Dead Mom Scavenger Hunt
Welcome to Dead Mom Scavenger Hunt where cousins Christmas and Cara tick off the wild, sometimes ridiculous wishes from the bucket list of the late, great Bonnie—Christmas's mom and Cara's bonus mom. Every episode, we unpack grief and life’s absurdities through belly laughs, bizarre encounters, and the kind of soul-searching that only happens when you're half a bottle deep into questionable wine, munching on crackers and what-the-hell-is-this cheese. It's not just about where we go, but the oddballs we meet, the unbelievable stories we gather, and the existential crises we tackle together. Strap in and hold on —Bonnie's list isn’t going to complete itself, and things are about to get hilariously out of hand!
Dead Mom Scavenger Hunt
We Went to Alaska and All We Got Was a Giant Sprinter Van (Alaska Part 1)
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Welcome back to Dead Mom Scavenger.
Speaker 2:Hunt, I'm Christmas and I'm Cara and we're going to talk about the first part of our Dead Mom Scavenger Hunt, alaska recap.
Speaker 2:Alaska yes, um, so there are basically three legs in geographically speaking, on the scavenger hunt that she left us. However, we have taken it upon ourselves to also add in things that we know she wanted to do and isn't able to, things that we think she would enjoy, that we're going to do together, because she can't, and we're going to go do them for her. Yep, alaska was straight from the horse's mouth. You girls have to take an Alaskan cruise together. Yep, mouth, you girls have to take an alaskan cruise together. Yep, cara and I had both been vehemently cruise, uh, adverse. Yeah, we had both been on. I had been on one before, I had been on one also and I said never again.
Speaker 1:I was like I was 20, wanted to go on a big family cruise. So we did that.
Speaker 2:It was lovely to be with the family. They paid, they made us go. It was great to get to spend time with them, but I knew that cruising was not for me not a cruiser.
Speaker 1:What was it about that larger commercial type cruise that you did not like? I mean, I know what I didn't like but the food sucks.
Speaker 2:Even in the nicest restaurants it's all the same food. It comes out of the same kitchen. It might be a nicer tablecloth and it might be nicer flatware, but most of the food is exactly the same and it sucks. The people it was just a bunch of people stuffing themselves at a buffet. Um, the pool it looked okay when we first got on the boat, but you know, by day three there's a nice film it looked like a frat party had happened. It looked like pond, like pond scum. There was like a film of lotions and sunscreens. Um, there were so many children and I have really created my life such that I'm not around screaming children at all. Occasionally it happens, but there were a lot of screamy kids. It's just not my scene. I also, I, whenever I travel, I like to go to very non-touristy, out of the way places.
Speaker 1:You, want an authentic experience. I want an authentic experience.
Speaker 2:I want authentic food. I want to give my money to the actual people who live in these places. I don't want all the um, quote, unquote. Ports were basically just in a extension of the cruise ship. They had the same shitty chashkis and a different version of the same trinkets and like one of the stops. In fact I couldn't. I wanted to find it on a map and I couldn't find it and I was like what, why can't I even find this on a map? This is so weird. Come to find out. It's actually just a man-made island owned by the cruise ship. Oh my god that. So you're just giving your money back to the cruise ship. It's not helping the country that you're visiting. It's not putting money in their local economy. I think, instead of saying what did you like about it or what didn't you like about it, maybe a better question would be what did you like about it?
Speaker 1:I was trying to establish a comparison like a bar, Because the bar was so low. I also had the same complaints when I was on the cruise that I went on the big commercial cruise, yeah, but my biggest issue was all the waiting around all the standing in line, a lot of lines, yeah, like we stood in line for lot of lines yeah, although, like we stood in line for hours to get on the boat and then every time you wanted to get on and off the boat, off and back on, you were in line again for hours and hours and hours and it was just fucking awful.
Speaker 2:So that alone made me not want to ever do a cruise again sure so when bonnie said to us, when she saddled us with yes, well, and also also when my husband and I are my friends and I travel.
Speaker 2:As you know, when we travel together, I like to have a very, very loose, skeletal outline Like this is where we're going to sleep. Maybe, if there's a great restaurant that I'm dying to try, we might have a meal there, but I like to fly by the seat of my pants and, as you and I say, see where the travel magic leads us or where, which way the winds blow us, because that's where you have the best experience, the experience that you could have never even imagined. But if you have this regimented plan of we're going, we're going to get on a bus and then we're going to go see this, you know, preserve, and then we're going to get on a bus and then we're going to go see this, you know, preserve, and then we're going to get back on. But also, I hate buses. I'm not getting on a bus when you get really carsick I get terribly carsick and just I don't want to feel like I'm being cattled around.
Speaker 1:I don't think that's really a word, but you know what I did herded yeah, and I don't want to and I don't want to be with a, but I don't want a spoon-fed whitewashed experience yes, agreed, agreed. So that's kind of why we were initially like, oh god, do we have to do this?
Speaker 2:but she said yes, you have to do this, yeah so, but she did not specify what kind of boat, how big the boat, her whole thing was. There's just some beautiful landscapes that you can only see by boat. And she was not wrong, not wrong not wrong?
Speaker 1:no, absolutely not so. So we set to work trying to find a small outfit.
Speaker 2:A smallish outfit, I think you and I both googled cruises for people who hate cruises.
