Because I needed to use up a LOT of vacation time

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Portland, OR

I have greatly enjoyed my time in Oregon. Today (June 7, I know this will be posted on June 8 due to timezone) my aunt, counsin Ryan, his wife Maria and her son Jimmy went up to Mt. Hood. Unfortunately the weather continued to disappoint and I saw just as much there as I did in Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens: nothing! Oh well.

We came back to the house after being away for a good long while and my counsin Jennifer came over and we had a nice family dinner. One of my aunt’s friends also came by. We had some grilled salmon, chicken, and some other delicious sides. It was the best meal I’ve had since leaving home. Home cooked meals are the best!

Anyway phase 2 of the trip is about to start. I’m rapidly running out of time. I’m cutting out seeing Crater Lake and Lake Tahoe. There simply isn’t enough time to see them anymore at this point.

The plan from now until I start the great trek east is tomorrow drive down the Orgeon coast and get to Redwood National Park, or very close to it. Tuesday I’ll tour Redwood National Park a bit and then start a hard drive toward Yosemite National Park. I plan to camp near or at Yosemite, depending on the weather. I’ll spend Wednesday touring Yosemite and camp probably in the same spot as I will on Tuesday night. Thursday I will drive to San Francisco airport and pickup my friend from Boston. From there, I don’t know what my plans will be. I want to tour the city on Thursday and Friday (June 12). On the 13th I will start driving east. To get back by the 19th, it will require some serious driving (over 500 miles a day). I haven’t decided on the route I want to take back but I’d like to stick to the south. I have more time to think about it.

I still haven’t posted any new pics. I have been busy and not wanting to spend a lot of time on the computer. I’ll get them up, eventually! All the pics I’ve already uploaded are better than any of the new stuff anyway.

Well, time to get to bed. I’ve got a lot of ground to cover tomorrow (June 8).

You win some, you lose some

I got to Portland, Oregon last night, a night earlier than I was originally anticipating when I wrote the last entry. The reason: the weather sucked! Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens were both completely clouded in. The drive up the mountains was intense. The thickest fog imaginable made it nearly impossible to see the road, let alone anything else. You win some, you lose some.

So, since I couldn’t see anything, I didn’t spend much time at either place. But, I went! I got in to Portland just before 11PM local time and hung out with my Aunt for awhile. We had a nice conversation before we eventually went to bed. Today I dropped my car off for an oil change and we toured the Columbia River Gorge area, Multnomah Falls, and had lunch at a very neat Inn/Hostel/Pub off the gorge. It was an enjoyable time. My car has a fresh oil and filter change and tire rotation so now I’m good to go for the ride back east.

So I plan on hanging around Portland until Monday morning. I’ll spend tonight and tomorrow night here. Tomorrow is a family dinner which I’m looking forward to. Before that I’m going with my aunt to Mt. Hood. Hopefully the weather clears up! It was cloudy today, but at least the gorge and the falls were visible and not encased in fog. Oregon is such a beautiful state. The whole northwest section of the country has been amazing. I can’t wait to see the Oregon coast and Northern California.

I still haven’t uploaded any new pics. I’ll try to get on that this weekend. I didn’t take much in the past couple of days due to the weather situation. But the Seattle pics I took are really good, so I will get them up soon. I just don’t feel like it right now.

Sleepless in Seattle

Well, I wasn’t sleepless. I got a really good night sleep! Third hotel in 3 nights and this one wasn’t on par with the others in terms of niceness. But it’s all good. It was no Super 8 in Craig, Colorado that’s for sure!

I left my hotel in Spokane around 10:30 and headed to a highly recommended diner, Frank’s Diner in downtown Spokane. It was awesome. I haven’t had a nice breakfast like that in awhile. Full from food, I went across the street to fill up my gas tank. I then realized I had forgot to replenish my ice in my coolers in the past couple days and… I’m pretty sure all the food I had in there is a total loss, including the new pack of lunch meat I had just bought a few days ago. I don’t think I’m going to risk testing the food and having a bad rest of my trip as a result. One thing I’ve learned on this trip is that it hasn’t been worth saving a few dollars over silly stuff.

