Among Giants: Redwood National Park

We drove south from rainy Portland only to encounter: more rain!  The decision we made to continue south along the Oregon coastline seemed more and more ridiculous as we crawled along the winding road in the rain for days.  Reaching the Pacific was a milestone for us, and the coastline surely was beautiful, but the weather was taking its toll on us.  The constant rain, aside from just being generally depressing, kept us mostly confined to the camper even though we were camping in some beautiful parks.  It was lowering our gas mileage.  The pop-out tent in the Cub, which had withstood rain just fine previously, got saturated from the constant downpour and was leaking.  The mattress was wet, our pillows were wet, and we got dripped on every so often at night sleeping.  Our mood was not good!

Still along the coast, we crossed into California toward Redwood National Park, hoping desperately that rain would not spoil our visit there. It was raining on our way in, but miraculously the rain stopped and the sun began to filter down through the trees as we got out to admire some of the enormous redwoods in the park. 

Encouraged by the change in weather and in awe at the place we were in, we began asking for recommendations on good hikes in the area.  We got word of a good day hike in the southern area of the park and headed there.  We couldn't help stopping every few minutes or so, though, to check out the groves of the biggest trees we had ever seen!  Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world.  We felt tiny next to these giants.

 

 

By the time we arrived at the trailhead for our 10-mile hike it was already 3:30 in the afternoon.  Sunset time: 6:20.  Do we forgo the hike? Of course not!! We grabbed our headlamps and set out. The hike was incredible. The huge trees, the ferns, and the mist all made it seem like we were walking through a fantasy world.  We spent so much time looking WAY up to the tops of the trees, we started feeling dizzy!

Standing under the roots of a redwood

 

We reached Fern Canyon, where, supposedly, they shot some scenes of Jurassic Park, though we didn't recognize the area as being part of the movie.  We realized that we had 5 miles to go to get back to the car, and it was already 5:30.  We'd better pick up the pace - no more posing for photos with big trees!

Fern Canyon - part of Jurassic Park??

 Well those headlamps came in handy after all...we ended up walking the last couple miles in the dark.  Even in the dark, the forest was charming - we left elated after a day of no rain and arguably the most beautiful hike we've ever done. 

A Whirlwind City Tour: Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland

We left Invermere and drove through mountain snows toward Vancouver.  Since we were way behind on our anticipated timeline, we knew we had to push the trip a little faster on our way through the Pacific Northwest.  We had two big dates coming up: meeting with friends Diego and Helen on Oct. 25th in San Francisco, and then picking up our Mexico travel partners Sarah and Matt on Nov. 3rd in Las Vegas. 

 

We had planned to visit Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland as we begin making our way south.  We would have loved to take the time to visit these cities for longer, and even some of the parks nearby, but there was no way to continue our previous pace and still be able to fulfill our commitments, so... time to put the pedal to the metal!

 

We spent a day and a half in Vancouver.  We visited Granville Island, the farmers market, Stanley Park and drove through the city a bit.  Not much time to get to know the whole city but we had a nice visit!  Some pictures below:

 

 

 

 

Next we were heading south, crossing the border back into the US, and a stop in Seattle. It rained off and on all day, but we barely noticed. Seattle was the city we liked best out of the three, really because of Pike's Place Market.  What could be more fun than a crowded market with something going on everywhere and such delicious foods to be tried?  We are really looking forward to the markets in Mexico and Central America! We only had a day to spend in Seattle, but it was a fun one.

 

 

Last stop on the 3-city tour was Portland.  Unfortunately, on the only day we had to spend there, it was POURING all day long.  I spent the morning at the laundromat, and Ricardo spent it changing the oil and rotating tires on the car.  We ate lunch at a little Mexican place where we had a margarita and dreamed of sunny Mexican beaches while watching the rain through the window.  We drove through Portland a little bit, but didn't get very many photos to turn out well due to the rain.  Sorry Portland, I'm sure you have much more to offer but we'll have to leave it for another time - we're on a tight schedule!

 

 

 

That afternoon, we headed on our way to the Oregon Coast. 

Meeting up with Friends in Canada

We crossed back into Canada and headed toward the city of Calgary for some "city" time after the parks.  We took time for some maintenance on the car and enjoyed free wi-fi at the mall. We explored Calgary a bit, and found Chinatown to be a cool part of the city.  We treated ourselves to lunch at an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant.

Ricardo demonstrating his flair for using the chopsticks

In the evening we found ourselves at the Oak Tree Tavern listening to some awesome live music from Diana Pearson. I loved it!! She is a talented vocalist/pianist with a Regina Spektor-kind of style.  She writes her own music and was so passionate performing them!  We had some drinks with her and her friends afterward - they were lots of fun and we learned a lot about Calgary and Canada from them. To hear and download some of Diana's music, go to http://dianapearsonmusic.com/ .

