Headed out from Boulder this morning and headed towards eastern Wyoming. We are staying in Beulah from tomorrow night onwards for 6 nights but had nowhere to spend this night so we just headed in the general direction. We had wanted to get at least as far as Casper so that tomorrows drive isn’t too long. The drive today was fine. This side of Wyoming is very, very flat with very, very straight roads; about the most exciting thing that happened today was when Nell had a kink in her pink line! It’s not that it isn’t pretty country it’s just that it feels like we aren’t going anywhere because everything looks the same. I do have one question though, why does no one here ever throw anything away? Montana was the same, all the farms have junk everywhere, old cars, bits of machinery, piles of wood, why don’t they ever clean up, it looks awful?
We arrived at the campsite in Casper and got there just in time as we took the last spot they had available. The campsite is right in the middle of the city but its not bad, only problem is it’s too dang hot, about 95 degrees when we arrived. We aren’t doing anything tonight, we haven’t even unhitched Serena since we are hoping for an early start tomorrow.

Mike: Wyoming and Montana could take the worlds excess population. So much space!

Visited Grand Teton National Park today and had to pass through Jackson Hole to get there - weird name for a town. The park was lovely, different than the others we've visited as the mountains are the backdrop to flat open spaces rather than trees and rock, and the Snake River running right through it. It's very beautiful. We stopped off at Jackson lake and had a bit of a walk around and then drove to the top of signal mountain from where the views were spectacular. The Teton mountain range are the youngest in North America, but you wouldn't know by looking at them. They are very cool actually as they are very craggy looking - maybe they are going through puberty!
Didn't see any animals in the park, not one. We did see lots of deer on the drive to the park and lots of stupid prairie dogs playing chicken.
I think Mike had a nice birthday.

Mike: Beautiful scenery, it's a bit too much day after day! I know I'll
regret saying that when we get to the plains. I don't do birthdays!

Had another day of not alot today. Mike spent a chunk of this morning booking some more of our trip, I think we are planned out through the end of July now when we'll be in Minnesota. I'm not really sure what i spent the morning doing but it went really fast. We took a drive into Pinedale to get some lunch. It's a busy little town and has a little of everything in it. We are definitely in cow country though; we ate at a restaurant and the only veggie food they had was salad, ick. I had to have a Caesar, which i guess isn't technically vegetarian but what the heck. Spent the afternoon doing laundry and finally got to chat to Geraldine and Jazmin, I miss you guys. I also gave Tal-y a shower; maybe now the bed clothes I just washed will stay clean for at least one night. We are off to Teton National Park tomorrow for the day so it's another early morning; I'm going to see a moose tomorrow if I have to spend the week there. It's Mike's birthday tomorrow, hopefully the mosquitoes will give him a break for his special day. He's gonna be bitching in the morning though since I just squished a mossie on the wall and got blood everywhere - it wasn't mine!

Mike: The skeeters found me again. I won't have any blood left!

Left Idaho today and journeyed back into Wyoming where we are going to spend the next 10 days or so. The drive was nice and relaxed, mostly, except for when Mike got mad following a motorhome that was going too slowly; we had to pull over and give it time to get ahead of us. He took some nice pictures of the Snake River while we were waiting.
We are spending the next three nights at a campsite between Pinedale and Boulder. We were under the impression that Boulder was a decent sized town, turns out it has a population of 75, one store and a gas station; fortunately Pinedale is a little bigger. The campsite is nice. We are sitting at 7000 feet looking at the Rockies peaking over the mountains in the distance, very cool. It's super hot here. Well actually it's only about 80 but it feels much warmer; must be because we are high up and therefore the sun feels hotter! It really cools off in the nights though, it's around 40 when we wake up in the morning, brrr. Mike's happy, no mosquitos today.

Mike: Talk about wide open spaces, this is it! No traffic! Yeh!

