Montana and Wyoming

On our way across Montana (July 25) we stopped at the Madison Buffalo Jump State Park and learned of Native American hunting ingenuity. To get the bison all moving in the right direction (towards the cliff) a couple of young boys would dress up like another animal and start running ahead of the leader of the herd.  Keep in mind that bison can run up to 30 mph! Thanks, Mike and Stephanie, for the tip to stop in and see one of these amazing sites.  We made another stop at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. The museum featured some of the finest dinosaur fossils in the world…Jackson was in heaven to say the least.

We drove into Yellowstone (July 26) under sunny hot skies which prompted a swim at Firehole falls then onto a few geysers and, of course, Old Faithful. We broke up our visit to Yellowstone with a couple of days in Jackson Hole.  The Tetons and Snake River Valley were as beautiful as ever.  We must have taken 50 photos of the mountains and 50 more of the bison! So much wildlife  everywhere in this wonderful corner of the US.  Driving to our campground at Gros Ventre in Grand Teton NP we saw pronghorn antelope, moose, and bison all at the same time! The boys enjoyed swimming in Jenny Lake and in the Gros Ventre River…this is becoming a theme of our trip…how many natural swimming holes can we find. What they did not enjoy as much was the mountain bike ride we took.  At a bike shop in Wilson I asked about local trails suited for a 9 and 11 year old who have done some moderate trails and would enjoy about 2 hours of riding.  Let it be know that the Teton Pass trails are a bit more difficult than that.  They stuck out the 5 hour ride not without letting me know they were not having fun anymore.  Other fun in Jackson included visiting with Kevin, a college buddy of mine who lives in JH and watching the shoot-out on the square. 

As we headed north (today) we took in the rest of the main sites in Yellowstone including the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Upper and Lower Falls, and Mammoth Hot Springs.  Some facts I learned this week are  that Yellowstone (almost the entirety of the park) is one big volcano that has had three major eruptions in the past.  Also, moose will dive down up to 18 feet and stay there for up to a minute eating underwater vegetation. God's handiwork abounds in this park and we never ceased to be amazed at the wonders of His creation.  I think we will come back here (on the shoulder season!) and spend more time exploring.  

Don't forget that you can see many more photos of our trip on the Picasa link on the right side bar.

From Asa's journal...

Today we took a long bike ride on an old train track in Idaho.  There was a two mile tunnel at the very beginning. It was pitch black.  We had to use head lamps.  Later we saw lightning fast ground squirrels.  They were cute!  At another tunnel that we were going through, I stopped to fix my headlamp.  Right when I was going, I heard a "honk, honk" and I thought it was a train.  I bolted out of the tunnel and it was a shuttle bus!  On the way back, we saw two deer.  One was on the path and the other was in the tunnel.  We got real close.  When we got back to the parking lot, we had to keep going because we parked two miles away!  But it was all down hill so we went up to 20 to 30 mph.  We coasted back to the motor home and got in after we packed up the bikes and left.  Then we left to eat at Huck's grill.  I had a cheeseburger, fries and a huckleberry milkshake.  Jellystone RV Park in Missoula, Montana was our campground.  Then it was time for bed.

Biking the Hiawatha Trail on Idaho/Montana border

Back in the U.S.

Visiting with Mary and Katie

We finally have a minute to give an update.  We finished up our time in Port Hardy with a second trip to Cattle Island.  This time we camped overnight since the kids decided they wanted to "build shelters and sleep outside, set up stores and gather their own food."  Jackson was successful in catching a spring Chinook which we cooked up over the fire, but the kids ended up sleeping in the tents with us.  Asa said in the morning "I'm glad the adults came along."  Scott and Dianne planned a beach potluck for us the last evening so we could see some more friends.

Chemainus murals
We then headed down Vancouver Island.  We stopped in Chemainus to see the murals before making it to Victoria that evening.  Conrad and Magdalene graciously let us stay at their place even though they had Anna and Christina and their children visiting also. It was so good to catch up and be a part of the family.  We caught a ferry from the island to Anacortes, Washington and made our way down to Kent.  And that's when the honeymoon ended….

