Driving through Ashland

Earth Date: 2014 July 18th
Location: Idaho and Montana

Another long day of driving today. Our first stop was at a small diner in Moscow, Idaho. [Morgan cannot see Russia from his house, but he can almost see Moscow.] I looked for postcards that read From Moscow with Love, but much to my disappointment I could not find anything. However, we were treated to a Red Dawn, and a red sky in the morning, and afternoon,.....

We were aware of the fires in central Washington, however we were not aware of the fires in Oregon (many lighting strikes), Idaho, and Canada. The smoke reached all the way across to Helena, Montana. Pictures of the smoke cover can be found here.

The red sky in Moscow, Idaho

Other than the odd color of the sky, the drive was uneventful. Half an hour from our final destination, we stopped at the small town of Columbia Falls, Montana for dinner.

It was harder than we expected to find places we could all agree on. I was certainly surprised by the variety of the eateries. The first thing we vetoed as a group were the large commercial chains: the Pizza Hut, the Dairy Queen, and the Burger King. Next we tried some of the local establishments downtown, with the boarded up windows and the extras for Sons of Anarchy inside. As we made our way around these fine establishments (and crossing them off one-by-one) we noted an officer making the same rounds.

After wandering through the town we finally settled on one of two eating establishments that seemed small and local, without being future or past set pieces on Cops. It seems that everyone else in town had the same idea, so it was a bit of a wait. All in all, our "detour to grab a quick bite to eat" swallowed up about 2 hours of our time.

It was dark by the time we set up camp at Fishing Creek Campground (by lake McDonald), so we would have to wait until the next day to see how bad the ash was.

That's the ticket!

Earth date: 2014, July 17th
Location: Across Washington


We made up for the short drive from Seattle to Anacortes by making a 437 mile trip to Pullman, Washington. This would have been a significant detour as our next major stop was Glacier National Park, however we were picking up Morgan Kelley -- a fourth passenger on our trip. As it turned out, we would have had to make a similar detour even if we were not picking up Morgan, as massive wildfires had spread through central Washington.

Avoiding the fires

We stopped (briefly) in Ellensburg to fill up the prius, and while doing so Amanda came across a rather pathetic and hungry-looking horse. We gave it water and some of the spare fruit we had lying around before continuing on our way.

We picked Morgan up in Richland, where he has been working over the summer. It was quite a change from the rather cool Seattle and Anacortes: the temperatures in Richland were a little over 100 F (37 C).

Other than the annoyingly hot temperatures, we had another issue to deal with: space! With a fourth passenger, and an already bursting prius, space was at a premium. We had attempted to deal with U-Haul to get a hitch attached to the back of our car, and then rent a trailer but this had failed. A tip for everyone else out there: if U-Haul make appointments and say they have things in stock don't believe them! Instead we got ourselves a "roof bag" that we strapped onto our prius:

Prius with a 'fro

We packed up in the REI parking lot, and then made our way over to Morgan's apartment in Pullman. We got to see the campus of Washington State University, and the most important football stadium of all time (go cougars!)

WSU Football stadium recognizing the many important contribution of the Martin's to gridiron

Today was also the day we learned about Eastern Washington's speed traps. Sadly we got a ticket as we went through Colfax (a small town just before Pullman). It made the mood a little dour for a couple of hours, but by the time we were packed into the apartment the mood had improved greatly.

Whale of a time in Anacortes

Earth Date: 2014, July 16th
Location: Anacortes and the San Juan Islands

Today's adventure took us 81 miles north to the small town of Anacortes, Washington. On the orca boat we headed East out into the San Juan Islands. We almost made it over to Canada!

Our drive, and final whale watching location

Despite the rumors of Washington's weather, we had a very pleasant day out on the water. The tour was about 4 hours long, but that included stopping in the San Juan Islands to pick up and drop off passengers. Amanda holds romantic dreams of living in similar islands one day, while I fear that life will be too quiet and remote.

Orca with Olympic peninsula in the (distant) background

The breach in "Free Willy" looked way more impressive =)

Spy-hopping orca popping up to see what is going on

The sad seal

Orca in front of False Bay

The seals were not too happy about the orcas in the water! However there were some creatures on the ocean that day that were very happy to see the majestic porpoises:

View from the top

Earth Date: 2014, July 14th
Location: Top of the Space Needle

A short post showing off the emerald city from the top of the Space Needle.

The city at dusk 

...... and again at night. Mt Rainier is just barely visible in the background.

Photos of the Mt Rainier hikes

Mt Rainier and the reflecting pools

Earth Dates: 2014, July 12th and 13th
Location: Along the route from Paradise to Sunrise, Mt Rainier National Park

Amanda and Zach have already covered our hikes throughout Mt Rainier National Park. This post will contain very few words; instead my goal is simply to add a few pictures from our hike.

As navigator, I will add a map showing the parts of the park that we visited throughout our two days. The short version is we went from Longmire -- Ohanapecosh -- Sunrise, making the southern and eastern edges of a "box" around Rainier. [Given that we were stained in Ohanapecosh, the order we did this trail is not as advertised above!] The detailed picture:

Map of our trail

Onto the pictures with captions:

Grove of the Patriarchs: A cool swing bridge and some large trees, but not much else.

Amanda at Box Canyon lookout

Stump of destiny (Box Canyon Springs)

Mt Rainier as seen from the trail to Myrtle Waterfall (trailhead at Paradise)

Gopher (?) checking out the surroundings

Amanda at Narada Falls

View on the trail to Dege Peak

Power pose