Day Eleven: Huskeytown

Today, we toured the University of Washington – the true goal of our trip. Here’s a hasty picture I took of the entrance:

We went to the Husky Union Building and from there, took our tour of the campus. It was quite a bit different than I expected. I don’t know what I expected, but I didn’t expect it to look so old.  Here are just a few of the buildings we saw:

We went to  Suzzallo Library:

Which on the inside was either Hogwarts:

or the Maester’s Citadel from Game of Thrones:

Here’s a picture of the fountain on campus created when Seattle had the World’s Fair (1962):

If you squint hard, the  whitish/grey stuff to the right of the fountain is Mount Rainier.

We went to the Sylvan Grove that holds four pillars from the original building of the University of Washington when it was actually in downtown Seattle:

The tradition is that you touch on of the pillars during Freshman Orientation and touch one again when you graduate.

We wrapped up at the HUB where we finished the tour.  Later in the afternoon, we took a tour of one of the residence halls, and it was much nicer than my Freshman dorm room! They also had so many amenities in the residence halls like kitchens, game rooms, a recording studio, a lab with 3D printers, soldering irons, wood working and sewing equipment, in addition to your usual TV and study lounges. Almost makes me want to go back to college!

Tonight we had an actual home cooked dinner in our suite (which was great!). Tomorrow we head to the Experience Music Project and the Space Needle in downtown Seattle.

WARNING: There may be an unhealthy collection of Star Trek related photos tomorrow. You’ve been warned!

Happy journeys

Mike

 

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Day Ten: Looks Like We Made It

We packed up early and left Missoula, MT. Here’s a picture from downtown Missoula that I took last night, but forgot to load from my phone:

We drove a couple of hours north and before we knew it, we were in Idaho:

We travelled through the mountains of the panhandle of Idaho and before we knew it we were in Washington:

We crossed over very near Spokane. Although we could smell and see some smoke in the distance, we really didn’t know there were major wildfires near Spokane and we travelled through with no problems whatsoever. In fact, it wasn’t until people commented later that we even knew there were major fires. Truthfully, we had more issues with the managed fires near West Yellowstone (which wasn’t much) than the Spokane fires.

As we started across Washington, I have to admit that I was very surprised. I thought that Washington was going to be one huge mass of forests. Instead, as we crossed from Spokane, this is what it looked like:

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that I was in South Dakota or Wyoming.

Eventually, we got closer to Snoqualmie Pass and the view became decidedly more like what I expected:

And finally, we arrived in Seattle:

Here’s the view of where we’re staying in the University District

Today was a good lesson in why you should travel – when you see things for yourself, it certainly resets your preconceived notions of places – it certainly has for me!

Tomorrow it’s college visit time (University of Washington).

Happy journeys!

Mike

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Day Nine: Purple Mountains Majesty and Amber Waves of Grain

Today was a short travel day – From West Yellowstone to Missoula, Montana. We packed up the Cube…here’s what the fully packed Cube looks like:

We have a cooler/pseudo refrigerator (it has a fan that runs from the cigarette lighter) that keeps food cold and allows us to pack picnic lunches on the road.

We headed out of the mountains around West Yellowstone and down to the plains of Montana. On our trip, we really did see purple mountains majesty and amber waves of grain:

We travelled through more plains and eventually came to the mountains the closer we got to Missoula.  Here are some pictures we got from the car:

Tomorrow is a very long travel day as we travel from Missoula to our ultimate destination: Seattle.

Happy journeys!

Mike

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Day Eight: Where the Deer and the Antelope Play (?)

Today we left our comfy cabin and headed to Yellowstone National Park (via the West Entrance, if that  means anything to you). We stop first at the Biscuit Basin to look at some of the geysers and hot springs:

After enjoying the smell of the sulfurous springs, we continued in the car to Old Faithful and of course, we got our obligatory picture of Old Faithful erupting:

We then headed north to Mammoth Hot Springs with a stop for a picnic along the way. Here are some of the pictures from Mammoth Hot Springs:

We continued from there around to Tower Falls :

All along the way, we enjoyed amazing views:

Now – about the title of this post. I’ve heard many times how much wildlife you can see in Yellowstone and having to stop to let buffalo or elk cross. After covering half the park, about the only thing we had seen were ravens.

Finally, we caught a herd of buffalo:

And just down the road, we found a solitary bison:

A little farther along, my son caught a picture of a goat:

And we were almost out of the park when we finally saw an elk:

And other than the aforementioned ravens, that is the all the animals we saw at Yellowstone.

Despite not being many animals, the thing that’s amazing about Yellowstone is the variety of scenery. There are geysers basins that look like something from an alien world, and then you’re driving into wooded plains, sage covered grass lands, pine tree covered mountains and sharp canyon walls.

Tomorrow is another driving day – but much shorter.

Happy journeys!

Mike

 

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Day Seven: Wild Montana Skies

Today was purely a driving day. That’s not to say there wasn’t plenty of things to see, but the point of today was to get from Gillette, WY to the West Entrance of Yellowstone – over 470 miles.

As indicated by the lyrics, the morning started out very wet. We headed out on our old friend I-90 and travelled north and then crossed into Montana:

And we travelled across Montana from Wibaux to Bozeman before turning south to the West Entrance of Yellowstone.  We passed by Little Big Horn, but with seven hours of driving today, we didn’t really want to take the extra time – maybe on the way back. Montana was a variety of landscapes – flat plains, rolling hills, buttes, and mountains.  Here’s a handful of pictures I took:

Tomorrow we tour Yellowstone National Park.

Happy journeys!

Mike

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