Not doing too much

So, we had all that great excitement at the beginning of August and here we are already nearing the end! I can’t believe there is less than two weeks left before school starts. I’d love to get at least one more camping trip in. The van crisis stole one of our weekends!

The first week after our trip we didn’t do too much because we didn’t have a vehicle. We had to wait to hear from the insurance company before making any plans. We only have one car that can get all the kids around. The van did end up being totaled, which was nice because we didn’t have to drive 5 hours to retrieve a “fixed up” van.

Instead we shopped around to see what was available. There aren’t a whole lot of used vans out there and we think it has something to do with the “Cash for Clunkers” program. We thought briefly about getting a small SUV, but I just can’t give up the mom-wagon yet. I LOVE the minivan. I love the 7 seats plus gas mileage!

The van we found was the SAME year and SAME brand. I wanted to go newer, but when we saw this one, I had a gut feeling that this was the one for me. It has less miles and is in WAY better condition…and it was cheap compared to going newer. It has the bigger engine in it so we can pull our tent trailer easier too. It is red instead of the forest green of my last two vans. I didn’t like the red at first, but it is really growing on me. Now I love the flashier color.

The weather wasn’t as nice for a week there, so the girls played inside. They still had friends over or played the Wii, so I think they still had a good time.

On Friday night Mike’s mom had a cousin sleepover at her house! The girls were super excited and had a great time, while Michael and I enjoyed a date out. We drove 45 minutes to get to a PF Changs. Totally worth it! My favorite restaurant. I thought the closest was in Seattle, so I was excited to learn there was one at the Alderwood Mall. Yummy lettuce wraps. When can I go again!?

Mike’s been running harder than ever. He has to run at least 10 miles 3 times a week now and a long one (like 20 miles) on the weekend! I don’t know how he keeps it up! The marathon is October 3rd, so he’ll be able to run for fun again after that.

I feel like I am always in front of the computer these days and it is starting to drive me crazy. I love technology until I hate it! Last Wednesday we had a low-technology day. The girls and I went for a bike ride to the park by the library. Then, we went to the church pool for awhile. Then we had a nice ice cream treat when we visited Great Gramma Wright. After dinner we even went for a walk. Hmm…replace computer time with physical activity…what a thought!?

 

Oh, we also had to get a hitch put on the new van last week. Now I’m ready to go camping again! Too bad all the weekends are taken up now.

We have done our school supply shopping and purchased an new outfit or two. I just need to get their hair cut and then they’ll be all ready for school again. They want to ride the Skat bus for our girl day again this year! That was a fun adventure.

I’ve started thinking about what I am going to do as a Girl Scout leader this year. I’m so excited about it. I have lots of resources to read to get ready. I hope I can manage having all three age groups in one troop. That makes it tricky. If I have enough helpers, it will be fine.

The other super exciting thing that has happened in the last month is that I am no longer the Ladies’ Ministries Administrator for our church. I loved the position, but I was getting tired out. My sister-in-law Melissa stepped up and is taking it on with great enthusiasm, energy, and motivation…so I feel so at peace knowing it is all in good hands. I’m still involved by being the publicity girl now. I get to make pretty advertisements and write “ads” and post stuff on the web for this job, so it is super perfect for me! I just love how God gave us gifts and puts us in the right spot to use them. He is awesome that way!

So, we don’t have any set spectacular plans for the last two weeks of summer, but I think we’ll find some fun. Sounds like the salmon are running, so Mike might try his hand at that.

Hope everyone is staying cool! Lots of virtual hugs to you all!

Oh Deer!

Okay, so here’s the full story of our “major incident”. Mike had been driving since we left that morning, so when we stopped for gas in Spokane we switched. It was my turn to drive.

I was doing great. I had a book on my mp3 player. Kelby and Tegan were arguing about their feet touching on the bench seat while they tried to sleep and Mike made them sit up. Kelby was so tired she was beside herself. But, finally got calmed down.

