June 21 - June 26, 2012 Aunt Doreen's 90th b'day

We left home on June 21 driving to Yorktown, VA, for Aunt Doreen McGibbon's 90th birthday party.  We went to her 80th birthday party, and it was great.  This one was bound to be wonderful because it was going to be a pig roast.  There wasn't really any significant activity, since all we did on Thursday and Friday was drive to Virginia.  The Bear was somewhat upset that we appeared to be leaving without him.  Peaches, as normal, hid since she didn't want to go.  Little did she know that our friend Rebecca was going to come check on them while we were gone!

When we arrived at the Country Inn and Suites (our home for the weekend), it started raining - bottom falling out raining.  Plus, the refrigerator in the room wasn't working, so we couldn't put the wine we had taken with us in there.  It just meant that we were going to have to take the wine with us over to the house Friday night.  Anyway, once the rain stopped, we headed to Yorktown for the beginning of the party.  It was being held at Mary Gibson, Jim Knight and Doreen McGibbon's home.  Gerald (Jimmy's brother) had flown in on Thursday and was staying at the house.  Mary's daughter Lisa and her friend Jason Guthrie had arrived from California.  Doug Gibson and his wife Ann got stuck in massive traffic on 664.  After about an hour or so, they had only covered about 1 mile.  So they turned around and went back home.  Jimmy's cousin Judi Vreeland and her husband Vic were staying out towards Williamsburg, so they were also at dinner.  Mary had cooked a 25 pound turkey with all the trimmings - so it was a super evening before the party on Saturday.

Back to the hotel we went for the night.  The only major nightmare was the hotel.  They had not gotten the refrigerator fixed.  Plus, when we went to breakfast the next morning - there was no place to sit, the hot items were cold because the electricity kept going on and off, etc. etc. etc.  It would look like a place which offered a breakfast would at least have room for more than about 15-20 people at a time!  Anyway, we scarfed down some breakfast and headed back to Doreen's for the party.  The local corner store had put up a sign celebrating her birthday - the only problem was that they congratulated Olive.  I later found out that Olive is Doreen's first name!!!

Saturday was a busy day - preparing for the party, partying, and cleaning up from the party.  About 50 people joined together to celebrate Doreen's 90th birthday.  We ate barbeque (sorry everyone, but it just wasn't Memphis Q - but it was really, really good).  There was a ginormous birthday cake which was made by a bakery which employs people with disabilities - yummy good almond flavored cake!  No one got pushed in the pool nor did anyone voluntarily dive in.  It was a great party.  I'm game for her 100th birthday.  She says it is really going to be a big party when she is 90.

Sunday breakfast at the hotel was another disaster.  Luckily, Mary, Lisa and Ann had put out a really great brunch for the relatives who were still in town.  I particularly enjoyed the French toast casserole dish, but the guys seemed to like the egg casserole better (it had meat in it).  Later, Jimmy and I rode out to Fort Monroe.  It is a historic military base (back to the Civil War) which was recently closed by the government.  We can only hope that there is a way found to keep it as a historic site.  The architecture alone is enough to make it worthwhile - but there is a big history attached to the Fort and the area surrounding it.  Jimmy said that the last time he and Garrie Colhoun were there, it was an active military base.  He didn't say that it was deteriorating, but it just had an empty feeling.  We also drove through the tunnel to Newport News and back.  Going out was a piece of cake.  Coming back was really quite slow - and there was no reason for it - no wreck, no leaks in the tunnel - nothing.  Just slow.

Back in Yorktown, we dug all of the leftovers out of the refrigerator, heated them up, and offered them to the remaining relatives for dinner!  We certainly made a dent in them.

All together, this was a delightful trip.  I'm including below the pictures which Doug took on Saturday.



Monday morning, we got up and crept down the stairs to see if we were going to get to have breakfast!!  There was almost no one there.  It was wonderful.  We actually got to make waffles.  When we left, we decided to make a couple of stops.  The first was in Roanoke.  Jimmy wanted to look at a motorhome that he had read about.  Expensive - but it was nice.  Then we got off I81 and drove over to Virginia Tech.  In a short month, we have been on campus at two really huge universities (Texas A&M and VA Tech).  The football stadium at VA Tech was really neat.  I kind of hope they decide to be in the SEC some day!