Speaker 1:We did that was the first thing I cruised. I didn't check, I didn't check chat gpt, because I don't know if that was even Well at the time, chat GPT had just become widely available to us as as uh the general, to the general public, and it did not have the more most recent information online that it does now Gotcha. So we were, we still had to Google things, and I mean, we still Google things whatever. It doesn't matter. The point is we spent copious amounts of time researching.
Speaker 2:So much research.
Speaker 1:Eventually, you asked some friends of yours who had been on a smallish it's like a micro luxury cruise.
Speaker 2:Basically it is. Yeah, there's only 600 people on the boat as opposed to 3000, plus Good God, and it might've even been less. It might have been like four or five hundred.
Speaker 1:I mean, I know the boat holds that many. I think part most of those people. Well, like half Wait is six hundred.
Speaker 2:Does that include staff?
Speaker 1:OK, so then it's like four hundred guests. Yeah, maybe four hundred guests. Four hundred guests, which is not that many for a cruise.
Speaker 2:Two hundred staff, no because there was like one staff member for every two people.
Speaker 1:That sounds right. If we're wrong, somebody correct us or whatever.
Speaker 2:Seaborn, feel free to correct us, but we're singing your praises, so maybe don't. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or whatever. Yeah, so we decided on Seaborn, we booked it.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I had friends who had been, and this circles back to just what I think should be really just advice you should always take in life. Ask the gays Lovely gay couple friends of mine were like we did a seaborne one and we loved it and I was like I trust them and I trust their judgment.
Speaker 1:They have impeccable taste.
Speaker 2:They like good food. They're not going to be herded around like show ponies. Um, and so we landed on seaborne, because it also left from vancouver and we knew we had to go to vancouver because that was on the list. Yep, from bonnie. Yeah, um, and it ticked the boxes so we flew out.
Speaker 1:We ended up here, so here was our itinerary for alaska.
Speaker 2:We flew out on um the 24th which was the day she died, one year later yep, we met up in the morning in Seattle. Very teary. Welcome, welcome. We looked like lovers running towards each other in an embrace. You've seen it in the movies, you know.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:We both are notorious overpackers, oh my God. And you also like to buy sweatshirts wherever you go, so we needed extra luggage for Kara's sweatshirts.
Speaker 1:I typically don't buy sweatshirts. I typically don't even. I almost never pack a bag like or check a bag. I never check a bag, I only carry on. But for this trip we decided we needed space so we each checked a bag or two yeah, and you were in charge of the rental car, okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, to be fair, what you requested was a small SUV. I did. I requested a small SUV. We just wanted to make sure we had room for the luggage and we were going to be doing a little bit of road tripping, in that we were driving from Seattle to Canada.
Speaker 1:So we flew into Seattle. We were spending one night in Seattle and doing all the things in Seattle Basically a day and a half in Seattle and then we were going to drive up through Bellingham, spend the afternoon in Bellingham and then carry on into Vancouver and spend another night in Vancouver and then get on the ship the next day, which is what we did, Correct.
Speaker 1:So we got to the airport in Seattle and tearful hello reunion. Then we went to look for our rental car. This was the first. This is where the travel magic began, because we could not find no where we were supposed to get this rental.
Speaker 2:In hindsight, I should have read the email with the instructions in it well, part of this, part of the challenge was that we were picking up the car in one country and dropping it off in another country. Yes, so this is not just a regular like Hertz Avis Enterprise. Yeah, that adds a degree of difficulty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I did use a transport company that I was not familiar with and it did not have a central hub in the airport.
Speaker 2:So we ended up, but the reason we chose it was because we could just drop it off at the hotel we were staying at in Vancouver.
Speaker 1:It appeared that that was the case. Yes, it actually was the case, we just fucked it up. We'll get there. Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves. First we had to find this SUV. You can't see me If you're not in our Patreon. You can't see me making quotes Kara's making air quotes. Air quotes. Quote SUV, Small SUV. So we finally found the shuttle to take us to this lot that was far away from the airport.
Speaker 2:It was a 10 minute drive from the airport. It was not walkable.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Put it that way, especially not with our big ass suitcases.
Speaker 1:With all of our.
Speaker 2:The Couture Malls.
Speaker 1:Yeah, All of our stuff. We have a picture that's probably we'll put it.
Speaker 2:We were really good about documenting this on Instagram, all different phases of it, and I will put those on our Instagram page. I will put them, though, as Instagram highlights.
Speaker 1:Probably like Alaska 1, Alaska 2, Alaska 3, because there are 500 plus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll go alaska one through five, um, so you'll, you'll start with one as his great advice for life. Yeah, um, but look in the highlights, because it won't just be on our regular feed, because it would take up our regular feed for months at a time yeah, so we documented this whole thing and it was funny because my family was like, oh, like they were so annoyed that I kept like sharing all these.
Speaker 1:There was a lot of updates, right, but some people really loved it. Oh my gosh, no one was annoyed.
Speaker 2:People, people I didn't even know were texting or not, however, you like, dming me through Instagram and being like this is so funny. I wake up every morning and, like every day, I just want to see what you guys are doing, and every day, I want to see what ridiculousness is happening, and every day, I want to see where, where you're at and what who you're meeting and what experiences you're happening, you're happening, you're happening, you're happening.