We got to our motor home bright and early on Friday morning in an absolute downpour.  Rain like we haven't seen in years.  They began to attach the towing mechanism from the Jeep to the motor home and realized the tow kit on the Jeep was missing 2 brackets.  No one in the Seattle area had the missing pieces.  Jerry got the number for the original owner of the Jeep in Anchorage and sure enough he had all the pieces.  The second owner had not been interested in buying them and had neglected to let us know about them.  Anyway, our options were to wait until the special order could come in on Monday or drive down to Wilsonville (Portland), Oregon and pick them up.  Which is what we elected to do.  Jerry left for the 6 1/2 hour round trip while the boys and I stayed behind and loaded up the motor home from the camper van.  Jerry made it back by 4:30 pm (before closing time) so that they could install the towing and we could be on our way.  Because of the delay, we had to cancel our plans to see Craig in Kamloops which was disappointing but we'll catch he and Barb later for sure.  

Saying goodbye to the van!

The trouble continues
The following day started with a rush to switch over the California plates to Alaska plates before we hit the border of British Columbia.  Unfortunately, the plates were put on with a theft resistant screw.  Jerry got ingenious since stores did not carry a screwdriver to remove that kind of screws.  He bought a hack saw and got just enough of an indent to use a regular screwdriver!   We met Scott and the girls to transfer the camper van to them.  That process had it's own set of challenges, too many to mention; but, Scott kindly offered to take care of them and allowed us to carry on back to the U.S. We were a little downhearted and as we travelled, this song came on the radio.


It was such a good reminder that we are just "pilgrims passing through" and that this life is bumpy at best!  Here's the link to our theme song for the year.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1p-QfgkLow So, with the trouble we had getting started, I deemed yesterday our first official day on the road!  It was a better day.  We made it across the state of Washington and to Coeur d'Alene for the night.  We stopped at a neat state park called Ginkgo Petrified Forest and really enjoyed the Eastern Washington landscape of sagebrush and desert.  The boys decided that would be a great place to live and ride go carts!  People are always interested in seeing our Alaska plates.  The funniest comment so far was "you can drive all the way to Alaska?"  But in all fairness, maybe I wouldn't have known that 5 years ago either!!!

Fresh peaches and cherries!

Day one.  Thanks for the shirts Gail!

Across Washington

Officially on the road

Signpost Forest, Watson Lake

We are officially on the road!  We are so thankful to our friends and family (that one's for you, Cody and Sara) who helped us in the last homeless days before we left.  Our trip down the Alcan and Casiar Highways went well.   We even enjoyed another lunch at Buckshot Betty's in the Yukon with fond memories of our stop there a year ago with the Fritzels. We stayed in Tok, Teslin, Stewart and finally Prince Rupert to catch the 15 hour ferry to Port Hardy on July 12.  The ferry was built in 2009 and was more like a cruise ship.

Kitwanga, BC

The weather has been spectacular and we have enjoyed the non-stop views of mountain ranges and wildlife which included lots of bear (black and brown), moose, fox, grouse, whales and eagles. Our only mishap was needing to sleep in the pop-up van/Jeep for 2 nights, which we hadn't planned on.  But, that's to be expected in the summer with no reservations!  We were amazed at how well the boys adjusted to adversity "we love sleeping in the Jeep" even though they've never done so.

Aboard the Northern Expedition

 Having lived in Port Hardy from 1994-1996, it has been very special connecting with friends and visiting some of our favorite places on northern Vancouver Island.  You can link to our Picasa web album on the right hand sidebar to view more pictures from our trip.

In the week to come we will be heading south and picking up the motorhome in Washington by next Friday.  So, this may be our only post until then due to the lack of internet and cell phone connection.

Paddling to Cattle Island

San Jo Bay, Vancouver Island, BC