Home safe & sound. Sleeping now. Have to work tomorrow. Will update further later.

The Gateway Arch

We arrived in St. Louis after a long, boring night of driving across Kansas & Missouri and decided to stop to see the Gateway Arch. I've always wanted to visit the Museum of Western Expansion that's under the arch. Tasha wanted to ride to the top in a teeny, tiny rattle-trap tram car, 635 feet up, to check out the view. Admittedly, it was georgeous, but that tram ride may have been worse than the Pike's Peak drive. We have to hurry on our way now!

Pike's Peak

Well, we made it. The view was so worth it. I almost threw up & passed out from the altitude, but it was still worth it. We are finishing lunch in Manitou Springs and then heading out. When I get home, I'll post agains to let you know I've arrived safely.

Garden of the Gods

We got to Colorado Springs later than planned (what else is new?), so all we had time for tonight was a quick trip through Garden of the Gods, which was beautiful. We drove through Manitou Springs briefly before enjoying dinner in downtown Colorado Springs.
The plan for tomorrow is to drive up Pike's Peak early, then possibly visit the Manitou Cliff Dwellings and/or Garden of the Gods again before having lunch & sampling the springs in Manitou Springs. We'll probably drive by the Air Force Academy on our way out of town. We are planning a pretty much straight haul back to Reading & plan to arrive Monday afternoon.
As an aside, so far I have been underwhelmed by the Colorado Rockies. I really thought they would be more impressive. But maybe I have just seen so many other impressive mountains this summer that I am all mountained out. I guess we'll see how I feel tomorrow after I drive to the top.

The Grand Canyon

So I realized that some of you may be wondering what happened to Salt Lake City. Well, we were driving down the 101 from Eureka on our way to the 5 freeway, and we saw that we were only 100 miles from San Francisco (an absolutely amazing city and the current leader of my "places I want to live one day list". So we decided to go and totally re-routed our trip, driving down the PCH to Monterrey, hitting Vegas (where I won $50 at the Paris casino), and then stopping to watch the sunset over the Grand Canyon. We plan to drive all night to get to Colorado Springs, although if we are tired we may get a motel.
The Grand Canyon was spectacular. On one hand I wish we would have had more than a few hours, but by the time we got there the temperature was a comfy 80. I didn't really get any "wow" pictures, although not for lack of trying. I hiked down a trail about 150 feet and took a zillion shots, but the light was tricky. It was something to see though. A very contemplative place.

Viva Las Vegas!

Here is a shot of the view from our Vegas hotel. We drove through the Mojave desert all day, thanks to a wrong turn Tasha took while I was asleep. But we are here now and getting ready to hit the town. In the am we will be enjoying the awesome pool before heading out to see the Hoover Dam & the Grand Canyon.
If I have a chance later, I'll try to post a few pics from the last few days.

The Pacific Ocean

Even though we left Alaska a week ago, it hasn't really felt like we were heading home. Until now. There's no more road west, so it is time to head east again.
Crater Lake yesterday was absolutely amazing! The water is so blue, so clean, so tranquil. Today we saw the majestic redwoods. I thought the trees in Tongass National Forest in Hyder, Alaska were big, but these are just absolutely giant.
I am having trouble sleeping because my air mattress seems to have sprung a leak which I don't feel like fixing in the middle of the night. And Tasha is snoring. But I'd better try because tomorrow we are hauling you-know-what 14 hours to Salt Lake City.

Fwd: Seattle (Again) & Portland

This is from the other day-I used the wrong code so it didn't upload.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Seattle (Again) & Portland
From: Melissa Lake <melissaalake@yahoo.com>
To: melissalake1.cellochik1@blogger.com
CC:

We had an awesome day today, sleeping after our marathon jaunt down the Alaska & Cassiar highways, which we did in just four days from Denali to Vancouver!

Tonight we are in Corvallis, Oregon. We went to Pike Place in Seattle and stocked up on some yummy fruit and then to Portland, where we checked out the rose gardens in Washington Park and went to Powell's City of Books, which is the biggest bookstore ever.

