Just Do It

 Whoops I forgot to mention that Yellowstone is actually in Wyoming, so you get to see that sign now too :-)

Today we did the lower loop of the park, a beautiful elk drinking in the stream, Tommy playing with his toy gun caused the elk to look directly at us and gave us a great pic.

Next up were the geyser fields and although the display wasn't terribly special the landscape is, with the wide open plains around and knowing that the wildlife is right there too.  While we were looking at this geyser we also watched a bison walking along the road stopping all the traffic around it.

 Next stop was lunch and Old Faithful.  There are only 3 of these such geysers around, this one, one in Iceland and Lady Knox Geyser in Rotorua.  Old Faithful is amazing in that it erupts erupts every 70minutes or so.  We thought that Lady Knox was taller but that only erupts once a day and is assisted.

 Heading to the exit we passed by Yellowstone Lake which was huge.  Once again we were comparing to home and figured it looked very much like Lake Taupo and with the volcanic activity nearby it is probably very similar.  As you can see it was a beautiful day with not a breeze anywhere.

We went out the eastern entrance to Yellowstone which was a very harrowing experience.  They are rebuilding the road through here and the pass is one lane for about 8miles with a sheer cliff right next to my window.  I was very relieved to get out of there.  We then drove through the most picturesque valley I have seen in ages and ended up in Cody for the night.

OK, we have read all the warnings and seen all the signs about the wild animals, apparently not many people leave Yellowstone disappointed about the wildlife so we have high hopes, Nick is really hanging out for a bear!

We had only been in the park for about 2minutes when I spied a moose through the trees, unfortunately we had a stream of traffic behind us and couldn't pull off the road so no pic of that dude!  A few miles up the road though we came across our first bison - man are they big!

Yellowstone is divided into 2 loops and we opted to do the upper loop today and the lower loop tomorrow.  We stopped for lunch and were looing for a picnic spot when we saw all these elk, apparently they are dangerous, although with the closeness of the onlookers I wouldn't have thought so.

Yellowstone is a geothermal area very much like Rotorua in New Zealand.  A lot of what we saw today we have seen several times before.  This pic made us wonder what the pink and white terraces really did used to look like though.

Tonight we went along to the local rodeo and watched the cowboys do their thing.  We were completely lost about what was happening and who was winning although the crowd certainly knew when to holler and cheer.

Today our aim is to travel through Montana down to West Yellowstone so we can see the National Park over the weekend.  There are a couple of old cowboy towns that mean something to Andy from old westerns and he wants to check them out on the way.

 What we really can't get over is the wide open spaces of Montana in between huge ranges of mountains.  In the pic on the left you can even see the slope of the plains starting up on the mountain - hey even I remember seeing that in old cowboy movies.  The scenery here really is spectacular and once again the camera just doesn't do it justice.

 Our first old town was Nevada City which has been reconstructed with actual building from nearby towns and of a similar period to the old Nevada City.  There really was a little township here with several roads and houses even if some of the roads were all grass. Next stop a whole mile up the road was Virginia City, and now I think I have done enough cowboy towns for a while.

We carry on to West Yellowstone and stay at the Yellowstone Grizzly RV Park - mainly because I like the sound of the name.  Turns out the boys are delighted anyway because in the games room they have an X-box!!  The first time they have seen one since we left home.  We didn't see a lot them while we were here!

We woke this morning to a lovely day, we even had guests for breakfast.  This little squirrel came up and tried to take some bread from Andy's hand, obviously we offered the wrong sort of food though as he turned tail and took off before I got the pic.

We took off heading for Helena, the capital of Montana, we decide to take the alternate route 12 rather than the interstate as we have heard this route is very pretty.  We climb up the MacDonal Pass to a height of 6320 feet and stop at the Continental Divide.  This is the spot where if you spill water on one side of the hill it will eventually drain to the Atlantic Ocean in the East

 and the other side will drain to the Pacific Ocean in the West.

Unfortunately the clouds from yesterday's storm were still hanging around the view wasn't the best.  We stopped off at Helena and took a quick peek at the Capitol Building.

 We hummed and ahhed where we would go from here and then the boys started getting really fidgety and annoying so we figured we would head to Butte for the night.  Butte calls itself the richest hill in America and is basically a copper mining town.  We couldn't believe how the excavations of the hill overshadowed the whole town and took a ride to the top the mine to get an overview.

