July 25th "Riding Bodacious"

We got a little crazy with the help our new friend Andy. Andy was our most excellent white water guide. (Thank You Keanu) Oh and you had better believe he was everything a crazy guy named Andy would be. Crazy in a good way but crazy none the less. We rafted the Deschutes river in Oregon. We referred to the Imperial River Co. They where top notch all the way. Well worth the expenditure of funds (which was not nearly as much as I thought it was going to be -kathy). We did roughly 18 miles with a great bunch of people. We had a couple from Chicago and a grandmother daughter combo from Jersey. Everyone was really into it and got swamped. Kathy and I swam through one set of rapids and both got the chance to ride BULL (when you sit on the front of the boat and have a small one foot rope to hang onto). Thats what's going on in the picture of me(Josh).
The only drawback was that it was a two hour drive to get to the place. This required the getting up at the early hour of six am. Anyone that knows either one of us knows we may have been a little cranky with each other. It also sent me into a angry tirade on the general crappyness of the Bend expressway system. Luckily we realized that the best thing to do was to sit and be quiet. Few words were said before 8:30 am. As I type this we are now making the two hour drive back into Bend. We are going to a supposedly killer burrito joint called Longboard Louieis. I will update tomorrow on this rumor of killerness. (it's true! the killerness exists. I think Josh is picking up west coast slang? He picked up a North Dakota'ian accent...)

It was nice to be on the Deschutes River again, it's a trip I've done before. It was a fantastic little break for both of us, since we've been getting worn out by the camping/hiking grind. The drive wasn't really all that bad. I saw a river otter! It was cute! Then I saw a group of ducks on a log and announced there were more river otters. Quite loudly and enthusiastically. Every animal from then on was a river otter. Inanimate objects as well. It was a good trip, we are sunburned (hopefully not too badly) and tired. Longboard Louie's will hopefully be as good as I remember it. Heck, it's been there for at least ten years, it can't be bad right?
-kathy

July 24th Alpenglow and the 4-D Man

Our first day of real relaxation in a while. I (Kathy) lived in Bend about ten years ago, so much of the next few days is going to be revisiting places I remember, and a few I have forgotten about. It is bright and sunny today and all our stuff is drying out. It's great! We went into Bend to get breakfast at this great little restaurant called The Alpenglow. They use all local meats, eggs, and veggies. Nothing is canned or frozen, its all fresh. A little expensive but really good. After that there was a little bit of window shopping but we soon found ourselves back at camp reading our books. After a good long read we headed out to see a cool waterfall that were a few miles outside of town. They were great! One of the nicest things about it was there was hardly anyone around. Being alone while admiring waterfalls has been a rarity, since we've stopped at some pretty popular places. (pic) Again we went into town to get some food to make for dinner and to find a few odds and ends. We came across a cool little record shop and stopped in.
This is where I, Josh, found the coolest thing ever! There in the, I kid you not, Super Discount Bin was a copy of The 4-D Man on DVD (for 3 dollars! kathy adds). For all you folks that have been following along know what I'm talking about. For those of you that haven't read the July 22nd entry.
We then got some ice cream and headed back to camp. We have a big day tomorrow. We are getting up early to go white water rafting. Early as in six am. And we're waking up to a watch alarm. help.

July 23rd The Ocean Is Salty and Will Burn Your Eyes!

We woke to the sound of the ocean today. I (Josh) really love doing that! It was still raining so we had to pack everything wet. It sucked. We beach combed a little bit in the morning, I (Kathy) was really hoping to find a whole sand dollar. No luck, only smashed ones. Fortunately we will be on the coast for awhile. We started driving down the 101 today. We thought we would head down to the southern part of Washington and find the National Kite Museum and Hall of Fame.
Bad news for the Kite Museum. The place it was suppose to be was now condos. So it either moved or was defunct. Either way we couldn't find it. This is the second time we've had this discrepancy between the Atlas and truth. We were looking for "Historyland" (!!) in Wisconsin and, sadly, we think it was replaced by a Wal-Mart. Sick of the rain we decided that we would get the heck out of Washington. We crossed into Oregon and headed for Portland. I (Josh) had heard from a friend that Portland was a really cool place to hang out and that the night life was great. Unfortunately we were still wet and it was still raining. We also don't have a lot of extra cash for bar hopping Plus we have a car in constant tow, so only one of us would be able to truly partake in an awesome bar scene. So we headed out to find the high desert of central Oregon. (Sorry Cliff) We drove another 100 miles to Bend.