As we drove down I81, Jimmy got stopped by a highway patrolman.  He had passed a bus in a construction zone!  Going a little bit faster than the 55 MPH speed limit.  I will give him the point that neither of us could have seen the signs due to the bus in the right lane blocking our view of the signage - it was a very short construction zone.  Anyway, the patrolman walked up on the passenger side of the car.  I handed him Jimmy's driver's license as I was getting out all of the paperwork on the car that I thought he might need to see.  He looked at the front of the car, then he went around back to check that our tags were current.  He got back to my window, leaned down and asked me if I would be responsible for chastising him for speeding, I said I certainly would, and he handed back the license.  He was really nice.  Jimmy thought he was great too.  Especially since we had the cruise control set at 70!!!

Our last night on the road was spent at a Holiday Inn Express just off the interstate at the exit to Sevierville and Gatlinburg.  We found out that Jimmy has bunches of points that he can use for free hotel rooms.  The hotel is on one side of the Bass Pro.  On the other side of the Bass Pro is a great steak restaurant at which we always eat when we are in that area.  Of course, neither of us had steak.  Jimmy had broiled shrimp and I had seafood fettuccine!!!  Breakfast Tuesday morning was a dream.  They even had a pancake machine.  I have no idea how it worked, but it was cool.  I made one even though I didn't want one just to see what it did.  Of course, the main attraction was the HI Express cinnamon rolls.  The best.

We didn't even stop for lunch.  We pushed and pushed to get to the Dairy Queen just west of Jackson, TN.  Again - we stop there every time we are in the area.  Normally we are in the motorhome, but they have enough room in the back to park and plenty of room to get out of the lot.  Yes, we have Blizzards!!!  Nothing else - just Blizzards.  Then - on to Holly Springs to see The Bear and Peaches.  Jimmy got in the house first, so neither one of them was around for me.  Once they got their first water out of the tub, they kind of didn't let us out of their sight.  In fact, The Bear spent most of Wednesday in my lap - just purring and sleeping!

Thus ends our latest travel.  I'll try to catch up on the baseball trip which preceded this trip in the near future.  I wanted to make sure I got this one in because of the pictures!

The Final Legs of the Trip - July 30 - August 3, 2011

Sorry about the lack of updates, but the last few days were just driving down the highway, stopping for fuel, stopping for lunch and parking in the parking lot of whatever casino was in the neighborhood. Why in casino parking lots? They have buffets!!! Two nights were spent at Harrah's properties, so the stay and the buffet were cost free!!!!

We got home late August 3. We had had problems both August 2 and August 3 with keeping the coach reasonably cool. We would crank the generator and turn on the roof air conditioners. We would head down the road, the coach would get cooler, and the breakers would flip off!!! Then it would heat up in the coach. We would have to stop somewhere, let out one slide, and reset the breakers in order to turn the air back on. Finally on the 3rd, we just gave up and drove home without it.

We did have one problem with fuel on Wednesday in Arkansas. I had used one of my free apps to locate the closest diesel provider (as well as locating the one which was not the most expensive!!). We pulled into the truck section of the fuel dispensers. I got out to go in to advise that we would be paying cash for the fuel. The door was locked. The pump would not take a credit card either. We finally found out that their computers were down. Not only did the pumps not work, they were all locked in the building. Not only the people working at the station were locked in. The customers who had been inside paying for their purchases were locked in. So, we piled back into the coach and headed back up towards two exits north of where we were - thinking that it was only about 5 miles. 14 miles later, we found the truck stop/gas station that we had seen when we were heading south. We did not fill up, because their price was way out of line with what we had seen elsewhere!!!

Anyway, we got back on I55 headed towards Memphis and Holly Springs. When we pulled into the parking lot, it was absolutely too hot to unpack the coach (we saw 105 on the bank sign as we got off the highway). However, The Bear was doing something totally unusual for him. He had been on the dashboard since we were driving slowly through town. He saw the house and started crying/meowing. He kept it up until we had stopped, turned on the generator and gotten the coach kind of settled. Jimmy had to stop him from just getting off the coach when he opened the door. The Bear wanted to go home. I carried Peaches up to the house. There was not one iota of squirming on her part like she usually is when we take her outside. She, too, saw the house and wanted to get inside. The Bear immediately went to the back bath to get some water directly out of the faucet (his preferred way to drink water) with Peaches right behind him.

We got everything off the coach by around 7pm and I got two loads of laundry done (everything that has to be put back on the coach like sheets, towels, rugs, etc.). Of course, the last load didn't get put into the dryer before Jimmy took it to Olive Branch this morning, so I will need to stop and drop all of it off tomorrow. I still have two loads working since we didn't stay anywhere the last three or four nights where I had full hookups to wash clothes!!!

Then, I got hit by the heat headaches that I have. Other than running to the grocery store early this morning to get the essentials, I have been inside. Which is where I will stay until it gets a little cooler. Then we had a power outage this afternoon. Luckily, we had enough sense to stay inside and not let the trapped cool air out of the house!!!

