Archives

Our recent trip to the US northwest – Last Wednesday evening, we returned from a trip to the States—about three weeks spent mostly in the Pacific northwest with a side trip to Yellowstone National Park. We saw family, friends, and some spectacular natural sights. For as much fun as we had, it is good to be back home, even if Seoul feels like a sauna, as it usually does at this time of year. It’s funny how quickly three weeks can slip by when you are just living your normal routine, but when you are traveling and filling your days with things you normally don’t do, time can seem to move a lot more slowly. That’s not to say that it wasn’t a good trip. It was a great trip. It’s just that time seemed to stretch out, and things we had done only a week earlier seemed like they had happened such a long time ago.

I ended up taking a lot of photos on this trip: 1,108 in total (including maybe a half-dozen videos I took). I went through them last week and deleted duplicate photos—photos I took of the same subject using different settings or framed differently—leaving me with 999. Going through these, choosing a small number that I actually want to post, and then processing them is going to take quite a bit longer, though. In the meantime, I thought I would do a write-up of the trip while it is still relatively fresh in my mind. I’m not going to talk in too much detail about time spent with friends and family, both because I respect their privacy and because they already know what happened. I may not go into great detail about some other things, either, as I imagine I will have more to say when I post the photos. Still, this is going to be a very long entry (7000+ words), so strap in.

Our time in the US began in the rather oppressive domestic terminal of Sea-Tac (Seattle-Tacoma airport), where we transferred to a flight to Portland, Oregon. Although Portland is a much smaller city than Seattle, it’s airport is much nicer; according to my friend Jared, whom I’ll talk about later, it is inspired by tribal architecture from the region. From the airport we availed ourselves of the city’s efficient public transit system, which dropped us off right around the corner from our hotel. We checked in, dropped off our luggage, and then went out to explore the city. We walked north along the river, found ourselves some dinner in a food court, and then went to a place called Raven’s Manor—a spooky themed bar I remembered from my trip to Portland a few years back. I got a cocktail, but HJ settled for a mocktail, afraid that she wouldn’t be able to handle the alcohol on so little sleep (remember, we were fresh off a flight from Korea, and neither of us had really slept at all).

The following morning, my brother Brian drove up from Eugene to join us, and we spent the day doing some more exploration. We of course visited Powell’s City of Books, which is a mandatory stop for any book nerd visiting Portland. (Yes, I did buy books—but I limited myself to two.) In the evening, we ended up at a brewpub east of the river, where we watched a World Cup match while drinking some decent beer and the saltiest pizza I think I’ve ever tasted. The next morning, Brian drove us all back down to Eugene, where he lives.

This was, of course, the primary reason for our trip: to see family. My parents flew in from Texas on the same day we arrived in Eugene, and my youngest brother Matthew flew in on Friday for the Fourth of July holiday weekend. Brian couldn’t accommodate all of us at his place, so HJ and I had rented a house for the time we were there. My parents had one bedroom, HJ and I had another, and Matthew got the short end of the stick with a sofa bed for the three nights he was there. Matthew was (understandably) not incredibly happy with the sofa bed, but he bore the hardship like a champ.

It was great to be able to spend time with the whole family. As the years go by, such opportunities are becoming more and more precious. The last time we were able to do this was Thanksgiving in 2024, when I was on sabbatical. When we might be able to do this again in the future, I don’t know. Perhaps it was this recognition of the passing years that caused me to push hard to get everyone there. Not everything went entirely smoothly, of course (the five of us had one bathroom between us, to give one example), but overall we had a good time. We spent some time just hanging out at the house, chilling on one of the two decks, sharing meals, etc., but we also spent time out in Eugene. Over the holiday weekend, we went out to the Saturday Market downtown (where we ate fish and chips and watched aging hippies dance to a live band) and then headed down to a small town outside of Eugene called Creswell, partly because there was a festival of sorts going on there, but mostly because we wanted to see some fireworks. Turns out that there are ordinances against fireworks in Eugene—something about preventing forest fires or something silly like that. If you can’t burn down your town while blowing stuff up to celebrate independence, what did the founding fathers risk their lives for?