Speaker 1:So we get to this lot and we get off the bus and we're we're looking for. I had a picture of the parking space number the parking space number. The parking space number, but I don't think it said what kind of vehicle it was.
Speaker 2:It did not say what kind of vehicle it was.
Speaker 1:And so I was looking for the. We thought we found the parking lot number. It was a little bit like faded in the concrete. So the bus takes off and we're standing there with all of our luggage and it's this Chevy Silverado truck, and I get on the app that they had asked us to download and I'm having to take pictures of all of this, this truck, so that they can see the condition it's in before we take it, and whatever. And the keys are supposed to be in it. Yeah, the keys are supposed to be in it. Um, the code that they gave us did not work. We could not get into this truck. That is because it was the wrong space, at which point we realized we were in the wrong place and it was the right number.
Speaker 1:It was like g21 and we were up in t21 or something like that we were, but we were in the wrong lot, yeah, so we had to flag down another bus, get back on a bus, go to this other lot. We eventually did find it and we pull up to the lot, the, the space number, and they're like here's your vehicle and it's a 14 passenger. Sprinter van it is a giant sprinter van giant sprinter van now. You love.
Speaker 2:You drive everywhere we go, because you get car sick yes I would have been fine driving the sprinter van oh, I was so excited to drive this bad boy. I have a transit van at home.
Speaker 1:Yes, you do. It's basically the same thing. It's not a tall one, it's a medium roof, but it still is. You know, it's basically the same thing. I would have been okay. This thing could have easily held 20 people.
Speaker 2:I'm surprised they didn't have a special class license to drive it. I think it had 14 seatbelts. Okay, 12 or 14 seats.
Speaker 1:It was a lot. It was like the biggest one they make and it was, you know, big black transit van with all the blacked out windows. Oh yeah, I love a big black van, and so we're All right, we're so overcome with the magnitude. I think glee is what I was overcome with. I was just fucking shocked. So we get in, we unlock it, we're putting our shit away and Christmas says wait, where's my bag?
Speaker 2:She's missing a bag, one of my little bags. Yeah, I had to sprint from the sprinter to the now driving away bus, yelling wait, do you have?
Speaker 1:a bag and we're going to another country when I bus yelling wait, do you have a?
Speaker 2:and we're going to another country I've never seen a woman run so frantically oh dude, flojo got nothing on this girl when she's missing a bag. I was in the bag. Uh, what was in the bag? It was the tiny bag. What was it? Was it like bathroom stuff? Like personal? It was bathroom stuff because I didn't want to have to get into the big bag until we got on the boat and we were going to be in seattle and vancouver for two nights, so it was just what I need for those two nights, clothing wise, but also toothbrush, toothpaste, yeah, all the stuff you really kind of want.
Speaker 1:Sleep mask drugs, drugs important things yeah so she kicks off running after this van trying to trying to tackle this guy to the ground. Get him to stop this van before he leaves the lot to go pick up more crazy did you see me actually catch it or did you not know I caught it? You were you were kind of around a billboard. I couldn't see you when you caught him until I emerged, I didn't know you caught him until you started walking back with your. I emerged victorious, so that was I.
Speaker 2:I felt like I was running, you know, walking up like I feel it coming in the air. I break the rules. I know I had brianna vibes, so I was ready to run this town, and then we were ready to go. Um, yep, we were ready to go and we were.
Speaker 2:I'm very familiar with downtown Seattle. I love Seattle, I go there regularly, have spent a good amount of time there, so I knew where we were going and I was thrilled to. For those of you in the Patreon who are seeing the video of this, I'm just getting to the pictures because I don't want to forget anything pertinent. Yeah, I'm looking in my pictures too. That's what we're looking at and we get off on the exit that we need to take for downtown Seattle and the our hotel, which is a hotel that I love. Cheers to the Inn at the Market, big fan Tip of the hat. We get off on the exit and we're driving, you know, down the street and Kara's like well, I, I mean at least we're the biggest thing on the road. At that precise moment, a giant and I mean giant tractor trailer, john Deere tractor pulls up right next to us on a main thoroughfare as if to say yeah like what the fuck?
Speaker 2:as if to say oh, you think you are the biggest thing on the road and you are not. Yeah, um, there will be pictures on the uh instagram as well as video. Yeah, so that's fun. Um, so we go to check in to the hotel and ditch the car, and at which point we discover there's nowhere to park.
Speaker 1:They have covered parking and we cannot park under any circumstances they do not have a lot.
Speaker 2:You, you have to valet, you must valet, and they say we can't fit your big bitch here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so we're like well, where do you suggest we park? We're just parked on the side of the street at this point talking to someone, we're parked at the valet where they like.
Speaker 2:Take your back to the valet and he's like I. I can't take this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were I mean they felt bad about it, but they were like, uh, I don't know. Well, one guy was like I don't know, let me ask my fellow valet, homie. And that guy says, well, there's another hotel, two blocks down, one block up, that has a few spaces that are not covered and they might be able to take it. So we gave them all our bags and, with hope and a prayer in our hearts, we drove to the other hotel and said we will pay you whatever you want to keep this for one night, yeah. And they said that'll be $80. Is that what it was? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, and I said and they said that'll be $80.
Speaker 2:Is that what it was? Yeah, and I said I'm really happy to pay that. Thank you very much You're doing good work here Great work here yeah.
