We packed up at Finch Bay hotel late morning after a great breakfast — and made our way back to the Baltra airport (small boat > taxi > ferry > bus). All straightforward in that there is only one option in terms of where to go for these things but there’s such limited development here that the idea of a bridge between islands would never happen. 

We met the rest of our passengers at the airport — a family of 4 with older children from the Seattle area, a father and his two sons from Chicago, a mother/daughter from Boston and a couple from Antwerp, Belgium. We took a very short trip to the dock at Baltra to board the Seaman – definitely a nicer Catamaran and a very friendly staff. Our plan for the first day was – a late lunch, a visit to North Seymour island and back on the boat for dinner and navigating to our next spot.  On N. Seymour we saw a colony of frigate birds who were mating along with other sea birds/iguanas and ended on the shore on the opposite side of the island to see some Sea lions playing. The rough part here is that Rawlings was possible a combination of sea sick and perhaps having eaten something bad and as we were walking around N. Seymour he was feeling bad.

We came back onto the boat at Rawls fell asleep immediately— we went to sit on top as the boat began to navigate away and the frigate birds were flying in sync with the boat!

We went down to dinner and let Rawls sleep through in hopes a lot of rest would help him few better. The crew had decorated the dining room in festive holiday mode when we had been out visiting the other island. 

After dinner we were briefed on the plan for the next day and went straight to be. Rawls unfortunately got seasick over night and we stayed awake from very early in the morning. The next morning though he started to perk up (phew!). 
We’d made our way to the island Genovesa – a bird island predominantly and the only one where you can see all 3 types of Booby (blue footed, Nazca and red footed). After breakfast on the boat, we took the dinghy to “prince Phillips steps” to walk up to the island. Upon reaching the top, the island was far different from anything we’d seen – the colony of Nazca booby was everywhere – so many babies and mamas to be seen. 

On the opposite side of the island we tried to find owls (they stayed hidden) and instead found a very nice couple we’d met on the Bartolome trip – Felix and Manon, honeymooning from Spain. 

After this visit, we came back to the boat to get snorkeling gear and went out to snorkel in Darwin bay. Admittedly snorkeling conditions weren’t the best – bit of a current and while we had wet suits, it was still quite cold. Proud of Rawls for trying but William took him in a bit early. We saw some beautiful fish (angel, parrot) and headed back to the boat for lunch. Each time we got off the boat, there was a fresh juice, water and a yummy snack waiting for us. 
After cleaning up and having a nice lunch on the upper deck outside, we headed back to the beach area on Bartolome.  We traded kayaking over to the beach area and then pulled up to shore, running into / yet again / Felix and Manon – ha! The beach area was very pretty with a dozen sea lions playing around. Rawls was anti-snorkeling at this point and we had some fun burying him in the sand while William and Shepherd saw a cluster of white tipped reef sharks while snorkeling off the beach. 

After hanging on the beach for awhile, we went on a walk into the island and saw so many birds – tons of red footed and nazca booby, swallowtail seagulls, frigates and tropical birds. 

We came back to the boat to shower, chill and to end the night, have a group dinner and briefing on the next day. Rawlings had a good day for most of the day and Shepherd seemed to be totally fine — but the transit to our island the next day was quite bumpy and he succumbed to some sea sickness right before bedtime – fortunately waking up the next day feeling totally fine. 
On Sunday morning, we woke up anchored at South plazas island (next to North Plazas – which doesn’t allow visitors as it is entirely a research center). South Plazas is known for its land and sea iguanas (and the opportunity to see a hybrid of the two) as well as a large sea lion colony, large cactus trees and tons of “Galapagos carpet,” a red growth all over the island. 

After this visit, we came back to the island and the boat navigated to Santa Fe Island (two hours). We had a nice lunch and then Rawls – feeling some travelers bug – decided snorkeling wasn’t for him (and honest a bit rough for him not being super comfortable). William and Shepherd swam up close and personal with tons of sea lions – really crazy videos. There was a sea lion who jumped over shepherd…! 
Just after we all went on a walk around Santa Fe – with a very large sea lion colony, mega cactus trees and we had a couple rare sightings – a cactus finch and a Galapagos mouse both up in a very large tree that made William look small. 

