Ushuaia or Bust: The Pan-Am 2K Expedition

[Skookumchuck]

Great read keep it coming. This is a trip I would love to make someday.

[JohnsD90]

Very good read so far, always wanted to do the North American/South American Expedition!

[tmckeon88]

Update 2/24/13 I've uploaded some images to imgur and I'm hoping it will be easier to post them in here. [IMG][/IMG][IMG][/IMG]

Here are a couple more Alaska pictures, including the marker at the Arctic Circle.

Once we got the differential repair sorted out we crossed into Washington and ended up staying a couple of days in the Seattle/Tacoma area, where I had some sort of eye infection from a bug bite that made my right eye swell shut. We got that treated and were able to move down to Oregon, where we stayed with family out along the Oregon coast at some impressive beach areas.
[IMG][/IMG][IMG][/IMG]

In Oregon we also made the trip to Crater Lake National Park, which is well worth the visit if you ever get the chance. We camped at one of the national park sites and did some driving around and hiking. It is an amazing sight, deepest blue water you will ever see, a cinder cone island in the center called Wizard Island. A long-dormant volcano; some of the Native American stories of the area make reference to a great explosion that night have been the eruption that created the crater, which is thought to have happened thousands of years ago. The myths of the area apparently still carry some remnant of that event.

We also drove some of the Oregon coast and stayed with some friends in the Mackenzie River area, in the drier eastern part of the state. I can recommend Oregon as a great vacation place for all kinds of outdoor activities- hiking, biking, canoeing, kayaking, rafting, skiing, mountaineering.

Somewhere along this time I got a new radiator cap too, as ours seemed leaky, and I recall from this point on our radiator troubles seemed solved. We were still having the weak brake issue, which would never really get better until last year's fix, and also the rear hubs would consistently leak oil. I have since fixed that too, but in those days it was a common nuisance.

We drove down the northern California coast and made our way to the SF Bay area, where we stopped for a few days. More later-