Sep 2007

Sweasey Blog 9/25/07
After leaving the beautiful Fairmont Hot Springs we traveled South to Whitefish Montana just a few miles outside Glacier National Park. After 29 days of perfect weather we finally had some rain. That, coupled with the fact that we didn’t do too much research on where to stay or asking around about our next stop we found ourselves at the KOA South of Whitefish…I’ve come to the conclusion that KOA is the equivalent of McDonald’s for campers. The setting was pretty but we were actually overrun by marginally domesticated wild turkey. They were fearless and aggressive. Immediately attacking the dead bugs off the front of the RV as I maneuvered for position in the campsite for our “hookups”…..I wonder…when young people today say “hookup” do they have any idea where the term originated. I imagine it would be a mood spoiler for someone on the verge of “hooking up” to see me, or themselves for that matter, attaching the requisite hoses to the appropriate portals in order to be “hooked up”….. How these long drives allow the mind to delve into matters normally reserved for the great philosophers.

Glacier was beautiful but mostly closed and the visibility was limited. This took us to Helena to see Maria’s sister Theresa and her husband Randal. After our first major league meltdown with the kids (details to be given out face to face only) everyone felt better and all relations smoothed out. We found a great skate park for the buys and saw the Capital building, toured the Governor’s office and enjoyed a great bike ride…but best of all was sleeping in a house!!! On Thursday September 20th we drove to Yellowstone. The drive was beautiful through Bozeman and Livingston and spent the night just outside the North entrance in Gardiner, MT. Other than gale force winds and driving rain it was a special night along the Yellowstone River. Yellowstone had the greatest display of wildlife we’d ever seen including Buffalo, Elk, Fox, Bears, Dear, Antelope, Coyote but no elk. We’ve set up another website with our photo galleries at

http://picasaweb.google.com/hsweasey

We went from Yellowstone to Cody, Wyoming which is a classic old western town with lots of Buffalo Bill lore. Then through the Bighorn range to Buffalo where we spent the night then to Custer South Dakota to see Mt Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial which, when completed, will be 3 times larger than Rushmore. It’s amazing what happened to so many of the Indian tribes and how they were mistreated. We’ve put over 3,500 miles on the “Exxon Valdez” and are now in Southern Wisconsin just 2 hours from Chicago where we’ll catch a play, have a wonderful hotel and enjoy some great food. We’ve lasted over a month and look forward to exploring the East Coast….Geez this Country is HUGE!!!

Well we may have never seen a more beautiful stretch of country than from Sicamous to Invermere just 2 hours West of Banff Canada. Through Glacier National Park in Canada where massive turqouise blue rivers cut through Granite and the Mountains tower above with shear rock faces above the treeline. We're making most of our decisions on where to stop next based on the suggestions of our bretheran at the Rv parks. We found the Fairmont Resort ($37/night for RV's) with famed hot springs....These are huge pools, with high and low dive, of varying temperature loaded with minerals and their completely drained everynight!!! Fresh, HOT, theraputic and fun...then we go for a bike ride through the woods only to encounter a 40'-50' waterfall into a beautiful blue pool about 5' deep and 40' long and draining into smaller "sitting" pools and filled with HOT water....it was....well...scrumtrulescent....yes that's it, scrumtrulescent. Standing under the pounding hot water as all the years of chemical abuse is leached out of your body and downstream nothing but float fish and wretching water fowl....but it was good for us....
Pictures will follow it's just that we have so many and they're all so good!!!

The weather has been incredible the whole trip for us. Our friends the Irvings served as command central for Seattle as we had to find a place for the boys to stay as we connected with old friends to catch a pregame boat with 300 other Boise STate fans for the Boise State vs. Univ Washington football game. 77,000 people wearing purple or Blue and Orange. The boys, though reticent to stay with complete strangers for the day but good friends of the Irvings, had a great time. We did the Space Needle thing and a great bike ride along the waterfront. The next day we wandered North of Seattle on I-5 landing in a State Park between Mt. Vernon and Anacortes. Anacortes is a quaint little town with the Ferry system to the San Juans.... We had high hopes of getting an early start and seeing several islands but we got in late, had to do the car unhook, disconnect the trailer, level the RV and have some food and then an intense scrabble game - the boys have really enjoyed it.

The San Juan islands are incredibly beautiful. The Ferry ride alone was stunning and the boys - though not really sure before we embarked - could riden the Ferry all day. Did you know that if spit off the top level of a 3 story ferry in calm conditions moving at around 25 knots that your loogie will end up hitting the water around 75 feet away....that's enough of that strenuous physics experiment to cover our science requirements in home school for a couple weeks. Though we didn't see any Orcas we saw otters up close, ENORMOUS seals, crabs and something spouting in the distance but we never saw the actual animal.

Jumping to Canada we headed NE on the trans canadian highway and the Country is stunningly beautiful. Endless timber and huge mountain peaks and then expansive valleys...and we haven't even reached the Canadian Rockies. Although we found that 6-7 hours of driving seems like a little much it's really quite comfortable. I've yet to get Maria to drive the "Exxon Valdez" is we so aptly call this 50' of gas guzzling fury. We've ended up in a town called Sicamous on Mara Lake - the houseboating capital of Canada. Although we've yet to see more than one or two regular boats and no house boats on the water (we're here in low season) there hundreds if not thousands of boats of all types either dry docked or parked in the various Marinas of this huge Mountain lake. We rented a ski boat and did a brief wake boarding stint with everyone of the males of the group who decided to enter the water getting up on a wake board....Some drama occured but all frustration was whisped away as bodies came out of the water and up on the board.

• **********Travel Notes for Canada: Do you know how many Loonies it takes to do laundry??? 2 (Loonies are Canadian dollars and come in coin form).

Did you know that when parking your rig in an RV park or even making a reservations that....and this is according to the Chamber of Commerce host in Sicamous..."Size does matter eh"... love those Canadians. ************

Well Portland was great. Spent time with Maria's brother Chris and girlfriend Christine. We left Roseburg under pouring rain conditions on Tuesday. We caught up with old friends Rob & Steve Marshall and their lovely families and Papa John and Donna Marshall for a quick dinner at their home overlooking the Columbia River. Hal played tennis with former teammate from Poly Nat'l Championship team (like 82 years ago) Dave Reynoldson at Portland (and possibly America's) oldest tennis club established in 1898!!! Dave's beautiful twins starting as freshman in highschool keep Dave & Janet on their toes - we had a very special dinner together! Now it's off to Seattle......