With trekking and mountain biking off of the agenda for a while we now made for the gentle sunshine and golden sands of West Coast USA.  Immediately sidetracked however we took a break from summer in the misty, mossy Hoh Rainforest of Olympic National Park, Washington.  Getting back on track we found wall to wall sunshine in Oregon's cascade mountains,  where we stretched our legs with a little (33 mile) bike ride at 7,000 feet around the rim of the beautiful Crater Lake National Park. 

We were soon distracted again of course - this time for the sake of a canoe.  We had been looking out for one since travelling north through BC in the spring, with no luck and now the perfect boat was available near San Francisco, a mere two days drive away.  We dashed south and as you can see from the pictures secured the sale. 

The more we spoke to people the more we realised that we didn't want to miss out on gems such as the Oregon coastline and the giant redwoods of California.  Doubling back we drove across Oregon's sand dunes under the most incredible blue sky and only had to resort to sand ladders once, after I fell sideways off a dune, almost tipping Bee over.  The contrast between the dunes and the giant redwood forests a little further south could not be greater.  Golden sands and a deep blue sky were replaced by cool dark green groves and almost no sky at all.  We thought that Vancouver Island had large trees, but at more than three hundred feet tall and fifteen feet wide the ancient redwoods have to be seen to be believed...