After waking in Roslyn with the tent covered in  ash, we decided to head to Mount St Helens to see the queen of volcanos. For those that weren't around then, on the 18 May 1980 the whole side of the mountain bulged and then blew, with the resulting ash cloud taking 15 days to circle the globe. It's an amazing and iconic site, with swathes of trees still blown from the blast. We went down into one of the lava tubes, all sparkling with a silvery shimmer and a cons...

Our entry into the U.S started with vampire and werewolf fun, via burgers at The Brick and the Little A'Le'Inn. We arrived by boat in Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula. It was a fairly barginacious $55, but foreign bikers beware, you do of course have the usual customs hoopla to deal with. We chatted to a couple on a Harley (Hello Carole and Kenny!), spotted orcas from the boat and grabbed a litre of Captain Morgan in the duty free shop, so our Chalice Well ...

Yes, I know we're in countries where there's WiFi a plenty, but when you're in the middle of a forest, not so much! And to fill you in, not so much on the running water front either! So, our last post was us in Whistler trying to source a shop to exchange James 's bobbled Thermarest. Unless you're into skiing or mountain biking, Whistler is a crazy tourist hub, jam packed with people, so we hooded it on out to Squamish, forever nicknamed by Imogen as Sasquatch, ...

Had a wonderful time in Alaska, but the road was calling south. We crossed the border going over The Top of the World Highway, via the wonderfully named Chicken as the settlers there didn't know how to spell Ptarmigan, the most common bird there. Arrived at Dawson City in the Yukon in time for their annual music festival. The place looks like a film set, wooden frontages, lots of colour and quite a frontier feel. Explored an old dredger, everything around here...

We've now finished our tour of Alaska. After Seward, we went via the beautiful Tern Lake, which was almost Dead Duck Lake, as an RV hurtled round the bend, running over a mother duck with a sickening thud, missing the train of 5 ducklings following her. Cue James leaping into action to find her, unbelievably it looks like she rolled under the RV, and after being hassled by a gull, she wobbled rather unsteadily back to her brood. Phew. Carried on through the pe...