Montana

This mom and babe were in our national forest campground just off a rest stop from the main highway. The fawn was more concerned about us than it's mother was.

Yellowstone National Park

We spent 2 days here.
The campgrounds were all full so we ended up driving through on the first day and finding an awesome forest campground, with power, just 3 miles from the west entrance on the Montana side.

It was pretty nice driving through Yellowstone in the bus. We had great views of the buffalo and even saw a moose and her calf, although we were too big to stop anywhere in our ensemble. When you hit slow moving traffic in the park you know there's wildlife to see up ahead so get your camera ready. I'm not sure how 'wild' those bison were though they often hung out right by the road. We saw one threaten a vehicle by shaking and lowering it's head a foot away, they drove on! We were next in line in our tiny little car so we didn't try to photograph the cranky beast.

We visited Old Faithful, which really does go off when they say it will, about every 90 minutes. There are many steaming places in the park, very cool.

Backtrack...

Six Flags, St. Louis, Missouri:D

Forgot about this picture! We went here on July 12th.

Theme parks are fun but you can have your fill of them quickly. We love the lazy rivers, wave pools and short lineups (which are hard to find). Kyra says Upper Clements rocks!:P

Buffalo Bill State Park

Yes, that's really the name of the park.
It's about 30 miles east of Yellowstone near Cody, Wyoming. It was a welcome relief to find this nice park at the bottom of Sheep Mountain after contemplating a stay in the Walmart parking lot in Cody where apparently up to 200 rv's converge in the evenings. Instead we enjoyed lovely burgers cooked over an open fire and a pug in a pink sweater strolling by.
The woodpecker visited us in the morning.

Bighorn National Forest

We really enjoyed the scenery and the cool air of the Bighorn Mountains in Northern Wyoming. There were several forest campgrounds and lots of wildlife, including moose.
Our motorhome performed very well up and down the mountains, even with a car in tow.
Check out these deer in action!

Wyoming

Big sky and wide open spaces!
We stayed at Keystone State Park on the Keyhole Reservoir in eastern Wyoming. We had the playground in our back yard and a mountain bluebird visited us.

Sturgis and Deadwood, South Dakota

We drove through Sturgis where they have the famous motorcycle rally every year, and we took a walk through the historical street of Deadwood where Calamity Jane and Buffalo Bill hung out. The girls got giant rootbeer floats here, not very historical but very tasty.

More South Dakota

Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial.

We took the drive from Rapid City and saw these historical sights and were also rewarded with a mountain goat grazing by the road. In the photo with the car you can see the Mount Rushmore profile above us if you look closely and the information board explains it all, including the goat.

Wall, South Dakota

After driving through Badlands National Park we really felt that we should stop in to see Wall Drug in Wall SD. After all, they've invested in about 100 billboards covering the 300 miles before and after them. I guess they work because the place was packed.

It's a whole street of shops really but Wall Drug is the big draw. We enjoyed the free ice water and 5 cent coffee as adverstised. We ate at the cafe and browsed the art work, photogragphs, shops and exhibits while dodging other tourists. And then of course there's the giant jackalope.

South Dakota: Badlands National Park

The girls said it was like Australia only no flies. It was a pretty cool 30 mile drive through here.

Missouri

Babler Memorial State Park, near St. Louis, Missouri.

St. Louis, 'gateway to the west'

horses

Kentucky Horse Park, near Lexington, Kentucky.
3 hour horse farm tour.
We got to meet some famous race horses/breeders, including 'Tiznow' who would cost 100 million dollars if you wanted to buy him. The girls got to feet peppermints to 'Lady McQueen, a race horse in training.

Kentucky

Here's an update on the highlights so far.

We thoroughly enjoyed and exhausted ourselves at the Six Flags in Mass. Excellent roller coasters and a great water park.

On the highway near Hershey, Pennsylvania the roads were very rough. As Kevin gave some space to a state trooper that had a car pulled off the road we heard a very loud 'bang!'. We pulled off the highway to find that we'd blown a back inside tire. The police officer we'd gone around came racing up behind us. He was very relieved that it was a blown tire he'd heard, he thought someone was shooting at him. He was very helpful and followed us to the next rest stop where he called AAA for us. Dealing with them was another story but not as interesting.

In Hershey, Pennsylvania we visited Hershey Park, a full-on theme park. It was sooo hot though, we didn't do much more than a morning at the water park. Oh yeah, it was also July 4th, a little busy!

At the campground in Hershey we enjoyed an outdoor movie, fireflies, giant koi and frogs in the pond, and off course the pool. We never did eat any chocolate in Hershey. Too hot.

We stayed a night in Shawnee State Park, Pennsylvania. Had a nice swim in the lake.
They had warnings of bears in the area and a bear trap at the garbage cans. (Which reminds me, we saw a bear cub on the side of the road near Wentworth, NS).

In Akron, Ohio we got new back tires. The other ones were still fine but we needed the new spare anyway and don't want to risk another highway blow-out.

We're now in Kentucky. A water tower in Florence, Kentucky said in big letters: FLORENCE Y'ALL!

We stayed a night at Big Bone Lick State Park in northern Kentucky. We took a walk in the evening through a forest full of loud bugs and fireflies to a field of buffalo.

There, now we're back on track.

Another voyage...

We're on the road again! Just a month this time. We're travelling through the USA once again, seeing some new-to-us states. Since it's a summer trip we've managed to swim everyday so far, in lakes, pools, and water parks!

These photos are from Freeport, Maine, at the L.L.Bean store. On this blog, almost 2years ago (October 2008?), there are some very similar photos.

We've been to Six Flags, Mass. and Hershey, Pennsylvania. I've been a little slow on the photo taking so here we are in Lexington, KY. More photos soon!

Hello all!

We're about to embark on yet another journey. Last week we took the motorhome for a test run, this time pulling a car! It went well so we're ready to travel across the USA once more with Vancouver, Canada as our final destination.

We've only got a month this time, attending a wedding on Vancouver Island at the end of July.

Our test run took us to Risser's Beach Provincial Park in Nova Scotia. The water is achy cold. As you can see you can get the supremo camp sites during the middle of the week in June. Yay homeschooling. We took the trip with my mom and dad (previously seen during the end of our Australia journey and last September's excursions) as well as beloved cousin Connor, our weekend warrior.

The sailing photo is of Kyra and her Uncle Grant, Lake Lewis, N.S. Thanks again Grant for taking all the kids sailing. You rock!

Stay tuned, more updates soon ...

Snapping turtle found in our driveway...

'Mario' (aka Marie) on a beautiful day in March

Hello everyone,

Here are some wintery scenes from our part of the world, specifally our backyard.

We've been busy with school and snow. The girls have re-learned how to downhill ski and our new mission is to learn how to snowboard. So far we've only tried it out in the backyard but we'll brave the ski hill soon. Kevin is already the master (except for that time he broke his wrist!) so now we're hoping he can teach us.

We hope your holidays were warm and happy.