From Seattle to Yellowstone and points inbetween

It's been 2 years since our last big roadtrip so it was with some excitement that Mum and I headed toward Heathrow to catch the first of 2 flights that would carry us to Seattle.

For cost and availability reasons, we opted to fly BA to LAX then change to Alaskan Airlines to SEA, our upper deck seats on the BA 747 had been booked for months but when we got to the airport we discovered that we'd been moved to lower deck middle seats..... not the best start and very frustrating for Mum who had been looking forward to seeing LA from the air!

The Alaskan flight was uneventful, we had First Class seats, so were last on and first off the plane and having cleared immigration in LAX we made short work of heading to the car hire terminal to collect our steed.

I booked a Rav 4 (the cheapest 4wd) from Alamo using a discount code I found online that reduced the price for 16 days to $550.
As ever, nothing is simple and Alamo have recently changed the way they work so that all the cars are parked together and you simply help yourself to whichever car you fancy from the group you've rented.

So far so good but there was no Rav 4 and no labelling at all for the class that I'd booked (IFAR) After spending 20 minutes waiting around and chatting nicely to the girl on the exit gate, she authorised me to take a Nissan Murano for the same rental cost.
This is the same engine and gearbox as the 350z that I hired in LA a few years ago, so I'm really pleased to get it.... it should make the long road sections on this trip pass by with ease.

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Installing the CB, we get on the road toward Everett, where I've booked a motel for the night.... it's 10pm when we check in so straight to bed we go.

Day 1

Thanks to the vagaries of jet lag, we’re both awake early this morning, our first stop of the day is the Boeing factory tour at 8.30am

Sadly Boing don’t allow cameras on the tour (in fact, they don’t allow anything, even cellphones must stay in the car) so there are no photos from the tour itself, but as we were leaving, we were lucky enough to see Ethiopian Airlines’ new freighter undergoing final testing prior to delivery the next day.

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The tour here is pretty detailed and the size of the building is awe inspiring… until recently, the main hanger used to create its own weather system, it actually used to rain inside the building. (Boeing have now sorted this problem!)

The gallery of flight was closed for a special event (the delivery of the first Dreamliner to ANA) so we weren’t able to walk around it but it contains a potted history of Boeing.

In short, a good tour!

A short drive then brought us to Microsoft’s main West Coast HQ and university.
They have a small visitors centre here, but with the exception of an MS Surface to play with it really wasn’t worth the trip so we didn’t stay long.

Heading into downtown Seattle next, straight to the Space Needle for the trip to the top and some lunch.
The Needle was, of course, pretty busy, but the views from the outside observation deck make up for it.

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The needle was built on very short notice and broke a number of records in its construction…. to date it remains the longest continual concrete pour at 467 trucks, 11 straight hours and 5850 tons of concrete.

The Space Needle also has a stop for the open top trolley tour of Seattle, so that was our next destination.
Today marks the start of the new NFL season and the Seahawks are playing the Raiders at home…. a huge number of the Raider Nation are in town and lubricating themselves at a Raider friendly bar…. they’re a friendly bunch though, and they give a big cheer when the tourguide shouts “Go Raiders” at them!


The Trolley Tour gives a good insight into Seattle, but our next stop aims to take us into the sewers of the belly of the city….. The famous Underground Tour has been running for decades and takes intrepid guests on a tour inside the old underbelly of the city whilst explaining how it came to be.

Briefly, following a large fire the City fathers of Seattle decided that their city needed proper sanitation et al, which meant raising the street level to accommodate the pipework, Seattle being built almost at sea level.
They didn’t have the money to do this immediately after the fire and the city traders weren’t prepared to wait (no new buildings means no new revenue) so a deal was struck whereby businesses could rebuild, but they had to be prepared for the street level to rise and their ground floor to be underground.

This duly happened, and the original ground level of the rebuilt buildings remains submerged beneath the city streets.

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This tour involves a little walking and a lot of fairly enclosed spaces so is not for the claustrophobic… it is well worth doing though. We enjoyed it a great deal.

Time to leave Seattle now and head out on the road to Snoqualmie where we check into a motel for the night and grab some dinner.

Day 2

Sunday dawns bright and clear, albeit a little colder than I’ve become used to over the last few years!
A short trip up the road lies Snoqualmie Falls.

These falls are part of Puget Sound Energy’s hydroelectric power generation system in the Northwest and they are slightly subdued this morning due mainly to the dry weather this region’s been having lately.

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The early morning sunlight shining through the mist does provide some great photo opportunities though

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On the road to Ginko Petrified Forest State Park we start to encounter some of the scenery that we’ve been looking forward to for months

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The park itself is an interesting little place, all kinds of petrified wood has been discovered here and following a tour of the visitors centre and a chat with the ranger there we head for a walk along a short interpretive trail to take a look at some of the wood in-situ.
All the wood is safely encased in metal which makes photography a little difficult, but the petroglyphs are easy to shoot and stunning in their detail.

