While visiting Sara’s house we all went up to Seattle on the Saturday.  After finding a parking place, we headed over to Pike’s Place.  Our first stop was the fish market.

It was then over to bike some donuts.

We explored down the long narrow building through the closely packed shops, which reminded us of Tokyo.

After going back outside, Sara stopped to take some photos before heading back to the car.

Next stop was lunch at Ivar’s Fish Bar.

The kids then went out on the pier to feed the birds.

They were having the air show that day.  I just happend to be looking up at the planes when I caught this shot of one plane leaving a circular path behind it.

See all the pictures.

On the way home from visiting Sara and family we took a couple days to make a stop in Medford Oregon.  Sometimes we stay one night there to breakup the 13 hour drive into two sections but this time we spent two nights so we could spend a day at Crater Lake National Park.  Crater Lake was formed by a volcano and  is the deepest lake in the United States.  It has not water inflow or outflow so the water in the lake is only from the local snow fall.  It is one of the clearest water bodies anywhere and the deep blue from the depth of the water.  The picture above is a merge of 3 photos.  Click on it to see it enlarged.

This was our first time to visit this National Park.  It was less than a two hour drive from Medford.  We arrived in the morning and tooks some pictures from the area near the Crater Lake Lodge.  Ann was shooting with her Nikon D70 and Franz with his Nikon D300.

We then got on our bikes and started to bike around the lake.  Franz carried the Nikon D70 on a backpack so we could take some photos from different locations.

Ann told Franz to go jump in the lake!

But this was as close as Ann would get to the ledge.

We ended up going half way around the lake but had to turn back because the rim drive road was closed at some point due to snow.  Can you believe, snow in July!

On the drive back to Medford we stopped at the Rouge gorge to take a few more pictures.  It is hard to capture water falls.

We had a great time and hope to visit Crater Lake National Park again.  You can see all our pictures at our SmugMug Gallery by clicking here .

Day 1 - Too Hot

Day 2 - Too Cold (and wet)

Day 3 - Just Right

Also see the the entry in our photography blog with details about the picture taking experience, or the gallery and  slide show of all the pictures were took. With both of us packing cameras with such great views, there are a lot of pictures.

We had to check out by noon so we felt the best thing would be to go on a nice bike ride in the morning and then a hike in Zion later. We road our tandem up to the famous tunnel. It is a windy road, with switch backs all the way up. People who had stopped along the way to take pictures seemed surprised we could bike up the hill, but it was not nearly as steep as the Kolob Canyon road yesterday. We made one stop to get a picture and asked someone to take it of us together.

It was a beautiful day to bike, not too hot, not too cold, just right.

We then headed up the Zion Canyon road to the lodge. We just had enough time to make it back, get a shower and pack up to check out before noon. We were hungry by now and decided to eat at the cafe up by the lodge. You can’t drive your car in Zion now days and need to take a shuttle. We drove over to the visitor center to park but there was not a single parking spot. We knew the museum was on the shuttle stop route so we drove over to it and found a spot there to park. We caught the next shuttle up to Zion’s Lodge and enjoyed a hamburger on the patio. Can you beat this view for lunch?

After eating we caught the next shuttle to go further up the canyon to start a hike. We decided to do the Hidden Canyon hike, which was suppose to take 2 hours. It was a step and windy path, with chains needed on some sections.

The trail for Hidden Canyon and Observaton Point were the same for about one mile. We took a right turn to head up to Hidden Canyon.

We came upon a neat staircase that had been built up along the cliff wall.

With the need to hold onto chains, I took this picture with my back against the cliff so there was little room. See how the cliff drops off. When people were coming the other way they were concerned how to pass, but we just walked around them, no fear at all!

After reaching the end, we headed back down and asked someone to take our picture on the junction for Hidden Canyon.

We wanted to do more hiking so decided to head up the trail to Observation Point. We had not done that hike in the first place because it said it was a 6 hour hike, but had now learned those times are over stated.

We came upon a slotted canyon that the trail went right through. There were steep cliffs on each side and a small stream of water down the middle. You had to use stones to cross back and forth across the water.

As the trail wound its way up toward the top we were able to see the beautiful valley below.

Ann was smarter than Franz by using her flash for this picture.

We had learned that the sandstone in Zion absorbs water, allowing plants to grow right out of the rock.

It was a fun hike but the descent seemed almost more difficult than the climb. We wanted to also see the Weeping Rock. That trail started from the bottom. Since we figured we would not have enough time, we took a picture using a telephoto lens from our trail.

We finally made it back to the shuttle stop.

We took the shuttle back to the musuem.

It was a very fun vacation. The last of the three days had the best weather but we enjoyed all three days, except maybe the ride in the rain.

We decided to leave from the hotel and head to Virgin Utah (about 13 miles) and then take the road up Kolob Canyon. That climb from the highway is 20 miles and gains 4,700 vertical feet. With all the climbing we were glad it was not hot like yesterday. The sun started to come out from behind the clouds and we were thinking this would be a nice day after all.