Just then, I saw a doe right in the middle of my lane. I hit the brakes and was just thinking, “don’t swerve, don’t swerve, you can’t swerve, you’re pulling a trailer.” The lessons of Montana driver’s training came back to me just when I needed them. I did try to aim toward the shoulder as I braked hard. I didn’t stop in time and must have been going pretty fast still when I hit her. She hit on the front drivers side. The picture of that moment is etched in my mind.

Apparently I screamed from the moment I saw the deer until I stopped, which really seems like forever. I think then it turned into a sort of blubbering and the girls had joined in. They didn’t see me actually hit her, but were screaming because I was screaming.

I didn’t even consider at that point that we might not be able to finish our trip home that evening. I was just so sad I had murdered the poor animal. It took another 30 seconds or more before Mike got out of the car and told me to shut off the engine. It was pouring out steam and the hood was crumpled up.

Thank goodness for cell phones. I was very shaky as I dialed 911. The trooper got there right away. I had to sit in the back of his car to do paperwork, so Mike had to calm the girls down. I was able to laugh while I was sitting there with the trooper about what a wonderful trip we had and all the great things we saw…but what will my girls remember most about this trip?!

Mike called his dad while we waited. This all happened at about 11:00 on Saturday night. It was late, but George was ready to jump in a vehicle and come and get us right then. He tried, but couldn’t. He wanted to borrow Heather and Derek’s SUV because they were out of town, but the battery was dead. That forced him to sleep and not leave until morning, so that was good.

In the Police Car

Once the tow truck got there, the girls and I rode in the back of the trooper’s car to the motel. The hotels in the small town of Ritzville were full, so we ended up in a 50’s style motel. It was a bit run-down, but very clean and they gave us a room with three queen beds.

The tow truck had to haul the van and the trailer. They dropped the trailer off in the parking lot across from the motel and we had to unload everything from the van right then at 1:30 am. We stuffed what we could in the trailer. The only thing we know we missed is our garage door opener, so that’s not too bad.

Debbie and George got to Ritzville at noon the next day. They were super heroes to us. We didn’t have the coverage on the van that provided for a rental. We might have to reconsider that for next time! They ended up bringing Zach and Melissa’s Suburban to get us. It towed the trailer back nicely and had plenty of room for all of us and our stuff. Everyone pitched in to bring us home!

We were pooped by the time we got home. We are now just recovering from all the excitement. This week has been low key. Partially because we are tired, and partially because we don’t have our van. Great Gramma Wright has loaned us her car for the week, so we are able to get around. I’ve been waiting to hear what the insurance company was going to do for us.

It took them forever to figure it out, but it is apparently a total loss. They will give us $3,500 to put toward a new vehicle. I have been looking around. I just love the Dodge Caravan, so I’ll probably stick with that. We could probably use an SUV to pull that trailer, but I just don’t want to sacrifice my gas mileage and seven seats for the power. Besides the other van made it over seven passes to Montana, so that is good enough for me! We’ll just have to see what’s out there. We won’t get anything too new; that’s not how we roll. But whatever we get, I hope it is soon!

Yellowstone Expedition

      - Wednesday -

On Wednesday afternoon we found our spot at the West Yellowstone KOA. It was about six miles west of the actual entrance, so that added a bit onto our travel time each day, but it had a pool. Come to find out we wouldn’t have much time to play in that pool with all there was to do inside Yellowstone!

That afternoon we went into the park and didn’t make it too far in. The first thing we did was watch a herd of elk. There were five babies and a bunch of mommas.

The next thing we did was find the first ranger station and get the girls the booklets they needed to become junior rangers. There was a ranger program to watch there. This is Tegan with a grizzly claw the ranger showed us.

Next we went south and stumbled on a river with fish jumping. Kelby and Michael tried to fish that bit for awhile. Mike had a bite, but didn’t land anything. It was a beautiful river.

