Otis and I returned from our week-long vacation in the Pacific Northwest/Canada late Wednesday night. The trip was amazing, and you can see some of the pictures we took here. Unfortunately we don't have a digital SLR and were bound to the limits of our 3 megapixel Canon Elf, which means that the pictures hardly capture the true beauty of everything we saw. Sigh.
The trip was a much needed break from life, although I had a much harder time unplugging than I expected. It's a good thing we were out of cell phone and internet range for 90% of the trip. I also expected to be more mentally refreshed and positive about coming back to work, but that didn't quite happen. I'm feeling a post on forced optimism coming up, inspired by Mrs. Juicebox.
As for the details of what we did on our trip, the first 2 nights we camped in the North Cascades. Our first full day in the mountains we hiked up to Boston Glacier, or at least as far as the yet unmelted the snow cap would let us. It ended up being somewhere between a 9-10 mile hike, with a rise in elevation of about 4000-5000 feet. We felt that climb for the next 4 days. Here's a picture from the high point of our climb.
After the Cascades we proceeded north to Vancouver, BC, Canada. This city is like a mini scale of NYC, and is a blast. The best thing we did while there was kayaking on the Indian Arm fjord, where we came so close to a Harbor Seal that we could have reached out and touched it. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of this experience as we didn't take the camera with us for fear of dropping it in the fjord. However, you will be happy to know the following about Vancouver:
"Welcome to Vancouver. A nuclear weapons free zone."
After 2 days in Vancouver we ferried over to Victoria (ferries in Canada are $$$, by the way). The ferry trip was beautiful, and the ferry itself was unbelievable. This thing was like a cruise ship, with restaurants, sun decks, etc. We were lucky enough to spend Canada Day in Victoria, which was fun and crazy. Those Canadians really like Canada Day, eh. They also know how to put on quite a fireworks show, which we got to watch over the Inner Harbor in Victoria.
One night in Victoria was about all we needed, so we headed out to the Olympic Peninsula the next day. We spent some time walking along the beach, where we saw 2 American Bald Eagles, real live starfish, and sea anemones. We also visited the Hoh Rainforest and hiked to the top of Hurricane Ridge, by far our most rewarding hike per effort exerted. Here's a tiny view from the top of Hurricane Ridge. Visit our Picasa site to see more pics.
I love how the mountains just end, and then nothing but ocean. You can't really see it in this picture, but it was so clear we could see all the way across the bay to Victoria, BC, Canada.
Our last night we spent in Seattle before we had to catch our flight back to Austin. We walked through Pike Place Market, a must for anyone visiting to Seattle. I so wish we had something like this here in Austin.
It was hard to leave the beauty behind, but also very good to come home. There's nothing like sleeping in your own bed and knowing where to get the food you like. We're still not sure if Austin will be home for forever, but it's home now and we're glad to be back.