Anyway, the trip is over. I wish it were not. But it is. Keep tuned to this channel for future editions of our travels. And thanks for reading my ramblings.

July 29, 2011 - Starting the Trek Home

Well, all good things must come to an end - so we are starting the long trip home today. I tried to sleep all day so that we would have to stay, but I just couldn't do it. So, up we got, bathed, dressed, ate breakfast and headed east (kind of east). Actually we started east a little, then south, then east - but that is just the way it worked.

As neither of us had ever been to North Dakota, we decided to take highway 2 which crosses a lot of the border states - and across Montana and North Dakota appears to be almost straight. So, it is kind of like driving across Kansas, but a little bit cooler.

The only animal other than cows and horses that we saw was one deer who jumped a fence after he crossed the road. We did see a lot more hay. And, we saw fields planted with wheat. And, there were a lot of silos.

We stopped for the night at a hotel's rv park (maybe 20 spaces) in Glasgow, MT. I ran to the grocery store to get milk, stopped by the local Dairy Queen to get my first sweet of the entire trip, and back to the coach. Jimmy was waiting for the sun to go down, and then he was going to wash the coach and the car. I took my twenty dollar bill and went to the casino. Actually, the casino consisted of about eight slot machines and/or video poker machines in the lounge area of the hotel. Since I only play video poker, and since the only video poker machine was available, I put my $20 bill in the machine. About 30 minutes later, I had $80 in the machine. So, I cashed it out and went back to the rv park.

Jimmy had washed one side of the coach. There were two couples who had been regaling him with stories of their trips to Alaska. Jimmy really wants to make a trip to Alaska in the coach. I, however, am not going to do it. I would be willing to fly to Alaska and rent an rv, or take an Alaskan cruise, or fly to Alaska and stay in hotels. I am not going to spend two months driving to and from Alaska!!! Ain't gonna happen (she said).

Anyway, he finished the coach and I started on the Jeep. The only person who stopped to talk to me was a guy who was traveling to California via Yellowstone on his motorcycle!!!! But, he did help me wash the Jeep. Being vertically disadvantaged means that I can't reach the middle of the hood, the middle of the front window or the top of the car. Jimmy came over to help finish it up.

Oh - I forgot - I also cooked dinner. I really hated that. But, there really wasn't much in the little town. The people were super nice, but it was not a large place. I think maybe even Holly Springs might have had it beat!!!

More tomorrow.

July 28 - Going to the Sun Road

We spent the evening at the same KOA at which we had stayed the last time we came to Glacier National Park. Once again, the satellite internet connectivity was spotty. However, I was able to use my air card to get on the internet, but I didn't do too much. Of course, the cell phone did not work at all in St. Mary nor in the park.

I know this is going to sound strange, but I was not as impressed with the Going to the Sun Road the second time around. The park is very strange, there is really only one road (the Going to the Sun Road) which goes into the park for any distance at all - and it goes all the way across. There are a lot of hikes one can do in the park - and we did one or two. I continue to be in awe of how man was able to hone that road through the mountains. There is an itunes podcast which you can download to your i- whatever you have - which is great to use as you drive over the mountain. I also found an application on the various national parks, but I was never able to download it.

When we got to West Glacier - cell service kicked in - so I got caught up on telephone calls, Jimmy got caught up on telephone calls, and I cleared all of my emails. We continued on to see the wonderful hotel at West Glacier. I continue to be amazed at the size of the trees used for the pillars in the lobby of the hotel.

I probably don't have near the number of pictures from this trip as from the last, so I'm going to just include the links to the pictures from the last time we were here!!! I know that is cheating, but if you missed them the first time, you can enjoy them this time. And, if I had not told you I was recycling pictures - you would never have known.

Pictures to follow. Some are pictures I took this year, but I am linking the ones from the past trip.

More later.

July 27, 2011 - Waterton to St. Mary's

Our intent was to get up early this morning since we wanted to take the 10 am cruise on Waterton Lake and we would need to park the coach in one of the tour bus parking spaces (permission had been given the day before). However, we actually woke up about at about 8:30 am - which gave us a little less than an hour to bathe, dry hair, do my makeup and get the coach (and us) down to the harbor. Believe it or not, we made it. I drove the car so that I could get in line for the tickets as soon as I got there. Jimmy and The Bear drove the coach.

