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Here and on the next pages you'll find a number of pictures I took on my
trips to the States: NYC, Washington DC, the West Coast, and the Deep South
In my America pages I have put up a number
of photos taken on two of my six trips to the USA.
I went to NYC in 1990, but I have no pictures available just now. The next visit
was in 1993, when we went to the West Coast. Then, in 1997, we travelled through the Deep South, and, finally, in 2004
we went once more to the south-west. In 2007 Ruben and I went to Pennsylvania to see Inge at Elizabethtown and in the summer
of this year Linda and I went to the south-west.
These pages show some pictures of the second and third trips.
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| Visit their homepage |
In 1993 I went on a 4-week tour of the West.
Starting in Oakland, California, we travelled all the way north to Seattle, Washington, then east to Idaho and Yellowstone
NP, then south through Wyoming, Utah to the Grand Canyon, Arizona. Next we turned towards the coast again, through
Nevada (stopping off at Vegas, of course), and then back towards San Francisco along the Pacific coast visiting Monterey,
Carmel and 17-Mile Drive.
The pictures below were taken at Bryce Canyon
NP, Utah. This to me was the most beautiful place of all. I must say, though, that Craters of the Moon NM, Idaho came
a very close second. You can find some of those pictures lower down on this page.
| Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah |
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| It's a place of truly stunning beauty |
| At the bottom |
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| We went all the way down |
| Bryce Canyon |
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| You can easily spend an entire day here |
| Cloudy skies |
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| The Utah weather is quite changeable |
Visit the Bryce Canyon National Park Homepage
Read about the Seattle Underground (it's got no trains to speak of...)
| Oregon Coast |
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| Pacific sunset |
| Seattle, WA |
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| Pioneer Square |
| Washington State |
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| Mount Hood, one of the Cascades volcanoes |
| Astoria Bridge |
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| The bridge across the Columbia River seen from the Oregon side |
| Washington State |
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| Somewhere in the Cascade mountains, near Mount St Helens |
Visit this Lewis and Clark website
Washington has a pretty wet climate
as long as you are near the ocean. Seattle is supposed to be one of the wettest cities in the States. It was certainly raining
when we were there, and I remember our guide to the Seattle Underground joking about it. Once you go inland, things change.
The Cascades are spectacular and the weather is somewhat less wet, although quite cool, even in summer. On the east side of
the mountains, Washington is a a fairly dry area.
The Columbia River is very imposing. Lewis and Clark
travelled down this river on their expedition to find an overland route to the Pacific. They arrived at the mouth of
the Columbia on 7 November 1805 and had to spend the winter there. They built Fort Clatsop south of present-day Astoria, OR,
a replica of which is now a National Memorial.
| The mouth of the Columbia River |
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Visit the Fort Clatsop site
| Lewis and Clark's route |
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Thomas Jefferson asked Meriwether Lewis and
William Clark to organise an expedition to the west to counter the threat posed by Napoleon. They set off from St Louis,
MO on 14 May 1804. They struggled up the Missouri River, crossed the Rocky Mountains, came down the Columbia River and eventually
reached the Pacific in 1805.
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| Somewhere on the Columbia River |
CRATERS OF THE MOON NATIONAL
MONUMENT, ID
Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho
is a weird place. It's a big lava field only a couple of thousands of years old (which is nothing in geological terms, of
course). It looks like a lunar landscape (like you see them on the Apollo pictures taken on the Moon's surface). In the 60s
and 70s astronauts trained here before going to the Moon. I found it strangely captivating. It was all pumice (which
hardly weighs anything), ashes, and rocks in intriguing patterns and shapes.
We stayed overnight parking our RV (or motorhome, as they're called in Britain)
on the on-site campsite.
| Craters of the Moon NM |
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| Couldn't resist this one |
| Idaho |
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| Craters of the Moon, National Monument |
| Craters of the Moon NM |
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| Looks strange, doesn't it? |
Visit the Craters of the Moon National Monument Homepage
| Craters of the Moon NM |
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| It's a pretty arid place |
HELL'S CANYON OF THE
SNAKE RIVER
Right on the Oregon - Idaho stateline is the
Hell's Canyon of the Snake River: another impressive sight. It's also the boundary between two time-zones: Pacific Time on
the Oregon side, Mountain Time on the other.
| Hell's Canyon of the Snake River |
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| We're on the Oregon side here, looking towards Idaho |
| Hell's Canyon |
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| It's a rocky place |
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