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Has taken forever and a day on our [sarcasm]super-fast[/sarcasm] Internet connection up here, but I’ve finally finished uploading, annotating and mapping the photos from our road trip this summer. Something a little special too given that this is the 500th post on the blog. I write too much crap. Anyway, there’s a little over 350 photos from the various National Parks we visited and the photos from Lake Tahoe too:

• Road trip album in the photo gallery
• Photo gallery on Google Maps – might take a while to load, as it shows all the photos placed on Google Maps
• Google Earth photo gallery – crashes for me (damn this slow Internet connection!), but will load up Google Earth and place the photos in there

The Google Earth setup worked fine before all these extra photos from the summer, and with the Google Earth updates, should be able to switch around and see the satellite image overview along with specific photos from my photo gallery. Was pretty cool checking out photos from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, etc. on a decent Internet connection back in England and hopefully will work well with the US road-trip photos too. Sure someone will let me know if it doesn’t work!

Looking over photos from when it was 110F in Utah is quite apt given it’s around 30F right now after snowing lightly right through the evening. The 4-wheelers are having fun on the boardwalks with some of the snowdrifts, but there’s no-where near enough to bring out the snowblower, and it will be a few weeks before the ground is frozen enough for snowmobiles. Walking is just fine though – cheaper too

Seems like so long ago when we took the cruise to Portage glacier, but Nick + Dana got round to looking over some of their photos and had a nice shot of the four of us:

The photo doesn’t really show quite how wet + cold it was But, I’m slowly moving through uploading and annotating/mapping our photos from the summer into the photo gallery. Hopefully I’ll get them all sorted within the next week or so.

As if one last hurrah, Murphy’s law reared it’s head this afternoon – checking the mail I received a letter from the USCIS reading “Welcome to the United States of America” My application for permanent residency has been approved and the green card itself should arrive within the next three weeks. Means everything is all official in being a permanent resident over here, and no worrying about expired visas and stuff! Just annoying that the employment authorisation card arrived at the end of June in an unmarked envelope so Nick hadn’t picked it up meaning I could have applied for social security whilst in Anchorage, and the green card is also going to arrive shortly after getting back here to Tunt. Still, least that’s all the paperwork done with – I just have to apply for the conditional status to be removed within the next two years if I wish to continue living in the US before it then becomes a rolling 10-year green card. Cuts down on having to make another trip to Anchorage if they had decided to investigate the case further or required move evidence too. Has only taken 18 months I suppose

Back at home in Tunt (and back on our super high-speed internet…) The last couple of days were busy in Anchorage as we had a ton of shopping going on. We picked up a cheap $20 duffle bag from Walmart to bring stuff back, and Kat still ended up 8lbs overweight with her bag! Not too bad, and we’d also mailed a bunch of stuff back I picked up from school a little while ago. Means we have a bunch of meat, fresh fruit + vegetables, and stuff for Mia, and more coming on a bush order from Walmart.

Mia is really enjoying the open-ness of the tundra and exploring everything. She was so good with the flights and didn’t whine or bark at all on the planes or at the airports which took a lot of stress out of things. Was only $100 to fly her back and no real problem getting her checked over. Guess it will just take a little while for her to get used to the other dogs up here, along with the sights + smells of village life.

Our own charter plane coming back to Tunt was cool too – as we’d been delayed half an hour or so leaving Anchorage it was literally out of the Alaska Air building, drag our stuff across to Yute, then a couple of guys grabbed our bags and took them straight to the plane waiting on the tarmac, so to speak! I reckoned we had at least 300lbs of baggage, and given how much space it took up in the Cessna 207, there’s no way we’d have made it onto a scheduled flight if there were a few other people plus their luggage to load onto the plane!

So, a day or two resting and enjoying sleeping in our bed again and sorting through all our stuff and we should be back into the swing of things. There’s been a load of work going on inside the school making it look like a mess, but I’m sure once all the equipment is removed and furniture put back into place it will look as good as new (maybe better with a new paint-job throughout!).

After a right run round around over Saturday + Sunday at the animal shelter, we ended up with this beauty

She’s about 7 months old, and a right mix of breeds! The colouring is of a burmese mountain dog, but her face and characteristics are more of a labrador/retriever/husky mix which is what they originally had her noted as. Full of energy and very excitable, Mia’s also very intelligent, and the combination hasn’t made it easy for her as her previous owners haven’t been able to control her which is why she was left at the shelter.

