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Thursday was our last full day in Tahoe and after kayaking in the morning we took a cruise on the Tahoe Queen out to Emerald Bay in the afternoon which was really nice as Joel had got the afternoon off work and Jeane could also join us. The paddle steamer was really smooth, though the sun seemed to burn pretty much everyone!

Within Emerald Bay is Fannette Island, the only island on Lake Tahoe. The little building originally had a roof on it until a group lit a campfire inside it and it collapsed! Still looked like a nice little place to dock your boat and have a picnic. Dad was pretty impressed by the 500+ year old bonsai trees!

The Tahoe Queen paddle steamer was originally from Mississippi and transported out to Lake Tahoe in pieces and reassembled. Joel + Jeane had a few coupons which were well received, but even at the full price of $39 for the 2 1/2 cruise it would have been worth it.

After the cruise we went to the grocery store and grabbed a load of food for a barbecue by the beach. A lot of picnic spots in the area had small barbecue grills already there next the picnic tables and benches so we didn’t have to haul any equipment. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and was nice way to finish off our time there as everyone was leaving on the Friday morning. The sunset was pretty cool too:

On Friday, after a couple of trips to the airport dropping off my parents at 5a.m and Kat’s mom just before lunchtime, Kat and I headed east across Nevada to Elko for the night. Honestly, I thought North Dakota and Minnesota were pretty boring and desolate places, but they have have nothing on that 250 mile trip across northern Nevada! There really just wasn’t a great deal there, and today travelling across the rest of Nevada and into Utah wasn’t much more impressive.

Crossing the Nevada/Utah border we entered the Great Salt Basin and the Bonneville Salt Flats where a bunch of land speed records were set. The interstate was just 45 miles of nothing in a dead straight line! The white salt deposits were so weird, and the heat haze meant the ground would shimmer in the distance to look like water. Easy to see how early pioneers would become so disoriented in such conditions, and the mountains would be reflected exactly like looking at reflections in a lake. Hard to photograph from a distance in a moving car, but looking closely you can just make out the reflection at the base of the mountains:

Salt Lake City and the Great Salt Lake weren’t all that impressive, certainly not the city and surroundings. We were both glad to get away onto the highway across to Price where we headed into the mountains. The scenery really started picking up, and around where we are now really is impressive – can’t wait to head down to Arches National Park tomorrow before spending a couple of days around Canyonlands National Park. After that it’s Capitol Reef National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park and Glen Canyon / Lake Powell before heading into Arizona in 8 or 9 days time! It’s nice so many national parks are so close together in Utah as it means very little driving to get between them but lots of stunning scenery to appreciate! Not sure how often we’ll have internet access in the motel’s around here, so might be a while before I get back online

After the jet skiing yesterday, Dan also fancied going out on the kayaks. I didn’t realise he used to have his own when he was younger and did all sorts of competitions! The manager warned the jet skis next to us that the water was pretty choppy which didn’t bode well.

Was a bit weird as they were open top kayaks, but turned out to be for the best I guess! Dan wasn’t too impressed with the holes in the bottom to let the water out to stop it sinking as the water was pretty damn cold at like 10.30a.m!

About 100 yards out the marina, we really hit some waves and that was it for me, rolled it over. Managed to flip the kayak back over, but as the waves kept hitting it, everytime I tried to climb back in it rolled again, much to Dan’s amusement! One of the guys from boating place came out on a jet ski who found it equally amusing which really wound me up! Ended up climbing up on the back of his jet ski and then getting back in the kayak. Was pretty calm after that until we started heading back in to the marina where I rolled off a wave again. Managed to get back in first time with Dan holding my kayak, but then we realised we’d lost our paddles – I ended up drifting right up onto a private beach before Dan got them back and we could head back again.

Needless to say I was pretty cold + wet by the time I got back on the beach! Was good fun apart from all the waves around the marina area, and for only $20 for an hour’s rental, a nice way to see the lake + mountains at a slightly slower pace than doing 40mph on a jet ski

At lunchtime we had a cool pool-party where both our families got together which was really good fun. Kat had got a ton of food, enough for lunch tomorrow as well! Was nice for everyone to meet each other too, and Joel had managed to get some time off from work to join us as well.

This afternoon, Dan and I finally managed to hire a couple of jet skis and head out onto the lake They were wickedly good fun, pretty much like the first time I first rode out on the snowmobile in Tunt, except these Yamaha FX Cruiser jet skis had 998cc engines and kicked out 140hp! This is Dan (on the left) and I being shown where about the boundary markers were (which we still didn’t full understand!):

After kinda figuring it out, I started heading out the marina area onto the main part of the lake:

The jet skis easily got up to 35-40mph, though as the water was fairly choppy from the wind, I topped out at 45mph which was plenty fast enough for me anyways! Joel had told us that going out on jet skis were one of the best ways to see the area and he was right, I just wished we had more freedom and could have explored a wider area. But, as the fire had died so much there was only a little smoke right over where the fire was still burning, and so the lake and mountains were all completely clear.