Diana sings her heart out

 

From Calgary we went to the pretty little ski town of Canmore, just outside of Banff.  We found out through Facebook that one of Ricardo's old college friends, Vero, was also in Canmore visiting! What a coincidence! We made arrangements to meet up in Banff the next day.

 

Canmore

View from the top of Grassi Plains hike in Canmore

 

We did some sight-seeing and then met Vero and her boyfriend Roberto for a night out in Banff.  We had a great time with them!

 

Banff

 

Ricardo, Jocelyn, Vero, Roberto

 

That night we camped in an empty parking lot in Banff that seemed to be designated for RV's (there was a sign!) - and we ended up getting kicked out at 8:00 the next morning by a park ranger!  Yuck!  Apparently, though meant for RV parking, the parking lot does not allow camping. This was our first experience getting kicked out of anywhere we were camping - but at least we got to sleep through the night.

 

Since we were up early, we did some more sightseeing and short hikes in Banff, though we weren't in top shape from the night before!

 

Lake Louise

Johnston Canyon

We left Banff in the early afternoon to head to Invermere, another small town just across the provincial border into BC.  Incredibly, while we were visiting Canmore we came across more friends from Chile!  Pablo and Caro are living in Invermere, but just happened to be driving through Canmore when they spotted our car/camper and flagged us down.  We couldn't believe what luck to have run into not just one, but two sets of friends from Chile in this area of Canada.  Since they graciously invited us to their house for the evening, we of course accepted! We had a delicious dinner, conversation, and even some music since Pablo also plays the bagpipes! 

 

Gaiteros

Caro y Darko

Music session

It was a wonderful time - so great of Pablo and Caro to have us over.  We can't believe how lucky we were to have spent our time in this part of Canada with so many good people - and each one a surprise!  This is just an example of how we never know what our trip will bring.  Next stop: Vancouver!

Glacier National Park and a surprise pow-wow!

Glacier National Park is a stop we wanted to make because in just a few more years, the glaciers for which it is named will not be there anymore.  In fact, in 1850, there were 150 glaciers in the park.  Today only 25 remain.  By 2020, all are expected to be gone. 

 

We got to the park late in the season, and the main road, called the "Going to the Sun Road" was already closed at the highest pass.  We could not go the whole way through the park, but explored what we could of the eastern side of the park.

 

We did some hiking - the views were incredible. This is one of our favorite parks so far. 

 

 

 

 

Coming at this time of year has its advantages...there were no crowds to deal with.  And, since they had already turned off the water for the season, we got to camp in one of the park campgrounds for free!  We of course took advantage and had a nice barbeque.

 

 

Notice the bear spray on the table! :)

We had been wanting to see more wildlife, and we got it!  We saw this tiny little owl on one of our hikes.  It flew onto a treebranch right beside us as if to say, look at me!  And then posed for pictures for a good 2 or 3 minutes before taking off again.  Later, a park ranger helped us figure out that it is a Northern Pygmy owl, a pretty rare sight!

 

 

We saw many more bears, both black and grizzly.

 

 

This mama grizzly with two cubs was hanging out high up on the mountainside by the road.  There were a bunch of photographers standing on the side of the road taking pictures, so we pulled over.  Ricardo got out to take pictures, and a little while later, the bears came down the hill.  Look how close they were to the bears when they crossed the street! Glad I was in the car!

 

 

 

One of the photographers in that crazy bunch was Ian Cocks - check out his awesome photography on Flickr (tyblue90).  He was was nice enough to lead us to this huge moose just resting in the grass to take some pictures of it.  We never would have spotted it otherwise - it was well off the trail.

 

One day we left the Cub and took the Xterra out to do some "off roading" - Ricardo was giddy with excitement and I was clutching the dash with fear as we slipped, slid, and bounced through the mud.  We were rewarded at the end with a stunning view of the mountains.

 

 



Our last day in Glacier, we happened to hear a radio announcement about a pow-wow that was to take place in Browning, the town that we had stopped at on our way in to Glacier.  Browning is on the Blackfoot Indian Reservation in Montana.  We visited the Musuem of the Plains Indian in Browning upon arriving, but we never expected to be so lucky as to be able to experience a pow wow while we were there!  We obviously headed back to Browning for this treat.

 

There were drum circles and dancers, and all ages from tribal elders to the tiniest little kids dressed in incredible costumes participated in the event.  It was hard to get good pictures because the dancers moved so fast!  We learned so much about the different forms of music and dance.  It was a fun night, and didn't wrap up until after midnight!  It was a great way to end our visit in Montana.

Tiny dancer getting ready for the show!