Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2006

Well, today was a big day in the Gilley household. Our oldest child started high school! She was up, showered, and dressed early and out the door on time. It was only after I had made sure she had everything she needed and seen her head out with her dad that I realized what a monumental moment this is for her. I wanted to call her back and give her an extra kiss and cuddle and reassure her that the day would be a good one and tell her that I was proud of her and on and on. Instead, I stood quietly in the kitchen and whispered "Wow" to myself at the passing of an important day. I picked her up after school and she had positive things to say but tonight the tears started flowing as the reality of being in Anchorage, away from all her friends, not having friends here yet, and starting high school all hit her. She cried and was so sad saying that she didn't belong here and that she didn't want to make friends if we were only going to move again in a few years and how everything is different. It broke my heart. Shaun cuddled her. Then I sat with her and filled out school paperwork and helped with homework just to be near her for a little while longer. When I left she sat in my lap like a little girl and we prayed together for peace and comfort during this transition time. JB called her early this evening and that made her day, I think. (thanks, JB, if you are reading this) She is auditioning Friday afternoon for the school play "To Kill A Mockingbird" so if you think of it say a prayer for her.

The other two kids are tucked safely into their schools. Dharma's teacher is young and seems really nice. There are 15 other kids in her 1st grade classroom. Dharma told me as she was drifting off to sleep tonight that she has made two new friends in school today. She always seems so contented to settle wherever God plants her. May she always be that way. Sullivan reluctantly went to his school today. Yesterday he qualified for Anchorage's select highly gifted cluster program. This is for kids whose needs can't be met in the regular classroom or through pull-out programs so they group these kids at one elementary school in Anchorage. He is in a class with 14 other 6th grade students. This school is not in our school of zone so he is not going to be in school with kids that live near us which he was very unhappy about. But his teacher is a guy, and Sub thought he seemed like a pretty neat guy. Apparently he was a journalist for 15 years before deciding to teach the highly gifted. Two people I ran into today said that this guy is an amazing teacher and we were lucky to have him.

So it looks like the year is off and running. Yesterday Chris was wonderful and entertained two kids at a time in the car while I took whichever one was left into their school to check things out before starting today. We went to all three schools and got everyone individual mommy time. Then we went to a fast food restaurant called the Arctic Roadrunner which serves the best burgers, fries, and homemade milkshakes in Anchorage. After a yummy lunch, we drove across the street to the Alaska Wildberry Chocolate Factory and bought some treats to celebrate the day. We arrived home exhausted but glad with all we got accomplished.

While I ran children around today and took care of errands, Chris had a quiet day at home. She woke up this morning throwing up and looked a little too glassy eyed to do any site seeing. I think the long nap she took, the peacefulness of today's rain, and the chill (48-degrees here today) made it great snuggling weather and I came home to find her wrapped up in blankets on the couch feeling a bit better. We will see how she is in the morning and then plan our day accordingly.

Before I close, I want to tell you about our coming out of Wal-Mart this evening. We had gone school supply shopping and came out to more rain. But we looked up at this bright patch in the sky and were met with the most glorious rainbow we have ever seen. It was so huge and vivid we could see each color as if crayola had painted it with watercolors on the hillside and sky. We called Chris at home and told her to go out on the porch and look at it and I took a picture of it with my cell phone. We got in our car and headed home only to discover that the end of the rainbow was just a short distance up our hill from our house. We pulled into our driveway and just were amazed by it for a few minutes longer before it disappeared. I wish you all could have seen it because if that is what shows up at the end of the rains here, God has certainly fulfilled his promise of loving us when we see the rainbow. It was so pure and wonderful.

About Sun. Aug. 22, 2006--Day 13

I promised to write more about our drive through Alaska and catch you up on our activities. Hopefully you haven't given up on checking this blog. To arrive in town on Sunday evening and have three kids start school today in three different schools was all that I could handle. By 1 a.m. this morning, I hadn't updated the blog and was too tired to think. Everyone has been asleep in the house for over an hour tonight, but I promised myself I would blog before going to sleep.

