Arequipa

Life is good in Arequipa. My host family lives on a hill overlooking the city and they have been very welcoming. I wake up to a huge breakfast and come home to a huge dinner, ah yes, life is good. Spanish school has been very helpful although my profesoras like to my fun of my accent.

Arequipa is a beautiful city with white washed stone buildings and cute little paseos filled with cafes and little shops. It is very easy to walk around and there are tons of markets, cathedrals and shops to check out. Halloween is tonight so I am off to find a costumbre...

Mi casa

Melanie

El Misti

Even the dogs wear sunglasses

Arequipa

I´ve finally arrived in Arequipa after spending the last day and a half in dreary Lima. The locals here are a little stiff but very welcoming.

Kansas.

Sorry Dad, I'm moving to Boulder

After a 10 long hours driving through Wyoming and Northern Colorado, we cruised up the Rockie mountains and ended up 9,000 feet in the air and at the doorstep of Dan and Tori's new pad. The house is beautiful and has great views of the pine forests that surround it. Dan and Tori had a tasty meal waiting (we're getting good at arriving at dinner time) and some good brew chilled.

Bodhi met Dan and Tori's dogs, Wolfgang and Nileke, and got a taste of what it would be like in Doggy prison. (They REALLY liked Bodhi).

We spent our time in Boulder drinking coffee, playing scrabble, drinking beer and laughing. We also celebrated the fact that Dan and Tori just got engaged!

We were lucky enough to experience Boulder's first good snowfall of the year during our second night. There were about eight inches on the ground when we left and it was still snowing.

It was great to see Dan and Tori in their new environs, even if their dogs tried to hump the life out of poor, poor Bodhi.

Thanks Ted

We pulled into Livingston, Montana on Wednesday night and sat down to a delish meal of bison pot roast thanks to Bay's friends Julian and Marleen. The bison came straight from Ted Turner's ranch; he regularly culls his herd and sells the meat. We woke up early the next morning and Julian and Marleen took us to Yellowstone National Park. Our first stop was the Boiling River, perhaps the greatest place on earth. The river comes up out of a cave and is a part of the same geothermal system as Old Faithful. There are pools and waterfalls at the confluence of the Boiling River and the very cold Yellowstone River and you can swim around and find your own private hot tub. While at the Park we also saw tons of tasty bison, elk and two packs of wolves. The wolves were amazing. We spotted the second pack right after they had finished eating a kill and watched as they slowly ambled up the hill. Bodhi must caught a whiff of them while he was stuck in the car because we could hear him whining from 30 yards away. Bodhi also got an eyeful when a buffalo walked within a foot of our car. I can't imagine what he must have been thinking.

Yellowstone was amazing and offered a tiny glimpse of how incredible the entire Plains area must have been with buffalo, elk and grizzlies roaming the landscape. Fences, cows and corn just ain't the same.

Before hitting Livingston, we stopped at Three Forks, where the Galliton, Madison and Jefferson meet. They form the headwaters for the Missouri River, the longest river in the country with a watershed of 580,00 square miles.

That's a big river.

On the Road

After three years of good beer, better friends and too much rain, I have finally left Bellingham. Bay, Bodhi and I loaded into my new rig on Sunday afternoon and headed South. As we pulled onto the highway, Bellingham offered it's typical farewell: torrents of rain. We had managed to fill every nook and cranny of the truck and had the rack loaded with baggage, so we looked like true hillbillies.

For our first night on the road, we enjoyed the hospitality of Bay's friends in Spokane: a comfy bed, good coffee and cute kids. After Spokane, we headed towards Glacier National Park, not exactly on the way to Virginia, but a beautiful part of the country. We checked out the happenin' nightlife of Whitefish, Montana and headed towards the Park early the next morning. We snagged some good shots of the Park before we hit the entrance gate and found out that a.) most of the roads and trails were closed in the Park. b.) dogs weren't allowed on the trials and c.) it cost $25 to enter for the day. We did a quick u-turn and ended up in Hungry Horse National Forest, which basically borders Glacier National Park. After a 8 mile drive up an old logging road we found a sweet trail that led us through the snow and into Grizzly country. We didn't see any Grizzlies but I'm pretty sure we found a Polar Bear paw print close to the trail.

We made it to Missoula just in time to snag a quick dinner and make it to the Widespread show. It was a fun show and we ran into some of Bay's friends and, perhaps more importantly, pizzadillas (sooo good). Next stop, Livingston...