From the Seashore to Saint Paul's

Yesterday's festivities didn't end with the reception. The father of the bride convinced R and two other buddies to join him for late night Korean fried chicken at Pelicana Chicken in Bayside (open 'til 2AM!). Guess R and RH thought they could still eat like they did when they were college roommates, which was more than *30* years ago?! 🤣

As much as I would have liked to join them, I stayed behind to finish packing and get some sleep because I knew that we had a lot of driving ahead of us. Even though it's nowhere near the mileage we usually cover on a typical road trip, today would be our longest day in the car on this vacation. 

160 miles

Lovely Lady Liberty

As soon as we knew that we could definitely make it to the wedding in New York, I booked tickets for us to go up to the crown of the Statue of Liberty with Statue City Cruises. As the only authorized concessioner to ferry passengers to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, there are a limited number of tickets to the crown each day. I was a little concerned since we would be there during the summer travel season, but I was super excited to find out that there were still some 9:00AM spots available two months in advance! Yay!

Memories Deceive Me

I used to scrapbook, as the cabinet full of supplies and tools still in my house would attest. Maybe one day I'll go back to it and catch up on the projects I've been meaning to complete. But at least I can stay reasonably up-to-date on this blog. Even if no one outside of our family ever reads it, I'll keep posting entries because I enjoy writing about our travels. It's important to me to have a record of what we saw and what we did because I'm sure that I won't remember the details as clearly later on. 

Case in point: Our first stop today was Deception Pass. R asked if we had come here during our trip to Washington in 1996 because it seemed familiar. 

I said, "Nope."

Bzzzzzt! Wrong answer. 🤦🏻‍♀️

May 1996

This Little Piggy

Since our itinerary for today was a day trip to explore San Juan Island, we grabbed an early breakfast this morning and were on our way to the ferry terminal in Anacortes by 7:30AM.  

The drive was a little foggy, but we made it in about a half hour. We found a parking spot (paid $13 at the kiosk) and then waited to board the ferry as walk-on passengers for the 8:30AM sailing. The ride over to San Juan Island took about an hour. We were treated to lovely views of the other islands we passed along the way.

Boarding the Chelan

Climb Every Mountain

One of the things that was on our must-do list for Oʻahu was a pillbox hike. So after we finished lunch, we drove over towards the windward side of the island to tackle the Kaʻiwa Ridge Trail up to the Lanikai Pillboxes in Kailua.

Get to the Point

Of the 28 NPS units in the state of California, we have visited 26 of them. Today we checked Point Reyes National Seashore off our list, leaving only Redwood National Park and Castle Mountains National Monument to go.

Hey, You Guys!

We were blessed with another day of sunshine today, so we decided to head down the coast this morning. First we stopped in Seaside to see the Salt Works. In order to make salt for their return journey, the Corps of Discovery boiled seawater here over a furnace, 24 hours a day, extracting about 3.5 bushels (or 28 gallons) of "excellent, fine, strong & white" salt.

Seaside, OR

The Tri-State Area

Since it was still overcast this morning, my hopes of getting a morning pic from one of the national seashore beaches were dashed. But after checking out of the hotel, we went out to see the Nauset Light...

Presidents and Pilgrims

Welcome to the latest update of the Saiki-delic road trip blog – which, in this case, started with a flight to Boston early yesterday morning. Of the flights we’ve taken, this will be among the horror stories we tell. Although it wasn’t as bad as the time I flew to my cousin’s wedding and had to test the capacity of the airsick bag, this flight had…

1. Me sitting next to a large man (who oozed over/under the armrest into my space!) and his wife with their screaming toddler
2. Turbulence
3. No in-flight entertainment (Our last flight had DirectTV, so J had been looking forward to watching on board this time – bummer!)
4. R suddenly feeling ill, so the flight attendants called for a medical professional to check him over. Fortunately, there were two on board, and whatever was wrong went away by itself after a bit. (He called his doctor today – it might have something to do with his medication in combination with the altitude, so hopefully we won’t have a repeat episode on the way home!)