Sunny Seattle

Well, after 4 days and a little less than 1200 miles, we are in Seattle for the Malen family get together. We don't like to make time like this, but sometimes it is necessary.
We were lucky with the weather, it was about 10 degrees cooler than normal for the entire trip up through central California, Oregon and Washington.
The two photos shown are at the Mt Shasta Rest Stop on I-5, just north of the mountain. Mt Shasta is one of the dormant volcanoes on the west coast that is part of the "ring of fire" around the Pacific Ocean. It is beautiful from all directions. The first photo shows the mountain, with two airplanes on a small air strip in the fore ground.
Mt Hood, Mt Rainer, and Mt St Helens are still covered in snow and offer beautiful sites to the east of I 5.
The other photo shows our "little home" in with the big boys . It is necessary for us to park our RV and towed car, which is 51 feet long, with the trucks.
Oregon and Washington both have an abundance of fresh berries this time of year. Blueberries, Marionberries, Boysenberrires, Raspberries, Gooseberries, Currants, etc, are all ripe, plentiful and delicious. The cherries are out of this world. Pris wanted to U Pick Berries but settled for the farmer's market variety.
The Seattle weather is in the 70's and sunny. It's one of the first sunny days this year. It's making for a beautiful and pleasant family reunion of 100 plus family members. Pris grew up with this family in Astoria, Or. and even practiced some of her long lost Finnish language with "cousins".

Beckman's Canadian Rocky Mountain High

One of the portions of this great continent that has alluded our travels is the heart of the Canadian Rockies. So we are off to rectify the situation. We have been to Glacier National Park ,which is in northwestern Montana, in the late 70s . Glacier is just south of the major part of the Canadian Rockies. Waterton Lakes National Park is across the US border from Glacier, on the western border of Alberta. A little more than 100 miles to the north of Waterton is Banff National Park, which straddles the Alberta/British Columbia border. Banff is bordered on the north by Jasper National Park, also on the Alberta/British Columbia border. We plan to spend about 4 weeks between Glacier and Jasper and about another 4 weeks getting to and back from Canada.
We found out about the Malen family (Priscilla's cousins' family) reunion that is being held in the Seattle area the last week in July. So, we start there. My cousin Robert Beckman also lives in Seattle, so we will also catch up with him. Then we will head east through northern Washington. This is very wild country and we haven't been there in any of our travels. When we get to Idaho, we will be back on familiar ground around Sandpoint. We were there two years ago when we did the Lewis & Clark trail. Then it's through Kalispell, Montana and to Glacier.
After leaving Jasper, our plans are less clear, except to head south and avoid snow. There are also some oysters in my sights on the coasts of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon.
We have never been to Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California. If the snow has not arrived by the time we get to that latitude, we will head in from the coast to see Lassen and then continue over the northern Sierra to Lake Tahoe and go down the eastern Sierra to home. September is our favorite time of year on the eastern Sierra.
So if you are inclined, visit our blog to follow this odyssey. I expect to have blog entries about every 3-5 days, on average. We start on Monday, July 25.
To see a bigger version of the image, left click on the image. To return to the blog, hit the back arrow. For those of you with Macs, good luck.