Home Again

A few of our favorite things.
1)Best backpacking experience - Yellowstone (with our dear friend Silverchin)
2)Favorite comment - from gentleman in the Prospect Oregon laundrymat in response to my leaving/returning to laundrymat with detergent. “I reckon that the washing machine washes them so good I don’t use detergent”.
3)Favorite bed-Guest bedroom of Joe and Diana
4)Moose’s favorite beer-Moose Drool, of course.
5)Favorite car camping site- Squirrel’s-Hoh rainforest in Olympic NP; Moose’s- Ohanapecosh, Mt. Ranier NP
6)Favorite friend who met us on our adventure-John (aka Silverchin). True, he was the only friend who met us, but still our favorite.
7)Favorite B&B-Orchard B&B in Yakima
8)Favorite star-gazing - Backpacking trip in Yellowstone
9)Not having to pump the gas in Oregon. Its illegal to pump your own gas and they have attendants at all service stations.
10)Our devoted blog readers, commenters, and participants in travel trivia

Winners of travel trivia:
Susan R.
Alan K.
Teresa D.
Lori M.
Betsy W. (bonus question)
HooDoo Winner - Stands with Fist

Tips for future travelers:
Check your ATM card's expiration date before you leave
Eat more fresh fruit, vegetables, and chocolate

How did we amuse ourselves during our travel?
The train game. We each pick a number prior to the start of our trip and then keep record of the number of times we see our number on train engines. Ending score 21 all. A freaking tie, can you believe it?
How many cars will we see on this dirt and/or gravel road? We were both usually wrong on this.
Bicker and banter incessantly. In a good healthy relationship kind of way. No major meltdowns from either party (this is amazing in itself).
Stare at the campfire and whittle away the minutes until it was 9:46PM and we allowed ourselves to go to bed.
Who spots the most banana slugs on a hike. Jim won the first time and I won the second time.
Animal spotting (Jim always won this; birds, deer, whales, elk, etc… didn’t matter; eagle eye Jim is good at this game).
Who will wave? People in pickup trucks on backroads always waved. City folk typically didn’t wave.

Stats:
11,129 miles in the car
290 hiking miles
34 nights camping; 32 nights in hotel/B&B, 5 nights with our friends, 4 nights with Jim's parental unit (thats 75 nights away from home)
Consumed lots of gorp, peanut butter, tang, propel, instant oatmeal, and power bars
Jim has now been in all 50 states (Susan is lacking 3 states)
One sighting of Sasquatch (okay, not really, but we were hopeful)
Money lost in Vegas-$0.00 (Susan really wanted to stop in Vegas and win back enough money to cover this trip, but that was voted down by Jim and the gnome)
Books read-0; we did a lot of reading, but no “books”; just travel info, guides, etc…
Gnomes acquired on the trip: One
Rabbits who returned to their warrens on this trip: Eight
Supportive Friends and Family-Countless

Signing off on this particular journey as I look forward to the next one,
Squirrel
(Moose's epilogue to follow)

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