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On our way to our next stop at Grand Coulee Dam, in a small town somewhere, we come upon a charity garage sale next to a lake, it’s a beautiful afternoon so we stop and take a walk around and buy a few bits… the ladies manning the stall are a little surprised to be serving British tourists but it’s a nice way to spend 30 minutes.

Grand Coulee Dam is a masterpiece of civil engineering, constructed in the late 1920’s the Dam is massive and has been extended a couple of times to enable it to provide a large percentage of the power that the North West requires…. it’s an on-demand power station meaning that it’s only brought online when power is needed.
The tour here is interesting and detailed from an engineering perspective, revealing that the Dam is so large that the Hoover Dam in its entirety could fit inside just the spillway here with some 50ft to spare each side… impressive!

From Coulee it’s a hop skip and jump to downtown Spokane where the Labor Day weekend celebrations are in full swing, with a live music event and party taking place in the park in the centre of downtown….. this means that a couple of the things we wanted to do here are closed, but we take a walk along the riverside and admire the permanent sculpture exhibits displayed here.
Again the weather is perfect and the town of Spokane has made a positive impression on both of us.

Our stop for the night is Sandpoint ID and arriving into town we happen across a place called the Meandering Moose Motel…. the name alone is enough for Mum and it becomes our home for the evening. It’s basic and was probably last refurbished in the 70s but it’s clean and comfortable.

Day 3

The day dawns clear and sunny (again!) and as we both wake early we decide to get an early start, stopping at starbucks for the ubiquitous cuppa we’re soon on the way through ID

Following a number of tips we’ve eschewed the Interstate for this morning and are following the Pend Oreille scenic highway, the ID200…. this road more than lives up to its billing, every corner reveals another vista worthy of a photograph and we stop many times to fill the memory cards!

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Part way down the road the ID200 becomes the MT200 and we enter our third state in as many days…. Montana is probably the main reason for us making this trip, both of us have wanted to visit here for many years and we have a number of preconceptions of how we expect MT to look….. so it’s with enthusiasm and hope that we stop and make a record of our arrival

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We don’t have to wait long for a glimpse of the beauty to follow..

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A ways down the road we start to see signs saying that the next town has a diversion in place due to an event going on. we decide to go see what’s happening.
It turns out to be a political rally for the upcoming elections and it seems the whole town has turned out, either to watch or lend support using whatever vehicles they have to hand!

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One of the main reasons that Mum wanted to visit MT is to see a genuine ghost town, so we head to Garnet. This turns out to be a slightly touristy ghost town, the parks service opting for a policy of “controlled decay” meaning that the buildings are maintained as they were found a few decades ago….. it’s possible to enter all the buildings and walk around and there are rangers on hand as well as a small gift shop, it’s good, but not quite what we wanted.

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The road leaving here is fun though, about 15 miles of gravel with twists, turns and drops it has Mum a little nervous and the sat-nav going mad telling us to “rejoin nearest road” but we make it out alive!!
The final stop of the day is Old Montana Prison in Deer Lodge.
This is a fantastic look at both the history of the prison buildings themselves and of convict life through the last 150 years or so, it’s a self-guided tour and takes 90 minutes or so, if the walls could talk the stories they would tell……

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Probably the most disturbing location is “The Hole” the concept made famous by The Shawshank Redemption…. a 6 x 6 concrete cell in the basement of the prison, it was in use until the end of the 60s and prisoners spent up to 10 days here alone, being fed only bread and water… the human suffering contained within is something that neither of us wish to dwell on but serves to underline how lucky we are to have the freedom to travel that we take for granted.

We decide to stay in Deer Lodge for the night as there’s a National Park property here that we’d like to visit. We find a motel on the outskirts of town and head for dinner to a place that feels and looks like eating in a church hall… the food’s good though!

Day 4

The Grant Khors Ranch is a National Park Service owned property that is run as part educational, part working facility…. we’re there just after opening time and the Rangers are only too happy to talk us through the location and help us with the self guided tour of the buildings contained within.

The ranch has an interesting back story too complicated to go into here, but its ownership can be traced back 150 years or so and just about all the ranching records over those years have been retained, this has enabled the Park Service to recreate the farm house and some of the buildings as they would have been in the 1850s and Rangers provide an insight into the first settlers in the area and how they moved their animals and people around.

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The farmhouse is set out to look as it would have looked 100 years or so ago, unfortunately it’s closed for the 2012 season to allow fire suppression to be installed, the outside illustrates just how grand the house was though… it contained the first plumbing, electricity, inside toilet facilities etc in the state. A home befitting the family of a man who at one time farmed well over a million acres of land.

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Among the various ranger demonstrations are a real chuck wagon, this Ranger illustrates how the original cowboys drove cattle thousands of miles to market in the days before the railroads.
These chuck wagons carried provisions for three weeks and water for three days for the entire crew of men… pulled by 4 horses they could easily weigh more than 1000lbs

Time for another State Capitol now…. Helena’s isn’t the grandest we’ve been too and sadly the tours aren’t running today as it’s Labor Day Weekend, we can still do a self-guided tour though, so we have a look around and admire the fake marble inside and the cupola atop the building.

