Friday
After our abortive effort at the Hoyt Arboretum yesterday we took the truck all the way to the top. It was a bit scary to see that there was probably another mile of even steeper grade from where we'd called it quits. Glad we didn't push on.
As the name suggests, it's a large area filled with 8000+ species of trees. That's pretty much it. Sadly it wasn't as interesting as roaming a real forest, but it sure looked like one:
It seems that the spirit of Minas is always with us:
Totally incongruous to see gum trees in the USA in my opinion!
Next stop was the Pittock Mansion. Again no prizes for guessing what it was - yes, a mansion once occupied by the Pittock family - early players in the growth of Portland. The house is no longer owned by them, but is owned by the city, and serves as a museum.
The grounds are fantastic. I want me a garden like this one.
You can smell the money inside, but I find it funny to see the gaudiness of it all - now we know where those hideous gold/marble trailer decor schemes for rich people come from.
I shall have a harp in my music room as well. 
Ahh the kitchen.
A telephone from around the same time the turd was manufactured:
Delightful marble staircase leading from the foyer:
It was a very clear day on Friday, and you could see the shape of Mt. Hood looming in the distance (albeit faintly):
Of course NOW I get to see Mt. St. Helens.......
The mansion:
This is the last picture of Kat's bike, before it was stolen on Friday night. As you can see it's right outside the front door. That put a bit of a dampener on our stay in Portland.
Saturday
We cruised into downtown and checked out the Portland Farmers Market. Produce and such looked fantastic, but like all markets, on the expensive side. So we skipped buying any. A bit sad really, but it was nice to walk around amongst all the yoga lesbians and old hippies.
It was good to see Project Chanology in action outside the Church of Scientology in Portland. Whoever is making those V for for Vendetta masks must be loving it even more than the disciples of Hubbard.
I'd been looking at campgrounds for Yosemite/Yellowstone/Grand Canyon before we left and was in a bit of a panic about not being able to find anywhere, so we spent the after noon organising stuff. I'm happy to report that we've got places to stay for the major places, and will fill in the gaps as we go.
Sunday
Today we're off to Silver Falls State Park for some... waterfall action. This is going to be the first time we've stayed at a place that's not a full hookup campsite so wish us luck!
We'll be off the air until the 13th our time (so the 14th for you).
Happy Mother's Day to all mums out there!
Thursday
As you may have been able to tell I was a bit put-out by the whole volcano business, so despite the delightful surrounds, I was pretty happy to leave Mossyrock and head on down south of the border to Oregon.
Another good reason to be in Oregon is the fact that gas is 20c a gallon cheaper.
We only had to drive around 100 miles to get to Portland, which made it a nice easy 2 hours (with rest stop). Along with out early departure, this meant we arrived with enough time to actually do something rather than just set up, eat dinner and go to bed.
Next stop, the Rose Test Garden, Japanese Garden and the Hoyt Arboretum.
Apparently it just hasn't been my week for CF cards, as we arrived at the Japanese Garden, a veritable plethora of photo opportunities, only to see the familiar "no CF" flashing on the top of my camera. Once is an accident, twice is just stupid.
It's a real shame too, since it was a REALLY beautiful and serene place.
So all pictures courtesy of Kat....
Disgruntled man with heavy pack walking through gate:
As you can see the garden is stunning:
I really like this picture of one of the winding pathways:
If you were ever to need a tranquil place for some meditation and solitude, this surely has to be it:
A little Zen anyone?
Great colours and shapes:
Another great shape - the water are (of course) filled with Koi - which allegedly can live up to 200+ years?!
Ahh more tranquility:
It seems to me like someone is getting all artistic!!
As to be expected the rose garden had plenty of rose plants, but no roses yet. Ahh well, I'm sure if you came here in a couple of months it would look spectacular.
As for the Arboretum, we looked at a map, thought it wasn't far, and then proceeded to walk uphill for 1.5 miles only to realise there was probably another 1-1.5 miles to go. Sadly, we decided against pressing on and went to the Portland Art Museum instead (yes this is all very highbrow).
There was some "dancer" exhibition on, which also featured the original posters for the Moulin Rouge. As you may know art is not exactly my thing, but hey it wasn't too bad.
More fascinating were the collections of 2000 years of Buddhist art, and early Chinese art (some of the pieces were over 2000 years old - simply amazing).
By the time we left the museum it was after 6pm, so it was time for a quick shop, drive home, eat, drink and be merry. Correct.
I'll finish this post with yesterday and today's info, tonight!
Those are the last words of David Johnston, before he was (presumably) fried by 1.2 cubic kilometres of debris that were launched at him by an exploding Mt. St. Helens in 1980.
He was at an observation post about 6 miles from the volcano on the morning of May 18th 1980.
Ironically he was the only person to correctly predict the direction of the explosion.
I was SUPER excited to be at Mt St. Helens.
Until we looked online and discovered that almost everything is shut due to excessive snowfall.
This pretty much ruled out the possibility of hiking to the rim of the crater. I guess I was already disappointed at this point, but we went up to the visitor centre anyway.
Actually the visitor centre had a cool film about the 1980 eruption, and some nice exhibits, but was 40 miles away from our campground. No worries. The ranger at the centre told us that we could probably get up to just past the Coldwater Lookout (which is where David was killed) and see some of the damage of the eruption. So we set out on another 40 mile drive. To encounter thick cloud at around 3000ft.
