http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/futurehawkeye/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from futurehawkeye en-us Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:32:45 +0000 Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:32:45 +0000 Left Glacier on the 9th of July and made the long drive to Gillette WY. Had a very nice time staying with Mary and Luke and Thelma in Gillette on Thursday. On Friday the 10th drove to the Battle site of the Battle of Little Big Horn. Watched a film about the battle and listened to a ranger talk then walked up to Last Stand Hill. It was pretty cool but I wish I would have had a little more http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Wyoming/Gillette/blog-418716.html Spent another day in the very nice Glacier Park. Drove to the Saint Mary's Visitor's Center and took the shuttle up to the Logan's Pass Visitor's Center. Walked the trail up to Hidden Lake which is probably the one you are thinking of mom. Had to trudge my way through the snow for probably 34 of the way and I did see some mountain goats when I got near the lake overview. Took the shuttle b http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Montana/Glacier-National-Park/blog-416633.html Drove in to East Glacier from Spokane today. Drove in on the GoingtotheSun Road which was spectacular. Lakes trees mountains islands waterfalls the weeping rock. Forgot that I lost an hour so I didn't have a lot of time to explore today. The hostel is near the Two Medicine Lakes area and I was able to walk a couple of trails around there to a couple of waterfalls. Planning on drivi http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Montana/Glacier-National-Park/blog-416317.html Left Port Townsend in the morning and swept around the west side of the Olympic Peninsula. Stopped at the Hoh Rain Forest. Walked both of the trails there and kept going around the peninsula. Stopped at one of the Olympic National Park beach areas for a little stroll on the beach. Kept circling around the peninsula until traffic slowed to a near standstill where the peninsula connects with th http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Washington/Yakima/blog-415982.html Drove down the rode to Olympic National Park in the morning. Started off on Hurricane Ridge. Very nice views of the mountain range and wild mountain flowers all over the place. Walked a trail there and headed down the road to Sol duc Springs. Walked a trail there to a really cool waterfall. Headed back towards Port Townsend after that but stopped to walk a trail to the Marymere Falls. After http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Washington/Port-Townsend/Port-Townsend/blog-415834.html Didn't have internet access there for a couple of days so I'm going to try to remember everything and get these caught up. Left Seattle on the 3rd. Took the ferry over to Whidbey Island and stopped in Langley. Panicked a little when they told me at the chamber of commerce that the earliest I could get a reservation on the ferry over to Port Townsend was 1100 pm. Walked around in Langley a li http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Washington/Port-Townsend/Port-Townsend/blog-415811.html Another great day in Seattle. Did a lot of the same stuff as yestarday but still great. I really like this city. Went down to Pike Place Market in the morning and got a muffin and some coffee. Walked around some of the shops again. That palce is so big and mazelike I bet you could walk around in it for years and then all of a sudden discover someplace you never knew was there. Walked down http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Washington/Seattle/blog-414662.html Had a really nice day in Seattle. Walked to the Pike Place Market which must be the biggest Farmer's Market in the world with shops clothing and arts and crafts too. Really cool. Saw the Original Starbucks down there and found the Martin Family Orchards stall. Walked down to the Waterfront and walked along the Piers for awhile. Found the sculpture park at the end of the piers. Walked up http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Washington/Seattle/blog-414289.html Made it into Seattle earlier this evening. Stopped by Mt. St. Helen's on the way. Stopped at the first Visitor's Center a few miles off I5 and watched a movie about what happened in May of 1980 and checked out the displays which included newspaper articles documenting what was going on. Headed up the road a little ways to another visitor's center and observation deck. Watched another film an http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Washington/Seattle/blog-413979.html Had a relaxing day today. Slept in got my oil changed and headed South about 7 miles to Cannon Beach. Grabbed lunch and walked around the shops for a bit. Headed to the beach and read a book for about three hours. Doing laundry now and will be getting dinner sometime soon. Tomorrow