Through 12 days of our journey, the weather was perfect. We could not have asked for bluer skies or nicer temperatures...including the 102-degrees in the Badlands because it fit the setting. Upon arriving in Alaska...our final destination...our end of the road...our long sought after place to hang our hats...it rained. To be more precise, my husband informed me that it has been like Noah's Ark and so far rained for 11 days and 11 nights with no let up in sight. We got up on Sunday morning in Tok, had breakfast at Fast Eddy's (which wasn't fast, in case you were wondering), and praised God for gas at $2.94/gallon. Then we hit the road to Anchorage...in the rain. The drive...in the rain...was gorgeous even though pretty much all of the hills and mountains were covered by clouds. In fact, sometimes the clouds were so low that as we drove through the hills, we actually drove into and through the clouds. Chris and Sullivan thought that was "really cool". There was one point in the first half of the drive, that had it not been for the rain, I would have gotten out and taken the most picturesque phot. Imagine being on one hillside and looking down into a flat valley. You aren't too far up the hill that the valley is far away. You are just up enough that you have a clear view of the valley for miles...you can count the trees and feel intimate with the scenery. There is a river, serene and welcoming, snaking tightly through the valley like a snake. It isn't rushing. It isn't too wide. Just perfect; trees line the edges and some places are open to the fields. The grass is a little bit brown but the evergreens make up for the lack of color. I can still picture that scene and wish I had stopped the car and taken the photo. I just figured that with the rain and low clouds, the lighting in the camera wouldn't do the scene justice. As we continued on, the hills became more rugged, the road wound into the mountains, and every now and then there would be a break in the weather and Chris or I would say..."Look. Look over there everyone." and there would be mountains beside us, in front of us, or near us with snow on the peaks already. I really hadn't expected to see that much snow already fallen in August...just on the tops...but really breathtaking. Chris then looked into the distance and said "Wow, is that a frozen lake up ahead?" There was a mountain in front of us but to the left of the road, and there was snow on top, followed by a green space, and then a solid white line like a belt around a woman's waist midway between the top and the bottom. It looked really bizarre, but as we drove closer we discovered that it wasn't a snow shelf or a river that had frozen early, but a glacier. A full blown, deep, and wide river of ice wrapping itself midway around this mountain. To be precise it is Matanuska Glacier which is a 27 mile long glacier. The picture attached is of the glacier when we got a whole lot closer to it. If you haven't ever seen an Alaskan Glacier, they are actually the bluest baby blue in color when you look in the crevaces. We all thought it was awesome. We still had a couple hours to go in the drive and the roads got twistier and narrower as we wound through the mountains and out the other side. We passed deep ravines, raging rivers, more beautiful valleys. We kept saying that if we thought the drive was this great, we probably would have had trouble keeping on the road if we had a clear day and could really see the countryside that surrounded us!! We arrived in Eagle River just before dinner time and rejoiced once again as gas prices were $2.89/gal. here. We topped off the gas tank so that we started and ended the drive on a full tank and finally drove to our house. Fortunately the kids love the home, even though they couldn't see the views for which we bought the home. They immediately made friends with kids in the neighborhood and wanted to go out and visit. Chris, Shaun, and I looked at one another...rejoiced in the fact that we had made it safely to Alaska and then rolled up our sleeves and got to work unpacking boxes. Rain and all, it was a good day.

Day 13--Eagle River

I have just realized that if it is 10:30 p.m. here in Eagle River, Alaska, then most of you are already in bed for the night. Please forgive my delay in posting our arrival. Today's trip was 312 miles and passed very quickly as everyone was excited about our journey coming to an end. After 4798.5 miles we reached our new home at approximately 4:30 p.m this afternoon. I will write more about everything tomorrow. Tonight my eyes and my body are tired and Sullivan hasn't downloaded any pictures to add. So, until tomorrow...goodnight and Thank you for being a part of this special trip.

Day 12—Finally Reaching Alaska

We started today with a wonderful continental breakfast at the Inn. There was homemade bread, fruit salad, muffins, cereal, meats, cheeses, etc. Everything was delicious and had a touch of elegance. We finally got on the road around 11 a.m. and hit a Wal-Mart about 30 minutes down the road to buy bread and water. Yesterday we stopped at a gas station in a town and asked how much a 12 pack of water was---$12. Ugh. We passed it up and just emptied our cooler of what we had on hand. Today we bought more to make it the rest of the trip. We have also been fixing lunch in the car every day to cut down on that expense. We have cooler with sandwich meat, and we refresh the ice daily and buy bread when we need it. This plan has worked out really well because we are generally in the middle of nowhere at lunch time. The topography changed today to a little flatter land and more straight stretches. After about 200 miles of driving today we came upon a huge lake in the middle of nowhere. We looked it up in Mileposts and found out it is Kluane Lake...the largest lake in the Yukon...over 150 square miles. The water is almost a turquoise blue and absolutely breathtaking against the mountains on one side of it. We drove around about 1/3 rd of the lake and truly enjoyed the views. We also passed the tallest mountain range in Canada today. The peaks went up into the clouds and were covered with icefields (glaciers). They were beautiful and stayed in the distance of our travels for much of the afternoon. A little way after the lake we hit the worst road conditions of our whole trip. For over 100 miles there were "dips" in the road caused by the permafrost layer of ground under the road thawing and shifting. It felt like a really bad carnival ride...mile after mile of split second drops in the road that piled together made our stomachs ache and our necks hurt. Chris and I agreed if we had hit this area at the beginning of our Alaska Highway drive, we would have quit. On top of the dips, there were also tons of gravel patches in the road. As we learned about 4 days ago, this is nothing to take lightly...a passing truck sent a rock flying into my windshield and put a nickel sized pothole in the class and another time we passed a car that was overturned after losing control on a gravel area. Except for the scenery, this was no fun to drive. After driving almost 4400 miles total, we entered Alaksa late this afternoon. We stopped for a photo op (see picture) and also took photos at a bench where half is in the Yukon and half is in Alaska and the two names are carved in the seat with a line down the middle. So for a brief moment, we were all in both Canada and the USA. We also sang "God Bless America" when we passed a gas station, still in the middle of nowhere, selling gas for $3.09/gallon. For the final 90 minutes of driving after entering Alaska, we had mountain ranges to the left with icefields covering the top of them. The land was much flatter between the road and the mountains with lots of little lakes. The trees are so close together here that we looked at a hill to the left and swore it was covered with beautiful green grass. But we thought about that and said, "Grass wouldn't look like that from so far away". Turns out, it was covered with trees so even in height and color and size and placed so close together that it gave the illusion of a grass or moss covered hillside and top. It was really cool. Well, we finished today in Tok (Toak), Alaska after driving 426 miles for a trip total of 4486 miles to date. The kids have been really feisty today. Chris and I believe that it is a combination of being antsy after 12 days in the car as well as being excited about arriving in Anchorage and nervousness over seeing their new home. They want to get up EARLY in the morning to hit the road and get to Eagle River as soon as possible. Chris and I are thinking we need to let them wake up naturally so they are well rested and ready to handle the day's offerings. Please hold them close in prayer as they see their new hometown and house. I pray that they will be happy there.

