ON THE ROAD TO YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

Thursday, June 28 – We traveled a couple hours this morning from Butte, MT, to Livingston, MT, and the North end of Yellowstone National Park. Our daughter, Carrie, is going to meet us here this evening after work. She's in Billings, MT, and will drive the couple hours here to spend a long weekend with us.

It was another gorgeous drive. Boy had the weather changed. No rain just a lot of heat.

Can you read the sign through our filthy windshield?

We are staying at Osens RV Park and Campground in Livingston, MT. The sites and roads are gravel with a generous grass area between the sites. We have 30 amp electric, water, and sewer connections. There are no 50 amp sites available. There are nice bathrooms and a laundry room. Marsha did laundry when we arrived and said the washer and dryers did a great job. We are on the south side of town, which is the direction we need to travel to Yellowstone Park. We are only 50 minutes away.

Site B7

Looking right.

Looking left.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!

TRAVELING THROUGH IDAHO TO BUTTE, MONTANA

Wednesday, June 27 -- We continue eastward this morning towards Yellowstone National Park. We will be rendezvousing with our daughter, Carrie, in Livingston, MT, on Thursday, for a long weekend touring Yellowstone.

It was a beautiful drive through Idaho. We had heard that Idaho is a beautiful state and it is true. What a gorgeous drive through the mountain valleys. We drove along a couple mountain streams the entire way. Wonderful.

We then entered Montana on I-90 and enjoyed this section of our drive, as well. Again, magnificent mountains and valleys.

We were up to 7,000 + feet.

It was smooth sailing all the way to Butte, Montana. What a find! This old mining town has a rich history in Copper. The downtown is full of wonderful old buildings and homes. The hill overlooking the city is where all the deep vertical mine shafts are located and that area is just full of historical places to discover.

One of the biggest attractions in Butte is Our Lady of the Rockies. This 90 foot Statue sits on the Continental Divide. Donations of money, land, equipment and hundreds of volunteer hours over six years made this feat possible. The Statue was completed on December 20, 1985. Besides being 90 feet tall, the base is 3,500 feet above the city, and the base alone contains 4,000 tons of concrete. The head is 16 feet high by 10 feet wide. The rest of the statistics are amazing. Find out more about the immensity of Our Lady by clicking on Our Lady of the Rockies.

Now you ask, why didn't they get a better photo of it? MONEY. The only way to get up to Our Lady is to take a tour. Now you know the rest of the story.

Our Lady of the Rockies

Once again, we've found an area that needs additional touring. I guess that's why it's impossible to see everything this great country has to offer. Add Butte, MT, to our list of places to return to some day.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!

A WONDERFUL VISIT WITH FRIENDS

Tuesday, June 26 -- With heavy rain this morning and a weather report calling for all-day rain, we decided to wait a day before heading towards Yellowstone National Park. We hung around the motor home all morning until about noon when Donna call and invited us up to visit her and Norm. These are friends from the last two winters spent in the Texas Rio Grande Valley. As a matter of fact, we rented a RV spot off them the first year we visited Mission, TX.

They have a wonderful home in Deer Meadows, WA, which is about 30 miles North of Spokane, right on the Columbia River. This is their summer home. They recently purchased a home in Mission, TX, where they spend the winters.

They met us along the highway, and we followed them down the road to a delightful small town grocery store/restaurant, Fort Spokane Store Restaurant. We love eating at small local dinners or taverns. And thanks Norm for grabbing the check!

The guy that owns the place just can't throw a thing away.

Donna and Norm

We then moved to Donna and Norm's home to visit for the afternoon. They have a lovely 4-bedroom home out in the country, and get this guys....Norm has TWO storage barns! Now that's what Paul calls awesome! The place is for sale if anyone is looking for a very nice home on the Columbia River near Spokane, WA.

With the rain continuing and fog settling in, we decided we better head home. Thanks Donna and Norm for a fun afternoon get-together. We'll see you in South Texas.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!

NEAR NATURE. NEAR PERFECT. SPOKANE

Monday, June 25 – We want to take it easy today and not over do the sightseeing. We decided to just see Spokane, so headed there for some easy-going sightseeing. WOW!....were we surprised!What a gorgeous city!