Speaker 1:So they did take our van and we walked the two blocks, three blocks, back to the hotel that we were staying at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when our bags already were, which they were still there. They were excellent.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They were great got checked into our room and then, um, I think we, then we went to lunch. We, uh, at that point we were like, can we just get a beer and some french fries please? So we walked down to a place where also we could oversee the sound. Um, we got a great view at pike place, had some french fries, did a beer sampling oh that's right, which was delicious.
Speaker 1:I don't remember what it was called, but it was.
Speaker 2:I don't remember what that place was called right either oh it was called.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was old stove beer, oh, old stove brewery.
Speaker 2:Old stove brewery. Yeah, great view right by Pike Place, um, great view of the Big Wheel, which was one of the things that was absolutely on mom's list. Old Stove Brewing Company.
Speaker 1:There you go.
Speaker 2:Old Stove Brewing Company. We had oh God, we had those warm pretzels with the cheese sauce, those like little pretzel bites.
Speaker 1:God, I love a warm pretzel which you needed, the carbs after running after that trolley.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So we had a snack.
Speaker 2:We had a snack and then, oh, because we were waiting for matt's at the market to open, because we were going to get lunch there yes. So then we walked to matt's at the market, which was also another thing that was on mom's list. Yep, the big wheel matt's at the market. So so far we've only hit the big wheel mats at the market. So so far we've only hit. We go to mats at the market.
Speaker 1:We had this salad that I made 30 times after I got home I made it once after we got home and I did not nail it and I will not try to make it again, I will make it for you, okay.
Speaker 2:Um, not right now because melon's not in season, right, but it was a salad that was honey and and I know melon can be polarizing for people, but trust me when I tell you this was fucking so good. Honeydew Cantaloupe, did it have watermelon too?
Speaker 1:I think it had watermelon too.
Speaker 2:Okay so three kinds of melon, mint, mint A, so delightfully salty but like crispy on the outside, grilled halloumi cheese.
Speaker 1:I had never had halloumi cheese before, so that was new to me, uh.
Speaker 2:Marcona almonds and a honey mustard dressing with champagne vinegar. It was so I called them to get the recipe for the dressing. Yeah, it was so good. I think about that salad a lot. Yeah, um, had had that. And at that point I told kara it was time to go on the big wheel. If you don't know what the big wheel is in seattle, it is a permanent structure, giant ferris wheel. So, and you the, the, the seats, it's what would you call those? The capsule Cage, the cage you are in. They're all glass so you're enclosed. But you go so high it would be so windy up there, so you have to be enclosed in glass. But the views are incredible. You're right over the Puget Sound. As our mom used to say, the majesty of the Puget Sound. There's nothing more beautiful than the majesty of the Puget Sound.
Speaker 1:I was not. This was not a highlight of the trip I was looking forward to. No, she were kind of dreading it.
Speaker 2:So I, when I got pregnant with Parker, I developed out of nowhere, a debilitating fear of heights, which is so funny. I'm not the only person that this has happened to. Do you think it's because you're like now I have someone I have to be around for I think it's evolutionary. I think it's evolutionary. Yeah, this is some anthropomorphic shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I used to mountain bike in the canyon in the area where we live and there's lots of like drop offs and things. And mountain lions Well, yeah, but that doesn't matter. I mean, it matters, but that's not relevant to the. Never even thought about falling off the cliff and dying. It never even occurred to me that that was a problem.
Speaker 1:Or an option you had I didn't even notice the cliff right After Parker. That was all I could think about was the sheer edge that I was going to die off of, and I suddenly had this like visceral fear of heights. That was just out of nowhere.
Speaker 2:Because? Was it because A you didn't want to die and not see him grow up, or because you were like I can't leave him because then jeremy's a single dad? Probably both, okay never.
Speaker 1:It wasn't like a conscious thing, it was very subconscious, visceral. I don't. I'm assuming that's what it was, because the older he got he's 18 now the older he got, the less intense it was interesting.
Speaker 2:I don't have children, which is well documented, so we were curious how this whole, and I'm genuinely curious about these not that I want kids, because no no, thank you, but I am curious about you know, because I love you and I love parker and I love jeremy, I'm curious about what the actual feelings were.
Speaker 1:I'm not trying to like no, no, I'm shitty about it. No, I didn't think you were. It was a very interesting phenomena, yeah, that I experienced, because, um, and I was like, no, I don't do heights, like I don't want to go on this ferris wheel because I'm afraid of heights, but I was curious because we number one, we had to do it well, and also I told you that mom was afraid of heights too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which she was, and when she and I, I made her go on the big wheel the first time, she went on it and it goes around thrice and I did know I had noted that the fear of heights was abating slightly okay over time.
Speaker 1:So I figured we'd we'd just, we're gonna see what happens. Yeah, how I feel if I freak out, let me off this fucking thing.
Speaker 2:We didn't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1:This was the first heights experiment we had well also.
Speaker 2:They have now very smartly changed it so that you can. It used to be if you wanted to bring alcohol on the big wheel, you, you had to sneak it, smuggle it, you had to smuggle it. Now they were like, oh, here's an extra revenue stream and people are doing this anyway. We stood in line and bought our wine sippy cups. Yeah, we had wine sippy cups that we took on the big wheel. It goes around thrice. When mom and I went on it the first time it went up, she was like, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. The second time she was like okay, I'm feeling a little better. Oh, that's kind of pretty. This is kind of a cool view. The third time around she was like, oh my God, this view is fucking incredible. This is the greatest thing of all time. And then she wanted to go on it again. So the feeling.
