Yellowstone Park

July 31 – The drive from Missoula to Yellowstone was really pretty. Had a couple of steep grades though: one was 8%. I think we were doing 20 mph when we got to the top of that one. We always try to use the pullouts and let others go by so we don’t hold them up too much. We did have one close call while driving here. An 18 wheeler was passing us while on a 4 lane highway. He was speeding. Then he sees a state trooper in the median so he decides he’d better move over. Guess what; we were there. He just moved over to the right lane while we still had a good 6-7 feet of overlap. Gary slammed on the brakes and hit the horn and flashed his lights. At least we were able to avoid the collision. The truck just kept on truckin.

They had a couple of vacant camping spots in one of the campgrounds at Yellowstone. It’s a little pricey but at least we’re in the park. Besides, we’ve saved so much staying at Wal-Mart we can afford a couple of these. They squeeze you in pretty tight in these campgrounds. Not too much room behind or next to you.

We went on a hike our first day and saw a couple of Marmots. They are kind of like really large squirrels and live around rocks. It was another first for Maggie. She had never seen one before. We also saw several buffalo and deer. Summer just arrived at Yellowstone. It last snowed here July 6th and as you can tell from the photos of the bucks, they are still in velvet.

Today we’re going to be out seeing the sights of the southern portion of the park; the most popular being Old Faithful. Hopefully we’ll have photos to show you on our next update. Cheers.

Making the most of Montana

Jul 29 – No great outdoor photos this time but we had a great visit with Gary’s cousin in Post Falls, Idaho. We hadn’t spent much time with them before other than family reunions so it was really nice for us to get to know each other better. Gary had another idea for our rock/bug screen: paint it to look like the TX flag. So, he bought some spray paint and painted it up (see photo).

After that we headed for Missoula to visit Gary’s sister. Seems like Gary has family everywhere doesn’t it? Anyway we went and toured downtown Missoula, took a ride on a great old Merry-go-round (see photo), visited a farmer’s market and watched some people practicing kayaking on the river. She has a Wii game set and we played lots of games. One of the funniest was the dance game where we all tried to follow the person’s moves on the TV (see photo). Oh, yeah, where do you think we parked the MH? You got it; Walmart.

Next we’re off to Yellowstone.

Beautiful Swan Lake in Washington

Jul 23 – We went to a place just south of the Canadian border called Curlew Lake to see if it was as good as an article we read about it last year. It wasn’t. I told the manager that I was looking for something smaller and in the forest. He told us that Swan Lake was probably what we were looking for. Was he ever right. We drove about 15 miles to get there. This place is a small campground of about 20 spaces, way up in the mountains, surrounded by tall pine trees and has the neatest little lake. It’s about 40 acres in size and they don’t allow motors on it. That was fine with us. We finally had the perfect place to try out our new inflatable kayak.

Once we got the kayak ready to go we carried it down to the water. Maggie and I were the first to try it out. We leisurely paddled around the whole lake in about an hour. They have a special kind of Loon here that is on the endangered species list. There is a male, a female and youngster. They make the neatest sound when they call each other. When Maggie and I were in the boat, one of the adults decided to stay in front of us. We watched as it dove deep beneath our boat. It could hold its’ breath for a long time and swim quite a distance under water. The water is so clear we could see everything. It was really neat.

They also have wild huckleberries here. They are similar to blueberries. The campground is full of them. So, we naturally got a couple of cups and started picking us some. Gary had to eat while he picked: he can be such a pig. Anyway, we finally had enough to make some berry pancakes for breakfast. Man were they good. Gary also took some time and made us all walking sticks. We found the sticks on Gold Beach in Oregon and Gary just bought the materials to make them. They are varnished in high gloss and have rubber feet on them so we won’t slip on rocks or hard surfaces.

Sorry it's been so long

Jul 20 – We had a great ferry trip across the bay to the peninsula. We parked the MH at, you guessed it, Wal-Mart. They said we could stay as long as we wanted so we left it there and took day trips to different areas. We spent one day nosing around an old fishing village called Port Townsend. They have a section of old Victorian houses; some built in the 1880’s (see photo). There were several old larger buildings near the docks that were really cool too. There was a Goldwing Motorcycle Rally when we were there and they were all over town.