We had our last dinner on the boat with a send off cocktail from the crew. Our last morning wake up was going to be an early one – 6:30am breakfast as we arrived at our final destination island, San Cristobal – the political capital of the Galapagos. We visited first thing a Galapagos tortoises rescue and breeding center – great last chance for some up close and personal time with these guys. 

Animal spotting

Tiger shark

Galapagos shark

Blue footed booby

Pelican 

Manta ray

Spotted ray

Sally light foot crabs

Hermit crabs 

Frigate birds

Sea lions

Sea turtles – green pacific 

Jumping fish 

Nazca booby

Great blue herons 

Marine iguana 

Land iguana

Rainbow parrot fish

Galápagos penguins 

Galapagos mouse – Santa Fe

Cactus finch – Santa Fe

Lava heron – N Seymour

Yellow warbler – canary – San Cristobal

Fur seal – Genovesa 

Swallowtail seagull

Angel fish 

Red footed booby – Genovesa

White Cheek Pintail

Male yellow warbler

Galapagos mockingbird

Yellow crowned Night heron

Black necked stilt

Tropicbird

Shearwater

Galapagos dove

Gallinule 

Storm petrel 

Lava gull 

Other assorted Darwin finches 

We had our first lazier morning where everyone was up by 7am(!), but it was nice not have to rush anywhere. After a really nice breakfast at our place, we swam a bit at the place.

A highlight on Santa Cruz is called Las Grietas and it’s a few minute walk from the hotel to its entrance. Once inside, there’s a 30 minute walk to see the “cracks”.

After seeing them, you can then go down and snorkel in water at the base — which we did and saw a bunch of large rainbow parrot fish.

We walked back to the hotel to “practice” snorkeling and had lunch / chilled for a bit.

Then late afternoon headed into Porto Ayora to explore the downtown a bit. The downtown area is quite relaxed and we enjoyed visiting many of the shops, having a bite at a great, outdoor sushi spot (Midori) and dinner at a little spot called the Rock.

Wow….! Pretty incredible day here – can’t recall a day feeling quite so magical. We met a small group ~10 to take a great boat trip out to Bartolome Island, leaving the downtown area around 7am and arriving to Bartolome around 10am.  On the way we saw so many sea turtles, sharks, sea lions, birds – always something to spot. 

We arrived to Bartolome island and first hiked to its peak. 

Then made our way back down to take a boat ride along the coast where we saw a blue footed booth and.. the penguins!

We went and got gear to snorkel from there – Rawls was freezing (we’re getting wet suits for the cruise) and was struggling with the snorkel so we turned around to hang with the sea lions while William and Shepherd snorkeled with the penguins, sharks, sea urchins and such! 

Today, we arrived in the Galapagos and we’re all a bit in awe of the arrival today – we arrived around 1pm today to the airport on Baltra Island – where we found our guide for the afternoon (Isabel). We took a couple minute shuttle to a Ferry to cross to Santa Cruz island.  On the brief departure from the airport, we saw a land iguana walking into the airport, a seal jumped up right next to Rawlings on the ferry and we’d been there for minutes.

From the ferry, we drove to the Highlands of Santa Cruz to a tortoise reserve – we sampled a few empanadas as we hadn’t eaten since an early breakfast and walked around a maze of walking paths with tortoises all over the place. We respected the 10ft distance requested unless the tortoises were right next to the path, but we did see a girl leaning over the back of one of the larger tortoises and he didn’t seem to mind (most of the tortoises were male as the females were at lower elevations nesting).

We visited a lava tunnel as part of the reserve – apparently from two separate eruptions on the island. Rawlings had been looking most forward to this!

We saw so many other interesting plants and animals, Darwin finches, mockingbirds.

