sxejake666

This is going to be the final post in my live journal. I have decided to take a job teaching computer science in Portland, Oregon. In a way I am sad that I will not be able to finish my trip back across the US, but I am also excited to start my new life here. The people I have stayed with along my journey have been amazing and you all have a place to stay in Portland if you ever decide to come visit me or are passing through. I will be living in a house with my friend Jesse and a few of his friends. I will be coming home for a few weeks to pack up my stuff and move it across the country before my job starts on the 24th. I want to meet up with as many people as I can before I split. Below I have included quick summary of :

Best Hike: Grand Tetons, WY

Best Vegan Food: Chicago Diner, Chicago (duh)

Best Non Vegan Food: Byways Restaurant, Portland Or

Prettiest City: Minneapolis, MN

Hippest City: Seattle, WA

Best Drive: Through the Rocky's to the Grand Tetons (Colorado to Wyoming taking back roads through Rocky Mountain National Park)

Best Experience: Bike Riding at night in Chicago, Getting condinsated on in the Olympics

Place that everyone should skip: Mount Rushmore, SD

Coolest Landscape: Badlands, SD

Most Unusual Experience: The LA&M in Chicago

Most overrated national park: Yellowstone

Most underrated national park: Craters of the Moon, ID


Next trip will be down the west coast and I will probably do that next summer.... Bye all.

As I made my way down the west coast, I decided to stop in Astoria, Oregon. What is the #1 tourist attraction? The house Goonies was film at. Here it is in all its glory:




The owners even kept the paint job the same.... The woman who owned the house was super nice and didn't mind me taking pics. After that I went down the coast to Cannon Beach which is also in the movie, but way more spectacular. The pictures do all the talking...









Seeing the pacific ocean for the first time was pretty awesome, but damn was it cold. There were a good number of people on the beach though and the weather was quite nice.

Things are finally getting nice here in Seattle. Here are some pics from the park next to where Kevin lives. One of the nicest things about both Seattle and Portland is that you don't have to make a lot of money to live in a nice neighborhood. Kevin works about 30 hours a week at a local coffee shop and manages to do pretty well for himself...
















Yea, Seattle is beautiful... Gonna stay here for the Capital Hill Block Party this weekend and then down the coast.

Yea, after trying to buy that perfect scent for the van of doom, I came across this air freshener at a car parts store. Did I even bother to give it a test smell? HELL NO! Why? because just by looks I knew it was gonna be awesome. Does it smell good? Na, not really. Smells kinda like over cologned guido. Was hoping that it would smell more like burning corpses... Oh well, its staying up.


Oh... they also came in a three pack... Amazing

We left Seattle around 6pm and started our trek up north. Vancouver is only about 3 hours away from Seattle and we make it up there in good time. Getting across the boarder was a little tricky. The Canadian crossing guard asks us lots of personal questions like why are we going up north and how do Kevin and I meet. It was a little weird, but he was always polite and we had nothing to hide. Coming back, the US guard was a complete dick. He checked the van which I thought he was going to do and then yelled at Kevin for checking his messages on his cell phone and threatened to detain us for 3 hours because of it. After Kevin apologized, he let us go by. Still dont know why he got so pissed. People in positions of power so let it get to their head. Anyway, we managed to stay with Kevin's friend Amy who goes to school up in Vancouver. She was super sweet to us and even helped us plan our trip to Victoria the next day. We didn't see much of Vancouver itself since we showed up late at night and left for the ferry early the next morning. The weather itself was still pretty drab, but I did take pics of the 2 hour boat ride to the island.







Once we landed on the island, we took a bus down to downtown Victoria. Seemed liked the longest ride ever. It was the commuter bus so it tooks us pretty much all over the island through farms, suburban areas, highways, the whole deal. Finally we arrived to our destination and spent the next few hours walking around. Victoria proper was quite pretty...







We had a good time. Mostly just walked around and checked stuff out. At one point this bearded canadian bum/stoner dude came up to us. He was quite tall, was wearing overalls and his eyes were wide open. If you have ever watched Kids in the Hall where Scott Thompson plays the bum in any sketch, thats pretty much who his dude was. "Can I bum a cigarette off ya aye?" said the dude. "You guys from Victoria aye? You smoke pot aye? I have been smoking pot since I was 12." "No kidding" I thought to myself... This dude fit the stereotype exactly and I am not exaggerating the number of ayes either. It was nuts. Kevin gave him a cig and he went on his way. Gotta love Canada...

I know we were in British Columbia and all, but Canada is so obsessed with Brittan in general. Fish and Chips places all over the place.. Their money has pictures of the queen on it, they have British flags everywhere... I don't know, I always thought Canada was its own country, but as far as I can tell, they seem like England's bitch. Maybe its just the American in me. Oh well.

Seattle is a pretty awesome city i have to say, but so far it has lived up to its stereotype. Quite dark, quite wet, and I am starting to lose my tan that I got during hiking last week. Kevin has been showing me around town and so far I am down with it. Went to the Seattle Center where the Space Needle is. Mostly theme parks and children's museums down in that area. Did go to the Experience Music Project and the Sci-fi museum next to it. The communist nazis who run it (Paul Allen, ex mircosoft dude) didnt let me take pictures in there which kinda sucked. They had a great exhibit on local seattle music which was cool because they didnt only mention grunge. They also had a great exhibit on the history of the guitar. I got into it. Sci-fi museum was fun too, it had all original props from classic and modern sci-fi movies and tv shows. A whole startrek section as well as an Aliens section. Really brought out the dork in me, which isnt that hard I guess. Haven't taken many pics of Seattle, but I will soon. Tomorrow once Kevin gets off work, we are heading to Canada for the weekend. Should be cool.

