Steel trees and Frozen Volcanoes

In Seattle we cruised around on our bikes and almost got pinched by the cops for not wearing helmets, oops. Checked out the troll under the bridge, gasworks park, Olympic sculpture park, Pikes place public market, the Space Needle from afar ($15 a piece to ride an elevator?! no thanks.) and the original Starbucks. It was such a hot day, there were so many sailboats on the water and picnickers in the parks. We stayed with Michael's friends Ari and Pamela, super neat people with two adorably boisterous kids and their flat faced kitte' in Snoqualmie. It was really nice to stay with a young family.

We're still on our free camping and couch surfing streak. Since we got on the road near the end of July we've paid for three camp sites (grand canyon back country, a night in Utah and Crater Lake) and one hostel (during a rain storm in Moab, Utah). We've been really lucky to meet such neat people couch surfing. Elizabeth and Brandon in Bend got us thinking more about working for ourselves. Owen and Terra in Portland inspired us to start home brew once we have a home and are settled. Pamela and Ari gave us a lot of neat suggestions on stuff to check out and made us consider wine tasting to supplement the brews and let us play with secret unreleased video game technology.

After two nights in Snoqualmie we got back on the road and headed to Mount Rainier on a drizzly day. Got to walk around the flower meadows in the fog, which seemed to make the purples, pinks and greens really pop. We headed up to see a glacier up close, but couldn't make it out in the fog, all wasn't lost though--we saw plenty of chubby little marmots and had a snowball fight.

We're cruising through Idaho, again, on our way to Glacier National Park.

shellfishapalooza and everything up until now

On Sunday we started off for Olympic National Park.

Along the way we made a stop off at Mount Saint Helen's and gaped at the giant crater in it.

Sunset magazine told us about a delta, Twanoh State Park, that had swimming as warm as so cal. When we got there there were shells everywhere. After talking to some friendly Washington locals we got turned on to shell fish hunting.

Picked up a day license and we were on our way. We got our limit of oysters and these weren't those wimpy oyster shooters, these oysters were like the size of your palm! And below all those oyster shells were more shells! Clams!

We had a shell fish feast for lunch, dinner and dinner the next day!
I think it'll be a while before either of us will be eating shell fish again.

We passed on swimming and headed onward to Olympic national park where we saw a glacier on Olympic Peak, a deer in a meadow, temperate rain forest, a lot of ferns and moss, a dead banana slug, a lotta starfish, anemone's, tube worms and frolicking otters.

We made it to Seattle yesterday and walked around public market, lingered a little too long in front of the fish mongers, but alas, nobody ordered any fish so we missed out the flying fish experience. Went to the original Starbuck's where Marisa missed her coffee buddy. Had a beer at Hale's Brewery and made our way to our home base for the next couple of nights; Snoqualmie where we will stretch out in the mother-in-law quarters of Ari & Pamela, their cute kids and flat faced kitteh.

Why we like Portland

The drive north has been beautiful, lush green, lots of flowers, misty foggy mornings, tons of bikers touring south.

We went to Tillamook! And ate some cheese and saw the cheese production line.


Portland has lots of breweries, lots of bicycles, lots of bridges, lots of nice people and lots of food.

We moved from the Walmart parking lot to a park to have our breakfast. We were very close to being under a bridge at this particular park but we are not at that point yet.

The 8th floor of a parking garage is where we set up base camp for the day then we jumped on the bikes, rode down the spiral ramp and shot out onto the streets of Portland. There is the ginormous Powell's City of Books which is basically one city block of books and requires a map to navigate. There are parking lots full of food trucks of every kind. There's a forest park in the city.

We visited the Lucky Labrador Brewery, had a beer then took a bottle to go and proceeded to cruise and look at stuff and things and whatever...I guess we didn't do all that much but we definitely give Portland the thumbs up.

We're going to head to Mt. Taber and the international rose test garden before we start north toward Washington this evening.

We met up with our friend Michael at Crater Lake National Park a few days ago.
Probably a place we could have gotten away with spending just a day, but it was nice to relax and hang out with a friend.

Crater Lake was pretty awesome, a volcano erupted way back when and left a giant crater which became the deepest, clearest lake in the U.S. We didn't fish, but we jumped into the 53 degree water a few times.

The hiking was nice, the weather was agreeable and the food and company were excellent.

On our way north we stopped at a sweet hot springs. About six soaking pools in total staggered down the mountain side a little ways above the Umpqua River. Pretty beautiful and serene until the two van loads of 14-16 year olds arrived (they didn't last long once it started to rain), made our way back to the truck and took a shower in the rain in the middle of the road.

We headed up towards Newport and stopped at a beach along the way.
(So there's no sales tax in Oregon, but it costs money to go to the beach and utilize the day use areas. Crazy.)
So we went to the beach at night, skipped the fee payment station, ran up the grassy dunes and towards the empty white beach. Albert gets butt naked and runs around like a mad man towards the water. (it was a naked day)

Today we stopped by Rogue Brewing on our way into Newport and enjoyed some tasty beers (unfortunately not free), now waiting it out in Starbucks before we head further north.

