Tuesday, August 9, through Tuesday, August 16, 2011: Heading to La Conner:
Our next "real" destination is La Conner, Washington, where we will spend three weeks. To get there, we need to stop at such hot spots as Newport, Warden, Issaquah, and Poulsbo, Washington, for two days each, with Newport as our first stop. It was a 196-mile day on winding, climbing roads through western Montana and the Idaho panhandle. We went through notable Sandpoint, Idaho, the former home of Sarah Palin and the present home of Mark Fuhrman. Newport is right on the Washington/Idaho border, 35 miles north of Spokane and 40 miles north of Coeur d'Alene. It took us a long time but it was a pleasant trip with some nice, though not spectacular, scenery.


We are staying at the Little Diamond Lake Thousand Trails preserve. It's a combination Thousand Trails and KOA location, one of only two in the country, we are told.


The park is a typical Thousand Trails place, very rural, with secluded sites, but it is very old and the sites are small, therefore. The park is combined but the sites for members of the two clubs are separate. Strange. We found one of the few sites that are satellite friendly, so we are in hog heaven.

We basically relaxed (that means Becky walked the dogs and we shopped for groceries) for the two days we were here, since there wasn't much to command our attention.

Thursday we went 147 miles to arrive at the Sage Hills Golf Club & RV Resort near Warden, Washington. It's a very nice place in the middle of nowhere. The nearest town of consequence is Moses Lake, 10 miles away, which is the home of Big Bend Community College, the place that employed Becky as a teacher in Germany close to 40 years ago.

The Friday highlight was a 200-mile round trip to see the Grand Coulee Dam. It is huge: three times as long (nearly a mile) as Hoover Dam, three times the electrical generation, and four times the amount of concrete. It is lower than
Hoover Dam, though, so it doesn't have the same vertical visual impact. Roosevelt Lake, behind the dam, extends all the way to the Canadian border. (It's called a lake, but it's really the Columbia River.) Grand Coulee Dam is one of 11 dams on the Columbia river.

Saturday was a travel day, involving a 178-mile trip to Issaquah, only 15 miles from Seattle, where we are staying at the Issaquah Village RV Park. It's inside the city, so it has small spaces, close together. But it's fine.

Late in the afternoon, Becky's cousin Jim Chantler stopped by. Jim lives in Seattle, and we haven't seen him in several years. He's a kick.

After a few drinks, the three of us went to downtown Issaquah to have a very nice dinner at Jak's Grill, a favorite of Jim's. Our waitress, Jaynie, was a lot of fun.

On Sunday, we returned to central Issaquah and walked the "old town" area with the dogs. It's a charming place.

Monday was a travel day---91 miles to Poulsbo. The primary reason to go to Poulsbo was to use it as a base from which to visit Olympic National Park, which we did on Tuesday.

Olympic is a nice, large park, with, however, nothing to see but trees. (There is a reason Washington is called The Evergreen State.) Our stay in Poulsbo was over.

Tuesday, August 2, through Monday, August 8, 2011: Off to Glacier National Park:
On Tuesday, we took the uneventful 191-mile trip to Dillon, Montana, the first stop on the way to Kalispell, Montana, the gateway to Glacier National Park. In Dillon, we stayed at the Countryside RV Park, an OK place in a boring town.


According to Forbes Magazine, Dillon is one of the prettiest cities in the country. I don't know why Forbes thinks so. We had rented "Town" at the Red Box in Driggs, Idaho (near Victor) but didn't watch it until we got to Dillon. It was pretty good for a Ben Affleck movie. (He makes that stiff, George Clooney, seem like Laurence Olivier by comparison.) Our debate about what to have for dinner was settled at the local Pizza Hut, which was adjacent to the Red Box where we returned the DVD. Nice crust; lousy toppings. We initially thought we might stay two days in Dillon. We opted to stay just one day.

On Wednesday, we returned to Missoula and the Jim & Mary RV Park where we had stayed a month ago.


It was a 186-mile trip on Interstates all the way, so there were no problems and some nice scenery going across Montana. We got the same site at the RV park, so it was like deja vu all over again. The highlight of the afternoon was getting an oil change and lube job at the Jiffy Lube.

