Tour of the Northwest
July & August 2004

fter 37 days and 6,500 miles touring the Northwest, we arrived home safely with no mechanical problems with the truck or trailer and hardly any adverse weather. All in all, it was a great trip! We started off by going to the Badlands National Park in North Dakota. It is an interesting park in shades of gray and eroded terrain. Our next stop was Mt. Rushmore where we attended a night program that was highlighted by a dramatic lighting of the presidents' faces. We also bought beautiful matching Black Hill Gold wedding rings that have the gold grape leaves on a black background with scalloped edges.

We then decided to revisit Yellowstone National Park, but only the north entrance area. A short side trip was made before arriving there to Devil's Tower (as seen in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind). We took a walk around the tower and were amazed at its size and structure. The Native Americans have an old tale that the grooves on its side were caused by a bear clawing it. In Yellowstone, we saw new water flows that were coating green stems and leaves of plants with mineral deposits in one of the hot springs. It was amazing to see this happening right before our eyes. The park wasn't too crowded in this area as most head for Old Faithful.

For a change, we went south to Long Beach on the Washington coast. Our first evening we witnessed a beautiful sunset, but the next two days were cloudy and foggy. The delicious seafood made up for the overcast days.

We had a real change of scenery when we arrived at Mt. St. Helens. The volcano is much larger than we imaged, and the story of the eruption and explosion in human terms is very moving. On the way to the Columbia River Gorge, we toured both the Washington and Oregon capitol building—this is something we like to do in each state we visit, when possible. The Columbia River Gorge east of Portland is very picturesque, and the road along the south side has a number of view points for waterfalls. This contrasts with the countryside in all of Washington, Oregon, and Northern California, which was brown from the drought.

Our journey then moved to the south part of Oregon where we marvelled at Crater Lake which has the bluest water you'll ever see. I enjoyed Jacquie's reaction when she first saw it. Keeping with this volcanic theme, we stopped at Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California without much anticipation. The wildflowers were in splendid form, and a 1.5-mile walk to a steam vent area brought images of Yellowstone to mind. This truly is a beautiful park.

We made the decision to go to San Francisco. We rode the ferry over to the city for a wonderful day of eating and seeing the Fisherman's Wharf area. We were very glad that we did not have to drive into the city. While in the area, we toured the Jelly Belly (jelly bean) Factory—very interesting and tasty!

Deciding to head east and home, we stopped off in Salt Lake City for two days that turned into four. We were very impressed with the city, easy traffic patterns, low-cost parking, Mormon history, the Winter Olympic areas, and restaurants. We definitely plan on returning someday. And as a last stop before home, we visited the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. It encompasses amazing vertical views down into the gorge with eroded walls—a nice ending to the trip!

Here are a few pictures of our adventure:

Badlands NP
Jacquie at the Badlands National Park in South Dakota