Things we will miss..

Random Pictures:
 Above, the huge herd of Bison casually making their way down the Alaska Highway while the traffic waited. 
The Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller. 


The Voo Doos in the Alberta bad lands.

The
Passion Play in Drumheller Alberta





 A lone wolf comes to catch his 
evening meal of fresh Salmon.
                                                                                                                            

 

 Mother Grizzly bear was just below us and about 8 feet away eating sweet leaves after her fill of Salmon.










Baby Grizzly bear playing after a supper of salmon.

The amazing 16 hour trip down the west coast from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy on the northern tip of Vancouver Island

 

Our many walks along the Parksville beach with Cassie. 

The Monday morning hikes.

The Trumpeter Swans above

Bev cracking crabs

                              The Nanaimo Song Writers
                                 

                          Snow shoeing in Mount Washington

The boat trip to Bamfield, sea lions and Orca whales

The view from our trailer

                            My crabbing buddies from Alberta

                 The ever present Eagles and so much more.......

Our travelling companion, Cassie, was just 5 months old when we left last July. Her home has been either the truck or the trailer. Our travel days were usually about seven to eight hours and she just curled up in her bed between us in the front seat Just getting out every two hours or so for a quick break.

It is impossible to say what our favourite things were on the journey as we loved everything about it. Our amazing country is so vast and the scenery ranges from beautiful to spectacular to breathtaking. The natural wildlife we saw was far more than we had hoped for. We saw so many Black Bears along the highways we found ourselves saying, "Oh it's just a bear", when we would see an animal up ahead. The thousands of lakes and rivers  and the Yukon River in particular, were all so picturesque. The day we took the mail boat from Port Alberni out to Bamfield on the Pacific Ocean and saw the many Orca whales was very special.  We also met so many wonderful and interesting people such as the old minister and his wife at a church in Dawson City, in the Yukon.
    My only regret is that I did not have a better camera.
   
Will there be another trip? Only time will tell............ 
    If there are no more trips we should not be too disappointed, as we have been so very fortunate to have enjoyed countless wonderful trips in our 53 years.        

The final chapter??

Saturday morning we crossed the border into Ontario, but not until we were sent through Detroit on a detour, as I-75 was closed. It certainly adds to the excitement of city travel with a trailer in tow. We then went to our friends home in Leamington, which is near Windsor, for a three day visit and discovered that Roger was in the hospital. We had left the trailer at their son's house in the country. Since Roger was in the hospital, we spent time with Lorraine as she was glad of the company. Monday I went for a three hour hike through Point Pelee National Park. The point is a narrow peninsula that reaches over eight miles southeast into Lake Erie, and is a world destination for viewing migratory birds during April and May. Over 350 species of birds have been recorded in the park. The Spring migration brings over 40,000 birders each year. It was interesting to read that due to the US tightening of the border the lost number of visitors from the US have been made up by an influx of birders from Quebec. 
                                     


                                        Pictures
Our last park of the trip was in Birch Run Michigan. The park was beautiful and quiet and we stayed three nights while we shopped the outlet malls and prepared for our arrival in Cambridge. 

At Point Pelee, there were many birds to be seen, but many to be heard and not seen as the foliage was so thick. Last time I was there the leaves were just starting to come out and I saw over 60 species of birds in two days. Besides seeing the beautiful birds it made a great three or four hour hike. The beach is eight km along the western shore. The many wild flowers add to the beauty of the park.

We arrived back in Cambridge Tuesday May 15 at about 3pm after being away for over ten months. A summary will come soon. At this point I can say it was an amazing journey, more than we had expected. I have had fun with the "BLOG" and hope you have to.

Mount Rushmore in South Dakota to Frankenmuth Michigan

We took a two day break from driving, at a campground near Mount Rushmore, which is near Rapid City in South Dakota. We spent a few hours at Mount Rushmore and had to be impressed with the enormity of the sculptures. Mount Rushmore has over the years, become a tourist destination and so lots of hotels, eateries and shops. Some of you may not know, but the four Presidents were carved out of the granite rock over a period of 14 years, 1927 to 1941. Each President's head is over 29 feet high. The Presidents are;George Washington on the left the first President, next is Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and then Abraham Lincoln on the far right.

