north of Australia and the amazing coast of Western Australia stopping by at Monkey Mia and Wave Rock.

We tend to forget that the real cost of traveling is often less today than over the 40 years of my travels. In 1977 my round-trip airfare from Canada to Australia cost over $1700 in 1977 dollars so today it is far cheaper to fly, even with the airlines gouging for fuel, extra baggage, no service and no pleasure. The ‘Big Mac’ method of price comparison as developed by The Economist newspaper gives us a good gauge for most expenditures of today compared to yesterday but my $1500 cost to get a private pilots license in the 1970’s seems cheap by comparison to today, but obviously not when using this Big Mac principle. Other travel costs are also far cheaper today but this should not mean that travelers should disregard the many methods of saving costs that can then be put to extended or improved travel experiences

Travel Post-Internet:

In my 40 years of travel, I have had to use travel agents to make even the simplest of reservations and buy tickets, not even thinking to ask them if they had “been there, done that?” It was just a case of there being no other options to buying travel. Now we have unlimited choices and can seek out better travel agents, better prices, better selections and information about anywhere in the world for our travels – without even leaving home.

The Internet now gives travelers ideas and options of Where to go, When to go, Why to go, What to do, Who to book with and How to save money and offset costs. We can search and find experts for every travel option. If we are comfortable with the Internet we no longer have to go to a travel agent to make reservations and buy tickets except to book with some of the larger travel companies that still produce glossy brochures and offer all inclusive packages or tours that only sell through the agency system. The Internet also allows those of us who are smart enough to know when to seek out a top travel agent with knowledge, experience, and expertise (KEE skills) of destinations and activities about where to find them. There is no longer any need to only use our local agents when we can find one somewhere else in the world. When we do not need ‘the knowledge’ and can do it ourselves we simply surf the web so that we can book directly with tour and travel operators wherever we have decided to go.

Some travel agents operate their own tours, some are both wholesale and retail, some limit consumer selection by only selling their ‘preferred’ suppliers and some have professional consultants with years of experience invested in gaining knowledge, experience, and expertise and are worth their weight in gold to the savvy traveler. Beware, though, as some are also called destination specialists and some of these designations merely require the agent to take a rudimentary test offered by tourism offices, destination marketing groups or even tour operators and in my opinion can harm the reputation of the travel industry. A specialist is not necessarily an expert.

Travel is probably the most used commercial aspect of the Internet and if retail agents want to harness this exciting medium to offer ‘the knowledge’ and their ‘key’ skills to a global audience, not just their local community, they must embrace the changes that are happening. Travelers now have the ability to seek answers to the 5 W’s of travel and the important ‘How to’ save money and offset costs by having information just a click away.

And then it occurred to me that even internet travel prices often include a commission element even when sold directly to the consumer. If we book directly with operators we should not have to pay full retail prices as we are doing for ourselves what a retail agent would normally do for us. A dilemma for the operator is that to show a both a retail and a cost price option could deter many agents from selling the services as travelers could use an agent for free advice and book directly with the operator to get a ‘net of commission’ price. Obviously, this two-tier pricing is not often available but travelers who do not need advice should also not be penalized by retail pricing. A new way had to be found and I think I have found it!

The need for fairer fare prices is why I developed the Top Travel Voucher program at The Top Travel Club and I even found a dot com for it. All travel selections on the site are at ‘net of commission’ prices for members who handle their own travel arrangements directly with the operators linked on the club website using our voucher program.

I am inviting travel operators from around the world to join this program, from B&B’s, Motels, Hotels, Luxury Lodges, Eco Resorts, Beach Resorts and Tour and Adventure Operators who want to promote their products and services to travelers who are comfortable with direct bookings and reservations.

I am also inviting Travel Agents with knowledge, experience, and expertise of destinations and activities to showcase their skills to a global audience of travelers and to the members of this new travel club. I am leery of ‘specialist agents’ and only want experts to showcase their services.

This opportunity is available to the travel trade at no cost except for them to offer net, wholesale or outlet prices to club members and visitors to the website using top travel vouchers. I believe this program offers fairer fare prices to direct-booking travelers. The operator would normally be paying commission anyway but now travelers get the savings because they make their own arrangements.