Day 11--Yukon Territory and Inn on the Lake

Today started out with a laugh. We ate breakfast at the lodge, loaded the car, and the kids climbed in. Chris and I went inside to turn in our room keys and when we came out we found Dharma in the front seat with her shoes on her hands...smashing all the mosquitoes against the front windshield. I started laughing and she stopped her hunt and promptly showed me the soles of her sandels and exclaimed "Look at how many I've gotten rid of!!!" as I see all the guts on the shoe. Remember...I warned you all in yesterday's blog about the mosquitoes.

Anyway, with the mosquitoe population within the car greatly diminished by our fearless warrior, we set out on today's drive. We entered the Yukon and had to chuckle at a sign that radar detectors are against the law here. We have not seen a single police officer (knock on wood) since entering Canada. The speed limit states 55 mph but the traffic easily goes 70-80...when you even see another car on the road. Today, we decided that we were the only people heading to Alaska becuase we probably past less than a dozen vehicles in our 7 hours of driving. A ccol place we stopped today is Watson Lake's Sign Forest. Back when the Alaska highway was being built someone put up a road crossing sign stating the miles to various world destinations (you know, the kind with arrows pointing a direction and reading "Tokyo 3000 miles". Well, one of the soldiers was homesick so he added his sign to the post pointing out the mileage to his hometown. Now almost 70 years later 55,000+ signs have been added to this "sign forest". Some are very extravagant wood carvings, some are handwritten with marker on a piece of scrap, some point are signs that look like they were stolen right off a sign post in the town it came from, some are factual, some are sentimental ("4000 miles to Jessica. I love you." followed by the guy's name). It was really cool. So remember to plan to add your addition to the sign post forest if you drive the Alaskan Highway. I wish I had known in advance so I could put one up that said 4000 miles to Pentwater (where we started this journey). Yes, we crossed the 4000 mile marker today and have about 750 left to go. Tonight we are staying at the Inn on the Lake outside of Whitehorse in the Yukon. Martha Stewart filmed a segment for her Martha Stewart Living tv special here in 2002. It is a log cabin design but very modern and comfortable inside. We had dinner prepared by the onsite chef of: seafood chowder, spinach salad (which Dharma ate all of), ribs with twice baked potato or beef roumalade with potatoes, and a fancy pudding for dessert. It was wonderful. The only other couple here is from the UK and we all enjoyed a delightful white tablecloth dinner together (fortunately they have grandchildren the age of our kids so they were happy to have them at the table). We are actually staying in the guest cottage on the premises which has three bedrooms, a sitting area, dining area, bathroom, and kitchen. It is quite lovely and everyone settled in nicely. We had hoped to go kayaking on the beautiful big lake but the weather, though, clear is blustery and the lake is a bit too choppy for our tastes. Instead the kids are now in the hot tub and I am going to sign off to join them. We can't believe that we will be in Eagle River (our neighborhood on the edge of Anchorage) on Sunday afternoon. This trip has been amazing for all of us...the 374 miles today and the 4059.6 total we have driven.

Day 10—Alaska Highway and Laird Hot Springs

We got on the road in Ft. St. John and didn’t stop (except for gas and a pitstop) until we arrived at Laird Hot Springs Lodge across the street from the Laird Hot Spring Provincial Park. The drive took us into the Northern Canadian Rockies and was very pretty. We have come to note the following things about driving in Canada on the Alaska Highway:

