Oregon and ATV's

So I'm updating this from CALIFORNIA!!! we made it out all the way west! It was a long haul but here we are, ready to enjoy the sunshine state! Before we left Oregon though we had a blast while we were in Florence. We started off the day visiting the worlds largest sea cave that just happens to be occupied by sea lions. While there are hundreds of these guys around, we only saw a few since they were out feeding. None the less the cave is very interesting and gave us a great view of the Pacific ocean and a lighthouse to boot! Now, that was fun, but the best part of the day for me was when we went ATV-ing on some dunes a little further down the coast. I had never been before and it was absolutely the most fun ever!

The view from the Sea Lion cave!

It was thrilling to rocket up the dunes at 20ish MPH with nothing between you and the rest of the environment.  Pictures of both and below!

Jenn at the top of a dune!

Me riding down a dune!

Wizard Island and the surrounding lake.

 Ok, to the right is the last picture of the Sea Lion Cave, you can see a Sea Lion in the picture above!











Today we had our last Hurrah in Oregon at Crater Lake! It was absolutely breath-taking and well worth it! We took two amazing hikes and went to two extremes in the park, down to the water and up to a fire observation post! The views were spectacular and it felt good to get back into the whole hiking thing. Here are a few (of many) pictures!

Another view of Wizard Island.

The water was clear enough to see down to 400 feet in some spots!

A view from the bank.

Oregon!

So we've had a pretty crazy and fun filled couple of days! So much has happened I don't even know where to begin. I guess the first thing to tell you is that we discovered the Oregon outlets when Ryan was recovering from being sick, and Ryan discovered Eddie Bauer... I think I may have created a fashion monster :) Even the girl working at the store noticed he was "all decked out in Eddie Bauer," but I must say he does look great as you can see for yourselves later. We also took a tour of the Astoria Column in Astoria (Oregon, not Queens) its basically a marker America built to say we own this country back in the 1800s so that no other countries could come "discover" it. We picked the perfect day for it though, the only day it hasn't rained so far, and after climbing some 200 ft up we could see for miles from the top of the column. Finally, after some serious shopping and climbing, we headed on to Portland which is a lot like the village in NYC. There's a couple tallish buildings, lots of people, street fairs, and a giant copper woman (except she was more kneeling than welcoming you to the country..).  They also had their own subarbanish city area much like Brooklyn. We stayed there at the Kennedy School, an amazing hotel. Up until about 1960s it was a functioning elementary school, but has since been reconverted into a great hotel complete with chalk boards and a cloak room in your room. The best part about it though was that there were five or six bars, a pool/courtyard, and a pub theater in the hotel. The pub theater only being a few doors down from our room and included in our stay. Needless to say we had a lot of fun there.  Competing for our favorite Oregon hotel though was our next stop at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport. Here every room is based off a different author from Hemingway to Tolkien. Our assignment was the JK Rowling Room, all of Gryffindors finest with ocean views to boot! We're having a great time in Oregon so far and can't help planning a return trip with all of our friends! We're going a little slower than we'd like since we both keep feeling under the weather, but hope to be in California soon! I guess that's enough for now, we all know you just want to see the pictures anyway and we've got some good ones for you! Enjoy!

The Astoria Column

2 Views From the Top

The Pacific!

Yeah, That's the wall Free Willy jumped over... NBD

Sometimes the driving bits get boring, especially if your not the one driving. That and having fun with my vest..

Our "Classroom" at the Kennedy School in Portland

Ryan is in detention- the bar is closed! Don't worry though we found another one in the depths of the Boiler Room.

Ryan really enjoying the Pub Theater (Between shows)

Waiting for the second show to start, and for our dessert to be served!

We made it to the Pacific!!

Harry Potter Room - Don't tell the hotel, I'm pretty sure your not suppose to detach decorations from the ceiling and try to ride them.

A cool bridge over a Pacific bay.

Lake Quinault

Alrighty.

Now that I'm feeling better after a few days rest, its time to post again! We stayed at a wonderful hotel at Lake Quinault in Washington, it's part of Olympic National Park and it was beautiful there! We went on a small hike and got to see some amazing forested areas and we saw an Elk too! It was just enough of a little hike to keep us entertained while I slept most of the day away.

