Day 74 (July 29) – Butte, MT

Lon came out to tell us goodbye and take a family photo of us.  A neighbor lady across the street came over to say goodbye and wish us well.  And our next-door neighbors wished us safe travels from their dining room window.  It felt a little like we were moving away from home. 

Then we had another long driving day all on I-90. Longer because of changing  time zones.  We stopped at a rest area for lunch.  That is always nicer than a gas station parking lot.  We drove across just a little bit of Idaho and then into Montana.  It was a beautiful drive.  We made it to Fairmont RV Park just outside of Butte, MT around 5:00.  This is a perfectly fine park.  It’s just not Wild Rose.  The showers were great.  Carmen loved her 10 minutes on the playground.  The girls and I enjoyed watching the women’s gymnastics qualifying competition.  So sad for sweet Jordyn.  Carmen was rooting for Gabby.  I’m not sure how much we’ll be able to see (if any) the rest of this week since we’ll be in Yellowstone.  Hmm…  It may also be a few days before I’m back to blogging.

Day 73 (July 28) – Relaxing

Today is Saturday.  No school.  I started the day by cleaning the camper.  Somehow, we have more stuff stuffed in there than we have the whole trip.  Partly it’s because we have picked up a few things along the way (a fan, some glasses, bowls, etc.), but also, my grocery list yesterday may have been a little over the top.  Plus there’s the 2 loaves of zucchini bread and 2 dozen cookies.  For the most part, I do not miss much about home.  I do not miss my house or my stuff.  I do miss my oven every once in a while.  It was nice to bake!

After cleaning, I joined the girls in the rec room to watch the Olympics.  Brad had gone to an RV supply store to get chemicals and front stabilizer jacks.  Our trailer is pretty shaky sometimes depending on the ground cover of our sites (grass - asphalt – gravel).  So far it seems like the jacks help a lot.

Talked to Dixie (sister-in-law), gave myself a pedicure, took the girls to the gas station to get a pack of candy (Audra for memorizing the prepositions, Carmen for memorizing her 1-3 multiplication facts), ate hamburgers, watched more Olympics.  It’s a little sad to be leaving tomorrow, but nature calls.  Actual Nature.


P.S.  I have started reading John Muir's "My First Summer in the Sierra."

Day 72 (July 27) – Wild Rose RV Park

I think we have found a new home.  We are right next to the laundry, so I got all that done last night.  We spent the morning doing school in the sweet little rec room that is decked out with a kitchen, two dining room tables and a cozy TV viewing area.  Lon and Arlene are the managers here.  Lon has made friends with Brad and even had his picture made with him.  I think it’s the music-celebrity thing.  Lon is a picker.  We also met Judi, the assistant manager.  Carmen went to the garden with her to help her pick the days haul.  Brad had washed her bread pans last night when he washed our dishes in the kitchen, so she gave us some zucchini bread (with craisins and apricots – yum) and Carmen earned us some zucchini and cucumbers.  Brad went shopping, including the grocery.  I had him get me some baking ingredients since we have access to an oven.  I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and my Granny’s zucchini bread recipe.  Brad said the cookies are the best he’s ever tasted.  They really are yummy (Climb Nashville vegetarian cookbook recipe).  I borrowed a cookie sheet from Arlene and bread pans from Judi.  This place makes me happy.  I gave Arlene some cookies when I returned her pan to her.

We spent our evening in the rec room too.  Yes – we have taken it over.  But we got to watch the opening ceremonies for the Olympics!  I am perfectly happy not having access to a TV, except for things like the Olympics.  So we decided to stay one more day here to watch the first day of competition.  Plus, Lon said he would fire up his grill and give us some hamburgers and buns.  J  The girls and I stayed up till midnight to see the torch being lit.

P.S. We had to replace the blower on our AC at home.  Bummer.
Wild Rose RV Park

Day 71 (July 26) – Marching On

Got up early.  Shower at 6:30.  We left at 9:00.  We are planning a long driving day today.  Yellowstone is 14 ½ hours away.  Perfect for 3 days if one is a little longer.  We stopped at a fruit stand and bought some Rainier Cherries.  We stopped at a Rest Area to make lunch.  We stopped to get gas and bought some peaches and kettle corn at the fruit stand there.

