..........several days in one post.

I've got four days in pictures to cover with this post. Some of the places we have stayed have not had internet service. It's amazing how remote some of the areas in the western United States are. We stayed in Cody, Wyoming at the time of my last post. From Cody, we went to Yellowstone National Park. It was beautiful, but not what it was hyped up to be. Almost all of the park burned in 1988. You can still see lots of evidence of that huge fire. The area where the geysers are located is facscinating. You can walk near to the geothermal areas and the steam is almost too hot to tolerate. Along with the steam is the smell of sulfur. Old Faithful was fun to watch. The park rangers can estimate its eruption within ten minutes either way each time. From Yellowstone, we traveled to Grand Teton National Park. After leaving Grand Teton park, we stayed the night in Butte, Montana. From Butte, we traveled to Seattle, Washington (that was a long drive). When we checked into our hotel, we had no idea that we would have a view of the Space Needle when we opened our curtain - cool!! I would visit Seattle again (flying out this time). Its a cool city. You can still see "hold-overs" from the '90's grundge movement everywhere. I noticed several shoppers leaving the Public Market with their reusable shopping bags - no plastic here! After having coffee at the original Starbucks, we took a ferry from Seattle over to Olympic State Park. There we went to the Hoh Rain Forest. You could see Mt. Ranier and Mt. Olympus from the ferry. After leaving Olympic State Park, we stayed the night in Centralia, Washington. We woke the next morning and headed for the Oregon coast. There we went to several coastline areas. We saw the sea stacks (rock formations on the coast). They seem to just rise right out of the water. The truth is that the constant battering of the water has formed the rocks as they are. The beaches here are unique. The mountains go right down to the coast. In the east, we are used to miles of flat land before we get to the ocean. There are some cliffis here that separate the coast from the road that are sometimes a couple of hundred feet high. Today, we will leave Coos Bay, Oregon and head for California. We should spend the 4th of July in San Francisco (the land of San Fran Nan). Okay, I'm going to try and get the picture captions right.

Here is a sea stack on theWashington coast.

Seascape with sea stacks in Oregon. Look at all the rocks on the coast. They are smooth, round rocks. Lauren took this picture.

Another Lauren seascape.

More of the Oregon coastline. If you look hard, you can see a lighthouse on the far point.

One more Lauren seascape. I think she takes some pretty good pics.

Here is the original Starbucks down on the waterfront. These people are consumed by coffee. As we traveled through Washington and Oregon, we would run upon a small espresso stand everywhere there was the slightest bit of civilization.

I took this one from the ferry in Seattle. That's Mt. Ranier in the distance.

These next photos were made in the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic State Park (pics by Lisa). The signature tree in the Pacific Northwest is the Sitka Spruce. They had a tree here that was over 270' tall, 12' plus at the base, and was estimated to be 500-550 years old. When they harvest the trees out here, they plant new ones. They also erect a sign that tells when the trees were harvested and when they can be harvested again (it is in a span of 60 years). The tree harvesting is big business here, but it is very managed.

Here's another shot of that lighthouse.

Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park. This was definitely worth the wait. It erupted for about five minutes.

A picture of the Grand Teton mountains.

This a picture of some Montana farm land. These farms are huge, and run right up to the base of the mountains.

The Columbia River, Washington State.

The Space Needle and the Seattle skyline as seen from the ferry.

A free-range bison at Yellowstone.

A picture from Yellowstone to show how the fire damaged the park. It's still a beautiful national treasure that everyone should see.

More pictures of the Grand Tetons.

I hope you enjoyed the pics. I'll blog back soon!!!