A few Pics

 Hello all,

We have 82 days remaining before this year's trip!  The warm winter and half hour of spring have left us yearning for the tent so this summer we'll be leaving early and staying gone longer.  Everyone is done with school and work June 7th so we'll be hitting the road June 8th.  That gives us eight weeks this time!

Looks like this year we will spend most of the time in California, Oregon and Washington. Right now we are planning on booking it west to Long Beach where we hope to see some old friends and show Ashlin where mom and dad met.  Ash will have a surf lesson or two then we'll head all the way up the coast to Seattle.  There we'll head inland to the mountains and travel back south through the Cascades and Sierras.  We sure hope to see Jared and Ryann and we know for sure Rachel, Brian and Sadie are meeting us for a week in Yosemite July 15-23!  Matt, Shell, Eric and the kids might have to venture out of Montana this year too . . .

We hope to hit Mesa Verde, Grand Canyon, Channel Islands, Olympic, North Cascades, Crater Lake, Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks as well as several National Forests and wilderness areas.
Our aim is to skip hotels in favor of posting up in the tent the entire trip.  I can smell it already.

More pics coming soon!

Peace. Derek

Luken Lake, Yosemite

Yosemite; Just collecting samples, discovering new things, no big deal.

Hike up to North Dome, Half Dome in the background

Ashlin acting like a horse, always.

"Mom, Dad, it's lounge rock" Half Dome in the background.

Family photo, Yosemite

Awesome!

More hiking :)

Hiking in Bozeman, MT, can't begin to describe how windy it was

Mountain goats at the top of Sacagewea Peak Bozeman

Depicts the scene perfectly. Derek taking the picture, Katie holding onto Ashlin whom is freaking out, Matt simultaneously keeping his kids close while telling Shel to calm down, and Eric, calm, collected and about to continue hiking without the overbearing parents.

Ashlin