It’s hard to believe that it’s that time of year again. In about 36 hours, Mum and I will be embarking on our fifth Food Network adventure. I feel less prepared this year, but I hope that means we can be more spontaneous. That being said, this is the third draft of this trip – the first change being the addition of Yakima and the second being the detour caused by the Oregon fires. I hope we don’t have to detour again because of the fires, but they are forecasting rain for the next few days, so that will hopefully assist the firefighters with their efforts.
Overview of the 5th Annual Food Network Tour
Our days will be as follows:
- Sat, Aug 29th: Vancouver Island – Langley, BC
- Sun, Aug 30th: Langley – Leavenworth, WA
- Mon, Aug 31st: Leavenworth – Spokane, WA
- Tue, Sep 1st: Spokane, WA
- Wed, Sep 2nd: Spokane – Grangeville, ID
- Thu, Sep 3rd: Grangeville – Boise, ID
- Fri, Sep 4th: Boise – Bend, OR
- Sat, Sep 5th: Bend – Ashland, OR
- Sun, Sep 6th: Ashland – Eugene, OR
- Mon, Sep 7th: Eugene – Portland, OR
- Tue, Sep 8th: Portland, OR
- Wed, Sep 9th: Portland, OR
- Thu, Sep 10th: Portland – Yakima, WA
- Fri, Sep 11th: Yakima – Olympia, WA
- Sat, Sep 12th: Olympia – Bellingham, WA
- Sun, Sep 13th: Bellingham – Vancouver Island, BC
I have booked hotel for each night and have lists of places to eat and things to do along the way. We are planning visits to Lynden, WA (a Dutch town), Grand Coulee Dam, the Columbia Gorge, various gardens and even a Shakespearean play at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. We are only travelling 3,600 kilometres (2,250 miles) on this trip, so I hope we will be able to do more exploring than we usually do. We plan to venture out into areas of Portland that we have always meant to visit and never had time – this trip is devoted to those “places”…with Powell’s Books and our regular food haunts include, of course.
Last year, I prepared daily synopses for my blog that auto-posted each morning. I did not do that this year as I don’t want to be held down to a specific schedule…okay, who am I kidding? I lost track of time and I didn’t get them done. I still think it gives us an excuse to be more flexible though. You may also notice that Mount St. Helens has been bypassed this year – I have decided to devote time to my first trip there and will visit with my husband in the near future – I will, however, be driving between both Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainier on US-12 when we go from Yakima to Olympia, so maybe Mother Nature will be nice to me and allow me some good shots.
I will post again on Saturday night from Langley, letting you know how our ferry crossing went. Until then I bid you adieu.
L