Anywho, you've already seen the picture of Jenn in a tree so I wont post it again, but here are a few pictures from our nature hike!

A cool tree!

Moss

The Forest

What the sky looked like with all that tree cover!

One of our Elk friends in the forest! There were a few of them!

Book Fail

Please see the two pacific coast maps from the same book! Unfortunately the actual route unlike our hopes and dreams does not go by crater lake as promised by front map :(

How does this happen???

Front Page Maps

Route Map

 

 

 

 

 

Two Washington Favorites (So Far)

Well we finally made it to Seattle.  As my usual inner fat child, I have to say my favorite part so far was the epitome of a perfect road trip diner. Not only was the diner a refurbished Mobil station, but the food was deeelisious and the people super friendly.  They even made me what seems to be my new favorite, veggie burger with a fried egg and cheese on top! Check out a couple of the pictures below to see why it was just the right place for our trip! The other favorite? Nerd Alert it's the EMP - The Experience Music Project, Ryan got to explore his one true love (see pictures) and I got to pretend I was way more technologically advanced and lived on Pandora. If you don't understand I suggest you watch James Cameron's Avatar. I'm sure Ryan will tell you about all the other cool things we did so I won't bother getting into it all over again.  Oh and a special shout out to Rose and Matt, in case you were worried that four years of Wagner Tuition was being wasted on this trip- Ryan is using his college education quite nicely in Seattle.

Ryan takes his sound work very seriously.

But he might also be a DJ

The tower of guitars!

Inside the Diner...

And from the outside! It's really got no gas, just food.

On the Road Again.

Ryan and I finally made it back on the road. If we've learned one thing its that you can't run away from life - it always catches up to you somehow. So we're continuing on not as a break from life but a chance to explore it. A little different and a lot colder we arrived in Montana yesterday. For those of you wondering what a car full of crap is like after a month it's not as bad as you'd think. After a quick stop for laundry and new towels we were on our way west again. Everything checked out okay so far until (of course) the tent, which dripping wet and slightly disgusting is now hanging over the balcony of our hotel room. So much for our backpacking adventures. Here's hoping that a little air and sunshine can work wonders. For you our lovely readers who've come back and joined us again here are a few shots from the plane to keep you entertained until we see you in Seattle!

Ps: I've also learned to update from my ipod so watch out!

The Fun is Back.

Okay so for those of you hoping to follow us or who happen to be in Wyoming at some point there were some things we really really enjoyed. Mostly in the way of food. Our two awesome recommendations are Peter's Cafe and Bakery in Cody and The Bunnery in Jackson Hole.. so good!

Anyways we are currently here at the Backpackers Hostel in Montana, very relaxed and fun. Meeting some great people and even got to make ourselves a real dinner in a real kitchen!! Had a great day.. here's a few more pictures of our drive through Wyoming, Idaho and Montana so far. Tomorrow relaxing and tubing!

Driving

The biggest cup of root beer we could find - this one's for you Curran!

Wyoming has it out for us....

We are just not having a lot of luck in Wyoming. You heard about the flat tire and me getting sick, well now its Ryan's turn. We LOVE the Grand Tetons, however they do not love us. Half way up a very steep hike we got word of a bear in our trail. At this point its starting to get late so we think we'll just hike around the path where the bear is and still try to get to our campsite at the top of the mountain. That is until Ryan got very sick. Several miles in either direction we decided it would be safer to hike back down, and try and find him a real bed and back down the mountain we went. About two miles from the parking lot we saw a grizzly bear, not too close, but enough to make us want to pick up the pace... pooor Ryan. Then it got dark... what fun! So with all of our new found elite bear skills we sang our way down the mountain with flashlights and cellphones glowing found a campsite on the ground (every lodge was already full!) and slept it off. Feeling much better today we've decided to take a break in Bozeman Montana... wish us luck! More fun is on the way. Here are some of my awesome pictures, I also have some very cool videos of hail storms and old faithful that you will want to see!

More Buffalo on the road.

ahhh Yellowstone in December... I mean August... WHAT??

Hail left over on the tent

Hiking! (Don't mind my eye its just messed up right now)

Ryan takes a rest on the mountain!

View from the hike

More hiking views