We drove past Mt. Ranier – beautiful view of a domed cloud hanging just over the top that I couldn’t get a photo of.  We drove past Rimrock Lake.  (another huge lake.  We drove back into the desert.  Are we in Utah?? And now we are in farm country.

We drove down I-90 and then drove north of Spokane to Wild Rose RV park.  It is in the country.  Sort of feels like MO.  I am hearing coyotes as I’m typing.  Sort of familiar.  This is a really nice park.  We may stay a couple of days to gear up for the eastward trek of our trip.

We are having trouble with our RV A/C (dripping), our at home A/C (Hiller please help – cheaply) and we burned up a charger in the truck today (it was smoking before we finally realized what the horrible smell was.)  I think I’ll call it a night.

Day 70 (July 25) – Leaving Olympic (Ruby Beach/Aberdeen)

Back on 101 we headed southwest toward the coastal strip of Olympic.  We drove through Forks, which I have heard is the setting of the “Twilight” series.  There were plenty of signs along the tiny main street claiming just that fact.

We pulled off at Ruby Beach and walked the short path to the shore.  It is a beautiful place with lots of white driftwood and sea stacks.  There was also a bald eagle posing in the top of a dead tree.  We just stopped to see it and take photos, but the girls didn’t want to leave.  I wish we had planned to spend more time here.  I took some deep breaths of the ocean air and said goodbye to the west coast as we got back in the truck and began our long eastward trek.

We got off 101 at Aberdeen.  The Arnetts had told us about Sucher and Sons Star Wars Shop.  That is where our GPS was leading us.  We spent a good 45 minutes poking around this anything and everything Star Wars packed store.  The owner was there and so nice.  He said he and his sons rented a space 17 years ago as a summer project.  The boys begged to keep it open after school and on weekends.  One of them still works there.  The stuff (all 50%) was a little pricey.  I think they enjoy collecting as much (or more than) they like to sell it.  I’ve never seen so much SW stuff.  They had stuff I had never heard of.  It was kind of like a museum.  Fun stop!

Then we headed on to 12 toward I-5 and eventually Mt. Rainier again.  (We retraced our steps a bit here.)  We stopped at Ike Kinswa State Park and got one of the last 3 spots.  (And someone came in right behind us!)  Beautiful park on a lake with hookups.  The weather was great and no mosquitoes.

Ruby Beach/Star Wars

Day 69 (July 24) – Hoh Rain Forest

Leaving Hurricane Ridge area of Olympic.  We had and traveled 101 all the way up the Oregon Coast and now are traveling 101 all the way around Olympic NP.  It is still a beautiful drive.  Today we drove along Crescent Lake, which just goes on and on.  I wish I would have timed how long it took us to get past it.  It is huge.  It took us about 2 ½ hours to get from HR to Hoh.

Our campground was right around the corner from the VC, but we didn’t know, so we unhitched and drove.  We checked to see about ranger programs as the girls needed to attend one for their Jr. Ranger badge, but we had missed the morning one and the next one was at 8:00 PM.  The ranger on duty, however, wanted to give them a private session and led us out to a little bridge over a creek.  He had them squat down and he started killing flies.  Then he dropped them into the water and we watched as baby salmon swam up and gulped them almost as soon as they hit the water.  The girls loved this and started killing their own salmon bait and feeding the salmon.  Rangers are great!

Then we hiked two little loop trails.  The Hall of Mosses (.8 round trip) and the Spruce Nature Trail (1.2 RT).  We liked the second hike better because there were fewer people.  We’re not anti-people.  It’s just nicer to hike in solitude.

After this we went back to camp for dinner.  The mosquitoes were swarming so we put up our screen tent.  We have used this to keep out the rain and the sun.  This is the first time we have used it for bugs.  Again – thankful to have it!