Thursday was our day to hit the Walmart and Costco to reload, to fill up with diesel, and perform other heavy tasks---preparing to leave on Friday for Kalispell, Montana, for four days. Friday, we made that trip---a huge 115 miles. On the way, we passed the huge Flathead Lake and a zillion cherry orchards.


We stopped and bought some at one of the roadside stands. Delicious.


We are staying at the Spruce Park On The River RV park. It's very nice and somewhat rural, even though it's just three miles from the center of town. The only drawback, and it's significant, is that---as the name implies---there are spruce trees all over the place blocking our satellite TV reception.


Arrrrrgh! We've never gone this long without TV before, so we'll see if we can survive with our collection of DVDs, tapes, and shows recorded on our DVRs. We have a backup dish I could probably hook up, but I don't feel like working that hard for such a short visit. We get satellite radio, so we can keep up with the fun things our government and stock markets are doing.

Friday night we rented two movies at the Red Box:


The Music Never Stopped, a feel-good movie about a guy with a brain tumor (even if that doesn't sound like a feel-good movie) and How Do You Know, supposedly a "romantic comedy" which was neither romantic nor funny, starring Reese Witherspoon in her worst movie ever (and I usually like her a lot), Jack Nicholson mailing in a terrible parody of his usual role, Paul Rudd trying (and failing) to be appealing, and Owen Wilson being zany and lovable, as usual, but in a part that didn't otherwise fit (a pitcher making 14 million dollars a year with the Washington Nationals). It was directed by James L. Brooks, who is usually reliable, but seems to be losing his touch.


On Saturday, Becky went for a bike ride while I cleaned a few months of bugs off the front of our truck. Yuck!

Sunday was our day to visit Glacier National Park.


We entered from the west side and drove the entire 50-mile Going To The Sun Road. Our first stop was the beautiful Lake McDonald Lodge


where we met Donna Adams, the Assistant Location Manager, who had worked with us in 2006 at the North Rim. It was really fun seeing her again.


The park has 33 of the same type of 1930's tour buses Yellowstone has a few of, refurbished and repowered in 2002 (to burn propane). They are everywhere. And cute.


There is only the one road inside the park. The road was harrowing.


There is a lot of repair work going on (thanks to President Obama's stimulus plan) and, while they weren't working on Sunday, there were large pieces of equipment parked in many of the turnouts. That, coupled with the large number of visitors, and the fact that the road is narrow and winding at best, made it a difficult drive. In an exercise of self-preservation, we decided to exit through the east entrance instead of backtracking---stopping first for a nice lunch at the Rising Sun restaurant at the end of St. Mary Lake. In total, we turned it into a 196-mile day.


On a positive note, the park (nicknamed "The Crown Of The Continent" by George Bird Grinnell, the creator of the Audobon Society) is spectacular. Incidentally, it is named for the huge glaciers that carved it a few million years ago, not the glaciers that remain. There are deep canyons, beautiful valleys, large lakes, and jagged cliffs, along with a few glaciers. Magnificent.

Monday, we decided that after three days in the "dark" we couldn't live without live TV, so we begged the desk person to find us a site that would be tree-free. After reviewing all of the reservations, she came up with the one available alternative. We moved to that site, and, Voila(!) we had live TV. Thank you, Cadie. After settling in, we visited nearby Whitefish, a pretty, well-preserved (or rejuvenated) upscale western tourist town, with skiing in the winter and all other sports in the summer.


Whitefish is locally referred to as "Stumpville" because of its logging past. We had a Moose Drool beer (the same one I had enjoyed in the Yellowstone hotel lobby bar) at the Bulldog Saloon,


then returned to our RV park to have Pad Thai for dinner and prepare to move on to our next stop. And watch TV.

Wednesday, July 27, through Monday, August 1, 2011: The Yellowstone Adventure:
On Wednesday, we dropped off Daisy and Ramsey at a nearby kennel and headed (without our trailer) for Jackson, Wyoming---just 25 miles away. Jackson is in the heart of Jackson Hole---a generic name for the entire valley. A fellow named Jackson was instrumental in the area's history; and "hole" means "valley" to fur trappers (who were there first). Thus, the name Jackson Hole. Jackson is a crowded tourist town with a definitely western ambience. One of its popular bars, The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar


is across the street from a park in the center of the city, famous for its arches at each corner---made entirely of antlers.


