Blogs from North America - page 8681

Paddy Mackin of NW Exposures and his two faithful grips (Nan and Shaddy) made a twelve day photo safari in early October to the east side of the Cascade Range in Washington State. The caravan was comprised of a lightweight, fold-out Quicksilver tent trailer towed behind a four cylinder, sure-footed, all-wheel- drive Subaru Forester. This combo downshifts from 5th to 3rd gear going up steeper inclines, and sometimes crawls up a very steep ascent in second gear, often behind of creep of slow 18 wheelers. The first photo destination on the safari was 5-star rated, 300 foot Clear Creek Falls, snuggled into a cliff side about 2.5 miles east of White Pass along U.S. 12. There are only three 5-star rated waterfalls within the Mount Rainier Region of “A Waterfall Lover’s Guide to the Pacific Northwest.” ... read more

October 9, 2006, Friday. We started the day biking around Eureka, the home of some wonderful old Victorian Mansions, evidence of the wealth of the lumber business years gone-by. The town today seems to be hodgepodge of trendy shops, cafes, old bars, old businesses many closed and lots of homeless souls. Of course, Bob found a brewery, The Lost Coast Brewery, and we had the obligatory sampler. In this area there is a large Mexican population, so the Mexican restaurants are quite good. Down the road we deviated into the Humboldt Redwoods SP, Avenue of the Avenue of the Giants, an auto tour. It is the glitzy version of the Redwood Forest, trees cut for autos to drive through (?) for a fee, lots and lots of redwood touristy stuff. A little too commercial for ... read more

. Today we are starting our long trek south (again), first stop Victoria! We continue to have fabulous weather and this morning was no exception - the sky was blue with hardly a cloud, it warmed up pretty quickly and we didn’t have to wear coats! To give you an idea, the people in the cabin next door left with running shorts on… We are just hoping that by making this comment we aren’t jinxing the rest of the trip! Statistics Starting Destination: Ucluelet, British Columbia, Canada Ending Destination: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Ending Destination GPS: N: 48° 25.295’ W: 123° 22.388’ Elev: 36’ (at the dock, due to technical difficulties) Miles Driven: 255.6 Distance Walked: 3.8 km (2.4 miles) Stairs Climbed: 250 The First Enigma img=http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/9471/webalbionshipxc9.... read more

Ok thats right ive booked my ticket and im off to Aus on Oct 17th :D Im a bit scared im making the wrong choice, even though everyone and their mother tells me they would go in a heart beat. :S Not sure how long im going to be there this time.. first three months i will be up north doing harvest work :S wish me luck because i know i will need it! *will toughin me up anyways :P* will keep posting :D If i dont see some of you before i go then im sorry but its all kinda sudden and ive been trying to get everything together :D Countdown to downunder round 2 begins...... read more

After that mad 300 dollar night (not even one free bottle of champers), we went to a brilliant village called Calistoga. There was a tasting festival on and we just sat on the grass, imbibing excellent white wines and listening to a live dixie jazz style band of old codgers giving their instruments what for. The place we stayed was maybe the best bit - The Calistoga Inn is an old French design they said, all wood panelling and creaky floorboards. I felt like Huckleberry Finn. Here they had an interesting looking book on one of the shelves....something like "A painstaking work of breathtaking genius"; I read quite some pages, but didnt want to swap it with the books I had brought myself. In Calistoga we had the most exquisite meal of our lives at some ... read more