As I walked up to get our tickets, there was an older lady and her husband who were buying 38 tickets. Luckily, they sold me my two tickets while a second attendant was figuring out how much she would owe - since all of the tickets were not adults. I cleared out all but about 17 cents of my Canadian money buying the tickets for the cruise - so that was a good thing!!! The Bear attracted a good bit of attention to the coach, because he was intently watching what was going on, standing in the window so people could see him, and all around being cute. Peaches was asleep on her bath mat - so she didn't care what we were doing.

The cruise went south on the lake and actually crossed the 49th parallel - the border between the US and Canada. They actually cut down the trees along the border and put up monolith like markers where a hiker in the US (or Canada) can determine if they are crossing the border. If you had your passport (we did not), you could actually get a special stamp that the US Border Agents use which is the Goat Haunt entry stamp. We didn't even have a piece of paper on which he could have done the stamp. The trip up was quite educational about the mountains in the area. We spent about 15 or 20 minutes walking along the edge of the lake. Others on the cruise were actually taking longer hikes and catching later cruises to return to the harbor. On the way back, we sighted a bald eagle (I got pictures, but you can only see a white speck unless you zoom in on the picture) and a bear (again, you would have to zoom in quite a bit). The most interesting thing we saw was a rock formation which the guide called a V and an A. Essentially, when the tectonic plates hit up against one another to form the Rocky Mountains, in this plate the rocks bent but did not break. I got pictures of that which will be uploaded later. Really cool. He said that people getting married would frequently rent one of the cruise boats and come out there to have the ceremony conducted.



After a brief lunch on the coach in the parking lot, we hooked up the car and headed south to the United States of America. About seven miles before the border, there was a bear on the left side of the road. It is much more difficult to pull the coach over on the side of the road to get pictures, so we missed pictures of that one.

When we arrived at the border, there was a big bunch of motorcycles waiting to cross. We were next in line after them. So, we put on the brake and waited. When we were motioned forward, the border agent was on my side of the coach. So, I let him in the door. He asked pretty standard questions of us (where are you from, where have you been, how long were you there, are you bringing in any illegal aliens, etc.). All of the time he was asking questions, he was petting The Bear on the head. Peaches, once again, slept through all of the petting. He also came on the coach. He had to look behind every door on the coach to make sure there was no one hiding behind them. He looked in the freezer, but I think he was really looking for ice cream - at least, that is what he said he was looking for!!! They let us through, so we must not have broken any laws.

There is a section of road that you go through coming from the border to St. Mary where cows kind of roam free. At that point, we saw more cows than we had seen elk and moose combined. We pulled into the KOA at which we had previously stayed and got settled into our space. Nothing has changed. The wifi is satellite and it is really sketchy. Right now, I am updating using my air card and praying that it is not roaming!!! After I cleared up emails using their wifi, we headed off to a point within Glacier National Park called Many Glacier. We saw a bunch of people stopped to look at one bear on the way in. We checked out the campgrounds in the park. Then, we had a light dinner of soup and salad at the hotel at Many Glacier. Again, there are pictures coming. On the drive out, we did see another bear. Once again, with my point and click cameras, you will have to zoom in to see the bear - but he was definitely there. The ranger said it was a brown bear.

We are now back at the campground. We will drive the Going to the Sun Road tomorrow. Hopefully we will be somewhere with a strong internet connection when we stop on Friday evening and I can get all of the pictures uploaded.

July 26, 2011 - Banff to Waterton Lakes Park

It rained all night long last night. The Bear and Peaches had two major running, jumping, hissing, squalling fights during the night. So, Jimmy and I did not sleep as well as I would have wished we could have given that we are leaving to head south to Waterton Lakes National Park today. We had our breakfast, our baths, got dressed and started to gear up to get into the rain to hook up the car and leave Banff. It may have been a miracle, or it might just have been the timing. Either way, it quit raining long enough for us to get the coach unhooked from power and the car hooked up to tow it down the highway.

There was nothing really exciting about the ride to Waterton. When we arrived at the campground, the young lady looked at the coach and asked me “how long is your vehicle?” I told her that it was about 42 feet long, not counting the Jeep which we would be unhooking. We had booked on line and their system showed that the only thing that was available was a space with no electricity, water or sewer. That is actually fine for us since we have a generator, the water tank was full and the black and gray tanks were empty. Apparently, though, they didn’t really have a space in the no hookups area which would accommodate a vehicle of our size. Luckily, they had had some early departures which made available a space for us with full hookups. So, we unhooked the car and I led Jimmy on a very circuitous drive around the campground to find space B-40. We were surprised to find 50 amp service (vs. the 30 amp service that most parks in Canada offer). There is water convenient to the coach. However, the sewer connection is in the middle of the space on which the coach is parked. I think most people who come here use trailers and it is fairly easy to use their set up for sewer. We would have to crawl under the coach and hook up the sewer hose – or we would have to put the discharge end of the sewer hose in the hole and try to not run over the rest of the hose when we got into the space. We just didn’t try to hook up sewer. Even if we had needed to dump the tanks, we are one space away from the bath house!!!!