The next day we went to the rain forest (photo) to seek out some natural hot springs. We took two separate hikes; one was a mile each way and the second was 2.5 miles each way. We got to soak in some pretty hot water (see photo). Some of us were suffering from sore feet, others leg cramps and others slept pretty good that night. I won’t tell you who experienced what. I’m too much the gentleman to divulge that information. The next morning we headed back to the mainland and stopped in a campground in the North Cascades National Park. It’s very quiet here; shhhhh. Tomorrow we’ll head towards the northeastern part of the state.

For those of you that are checking out our travels; feel free to drop us a line once in a while at our email account: travlngary@gmail.com or Maggie.luckcat@gmail.com Looking forward to hearing from you. 

Washington State Coastline

Jul 16 – We’ve been outside Mount Vernon, Washington in a small town called Sedro-Woolley. It’s a really neat little old town with lots of old houses and a cute downtown area. I included a photo of some of the wood carving sculptures they have all over the downtown area. We took a ferry ride to San Juan Island a couple of days ago. It was really neat. We saw lighthouses, harbor areas with lots of boats, fancy houses overlooking the harbor as well as agricultural areas. We even got to visit an Alpaca farm. I included a photo of some of their animals. They sure are cute.

Today we’re taking a different ferry to the peninsula and plan on spending several days visiting the Olympia National Park and surrounding area. We’ll let you know what we see. They’re supposed to have lots of waterfalls and even hot springs. We’re looking forward to sitting in those.

We're Back Again

Jul 12 – Well, we made it through another week in Canada eh? Val says I have a thing for picking up local languages when we travel but I don’t know what she’s talking aboot but I guess we’re all entitled to our own opinions, eh?

We decided to take a different route than we took going up. Well at least not all the same roads. When there are four highways in the state / province you don’t have a lot of choices. The one we took was not the best. The first 100 or so miles were narrow gravel roads with no lines and steep shoulders that dropped off 2-3 feet. Then they turned to paved roads. Then they got a little wider. Then they got lines. And, after about 250 miles they seemed a lot like normal roads except for the rough spots.

Let’s talk about roads for a minute. For those of you that think you have bad roads in your area; you ain’t seen nothing. Drive to the Yukon sometime; that’ll show you bad roads. They have it all; huge and long ruts, raised up areas (all of a sudden like) large cracks, holes, gravel and dusty. Let’s see; did I leave anything out? It’s really hard to make good time when you have to keep slowing down for that crap.
And did I mention gas prices? We paid $1.23 per liter a couple of days ago. That’s $5 a gallon. Ouch! So don’t complain about the two something you’re currently paying. It could be worse.

Val has been looking for moose but not seen one in about a week; except for the images on the signs telling us to watch out for moose. She had hoped to see more. We did see several black bears as we drove south through British Columbia. We saw a mother with a small cub coming out of the heavy brush. When she saw the motorhome she turned around and went back in. I don’t blame her; I wouldn’t want any of my kids around one of these either.

No photos this time. Not much to add that you haven't already seen except an exceptionally dirty motorhome and Maggies SUV. Boy were they dirty. Both were covered with thick mud. Got to love those muddy highways!

To sum up our trip up north to Alaska; it was nice but we’re glad to be back.

Starting to head South

Jul 7 –On Sunday, July 4th we attended the Hoka Hey motorcycle celebration for those who finished the race; see photo. Maggie, Val and I met Terry as he crossed the finish line. He rode over 9100 miles in 9 days following a route from Key West Florida to Homer Alaska. What a trip! The organizers were supposed to let everyone know who won at the celebration but they didn’t. They said they would announce it at Sturgis. It was a huge let down for everyone there. How would you like to pour your heart and soul into a race and then not know who won for over a month. Bummer!

Yesterday, July 6th, we were in Seward and took a cruise to see whales and stuff. Wow, did we see a lot. We saw all kinds of sea birds, sea lions; hump back whales, killer whales, porpoises and glaciers. I included a photo of the biggest active glacier we saw. It was really cool: pardon the pun. Afterwards we drove to Anchorage.