The Top Travel Club opened in mid-April 2008 offering thousands of top travel vouchers for travel in over 70 countries with around 150 travel operators onboard. Every week we add more travel operators with more choices for members. Currently, you can get savings on accommodations, adventure travel, boat charters, culinary tours, hike, bike and dive tours, auto and RV rentals fishing lodges and guides, safaris, vacation rentals, single travel, women only and dude ranches. Members get the vouchers free of charge by paying an annual membership fee and non-members can buy the vouchers on the internet at Top Travel Sites at deeply discounted prices to the face-value. The future growth will include restaurants, travel clothing, travel insurance and the opportunity to access air ticket consolidators who want to deal directly with consumers.

The way I have traveled and the way I see travel is that consumers should have unlimited access to every travel opportunity with the ability to do their own due diligence or to find a professional who can offer quality advice and services at fair prices, and to find all of this without needing endless hours of searching.

New Post has been published on Pagedesignweb

New Post has been published on http://pagedesignweb.com/travel-pre-and-post-internet/

Travel Pre And Post Internet

I’ve been travelling for over 40 years – by thumb in my early days, by boots in the Scouts, a Lambretta came next and then my first old banger followed by newer old bangers to the beaches of the Costa Brava.

My thumb, boots, bikes and bangers took me all over Europe and the UK before finding that a charter flight to Spain on an old ‘Connie’ could get me to the beaches and bars a lot quicker and allow more time to enjoy the local travel opportunities by horse and cart and the occasional bus and train.

‘Go West and Prosper’ seemed to be a good idea so instead of taking an 8 hour flight I took an 8 day transatlantic crossing from Tilbury to Montreal on the Stephan Batory of Polish Ocean Lines ensuring that jet lag did not trouble my travel plans. Some years later I crossed the pond again on a ship but this time it was 5 times bigger and I travelled in style on the QE2 and dined in the Queen’s Grill somewhat removed from my earlier experience. I highly recommend ocean voyages but cannot see myself on one of the modern cruise ships going from port to port with constant line-ups to get on and off to buy t-shirts. However, I have done 10 Windjammers and a Star Clipper cruise in the Caribbean which were all memorable (let’s hope Windjammer Barefoot Cruises recover from their woes). But I digress.

I had read that Canada is a spectacular country, from sea to shining sea, and my entrance into the St. Lawrence River to Montreal and then heading west in an old Econoline van from the Great Lakes, across the Prairies to the Rocky Mountains before ending up whale watching off of the Pacific Coast of Vancouver Island was a trip of wonder to a bloke from London. Today the scenery is still spectacular and the best way to go is still by road so rent or buy a car, motorhome or motorbike, take the train or tour bus but remember the maps, a fly rod, good boots and take your time.

My favorite part of Canada / USA for adventure travel has to be Northern BC / Alaska, to hike the Chilkoot Trail in the steps of the goldseekers of 1898. The Northwest Territories to canoe the Nahannie River and the Yukon to drive from Dawson City to Chicken, Alaska. If you like the outdoors and can put up with a few bugs, cast a fly and scale a few hills or drive on endless dirt roads sharing the space with moose, caribou, elk, bears and eagles, then these are the places to put on your list. The pleasures and experiences in driving to Inuvik on the Dempster Highway or to Prudhoe Bay on the Dalton Highway or even the Canol Road can only be felt by doing them. I would have mentioned the Alaska Highway but now it is an easy drive unlike the aforementioned.

Today the costs of driving these distances may mean that sharing the journey with others is required, but RVing or simply vanning and camping is a great way to see beyond the horizon. Some enroute adventures now need to be booked in advance whereas when I hiked Denali and the Chilkoot Pass it was just a case of turning up, registering with the local ranger office and heading on out. A little more forward planning is needed for today’s traveller and cost considerations of lengthy flights or drives have to somehow be countered with more careful planning. In the days of reasonable gas prices I would not even consider the driving or flying costs and have driven to Key West from the northwest coast, down the west coast to the Baja and to the west coast from New York. I once even flew my 1946 Fleet taildragger from the Pacific to the Atlantic and back using around 5 gallons an hour of avgas. Before the oil and credit crisis I drove from Rio de Janeiro to Lima, down to Tierra del Fuego and back to Rio covering over 15,000 miles of spectacular scenery and with no consideration about the cost of gas. South America should be on your itinerary too! Some other memorable drives that may now require a mortgage with the gas companies include London to The Nordkapp, Norway, Skippers Canyon in New Zealand and the loneliness of the far north of Australia and the amazing coast of Western Australia stopping by at Monkey Mia and Wave Rock.

