home again

We are back safe and sound in Victoria having travelled all those miles without incident and I don't think we lost anything along the way. Ron says we travelled 15,000 km.

We saw some very interesting places and we met some very interesting people as well as all our friends and family along the way.

It is good to be home and reconnecting with friends and family here.

moses lake to chilliwack

We awoke to yet another day of sunshine but cooler temps—70 degrees and no humidity. It was a perfect day to head for the mountains again. We travelled through dessert like land west and then north in Washington towards the Cascade Mountains. En route we were fortunate to find some roadside stands that had the last of the rainier cherries and even some yummy looking local honey. As we approached the Cascades we travelled thru the town of Wenatchee, the largest producer of apples in the country. We were just a little too early for the apple harvest but did find some pears freshly picked. Our first stop was in Leavenworth. Leavenworth is in the narrow Icicle Valley with the Cascade Mountains as background. It was originally was called Icicle, from the American Indian work “nasikelt” or “narrow-bottom canyon”. In the mid 1800’s the gold rush brought an influx of people to the valley followed by the railroad in 1892. The townsite of Leavenworth was established and named for Captain Charles Leavenworth, president of the Okanagan Investment Company. Leavenworth became railway central with connections to the west and to the east. The logging industry took hold and the town thrived until 1925 when the railway relocated its HQ to Wenatchee. The loss of the tracks and the subsequent loss of shipping ease meant a decline in the industry and population. It took until 1965 before the town gathered and decided to “go alpine” and officially commit to a Bavarian theme. Today Leavenworth is like a typical Bavarian village with beautiful geraniums in window boxes, buildings decorated with ornate woodwork and Bavarian motifs, restaurants that feature German and American food and a huge variety of shops with local crafts and European imports. We found a shaded walk around a tiny island in the Icicle River so were able to wear off our schnitzel. We continued along the 100 mile drive thru the Cascade mountains thru Steven’s Pass and on down into North Seattle. We did make a stop at one of the Outlet Malls to satisfy my shopping needs then headed north to the border. We were again fortunate to get thru with minimal wait and then drove east to Chilliwack where we were greeted by Jennie and Chinelo. We started our vacation with them and it is fitting that we finished at their home. It was a wonderful welcome and a good night’s sleep.
We were up early and headed for the ferry to Victoria—and then on to home.

kalispell to moses lake washington

The Grand Hotel in Kalispell sent us on our way this morning with a delicious breakfast—the best of the continental breakfasts we’ve had so far on the trip. It was a driving day today as we travelled through Montana to Idaho and then into Washington State. We were in the Kootenai (the American spelling) and Purcell Mountains as we drove north. The smoke from the fires was with us pretty much to the Idaho border and we were certainly happy to leave it behind. We spoke with the flag person when we were stopped for road construction and she said that it is the norm in Montana in the summer to have fires—it is so dry and if they do get rain it is usually a thunder storm with lightning. We found there were some nice small towns north of Kalispell where there were very nice looking little motels—Libby and Troy.

We travelled to the resort town of Sandpoint which is on Lake Pend Oreille—a busy and thriving little town in Idaho. It is a year round resort town and artists’ community as well as being one of the American west’s great railroad towns. The guide tells us that more than 40 trains a day pass thru Sandpoint. Our neighbours Tom and Heather had told us of this town and the lake so we decided to give it a look when we were so close. We found a delightful cafe for lunch and also a bakery for our coffee and dessert. I did goof in this town as I read after the fact that Coldwater Creek has it’s flagship store there—I don’t know how I missed it.

We drove south from Sandpoint and joined the Interstate through Spokane and stopped at a little town a little further west. We are settled for the night in Moses Lake—the town and the Lake take their name from Chief Moses who was said to be a an influential American Indian leader. We enjoyed a walk along the lake before calling it a day. Ron talked to some men who were fishing on the dock to see what they were after—perch or anything that would bite was the answer. The day ended with another perfect sunset.