After an hour, Dan led the way back into the beach (as I did another quick sprint along the shore…):

Coming back in, Kat got a cool little movie of me slowly bringing the jet ski back onto the beach, trying my best to keep to the 5mph speed limit

Would definately recommend it, and if I lived round here I’d certainly look at getting one! Seemed a little bit expensive at $100 for an hour’s rental including gas + tax, but something to remember and Dan + I both really enjoyed it!

Tonight we’re all heading out to a buffet dinner at one of the casinos just over state line in Nevada, and tomorrow we’re hoping to take a drive round at least part of the lake and maybe an evening cruise.

The fire has been up + down in terms of how well it’s being controlled and the damage it’s causing, but it’s meant we’ve spent 3 days sat around South Lake Tahoe not doing a great deal as once you’ve wandered up + down the highway checking out the same gift shops a few times it kinda wears thin. Kat’s mom managed to make it into town yesterday before the fire picked up again and they started limiting access on the roads, but it’s a bit frustrating both sets of families have spent thousands of dollars getting here and haven’t seen a great deal. Thankfully we got up Heavenly on Sunday morning otherwise it really wouldn’t have been very impressive for my family!

Since we just sat around the hotel yesterday afternoon, I’ve put a load of photos online from the last week or two:

• In + around Anchorage
• Crater Lake National Park
• Redwood National Park
• Lassen Volcano National Park

Dan and I are hoping to head out on the lake on jetskis today as we hung around yesterday waiting to see if Luke wanted to join us. Kat’s also planning a pool party for lunchtime since a barbecue might not go down well given the fire is still ranging and so many people have lost their homes and/or been evacuated. Joel is taking time off work to join us so should be good, as although Kat’s mom + brother arrived yesterday lunchtime, they’ve just slept since after leaving home at 1a.m for a 5 hour drive before 7 hours or so flying and waiting around in airports and we haven’t actually seen them!

Well, mam, dad, Nikki and Dan arrives safely yesterday and the drive back from Reno only took an hour or so. This morning we headed out early (certainly for a Sunday!) and took the Heavenly Gondola ride up the mountain right by the hotel. It was really cool, and the ride up was very smooth, much smoother than we were expecting!

Getting off at the 360 degree viewing platform gave stunning views of the lake and worth the $28 on it’s own! Dad was very impressed, so bought a good pair of hiking shoes so he can ride right up to the top again this next week and then hike down the mountain.

The water looks so clear from up here. Yesterday we had lunch at Sugar Pines State Forest and the water along the beach was stunning:

You can also clearly see Tahoe airport when Joel, Kat’s brother works. Right now, that’s a pretty busy place as there’s a big forest fire developing (thankfully we’d got down the mountain long before it started):

This afternoon we were planning on heading west around the lake, but after hearing a number of fire engines on the main road by the hotel, we looked outside to see plumes of smoke drifting across the sky and ash falling. It’s a little way out of South Lake Tahoe and although we’re pretty okay since we’re well to the east of the town, they are evacuating some areas.

Joel is hosing down the house, yard and trees around the area and getting ready in case they are evacuated. Hopefully they’ll be fine, but at least we’ve got plenty of space in our hotel room if they do have to leave. He said there’s 2 helicopters dousing the area with water and 3 airplanes circling the area providing updates.

The local news is covering things pretty well, and hopefully the wind won’t drive the fire closed to homes. About 500 acres are thought to be on fire, 100 fire engines and over 50 homes destroyed with the smoke clearly visible from Carson City which is a good 30 miles away or so.

With so many fire crews and emergency vehicles moving around, we’re just staying in the hotel and walking around where we need to. Nikki and Dan had decided to head out anyways as they hadn’t realised how bad things were, but they were going to go east across state line into Nevada and check out the east side of the lake. We’re just keeping an eye on the news and hoping the fire crews can manage to get it under control. We’re all fine here and not really in any danger, just never a nice situation to be in, especially for those in danger such has Joel who is pretty close to where the fire is heading.

We’re checked into the hotel in Tahoe and off to the airport in an hour or so to pick up my parents, Nikki and Dan. We headed over to see Kat’s brother, Joel, for a bit this afternoon whilst they finished getting the hotel room sorted which was cool. As we haven’t had internet the last couple of nights in the Motel 6′s we’ve been staying at, will put up a few photos from where we’ve been since Crater Lake National Park.