Headed into Idaho today, just for one night. The drive through southwestern Montana and the eastern part of Idaho was gorgeous. We drove through the Targhee forest and everything was green and lush, which is apparently very uncommon for these parts at this time of the year. Usually by now everything is brown and dried up but they have had an unusual amount of rainfall so everything looks fresh and new. This is not a place I’d want to live though, as it’s necessary to drive for miles and hours to get anything such as a grocery store and even gas stations are few and far between. If there is one thing I miss about San Diego, besides the people I love there, it’s the convenience. Not the traffic though, we drove miles today and passed maybe a half dozen cars, it’s great.
We got to Rexburg this afternoon and found the park, or the farm to be more precise. This is supposed to be the friendliest park in Idaho, and the lady who we checked in with was nice, but the ‘park’ is a little weird. We do have all the necessities though so we can’t really complain, and it’s only for tonight, we are off to Wyoming tomorrow.
Took a walk this afternoon around the farm, past the cows and the hay fields. It was quite hot and muggy but good for Tal-y since she has spent a lot of time in the car today. The walk was nice until we got almost home and I realised that I had lovely giant ants crawling all over me; I was very brave and didn’t scream once, but everything had to come off as soon as I got through the door. Mike wasn’t very sympathetic, even though they were huge; maybe I shouldn’t laugh at him and his mosquito obsession so much.

Mike: It was a nice farm! They had a nice river and a ton of derelict cars and trucks from the 30's, 40's, 50's laying around everywhere with cows scratching their ass on them. They would be worth a fortune in California. The ants were really tiny!

Okay, I’m a little worried about Mike, he thinks the mosquitoes here have a vendetta against him and are waiting to ambush him every time he steps out the door; I think he’s losing it a little!
We haven’t been very far today, actually I haven’t been anywhere today. Mike did go to try and get the car washed but apparently, so he was informed, things don’t always work properly in Montana, so the car is still dirty and he is $1.75 lighter. He also went out and scrubbed all the dead bugs of the front of the truck with his own two hands (I should have taken a picture); maybe that’s why the mosquitoes don’t like him cos he has killed so many of their kind?? Actually they do like him, a little too much. It’s quite funny to watch him diving in and out of the door while trying not to let any of them in. I probably wouldn’t be laughing if I was the one being eaten alive, but I have exactly no bites, I guess I must taste pretty awful.

Mike: They are all after me! I have sweet meat, just a little tough.

We were up super early this morning; the coffee went off at 5.30. We took a drive to Yellowstone National Park today, and it was bea-oo-tiful, real bea-oo-tiful. It took us about 2 hours to get to the north gate from White Sulphur Springs, so we got to the park just in time for breakfast. After eating we headed on in with lots of other people. There is a big loop road around the park that’s about 145 miles with lots of stops along it. On the map the park is split into different sections and driving around it it’s easy to see why as the terrain varies greatly from grassy mountains, to huge canyons to Yellowstone Lake. The scenery is amazing in itself but the other attractions, like the roaring wall, the bubbling mud pools and of course the 500+ geysers are awesome. It’s not difficult to remember that the park is basically an active volcano considering all the steam and water that is forever blowing out of the ground. The smell is really bad in some places too, sulfur, yuck!
We got to visit Old Faithful and true to its name it erupted within about 5 minutes of the predicted time. The ranger informed us prior to the eruption that the water that we see coming out of the ground all comes up through a fissure that at one point is only about 4 inches thick; that’s hard to believe considering the amount of water it blows. It’s not the biggest geyser at the park but it’s still spectacular.
There were also lots of wild animals roaming about the park. We got to see loads of bison, they were everywhere; they are truly massive beasts. They don’t look too smart though, definitely a case of brawn rather than brain I think. We got to see a black bear and I think Mike was kind of mad at it as all the cars were stopping to look and slowing him down; he was not a happy chappy there for a while. I also finally got to see something with horns, although it still wasn’t a moose.
We had a really nice albeit long day, and Yellowstone is definitely worth visiting. We only spent the day there but you could really spend weeks wandering all over it either on foot or by bike, taking in the sights, they are spectacular.

Mike: I could spend a lot more time in Yellowstone! It's amazing. People are
dumber than cows and only slightly smarter than bison.

Took a quick 1 ½ hour drive into Helena today; didn’t want to drive too far since we drove most of yesterday. Wasn’t too bad a drive although we did have to stop for a little bit for a cattle drive, we are in Montana after all.
Helena was okay, just another city really, lots of houses and lots of shops; it does have a nice city hall though. We stopped for lunch there at some Mexican joint, seriously, that’s the last time I’m having Mexican till I get back to San Diego. They put lettuce in my bean burrito and didn’t tuck the ends in, yuck.
We did a little food shopping while we were there since most of the towns we’ve passed here so far don’t have much in the way of grocery stores, then we headed back home.
We did hit a prairie dog when we were driving into Helena, which I felt really bad about. They are pretty stupid though, they don’t look either way when they are crossing the road, it’s head down, bum up and off they go. Silly little things.
Took Tal-y for a walk around the area when we got back and she got to meet our neighbours, a lovely herd of cows and a chestnut coloured horse. She was definitely wary of the cows, in fact she wouldn’t go on their side of the road, and when we were passing the horse she was whining the entire time, what a wuss.

