It was fantastic having El Jefe on our journey with us, and as soon as he got out of the car, we started missing him. But it was nice to get back to just us.

Of course, Earl probably begged to differ. Headed out of Seattle, I saw Mount Ranier towering over the landscape. “Ooh! Where is it? Can we detour?” I started asking, getting her to Google and pull out maps while I drove.

“I don’t want to. Let’s just get to Spokane,” she said.

Ah, the voice of reason, my child.

Seattle to Spokane is a beautiful drive through the Cascades and into the flatter lands of Eastern Washington. I had a rough idea that we’d stop in Ellensburg, WA, for lunch, but I was clueless about other potential stops along the way. Roadside America to the rescue!

“Ooh! Let’s stop at Dick and Jane’s Spot!”

“Is that a restaurant?”

“No, but it looks SO cool!”

Done.

Yet again, my child hits it out of the park.

Dick and Jane’s Spot is the home of mixed media artist Jane Orleman and her late husband, Dick Elliott. And, man, is there a lot to see from the curb!

The energy around the place is great and open and playful, and Earl and I walked the sidewalk for nearly 15 minutes, just looking, until our tummies started rumbling.

Neat neighborhood to the rescue: There was an old converted church the next block over!

The Yellow Church Cafe is a yummy treat serving up inspiration and delicious food.

That’s their Holy Moly Chicken Sandwich with a side of Clam Chowder.

I swear it sounded good at the time, although in retrospect, I don’t know what possessed me to order a BBQ chicken sandwich and clam chowder together.

Can I claim I was still tired? Do I need to if it was totally tasty?

Further down the freeway, I saw a brown parks sign for the Ginkgo Petrified Forest just before we crossed the Columbia River.

I’d have loved to have seen the in situ petrified wood, but a hike was involved and it was hot. And we were both wearing flip flops. And it’s rattlesnake season.

If they have to post Rattlesnake Rules right smack by the front desk, then NOPE. I will go back to my car and pray one of the slithering demons hasn’t crawled up into my engine as I peal out of the parking lot.

But the Columbia River was amazing. I’ve seen lots of video of the Columbia while working on a documentary a few years back, but oh my, I was not prepared. And all I really saw was one crossing.

Overlooking the Columbia is the Wild Horses Monument. Earl is a big horse lover, and the path up to the monument looked very clear and walkable, but we were both still skeeved over the rattlesnake warnings everywhere we looked. So I snapped pictures from the safety of the car at the base of the hill.

“Hey, Mama, ask me where I’m from.”

“Hey, Earl, where are you from?”

“George, Washington.”

Yep, it’s a real place. And, yes, there is a Wild Cherry St. in George, Washington. And a Bing St. Heh.

That’s how we killed the rest of the drive to Spokane—bad George, Washington puns and jokes.

Spokane is a neat little town, at least what we saw of it down around River Park. Before checking in for the night, we kicked around in the mall for a bit.

Get it? Kicked around? She’s in a shoe!

Next up: Idaho. I sure hope we’re out of our funny mood before then.

After a very late night crossing back into the U.S., we were up bright and early to make the 90-minute drive back down to Seattle. It was time to say goodbye to El Jefe.

Sad face.

On top of his departure, I hit a wall, and I hit it hard. I’d thought after we dropped him at Sea-Tac, Earl and I would trek into the city to go up the Space Needle since we didn’t the previous week, then we’d make it to Spokane before nightfall. Instead, on a series of missed turned and tiredness, we ended up down at the waterfront.

Earl had no desire to return to the fishy smelling market, but Miner’s Landing caught her eye.

I tried to get her to ride the sky wheel, but she wouldn’t. Instead, she was hungry, so we snooped around in search of food.

We found a cluttered, unmanned woodworking shop with a creepy woodwoman.

And we found The Crab Pot with their Seafeasts.

Earl was worried about the spices, but they weren’t hot. She couldn’t quite master cracking the crab legs, but she was fine with eating shredded crab meat. She even tried the mussels and clams—turns out, my kid will try pretty much anything if it’s dipped in butter first.

I thought it was all good. So good. That pile of food was markedly smaller by the time we were done. I even ate some of the mussels and happily pulled the heads (and eyeballs! ew!) off of the shrimp for Earl. I’d hoped food would wake me up, but by the end of the meal, I was tired enough that I was seeing double. Or quadruple.

That was it. I made the call: There would be no making it to Spokane tonight. I was done for. I looked online for hotels (which were actually available, unlike the night before. turns out One Direction had played the Seahawks Stadium, hence our stay in Burlington.) and stressed over prices before again turning to Hotwire.com.

Room settled, Earl somehow cajoled me into a short stroll down the waterfront to the Seattle Aquarium. Because why not. Fishes!

She enjoyed all the touching pools, because there were lots.