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On our way out of town we swing by the Helena Cathedral, surprisingly given that it’s a Sunday the building is locked up tight so we walk around the perimeter, snap a few pics and then leave town.

We’re leaving Helena in a bit of a hurry as I’ve found another ghost town that seems more promising…. Comet, MT was abandoned a long time ago and lies, basically forgotten about…… or so I read.
When we found the town though, the truth may be a little different:

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This is an amazing place, there’s no rangers, no preservation… just natural decay over time.
Many of the buildings are completely collapsed and only one is safe enough to venture upstairs in.

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It’s an amazing place and apart from one family in a 4x4 heading up one of the trails we are completely uninterrupted for the 90 minutes we spend here.
It’s actually quite eerie, and so much better than the slightly sanitized town we visited previously. Well recommended.

Wow ! Enjoying your report and wonderful images, thanks for sharing. Good to see you here !

Looking forward to more !

Dave.

Day 5

A fair drive away lies Big Horn County Historical Museum, it’s our first stop today and once again we are among the first visitors of the day so have the place almost to ourselves.
It’s a nice recreation of life in this part of the US for the last 150 years or so, including an early settlers house and teepees of the early Indian settlers

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Mum likes the village school, a one room affair where the kids of the school were all taught together.

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I’m more interested in the old gas station, a completely genuine recreation of one of the stations that lined the old road before the Interstate came along

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A while ago whilst we were driving, Mum got a salute from a train horn from a Burlington Railroad train who was running alongside the road we were on… as we’re leaving Big Horn I hear another train coming so we stop to allow Mum to take a pic… no salute this time though!

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To our next stop now, Little Bighorn National Monument.

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There’s more than just the monument here, it’s laid out as a scenic drive to take you through all the important places of the battle that occurred here.
Before taking the drive though, it’s worth joining the Ranger discussion outside the main visitor centre…. the ranger there knows his history and is an excellent presenter, we don’t catch the complete talk, but what we do hear brings the story to life in a way that simply driving around doesn’t.

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Time for us to leave Montana now, heading into Wyoming.
We’re both left with a strong sense of wanting to return to MT…. it’s lived up to everything we expected of it and we’ve both moved it to the top of our favorite states list, moving Kentucky into second place!

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Our first stop in Wyoming is Shell Falls.
This is a small centre on US14 near the town of Greybull.
I suspect that the falls would be a little more spectacular in the spring but they’re still worth seeing even mid-summer.

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4hrs of stunning scenery and fast roads later we roll into Cody, WY. I’ve booked us a couple of rooms at the Historic Irma Hotel.

This hotel was once owned by Buffalo Bill himself and it’s a little kitsch but its place in history is guaranteed and it also hosts the Wild West Show every night.

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The show’s good fun and a hit with the kids who are present, a spot of dinner then I head off to Dan Miller’s Cowboy Music Review in the theater across the street… it’s a fun evening of audience participation and famous cowboy tunes.

Day 6

About 30 seconds up the road from the Irma is the Buffalo Bill Historical Centre and it’s our first port of call this morning.

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It’s a great deal more than either of us was expecting, with 5 sections divided into local area history, Buffalo Bill History, local art, and a couple of other small galleries.

We concentrate first on the Buffalo Bill gallery… the first surprise is that he won the Congressional Medal of Honor, though it was later stripped from him when he resigned his military commission.

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Perhaps the biggest surprise though is just how well travelled Bill was…. he took his Wild West show all over the world, including a private audience with Queen Victoria.

The second big gallery tells the story of the history of the local Indian populace…. it’s a fascinating journey into their lives and occupies us for an hour

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This picture shows the clothing made for a local child, the quantity of Elk teeth shows that this family was held in high regard.

Back to the hotel now to catch the Cody Trolley…. this is a tour that takes us through the various parts of Cody whilst the tour guide shares his knowledge of the town and its past residents. It also takes us out to the Cody Dam and showcases that area.
Again it’s a little Kitsch, but it’s good fun and a nice way to pass an hour.

From Cody we head to America’s first National Park….. Yellowstone was given this designation in 1872 to recognize the truly outstanding beauty of the area.

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Our first stop is Bridge Bay Marina where we board the sightseeing cruise which takes us around the lake and allows us to spot the first wildlife of our time in the park – 2 bald eagles sitting high up in a tree.

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On our way to the Continental Divide we’re lucky enough to stumble across an elk walking down the road

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After taking a number of snaps we make it to the Continental Divide

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This is our first of many trips over the divide over the course of the next few days, it runs through the park on several different roads and is marked at every point.

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This bubbling geyser is our first sight of the area that is probably the biggest tourist draw in the park…. there are geysers everywhere in this part of the park and trails around them abound….. most trails are marked with information boards and are disabled accessible.

We take a couple of walks through the area and smell the sulphurous odours that eminate from a lot of the active geysers.

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Heading out of the park to our accommodation we stop to watch the sunset, we’re lucky enough to spot a wolf.

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It’s a wonderful end to our first day in the park.