Mike:Cows are really dumb! I don't want to be a cowboy any more!

Today was the last day waking up in Canada, at least for a while, as we crossed the border into Big Sky Country and are planning to spend some time in the US now. Today was mostly driving again but the terrain was a lot different than it has been, it was flat as far as the eye could see, at least initially. We crossed the border at Coutts and headed south from there; the area seemed to be mostly farmland and it was all lush and green. It looked like they had had the rain the same as Alberta though in the last few days, as there were plenty of flooded areas as we drove through. The drive down through Montana was about 4 ½ hours of actual driving but we were on the road for about 7 hours altogether. I was quite looking forward to the drive as I figured it should be stress free since Montana is flat right? Wrong, turns out they do have some “hills” as I discovered 7500 feet later. Serena and Mike did fine, the only ones stressed were Tal-y and me.
Got to the campsite at White Sulphur Springs late this afternoon and set up in no time. It’s a nice little place, very clean and well kept with nice "neighbours" and we have internet, yeah; first time in a while. We watched the final episodes of Lost tonight, after Mike cooked dinner. Maybe I missed something, but what a dumbly (?) disappointing ending, I expected so much more.
Not sure what we are doing tomorrow but we are here until Saturday and hope to get to Yellowstone National Park and drive the Beartooth Scenic highway. I’ll let you know what we decide tomorrow.

Mike: Glad to be back in the states where food and gas prices don't break the budget!
I can actually make a phone call for less than 80 cents a min!

Well apparently today is the first day of summer, it’s hard to believe looking out of the window, where’s the sun? Mike certainly picked a lovely place to spend the longest day, not! I guess I should be thankful we didn’t arrive a few days early as this campsite is right on the Old Man River and it burst its banks last Friday and the whole site was underwater and everyone was evacuated. Mike spoke to a woman this morning who spent the last three days in her trailer in a casino parking lot with no water or electricity; she said she hasn’t showered in three days, I didn’t get close enough to see if she was telling the truth. The only thing we are having to do is boil our water before drinking it, just in case – we have it easy compared to some here.
We haven’t left the trailer today other than to walk the dog. We have spent most of the day catching up with things that needed to be done like toe nail cutting and eye brow plucking. Not the most exciting day but all things that are necessary. It’s weird having to do mundane things like we have today as I feel like I should be going places and seeing things before the vacation is over. Then I remember that we have all the time in the world and we don’t have to be on the go 24/7; it’s very strange and takes some getting used to. I guess I’m not really in the swing of things with this retirement lark yet, I’ll just have to keep at it.

Mike: I always meet the nicest people! I wonder if she made any money at the casino?

We spotted a gap in the mountains today and headed for it at top speed with the Kootenay Indians hot on our trail. Well ok not really but we did cross the Rockies today and are now on the other side.
We left Radium this morning without having seen any bighorn sheep there despite the fact that it’s supposed to be the unofficial bighorn sheep capital of North America. It’s a cute little town but I don’t think we’ll be coming back any time soon.
We had a 5-hour drive today (which is always longer since we are pulling our home with us), but the scenery was very different than we have been used to seeing the past few weeks, the road was fairly flat and very lush and green.
The Rockies were ahead of us this morning and were just resplendent with the morning sun on them and none of the morning fog obscuring the peaks; a magnificent last look at the Canadian Rockies, at least for this trip. About half way through our drive we crossed the Rockies, said goodbye to British Columbia and headed into Alberta. We crossed the Rockies at Crow’s Nest Pass, which is a string of former coal mining towns in a stunning but wild looking valley. We stopped for gas on the Indian Reservation and Mike was very happy cos he only paid 90.9c for it; at least he was happy until we hit the next town and they had gas for 88.9c. Never mind, at 90.9c it was still 20c less than we have been paying up here.
We are spending the next two nights in Lethbridge. The drive here wasn’t too bad until we got into the city and then we got lost and ended up down some gravel road. I blamed Nell but turns out Mike had plugged the wrong address in, I guess technology really is only as good as the person operating it – he should leave it to me I think. After correcting Mikes little mistake we finally found the campsite and got unhitched in no time even though it was super hot and there were mosquitoes everywhere - nasty little buggers!
We did drive into Lethbridge the city tonight - I'm glad we are only spending two nights here as it's not a very welcoming place. The roads here are weird too, I can't really describe what's wrong with them, they are just not easy to drive around on.

