Colorado to Oregon

1,200 miles, that’s how far we’ve traveled since our last entry. 7 different campgrounds, 300 bug bites, and some 100 fish bites later, we have paused for a brief moment to record our travel stories here once again. Thank you so much to everyone who checks this and is interested in our lives, we appreciate your comments and prayers so much!
From Katherine and Creighton’s house, we drove through the Colorado mountains and fished on the Cochatepa River. They were biting at everything we threw at them, jumping out of the river as we hunted them down in their little holes (and this coming from Camille so you know the fish were pretty desperate). Ryan and I trekked through the tall grasses and muddy grounds, enjoying the abundant wildflowers. The river had perfect casting conditions, snow-capped Rockies in the background, and the setting sun made the fields glow as we experienced the adrenalin rush of the fish biting our lines (and the mosquitoes biting our bodies unfortunately). We were blessed to visit Ryan’s “grandmother in-law” (his Uncle’s mother) and we spent a day visiting her cabin in the mountains and feasting on berries and homemade cinnamon rolls. We traveled to the neighboring town of Ouray, hiked to an abandoned mine and went to church. We camped in the forest on the west fork of the Cimarron River exploring the 60+ mile dirt road and finally settling down right by the river in the forest with no one around for miles. The fish there were absolutely beautiful and ready to “be educated” (since we throw them all back, we figure it’s a learning experience for them ; ).
From Colorado, we hurried through Utah into Idaho where we camped in the mountains with natural hot springs about 100 feet from our camp spot. After soaking under the stars, in the early morning light, and every other chance we had, we were ready for the road, drove to Oregon and here we are. As for us personally, Ryan had a pretty bad sore throat which has since subsided and we are realizing more and more that a huge highlight of our trip has been seeing and communicating with all of our friends and family. Hope we’re not boring you all too much. Maybe next time we’ll throw in some really exciting stories just to keep you interested…they just might not be true…

Sending our love,

Ryan and Camille

Camille enjoying one of God's gifts to mankind on a hot summer day.

The hot stream and tubs we camped next to in Idaho.

The desolate but stunning section of Southeastern Utah.

The beautiful country side driving into the mountains.

The windy dirt road out in the Colorado Rockies where we camped.

Camille fly fishing on the Cochatepa river

Forgotten pictures

Well, yesterday Camille did a fine job of updating the blog, but she forgot a very important reason that we post the blog in the first place - showing off. Somehow it slipped her mind to put the pictures of us proudly holding our fish, so I've decided to add that feature myself...

Camille had been on a bit of a dry spell, so she was pretty happy about this guy. Notice the death grip...

Beautiful coloring

The West Bitterroot River - our chance to fish the infamous salmonfly hatch.

Yellowstone Cutthroat - my biggest fish of the trip

The Mountains and Rivers

Well, our expectations were met and exceeded with Montana and our adventures here in the middle states. From Seattle, we made our way to the Bitterroot Valley in Montana. It was amazing. We stayed in a campground with a beautiful creek running through it and made friends with the Ranger-family there. Their little 9 year old gave us fly fishing tips, as he had been fishing practically since birth. We explored the famous Bitterroot river, fly fished and hiked around the gorgeous valley with it's rolling hills, open green horse pastures, and snow capped mountains in the background.

From there we made our way down to Yellowstone National park where we saw buffalo, coyote, bear, elk, big horned sheep, deer, gazelle, beavers, as well as Old Faithful. We backpacked in Yellowstone National park and stayed two nights in the back country, fishing, hiking, and taking every precaution to kill even the slightest scent of food that could attract the Park's notorious grizzlies. We were successful and hiked out to find a mouse had made it's home in our truck in our absence! We were able to reclaim our territory and moved on to fly fish the Madison river and then travel to Wyoming's most remote town, Dubois. We went to church, met the locals (most of who were from CA and broke our stereotypes by having their Ph.D.'s and being engineers). We feasted on buffalo burgers and had some buffalo sausage in that little hunting town, then I convinced Ryan to ride horses with me. We went on a horse ride in the mountains for a few hours and we both actually really enjoyed it (well, maybe I enjoyed it a little more than Ryan). From there, we drove to Fort Collins, where we are staying with our friends Katherine and Creighton. We went hiking in the Rocky Mountains and hope to explore more of Colorado in the next few days! Thanks for all your love and prayers,
Ryan and Camille

Creighton, Katherine (who are amazing hosts), Ryan and I hiking in the Rocky Mountains.



The beautiful, yet barren Wyoming skyline.



The Grand Tetons, just outside Yellowstone in Wyoming, proved to be just as beautiful as the park itself. We would have liked to spend more time there, and perhaps to catch a far away glimpse of the Grizzly bear with triplets that the locals told us had been spotted in the area.

"Just in time!" the visitor's told us as we pulled up in perfect timing to catch Old Faithful spouting off.

Ryan pulling in his big catch on the Socaho River on our backpacking trip, Yellowstone.