Thanks for all this. Bringing back lots of memories. Loving it.

Lifey

Enjoying the photos and commentary too. I see you found a nice car to cruise in as well.

That wolf photo looks a lot like a coyote!

Mark

Interesting you should say that about the wolf / coyote Mark... I wasn't completely certain myself but there was another car stopped watching the animal and they said it was a wolf.... either way it was a rare treat!

Day 7

We’re up really really early this morning as I’m keen to join a Ranger lead tour around an area of the park called Geyser Hill that starts at 8.15 and we have an hour drive to get there.

We actually arrive early and are able to watch Old Faithful erupt before heading out on the tour.

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Old Faithful has been erupting to an approximate schedule for the last hundred plus years and has been one of the biggest draws in the park for the majority of that time….. it’s an impressive sight to see and we’re lucky enough to see it twice as the tour ends just as another eruption happens.

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Nipping back to the car to drop off my jacket I spy a Netherlands plated RV… a quick chat with the owner reveals that he shipped the truck to Baltimore 3 years ago and he and his wife have been driving around North America ever since...... I can see my retirement beckoning!!!

Next we head out for a walk around the porcelain basin area of geysers before driving to the trailhead for the upper and lower falls…. the trail here is 328 steps down into the canyon, bringing you alongside the mighty upper falls, called Uncle Tom’s trail it’s definitely not for those of a nervous disposition, the walkway seeming to hang on to the side of the cliff by nothing more than a few steel beams!

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Having hiked back up the trail, we drive around the canyon to the top of the lower falls… there’s a trail here too, a mere 120 or so steps this time but we decide to give it a miss and take a drive around the park stopping at various pullouts to admire the views.

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We don’t get too far though before we have to slow to match the pace of our unofficial convoy leader…. plodding down the center of the road without a care in the world, he’s a big fella and I give him a wide berth as I pass, stopping further up the road to take some photos.

Ever since we arrived at the park we’ve been hearing stories of the mamma bear and her cubs who have been seen often around the Dunraven Pass area, so we decide to head to our overnight stop outside the park by that route.
I’d just about given up hope when Mum yells out “bear”

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She’d been scanning the side of the road for about 15 miles by this point and I have no idea how she spotted him, so camouflaged was he when we first came across him.

Patience paid off though, and a few minutes later he walked out of the trees and I was able to take a series of photos of an animal that I never expected to see in my lifetime…. truly a magical moment.

Onwards to our hotel cabin in Mammoth hot springs…. not one of my finest bookings this, there’s no bathrooms in the cabins, they share communal facilities…. a touch rough and ready for Mum but we make the best of it…. the beds are great at least!

Great images as always and I am enjoying your tale !

As I am weighing up my options for our next trip to the States, you are certainly starting to sway me towards a Yellowstone visit !

Dave.

Day 8

We’d been told that the best time to see wolves and bear was at dawn, so it was an early alarm call today…. on the road and in the park by just after 6.30 we drove the roads of the North-East quadrant with high hopes… alas with the exception of a lone pronghorn feeding in the early morning light we saw nothing.

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No matter though, the scenery was stunning and we shared the road with some bison who were up and about as early as we.

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As well as a family of deer who scampered around us for a few minutes without acknowledging our presence.

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In fact, the early morning was a bit of an animal-fest, just not the animals that we’d hoped to see!

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From the parks, we took a trip to a place that I’ve wanted to visit for years without ever really knowing why….

Big Sky, Montana.

Known primarily as a ski resort, Big Sky was fairly close to the top of my Montana “must see” list.
At this time of year it’s a quiet, mostly locals, town but it’s still a nice place to visit and we lunch at one of the resort cafes before hitting the road back to the park.

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Returning to the park in the late afternoon, we drive some of the park roads, stopping when we see a great vista and again going for a walk through some of the geysers.
We leave the park as the evening arrives and stop along the way to capture some great images of the sun sinking behind the Teton mountains.

Day 9

Due to the expected high volume of people in the Yellowstone area over labor day weekend I’d booked last night’s accommodation before we left the UK, sight unseen.
It’s about an hour outside the park in a little village called Victor.

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Kasper’s Kountryside Inn is basically 2 x 2 room apartments over an outbuilding on a ranch – it doesn’t sound like much but it’s easily the best accommodation we’ve had on this trip and very reasonably priced too.

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Having had a leisurely breakfast on the terrace overlooking the ranch we drive across Teton Pass into Grand Teton Park, stopping first at the Moose visitors centre to get a stamp in our NPS passports.

From Moose we take a drive around the roads through the park, stopping for the occasional stroll and to enjoy the scenery.

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We eat lunch overlooking the water at Colter Bay village where an inquisitive squirrel actually jumps up onto our picnic table, walks to within a foot of me, grabs my cinnamon muffin and takes off with it!
The cake must be 3 times his size but he only drops it when the saran wrap it’s encased in proves too hard to crack.

Having feasted in the open air we decided to spend an hour walking the nature trail around the lake….. it’s a quiet afternoon and most of the wildlife appears to be sleeping, though we do stop to watch another squirrel process his nut.

