Olympic National park

Our expectations were not high when we came over to Olympic. We thought it would be like Glacier but to our pleasant surprise it was nothing like any of the other parks.

We got to see the largest virgin rain forest in the western hemisphere (who knew), see the worlds largest spruce tree after a somewhat intimidating hike through the rain forest and watch a seal hunting off the coast...very cool. The rain forest was a very different landscape from anything we have ever seen. It was very rugged and dark, yet really alive and kind of spooky. The coast was also a unique experience 200 yards from the beach it was blue sky and sunny, as you will see from the pics it was completely different on the beach.

For those who have witnessed Amy by the ocean herding waves you will recognize how intense she looks.

We are in the Mount St Helen's area today and will head south tomorrow.

Seattle WA

Seattle has been great, we have both been craving seafood for a month and after 5 seafood meals in 4 days we are again ready for beef. No trip to Seattle is complete without a trip to the Space Needle which was nice (the weather was cooperative) but as you might guess a bit touristy.

Far more impressive to us was the trip to Pike place Market a huge and vibrant farmers market. We were first made aware of this place in a motivational training session Trey put on years ago for his sales team based on the FISH theory. It was awesome to be reminded in a firsthand account how the power of fun in the work place can make any job enjoyable and can help any company be successful. It is certainly no more obvious than in the fish market at Pike Place where the 20 lb full fish are hurled over customers to the packing tables. Employees are hooping and hollering and interaction with the hundreds of customers shuffling to get close enough to buy something. We ate two lbs of salmon and shipped some home, if we had a bigger freezer we would have been a bigger customer. It was just fun to be there. These guys are working in a fish store, on a dock in an open air market and were having the times of their lives, it was obvious and real, so cool to see. Across the street is the first Starbucks store which was also fun to see but the locals tell us it is not hip to do Starbuck’s, instead they opt for one of hundreds of smaller coffee shops. I am shaking with jitters as I type.

We also took a day trip to Mt-Rainier, a really big hill (14,400) that is also the snowiest place in the 48 states (100 ft per year). As I mentioned in the last post we saw this rock 80 miles away but no view is as good as the one from downtown Seattle with the evening sun bouncing off the snow. The road trip through the park was very pretty and easy compared to both Yellowstone and Glacier. Missy spotted a Steller’s Jay really cool looking bird but just awesome in flight.

Kay, per your request, we asked Amy to stay away from the wine so we could get a good shot and she swore she did, enjoy.

Love you all

Road trip from Glacier to Seattle

It snowed in Glacier on our last day and the highs were in the 50's. It was almost an invitation to leave on a two day trip to Seattle. We decided to stay in Coeur d' Alene Idaho our first night it was a nice town and allow us to check ID off the list of states we have camped in. The mountains in ID were again huge and we were able to view a wonderful and crystal clear waterfall.

We put the pictures of the hay storage partially because they were vast and impressive but also in case Max Hartman pops in, we though he would enjoy.

The single most impressive part of the trip was the view of Mt-Rainier, the tallest peak in the northwest from around Vantage WA, 80 miles away. It was like you could reach out and touch it.

We are in Seattle until early next week.

Glacier Nat'l Park

We finish August at Glacier Nat’l Park. After spending considerable time yesterday talking to folks who have been to the park or live nearby we decided to leave earlier this morning for our best shot at seeing a bear. Bingo, about 18 miles in to a 96 mile trip and after taking a few pictures of mule deer 8 ft from the truck there the elusive bugger was walking down the street like we weren’t there. We were able to get two pictures before it disappeared in to the brush, unfortunately neither were very good.

A bit further up the road we could check the mountain goat off the list of animals that allowed us to stand three feet from them and take a picture. A couple huge eagles and that completes our list of animal sightings at Glacier.

If you close your eyes and picture the park on a beautiful late summer day with a light breeze, brilliant sunshine and moderate temperatures then, that would be, the exact opposite of what we had today. We had the opportunity to experience this park in some extreme conditions and it was a very interesting contrast to Yellowstone. When we entered the park it was 54 two hours later at the summit it was 35 with a mild 40 mph breeze and the occasional trip through the clouds. It was amazing.

The drive as you can see is a path called “going to the sun”, many thought this road couldn’t be built and it is easy to see why. Our mirrors were in most of the trip and several times one wheel was on the edge of the pavement or a couple inches from the rocks. It was a gorgeous 6 hour drive.

Yellowstone Grand Tetons

Yellowstone and the grand Tetons are so amazing that it is hard to explain, thanks John R for the tip on the Tetons. The fires in 88 are still obvious but the 2.2 million acres of cliffs, waterfalls, wildlife and wilderness are crazy beautiful. Still no bears, but Missy got the greatest picture of a female Elk one could expect, keep in mind when looking at it that there is zero zoom from the camera.

We were able to see more Buffalo, Eagles, Anolope and new were Coyotes, Grey wolf, a strangely aggressive Raven tiring to get my glove and tons of Elk. All in all we planned, after talking with the ranger, to spend 6 hours the first day, 7 hours the second day and 2. 5 hours the last day viewing the parks. We ended up spending 29 hours in total but left feeling like we saw the whole park, which we didn’t.

There was a tale of two buffalo carcasses six mile from the northeast entrance being guarded by a 700 lb grizzly; we shot out there and nothing. The bear is, by our estimation, fake but the drive was amazing. In addition to the wildlife is a landscape that is alive with boiling hot springs, geysers, pools and extemreophiles (organisms that live in extreme conditions)

Wow ….just, wow hope you like the pics.