Redwood National Park was somewhere Kat really wanted to go to, and the northern section of the park was pretty scenic driving down route 101, the Pacific Coast highway. We stopped for lunch at Klamath Overlook and took a walk along the coastal trail a little where we could hear sea lions down on the rocks, but couldn’t see them.

Into the south section of Redwood National Park we got right into the giant redwoods and stopped off at Big Tree, which is a little over 300 foot high. We met a park ranger who explained the history of the area to us and took our photo in front of the tree. I’ve got a little video too, as none of the photos quite show how unbelievably tall the redwoods are!

Further down on the drive, we came across a small group of female elk, which roam through the park, and then a couple of miles later half a dozen male elk just hanging out chewing on the grass:

Lady Bird Johnson Grove was a nice 1 mile trail through the redwoods, though I was a little unsure about the warnings sign of ticks in the area that carry lyme disease. Thankfully we came back clear!

Just to give some kind of perspective as to how big the redwoods are, this one is hollowed out, though still alive, and can fit up to 20 people inside. I’m doing a good job of making sure it’s doesn’t close in on itself…

After a long drive across to Redding for the night, we then headed into Lassen Volcano National Park yesterday which I’d really been looking forward to. Thankfully the whole stretch of the park road was open, unlike Crater Lake, so we could drive right from the north entrance through the park to the south side.

Eating lunch at 7000ft was kinda weird, as from reading the guide book it advised against hiking in the area unless you had spent a couple of days camping to acclimatise to the elevation. I’d never though about it, and further round at the road’s highest point which was 8500ft, I could definately feel my breathing struggling a bit coming up even short distances.

Coming upon Lake Helen was beautiful though – there isn’t any camera trickery or weird light angles going on, this is pretty much what it looked like!

Along with the areas devastated from the volcanic activity was the effects of glacier flows. This was a rock thrown out from the volcano that is left balanced along the path an old glacier route, and there was a real contrast between the smooth ground of the glacier floor and the rough volcanic rock.

The sulphur mines give a really good indication as to the volcano activity under the ground, and there were quite a few trails that lead through the boiling mud areas or suplhur mines. Gave off a really strong smell, and could hear it all bubbling inside too.

It was then just a nice 3 1/2 drive this morning down to South Lake Tahoe where we’re sat now. Lake Tahoe itself is really pretty, and I like the way the buildings area all designed to fit in with the surroundings rather than 3 or 4 storey concrete structures. Should be a really good week here, as there’s loads to do in + around the lake. So, we’ll be off to the airport in Reno soon, and Kat’s mom and other brother fly out on Tuesday.

After a really nice scenic drive out of Eugene last night into the Cascade Mountains on our way to Crater Lake National Park, we arrived around early afternoon to find the rim road was closed as there was still snow on the eastern side. We could still get down the western side which is where Wizard Island is, so it was still okay.

The area was formed when Mount Mazama erupted and collapsed in on itself around 7,700 years ago. The lake itself is the deepest lake in North America at over 1900 feet deep, ringed by mountains that rise up over 2000 feet, and is 5 miles wide. Wizard Island was formed after the main eruption and collapse, and can be hiked up once the boat service starts running at the end of June.

On the left, the ridge rising up is part of what would have made up the slope of Mount Mazama, which is estimated to have been a mile high originally. It shows just how high some of the cliff faces around the lake are, and there’s only one place around the whole lake that provides a path down to the shores but is still more than 600 feet of descent and a long walk back up!

We got some pretty good views off the size of the lake, and was weird seeing some of the ‘desert’ areas to the north and west where it’s still volcanic rock and tree-less. From Rim Village, there was some really nice landscapes looking over the lake. I would have liked to get around the rim drive and see Phantom Ship island or take some of the short trails up the mountains to get some higher views, as I really didn’t expect there to be quite as much snow given it’s June 20th!

Definately worth the trip, even without getting right around the rim to see things from the eastern side! On our drive back down to Medford, we picked up the Rogue River and stopped off to check out the Rogue Gorge:

That was pretty cool, and further down the river there seems to be a lot of rafting and kayaking trips. Even here in Medford there’s a lot of brochures and advertisements to river trips. Tomorrow we’re heading to the coast to check out Redwood National Park and drive the Pacific Highway, route 101, for a little before spending the night in Redding, California.

Having the rental car buggered up last night turned out pretty well as when we arrived at the airport this morning to pick up a little compact from Alamo, the lady suggested if it was the best fuel economy we were after, they had a Toyota Prius hybrid available. It was $300 more than the compact, but some quick maths on estimated gas mileage (they quoted 60mpg) would work out worth it over the next 5 weeks or so.

