Washington State take 2

It was a lovely second-homecoming when we arrived in Washington, but also a bit sad because it was the official end of new states and therefore the start of our goodbyes. We were treated to some great views of both Mt Rainier and Mt St Helens, and enjoyed fabulous hospitality in Olympia and Seattle.

Mt Rainier

Mt St Helens

Spirit Lake, Mt St Helens

Stunning sunset in Olympia

Farewell to the terrific frame, it did us proud!

Sunset from Bin and Jeff's place in Seattle

Ben and Harry

Harry....so cute :-)

Practising!

Sunset kayaking in Seattle

Bin and Jeff, sunset kayakingAmazing sunset kayaking

Montana

Montana, our 33rd state, and the home of Glacier National Park. Wowsers! For once, maybe I'll let the photos do most of the talking here :-) We hiked every day here, and covered just over 68 kilometres in the five days, saving the 17.6km hike for our last day! We saw some really great stuff. This is somewhere to get to soon: they say that in 1850 there were 150 glaciers here, but now there are 25 and by 2030 it's expected there will be no glaciers left at all.



An awesome lunch spot on our first day

What a setting for our breakfast on day 2!

Fiona trying to be arty at brekky :-)

Hike to Snyder Lake - every day we were hiking in grizzly country and would walk with a couple of rocks in our hands (not quite sure what I thought they would do...have you seen a grizzly?!) and make lots of silly noises. Fortunately we scared them off!

Lunch spot on day 2

Avalanche Lake, Day 3

The Going-to-the-Sun Road is the only road that goes from one side of Glacier NP to the other, and the scenery along it was amazing

On our way to Hidden Lake, Day 3

Hidden Lake

Mountain goat near Hidden Lake

Iceberg Lake, Day 4. Just behind us you can see the bottom of the glacier breaking up in the glacial lake.

OH MY GOSH IT'S A MOOSE!!! WITH ANTLERS!!! This was a young bull, the big bulls have really big antlers, but nonetheless, this was a beautiful animal

St Mary Glacier KOA, our campground for the last 3 nights at Glacier....what a view!!!

Bighorn sheep on the way to Grinnell Glacier

Grinnell Glacier - there is some melted glacier in the forefront

Grinnell Glacier

Heading down from Grinnell Glacier - Grinnell Lake in the foreground, Josephine Lake in the middle, Swiftcurrent Lake in the background. Our hike took us back to the third lake...it was a long one!

On our way down from Grinnell Glacier

Wyoming

Wyoming may be the least populous state in the US but it is an awesome state with some spectacular sights. Yellowstone rates up there as one of the absolute highlights in terms of different scenery, and we loved checking it all out. Go there!! Oh yeah.....AND WE SAW 5 MOOSE!!!!! The only animal left on our list that we hadn't seen and roolly roolly wanted to see. Beautiful animals :-)

Devil's Tower Monument

Our very first moose! Bighorn National Forest

There was a beaver in the same place as the moose - go figure!

Moose on the far left, beaver on the far right close to the water (yes, it's just a little brown spot here but we thought it was cool to get them both in the same picture!)

Bison by the lake

No wonder the bison coats would keep people warm in winter!

Yellowstone NP

Q: Why did the bison cross the road?

A: To check out the Blue Bullet of course!! (seriously, this one stopped traffic to walk ever so slowly across the road and right in front of us)

Amazing hot spring at West Thumb Geyser Basin, Yellowstone NP

Sunset - just opposite our campground

Warning - this is what sitting on top of a sulphur vent can do to your skin! Some seriously shtinky and powerful stuff!!!

Near Mud Volcano
Two bison posing for us :-)

Old Faithful. This "series of photographs" (we sound like professionals talking about our famed collection of photos!) is of the geyser Old Faithful just before it erupted and then a couple of shots mid-eruption.

Geyser country near Old Faithful

Grand Prismatic Spring - this hot spring was the most beautiful blue, with yellow and orange around the edges from the minerals in the water.

Great Fountain Geyser - erupts every 12 or so hours and we arrived 35 minutes before it went off - sitting very close! It was awesome.

...almost there....

Thar she blows!

Mammoth Hot Springs - very cool to see that the water here leaves deposits rather than erodes the countryside.

Freaky rock!

Upper and Lower Falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

12 point elk