We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto

Seriously.  We left Kansas this morning.  We stayed in Lawrence last night, home of the Jayhawks.  It's a cool little college town with a nice downtown area kind of like Pearl Street in Boulder.  We stayed in a historic hotel called The Eldridge Inn, which was really nice.  We're heading into St. Louis tonight to watch a Cardinals game with our friend Greg.  I'll post photos after the game.

The Oz Winery in Wamego, KS

This is Kansas.

Kansas City from the truck window

Busch Stadium in St. Louis

Statue gallery in front of the stadium

Mobius Arch

Arch, Jefferson Park, pink fountain

Allen, Greg, and ales in the outfield

Our new five-dollar seats

Right before Ludwick's home run in the 8th

Denver, I-70, and June 3, 2006

Last night we stayed in Denver with one of Allen's old baseball teammates, Jon.  He is a super guy and we loved hanging out with him and getting to meet his girlfriend Amanda and getting some love from their English bulldog, Broseph, who was happy to help us cope with missing Agee.

This morning we had a yummy brunch and did a little reflecting about the past three years, since we realized yesterday that today is our three-year anniversary.  Yeehaw!  We're amused to be spending it in the flatness of western Kansas.  Tonight it looks like we'll be somewhere around Hays, KS, before heading toward Lawrence and Kansas City tomorrow.  If we find anything three-dimensional to take photos of, we'll be sure to post them.  Love to all! 

*Updated* Leaving Yellowstone; Estes Park, CO

So, we thoroughly enjoyed our full day of touring Yellowstone National Park.  Saturday evening we got a chance to catch up with our friend Jonathan, who was passing through on his way to begin residency in Tacoma.  It was great to see him in such an amazing place, and we had fun hanging out with him even though it was sad to know he'll be living far away from us.  

After leaving Yellowstone we headed to Estes Park, Colorado. Allen worked there during two summers in college (following in his big sister's footsteps) with our friend Joel, who came out from NC to meet us for some camping, hiking, and music.  Joel is pretty much the closest thing to a zen master of music that we have ever met, and we always learn a lot about what it means to play and love music when we hang out with him.  He played some great new tunes for us and listened to some of ours.  It was excellent, and we wish his cool wife Jen could have been there too.  

We camped up at Pole Hill the first night, and the view was beautiful, as you can see below.  The next morning, we had a little bit of a close call when some fellow campers started shooting a .22 at the next campsite over.  We heard a series of pops, which was a little alarming, but more alarming was that some of the pops were followed by whizzes just above our heads.  That's something you never want to hear.  We definitely don't want to hear it again, and we're thankful we were safe despite the utter stupidity of our fellow humans.  We hit the deck and started screaming, and the shooting stopped.

Then we headed into town with utmost haste and had a huge breakfast at the Big Horn.  After that, we went for a hike in steady rain, and got soaked through. The hike was quite an adventure in itself, with snow covering the majority of the trail IN JUNE and the rain and thunder hounding us back down to the trailhead. After the hike, we returned to the lodge at the Y for some hot chocolate by the fire.  Best. Hot chocolate. Ever.  Even though we were wearing wet jeans that weighed about 25 pounds.  

After a quick nap, the three of us headed to the local bowling alley, where we absolutely dominated the lanes, since the weather was too unfriendly for sunset viewing.  The next day, we drove up Trail Ridge Road to catch what is allegedly an overwhelmingly beautiful view...but it was completely obscured by fog.  (Sorry Gin...I still haven't seen it up there!)  The road was actually closed off due to the weather, which was stubbornly uncooperative for our entire second day there.  Despite the rain and fog, though, we managed to feel pretty well-adventured, and we loved getting the chance to have some great conversations and play music with Joel.

Sleeping elk near our Yellowstone cabin

Saying bye to Jonathan

Hiking at Dream Lake

Campfire at Pole Hill

Allen and Joel at Pole Hill, above Estes Park

A view of Wyoming on our way to Estes

Yellowstone

These photos are in reverse order, and we are exhausted, so it'll be captions only, but the moral of the story is YELLOWSTONE = AWESOME.

A mama and baby elk at the Mammoth Hot Springs campground

Lower Falls

Upper Falls

Lewis Lake

Yellowstone Lake

Old Faithful, 10:39 am.  Predicted eruption: 10:33 am.  Pretty impressive!

Sapphire Pool at Biscuit Basin

Bacteria Mat

Bison alongside the truck

Soldiers Chapel and Lone Peak, Big Sky, MT

Seattle, Little Si, and I-90 to Missoula

So, we left Seattle this morning after saying goodbye to Nick and Gita, who were extremely gracious hosts--we had so much fun hanging out with them and loved having them show us around Seattle.  They also introduced us to a new band called The Moondoggies that we really liked.  We're pretty sure that we saw Dave Matthews' house, and we definitely saw the house where Kurt Cobain kicked the bucket.  It's a very non-grungy place.  Anyway, huge thanks to Nick and Gita for your amazing hospitality and conversation, and for introducing us to Seattle's food, views, music, and personality.  And once again, while visiting friends, we forgot to take any photos with them.  Dang!

For the rest of this post, I'm just going to put up photos with captions, some from Portland and our yurt the night before we headed to Seattle (the video at the end is Brendan Frazer getting into a cab while the crew checks lighting levels).  We absolutely LOVED Seattle, though we realize that we were blessed with incredible weather in a typically gray place during our visit.  Still, it's a great city with a good vibe, and we had a blast there!