Afterwards we headed into the Port city and visited the Charles Darwin research center where turtle eggs are nurtured and baby turtles protected until they can be reintroduced into their native habitats.

It had been a long day and just as the boys were starting to drag, we made our way to the beautiful hotel where we’ll be for the next three nights!

Today we toured with a local guide, Ivan, who met us at our hotel and we drove north of the city towards Otavalo. After clearing the busy city area, we drove through a beautiful, mountainous area and saw many local farms – roses are a significant part of local export businesses and there are many beautiful flower stands right off the road.

Along the way we stopped in a small town area called Cayambe and visited a Bizcochos bakery – the best in the area according to Ivan (including his parents bakery where they don’t quite make the sweet biscuit treat as well). After watching the really impressive group of bakers, we sample their bizcochos, queso de oja (cheese wrapped in a large leaf) all with a dulce de leche they make to go with both. The eucalyptus in furnace smelled v. nice!

We drove into Otavalo, stopping at a lake lookout shortly before entering.

We drove through the town with a beautiful, bustling town square and from there made our way into a farming community to meet Claudia who would host us at her home for a prep and cooking experience.  She brought out drinks as A welcoming tradition – A slightly fermented (so as to not create alcohol), corn beverage called, chicha.

After introductions – we got straight to work! Shepherd grinding the corn (chuchuca) and Rawlings cleaning the quinoa.

After quite a bit of prep – we visited the pigs to deliver scraps as well as the herb garden to collect what was needed to finish our meal.

And to make our dessert, we needed to make some more corn flour and in doing so, we visited the mill, which happened to also be where the pets (and future dinner) – the guinea pigs “cuy” were hanging out.

We ended up making a very yummy meal:
– Watercress, pea and potato soup to start (made more yummy with a homemade hot sauce)
– Main meal of Quinoa pancakes, chicken, broccoli and sautéed carrots, lupine bean (soaked for 7 days!), radish, avocado and cilantro salad.
– Sweet toasted bread with a syrup flavored with mint and lemon verbena

After saying our goodbyes, we headed to the Otavalo markets, mostly containing many woven goods that are distributed all over the country.

We ended our day at Zazu back in Quito – a very memorable meal!

Our Family Christmas gift this year is a trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos where we’ll bookend our Galapagos trip staying around the historical center of Ecuador, Quito.

We arrived uber late into Quito yesterday and didn’t get quite enough sleep to start the day – but we did anyways.

We woke up and had breakfast at our hotel – we are staying at Patio Andaluz just a couple blocks from the main plaza in the old town.

After breakfast, we walked around the Centro Historico town center – beautiful buildings, churches and squares — a lot to take in.

We walked to Mercado Central which is the main market for food and food stalls in Quito – the best option for traditional, local food. We tried a number of things including tortillas verde (made from green banana), corvina and ceviche mixed platter and fresh raspberry juice (all the fresh fruits and juices were available.

After walking around through late morning, we came back to the hotel briefly and decided we’d visit Mitad del Mundo which is a park dedicated to the 0 latitude location. The park involves a visit to traditional housing for groups of native people, a main square with shops and cafes surrounding a large monument to the center of the world city containing a musket and a beautiful lookout from the top. There were several groups of traditional dancers at the city square and we sat just off of this to have a late lunch and escape the only real rain of the day.

After visiting Mitad del Mundo, we came back to the center of the city to rest for a bit and then went out to dinner close by – to Vista Hermosa. Beautiful view and so so traditional food. Rawlings was very optimistic when his steak arrived but not quite as yummy as he’d hoped.

Sun Valley is the start of our summer 2021 trip — we’re traveling as a family of 4 initially and then for the last week of the trip, meeting with the extended Tunstill family in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We really enjoyed our stay in Sun Valley — we stayed right in the town of Ketchum, Idaho in a great hotel for walking to any restaurant or bar option – The Limelight. The first evening we arrived fairly late after driving over from Boise and grabbed an easy dinner at Warfield Distillery & Brewery. We sat out on their roof deck and enjoyed grilled octopus, trout and burgers. After the travel day, we went to bed early to enjoy a full day!

