Post #10 - Portland, Seattle & Glacier NP

Hello Again Loyal Bloggers,

It has been another fast and furious ten days since our last post, so we'll just jump right into it.

We spent five nights in Portland at Cecelia's house while she and her boyfriend Casey are away biking across America.  They have the entire basement and their own bathroom with shower to themselves, so we were in heaven.  All of Cecelia and Casey's roommates were fantastic.  They gave us free roam of the house and we thank them for their hospitality.  We swear you'll get your big  sauce pot back soon.  We went to Fred Meyer (amazing supermarket from Portland) and got stuff to make homemade sauce before we even got to the house.  Shauna promised Pat's bother Matt a homemade Italian meal while we visited and Shauna complied.  Shauna made the sauce (or gravy if you're a true wise guy) and let it simmer for twenty four hours before starting the eggplant parm and chicken cutlets the next afternoon. The whole process took over a day but the result was delicious.  Matt's Italian friend Mike "Marinara"said it was the best meal he's had since moving out to Portland four years ago.  Matt and his girlfriend Sarah had about ten people over at her house and we gorged.  Everyone got leftovers to take home and all were very content.

Matt showed us around the city and it gave Shauna a good introduction to downtown.  The Pearl District  is a yuppy playland and is a neighborhood we would very possibly end up living should we ever live in Portland.  Like many other neighborhoods, in many other cities (SoHo comes to mind as the original), it was once an industrial center with a lot of big brick warehouses that have been gentrified.  Now you have coffee shops, restaurants, trendy boutiques, etc...Obviously Shauna loved it.  The Pearl is a great place, and Sarah works there so we were able meet her for lunch.  The Deisel store is also there and that was the location for the afternoon's best entertainment.  Matt's only pair of jeans were disintegrating off his body and his buddy Trent (working at the store) was able to get him a good deal, so it made sense to go in and buy a new pair.  It is entertaining because Matt absolutely loathes shopping, and if you know him you know Diesel Jeans don't seem to exactly fit his persona.  However, after a while he was able to find a pair that looked good, although he is still not happy about the button fly.  Pat also got a pair.  We would not have guessed Pat would end up shopping before Shauna, but you can't pass up fifty percent off.

The night after the feast Matt hosted a house party and we met more of his friends.  Everyone we were introduced to were awesome.  Portland is known for its beer and people brought a lot of it.  For the most part it is all really good and really strong.  You have to watch yourself or you'll end up nursing a killer hangover the next morning.

Nursing killer hangovers the next morning, we forced ourselves out of bed and into the car for a trip out to the Clackamas River.  We parked one car on the side of the road and seven of us piled into the other.  We drove upstream about ten or twelve miles, parked and blew up the inner tubes we bought earlier.  That's right, we had a lazy river day.  The day's weather was apparently the best of the year, and a ton of other people got the same idea we did.  It was a Saturday as well so that didn't help our cause, but the crowds made it more fun floating down.  From the car, we fought our way through the crowds towards the river.  In true Pat fashion, he ripped a hole in his brand new inner tube about two minutes after inflating it.  A hole in an inner tube is pretty much the worst thing you can do when you're about to spend five hours drifting downstream.  Luckily someone had a little duct tape and that was better than nothing.  Still, air continually snuck out as soon as Pat got in the tube.  It was a hilarious scene even a half hour into the trip.  Pat's tube was half deflated as he struggled to stay above the water.  Whenever we went over a shallow patch you could hear Pat yell as a rock hit his ass.  Pat was a trooper and fought through, having nothing more than a piece of plastic between him and the water by the end (he was basically swimming).  This was just a small set back compared to the beautiful day overall.  At times we could see the snow-capped 12,000 plus foot Mount Hood in the background as we enjoyed a clean river and eighty degrees. It was an amazing four hour ride.

The next day we relaxed and researched the rest of our trip, interrupted only to have lunch and then dinner with Matt and Sarah.  The time spent in Portland was special.  It was Shauna's first time and we spent a lot of quality time with Matt and Sarah.  Of course it was a major bummer not to have Cecelia there, but she is busy.  Her story will come in a couple weeks when we meet up in NYC.  We want to thank Matt and Sarah for everything!  Good bonding session.  See you both in Toronto.