This was the scene from all over town, and although the colours were spectacular, I almost turned into a real greeny at this and wondered how the Company responsible could get away with leaving the landscape like this, especially when you think of the hoops the Americans had to go through to get the gold out of the Coromandel in New Zealand.

I rang home tonight and spoke to Mum a couple of times, the first time bursting into tears as this was the day they were all interring Dad's ashes.  I know I didn't want to be there anyway but I guess after the boys really peeving me off today I was a bit homesick or something.  Anyway my thoughts were with everyone and I just had to take this pic of the moon coming up over the hill.

We woke this morning to the sound of rain on the roof - quite an alien sound as this is the first rain we have had since we have been here.  Definitely time to move on. 

We leave Spokane and head East crossing the border into Idaho.  A short stop at the visitor centre in Coeur D'Alene to find out about the local attractions and then back to Post Falls for lunch at the Hod Rod Cafe, hod rods all over and movies playing about the drags that they host every year - a great spot and if we hadn't just started for the day and it wasn't lunch time we would have been tempted to settle down for a while.

 We keep on going towards Missoula, I am driving today and am probably a bit too cautious for Andy's liking but hey, we got there safely.  We crossed the Coeur D'Alene Mountains at a height of 4,725 feet.  I am sure the view was fantastic but we were still covered in the mist and rain that has hounded us all day.  We did cross the border though.

Winding down the mountains we went through the most gorgeous valleys and finally back to some straight roads again - huh as if these had been really twisty anyway.  Can definitely say that these interstates are great roads.  Two lanes in each direction with a huge median strip in the middle, there is certainly no worries about getting past a slower vehicle or holding anyone up.  We make it to Missoula tonight with a fair amount of blue sky - looks like we have dodged the rain.

Yep, I am hopeless at keeping this completely up to date.  Since I last updated we have been through Yellowstone National Park and spent a couple of days at Mt Rushmore.  We are now sitting at Chamberlain on the Missouri Riverbanks in South Dakota and have just crossed into the Central timezone.  It is 11am Saturday here and nearly 4am Sunday at home.  Guess I won't be ringing anyone in the morning.

We are about to start looking for hairdressers.  The boys desperately need a haircut and mine is no longer the real short cute haircut that Debbie gave me before we left.  Do you fancy popping over for a haircut Deb?  I am also keen for a bit of pampering and maintenance from a beauty therapist.  Hey Jodi, maye you can come over too.

We have had some pretty stressful moments at times with finding places to camp for the night, and being completely shattered from travelling continuously.  Also the boys baiting each other in the camper.  I really don't think it would matter if we had a 50 seater bus, they would still find a way to annoy each other.  Anyway, I was saying to Andy the other day that although we still have moments these are a heck of a lot fewer and further between now.  The boys know the jobs they have to do when we arrive at a site to prepare the RV and what they have to do when we break camp. 

I have been slack with the schoolwork as I can't cope with the reading etc in the back of the RV when we are driving and when we stop I feel sorry for the boys being cooped up inside the whole time and let them take off.  Our mornings are mainly spent sleeping late, trying to catch up on sleep and then preparing to take off for our next destination.  We are talking about our adventures lots and although their blogs aren't up to date online they are writing them in their books.

Alistair seems to be growing taller by the minute so I am making the most of calling him shorty while I still can.  Nick keeps amazing us with the details that he can recall of the places we have been when we didn't even think he was listening.  Tommy's sense of humour keeps us cracking up the whole time, he sure isn't my baby anymore!  He has come into his own with all the cowboy stuff we keep seeing and the guns that are everywhere with mock gunfights etc. Long story short I can't believe how much these boys have grown in the time we have been here.

OK I am late now, we were supposed to be out of here by 11m and it is now 11.15, better go put some things away.  Not completely sure where we will end up tonight, but we are heading to Sioux Falls 135miles away and will see what we feel like after that.

We left Ellensburg and headed east to Spokane.  We loved the scenery which was forever changing on this drive.  We passed all sorts of lakes and rock formations and were continually pointing out different things to each other.