Matthew and my parents took a flight back to the Dallas area on Monday, while HJ and I left for our next destination: Coos Bay, on the Oregon coast, where we would be staying with my friend Jared and his partner Karen. We could have rented a car for the two-hour trip, but we discovered that it was possible to get to Coos Bay from Eugene by bus. More accurately, we would have to take two buses: one from Eugene to Florence and another from Florence to Coos Bay. Well, long story short, we successfully got the bus from Eugene to Florence, but the bus from Florence to Coos Bay never showed. The driver of the bus from Eugene had said it would be there when we arrived, and when it wasn’t he expressed some surprise. We waited at the bus stop for a while to see if the bus might show up, but it didn’t. Oh, did I mention that there are only two buses from Florence to Coos Bay a day? The next bus wasn’t scheduled to leave until that afternoon, so we couldn’t just wait around for it.

The thing is, knowing that there were only two buses a day, I was slightly worried from the beginning that something might go wrong. I mentioned this to Jared before we even left Korea, and he said that he would drive the hour up to Florence to pick us up if necessary. I didn’t want him to have to do that, of course, but I knew that in a worst-case scenario we would at least not be stranded in Florence. As time passed and I could see HJ growing increasingly wary of some individuals who were hanging around the bus stop, I decided to make the call. I said goodbye to some friends we had made on the bus from Eugene, and then HJ and I went to wait in a nearby Starbucks for Jared to arrive. When he did, he showed us around Florence for a bit, and then we had lunch before making the drive back to Coos Bay. If I had known how much of a faff it would end up being, I would have just bitten the bullet and rented a car in Eugene. Jared did not seem fazed at all, though, and treated the trip to Florence as an opportunity for a fun little outing.

Jared is a folklorist, like me—that’s how we know each other, of course—and he works for one of the indigenous tribes along the coast. He is a perpetually upbeat and positive person (cf. his reaction to having to drive up to Florence to pick us up), and we hit it off immediately when we met at a conference years ago. He visited Korea last spring to give a talk to our grad students, during which time I showed him around Seoul. He offered to host HJ and me at his and Karen’s place and show us the Oregon coast, and we decided to take him up on his offer since we were going to be in the general area.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, Coos Bay would turn out to be an outlier in terms of the weather during our trip. It was quite cool the whole time we were there, to the point that we had to wear several layers even in the middle of the day; Jared had told me once that they had “natural air conditioning,” and he wasn’t kidding. If I had known how hot it was going to be for most of the remainder of our trip, I probably would have appreciated the cool, damp weather more. As it was, I teased him about never having any sun, since it was cloudy and foggy for most of our stay there (although it did clear up toward the end).

We had a great time with Jared and Karen (who is also a lot of fun to be around). Jared had been really into Korean cooking since his trip to Seoul, so HJ cooked everyone a Korean meal for dinner one evening. We also spent a lot of time on the coast, where Jared pointed out various landmarks associated with the tribe. He also took us to the “rez” (the reservation, that is), where he works, and showed us around. And, of course, we visited a number of brewpubs. I don’t (can’t?) drink as much as I used to, but I do like to sample the local libations when traveling.

The evening before we were to leave, we stopped by the rental place to pick up a car for our trip to Seattle. Our next destination was Yellowstone National Park, and our original plan had been to drive from Coos Bay to the park via Boise and the southern route. The cost of the rental, though, turned out to be ridiculously expensive, and we (by which I mean HJ) discovered that we could save six hundred dollars by renting a car from Coos bay to Seattle and then getting a different car for a round-trip starting and ending in Seattle. Part of this was because one-way rentals are much more expensive than returning to the same place where you rented the car, but we (by which I again mean HJ) also discovered that we got some special perks with Hertz through our frequent-flyer club, such as adding on all liability coverage for a total of three dollars for the whole trip (not per day).