Speaker 1:So I had a feeling that was kind of what was going to happen with you, but again didn't know, Also didn't want to find out. And what happened? It didn't even register that we were off the ground to me.
Speaker 2:I had no, but how dope were those views.
Speaker 1:It was gorgeous, I mean if you go to Seattle. I know it sounds cheesy, but get a sippy cup of wine and get on that Ferris wheel.
Speaker 2:Get on that big wheel.
Speaker 1:Get your sipping cup. And it was just majestic. It was majestic as fuck, yeah, so we did the ferris wheel. It was a success. Check off the list.
Speaker 2:We were doing so good, we had so many we're doing so good okay. So after that we took some pictures. Where did we go to dinner? Oh, zigzag. We went to zigzag. I love zigzag um. Big fans of zigzag cafe. Um, the staff there is incredible, they're lovely. The owner's great. It was amazing, cool vibes um, and we had had a pretty big and emotional day at that point.
Speaker 1:So I yeah, by that point, what was it I was? I was smoked and, as you know, I don't do well in loud, dark places late at night.
Speaker 2:Yeah, kara um kara handled sensory issues yeah, carol kara handles crowds and sensory issues much differently than I do, which is to say that I don't.
Speaker 1:If I don't, I try not to handle them at all yeah, um, um.
Speaker 2:So we we got to the hotel and found that not only did we have the exact same sleep mask, we both had the same readers, because now that's a thing, the reason that we had the same sleep mask, because I asked you oh, did you? I ordered the one that you told me to order, that's why Okay.
Speaker 1:Um, but yeah, my my glasses, I don't wear readers. Well, I do now, but I didn't then. Um, I my glasses, I don't wear readers well I do now, but I didn't then. Um, I my glasses matched your readers when I put yeah, I took my contacts out, my glasses and your glasses were like I don't even need readers and they're not prescription and in fact they look so cute on you though, oh thanks.
Speaker 2:Um, I went to the eye doctor because I was sure I was like I must need readers because I bought, surely, surely, well, and I bought a pair. That was just a level one and I put them on and I was like holy shit, I did not know this book could be this clear. I have superhuman sight. Now I can read anything. I just look at me, look at me. I was, it was just. It was like those stupid old blue blockers. Commercials like these new blue blockers are great. Everything's so much sharper and clearer. But I felt like that.
Speaker 2:So I ever since then, when I read a book at night and I'm one of those people that always reads at night my level one readers are great, and I actually tried level like 1.25 or 1.5, and it was too much just to just a gentle little one. So we had the same readers and sleep mask and looked like big fucking nerds. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you posted that picture too. There's so many pictures. Um spent the night. Luckily, cara and I are both early birds in the morning time, thank god, um, we got up, we went and had at one of my favorite bakeries a ham and cheese croissant. That's so good it will make you cry. Is this where we fess up because your husband's never gonna listen to this, or do we?
Speaker 1:not he makes it to this episode, I would be shocked kara's husband is a vegetarian and he feels very passionate about it which I get.
Speaker 2:We have been to therapy over a chicken salad sandwich yes, he, um, he feels very strongly about it, so kara does not eat the agreement the contract in my home.
Speaker 1:Okay, great Is that we don't cook meats at home. I mean other than Parker eating steak and things like that, but we don't cook chicken at home.
Speaker 2:Well, and you don't cook meat for yourself at home.
Speaker 1:Right when I am at home with my husband and my family. He and I are vegetarian.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Out in the world. I am an independent contractor, yes, and I can do what I want. Yes, it would hurt his heart to see me eat ham.
Speaker 2:So it made my heart very happy, because you should have seen the look on her face when she bought in or brought bought bit bit, bought bit bit. I bought. When she bought, you bought into it and you bit into it. When she bit into this ham and cheese croissant, which also has just a little bit of a Bernays in it, the look on her face it was what was the name of the bakery? I think it's just La Blu, lingerie or something like that.
Speaker 1:It wasn't really. Oh no, that's not.
Speaker 2:I have a tote bag from there in the other room, but I'm not going to get up and get it.
Speaker 1:Hold on, I'll find it. We'll link it in the show notes, don't?
Speaker 2:worry about it. It's at Pike Place. It's like the main French bakery there. It's literally kitty corner from the end of the market. You can see it from there. It was a great coffee, great tea and those croissants, man. Um, we walked through pike place, we looked at beautiful flowers, we saw all the wonderful farm standee markets and, oh god, seafood and big ass shrimp and medium ass shrimp. Um, and then we decided we had to kind of get going because we had places to go and we had to make it to Vancouver. We had to book it. We had to book it to Bellingham because we were planning on spending some time in Bellingham, which is mom's hometown. Oh, I almost said shout out, big ups to Bellingham. What's the punishment for saying shout out? You get to slap me.
Speaker 1:No, I don't want to slap you you can punch me in the arm.
Speaker 2:Oh, to slap me? No, I don't want to slap you. You can punch me in the arm. Oh, that was a pathetic punch, wasn't it God? You punched like a puss. Go ahead, that's better. I know I can do better than that. That was better. And we wanted to spend some time in downtown Bellingham. We had two addresses of houses that she lived in when she was little.
