The Long Lost Travelers…
(Pictures will come tomorrow - we are having issues with the internet...sorry!)

We apologize for the hiatus, turns out it was hard to find time to blog when we had friends on the road with us!

The last week has included 3 states and lots of adventures! Last Tuesday we drove to the Grand Tetons which was beautiful, as all the National Parks have been….guess it is time for some new adjectives! We decided to take a narrow, gravel road on which RVs are not allowed to see Jackson Hole. We made it there and back with no issues, thankfully, and got to spend some time at Jackson Hole. The best part was the Buffalo Pastrami we picked up to make sandwiches with….delicious!!! We had decided we didn’t love where we stayed Monday night so we drove further and stayed in Dubois, WY Tuesday night at a great KOA.

Wednesday we decided to get closer to Denver for the Goodhart pick up Thursday so we headed all the way to Cheyenne. We spent the whole day driving through thunderstorms and torrential downpours but made it safely to the Terry Bison Ranch RV Resort. Literally a huge Bison Ranch!! They also had camels, no clue why! Turns out it was Frontier Days in Cheyenne so we were very lucky to find a spot in town.

Thursday we rendezvoused with the Goodharts at Denver International Airport. On our way to Colorado Springs we made a quick stop at the Gamma Phi Beta International Headquarters for Kath to get a quick picture and take a peak inside. We set up camp and found a really good Mexican restaurant in town (if you are ever there head to Amanda’s Fonda – DELICIOUS!).

Friday we hit the town! First stop the Air Force Academy – where we also spent the night, at the FamCamp on base! We drove around the campus and headed to the visitor center. On our way to the Chapel a huge thunderstorm started so we decided to not chance the lightening and headed to the Olympic Training Center. That was one of the coolest things we have done on this trip. The tour actually includes walking into the gyms and watching athletes train. We saw the Men’s Gymnastics team, Women’s Volleyball, Wrestling, and Weight Lifting in action. We also saw the pool and the shooting center – neither were being used at the time. It was a great tour and very fun for all of us!

Saturday we got up early to head to Pike’s Peak for our 10:40 train ride up to the top on the Pike’s Peak Cog Railway. Unfortunately it was super foggy so we didn’t have the view of all of Colorado but there were a few good views on the way up. We also saw some Big Horn Sheep and lots of Marmots! Despite the fog it was still very cool to be atop one of Colorado’s tallest peaks!

We left Pike’s Peak and headed through the mountains to Breckenridge. We enjoyed it so much we decided to stay 2 nights instead of 1. Saturday night we hit another brewery for dinner….Breckenridge Brewery, good food and beer! Sunday Kath and I went into town to find breakfast for everyone and wandered around. It is a great town to walk around, with nice shops and restaurants, and cafes. We found a great bakery that made yummy breakfast sandwiches…the boys were pleased! Then it was off to the Peak 8 Fun Park for an afternoon filled with trips down the alpine slide, a scenic ride on the lift to the top, and putt putt. All of us loved the Alpine Slide! Sean insisted on riding on the lift with Ted and took his second trip down the slide with Ted going “super fast”!

Monday we headed to Boulder to spend our last day all together. We stopped at Walnut Brewery for lunch right in town so we got a taste of downtown Boulder. Then we headed over to the University of Colorado for some requisite shopping. Kath has an edge in the pool of how much stuff we have bought since she was with us for the Air Force Academy and UC! Sadly we then said goodbye, the Goodharts headed to Denver for dinner with a college friend of Goody’s and then for an early flight this morning and we headed back to Cheyenne to get some driving out of the way on our way to South Dakota. We LOVED having Kath, Goody, and Sean with us…miss you guys!!!

We stayed last night at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne – now that we have discovered the great, inexpensive FamCamp we are looking for them wherever we can! This morning we stopped at the ICBM museum before we left the base which was small but very interesting. Then our long drive to South Dakota began. And now here we are in Custer, SD staying in Bedrock City – yes the whole place is Flintstones themed….LOL!!! Tomorrow we head to Mount Rushmore and then the Badlands.