Anyway, the bottom line was that we had to drive up to Seattle, return the car at one rental agency, haul our luggage several blocks to the Hertz place, and pick up our new car there—all before the Hertz place closed at five o’clock. This meant that we had to leave relatively early and that we unfortunately did not have the luxury of driving up the Pacific Coast Highway. We did take the PCH for a short way before turning off at Reedsport for a scenic route to I-5 recommended by Jared and Karen. Once on I-5, the trip went a lot more quickly, but it was also a lot more monotonous—that is, until we reached Seattle. Getting to the first rental agency proved to be a challenge because Google Maps insisted on sending us down a pedestrianized street and would not change its mind no matter how much I deviated. I ultimately had to ignore the computer’s directions and figure out how to get to my destination on my own. This involved quite a bit of shouting and colorful language, but I managed it in the end.

Despite the frustrations, we also managed to get to the Hertz place at the appointed time: half past four. Unfortunately, there was a line of people waiting for cars in front of us, and we were told that there were no compacts (what we had reserved) available. This did not surprise me—I believe I can count on one finger the number of times I’ve actually gotten the type of car I’ve reserved at a rental place. They put us on the waiting list for a “mid-sized sedan,” which I was not too happy about, but I realized that arguing was pointless. Instead, I emphasized to the guy helping us that good mileage was very important because we had a lot of driving ahead of us. As the minutes passed, though, it became apparent that even a mid-sized sedan was going to be difficult. I politely expressed my displeasure with the situation, and the guy pulled me aside and said, “We don’t have any mid-sized sedans left, but what I can do is give you a hybrid that will get very good mileage. Will that work for you?” I indicated that it would, and he left to get the car ready.

While he was away, another employee—a rather brusque Russian guy—asked me what type of car we were waiting for. I told him that we were going to get a hybrid, but he scoffed and said, “We don’t have any hybrids.” When I tried to explain to him what the other employee had told me, he waved his hand and said, “You know, we closed fifteen minutes ago” (it was a quarter past five at that point). I calmly replied, “Well, you know, we arrived here forty-five minutes ago.” Eventually I told him that I would wait for the other guy to get back. A few minutes later, the other guy returned with the promised hybrid: a Kia Niro. I found it amusing that I had come to the States and ended up renting a Korean car.

With the car finally ready, we finished up the paperwork with the woman at the window. I wish I had gotten her name, because she was honestly incredible. She was working past closing time and dealing with a line of impatient and occasionally irate customers, and not once did the smile leave her face. She was cheerful, helpful, and calm in the face of things that probably would have driven me insane. When I remarked on her demeanor, she cheerfully said, “Hey, I only got called the B-word once today. It’s been a good day!” I could only marvel at her composure. If anyone from Hertz should happen to read this, whoever the woman working at the downtown Seattle branch on the 9th of July was, she deserves a raise.

At any rate, once we got that all taken care of, we put our luggage in the car, locked it, and headed out for some dinner in the area. There was a dumpling place right around the corner, and it turned out to be pretty good. That wasn’t the end of our day, though, because we certainly weren’t going to be spending the night in Seattle. We drove on to a small town called Ellensburg, about an hour-and-a-half outside Seattle, where accommodations were much cheaper. The next morning we continued on another five-and-a-half hours to Missoula, where we spent the evening and the next morning before the final leg to West Yellowstone. It’s only about a four-hour drive from Missoula to West Yellowstone, so we took advantage of the fact that the next day was Saturday and went to see both the People’s Market and the Farmer’s Market downtown before leaving.

Given our relatively late start, we decided to stop for lunch on the way rather than driving all the way to West Yellowstone and getting lunch there. We looked at the map and saw that we would be passing through Butte at lunchtime, so we picked out a small cafe right off the 90 business loop that seemed to be fairly popular. As were waiting for our meal, a friendly local at the table next to us asked us where we were from. We told him, and he immediately and loudly announced to just about everyone else in the cafe that we were visiting from “North Korea.” We quickly but politely corrected him. Another local then asked us if we were in town for the Montana Folk Festival. I didn’t even know that there was such a thing, but as a folklorist I couldn’t help but ask about it. The man told us a little more about it and then informed us that there was a park-and-ride just down the street at the civic center with a free shuttle bus that would take us to the festival. We weren’t planning on starting our exploration of Yellowstone until the next morning anyway, so we decided to spend some time checking out the festival. I got to talk to some indigenous artists, listen to stories from an old cowboy, and hear some Appalachian ballads. Although it was very, very hot in Butte that day, I am glad that serendipity led us to that diner and those friendly locals. It was one of those happy, unexpected moments that make travel so rewarding. It was also a reminder to talk to people you meet on the way.

