The Columbia River Gorge
The Columbia river gorge was beautiful. Dozens of waterfalls flow into this beautiful valley between Oregon and Washington. Can you see Quincy cautiously walking closer to the water?
Ivo writes:
"This picture was taken at the Oregon columbia gorge on our 'unexpected hike' that was a loop that went out to some famous waterfalls. This black thing that I am pointing to is a huge slug that was creeping along the trail infront of us."

A Day in Seattle, Washington

The photos above and below are both from the Pike Street Market in Seattle. Walking through this market, the air was filled with the aroma of flowers from numerous flower stands. We wanted to buy a bouquet just because we'd never such gorgeous flower arrangements for so little money. You could get a bouquet like this one for $10!

At the fish stalls, we watched the workers throw fish to be weighed as people ordered them.

One of the best ways to see Seattle and the Puget Sound is from the water!
The next 4 pictures are shot from the ferry going from Seattle to Bainbridge Island.

Here you can see the bicyclists heading off the ferry. We had a great pizza dinner followed by a bowl of Moira's ice cream (indescribable).

As the ferry traveled back to Seattle we could see Mount Rainier glowing in the distance.
Our friend Marco climbed this mountain earlier in the summer!

We visited the Space Needle in the morning and again at night (day/night ticket).
Above we look out at the Seattle skyline at night. Below, Q and Ivo are posing next to one of the bolts that anchors the Space Needle.

Time to head to Glacier National Park

We found the plans for this camping box on the Internet. It holds all the tools for the camp kitchen. The ‘chuck box,’ as we call it, was built with the help of my father and J.C. (thanks guys) during that last crazy week before we left. This container allows us to setup the kitchen, ready to prepare meals, in literally 3 minutes.
We spent 4 nights at Glacier National Park in Montana. The first 2 were spent car camping at the Avalanche Campground.
The first day, we explored the park by car, driving the length of the Going to the Sun Highway. To call that road windy would be putting it mildly. As the switchbacks wound around the mountainsides, new mountain peaks were constantly revealed.
Here we are at the beginning of a 3-day backpacking trip into the backcountry wilds of Glacier. The packs were heavy but as we consumed the food each day, they became lighter. Every ounce counts when backpacking, we even cut the handles off our toothbrushes to save weight. At bedtime during the first night Ivo burst out laughing, she had discovered her (heavy) beanbag stuffed animal ‘cow’ hiding at the bottom of her sleeping bag! We let her keep him!
When backpacking, weight matters. Xi has to rip her book in half; she couldn't survive without a book!!
The first thing you have to do when you arrive at a primitive campsite is stop at the food preparation area and hang all of your food on the bear pole. Glacier has both grizzlies and black bears, so food storage is taken extremely seriously!

The ladies relaxing on the beach in front of our tent playing cards. When the sun came out, they went in for a refreshing dip!

We met a crew from Appleton, WI and discovered that R knew and worked with Xi's college roommate...truly a small world! After dinner, we played the game Mafia.

In over 7 weeks of travel, we only encountered a 1/2 day of rain! Unfortunately, it was while backbacking, but the sun came out later in the day. We hear this has been a very wet summer in New England.
Ivo poses next to a fresh bear scraped tree. We were well armed with (2) bear pepper spray cans, made lots of noise along the trail, and all knew what to do if we encountered a grizzly. The park service requires all backcountry hikers to watch a 20 minute video on how to avoid/deal with bears and mountain lions before they will issue hiking permits.

On the trail in the near Quartz lake in Glacier.

The backpacking experience was completely different from car camping. In the back country at Glacier, all cooking and food storage is required to be done in a small bench-enclosed area in order to isolate the food smells for wildlife (grizzlies). Because of this requirement, you get to know your fellow backpackers quite well (there are 3 or 4 tent sites in each backcountry campground).

The minerals in the glacial run off make the water a beautiful turquoise color.

We stopped and spent the night with cousin David and family. It has been over 20 years since we last saw each other in Deleware. It was great to take the first shower in 5 days and hang out drinking beer and catching up!

Ivo shows off the delicious bacon-blue cheese burger she got at a little diner in the town of Babb.

The Family poses next to our growing collection of bumper stickers. We have enjoyed hunting down good additions at each major stop on our trip.