****there are no straight passages of road greater than a couple hundred yards the entire trip is up and down, up and down, and occasionally around a mountain drive “on the top half of your gas tank” because there probably won’t be gas for another 100 miles or more
****it will cost you $2 for a soft drink at a gas station so it is cheaper to buy 40 oz. slushies/icees for the kids at $1.59
****if you are tempted to buy 40 oz. slushies for the kids, remember that if it is more than 100 miles to a gas station then it is more than 100 miles to the next bathroom…so scale back to the 28 oz. slushie (which will be even cheaper)
****plan to pay between $4-$6 per gallon of gas and remember to gas up in any bigger sized town you pass because in between towns (several hundred miles) you will only have one place to choose from and will pay a premium
****the gas stations in the middle the wilderness (and some of them in the bigger towns) take me way back in time…no choices between regular and premium gas, no credit card slots, no latches on the handles so you don’t have to squeeze the pump the whole time, and you have to lift the lever on the side of the machine to activate the pump
****If there is road construction, plan to be there for up to an hour waiting for your chance to go through (today’s stops took 1 hour, 30 min, 10 min, and 5 min.) because Canadian’s don’t believe in small projects and you are driving on hillsides so there is a “lead car” that takes the groups of cars through the one usable lane of the rode…and he drives as if he has all day to lead you safely through the construction zone.
****If a sign says “Watch for Caribou on the Road”, you better be keeping your eyes peeled. We had to stop 5 times for caribou in the road…usually just one or two but still “in the road” for sure.

After we arrived at the Liard (lee-ard) Hot Springs Lodge (at the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere) and checked in, we ate dinner in the lodge dinning room. Chris and I had Buffalo burgers for the second time on our trip and thought they were really tasty. Apparently there is a wild buffalo herd just down the road and the employees joked that the burgers were “prepared just this afternoon”. We browsed in the shop and found a bumper sticker that would prove to be true as we walked to the Hot Springs. It said “For the record: There is not a single mosquito on the Alaska Highway…they have all married and had very large families”. After dinner we walked across the street to the Hot Springs. It cost $10 for our group to go to the Hot Springs…and it was worth it. (There is a book that Shaun purchased for me called “Mileposts” and it is published annually. If you are traveling in Canada or in Alaska on the major highways, it is a fabulous resource because it tells you milepost by milepost what you will expect to find. We have found it to be very accurate and it is how we found our lodgings for tonight.) We walked through the parking area and down a long boardwalk over a marshy area before arriving at the hot springs. The water rises super hot from the depths at one end of a creek type area. The water is about 3 ½ feet deep and the area is about 15 feet wide in the widest part. There is a manmade waterfall (see picture of the three kids and a stranger) that separates the hotter part from the cooler part. The water is crystal clear and ranges from 108-128 degrees and stone benches have been placed in a few locations underwater for resting on (one is under the waterfall). The creek bottom is made of fine rocks so it is easy on the feet to walk around and boardwalks and stairs have been built on one side of the spring for easy access to the water. In the hottest part of the hot springs where the water is bubbling out of the ground, there is a natural stone wall that blocks off the hot area. On top of the natural looking stone walls, we saw piles of smaller rocks. These rocks are placed there by bathers who brave the extreme heat from the closest steps through the water to the wall and place a rock on the wall…thus being granted “good luck” according to folk lore. Barb, Sullivan, and I each did the daring water walk and put stones on the wall…Chris and Dharma couldn’t be talked into it so I did a second one in their honor…and for Shaun who couldn’t be here with us. We all loved Laird Hot Springs and hated to leave when we finally dragged ourselves out. But back to the mosquitoes…they bit us during the walk to and from the hot springs and while we were in the water. At one point, I laid back in the water with my ears covered and floated…looking up at the sky and gazing at the trees…admiring the peacefulness of the location…and noting the dozens of fly-sized mosquitoes zipping around above my body. No other bugs, just mosquitoes. Yikes. How true that bumper sticker was!! Anyway, we are now back in our lodge. Chris is playing America’s National Parks Addition of Monopoly with the three kids while I write this. I bought this for them at Glacier National Park and they are having a good time because now they have been to many of the places in the game. The kids and I have the family room…two double beds, two twins, a bathtub/shower combination…a nice log cabin room. Chris has a room at the other end of the hall with two twin beds and stand up shower. There are no alarm clocks, no internet, no cell phone service…just rain starting up outside to fall asleep to. We hope to get a good night sleep and hit the road at an early hour tomorrow. We have traveled 431 miles today and gone a trip total of 3685 miles. At our next stop, we hope to post this.