great falls to kalispell montana

We decided that we had better get a very early start today as the waitress last night told us it would take 4 hours to drive to Glacier National Park and then 4 hours to travel across the road to the sun if we stopped at the places we ought to stop. She was pretty close to the mark (it took us 3 hours to get to the entrance to the park). We travelled from Great Falls up to St. Mary along hwy. 89 through the last of the Montana Plains. It was interesting to see the change in the landscape as we drove along—on the one side we could see for miles on the wide open prairie and looking out the other side we had the mountains and the evergreens. At St. Mary we entered the park and drove for 50 miles along the going-to-the-sun road. This was a beautiful drive through the heart of the Glacier National Park and up the steep slopes of the Continental Divide and over Logan Pass (6,646 feet). We were happy that we were driving from the east to the west as we hugged the mountain side and not the steep drop-off. We found a pretty spot to sit and enjoy our lunch at a little creek surrounded by wildflowers. The road is narrow and in some places they are doing repairs to areas that have been damaged by rockslides, severe weather and heavy traffic. It took us a good three hours to traverse this road and stop to walk or look at the scenery—by the time we reached the bottom we were in scenery overload from all the glacier carved peaks, deep blue lakes and lush forests. We took numerous photos that do not begin to do justice to this spectacular scenery. Again we were most fortunate with the weather and the smoke from the fires was not evident in the park—we are seeing some tonight in the village of Kalispell. Kalispell is in the Flathead Valley between the Swan and Kootenai ranges of the Rocky mountains. It is noted for the production of sweet cherries and huckleberries—we found some cherries along the way and also some huckleberries. We bought the cherries and had every intention of having some huckleberry sourcream pie for dinner tonight but we were just too full—these American dinners are meant for two. We found a historic hotel in downtown Kalispell that has been recently restored. In 1912 the hotel charged travellers $2.00 per night—not so now but it is a lovely location right downtown with interesting stores and good food nearby—cookies and tea in the lobby so Mr. Ron is a happy camper. The sunsets are interesting in this area right now as they are seen thru the smoke haze. We have missed the worst of the smoke all along this time in Montana—we will leave the state tomorrow and likely get to Washington and closer to home.

billings to great falls montana

We had a later start today as Ron was able to find a HONDA dealer to service the van—no problems just an oil change and check up. We followed the Interstate west through more of Montana’s great plains heading towards the mountains. This is fertile land with many of the farms in the valley right at the edge of the mountains. The forest fires near here have created a lot of haze and smoke so there were times when we could not see the mountains or just saw an outline of them. We were looking at the Rockies but certainly it looks very different from the Rockies as we know them in Canada. It is very dry here and a lot of scrub land—it is not hard to figure out where they are doing irrigation. We noticed a sign for a woollen mill at the exit we were taking for our lunch break so found it and had a look. There was a huge inventory of Woolrich garments but somehow the quality was not as good as the mills we had visited in Bemidji MN and Johnson VT—we did not find anything to buy—could be the heat was a factor. We found an interesting place for lunch—a place called the Garage and that is just what it was, an old garage. They made just the best soup—clam chowder and tomato basil—yum. Once back on the road we turned north and headed for the capital of Montana, Helena, but did not stop as we had decided to make our destination Great Falls for the night. We were able to find another in the chain of hospital motels so are happily settled and ready to explore. Great Falls is located on the Missouri River among the five falls that were one of the most challenging but beautiful parts of Lewis and Clarke’s historic journey. We did take time for a very quick look at the Lewis and Clarke National Historic Trail Interpretive Center (they were closing) which did outline their time spent in Montana which had to be an onerous task given the terrain and all the falls in the river. We did find two of the five falls along the River’s edge trail where we had our daily walk. The Missouri is a mighty river too. We finally found our baby back ribs and had a feast for our dinner tonight.

hill city to billings montana

Our campsite owners provided a wonderful breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, homefries, onions and biscuits with gravy along with coffee and juice all served at picnic tables in a cabin. It was a huge undertaking as the biker community ate early and lots. It was a great start to our day. We headed out to travel thru the black hills and were again accompanied by numerous motorcycles. The Black Hills are described as an island of mountains in a sea of prairies—the hills are the highest point east of the Rockies and are pine covered mountains. We followed highway 385 up to Deadwood, then thru Lead to Spearfish via the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway. Deadwood was the site of the last big frontier gold rush in North America—both Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane lived and died there. Deadwood is still a gaming town so we thought we would park the car, roam the main street and maybe even try our luck at some of the slots but even at 9am the place was alive and full—no room to move or park so we just turned the car around and headed for the highway and the beautiful drive thru the mountains along the Spearfish Creek which runs north for some strange reason. As we proceeded further to the west we lost site of the motorcycles and once into Wyoming there were very few to be seen on the road.