Speaker 1:One was an actual oh wait wait, don't get a two ahead of made a. We made a big discovery on the way to bellingham, do you tell? We discovered that I am the shittiest videographer.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, okay, since I was driving, I was like carrie, you have to take pictures for the gram of like street signs. It was a simple assignment. Cara might be the worst photographer slash photo documentarian of anyone I have ever met in my life, and she's a very bright woman with lots of different skill sets. This is not one of them. I don't you couldn't even try to get it that bad. No, I couldn't be worse if I tried. If you go to the gram, you will get to see some of her work. She is very it turns out very good at taking pictures of one thing and one thing only, and that is Ford Rangers Ford.
Speaker 1:Rangers. I am pretty good at capturing the Ford Rangers For some reason in so many pictures.
Speaker 2:There's just one random, crystal and clear Ford fucking Ranger. And every other picture is blurry, it's just raindrops, it's your feet, it's the center console, it's just your hand covering it. Look, man.
Speaker 1:We can't all be good at all the things it's true, it's very true and, like I said, you have many other amazing skills that I'm so grateful for.
Speaker 1:I was not gifted in this area, no no. I am all you had at this moment. So we have. You're often all I have we have corners of signs that we were trying to capture and things like that. So we were trying to capture, like the picture of the Bellingham Welcome to, picture of the bellingham welcome to bellingham side, and it's like raindrops on the windshield, not even in focus and no, it's terrible. There's some great video of me lip syncing and this continued.
Speaker 2:This was a trend that continued throughout the trip, but we did.
Speaker 1:Oh, it continues to this day we did eventually make it to bellingham which is one of the cutest towns of all time. Yeah, we had a really cute. So what did we? Where did we go? First in Bellingham.
Speaker 2:First did we get snacks, first Did we go to the taco place.
Speaker 1:No, we went to her house first.
Speaker 2:We did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it looks like according to my calculations, we went to the houses. Oh, here's a Ford Ranger picture. We took some pictures, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, we took pictures, oh, yeah. So we went to the two places that she grew up. One of them is so cute and had like 27 hummingbird feeders.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was adorable. And, like Mardi Gras beads, we stopped and took a picture of Queen Anne's lace. Her favorite flower Growing up through the concrete, because that was her favorite flower, which a lot of people think it's a weed.
Speaker 2:I mean, I guess it technically is a weed. Yeah, I guess, but it grows. It's really, it's in the eye of the beholder, it's true. And then, oh, we went and saw Bellingham High, yep, her high school, home of the fighting. What are pine trees? No Osprey.
Speaker 1:No, what are they?
Speaker 2:What's Bellingham High School?
Speaker 1:I have no idea. Somebody tell us.
Speaker 2:Home of the wild cats. No that sounds right, actually does it well, it might be wild cats, it might not. Um, um, yeah, we don't know.
Speaker 1:We don't know.
Speaker 2:Somebody tell us it's probably right in and tell I'm gonna guess it's not the pine trees or the osprey home of the fighting hiking boots.
Speaker 1:We did look this up on the the trip because they have changed it since it was different. It was home of something when she was there. It is not the same now.
Speaker 2:Well, no, it's a bigger high school, but they didn't change the mascot, did they? Yeah, oh, for politically correct reasons. What is Bellingham?
Speaker 1:High's mascot.
Speaker 2:Sorry, it is home of the Bay Hawks, okay, okay, big red is it was previously the red raiders, remember?
Speaker 1:okay, it was changed to a bird of prey when the school reopened in 2000 after a two-year closure.
Speaker 2:So okay okay, problem, the fighting mystery solve. See wait, see bay hawagles, bay hawks my god, my god seagulls, sea eagles, the bay hawks um, okay anyways, then we went into downtown bellingham, which is adorable, which is adorable.
Speaker 1:I had parked the van like a fucking rock star you did really poorly, really poorly, on every parking assignment with that big ass thing it was, was it wasn't good, it wasn't great we all have our weaknesses. Thank you, and I love you anyway. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Luckily I had you to guide me in air traffic control style on a few of them. Yeah, left to my own devices. I would have parked at an angle with the ass end of the van four feet from the curb.
Speaker 1:I think we posted a picture on Instagram of this guy that we saw with a cat on his shoulder.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, like a parrot just perched down. Yeah, just walking down the street.
Speaker 1:Not a parrot, but a cat, that's when we went to the Mexican food place and got like margaritas or something. We got margaritas and guacamole.
Speaker 2:And then we walked to a distillery that I wanted to check out, but before we got to the distillery Next door, to the distillery.
Speaker 1:Yes, we got waylaid.
Speaker 2:We got so waylaid by a doggy Rescue.
Speaker 1:I mean, what do you even call this Like? Well, it's like they have those, those cat cafes.
Speaker 2:It was like a puppy rescue, yeah, and you could go in, you could go in and look at the puppies and look at the puppies playing or play with the puppies. You could pay a small fee and go inside the gates and play with the puppies. And my favorite smell on the planet puppy paws, puppy breath oh, I like puppy paws.
Speaker 1:Oh, there's like corn chips popcorn oh, I okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they smell like malolactic fermentation.
Speaker 1:I live in the wine country. Give me the puppies oh puppy breath.
