Twelve days, 2800km. We visited my aunts in Oregon, spent a couple days in Seattle and Victoria, then up to the west coast of Vancouver Island. From there, back to Grandmas in Vancouver.

The first house you see is still under construction, it's on 160 acres in the mountains of Oregon, and is totally off the power grid. It's electricity comes from solar panels and a micro hydroset up powered by a mountain spring behind the house. As you can guess, I was fascinated by this system, and had lots of questions! My uncle built it almost entirely on his own, using concrete forms and wood he felled from the land and milled himself. The second house is my other aunts, which is on 60 acres about 45 minutes away. It's on the grid, but is passive solar designed. Both houses have extensive vegetable gardens and fruit orchards, which we sampled of course. The 'Doomsday machine' is actually a massive metal pounding device from the 1940's for shaping red hot iron that belongs to the neighbours. They are the ones creating the railings you see, which will be painted and put on the deck you see next to the house. There will be NINE in total!

As you can see, the Oregon coast is stunningly beautiful, and mostly undeveloped, the most pleasant surprise of our trip.