Day 62

Wednesday, July 31

Made it to Yellowstone today.  Our first stop was the Boiling River where we went swimming.  Awesome!  The water is so hot where it comes out of the ground, and the river water is so cold!  What a contrast.

Next stop - Mammoth Hot Springs.  We hiked all around the hot springs.  Really amazing.  A little smelly...  but not too bad.

Then we drove out to Lamar Valley.  We were skeptical.  The visitor's center staff had said that this was the place to go to see wildlife.  We didn't see anything and didn't see anything and then WHAM! Boy did we see things!  There was this HUGE herd of buffalo (bison) and they were everywhere!  Way cool!

And finally, on our way back to the trailer, we saw a little bear.  He was really cute.

Tomorrow we move the trailer into a campground right in Yellowstone and we'll go see Old Faithful.

Day 61

Tuesday, July 30

We drove today.  And drove.  And drove some more.  Left Washington, went through Idaho, and ended up in Montana.

Have never been in Idaho or Montana.

Kept looking for the "big sky" - but it was kinda cloudy/hazy so I don't think we got to experience the  whole "big sky" thing.

All in all, very pretty country...

Day 60

Monday, July 29

Greetings from Cheney, Washington (just west of Spokane).  We're in a cute little park (28 sites) nestled in the pine trees.  No real amenities to speak of but there is cable TV and WIFI.  What more could a person want?

We got a later-than-normal start this morning but were still able to put in more-than-normal driving time.  We'd like to reach Yellowstone by Wednesday afternoon; and we're starting to look at the distance to the UP and are hoping we can get to Houghton by Monday, August 12 (2 weeks from today).  It's a goal anyway...

Amazing how the landscape changed (along with the temps!) as soon as we got away from Seattle and the Cascades!  It suddenly got a lot drier, warmer, and flatter!  Back to having windows open and almost needing to turn on the air!  Haven't had air conditioning on for quite some time now.

Tomorrow we'll add a couple more states to our list:  Idaho and Montana.  Very cool!

Day 59

Sunday, July 28

Returned from our cruise to Alaska this morning.  What an amazing trip.  Really glad we did it - and glad we did it with a cruise.

Never did figure out why there's an outdoor pool on an Alaskan cruise - except that the Norwegian Pearl only cruises Alaska in the summer - it winters in the carribean where the outside pool makes all the sense in the world!

Downtown Seattle (from the boat)

Leaving Seattle

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So, we're "home" from the cruise, preparing meals for travel and doing up laundry.  We'll hit the road in the morning...  Next stop:  Yellowstone.

Right now we're hoping for just a little sunshine and some warmer temps.  :)

Day 51

Saturday, July 20

Gettin' ready for the big cruise tomorrow.  Don't know what we were thinkin'...  It's pretty chilly up here in the Pacific Northwest!

First day here, went into Seattle - found the pier, had lunch at the space needle, took pictures of the city.  Yesterday, spent the day (literally the whole day!) in the Olympic National Park.  Went up to hurricane ridge to see Mt. Olympus in one direction and the straight of San Juan de fuca in the other direction.

We hiked up to the marymere falls and hiked in the rainforest.  Also stopped at Ruby Beach.  Mountains, beach, rain forests, waterfalls...  All in one park!  But you gotta drive all day long to get around to all these places.

No more driving now for awhile...  After we get to the boat tomorrow, we get to let someone else do the driving!