returning

road trip statistics
from/to: roberts creek, bc to carson, washington return
total distance: 1234 kilometres
fuel used: 85 litres (approx)
small towns passed through: stevenson, carson, stabler, randle, washougal
highways travelled: 99, I-5, WA-205, I-84, WA-14
state lines crossed: washington, oregon
monuments visited: mt. saint helen’s national monument – i don’t know why this is called a monument in americanese – it’s really just the site where the volcano blew up
impressive feat: best gas mileage ever with my car, 550 km on one tank of gas

it’s so difficult to start in again after being away from the computer for 6 days.

i returned last night from another trip to the gifford pinchot national forest where i spent 5 days with nathan while he tried to get the rest of his data collected for his thesis project. we hiked around cutblocks and slept out in beautiful places, marred only by the continual firing of shotguns in the distance (it’s hunting season and the ‘mericans are busy communing with nature by driving their big SUVs around and wearing camo – just like they were desert storm or something)…

we camped at three different sites, all of them in stands of beautiful hundred-year old trees, hiked in an old-growth cedar grove, and on the last day we took the afternoon off and drove up to the mt. saint helen’s monument to watch the sunset from windy ridge.

i took a lot of photos and had a lot of time to think on this trip, i will post images with some of my thoughts over the next few days as i think it is easier than trying to put it all in one post.

(as usual, my photos look better on a mac, because i edit them on my ibook)