Thursday, August 11, 2011

Happy Anniversary, Ashley and Reeves!
Joann and I have unpacked and put away, rearranged, and rearranged. Tired of it all, we left yesterday for the Pacific Ocean. We arrived in Ocean shores, WA, after about 3 1/2 hours - 65 degrees, overcast, wide, wide beach. This is definitely different from Isle of Palms, SC! Here the water temp is 60 degrees and you are told not to go in the water for fear of hypothermia and rip tides!
The beach is a drivable beach and everyone parks and builds bon fires and walks or plays on the beach. Plenty of different types of seaweed, some of which I can't find in the books Sherry gave me on the Northwest. We found razor clams which is what this area is known for. Also found lots of broken sand dollars. I got a picture of a kelp crab - deep red and very active.

Supper was at a local Irish pub which had the most wonderful Irish soda bread, soups, and hot chocolate.  I had a Farfor Bridie which is beef, lamb and veggies in a crispy crust with potatoes - wonderful!

We are off to a scenic tour of the western part of the Olympics and a ferry ride and home!
Pictures!

View from the hotel of the Pacific



  1/4 mile walk to the hotel from the beach

Kelp Crab

Sunday, August 7, 2011

We are here! Joann and I got ino Seattle around 5pm on Friday and started unpacking immediately. We had 150 boxes to unpack and are down to the last 5 - the picture boxes. I'll include a picture of how the townhouse looked when we walked in - wall to wall stuff to do! However, I think I"ll really like where I am. Nw that the lving room has cleared out some, I'll have room and light- an important part of Seattle life, I've been told. There is, however, very little stoage. My closet is the size of a 1950's ranch and I only have 4 cabinets and 5 drawers in the kitchen. Joann is a big help with coming up with creative ideas for storage!
I last blogged on the 3rd, I think. We were headed through Alberta and British Columbia, Canada on Thursday. This was a gorgeous ride and we had so much fun looking at all the sites. We arrived at Wendy and Bob Carlson's around 2 Thursday and had a great visit. Wendy took us on a boat ride to a floating restaurant. The food was delicious, above and beyond what we had in days previous. On Friday we woke at 6:30 to Bob washing the car! We looked very clean and shiny driving into Seattle.
Friday we tried the interstate, but got bored and sleepy very quickly, so took back roads and went through this beautiful valley with all kinds of fruit trees.
As we approached Seattle, we were very glad we were headed in instead of trying to leave for the week-end. (Note to self- leave at dawn on Fridays if trying to get away!
I plan to continue to blog, but do not have internet, so it will be spotty until next week. Joann and I are headed to the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday and back on Thursday.
Lecture mode:
Many of you love to  travel to Europe, Greece, the Islands and that is wonderful! However, if you haven't gotten into your car, stayed off the interstate and traveled the back roads ( even around your home town), you are missing out on sooooo mjuch. Try a car instead of a plane, a bike instead of a car, but explore!
Pictures:

Frank Slide, Alberta, Canada

  Frank Slide, 1903 - half the mountain and half the population lost

Hanging Out

View from the Carlson's backyard

Quincy Valley, WA

Home!



Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Could not blog last night - no internet. We stayed in West Glacier, Montana, at the only vacancy which had electricity, water, and beds and that's about all.

Tuesday was a dash through Montana plains to get to Glacier National Park. We were on highway 2 almost the entire way and it is a mecca for bicyclists.
We went through a section of Montana where each little town had a population of around 500 and each one was about 6 miles from the next. You could see the next small town on the horizon as you whizzed through the last.

We got to East Glacier and our lovely room was in West Glacier about 60 miles and 5 construction zones away. It took around 2 1/2 hours. Plenty of time to observe the locals.

Today was a different day!!!!! Glacier National Park is a wonderful, grogeous place! The Going-to-the-Sun Road is amazing, a little scary in places (especially around construction zones), but has the most incredible views! Not a single picture that I put on will do the area justice, so if you haven't already been there, you need to get on your horse and ride to the west! We were not lucky with wild animal sightings, only a couple of marmots. Berries are not ripe so bears are not on the slopes.
We took a tour boat through Many Glacier Lake which then took us to a 1/2 mile walk and to another lake to see Grinnell Glacier. 1/2 mile back and back to original boat. Fun! (Also went over Continental Divide - twice!)
Then---- on to Canada! We are in Pincher Creek, Aberta, Canada tonight and happy to add another place to our list that we have never been. Tomorrow we head back to the states via another new road for us and in to Sandpoint, Idaho to visit with Ashley's mom and dad. 

The only "unusual" animals we saw on Tuesday - this is cattle country!

Our first waterfall - little did we know that the rest would be hundreds of feet long!

Glacier NP

Glacier NP

Glacier NP

Ice cave in GNP

Canadian Mountains

Monday, August 1

We left Spearfish early with a master plan of stopping early and resting weary tushes! Went first through Belle Fourche which is located just east of the geographical center of the US.
Unfortunately, I killed my second wild animal - a frog - somewhere on the very straight road from SD into ND.
After getting into ND and observing even more straight road, we decided to break tradition and get on an interstate - 94 - and go to Glendive, Montana, stop early, and rest. On the way, we discovered the Theodore Rossevelt National Park which includes the ND Badlands. These badlands are pretty but nothing  like the SD Badlands. However, we did see bison, antelope, and prairie dogs! Once at Glendive, we discovered there were NO hotel rooms to be found for 75 miles du to oil well workers. The owner of the restaurant where we had a late lunch suggested a place in Glasgow, Montana. Since we were planning to be on Highway 2 tomorrow to head to Glacier NP, we decided to try there. Lee Hunt went on line from Austin and found us a hotel - thanks! The ride up was 100 miles on back roads  which is our favorite route to take on any trip. It was quite lonely with only a very few cars, but beautiful! Lots of buttes, mesas, mountains, and finally, a gorgeous lake called Fort Peck Lake.
We are in for the night and resting our tired tushes!

