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

Muir Woods, Napa, and Tahoe

Montana de Oro, PCH, Palo Alto, and San Francisco

On Monday, we left Los Angeles and headed north toward Monterey and San Luis Obispo.  We were getting pretty tired of being on the road, especially after our day of traffic from Vegas to LA, so we found a gorgeous campground at Montana de Oro State Park.  The place was magnificent.  Our pictures don't really do it justice.  We were surrounded by the Pacific, bluffs, and lots of wildlife.  In our fifteen or so hours there, we saw a rattlesnake facing off with a family of squirrels, rabbits, seagulls, and California quail EVERYWHERE, and we had our own standoff with a very tenacious raccoon who found our dinner garbage quite interesting.  We had a nice drink along the bluffs and when we got back to camp, Allen cooked a wonderful dinner on our camp stove and built a great fire.  We slept soundly until nine the next morning.

After we left Montana de Oro, we headed into San Luis Obispo for breakfast and ate at a place called Big Sky Cafe, with big skylights and plants everywhere.  The breakfast was fantastic and cheap.  Highly recommended.  Then we started the long, windy trek up Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway.  After only half an hour or so, we saw a sign for an "Elephant Seal Viewing Area," not far from San Simeon and the Hearst Castle.  The seals were incredible.  Many of them were fighting in the surf, but more were sunning themselves and sleeping all over the beach.  There were hundreds.  There's a video of a couple of them fighting at the end of the post.  The sound isn't great, but you can hear the low rattling sound they make if you listen closely.  They were also losing their fur, so lots of them looked like they had tree bark peeling off of them.  It was an incredible unexpected stop. 

All of Highway 1 is amazing.  The views are breathtaking all the way up the highway.  We stopped a couple of times to take shots, but most of the time we just looked out the windows muttering under our breath about how unbelievable it was.  Who puts a highway on the edge of the world?

We continued on PCH until we reached Mountain View, where our friend Mike works at Google.  He gave us an awesome tour of the campus.  Our minds were definitely blown.  Everything about working at Google seems to be about happy, productive employees and creativity.  We loved it.  (Google, if you are monitoring this blog, we just want you to know we love you. And your T-Rex sculpture and indoor yurts and colorful buildings with food and lap pools and volleyball and happy people everywhere.)  And thanks to Mike for a great tour.

After meeting up with Mike, the three of us snagged another friend from Emory, Beth, and headed over to see our friend Julie in Palo Alto (unfortunately Nir was out of town, so we missed him).  She hosted a fun dinner and we got to catch up over great food, as well as getting to meet her adorable daughter.  After dinner and dessert, we headed home with Mike.  

Mike's place is AWESOME and his generosity in letting us crash has let us have an amazing day in SF.  We have had a blast walking around and taking in the city.  The city has beautiful architecture, parks, museums, theatres, and weather.  We walked some of the biggest hills we could imagine, walked the Embarcadero, Fisherman's Wharf, Ghirardelli Square, Golden Gate Park, and a good bit of downtown/SoMa.  Needless to say, we're exhausted and enjoying a good bottle of wine and some delicious cheese.  Tomorrow we'll head to Tahoe.  You know, to relax.

Here's a shot of us with Alcatraz in the distant background:

Allen at a gorgeous vista just beside the Presidio:

A boat owner hard at work along Fisherman's Wharf:

Allen on a cable car:

The Palace of Fine Arts/Exploratorium.  You can see a couple's wedding just ending in the foreground.

The Rose Garden in Golden Gate Park:

These are called "Perfect Moment" roses.  Beautiful.

And here are the Elephant Seals fighting just north of San Simeon:

Hope all are well and thanks for checking in!