Catching up on laundry

For a change, I made pancakes for breakfast this morning. The last time I made pancakes is about 3 years ago and it would have been for our son Paul when he was still living at home. Then we started puttering around the motorhome. I vacuumed while David did stuff outside like trimming the bushes and trees that are too close to the motorhome. Then I went over to the office to do laundry while David went somewhere to wash the car. It took about 2 1/2 hours to get the laundry done; my own fault. I was reading my book and wasn't paying a lot of attention to the time. So the wash probably sat in the washing machine for an extra 35-40 minutes. After lunch, we went to Tim's for coffee then stopped at 3 different stores to pick up items we needed. I hate store hopping so although there was one more item we needed, there was no way I was going anywhere else. It could wait. Plus Adam finished working early so after picking up little David at daycare, he called and came over to see our new home. He never saw our first motorhome and he hadn't seen this one yet.

Little David was a little shy with us at first last night but he's gotten used to us already. We were over to Adam & Leah's again tonight. We watched the conclusion of 'So You Think You Can Dance' (Yeaah! Joshua won!) and then headed home to bed. Little David was a little shy with us the first night but tonight he was just fine. He already calls us Grandpa & Grandma. He is just like Adam was at that age. He loves his baseball cap and wears it all the time. He only takes it off at the dinner table and for bed of course. And Adam & Leah say he's a little clean freak; just as Adam was and still is. I forgot my camera but will have to get a picture of him on the blog soon.

Arriving in British Columbia

We left the campground around 7:45 am this morning although there was really no rush. We are just so used to getting on the road early. We were only about 51 miles from Canada so a little over one hour later, we crossed the border at Sumas. There was only one car ahead of us and it didn't take long. Just a couple of questions and we were on our way. About 5 minutes later we made a second stop for coffee and a bagel when we came across a Tim Hortons. We checked in to the Cottonwood Meadows RV Park in Chilliwack for one night. There are a lot of large trees in this campground and we weren't sure that our dish would find the satellite. Plus I don't like campgrounds that look like you're in a forest. Trees means too many bugs for me. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of choices close to Chilliwack. So after a bit of discussion with the office, we chose a site that would be available for the month (except that we have to move to another site for the last 3 nights as this site is reserved already). We are only about 5 minutes from Adam's house and 2 minutes from the nearest Tim Hortons. Plus there is a trail about 5 kilometres from here and we can ride our bicycle to it.

I took this picture just as we were going to exit the Trans Canada highway. It was very hazy and it made the mountains look like shadows.

Adam and Leah have invited us over for dinner tonight. It will sure be great to see them again. The last time we were here was April 2007 so we can't wait to see how our little grandson David has grown. He is 2 1/2 years old; the same age as our grandson Liam in Ottawa.

Heading North through Idaho and Washington

An eventful day of driving again but sunny skies all day long. Our only stops were at rest stops to make lunch or to take a break. Since yesterday, we have been going up or down mountains and the view has been fantastic. Although I find going down a little hard on the nerves. Yikes!! LOL

I never get enough of the mountains. I loved living on the East coast and it's very pretty but the mountains of the West coast... it always takes my breath away. Pictures don't hold a candle to being there in person... but here are a few that I took.

This was one of my 'scary' moments. We are going down at about 5% grade and the road is curving to the left and then will curve to the right as we are heading towards that bridge you can just barely see the top of.

Here's a better view of the bridge as we get closer.

Now we are going on the bridge and crossing the Columbia River.

I took this picture at a rest stop. It had a great view of the mountains with snow.

And a few more pictures of our view through the windshield. Don't let the bug splats bother you. LOL

We stopped for the night at this nice little campground in Mount Vernon, Washington. We are only about 85 miles from Chilliwack. I hope the border crossing won't take too long. It will be nice to be back in Canada and close to family again. Today we drove 411 miles.

Montana to Idaho in one day.

We left the campground this morning around 7:45 am. It was cloudy for a couple of hours but we finally came across some blue skies which stayed with us for the rest of the day.

We climbed and descended a lot of hills/mountains today; a couple of 3-mile 6% grade hills and one 5-mile 6% grade hill. That made me pretty nervous but David says the rig took it all in stride. He loves this diesel pusher with air brakes. We went through some really pretty country; rolling hills and wide open country. When we crossed into Idaho, we were in a mountain pass with trees everywhere. The landscape had changed quite a lot.

We have stopped for the night at a campground in Osburn, Idaho. It's a very very small town; there's not much here. At least they had a grocery store as we needed to pick up a few basic things we were out of like bread, butter and cheese.

There is a bike path that runs through here which is on par with the bike paths in Ottawa; at least this section in Osburn. The campground manager told me it is a 72 mile bike path and the section which runs through here is very nicely paved. I know because we went for a short ride. We haven't been outside much since we left Ottawa. We are now in the Pacific Time Zone. So far we have crossed the States of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Montana, and Idaho. There are no pictures today but we did drive 426 miles.

