USA Road Trip - Days 17 to 21

Day 17 was another one of our all day driving days.  Leaving the beautiful Montana landscape behind, we entered Idaho, which was as exciting as Iowa (so not exciting at all) and then over into Washington.  The eastern side of Washington state was nothing like what Twilight portrayed.  It was hot, dry and sunny and looked a lot like Idaho/Iowa.  About an hour out from Seattle the scenery completely changed and we were in beautiful mountainous forests covered in mist and looking much more Twilight-esque.

Yay.  Idaho.

Our first whirly whirly!

There was just hours of this.  HOURS.

Finally, something nice to look at.

The next day we wandered around Seattle, stopping to check out Pike Place Market, the Space Needle and the first Starbucks store in America.  As it is summer here (although you wouldn’t know it in Seattle with its wind and rain etc) everything was stupidly busy.  The market was overcrowded making food purchasing and eating a little awkward.  The line to Starbucks was down the road, why I will never know.  It all tastes the same people!!  Starbucks is the McDonalds of the coffee world.  The line to the Space Needle was also a little ridiculous so we wandered around the base of it laughing at the fools who spent their hard earned money to go up and look at grey clouds.

The Space Needle

The Space Needle and the Experience Music Project

Inside the market 

Pike Place Market

That evening we headed to Portland and were lucky enough to catch up with the Byers again!  This was also the night we met Stella, possibly the largest cat I have ever had the pleasure to meet.

STELLA!!!!!!!!!

So day 19 was spent in Portland, although from the lack of photos you wouldn’t know it.  I think the reason for the lack of photographic evidence is that no digital image could really capture the amazing feel of the place.  Sure we have pictures of the food trucks (which are numerous and incredibly delicious) but the best part of Portland was just wandering around, stopping  in to a few cafes for a delicious coffee and general people watching.  Sure it’s a hipsters paradise, but that aside, Portland is definitely one of my favourite cities in the States.

Loving my delicious grilled cheese!

Amazing southern fried chicken and biscuits.  Sadly, full of hipsters.

That night we were lucky enough to stay at Kevin’s sister’s tree house a few hours south of Portland.  The treehouse has solar lights, a solar shower, a pit toilet and it wonderfully isolated.  Marc and I had an awesome night sitting around the fire, toasting marshmallows, keeping an eye out for deer and enjoying the peace and quiet.  It was also possibly one of the best nights sleep we have both had in a long while.

Day 20 was another day on the road but luckily we were driving through beautiful redwood forests and along the incredibly scenic Highway 101 (101 is the northern coastal route before it turns into the famous highway 1 and is like the Great Ocean Road on steroids).  We spent that night in Arcata, California with one of Cate and Kevin’s friends, Paul, who kindly showed us around his beautiful town and put us up for the night.

The Pacific Ocean

Redwoods

The only good reason for a traffic jam.

Best animal crossing ever.

Day 21 saw us leaving Arcata and making our way San Francisco.  It was a bit of a continuation of the previous day, more beautiful redwood forests and coastal driving.  We did do one thing different on day 21, which was driving through a giant redwood.  That’s right, you can drive through one of the trees!  They are that big!!  You wouldn’t have wanted a car much bigger than ours as we barely scraped through. 

That's our car coming out of a tree!

USA Road Trip - Days 14 to 16

After our Florence and Red Rocks experience we had a little sleep in and faffed about before getting on the road to Yellowstone National Park.  We had a good eight hour drive ahead of us through some beautiful scenery before setting up camp at a (sadly/luckily) bear free camp ground.

After a freezing night, which we were totally unprepared for, we set off for Yellowstone.  We did stop off at a general store to buy three extra blankets before hitting the park.

On our way into the Grand Tetons National Park we were lucky enough to see a mother grizzly bear with two cubs.  They were just off the road we were driving along and it was amazing to see these animals in their natural habitat.

The next beautiful thing were the Grand Tetons themselves.  Every time they came into view we pulled over to get photos (hence the million photos here).  They really were just stunning.

First sighting!

Not the worst place to have lunch.

We made our way into Yellowstone National Park and headed towards Old Faithful, a geyser in the Park which goes off fairly regularly.

Old Faithful doing what it does best.

No blog post would be complete with a picture of a squirrel or in this case a chipmunk.

The next stop on the Yellowstone tour were the artists paint pots.  They weren't as colourful as expected but it was still cool to see all the bubbling and hissing and stuff spurting out of the ground.

Just a small storm rolling in.

That night we headed out of the west entrance to the Park and set up camp.  As we were in the mountains and it was cold we took the opportunity to light a fire and toast marshmallows.

Living the dream.

Day 16 saw us heading back in to the Park to check out the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  On the way in we again pulled over so watch some elk graze.  As we continued along we happened upon a herd of bison just doing their thing.  They were a bit far away but it was still awesome seeing them in their natural habitat.

A lovely herd of bison.

Solitary bison

Marc enjoying some bison watching.

After our animal spotting we made it to the "Grand Canyon" and decided to do one of the walks to the upper falls.  We didn't quite make it all the way because there was a giant bull elk on our path munching away, oblivious to the line up of people trying to get past.  Jerk.  Not wanting to be gored we decided to turn back and view the falls from a safe, although a lot less cute, perspective.

Our last stop in Yellowstone was Mammoth Hot Springs.  By this stage it was fairly late in the day and there were just too many people around to really get a good look at things so we only made a quick stop and enjoyed the sulphurous aroma before getting back in the car for a long night of driving.