The Riverfront Park is a public park in downtown Spokane, Washington. The 100 acre park is located along the Spokane River. We walked quite a bit of the Riverfront walkway.

The Spokane River runs right through the middle of town with its angry rapids and beautiful waterfalls. Spokane was originally called Spokan (no e) Falls. In 1891, "Falls" was dropped and the e was added. We're not sure why they did that.

There are 22 bridges in Spokane. Every type of bridge you can image is here. The most famous on is the Monroe Street Bridge.

When it was built in 1911, its central arch, spanning 281 feet, was the third longest unsupported concrete arch in the world. Its total length is 956' and height 136'. The water from the Spokane River flows under the bridge.

There is an Upper Falls and Lower Falls right here in the city, and they are gorgeous.

Upper Falls is very fast and turbulent.

The Lower Falls is more of a drop.

Any one want to do the Spokane Falls Skyride?

Built in 1990, with 26 tons of steel and reinforced concrete, a 12-foot-high, 27-foot-long Radio Flyer Wagon was presented to the City of Spokane by artist Ken Spiering. It can hold as many as 300 people.

What could be a better symbol of childhood?

The clock tower is all that remains of the Great Northern Train Station which was demolished in the early 1970s in preparation for Expo '74. It is the centerpiece of the city. The chimes have a beautiful tone.

Spokane is a very modern and progressive city. They have free charging stations throughout the city.

This 40-person sculpture represents the spirit of the community and the world. It is called "The Joy of Running Together".

After the wonderful Riverfront Walk, we decided to walk around the historic city. We found these sidewalk maps very helpful. They were located on every other block.

Great architecture on many of the buildings. 

With parks, walking and biking paths, works of art, and the 22 bridges, the City of Spokane has done a marvelous job of taking advantage of the beauty of this river. The area and city is absolutely wonderful!

Just a short drive outside the city is Gonzaga University.

If you're a fan of NCAA Basketball, you've heard of Gonzaga. It's a small Catholic school with a powerhouse basketball team.

Gonzaga University is an independent Catholic, Jesuit, and humanistic university providing education to more than 7,800 students. Situated along the Spokane River near downtown Spokane, Washington, Gonzaga is routinely recognized among the West's best comprehensive regional universities.

It's a very nice campus with a small town atmosphere. Looks like a great place to send your daughter/son to college..... :-)

This is one town we definitely could spend a couple more days visiting. Guess will have to come back sometime in the future.

To see more of Spokane, please click here.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!

GOODBYE RAIN…HELLO SUNSHINE. SPOKANE, WA

Sunday, June 24 – A fitting “good-bye” from the Pacific Coast this morning when we pulled-out of the Bremerton Elks Lodge – It was raining and continued to pour until we topped the Snoqualmie Pass of the Cascade Mountains. Once over the mountains, the sun came out and it was a nice day with puffy white clouds.

Boy is Eastern Washington different than the West Coast. This is agriculture country.

A particular nice farming area had signs all along I-90 telling you what crops were growing in the roadside fields. And they were irrigating the fields. Too bad the coast couldn't share some of that rain with these folks.

We were also surprised when we crossed over the Columbia River. It's dug a pretty impressive gorge here in the East, as well. Can't help of thinking about Lewis & Clark rowing down this river and the amazing sights they saw. It's so beautiful today, what was it like back then?

Our destination today was Spokane, Washington. A longer drive than we like (six hours) but there aren't many stopping points between Seattle and Spokane. Oh, by the way, it's pronounced – Spo-Can, not Spo-cane.

We are staying at another Elks Lodge – The Spokane Lodge on the eastside of the city. It is a very nice stop-over. Easy in and easy out from I-90. The cost is $15 for 50 amp electric and water. There is a dump station here at the campground. We are in site #17. There are 20 sites here at the Lodge. We have good satellite connection with our roof mounted Direct TV dish and good Verizon phone & Internet connections.

Plenty of room.

Rear view.

Looking left.

Looking right.

There is plenty of nearby shopping and being on the eastside of the city makes for an easy getaway when we leave, missing rush hour traffic.

