Pacific Northwest - National Parks at Last!

We're writing this from beautiful Seattle, where we finally arrived after a fun-filled trip along I-90. Starting from Wisconsin, we endured what seemed like endless miles of amber waves of grain punctuated only by incessant advertisements for the Mitchell Corn Palace (not all it's cracked up to be) or the famous Wall Drug (yay - 5 cent coffee). Finally however we made it to our first National Park - the South Dakota Badlands. Since then we've seen a lot, but our proudest moment by far was the completion of the license plate game; after 16 days and 4200 miles we finally saw our 50th state license plate on the off-ramp coming into Seattle (Delaware....The First State....how ironic).

Some highlights thus far (in brief, by popular demand) - click on the photos to make them full size:

Badlands, South Dakota - We just managed to make it into the park as the sun was setting, showing off some lovely colors in the hills. It was a lovely (and much needed) break from the last 800 miles of flatness that was I-90.

Mount Rushmore, South Dakota - "And I'm proud to be an American..." ;-) Impressive sculpture - featured on the front of our National Parks Pass (which was a wonderful present - thanks again!!!); strangely enough, Rushmore was the only park that we've had to pay to get into (talk about false advertising!)

Devils Tower, Wyoming - Deceptively small up close, until we noticed that the little blip on top was actually a person!

Yell0wstone, Wyoming - The thermal nature of this park is made clear by the pervasive sulfur smell - on the plus side, any gaseous emissions of the human kind go unnoticed! Some landscape highlights:

• Incredibly blue water in the thermal pools
• Never-before-seen alien landscape of angrily boiling water, burbling mud, shooting steam, or wildly colored bacteria lining the waterways
• Old faithful is still faithful, but we found Castle Geyser to give a better show

Yellowstone was also the sight of some of our first major wildlife sightings (other than prairie dogs):

• Our first traffic jam caused by a herd of bison!
• A range of sizes and shapes from adorable chipmunks to imposing elk
  

Grand Teton, Wyoming - Just south of Yellowstone, this park was our first really big scenery. The water here was unbelievably clear in the shallows, and deep beautiful blue at depth. We took a boat ride across Jenny lake to do a hike to Inspiration Point (elevation 7220 ft - not as impressive considering we started at 6800 ft).

Glacier, Montana - Simply a massive landscape comprised of soaring mountains and enormous glacier-carved valleys. We did a lot more hiking here, resulting in close encounters with new wildlife (mountain goats, ground squirrels, and marmots to name a few) and some simply incredible vistas (like this view of Hidden Lake from where we ate lunch).

Seattle, Washington - We had some interesting sights on our drive into Seattle, such as dust devils on the plains and a massive field fire. Once in the city proper, we took in the lively fish-flinging at Pike Markets and enjoyed the view of the skyline with immense, snow-covered Mt. Ranier as a backdrop.

This afternoon we're heading out to Olympic NP for a couple of days, then it's southeast to Utah and Colorado. Stay posted! We hope you all are doing well! For those affected by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, we send our love and support!!! Stay strong in these tough times!!