The girls and I went to the amphitheater for Ranger Robert’s presentation “If Trees Could Talk.”  We were wearing pants and long sleeves and I wiped our faces with bug spray, but the girls still got two or three mosquito bites on their faces.  The talk was fascinating.  Ranger Robert was a forester for 31 years.  Their motto for timbering was “cut it flat, burn it black, plant in back.”  They thought this was the responsible thing to do, but have since realized the intergenerational connection (literally connected by fungi and roots underground) of trees and know that forests never recover when completely cut down.  (Think “Avatar”).

Then I had another restless night.  Not as bad as usual.  Heart racing.  Was it the Diet Dr. Pepper and two mini Reese’s cups I had at noon?  Other days it doesn’t seem to matter.  It really is frustrating when I want to know why, but can’t figure it out.

Hoh Rain Forest

Day 68 (July 23) – If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again

We decided to try again for the view at Hurricane Ridge.  We headed up through much less fog than yesterday and drove out of the clouds into the parking area of the VC.  While the fog was better, the clouds were still hovering around and below us out over the mountain peaks.  We sat and waited about 45 minutes to see if it would clear.  Finally we gave up and headed back down into town for some antique shopping.  Of course, as we were driving away, we started to see blue sky around us and behind us, but that was no guarantee the view had really improved any.  We planned to come back later this afternoon when it was supposed to be getting sunny.

Lots of fun shopping.  Brad bought Carmen a pocketknife.  She and Audra have started whittling, but their little souvenir knives from TX just aren’t cutting it.  Ha!  I promised I wouldn’t buy anything today since I bought books and clothes yesterday (necessary jeans and shoes…and cookies!).  I then promptly found some Christmas presents for family and had to buy those.  I found a field guide to North American birds for $3 and bought that.  And I bought “A Wrinkle in Time” for $2 for Carmen.  Audra has started it once and didn’t like it, but it was one of my favorites.  I think that was it though, besides Safeway.  Oops.  I’m not a good window shopper.

All that shopping made us really hungry.  Too hungry for the snack box.  Yesterday I overheard someone recommending The Cornerhouse Restaurant for their prices and food (fries!).  It is a diner type restaurant with diner prices, but better than your typical diner food.  We tried it out and it became one of our top restaurants of the trip.  Huge portions and delicious food.  Audra had the soup and sandwich special: turkey and rice soup (tasted like Thanksgiving) and a giant bbq sandwich (on a big fat Hawaiian roll).  Carmen had a chicken tenders kids meal with fries, green salad and garlic toast.  I finally got fish and fries.  The best I’ve ever had (and I’ve had them in England!).  Brad got the clam chowder which he has had at a couple other restaurants out here and it won hands down.  That was a whole paragraph about our lunch, but it was that good.  (for $35)  (and really good coffee)

We dropped our groceries off at camp, regrouped and headed back up the hill to H.R. one more time.  It was a little foggy toward the middle, but at the top was pretty clear.  We could see mountain peaks!  And there were deer all over the parking lot.  I was able to take some decent photos of the mountains.  I kept waiting for Mt. Olympus to come into view.  There was a cloud just sitting in front of it for most of the time, but finally it moved so that I got a glimpse.  The mountains stretch to each side as far as you can see.  It’s not a depth thing where you see row after row, or maybe it is and I just couldn’t see it because of clouds, but the panoramic view was pretty spectacular from that ridge.

We had a picnic supper while looking at all those mountains.  Then we went on an evening hike.  I think it would have been a sunset hike if you could have seen the sun.  The fog was moving back in across the meadow and ridge where the trail went.  Our view was once again flowers and fog and snow.  I’m trying not to be disappointed because we have had such great weather for most of the trip.  I guess since I did get some photos we will not go back again.  Tomorrow we plan to head to Hoh Rain Forest area.
Hurricane Ridge Take 2