I looked for photo ops to keep myself awake.

The octopus captivated me. Look at those suckers!

And he was very alien-headed. So very very cool.

The Seattle Aquarium is bigger than it appears at first sight. There are lots of outdoor spaces, lots of underground spaces, lots of maze-like twists and turns and of course a surplus of views along the way.

We wrapped up our time at the aquarium, and I thanked God and every other deity that ever existed that Hotwire had put us in a winner of a hotel less than a mile away. I might could stay awake to drive a mile.

I did! And I stayed awake enough to do three loads of laundry! And I stayed awake enough to take Earl up to the rooftop pool for one final Pacific Coast sunset!

As the sun dropped behind the Olympics, we went back down to the room where I watched the sunset until it finished with its last hurrah.

Ah, it was nice.

So was sleep.

24 days in, I woke up with my first regret.

I really and truly regretted not fighting for a stop at the Butchart Gardens in Victoria the day before. Recovered from my cold, I stood in the shower that morning and fought back tears. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how badly I’d wanted to see the gardens I’ve heard so much about from my parents. We were supposed to drive back down to Seattle—El Jefe wanted to see Pike Place without the weekend crowd—but that plan had already been mostly thwarted by a complete lack of available hotel rooms any closer than Burlington.

“Look,” I said, toweling my hair dry as I stepped out of the hotel bathroom, “I know it’s not in the plan, and I know it’ll crunch us for time, but I really want to ferry back over to Victoria to see the gardens. I think I’ll regret it if I don’t see them.”

Silly as it sounds, the tears fell then. Earl came over and wrapped her arms around my waist, “Of course, we’ll go, Mommy. I want to see them, too!”

El Jefe agreed as well, so we loaded up the car and headed back to the FERRIES!!!

It was a precarious start to the morning. We were all off kilter somehow, trying to pull it together to be as completely in the happy moment as we were yesterday, but it wasn’t clicking. The closer we got, the more convinced I became that I’d made a mistake. By the time we got back to the ferry after the gardens, we’d all surely be at each other’s throats.

I tried to make El Jefe laugh with me about the one designated smoking area 90 miles from anything else in a distant corner of the parking lot.

I tried to advise them on chess and only screwed them both up.

I made Earl race the entire length of the gardens to find her lost brand-new-wallet, making us late to a boat tour, only to realize it was in my pocket the entire time as we raced back across the gardens to the dock to clamber aboard.

On the boat, we started to find a rhythm again. What it is about water? The peacefulness? The ease of smooth waters? The near-silent hum of the electric engine that allowed us to hear birds and branches?

Butchart Gardens grew out of an exhausted quarry and cement factory. The remnants of the old piers and docks, as well as one of the old smokestacks, can still be seen from the cove.

Fun fact about Canadian Federal waters: You can buy a buoy and drop anchor anywhere you’d like for as long as you’d like so long as the vessel floats for free. The result? A bunch of abandoned, deteriorating boats, just hanging around, dilapidating daily, sometimes in coves side-by-side with yachts and houseboats.

Also, algae=jellyfish, so lots of algae=jellyfish plumes. We saw hundreds of thousands of jellyfish in the waters beneath us, just under the surface.

After the boat ride and our inordinate excitement over jellyfish, we were all a bit more relaxed. We strolled through the Japanese gardens, winding around the paths and over the bridges and stepping stones.

We walked the rim of the Sunken Garden (in the old quarry pit) and gawked at the colors and blooms.

Earl spied the carousel on the map, so that was our next stop. After we all mugged for the camera, of course!

The carousel was beautiful and fast and just what we all needed to shake off the last of our odd moods.

The day was racing away from us, and there was a yummy looking restaurant in the original house. We lucked into both an available reservation and a patio table with a beautiful view of the greens around the Italian garden. Perfect for a toast to Harvey and Earl and a send-off dinner for El Jefe, who flew out the next morning.

The food was spectacular enough that the bees really really really buzzy pllleeeeaaaasssseeee wanted some of my lamb, but I refused to share.

We savored the flavors, the light, and the company. All three of us talked about how much we’d enjoyed our time at the gardens, how we were very glad we’d detoured for the stop. A raccoon raced across the green, and the sun dropped down behind the trees.

We had to race to catch the last ferry again, but not before we rubbed Tacca the Drooling Boar’s nose for good luck!

It must have paid off. We made the ferry with time to spare, and when we arrived at the U.S./Canadian border at 11:30 at night, there was hardly a wait at all, despite only one lane being open.

Earlier, as I was working conditioner through Earl’s hair to tame the tangles from whale watching, she sighed a deep, sad sigh. “I don’t want to leave Canada. It’s just so much more…civilized here.”

I didn’t want to leave, either, but this is home, and even if we’re still 2,500 miles away from actual home, it’s good to be home.

We will be back, though!