We travelled in the northeast part of Wyoming—it is between the Black Hills on the east and the Big Horn Mountains on the west. It was hot but not humid and very windy—someone said it was always windy in Wyoming. We could see for miles on the wide open plains under clear skies—no smog or humidity here. We had hoped to have a feed of ribs for lunch but they did not serve them until evening so had to settle for prime rib instead.

We left Wyoming and entered Montana close to where Custer made his last stand at the battle of Little Big Horn. Actually we stopped at the information centre in Hardin and found another of those wonderful community museums that documented the past of the county—it is located 15 miles from the famous battle. We spent time exploring all the buildings that they had moved to this original farm site—the original farm house and barn are there but there is also a school, a doctor’s office, a church,--22 buildings in all. It is a lot of work and very well presented so worth a stop and had it not been so hot we might have spent even longer there.

We decided to stop for the night in Billings Montana and are in a nice little motel right downtown next door to the hospital and their medical complex. This particular motel chain, Riverstone Inns make it a policy to build near hospitals and give a special rate to patients needing daily tests and treatments or families visiting inpatients. Their regular rates for the likes of us are also more reasonable than any of the other motels in town. Since we only wanted soup for supper we decided to try the hospital cafeteria—a good choice it was too, as the soup was good, the sandwich freshly made to our specs and the salad nice and fresh. It was nice to walk after dinner but not too far as it was just a little to hot for our liking.

luverne to hill city sd

We thought we had seen a lot of bikes yesterday but today as we travelled west in South Dakota we found there were more motorcyclists on the road than there were cars and there we were in the middle of it all. They were all headed for Sturgis and the towns and cities in a 50 mile radius around Sturgis—some of the towns close their main streets to traffic so that it can become a parking lot for the bikers. We also found out that it was difficult to find a place to put your head. We were fortunate to find a very helpful woman at the welcome centre and together we found us a room. It is a delightful place in Hill city in the Black Hills. The black hills remind us of the green mountains in Vermont but they are indeed darker green and black looking. We are staying in a resort for campers—tents, RV’s, cabins and a small motel. They had a room and it was very reasonable so here we are in the Black Hills of South Dakota just below Mount Rushmore.

We left Minnesota early this morning (Monday Augurst 6)and had our first stop in Mitchell South Dakota. Our friend Heather suggested that we would enjoy the stop at the corn palace and she was right. The corn palace was first created in 1892 by the local farmers to show that more than buffalo were important to the area. Portions of the exterior and the interior are covered with murals made from corn husks, local grasses and grains. The exterior motif is changed every year and we were fortunate to arrive when we did as they were beginning to remove the old grasses in preparation for the new mural—once the corn is harvested they remove the old cobs and about 20 locals work with an artist to make a new mural. The outdoor mural becomes a huge bird feeder as well as a work of art. As well as being a tourist attraction this “palace”is the local community hall and is used for graduation, local basketball games, trade shows—even the Shrine Circus. We opted for an early lunch and found a great stop at Chamberlain-Oacoma on the Missouri called Al’s Oasis. It advertised homemade pies and coffee for 5 cents so Ron was sold. The meal was great—a buffalo burger for Ron and liver for me. Ron said the lemon pie was almost as good as Tedde’s so we left full and ready for our trek to the Badlands. The badlands are amazing—right plunk in the middle of the Prairie. The National park allows one to drive or hike in the badlands—we opted to drive and spent a lot of time stopping to take yet another photo. You cannot capture the beauty of this area on paper or in a photo—it has to be seen. There are irregular ravines, fantastic ridges, low hills and cliffs in variegated colour alternating with grayish-white sediment. We were in awe of it all and enjoyed our time in the park. We came out of the park at Wall which is famous for it’s drug store that is now a block long. We did not spend long here as we were now concerned about a room. We phoned some 800 numbers from Wall and most places were full and any who had rooms wanted $300.00 so we decided to get in the car and head for the Black Hills hoping that they were far enough away from all the activities in Sturgis. NOT. We found a welcome centre and got excellent help and a room so we then carried on to Mount Rushmore Memorial Park to view the magnificent sculptures of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln. The park itself is beautiful and the information available on the creation of the sculpture is very interesting. It was a lovely evening to be out walking and we did enjoy after suffering in 96 degree heat all afternoon. We had fog and cooler weather for our morning drive but not so lucky in the afternoon. Most of the campers here are bikers so we certainly do look out of place in our zip off shorts and tee shirts. I have never seen so many motorcycles. I think someone told us there were about 500,000 here for the rally.

Who knows where tomorrow will take us. Stay tuned.