We tend to forget that the real cost of travelling is often less today than over the 40 years of my travels. In 1977 my round-trip airfare from Canada to Australia cost over $1700 in 1977 dollars so today it is far cheaper to fly, even with the airlines gouging for fuel, extra baggage, no service and no pleasure. The ‘Big Mac’ method of price comparison as developed by The Economist newspaper gives us a good gauge for most expenditures of today compared to yesterday but my $1500 cost to get a private pilots licence in the 1970’s seems cheap by comparison to today, but obviously not when using this Big Mac principle. Other travel costs are also far cheaper today but this should not mean that travellers should disregard the many methods of saving costs that can then be put to extended or improved travel experiences

Travel Post-Internet:

In my 40 years of travel I have had to use travel agents to make even the simplest of reservations and buy tickets, not even thinking to ask them if they had “been there, done that?” It was just a case of there being no other options to buying travel. Now we have unlimited choices and can seek out better travel agents, better prices, better selections and information about anywhere in the world for our travels – without even leaving home.

The Internet now gives travellers ideas and options of Where to go, When to go, Why to go, What to do, Who to book with and How to save money and offset costs. We can search and find experts for every travel option. If we are comfortable with the Internet we no longer have to go to a travel agent to make reservations and buy tickets except to book with some of the larger travel companies that still produce glossy brochures and offer all inclusive packages or tours that only sell through the agency system. The Internet also allows those of us who are smart enough to know when to seek out a top travel agent with knowledge, experience and expertise (KEE skills) of destinations and activities about where to find them. There is no longer any need to only use our local agents when we can find one somewhere else in the world. When we do not need ‘the knowledge’ and can do it ourselves we simply surf the web so that we can book directly with tour and travel operators wherever we have decided to go.

Some travel agents operate their own tours, some are both wholesale and retail, some limit consumer selection by only selling their ‘preferred’ suppliers and some have professional consultants with years of experience invested in gaining knowledge, experience and expertise and are worth their weight in gold to the savvy traveller. Beware though, as some are also called destination specialists and some of these designations merely require the agent to take a rudimentary test offered by tourism offices, destination marketing groups or even tour operators and in my opinion can harm the reputation of the travel industry. A specialist is not necessarily an expert.

Travel is probably the most used commercial aspect of the Internet and if retail agents want to harness this exciting medium to offer ‘the knowledge’ and their ‘kee’ skills to a global audience, not just their local community, they must embrace the changes that are happening. Travellers now have the ability to seek answers to the 5 W’s of travel and the important ‘How to’ save money and offset costs by having information just a click away.

And then it occurred to me that even internet travel prices often include a commission element even when sold directly to the consumer. If we book directly with operators we should not have to pay full retail prices as we are doing for ourselves what a retail agent would normally do for us. A dilemma for the operator is that to show a both a retail and a cost price option could deter many agents from selling the services as travellers could use an agent for free advice and book directly with the operator to get a ‘net of commission’ price. Obviously this two tier pricing is not often available but travellers who do not need advice should also not be penalized by retail pricing. A new way had to be found and I think I have found it!

The need for fairer fare prices is why I developed the Top Travel Voucher program at The Top Travel Club and I even found a dot com for it. All travel selections on the site are at ‘net of commission’ prices for members who handle there own travel arrangements directly with the operators linked on the club website using our voucher program.

I am inviting travel operators from around the world to join this program, from B&B’s, Motels, Hotels, Luxury Lodges, Eco Resorts, Beach Resorts and Tour and Adventure Operators who want to promote their products and services to travellers who are comfortable with direct bookings and reservations.

I am also inviting Travel Agents with knowledge, experience and expertise of destinations and activities to showcase their skills to a global audience of travellers and to the members of this new travel club. I am leery of ‘specialist agents’ and only want experts to showcase their services.

This opportunity is available to the travel trade at no cost except for them to offer net, wholesale or outlet prices to club members and visitors to the website using top travel vouchers. I believe this program offers fairer fare prices to direct-booking travellers. The operator would normally be paying commission anyway but now travellers get the savings because they make their own arrangements.