Tomorrow we are heading about four hours south to Crater Lake National Park and will spend the night in Medford, Oregon.

Home, Sweet Home (Sort Of)

After two seriously long days of driving-which involved an all-nighter, a meteor shower and about 15 black bear sightings, we were quite anxious to return to the States. Too bad we had to wait at the border for an hour to do it!

We will be going on a slower schedule for the next few days, from Seattle to Portland to Crater Lake to the northern California coast. I'll try to remeber to take a few pics with my camera phone so I can post those.

Broken Computer

Hey Everyone,

Sorry for the lack of updates. My computer screen broke-I"m not sure what happened, because I don't remember dropping it or dropping anything on it, but the screen is completely messed up. So right now we are almost in Prince George, BC and then tomorrow we will be in Vancouver. We will cross back into the US on Sunday, and I can then make updates from my phone. But sadly I won't be able to do as many picture updates. I'll probably just wait til I get home to try to get it fixed-if it even can be fixed. It's very frustrating, but I've decided that if that's the worst thing that happens to me on this trip, that's pretty good!!!

Love you all! Call you Sunday or Monday. (I'm three hourse behind again, on Pacific Standard Time).

Denali Pics Coming Soon

Fairbanks, Part 1

We are in beautiful, sunny Fairbanks! It is so nice to finally see the sun, because it has been so cloudy. We went up and visited my uncle at his cabin on Thursday & Friday, but I forgot to take pictures (sorry, Grandma). Then today we did a bunch of stuff in Fairbanks before picking up my friend Tasha from the airport. Tasha will be joining me for the trip back east, which is so cool!!! I'll post details about our itinerary once we figure it out. But for now, here's some snaps from Fairbanks.

Susanne & I outside Pioneer Park in Fairbanks. It's pretty nice in here. They have a lot of museums and old log cabins that have been preserved.

They also have this riverboat that was preserved from the gold rush era that you can walk around inside.

That's me coming out of a little house that's kept at 40 below! My dad insisted I go in. It was soooooooooooo cold I think that the snot in my sinuses froze!

We went to El Dorado gold mine, which is a working mine, and went panning for gold. My dad used to do this, so he knows how and he showed us. We got about 7 grains of gold, which was worth about $50 altogether. I got it put into a locket.

A big old grizzly bear at the Museum of the North in the U of Alaska. It's like 9 feet tall!

And here's my hand inside the grizzly track. Hope I don't meet one of those while hiking in the woods!

Athabascan natives make these amazing beaded items & intricately woven baskets. It is so amazing to see. I wish I could afford to buy some, but it's pretty expensive since it's so detailed.

This is a Tlingit ceremonial robe. The Tlingit & Haida art is probably my favorite of all the native art.

Tomorrow we are going to the farmer's market & the Tanana Valley Fair. Not sure when I'll have another chance to post pictures-maybe when we are back in the Yukon. Tasha & I will be leaving Denali and heading out of Alaska on Tuesday.

The Kenai

We spent two days touring the Kenai Peninsula, which had some of my favorite parts of Alaska (so far). The drive along the Turnagain Arm on the way out of Anchorage to the Kenai is gorgeous, even on a cloudy day. Here's my favorite shot from that part of the drive:

On Monday we drove down the Sterling Highway to Homer., making a bunch of stops. One of them was at this little overlook near Kenai Lake. The water was such an amazing color-and we even had some sun!

Here's a beautiful fireweed that I saw growing near the lake. I think this might be one of my overall favorite pictures from the trip so far.

This is the Russian Orthodox Church in the town of Ninilchik. It has such an amazing view.

We were also able to see some of the volcanoes in the Aleutian range. This is Mount Iliamna.

We also saw tons of eagles, both bald and golden. I got a lot of pictures, but this was one of the best.