We also found a spot where people were swimming in the Firehole River. It is warm little nook in the river heated by hot springs. We wanted to get back there and give it a try, but never had the time.

Our last stop was to view some buffalo. We would have kept going to see some other great stuff, but I stepped off a rock and tore a giant hole in the FRONT of my pants. There’s no hiding that, so we had to go back to camp.

We had a bit of dinner that night and then the girls did get to swim. Mike went back into the park himself. It was a late night and our neighbors were pretty noisy. I don’t know why I’m too embarrassed to ask them nicely to be a little quieter, but once Mike did it, they quieted down. We were pleasantly surprised that the campground was quiet overnight. At the last KOA we had a snorer next door! Everybody is packed pretty close together.

- Thursday -

The next morning we got up right away to head off into the park. We thought we’d be quick and just stop to get breakfast, but when we stopped at the McDonalds and they wanted to charge $6 for a pancake meal, we couldn’t, on principle, stay and eat there. We ended up following the recommendation from a book we got and ate at a sit-down restaurant called Running Bear Pancake House. It was tasty, but we got on the road a little later than we hoped.

 

The theme of this trip was that everything takes longer than you think it will. The time just flew by! We really enjoyed ourselves, but still didn’t get to see everything.

There was a bit of construction on one of the roads so that slowed us down getting into the parts of the park we wanted to see. We started on the western part of the upper loop. The girls were very impressed with the Artist Paint Pots. Boiling mud is pretty impressive! It shoots up into the air and is kinda scary.

Next we visited the Norris Geyser Basin. There were tons of geysers and springs to see there. Each stop was a 1/2 mile to mile walk. I was so impressed with the girls. They handled all the walking very well. I think that much younger than five years old and there might have been trouble, but our girls were the perfect ages.

We found a neat little spot for lunch. There is a crazy rock formation and a beautiful little creek meandering near by. The girls loved trying to climb the rocks.

We stopped by the side of the road many times to find and photograph some great sites.

Next was our view of Mammoth Hot Springs.We also stopped there to track down a “virtual” geocache. You can’t place actual caches in the park, so this was the next best thing. We found a cemetery and had to take a picture of a certain stone with our GPS in it. That will be our proof that we were there.

It seemed like a lot of the Mammoth Hot Springs is dry now. I were nervous it wasn’t going to be impressive to the girls, but after a good 1/2 mile walk with a ton of stairs we found some super beautiful hot spring cascades.

We wanted to try a couple extra hikes that most people don’t do, so we followed recommendations from a book and found Wraith Falls to be a short hike to a beautiful waterfall. The bonus was that we found a Yellow Bellied Marmot there. The girls were very impressed with that creature. 

A gravel road took us on a little jaunt through the mountains for six miles off the main road. We were searching for wildlife and Michael spotted a pronghorn. Kelby and Tegan also have cameras so they enjoyed capturing the animal on film almost as much as Michael did. Here is’ Tegan’s picture!

By then it was getting to be evening. We stopped at beautiful Tower Falls, then continued on hoping to find a picnic place to make a dinner.

In the meantime, Mike was looking for wildlife over the hills of the area as we were driving. When an animal is sighted in Yellowstone there is a general gathering of cars. We must have hit this one at the beginning because there was room in the pullout where everyone was looking up the hill at a grizzly bear! It was foraging on the hill above the road. Some folks let the girls look through their binoculars to get a good view.

The girls were excited to check it off their list, but that wasn’t enough for Michael. Another one showed up on the hill beside us and off he ran to get a closer picture. He says there were other people in front of him, but I’m not sure he was playing it safe. He was on a high after the shots he got of that grizzly. I have to admit they were great pictures.

We thought that Kelby had a magical touch there for awhile because she was drawing a coyote right before we saw one. Then I told her to draw a bear so we could see one and then about five minutes later we saw the bear! Weird. It quit working though because we never found the moose or wolf she drew.