And, we saw Rocky Mountain Deer and prairie dogs right in the campground. The deer are everywhere in the city of Waterton. The last time we were here, we were just amazed by the deer in the park area across from the ice cream place. She had just made herself at home. We saw a minimum of 6 deer in the campground, and four of them were bucks. The Bear had noticed the prairie dogs when we drove in. He didn’t really bark at them, but he got really attentive.

Before we could leave to go into town and on the two drives which we wanted to do, Jimmy rinsed off the Jeep. Since it had been raining when we left Banff, we were not able to put the cover on, so it was filthy. Once he was finished with that, we headed into town to check out the schedule for the boat tours of the lake. We decided to do the 10 am sailing since the lady at the ticket office said that we could just park the coach in one of their bus spaces while we were on the tour.

Our two excursions were to Cameron Lake (about a 16 km drive) and to Red Rock Canyon. When we reached Cameron Lake, we saw signs advising that the lake actually went into the USA, but they did not recommend hiking that far. The other signs said that the lake area was prime bear territory. We did not go all of the way to the US border at the lake, nor did we see any of the vaunted bear!!!

So, off we headed to Red Rock Canyon. This drive is supposed to be prime animal territory. All the way to the end of the drive, we saw not one animal! The canyon itself was fascinating – well, what little we saw of it was fascinating. The wind had been blowing really hard until we got to the canyon at the end of the road. Then it quit. And, the mosquitos which are large enough to carry off a small animal were out in force. One man who was walking out of the canyon trail had dead mosquitoes all over him. So, we did not do the hike around the trail. Rather, we got back in the Jeep to make the return trip. We hoped that it had gotten late enough that at least one deer would have come into the meadows. What a surprise we got when we left the parking lot only to see a great big brown bear eating flowers and stuff on the side of the road. This was the closest either of us have ever been to a real bear in the wild. I took lots of pictures of the bear, but not as many as I would have liked. There were, however, other people in queue who also wanted to see the bear. So, we shared and continued on. The only other animal sighting until we got back to Waterton was a pair of deer feeding among the Aspen trees on the side of the road.



But, when we got back to Waterton, we went back down to the harbor so that Jimmy could check where he would be able to park the coach. There was a doe feeding at the entrance to the harbor. A young man with a dog was on the other side of the street. That dog was ready to take on that deer. The deer didn’t even seem to notice the dog. She ate until she was finished in that area. She then just casually walked across the street. The young many had to pull his dog back to keep the dog from attacking the deer.

Tomorrow morning we will take the tour on the lake and then head back to St. Mary’s for a couple of nights so that we can make the Going to the Sun Road ride one more time. So, there should be good pictures from the boat tour!!!

More tomorrow.

July 25, 2011 - Travis Goes Home

We really didn’t do anything today other than drive back and forth to Calgary to see Travis off on his trip back to Alabama.

Once we got back to the campground, we headed into Banff so that I could go to the Starbucks at the gondola ride and upload a few days’ worth of blog as well as get a few bills paid!!! So, we both got something to drink and found a shady place to work on the computer for a while. I got all of the emails cleared, paid the bills, and made one post to facebook. I am just a little bit sorry about posting all of the temperatures we encountered once we got to Canada – the highest being about 72!!! But, that was why we came north – to find cooler temperatures.

From there, we decided to see if we could find the drive which led down to the foot of the falls next to the Fairmont Banff. We had taken a walk along the river and to the falls when Travis was there, but we were not on the right side of the river to get a really good view of the falls. Strangely enough, the road to the river was very well marked and I got some good pictures on my little camera.

Back to town we went trying to find souvenirs. We went to every store on Banff Avenue and still found nothing to buy. We did see a good many people who appeared to have been dressed for watching golf. That is because the Telus Skins Game was going on at the golf course at the Fairmont. When we had been to the hotel, we had noted the full sized cut outs of some golfers, but we did not really recognize all of the names. When we went to the bar side of the Boston Pizza to get dinner, they were replaying the days’ rounds. I truly do not understand skins play in golf, but I do know that the players seem to have more fun than in a round of PGA golf. They always seem to be joking around and kidding each other.

We went back to the campground earlier than most nights and just relaxed since we would be on the road tomorrow.