On the way back up from Homer, we took a detour into Kenai. That was a really neat town, and I think if I ever moved to Alaska, that might be where I'd want to live. It's in a good location, with gorgeous views. Here's a shot of the Russian Orthodox Church there.

We stayed at a beautiful lodge called Summit Lake on Monday night. The next day we drove down to Seward, where we took a boat cruise into Kenai Fjords National Park. It was windy, rainy and grey, so we didn't see as much scenery, but it was still awesome! We also went to the Alaska Sea Life center; here's a harbor seal at that aquarium:

The next three shots are all from the cruise. Here are some Stellar sea lions:

This big guy was definitely in charge on this rock:

The water there in Resurrection Bay was also an amazing color, and it was so starkly beautiful.

The captain of our boat was great. He took us pretty far out in the Gulf of Alaska to try and find some whales. We didn't see any, but it was still an awesome time. We had some great pizza in Seward and then stopped at Exit Glacier, also in Kenai Fjords National Park, on the way out of town. We hiked a trail called "Edge of the Glacier," which I had thought would enable me to actually touch the glacier. I was so disappointed when I got to the top and found out I couldn't actually touch it. But it was still nice.

Tomorrow my dad and I are heading up to Healy and then to Fairbanks on the weekend. My awesome friend Tasha is flying in late Saturday night to drive home with me, and we're going to spend a few days in Denali National Park before starting to head home on Tuesday. Not sure where we're going yet, so stay tuned. I'm having an amazing time, but this adventure isn't even half over yet!

Laid-Back (Sort Of) Weekend

I can't believe it's August already! I have been traveling since July 2; so far, in only 30 days, I have visited: 15 states (NY, NJ, PA, OH, IN, IL, WI, IA, MN, SD, WY, MT, ID, WA & AK); 3 countries (Canada, Bermuda & Turks and Caicos); and 2 US Commonwealths (Puerto Rico and the US Virign Islands). Before my trip ends, I'll probably visit about 11 more states (OR, CA, NV, UT, CO, KA, MO, AR, TN, KY & WV). I've driven almost 6,000 miles, plus traveled another 3,000 by ship. I've been to 5 National Parks/Monuments (Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Effigy Mounds National Monument, Badlands National Park, Mt. Rushmore & Yellowstone National Park) and will probably visit at least 6 more (Kenai Fjords, Denali, Crater Lake, Redwoods, Yosemite, Capitol Reef, & Rocky Mountains).

This weekend we stayed pretty close to home-well, my dad's home, that is. On Saturday we went to Anchorage to the street fair and out to dinner at this awesome place called Suite 100. We also went to this used bookstore called Title Wave Books-so awesome! Used bookstores are my favorite places to hunt for treasures. I got 3 books about Alaska plus a novel for about $25-you can't beat that. We also went to the Alaska Wildberry Gift Shop, where I saw the world's largest chocolate fountain:

Man, did I want to dive right in there! But my dad wouldn't let me. Afterwards, we went to a few scenic places in the city, where I was able to see a nice view of Anchorage from a park near the airport:

Today we went to the Iditorad Trail Headquarters. That's me petting the statue of Balto:

We also had the salmon tonight, along with some yummy shelled peas:

 

Although my dad cooked the salmon to perfection and it had a nice flavor, I unfortunately didn't like the texture. So I just had peas, corn, bread & cheese. But at least I got try some really fresh salmon.

Tomorrow we're heading on an overnight trip down to the Kenai Peninsula, which I'm really excited about. We're going to see some Russian Orthodox churches in Kenai and maybe go tide-pooling in Homer. Then we're going to stay overnight at a place called Summit Lake & then drive down to Seward, stopping at Exit Glacier along the way. In Seward we're going to have a look around, maybe go the Sea Life Center (which is an aquarium) and then go on a boat cruise in Kenai Fjords National Park, where we'll see a glacier and hopefully a bunch of wildlife! And I'm also hoping that somewhere along the way some Alaskan king crab legs see the inside of my tummy!