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It takes us about an hour to walk around the perimeter of the lake and it’s a lovely way to spend part of a sunny afternoon…. alas time and tide wait for no one, so pretty soon we’re back in the car and on to a different part of the park.

When we stop for a photo, I finally get a chance to see the creature whose loud noises we’ve been hearing for days now, appearing to be some kind of butterfly, the noise is made by its wings meeting, very strange and not something I’ve ever seen or heard before. I still don’t know what it was.


Our next stop reveals a slightly larger animal that I can name however….

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Matilda Moose was happily feeding in the middle of the river at the sparsely populated Schwabacher’s Landing when we came across her.
We stopped to watch her and got chatting to an American couple, I’d guess we were there for 40 minutes and she remained completely un-interested by us, eventually climbing out of the river and continuing her grazing elsewhere.
It’s not far off the end of our time in the 2 parks and I think both Mum and I had just about given up hope of seeing a Moose, so to see one up close and personal for such a length of time is privilege indeed.

It gets even better a few minutes later, driving out of the park I spy a large number of cars stopped at the side of the road… this is park shorthand for “something to see here” and so we pull off as well. (as a side note here, the parks police have a really sensible attitude to stopping throughout Yellowstone and Grand Teton – as long as you are completely off the road you can stop wherever you like. The speed limits may be somewhat low, but that rule is a good one)

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It turns out that a bull, cow and calf have parked themselves in the thicket just below the roadway, they show no signs of getting up and wandering around, so after waiting 15 minutes we decide to leave and get on our way to Idaho Falls, enjoying another lovely sunset on the way.

Day 10

Over the course of the next couple of days we’re retracing some of my steps from earlier trips to this area of the US….. our first stop this morning is one of those.

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Craters of the Moon National Park is somewhere I first came on a trip in 2010, but I was early in the year, it was cold and snowy so I didn’t do much in the way of exploring.
This time Mum and I actually take a walk through the inside of a volcano, and the entire landscape around the park is very other-worldly, it feels like a scene from a sci-fi movie to be honest. It’s hot too… a portent of days to come.

Our next stop is to be Shoshone Ice Caves… to get there requires a road trip through the City of Butte – with a population of 74 people, this would barely be called a hamlet at home and Mum’s tickled pink by the concept of a city with 74 inhabitants.
It’s so small that there’s not even anywhere for us to stop for lunch, so we head down the road to Carey and stop in a gas station cum diner for a sandwich…. unfortunately they’re on a go-slow and it takes nearly an hour, meaning that we only just make the 2pm tour at Shoshone Caves.

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We’re both glad that we do make it though, this is a really interesting little place…. it’s nearly 100 degrees on the surface yet here it’s so cold that ice forms all year round – at a rate of 3.5ft per year in fact.
Again not for the claustrophobic or unsteady of foot, the tour’s presented by a guy who knows the area’s history as well and the walk back to the car park becomes an impromptu geology, geography and history lesson for those of us lucky enough to be within earshot……. another recommended visit.

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Little City of Rocks is slightly awkward to find and down a mud and gravel road that would definitely not be easily passable after even a light rain….. find it we do though, basking in the hundred degree sun and looking for all the world like a place that time forgot.

We take an hour to walk amongst the huge rocks, conscious that this is snake country and we don’t have any anti-venom on us….. (I never did discover if anti-venom is available over the counter, but if it is and you intend following in my footsteps I strongly suggest buying some….. if bitten, you have 30 minutes to get anti-venom in your system, many of the locations we’ve been to over the last week are far more than 30 minutes from a hospital and many also have no cellphone service)

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We’re back to retracing my steps again now, with a trip to Shoshone Falls, this was somewhere I came on my previous trip for a lunch stop I think, and I remember being quite impressed with the volume of water coming over the falls.
No such luck today though, they’re basically dry, with all the available water being run through the attached hydro-electric plant to provide power and irrigation for Idaho. It’s still a nice spot though.

Whilst here we bump into a family who we first saw some hours earlier at the ice caves and then (for the third time) we bump into an English couple who we first saw in Yellowstone – it’s a small world after all!

After doing some shopping and watching the sunset over the city of Twin Falls, we head to Buhl to stay the night…. heading to a local restaurant, we bump into another couple who we first met at the ice caves!

Day 11

We’re having to do a bit of guesswork this morning, Thousand Springs State Park consists of a number of different sites and we’re looking for one in particular – Earl M Hardy Box Canyon Springs – as I’ve read that it’s a nice walk up to some spectacular waterfalls. The issue is that it’s not clearly marked on the map, not in the sat nav and until we’re about 100 yards from it there are no signs either!

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Eventually we do find it though, and the incessant Idaho flies, who have been with us since our arrival in this State are joined by a couple of stray dogs, thankfully some other walkers turn up and the dogs latch on to them, perhaps a sixth sense telling them that I am not a “dog person”

In fact, the first part of this morning is a bit of a disappointment, it’s actually quite a long hike (in 90 degree heat) to get to the canyon and when we get there the waterfall is dry and the spring is a bit sleepy.

