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We arrived in Southwick MA around 3am last night. Yesterday we went through London, Paris and Amsterdam (Ohio and New York). We’re currently driving to Mel and Anne’s house, after dropping off Katie. She seemed very happy to be home again, though not so excited about starting school next week.
We should be going home to [...]

The drive through Colorado was very beautiful. The mountains are huge, and being at that high of an elevation is exciting. It’s fun to drive to the top of a mountain and back down again. It’s also neat to be able to look over the side of the road and see a valley a half [...]

We arrived at Bryce Canyon about 3 hours before the sun went down, providing excellent light for photographs and viewing. Bryce is a really amazing place — huge pillars carved from stone, standing very close together. We checked out a few viewpoints and set up camp in the park for the night.

The next morning we [...]

We left Nevada, and drove to Arizona, then into Utah. We stopped at a small town, St. George, and had some Mexican food. We felt that we had entered Mormon country as soon as we got into the restaurant. Everyone was very friendly, cleanly dressed, and white. It seems like they spend more time on [...]

We left Washington on the 10th, and drove to Portland, Oregon. Our friends Susank and Erik live there, and we stayed with them. They took us out for a yummy dinner and suggested a great breakfast place too. Portland is a nice city. It’s very green, and clean. The weather seems to be great, and [...]

We spent the day yesterday in downtown Seattle, checking out the aquarium and waterfront area. I have fond memories of the aquarium from a visit to the area in my early teens, and wanted to see it again and bring Katie along. The aquarium is unique in that you can touch many things, from starfish [...]

We left Yellowstone and drove north into Montana. We had dinner in Bozeman, and drove another hour or two west. There were crazy thunder and lightning storms, with bolts of lighting stronger and brighter than I’ve ever seen before. It was really dark too — a strong storm.
We drove maybe 25 miles off the highway [...]

Today we went to Yellowstone National Park. We got into the park around 9am, and stayed for about 12 hours.

We went in the East entrance, and checked out the giant lake first. Then we went straight for the weird thermal area with the geysers. On the way there we saw two bison.

They were blocking the [...]

A lot has happened since the last update. We left Northern Minnesota and drove south to Minneapolis. We spent about an hour in the Mall of America — the biggest shopping mall in this country. A shrine to consumerism. It’s pretty large, we figured it to be about the same distance as walking from the [...]

Today we spent the majority of the day at the cabin, lighting off fireworks and shooting guns. (yee haw). I saw my first Bald Eagle today, which was very cool. It was sitting on a tree, right outside the window of the cabin. When we walked out the door, it flew across the lake. I [...]

We’re up in Northern Minnesota now, hanging out at Karl’s family’s cabin. They have a house in downtown Hibbing, and this cabin is about 30 minutes away, on their own lake. They own most of the land around, and it’s very remote. The stars are very visible here, and apparently you can see the Northern [...]

Finally we are off. First stop is borrowing a tent from AJ and Mandy, then we will spend the night at my father’s place about 2 hours west of here. Not too much to cover the first day, but at least we get to leave!

{This was an email I sent out to my contacts when I returned from South America in 2003}
Most of you don’t actually know that I was gone in the first place. I’ve just arrived home from a three week expedition to South America, and got a chance to see both Ecuador and Peru.
My father was [...]