The Top Travel Club opened in mid-April 2008 offering thousands of top travel vouchers for travel in over 70 countries with around 150 travel operators onboard. Every week we add more travel operators with more choices for members. Currently you can get savings on accommodations, adventure travel, boat charters, culinary tours, hike, bike and dive tours, auto and RV rentals fishing lodges and guides, safaris, vacation rentals, single travel, women only and dude ranches. Members get the vouchers free of charge by paying an annual membership fee and non-members can buy the vouchers on the internet at Top Travel Sites at deeply discounted prices to the face-value. The future growth will include restaurants, travel clothing, travel insurance and the opportunity to access air ticket consolidators who want to deal directly with consumers.

The way I have travelled and the way I see travel is that consumers should have unlimited access to every travel opportunity with the ability to do their own due diligence or to find a professional who can offer quality advice and services at fair prices, and to find all of this without needing endless hours of searching.

To find out more about the new way of cost offsets for travel please go to The Top Travel Club and my apologies for some of the spelling (traveller / traveler) but that is what I was taught. As long as we all understand the meaning, vive le difference!

BLOG TOUR - A Fatal Twist

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A Fatal Twist by Tracy Weber

…a funny story and the author does a wonderful job with the characters and scenes. ~Bab’s Book Bistro

A Fatal Twist (A Downward Dog Mystery) Cozy Mystery 4th in Series Midnight Ink (January 8, 2017) Paperback: 312 pages ISBN-13: 978-0738748788 E-Book ASIN: B01FOR0Z0I

Synopsis

Yoga instructor Kate Davidson’s life takes a chaotic turn once she agrees to not only be the doula for her pregnant best friend, but also play foster mother to two puppies. The chaos only gets worse when Kate finds the dead body of a philandering fertility doctor and Rachel, one of her yoga students, fleeing the scene.

Kate is convinced her student is innocent, and she sets out to find the real killer before her testimony condemns Rachel to a life behind bars. But her hands are full with caring for three dogs, teaching yoga classes, and gaining an unexpected crime-solving partner. If she’s not careful, Kate’s next yoga pose may be a fatal one.

CHARACTER INTERVIEW

Tracy: I’m delighted to be here on Pulp and Mystery Shelf today speaking with Kate Davidson, the yoga teacher/sleuth of my Downward Dog Mystery series and the protagonist of my most recent book, A Fatal Twist. Kate, why don’t you tell our readers about yourself?

Kate: Protagonist? Sheesh, Tracy. After the amount of time we’ve spent together during the past four years, I think of us as friends!

I’m a yoga teacher and the owner of Serenity Yoga in Seattle, Washington. I’ve lived in Seattle my entire life, and I’m a Pacific Northwest girl through and through. I’m also my 100-pound German shepherd’s devoted slave. Chasing after murderers is simply an unlucky sideline.

Tracy: Let’s talk about Bella. What’s it like owning a hundred-pound special needs German shepherd?

Kate: You think I own Bella? That’s funny! If anything, Bella owns me! I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that living with Bella is challenging, especially since she doesn’t like bearded men or other dogs. But Bella is the love of my life. She has changed my life, in every way for the better. I’d be lost without her.

  Tracy: Bella’s not the only one with an aversion to beards …

  Kate (laughing): Definitely not. Pogonophobia—the irrational fear of beards—has plagued me since I was a preschooler. As a child, I purposefully misbehaved so that Santa wouldn’t come to my house on Christmas Eve. I’m getting better, though, especially since I discovered my fear’s origins in Karma’s a Killer.

Tracy: Is there anything Bella would like to tell our readers?

Kate: Unfortunately, Bella understands a lot more English than I do German shepherd, so I’ll have to make some assumptions. But I think she’d tell people that even though she has Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency (a lifelong digestive disorder), she’s happy, feels great, and has an awesome life. She’d also encourage your human readers to adopt special needs animals.

As for your canine readers, she’d tell them to stay the heck away from her house, her yoga studio, and me. I’m her best-trained slave, and she’s not willing to share me.

And I know Bella would have this special message for the brown-suited, box-carrying psycho-killer that drives the UPS truck:  “I have my eye on you. One false move and I’ll be having delivery man for dinner.”

Tracy: I’ll bet she would. Thanks for taking time to join us today, Kate. I’d tell you to stay out of trouble, but we both know that will never happen. So I guess I’ll just say, have fun!

