Pacific coast hwy and Redwoods

We write is entry from just north of San Francisco, the heart of wine country. Could be trouble we will let you all know in the next post.

The drive down the OR coast and northern CA. coast line has been spectacular at times and very intimidating at others. The cliffs are amazing as are the views. On this portion of the trip we spotted several more whales, one was flat enormous. We also stopped at the sea lion caves, the largest natural sea cave in the world and while the lions we not home we did spot one on the rocks. We were both more excited to leave the caves then to enter them.

Finally, we spent the day in the Ave of the Giants Redwood forest. Those are some big, tall, old trees. The oldest we saw was estimated to be between 950 and 1,000 years old, 363 ft tall with a 53.2 ft circumference.

More in a few days

All about Amy

Anyone who knows Amy really well, knows how much she LOVES the ocean…This is all about her, and oh by the way….she is so connected with pa… hope it comes out in the pictures. Love ya Missy

Depoe bay Or

Holy crap it is cold here! Now that I have that off my chest, let me also say that the last few days on the Oregon coast were historic warm temps...for them. The first day we were here was the second day this year over 70 degrees. What they neglect to mention is that it is 70 degrees when the sun is out and 53.2 degrees when the fog rolls in. We won't even discuss the nighttime temps! We stopped here to take a breath for a few days and it has been wonderful.

The campground is the only one in this area with beach frontage and we were lucky enough to be right on the beach. While here we saw several Grey Whales and many Harbor Seals. The first whale we saw was referred to by the locals as a "juvenile" and was as big as our truck, awesome. The seals were just watching us watch them and just out of reach. It was kinda as if they were thinking...how does it feel?

Another great experience

Mt St Helens

We almost passed on the trip to Mt St Helens, we had heard about it on the news when we were teenagers and just were not sure. Well between Ranger Todd's animated presantation, the views and the very well done movies at visitors center 1 and Johnston ridge we were very glad we went. We left the mountain with not only a new understanding of the volcano but as Ranger Todd stated in his presantation of the events leading up to May 18th 1980 a "feeling of being small and insignificant".

Anyone can research the eruption and the months leading up to it so I won't write a book. The shear size of the movement of earth and the velocity and distance rocks flew is just utterly shocking. In one of the photos you see Missy's hand by a rock to show the size. This rock flew five miles at 600 miles per hour to arrive at Johnston ridge. In another photo you can see the fallen trees and braced behind the hill dead but standing trees. These trees are 10 miles from the mountian and were simply blown down in the rock storm that had temps of up to 650 degrees. Hope you like the photos.

Heading south now in hopes of warmth and whales

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.