We finally got motivated to leave a real bed and drove up to the Puget Sound and found a great campground right on the water.  You could see the tops of the tallest buildings of Seattle from our tent, the rest hidden only by a peninsula sticking out between us and downtown.  The campground was on Bainbridge Island, where a car ferry takes people from there to downtown in thirty-five minutes.  With that said, the island was quiet and beautiful.  If Seattle was NYC, all of these homes would be Scarsdale or Chappaqua and much more pretentious, but here the scene is relaxed and serene.  You could get from a perfect setting to your high rise office in an hour tops. With that said, Seattle is not NYC and the weather is less than ideal for a lot of the year.  That was tough for us to see in the short term, however, as we got uncommonly perfect weather while we were there.  It rained the whole way up from Portland, but after the first evening the storm system cleared and we had seventy-five degree and sunny days.  Our first full day we drove east over a series of bridges to the stunning beauty of the Olympic Peninsula and Olympic NP.  Our objective was the Hoh Rain Forest on the southwest tip of the Olympic NP.  The Hoh is one of the more impressive temperate rain forests in the world.  After seeing it we realized that Redwood NP must be a temperate rain forest as well (Patrick's Point where we camped is too).  Google confirmed as much.  We made it there but unfortunately we misjudged how long it would take to drive, so we only had about two hours to hike.  The hiking was great and the drive there and back was equally impressive, so it was a successful day.  Lake Crescent on the north side of the park is stunning.  Overall we drove seven hours for two hours of hiking, but it gave us a good impression of the area.  We had a sunny day as well which makes us lucky, considering the area gets up to two hundred inches of rain a year.  New York gets around forty.

After a long day we had another campfire, one of Pat's favorite activities a human can do.  The campground host came by with his three bulldogs and we had a fun night swapping stories with a guy who has spent his entire life on Bainbridge Island.  He explained the familiar story of a peaceful island transformed into a second home haven for the elite of Seattle.  Keith was amazed by our story and the tales of NYC, which seem to catch the imaginations of so many people across this nation.  Not so much our story (though we do get some overly lifted eyebrows) as the NYC bit.  People have an idea of NYC, and this country is so big.  The city must be in the dreams of countless people.  Thinking about it now, that goes for Americans and the people we've met in Asia as well.

Our second full day was spent in Seattle.  Again we had uncommonly clear and warm weather, and we loved the city.  It is known as the most "east coast" of the west coast cities.  That reputation is justifiable.  It is a city on the go but it still has a west coast vibe.  This is another place we could definitely live.  There is a lot going on, and the setting couldn't be more beautiful.  On a clear day like we had (but year round we're not sure how many you get) you can see the Olympic Mountains in the background while Mount Rainier dominates the foreground.  Standing at roughly 14.200 feet, Mount Rainier is an active volcano that is so impressive because you can see it rise from sea level to its peak.  There are very few mountains in the world you can see rise so precipitously.  That goes for the Cascade Range in general (which are all volcanoes), but since Mount St. Helens blew in 1980 Mount Rainier is the most impressive.  As an FYI, the Pacific Northwest, if not the entire west, is part of the "Ring of Fire", a large circle on the earth from Indonesia to Oregon.  In Bali we saw the eastern side, and its awe inspiring to see the opposite side on snow-capped Hood and Rainier.  With that said, Seattle has all the amenities of a modern city.  We did the touristy sites of Pikes Market and the Space Needle, etc...Shauna was obsessed with seeing men throwing fish in Pikes Market and thankfully they do that on command.  We also got a coffee in the original Starbucks.  Check out the original logo, we guess it's too risque for Middle America.         

We took the ferry back to Bainbridge Island only to wake up early and take the same ferry (this time with the car) back to Seattle and continue on through the entire state of Washington.  We continued further through Idaho and then Montana to reach Glacier NP on the Canadian border.  It took us eleven hours and 550 miles but we made it.  The longest drive we've taken so far became easy after getting into Montana.  The whole ride we could cruise seventy miles per hour along pristine lakes and picturesque mountains.  All the same, we were exhausted and relieved to reach our campsite in Fish Creek.  We were setting up our tent at dusk when the women in the campsite next to us offered us their extra chicken and fresh grilled vegetables.  It was gratefully accepted and delectable.  Thanks again ladies.  We got a good nights sleep and had a full day in the park.  We were only able to hike three miles due to the inclement weather, but we were lucky to have the time we did.  The views in Glacier are spectacular.

