And what a vacation it was. Firstly, it went really well and we did a lot. However, almost nothing was done according to play other than when we left and when we got back.

Originally, we were going to drive up through Oregon and then go straight to Rainier National Park. After that, we'd go up to Sequim, then over to Seattle, then north to Vancouver, take the ferry from there to Victoria, drive around the island some, and then take the ferry back over to Port Angeles. From there, we would go up to Hurricane Ridge and then drive west arount the Olympic Peninsula, spending some time at the Hoh Rain Forest and the coast. After that we would head south along the Oregon coast, and then go inland to Eugene and visit my aunt and uncle. Finally, we'd come straight back down 5 to home.

Well, what actually happened was:

We went north as planned, nearly making Oregon the first night. However, when we got near Washington we turned east and drove up the Columbia River gorge seeing lots of waterfalls. We then turned north towards Rainier, but some bad maps (from AAA even) and some late night, tiring driving we ended up in Olympia well after dark (actually, it was closer to morning -- 3:30am). From there, we just went straight to Sequim and hung out at the Game Park for a while before going to my mom's place.

We staying in Sequim a couple of nights, and then as planned we headed over to Seattle where we met up with a friend of mine. A relaxing BBQ lunch and dinner and a night there and we headed off. We had already decided to go to Vancouver the long way (heading easy to circle through the Cascades) but by the time we left we had decided to head east even further and go to Glacier National Park (in Canada) and Banff. After going there we headed south east into Glacier National Park in Montana and then south from there into Yellowstone and the Tetons where we camped and got to see lots of animals. In all of the parks we went to, we saw Grizzly and Black bears, elk, bison, deer, moose, bison herds on the road, elk herds, many different birds, and mountain goats.

From the Tetons, we sped south towards 80 via Idaho and booked it across Nevada and CA to make it home. Our last day of driving was over 740 miles with a trip total of just under 5,000 miles.

Laurie will be putting many pictures up on her phlog from this trip. I only put a couple up, and only from camera phones, on mine. It's also clear that not all of mine got there -- luckily I CC'd my gmail account the whole time.

Posted by Shane on September 13, 2004 8:26 AM | Permalink