Day 67 (July 22) – Hurricane Ridge

At Mt. Rainier we took our first hike in the snow.  Today at Olympic we took our first hike in the clouds!  We drove up to Hurricane Ridge to hike and see the view.  On the way up, the fog was so thick, we could see about 10 yards in front of our truck.  We went through three tunnels that were sort of spooky.  It was foggy in the tunnels and at the far end you could just see white haze.  When we got to the Visitor’s Center, the fog had lifted a bit so you could see the meadow and some green hills beyond the VC.  The mountains were mostly hidden by clouds.  We went in and got hiking info and looked in the gift shop.  Then we hiked the Hurricane Hill trail (3.2 mi round trip).  This trail had a pretty swift elevation gain of 750 feet.  That part was a little tough.  We saw beautiful wildflowers, marmots, deer and fog, lots of fog.  By the time we got to the top, we were hiking in the fog and couldn’t see much beyond the edge of the ridge.  I’ve got some fun pictures to prove it!  The flowers were worth the whole hike to me.  Mt. Rainier is know for its flowers, but they had so much snow this year that the ground was still trying to thaw out, so flowers were in early stages.  Here the flowers are a little further along in their season – so pretty and colorful.

We went back to the VC for the girls to buy two little stuffed animals they had been thinking about from our earlier peek in the gift shop.  By the time we got back upstairs and were ready to eat lunch, it was raining pretty hard.  Brad ran out and got our food and we grabbed an indoor picnic table.  (I’ll bet these come in handy a lot.)  After lunch, we watched a park film.  I think it might have really been a filmstrip from 1979.  Then we headed back down the foggy road toward Port Angeles.  I’m so glad I took pictures at the VC when we got there this morning, because after our hike it was so foggy you couldn’t even see the meadow behind the VC!  We had planned to leave tomorrow, but may stay here another night to try to see the mountains.

We drove on in to Port Angeles to find a couple of bookstores Brad had looked up.  We stopped at Goodwill and bought a few things.  Then we restocked the girls on books (used book store: Anne of Green Gables books 3, 4, 5, and 7!) and I got an Audubon wildflower book for $8.  We were able to turn in a few of the girls books for credit.  I think all Brad got was a coffee mug.  At Goodwill.  Oh well.  It was rainy most of the time and rainy back at camp.  We ate a quick supper (it wasn’t raining then) and got to bed early.  Lots of reading time for those new books.
Hurricane Hill Hike

Day 66 (July 21) – Olympic NP

We had a late night last night so I tried to let the girls sleep in a little bit.  Brad got up at 7 and went into Puyallup for groceries.  Sweet man.  I got the girls up a little after 8 and we took showers.  I think I enjoy my last shower FOR a while as much as I enjoy my first shower IN a while.   No showers at Olympic.

We weren’t in too big of a hurry to leave because we were only driving about 2 ½ hours to a campground in the Hurricane Ridge section of the park.  We left around10:30.  At 1:30, we were sitting in stop and go traffic still 35 miles from the park.  Probably for a good 8 miles we were moving about 2 miles and hour.  We were just hoping all the other cars weren’t also going to Olympic to camp!  Turns out, the traffic was backed up due to a Lavender festival.  A tiny, lavender festival.  They were about 4 little white tents and what looked like about 20 people wandering around the yard.  The police car, with its lights on, in the main road (with the police man who was not directing traffic because there wasn’t any going in or out of the Lavender Fest.) was pretty much the big hold up.  Past that we were able to drive again.  We got to the visitor center in Port Angeles and found out that camping looked good still around the immediate area, so we headed south to Heart o’ the Hills campground.  We were told to try Loop A with our camper and we found several spots waiting for us!  They even have pull throughs!  Never seen that at a national park.  They also have electricity in the bathhouse – lights, a hand dryer and an outlet (my hair was still wet from my shower and I was getting cold so I was able to blow dry my hair!).  To top it all off – soap!  That’s right.  Olympic rocks. 

We didn’t really see any of it today though.  We set up camp and sat down in our chairs.  Back in the wilderness.  We are breathing it in.  No mulch here.  Just very tall trees.  We made a plan for tomorrow, ate soup, popped popcorn, had a reluctant fire (is it the humidity?  We have been in wet places the last few days) and roasted marshmallows.  The girls love this spot.  There are several trees of differing sizes lying on the forest floor.  They make a wonderful playground.

And now I’m all caught up!

Heart o' the Hills campground