I'm on to Mt. St. Helen's and Seattle. http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Oregon/Seaside/blog-413534.html Meandered my way up the Oregon Coast today. Very pretty drive up US101. Stopped in Bandon on the way up and had some really good fish and chips. Also stopped at several lighthouses along the way. I don't know what it is about those things that I just love. Wish I would have had more time to explore some of the towns along the way becase a lot of them looked neat. It was a long drive though http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Oregon/Seaside/blog-413227.html Drove to Crater Lake today. Beautiful Blue lake in the top of a volcano cone. Believe it or not about two thirds of the drive around the lake was closed because of snow but what I was able to see was really cool. Going to take a leisurely drive up the Oregon coast tomorrow and will be spending the night and the next day in a hostel on the norther Oregon coast. http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Oregon/Crater-Lake/blog-412996.html Long drive on Thursday. Got pretty as I started heading north. Arrived at the hostel in the Redwoods in time to take a shower and watch the sunset on the beach across from the hostel. Woke up early on Friday and drove back south about twenty miles to the Lady Bird Johnson Grove. Beautiful The mist was enshrouding the grove and the sun was shining through the trees. Drove up north about thi http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Oregon/Medford/hotel/blog-412714.html Spent the day in Yosemite again. Started off by hitting a fall in the Valley that I had missed yestarday. Headed up north next to see a grove of sequoia trees. Continued on east after that to Tuolumne Meadows. A long and scenic drive. Had my Sound of Music moment there. Went on a hard hike up then down into a meadow lake. It was very beautiful. On to the Redwoods tomorrow. It may be a lo http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Yosemite-National-Park/Tuolumne-Meadows/blog-412026.html Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes. Slept in today but still had a full day in Yosemite Valley. It is quite possibly the most beautiful place that I have ever seen. There are giant granite towers on all sides lots of water and pine trees everywhere. Saw a bear when I was walking back from Lower Yosemite Falls. Vernal Falls was a hike but completely awesome when I got to the top. Got http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Yosemite-National-Park/Yosemite-Valley/blog-411689.html Just got into the hostel outside of Yosemite after having spent the last three days in San Francisco. Had a great time in San Francisco. Everyone seemed happy there although there were a lot of homeless people. Met up with Amanda and her friend Maureen on Saturday. We walked from our hotel down to the Presiderio the piers and back to our hotel. Stopped into this cool indoors Farmer's Marke http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/San-Francisco/blog-411261.html OK I'm in San Fransisco now and I'm able to be on the computer in my hotel. Spent the 17th in Flagstaff again. In the morning went to a volcano and ruins near Flagstaff. Around noon I drove to Sedona. The drive wound through the Coccino forest which was really neat. Sedona was a lot like Estes Park x10. Grabed something to eat walked around a little bit and went back to Flagstaff. For t http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Nevada/Las-Vegas/blog-410526.html Spent the last part of my Utah portion of the trip in Zion National Park. This was a really nice park as well once I figured out what I was doing. I ended up having to drive out of the park to park my car and walk back into the park. As with many of the parks that I have visited so far Zion has a mandatory shuttle system to get to different parts of the park during the summer season and all o http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Utah/Zion-National-Park/blog-409315.html Spent some time at Bryce Canyon today. Nice park. The park is known for its hodoos which you will see in the photos. The Navajo say that the cayote who is known as a trickster turned the people into stones. The park was full of pine trees and had great scents and the weather was great. Called it quits early today as I didn't stop until late last night. http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Utah/Bryce-Canyon/blog-408945.html Saw two really cool things yestarday. First I went to Monument Valley which is about 45 miles down the road from Bluff. Lots of cool red buttes. After that I decided to go on to the Grand Canyon as the weather was not too hot. Very cool. I wasn't really excited about seeing the Grand Canyon probably because of my fear of heights. The place was really cool though and the overlooks weren' http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Arizona/Grand-Canyon-National-Park/blog-408789.html