We actually looked at her on Saturday, took her outside to play for a while and a little walk, but then we were told we’d have to take her there and then which made it difficult since our hotel won’t allow pets. After calling around local dog kennels, we came across the Dog Wash which had a very helpful + friendly owner that has a couple of play rooms for the dogs, and lets you know wander in + out whenever you want to play with your dog or take them out, so we can keep heading back over the next few days so Mia gets used to us. Kinda sad we’re having to leave her at a kennel as she’d actually been adopted on the Saturday afternoon and returned rightaway again on Sunday as we were there looking at other puppies The shelter staff hadn’t really wanted to adopt her out to the people that took her as the lady didn’t seem to realise how lively a puppy is and how much attention they need.

As she’s so smart, the shelter staff have found she’s able to quickly figure out what she can get away with and with who, but has responded very easily to basic training and obedience. But, they said a lot of people coming in adopting dogs don’t realise how much effort it takes, and with Mia, the main problem all her previous owners had were that she jumps at people which most dogs do when they’re excited and meeting new people. I’m sure we’ll be able to calm her down and discipline her a little so she knows it’s not okay to greet people like that.

Yesterday we met up with Nick + Dana who have rented an RV for three days – they had a rental car for the day and they let us borrow it so we could drive down to Portage Glacier with them for an hour long cruise on the lake and up to the glacier, then we drove it back to Anchorage whilst they headed south to Kenai. We’re at the airport again now to pick up our rental car for the next two days, and off to see Mia after Kat’s dental appointment at noon

After the rain in Oregon + Washington, we’re now sat outside Anchorage airport in the sunshine The flight this morning was fine, though they boarded the plane ridiculously early so we were sat for almost an hour before the plane started taxiing. Plus, the air stewards were the slowest pair I’d seen when it came to serving drinks! Feels good to be back in Anchorage though, maybe as we’ve spent so much time here it feels comfortable as we pretty much know where we’re going. The hotel we’re staying at is letting us drop our bags off now and check-in later this afternoon, plus they have a free shuttle (nice $20 saving right there!). So, after the shuttle picks us up, we’re straight off to the animal shelter

After raining on + off for the last two days, which helpfully parted as we around Mount St Helens yesterday, today got pretty much washed out! We drove up to Mount Rainer National Park and the whole area looked very scenic – reminded me a lot of Scotland, especially the rain! Lots of lakes and tree-covered rolling hills, but with such low cloud and constant rain we didn’t try to drive through the park itself as their were major roadworks on the other side of the park, and since Mount Rainer dominates everything around it at over 14,000 feet, it seemed a bit of a waste of time without seeing anything out the windows let alone stepping outside and hiking! When we first drove down from Seattle a month ago you could clearly see it from 100 miles away so would have been a nice way to finish off our road trip, but we can’t complain at the weather since it’s been the first rain during the day we’ve had in 5 weeks!

So, an early night before a 6a.m flight tomorrow, and hopefully this fella will still be around in Anchorage and up for adoption

After a short drive from Eugene, Oregon into Washington, we drove the Spirit Lake Memorial Highway into Mount St Helens National Volcanic Monument. It turned out to be a really scenic drive, and gave us one of the most amusing road signs I’ve seen: “Now entering Mt St Helens blast zone”. I’m guessing that was more of a historical reference rather than a warning for future eruptions But, from one of the visitor centers you could overlook the valley that became covered in up to 300 feet of mud and ash after the eruption and see the scars on the mountain sides:

The amount of sediment that was carried down the valley flowed into the Columbia River reduced it’s depth from 40 feet to 14 feet overnight and required 6 months of dredging to clear and allow shipping to resume as normal. It also destroyed the old road up to Mount St Helens – the new highway climbs along the side of the valley to reduce damage that would be caused by future eruptions. The eruption in 1980 also created three new lakes after streams were damed by fallen debris and sediment, including Castle Lake (that’s also Mount St Helens itself covered in cloud):

Another lake down in the valley bottom that was also created by the eruption was Coldwater Lake. Although thick with sediment soon after the eruption, it took only 3 years for the lake to clear itself to it’s current condition, and some nice little walks around the edges were very pleasant:

On the way up to the end of the road just before the Johnston Ridge Observatory we came across one of the better views of Mount St Helens, even if it did seem like it’s permanently covered in cloud! Half a mile up the road at the observatory you didn’t quite get a sense of the devastation as many of the trees had been removed.

