Portland and Seattle

1st of June

 We were glad to leave Yakima, made our way along a road inbetween 2 National Parks.
We stopped at this lake for breakfast.

We took a small hike to some waterfalls.
Suddenly Daniel started doing his magical tricks you see in the picture.

We did 2 or 3 small hikes and grabbed some geocaches on the way to our next destination.

We caught a geocacher family just signing one of the logbooks...


Finally we arrived in Longview, our hotel was much better than the one before. The city was great compared to Yakima, all in all, we were happy.

2nd of June

Even though the city is nice, Longview was just a short stop for 1 night, but we didn't want to leave without visiting the nearby park.
After strolling around there for a bit, we moved on to Portland.

We met up with some couchsurfers and did a photowalk. 20 people moving through the city with their camera, taking pictures of everything what might be nice in some angle.
Here you can see a picture of all the photographers.

This photowalk was right before the big parade in Downtown Portland. These police officers are "preparing" for it. We called this "the safest Starbucks in the world".

We moved on and took some nice pictures in the city... too many to show them all but in this one you can see Daniel at a fountain

After that photowalk we had dinner with 2 of those guys we just met and went to the parade afterwards, where we met up with our host for the next 3 nights.

 
3rd of June

We went to Downtown Portland to see the Saturday market which takes place every week. The market is huge, you can get whatever you want and it includes some rollercoasters and other fun rides. We explored the city on foot and we found 14 geocaches on this day.

4th of June

 First day in Portland was city sightseeing, this one was supposed to be a good occasion for hiking.
We drove to a place with some hiking trails and a waterfall.

Of course we asked somebody to take a picture of us

5th of June

We took a picture with our hosts like we did with every host before.
So, here is yours, thanks for hosting us Martha & Josh :)

It was time to head to our last city on this trip: Seattle.

We took the road along the ocean, because wanted to see the water.

We arrived in Olalla, where our hosts live. After preparing dinner we had to try the hot tub, just right in front of the door, that's luxury!
That guy who joined us is David, he comes from Ireland and is a couchsurfer too.

 6th of June

Seattle? - That means going to see the Space Needle and the Monorail. Of course we did.

We also visited the Fremont Troll. It is made out of concrete and the car under his left hand is actually a real car.

Back in Downtown Seattle, we took an underground tour, which takes you to the underground of Seattle (obviously...)
The tour was cool and we learned some interesting facts about Seattle's history.

We moved on to the gum wall... a wall covered all over with bubble gum.
You can simply walk by and stick your gum on it, try to make a name with some gums ;)

On the way back to our host we saw the majestic Mount Rainier.
Seattle is at an elevation of about sea level, so 0 ft... This mountain is just 50 miles away from Seattle and 14,411 ft (4,392 m) high.

7th of June

We wanted to go on a hike this day, but the weather was bad...
but as we heard just a few days ago, Groundspeak (the company which keeps Geocaching running) has its headquarter in Fremont, just next to the troll, we knew what to do: Signing the logbook in the Groundspeak: Geocaching headquarters cache.








After signing the logbook, the Seattle Aquarium was the next thing on our list for "what to do in Seattle if it rains".
Daniel wanted to be an octopus...

while I played jellyfish.










This was our last full day in the USA for this trip.
We drove back to our hosts after having dinner, American style, which means we had big burgers.


In the evening everybody was just sitting in or around the hot tub, playing guitar, talking and stargazing... the perfect last evening for our trip.









8th of June

Our last host Kevin and his wife Sara are hosting up to 12 people at a time, it is simply great. You can meet a lot of people here. Thank you for hosting us Kevin & Sara, you were a worthly last host on our trip :)






In this picture underneath you can see our route... red was the planned route and blue is our actual route.

Finally we had those 4101 miles ( 6600 km) and 124,5 gallons of gas (471,3 L) on the eastcoast.
And for the westcoast 5737 miles (9233 km) and 209,3 gallons of gas (792,3 L),
which makes a total of  9838 miles (15833 km) and 333,8 gallons of gas (1263,6 L) within our time in the US.

We are at the airport right now, so this is last post in this blog.
We would like to thank all our couchsurfing hosts:

Luiggi in New York City
Anthony in Philadelphia
Gunjan in Washington DC
Kevin and Brittany in Norfolk
Travis and his friends and roommates in Wilmington
John in Miami
Manuel in Miami
Susan and her family in Tampa
Joshua and his friends and roommates in Tampa
Brian and Diana in Las Vegas
Lance in San Diego
Viqui and David in Oakland (near San Francisco)
Susan, Mike and their family (ok, not couchsurfing hosts, but good friends of Daniel)
Stephanie and Jason in Boise
Caroline, Roy and their family in Spokane
Martha and Josh in Portland
Kevin, Sara and their family in Olalla (near Seattle)


We would also like to thank all those people we met during our trip, who made this 3 month journey so great. We will come back to the United States, sooner or later - hopefully sooner !

Kalispell and Spokane

26th of May

We drove through beautiful landscape on the way to Kalispell. In this picture you can see Flathead lake, which is a popular location during summer.

After we arrived in there, we went out to find something for dinner.
What we met was a delicious all-you-can-eat Asia buffet. They offered different kinds of sushi, fried chicken, pork and shrimp and a lot of other things.

27th of May

We drove to Glacier National Park and took this picture of us sitting in front of Lake McDonald.

The road was closed due to snow, so we hiked up the mountain through the forest, along a river.

This tree has a hole inside so you can climb up on the inside.

There was a lake at the end of the trail after about 1 hour of hiking.