Whilst we were driving to the Canyon car park, we saw a spectacular set of falls from the road and decided to see if we could find them…..

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Success…. the Ritter Island section of the State Park is home to a small car park and a short stroll takes you to the base of the falls….. they are probably the most impressive we’ve seen this trip, the noise alone making conversation difficult..... both Mum and I spend 20 minutes or so playing with our camera settings to see what results we can get, alas without a tripod, most are blurry.

We’d been warned by the couple we met at dinner last night that our next destination today wasn’t really up to much but we decided to go anyway as it was on the way and, after all, one man’s meat is another’s poison and all that.

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The Hagerman Fossil Beds are confusingly named, with no actual fossils just saw beds where they came from. There’s a visitors centre / museum in the town of Hagerman itself which was a sleepy little place on this Sunday morning.

The Oregon Trail passes through here, so we stopped and walked for a mile or 2, it was getting extremely hot by now, but the landscape definitely spoke of times past and the hardships the early settlers faced when heading West.
The trails are marked with white markers, but a lot of the time they are unnecessary as the land is permanently discoloured from the passage of those hardy types.
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Our next stop is the Bruneau Sand Dunes, it’s even hotter here but we still opt to scramble up the biggest dune for a look at the surrounding lakes and countryside. It’s fun coming down again!

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It’s almost impossible to show in a photo and nearly as hard to describe the size of the Bruneau Canyon, it makes the famous Grand Canyon look a little under-developed.
Having listened to a number of geologists talk over the last few days, Mum and I turn to pondering the sheer power that must have ripped the earth apart to create this vast expanse.

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The overlook itself is located about 25 miles along a reasonably well maintained gravel road, a 4x4 isn’t strictly necessary, but you’d be travelling very slowly in a normal car.

We head to Meridian for our overnight stop, it’s been a good day.

Wow! Great photos again this year Derek!

I wonder if you're referring to a cicada? I never knew cicadas would be that far north, but you sorta described what they seem like. Here's a link to what they sound like...

Day 12

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It’s another gravel road this morning as we head to Owyhee canyon overlook, it’s such a long road that we have a crisis of confidence and stop a truck coming the other way to ask him… we’re all good and a few minutes later we’re there.

It’s possibly even more remote than yesterday, but we don’t stay too long as we’re both really looking forward to our next destination.

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Malheur Wildlife refuge covers a vast area of land and requires time and patience in equal amounts to get the best from it.
It’s located along another 20 miles or so of gravel road and consists of a visitors centre with a scenic drive taking you through different landscapes, guided by a map and booklet.

This would be a much better place to visit in the Spring, as it was there was virtually no wildlife in evidence and the lakes were almost totally dry.
It was a fun afternoon though, capped off by the sight of some turkey vultures sitting high up on a pylon.

Driving through Southern California we don’t have a planned spot to end our day. We need to be in Shasta in the morning so we aim roughly for the Redding area.
First we need to get fuel, my sat nav says there’s a gas station on the junction in Denier where we need to turn off.

Pulling in on fumes we’re out of luck… they have no gas and tell us that the closest is a 23 mile backtrack to Fields…. Back we go.

Having wasted an hour we crack on through Nevada. There’s not much in this corner of the state but the scenery is beautiful as the sun goes down.

Throughout this trip we’ve heard about the appalling wild fires in California (indeed they were visible from our flight from LAX to SEA) this is the first time on our trip that they have a chance to affect us.

Stopping in Alturas for an Italian dinner we decide to stay the night and complete the final 2hrs or so to Redding in the morning. Unfortunately it’s not to be as all the hotels in the area are full of firefighters so we have no choice but to press on to Redding.

It’s a nice drive though and we arrive at the hotel shortly before midnight.

Day 13

From Redding, our first stop is another retracing of my steps, this time to Shasta caves, last time I was here I really enjoyed this tour and I suspected that Mum would too.

This is normally a short drive, however the wild fires in the area are affecting the traffic flow and we have to wait whilst a number of helicopters take turns in dropping water on the fires.

Eventually we reach Shasta Caverns, a little late and the only visitors arriving at 8.59 for a 9am tour.
Thankfully the tour guide there agrees to open up for us and we get a guided tour to ourselves.

The tour starts with a walk down to the waterline before taking a boat across to the caves.
Being the first people in the cave means that we actually see the California Brown Bats that call this cave their home, the stuffed bear is still there as well!

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I was in the city of Mount Shasta a few years ago but it was early in the season, the mountain was covered in snow and it wasn’t possible to drive up to the 7808m summit.
No such issues today though, it’s a lovely late summer morning, and though there’s snow on the summit, we’re able to drive all the way up to the top car park and admire the view and wildlife… Mum’s especially taken with a lovely blue bird and makes note to look it up later.
We also watch the smoke from the wildfires climbing into the sky.

From the top of the mountain we head for some lunch in Shasta City to a lovely little grocery store and café.