Today we went to Lowes and bought supplies to build a bug/rock screen for the front of the motorhome (see photo). We got several chips in our paint as well as three stars on the driver’s side of the windshield. Now maybe we can avoid more damage. It works great. We drove to Tok this afternoon and man is it full of bugs. Easier to get off the screen than the grill.

Tomorrow morning we’ll be entering Canada again so that means no cell phone and no internet. Those of you that have become our groupies; following our every move, will have to wait a few days until we get back to the lower 48 before our next update. Talk to you later.

Just for the halibut

July 3 – Gary went fishing yesterday and brought home two big halibut and 5 rock fish (they are like largemouth bass but bigger and black). Check out the photo of one of the halibut. We now have about 25 lbs of fish fillets in the freezer. You can only catch two halibut per person but the captain of the boat gets fish too so he asked Gary if he wanted to keep on fishing once he caught his two and naturally he said yes. He caught a total of 6, had to throw a couple of small ones back. He had to quit because his arms were too tired. (Wa, wa, sniff, sniff)

We drove to a neighboring village to check out their action. Not really any action but it sounds better. We found the point of the US that is the furthest west point of a highway. You see Val and Maggie standing next to the sign. We also saw a mama moose and her two kids; whatever they call them.

We went to check on the possibility of taking the ferry back instead of driving all the way through Canada. We had checked before and were told $7200 and that didn’t include a sleeping room. Someone told us that if we take the car and motorhome as separate vehicles it would be cheaper. We checked and sure enough it was cheaper. It came to $4800. Now I don’t know about you but that makes absolutely no sense to me. I still said “No way. That’s still way too much.” So the agent suggested leaving from Haines instead of the Anchorage area and going to Prince Rupert, Canada instead of Bellingham, Washington. The ferry trip would save 880 miles of driving but still cost over $2700. I figure it will cost about $450 to drive it. Enough said.

We ended the day by visiting a wonderful exhibit in Homer on the area’s ocean and islands. They had numerous displays on volcanic activity and wildlife preservation. It was great.

Special Update!

Special Update; Maggie’s Firsts: I thought it was time to mention a few things that Maggie had experienced so far while on the trip that she said she had never done before. She’s seeing and doing a lot. These are just the ones we can remember now.
1) Just travelling so much is a huge first for her. She hadn’t done much.
2) Seeing moose, caribou, antelope, eagles up close, can’t remember much more but she’s seen a bunch.
3) While visiting our friends in Anchorage there was a small earthquake. It was the first time Maggie experienced the earth shaking under her. She wasn’t sure what it was but didn’t like it much.
4) Hearing an avalanche.
5) Seeing whales off shore.
6) Riding in a jet boat up a river.
7) Driving a motorhome.
8) Driving a sailboat.
9) Rock climbing.
10) Last but not least, helping an older gentleman spend his money at a casino.
That’s about all we can remember right now. But to sum it up, she’s having a wonderful time and we’ve just barely got started.

Home at Homer, AK

Jul 1 – We had a good drive to our next stop Ninilchik, Alaska. It’s a small fishing village of 770 about 30 miles from Homer. We passed lots of great looking rivers and streams on the way, many of them were being fished by several fishermen. Once we got the MH set up we drove to Homer hoping that our friend Terry would be finishing his 9000 mile, “Hoka Hey”, race from Key West, Florida. He didn’t come in that day.

The next day we went to the beach area to check out the fishing boats. There were lots of eagles in the area and people clamming. There were some commercial fishermen selling their catch to a refinery. Gary went to watch and ended up buying a nice red salmon for our supper. After that we went back to Homer to wait for Terry. He came in about 7:00. He was pretty tired and tired of sleeping on the ground for over a week. We followed him to his hotel room, bought a large pizza and sat outside at a picnic table at 9:00 at night (still light by the way) and ate pizza and had a couple of beers while looking at the gorgeous view of the bay. While we were there we heard an avalanche across the bay. It was a strange sound as it echoed off the islands and across the bay.