Kate: You too, Tracy. I’d like to put in a plug for you before I leave. I know how much you love connecting with readers. So if you’re reading this post, you can keep in touch with Tracy by sending her an email at [email protected]. She’d love to hear from you!

    About The Author

Tracy Weber is the author of the award-winning Downward Dog Mysteries series featuring yoga teacher Kate Davidson and her feisty German shepherd, Bella. Tracy loves sharing her passion for yoga and animals in any form possible. Her first book, Murder Strikes a Pose won the Maxwell Award for Fiction and is a 2015 Agatha award nominee for Best First Novel.

Tracy and her husband live in Seattle with their challenging yet amazing German shepherd Tasha. When she’s not writing, Tracy spends her time teaching yoga, walking Tasha, and sipping Blackthorn cider at her favorite ale house.

 Author Links

http://tracyweberauthor.com/

http://www.wholelifeyoga.com/blog/

https://www.facebook.com/tracywe

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7148442.Tracy_Weber

https://twitter.com/TracyWeberTypes

Purchase Links Amazon B&N

BLOG TOUR – A Fatal Twist was originally published on the Wordpress version of The Pulp and Mystery Shelf

It’s been awhile since we’ve shared any details about accommodations while we travel. Well, we’ve stayed someplace now that we must share: Domaine Madeleine in Port Angeles, Washington is the most awesome and perfect bed and breakfast that we have visited. It’s the Olympic Peninsula BNB that puts others to shame. Well, we need to stay at more bed and breakfasts around here to be able to say that for certain, but it’s pretty amazing.

You know that we typically enjoy staying places that have family friendly accommodations and are a bit extra nice as elevate our travel experience so Domaine Madeleine was just that. It’s not everyday that bed and breakfast and family-friendly go together. And if you don’t know Port Angeles or the Olympic Peninsula, well, you’ll see why a family-friendly bed and breakfast is so important to find.

The perfect Olympic Peninsula BNB

So, just forgive us in advance because we’re going to gush just a bit about Domaine Madeleine.  No, we weren’t paid to blab about it, but it’s just such a beautiful and comfortable place, we’re going to share how much we love it.

Locale of Domaine Madeleine

Located between Sequim and Port Angeles, Domaine Madeleine is in one of the most overlooked areas of the Olympic Peninsula. Most people are heading to the Olympic Peninsula because they want to get out to the beaches of Olympic National Park (just like you see in Twilight movies) or people are heading to one of the beautiful lodges within the National Park as well. Sequim and Port Angeles kind of seem to be drive-thru towns that you don’t stop in unless you need snacks or gas, but each one has its own culture and attractions and each is a great destination for couples or family travel.

This perfect little Olympic Peninsula bed and breakfast is located on a street that should just be titled B&B Drive. I think we passed four other bed and breakfasts on the way to Domaine Madeleine. Whether your goal is hiking up in the mountains or going crazy at the lavender farms Domaine Madeleine is in the perfect spot for you. Or heck, you could even just stay there and relax inside or outside for an entire weekend and nobody would be the wiser.

Accommodations at this Olympic Peninsula BnB

Domaine Madeleine has several different suites available. We can only tell you about our special suite that we were in, the Hoh Rainforest suite, because Domaine Madeleine was booked up for the other rooms while we were there. Our suite was perfect for family travel though, which is so amazing to find in a bed and breakfast setting.

We had the main room which had the king size bed, floor to ceiling fireplace, a sitting area, and a dining area, as well as access to the lawn which overlooked the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and then we had a French-doored sitting room as well which had a very nice pull-out sofa sleeper for the kids.  We also had a private bathroom, which is a total score if you are frequent bed and breakfast visitor.

Tip:  when booking a room/suite, view the rooms and read the descriptions to find the accommodations that are best for you and your travel companions.  BNBs are a very cooperative type of lodging, so book what you’ll use and need so others can book amazing stays as well.

  If you’ve been following our blog for some time then you know that we don’t dig too deeply into specific amenities that different properties have. We did mention when we stayed at the Sleeping Lady Resort in Leavenworth, Washington that we loved the bed sheets and even took a picture of the label. Well, Domaine Madeleine really trumps the Olympic Peninsula bed and breakfast world by having the same type of sheets as our favorite eastern Washington resort. Comphy sheets is the brand and we are in love with them. You’ll never find softer and more sleepable sheets on the face of the planet. Yes, the bed was completely wonderful as well, but it was the fact that they used Comphy sheets that sold us on having an amazing night sleep.