Day 9--Dawson Creek and Mile 0

Today we woke up in the town of Jasper in Jasper National Park of the Canadian Rockies National Park. It was too dark to see anything when we arrived late last night, but the town is truly picturesque. Jasper turns out to be a stopping point for tourists hiking, canoeing, camping, and just driving through the national park as well as a skiing hamlet in the winter. "Hamlet" would be a perfect way to describe the town which lies within the mountain ranges and has wonderful, quaint shops dotting what seem to be the two main roads in the town. They aren't trashy, flashy tourist places, but rather the type that look so inviting you could spend all day poking your head in and out of each store. Wish we had more time to spend there, but it was up, breakfast, download the blogs, buy some water for the cooler, gas the car, and hit the road (which still took us until noon to complete). I would love to go there again to ski and relax. We started our drive by finishing the last few miles of the Icefalls Parkway and then exited the park. The rest of today's 380 mile drive was fairly uneventful. We made great time through the beautiful, evergreen covered, rolling countryside. We had very few straigh-aways and spent the day going up and over and around large hills (can't call them mountains after seeing the Rockies). The route we took to Dawson Creek started with a roadside marker pointing to the "Scenic Route to Alaska". It was a very nice drive and well deserving of the highway marker. One thing to note about this "scenic route" is that the warning my husband gave us was absolutely true...nothing...no gas...no rest stops...no bathrooms...for a 100 miles at a time. In the first 250 miles we only crossed two towns. WOW. Imagine that in the USA...NOT. We arrived at Dawson Creek at 6 p.m. today and got out to take pictures including the one in this blog. Dawson Creek is the Historic Mile Marker 0 for the Alaskan Highway...the start...the beginning of this massive highway...a big deal. We were 9 days and 3208 miles into our drive. For the next three days (until Sunday morning) we will be on this highway. I don't have our book with me in the hotel room, but it will be for over 1300 miles. Tonight we are in the town of Ft. St. John, in British Columbia. The hotel is nice and we are looking forward to a relaxing evening and a good night sleep. Tomorrow we don't know if we will have internet so don't worry if we don't blog. We are stopping at a Hot Springs Lodge in the middle of nowhere. We are looking forward to warming and soothing our bodies in the natural hot springs that are there. The next night we stop at a place Martha Stewart filmed one of her shows from...we hope it is wonderful. So that is the scoop on us for today. We have traveled 3254 miles as of this evening.

Day 8--Too Many Places to Name

Barb, Sub, Dharma, and Chris got a sound night's sleep and we all had a wonderful home-cooked breakfast. The kids kept commenting on how great it was to have a real breakfast and how much they enjoyed it. I didn’t sleep much at all because I was too nervous about today’s drive through Glacier National Park. During conversation around the B&B last night, the talk turned to The Road To The Sun…the only way through Glacier National Park. A biker who was staying the night had driven the road that day and told me it was a nail-biter. The guide books say this is a road “not for the squeamish” and the biker agreed. As I said about Yellowstone, I don’t like driving on cliffs. Well, that is all The Road to the Sun is…40 miles of shear drop offs to one side. Anyway, after a sleepless night, a great breakfast, and loading the car we set of for Glacier National Park. We hit The Road to the Sun which is 56 miles long and cuts the park almost in half, and I was thinking “this isn’t so bad” as we drove around Lake McDonald near the west entrance of the park. The road got steeper, but I was hugging the wall and said “Hey, I can handle this. It’s not so bad since I am against the wall”. I SPOKE TOO SOON. Just a few miles later the road did a zig zag thing and I ended up on the outside lane….heading uphill for on a road that was just wide enough for two cars to pass each other…with a drop off beside us that went down for thousands of feet. I was petrified!!! But obviously I made it since I am writing this. At the top (36 miles into the drive) there is a visitors center where we stopped called Logan’s Pass. We took pictures, and I got a chance to enjoy the scenery before starting the descent on the other side of the mountains. We also drove past a lake called St. Mary’s which provided beautiful reflections in the water of the mountains around it. VERY SPECTACULAR DRIVE…I recommend it to anyone who has the courage to try it. But remember…once you start…you can’t back up and quit. There is nowhere to go but up and over.
After leaving Glacier National Park, we drove just a few miles and entered Canada. (Thank you, Shaun, for all the guide books you bought us. That little note on a page somewhere about needing a permission letter from the non-present spouse to take your child across the border really came in handy because they asked for it at the border crossing.) The drive was pretty uneventful for the first 100+ miles…more brown land and smaller rolling hills or flat areas. Then we drove onto the Trans-Canadian Parkway/HWY 1. It took us into the Canadian Rockies National Park. The mountains loomed up around us and the scenery was once again beautiful. We drove to Lake Louise (thank you, Jenn, for suggesting this stop.) We parked in the parking area and walked down a short path through the woods and emerged at a lake surrounded very tightly on three sides by mountains. The mountain on the opposite end of the lake had two glaciers on it (see picture at start of today's entry). The view was truly breathtaking! After taking advantage of the photo op, we hit the road and turned onto the Icefalls Parkway which took us through the Jasper National Park (also part of Rockies National Park). We definitely saw why it was called Icefalls Parkway…the road had mountains on both sides and the ones on the left were dotted with glaciers (ice fields) of all shapes and sizes. They were incredible to see and went on forever. We finally ended day 8, 13 ½ hours after we started. We traveled 506 miles today for a trip total of 2874.9 miles. WOW!

Before I close today, I want to thank Chris’ family for encouraging her to come on this trip. She has been a wonderful addition to our little traveling band!!!