Unfortunately we only had a short time in Glacier and had to take off for another long ride through Montana.  This is something we'll have to get used to since we just started moving east and we only have two weeks to get back to NYC.  We took a beautiful drive today along Flathead Lake into Missoula and then along I-90 to Bozeman.  Bozeman is home to Montana State University and is a cool town in the middle of possibly the most beautiful state in America.

From here we hit the most famous NP of them all, Yellowstone, before crashing at Pat's cousins place in Jackson, Wyoming.

Until the next adventure,

S&P

Pictures #9 - Tahoe/Redwoods/Crater Lake/Oregon Coast

Post #9 - Lake Tahoe, Redwoods, Crater Lake & The Oregon Coast

Hello Loyal Bloggers,

It's amazing how time flies.  We cannot believe it has been over a week since our last installment.  We start this post with Lake Tahoe, a beautiful crater lake on the border of California and Nevada.

We drove completely around the lake on our way to Stateline for a couple Phish shows.  The lake seems to us extremely pristine.  Some of the coves boast water colors we've only seen in tropical climates.  It's the light Caribbean blue that shouldn't be in a landlocked body of water at 7,000 feet.  The entire lake area is beautiful, and many of the homes around it are stunning.  We swam and the water was chilly but doable.  Some of the beaches are fantastic, and as you relax on the sand or take a dip you look straight on to snow-capped mountains.  In addition to the normal lake summertime activities (boating, water skiing, etc.), you also have several world-class snow skiing mountains within a twenty mile radius.  Squaw Valley surprisingly hosted the 1960 Winter Olympics and after seeing it we can see why.  As we said in the previous blog the Sierras are tall and beautiful, and they get seriously dumped on.  It was right before we left in January of this year when parts of the range got as much as fifteen feet of snow in one storm!  Tahoe reminded us a lot of the Adirondacks, but 4,000 feet higher.

With that as the backdrop, we met up with two of Pat's best friends from high school, Jim and Brian (Benner).  We stayed with them and another upstater (Mike) who Pat has known for several years in a great ski condo just a mile away from the venue.  Stateline itself is kind of cheesy with a lot of casinos and whatnot, but the venue was ideal.  It was in a parking lot, but it only held around 5,000 people.  We cannot remember the last time one of the biggest bands of a generation played to such a small audience, and the experience was mind-blowing.  We had seen Phish at least once a year over the last few years, but these two shows we'll remember forever.  Trey Anastasio (the lead guitarist, vocalist and song writer) has got to be (conservatively) one of the top ten guitarists of all time.  This argument has been going on a long time and there are lots of opinions, but we consider ourselves lucky to be able to see someone on that level.  Not only that, but it's not very common for someone of that talent to mesh so well with a band like Phish for as long as they have.  They all know each other so well and can bring the house down whenever they want.  Very few bands can boast the catalog Phish has.  When all is said and done Phish will be remembered as one of best bands of our generation and will have an immediate place in the music hall of fame.  As we said, we were lucky to see them in such good form.

Jim hooked everything up from the lodging to our tickets (for the second night, anyway) and we thank him for that.  It was a memorable forty-eight hours with two of Pat's best friends.  We don't get to spend a lot of time with Benner these days with him working his tail off for Patagonia in Reno, so the time we all spent together was special.  Thanks again for everything boys and we'll all see each other again for a bachelor party next summer.

We left Tahoe drained after two days of dancing and partying, and we only made it north of Sacramento for a night in some random Motel 6 on I-5.  We recovered fully there and made our way out to the beautiful Patrick's Point on the coast of California.  We camped here for the night in a cold but almost tropical forest just south of Redwood NP.  You will see from the pictures the coast there (just south of Oregon) is extremely lush and green.  It's misty all the time, and moisture is what the Redwoods need.  Apparently Redwoods grew all over the continental United States around the end of the last Ice Age, but as things dried and warmed all over the last groves have taken a stand in a very narrow band along the northern California coast.  We walked among the trees and you'll see the moisture.  The Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world, some standing 380 feet above the earth.  That is well over a football field's length.  We couldn't see the tops from where we were standing.  The height was impressive, and some of the bigger trees looked like Sequoias.