The long and the short of it kids, that that we drove 260 miles, didn't see the volcano, and couldn't climb to the top. Partly this is our own stupid fault for not checking the snow conditions, and partly this is the fault of the stinky weather and cloud. OK it's mainly our fault. Anyway I'm extremely disappointed and there is a good lesson for both of us in doing better research. *sighs*
At least there's an excuse to come back to WA again to check out the lave dome.
We are currently at Mossyrock, WA. A small community by Mayfield Lake. Which is pretty darn nice. Since I have nothing volcanic to show you, you can instead peruse some boring pictures of the campground.
First, the worlds largest RV spot - If we were keen I reckon we could put 2 x turd and 2 x Jeep in here quite comfortably:
It was really lovely when we arrived - really warm and sunny. This is the view from the site:
This is the view from the dock where we'd put our boat if we had one:
And another, you can see the houses on the other side of the lake - some of them look just grand with nice manicured gardens and such:
...and the grounds of the campground:
As I said, the weather was great when we arrived, but it's been dark, cold and rainy ever since.
Theme for this visit: disappointment. Oh well.
Saturday - Sol Duc
We drove west down highway 101, past Lake Crescent. The lake is an amazing shade of blue (apparently due to lack of nitrogen in the water which inhibits algae growth). There are a few houses dotted along the edge - truly it would be an amazing view to wake up to every morning. One can only dream.
Once past this we headed south down the amusingly named "sole duck" road, past the hot springs to the trail head to commence our hike into the forest.
The forest was even more spectacular than what we'd seen the day before. The trees are all gigantic, and the fact there was still 20cm of snow made it a strange contrast between the green all around, and the white on the ground. That even rhymes. Oh well.
There was a small shelter in the forest where you can see a bit of the snow...
...and as it's all melting, there are lots of little streams and waterfalls as you walk.
We made it a couple of miles to Sol Duc Falls. Standing here on the bridge I was being lightly sprayed by the water mist from the falling column of water.
It was really peaceful, so we had some lunch and tried to figure out where the trail went from here, as it was totally covered in snow. We walked a little further, but decided against going on, as we kept falling through the melting snow, and basically you couldn't see where the trail was supposed to go.
I've never seen trees this big. Off the path the forest was super dense. It was hard to shoot a scene that really portrayed the size of everything. That's why I'm not Chung I suppose.
You can clearly see the snow on the ground here:
After this we headed back down the road, found another trail, and went up that. Or should I say down. I don't know. There was plenty of down until we came to a river.
I was sure happy to have a little sit down at this point, before heading all the way back UP to the Jeep. What's with this up and down business. I need to find myself a portable levitation device to make the hills easier.
Continuing the series of "random fungi that no-one cares about":
....and random picture of strange plant/flower.
This one looks a bit like Kat is wearing a giant mushroom hat.
I was fairly tired by this point, so we thought we'd call it a day. As we headed down the road we saw a sign that said "Salmon Cascades". I didn't think we'd see any salmon, but a guy there said he's seen them jumping. Lo and behold, there they were, a few salmon trying to make their way upstream to spawn. I even managed to get a photo!
This is what the poor little buggars were trying to swim up (the shot above is taken in the lower right of the shot below). Apparently though due to overfishing and damming and the like there are very few salmon left around here.
Sunday - Elwha
Given it was very close to the campground, we set off up to the Whiskey Bend trailhead. It was a one lane road up the mountain and was as close to off-roading as the Jeep has gotten so far.
It was really warm on Sunday, and I assume that we must have been a lot lower as there was no snow in the forest at all. It was a little taste of summer I suppose, and I imagine that it would be amazing here in a couple of months, although perhaps a little hot.
There were trails heading off over 40 miles from this trailhead. I don't know how fit or keen you would have to be to walk 40 miles in the forest. It feels completely beyond me, ever. Kat looks pretty comfortable though.
This squirrel looked a bit satanic.
We hiked a couple of miles to the end of the trail, next to a river at a spot called Goblin Gates.
A giant tree had fallen over the gap...
We couldn't quite figure out where it had fallen from, but I'd hazard a guess that it was from somewhere above :-)
We thought it would be a nice place to stop and have some lunch. It's not every day that this is where you get to sit down and enjoy a couple of sandwiches and this fine view.
The water was amazingly blue as well, and the rocks were all layered and such. Very cool looking.
Holy crap the walk up was hard work. There was a signpost at the top that availed me a little seating when we arrived. In my defence, I do have 10-15kg extra of camera equipment in my bag.
There was a tree, with rock embedded in it. How odd.
And some beautiful orchids.
On the way back we met Mr. Ed. He was a very personable chap.
Now you'd think this would be enough activity for one day... I say no!
We finally got around to fixing the poo valve. A bit of hacksawing and bashing later, the old stinky one was off, and with surprisingly little effort the new one was on. Check out this SHINY NEW grey/black water valve assembly.
Finally after 6 months we have a fully operational toilet system again. Yay!
The microwave has been playing up a bit, so we pulled that out as well.
Glad we did, as the socket was all burnt and toasty looking. Hmm.....
Nachos on the Weber = WIN!