Day 7--Old Faithful and Montana

Today was a long driving day so we were up and on the road early. Old Faithful was the main attraction on the agenda and was on our way out of the park so that worked out nicely. We drove around the park to the Old Faithful location, parked, and as we were walking down the sidewalk to the viewing area, she was nice enough to erupt right in front of us. We were unprepared to take pictures, but we still managed to snag a few from a distance. Then after the eruption subsided we took some more pictures in front old faithful with the steam coming out. We were all surprised by the eruption. I don’t know why, but we all pictured water spouting out of the opening like water from a fireman’s hose. But it is not like that at all. It is more of a massive steam cloud shooting way up into the air and nothing like a spout of water. It was cool, though, all the same. We then did a little shopping, got back in our car, and she erupted again as we drove away. Awesome!! We left Yellowstone by the West Entrance and immediately entered Montana and headed north. Other than Gallatin National Forest, Montana was a mass of brown rolling hills. We expected to see horse and cow ranches, green fields, etc. but it was really just brown and kinda endless. Just as we were commenting about a million hours into our drive that God must have gotten tired making Wyoming and did Montana all the same way, we hit Flathead Lake. Imagine driving for hundreds of miles through brown, relatively unchanging rolling hills and then you come over a crest and there is the biggest mountain lake you’ve ever seen. The sun is glinting off it at such an angle that you can’t see how big it is but you know IT IS BIG. We drove around one side of that lake for over 40 miles and passed amazing orchards (cherry, peach, apple) nestled into the hillside and going from one side of the road to the other before stopping at the lake. It was really unexpected. Then we turned away from the lake and passed the prettiest green ranch with matching buildings you have ever pictured (for sale, no less) before going the last few miles to our hotel…the Historic Tamarac Lodge. After 450 miles, it didn’t look like much but a large log cabin with some smaller motel units beside it in the middle of nowhere but we were glad to get there and very pleasantly surprised. Turns out that Shaun had booked us in a B&B for the night and our rooms were in the log cabin. The cabin was built in 1907 and originally was in Glacier National Park. Eventually, though, it was moved outside the park to its current location. The young couple who runs the place is from the NE but hunted the internet, found this place, and bought it 11 months ago. Our rooms were in an added on upstairs and were very clean, very comfortable, and decorated in wood beam furniture and quilts that were wonderful. We have covered 472 miles today for a trip total of 2369 miles.

Day 6--Grand Tetons and Yellowstone

We had a glorious day today. The weather was once again fantastic. We rented a six person skiff at the marina in the Grand Tetons (TEA-tawns) and toodled around a small portion of Jackson Lake which lies between our lodge and the Teton mountain range. It was fun to go in and out of the coves with Sullivan driving most of the time. We were surprised that we didn't see any animals at all but we did see a family of ducks, a heron and some geese (which were glorious when they all took flight together. After zigzagging around the coastline for a couple hours, we returned the boat and headed into Yellowstone which was less than an hour drive away. The topography and trees change radically as you drive from one park to the other. Upon entering Yellowstone at the south entrance, the evergreens begin growing literally starting on the edge of the road and move densely back. Then there is a gorge on the right side of the car with the fast moving Snake river at the bottom. It was beautiful, but scary for me to drive. I kept telling everyone else to enjoy the view and not to tell me about it because the drop was long and made me nervous. Then we checked into our rooms at Grant Lodge and headed out for the evening. Chris and I were amazed at how BIG Yellowstone is. To drive to any of the sites, we had to plan on being gone a long time. We hit three today. We drove to West Thumb Geyser which was close to our lodge. This area has probably 20 different geysers of various types. It is suppose to be the best representation of all the geysers types available to be seen in the park. They were really amazing. Mud geysers (water looks like mud bubbling), fishing hole geyser (in the water where explorers wrote about catching a fish in the water and then dropping it into a boiling geyser and cooking it without even taking it off the pole), seismograph geiser, and geysers where the water is so turquoise blue and you can see the caverns heading into the depths of it. It was amazing. Then we hopped in the car and drove another half hour to Hayden Meadow. There we saw a heard of wild bison. They were magnificent!! It was cool to see them wandering through a riverbed, resting in the meadow, walking with their babies, and just hanging out. There were probably hundreds because they were on both sides of the road (hillside on the left and meadow on the right). After stopping to take pictures, we continued on to the Canyon of Yellowstone. There is a waterfall to start the canyon off. It wasn't a long one but it was a mighty powerful one. The canyon then slices through the rock. Sullivan also had his picture by a sign for Uncle Tom Trail. He joked that he didn’t know his Uncle Tom had named after him in Yellowstone. We got back in our car and drove to Artists Point...the most photographed place in the park. At this location, we stood on the edge a cliff looking down onto the canyon formed by the water and "Colored" by geysers over the years leaving their sediment on the hillside. This canyon is faily narrow and incredibly deep. Every time one of us would say "Isn't this beautiful?!" Dharma would chime in "And Deadly!" We all kept laughing. It Was breathtakingly beautiful but the cliffs are so deep and steep and void of greenery that if you fell, you wouldn't stop until you hit the bottom. After that we drove back to our lodge. As we drove around Yellowstone, anywhere a mass of cars was pulled off on the side of the road meant that wildlife had been spotted. It could be a mess at times trying to get around the cars stopped here and there. At one point, as we were traveling past Hayen Meadow on the way back, traffic on the road had come to a long standstill. Commenting aloud that there better be a bison in the road for people to hold up traffic this long, we finally reached the top of the ridge and ...there was a bison and its baby in the road. Sullivan took a couple great pictures as we eaked around the creatures hoping we wouldn't make them mad. It was a Great Day.

update

The next few posts are being posted a few days late because there was not internet available for use in Yellowstone and the server was crashed at our B&B… but we didn't want to skip our notes. Before we start though…Dharma is fine. She bounced back and now just has a cold and a cough but no fever. Debra, though, is having major problems with her asthma and is having to do breathing treatments before and after the days’ drives. Anyway, pretend these were written over the past few days.