After breakfast @ Limelight, we made our way to the chair lift on Baldy (Bald Mountain) — we were hoping to hike up to the Roundtable for lunch, but the access trail was closed for maintenance. Instead we ended up taking the lift to the very top of Baldy (>9k feet!), hiked down a good ways and then took a nicer switchback trail back up to the top.

At the end of the hike, we made our way to Roundhouse (halfway up Baldy) for lunch. The boys were pumped for massive pretzels and William and I both enjoyed our lunches. Very pretty village area and then back to chill at the hotel for a bit (and check out the pool!)

During the afternoon, we walked around the town of Ketchum – the boys spotted gourmet popsicles (Strawberry Lemonade for Rawls and chocolate marshmallow for Shepherd). We walked out to an arts festival that seemed to bring together many local artists and artisans. Shepherd and Rawlings are still talking about the chair hammock (Happy Place Hammocks – keeping a note here to remember). We walked through the Ketchum cemetery on the way back to Limelight and paid our respects to Ernest Hemingway at his grave site.

We ended the day with a perfect family meal at the Christy (Michel’s Christiana) — a classic French spot that has been a mainstay in Sun Valley for a very long while. The boys loved their Chicken and Beef Burgundy dinners and were slightly less thrilled with the escargot (not seasoned well – ha!). William and I enjoyed all the morels and a beautiful halibut entree.

It was a full day – we slept well!

The next morning, after another nice breakfast @ Limelight, we made our way to the Proctor trail – the site of the first chair lift in the world. The hike was beautiful, lots of wildflowers and beautiful landscape. Instead of beginning at the trailhead, we visited the Hemingway memorial and started the hike down from there. Slight addition to the hike, but much easier parking. We did run into a tricky situation at the very top of the hike where we were swarmed by bugs — we all moved as quickly as possible to start our descent and get away. Rawlings is still talking about all the bugs. A pretty creek at the bottom was a great spot to rest briefly on the way out.

We came back to town and had an easy lunch – KB’s Burrito – many places are closed on Sunday. We shopped around the downtown area, enjoyed a happy hour at Limelight and then made our way to our last destination restaurant, the Pioneer Saloon. It was hard to tell if this place was going to be more kitschy distraction vs. decent food, but it ended up being a perfect pick. The boys very much wanted to enjoy an Idaho potato, William was looking forward to their Prime Rib and I was hoping the seafood wasn’t an after thought (it wasn’t!). My shrimp were more like langoustines – massive and perfectly cooked. The menu was simple, but all very well done. The ambiance captures the history of the area including Hemingway’s personal gun mounted at the entryway. This was a perfect way to end our stay in Sun Valley!

We spent the full week in Portland and more of the week involved work, with adventures as able during the week. This is our collection of fun Portland spots and food exploration.

Monday – We headed to the Japanese Gardens – arriving a bit early relative to our ticket time (required!), we walked around the Rose garden

Rawls made a wish here

And we wandered the Japanese gardens for a long while.  There are 5 different garden areas, all impeccably maintained. Claiming to be “the most beautiful and authentic Japanese gardens outside of Japan” – we couldn’t disagree.

Entering

Koi!

Incredibly beautiful

And everyone’s favorite, bonsai

Dinner was takeout from an interesting Chinese spot, Master Kong. Rawls was really happy with this choice (we got him some eggs and avocado toast after 😉

Tuesday

William and the boys after work/school went to Mt. Tabor to see the park and the dormant volcano. Pictures are in their heads. I hear it was beautiful. 

After work (EST) wrapped, we visit the “city of books” – Powell’s which is the largest new and used bookstore in the world with over 1mm books offered. It’s a pretty amazing space and William and I could have spent hours here – the boys were happy with about 30 minutes so we settled somewhere in between.