We drove north passing Redwood after Redwood and Shauna saw her first whale in one of the most unlikely places.  A random grey wale and her calf made their way into the Klamath River and starting swimming in circles below a bridge right along the 101.  After a couple days on the news the whales became a sensation and there were throngs of people taking pictures as we drove by.  After asking someone was was going on we parked and saw the mother whale.  We quickly learned the calf left her the day before.  We asked twenty people why the whale was acting so peculiarly and we got twenty different answers.  Pat remembered similar previous circumstances with whales back east and none ended well.  They seem to be at that point disoriented and tend to beach themselves after a time and die.  We just heard (three days after seeing her) this whale did the same thing.  She beached herself and volunteers got her dislodged just to have her beach herself again.  Who knows why this happen, but possibly they know it's their time?  The calf seemed to realize its mother was not healthy and turned on its own back into the ocean.  Life is a mystery.

We continued north into Oregon towards Crater Lake NP.  We were trying to spend two nights camping there but ran into the same problem as in Yosemite.  Everything is first come, first served and the entire area was booked (as it was Saturday in the summer) by the time we arrived.  At the time we were bummed but ended up working out.  We spent a few hours around the crater, throwing snow balls at each other and taking in the views.  Crater Lake itself is the deepest lake in the U.S. and the seventh deepest in the world at over 1,900 feet.  About 7,700 years ago Mount Mazama blew its top and created a large crater.  From then on rain and snow melt have been slowly filling in the hole that is now Crater Lake.  This lake is much like Lake Tahoe but even more pristine and remote.  The colors of the water are almost impossible to believe, and scientists are still baffled by some of its properties.  It was recently discovered that there is still some thermal activity going on towards the bottom of the crater and may add to the insane blues you see.

The reason things worked out is that we got to spend two nights (instead of one) with Pat's brother Matt and his girlfriend on the Oregon coast's sand dunes.  We enjoyed two great camp fires and a day on the gorgeous beaches along the central coast.  Shauna saw her second (first healthy) whale cruising along just offshore.  It was great for us both to finally meet Sarah, who Matt has been dating for a better part of a year.  We both loved her immediately, and we're excited to spend another five days getting to know her better in Portland.  We attempted to rent dune buggies and ATVs for an afternoon but they were asking $150 an hour, a price we weren't willing to pay.  It looks like a ton of fun, but we'll have to wait until we have jobs again to go back.

From the dunes we ventured further north along the coast and 101, following Matt's favorite spots.  We stopped first at Barnacle Bill's for the best smoked salmon we've ever had.  It was amazing.  It got better when we stopped off at Kelly's Marina for some fresh Dungeness crab.  Kelly's should be on Diners, Dives, and Drive-Thrus.  We picked out our soft shell crabs and drank fantastic beer (as beer does in the Pacific Northwest) and had a feast.  The Dungeness is known to have a relatively high fat content and basically steams in its own butter.  After the best crab of our lives, we took down the largest oyster of our lives.  See the pictures.

From here Matt and Sarah departed for Portland while we spent one last night on the Pacific coast.  We camped at yet another perfect golden sand beach in Nehalem Bay State Park.  The Oregon coast in general is absolutely gorgeous and mostly sandy.  For some reason we thought it was more like Maine, with lots of rocks and cliffs, but apparently that kind of scenery happens more in Washington.  Of course it would be better if the water was warmer (it's fantastically freezing), but you can still enjoy the beach.

On our way to Portland today we stopped in the pretty Cape Cod-styled towns of Manzanita and Cannon Beach.  Shauna fell in love with them both.  The summers here are amazing, and we enjoyed the Goonies atmosphere until we made our way to Portland.

We're settling in to Pat's sister Cecelia's apartment for the next five days while we take in the sites of northern Oregon.

Until our next post,

S&P   

Pictures #8 - Sierra Nevada