Day 8: San Francisco, CA to Cascadia, OR

Filippo could tell that I wasn’t too excited to be in an over crowded city after seeing such beautiful wilderness and offered to let us skip it but I thought about it briefly but we decided to stick with the plan. As I was internally trying to get myself pumped up for the day I remembered Frisco held a treasure I had been dying to see, Alcatraz! Nothing gets my blood moving in the morning like the potential of seeing a prison or going on a historical tour.  The combination of the two was a fair equivalent of a double espresso on a whale watching ship. So we did some research and to our disappointment dogs were not allowed on the tour. After one unsuccessful attempt, we found a doggie daycare. This woman was not impressed with Bumble’s energy level and would not take her on a regular basis but … “if we were just going to Alcatraz and back then this would work.” So we left Bumble in the hands of a crazy person. We drove around, found parking for 8 dollars an hour and went down to Pier 39 where they told us to go to Pier 33.  We arrived shortly after 11 with our goal to get on the quickest tour so we could be out of Frisco by 5. The next available tickets were at… or on July 1^st.

The closest we got to Alcatraz. 

 

Next up China town. Here we did some shopping for little cousin that we were about to see in Portland. Although the swords tempted us we ended up in the kite store. We enjoyed some fresh sushi and Filippo bought some Duck Tamale at a sweet store. Then we went back to pick up Bumble from Grateful Dog. “She had a really rough start. She had a lot of separation anxiety but she won’t have to go to the bathroom for a while, she went here.”

China Town

“Great, thanks.” I said as the lady yelled many commands at Bumble to try to get her off her keyboard, commands that Bumble doesn’t know- and the lady should know bumble didn’t know because she had me write down all the commands that she did know. . . which did not include “off the keyboard”.

We got out of town around 2 o’clock and headed to Elk Meadow campsite in Oregon, one that Callie and Corey had recommended. On the way we stopped in a small town called Trinidad. We saw the most beautiful sunset and watched a man coming in with two king salmon. If we ever strike it rich, this is where we will get a vacation home. We arrived at Elk Meadow around 10 pm. There was a little sunlight left in the sky as we made the six-mile trek down the dirt road through dense woods. The campsites were beautiful right on the ocean. Unfortunately they were also all taken.

We got back on the road and drove as far as we could. Around midnight we reached a town with many hotels.  The first hotel wasn’t dog friendly so they sent us to another. They were also not dog friendly so sent us to a third. They were dog friendly but didn’t have any dog friendly rooms. The man suggested leaving the dog to sleep in the car. When we said that wasn’t an option he said there are no open hotel rooms for hours but he will have this room for us if we come back and want to leave the dog in the car. We smiled, laughed and inquired about other dog friendly hotels. He said maybe Anchor Beach (Filippo heard another B*tch), but they wouldn’t have any rooms. We arrived at Anchor Beach, got a room and hopped into bed without dinner. At this point sleep was more important than hunger. Around 2:00 a.m. I woke up to hear a Bumble fart and instinctively I shouted… NO- As one should when they hear a fart that could be more than a fart.  At about 2:01 am Filippo woke up to screaming and the smell of Bumble’s poop. He took her outside to finish and I cleaned up. Bumble spent the rest of the night in the Kennel. Now it all made sense from the dog place. Bumble had diarrhea from that bone they gave her at Smoke. When we left her at Grateful Dog, she cried because she had to use it. They thought it was for us, she pooped, they felt like we did right now.