That topped off our day, so it was time to head back. Too bad they had that construction zone, because we didn’t get back in time to swim that night. I told the girls we could swim in the morning thinking the pool opened at 7:00 am, but it didn’t actually open until 10:00, so I was in trouble. We had to explain to the girls that we were there for swimming and that it was a bonus if we could get to it. I think they understood. They quit asking about swimming all the time after that at least.

- Friday -

In the morning we wanted to get back into the park quick. We stopped to do a short hike to a little forest lake. We didn’t see any moose, but we saw a beaver’s house and lily pads.

Our stop caused us to hit some traffic. Everyone was just going really slow so we thought there was an animal to see, but by the time we made it through, there was nothing. At least the lost time was made up to us when we approached the construction zone and got to go straight through with no delay.

Our next stop on Friday was the Canyon Village. We drove down to see the falls there in the canyon. It is beautiful there. Amazing that a river could carve through all that rock.

Next we went through Hayden valley, known for the buffalo that roam there. We found a bunch by the road and stayed there forever taking pictures. The bulls were a little fiesty while trying to woo the ladies. That sent some of the bullies chasing down each other and they ran right across the road around our car. It was scary and amazing.

On our way around to Old Faithful, the girls finished up all the questions and activities they had to do to get their Junior Ranger badges. I was impressed. They had to do a lot to earn their rank. We stopped at the information center at Fishing Bridge to turn in their booklets. I didn’t know it would be so official. The ranger really looked over their answers and talked to them about it. Then, he announced to the whole center that they were now official junior rangers. I think that it will be something they’ll remember and be proud of. They got badges I can sew on their Girl Scout vests.

We timed Old Faithful perfectly. It went off right as we walked up. Then we wandered the other geysers and springs there and saw it go off a second time before we moved on.

We were only able to fit in one more spring, the Grand Prismatic Spring, before it was time to head out of the park. We wished we had time to see the Fountain Paint Pot, but I guess we have something to go back for…that and more fishing. Mike didn’t get enough time to just fish.

We did make it back in time for a bit of swimming before the pool closed at 10:00 pm. My girls stayed up so late during this whole vacation, but they did really well even with less sleep.

- Saturday -

The next morning we packed up camp and then stopped back into West Yellowstone to get a picture by the park entrance sign. Our goal is to end up with a collection of family pictures by those park signs. A side trip into a Yellowstone Outlet store cost us over an hour and money too. I was so excited to find some nice jackets for the girls for only $8 each. They’ll be perfect for the girls at school. The bonus is that they all match and they look like they are part of a team. They are easy to keep track of that way! They also got Yellowstone sweatshirts to commemorate the trip.

Then we were off toward home. I got us off course and that cost us about a half hour, but we got a chance to see Virginia City just in passing. It is a mining ghost town (with other fun touristy shops). I went there when I was in fifth grade and really enjoyed it then and would love to go back with the girls someday. 

Mike and I had been considering stopping by the Lewis and Clark Caverns even though it would cost us a couple hours. We made it to there around 2:00 and were glad we made the decision to see them. It was an amazing place to see and the girls were impressed. Mike and I had been there before, but it was still awesome.

Leaving that area at 4:30 pm put us way behind schedule to make it home on Saturday. We had to drive through the night to make it home.  We could have stopped to camp, but decided we wanted to get back.

Well, here is where we had our only major incident of the trip. I’ll explain that next time. It deserves it’s own blog post!

At least the weather is cooler now than it was while we were gone. Sorry everyone was suffering from 90’s and it was even rumored to be above 100 in western Washington. That never happens! Those of you from out of town have to sympathize when you understand that no one really has air conditioning here. Luckily our house and garden survived without us.

I’m sorry if this is long and boring for anyone to read. I have to write all the details because this is my way to remember it all. I know I’ll forget unless I do. It is my eScrapbook and you just get to see it too!