More of South Dakota - Day 6

We left the campground around 7 am to beat the traffic. There have been thousands of motorcycles and trucks pulling motorcycles on trailers on the highway since Thursday. We stopped at a Flying J truck stop around 9 am to have a late breakfast. It was awful. The service was so slow that we never got out of there until 10 am plus the no smoking area was only three booths next to the windows.

Here's the view we had as we were getting closer to the mountains.

Our next stop was Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Fortunately it is only one mile off the I-90 and big rigs like ours can drive in there. Most people have heard of "Custer's Last Stand". Well this is where it happened. This is where he and most of the Seventh Cavalry men

fell and died.

You can see at the top of the hill ahead, the monument which was erected with the names of all the soldiers and civilians who died and there is a headstone showing the place where each soldier fell and died.

This is a closer look at the monument and the 'cemetary'.

The headstone with black marks the spot where Lt Col. George Custer fell and died. The other headstones don't have names... it just says " A soldier of the 7th Cavalry died here June 26, 1876."

There are a couple hundred other headstones lower down the hill where the rest of the Seventh Cavalry soldiers died.

I don't remember all the details but in later years, the army reburied all the Officers where they came from and the soldiers were all put in a mass grave. There is also a fairly new memorial to the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians who fought there. I think that's only fair.

Since we had eaten a late breakfast we didn’t stop for lunch. We just ate some oranges and an apple on the road. We stopped around 4:00 pm at the Mountain Range RV Park in Columbus Montana. We drove 395 miles today.

A Day in South Dakota

We left the KOA campground fairly early in the morning; the weather was good again and we made good time. Our first stop was in the town of Wall to see Wall Drug. For about 100 miles, we had been seeing signs about this Wall Drug like it was some famous place. Turned out to be a very old drug store which now includes the usual tourist souvenirs.

This is a picture of the store front; the next pictures are from inside.

We also took a picture of this motorcycle that was parked on the main street. Take a close look at the details on it. Moooo..

Notice the 'horseshoe' mufflers too.

Our next stop was the Flying J (a truck stop) in Rapid City, South Dakota where we fueled the motorhome and then parked it in the parking lot. We unhooked the car to drive to Mount Rushmore. It is a pretty awesome landmark. Most of us have trouble drawing a face on a piece of paper; can't imagine the difficulties in sculpting four faces in the side of a mountain. You can see the faces from the highway as you drive towards it.

This is the entrance to the monument with the faces in the background.

This is a close up...

We then went to visit Crazy Horse monument. The original sculpture is dead now but his wife and 7 of their 10 children are continuing the project. At the rate they are going, it probably won't be finished for another 50 years because it's not government funded. The work is funded only by private donations. They have finished the face. Look at the picture and you will see where they have marked in white where the horse's head will be. We watched a short film and they showed how the Mount Rushmore fits into the top half of the head of Crazy Horse. Here is the model statue to compare with the real thing.

Above is a picture of the South Dakota badlands. We got back to the Flying J to pick up the motorhome and got back on the road. We didn't know motorcycle week in Sturgis began this week and there have been thousands of motorcycles and trucks pulling motorcycles on trailers. The traffic on I-90 was incredibly heavy because of this. Every campground and motel for miles around were full of people and motorcycles. Rather than keep driving we decided to stop and the campground we picked, only a couple of miles from Sturgis, did have space for big rigs. When we got out of the rig to set up we noticed our car was completely covered in a white dust from the gravel road we had to drive on to the campground. It had been a long day so we just decided to make the best of it, get a good night's sleep and get on the road early the next day. Total mileage for the day was 204 miles. That doesn't include driving from to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Monument in the car.

Wisconsin, through Minnesota to South Dakota.

We left the campground around 7:30 am this morning. It was foggy but once we got on the highway (I-90), we got out of it. We crossed into Minnesota after a couple of hours. The scenary was pretty much corn field after corn field after corn field. I didn't mind it.. much better than looking at concrete buildings. We stopped to make lunch at a road side rest area.

David checking the braking system in the car.

For the first time in my life, I saw three crop dusters today. These small planes fly very low over the crops then come out of this almost straight up then they turn around. You can imagine what came to my mind when I saw the first plane coming right at us. Tomorrow the headline in the Sioux Falls newspaper would be: "Small plane makes emergency landing on the interstate and crashes into motorhome". We didn't know it was a crop duster until he turned around and flew back over the crops. Then my heart began to slow down.

Around 4:00 pm we stopped at the Lewis & Clark Visitor Center. Don't quote me on this but I think Lewis & Clark explored the midwest and travelled the Missouri River in the early 1800s. We got some brochures for South Dakota since we are going to spend a couple of days here and also got information for a campground for tonight. We are staying at the Kennebec KOA in Kennebec, South Dakota. We travelled 467 miles today.

View of the Missouri River from the Lewis & Clark Visitor Center.