Month: July 2005

We called an audible on our travel plans and we’re now in North Platte, NE versus being just outside of Denver which was our original plan.

We had a GREAT day yesterday in Steamboat. Our hike turned out to be just short of four miles. Not too intense as it was downhill the whole way – however, that has its challenges too… We rode the gondola back up after the hike and had some celebratory drinks on top of the Thunderhead. We then opted to take the gondola back down again versus another hike… After that we went out for some great Mexican food in the “downtown” area of Steamboat Springs. We also took the opportunity to check out some book stores. Jeff completed his Dan Brown collection (he’s hooked) and Amy found a librarian action figure (no, we’re not joking…) 🙂

We woke up this morning (Friday) and decided to head into Nebraska versus just stopping in Greeley, CO. We drove through Rabbit Ears Pass (Beautiful) and then began our approach to Rocky Mountain National Park. Rocky Mountain is an INCREDIBLE spot. However – it’s a lot like how we pictured Yellowstone was going to be. At the top of the mountain (12,000+ feet) it’s bumper-to-bumper with a lot of society’s less intelligent people driving when they shouldn’t be. Got some amazing views. We were well above the tree line and we really felt like we were standing on top of the world. Absolutely beautiful. It was funny seeing snow again because two hours later it was 102 degrees outside of Greeley. We first had to wind through “Wisconsin Dells West” (Estes Park – a beautiful area accompanied by go-cart tracks and mini-golf). We decided that we were ready to start heading back to Green Bay. We’re in North Platte now (home of the world’s largest freight rail yard) and hoping to make it to northeast Iowa or southwest Wisconsin by tomorrow night.

We might update tomorrow or we might just post our last note from home. Thanks to everyone for sitting through this blog these past few weeks. It’s been fun to do and it’s been a riot hearing from you guys via the site comments or by email.

Hello from the road! We’re just doing a quick update as we’re on a sketchy internet connection and we’re parked illegally.

We’re in Steamboat Springs, CO and getting ready to take the gondola up the mountain. We’ve got a 3 mile hike planned back down to the gondola base. 2000′ drop in elevation. (I know, we’re cheating by taking the gondola up…)

Had a BEAUTIFUL campsite in Utah Yesterday. The “Golden Spike” was everything Jeff dreamed of and more. Dinosaur National Monument was beautiful – Amy took another 100 pictures there…

We’ll try and post more from Greeley tomorrow night. We’re going to roam through Rabbit Ears Pass and Rocky Mountain National Park on the way there!

Love to all…

Jeff & Amy

We were fortunate enough to tour New England earlier this year. We stood next to the Atlantic Ocean in Gloucester and agreed that we were very lucky to be able to see both oceans in one year. We smiled at that today as we stood on the sands of the Pacific…

We headed out of Seattle very early in the morning on Monday. We chose to make a counter-clockwise loop around Olympic National Park. What an incredible day. This park completely took Amy and I by surprise. We drove 17 miles (and 5000+ feet of elevation) to Hurricane Ridge. Here we stood face-to-face with a variety of glaciers. We then coasted down (literally – not touching the gas once for 17 miles) back to sea level and drove another 80-100 miles to the Hoh Rainforest. It’s the only virgin, temperate rainforest left in the United States. We didn’t know if we were in Washington, Mirkwood or on Endor. (Wake-up sci-fi nuts…) Beautiful, huge, moss-covered trees. Dense forest… Amy was nuts using her camera. This was truly a major highlight of the trip. We ended our day by driving to the beach. 47* 42.634’N by 124* 24.939’W was our furthest point west on this trip. At this point – it was all eastward heading back to Green Bay. Our campsite was a bit further down the beach and it was lovely. We strolled in the sand and watched the setting of the sun. This was an incredible day.

Today we were on the road at 7:00 a.m. We were able to tune into news of the shuttle launch. We were very happy to hear that it went well. Today was a 12 hour day in the saddle. Olympic National Park to Boise, ID. Not a lot of sightseeing – although we followed the Columbia River along the Oregon/Washington border for quite a long time and we were able to catch a few nice views of Mount St. Helens. The goal was to get a lot of miles under our belt so that we have some time to stop in Promontory, UT (a spiritual spot for Jeff) as well as have a full day in Steamboat Springs, CO.

Great to hear from all of you. Loving this trip…

Jeff & Amy