Forest along the way

The forest along the way is Temperate Rain Forest. Most of it has been ravaged by logging and gives only a hint of what it once was...

At the Ketchikan terminal

The ferry stops at Ketchikan for all of Sunday morning. As we waiting, a barge full of containers pulled in. This is how all goods arrive in SE Alaska. The seagulls wanted sandwiches.

First morning on the ferry

Aboard the Columbia, somewhere on the inside passage.....

The Ferry Terminal at Bellingham

The ferry left the Bellingham Terminal promptly at 5.15.

Larramie State Park

Lots of trails around Bellingham through the thick forest

On the Pacific

We made it to the Pacific Ocean on Feb 9th. It was clear and nice. The trip took 6 days at an moderate pace.

Through the Cascades

A week before this section of the road was closed for landslides but this week it was clear, calm and beautiful. The cascades are big mountains and very pretty.
These photos were taken from the truck so the quality isn't so good.

Mt. Rainier

We came up out of the Columbia River Basin and saw Mt. Rainier in the distance

Bozeman

We stayed in Bozeman that night down the road and M saw her first Jack-a-lope mounted above the diner counter at the greasy breakfast place. It is a taxidermist’s creation M, not a taxonomical reality.

Piedra Amarillo

Turn south off I90 at mile 332 in Montana and in 50 miles you get to Yellowstone National Park. In the winter there is only one road open to cars but that is real nice too. It goes through mammoth springs and to Tower falls. Animals may stand around in the road for a long time. We had to wait until a caravan of big hemi engine pickup trucks from a red state came through and nudged the elk from his happy stupor in the middle of the road before we could get by. His friends were up in the snowbanks.

The buffalo got caught up in the drift away from his herd. He almost came through M’s passenger window to catch back up with them. I moved on before he could as the car was packed full with all the things we own.

Elk are nice and Buffalo are too. This coyote had a radio collar on. They were very nice also.

crazy mountains

The crazy mountains. One women got separated from her group and got lost in the mountains. Someone found her a year later and she was crazy and they said the mountains did it and they were known thenceforth as the crazy mountains. No one considered that she might have gone crazy from leaving the mountains.

An old town

This little collection of buildings were moved here to preserve them and show what it was like. A rabbit was living under the porch of one of the old cabanas.