Anyway I headed west and crossed through the beautiful Cascades mountains. It was a nice break from the super straight and super flat I-90 that goes through eastern Washington. I got to Seattle around 4:30 and headed straight for the Space Needle. It’s the iconic Seattle tourist attraction. I parked and headed up and got a seat for dinner at the rotating restaurant. What a view! The weather was spectacular and you could see for miles.

I was probably the only one flying solo in that restaurant. It was pretty fancy despite being casual attire. Oh, and rediculously overpriced. But, when it comes to once in a lifetime experiences, how can you put a price tag on it? I had some really good seafood in the sky, and finally this dessert called the Lunar Orbiter. It’s simply a rediculously overpriced ice cream sundae, BUT it comes in a special bowl with a piece of dry ice in the bottom that they fill with a little water to create a really cool smoking effect. I had EVERYONE on my side of the restaurant looking at me when they brought that to my table because smoke was pouring everywhere. It was awesome. Worth the price, definitely!

After that I walked around downtown Seattle for hours. Checked out the Market, the water front (Alaskan Way), the downtown skyscrapers, the bar district, and almost walked all the way to the baseball stadium where the Baltimore Orioles played a few days ago. It’s a really nice city with a lot of culture. The area is absolutely beautiful. I haven’t uploaded pics yet but I will in a couple of days.

Seattle so far is my favorite city I’ve come across after Madison Wisconsin. Spokane was great but it gets real quiet at night. Seattle was very lively late into the evening on the downtown streets with people drinking, walking, and having fun. It’s fairly clean but not nearly much as Spokane was. The view of the Puget Sound was beautiful.

After touring for probably 4 hours after dinner and walking a number of miles I found a hotel that was more than I wanted, but it’s there. I had some free breakfast this morning and plan to try to hit up Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens today. I think it’s going to be tough. I was gonna try to camp last night but I was at dinner too late and really wanted to spend more time in downtown Seattle. I wanted to take a ferry somewhere, but time is not on my side anymore.

Speaking of time, crunch time will be hitting very soon. I got word a friend of mine in Boston is flying to San Francision on the 11th and he wants to meet up, and so do I. So, I now have a new deadline to make. It will be made. I figure I should start heading east on the 12th, or the 13th at the latest. I want to be home on the 19th so I can take care of everything before going back to work. And even then I wont be seeing much as it’ll all be long driving days at that point. Not a problem since that’s the way I planned it.

Well I need to get rolling. Originally I was thinking I might be in Portland tonight, but I have a feeling that was optimistic. I possibly will end up camping near Mt. St. Helens and get to Portland early in the day tomorrow. I’ll have to judge times on the way to these places.

Well, time to stop typing and start driving! I will definitely make it back to Seattle again!

Through Coeur d’Alene to Spokane

We woke up this morning lazily as usual. The hotel was nice and Brian and I weren’t exactly in a hurry to leave it. We didn’t have too far to drive today anyway. His flight was at 6:30 and we were only about 3 hours away from Spokane.

We left the hotel at 11 and started heading west. There’s a lot of road work on I-90 West through western Montana. Must be stimulus money or something. In any case, we soon made it to Coeur d’Alene Idaho where we decided to stop for food and drinks. In Idaho we changed to Pacific Time so it was still pretty early. While walking through downtown we came across the Coeur d’Alene Brewing Company which was of course right up our alley. Food and beers later we left the beautifully scenic town and continued the trek west. With a couple hours to kill we came across a mini-golf place and played a game. I lost, but Brian was really good. 🙂

Soon after that we met up with an online friend of mine who gave us a nice tour of the Riverfront Park area of Spokane. It’s a really scenic area and is great for walking and biking. A good amount of people were out since it was a really nice day here. We had a couple of beers at a local Irish place and then I took Brian to the airport. So he should be home soon. I now continue my trip solo.

I’m staying in a Marriott tonight which is also really nice. It was graciously hooked up for me by my online friend. Thanks man! I’m sure this place goes for a pretty penny. It’s right downtown and after checking in I decided to walk around downtown some more since it was such an amazing night. I’ll probably tour the area some more tomorrow before I leave Spokane. This place is very beautiful and definitely has a west-coast feel to it. I like it.

I’ll upload some pics tomorrow as I don’t really feel like it tonight.

Seattle isn’t very far away. 3.5 to 4 hours depending on driving speed and traffic. So I’ll find some place to hang my hat there tomorrow night. I’d like to see Olympic National Park and Mt. Rainier National Park while I’m in the area. I’m not sure I’ll get to Olympic since the two places are far apart. I also want to go to Mt. St. Helens. I went there when I was a kid, but I’d like to go again and get a fresh perspective on it. So, there’s a possibility I wont make it to Olympic, but we’ll see.

Depending on what exactly I decide to do, I could get into Portland Friday night at the earliest, but definitely Saturday. I might end up camping somewhere if my adventures in Washington take awhile.

So far I have driven a shade under 5,000 miles. My car is requesting another oil change soon. I’ll wait till Portland for that.

The latest Google Maps adventure tracker:

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Going to the Sun in Glacier National Park

Latest pics uploaded!

Glacier National Park is a beautiful place! After spending the night in Great Falls, MT (night of May 31) we got a nice lunch at a Montana based pizza chain. I was feeling pretty sick from my cold. The waitress we had was new on the job, but immediately she picked up I wasn’t feeling well and got me some hot tea. It was a nice gesture and she was very fun and friendly. The hot tea definitely helped me feel better too. From there we headed north to Glacier National Park. The weather was cold and overcast, a far cry from the sunny and mid-80’s of the day before.

When we got to the park it was about 45 degrees and dark grey. Brian and I were feeling a bit skeptical about camping in those conditions. Spring definitely hasn’t fully set in this far north just yet. We drove around for awhile. A lot of the park isn’t fully open yet, unfortunately. We hiked a couple of short trails and decided to get some dinner and see what the local motels were charging. We got to a place that seemed like it would be really cheap. It had no TV, no internet, no phone, no nothing. Just a bed and a shower. Looked like one of those old motels you see all over the place in southern MD along Route 301. We were thinking this place couldn’t be more than $50. Instead, it was $80 cash, or just under $100 on credit. We decided to camp in the park instead for a measly $10. We built a nice fire and it was fine. The cold weather wasn’t a bother.

We woke up the next morning to bright, sunny skies! A huge improvement from the day before. We headed over to the other parts of the park that were still open and hiked 2 more trails. Glacier National Park is definitely one of the more beautiful places on earth. I wish the entire park was open but they hadn’t completely cleared the pass from snow and there was some road construction on the main road of the park, Going to the Sun Highway.

Since we finished the park early due to half of it being closed, we decided to position ourselves for an easy day of driving to Spokane and ended up in Missoula, MT. The first place we tried to hotel in was a Days Inn. The guy at the front desk looked to be in street clothes and was wearing a baseball cap. Didn’t seem very professional. He told us the rates and said there were nicer hotels for cheaper a few miles up the road. He definitely sounded like he didn’t like his job. We took his advice and went to another place we found. And what a good thing we did. This place was just built a couple months ago and has a hotel room bigger than most apartments I’ve seen. This place is NICE! $79 was a special rate and I can’t believe how nice this place is.

So, tomorrow I will be staying in Spokane, WA and Brian will be flying to his home in Cali. From there I will continue the trip solo once again.

It’s already June. It feels like it has been a long time since I started this trip, but still it feels like it has gone quickly. I’ve done a lot and seen a lot. I admit to feeling a bit homesick, but everyday I see something new and awesome.  I am still having a blast, but I miss the people back home. It was great to have Brian be able to join me for a week and a half and has definitely made the trip a lot more fun. It’s always good having someone to talk to.

My cold is a lot better today. I think it’ll be completely gone in a day or two. Well, I should go to bed now. It’s already late, even in this timezone.