Grand Tetons--Day 5

Today I was so glad we brought Chris along (as we have felt each day but especially today). I awoke with a migraine and she took over the first shift of driving. My meds kicked in and when I felt better I was able to enjoy the scenery and take lots of pictures out the car window before taking over driving for the last 70 miles. We covered 315 miles today for a trip total of 1772 miles. As we drove, Barb made the wonderful exclamation "God must have been having a good time when He created Wyoming." The land is just crazy here. We drove for hundreds of miles between yesterday and today where there was nothing but endless brown fields. If there were any trees, there was usually a house situated under it but we are talking many miles between trees. The creeks seemed to all be dried up and the heat was almost 100 degrees. The land wherever there was a small town seemed to have more trailer homes than permanent homes. Then today the scenery suddenly started changing. First there was the brown rolling landscape. Then there was the brown landscape on one side of the road and green landscape on the other. Then there were rolling hills on one side and jagged hills much like the Badlands on the other. Then there suddenly appeared creeks and rivers and the rolling hills got bigger and bigger. Then there were deep red clay mountains (where we could imagine Indians getting red clay for pottery). Beautiful log cabins to log mansions sprouted up and we entered the Shoshone National Forest with amazing valleys with small rivers running through them, evergreens filling the landscape on the side of the hills. Then all of a sudden we round a corner and see an amazing stone mountain jutting up from nowhere and we think" we are in Teton County so that must be the Grand Tetons", but no. We don't know what they were called. We keep on driving and get higher and higher into the hills so we have to pop our ears and the views just get more breathtaking with wildflowers growing along the road in valley pastures, more log homes, horses, lakes, and then...boom. There they are...the majestic Grand Tetons looming before us. They are so vast and beautiful with snow still on some of the top peaks that I almost forget to keep my eyes on the road. We enter the Grand Teton National Park and drive around Jackson Lake to our lodge. We are in a cottage beside the Lodge and ate dinner in the lodge. When we entered the lodge there was a majestic staircase in front of us to the second floor. We walked up the stairs and were greeted at the opposite end of a large gathering room by two story class windows that encase the Grand Tetons like a picture frame. It is amazing. I am writing this blog from that room sitting beside an unlit fireplace in one corner that has a pull across screen taller than I am and the grates inside are iron moose heads almost as long as Dharma is tall and the wood would be placed where the back of the moose would be located. I can only imagine how picturesque the scene would be with snow outside in the winter. Well, I guess I have written enough for one day. Keep Dharma in your prayers because she is running a fever, complaining of a headache, chills, and a stomach ache. If she is well enough tomorrow, we plan on renting a boat and going out on the lake and going on a hike. If she is not well, I will cuddle with her and enjoy the view from the lodge while Sub, Barb, and Chris go hiking and do some water sports. Tomorrow when we finally leave, we head to Yellowstone just 50 miles up the road. Till then...you need to know that Barb took the picture from our moving car window.

The Black Hills on day 4

Today we traveled 225 miles for a total of 1457 miles so far. We got off to a later start than planned because Sub was sick last night and I let all the kids sleep in. He is feeling better today, but now I might be getting sick with a cold. Plan on everyone getting a good night sleep tonight. Enough about that, though. We drove to Mount Rushmore and arrived late in the morning. We spent several hours there looking at the mountain, browsing in the gift store, and going on a hike to the sculptor's studio (which was really neat and had a big picture window that looked up on the monument). Then we drove to Crazy Horse and spent another hour looking around. I went there last 29 years ago, and it still looked a lot the same though the employees of this monument assured me that a lot had happened in the last 29 years. The only part completed is the face. Anyway, from there we drove to Jewel Cave and arrived too late to go on any of the bigger caving tours. We went on a short one into the main cavern which lies about 230 feet underground. We saw calcium crystals and a few other neat formations and learned some history but were sad we couldn't see more. Then we had a three hour drive to our stop for tonight...a Best Western in a little town called Douglass, Wyoming. We got here close to nine and asked at the desk for a good place to eat. We were pointed to a tiny Mexican restaurant called La Cantina (I think). Anyway, the food was fabulous!!!!! If you come here or through here, it is just off the highway and well worth the stop. Tomorrow is a driving day...6-7 hours to get to the Grand Tetons where we stay within the park boundaries.