Then we met Cari Sanchez-Potter and her husband Phil Potter (Jax transplants to Portland who are so wonderful), at one of their favorite Portland spots, Nostrano. Amazing catch-up and the boys enjoyed their new Powell’s books purchases

Wednesday

William decided to push the limits with the boys again today (in a great way) and took them on a 8mi hike to Ramona Falls, outside of the city. Got some gorgeous pics out of the trip this time

Apparently remote enough that you had to leave all your info as you started on the hike

Got icy higher up!

Awesome view at top!

And some interesting crossings

Boys came back to rescue me 😉 and we met William’s music friend, Tommy at an awesome spot – Canard. The boys really enjoyed dinner BUT especially the “funfetti “ dessert pancakes. Exhausted but happy boys here.

Thursday Recharge day for all of us in different ways but a bunch of food highlights:

William went out and picked up Blue Star donuts for breakfast – Blueberry Bourbon, Raspberry Rosemary — interesting stuff and felt like we had to try while out here.

And then picked up the most incredible Banh Mi for lunch – Cuon PDX. Seriously baguette perfection.

And ended the day with takeout from Langbaan – apparently near impossible to go pre-pandemic and they converted to really well done takeout “Thai snacks”. Loved the scallop bites, shrimp and betel leaves and the octopus salad was just beautiful!

Friday We drove out towards the coast – first went to Nehalem Bay to a place called Kelly’s Brighton – colorful crabbing operation and the biggest Dungeness crabs. Each was about 2 lbs! We hung out on the docks and then picked apart the Dungeness crabs. The shell is filled with what they call “crab butter” – crab and seawater and amazingly does taste like salted butter.

Afterwards, we headed on a tour of the Tillamook creamery. Really cool facility and the active work in the factory was fun to see. Boys enjoyed this!

And some sampling of their product afterward: ice cream and cheese curds

William won the takeout ordering choice with Hat Yai – restaurant is actually related to Langbaan but a Malaysian focus with the best fried chicken (Shepherd especially agreed but only the dark meat!), and really delicious pickled things.

This morning we woke up with plans to visit a few places – first the Portland farmer’s market at Portland State University. Wow amazing access to all the local vegetable, seafood, dairy, meat vendors. Also many hot food vendors and tons of bakeries. Fully wished we could have picked up food to cook a few meals but instead we had a late breakfast and grabbed a few things for the flight tomorrow.

After the farmer’s market we went to Hoyt’s arboretum — 18 miles of trails divided into sections devoted to various tree families. We walked the firs, spruces, oak, magnolia and birch areas. Fully an area that would have been fun to visit multiple times. Last photo here you can see the boys were really at each other 

Packed up and had a chill afternoon – and last meal was a Mother’s Day treat and Quaintrelle and personally best meal by a stretch of the trip.

And the description works 😉

So our waiter asked William to have his drink with his finger up.

And some beautiful scenes from tonight!

Today was one of those days where it felt like maybe we were in verge of pulling out one too many Jenga blocks (re: attempting to do too many “things”), BUT we are at the house in Portland to wind down the day and the tower didn’t topple – we all had a great day!

Woke up in Hood River to pack for our last transition to Portland. We had breakfast at Freshies (bagels and smoothies – boys requested something other than Broder Ost, but William and I would have fully gone back). We got on the road a bit after 10am with a plan to hit a couple of must do spots on the way into Portland.

First up – Multnomah falls – an impressive falls with a short hike off of the Columbia River highway. Essentially you pull off at the exit to walk under the highway and you can walk to the base, the bridge or the very top of the falls, depending on your energy level. We knew we wanted to do a different hike, so we walked up to the bridge vantage point. Really beautiful spot:

We drove from here to the trailhead for Latourell Falls – bit of a deviation (trust alltrails for trailhead starts, never trust Google Maps 😉

While we’d heard Multnomah is the most impressive falls, the lower Latourell falls are (personal opinion) the most beautiful! Went on the roughly 3mi loop here and it was fully worth it.