We thus got to West Yellowstone a little bit later than expected, but that was fine. West Yellowstone is an actual town, by the way, and it sits (unsurprisingly) at the western entrance to the park. There are other options for accommodations, such as Gardiner, near the north entrance, or staying at a place farther away from the park. The latter probably would have been the cheapest option, but we didn’t want to have to drive an extra half-hour every morning just to get to the park entrance. So, we paid a little more for our accommodations, but we got proximity and the convenience of a decently sized town in return. I wouldn’t say that West Yellowstone is huge, but it’s big enough to have four supermarkets—two of which were within easy walking distance of our hotel—and a good selection of restaurants. Perhaps due to this competition, prices in town were not as high as we were expecting, including gas prices. We didn’t spend a lot of time in town, but it was a nice place to come back to in the afternoon/evening, especially since our hotel had a communal kitchen area with cooking facilities, allowing us to save a little money by cooking our own dinner.

The park itself was everything we hoped it would be, although it also ended up being a lot hotter than we hoped it would be, too. On our first day, we got up at six and were in the park by seven, which allowed us to beat the morning rush. However, even though it was cool early, it started heating up fairly quickly. It would go from high single digits Celsius (upper forties Fahrenheit) in the morning to the low to mid thirties (upper eighties to mid nineties Fahrenheit) in the afternoon, which is a pretty insane range of temperatures. At any rate, from our second day on we were in the park by six, just as the sun was rising, to give us more time before things got really hot.

We spent a total of four days in the park, although they were not all full days. I gave each day’s itinerary a name; the first day I called “The Hits” because we started the lower loop from Madison going counter-clockwise. (If you’re not familiar with the park, the five entrances—west, south, east, northeast, and north—all lead to the central area, which is covered by two loops arrange in a sort of figure eight.) The western part of this loop south from Madison contains two of Yellowstone’s most famous sights: the Grand Prismatic Spring and the Old Faithful Geyser. There are also a number of other geyser basins that you can walk around on boardwalks.

Like I said above, though, we got into the park at seven, so by the time we arrived at Old Faithful it was already past eleven. The next eruption was scheduled to be shortly before noon, so we waited in the visitor’s center for a while and ate part of our lunch before heading out to find a spot to watch the eruption. Once that died down and the crowd that had gathered thinned out, we ate the rest of our lunch and continued on our way. We checked out the West Thumb geyser basin when we reached the lake and then headed north to Lake Village and Canyon Village. Canyon Village is named for the gorge formed by the Yellowstone River, known as the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. We followed South Rim Drive out to Artist Point, but by this time HJ was having a very hard time of things. At first we thought it was just the heat, to which she is more susceptible than I am, but after a text from Jared later we realized that altitude had something to do with it as well. I’m not all that affected by high altitude (within reason), but HJ is, and the combination of heat and altitude wiped her out. So, from Canyon Village, I pretty much just drove straight back via Norris and Madison with HJ passed out in the passenger seat. We only stopped once by the Gibbon River so we could splash ourselves with water and cool off a bit. I think we were out of the park by around three or four o’clock, by which point it was very hot.

For our second day, I decided it would be best if we took it a little easier. We got into the park at six, giving us more time before the heat hit, and this time went north from Madison toward Norris—essentially backtracking the last park of the loop we had driven the day before. I named the second day’s itinerary “Grand Canyon,” as that was our primary objective, but we used the extra time in the morning to stop at Beryl Spring, Artists Paintpots, and the Norris Geyser Basin. The Norris basin is not as famous as some of the other geyser basins, but there is a lot to see there. There are two boardwalk loops: the shorter Porcelain Basin and the longer Back Basin. We did the Porcelain Basin loop before continuing on to Canyon Village and the North Rim Drive. We took that all the way out to Inspiration Point, stopping at all the overlooks along the way and even making the hike down to the brink of the Lower Falls. We finished up before eleven and then drove back to town, stopping this time at the Madison River to dip our feet in the water opposite Mount Haynes.

