Into the Pacific Northwest

Leaving Yellowstone, we traveled back north through Montana and across Idaho on US-12, a long and winding path through miles and miles of tall, foggy, green Northwest pine forest. I really enjoyed this drive - it was not crowded and wound along a picturesque rocky stream the entire way. We camped once along this route, and headed into Washington to the city of Ellensburg.

Here, the forests and moisture were gone - the flat, irrigated land of Washington was home to some of the most interesting farms I've seen, including hay, apple, potato, grape, and onion farms.

We camped two nights along the Yakima River with the sole purpose of taking downtime and planning. The last month of the trip would be busy with much ground to cover, so we planned out our days, drives, hikes, and contacts on Tuesday and Wednesday. It was generally successful: except for about a week in Utah to split between 5 major national parks, we know our stops and path for the remainder of the trip. So much planning went in before leaving that it's almost strange to be near the end of planning things out. Time, weather, and the van willing, we have a goal: travel south through California, explore the Southwest, then return to Blacksburg for the weekend of October 5 and head home the Monday after - 14 weeks to the day from when we left.

We drove to Redmond just outside Seattle on Wednesday to change gears completely: here, we met up with Drew and Maddie again and prepared to spend the weekend camping at The Gorge Amphitheater to see a 3-day Dave Matthews concert. We had had tickets before we even left Virginia, so the excitement and anticipation was high - and we had finally made it!