The Wonder of Yellow Stone

We stayed in the town of Bozeman Mt. It was about an hour and a half away from Yellowstone National park. We went to Yellowstone and saw Old Faithful.

Several of the roads were closed so it made our drive even longer , but it was totally worth it. It was quite the site seeing  the herds of wild  buffalo. One of them even crossed the road right in front of our car taking his own sweet time .

We also were lucky to see Elk .  Each herd of elk has one buck and we were about 30 feet away from him. The buck almost rammed his antlers into a car.  We were told by an overly talkative park ranger  that the day before he did ram into a car.

Colorful hotspring bubbling hot

Hot springs

Old Faithful

The Hot springs were unreal. We could not believe how the steam and bubbles rose from the earth.  The air surrounding the hot spring was so warm. It felt like you had just stepped out of a long hot shower into a room full of mist. All the while mixed with the cool breeze that would mysteriously swoop and swirl the steam around you, sending a shiver down your spin, both from the shift in temperature and the wonderment and grandeur surrounding you.  The water in the hot springs was a vibrant turquoise.

Shelby embracing the mist

When we arrived at old faithful we had just missed the eruption by a couple minutes, so we had to wait an hour and a half  for the last one during daylight. So we got to enjoy the gift shop and the kids picked out their post cards and key chains. We also got some super yummy ice cream . They had huckleberry which was delicious.

We waited excitedly for the eruption and Old Faithful did not disappoint . We couldn’t help but ooh and awe as we watched its natural power hurl water dramatically into the sky.

Standing in front of Old Faithful

Dinner in a "Covered Wagon"
Yellow Stone

After we left Old Faithful we were all super tired and equally hungry so we stopped into the most fun bbq dinner house. Each table had a covered wagon canopy above it. Ally ordered a buffalo hamburger . All the food was perfect.

The town of Bozeman was pretty populated and had a decent downtown with coffee shops and a fun local book store. The kids and I spent about an hour at the book store. Each kid picked out a book to read for the long trek to South Dakota.

Tori with her volcano eruption. 

That week we happened to be studying volcanoes with the kids and we did several fun explosion experiments. Perfect that it lined up with our visit to Yellowstone.

The 3 amigos and their marshmallow structures they made . We put them on jello to see if they could withstand an "earthquake" 

We also went on a hike to the Buffalo Jump state park where native americans used to run hundreds of buffalo off a huge cliff so they could use them as food and clothing. It was a steep climb all surrounded by the barrenness of the land . Easy to imagine the stampeding buffalo being chased off the cliff  that we looked over when we finally reached the top.

Onward --- to --South Dakota

Wes' thoughts on Rv-ing Life

Our adventures in Washington~

We stayed in Fall City Washington for a week , only about 30 minutes from Seattle. ( Without traffic, which we were often stuck in. ) While in Seattle we visited Pike's Fish Market, and the first Starbucks. We all enjoyed the yummy coffee/hot chocolate. Although the kids may have not tasted the full chocolatey goodness because they often had their hands over their noses to muffle the strong aroma of fish.  Wes bought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers so we could bring home some of the amazing ambiance from the market. The whole market is full of these bouquets.

First Starbucks

We also got to  see the international Fountain  in Seattle - it is a MASSIVE fountain about half a football field wide and about 3 stories high situated right in front of the Space Needle with music from around the world playing.  The little kids ran and danced around the fountain, and of course got wet even though it was cold out.

We really enjoyed our day trip to Whidbey Island - We took the fairy with our  car to the Island. We were able to get out of the car on the fairy and walk around and look out over the boat. It was a short ride only about 20 min.

We took the boat from Mukilteo and got off on Clinton. From there we drove to Langley and had our lunch at a cute little beach . From there we drove Green Bank and bought an apple pie to take home. From there we drove to Fort Casey state park, an old military base . We walked around there and looked at the huge cannons.

From there we to  the town of Coupeville and got some awesome ice cream at Kapaws Iskrem . Last of all we drove off the island over the Deception Pass bridge. Super fun day.

We stayed in a town near Bellingham Wa for a week so that we could travel to Canada.

We drove into Vancouver and went to Gastown , which is where Vancouver was founded. It was busy and super hot the day we went.

-The second time we drove into Vancouver we went to Grouse Mountain. Pretty intense hike , but very beautiful.

~Wes' Thoughts on Rv-ing Life below~

Driving - And I thought driving a minivan was big deal….I never thought I would be driving a 50 foot long vehicle in my life!!! The RV is 32 feet long and we are towing our 16 foot long minivan behind it...Needless to say, I can relate a little to truck drivers.The Coachmen Freelander 32bh handles pretty nicely though on the road. It’s basically the biggest class C RV that you can get. I believe that the bigger (bust like) RV’s are class A and you need a special license for one of those. I rarely drive the RV at night (only when we are pulling into our next site later in the evening. Sandy has yet to drive it. To date the hardest stretch of road that I was driving the RV was the tunnel to get out of Yosemite National Park.  It seemed very narrow and I had to keep the steering straight as an arrow so as not to hit the side curb. Here is a snapshot of our floor plan.