Once back in town, we had lunch at restaurant near our hotel and then visited the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center. This is an animal sanctuary where they keep rescued animals who are unable to survive in the wild. The main draws, of course, are the grizzly bears and the wolves; we saw quite a bit of the former, but we only got glimpses of two white wolves as they lay in the shade of a tree to escape the brutal heat. There are other animals there as well, though, including some raptors (eagles, hawks, owls, etc.) and a separate (and relatively cool) habitat for riparian animals (that is, those that dwell on river banks). It’s not a big place, but it is definitely worth a visit. A ticket is good for two consecutive days, so if you don’t see everything you want on the first day, you can try again the next day.

Day three was the “Gardiner Expedition,” so named because we drove up to the small town of Gardiner at the north entrance of the park. Unlike our first two days in the park, which were very hot under a blazing sun, there were some occasional clouds, so it wasn’t quite as hot. We retraced our steps from the previous day, at least as far as Norris. It was still quite early, so we walked the Back Basin boardwalk, completing our tour of the area. We then continued north, stopping briefly at the Roaring Mountain and the Obsidian Cliff before arriving at the upper terrace of Mammoth Hot Springs. It was still relatively early at that point, but it was already starting to get hot, so we decided to walk the lower terrace boardwalk before the heat became too oppressive. When we finished our loop, we returned to our car, did the upper terrace drive, and then returned to the bottom to have lunch at a picnic area there. Mammoth Hot Springs ended up being one of my favorite areas of the park—I was fascinated by all of the formations created by the minerals that had built up; I think I took more photos here than in any other area of the park, even though it was a barren wasteland under a burning sun.

It’s not far from Mammoth to Gardiner and the north entrance—only four miles, or seven kilometers. We stopped at the Roosevelt Arch—the original entrance to the park—to take some pictures, but we only stopped in Gardiner to fill up our gas tank, as we had seen that gas there was cheaper than in West Yellowstone (and much cheaper than it was in the park). Gardiner looked like a nice little town, and had it been cooler we might have stopped to explore a little. But we had another destination in mind: a hot spring resort not too far north of Gardiner. We paid for day passes to the pool area, which had a hot pool fed from a nearby hot spring and a cold plunge pool fed from the nearby Yellowstone River. The much larger warm pool was a mixture of hot spring and river water. We spent a lot of time going back and forth between the hot and cold pools. The cold pool was very cold—a staffer came out at one point to measure the temperature, and he announced that it was 65 degrees Fahrenheit, or around 18 Celsius. My first plunge took a little bit of courage, but I soon got used to it. Unfortunately, even though I had covered up with a long-sleeved rash guard and a hat, I had forgotten that you can still get sunburned in the water; later that evening I discovered that the exposed parts of my legs had gotten rather red, although fortunately it wasn’t too bad. We spent a while at the hot springs before showering off and making the drive back to West Yellowstone, which took two hours. We got some takeaway from Firehole Barbeque in town, thinking we might have some leftovers, but it was so good we ended up finishing everything. We had the lean brisket and the ribs, and both were excellent. I’d recommend it if you find yourself in West Yellowstone

Our final day dawned cool and cloudy, allowing us to spend more time in the park than we had on any other day. Since we had seen most of the major sights already, and since it was going to be cooler, for our final day I planned what I called the “Cascades and Critters” itinerary. We had already seen the falls in the Grand Canyon, but there are many rivers in the park that have falls of their own; on our final day we managed to see Gibbon Falls, Virginia Cascade, and Tower Fall. Most of the day, though, was spent looking for wildlife. We had already seen quite a bit of wildlife around the park, but I wanted to make a more concerted effort to see what was out there. From Madison, we went northeast to Norris and then east to Canyon Village. From there we turned south toward the Hayden Valley, an area we had already passed through multiple times. On that last day, though, it was earlier in the day and cooler, and we saw plenty of bison in the valley. We drove all the way down to Mud Volcano before turning around. We had bypassed by this area on our first day, so we spent some time walking the boardwalk there (and getting to see yet another bison) before turning around and heading back north, stopping briefly at Sulphur Cauldron on the way.