Yellowstone National Park

New pics uploaded! http://gallery.james2009roadtrip.com

We have camped the last 4 straight nights and have earned a night in a hotel. Tonight we’re in Great Falls, Montana.

I have been without cell phone and internet the last few days and let me tell you, I have suffered some withdrawal symptoms for sure. What can I say? I am addicted to the internet.

Anyway, the last 3 days we have spent exploring and hiking Yellowstone National Park. It is the most amazing place ever. If you haven’t been you should go! The sights are completely amazing.

We camped in Yellowstone the past 3 nights. It’s a good thing we did. The park is massive! It’s like 100 miles by 80 miles. It takes a long time to drive between points because the speed limit is 45 and because there’s a lot of things to see. There’s a huge amount of wildlife just in the road! When there’s a bear nearby expect to have massive delays as people get out there 1+ foot long camera lenses so they can count the number of hairs on the bear. The handheld camera I am using cannot compare to those several thousand dollar cameras many people I’ve seen have. We saw lots of bison, elk, bears, sheep, goats, bald eagals and other animals just all around.

We hiked a lot in Yellowstone. 6 different trails, plus at least a dozen other 1/2 mile+ walks around different geyser basins. We hiked 2 seriously strenuous hikes. One was a 1300 foot climb over 1 mile (2 miles round trip) and one was a 600 foot climb over .6 miles (2 miles round trip, .4 mile was flat). Both offered amazing views and some unexpected finds like a goat on the top of the 1300 ft climb that seemed to be just waiting for us.

All in all Yellowstone was an amazing park. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see everything, but that’s the price you pay when you don’t have unlimited amounts of time. But we saw a lot and it is definitely a place I will go back to.

The drive through Montana was pretty quick. There isn’t a whole lot of traffic in this area and the speed limits even on the state roads is 70 mph. You can cover a lot of ground at 75 mph with no one to slow you down.

Tomorrow we will get to Glacier National Park and spend a day and a half there before heading to Spokane Washington where Brian will leave me and I will continue the trip solo. Unfortunately I have caught the cold that Brian got from his plane ride. Oh well. It’ll be better in a couple of days.

There has been such an amazing amount seen so far. I can’t wait to see what’s in store next.

Here’s the latest Google Maps:

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Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park

Quick update as I’m in the Old Faithful parking lot, which is the only place in the last 2 days that I’ve had any kind of cell phone service.

We spent the night before last camping in Grand Teton National Park in the shadow of Grand Teton and right next to Jenny Lake. There’s still a lot of snow around Grand Teton park. We hiked the Jenny Lake trail loop (6.5 miles) and found many spots still covered in snow despite being over 70 degrees. It was a nice hike with beautiful scenery.

Then we drove to Yellowstone where we camped last night and will camp there again tonight and possibly tomorrow night as well. Yellowstone National Park is truly a natural wonder. We’ve seen some very cool things in our one day here so far. Looking forward to what we find in the next couple of days. We hiked 2 trails today (over 8 miles total) and saw Old Faithful erupt from an observation point we had to hike up to get to. Lots of beautiful pictures will be forthcoming. We even saw a young grizzly bear.

I don’t really have any cell phone service here and no wifi access points seem to be around so there’s a good chance of not updating tomorrow or the day after. We’ll see if I can get some service somewhere and if so I’ll write a quick entry. Definitely no pictures to be uploaded until I can get on a wifi connection. We’ll probably get a hotel on the way to Glacier National Park. So perhaps Sunday night I’ll get a chance to upload some pictures.

I’m still having quite a blast on my vacation! Unfortunately Brian has a cold at the moment. Hopefully he gets better soon so he’ll have a more enjoyable time. But we both are having a lot of fun hiking in the parks and seeing the sights. We’ll be in Yellowstone for the next couple of days at least, then starting toward Glacier National Park before heading west again through Washington where Brian will be leaving me and I will continue my journey solo.

Until next time!

Dinosaur National Monument and Salt Lake City

New pics uploaded!