Hope this finds everyone well!!

Love Us

Glacier National Park and Yellowstone National Park

We have been hitting the famous parks of the west this week and will add another one to the list tomorrow, Grand Tetons National Park. On Saturday morning we got up and headed towards Glacier NP and drove through the park on the Going to the Sun Highway. Aptly named as you felt like you were headed above the clouds and to the sun. I know I said in the last blog that our drive from Jasper to Banff was the most spectacular drive we had done it has now been replaced by Going to the Sun Highway. A little scary, as there are no guardrails keeping you from falling thousands of feet down but truly breathtaking. A long with a ton of pictures we also got some great video. We added a new animal to our list of animal sightings....a Big Horn Sheep climbing up on a cliff.

Sunday we left St. Mary to begin our long trek through Montana to Wyoming. We saw our first cow crossing sign and then came up upon a cow on the side of the road. Free Range means literally that...all over the place, even the roads! The rest of the drive was pretty flat and empty. We stopped in Helena for some errand running, groceries etc. Then we continued on to Yellowstone. About 6 hours later we got the entrance of Yellowstone. We stayed in the the park last night right in the middle, about 1 1/2 hours from the entrance at Fishing Bridge. The cow incident didn't totally prepare us for the many bison we saw on the side of the road, this one decided to cross the road right in front of us, thankfully we had stopped to take a picture of him so no slammed brakes!

Today we spent the day driving all over the park. Our first spot was the Dragon Cauldron and Mud Volcano. There are hot springs throughout the park bubbling and spewing!! The smell of sulphur and the steam was a little much after a while but still very cool. On our way to see the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone we hit some traffic, there were rangers and tons of people looking up into the trees on the side of the road. Turns out a black bear had climbed up the tree!! I got a look at him but no good pictures. The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone was pretty spectacular, with multiple waterfalls and a couple of good viewing points to walk out and see the canyon from the rim.

The most famous spot in Yellowstone is of course Old Faithful, whose eruptions average every 92 minutes. We pulled in and went into the General Store and realized it was estimated to occur in 20 minutes so we walked over and sat on the edge to wait and see. It was spectacular!! Ted got pictures while I videotaped the whole thing!!

Now we are stowed away in our RV for the night in Moran WY. We will be going to the Grand Tetons tomorrow and then start making our trek towards Denver to pick up the Goodharts on Thursday!!!

Hope this finds everyone well!!!

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Canadian Rockies!!!

We don't blog for a few days after mentioning rabbits and college bookstores and look what happens!!! The comments are hysterical and so fun to log in and read...keep them coming!

Last I wrote we were in Vancouver and planning to head inland. Our first stop on our way to the Canadian Rockies was Clearwater, British Columbia. Ted found a little spot that broke the 10 hour trip to Jasper into 6 hours, then 4. Turns out it was a GREAT little spot! Right on a lake that really clear and nice. We both went for a swim when we arrived after a long day of driving. Mack got lucky and didn't get tossed in : )

The next day we finally got a break from the heat when a thunderstorm hit as we were packing up to go. Thankfully everything was inside, all that was left was for Ted to unplug us...not his favorite thing to do with thunder in the background. We crossed into Alberta and into a new timezone, we are now in Mountain time! The drive to Jasper was beautiful as we entered the Canadian Rocky Mountains although it was only a taste of what was to come for the next day. We decided to check into to our campsite and then head into town to check it out. Mack got a taste of wilderness at the campsite as he became obsessed with chipmunks and their holes in the trees. Then as we pulled out to head to town we saw an elk right in front of our site, Mack acted all tough barking, seeing that he was in the safety of the car!

The town of Jasper was very cute set along the mountains. We walked around a bit and then went searching for a lake. The cooling thunderstorms hadn't hit the Jasper area yet. In fact the rivers were all raging because it has been so warm that snow is melting on the mountains like crazy. We found Lake Edith, a crystal clear lake kept full by springs. Ted went for a swim while Mack and I made friends with other cross country travelers. We had dinner out trying our best to wait till the sun went down and it cooled off before we settled in for the night. But by 10 pm it was still light out! It did storm during the night and cool things off thankfully.

