Lucas Camilo

Here’s Lucas’s wrap up of the last day of our trip and the time we spent at the Lake Quinault Lodge.

Tuesday

Our road trip is over. It feels good to be back home after that long haven’t told you much about the lodge so let me fill you in. One night Mom & I read Ida her book. Well it was it was a song book so we sang it. Grandma & Gari were there too. At the main lodge we saw a person named Alisen who was more active than the rest of the family. We also watched a Led Zeplin concert movie called Song Remains the Same witch isn’t as famous as I thought. Anyway, yesterday Mom, Grandma & Gari went kayaking while Dad & I did Mad Libs.

Its finally a beautiful, sunny day at Lake Quinault but its also time to head back to Seattle. The last two days have been cold and rainy so we spent a lot of time playing games and doing Madlibs by the fire in the lodge. But we did get out for one amazing, wheelchair accessible hike (as Lucas discusses below) and a swim in the lake.

Sunday

Well we’re in a lodge now & tomorrow we’re going back home. We just went on a cool hike in the rainforest. We saw lots of moss hanging down from the trees. It was the coolest hike ever. Yesterday we went in the main lodge, & there was a piano that I could play.

Due to lack of internet connection (which Lucas bemoaned as much as anyone) we haven’t been able to blog about our road trip for the last 5 days. And now we’re in the home stretch! As Lucas says, when things go by fast it must be because you’re having fun and indeed it’s been a blast. In particular, we’ve loved not having to drive very much (as we did on our previous RV trips) and instead have gotten to explore certain places — first Victoria (see Lucas’s post on that experience below), then Sol Duc hot springs, and now Lake Quinault.

At Sol Duc we met up with my parents and also had a visit from one of Lucas’s nurses who was staying nearby in Port Angeles. Lucas was really excited about staying in a cabin in the middle of the woods. We also got to go for some great hikes – both without Lucas (which he was totally fine with) and then some shorter, accessible walks the next day with Lucas. We also spent lots of time in the sulfur-rich hot spring pools.

At Sol Duc we were lucky that the smoke finally cleared, leading to some beautiful weather. But yesterday the clouds moved in and its been raining ever since. More on the final stage of our trip later… for now here a few Lucas blog posts that he managed to write despite not being much in the blogging mood on this trip, followed by some pictures.

Tuesday.

We just went to Fishermen’s Warf & I brought one of my blue square magnets along. Ida & I kept getting pretend texts from the other magnets that said that they really missed the blue square & that they needed it for the flower. Then we went to an incectairium that had a butterfly farm & this might sound totally crazy but to get to the butterfly farm is to follow this trail of butterflies on the ceiling.

Thursday

Well we’re out of our hotel & in a cabin. Last night I heard something coming from outside & this morning I figured out what it was. It turns out some people from another cabin were shrieking for some reason.

Friday

Well our road trip is coming to an end. We’re still in our cabin, but it’s the last night.

My Sol duc highlights so far have been:

1. Having Alisha along for a day
2. Going on 2 hikes in one day with Nonna and Papa
3. Going to Hurricane Ridge
4. Being in a cabin.

For the third year in a row we’re on a summer road trip, though this time we skipped the wheelchair accessible RV and settled with going in our own van. On Sunday we took the Anacortes ferry to Victoria, British Colombia and yesterday was our first full day exploring the city. We’re having fun despite the smoky conditions due to wildfires in northern BC. Tomorrow we take a different ferry across to Port Angeles and will spend the rest of the week exploring Olympic National Park.

Here’s what Lucas wrote yesterday, followed by some pictures:

Last night would’ve gone by quicker if I hadn’t been up the whole night. Anyway we’re on our road trip & in a hotel for 3 nights.

We just went to the BC Natural History Museum. There were these things that looked like mushrooms & every time we passed one we’d say mmmmmmushroom!

We also met a horse named Sam & went to a bug zoo where you touch bugs wich were the 2 highlights of our roadtrip so far.

We got here by taking the ferry wich was 3 hours, so we had some “3 hour entertainment”

This guy turned nine!

There are so many things we could say about what a wonder it has been to be on this journey with Lucas for nine whole years, but for now, we’ll let Lucas tell you about himself.  We “interviewed” him, giving him a few questions about who he is right now, and we called it a Lucas “time capsule.”  Here’s Lucas’s written answers to nine questions about himself:

Time Capsule.

1 My 3 fav bands are Led Zepllin, The Who & Diar Strates.

2 My fav album is Who’s Next, By, The Who.

3 My fav subject is Outer Space.

4 My fav thing about being Lucas is checking out new places, for example I liked checking out Stanley Stam Camp.

5 What I am most looking forward to about 4th grade is making new friends

6 I am good at challenging things

7 The highlight of my summer so far is watching Hotel Transylvania 3

8 Something that is helpful about me is helping Ida [learning to read] with Super Why.

9 (Bonus) 1 other thing that you should know about me is that I love reading.

Lucas doesn’t really like birthday parties, so instead of a party we took our first trip to Seattle’s giant ferris wheel with our friend Ilana, and then came home and hung out with Nonna and Papa.  We love you Lucas, nine million times over.