Yesterday we checked out Dinosaur National Monument in northeastern Utah. It was a lot cooler than I was expecting. The area it was in was very scenic. The main visitor center of the park had closed in 2006 due to its structural integrity being compromised due to shifting soil the place was built on. They are planning on building a new one starting this year.

Anyway we hiked the Fossil Discovery Trail and we got to see a number of different fossils embedded in the mountainside. Pretty cool. We also talked to a ranger for awhile who was very excited to tell us all he knows about the area and the fossils and how they were discovered and stuff. It was very interesting to listen to.

After that we continued to head west. We had dinner at a mexican place in Heber City, UT. We tried to find a campground but due to the lack of a campbook for Colorado and Utah we didn’t find anything until it was too late. So instead we opted to stay the third consecutive night in a hotel. This place near Salt Lake City airport. Cheaper, and MUCH better than last night’s hotel.

The plan for today is to walk around downtown Salt Lake City for a bit then start heading north through Idaho and finally back over to Wyoming. We are going to shoot for camping in Grand Teton National Park.

Since I have fast interent, I uploaded 3 more days of pictures to my gallery: http://gallery.james2009roadtrip.com

They now include pictures from Rocky Mountain National Park! Check ’em out. You’ll have to hit “next” on the gallery to get to page 2 of the list of albums.

Time to get this day rolling.

Rocky Mountain National Park

Yesterday we went through Rocky Mountain National Park. It was a pretty long tour and we did some minor hiking to some amazing view points. The weather unfortunately was mostly overcast and it rained occasionally at the lower elevations and even snowed a good amount when we were above 11,000 feet. I took lots of pictures and can’t wait to get a chance to upload them. It could be awhile though. We plan on being in the middle of nowhere for awhile.

Rocky Mountain National Park is really amazing. The views are spectacular and we even saw some moose and elk! We did fine in the high altitude. There was one hike that you had to take a bunch of steps up to get to the summit of one of the peaks and a lot of people were not faring too well on that, but we kicked its butt and got some awesome pics.

We didn’t have a campbook for Colorado (either I left it at home, or it was always missing from the collection). We tried going to a AAA but it was closed due to the holiday. But since the weather was not cooperating we decided to hit up a hotel anyway. How expensive could it be out here? The place we stayed in Denver area was under $60 for a pretty decent place with free internet and breakfast. So we figured places out here in nowhere Colorado would be cheaper. Wrong! We passed through Steamboat Springs which actually had pretty nice places for not bad rates ($75-79 at most places) but we thought we could do better. So we kept heading west and most places were closed or non-existant. We finally arrived in Craig, CO and went to a Holiday Inn that the guy said was $120. What? He offered us the friends and family discount (him being the friend) which was $79, still we opted to cheap out and head to the Super 8 which was infact $69 but a far way from the quality of every single other place we looked at. No internet, no free breakfast, just a crappy run down hotel. Ah well. Adventures!

Today we’re going to hit up Dinosaur National Monument and possibly Salt Lake City, UT before turning north and going to the Jackson, Yellowstone, Grand Teton area of Wyoming. I expect not to have much cell service out there. We shall see though. I’ll try to update when I can but I definitely wont be uploading pics until I can get on a fast connect again.

Weather today isn’t looking so great. It’s raining again. We need some good weather!

Fun in Denver

Reminder: New pictures posted at http://gallery.james2009roadtrip.com!

Brian arrived last night and we went out for some beers and food in downtown Denver. Met a cool couple and drank some quite potent beers. We both had Bison burgers. Yes, the vegetarian B. Cook is on vacation!

Anyway the weather is looking pretty iffy again today. Thunderstorms and showers are forecast with a heavier soaking rain possible overnight. We plan on going through Rocky Mountain National Park today. If the weather is bad we will probably get a hotel.

I forgot to update the Google Map. Here it is:


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Now it’s off to get Brian’s bags from the airport (they sent it back to Denver for free… no problems) and then off to the park. The adventure continues.

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