Day 3--South Dakota and the Badlands

Here are Barb, D.D, and Sub at the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. Our drive today was 373 miles for a trip total of 1233 miles. We spent about 4 hours stopping at various places in the Badlands for pictures, short walks, and to let the kids do a little climbing on small mounds. The temperature rose to 104-degrees outside...the guide books warned of the high heat produced in such a barren area in the hight of summer. Wish I could put into words how amazing and beautiful the badlands are. They got their name from the French explorers who called this area "bad land to cross" and the Dakota Indians who also called this "bad land". It is breathtaking to be driving through ENDLESS rolling brown prairie land and then this place just opens up before you to one side of the highway. There is high prairie land and low prairie land and walls of rock separate the two (the high prairie land starts at the top edge of the rocks and the low prairie is in a vast valley). The drive through the park winds up and down so that you get views of everything from both the top and the bottom of the rocks. The rocks are all striped with red lines, white lines, gray lines, and, in places, bright yellow. We joked that in some areas (like the one behind the kids) the lines and the vastness of the scenery almost look like a computer printed picture where the cartridge is running out of ink and leaving lines across the picture. I know that is hard to picture, but if you saw it, you would know exactly what I mean. Anyway, after the badlands, we drove to Wall Drug Store. There are at least 73 signs advertising Wall Drugs along the road once you enter South Dakota. It is very famous for having "Free Ice Cold Water"--which was its big draw back in the 1930's when people were traveling for days through the dusty prairie. So we had several cups of ice cold water. It has lots of different stores within the one. Sullivan even panned for gold in one part and got a few gold flakes. We shopped and ate dinner there. Then headed out for tonight's destination in Rapid City, South Dakota. The parking lot has whole sections blocked off for the Sturgis bikers to park and almost everyone here is a biker. We are definately the minority in our minivan and three kids in tow. Tomorrow we go to Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and Jewel Cave then head into Wyoming before stopping for the night.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota

The kids are standing under the South Dakota sign at the first rest stop over the border from Minnesota. We have driven 430 miles today from Wisconsin, through Minnesota, and into South Dakota for a total of 860 miles so far. Yesterday's trip was longer than estimated due to our detour to get Chris and go by the house. Today was beautiful weather. We stopped at a rest stop beside the mighty Mississippi which was beautiful and took a few pictures but otherwise we pressed forward to get the driving done. We got off to a late start today (noon) due to sleeping in, having a great breakfast at the hotel, giving Dharma some swimming time, and then dealing with computer complications. We didn't arrive at our hotel until almost 8:00 p.m. (We had a long rest stop at the one in the picture because Shaun was at Barb's H.S. in Anchorage registering her and we ended up having to have a conference call over her schedule for the year.) We ordered Dominoes pizza at the hotel and let the kids have some swimming time to wear off energy. Tomorrow we go through the Badlands and then drive to Rapid City, South Dakota where apparently a gabillion bikers are staying for Sturgis. Should be an interesting day all the way around.

First stop

We have traveled approximately 420 miles today...from Pentwater to Joliet (to pick up my Girl Scout co-leader and friend, Chris, who volunteered to make this drive with me as another adult) to Yorkville (to pick up three packages UPS left on our doorstep and check on the lawn mowing...just kidding, Moment boys) to Madison, Wisconsin. We barely got the doors shut on the car it is packed so full. We momentarily considered agreeing to strap whichever kid started fussing onto the roof so we would have extra room, but decided that we didn't want police to slow our northward progress by putting us in jail. Our hotel tonight is fabulous...spacious rooms and well cared for. After going to dinner with an old high school friend and his family (great to visit!!!), we went back to the hotel for some hot-tub and pool time. Now the kids are playing games in the other room with Chris before we settle them down for the night. Tomorrow is just a day of driving...no particular sights to see...just trying to make it across Minnesota to South Dakota before stopping for the night.

We leave in the morning

Well, the car is almost fully loaded...just the kids activities, toiletries and a load of laundry to go. Dharma has done her meditation on the beach to be relaxed and calm and ready to be couped up in a car with her siblings for the next two weeks. Tomorrow we leave in the morning and drive to Madison, Wisconsin where we will stop for the night. We may drop by our house because UPS apparently delivered some packages there and I need to pick them up or have them mailed. It is on the way so I think we will make a quick stop. The total drive (not including any detours we might take) is almost 4700 miles and we are scheduled to arrive on August 20th in Eagle River, AK.

The Adventure is about to Begin

Here's our Strawberry Lane house...still not sold...but on the market. The household goods were shipped to Alaska July 21st and we have been at the beach hanging out since (while Barb and Sub were at camp part of the time). My brother is helping me get this blog thing started. I've been asked to blog our trip from Michigan to Alaska so friends and family can keep up with our activities. The house is filled from one end to the other with suitcases, containers, and piles. I am not sure how we will get all this in our car and on top of that I need to schedule an emergency post office visit to ship Kirsten to the American Girl Hospital because her leg fell off today. The task of getting us on the road in less than 48 hours seems daunting, but we are all eager to "get this show on the road"...literally.