The dash is pretty cool as it has a touch screen to handle the audio system, climate controls, etc. and shows some neat effects detailing how + when the electric motor is being charged and when it’s being used alongside or in replacement of the standard petrol engine. We put on around 280 miles on our way down from Seattle, and averaged 50.2 miles per gallon. That’s pretty damn good as an average over that kind of distance!

We’ve still got about half a tank of gas left, and I’m guessing it’s about a 10/11 gallon tank, so already it’s working out quite nicely! It’s really smooth, though there definately seems a very subtle jolt when the electric motor is engaged/disengaged.

Other than a little traffic coming through Portland, the drive from Seattle down to Eugene, Oregon was pretty smooth and easy. Very scenic with large wooded areas and mountain views down through Washington. Bit of a shame we’ve had to plow through in a day, but tomorrow we’re heading into the Cascade Range and Crater Lake National Park, and on our way back up to Seattle we can spend some more time checking things out, especially in Washington.

Well, the flight down to Seattle was fine. That’s about where it started going downhill. The airport at Seattle isn’t all that impressive, with a very cluttered baggage claim area and multiple flights coming in on mis-labelled baggage carousels. After trudging around trying to get to the rental car pickup place, we had to get a shuttle taking us a couple of miles from airport where we found that this branch of Dollar Rent a Car is a franchise, so independent of the national Dollar Rent a Car company, which means you can only drive the car through Washington, Orgeon and Idaho. We would also have to return to one of their offices after 4 weeks in order to get it checked over as we were renting for 5 weeks, even though their maximum rental period is 45 days. None of those ‘minor’ restrictions were documented in the terms and conditions whilst booking through Alaska Air’s partner site, meaning we’ve had to get the shuttle back to the airport, taxi to the hotel (which isn’t too bad) and book a car through Alamo for tomorrow morning.

Suppose renting a car through a company with a name like Dollar Rent a Car should give some indication what they’re like. The rep suggesting we just drove it anyways and not worry about the restrictions was just ridiculous. Not impressed, and definately not recommended.

Sat at Anchorage airport with a couple of hours to kill before we fly down to Seattle. We had the hotel shuttle sorted for 11a.m to take us to the airport as otherwise we were stuck with all our baggage, but it turned out really well as the driver was really into airplanes and engineering, so took us on a tour around Lake Hood to see all the floatplanes, explaining the different airlines and types of planes, then got us to departures at about 12.45p.m Filled some time in, and was cool as the Anchorage tour stopped a Lake Hood briefly to see some of the floatplanes, but then headed on elsewhere.

But, now I have wi-fi for the MacBook, can post some photos from the last few days. Leaving Tunt was cool as you could clearly see all the wetlands covering the whole area:

We also landed into Napaskiak, a little village just outside of Bethel to drop a couple of people off at fish camp. It was the first time I’d landed in another village, even if was just for a couple of minutes! I managed a cool little video so you can see what it’s like coming in to land in a little Cessna 207 in the bush:

On Thursday afternoon after we’d got stuff sorted at the immigration department, we took one of the trolley tours around Anchorage. Was only an hour long, but was a nice way to see places like Earthquake Park and Lake Hood. Coming back onto 4th avenue and the visitors center, the driver bumped into a truck so we got off and let them get on with it!

Friday morning we took the shuttle to the zoo which was a lot better than we were both expecting. They had quite a few animals native to Alaska, my favourite being the polar bears:

They also had a pair of brown bears:

And a couple of black bears, which we got to just as one of the wardens was feeding them and showing they were pretty well trained for responding to voice commands and foraging for hidden food:

Two animals not quite native to Alaska were a couple of amur tigers enjoying the sunshine:

Definately a cool way to fill a few hours in, and the free shuttle from downtown to the zoo was also really useful:

Later on in the afternoon we met up with Jason + Kimberley who were staying in Anchorage through June, and headed a little south of Anchorage to Turnaround Pount. It was really nice and on the way back through Anchorage at the end of July we’re hoping to head to the Kenai peninsula, especially after a getting a taste of what the Seward highway that leads down there is like!

Our little tour this morning around Lake Hood, the biggest + busiest float plane airport in the world with over 800 float planes based there, was really good fun, especially since it wasn’t expected! Seeing the float planes take off and land was entertaining as it just looks wrong!

I’m guessing the warning about feeding the waterfowl applies to the ducks rather than the planes though:

Hopefully there won’t be any delays with the flight down to Seattle this afternoon and we get the rental car sorted okay and find the hotel without any problems! Tomorrow is just driving down the interstate to Eugene, Oregon, and then we’re hoping to take in Crate Lake National Park, Redwood National Park and Lassen Volcano National Park on our way to Lake Tahoe by the weekend when our families start flying out