Campground near Rapid City South Dakota

Mount Rushmore

Too many days of this across the US west

Campground in Minnesota 

The next four days we drove across South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and into Michigan State.. We averaged about 750km per day, not what we usually drive for sure with a trailer on behind. The scenery was boring to be polite. The drive across the Canadian Prairies is much more interesting. There was not a sign of life for the first 100km after leaving Rapid City. Gradually we began to see sparse cattle herds, but the terrain continued to be rolling, dry, grasslands with not much else. Once we were into Minnesota the land became greener. There were trees and soon there were many farms being prepared for the Spring planting. In Western Wisconsin the I-90 merges with I-94 both coming from the west and there were endless convoys of huge trucks. Understandably the closer we got to Chicago the more trucks there were. We camped just West of the city. In the morning we took I-39 to I-80 East to avoid going through downtown Chicago. It was a long way around but it worked better for us. We made Frankenmuth, Michigan by 5pm and ready for a 3 night stay to rest up, if you call shopping the Outlet Malls and doing laundry resting. We also took the opportunity to unload the truck and exchanged all our winter clothes for summer clothes. We can not believe how many clothes we had!! And then we bought even more!!

From West coast of Vancouver Island to South Dakota.

    Well it has been hectic for the past week, thus now I need to catch up on the Blog. Sunday after church we left the Living Forest Campground in Nanaimo after 7 wonderful months and headed south to a new park in Victoria. The park was right on the bay downtown and we shared space with a marina and a group of float homes which sell in the $600,000 range. Across the bay sits the majestic Empress Hotel, which was part of a large chain of luxury hotels built in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Empress was built in 1908.  
Anyway, we left early Monday to drive along the west coast of Vancouver Island to Sooke and Port Renfrew. Yes, it was raining, but that is what it does on the west coast of the island, that's why there are "Rain Forests" there. So our first stop was Sooke. We made our way down about two hundred steps in the drizzling rain to walk along the boardwalk in the drizzle, then climb back up the two hundred steps in the drizzle....me carrying the dog who doesn't do steps!! The road wound round and up the switchbacks through the rain forest; it was beautiful in the rain. The road was very narrow and we crossed at least 20 single lane bridges. When we finally arrived at Port Renfrew, consisting of maybe 20 or so homes, we continued on to the the Botanical Beach. It was raining steadily now so we decided not to hike down to the beach, but did spend half an hour as Bev fed grapes to a Steller's Jay so I could get a picture. To avoid the drive back along the same road, we chose to cross the island to Lake Cowichan and Duncan then down to Victoria.We stopped on the way to see the enormous Harris Spruce tree. The trip was about 250km and beautiful all the way. A perfect way to end our Vancouver Island stay.


      The boardwalk in Sooke 

                                                      One of many single lane bridges

           The Steller's Jay loves grapes.

Harris Spruce, an example of the huge trees that use to be the norm in the rain forest.

We love the Rain Forest and will miss our many hikes through them.

Some of the float homes

The beautiful Empress Hotel

    So then off to the ferry which would take us back to the mainland after eight months on the island. A two hour drive south to Seattle then onto the I-90 east bound. This would be our route home for the next 10 days. There were the many expected miles of forests, then up to 4300 feet and over Lookout Pass. We kept an eye on the temperature as it dropped from 10c to zero as we climbed higher and higher to the top. We had seen several signs for places to put your chains on. Not very comforting... Just as we reached the top the rain changed to snow and we were more than a little stressed..... Over the top and then we wound our way down until the temperature gradually rose; 1c, 2c, 3c, and the snow became rain again, and we began to breath again. Within an hour we had dropped down into a gently rolling valley as the highway followed a peacefully flowing river. The land was very arid and the only land that was productive was where there was extensive irrigation. The next fear we had was crossing the Homestake Pass at 6345ft, about 2,000ft higher than Lookout Pass with snow. I had a sleepless night, but we had to carry on in the morning. We were soon climbing to the summit, with clenched knuckles. We finally passed the sign. "Continental Divide", 6345ft. That was it, we were over the top and had survived with out the dreaded snow. For the next two days through Montana and into South Dakota we seldom saw a tree, just endless miles of rolling hills of grasslands. There were lots of beef cattle and horses roaming the hills, as would be expected and that was about all we saw. It is amazing how far you can see, as you come over the tops of the many hills when there are no trees to block the view.


                       The last of the snow capped mountains

                           White knuckles over the peak of the Lookout Pass.

Friendlier secenes






Next stop, Mount Rushmore.