Days of heat, nights of condensation.

We left Seattle well-rested and feeling better than ever. It was sunny, the Hood Canal was brilliant blue, and the dense forest around us was lush green, with little slivers of blue sky peeking through. Andrea and I weren't even fighting, something increasingly uncommon as the first six months of or trip winds to a close.



The roads we took from Seattle to Portland aren't even on some maps. They are rural, redneck, and residential. There are some pretty little cabins tucked away in the huge evergreens, and a lot of election signs that say (R) or (GOP) on them.



We stayed with a couple of awesome families.



The guy with the screw is Louis, likely the smartest, most precoucious six-year-old in Shelton, WA.



This was shaping up to be one of our worst campsites ever. Notice the large rocks- we are on a roadbed built in a massive swamp. I couldn't pound stakes into the ground, settling for piles of stone at the tent corners. The morning was alive and brilliant. There were so many insects, birds, and bird calls; the trees filled the air with pleasant herbal smells.

I'll remember Western Washington as a endless sequence of bridges.



A tressel outside of Olympia.



A veiw from the Lewis and Clark Bridge, crossing the Columbia River into Oregon.



Entering Portland on the Saint John Bridge.