greetings from ashland OREGON; the shakespeare capital of somewhere...

wohoo, finally into my second state (although i've just spent the last little while walking through the state of jefferson, somewhere i've always wanted to visit - ridiculously friendly state i must say)... a couple of days ago we were in seiad valley, home of the insane pancake challenge - 5 one pound pancakes in two hours (of the people who attempted it no one made through their second). on the climb out (which started incredibly slowly due to laden blackberry brambles), i startled a bear cub, which went hurtling across the track and careening down the incredibly steep, loose, shaley, slidey slope. i found out daybreaker, who'd left an hour or so before us, had seen the mother and got photos of the cub as it climbed a tree to escape from daybreaker...

this morning, i think i saw a mountain lion cub, which i'd pretty much given up on - so so exciting...




this is the classic hobbit-giant (troll?) shot... this is how they get the hobbits to look small i suspect... daybreaker and i waited for 2 hours for these guys to turn up to the border so we could celebrate together... california is 63% of the trail - 1698.8 miles, feels kind of weird and kind of amazing to finally be in oregon...






this is me in my groovy hat at the border - obligatory shot... it really did seem a milestone - and i kept thinking - i'm in oregon... the night before and after the border were far colder than we've had, and way more dewy, i woke up with a soaked sleeping quilt..





and this is looking back at shasta, which we can still see... sadly i think another ufo has entered the picture... someone else is waiting for this computer, so i'm going to hop off for a while and write about the other pictures later...




bubs and i had this amazing icedream and a decent doppio at this place in ashland... the icecream was so so tasty, and these guys let us just keep on tasting the options before giving us 6 half scoops...




these are truffula trees... very very cool....

there are so many more pictures i should be putting up, but i'm on a mission: leaving town and getting to willamette pass where i think i'm meeting ma & pa... bubs is looking over my shoulder because i'm taking so long...