We took a detour on the way to the Grand Coulee Dam which was recommended in one of the tour books we have been using.  What wasn't mentioned in here was the Dry Falls which were certainly a highlight, we couldn't belive our eyes here.  This is very definitely proof of the ice age and the devastating and beautiful effects this had on the landscape.  When the ice started thawing there was a huge ice dam at the top of this area, the water kept building up and eventually broke through the 300foot high wall of ice.  The flood waters cut away the softer basalt stones and enlarged the previous channel.  When the waters receded this was the result.  It is 3.5miles wide with a drop of 400 feet.  Niagara would be dwarfed by this being only 1 mile wide and a 165 foot drop.  Still can't wait to see it though.

Onwards to Coulee Dam and we passed through this amazing cutting which is nicknamed the million dollar mile.  Apparently when the road was built several decades ago it cost $1million and made it the most expensive stretch of road at that time.

We finally make it to the Grand Coulee Dam and yes it is a huge piece of work.  We stopped for a picnic lunch overlooking the dam and were overrun by some very friendly wasps.  Needless to say we didn't stop too long.

Onwards on the last leg to Spokane where we passed miles upon miles of wheat fields.  It was unreal how many acres of wheat there were and there just didn't seem to be any end to the fields at all.  The camera just didn't do the fields justice.  We saw fields in several stages of growth and harvesting - more research is required to figure out if the second cut on the wheat is straw or not.

We leave Seattle today and head on our way east – our first major leg completed.  A bit later than we were planning on but happening with a fair bit of excitement about that thought.  Before we leave we head up to Everett, just out of Seattle to check out where they build Boeing aeroplanes.  This is the largest building in the world and covers 98.3 acres and houses 19,000 employees.  We get to go on a tour through the factory and see the construction underway of 5 747 cargo planes and that was just in one bay of the building.  We were not allowed to take in any cameras or hand luggage at all so no pics from this place.  On the way up to the factory though we did spy this engine and snapped a pic.  This little baby is worth $10 million.

We had lunch at Mukilteo and sat on the wharf eating our fish and chips.  We were looking out over Puget Sound and several islands and Mt Olympia on the Olympic Peninsula, this will be the northernmost point we get to on this coast.  It is 4pm when we finally leave Seattle and head east.  We drive 100 miles to Ellensburg through gorgeous countryside with trees everywhere, past lakes, up some largish hills and through ski fields that look very naked with no snow on them. 

We called into the supermarket at Ellensburg for some dinner and on the way out Andy pulled out in front of a car, right in front of the Sherriff.  Bother, 3500 miles so far and that is the first mistake!  We got pulled over and had a chat to a very friendly man.  I think the New Zealand accents definitely helped here because he sympathized, wished us well and sent us on our way.  Phew, time for a drink J

Today was the day to catch up and do a bit of shopping, a couple of full on days have really caught up with everyone.  We bought a couple of new school books for the boys, a math book to replace the one that Alistair has lost(??) and some different ones for Tommy as we rethink the way to capture his attention with the least amount of hair pulling.

We finally managed to wake up and get moving today, everyone is completely worn out after yesterday, I bet Lance is feeling it too.  We head into the local Pikes Place market which is a huge local attraction.  We really weren’t thinking when we decided to do this on Saturday  when it seems like everyone else is doing it too.  The markets are packed with most people seemingly just looking.  There is a huge array of produce, flowers, fish and every thing else you can thing for sale here.  The fish market is definitely the highlight and the guys working the store put on a really good show throwing fish around to be wrapped as people order something.

We had to sample the local salmon on Lance’s recommendation and definitely enjoyed that when we had lunch on the waterfront overlooking Puget Sound and watching the commuter ferries going back and forward.  I have a real thing for crab and while eating lunch we figured we really should buy some of the Alaskan crab legs for dinner, so back to the fish market we go.  Andy figured 4 would be enough for us as the boys weren’t really keen.  What we didn’t count on was how heavy these things were and at almost a pound each the resulting bill was quite a surprise.  You can rest assured though that we had the most yummiest dinner ever, even if I did have to eat almost 2 whole legs!

After buying the crab and getting it well wrapped in ice we went and checked out the Space Needle.  Now this isn’t as tall as the Sky Tower in Auckland which I am very pleased about but it sure did afford a brilliant view of the city and gave us an overview of what we looked at yesterday with Lance.  It also made us appreciate how far we actually came.  Unfortunately we couldn’t see Mt Rainier from the Space Needle due to all the smoke from forest fires.