Camille all bundled up and napping at the campsite in Yellowstone.

Ryan and I backpacking in Yellowstone National Park with Bison!

Mountain goats in Yellowstone on the side of the road!

A side trip to Idaho for a beautiful hike to this hot spring, when we got there, we saw deer in the meadow behind the spring!

Driving through the beautiful Bitterroot Valley, Montana.

Megan and Camille, riding the Mer-Pig in Seattle, apparently, Seattle is "bringing back the pig!" as there were pig statues everywhere!

Backpacking in Olympic National Forest, WA

The Olympic National Hot Springs, WA.

Multnomah Falls in the Colombia River Gorge, OR.

Fort Collins

Well, we have found it to be fairly difficult to find places to hook up to the internet on our travels through the northwest. Having arrived at Creighton's house yesterday, however, I will send out a small blog to let everyone know we are ok. We have travelled through Idaho, Montana, did a few days of backpacking in Yellowstone, then through Wyoming on our way here. We plan on spending three days here and then will begin the drive back toward Oregon and ultimately down to California. We should have more time tomorrow to write and post pictures, so until then...

Ryan and Camille

The Northwestern Adventure Continues...

Whelp, first of all, sorry for the lack of pictures, hopefully we will be able to post some soon. Thank you so much everyone who is keeping up with our travels and taking an interest in our lives by checking our blog, we really appreciate your thoughts and prayers! We left you on the Oregon coast and from there we visited Ryan's childhood city of Eugene then drove to Portland and on through to the Colombia River Gorge in one day. We camped there and visited and hiked around the lush, clear waterfalls of the River Gorge, including one that falls around 650 feet to the ground! We then drove up into Washington, through the misty, foggy Puget sound and camped in the Olympic National park that night. We basked in the sweet smells of the temporal rain forest mingling with the ocean that night then strapped on our hiking boots for a rigorous overnight backpacking trip. We hiked out of the mountains early in the morning after spending the night under the fern and moss covered trees, to make our way to the Olympic Hot Springs nestled in the mountains. We had the 7 or so mossy pools all to ourselves to explore and bask in before we headed off to Seattle via the ferry.

In Seattle, we met up with Camille's friends for our friend Nick's wedding. We spent 2 nights in Seattle, bearing the horrific traffic and one way streets, exploring the Pike's Market with all it's fish throwing, visiting the Space Needle and several other Seattle-based sites. It was a good time for Camille as she was able to reconnect and spend quality time with friends, and Ryan got to know them all better and vice-versa. Fresh from Seattle, we have just made it through the forested Coeur d' Alene, Idaho and into Missoula, Montana. Camille caught her first fish fly-fishing and loved it (at first I felt like crying when I had to pull the hooks out- but they were fiesty and OK when they swam away afterwards, so it was OK). We are hoping to find some sweet fishing streams and rivers and do some hiking here in Montana before we head to Yellowstone next. Thanx for tuning in folks, we love hearing from you and send hugs to everyone...

Touring the States

Well, back on the road again...here we are. We made a quick trip home to San Luis after a frantic travel day (where we missed our flight to SLO even though we had been literally sprinting through the airport). We were home long enough to say a few simultaneous hellos and goodbyes and pack up our truck. We slept in our own bed which was wonderful for a change, then headed up to Chico. It was nice to leave home for another and we were blessed to be able to relax and see Ryan's family- and Lyndal's "special" cat - in Chico (she really is normal, she just had to have a haircut to stay with Ryan's mom who is allergic). We left Chico feeling so loved, as usual, as Ryan's mom and dad helped stock our truck with last minute car camping supplies and gave us travel advice.

Once out of Chico, we felt like we were really on our road trip portion of our trip. We stayed the night at Patrick's Point and visited Arcada and Eureka the next morning. With health food stores abounding, we bought the essentials; a few food items and a fishing license for me. Yes, that's right, for Camille. We spent the next two nights in the Jedadiah Smith Park, exploring the redwood groves, hiking, and fishing in the Smith River and it's surrounding little streams. Now we are headed up the Oregon Coast in our little truck which has been working out perfectly for us! It stores our clothes and personal items, a double burner camp stove, all our backpacking gear, a little ice chest, various cooking items, a cutting board, and a car repair kit, to name a few things. In the evening it transforms into a super cozy little bedroom with windows that look out at the beautiful forest scenery from every angle and then when we're ready, off we all go to the next place on our journey...




Our industrious little truck by day...

Our cozy little truck by night!

Ryan with the Boy Scout Tree- probably a couple thousand years old!

Camille hiking through the redwoods to see Fern Waterfall and the Boy Scout (aka. gigantic) Tree.

The view from our little Toyota Cab, driving up the one lane dirt road to the mystical Stout Redwood Grove, drinking our Ginger Ale...

Camille chopping down a tree with life size Paul Bunyon and Babe in the Redwood Mystery Forest!

Emma- the Lion cat in Chico (belonging to Ryan's sister Lyndal)