update

So, where to begin? We have been back two months and sometimes it's difficult to imagine the scope and distance we've traveled this summer, all in all, about 20,000 miles in three months. 20,000 miles of exploring, getting lost, being frusterated, awestruck, and amazed. It's something I would reccomend to anybody though I would caution you to plan it for a summer when our country is at peace or has conqured all the oil producing nations in the world, which ever comes first. Since this is just one of us writing, I'm going to avoid telling you what the best, most beautiful and most fucked places we visited were, I will tell you that the two best parts of the trip for me at least were visiting with friends and family we love and miss, and those long empty days driving someplace or noplace in paticular with julie sitting next to me. It's a pretty amazing country we live in, every place has something new to fall in love with or discover, and in turn leave behind. Life times spent in any one of them would continue to reveal secrets i'm sure, yet no place we visited will ever be exactly the same again.

It is difficult to be back, the feeling of stand still, no longer concerned with how far we can drive in a day or what we absolutely need a photo of... But, learning to ignore the nomadic instinct is kind of an adventure as well. I want to thank everyone who read our blog, and kept up with our travels, and everyone who wished us well or that we visited with on the way. Would i do it again? yes! in an instant so long as julie would travel with me.
P.

Oh, Canada!

Guess what, Canada is a whole heck of a lot colder than the US, a mere hundreds of Km to the south. We're currently in Banff national park where they have had lots of bear attacks recently, and the guy typing next to me in the libraty here smells a bit like poop! Hey, good times! i guess it is a bit more european up here! There are these fantastic road signs in english and french, so i figure by the time we return in a week and a half, we'll have french pretty much mastered. It's been raining fot the last two days and every once in a while we'll get a glimpse of a sweet looking snow capped peak from behind the clouds. Weather is supposed to improve by the weeks end so perhaps later i'll be able to report on the landscape in some sort of scathing and ironic yet insightful and ultimately positive manner. Good, the poop guy just took off.

Oh, what did i not mention, just the Omak stampede and the North cascades, it's pretty clear that we have overshot the vacationing hordes, and are now sort of lonely and misdirected, free of the herd of people that at one point showed us what was worth stopping to look at and photograph, left to our own devices and fate on the empty roads of fall.

P.

Kalaloch

We've done nothing for a couple days out on the Olympics soaking in the sand, sun, fresh air and naps of course. Other than one long walk devoted to a currious attempt at the of slavage beached jelly fish in hopes that they may drift into bathers down the coast or end up in soups in strange faraway lands, the time has blissed away softly. The nearly artic sea, the drift log bonfires, the surprises of nature left at the high tite line, the canopy of the mossy pines, the ferns of the rainforest as well as and if not more importantly, a pit stop at a Dairy Queen, and the rising prices of gasoline have reinvigorated us for the next leg of our travels which will take us into the dark and mysterious continent to the north, Canada.

Sea-people

Random New-ish Photos

dax

Day 54-60 (perhaps)

So, from the library where we last used computers to document the travels, we started our drive back up to Yellowstone. Not without taking a sweet detour to the local fish hatchery to learn about how trout end up in lakes, evolution or intelligent design? hell no a large truck dumps them at the end of a concrete boat ramp. or so we learned from an old volunteer dude eating a ham sandwich, he was so tan from trout fishing that his arms were purple. It raises the question of course, who's job is it to stock the elk, or the bison, i'd love to tour the bison hatchery.

showers in Yellowstone were running a cool $3.00 per person per shower, in the tetons, they were $3.50, to boycott the pay shower conspiracy, We decided to wait until Glacier. The next couple days were beautiful, we painted and whatched the Tatonka, and then headed north to Montana. We took what looked like the most direct route on paper which probably ended up being the longer way. A two lane road and a ton of cattle. When we arrived we noticed the grill of the car had apparently caught every cricket in Montana. Anyway, On the way there we decide to look in the camping guide to check out our campsite for the evening. "ahh, there it is.. and no shower. Next night? no shower... no showers in the entire park" So for a little over a week our showers consisted of swimming in lakes and glacial pools, cool and refreshing like a brush with death.

Glacier is beautiful. We found a favorite spot to return to everyday. A rocky bank that was surrounded by the bluest and clearest water ever(don't even try to argue with this one). And even better the entire thing was covered in Monarch butterflies. We went swimming (very quickly) the first day. The water might have well been made of ice cubes, then sunned on the cliff. At any given point julie had about 6 butterflies searching her feet and hands for food or skin nectar, Amazing.
Once done with Glacier we decided to head over to Seattle. We stopped off in Leavenworth (a Bovarian French community - that is purely tourist) Took a quick walk around then headed out to a campsite we found. Very dirty and tired we scrounged all the quarters we could find (a whole $1.25) and took 2 very quick showers. julie got the extra quarter worth of time - she apparently needed it that much more) So yeah!!!! we're clean, and at the same time booooo we have to put on clothes that have not only been dirty for weeks, but had us wearing them while we were at our skankiest.

the next day, we made it to Seattle to surprise a couple people, visit family, get the car serviced, get a little insurance card for Canada. Today we're on the way to the Olympic Penisula and Kalaloch for a couple days.

Days Ago...

I wanted to thank Mark for totally taking care of us in OH, the convention was fun, and Chris, Kristen, and Dax in MN, good to see you guys! Just put up some new photos, scroll down to check out.