Right now we're in Missoula, and tomorrow we'll head to Yellowstone, where we'll (hopefully) meet up with April and Tim, some friends from home who just happen to be passing through, and then Jonathan, one of Allen's buddies from Quillen who is heading out to Tacoma for residency.

Also, big Happy Birthday shout outs to Noah, Estee and Jo this week, to Pat for finishing M1, and to Jana for being a Low Country Champ!  We miss you guys.

Allen eating dinner on the front porch of our yurt

Powell's Books in Portland--a city block's worth of books

A look at the GI Joe shelf at Billy Galaxy in Portland--how many of these did you have growing up?

The Pike Place Market sign

Art at Pike Place

Jake, we posted this one for you--these were going for $82!  They're maple.

This huge, gorgeous flower arrangement at Pike Place was $10--unbelievable!

One of many fish stands within the market--we did see some fish-tossing on the part of the fishmongers, which was pretty fun.

Produce

Possibly my favorite produce stand, run by two girls, with signs that said stuff like, "Hey, Nice Melons! 0.89/lb!"

Fish Market Special

Allen meets the Space Needle (love at first sight)

Amazing guitar sculpture at the Experience Music Project, a museum founded by Paul Allen (Microsoft co-founder) as a tribute to Jimi Hendrix and Seattle music history in general.  We recorded a song in the sound lab.  The sculpture shown here is made of real instruments and actually plays music through headphones at an attached listening station.

There was an incredible Jim Henson exhibit going on at the Sci Fi Museum, the sister museum of EMP.  We saw tons of his original drawings, which were amazing, as well as Bert, Ernie, Rowlf, Kira's dress from The Dark Crystal, and Mahna Mahna and his backup singers.  A-mazing.

Allen outside the EMP

Atop the Space Needle--check out those mountains in the background!

On our way out of town today, we hiked Little Si (great recommendation, G and N, and the Girl Scout Cookies you sent us on the road with were an awesome post-hike treat!) and this was our view at the top.

Getting lighting levels for the scene in Portland

Portland and Seattle

We woke up yesterday in our yurt with the sun streaming in from the oculus-skylight in the roof. Then we headed into Portland for a yummy breakfast of brioche french toast and mushroom panini.  We checked out Powell's Bookstore, which is a full city block of books.  We also found a couple of cool stores called Jackpot Records and Billy Galaxy, which sell vinyl and retro toys, respectively.  Billy Galaxy had an entire cabinet full of GI Joes, and another of Transformers. While we were crossing Pioneer Square, we learned that a movie was being filmed there.  The working title of the film is "The Crowley Project," and allegedly it stars Harrison Ford.  We know it stars Brendan Frazer, because we saw him get in a cab while the cameras were rolling.  It's possible Allen was on the Portland local news last night, because the lady that he asked for the scoop on the movie was a local reporter.  So, we didn't get there early enough to be extras, who apparently weren't getting paid, but we did get to see them set and film a scene.  We also learned that it's extremely tedious and involved to set up an action scene, even when it's just an actor getting into a cab with party balloons.

After Portland, we headed up to Seattle, where we're staying with Nick and Gita, friends from Emory.  They have an amazing place here in a great neighborhood, and two friendly dogs, which has been great for us, since we've been missing Agee terribly.  Nick and Gita have made us feeel right at home and it was great to catch up with them.  We had some delicious local Thai food last night, and we're going to head into Seattle to check it out.  First stop: Pike Place Market. I'll post yurt, Portland, and Seattle photos later.  

On the Oregon Trail

We have a weak connection right now, so I won't be able to post photos until tomorrow, but tonight we're staying in a yurt in Champoeg (sham-pwee) State Park, about 30 miles outside of Portland. We're thinking about going in to explore the city tonight. (Update: we are waiting until tomorrow...the yurt is very comfy).

After Tahoe on Saturday, we headed north to Crescent City to Redwoods National Park. We stayed in a campground on Smith River Saturday night, where we went for a morning dip in 60 degree water that was as clear as Tahoe. It was refreshing, and the photos are hilarious. Then we had a huge breakfast at the Good Harvest Cafe, and tooled around Redwoods for the rest of the day until we got to Bullards Beach, where we camped and had dinner on the beach Sunday night. For the sake of brevity, here is a list of what we saw yesterday:

2 horses being ridden on the beach at sunset

1 "paddle-out," a surfer's memorial service

10000 Redwood trees

500 sea lions

3 lizards

1 lady dancing beside her car while Dire Straits played on the stereo and her husband sat in the driver's seat waiting on her to finish her dance

1 sunset

1000 lighthouses

1000 beaches

100000000 state parks (you literally cannot drive two miles up the OR coast without passing a state park)

A billion dogs and kids celebrating the holiday weekend with their parents

The car-dancing lady took the cake, really.

Then today we got up and had strawberries and hot chocolate for breakfast, clam chowder for lunch at Mo's in Newport (just up the street from the Rogue Ale Brewery), and made our way to this dreamy yurt. Can't wait to check out Portland or to post the photos we took yesterday! Love to all in the meantime.

Sunset over the Pacific

Using the iLevel to figure out which direction to sleep

Dinner on the beach

Posing on Highway 101 in Oregon

One of the million lighthouses we saw in OR

The stunning clarity of Smith River

The stunning coldness of Smith River