Once back at Canyon Village, we headed north into previously unexplored territory. Along the way, we stopped at the Mt. Washburn trail and climbed a short bit of it before heading back down; after all, climbing mountains was not on the day’s itinerary. We made it to Tower Fall, made the short walk to the fall itself, and then headed east on the road toward the northeast entrance, which conveniently took us through the Lamar Valley. Based on my research, Hayden Valley and Lamar Valley were the best places for wildlife spotting, and neither let us down. In Lamar Valley we saw some pronghorns (gazelle-like animals), some mule deer, and even two nesting osprey at a pullout. We wouldn’t have been able to see much of the osprey at all had a guide not had a spotting scope set up and graciously allowed all comers to look through it and see the nesting pair. We then continued on through the valley, seeing many more bison, before turning around near the Yellowstone Forever Institute and heading back to Tower Fall. From there, we drove the northern part of the upper loop, stopping at the Petrified Tree and a short walk called Forces of the Northern Range before arriving back at Mammoth. With that, we had finally completed the figure eight and our exploration of the park.

I kept a running tally of the animals we saw that day. All told, we saw hundreds of bison (including two that walked directly in front of our car), numerous geese and squirrels, six pronghorns, four mule deer (one a mature male with an impressive set of antlers), two black bears, two elk, two osprey, and one curious ground squirrel that kept popping in and out of its burrow to check on us as we ate our lunch nearby. The drive back from Mammoth via Norris and Madison was again a long one, and we made a detour on the Madison River Drive to dip our feet in the water one last time before exiting the park. We reached the western entrance at half past five, which meant we had spent a total of eleven-and-a-half hours in the park. I’m glad we decided to complete the upper loop; every section of the drive turned out to offer something different in terms of landscape and terrain features, not to mention geothermal and other features. Once out of the park, we finished off our day with dinner and beer at the Yellowstone Brewing Company.

In the end, I’m glad we spent four days at Yellowstone. I think if the weather had been cooler and we had been able to spend full days in the park each day, we might have been able to see everything in three days, but I liked having the leeway to take time off on some of the really hot afternoons. Also, there were a lot of things that we didn’t get to see and do. I think we saw just about all of the geothermal features, as well as the Grand Canyon, but we didn’t get to explore Yellowstone Lake as much as I would have liked. And although we did do a lot of walking on the boardwalks, I would have liked to do more actual hiking. I definitely want to visit the park again, but I would like to go in the late spring, not the summer. For one, we’ll avoid the summer crowds that way. But we’ll also avoid the hottest part of the year. As far as the altitude goes, Gardiner is much lower down than West Yellowstone, so it might be worth staying there to mitigate some of HJ’s altitude sickness. She did start feeling better toward the end of our third day, but being able to retreat down to a lower altitude at the end of each day might help avoid the worst of her symptoms. Anyway, that’s something that will probably have to wait until I retire.

With our visit to Yellowstone completed, we entered the last phase of our trip. We backtracked along I-90 to Missoula, where we had lunch. From there, we left the interstate and took smaller two-lane roads to northern Idaho, where my aunt and her husband live. At first, having come off the interstate, where everyone was doing ninety miles an hour, I felt stressed whenever I got stuck behind slow traffic. We decided to stop at a small town called Thompson Falls along the Clark Fork River (which runs all the way back to Missoula, and which we had been following most of the way). There, we went to a diner for a cold drink and a chance to get out of the heat. As I sat there, sipping my iced tea, I realized something: The stress I had been feeling was not the result of my circumstances, it was the result of my reaction to my circumstances. You’re probably thinking, “Well, of course—that’s the case with all stress!” And it indeed is. But sometimes I need to be reminded about the simple things. Before we left the diner, we asked the waitress about the falls themselves, and she gave us directions to a car park from which we could walk across a bridge and reach the dam. It was still very hot out, but it was cool over the river and in the woods beyond (where we saw a deer just chilling out).