The road winds in and out of Zion National Park. After riding about 10 miles up the canyon, it started to get rather windy. I mean very windy and a strong head wind. Biking up a hill into a head wind is not a lot of fun, but were determined to finish the route. The sun was no longer to be seen and as we looked off to the side we could see darker clouds forming.

When the road turned we started to climb again and the wind was not quite as strong, but after about 15 miles up from the highway, the road leveled out and the wind was real strong, so strong that I had to get off the bike because I thought I was going to fall over. We decided that was enough so we turned around and headed back down the hill. The temperature had now dropped from the mid 50’s to the mid 40’s.

We made a stop at a parking lot, about 10 miles up from the highway and chatted with a ranger. He said it was hailing down on the highway. Oh dear we thought. Could we beat the storm? Soon it started to rain and the wet and the cold combined made it a miserable descent. Even though we were going down hill it seemed to take forever to reach the highway.

Oh, if we had only driven the car over to the base of the canyon instead of bike there, but we did not. There is nothing around there and the town of Virgin is not really a town and even then was in the opposite direction from our hotel. With a tailwind now, we decided to just tough it out and make our way back to Springdale.

We were totally soaked (although Ann was smart enough to bring a rain jacket). Even though we were pedalling as hard as we could, we felt very cold. Finally we made it to the hotel, and parked the tandem next to the building. We were not about to take the time to put it back in the car right then. Instead we rushed into the room to get the wet clothes off, even that seemed to be a major task when our fingers were not working very well. I guess this is a ride we will always remember.

That late night driving paid off by allowing us to get to Zion before noon. We had booked a room at the Desert Pearl, a wonderful motel. The room was European style and can you beat this view from our own balcony?

On Tuesday afternoon we went into the National Park. It was warm, in the high 90’s but there was plenty of wind to keep it from getting to hot.

We decided to do the popular Angles Landing hike. We were amazed how the trail had been carved right into the side of the steep cliffs. Franz was taking pictures with his new Nikon D300 camera and Ann was using the Nikon D70.

After doing part of the climb we looked down to see how much we had ascended.

I wondered what Ann was taking a picture of.

Then I could see.

The climb got steep where we had to start using chains.

We came to a level spot where we could take a group shot. Since there was no one to take the picture, we took two separate photos and later merged them into one.

It was getting windy so Franz had to take his hat off. We came upon a photographer who was taking pictures of Angles Landing and we asked him to take our picture. You can see the final climb up Angles Landing behind us.

We proceeded to climb for awhile.

It got rather scary with a narrow ridge with steep cliffs on each side. With the wind and trying to carry cameras, we decided to head back before reaching the peak. It was nice to get back to the easy trail.

We put it up in the backyard to test it out. It went up very quickly. A great tent!

We are on our way to Dupont to visit Sara and her family. Sara and Mike will be taking a trip to Hawaii and we will be watching those adorable grandchildren. Hum, we left 70 degree California weather to the head to the more fridge north?

We stopped for the night in a cute town called Mt. Shasta, which is at the base of Mt. Shasta.  We just finished a nice dinner at a local restaurant called Lilly’s.  This was kind of our valentine celebration since on Valentine’s day we will be watching those three super active kids.

You can still see signs of snow on the side of the roads, sometimes several feet high where it had been cleared from the street but not yet melted.  The temperature this evening is in the 30’s.  Should be nice and crisp in the morning.  Maybe we will go on a brisk bike ride.  Or maybe we will not.

Ann and I decided to go on a bike ride so we drove the car back to Virgin and parked there while we rode up Kolob Canyon. It was a beautiful ride, but the weather was hot, in the mid 90’s. It is a steep climb but we still made it up more than half way to the top before we decided to head back down.

Here is the graph of the climb.

The ride up and back ended up being close to 32 miles, with nearly 2,500 feet of climbing. A good ride for such a hot day.

After returning to the hotel, we went of a refreshing dip in the pool. Ann did some laps and I just kind of cooled off. We tried to go into the hot tup but it was too hot for that so we went back to the pool.

We really enjoyed dinner that evening and ate at a neat, but expensive restaurant. The food was very tasty and a nice reward for riding in such heat. The

The next morning we got up and watched a stage of the Tour de France on my computer. I had installed a device called a Slingbox on our home Tivo system so I could control and watch it over the internet. After zipping through that stage we decided we still had time before John and Amy arrived so we jumped on the bikes and headed into Zion National Park, up to the end of the canyon.

It was cooler weather than the prior day and a lot of fun. Coming back down the canyon we were going so fast that we caught the bus that carries the tourists into the canyon (they don’t allow you to drive your car) so we had to slow down and follow it to the mouth of the canyon.

Lance Armstrong was down here. Kyle, my 5 year old grandson, got his autograph along with autographs from Levi Leiphemer, George Hincapie and Johan Bruyneel (team manager).

With seven loops we had a wonderful chance to see pro cyclists serveral times. I moved from spot to spot looking for a good location to take photos. This one I took from accross the street.

After watching a couple of the laps we all went over to the CNN building for lunch in the middle of the race.

This format also allowed me to get some good pictures, like this one.

Click here for my cycling photos. After the last lap went by us, we moved to try to see the finish. It was so crowed that John and I climbed up on a wall, but even up there we couldn’t see much.