That's a lovely map of where I went, in case you're in to that sort of thing. I think it's pretty neat. You can see the actual map here.
I went 4090 km in 16 days, which I'm here to tell you is a long bloody ways. I went with my family with the intend of seeing the West Coast, and see it we did. You may think you have seen beaches, but until you have been to the brilliantly white miles long picturesque Oregon and California beaches with enormous rocks rising out of the ocean, you have not seen anything. I'll stick some pictures in here in here when I get them.
We first drove to a place in Washington just south of the border called Lynden, which is a lot like Abbotsford, only more stinky, and with 20% more windmills.
After Lynden, we went to a place called Port Angeles, which isn't very important because I didn't stay there; I went to Victoria on the ferry to visit Cori. What's important about that day is the name of the road we drove down from Lynden, which is Chuckanut drive. I think more streets need to have "nut" in the name.
From there we drove down the west coast, with scenic beaches, as described above. We stayed a whole pile of places, each of which had some very neat stuff, but every place we stayed on the coast before Florence can be described as follows: foggy, windy and cold. In a place called Long Beach (which does indeed have a very very long beach), it was so foggy we couldn't see the ocean on the beach. And it was so windy that it has been christened the kite flying capital of the world. Most of the Washington and Northern Oregon Coast is like this.
Once we got to Florence, things changed. For some geological reason I don't pretend to understand, there are sand dunes in Oregon. Enormously huge sand dunes. 500ft tall Sand Dunes. (Cranbrook hill is about 500 ft. Connought Hill is about 200). It's very weird to come out of a forest and suddenly find yourself in a desert, but what's the coolest is what you can do on them.
You can rent an ATV and drive all over the dunes. This was about the most excellent thing I have ever done. There is nothing quite like ripping over a sand dune and diving down the other side. The other thing you can do is rent a sandboard, which is sort of like a snowboard, except you ride it down a sand dune. Turns out Frank Herbert, author of Dune was the first person in the area to rent out these boards, and I was boarding down the same dunes that inspired that book.
Then to Crescent City, California, the southernmost point on my trip. Crescent City is notable because it has big trees. And MAN, does it have some big trees. The Coastal Redwoods live there, and there is one tree so big, it could only be called "Big Tree" (Not even kidding). 300 ft tall and 21 ft across, Big Tree is something you really have to see to believe. There are also a bunch of other trees, and some nifty ferns and stuff, but after three days of redwoods, I was pretty much through with big trees.
From there on to Crater Lake, which oddly enough is a lake in the middle of a crater. 7000 years ago Mount Mazama erupted, and left a huge crater. Over the next couple thousand years, it filled in and left Crater Lake, which is 5 miles wide and 2000 ft deep (deepest lake in the states) To see it, you drive around the rim of the old volcano, about 2000 ft up, and it is pretty damned amazing. There is another mini-volcano inside the lake, which makes Wizard Island, and sticks straight up 400 ft out of the lake.
After the freezing heights of Crater Lake, we blew threw a couple of Canyons (The Cove Palisades and the Columbia Gorge) which were warm and dry (first time on the trip). Then we came to Mount St Helens.
Seeing as I used to get TV from Seattle, I know a fair bit about Mount St Helens. But actually being there, in the middle of the blast zone, where 27 years later the only life is small wretched plants is something else.
When it erupted Mount St Helens spewed forth three waves of destruction: First an earthquake triggered the largest landslide in recorded history, which propelled boulders the size of buses as far as six miles away. The landslide released the pressure that had been building inside for the last two months, and the mountain exploded with the force of 27 000 nuclear bombs. A 300 mph death wind of superheated rocks literally blew apart the old growth forest for miles around, leveling what it didn't out and out destroy. Then, water from the glaciers on the peak of the 9000 ft mountain created mudslides that destroyed dozens of bridges and hundreds of homes. 57 people died, including treeplanters who had no idea, and geologists, who should have known better. (Last recorded transmission: "This is it!")
Let it be known that I have a very healthy respect for the destructive power of volcanoes. If the mountain had erupted (which it will do sometime in the next century) while I was there, I would have been incinerated standing 6 miles away.
Actually, as it turns out I was in natural disaster hazard zone pretty much the whole trip. Everywhere along the coast are signs that say "Entering Tsunami Hazard Zone" This is because most of the cities that we went to (since they were on the ocean) would be wiped out in the case of a tsunami. And seeing as there is a fault line about 30 miles from the coast, there is really no doubt that there will be one. And if there was, we would have all of 10 minutes to get to high ground. Makes you feel safe.
All in all, I had a very excellent vacation, and I would very strongly recommend that everyone visit that area. Every mile held some new natural wonder.