After this stop, we went by Vista house – the museum isn’t currently open, but the view isn’t closed.

From here we went to Sugar Pine drive in. Will say the previous stops were fully as gorgeous as the pictures. Sugar Pine is clearly a local and visitor fave with a retro drive in feel but really inventive food offerings. The thing missed in the pics below is that it was utterly insane crowded from a parking perspective. If you can go in the middle of the week (mom and dad!), wld absolutely recommend.  But seriously do you expect smoked trout and salmon rillette toast with all the fresh things from a drive-in?

From here, we made our way into Portland, heading to Cari’s favorite local market, New Seasons. Brief grocery run, checked into our home for the week and quick turn around for dinner. 
We went to OK Omens, one of the Portland restaurants that has converted its entire operations to outdoor cabanas. S loved the Dungeness crab, Rawls the cheddar beignets and burgers and the roasted carrots/maiitake mushrooms won me and William over!

Day 1 Our first full day in Mt Hood was a great one. Started our day with first few hours of work – amazing how much can get done before the day “begins” here. We went to brunch at the Scandinavian spot attached to our hotel – Broder Ost- and it was perfection. Baked eggs, apple fritters, and pancake balls for the boys with perfectly done smoked fish and all the pickled things for me and William. Usually I do a better job of capturing these things, but this is where we ended up.

We packed up after brunch and headed toward Parkdale and Mt. Hood National forest where there are many beautiful hikes. We opted for the Tamanawas falls hike today ~5 miles and totally palatable for all the family hikers.

Gorgeous start to the hike:

And then as we started up the mountain, I said to Rawls “hey bud, watch the edge there” — he seemed ok at the moment and then became mr. grump for the next couple miles. I kept trying to talk to him abt what was going on and finally he shares “when you said that, it made me feel like I was going to fall”. Asked if we could move beyond and if he could forgive the comment to which he responded “yes, I will, but today is not going to be that day” and then he fully recovered and was a bright spot the rest of the hike 🤷‍♀️

Rawls said this would be his home if we left him on the hike:

And some other pretty snaps along the way:

And then we found Tamanawas falls:

We headed back with a nice stop in Parkdale and the brewery with the best backyard, Solera!

Back to the town – we rested a bit and had an early dinner across the street at Celilo – very season spot with great asparagus and local shiitakes / morels all over the menu.

Day 2 And last full day in Hood River before our final stop, Portland and first day we were able to sleep in. Started our Saturday again at Broder Ost (and definitely makes me want to visit Scandinavia!). William tried the Swedish meatballs which he said reminded him of Grandmama’s country fried steak. Still loving all the smoked and pickled things.

We decided to head up into the mountains to try out a hike and get a better vantage point of Mt. Hood.  When we got up to checkout the trail (with forewarning that there’s a lot of snow but easily passable without snow boats) we let the boys walk down a bit in the snow, but felt a little much for our water resistant hiking shoes.

We wanted to take a peek at the Timberline lodge – it’s an all-year round ski destination and where the Shining was filmed. Unfortunately no outside visitors inside at the moment, but we saw a great view of Mt. Hood and the exterior.

On the way down, we headed back through Mt. Hood National forest. The boys were protesting another hike today, so William made a deal that if they started one, they could “call it” along the way. Made it about a mile into Dog Creek trail before they did, but was still a pretty stretch.

Back in town we visited Stave and Stone tasting room for a flight — some of the wines (rose and Pinot noir) has a slight smoky taste from the terrible fire out here.

Walked back down to the Columbia River Gorge and spent some time on the beach waiting for out Solstice pizza table. So windy and fun to watch the kite surfers.

Dinner was at the wood fire pizza spot – Solstice. They’ve creatively built all these wooden pods outside the restaurant to keep their capacity over the past year. Perfect crust – creative ingredients (William tried the cherry, goat cheese, sausage! Cremini and caramelized onions for me)

Great ending to our stay here!