Note:   Even before we saw the label on the sheets both Chris and I said they were the most comfortable sheets ever and I just knew exactly what they were, and lo and behold I was right!

Other wonderful aspects of this awesome Olympic Peninsula BnB were the common areas (and DVD collection such as Nell, Powder, Twins… OMG), outdoor space, which includes gardens, benches, outdoor art, a fire pit, deck areas and more, and the experience of being in a wonderfully relaxing, comfortable environment.  Like I said, it’s perfect.

Breakfast at Domaine Madeleine

Okay confession:  while we were at Domaine Madeleine we didn’t actually do the full-service breakfast. They had it arranged for us but due to our plans of making it up to Hurricane Ridge to take the kids to the snow they scrapped our fancy breakfast to make it easier  for us.  And they packed us the most elaborate breakfasts to go.

When you stay at Domaine Madeleine you have two breakfast options:  you can either have a boxed breakfast which they will prepare and place in the refrigerator for you or you can have a full-service breakfast in one of their dining areas. The full-service breakfast looked absolutely beautiful which I know because I spied on people who were taking part. It’s smelled too good to stay in our room eating fruit with the kids, so I just had to peek.  The table was set so perfectly and it was clear the other guests were having an amazing time. I kind of wish that we would not have skipped out on our breakfast in favor of snow. Oh well. #LessonLearned

Our boxed breakfasts were amazing though.  Each morning they were a little different but we were sure to have low-fat Greek yogurt, granola, some pastries of some sort, fresh fruit, cheeses, juice and coffee, and mints to follow. We also had some awesome Pacific Northwest smoked salmon and some cured meats. You know we love our salmon in the Pacific Northwest and that’s always a guaranteed way to win our hearts.

The flexibility of our Olympic Peninsula bed and breakfast hosts really made our stay excellent. Stephen and Chris made themselves available for whatever we needed including a late check-in and varying travel plans. Thank goodness to find a bed and breakfast that understands how travel with kids works. LOL.

Note:  one of our little dudes has some severe food allergies.  We let them know and they were great about providing excellent options for him as well as labeling everything that he couldn’t have.  Such good hosts!

Booking a stay at Domaine Madeleine

Now you know how amazing this awesome Port Angeles bed and breakfast is so let me tell you the bummer:   they do an absolutely incredible job and people know it so they book pretty far in advance. Like with any sort of stellar accommodations in Washington State, know that booking in the shoulder seasons and outside of winter holidays is a great way to secure a room.

Note:  if you don’t know what a “shoulder season” is, it’s the time between the end of summer travel and the beginning of holiday travel, and then that spot in between the holidays and spring breaks.

Don’t let Domaine Madeleine’s popularity be any sort of deterrent in trying to get a stay here. If you want to visit, just reach out to the hosts and ask when you can do it. The website is super easy as well, but working directly with the hosts you can find a time that’s right for you whether it’s midweek or a weekend. Trust me, it’s worth figuring out.

What to do on the Olympic Peninsula

We’ve shared plenty of ideas and amazing destinations within the Olympic Peninsula. Since it’s where we’re from it already holds our hearts which is why we share it so frequently. But in case you’ve missed it, let’s give you some ideas for what to do on the O.P.

Tip:  check out our Puget Sound itinerary for more ideas of how to incorporate time on the Olympic Peninsula into a trip to Seattle.  It’s doable and completely worth it.

Olympic National Park

Olympic National Park is, of course, the main attraction on the Olympic Peninsula. If you need to #FindYourPark Olympic National Park probably has what you need. Hiking at Hurricane Ridge or visiting the snow in the winter, exploring the Hoh Rainforest and coming face-to-face with Roosevelt elk, or just enjoying the amazing scenic beauty of Lake Crescent, you’ll have plenty of things to do relating to Olympic National Park.