The landscape is simply beautiful. Even though it was pretty cold, the water looked so nice that we wanted to go swimming...

The air temperature was about 41°F (5°C) and the water temperature was about 37°F (3°C). You might be able to imagine how all the people were looking at us, just in our swim shorts.

Roy was the only one who really made it into the water. It was too cold Daniel and me. I tried it but never got further than to my knees. The water was freezing cold.

















28th of May

So what to do if the water is that cold?
The correct answer is: go on a rafting trip !
The power of the water is amazing and you get totally wet.
We moved out for geocaching this evening and found a lot of them. And we had Asian dinner again, because it was so good the last time^^

 29th of May

We stopped on the road while traveling westbound and hiked a short trail with an amazing view.
We found some geocaches this day and slowly got closer to Roy's last american city: Spokane.
In the evening we vistited the Riverfront Park in downtown and saw some marmots (Murmeltiere) before we met up with our hosts.

30th of May

Our hosts told us about a nice park just a few miles away, so we drove to the Riverside State Park together with them.

Our hosts tried geocaching a long time ago, so it was time to show them some new geocaches.

After the park we visted a city called Coeur d'Alene and the farmer's market there. We had cupcakes and milkshakes before we moved to a Greek restaurant for dinner.
Back at home we took a picture of all of us. That's the three of us, together with our hosts Roy and Carolina, their children Levi, Gabriella and Abigail and their puppy.

31st of May

We brought Roy to the airport and made our way to fullfil our mission. We found a key in a geocache in San Diego which fits to a box hidden in Richland, about 1000 miles (1600km) away from San Diego.
So we digged out this box, since we had the only key which opened it. We were the first to open it for the last 2 years :)

We drove on to Yakima, a city which is close to the Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier. If you ever plan on going to Yakima... simply let it be, it is an ugly city... this car was one of only a few things which are nice here but all in all we are happy that we leave this city tomorrow.






coming up: Mt. Rainier National Park, Portland and Seattle

Another day in Boise and the Yellowstone National Park

22nd of May

It was definitely time to sleep in this day... we got up somewhat around noon, had breakfast and went to a hands-on discovery center our hosts recommended to us.
Here you can see Roy on a self-liftup chair / swing (I think there is another real name...)
Everything in this science center was interactive, it is exciting to try all that physics stuff on your own.
We went to the nearby park afterwards, found 2 geocaches and went back to our hosts.

We decided to do a bycicle tour before having dinner, so Roy and Daniel choose the tandem and we visited the Greenbelt of Boise.
After introducing our hosts to geocaching we had a mouth-watering dinner in Downtown Boise.

In the evening we took one final picture because we wanted to leave the morning after. In the photograph you can see:
Roy with Daisy, Daniel with Ben, Michael with Butters, Stephanie with Olive and Jason with Cinder :)
Thank you for hosting us, it was a great time in Boise !

23rd of May

We made our way passing Twin Falls and Idaho Falls towards Yellowstone... well, at least to the KOA campground nearby.
We wanted to camp with our tent but when we heard it will be 30°F (-1°C) and snow... we diceded to rent this heated cabin you see in the picture. It was definitely worth it !

24th of May

Our first day in the Yellowstone National Park. All those geysers, hot springs, steam coming out of the earth, but no possibility to take a bath in this nice warm (sometimes even hot) water.

We drove around in the park. There are two loops, each of it is about 100 miles (160km) long. In this picture you can see the "Grand Canyon" of Yellowstone.

All 3 of us in front of the canyon.

Michael & Daniel next to the lower Yellowstone Falls.

We saw a chipmunk close to one of the paths.

Amazing landscape! There was a fire in 1988 which destroyed about 40% of the park. As you can see where it was all over the area.

One of those geyser basins.
Steam in the air, the smell of sulphur everywhere.

The paths lead directly through the geyser basin. You can walk over sizzling water basins and all that steam, like Daniel does in this picture.

Of course there are some more waterfalls in the park.

Sometimes it looks unreal... the landscape was formed by the hot springs and geysers, the big fire worked out the rest.

Michael standing on a path in the steam of the saphir hot spring.

Smelly steam everywhere...

Daniel and Roy living on the edge (the signs says living on the edge because there are some spiders living on the edge of this almost 200°F (90°C) hot spring.)

Old Faithful - the best known geyser in the park.
The eruption happens every 90 minutes and goes about 100feet (30m) up in the air.

Sometimes bisons were blocking the road. But mostly it's been people in their cars, taking pictures of the bisons, blocking the road...

25th of May

We woke up and saw there was snow on our cabin and on our car.
The last night was our coldest so far, just 26°F (-5°C).
We were so happy that we had our cabin and not just our tent.

Yellowstone day 2 - here you can see some rock formations formed by the hot springs' water. Looks like stairs where water is coming down step by step.

We drove the upper loop this day. There are not so many geysers but a beautiful and breathtaking landscape.

We needed some warm water after that cold day, so we went to the pool and spa, offered by our campground.
Between our spa sessions we had a snowball fight outside, very funny and not as cold as we expected it to be.

Just one more night in our cabin before we go on to Kalispell, our start point for Glacier National Park exploration, which is just 200 miles (320km) from the Canadian border.



26th of May 

After getting up at about 10 we had breakfast and started our way to Kalispell and the Glacier National Park. After 350 Miles (500 km) and 7 hours driving we arrived at our destination.

In this picture you can see what we saw for some time on our way to Kalispell, the mountains covered with snow.

coming up: The Glacier Nationalpark & Spokane