Today we toured through Olympic National Park, our sixth national park on the tour. This was my final national park before I head back to Maine on Sunday, but Kris still plans to hit a few more on her journey back to New England. Olympic NP is in the Northwest corner of Washington on the opposite side of Pugeut Sound as Seattle. We took a ferry early in the morning over to the peninsula and began working our way around the park. The park has high glaciated mountains, the biggest being Mount Olympus in the middle of the park. We finally [View Full Entry]

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After a lot of rain in the great north west, we decided not to try and brave Mt. Saint Helen's and face the fog again in Washington. I still haven't seen a mountain peak in Washington as the clouds seem to just hang around at 6000 feet above sea level. With the weather not cooperating with us we headed for Portland, Oregon just an hour and a half south of Chehalis. Our great host, and chauffeur Carole, took us down to the city that is known for being a bit eclectic. The city was pretty nice with lots of breweries and [View Full Entry]

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We crossed over the Idaho border and headed straight for Mt. Rainier. I have heard so much about this mountain and the northwest weather, so we prepared for the worst. Well, not exactly! We were planning on getting in a couple of hikes and then camping, but the rain and fog were so thick that it was almost impossible to see on the twisting and winding roads on the mountain. We did get a few hikes in, but with the weather being as wet as the great northwest can be, we decided to check in to a bread and breakfast instead. [View Full Entry]

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A golfer's dream is to enter a golf course that has been, or still is, a location for the PGA tour. I have played Torrey Pines in San Diego with my dad after placing our golf bags on the deck at 4:00 am, sleeping in the car for an hour and a half in the parking lot, just to hear our names called to the tee for a 6:15 tee time. Three summers ago I visited the home of golf, St. Andrews, to see Tiger Woods beat out Scotland's own Collin Montgomery, and the Golden Bear, Jack Nickalaus, retired waving one [View Full Entry]

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We spent the day in Glacier National Park on the Canadian border of Montana today. I have been to Banff and Jasper park and Glacier is right up there with some of the most spectacular views of glacial lakes, streams, waterfalls and of course rocking peaks. We drove up the Going to the Sun road and had another beautiful day for wandering around the parks. There was no signs of any bears or moose, but the first few hikes were pretty nice without too many people around. We did run into a 30 minute wait at Logan Pass, so we were [View Full Entry]

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I'm on the road now heading north in Montana up toward Glacier National Park. Kristen and I spent the last two days in Yellowstone and even camped out by Lake Yellowstone, so I didn't have Internet access. When we find a motel tonight I will try and update the pictures, but they are packed in the back of the car right now. I also have heard from some of you that the videos are not accessible. I tried to log in as a subscriber and could not get to the videos and extra pictures either. I will post the videos on [View Full Entry]

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Jackson Hole Wyoming and the Grand Teton National Park was not really on our agenda when we took off from Maine at the beginning of the month, but I had heard from so many people that it was worth the trip that we traveled the extra miles to get there just before darkness fell. We actually found one hotel room available in Dubois, Wyoming next to the Bighorn Sheep Museum. Luckily the local restaurant was still open with a great local beer and buffalo burgers on the grill. Another great frontier meal. The next morning we treked into the Grand Teton [View Full Entry]

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We woke up in the beautiful black hills of South Dakota and headed to the old gold mining village of Deadwood. You may better know this city from the movie and the famous Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. We visited Saloon 10 where Wild Bill was shot in the back of the head holding two aces, two 8's and a nine. Today the city is much like it was back in the 1800's only with a fresher look. There is more cement than the old wooden casinos and brick mills, but there are more one room casinos in this little [View Full Entry]

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Today we went through the Badlands National Park and hiked many really cool paths around rattle snake country looking for animals and great views. I brought along the Flip Video camera and edited a short movie. Check it out! After the Badlands we headed for world famous Wall Drug. Yes, we got the free ice water and checked out all the wonderful eats and souvenir stores, but I didn't buy anything there in Wall. We checked into our hotel in Rapid City and found a great brewery down on Main Street called the Firehouse Brewing Company. I had a rancher's pie [View Full Entry]

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We traveled 545 miles today from La Crosse, Wisconsin over the Mississippi River, into the southern part of Minnesota, over the Missouri River, over into Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and finally ended up in the small town of Kadoka, SD near the Badlands for the evening. There really wasn't much to see after the Mississippi River in southern Minnesota. I would like to explore the lakes and Minneapolis when I have more time as there was a lot of advertisements and much more to see in those areas. We stopped in Sioux Falls to see the water falls and mill that [View Full Entry]

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