Yesterday we drove from Jasper to Banff with a stop at Lake Louise, by far the most beautiful drive either of us has ever taken. The scenery was breathtaking, mountains, glaciers, teal green lakes, raging rivers and icefields. We have soooo many pictures, we finally stopped stopping and I was taking them out the window or we were never going to get there. I am only going to post 2 on here to not take up a ton of space but when the trip is over I will create a photo album that will have many pictures from this day! We also took a ton of video - we are planning to make a DVD of our trip when we get back with all of our video clips. Our campsite in Banff was great with views of the mountains. Mackenzie went back into hunting mode wanting nothing more than to be outside laying in the "grass" where he could sniff and listen for creatures. Even during dinner he ignored us! We took a little drive into town after dinner, very cute.

And that brings us to today! We woke up this morning and headed South. We stopped in Calgary for some lunch and some quick pictures. Saw the ski jumping area from the Winter Olympics held there and then continued south towards the US border. Probably our most boring drive yet. Just miles and miles of fields which looked like hay and maybe rye. Although was we approached the border it got very pretty with rolling hills and mountains in the background. At the US border we entered back into the US after a few questions and checking of our passports to arrive in St. Mary Montana. We are staying right outside Glacier National Park. We are here two nights so tomorrow we will hit the park and I am sure have lots of pictures and stories to tell. Our one adventure so far today is Mackenzie seems to have been bitten by deer flies. We came back from a walk to the lake (Ted swam, Mack and I played with another dog on the beach - it was freezing water!!) and Mack's belly was covered with red blotches. I went up to get the number of a vet and they told me that many of the dogs have been being attacked by these bugs and it is harmless, just put a little benadryl on it. He seems fine, doesn't even scratch or lick at the benadryl so it seems all is well.

Hope this finds all of you well. Thanks again for all the funny comments!!! Have a great weekend and we'll "chat" in a few days!!

Love Us

Canada….

Hello from the largest city in British Columbia, although not the Capitol, that is where we were the last two days…Victoria on Vancouver Island.

We took a ferry on Saturday…our two week trip anniversary….from Port Angeles, WA to Victoria. The ferry ride was 90 minutes and Mackenzie was allowed on deck. We enjoyed beautiful views and a slightly chilly breeze. Mackenzie was the hit of the ferry adored by every kid who saw him, he got his fill of petting and hugs!

We arrived in Victoria and decided to take a scenic drive along the coast. The neighborhoods were amazing, beautiful houses overlooking the water. We found ourselves at the University of Victoria…no coincidence we keep finding our way to University Bookstores! The funniest thing about the University was that there are rabbits everywhere and not your traditional wild rabbits, there are white ones, black ones, mixed ones that look like Dizzy J! It seems sometime ago they appeared and have become almost the mascot of the University. The guy at the bookstore said they have been around several years although unclear where they came from. My guess was a lab escape of some sort!!

We then headed to Metchosin where our RV Park was. It was the nicest place we have stayed to date. Right on the water and SUPER clean bathrooms! In case it wasn’t clear before we shower at the RV place. I took a shower in the RV once, which was fine but a little tight and then you spend as much time drying everything as you did showering. We dropped off our excess luggage (our cargo carrier on the back) and headed back into Victoria for some delicious fish and chips and beer at a local pub. We were sooo full we decided to walk it off by heading over to see Parliament. As I said Victoria is the capitol of British Columbia so this is a working building. Mack and Ted took some time to play fetch on the grounds!

