Olympic & Beyond

Whole lotta miles

After we left Yellowstone, our trip-o-meter flipped over to 3000 miles. That's a long way! It was exciting to see that milestone in the emptiness of Montana.

Brush fires in the distance

We crossed through Montana and Idaho with relative ease and before we knew it, we were in Spokane, WA that night. We ended up staying in a motel and thanked the great indoors for internet access, a mattress, and pizza delivery. 

Driving through the eastern part of Washington was very interesting, and it's easy to forget that the state borders a sliver of Idaho that rubs up against Montana. Eastern Washington had a lot of plains, a view that contradicted my vision of lush forests and pines. We passed numerous brush fires, and learned that the summer has been very dry for this section of the country. 

I tried to soak in Washington as much as I could, knowing that this would be my definition of my home country once we were in Victoria. I know that sounds silly, since Victoria butts up against some Washington-owned islands, but this state would be my ticket home back to the east coast whenever I needed it.

Olympic beauty

Getting into Port Angeles and Olympic National park was exciting. This would be the last stop on our road trip. About two hours north-west of Seattle, Port Angeles has a ferry route that can take cars and its passengers to Victoria's inner harbor. After finding our way around a bit, we staked out a camp site in the beautiful Olympic national park. 

Olympic consists of a varied terrain, including rocky coast line, temperate old growth rain forests, and beautiful snow-capped mountains. While we didn't get to hang out by the coast, we saw some old growth around our camp site and got to have a terrific view of Mount Olympus and its surrounding cousins.

The Cascades

Beautiful old growth trees

In the morning we took the early ferry over to our new home. The ferry was fairly old in terms of boats (from the 50's), and rather slow, but it got us there in one piece. Finally our trip was over; we were in Victoria!

Goodbye, U.S.!

Leaving everything we know behind

So we finally meet!

And that concludes the cross-country road trip portion of this blog! I still intend on posting west coast adventures, recipes, themes, and other things, so stay tuned!