Posts for June, 2017

Our flight from Glasgow to Halifax on May 31st turned out to be a long drawn out affair. Initially scheduled as an early-ish flight at 9:30 am we did not actually get into the air until 3:30pm, so by the time we finally got to Halifax we were more than a little zombie like and hence we did not focus on anything except finding some food at a restaurant close to our AirBnB and sleep.

We had planned on traveling along the Fundy coast after leaving Halifax. The Fundy is famous for its large tides with daily swings of 40 feet being common. But the weather was poor, cold, wet and gray. So we changed our minds and after leaving Nova Scotia we headed generally North along the coast of New Brunswick.

Our route today took us a little farther north (to Miramichi) and then west to Grand Falls along a series of minor and sometimes bumpy roads. It was nice to be back in "the wilderness" after Europe and we were rewarded with a brief glimpse of a young moose.

Not much to say about today. We continued generally west from Grand Falls skirting the US border, eventually arriving at the major highways that follow the south side of the St Lawrence. Then turned south to follow those highways ending the day at the town of Levis where we camped at a small gas station.

The weather was still wet this morning and got worse as the day progressed. The poor weather has diminished our enthusiasm for exploration and now we are thinking of increasing our pace and getting back to Gig Harbor a little earlier.

Today we followed minor highways generally paralleling the St Lawrence river in up-state New York. Lots of quaint little towns and small farms. Finally the weather has improved and there is a sense of summer in the air. We saw lots of evidence today of recent flooding with the water still quite high whenever we got near the waters edge.

Another fine day, so we celebrated the sun by taking a long walk around the campground and the nearby break-water before getting underway for the day. More minor highways, more quaint little towns as we followed the southern shore of Lake Ontario. But the highpoint of the day was Niagara Falls. On that subject I will let the photos do the talking.

Today the nice weather turned into "hot and windy" and decidedly less pleasant. We spent the day pushing West into a strong wind with temperatures into the 90's. The disadvantage of the Mog's large windscreen is evident on days like today. On a totally different front we got a couple of photos of Armish horse and buggies. We have been seeing these sporadically for the last couple of days but this was our fist successful effort at capturing a photo. Interestingly we have seen road signs warning of such vehicles and even dedicated parking places at shopping plazas for them.

No much to report about today. It is still hot and windy as we pushed through the farm lands of Illinois.

You will see we took a few photos of the campground before leaving this morning. The weather was a little bit gentler today. It is still windy but the temperature is a bit more moderate because of a cloud cover that also makes for a bit of a "gray-day" but also a somewhat better day for traveling. So we pushed on a bit harder than usual making use of I80 into Iowa. You will notice that this route brought us in contact with the "famous" truck stop Iowa 80 the self claimed "largest truck stop in the world".

A more pleasant day still some wind but not so hot, and sunny rather than gray. This generally put us in a better mood and a nice campground early in the afternoon gave me the opportunity to work on a problem with the truck.

More nice weather and a change of scenery today. We are now in the grasslands. The change in scenery happened quite quickly as all of a sudden we noticed that we were traveling amidst rolling grass covered hills that stretch as far as the eye can see in every direction.

We could not help but notice that Angostura Reservoir had a number of really nice campgrounds - spacious and well maintained. A few photos below don't really do the place justice. Once underway we headed north and west through the little town of Hot Springs SD and then into Wyoming through the town of Newcastle. This route took us through the picturesque Black Hills. I show my age by admitting that I cannot think of the name "Black Hills" without hearing Doris Day as Calamity Jane singing "The Black Hills of Dakota" in my head.

Today promised to be a scenic day and did not disappoint. The first leg out of Sheridan took us to Dayton and then west along Alt14 and a spectacular climb through the Big Horn National Forest before an equally spectacular descent to Lovell. There after a brief interlude following the Sidon Canal and we arrived in Powell MT. The final stretch of the day was Highway 296 also known as Chief Joseph Scenic Byway which connects with the Highway 212 (The Beartooth Highway) at the North Eastern entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

Yellowstone National Park really is a scenic treasures. Even on a grey wet day like today the animals, the mountains and the rivers make it a feast for the soul. This morning we crossed the Northern part of the park from the junction with 212 to the Northern Entrance and while we were really only transiting on our way to Bozeman we could not help but want to stop and take photos. As you can see the animals conspired to feed our temptation.

We passed through a lot of interesting scenic country today as we made our way to Rexford MT (near Eureka) to visit our friends. It is pretty clear that had we not been so close to the end of this journey we would have spent more time traversing this interesting route.

After breakfast coffee and a heartfelt goodbye to out friends Ken and Ivy we hit the road towards our house Washington thinking that we would spread the 500+ miles remaining over two days. But as often happens at the end of a journey the heading for home syndrome hit us and we drove throughout the day arriving at our house just before midnight. A total of 18 hours and 500+ miles representing an exceptionally long day in our truck. The early part of our route from Eureka to Libby, Bonners Ferry to Sand Point was really pretty and we noted it for future explorations. But in truth today was a "get home" day. It was also a day of mixed emotions as it brings to an end almost 5 years of traveling around the world in our big yellow beast. And we are not sure at this point when or where our next travels will be. We were last at our house in WA with the yellow truck in January 2013 just before we shipped to Vladivostok, Russia.