Today we drove down to Valdez AK, and on the way we saw some pretty cool stuff.

This is Worthington Glacier, and do you see that black hole on the left of the glacier?  That is a cave, that we went up to.

This is Ryan on the glacier, it is hard to see him, but he is right in the middle.

These are some up close shots of the glacier

These are some shots of the cave

As I got close I got very nervous, because the ground and the top of the cave where not at all stable.  I saw big chunks of ice which had fallen from the top, and I saw rocks and gravel falling all around it.  It was melting, and I did not want to be too close to it when it fell apart.

Well we slept well at the hostel in Anchorage, and then packed up for the road to Gulkana. But not before stopping at the Harley Dealership to see if we could go for a ride. Ryan was able to, but I was not since I did not have my license.

After that we loaded up on supplies at Wal Mart and hit the Road. It is amazing how much easier traveling is in a car. It is so relaxing and you can multitask, eat, sleep, play music, even go to the bathroom (as long as you have the proper supplies). Alaska is a beautiful country.

We got to Gulkana around 4pm, and met up with Pastor Bob & Jodie Browner. They are the pastors here in this native American village, and the only white people in town. He showed us how the natives catch fish, check it out.

We flew out of Portland yesterday to Seattle first.  I had to get my License out as an ID to get on the plane, well somewhere along the line it must have fallen out of my pocket, and the last place I remember having it was on that first flight to Seattle.  Anyway it is not a big deal cause I have my passport, but we were planning on renting motorcycles both here and in Hawaii, and this could foil my plans.  Hopefully the guys at the Harley dealership here in Anchorage will let me ride a bike without my license, but I doubt it.

Also as we got on our 2nd plane I saw this real antsy guy in the terminal with all kind of camo on.  As soon as I saw him, I thought man this guy must be some kind of hunting nut.   Well sure enough, he sat right next to me on the plane.  I had to kind of laugh that this guys seat happened to be right next to me.  I will admit everytime I fly I am checking out the girls in the terminal and hoping that one of them will end up sitting right next to me, but I have never been so lucky.  Instead I tend to get guys like Dan who like to talk real close to people, as if you even have a choice on an airplane.  Anyway, Dan wasn’t too bad of a guy, however I have not yet figured out how to tell someone that I am not interested in going to all the local strip clubs, without sounding either gay or judgemental, so I mustly just laugh and nod when they share about how great the strip clubs are in Anchorage or whatever city I am in or going to.

Alaska is beautiful, and a bit chilly.  A nice change from our last couple weeks of record heats in the North West.  Hopefully we will have lots of pictures to share with you all soon, but for now there is just this redundant video.

Last night we went camping with Tim and Ashlee’s youth group at Promontory Park Campground outside of Estacada OR.  It was fun hanging with all the kids and the people from their church.

Today we are hanging out in Portland again because tomorrow we fly out of PDX to Anchorage AK.  We will rent a car there and travel around Alaska for one week.  Then on the 13th we fly from Anchorage to Honolulu to make state 50!  We are planning on renting bikes in both states, just so we will have officially rode in all the states.

I know some people were confused about our schedule, cause we didnt change this on the tour schedule for a while, but its up to date now.  Another little detail is that after Hawaii, Ryan will be riding home, and I will slowly making my way south visiting friends and family along the way.  I still have some interviews lined up for after Hawaii, one back up in Washington, some here in Portland, and the rest are all as I make my way south through California.  Its hard to believe this trip is almost over, but it has definitely been the adventure of a life time.

We got into Portland Saturday evening. First thing we did was head over to our friend Ian’s mom’s house and enjoyed some BBQ.  Then Ian’s sister Ashlee and her husband Tim came over and took us to the Edgefield.  The Edgefield was this very unique property, own by tow brothers.  What they did was buy up a bunch of property and make several outside and inside bars, as well as a movie theatre, and a hotel.  It is interesting because on this estate, I guess is what you would call it, you could go to several different bars and restaurants all owned by the same people, but each with their own theme.

After the Edgefield we headed over to the hotel that Eastside Church owns to stay the night.  The next morning we went to Revolution church which is a church plant of Eastside.  It was a phenomenal experience.  We got to share shortly about our trip, and then a couple other people shared some testimonies.  It was a moving morning with great worship, led by Ashlee and Tim, as well as DJ reckless.  I had not been to a church with a DJ before this, but I was really impressed.  They all had a great time, and the spirit really moved there that morning.  After service everybody hangs out and has lunch together, which is just such a very cool thing to do together as a church.  We should be interviewing Tim and Pastor Alpha soon, so be looking for that.

After Church we headed south about an hour to Monmouth, where my buddy from college, Zach, and his family live.  I went out on the family farm with Zach for a couple hours, which is where he works.  They farm grass seed on about 4500 acres, so needless to say they have a lot of work to do out there.  Here is a short video from the farm:

We started off the day by heading down to Renton to check out Jimi Hendrix’s grave.

Then had some good food in Kirkland for lunch, and stopped by a beach along Lake Washington to watch the Blue Angel show from a distance.  I don’t know if it is the city, or the heat, but there were a lot of gorgeous girls out all over the city today, and well lets just say I can’t really complain about it.

After stopping at Lake Washington we took the ferry into Bainbridge which is across the sound.  This is a picture of us with Doug, he is host here in the Seattle area.

It was a gorgeous little ride, and a pretty little town right there on the water.  There were neat statues like this all along the water there.

Well after Coer D’Alene we headed to Leavenworth WA.  CDA was one of the places we did not enjoy leaving, it was a beautiful city, with great people, But Mike did take the ride with us from state 46 to 47.  We got into Leavenworth around 4pm, and it was hot pretty much the whole way.  We road with no jackets cause of the heat, and I ended up getting sunburnt pretty good.  Leavenworth was a cool town though, it was a Bavarian style town, really unique, check out this short video.

It was around 100 also today, and there was a lot of traffic, so needless to say we were pretty excited to get into an air conditioned room.  We are staying with Doug, who is related to some good friends of mine, Lynda and Nick, from my home church.  The funny thing is that since it has been so unusually hot here for the Seattle area, Doug was actually staying in a hotel room, so Lynda put us up in a room in town as well.  We were very grateful, cause it is pretty nasty outside, especially for an area where the high is usually mid 80s at most, maybe global warming is real.  Anyway we met up with Doug, had some great food in North Bend, and then went and checked out the Snoqualmie Falls, here are some pictures: