Monday, 26th, we are headed home. When we left San Diego on Saturday we drove up to Joshua Tree National Park and drove through this arid, desert park with interesting cactus and of course, the Joshua tree.
On Sunday we drove through Arizona making a stop in Sedona where the red cliffs and rock formations are amazing.

Today we are in Oklahoma and on the "fast track" home. This is probably going to be my last blog as we are not planning any more sight-seeing and hoping to be home on Friday.

I hope you have enjoyed this travel blog. It has been an awesome experience, we have seen and done so much in the two and a half months. Truly a trip of a life time!

July 19th we drove down the California coast through the Redwood Forest. It is amazing how huge these trees are and the forest is very beautiful.
Route One along the coast is very narrow and windy and we had to watch for bicycle riders. It was Dave's kind of road, Paige found it a bit scary because of course the sheer drop off hundreds of feet to the ocean was always on her side of the car! It was a picturesque drive. We had a great visit with Dave's relatives, sharing our trip and visiting his sister in Atascadero and niece and her children in Venice.

We are now in San Diego for the Comic Con, the largest comic convention in the world. The Convention hall is humongous! Well over 1000 exhibitors and vendors and too many people, lots in costumes of their favorite comic book, graphic novel, gaming or entertainment world character. Some very weird outfits, and people, but they are all enjoying themselves! The awards ceremony is tonight and Paige's Dad will be inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame.

Saturday we will head home, we are not sure the route, but we would like to put wings on the car, but we hope to be back in NH by August 1st.

For all of you who have been following our blog, we are still traveling. We have not had internet access for a week. I will try and catch you up. On July 12th we arrived at Waterton Lake National Park, Alberta, Canada where we stayed two nights at the Prince of Wales Grand Hotel. It is here in the first picture.
The hotel was built in 1926-27 by the American owner of the Great Northern Railway who had built grand lodges in Glacier National Park. Waterton Lake is also in Glacier and he took wealthy Americans up the Lake in a steam boat to the Hotel.
We took a guided tour of the town of Warterton with a park ranger. What was amazing was the amount of mule deer all over the town. They are on everyone's lawn. They don't need lawn mowers! They can be real pests however, chasing dogs, getting in the way and sometimes being aggressive.

It was very windy while we were there, it is usually blowing around 20 miles an hour, but can gust up to 90 miles. There were a few gusts where Dave and I had to hold onto each other to keep from being blown away! We spent part of our time sitting in the lobby/great room where there were floor to ceiling (two stories) windows over looking the lake. Very spectacular. It was a fun time.

July, 14th, We left Canada and crossed the boarder into Montana an drove the "Going-To-The-Lake" highway in Glacier National Park.
St.Mary's Lake and Goat Island was beautiful. Every turn in the windy narrow road was more fantastic scenery- waterfalls, snowy Mountains, fast flowing rivers- is it possible to have "scenery overload"?

We are on our way to Kalispell, Montana where we will spend a few days with our friend Lynn. It will be nice to be out of the car, do some laundry and have some home cooking.

Saturday, July, 17 We left our friend Lynn Stanley, home in Kalispell, Montana and drove through the "bread belt" - lots of wheat fields, to Oregon where we followed the Columbia
River 120 miles to Portland. It was a beautiful ride. We saw two very nice waterfalls and on the River there were pleasure boats, sail boats and many people on surfboards using parasails. We have seen a lot of wind turbines both in Montana and in Oregon.

We are headed down to San Diego where we are going to The Will Eisner Cartoon awards. Paige's Dad is being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Our plans are to also visit some of Dave's relatives.

CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK, OREGON

Today we drove down from Portland, Oregon to Crater Lake National Park. It was a beautiful ride into the park, the 87 miles of road had us climb up to 7,000 feet. We stopped at the first turnout on the road, climbed up to the top of the rim and looked down into the crater.

We got goosebumps it was so amazing! The crater was created when Mount Mazama, a 12,000 foot volcano imploded 7,700 years ago and collapsed into itself creating a 20 sq. mile crater that filled with rain and snowmelt to make a 1,943 ft deep lake. The sides down to the lake are 2000 feet high. It is the deepest and purest water in the world. The color is the most beautiful blue. Wizard Island, in the middle of the lake, was also volcanic.

On the ride out, we came across the beautiful falls you see in the first picture. This was an awesome day!

Saturday, July 10 we drove into Jasper National Park late in the day. The Village of Jasper is a quaint town with lots of little stores, restaurants and touristy shops surrounded by mountains. On Sunday we drove though Jasper, Banff and Kootenay National Parks, in Alberta, Canada.

We think of all the parks we have seen these have been the most spectacular. We are almost suffering scenery overload. The water falls, the mountains, the valleys, the glaciers, and even the animals all seem to conspire to make us smile! What a wonderful and awe inspiring place.