After leaving Portland, I traveled up I-5 to route 101 to the Olympic Peninsula to do some hiking. I registered at the back country office for two nights and off I went. Getting to the trail head was a bit of a challenge since the road to get there was steep, tinny, and went around some hair pin turns. My camping site was at Moose lake which was about 10 miles in. Here are some pics on the way there




Once the trail let into the mountains, I could see the lake that I would be camping at. If you enlarge the pic below and then click on that zoomed version, you can see the Moose lake. Its the smaller one in the distance above the larger lake next to the snow covered mountains. There were two trails that lead to it. One went along side of the mountains, was less steep, but was also impassable because of snow drifts. I was forced to take the steeper trail which leads right into the valley.



If you zoom by clicking once, waiting for the first pic to load and then click on that pic, you can see Mount Olympus in the background.



I started a bit later than I should of and didn't get to my campsite until after dark. Thank god for head lamps. The bugs were bad news though, once I hiked down into the valley, they did a swarm. I didnt pack my mosquito net which was quite an error. I must have lost a quart of blood. Little bastards. They always took advantage of me at the worse times. My camping area had a toilet which was cool, but every time I went to do my business, they would attack. Before this hike, the bugs weren't much of an issue. I learned my lesson though.

Here is a pic of the lake that I camped at:



There were deer every where. I left my pack outside of my tent and this doe started licking the straps. Apparently the deer like the salt from my sweat. I met one hiker who was camping near me who said that a deer tried to make off with his shorts...





The next day I decided to do some day hiking and cross the mountains to the south of the lake. I tried to follow the trail, but as soon as I came to the mountains I found that the trail was covered with snow. Being steep and not having equipment to cross it, I decided to turn back. The next day I woke up around 5am and started my retreat back to the trail head where the van of doom was parked. This hike was the roughest I have encountered so far. I had to go back through the valley so I was hiking upward most of the time. I found that as long as I didnt sit still, the bugs wouldnt bother me as much. I had to stop often though to catch my breath because of the altitude and the incline of the trail. Mosquitoes were biting and flying down my mouth. Not very pleasant. Once I finally reached the top of the mountain the bugs went away and this is when the hike started to get really cool. It was raining most of the morning, but eventually I hiked above the cloud line. Clouds were below me and slowly rising. As they speed over the mountain and past/through me, it would rain for like a minute or two and then stop. Here are some pics:

Rising...




Sweeping By....




Yea... visit the Olympics... I was completely overwhelmed by the beauty of it all.... I arrived at the van around 2:30 in the afternoon, got myself organized and headed for Seattle.

Just a quick update... Jesse and I went thrift shopping and found the most amazing painting entitled "Retarded Panther Velvet". Based off it's awesomeness, Jesse couldnt resist buying it. Here is the painting in all its glory. Click on the pic and check out the red tag sale tag. Without that tag, the painting would be worth nothing...








Portland and retarded panthers rule.. This place is at the top of my list... Off to Washington state to check out Olympic State park and Seattle. Should be cool as well..

Showed up around 6 in Portland and met Jesse at his friends' house. The dudes in Portland are super cool. They welcomed me with open arms and asked if I wanted join them for a white trash BBQ. How could I say no to that? So we went to Fred Meyer (the local super market) and bought snacks as well as slip and slides. At the store, Dan went to buy cheese for the burgers and reached out for the good stuff. Before he grabbed the package, Conrad stopped him and said "Dude, this is a white trash BBQ, get the cheap single slices." Suddenly this rough lookin woman came up to Conrad and said in a pissed off voice "Were you talking to me or him?!". Conrad said "I was talkin to him". After that, Jesse and I must have cracked up for like 20 minutes. For someone to associate themselves with being white trash that much to stand up for white trash pride is amazing. Being a mostly white city, Portland has tons of these skinny, hippie, long haired, meth addicted PWT roaming around. Completely different breed of PWT we have in Jersey. After we bought our supplies, we brought them back to the house and the fun begun...

Before we bought the slip and slides





After we bought the slip and slides...







Kids here are so friendly and awesome. The music scene rules as well. Portland is so calling my name.

Hung out in Boise last night. Not a bad town. Found a middle eastern place that serve falafel and it wasnt too bad either. A little expensive though. The town was crazy because of a classic car rally that was going on down town. Many of the roads were blocked off so getting to the restaurant was a bit of a pain. Thank god for lonely planet, they always mention plenty of veggie friendly restaurants in whatever town I happen to be in. That book and Bessie (my GPS) are pretty much saving me from eating Taco Bell each meal. Anyway, this drive was out of hand. I decided to drive up the Oregon/Idaho boarder to Hells Canyon national park and then take back roads to I-84 that would eventually take me to Portland. Here are some pics:






As I was driving through the park, all of a sudden cows started crossing the road. In western style, cowboys, boarder collies, and a woman on an atv were directing cattle. I must have waited for 10 minutes for every last heffer to cross.







After I left Hell's Canyon, I met up with I-84 which took me along the Columbia river that separates Oregon and Washington. Below is a pic of Mount Hood along the drive:



Deserts of eastern Oregon..


20 miles west later... Same highway..