Speaker 2:There was one that I was very close to trying to figure out. Didn't you call Hammer and say, hey, this puppy home, but not for a week? Also, it's a Mastiff pit bull mix and it's the cutest thing I've ever seen. He didn't go for it. We have a beautiful, sweet little rescue pit bull already.
Speaker 1:If you're in the Patreon.
Speaker 2:You can see her. She's sleeping right behind us. Then we went to the distillery Chill no, what's it called Chill Cook?
Speaker 1:No, that was in Alaska.
Speaker 2:It is called, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I have pictures of us at the bar, but I don't remember what it was called. Did you buy some hot sauce from there.
Speaker 2:I did because I have a friend who lives in seattle um big snaps to funky's hot sauce. If you are in oh sorry, he lives in bellingham. Actually, if you're in the bellingham area um funky's hot sauce, he makes lots of them. They're very, very good. Yeah, what was the name of that distillery? I feel like it started with a c. I think the bar was called the penny farthing. The bar at the penny farthing it was yeah that's the name of the bar that's connected to it. Yeah, um, penny farthing funky's hot sauce.
Speaker 1:We got out of there and made our way to the border yep, so we drove the rest of the way up to the border, and if you've ever crossed the Canadian border, you will know that well. If you've ever crossed the Canadian border with any degree of regularity which we used to do when I was a kid all the time, you will know that it is a total crapshoot. As to which type of border agent you're going to get, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah of border agent you're gonna get.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah could be a friendly person who's like I feel like I've gotten lucky and really only had friendly ones. Uh, yeah, so my grandma iris was really lucky in that way. She would always tease them and like flirt with the young men and always be like like she could have smuggled anything across the border I cannot picture your grandma iris flirting with anyone she would always wink at him and be like how you doing honey, like she was so funny with the border patrol agents.
Speaker 2:I'm going to be like that when I'm old.
Speaker 1:Jeremy, when he crossed the border after a mountain biking trip, he got this border control agent. He was coming back into the US and this guy was like are you bringing back any alcohol or fruits or vegetables or anything like that? And they're like I think we have a few beers back there, but otherwise no, or fruits or vegetables or anything like that. And they're like I think we have a few beers back there, but otherwise no, and he was like how many beers Jesus Christ? Like real aggressive and this was a US agent.
Speaker 2:right, yeah, that tracks.
Speaker 1:That tracks yeah, we're not real proud of where we're at right now as a country, but that's another episode.
Speaker 2:And our Canadian brethren are known for being polite. Yeah, yeah, they're. I mean, I'm canadian. Yeah, kara is my mom's. Kara has dual citizenship and I've never been more jealous. My nana dropped the ball and relink or like, let hers lapse, and then didn't get it from my mom. So I do not have canadian citizenship. I wish I did. If there's any citizenship lawyers out there who would like to contact me about where was your nana born? Uh, nana, she would have to get it because I think she was. I think she was born in the us.
Speaker 1:Okay, then it wouldn't apply to you anyway.
Speaker 2:It was only ever two generations of descent, okay, so her mom could have gotten it, but she you couldn't okay, but I think there are some loopholes, if there's any canadian citizenship lawyers who know of a way that I could get it or buy it, well, you can?
Speaker 1:I've read.
Speaker 2:Anyway, okay, we're getting way off track. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Speaker 1:This is going to be a long episode anyway, because we're hovering the trip, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it might be a two-parter. We don't know, we might have to break it up.
Speaker 1:We'll let you know, we'll. Crossed through. The guy was giving him a hard time and he was like pull over, let me look in your van. How many beers, how many beers they're like I don't know, like five or ten or whatever. And they're like, ah, pull over. And he did go through all their stuff and he found a bell pepper, like a single bell pepper that what color was it?
Speaker 2:I think it was a red bell pepper. Okay, well, if it was green, they should be arrested.
Speaker 1:They had forgotten it was in there in the cooler, and they're like oh yeah, sorry, we forgot about that and he was, he held it up and he's like I'm taking this, oh and they're like okay, we ran into a bad, like a kind of a dick when we crossed over on a whistler trip bell peppers several years ago because we went to kind of an out of the way one of the stations that was kind of well, the crossing was kind of out of the way because it was.
Speaker 1:My mom said it would be like no line that time of day and the guy was like why are you crossing through here? What? Why didn't you go through Blaine Like he was also?
Speaker 1:yeah, and we were like I don't know. My mom said to go through here and it ended up being fine, so we didn't know where we were, what we were going to get at the at the border. But we like spoiler alert we did get through, but but she was very suspicious as to why we were driving a giant cargo van with two people in it, with only two people. She was like so why are you driving? Literally just asked us straight out why are you driving a giant cargo van?
Speaker 2:we said you know what we? Had the same goddamn question. We would also love to know the answer to that. Yes, we tried to get a compact suv, yeah, so we looked and we ended up with this Also on my flight. There was a group of maybe 14 young Mormon boys that's right Heading out on on their mission. Um, I got to wonder if maybe those 14 had to maybe squeeze into a compact SUV it was meant for us while we rolled out in their sprinter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we did get through the border and we headed into Vancouver With one very important stop we had to drop the van off.
Speaker 2:No, before that. Oh, we had to stop and get ketchup chips. We had to stop and get all the delightful Canadian snacks, and all dressed chips, all dressed chips, and the violet crumble yes, all the. Canadian treats. All the Canadian snacks, snacks all dressed, all dressed, violet crumble.
