From Washington to Oregon in a Day

This morning we left Arlington Washington and drove down to Portland Oregon. We stopped in Olympia, Washington’s capital, and at the Farmer’s Market bought breakfast – great fresh fruit: peaches, apples, plums. We also bought lunch – cucumbers, grape tomatoes and a great loaf of garlic and rosemary French bread.

Upon arriving in Portland at 3 pm we went to the Starbuck’s we had arranged to meet some people at. Debi Leonard and Annette Pederson are virtual assistants who met with us to discuss their business and each got a copy of the action guide for virtual assistants. We also met Triiibes member Patrick Proethe. Fiona met a new friend – Anna.

We’re now catching up on emails and such while we wait for Troy & Nancy to call us back. (The phone just rang; it was Nancy). They’ve kindly agreed to put us up for the night. And I just found out we are probably all going to another friend’s house for a BBQ.

Tomorrow is the long haul back to California. Here we come!

Heading Back to Washington Today – Still in Need of a Place in Oregon on Friday

We’re wrapping up here in Surrey British Columbia today and heading back into Washington. We’re sitting here in Canada knowing we’re going to miss it as soon as we cross the border.

Right now we’re at the Wired Monk Coffee Shop wrapping up some web work before we go make our lunch and then finish packing the van for the drive to Arlington to stay with Brad and his family for a couple of nights. We’ve really enjoyed being able to work at the Wired Monk; the people have been great. You can see some of our completed web work and web work in progress.

Many thanks to Renee and Rick for putting us up the last two nights!

We’re still in need of a floor to lay our tired heads in the Portland Oregon area Friday night. We really don’t want to drive all the way from Arlington Washington to Roseville California in one shot. We’d love to crash on someone’s living room floor Friday night so we can do the long haul Saturday and be home to see family and friends on Sunday. Let us know if you know of someone who can put us up one night.

Today in Arlington Washington

So we finally arrived yesterday evening at Brad and Kristy’s house. We had great salmon for dinner and our friend  from Triiibes Rex came over from Everett to visit. Joel played a little music and then we got a great night’s sleep.

By the way, the rest stops in Washington are great! You can get free coffee and yesterday Fiona got a free cookie.

So we’re catching up on rest, emails, etc. today. Fiona is still waiting for her tooth to fall  out and is carrying around a plastic baggie to put it in when it does.

Tomorrow it’s Canada! Hope the border crossing goes smoothly.

Finding Our Way

We’re really enjoying ourselves and finding our way from town to town is going just fine. Finding our way in how we manage things is a learning process. We’ve discovered that it’s not always convenient to find internet access when we want and that Joel’s laptop batteries aren’t worth much. So we’ll have to find a way to get better batteries or something.

At the moment we’re at a Borders Book Store in Tacoma WA. We had a wonderful breakfast made by Jenny Fisher in Hoquiam – potatoes, sausage, fresh fruit. Thank you Jenny for your hospitality! I’ve caught up on the most important  stuff. Fiona found a book or two to read quietly in the book store while mommy and daddy work on our laptops. Actually Joel’s getting ready to have his over-size cup of Chamomile tea from the Seattle’s Best  Coffee shop. He needs it to relax after the frustrations of his laptop batteries dying.

So I’ll finish this post now so that he can borrow mine. And we’ll work out all these kinks. Oh, I also talked with another Virtual Assistant in the area that wants us to stop by and chat with her on our trip back.

Have a great day everyone!

Updated August 19, 2010 with this photo of Jenny’s home.

Home in Hoquiam

The Weather is Beautiful

It’s gorgeous! Sunny but not too warm and a very nice breeze. We just got back from swimming at the Y! Later we’ll take a little walk. We got a very good night’s sleep and had Joel’s ‘world-famous’ pancakes for brunch. Fiona’s made new friends – Nels and Phoenix. What a wonderfully relaxing day.

We’ll keep you posted on the adventures of the Canfield Family now in Hoquiam Washington with the Hogaboom family.

Updated August 19, 2010 – we finally have pictures!

Fiona Makes Ice Cream Cones!

The Long Haul

We actually drove away from the house at 10:41 pm. Our first stop was to the local store to pick up something to drink for Fiona and Frappuccino’s for Joel to help him stay awake for the all night drive. It’s amazing that we fit so much stuff in the van and nearly every piece of musical equipment we own. We even took Fiona’s school books, though school doesn’t start till August 23. And 5 bottles of paint for Fiona’s art -painting Caitlyn’s ceiling in Canada.

It’s nearly a full moon and Fiona wants to write the moon a letter to say thank you for shining on our favorite trip ever.

At 5:40 am Thursday we were just at Redding to fill up the gas tank. We stopped at a rest stop and slept for a few hours. Later we watched the sunrise as we drove.

At one point we pulled up to a small gas station. Joel walked in to the dark shop to see if he could find someone so he could get a cup of coffee. Suddenly a man stepped out from behind the counter with his hands up saying, ‘is this a holdup?’ ou can imagine how startled Joel was! He’ll share the video we made of the story at a later date.

We tried using a WiFi spot to update all our fans earlier in the day and finally gave up in frustration after we couldn’t make it work. We finally arrived at our first destination in Washington at 8 pm and have enjoyed a nice meal with a very nice family.

More tomorrow…

House Concerts Along the Way

Could I possibly end up performing in St. Helens, Oregon, Everett, Washington, and Vancouver? (Edit: St. Helens is out, this trip.)

House concerts beat coffee shops hands down. Coffee shops are really a place to go practice, knowing that absolutely no one is listening.

But show up to someone’s living room, where they’ve invited all their friends, and everyone brings something to drink and a snack, and you’re the guest host of a very cool party. When the hat is passed, literally or metaphorically, even a few drachmas from each guest turns into more than I’ve earned in every coffee shop I’ve ever played in.

There’s more than you really want to know about my house concerts at my tunehenge site.