Doin' laundry

Hi everyone! It's been an amazing, tiring, unbelievable and incredible week. We are just outside of Seattle, Washington doing our laundry! We're lucky enough that our campground has both internet access AND laundry (the dirty clothes situation was pretty critical). Since we last posted, we've gotten our first oil change of the trip, I've dug myself into the "punchbuggy" hole (Tim: 5 me: -3. I don't want to talk about it.), and we've both seen some amazing stuff. The highlights:

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming: Stunning and picturesque. We spent the afternoon driving and walking through the park and we tried to take some pretty pictures. We saw our first bison there, stopped in Jackson to check the place out. I could probably live there...if there was some kind of body of water around.

Grand Teton from Signal Mountain, I believe.

Grand Teton overlooking Jenny Lake.

Timmy points out the extremophiles in Yellowstone.

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming: Intriguing and special. We spent three nights at the campground, so I feel like we got our feet under us and really got to relax some. I learned so much here about glaciers, volcanoes, earthquakes, hydrothermal features, extremophiles and forest fires. We saw Old Faithful, but Timmy and I both preferred the less busy Steamboat geyser in Norris Geyser Basin (not to mention all of the other geyser just sitting by the side of the road). The most anticipated spot for me was the Grand Prismatic Spring; it was awesome, but we couldn't REALLY see it well because of the placement of the boardwalk and all of the steam coming off the top. However, there were many other smaller springs that had the same prismatic effect (heat loving microbes that use the sun for energy cause the different colors) that were much more easily seen. We hiked a 3/8th mile trail to the tallest waterfalls in the park, which doesn't sound like a lot, but when you change elevation 600 ft, it's a little more difficult. We enjoyed it, and the view was DEFINITELY worth the trip. We saw a lot of bison. A lot. We were stopped by bison crossing the road numerous times and I think we both became a little desensitized to the coolness of seeing wild cows.  We also saw elk, coyotes, possibly a wolf, a black bear and two cubs, but no grizzly bears.

I was impressed with the education centers at Yellowstone and it's obvious that they have a lot of programming for families and children. In terms of camping, Tim and I didn't shower for 5 days because the campground didn't have showers, got real used to bear precautions (no food outside, anywhere!) and started to get real comfortable cooking over the fire using various instruments. It was fun. 

Traffic jam, caused by bison.

At the end of one of our hikes.

Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone.

Old Faithful. How many times has this geyser's picture been taken?

This cartoon cracked me up!

After Yellowstone, we drove many, many hours up to Glacier National Park. It was very remote and outside of the park seemed kind of rundown. But the views and wildness of it can't be beat. Unfortunately, it seems as though before Glacier became a park, the land that makes up Glacier was part of a treaty between the United States and the Blackfeet tribe. There was a misunderstanding and this very holy land to the Native Americans was sold to the United States and they no longer had access to it for hunting, fishing, and living. It appears as though some fences are starting to mend, but there's a long way to go. We spent two nights there in two different campgrounds (one on the East side and one on the West). This first campground was nothing to write home about, but the second one, that was amazing. We went there on Sunday afternoon, and the ranger that checked us in was like, "oooh, you got the Presidential Suite! That's the nicest campsite in the park!" I thought she was pulling our leg(s?), but it turns out that George Bush, Sr. actually stayed at the campsite that we were in and it really had an excellent view. We had decided before arriving at the campsite that we wanted to take the afternoon to relax and rest up before traveling again the next day, so it was especially nice to have an awesome site with a great view of Lake McDonald. 

The next day (Monday, 6/11), we left Glacier and headed west on route 2 towards Lake Wenatchee State Park, our next stop. It was a long day of driving, but fun while we were in the mountains and boring once we got into the farmland (who knew Eastern Washington had so many farms?!??). This morning we left the park and continued on route 2 to Seattle. I loved Seattle last time I was here, and I love it again. We went up the Space Needle and to the Pacific Science Center and tonight we're having dinner with some friends of Tim's. It was raining when we arrived (typical), but by the end of the day, it had turned into a beautiful, sunny day. 

Okay, that's all for now. I'm sorry that was a lot to read. Next up, Mt. Hood, Crater Lake, Redwoods, Yosemite, Sequoia, and Grand Canyon. Love, Bonnie