July 22nd Part II Another reason that Josh is the coolest person you know. Well, cooler than your accountant anyways.

My (Josh) journey is now complete! I have finally made it to all four corners of the US. It all started seventeen years ago when I first set foot in the Atlantic ocean at the age of eight. This is how the time line broke down.
Florida 1990
Maine 2003
LA California 2006
Washington 2007
This has been a personal goal of mine for many years and today it was a dream that I finally realized. YES!
Oh yeah. It was still raining.
We also found camping next to the ocean for $14 bucks! Now thats what Im talking about!!!!
I bought a tarp earlier today. It turned out to be worth every penny.
The benefit of a camp when it's raining, no bugs.
And now more pictures of the ocean!

July 22nd Free Soy Milk For All Klingons!

Finally a redeeming quality for the KOA! A decent breakfast for $5. We packed up camp and hit the road fairly early. 160 miles to Seattle. Kathy bought the Harry Potter book, and Josh got reeled into one about the making of "El Mariachi" so there is much reading in the car. We made it into Seattle around noon and drove downtown to the Space Needle.

It was raining. They wanted $16 per person! That's crazy. Its a stinking tower (sez Josh, Kathy agrees). You don't even pay that much to go up in the Empire State Building. And let me tell you the Space Needle ain't no Empire State Building. Instead we decided to go to the Science Fiction Museum and Music Museum. A ticket for both of these was only $15 and was tons of fun better than that stupid needle would have been. So we spent a couple of hours looking at Jimi Hendrix's guitar and old phasers from the original Star Trek. It was pretty rad, and fifteen bucks well spent. I was also pretty impressed with this cool looking poster for an old movie called "The 4-D Man" It had to do with a scientist that discovers how to enter the fourth dimension! It had some sweet looking old school images. (It was released in 1959)
So we left there in search of lunch and stumbled on the taste of Seattle. I have to give these people credit. They can have a party rain or shine. In this case rain. It hasn't really stopped since last night. We ate and walked around. We found a huge line and heard that they were giving out a bunch of free organic food. On a trip like this we love free stuff! So after a short wait we landed all kinds of cool shwag like soy chocolate milk an yogurt bars. (pic). We headed out. Maybe we can make the coast for camping? We better, there isn't much in between.

July 21st The KOA just made my list!

We drove a lot today. We entered Washington to find that the East side of the state is empty. We're talking abandoned houses in fields. We drove until it got dark, which we try very often NOT to do. Washington is known for its wet weather and today we got our first taste of rain. We had had rain earlier in the trip but always at night. We also ran into our first shortage on campsites. Turns out people love to camp in the middle of nowhere in the rain. The only site we could find was at a KOA. For those of you that don't know, that's short for Kamp Ground of America. It also stands for suck. (And the spelling of "camp" with a "K" annoys Kathy endlessly) After spending the last two weeks doing some real camping, it was nearly unbearable to hear some of the guests talk about how great it is to camp. This place was the Hilton of campgrounds; Pool, spa, game room, store, WIFI, cabins, basketball courts, and a DJ. Thats right they were having a dance party as we set up camp. All of this wouldn't have been that bad except for the fact that they were charging $49.95 for tent sites. We managed to get one for $39.95 because it was basically an alley. It was such a crap site they had to show it to us before we agreed to stay there. So we setup camp in the rain and cooked dinner in the rain. Oh yeah we also ate in the rain. I hate rain! I'm buying a tarp tomorrow!

July 20th These Farmers Should Really Open a Full Time Market.

We left Glacier and headed west. We didn't see much along US 2. It was fairly empty except for bars and gas stations. Even then these were few and far between. Some real fine establishments.
We made it into a town Idaho called Sandpoint. We decided that this would be a good place to say in a hotel seeing as we had just spent a week out in the wilds of Montana. Sandpoint turned out to be a cool little town. It had a great old downtown district and we stumbled on a great farmers market. We almost stayed an extra night in Sandpoint it was that great of a place. We were eager to get to Washington, and more importantly the coast, so we continued on.