Mike: I think Nell must have put in the wrong address. Nice park, too bad it was
under water day before yesterday. Nasty little river!

Took a little drive south from Radium today and visited several of the towns along highway 93/95. We drove to Canal Flats first which is a little town that is dominated by a huge lumberyard and mill. We had to stop so Mike could take video of the logs – sometimes I wonder about him. We tried to find the provincial park that was on my map but I guess someone moved it cos it wasn’t where it was supposed to be. We stopped for a while on the way back north at a spot overlooking the Columbia Lake, the views were amazing. Windermere was the next stop, it was right on Lake Windermere but access to the lake was mostly restricted to the residents; an ideal place to live if you like boating but not such as ideal place if you are just a visitor.
The final stop on the way back to Radium was Invermere, which is also on Lake Winderemere. Invermere is a much bigger town and has lots of public lake access and even a ‘beach’. We stayed for a while in a little park right on the lake, very relaxing. There were very few people at the lake, which was quite surprising considering the beautiful sunny day we have had.
Had a nice walk around the camp site this evening and saw a deer sitting behind the tennis court just minding its own business. He didn’t bat an eyelid when we walked near him although he did watch us closely; maybe he was just waiting for someone to play with.

Mike: Becc tried to blame Nell for losing the park, but I think some developer
built houses on it. There were lots of logs!

Got packed up and headed off for a short drive today, only about 1 ½ hours, to get to Radium Hot Springs. We took the 95 through Golden all the way to Radium. The drive was great, short and with very little traffic. This area really is a fantastic place to visit as the scenery is spectacular even when taking the highways. One minute we are driving and there are open fields with gorgeous coloured vegetation and deer and bears, and the next we are surrounded by mountains on all sides off us. Actually I don’t think mountain is a big enough word for what they have here, they are immense and endless and very imposing. I wonder if the people who live here still notice the mountains, I would image it would be difficult not to.
Got to Radium Hot Springs just before noon. The park is really nice, more of a resort really with pools and spas. Maybe we’ll check them out tomorrow evening as tonight we have to watch game 7 – go Lakers, or Mike will be sad.

Mike: Have cable TV tonight. Watched Lakers! They rule the known NBA universe!
I wasn't too excited though! World champs again. Yeh! Go Dodger's!

Drove back into Banff National Park today after a quick stop of at Timmys. We began by visiting Lake Louise and got there before the crowds which made it even better. The lake was beautiful, very very green and the surrounding glaciers were spectacular. It was very cold there, the lake does not get warm enough to swim in even during the summer, and the morning fog had not risen so it all looked very mysterious. It was beautiful. It also had real flushing toilets; if I never have to use another ‘hole in the floor’ toilet again then I will be happy. Guess we all now where my priorities lie.
From Lake Louise we took Bow Valley Parkway, the scenic route, to the town of Banff. We didn’t get to see any wildlife today but the drive was still amazing. Banff itself is cute, another tourist town like Jasper only a little bigger.
After spending some time at Banff we headed to Yoho National Park; the word Yoho is a Cree expression of awe. I dare you to try saying Yoho out loud without getting the urge to sing “a pirates life for me”. Yoho is a smaller national park that butts up against Banff, but although it’s smaller it’s just as amazing. We stopped at Kicking Horse Pass to view the Spiral Tunnels. These are tunnels cut through the mountain that reduced the grade for the railway line by more than half. A pretty amazing feet that was completed over 100 years ago. We attempted to drive to Takakkaw Falls (magnificent in Cree) which are the second highest falls in Canada but we couldn’t get even close as the road was closed due to the weather. We did get to see the convergence of the Yoho and Kicking Horse rivers, the meeting was violent!
Our next stop was at a natural bridge that had been created by the Kicking Horse River; it was once a waterfall. Nature is awesome. The last place of the day was Emerald Lake, which as with all the other lakes we’ve seen was wonderful nestled amongst the trees with a glacier backdrop.
We have had a lovely few days in Donald and tomorrow it’s off to Radium Hot Springs.

Mike: Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum!