Journey's End = New Beginning

We departed the Dakota's on July 28th and spent a night at Billings, Montana at the first KOA campground. It's a nice RV park along the Yellowstone River where we've stayed on previous trips to SD. We arrived on July 29th at Red Lodge to meet up with Lorna Babby - a returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) we'd met while we were all serving in Romania. Lorna's long-time partner, Marv Keller, showed us around the charming town of Red Lodge and entertained us until Lorna got home from her job in Billings.

The next day, Marv and Lorna drove us - including the boys - up Beartooth Pass. It's a beautiful drive with great scenery and was the route we had thought we'd take into the northern portion of Yellowstone. After our drive, Jim and I decided we'd forego the route to Yellowstone from Beartooth Pass and visit that park another time.

After a relaxing and enjoyable reunion with Lorna & Marv, we headed towards Glacier National Park. We stopped enroute at a RV park near Canyon Ferry Lake and were lucky to get a reservation at the little town of East Glacier Park the next night. We're definitely in the peak of tourist season and it was getting more difficult to find places to camp. We stopped briefly in Helena to see Montana's capitol building, which was quite nice. We also got a few groceries - and mouse traps because we realized we had a mouse in our house! How does that happen?

We arrived at East Glacier and were able to get a rental car nearby. The next morning, we drove up to Many Glaciers on the north end of the USA's portion of Glacier National Park (GNP) then drove down to the St. Mary's entrance of the GNP and on to the beautiful Going to the Sun Road that runs east/west through the park. The park was fantastic. We ran out of adjectives to describe the beauty of Glacier. It's unfortunate that there are few glaciers left and scientists predict they'll be gone by 2030. Glacier National Park should be on everyone's list of 'must see' places.

After Glacier, we stopped near Missoula for a night and finally found our house mouse. The dogs - both of whom are pretty good rodent hunters - didn't manage to the catch the pest, nor did the two mouse traps I'd set with enticing peanut butter. The mouse met its demise in the sunshade over our dining area. I discovered it when I unrolled the screen and the dead mouse fell out. My involuntary "EEK" went unnoticed because the dogs were busy outside the RV. We've certainly enjoyed a variety of adventures and misadventures on this journey - at least the mouse didn't damage the RV!

We left Montana and spent a night in North Spokane and on August 4th stopped for the night in Cle Elum in order to meet up with daughter Sharon and her husband Mark. Sharon & Mark were working at a private event there and we took advantage of seeing them sooner rather than later. We enjoyed a meal together at the Roslyn Cafe, famous for its mural featured in the old TV show "Northern Exposure".

Our big adventure of 9+ months ended on August 5th when we pulled into Seattle. We parked the RV in a trailer park in Lynnwood, just north of Seattle and began the process of re-settling into our home in Seattle. Thus this will be our last travel blog for a while... until our next, shorter adventure.

Our time on the road was a grand adventure. The USA is a beautiful country with some amazing places and people. The small portion of Canada we visited was also incredibly beautiful. This blog will help us remember all the places and people we saw/met along the way - and we hope you enjoyed sharing our travels, too.

The Yellowstone River at Missoula, MT