This post is a small homage to the 24 hours round trip we NC Sulock’s spend in a car each Christmas driving from Asheville to New Jersey. To ignore it would be to ignore a significant part of my heritage.

On the way drive back to Missoula we stopped to walk a 5 mile loop at the highly recommended Multnomah Falls.

Put on your skinny jeans because its time for Northwest Jerk Fest presented by Northwest Movement Magazine . These are all from the final round featuring Portland’s own Bedrock Boyz vs. The Rip City Jerks.

All you future jerkers out there can learn some new moves here.

On Saturday we drove to the coast. About an hour and a half drive from Portland.

Wednesday evening we drove 550 miles from Missoula to Portland to spend the holiday with Hilary’s friend Kathleen. We crammed a lot into a few days and Kathleen was gracious enough to be our local tour guide. These pictures are from Thanksgiving Day.

On the way back we decided to take the scenic route, went south on 191, and then cut west on highway 95. The drive was a part of Utah I had never seen. You go across the Colorado River at the very start of Lake Powell, through the Glen Canyon Recreation Area. Then you drive a little through Capital Reef National Park. Much of the drive was characterized by tall cliffs on either side as you are following various rivers as they cut their way through the the landscape.

The scenic route was our goodbye to the Southwestern landscape as approaching Salt Lake City the red and orange cliffs are replaced by urban sprawl and the snow-covered Wasatch Mountains. Our decision not to backtrack turned what was probably a 12 hour drive to Missoula into a 16 hour one.

Last week was Spring Break. I took a trip down to Moab, Utah. Jeff took me from Bozeman to Idaho Falls and Hilary picked me up on her way from Missoula. It was a sneaky maneuver that sped things up a bit.

We brought our bikes down there and enjoyed the bright blue sky and red desert sandstone.

We were almost to Drummond and drove out of the sunlight into the fog of the inversion. Everything was coated in ice and we drove by some giant animal sculptures. I made Hilary turn around so we could check it out.

It turns out the place is the residence and museum of an almost 90 year old retired rancher, Bill Ohrmann, who just paints and sculpts now. (I got this information from this article in the Missoulian) The man makes some amazing things. If I was an artist I would like to made an 8 foot tall steel grizzly bear. The ice covered stillness of it all made the experience a little surreal.

Happy Birthday Davy!

As we were coming home on I-90 the Cascades around Snoqualmie pass were really reminding me of North Carolina. There was plenty of moisture and before you got too high the elevation was just right for lots of deciduous trees. One thing is for sure, this understory was anything but sparse.

We decided to stop and walk around a little before the rest of the 480 mile trip back to Missoula. I turned off at the next sign for a state park and we ended up at a lake about 3 miles from the interstate (I didn’t get the name).

The weather was lightly raining and not overly hot, which in its own special way added to the atmosphere a little I thought. Despite the grayness it was nice to see something other than a Rocky Mountain pine forest for a change.

These were all taken the last day we were there. It was a big day, I’ll tell you what.

I hope there are plenty more aquariums in my future because I really like the Seattle Aquarium. It has a lot of species that you would find in Puget sound, which is neat-o.

Despite being a little ritzy Fremont was pretty sweet. There was a lot of activity in a couple little blocks, and the leaves on the trees lining the street were in prime fall colors. It was a little bit like a fairy-tale land, with a troll and everything.