Gargantuan Post.....

Ramping down from a great visit with the Grimes family here in West Seattle and preparing to hit the road once again tomorrow on our way to Glacier National Park. We'll stop East of Spokane for a break midway and enjoy the fireworks. It was great to see Rick, Chris, Ben, and Sam. Two and a half years ago I sat at their kitchen table and told them we'd stop by on our big trip out West and viola....here we are...kinda surreal. The kids played great together and Chris did her best to fatten us up so we had energy stores for the weeks ahead. She deals in 'buffets', not just plain meals. Wow. We took a water taxi over to downtown Seattle and toured Pikes Place market and walked the waterfront today. Then we cooked up a feast of salad, homemade pizza, fresh salmon on the grill, Dungeness Crab, and.....delectable chocolate covered strawberries. A surprise visit from a college friend Bill Grdanski made for great night. Wonderful food, great company, and a fantastic sunset off of their back porch.

For you statisticians....a few stats thus far as we creep around the halfway point of our journey....

• 6000 miles driven.
• 125 hours in the truck together and still getting along.
• 125 miles of hiking. Biggest day was 13 miles.
• Over two miles of vertical climbing conquered. Biggest hike was 2150' of elevation gain.
• 92 miles of biking.
• No major injuries. Many scrapes and bruises. Judith's sprained ankle is progressing well.

We are WAY behind on pictures. Sorry. No good connections to enable uploading. Will try to catch up now....

First off,  a few more Yosemite highlights plus a few remaining Sequoia shots:

 Vernal Falls at Yosemite.

 Even higher on the same trail....Nevada Falls. a tough climb of 2000' to the top.

 Very steep and lots of steps that met Nathan at his thigh. He charged right through.

 Sentinel Dome and Nevada Falls in the background.

 On the road to Tioga Pass in the Sierra Highlands we hiked through beautiful Tuolumne Meadows.

 Then to the top of Lempert Dome for a great view of the Sierras.

 Descending down to Gaylor Lake - we had this trail to ourselves. Wonderful.

 Tioga Pass Road - View of Half Dome at Sunset.

 Tuolumne Meadows. We were watching the squirrels which act like Prairie dogs when one let out a 'cheep' and they all ducked in their holes. Then we saw the Hawk. We watched the standoff for 10 minutes. The hawk went home hungry.

 Grandpa Yellow Bellied Marmot surveying his kingdom.

Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls....snow melt is waning so flow was down.

El Capitan's 3000' foot face - using binoculars we saw climbers as they made the 3-5 day journey up the face. Hard to imagine. 

 Nice view of Half Dome and the valley as we biked along the valley floor.

The kids with Kai at Skye's house.

Mountain Bluebird at Lempert Dome

And the pictures from Redwood National Park....a painful drive up 101 but we finally made it there!

 Hiking the James Irvine Trail to Fern Canyon. Hiking through a creek - good times!

 

And then the going got a little tougher....

 We were rewarded with walls of beautiful ferns in Fern Canyon. Scenes from Jurassic Park were shot in this canyon.

 A half mile of ferns up both canyon walls. Very cool.

Faceoff: Banana Slug and a Snail...the snail retreated quickly...well, at least quickly for a snail.

 Redwoods don't have as much mass as the biggest Sequoias but they do have the height. Note the small speck of Nathan in his red coat in this picture. 

 You feel pretty insignificant among these giants.

We saw lots of Roosevelt Elk right beside our campground. 

Pictures from Olympic National Park....

 Hoh Rain Forest moss and ferns everywhere!

Thankfully, it wasn't raining when we were there!

 Perfect timing for a Rainbow over Sol Duc Falls.

 Brave man on a bridge.

 Exploring Dungeness Spit. Great fun throwing rocks in the surf.

 Look closely - Mount Rainier in the background.

 Cool driftwood everywhere on the Spit.

 Hermit crab from the tide pools at Salt Creek.

 Alise found two starfish!

 Searching the tide pools. Tons of crabs!

 What a treat - Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic highlands was in full bloom with wildflowers. Dozens of different flowers/colors.

 SNOW!!!

 Olympic Marmot.

 Hiking back down to the tree line.

Pike Place Market with the Grimes family.

 Smiles mostly driven by the planned stop at Menchies for frozen yogurt.

 Before the chocolate dipped strawberries were attacked.

Sunset from Rick and Chris' Deck. Nice.

Our longest post to date...now we're all caught up! Hope you have a safe and enjoyable 4th of July. God Bless America!