Mt. Rushmore is fantastic, not in the least because of the men it honots, whose faces, gigantic and unblinking stare out from thier stone prison like the heads of giant disaproving gods. What better method than scale to seperate the average man from the politican-avitars of long ago? I can't think of a way to enshrine and deify men and the high ideals that they are iconic propaganda for. In shore, Mt. Rushmore is the longhand version of saying, here's a few guys that in addition to working hard and being lucky and timely, made a few good decisions that most of us still agree were good ones.

The sculpture also raises the issue of size, that an artist who was not terribly skilled yet quite ambitious, could in the later years of his life, make a desperate stab at immortality by creating possibly the largest solid sculpture on the world, states that gestures and actions that are small and slight are for the meek and the faint of heart. if one's self importance dictates, nothing is sacred save the mark of one's own signature upon the world.

also want to mention here that the proximity of Rushmore to Wall Drug and numerous other examples of roadside americanna on the western edge of South Dakota, does not help it's kitch factor, though i wouldn't reccomend missing it, or Wall Drug for that matter.

Yellowstone has thus far been one of the most fantistic places this trip has taken us> Utterances of "It's magical!" occur at least twice a day. the sheer number of large mamals we've seen in two days far outrank everything else we've seen in the rest of the United States. It is, and would be a fitting end to this roadtrip, of course, there's a month left, and i'm hoping Yellowstone doesn't lessen the impact og the other sights still to come.

photos

Day 44-54 We found another winner!

Last I remember writing was from Erie Pen. We were on our way to meet my dad in Ohio. On our way there we found another couple sweet little letterpress buys along with getting to watch another spectacular storm the one downside of that couple days was walking to the shower where you got to pass the dump station as well as fish entrail garbage, oh no, nothing else in that one. Just fish entrails, yummm. We met up with my dad and spent a couple great days getting fed really well, sleeping in a bed again and best of all getting to hang with my dad.
And off we were again. Driving across Ohio and up to Chicago. I found the nearest campsite I could (a good hour and fourty-five minutes away) We got up early and set for the windy city. We started off going to the WORST contemporary art museum I've ever walked through. I was also expecting the admission to be free (as that is what the guide book said) So we pay our nice fee, walked in, and it's all neon light displays. Not that there's anything wrong with that but that's all there was. Huge rooms nothing but a few lights. Then we found a movie they were playing with interviews of the artist. Usually that gets you a bit more excited about the work. Get inside his mind and inspirations. Unfortunately - he's just a huge space cadet that likes neon lights. Didn't offer up anything new or remotely interesting about his process. ahhh - we leave in search of some Chicago style pizza. We found a great place on the other side of town and proceeded to eat way to much (a trend we've gotten in the habit of. We wait a bit too long in between meal and get ravenous - then eat way too much and make ourselves ill, nice huh.)
We started to walk the meal off by walking across town again to check out the park and Art Institute. Again the guidebook steered us wrong. We had anticipated they stayed open until 8 - when in reality they closed at 4. So we had to rush through and see everything we wanted to. And started our journey home.
The next morning we set off to Minneapolis to see my great friend Kristen. We had a good visit with her family. I got to introduce myself to her new son (new to me, he's almost a year now). Unfortunately we had to cut our time a little short since we were a couple days behind schedule.
We took off for South Dakota around 2pm and drove for the next 10 hours. We got into Wall just before the storm hit luckily. We hit up Walldrug that next morning. For those who haven't had the chance to see Walldrug. It's know as the worlds largest drug store - but in reality it's more of an odd mix of amusement park rejects. In the back they have a T-Rex display that roars every 13 minutes. You can pan for fossils, they have a huge assortment of singing animals, once you put your quarter in of course. And who can leave without their photo on a 15 foot jackalope and a drink of they're famous water (famous for making the store popular back in the day by offering up cold glassed of water to travelers passing through), the water I tried was not worth it, warm at best and not the greatest tasting.
On our way through the Badlands (a quick 30 minute drive from Wall) we noticed our tires weren't doing so well. So the whole rest of that day was spent slowly trying to get to a tire store to get some new ones. (It's never good when the tires start to fray at the sides) That little sidetrip took us a good 4 hours. But couldn't keep us from seeing Mount Rushmore that night (it was a busy day now thinking back). Rushmore was beautiful, not much for the sculpture itself as much as for the scale of the project, and the whole patriotism of the whole thing. There's a lot of pride for the US right there. We got to watch a little movie and lighting ceremony before finding a place to crash that night.
From there we were headed for Yellowstone (The blue ribbon winner for this blog) On our way there we stopped in Thermopolis where Pat's great grandfather used to be sheriff. We got to check out the hot springs, a good introduction to Yellowstone. But nothing prepares you for the Yellowstone itself. From the minute we got there - your surrounded by animals. Buffalo walking right next to the car. Getting stuck in traffic jams from herds crossing the road. To your left is an Elk, to your right is a moose. So amazing! We crammed a lot into the first day seeing most of the geothermic sights. Yellowstone has to be one of my favorite places in the entire world. I discovered that Bison are now my new favorite animal, I found out I love swimming in rivers, and binoculars are a must when visiting.
And today we found our way to Jackson Hole - where the best site of all has been the library.
Hope your all well. I'll try and write sooner next time.

new photos

thanks nick!