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Hi Everyone,
We have finally become international travelers; we officially cleared customs this afternoon and are staying outside of Vancouver. The past couple of days have been filled with some of the most beautiful scenery of the trip. After leaving the Olympic Peninsula we went to Seattle for the day and saw the major sights of the city. We started off by strolling through Pike’s Place Marketplace where they have outdoor art, food, and souvenir vendors. There must have been something in the air that day because I didn’t actually buy anything, I must be developing frugal ways while on this trip, I don’t like it. I used to be such a souvenir sucker. After Pike’s market we visited Pioneer Square, which is supposed to be the historical district, but it didn’t quite work out like that. There were a lot of homeless people and blatantly intoxicated folks that made us feel a little uneasy. At first we thought it was okay but then a man tried to Parallel Park In front Of Me when he bumped my car. We were trying to yell at him to stop but he kept on backing up. Then he took off yelling at
us to mind our own business and gave us the finger. So we took down his license plate information and were ready to report him to the cops but thankfully there was no damage to Sydney (the car). That just put us in a mood so Pioneer Square didn’t start off good. But we decided to give it a try so we went looking in all the shops until there were some men that were making us feel very nervous so we packed it and decided to hit the Seattle Center and see the Space Needle.
After Seattle we headed further north to the North Cascade National Park, one word comes to mind when I think back to everything we saw there, majestic. The park is considered the last great wilderness area in the Lower 48 states and it is considerably undeveloped. We have been running into a problem with the park rangers in the area, they really don’t seem to take us seriously. I know that we are typically girly girls and look somewhat out of place in the wilderness but I think that we deserve a little more credit than people give us. I don’t see any
other women are age taking this amazing road trip and camping out in bear country and hiking the wilderness. They did give us some good tips though. The mountains range in height from 6,000 to 9,000 feet. They aren’t the tallest mountain range that we’ve seen but the peaks are impressive. The mountains all have sharp, jagged, snow capped peaks. There is a lake separating the Cascade Range called Diablo Lake and has the most beautiful green water. The glaciers and waterfalls run into the lake and create the green water color. We did some back country hiking around the lake area. Well when I say backcountry I mean, that we somehow lost the trial and created our own trail instead but it was backcountry. While we were walking you could see fresh elk and deer prints in the sand. After that we spent some time at the Diablo Lake overlook where they were great view of the mountains and the glaciers.
We had some adventures while camping in Concrete, Washington that night. The campground had a clubhouse with a television so of course we took advantage of that and caught up on our prime time viewing. Well we
managed to freak our selves out watching CSI and were paranoid for the rest of the night. I almost slept in the clubhouse and I can now be referred to as a bona fide scardy cat. We headed back into the park the next day and decided to take an off roading adventure. There is the Cascade River Road that leads into the park from the surrounding town and brings you to the wilderness area of the park. There were millions of waterfalls, raging rapids, mountains, and glaciers and they were all breathtaking. The road was very primitive and turned into gravel half way through but it was so worth it. It leads to an overlook of Boston Peak and Boston Glacier, so it felt like a little piece of home. Later that day we crossed the border into Canada and spent the night outside of Vancouver in a town called Twassessen (don’t even ask me how to pronounce it). We decided that a night on the town was well needed for a chance to interact with people other than each other (I still love you Cousin Jenny). However, we didn’t really find people in the town to be very
friendly and to be honest we were a little overwhelmed at our cross into Canada. We had totally forgotten to research the prices, currency conversion, and the metric system. To fill up our tank with regular it was 60 Canadian Dollars, which averages to be about 45-50, so it’s not that much more expensive but when you see the bill it feels really high. The highest gas price we paid in the US was 3.58 in Washington on the Olympic Peninsula (our lowest was 2.55 in Wyoming) and here it is over 4.00 dollars. So it’s going to hurt these next couple of days.
We are now on the Sea to Sky Highway in British Colombia making our way north to the Last Frontier. So far British Colombia has been beautiful. The scenery is amazing. I’m not sure about my internet or cell phone connection for the next couple of days but I will try to send some pictures home as soon as I can. Also I will add pictures of Seattle when I get a better connection!
I hope all is well and I miss you all.
Love Laura
PS- Don’t forget to leave comments
(you must have known that was coming)!!
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Rambaldi
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I am not so sure about Sydney.