I’ve been looking forward to taking Mum to our next stop since we started planning this trip…. Crater Lake is one of the most incredible places I’ve had the good fortune to visit and in the Autumnal sunlight of this afternoon it looks for all the world like a picture postcard

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We spend the rest of the afternoon driving the rim drive and stopping at almost every viewing point to drink in the scenery, this includes the pinnacles.

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Leaving the park we’re heading for the town of Eugene to stay the night, it’s a fairly long drive but nothing too much to worry about…… until the matrix signs start telling us that a tunnel ahead will close at 8pm, a quick look at the road atlas reveals that the detour is hundreds of miles out of our way and will take hours.
A quick bout of mental maths reveals that if I average speeds that I’m not going to put online we’ll make it… Mum closes her eyes and I go for it.
As we get closer to the tunnel we start to meet other cars also having the same idea… I’ve driven in convoy at deep into 3 figures on a number of occasions in my life, but never on a relative back road in the US…. It’s an adrenaline fuelled 30 minutes or so but we all make the tunnel at 7.57 and are the second to last car allowed through.

From there it’s plain sailing to the hotel.

Day 14

Another State Capitol today, we’re off to Salem for the tour there.

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An imposing building in the centre of town it’s not the prettiest capitol I’ve ever seen but the tour is great and the view over Salem is great.

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Within the Capitol itself there are 4 images depicting the history of Oregon…. These are incredibly detailed and I spend far too long studying them!

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From Salem we head off to Silver Falls State Park, this is a park of waterfalls, they’re everywhere so we pick the 3 or 4 that sound the best on the maps and head there.

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Again I think that this would be more spectacular in late spring…. There are a number of falls that are completely dry and many others are a shadow of what they’ll be when in full flow.
It’s a lovely day though, and we walk for miles amongst the trees and the wildlife, stopping at a shallow pool to watch the trout swimming through whilst chatting to a young couple visiting the area on their honeymoon.

Our next stop is Mount Hood Railroad, it’s not far down the road, but unfortunately it only runs on certain days of the week and today is not one of them.
We take the details of tomorrow’s trip but are undecided as it will take the majority of the day.

A fascinating stop next, the Bonneville Dam is interesting for reasons other than the Dam part…. There’s an abundance of fish in this river, and fish and dams don’t normally mix.

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Bonneville has a trick up its sleeve however. This amazing device is a fish ladder….. essentially it’s a series of switchbacks that allows the fish to swim past the dam as if it wasn’t there…. From inside the building glass windows allow viewing of the fish on their journey.

Unfortunately the dam’s visitor center closes at 4pm today so we decide to take a leisurely trip through the Columbia River Gorge stopping initially at Multnomah Falls. This is the unofficial centre of the falls area and we take a walk up to the famous bridge that crosses the main falls area

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This is a truly amazing area, I could spend days walking through the countryside enjoying the sounds of the water and the breeze rustling through the grasses

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Eventually, after one final spectacular waterfall we sit in the car by the side of the railroad tracks waiting for Mum to wave at another train…. As we do, we chat about tomorrow and decide that we want to experience the train ride on the Mount Hood Railroad, this means we need to stay locally tonight so we head to The Dalles and find a hotel.

Day 15

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Having decided yesterday that we’re going to do the railroad trip, it’s back to Hood River this morning to buy the tickets… we opt for First Class in the upper observation car and settle in for the ride.

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The scenery is amazing and it’s nice to be just a tourist for a while rather than worrying about driving. That said, the trip itself is something of a let-down, the sound on board the train fails early into the trip, so we don’t have the commentary for most of the day, meaning that we lost out on lots of information.

The trip stops midway for 90 minutes or so to allow a lunchbreak and leg stretch…. There’s a small but interesting museum here as well as a general store serving fresh made paninis.

On the journey back I take a walk through the consist and eventually discover that this railroad allows us to stand outside at the front of the train.
I get there just in time for the train to do an emergency stop as we round a bend and discover a man walking in the middle of the line.
He doesn’t even look around when the driver sounds the whistle and we have to sit behind him for nearly 10 minutes before he finally looks around, shrugs and moves to the side.

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Speaking to the train driver when we get back to the station, it turns out the man on railway line is a local drug abuser and well known to the railroad and the police.

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After alighting from the train, we decide to head to Mount Hood itself and take a look at the visitors centre at the top…. My Mum actually remembers the explosion, she was working for the UK civil service North American section at the time and the eruption messed with the communications apparently.

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Just before we leave, we spend a quiet moment at the memorial for those who lost their lives in the 1980 eruption. A trail from here takes us back to the car.

Before I left the UAE, I ordered a host of spare parts for my Corvette from various places in the US, shipping them to a friend from a Corvette forum who lives in Puyallup WA.
Tonight is the night that I plan to collect them, it’s 9pm before we roll in to his street but luckily he’s retired and doesn’t have an issue with us arriving that late.

From Puyallup we drive to a hotel in Tumwater where we bed down for the night, our penultimate in the US for this trip.