Work - I wake up most weekdays at 6am and start sending emails and grading the kids math. Then, either I work in the RV, or just outside on our picnic table, or at a coffee shop, or at the RV site lodge. I try to finish up by 2pm so the fam and I can go check things out or go to the pool, or go on a hike in the nearby national park We tackle wifi with both AT&T and Verizon. We have a mobile “hot-spot for both. We have found that sometimes AT&T gets better service than Verizon, and vice versa. It depends on where we are at. Typically my work breaks are filled with pleasant conversation with older folks (over 60) explaining what we are doing and how this “wifi” technology works. It continues to amaze them when I tell them that my kids will never know what it was like without wifi.

Wifi - Every time we choose our next RV site, we look at verizon and AT&T coverage maps to make sure we are covered. Typically we are. The kids and I always do speed tests to see what our bandwidth is going to be for my work and the kids online school. Sometimes we can jump onto the RV sites wifi (free), but other times, it’s super clogged with other users at the RV site.

Home school technology - This has continued to floor me! As the kids are starting online homeschooling classes, it is super fun to be a part of helping the kids learn this new way how to take a class. Once the kids our up in the morning, the older kids and I go the RV lodge and set up our wifi. Ally and Shelby both have classmates all around the country; New York, California, Washington, and some of their teachers are from Pennsylvania. They all log in to the class with ease and are able to be instructed from the teacher. The classmates even break up into groups sometimes and video chat with one another. Ally even has a classmate in South Africa. Crazy! It will be interesting to see how we all adjust to the new time zones. Right now their classes start at 8am. But on the east coast their classes will start at 11am. This will be interesting indeed. So far so good. We are only 2 weeks in, but the kids are getting good grades and seem to be learning well.

Onward to Montana/Wyoming

Ally ripping it up

We spent the last three weeks in Oregon.  Our first week was in a cute little  beach town called Florene. There is a national sand dune park there where people go ATVing and where we went sand boarding.  It was an exciting ,sore inducing day. This is a sport I could totally see all my kids including Wes and myself really getting into.  

From there we went to Bend Oregon , a place known for its beer and trail running. I loved the trails and Wes loved the beer.  

Bend had beautiful water falls and the Deschutes River running through town.

Hail Storm In SunRiver 

When we got to Bend the kids and I got out of the RV to scope out the  campsite while Wes did some work inside. As we were walking around the grounds a huge thunder, lighting and rain storm came in and we were stuck in it. We had to run back to the RV in the rain trying to avoid the lightning .  We latter came to find out that the day before there was a rain storm that blew down a huge tree right next to our campsite, so the feeling of being creeped out while walking around in the storm was justifiable. (Not just my wimmpy CA lack of weather experience coming into play.)

We also went to Crater lake , which is the deepest lake in America. We hiked down the mile trail to the water which was a beautiful blue color.

Lacey was sick so Daddy carried her
to the top of the Falls 

Multnomah Falls

From there  went the MT. Hood about a 45 min drive from Portland Oregon. We hiked up to the top of Multnomah falls and went fruit picking in Mt . Hood.

Portland proved to live up to its un-offical motto “ Keep Portland Weird”   and we ate treats at two of its  strangest spots.

Voodoo Doughnuts were the doughnuts are huge and covered in all sorts of bizzar junk food toppings. ( As if doughnuts don’t have enough sugar on their own. )

 Ally Engulfed in Books

We also went to and Ice cream shop called Salt and Straw that served out of the ordinary flavors such as pear and blue cheese.  Tasty , but unusual.

The highlight of Portland for me was the massive book store called Powell books. It takes up several blocks and has muli -levels just fullll of literature.  I wish I had a whole day to spend surrounded by the walls of books sipping coffee in a comfy chair lost in novel  while it rained outside. To only dream, instead we spent an hour  in the childrens section picking out school books for the year. Still fun.

Edible Rice Crispy Treat Model of the Earths Interior,
made while driving down the freeway to our next stop.

School for the younger three has officially started and so far it has been going smoothly , albeit busy for me. The older start today with their online classes. Praying that it will be a smooth transition as this is new to us and a key component in making our trip a success.

~ What I learned about Oregon~

-You are not allowed to pump your own gas ,  Its actually the law. $500 ticket if you do (no I didn’t get a ticket)

- It rains a lot… I knew this , but got to experience it.

- Fred Myers is their version of Walmart/Target only nicer, everything you need in one spot. And they are everywhere.

Onward to Washington!