The next day we went to the Butchart Gardens, over 50 acres of georgous gardes, including a Japenese Garden, Rose Garden and the Italian Garden. Mackenzie was actually allowed so he toured with us. We then drove up to the harbor town of Sidney and had a beer overlooking the marina before we headed to the ferry for Vancouver. The Vancouver ferry was HUGE! 4 car decks and 2 passenger decks. Unlike the Victoria ferry Mack had to stay on the car deck but people could go back and forth from up top to the car deck. So near the end of the ride we headed down so I could get dinner stuff ready so we could eat sooner than later once we arrived. Too funny to be chopping garlic in my RV on a ferry in Canada…who would have ever thought!!!

So here we are in Vancouver. We had a great day today exploring the city. We started off by taking a drive through Lord Stanley Park, the central park of Vancouver, which is bordered by the Sea Wall, which was the actual Sea Wall which has now been turned into a walking, biking, etc path around most of the city. We then drove along the coast and again found ourselves at a bookstore, University of British Columbia to be exact. A very pretty campus just south of the city. Next stop was Granville Island to visit the Public Market which was great! We had a delicious bowl of Red Snapper Chowder and wandered around looking at all the veggies, meats, seafood, and treats. Never knew there were so many types of salami until today! Then we hit the shops to get our full set of 2010 Winter Olympic gear…sadly neither of us knew Vancouver is the host city until today! After some shopping and wandering it was back to touring the city, next stop China Town and Gas Town. Both neat little areas, must say though we were spoiled by China Town in San Francisco. We ended our day with some yummy seafood at a restaurant back in Lord Stanley Park…we went full circle!

Tomorrow we plan a quick stop at Grouse Mountain and the Capilano suspension bridge before we begin our journey towards Jasper and Banff. Tomorrow night we are stopping about 6 hours from here to get us closer and then Wednesday we will get to Jasper.

Happy Birthday to Matt!

Love Us

PS Thank to the Healeys for finally inspiring us with a name for the RoadTrek....the HMS Comfort!!!

NW Olympic Penninsula
**Sorry for the picture delay...but here they are!!

Here we are in Port Angeles WA getting ready to watch a movie and then get a good nights sleep before we jump on the ferry tomorrow to head to Victoria Canada. We left Long Beach Thursday morning and headed up the coast and then inland to Forks, WA right into the middle of the Olympic National Forest and the Olympic National Park. 101 hugs the coast for a while before it heads inland - so we said our goodbyes to the Pacific Coast for a while. It was very foggy but still beautiful! We drove through huge pine forests going in and out of the National Forest. It is easy to tell when you have left the National Forest or Park as clearcutting by all the area lumber and paper plants becomes very evident. Not much to report on our evening in Forks other than a yummy dinner alla our Coleman Grill and Ted!

Today we got up and hit the road and drove to Sol Duc Hot Springs in Olympic National Park. It was very cool...there was a fresh water pool at 88 degrees and then 3 mineral pools ranging from 98 - 104 degrees. It looked like you were at a regular pool except for the back drop of pine covered mountains and no chlorine - just the smell of sulfur!! They are famout hot mineral springs that have been being used for hundreds of years to cure all ills. We must say, by the time we left, Ted's Rheumatism and my pleurisy. So once we were healed of all of our ills we got back in the car to drive through more amazing forest.

We then came across Crescent Lake....which was AMAZING!! We hadn't read anything about it so we were surprised when we encountered it. It is clear and has waves it is so large! It sits at the base of multiple pine covered mountains and is georgous! We followed signs to the Crescent Lake Lodge - a really cute lodge on the lake that reminded me of the setting for Dirty Dancing...LOL!!

Then we continued on to Port Angeles for the night. We drove into town, unfortunately things were pretty much closed but we drove around and took in the views of the town set next to mountains with just a touch of snow still on top. Checked out the where we will be leaving from tomorrow on the ferry and came back to the RV park for a little grilled Halibut!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. As I mentioned we head to Victoria tomorrow and then hop on another ferry to Vancouver on Sunday. So Mackenzie not only enters a new country tomorrow but he will be riding his first of 3 ferries on this trip (we are scheduled to take a ferry from WI to MI).

Love Us

1000 miles and counting...

We crossed the 1000 mile mark for the trip yesterday driving around Portland! Sorry for the few days off the blog we didn't have wireless in Portland.