When we hit the road again, I had made up my mind to just relax and enjoy the beautiful landscape we were driving through. If I came up to a slower driver, I just slowed down to their pace, maintained a comfortable distance, and relaxed. I didn’t worry about cars coming up behind me. We crossed the border into Idaho and passed through Sandpoint, which looked like a lovely little resort town, although the bridge over the Pend Oreille River (being the only crossing for miles in either direction) was a bit congested. We continued to follow Google Maps and turned off onto a packed dirt road (at least, I think it was packed dirt). Then I saw the name of the next road we would be turning onto: Washboard Way. I made an exclamation of despair and then had to explain to HJ why I was worried, but the road didn’t turn out to be as bad as I had feared. Before long, we found the long drive leading to our destination.

The last time we had seen my Aunt Nancy and her husband Dennis was on our five-week trip around the States in 2001, back when they were living in New Mexico. Twenty-five years later, they are living in a log house on a large parcel of land out in the middle of nowhere in northern Idaho. “It’s not the middle of nowhere!” Dennis protested when I made that remark. He’s right, of course, and I was just being cheeky; I’ve been to many other places that better qualify for that descriptor.

It was good to see both of them again, and I’m glad we scheduled a whole day there as opposed to just arriving in the late afternoon and then immediately taking off again the next morning. We got to walk around their property a bit, go swimming (or at least wading) in the nearby river, and even have homemade pizza baked in their propane pizza oven. Most of all, though, we were just glad to be able to spend time with them, as we hadn’t seen them in a quarter of a century. You never know what life is going to bring and when you might get to see people again. I think when I was younger, I took seeing family for granted. Now that I’m older, I realize how precious these opportunities really are.

After spending a whole day there, we got up relatively early the next morning for the final leg to Seattle. We made our way south to I-90 by the most direct route possible and then turned west. I have to say, I’m not a big fan of this road. It’s very mountainous, and there seems to be an awful lot of construction on it, much more so than on most other interstates I’ve been on. There was one section not too far outside of Seattle where the road narrowed down from three lanes to one, which held us up for a whole hour. Google Maps did offer us a detour that would supposedly have saved us eight minutes, but when we got to the exit we saw a very long line of cars that had the same idea, so I made the decision to stay on I-90. It was annoying having to sit in nearly stand-still traffic for an hour, but this was when the hybrid nature of the car really saved us a lot on gas, I think. We ended up arriving in Seattle not too long after our drop-off time, only to find that the place had been closed since noon anyway. The websites will usually tell you if a drop-off is after hours, so it’s weird that it didn’t tell us that the branch closed at noon on Saturday.

I was relieved to have finally dropped off the car and not have any more driving to do, but I should say that I really enjoyed driving the Niro. I remember when we first left Seattle, I stepped on the accelerator and the car leaped forward like it had been shot out of a cannon; when I needed the car to go, it went. When I didn’t need as much power, though, the engine would shut off (I could see the tachometer drop to zero) and the electric motor would kick in. And I think the electric motor might have helped even when the engine was running, because the tachometer generally read a lot lower than I would have expected for whatever speed I was going; it’s also possible that the engine was just more efficient than what I’m used to. Whatever the case, we spent a lot less on gas than we feared we would have to. It wasn’t the car we had originally reserved, but I’m glad we got it. I’ve had varying levels of satisfaction with rental cars, but this was the first time I actually thought, “I want this car.” I don’t know when we’re going to be ready for a new car, but when we are it is definitely going to be a hybrid, at least.

Anyway, it was nice to be back in Seattle, where it wasn’t nearly as hot as it had been in Yellowstone. We visited Seattle during our 2001 trip, but back then we only spent a few hours in the city before continuing on to our campsite on the Olympic peninsula. This time, we had two full days plus the evening of our first day to explore the city. We of course went to Pike Place Market, which was jammed with people on the weekend, but we also got to spend more time exploring the waterfront and just walking around the city. On our first day, we visited the ferry terminal and enjoyed the views of the water from the upper level. The next day we went down to Pioneer Square and joined a tour of underground Seattle. As it turns out, the city was originally been built at sea level, which created difficulties with the sewage system (to put it delicately), so they raised the buildings and the streets, leaving tunnels beneath the present-day city. Our guide was a lot of fun, and we learned a surprising amount about the history of Seattle. After the tour, we walked around the city and did a little shopping.