Speaker 1:Yes, all the canadian treats, all the canadian snacks. My god, I love ketchup. So good, all dressed, all of it. So we got all our trash snacks, trash snacks, and then we hightailed it over to the hotel, as do you want me to make you a cheese? Cracker. Uh, sure, okay, I think we stayed at the pan pacific we did stay at the pan pacific um, and we needed to drop off the van the van the.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I'll let you take over while I eat my um, we had to drop off the van and, as we said before, the part of the reason we rented this van is because it would be so easy to just drop it off at the pan pacific. And we pull up to the pan pacific and we're like so where do we drop it off?
Speaker 1:it might have been the fairmont, was it?
Speaker 2:either way, it was right there, right next door to each other. Yeah it was right there, um, and they were like we don't know, and you had, I had an address, a map and some coordinates I didn't know.
Speaker 1:I had a map. It was in an attachment in an email. We made like three loops, yeah, around looking for where we were supposed to drop this van off, before we finally called them and we were like, hey, where the fuck are we supposed to drop this van? Yeah, we are down by the harbor. There's nothing but parking structures and we're about to leave it on the side of the road.
Speaker 2:We don't know what to do. Yeah, um help, the guy had to come physically come down. He had to physically come down, wave us.
Speaker 1:We never would have found it. We had to go through this like little narrow entryway and then park in a specific set of rows which you fucked up, so he had to fix it. I think there's a picture of us. There's a video, I think, on Instagram of him reparking the van, I mean. I will put all these up so you guys can see my shame. They're on Instagram, yeah, and then we had to follow him through like a set of doors where there was a key code.
Speaker 2:I think we just that was the like a set of doors where there was a key code. I think we just that was the like employee entrance. That was just backdoor style. That was crazy. Because, when we did get beyond the actual outside baggage drop valet, there was a counter there that we could have just taken and given the keys to. But we didn't know that. We didn't know we went through the back alleyway.
Speaker 1:But that's the instructions that were also attached in the email. We could have just handed this guy the keys at the front door, had we known, but we didn't so we didn't.
Speaker 2:Anyway, it worked out. We checked into our hotel, which I don't maybe hold on. Maybe I'll tell you, um, if it was the pan pacific or the fairmont, whatever it was, the views were incredible, it was beautiful. It was the Pan Pacific or the Fairmont, whatever it was. The views were incredible, it was beautiful. It was walking distance to a bunch of places. Oh yeah, here's my parking, shame, whatever. Um, I don't know what it was. Oh, we went to happy hour there. Surprise, surprise, yeah, oh, some of these are from you and some of these are from me, me. And then we just remember there was that restaurant I wanted to go to. Yes, we said we walked there and we passed some. A lovely canadian gentleman wearing the exact same outfit as me. Oh yeah, I had on plaid and could not have looked more canadian, had I tried. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All these will be up on the gram yep, so we took a walk, we were in, we saw.
Speaker 2:We saw the gas town steam clock, which is a big deal there apparently.
Speaker 1:Um, we saw the original old spaghetti factory, which is that the original they claim to be okay, so I took a picture of that because my dad likes the old spaghetti factory a lot. We saw xylophone band. A weird triangle building. Then we had drinks at a cool bar restaurant.
Speaker 2:What is the name of that place? I'm the one that wanted to go there and I don't even remember.
Speaker 1:I don't remember either.
Speaker 2:Oh, guilt and Company. Okay, spelled G-U-I-L-T. Not Guilt and Company. Okay, spelled G-U-I-L-T. Not guilt like gilded, but guilt as in. You are guilty. Guilt and Company. Yeah, great cocktails, great snacks, great bathroom. It was the Pan Pacific because we had fancy geek cars. God, those views are so fucking beautiful. What are we at time wise here? About an hour should we stop here for part one, or should we keep going?
Speaker 1:um well, let's just wrap up part one, and then we'll um, where do you want to stop part one?
Speaker 2:do you want to get on the boat?
Speaker 1:I think we should stop right now, before we get on the boat, cause we had to spend the night in.
Speaker 2:Vancouver. Yeah, I didn't know if you wanted to talk about the dropping our bags and getting on the boat and what they took from me.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, We'll start with that Um in the next episode.
Speaker 2:this is a long one, so this was the first little first part of three days and two nights alaska trip of the dead mom scavenger hunt trip.
Speaker 1:One alaska and then we will um to be continued.
Speaker 2:Thanks for joining us. Check out thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1:When the next episode drops, we'll talk about getting on the boat where we we went in Alaska the stops, the food, all the things and you can find.
Speaker 2:You can email us at dmshpod, at gmailcom. Our Instagram is at dmshpod and again, I will post all of our Alaska stupidity and craziness in highlights.
Speaker 1:Yes, I will start with alaska one and also drop us. Just drop us a message and tell us what you think and, um, let us know if you've ever been to alaska or to vancouver or bellingham and what you loved, in case somebody else wants to take the trip, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you adopted any of those cute puppies, the one that I was looking at, she was half Mastiff and half Pitbull and she was black and white and I think her name was Dottie right, she had dots. Oh, if you adopted Dottie, oh, you're a lucky, lucky human. All right, that's it, bye, bye.
