San Francisco and Palo Alto, CA

San Francisco is one of Jon’s favorite cities, so we allowed ourselves more time here; from Fisherman’s Wharf to the Cable Car Museum and renting bikes, we really explored the city. Days 48 – 54 September 19 – September 25, 2014 Miles 6425 – 6559 We arrived in San Francisco late in the day and checked…

Crater Lake National Park, OR

Named “Deep Blue Lake” at different times by different sets of explorers, and for a good reason. I was very impressed with Crater Lake. It was one of those places that I was worried wouldn’t meet my expectations, but it was absolutely beautiful and we had a great time there. Days 44 – 46 September…

Portland, OR

Portland was a great stop for good food and a good break between national parks on our way down the west coast. Days 42 – 44 September 13 – September 15, 2014 Miles 5397 – 5596   Next on the map was Portland and we decided to spend 2 nights there.  As usual we showed up…

Mt. Rainier National Park, WA

Mt. Rainier can be seen from Seattle, but it is a national park so we wanted the up-close and personal experience. For two nights we camped on different sides of Mt. Rainier and we did two 5 mile hikes while at the park. Days 40-42 September 11 – September 13, 2014 Miles 5218 – 5397  …

Seattle, WA

Our curse of bad rainy weather is finally over and my cold is gone! We arrived in Seattle Friday afternoon just after our host for the trip, Jon’s cousin Bill, got off of work for the weekend. Days 34 – 36 September 5 – September 7, 2014 Miles 4370 – 4649   The weather was…

Spokane, WA

Spokane was more interesting than we expected. A cute town with some nice parks and lots of walkable trendy restaurants. Days 32 – 34 September 3 – September 5, 2014 Miles 4235 – 4370   We headed out of St. Regis on route 90 to make our way towards Spokane. On the way we drove…

Glacier National Park, MT

We really enjoyed Glacier even though our time there was marred by chilly, cloudy weather. The famous Going to the Sun Road was interesting, but more than anything else we enjoyed the hikes we did at the park.   Days 27-31 August 29 – September 2, 2014 Miles 3854 – 4235   Just before entering…

Montana; Bozeman and Missoula

I should be writing about the Yellowstone backcounty hike we’d been planning for months, unfortunately my cold was still pretty bad so we cancelled and instead had some unplanned time in Bozeman, MT and Missoula, MT. Having to cancel our backcounty trip was the biggest disappointment of our travels to date. Instead Jon and I…