Day 16

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Olympia State House is our first port of call this morning…. The Washington campus is quiet at this time of day, the smell of new mown grass is heavy in the year and it’s a lovely morning to just stroll around.
There’s no tour today, so we just walk through the building sticking our heads into any room that we can!

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There’s a great display of how the offices looked in the 1940’s when the building was first developed.

From the State House it’s a short drive into Olympic National Park, this is a huge expanse of openness with few roads running through it, so it’s a long journey around the outside edge of the park to get to the locations that we want to see.

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On our way through the park we stop at various visitors centres and short walks. One of them, a ranger led tour, takes us through a forest where all the trees are dying, killed by a moss-like fungus that slowly covers every branch.

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Whilst we were planning for this trip Mum was determined to stick her feet in the Pacific Ocean….. today was the perfect opportunity and we walked down to the shoreline.
Having got there however it was too cold and misty to do more than pose for a chilly photo, so we moved on to Cape Flattery

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Cape Flattery is the most Northwesterly part of the lower 48 and though the sun was shining there was definitely a nip in the air… having walked for 20 minutes or so to reach the viewing platform, the chill was actually quite welcome!

Leaving the Cape, we decided to head back into Seattle itself, I needed to do some shopping prior to our midday flight out.
The fastest way back to Seattle is via the ferry, a quick check of the Internet on my phone gives me the flight times, Sat Nav knows the way to the ferry terminal and if I can just shave 5 minutes off the estimated time of arrival we’ll make the earlier ferry and save 90 minutes.

Unfortunately the Washington State Police aren’t as keen on me catching the ferry!!
Cresting the brow of a hill I spy several police cars and bikes in a layby at the bottom.
Though I stand on the brakes, I know the game’s up…. We’ve had a great run across nearly 6k miles and in fact this is the first time in the 25k miles or so that I’ve covered over the years that I’ve ever been stopped.

As I pull in I remember the differences between the US and the UK, I stay in the vehicle, make sure my hands are where he can see them and make no sudden moves. Even so, his hand never strays far from his weapon and his colleagues are alert too.

His body language relaxes completely when he hears my accent though and he’s actually a decent guy.

I’m told that if I was a US citizen I’d have been arrested for the speed I was going, however as I’m a tourist I’m written a ticket for a large financial penalty and that’s it. (It’s now 6.40pm on Friday)
I ask the Trooper how I pay it…. He says go to the courthouse on Monday.
I can’t do this as I fly out of the US in 24hrs I say, can I pay at a local police station…. Nope.

In the end, we discover that the only thing I can do is go to a bank on Saturday morning, get them to cut a cashier’s cheque for $300 and mail it to the court through DHL.

We eventually make the 9pm ferry, arriving back into Seattle at gone 10pm.
Rather tired, we head for the first hotel that’s somewhere near where we want to be tomorrow.

Day 17

Last night’s hotel turns out to be a complete flea pit, Mum tells me that she spent the night sleeping in a chair as she discovered bedbugs within a minute or two of getting into bed.

I make a formal complaint and am promised that my card will be refunded.

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Our first stop today is the famous troll statue.
This statue is part of an art project to bring something to the poor communities of Seattle, if you’re trying to find it, be careful…. This isn’t the nicest part of town and there are 2 streets with the same name (we went to the wrong one first!)

After stopping for a pic and to read the plaque, we head off to the shops of University Village.
I always buy my computer equipment in the US as it’s much cheaper than anywhere else, so a shiny new Vaio Z series gets added to the pile of luggage.
In addition, I was determined to buy a new watch whilst I was here, since I was 15 I’ve been promising myself a Tag Heuer, 20 years later I’ve finally got one. This means a huge amount to me and the lump in my throat as I walk out of the jewelers almost renders me speechless.

Our final stop on the way to the airport was supposed to be the Klondike Gold Rush State Park.
Alas, it’s closed permanently, so we browse around the firefighters memorial nearby… again, if visiting, be aware that this isn’t the nicest part of the city.

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Though we’ve been hanging the time out as best we can, the inescapable fact is that our holiday is coming to an end and it’s time for us to head back to the airport, return the rental car and get on the first of our two flights home….. just as we came here via LAX for reasons of cost and availability, we’re flying back via Chicago. First Class on American Airlines all the way should ease the stresses though.

Wow!! Awesome, awesome photos!

Mark

Unfortunately I don't think the map facility is going to work for this trip as there's too many waypoints.

But here's the basic details.

Total Miles 5260
Fuel Cost $1038
Fuel Used 259.6 Gallons
Fuel Cost Ave $4 per gallon exactly

Ave Economy 20.3mpg (US) or 25.3mpg (UK)

We had a great trip and we're both looking forward to another new area next time...... not sure where that will be yet though!

Thanks for the wonderful report and photos, I have really enjoyed riding along on your adventure through them.

Will be watching out for your next great adventure !

Dave.

Thanks Dave, I think the next one will be 2014, I'm considering doing a storm-chasing tour next year, but not sure that'll be too suitable to blog!

Glad you all enjoy the reports, I enjoy writing them and love reading them back years later, it's a neat way of reliving the trips.