Last Day Seattle

Three travelers from New York with different modes of transportation met in lovely Seattle. Bill, Susi and I have spent the last few days in Seattle and are now all heading different directions. Susi and I are heading to Canada for the next few weeks so our telephones won't be working so if you need to get in touch with us email or the blog will work the best. Bill is reliving the planes, trains and automobiles but with no trains or automobiles so I guess that is a bad analogy, Bill is touring the USA and Canada for the next month on his lovely BMW. Goodbye USA see you in the next few weeks.

Dixies in Seattle

Thanks Rodney!! We made it to Dixies in Bellavue for some delicous ribs and cornbread. We did have difficulty finding the location but thanks to a woman who is a vegan we were able to find the fine establishment.

Marmot

Well Seattle welcomed us today with the weather that Seattle is most famous for....rain mixed with rain. We went to Mt. Rainier to hike and got rained on and had wonderful views of fog. We did however see numerous marmots. This little fellow even posed so that we could take a photo of him.

Space Needle

Charles finally arrived last night or should I say today after a few plane transfers and a short layover in Dallas. We went to the space needle, the photo in the blog and also to the fish market to purchase food for another barbecue. Spent the day wandering around Seattle and visiting some of the tourist locations. The three of us managed to go to REI and only purchase a book. Congratulations Nancy and Ross wish we were there!!!

Seattle Car Show

We arrived in Seattle the other evening and spent a lovely evening in a Walmart parking lot and I must say the Walmart Parking lots seem to be the place to live on the West Coast. In Bend Oregon and other locations the people actually take up residence in the parking lot and have yard sales in the Walmart parking lot during the weekend. We are staying at Julianne's house in Seattle as we are planning on traveling in and around Seattle with our friend Charles if he ever shows up... After realizing Charles missed his flight Susi and I went to a car show and even though we didn't win first place for our lovely Lulu we entered our other sweet ride in for the MTV show Pimp my ride.

Hail Storm

The weather in Smith Rock Oregon has been bizarre, the other day it was freezing then hail and pouring rain. The photo is of a movie theater that Susi and I went to in Bend shortly after the hail storm. The movie theater was great it only cost six dollars for the two of us and you can order beer and food and they bring it to you during the movie. We are in Portland now so Jay we missed the other Jay and Julianne we were sorry we missed you but we will hopefully meet up with you when we get to Seattle in the next week. Dad and Papa Happy Belated Father's Day we miss you both.

Crater Lake

We just drove 550 miles to Crater Lake to find out that the park isn't opened until this weekend because of all the snow....just like out of the movie Vacation with Chevy Chase. The funds are getting low so we decided to trade Lulu in for this sweet ride...just kidding Lulu we won't do that to you since we just dropped $700 dollars on new brakes after we left San Fransisco poor timing. Dad you were right by the end of the trip the only original part on her is going to be the gear shifter knob. We took some pictures of crater lake while we stood in the snow as you can see from this photo in the crater lake parking lot but they didn't come out that well. Well I guess we are going to Smith Rock where we know the campground is free and there isn't snow.

Yosemite Falls

Okay the last photo of Yosemite. So many great photos of the valley but I really liked this photo of upper and lower Yosemite Falls. You can really see the amount of water flowing into the valley. The view is from the top of the Taft Point lookout.

The valley

I wish they had camping for at least an evening because there is so much to see inside the park and so much rock to climb. We are splitting our days between climbing and hiking. The photo is of mirror lake with Half Dome on the rightside of the photo. We did a short little hike today that was only suppose to be a mile but turned out to be 5 after a few wrong turns and no way to cross the normally small stream. There has been so snow this year that the streams are flowing at full capacity. All the snow has made the park so vibrant but half of the campgrounds aren't opened yet. Maybe next time we will plan ahead and make reservations....na..it is better to be spontaneous. Well off to Crater Lake, I hope the snow hasn't closed the park...Ha, Ha a park closed what a laugh.

Oh my the bears

After getting turned away from campgrounds in Yosemite we drove outside the park and parked the car on an old logging road for the night. We were so paranoid about the bears that I opened up my swiss army knife and had it handy to ward off any of the bears that might try to get into the car. If anyone hasn't seen the inside of our car we have all of our food right inside next to the bed....probably not the smartest thing I have done in my life.

Sequoia Trees

The photo is of the root system of a Sequoia Tree in Yosemite National Park. We are only going to stay a few days since half of the park isn't open and we can't get a campsite because of all the snow this winter. We went to camp 4 to try to weasle in with some other dirtball climbers but the park service is cracking down on the free loaders and is handing out tickets or towing cars...way to much drama for Susi and I so we have to leave the park each night drive out and find a parking spot outside of the park. We did however run into Florida Chris as we were wandering around camp 4.

Big Chief

Here is Susi climbing a 5.9 in Tahoe at a cliff called Big Chief. We have really enjoyed the time in Tahoe even though the weather hasn't quite cooperated. Shortly after this photo was taken the heavens let loose and it rained and hailed just in time for Jay to get soaked after hiking up a treacherous hill to meet us at the cliff after work (I think it is a requirement to have the name Jay or Jason to live in the Tahoe area). We have had requests from people out there to publish more photos so we will try to include more on the blog. Joe we did make it to Lover's Leap and managed to climb surrealistic pillar and a few other lines in between the rain showers...I would include some more photos of this area but I took the photos on Jayson's camera and he hasn't emailed them to me yet....hint,hint, hint .

Oregon

On our drive to Jay and Laura's house Jay told me about some friends who were going to Smith Rock for the weekend so we decided to catch a ride with them and parked Lulu in Jay's driveway and broke out the tent for some real roughing it. Had an excellent weekend of climbing and sitting around a campfire eating take out pizza. The pizza didn't sit well with all of us on the car ride home and neither did the two seperate times we got pulled over by the police. We are going to stay in Tahoe for awhile not sure how long because we haven't been able to do too much since it snowed the other day and today it is raining. We are definetely eating well each night thanks to Jay and Laura's excellent culinary skills and tonight Sushi!!!Oh yeah by the way the photo is of Me, Susi, Rebecca, Jay (not the one who we are staying with but the Sushi Chef), Laura and last but not least another Jay.

San Fransisco

We got a free shower at this youth Hostel near Castle Rock and then drove to San Fransisco. Spent the entire day walking up and down hills and doing the tourist thing. We are going to come back to San Fransisco but we only had time for a short stay because we are going to meet Jay and Laura in Lake Tahoe for the weekend. Woke up with the worst head rush after trying to sleep on the hills of San Fransisco....we are going to look for a better camping site next time.

Castle Rock State Park

We are in Castle Rock State park and are only planning on staying for two days before heading to San Fransisco and then to Lake Tahoe. Well that is our plan and you know how things go when you don't really need to be anywhere...you sort of miss dead lines and plans go out the window. Oh by the way don't forget to look at the two last postings from May.