Ryan: From Seattle we got a ride from a woman from Kenya, whose name I don't remember, if she gave it. She took us maybe ten or fifteen miles east (we finally had to make an "East" sign). We waited there for a little while and a guy drove by and stopped to tell us that he wasn't headed out east then, but in a few hours he was going to head out east quite a ways. We told him that if we were still there we'd take the ride. Turns out, first off, that we were still there, but he [View Full Entry]

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Andrew: And so we left the ranger station and headed toward the coast, which was about a mile off at this point. When we finally got there, it took awhile for it to sink in that that night would be the culminating night of our journey before we began the trip home the next day. We stopped a number of times to take in the view and enjoy the sounds and smells of the sea before finishing our hike to a rock formation known as 'hole-in-the-wall.' We set our stuff down and wandered around a bit to see if there was [View Full Entry]

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Andrew: And thus, we arrived in Washington, which is distinctly NOT Idaho and distinctly MUCH better. I was happy again, to say the least. Anyway, Washington state laws on hitch hiking are apparently very specific, because every on ramp had a sign near the entrance that said "Freeway Entrance" and some would even have signs which read: "pedestrians, hitchhikers, and bicycles prohibited." We decided to test our luck, and stand in front of the signs (as opposed to behind them) and see how things went with any police which happened to drive by. Again, unlike Idaho, this state did not suc [View Full Entry]

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Andrew: Jake, Susan, and the kids then left us on the side of the highway at the interstate entrance ramp. I was excited, partly because I'd been cooped up in the car for so long (along with everyone else) but also because we were on our way again and drawing ever closer to the coast. The wait was longer than the last few times we were traveling, but still not terrible. I younger guy named Richard pulled over and told us that he was headed into Jerome, Idaho and could drop us off there or in Twin Falls. Richard was a [View Full Entry]

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Ryan: When we got dropped off at the truck stop, we were a little concerned that we might be waiting for some time. Not so, as it turned out. We went out to the entrance ramp and got a ride into Denver within 5 minutes. The people who picked us up were still in high school, I'm pretty sure. A guy named Ben and a couple of girls whose names we never got. Ben was a pretty terrible driver, so I was glad when we got out of the car. They dropped us off in a suburb east of Denver and [View Full Entry]

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Ryan: So, obviously, there haven't been any posts for some time now. We're back from the trip at this point, and have been for a few days. We stopped posting because every time we'd get to somewhere where we were able to post, it was coincidentally also somebody's house who we were visiting, and spending time with them seemed more important than blogging. Anyway, we've decided to write posts about all of the things that happened in the latter half of the trip now, to the best of our recollection. Also, we forgot the camera today, so pictures will get posted [View Full Entry]

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Ryan: On saturday morning we left Denver. Evidently they're not allowed to have guests stay for more than three days at a time in their building, and the apartment managers had caught onto us. Andrew called some of his relatives that live out in Fort Lupton, which is a little ways north of Denver. We've been staying with them for the past couple of days out on the farm, and they've been most hospitable. We've spent almost the entire day blogging, and doing laundry/buying food/etc. in preparation for the next several days. We're planning on heading into Rocky Mountain National Park [View Full Entry]

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Ryan: So, recap from the end of the last post: We woke up at 5:45 (tough sell in a room with no windows) to walk out to catch the bus. I know, I know, taking a bus is cheating when we're supposed to be hitchhiking around the country, but, we had to reserve our tickets for Cave of the Winds for the lantern tour in advance, so we wanted to make sure we were going to be there on time (especially since they cost us 24 dollars each, which is about 4 days worth of food when you eat like we [View Full Entry]

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Andrew: So, this is our visit in the Cave of the Winds. We were pretty excited to be inside the cave, and had we not had to wait so long to get in it would have been a nice way to cool off after our hike. The tour we had decided to take was the "Lantern Tour" where, instead of walking through an electrically lit cave, you walk through a completely un-lit cave guided only by a bucket which held a kerosene lantern. We were warned that the smallest passage in the cave was about 2.5-3 ft tall and about the [View Full Entry]

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Andrew: Tuesday started off pretty well; we were in a new place, staying (comfortably) with friends, and we were starting to think about what our next moves were going to be. After sleeping in and waking up late, Sarah took us through town to find the grocery store so we could buy more food before we left. We ended up just buying some chili (a good purchase, unlike the refried beans from earlier) and some more chocolate chip granola bars. On the way back from the store, Sarah got a call from a friend of hers asking if we wanted to [View Full Entry]

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