Some places wrestle with chipmunks, some with ground hogs, here….marmots.

Unfortunately, the Lodge is closed on Sunday and Monday so we can't report on the activity at the Elks Lodge. The hosts in the campground are very friendly and met us as we pulled-in. The campground is nearly full tonight with only two or three open sites. Lucky for us, the site next to us is open giving us a nice lawn to relax on and enjoy the beautiful weather here in Eastern Washington. Bella loves that grass!

We had a lovely sky tonight. We hope to catch the sunset tomorrow night.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!

A DAY IN SEATTLE

Saturday, June 23 -- We rode the Ferry from Bremerton to Seattle this morning. We parked the car in Bremerton and walked on the ferry. This is no problem, because everything we wanted to see in Seattle was within walking distance of Pier 52. We caught the first ferry of the day…7:05 and had an hour ride. It is free to cross over from  Bremerton but cost $7.40/each to return.

Very different scenery than the ferry we took yesterday to Everett.

Approaching Seattle…wonder what the weather will be today. Can you guess?

We started our Seattle tour at the famous Pier Market Place. To get there we walked up many, many steps.

We wanted to see the famous Pike Place Fish Company. This was much smaller than we expected. It's just a booth in the large Pier Market Place. They are famous for throwing the fish through the air when ordered by a customer for weighing and wrapping. They were not doing much throwing at 8:15 in the morning. We did see a couple sail through the air when we went back in the afternoon but were unable to get a picture.

We then walked down inside and the street enjoying the many vendors and small stores.

We stopped for breakfast at Michou World Class Deli. We ordered on of their Bambaloni, Tunisian Beignets. We should have ordered a dozen. Boy was it delicious!

Our next destination was the first Starbuck store.

We had already had a Starbucks on the ferry, so Marsha settled for getting her picture taken in front of the store. She wanted to make her friend, Pam, very jealous. Pam and John, Oh The Places We Go, LOVE Starbucks.

Can you tell why we didn't get a coffee from the photo below. You should see the line out the door and around the sidewalk. This is at about 9:00 a.m.

After enjoying more of the Market, we walked over to the Space Needle.

This observation tower was originally built for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. It is 605 feet tall with a revolving restaurant and an observation deck on top. This is Seattle's number one tourist attraction.

There was a marathon race going on in the city this morning. The park at the Space Needle was near the finish line. There were 1000's of runners roaming around the area.

Taken from a bridge.

While visiting the needle we did some people watching. Be aware, these two may be coming to your city VERY soon.

After mingling with the runners at the Space Needle, we walked over to Pioneer Square.

Pioneer Pergola

This is the original downtown, dating back to 1852. It is also the location of the famous Seattle Underground. With only visiting Seattle for one day, we chose not to take the tour and instead roamed around this historical area. We saw the location of the first Seattle area settlement, Pergola Park.

Entering the park area.

Then is was over to Smith Tower, the tallest building in the world (outside Manhattan) in 1914, when it was built.

The buildings are just lovely.

We visited Occidental Square with its Native American totem poles. A local relief organization was feeding the homeless here, so it was unusually interesting. Nearby was the Fallen Firefighters' Memorial and one of Seattle's old fire stations.

We stopped briefly at the Waterfall Garden Park, the sight of the original United Parcel Service offices. This would be a nice cool place to relax on a hot summer day, but not today – it was cool and rainy.

There are lots of bikers in this city. The city is becoming very creative with their bike stands.

We were pretty tired by this time and headed back to the Pier 52 to catch our ferry home. Interestingly, we got on the wrong ferry boat by mistake. Things just didn't seem right, so Marsha asked the gate attendant…No it wasn't the Bremerton Ferry, but instead the Bainbridge Island Ferry. Opps, that would be a disaster!

There is the ferry we WERE on.

As we leave on the RIGHT ferry.

Thankfully, we got off, just before sailing, and got aboard the correct boat. After our one-hour ferry ride, we were safely back in Bremerton and headed back to the motor home.

Luckily, the rain held off until we were on our way home on the ferry. The Bremerton Elks Lodge campground is a muddy mess due to all the rain. The place is packed too. There isn't an empty site around except an unusable tiny spot right next to us.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!