Roadtripping back home

Driving to Canada was nice. We walked through the woods eating wild raspberries for breakfast, we stopped to eat and take a walk in Bellingham Washington and when we crossed the border there were bald eagles flying next to the road... but driving home from Canada was even better. For one, we took small highways and scenic roads almost the entire way. We got to drive through The Cascades in Washington at dusk following the cold Skagit River into amazing towering mountains. We ate dinner under the mountains and froze our feet in the river. We drove through acres and acres of ripe ready to harvest wheat fields as far as you could see where I made Jake sing "America The Beautiful" for me. We passed through small towns full of little diners and antique shops we would have loved to stopped at if we'd had the time. We camped next to a lake where I was so tired from driving I filled out the campsite register with a date in November and paid with Canadian money. We drove through cloud covered mountains in Wallace Idaho and along the train tracks to Coeur d'Alene while listening to Josh Ritter sing about where we were in his song "Wings". We passed through the thick forested hills of Montana and saw lonely log cabins next to beautiful rivers as well as a sampling of their many various license plates. We followed the Salmon River back in Idaho where we saw osprey calling from their nests and passed Borah Peak, the tallest mountain in the state. We saw thunderstorms gather over the distant buttes and drove through the rain with the windows down. After we watched the sunset someplace around Blackfoot we got on a real freeway for the first time in 2 days. All this was accompanied by good conversation, music and storytelling. Usually driving home from a good vacation is depressing, but this was nice. Good company, good scenery, and good snacks. The depressing part didn't even hit me till we reached Salt Lake.

Nice leg tan Jake...

Jake was beside himself with excitement to be in these mountains and wanted a picture in each direction. I suspect he'll be back to climb them soon. Another one of Jake and my random candid looking self portraits where we appear to have caught ourselves unaware that we are taking our own picture. (Ignore Pat's lunch box hanging from the sign)