West Coast 2010 - summary

Some data:

we made about 5170 miles (8320 km)

in 22 days,

visited:
11 cities

9 national parks

9 states

2 universities

1 Mormon fundamentalist town

The whole experience was just priceless... (even though this trip left us with some financial issues for sure;)

And now, here are the pictures:

Portland and Eugene

Crater Lake

on the way to Mountain View

San Francisco, Stanford University

Yosemite Valley NP

Kings Canyon & Sequoia NP

San Diego, Los Angeles

Las Vegas

Grand Canyon NP

Zion NP
Bryce Canyon NP
Salt Lake City
Grand Teton NP
Yellowstone NP
Yakima, back to Seattle

Enjoy!

Day 21 & 22: back to Seattle through Yakima

After two days in Yellowstone, the second evening we headed back home, instead of staying for one more night. That saved us some time, but we had to sleep on the rest area, which wasn't that bad after all.

In Yakima we stayed with my friends and had an extremely warm welcome, as always. We even got to see Yakima Symphony concert, a season opening with their new director. They started with... American anthem.

The next day we headed back home, Seattle that is. We got a little bit of rain (it was maybe the third or fourth rain we encountered during our whole trip!) but finally arrived safely.

....

Day 19 & 20: Yellowstone NP - Hot Springs and Geysers

I personally though, that it will be hard at this point to amaze us more than Bryce did, but... Yellowsone was equally outstanding. Why? Hot springs and geysers, amazingly colorful bacteria habitat in these hot waters, Bisons walking around, steaming holes in the ground, warm breeze from pools... and it's huge. Seriously.

On top of that we went swimming and had to pass close to Bisons.

Day 18: Grand Teton NP

Grand Teton borders on Yellowstone. It's named after the Grand Teton range. Again there were miles and miles of driving in the park itself. We went on a short hike, and - being warned of living bears around - went back to set up the tent.

The next day we went to see Hidden Falls, but that was just a prelude to Yellowstone.

Day 17: Salt Lake City and the Mormon Temple

We spent a full day in Salt Lake, mainly for me to recover from many-hours-a-day driving.

In Salt Lake we were lucky to stay with my friend's sister, Lena, her crazy dogs and Alex, an exchange student from Germany. The city is set really nice among open spaces and mountains. Beside the lake (which is really salty as we heard) its famous for being a heart of the "Mormon State" - Utah. We wanted to experience that, so beside some regular sightseeing we visited Mormon Temple.

This is a very special experience. If you'd ever wonder what are the techniques of convincing somebody to basically anything, this is a great place to learn. Emanating pleasant architecture, pictures and colors, with all-around multi-media presentation, often featuring a calm voice of one of their prophets. We were introduced to their believes (but nobody mentioned they can't dring any alcohol, even tea nor coffee, as we learned afterwards). We were also invited to join the church and get married in their temple... well, that has to wait a little, I guess.

Day 15 & 16 - Bryce NP: took our breath away

We left Zion, driving through the National Park through road construction (which started to appear pretty frequently on our way), through another great open spaces, and couple miles before Bryce we entered what is called Red Canyon. Red Canyon is, well, red. But its stones' color is so deep, so different, you're just amazed by all the redness around.

We arrived in Bryce and after setting a tent we went for a short hike. And suddenly we saw what is this all about: unbelievable rock formations, in all shades of red, orange and yellow, a landscape from a sci-fi movie, open space that is hard to embrace, it simply took our breath away. It was the most beautiful place we've seen so far...

Day 14 - Zion NP

We heard from a friend, that surely Grand Canyon is a must-see, since it's the only thing like that in the world, however there are even more beautiful places on our way. Zion is one of them.

Rock formations create not so huge, but beautiful canyon, with lots of opportunities to hike and rest. One of the dangers there is flash flooding, which can happen when there's sudden rain and smaller parts of the canyon can fill with water, mud and rocks really quickly.

It's still a desert, however the altitude is fairly high, so the it's not always that hot. One thing I've noticed is that their visitor center is build in a way, that enables them to take advantage from the cooling wind and heating sun for different times during the day, so they have completely passive heating and cooling system. It's possible only in this specific climate, but still, looks really impressive.

Next: Bryce NP