We're back in Seattle! Thanks to everyone who followed along with our trip...we had a phenomenal time...and it was wonderful to hear from all of you, read your comments, and know that you were keeping us safe with your thoughts! This is our final entry...so, farewell, and keep in touch! And, if we missed you on this trip due to weather or distance from our route, you can bet that we'll plan a vacation near you in the future! We still have to hit the Rockies in Colorado (can anyone say skiing and boarding?), the Carribean/Keys, and a few other places. [View Full Entry]

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Our next stop was down in Missoula, Montana. Missoula is the home of a Smoke Jumper Depot...which means its a base for the fire fighters that parachute out of airplanes to put out forest and wild fires. The tour was awesome! It was led by a former smoke jumper, and we got to see the entire facility. It was a refreshing change from just looking at dioramas and replicas...about 6 jumpers came in from a drop while we were standing in their locker room. Crazy! There are actually about 22 forest fires raging right now, mostly throughout that particular region...but there [View Full Entry]

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Passing through North Dakota on our way to Montana, we stopped at a small hamlet called Rugby. Rugby has been declared the "exact geographical center of north america" and proudly displays this title with a big stone monuement. It also happens to be the site of a little restaurant that sells toe jam (a delightful jam made of nearly every fruit under the sun...yum!). And then...a couple of days drive later...we arrived in Glacier National Park. Glacier is HUGE...and is an International Peace Park because it is joined with Canada as well. It's the home of enormous "U" shaped valleys, giga [View Full Entry]

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After stopping in Wisconsin to visit friends and play a few games of pool, we headed west toward Minnesota. Of course, on our way across Wisconsin we did stop to pickup some cheese (yum!). Our first stop in Minnesota was Minneapolis, where we swung by Mall of America just to check it out. The list of shops in the directory was dumbfounding, so we started walking around. In the center of the 100-acre mall is a mini amusement park, with roller coasters, rides, carnival games and ridiculous prizes. Looks like fun, but as we just spent a couple of days at [View Full Entry]

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We stopped at St. Louis and took plenty of pictures of the arch...arch from the bridge, arch from the road, paul with arch, danielle with arch, arch with both of us...etc etc...haha. Yay Gateway Arch! St. Louis is the "Gateway to the West"...and while you can actually go up in the arch and look around from the observatory, we both got there too late and Danielle's a little scared of rickety elevators at great heights. Then we stopped at Hannibal, Missouri, Mark Twain's hometown. Everything there is named for him or his characters, like the Mark Twain Dinette featureing Mark Twain [View Full Entry]

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Next stop: Bedford, Indiana. Yep, the home of Indiana Limestone. It also was the home of more caverns! yay! This time, our cavern tour was entirely by boat. Yep, we went down into the US's longest underground river. We bumped along in a big metal tub with our guide, a boat light and a flashlight. It was a little funny, but very cool. We learned a lot about the ecosystem that can exist in complete darkness, and the oddities that have adapted to teh lack of light. There were little transparent fishies that are blind, crayfish that can live for three [View Full Entry]

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We spent a week in our childhood hometown in Indiana, visiting family and old friends. Danielle's neice and nephews went canoeing with us one day, which was awesome. We wish we had brought a waterproof camera with us! We took two canoes, found a couple of rope swings, and had a great day in the sun. Paul worked on an old mustang a lot, which we had bought over Christmas to sell. It just needs a few minor repairs and it'll be in near perfect shape. Danielle went to a couple of soccer games that the same neices and nephews were [View Full Entry]

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Whew! If we thought getting into Cnada was an adventure, coming home to the US was worse!!! After being harassed a bit byt the customs official, though, we made it back into our home country. Funny that you can leave so easily, but you can't come back! We drove across the small portion of Ontario that borders a couple of the Great Lakes and exited into Detroit, Michigan. We went over the Greenfield Village to check it out while we were there. It's a village (as well as a museum and factory) built by Henry Ford. He collected building and brought [View Full Entry]

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Crossing into Canada to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, where we were staying, was an adventure with the camper and Customs. There are a lot more questions when you enter a country with your house in tow! But we made it in and went down to explore the falls. They were absolutely breathtaking, and awesome to stand and take in. The area has embraced the tourists who flock to the falls as well, offering everything from "Maid of the Mist" boats rides that take you into the mist of the Horseshoe Falls to the Vegas-like strip of things to entertain, [View Full Entry]

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We'd been looking forward to Boston for most of the trip, and we really had an awesome time while we were there. The first night, we went into town to visit Danielle's friend Erin. She lives in teh North End, which is Boston's Italian district. They were holding one of their several summer Saint's Day festivals (I forget which saint's festival it was), which we wandered around in for a bit. It was a little street fair, with live music, food, statues, decorations and lots of people! Then we wandered down to the touristy side of Hanover street, had a nice [View Full Entry]

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