We stopped in Jackson, which very near the south end of Grand Teton National Park and is only 100 miles from our destination hotel in Yellowstone National Park, primarily so we could pick up Becky's father (Bill) and brother (John) at the Jackson Hole Airport on Wednesday night. During the day, we went to Grand Teton NP to have lunch with Don and Joyce Wells, two people we worked with at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.


They now both work for the company that operates the facilities in the park. It was fun seeing them again. We arranged to meet them at the Blue Heron Cafe in the Jackson Lake Lodge,


which is a modern building with an absolutely heart-stopping view of the Grand Tetons. The lodge was built in the '50s, but designed by the same man, Gilbert Stanley Underwood, who designed the rustic lodge at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in the '30s.


Wednesday night, we had a nice dinner (at Giovanni's in Jackson) with Linda Beaudoin, who worked with us at the North Rim, and her significant other, Rod. They are also working at Grand Teton NP.


We then went to the airport to pick up John (Bill wasn't feeling well, and opted out of the trip at the last moment) and settled in for the night at the Quality Inn.

Thursday morning, we dropped John off at the Dave Hansen Whitewater office in Jackson, so he could be transported to a whitewater rafting put-in spot---to join Becky's sister Wendy and her two daughters, (her husband, Kai, opted to play golf instead), and Becky's brother Peter, and his wife, Terry, and son Jack. At the last moment, we decided to follow the bus to the put-in spot to see everyone off and take appropriate pictures.



We then headed for our hotel---the Lake Yellowstone Hotel. We first saw the hotel six years ago, and have been looking for an excuse to stay there ever since. It's located right on Lake Yellowstone, with a fabulous view of the lake from its huge lobby and front lawn. It's a classic wooden hotel, built in 1891, and was the first one built in the park after it was declared a national park.



Fun facts: (a) The park is named after the Yellowstone River, the longest undammed river in the U.S. (it empties into the Missouri river), and (b) Lake Yellowstone is purported to be the largest mountain lake in the continent, but we were later advised that the unstated qualifier is that the "record" only applies to lakes above 7,000 feet, and Lake Tahoe is larger but less than 7,000 feet in elevation.

Those of us who arrived first met for cocktails in the hotel lobby,


and then had a surprisingly nice dinner in the cafeteria at the Lake Yellowstone Lodge, a pretty, rustic place just a few hundred yards from our hotel.


Thursday evening, the rest of the group arrived in scattered groups. Some got lost on the way to the hotel. (The signage in the park, it was agreed, was pitiful.) On Friday, we took several cars to nearby Biscuit Basin to take a short hike to pretty Mystic Falls,



then went home for a nap, then headed out again to, primarily, the Old Faithful area---37 miles away from our hotel. Very scenic. We had a wonderful dinner, and a timely show by the geyser, at the Old Faithful Inn.



Saturday included an all-day, private tour of the park on one of the historic buses at the park.



Our driver/tour director, Rich Bond, was terrific. We saw amazing waterfalls,


stunning canyons, and all kinds of thermal goodies.


Everyone had a great time. We got back to the hotel just seconds before our scheduled dinner reservations, and then a marvelous dinner in the hotel dining room.




After dinner, some of the folks went to see if they could find sime bears. They were successful.



Sunday was getaway day and we met my daughter Donna, and her husband, David, and daughters, Meghan and Emily, (who were returning to their home in Park City, Utah) at the Jackson Lake Lodge, to show them that fabulous place.


Then we went with them to have a very nice lunch at the Signal Mountain Lodge (also in Grand Teton NP).


Then, we dropped John off in Jackson, to fly to Los Angeles Monday morning, and we arrived back in Victor at about 4:00 pm, and relaxed.

Monday morning we picked up Daisy and Ramsey, who spent most of the day sleeping, which they typically do after we've kenneled them. We then prepared to leave Tuesday morning for Dillon, Montana.

The Yellowstone Adventure was officially over.