photos

For our last full day in Glacier, we drove over the pass to the east side of the mountains. Unfortunately, the weather was still overcast on the west side of the pass, so we didn't have very good views of the mountains as we drove over the pass. Instead, we just drove straight over and down the other side. On our way to our next campsite, we stopped at a turn off for a short hike. We hiked to St. Mary Falls and then continued to Virginia Falls, a total of 1.2 miles in from the road. At Virginia Falls, we stopped for lunch along the bank of the creek, then headed back down the trail.

After our first night in the tent, Penelope woke us up at about 6:45, same as usual. Still without any way to start a fire, and not feeling like asking for more matches, we had a cold breakfast of yogurt and leftover breakfast pastry from Stefan's backpacking trip (thanks Stefan). We would be staying at three different campsites in the park as we traveled along the main park road, so after breakfast, we broke down our campsite and stuffed everything back in the car. It was a complete mess, with barely enough room for Penelope in the back seat, but it worked.

As we fly back to Seattle, it is time to catch up on my journal and describe the last days of our Japan trip. Yesterday (Friday, March 15th), we started our day at the Tsukiji Fish Market, Tokyo's primary fresh fish wholesaling site. We were too lazy to try to watch the tuna auction, which requires getting there by 4:30am and being one of the first 120 people there. Instead, we opted for the more reasonable time of 9am, when the wholesalers' processing and distribution area opens to the public.

We took the bullet train from Kyoto to Tokyo. We had a 9:30am train, so we picked up breakfast and lunch in the station to eat on the train. Our train was relatively full, despite the fact that the trains leave almost every 10 minutes. As before, the train was fast, quiet, and comfortable. We spent the time going through the photos we had taken and trimming out the bad ones. We arrived at our stop on the outskirts of Tokyo after 2.25 hours. Then the real adventure began.

Today, we started by taking the train to Inari to see the shrine there. The big feature of this shrine is lots and lots of orange gates. People buy them for good luck, with the bigger gates costing more money. The gates go most of the way up a mountain, and we hiked to the end of the gates, about 700ft up. There was no view at the top, just lots of orange gates, but it was a really cool place.