This was a really nice surprise of a park, as neither of us really expected all that much from it. The drive up to the end of observatory had three cool visitor centers along the way and each viewpoint had a number of information boards explaining the events of the 1980 eruption and the damage it caused along the way. This is yet another place we’ll end up coming back to!

So, tomorrow is our last day in the lower 48, and we’re driving through Mount Rainer National Park before staying in Seattle overnight. A 6a.m flight gets us into Anchorage by 8.30a.m, so the trick is then convincing our hotel to hold our bags until we can check in later in the afternoon whilst we head to the animal shelter…

After a few days of traveling through Northern California and Oregon without having internet, we’re now sat in Kelso, just inside Washington. On Monday we headed into Yosemite National Park which didn’t turn out to be as busy as we feared, but that may be because we avoided the village area completely! Instead, we drove up to Glacier Point to view the valley from 3,500 feet up, including a stunning panorama of Mirror Lake (dry), Half Dome, and Vernal Falls (lower) and Nevada Falls:

Four mile trail lead all the way down to the valley bottom, though we decided the climb back up was a bit too much in an afternoon Yosemite Falls didn’t seem all that impressive as into the middle of July very little was flowing since it’s predominately melting snow + ice that feeds it.

Coming back down the Glacier Point road and through the tunnel, we got the classic view of Yosemite, even if the trees are getting a bit tall for the postcard photos!

A nice little walk from the west end of the valley led us to Bridalveil Falls. Similar to Yosemite Falls, a lack of water feeding the stream above kinda lowered it’s impact, but it was still very pretty:

El Capitan, the largest vertical granite rock face at over 3,000 feet in height dominates the entrance to Yosemite Valley:

We ended up with a whistle-stop tour of Yosemite, nowhere near enough to do it justice. As with a lot of the other national parks, the more we saw, the more we wanted to stay and explore. Least it’s given plenty of ideas for future trips, as there seems lots of good hiking + camping spots in Yosemite. Even avoiding the valley itself, it’s easy to see the main views without getting stuck in the crowds. Up on Glacier Point, although there were quite a few people buzzing around, it never felt cramped or overly busy. Definately a place to go back to

After so many national parks based in the desert, was nice to get back into a mountainous and tree-filled landscape with Sequoia National Park, which houses some of the largest trees in the world. Starting out at Big Stump entrance were plenty of trails through some of the sequoia’s, including General Grant, the second largest tree in the world:

Not quite as tall as the redwoods, though getting on for the same age with some of the sequoias around 1,500-2,000 years old, but much wider at the trunk (up to 80 foot in circumference). Within the Cedar Grove area was a fallen tree that was hollowed out. The park service isn’t sure whether it was burnt out before the tree fell or after, and over the years the tree has been used as a stable for horses, a saloon, and as bunkhouses!

The largest redwood grove in the world sits high up in the park, giving fine views over the whole area. A larger grove originally existed a little further to the south, however logging in the early 19th century vastly reduced it’s size.

Down into the Giant Forest is General Sherman, the largest tree in the world. A winding path from the parking lot starts out almost as high as the tree itself, and gives a good idea as to how high it is! Up close it was certainly impressive, and some of the smaller trails in the area gave good vies of the tree in all it’s glory:

A part of the centennial stump, felled back in Cedar Grove near General Grant, was also on display. Originally the tree was transported in sections to Pennsylvania as part of the centennial celebrations and the people wouldn’t believe it was all from one tree and believed it to be a Californian hoax!

The classic image of a roadway leading through a tree is associated with Sequoia National Park, but we found out beforehand that it was actually in Yosemite, not Sequoia, and fell in 1969. There was a fallen tree off the beaten track in Sequoia that they had cut a single lane road through which was cool, and further down the road weaved through existing trees:

Overall, Sequoia was pretty cool, though the crowds of people really detracted from the peace and calmness the area gave in small sections out the way of the main attractions. Can definately tell we’re further into the summer vacation window as the parks are getting a lot busier, and unfortunately it seems to be with pretty inconsiderate people. I was amazed at the number of idiots wandering along the trails smoking cigarettes and flicking the ash onto the ground or stepping over signs warning people to stay on the trails to prevent damage to the plant life in order to have their photo taken of them climbing on the trees. Think we’re going to leave Kings Canyon tomorrow as the crowds were just too much, and hope to make an early start on Yosemite on Monday to avoid the worst of the congestion.