Tip:  if you’re camping in Olympic National Park, get a break from being dirty and moss-covered by splitting up your time in the woods with nice accommodations.  That’s how we’re able to do so many National Parks with kids and never get bitter. :)

Cape Flattery

It seems like we’re always telling people to go to Cape Flattery because it’s so wonderfully remote and there’s nobody there. If half of the people listen to us there’s going to be so many people at Cape Flattery we’re going to have to find a new perfect and beautiful secluded destination to start pointing people towards. But for realz, Cape Flattery is the northwestern-most tip of the Olympic Peninsula and it’s about an hour and a half drive from Port Angeles. The road is winding and goes along the Strait of Juan de Fuca and then ends in the most gorgeous and perfect slice of nature in all of Washington State. Whales, puffins, and seals of all kinds can be seen at Cape Flattery. There’s even a lighthouse (that you can’t access but you can dream of visiting). It’s just beautiful.

Tip:  the hike to the tip of Cape Flattery is really easily, but it’s not wheelchair accessible by any means.  There are picnic areas in the forest there, so take advantage of them!

The Dungeness Spit

I’m not sure when but somehow this summer I’m going to make Chris hike out to the Dungeness Spit Lighthouse with me. It’s five and a half miles (nearly 9 km) from the trailhead all the way out to the lighthouse which is out in the middle of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. You have to hike along a sandbar for a ridiculous distance before you can get there, but once you’re there, well, it’s a lighthouse, which is basically all you need to say to me to get me to go someplace.

Actually if you set things up correctly you can arrange to stay at the Lighthouse for a short amount of time and help maintain it. I would love to do that, but I think that’s a one-sided travel plan in our household.  In the meantime walking on the spit and exploring the crazy collection of driftwood, dried kelp, and the best skipping rocks ever is a super fun family activity that’s perfect to do on a sunny afternoon.

Tip:  bundle up if you’re heading to the Dungeness Spit, as it gets cold!!  There’s nothing stopping the wind straight off the Pacific Ocean from getting you.

Port Townsend, Port Angeles and Sequim

The towns of Port Angeles, Port Townsend, and Sequim are all worth a visit. PA and Sequim are going to be the easiest to visit while you’re staying at Domaine Madeleine because it’s located directly between them, but adding a trip over to PT is easy as well.

Port Townsend is probably the cutest town in all of Washington state. Or maybe Rosalyn is, I don’t know. Built mostly in the late 1800s, it’s a beautiful Victorian seaport and it’s maintained its history and Victorian charm for over 130 years. It’s got a great food scene and even some of the quirkiest art festivals and musicians you might find.

Tip:  we love visiting Fort Worden in Port Townsend.  It has old military bunkers, beaches, a lighthouse and a marine science center.  Always great with kids.

Port Angeles is where we go when we want to head out for some whale watching. PA is farther west than the other two big towns so it’s closer to the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca which is where most of the whales migrate into Puget Sound via. This is also where you’ll go to catch the Black Ball Ferry up to Victoria BC. And we love Victoria so we’re going to tell everybody that they need to go there.

Tip:  Victoria, BC can be an easy day trip if you’re staying at Domaine Madeleine, so why not go have some tea and watch for orcas?

Sequim is known for two things:  its lavender farms and festival, and then also for being the driest place in Washington State. I know, it seems weird that the driest place in Washington State is two hours from the wettest place in Washington state but it’s true. Due to the rain shadow effect over the Olympic Mountains Sequim gets less rain than any other part of our gorgeous homeland. That doesn’t mean that it’s always sunny, but there’s less chance of rain here than other places. Oh yeah, the lavender. From shops along downtown Sequim’s main drag to farms and other random stands you’ll be able to get any type of lavender or lavender product you could ever dream of. It’s like Provence but in Washington.

See? Booking to stay at Domaine Madeleine, the most wonderful Olympic Peninsula BNB, it’s something you need to add to your travel plans for the year. The summer is great because the weather is incredible and you can do more outdoor activities than in the winter. The stillness of the winter though, including beautiful sunrises and sunsets, really, it’s our favorite time to spend on the Olympic Peninsula. Domaine Madeleine was a wonderful place to get away with our family and they were such gracious hosts.  We were so thankful they welcomed us in and created a wonderful escape from our busy lives.

Staying at Domaine Madeleine: a perfect Olympic Peninsula BNB It's been awhile since we've shared any details about accommodations while we travel. Well, we've stayed someplace now that we must share: Domaine Madeleine in Port Angeles, Washington is the most awesome and perfect bed and breakfast that we have visited.