Back in Seattle for one night before we take off for Turkey tomorrow. Left Squamish this morning after breaking camp and strolled on down the "Sea to Sky" highway towards Vancouver. Squamish is a mystical place that is changing rapidly. The Olympics are rolling into town and that's got the place sprouting condos and Starbucks like mushrooms at a Dead show. Still, it is somewhat lowkey for the time-being and the place is awe-inspiring.

We spent most of our nights camped up a forest road with Esther serenading us to sleep, while waking in the morning mozying about deciding what to do for the day (hike? bike? climb?). On day 5 we decided to head up to Whistler and play around there for the day. It was clear from the time we started walking through the village early that morning that we were not dressed properly for such high mountain travel. Nonetheless, we trekked on marvelling at the hoopla surrounding the coming Olympic games and the frenzy it's stirred there. Keep your eye on the 2010 winter games and you might just see a shining new team in the bobsled event.

One thing's for sure, even though us humans in this vagabond crew weren't up to the fashion standards of sparkling Whistler, Buck and Edie still won Best in Show. Whistler is really a beautiful place where a family can have good time together. Just make sure you bring plenty of dough. Loonies and Georgies are about even now (translation: the American dollar has sunk to a point where the Canadian dollar is worth more).

On the final day Adam and Amanda made us blueberry and Salmon berry (fresh picked by Amanda by the river close to our camp!) pancakes. As the time came to bring this leg of our trip to a close a certain sadness set in. As I watched Adam and Amanda drive out of camp for the last time I spun memories of our time here around in my head. From Brent and Emily bouldering with us, to alpen nights in camp, spinning still to just relaxing, talking, laughing our way into memories created we can later recall around an as yet to be determined adventure together. Thank you Squamish. Thank you Whistler. Most of all, thank you, our friends, for meeting us during this first week of our trip. We couldn't have started it a better way without you.

So we're off to Turkey tomorrow. We'll see how much we keep up with the blog thing during the next 16 days.