I'm at 4400 miles so far since July 19!

North Dakota Badlands

Who is going to blink first? He was about 1 foot from the car.

Prairie dogs safe from the wheels of my car.

Fort Peck Lake - Lewis and Clark walked this land before the land was flooded for the lake.

PS: The donkeys yesterday are called "The Begging Burros"

Sunday, July 31

Another busy day:
* Mt. Rushmore - clear day and great views. It is amazing what hard work and skill that took! Joann climbed 159 steps - a record!
* Custer State Park - beautiful views and some wildlife. The donkeys were tame and would walk up to your car, put their heads in the window and beg for food

* Legion Lake  - great lunch of chicken salad and rueben
* Black Hills National Park - again, beautiful views!
* Crazy Horse Memorial - unfinished, but very impressive
* Deadwood, SD - we had expected a small town and there are only 1,083 residents, but it is a mecca for casinos, so is big and busy.
*Spearfish, SD - where we are tonight. We had a wonderful steak meal at "Bum Steer", are busy washing clothes, have had  a dip in a blue-bottomed pool, and are ready to call it a night and veg a little.

This next week is bikers week in Sturgis, SD which is super close to where we have been, so there are bikers everywhere! They are really enjoying the switchback curves of these mountains and always seem to travel in herds - older men with their biker-babes riding on the back.
I have been the queen-of-the-U-turn this trip and made the ultimate U-turn today. Blissfully traveling to what we thought was Deadwood, I realized we were only 5 miles from the Wyoming border and that meant we were 25 miles out from where we were supposed to turn for Deadwood. Problem here is the mountains get in the way of just taking the next road over to the right highway- you have to retrace your steps and start again - but at least the views and the switchbacks were worth it!

Guess Who!

From Custer State Park

Donkeys at work!

Legion Lake

Crazy Horse (will eventually be riding on a horse)

Only sighting of jack rabbit so far

Yes, Merrily there is such a thing as a jack-alope!



Saturday, July 30

Before I forget.... I meant to say on yesterday's blog that Katherine Lee Bates rode up to Pike's Peak in a carriage, fell in love with the view and wrote: America the Beautiful!
Also, saw 4 separate windfarms yesterday in eastern Colorado with more than 50 windmills each.
Today was supposed to be a short day for us where we would stop around 2, rest, write pastcards, swim, wash clothes as we are down to the bareminimum of bare minimums.
We went from NE to SD and saw so many long trains with coal - from Canada?
 We rode into Hot Springs, SD with the best of intentions and then saw the sign for the Mammoth Exhibition. So we went into and saw the largest Columbian mammoth dig in the world. It is still active and was really neat to see. After the dig, we went to a no-name cafe and had our best meal yet - go figure.
Then on to the Badlands via:
*a gravel road under construction with huge machines to navigate around
 * the Oglalla reservation with beautiful views and some strange sightings
* Scenic,SD, a virtual ghost town where almost everything is for sale
* a 30 mile gravel road through the center of the Badlands - the most incredible ride and place to go! We saw antelope, bison and prairie dogs and unbelievable views!
* dinner in the Badlands where I had Sioux Indian Fry Bread taco with buffalo meat - yum!
We are in Wall, SD now - it is around 11pm and we've been here for about 20 minutes. So goes our short day of rest and dirty clothes. Tomorrow morning is Wall Drugs and then on to Mt Rushmore and more.
So far, I've done pretty well I've only killed  one wildlife specimen - an unfortunate bird.
Furniture is in the new home - thanks Reeves and Ashley!

Mammoth bones

My wildlife picture - everything else moved too fast

This man is headed down a loooong stretch of road using his lawn mower for transportation!

A poor showing of all the wonders of the Badlands

Friday, July 29

A wonderful morning! We were up early and checked out of the motel by 6:30 because we had to be at Manitou Springs Cog Railroad by 7:30am. We took the railroad up tothe top of Pike's Peak! It was an hour 10 minutes up and equal time back, but the ride was great! Pike's Peak is 14,100 feet tall. We had about 50 minutes up there to take pictures and walk around. Unfortunately, after about 20 minutes, Joann and I (and a lot of other people) were feeling  the effects of the high altitude and were back in the train about 10 minutes early. One of the have-to's at the top is to have mile-high donuts - which we did  - light-headed or not! Only wildlife we saw was a marmot and beautiful butterflies, but saw bucks and does at Garden of the Gods again.
Afterwards, we went to old Colorado Springs and had lunch at a French deli - very good!
Then back to the Colorado plains as we headed northeast towards Nebraska.
We are currently in Sidney, Nebraska.
Tomorrow we head north to South Dakota and Mt. Rushmore.

Merrily on Friday looking a little woozy after the gold mine tour.

End of the line for the train at Pikes Peak

Joann before the woozy sets in at the top of Pikes Peak

The view from the top of Pikes Peak

Painting on side of building in Old Colorado Springs