Bend, Oregon with a side of beer please

Our first couch surfing experience couldn't be in a better place.
Bend is super chill, similar vibe to our hood in Oakland, but in the mountains, along a river and without the ghetto element. We couldn't hang out with our host family (Elizabeth and Brandon), because they're gainfully employed. But they're pretty neat people that live in a sweet house in a bitchen place.

We needed a break from hiking and driving. So rather than take advantage of the awesome hiking, lakes and river in the area (we'll save that stuff for next time) we opted to ride our bikes around and drink beer. We started off our day by taking a tour of Deschutes Brewing Company and sampling all the beers we could in the tasting room. Next up: Lunch and another beer! (yes, we were drinking before lunch, but it's free beer--how could we refuse!)

After some more cruising and talking to local craftspeople we napped in the park by the Dechutes River.

We were enjoying ourselves so much, we forgot to take pictures. So, we'll just have to come back.

Tomorrow: Meeting up with Michael at Crater Lake, hiking, camping, drinking.

S.L.C. to Boise

We're now killing some time at a coffee shop in Bend, Oregon before we head over to meet our couch hosts. We spent the last 48 hours driving and chilling, first in Salt Lake City, where the houses are charming and the many Mormon missionary's are sweet as pie.

Had an awesome dinner at the Red Iguana in S.L.C., super gourmet Mexican food, delicious peach margarita...with left overs for breakfast.

Finally busted the bikes out in S.L.C. and rode around Liberty Park, downtown and over to Temple Square. A block of Mormon worship, the temple was pretty incredible, 177 rooms, that took 40 years to build by hand starting in 1853. There were a whole lot of missionaries, we met a girl from the Philippines and one from Nicaragua. Super friendly girls that said we could see the inside of the Temple...if we converted (in so few words). We opted for a scale model and pictures, and a little history in one of the THREE visitor centers in the square.

Made it to The Great Salt Lake on our way out of Utah and stuck a toe in, but failed to make it to the salt flats.

Drove onto Boise, Idaho. Got out the bikes again, and rode a little ways on the green belt along the river, one of the best bike paths we've seen yet. We didn't make it out to the lakes (at the end of the path), though we drove past them. We did however make it to a sub an empanada place called Tango's with awesome food and awesome owners.

On Sunday we're heading to Crater Lake to hang out and hike for a couple of days with our friend Mike (our first meet up on the road!) and then on to Portland!

FIVE National Parks in six days!?

Finished up the last Utah National Park yesterday.

Zion and Bryce had the most tourists.

Zion was nice. But, I liked the others better.
Albert says I got spoiled by the others because they all had a schtick, arches, hoodoos, mushroom shaped rocks. Zion had a nice skyline. lots of people a tour bus (car's aren't allowed on the scenic tour during prime tourist season).

The rain finally let up enough to get some good hikes in on Sunday and Monday.


When we got back from out hiking we did the dishes from our morning tail gating breakfast I went to the front for flip flops, Albert hopped into the truck checked out his solar charger, said, "Let's go!" I jumped in the truck and we took off.
On the road 12 miles outside of Zion Albert asks me to close the trucks back window, I look back, "Why is the tail gate and camp shell door open??" a quick pull over and inventory check, everything was still there, even the propane can, amazingly!


We went grocery shopping at Target yesterday, restocked on food, got a few things we needed all for 31 cents! Yeayy! Thanks to those for the gift certificates!

We're about to head to Salt Lake City, not sure what we're going to do there yet, if we don't figure it out we'll just push on to Oregon and Crater Lake.

Some of all the national parks of Utah in three sentences.

Spent the last few days in Arches, Canyonlands (Needles) and Capital Reef National Parks. Got nearly flash flooded out of Arches, got eaten by mosquitos when we weren't busy hiking in Needles and got confined to the truck by rain in Capital Reef. They were all beautiful and Utah's rainy season is pretty crazy--incredible lightning/rain storms!


Camping for free (best site yet pictured), showering in the open, getting eaten by mosquito's here and there--it's life on the road.

Montezuma Canyon Ranch

MCR was a great first WWOOFing experience! It will be hard for any other farm to come close to how bitchen MCR is. Weekday life on the ranch involved 6-7 hours of work broken up by an hour lunch. Work involved: planting grape vines, weeding fields for days (by hand), cutting down trees, fixing irrigation systems, shoveling dirt, cleaning house and framing 3 walls of a cabin. After a hard days work we typically had a beer or two, shot the shit, showered up and had a late family style dinner of massive proportions.


During our two week stay we enjoyed working for and in the company of Danny, the Rancher. We were also lucky to live and work with WWOOFers Wonseok from S. Korea and Alex & Ronan from France. For colorful commentary and ass kickin' there was Josey and full time ranch resident Chuck.

Weekend highlights include the trip to the Super Walmart with our international crew, beer pong tournament followed by a drunken trip to a waterfall, fishing, hiking and searching for arrowheads only to find tons of ancient pottery pieces and throwing them back. Danny's folks showed up for the last few days we were there so we moved from the ranch house to the trailer. The folks were great company, good cooks and makers of real margaritas so we aren't too sore about it. We had a great time at the MCR, the good times could fill pages...good times with good people, what more could we ask for?



We were so busy having a good time, we sort of fell behind on this....so we'll spend this and the next post trying to get caught up.