To catch everyone up....we left Loon Lake Monday morning and headed up the highway a few hours to Portland. We got there in time for a late lunch at Burgerville...a local chain of featuring yummy Tilamook Cheddar burgers and Walla Walla Onion Rings!!! Topped it off with a rasberry smoothie....rasberries just came into season. Needless to say we had a VERY light dinner. Settled into our spot at the Jantzen Beach RV Park on an island in the Columbia River...very cool. Enjoyed the pool and then headed to a local brewery where Mack could hang out with lots of pooches...The Lucky Labrador Brewery.

Tuesday morning we awoke to learn that Portland was expecting a record breaking high of 102...average high in July is 80! So we decided to take a drive along the Columbia River Historic Hiqhway along the Columbia River Gorge. It was beautiful! We saw a bunch of waterfalls includingMultnomah Falls and took a little wade in to to cool off. (Kristy - thanks for the suggestion we actually found it our own and read that when we got back!)

We made one more brewery stop in Hood River at the Full Sail Brewery. We did a quick tasting as it was still really hot and no dogs allowed. Hood River is known for its windsurfing and it was a really cute town. The beer was pretty good too!

Then we continued around and took the Mt. Hood loop which literally took us around Mt. Hood - it was spectacular. You can actually see Mt. Hood and Mt. St Helens from Portland but it was even more impressive close up. We drove up to the Timberline Lodge where you can ski year round. In fact they were hosting a Burton Snowboarding competition this week. We got there too late to see anything though. Headed back to Portland in time for the sun to be lowering and the temperature to be in the 90s and headed to Andina, a wonderful Peruvian place suggested by Juli via Joan. It was delicious - a must stop if you are in Portland! The only bummer was no air conditioning - as no one in Portland usually needs it so it was a little hot.

Today we took off before it got too hot and headed back towards the coast. We stopped in Seaside, OR, a very cute oceanfront town with a nice mainstreet and boardwalk. We took a walk on the beach and tired Mack out - our typical beach activity! Then drove along the coast through Astoria, OR and then over a HUGE bridge that crosses the Columbia River into Washington.

We are staying in Long Beach, WA tonight right on the ocean (again 1 RV spot away!). It is foggy and chilly here, looks like we will be using the heater instead of the AC tonight! Tomorrow we head up to Forks, WA.

Hope everyone is having a great week!! Thanks for all the comments we love reading them!!

Love Us

Oregon!!

We made it!! Although not without a little difficulty. We hit our first bump of the trip - when we went to start up and pull out of Kamp Klamath our car battery was dead. Still not sure what happened but after searching for anyone with jumper cables we finally found "Pete" the guy who runs the place and he rode over on his golf cart to give us a hand! Thankfully it worked and we were off. We made a pit stop in Crescent City, CA at Wal-Mart and Safeway. We bought a device to ensure we can jump ourselves next time : )

Then finally we arrived in Oregon!! We drove along the 101 which rides right on the Oregon coastline until we reached Gold Beach where we stayed at a great little RV park right on the ocean. We even had our own little lighthouse! After a little dinner - penne alla vodka is a good RV meal - we headed down to the beach to watch the sunset and tire Mack out (the latter was quite successful!).






Today we got up and continued our trek up the 101 to Reedsport. We passed through Coos Bay which was a really cute port town on the coast. The 101 was fun to drive as we alternated between coast and pine forests. No more redwoods up here. When we hit Reedsport we headed inland to Loon Lake and are staying right on the lake - one RV spot away! We did a little laundry and Ted took a swim in the lake - I just stuck my feet in. Its cooling off and we are enjoying a quiet evening here at Loon Lake. Tommorrow we head inland and then up to Portland for two nights - we are both looking forward to it as we have heard great things about the city. We are sad to leave the 101 as that has been our route since we left San Francisco but we will return as we head back to the Washington coast via a stop in Astoria later in the week.

Last but not least....HAPPY BIRTHDAY Judy!!!

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