Early the next morning, we visited the Space Needle. Our original intention had been to buy tickets for the evening so we could see the sunset, but when we went up to the kiosk we saw that the tickets were much more expensive for that time slot. In fact, even before we chose a time, simply starting the purchase process added an extra ten dollars or so to each ticket beyond the advertised price. Confused, I went inside to the gift shop and asked if there was a place where we could buy tickets from an actual human being. A woman there helpfully pointed us to the ticket windows, where I learned that ticket prices went up after ten o’clock. That still doesn’t explain why ticket prices at the kiosk were significantly more expensive than advertised even before we selected a time, but I didn’t bother trying to figure out that conundrum. Instead, we just got tickets for the nine o’clock slot and immediately went up to the top. The weather was clear and sunny, and we had great views of the city all around.

From the Space Needle we took the monorail down to the Westlake Central terminus (the only other stop on the line). It was a somewhat expensive ride at four dollars per person, but it was really more of a tourist attraction than a practical mode of transit—although it did get us to where we wanted to go without us having to do a lot of walking. We did some more shopping and stopped at a Thai place for lunch, where we caught the first half of the World Cup finals. (I was rooting for Argentina to win so Messi could go out with a bang, but we learned later that Spain had won.) We then went back to our hotel to rest a bit before heading out again and walking north to Union Lake and MOHAI (the Museum of History and Industry). We didn’t really have enough time to make a ticket for the museum worthwhile, but the area around the museum and the lake itself was nice. We sat on a bench behind the museum for a while, watching the seaplanes landing on and taking off from the lake.

We finished our day by walking back through the park around the Space Needle and hitting the Uptown Hophouse for dinner and some good local beers. We asked our waitress about seeing the waterfront, and she gave us directions to a pedestrian overpass that would take us over the main street and the train tracks. From there we walked south along the Puget Sound under a westering sun. We strolled through the Olympic Sculpture Park and then made our way back to our hotel.

The next morning we had breakfast and got ready to leave. We dragged our rolling bags several blocks to the light rail station, where we caught a train to the airport. We arrived early, but I had heard horror stories about wait times at security, so I figured it was better to be safe than sorry. As it turned out, though, we only had to wait about fifteen minutes in the security line, so we ended up with time to kill. Sea-Tac is not a very exciting airport (as I alluded to at the beginning of this entry), but I will say that the international terminal is slightly less oppressive than the domestic terminal. At any rate, we boarded the plane without incident and settled in for the eleven-hour flight back to Seoul. It was hot and humid when we arrived, and we did get caught in a brief downpour after getting off the airport bus, but we had rain ponchos prepared for that.

And here we are, back in Seoul. Like I mentioned up top, it felt like a very long trip due to how much we packed into that three weeks and change. Not everything went smoothly, of course, and there were certainly frustrations along the way, but I’ve never traveled anywhere and not had to deal with frustrations. Sometimes those frustrations arose from cultural misunderstandings—something you wouldn’t think would happen on a visit to the States, but every time I visit the US I find that I do indeed have to adjust to the culture of whatever region I am visiting (and readjust to American culture in general). Other times they were just the typical frustrations of traveling: dealing with hotel beds (usually too soft) and pillows (usually too thick), dealing with the hassle of getting from one place to another, dealing with being tired, hot, hungry, etc. Those frustrations can seem big when you’re in the middle of them, but they tend to fade over time, leaving the memories of the good times you had. When we visited New Zealand, for example, I was dealing with the stress of moving to a new job and suffering from an inner-ear issue that rather severely affected my balance. This trip, for whatever frustrations there might have been, was also a good one. We got to see Yellowstone, a place that has been on both of our bucket lists, but perhaps more importantly we got to spend quality time with family.

Well, the next step for me is to go through the nearly one thousand photos (minus the handful of videos in the mix) that remain from my trip and figure out which ones I want to post. I’ll probably divide these up into three separate photo essays to keep things manageable: the first stage of our trip from the west coast to Yellowstone, the second stage of our trip at Yellowstone itself, and the final stage of our trip from Yellowstone to Seattle. That last stage is the shortest, but I figure by that point I will be pretty tired of sorting through photos and processing them for posting. This may all take me a while, so hang tight.