Left Mt Rainer NP and headed to the ocean. It was a bummer day for us, coming out of the back country and into civilization again. We ran into a huge traffic jam in Olympia - a ten-mile backup. For the last week and a half, rush hour traffic for us consisted of seeing another car heading in the same direction as us. Dave saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time in Wetport, WA. He was surprised at the slate color of the sand and the fine texture like talcom powder. It packs down so hard below the high water [View Full Entry]

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We took a short hike to an overlook in the campground at Riverside Park over the Spokane River. We got on Route 90 and headed west. We were surprised at how flat eastern WA state was. We saw a beautiful wind farm in the hills. Then we came to a scenic overlook and saw the beautiful and wide Columbia River. The interstate bridge over the river looked like the cape cod canal bridges. Coming over a hill in Ryegrass, we got our first glimpse of Mt Rainer. This huge 14,110 foot mountain sticking out of the prairie about 75 miles away. [View Full Entry]

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We sadly left beautiful Glacier National Park and headed out Route 2 through Idaho and into Washington State. When we got to Kalispell, MT there was smoke in the air everywhere - it looked thicker to the south. We stopped in Libby, MT and had lunch, did laundry and grocery shopping. We entered Idaho and gained another hour - we are now in Pacific Time Zone. Route 2 was a very nice scenic drive. Dave liked the driving and thought it was a "great way" to come into Washington. The temperature was about 90 degrees when we got out of the [View Full Entry]

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After breakfast at the campsite we started up Going-to-the-Sun Road. We climbed up to Logan Pass, through some of the most outstanding scenery we have seen so far. The very narrow roadway with the sheer drop-off of hundreds of feet on the passengers side made me very nervous and queasy. The road clings to the side of the rocky mountains and Dave was nervous when we kept seeing “Fallen Rock” areas. We passed the Triple Arches and the Weeping Wall, which in the spring can get drivers really wet. When we reached Logan Pass, we hiked to Hidden Lake, 3 [View Full Entry]

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We continued our journey on Route 90 until we got to Missoula, MT and we headed north on Route 93. We passed a tent town that housed all the out-of-state firefighters that were fighting all the wildfires in the area. We stopped in Polson to visit my cousin Marsha. She gave us walnuts from her walnut tree and plums from her plum tree. We arrived in beautiful Glacier National Park in the early afternoon. We got a campsite in Sprague Campground, right on lake MacDonald. Being in bear country again, we had to bear-proof. This is a hassle, but the scenery [View Full Entry]

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Left the beautiful Tetons and headed over Teton Pass into Idaho and then up Route 15 to Montana. We had lunch in Dillon, MT and stopped in Bearmouth for the night. Nice quite campground until around 3 am and then the trains came whistling through until about 5:30 am. We are heading to Glacier National Park. [View Full Entry]

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There was ice on the car top carrier, the temperature fell below freezing overnight. I was a little chilly under our sleeping bag. We got out our wool hats to wear on these cold nights to keep the body heat in. We took all our food and stoves out of the bear box, tied all the containers down on our cargo carrier and left for the Grand Tetons. Heading out of Yellowstone we passed the Lewis Falls and followed the Lewis River which gradually worked it’s way down into a gorge several hundred feet down. As we were riding through the [View Full Entry]

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The temperature overnight was in the mid 30’s. Boy does it get cold up here. After breakfast we headed to explore the upper loop of Yellowstone. We stopped at the Sulfur Caldron (pretty stinky) before heading to the Upper and Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River. We were in a cloud for awhile in the morning, but it cleared up as the day went on. We saw a bunch of people on the side again, this time looking at another pack of wolves - this time we did see them. We saw Tower Falls and then continued on to Mammoth Hot [View Full Entry]

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It was almost dark when we arrived at Buffalo Bill State Park and when we awoke we were greeted with one of the most beautiful sights we’ve ever seen from any of our campsites. We drove back into Cody and had breakfast and fueled up before heading into Yellowstone National Park - only about 50 mile away. We had to drive through a series of tunnels along the river and the scenery was great. We drove into Yellowstone at the east entrance. The landscape there was scarce with trees on the hillside due to fire damage. Yellowstone Lake seem quite endless [View Full Entry]

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We left Custer State Park, taking the Needles Scenic Highway Drive again, this time north. We drove up to Lead where we saw an open pit mine in the middle of the town. We drove through Deadwood which has a restored western town main street. Wild Bill Hickok was killed here in a saloon while playing poker. He is buried in Mt Moriah Cemetery. We then went to Sturgis to see where the motorcycles gather for bike week (we were there about a week after it ended) They were having a tractor parade on the main street - lucky us. We [View Full Entry]

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