Schedule for the month of Julio

Hello! So we have created our schedule for this month, for those of you who keeping up :) it is as follows:

July 1st - Kamloops, British Columbia
July 2nd - Banff, Alberta
July 3rd to 5th - Edmonton, Alberta
July 6th - Red Deer, Alberta
July 7th to 10th - Calgary (StaaaaampeeEEEEEDE!!!)

July 10th – Glacier

July 11th – Helena, Montana

July 12^th – Yellowstone, Wyoming

July 13^th – Devils Tower, Wyoming

Jul 14^th – Devils Tower & Mt. Rushmore, Denver

July 15^th & 16^th – Denver to Kansas City

July 17^th – Leave Kansas City, St. Louis

July 18^th & 19^th – St. Louis

July 20^th & 21^st – Fort Madison, Iowa

July 21^st – 24^th – Ontario
July 24th - 27th - Minneapolis

Vancouver updates to come!

Oh baby, I hear those blues a-callin'...

Seattle. Is. Awesome.
As are Trevor & Ryan, Alex & Erika, Michelle & Jake, and probably everyone else that lives here. The weather is gorgeous, the mountains & forests are some of the most amazing that we've ever hiked through (no Bigfoot sightings yet, we'll let you know), the lakes are ridiculously beautiful, and our livers have shrunken to around half their natural sizes with all of the amazing microbrews, local wines, and other such substances :) Also: some of the best food we've had so far. Pike's Peak Market has the most amazing seafood & produce (no, we didn't spend $40 on fresh morels the first day...no idea what you're talking about...), random cheese and wine shops, food from pretty much everywhere (if you've never had piroshkies...do it. Now.), and the awesomest food shacks EVER (read: baby-sized Cuban sandwich with perfectly grilled Walla Walla onions & the most succulent Cuban pork you've ever had, along with the appropriate accoutrements & all loaded up onto a delicious flaky bun the size of a football).
We've been market-ing, hiking, shopping, drinking, going to coffee shop concerts & Mariners games, and soaking up everything this ridiculously amazing city has to offer.
Tomorrow we're off to Vancouver & wont be back in the great US of A till the 10th of July...so bon voyage America & here's some pictures!

From the Northwest with Love

Sitting just outside of Seattle right now and looking over the porch of the lovely Jake & Michelle's apartment to the little creek chugging along beneath us, overgrown with sparkling green trees and flowers of every color you can imagine...no big deal :) The Northwest is beautiful beyond anything we could have imagined, beginning with Portland.

We started off about a week ago, staying in the beautiful Oregon city with Jimmy's awesome friends, Haley and Matt. We really never had any idea what to expect from Portland (aside from being overrun with hipsters & cyclists), but for knowing nothing about it, it has definitely been one of the awesomest places we've gone through...green, clean, bursting with the most delicious food trucks, hole-in-the-wall eateries and breweries, and very, very cool people. We discovered an awesome local sandwich shop, a waffle joint that serves only out of a hidden window, and lots of little markets and vintage shops. Also: Starbucks has wine and beer on tap there. Who knew?! On our last day in town, we were lucky enough to spend a few hours with Laura and Lloyd (Dale's mom's cousins), along with their very energetic daughter, Lou. Over Thai food and the subjects of the housing market & Bernese mountain dogs (theirs, specifically...his name is Linus, and we struggled to not steal him), we found out that they will be moving to Orange County shortly for Lloyd's work, so it was awesome that we got to see their gorgeous house before it is no longer!

After we bid adieu to Portland, we made it up to Olympic National Park to camp for a day on Lake Crescent, near the Hoh Rainforest (pretty much Fern Gully on crack). After an incredible day hike through all of the greenery, streams, banana slugs and waterfalls, we made it up to Port Angeles to stay with Dale's uncle in their cliff house, overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the tip of WA, and the town of Victoria. Lots of wine, oysters, and Frisbee ensued before we made it over the strait via ferry to Victoria in B.C. a day and a half later (fun fact: Canadians actually do say 'eh' that much). Jimmy had the excellent idea of renting scooters, which we obviously did, and we were very intimidating & built up a dangerous reputation around British Columbia. We were sad to leave, but after an unnecessary round trip loop of three hours, driving all the way up the Sound, and finally finding the ferry we needed to be on around 10 pm, we finally made it to Seattle, a bit disgruntled but mostly undamaged. So here we'll be for the next week...we'll inform you of our adventures here soon :) 

From SF to Wine Country & the Avenue of Giants

We've been busy little bees!
Since last post, we stayed with Dale's cousin Courtney Rump in San Fran, and proceeded to paint the town red for two full days, from the Full House house to the Haight and Ashbury Street Fair to watching Rob Lowe film a movie in Chinatown to discovering awesome new beers and foods at holes in the wall all over the city. She is the awesomest tour guide ever and we had an amazing time!

From San Fran, we made it over the Bridge to St. Helena in Napa two days ago to visit Dale's Aunt Kaaren, Uncle Greg, and cousin Megan (along with new baby Kali!) and indulge in a little grape. We stayed there for one deliciously hedonistic evening and rid the world, completely unselfishly, of more than several bottles of wine. We had so much fun hearing old stories and philosophizing till the wee hours of the morning, though our gracious hosts only had us for a day, it was the best day ever :)

This morning was a rough start due to the activities of the previous evening, but we flew out like a herd of turtles around 11 am this morning to Crescent City, CA, which is very near the border to Oregon & about 6 hours from Portland. Though originally planning to make it to Portland by tonight, we had way too much fun in the Redwood Forest to want to speed through it in all of its magnificence...its really stunning, completely unbelievable.

After a blustery drive, a herd of elk, and a few possible Sasquatch sightings, we've made it to CC and are all settled in to our hotel for the evening. More to come when we take Portland by storm tomorrow! Pictures of exactly how busy we bees are: