August 31, 2015 by Lee and Tracy

First Time Seeing a Grizzly Bear

So funny story, there is more cell coverage in this beautiful National Park than their was in that crappy State Park we stayed in. But I am jumping ahead. Despite the stress of last week we did really have a good time with our friends Deb and Steve and Mario and Ellen. Every night we got together for joint meals and I was amazed at how easy feeding everyone was. We fell into an easy rotation where each couple took the main meal one night and then one other person provided a side of one kind to help. Lee and I love eating other people’s food and since Mario and Deb are such great cooks it was a really nice food week. Also it was great to reconnect with our Dreamers friends. Of the original group that got together at the RV-Dreams rally in 2014, Ellen and Mario were the last to go on the road, as she was waiting to retire. She’s a month in, and they are having a really good time, but still working through some of the mechanics of living in a rig. Even though they are long-time RVers it is very different living full-timing in an RV than taking long vacations and since we all learn from each other, it was great to share stories and advice. Ellen and Mario are headed to Yosemite while Deb, Steve, Lee, and I move on to more of Glacier, and I was so glad to spend time where our paths crossed and get to know them better. I learned how to use my timer on my camera for the shot below and thought the goofiness captured the spirit of the fun we all had together!

Ellen, Mario. Lee, me, Steve. and Deb being silly

Saturday, Steve and I were both off work, and since checkout time at the state park was at 1 pm we could really take our time. Lee and I actually prepped the night before, and went to a few stores in the morning. When it turns cold in the northern states, lots of products we used go on clearance, and since you can never have enough bug spray in this lifestyle we use this as a chance to stock up. So we bought lots of bug spray and new metal tiki torches at Target (on clearance) and then went to several stores looking for a new percolator. The boon docking overall has gone much better than I expected but we only have a small, cheapie camp style percolator for coffee in the mornings that I have to use a pot holder to pick up since the “handle” is just a ring that gets very hot. Since we love our morning coffee I really wanted to get this problem solved before tackling the next week. Unfortunately although they had them online we didn’t have much luck at Target, Walmart, or Bed Bath and Beyond so Lee finally recommended Cabela’s. Wow, was that ever a good choice. Not only did we find an awesome percolator I also finally found my perfect camp chair. The people who have hung out with me around a campfire know I have been in search of the perfect fold-up chair for over a year now. We started with the gravity chairs (which Lee loves and I hate) and have been limping along with canvas chairs we bought over 15 years ago. We spend quite a bit of time around campfires and for me, the chair matters. So I was $97 poorer, but richer in quality product when we left Cabela. Even though I am budget conscious, some things are just worth a little extra money, and I don’t regret these two purchases at all. On a side note, as I am linking these products I notice the online price was a little cheaper for the chair. I didn’t price match, because they were Cabela brand, but I bet I could have saved $10 if I would have used Red Tag. I really need to get into the habit of using that app!

Awesome rubber handle and large coffee holder capacity. (The image does not indicate proper usage of the percolator. Even a moron knows that’s not how you make coffee.-Lee)

Hard arms that flip up and a cool cup holder that swivels out on the bottom

When we came back, Steve and Deb were finishing their prep to leave, and we spent the last 30 minutes hitching up, etc. Coordinating with another couple on travel day could be stressful, and we have never actually followed another camper before to the next campsite, but Steve and Deb are very relaxed on travel day. I chalk it up to lots and lots of experience because they have moved quite a bit more than us over the last year on the road, and from the outside looking in, they have a very nice system. We are still working out the kinks in our routing, but we are definitely getting there, and we all stopped together at the local Cenex to dump and take on propane and fresh water. The campground we’re heading to has a dump station, and this is definitely dealer’s choice, but I like to dump prior to making the drive just in case you get to your destination and there is a problem. I just find it less stressful in general and Lee is fine either way so if possible we dump before leaving our current stay. The drive to Fish Creek Campground in Glacier was pretty short and we got there comfortably around 3pm. How different from Whitefish Lake!!

Lake McDonald next to campground

Lake McDonald

Cool rock circle someone made on the lakeshore

Huge downed tree we were fascinated by

Lee walked it, was around 75 feet long

Even though the park was very full, it was blessedly quiet, and the treed spaces give an illusion of privacy although you are very close to people. Plus 3 bars of AT&T and Verizon!! You wouldn’t believe the lengths Steve and I went to with our jobs to be totally disconnected for 10 days and it turns out wasn’t necessary. Crazy, and I have to say I am relieved, because we’re not crazy about the kids and our parents not having access to us for such a long period of time. We were in site B89 and Deb and Steve are in B92 across from us and although the pull through circular sites are a tight fit, we both got our 40 foot rigs in with minimal maneuvering. Unfortunately, we are still under a campfire ban, those poor tent campers are seriously hardy since night temps are down in the 50’s, but the solar is working very well. I should mention that Greg from RV Solar Solutions designed a solar solution for us that worked with our budget and our projected solar needs. So far it has worked out very well, and we have been doing a lot of experimenting on how long we can run certain items on solar. Yes, they are friends of ours, but believe me, I would have been mad if I was having major issues, but so far the system has been rock solid. All systems do require a learning curve though, who knew a toaster would suck up so much juice?, and we are using this time to learn. So far we have had excess capacity every night, except the one time we didn’t run our generator in the evening. Speaking of generators, our is propane and we used 3 tanks of propane in a 10 day boon docking period. That’s not awful, but Steve has the small gas-powered external generators and those seem to be more efficient. The major advantage to ours though is it can generate up to 50 amps whereas Steve’s can only do 15 (30 amp if he strings two together.) Anyway, it’s going pretty well, but this campground has very restricted generator hours. Essentially they are during meal times 8-10am, 12-2pm, and 5-7pm. The one time Steve didn’t turn his off on time he had a ranger knocking on his window at 7:02pm They take the generator hours very seriously here! I like it from a peace and quiet standpoint, but it can get a bit tricky if you are out all day, it kind of forces you to be back at the campsite from 5-7 and then really conserve for the evening hours.

We were all very happy though, and wanted to get out into the park right away. It was very smoky coming in, but Saturday night called for rain and we were all hoping that that would disperse some of the smoke. Months ago I saw a picture on Pinterest of “Pebble Lake” in Glacier and that was a must do for me. There actually isn’t a Pebble Lake here, but after some Google research Deb and I discovered the picture was taking at Kintla Lake. This lake is on the West side of the park and requires driving up a dirt road but we were all up for it. We took off at 9am, they were actually 2 minutes early gotta love that, and started the drive. The Inside North Fork Road was closed for a stretch so we were forced to the Outside North Fork Road but it was still beautiful. We had Glacier on one side and Flathead National Forest on the other. In any other place Flathead would have been amazing, but when you can look at Glacier by just turning your head it certainly came off as a poorer cousin. The houses that had both views though, one from the rear and the other from the front, were in an amazing spot.

Glacier Mountains

Flathead Mountains

Saw several of these signs along the way

The road less traveled

Lots of creeks and meadows, clouds were beautifully smoke free

It was a beautiful morning, with the best visibility we have had, so we took our time stopping whenever we wanted along the way. I loved that the views kept changing. Fire had come through here in the past and we saw the forest in varying stage of regrowth along with some beautiful prairies. This is how I always pictured Montana in my head and wow it was stunning.

Kintla Glacier close up

Kintla Peak and Kintla Glacier

The road by the way is variable. Some is paved, some is oiled dirt, and the closer you get to the Canadian border the rougher it gets. It was definitely manageable in our truck though and we saw several smaller cars going by. It is super bouncy towards the end though, which is kind of a good thing because it forces you to slow down and really look around. We were all on animal lookout of course, and Steve was dying to see a grizzly bear. We had made a joke that he tipped the ranger $15 to see a bear and kind of our running theme was “would we see bears?”. As we were driving along and looking at the beautiful views we came upon a really nice house, at a point in the trip where for a handful of miles it was private property as opposed to public land. There were some private residences on the edges of Glacier and as we were looking at one of the driveways I saw what I thought was two bear statues or plywood cutout silhouettes. After my brain registered what I was actually seeing, I told Lee to stop, and he backed up, and holy cow there were two huge grizzlies right in the driveway!!! They were looking straight at us from about 75 feet away and they stayed for a while until Steve got out of his truck upwind from them and they decided to wander off. It was truly truly an amazing moment, one I will cherish forever, and I definitely felt it was the universe’s way of saying, “yes this is tough but look at what you get to see…you are on the right path.”

My favorite pic

We think the little one smelled Steve 🙂 Only partially kidding here they have an amazing sense of smell and as soon as he got out of his truck it turned towards him.

Lifting it’s nose for a sniff. They moved off shortly thereafter

Closeup of the big one

You can clearly see the hump of the back which shows it's a grizzly

You can clearly see the hump on the back which shows it’s a grizzly.

A big clump of what I think was bear hair I saw much later in the day., I got out to check it and it feels like human hair

A big clump of what I think was bear hair I saw much later in the day. I got out to look and it felt like human hair.

The lodge that initially caught my attention. Nice view :)

The lodge that initially caught my attention. The bears were on the driveway

Since mating occurs between May and Mid-July (we think and) the mother’s and cubs stay together 2-3 years we think it was a mother and an older cub. This was a really great sighting because according to Western Wildlife.org “Grizzly bears have one of the slowest reproductive rates among terrestrial mammals, due to their late age of first reproduction, small average litter size, and the long interval between litters: it may take a single female 10 years to replace herself in a population.” All of us were incredibly excited and I was so happy that my hands stayed steady enough on super zoom to get the shot. In that moment, I felt really calm and very focused. And as Deb said, “That made our Glacier.” Not only did we get to experience it, but we got to do it with our really good friends. Plus Steve’s $15 tip really worked lol. That’s only $7.50 a bear…a bargain at any price! (I am kidding about the tip of course)

You might think the rest of the day was anticlimactic, but it was great in different ways. First we stopped at this little town called Polebridge (when I say town I mean 5 buildings and a street, and checked out their bakery and gift store. Steve and I are addicted to Huckleberry Bear Claws and these were amazing. Really cute store and we loved the little town in the middle of nowhere. Plus pastry yummy.

The one store

Working phone and mailbox

Little bit of everything and their prices were decent

Deb and Steve checking it out

I loved the individual bandaids for sale

Lee loved the lending library

Polebridge, definitely worth a stop

After leaving the town we also saw 6 deer at various stages along the road. The sixth was a cool buckling but I didn’t get a picture of it.

Lee’s picture, how awesome is that

In the meadow

Another pair in the woods

After another hour or so of we came to Kintla Lake. It was beautiful but unfortunately overcast by this time and I really wanted a picture with the sun out. We had a snack and watched the lake and Steve intentionally waited until we got a little break in the clouds and I got a few shots with the sun. Very sweet of him. We also saw what I think was an Osprey across the lake on the outer edges of my zoom limit. My favorite part of the lake and adjoining campground was it allowed no motorized boats and all the campers had tents. Even the camp host was in a tent, albeit a nice one. We were only 14 miles from the Canadian border and felt really remote, but it was nice to have a bathroom accessibly, lol. I took about a million rock pictures, I really do love rocks, and made another major check off my RV bucket list. If you come for Glacier I highly recommend staying at Fish Creek and making this drive. It’s long but so worth it, and if you have the chance do it with friends because it makes the experience so much more special.

Kintla Lake view to the right

The view to the left

Favorite rock shot

So much variety in the types of rocks

I could have taken pictures of rocks all day 🙂

With the occasional bird thrown in!!

So we headed back after a full day for some yummy steak dinner and a few games of Qwerkle. Next up: some hikes Deb has scheduled for us and hopefully some more animal sightings. So far this is a fantastic trip and I can’t wait to see what happens next!! And on a completely side note, our friends Bill and Kelly just completed their one year on the road. Here’s the link to an absolutely fantastic write up of their first year. She did a great job and congratulations you guys!!

Campground Reviews

Fish Creek Campground West side of Glacier National Park 4 out of 5 pine cones

Even though the park was very full, it was blessedly quiet and the treed spaces give an illusion of privacy although you are very close to people. We were in site B89 and Deb and Steve are in B92 across from us and although the pull through circular sites are a tight fit we both got our 40 foot rigs in with minimal maneuvering. Dump station and solid Verizon and AT&T coverage. restricted generator hours. Essentially they are during meal times 8-10am, 12-2pm, and 5-7pm. Well kept, well-managed, Showers available but only in Loop A which is a 5 minute walk for those in other loops. Keep in mind you need to by a $30 seven day parks pass (on top of your $23 a night fee), but we recommend the $80 America the Beautiful pass which is good for one year on all federal land.

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August 29, 2015 by Lee and Tracy

First Time with No Cell Coverage

So here’s another post with no pretty pictures (except at the end) and the story is not so fun. If you like the blog for those things, you might want to go back and reread the Glacier post and skip this one. For months we have been talking about what would happen if we hit an area with no cell coverage. Because I work that is not a viable option for us and despite conventional wisdom you can’t always just move down the road. Well, you can, but it’s costly in some cases and you might have to miss the thing you traveled all that way to see. Months ago (before we learned all we know now) Deb and I had booked reservations near Glacier National Park. For the first week we intentionally picked a state park that had some AT&T coverage. I knew it was going to be on the outer edge of their coverage, but at the time was a little “fiddle-dee-dee, I’ll worry about that another day. Yes, despite my crazy over planning tendencies I do on occasion blow things off and this trip, which I wanted so much, definitely fell into that category. Lee on the other hand has been trying for months to get me to proactively solve this potential problem. He used Technomadia’s recommendations and the price tag came in at roughly $1K. This included a WiFi booster, a cellular booster, and a flagpole to get the antenna as high as was reasonably possible. Every time we talked about it…and it came up often…I would shy away from spending the money. I did try to find a less expensive solution, but Lee is an all-or-nothing guy and felt if we were going to spend the money we should do it right. So, we were at an impasse, and the problem just sat out there unresolved. We both kept waiting for it to rear its ugly head, but all through Minnesota and North Dakota I had a great experience, so I started thinking maybe this wouldn’t be an issue at all. I wish that was the post I was writing.

When we arrived at Whitefish Lake State Campground we saw right away we were going to have a problem. The campground is an old one and the sites are small and heavily wooded. Sometimes I like this arrangement but since we were boondocking for an extended period of time and needed cell coverage, it was the worst possible arrangement. The situation was complicated by the fact that we are 30 yards (yes 30 yards) from a train track and trains go by every 30-60 minutes. This by the way is why I would never recommend this campground as the train noise is so loud and frequent that you often have to suspend conversations because you can’t hear the other person and the train interfered with what little signal I had.

The train track was so close to us. Our campsite was where the water is just farther back

Steve and I discussed it and since he has Verizon as a backup he loaned me his small cellular booster. We tested it briefly and it seemed to work, if I was 6 inches from it, and since my only day off on the west side of Glacier was Sunday we decided to go ahead and enjoy the park. I don’t regret that decision at all. You saw the pictures and the day was amazing, but it did add further stress to the situation. The weak cellular was complicated by the fact that for the first time we were boon docking for an entire week. Again, Lee had tried to get me to proactively solve the potential problem by simulating boon docking conditions in a campground where we had services (this is strongly recommended by Howard and Linda of RV-Dreams ) , but I was extremely resistant, feeling like we should actually be in a spot worth boondocking over before we tried here. My thought process was that I would hate boondocking without the beautiful setting and then be resistant down the road. Lee knowing this could very well happen capitulated, but he thought it was a bad idea.

Are you seeing a pattern here? This leads me to something I have been wanting to talk about for some time but had no idea how to broach. So as before I am going to write my truth with the understanding that it may not be yours. Actually I hope it’s not. I don’t believe we are alone in this problem, however, but you as always decide whether or not it resonates with you. Almost two years ago Lee brought this lifestyle to me. Since he wanted to do it so bad, he went to a considerable amount of trouble building a convincing argument to get me to agree. Let me be clear, I never in a million years would have had the courage to do something like this on my own, but Lee has always been the visionary in our marriage and that vision has truly enriched my life. Once we were on the road it isn’t like his encouragement stopped. Actually it was harder because vague concepts became reality, good and bad, and he sort of babied me along for the first 6 months. I fully admit I needed that. I have never been this far our of my comfort zone for such an extended period of time in my life. So all of that was fine and was working for us as a couple, but eventually it became not fine. It wasn’t his choice, it was our choice, and I needed to start owning my part in that. Plus I am sure he was getting tired of being extra careful with me all the time because I might have an emotional reaction. How does this relate to not having cell coverage and boondocking? Because it all came to a head. My unwillingness to be proactive caused an emergency which he felt he had to deal with.

What was the emergency? Well Monday morning my first call was at 7:30am. Using Steve’s booster I made the call and everything was fine. The next call was at 8:30 and it was a very important call that I was hosting. Hosting means my number is used and no one can join the call until I arrive. Also if my line disconnects then everyone else is disconnected. At 8:26am I realized I could not make a call of any kind. Luckily I was able to email someone and ask them to start the call and I grabbed my cell phone and laptop and we jumped in the truck and drove 5 miles down the road. I was several minutes late to the call I was leading and was actually quite proud of myself that I managed to hold onto my cool and professionally handle the call. Lee was not so impressed. All of a sudden we had a problem that needed to be solved immediately and it became his whole day. We drove 30 minutes away and bought a small booster which we tried, but just didn’t work well for me. Then we took the small booster back and bought a larger booster which works much better,WeBoost Home 4G, and I broke down and stopped at a Verizon store along the way. In a nutshell it took all day, in between me handling a very busy call schedule from parking lots, and we were out $399 for the WeBoost (we later got an $88 refund because Ellen bought the same one and used Red Laser to get a price match discount), a $32 restocking fee on the first booster we returned, and $57 a month for a new Verizon plan. In case you’re interested, we ended up choosing a 1GB month-to-month plan which can be suspended twice for up to 180 days total in a one year period or changed to increase or decrease the data at will. We could not use a prepaid option because those phones cannot act as a WiFi hot spot so got the bare minimum phone Samsung Galaxy Core Prime for $169. I was pretty unhappy about needing two phones at first, but after making Verizon calls with no issue all week I will say that $60 is a small price to pay.

So Monday was a crazy day and at the end of it I was feeling like we had done OK and managed to hold it together pretty well. Well, that was my perspective. That evening we got in one of the worst arguments we have had in the last 15 years. (we’ve been married for 25 but the last 15 years truly bad arguments have been few and far between). I am not going to get into all the details, but I will say this: This lifestyle does not fix your baggage. You bring your marital issues into the lifestyle and essentially put them into a pressure cooker. What I mean by that is the problems we are having are not caused by the lifestyle, but in a sticks and bricks existence they might be easier to manage. For one thing you have more room to get away from each other if you’re not getting along. Also for us, we are going through the normal marital adjustment that happens when your last child leaves home. For all couples with children this is an adjustment and many couples simply don’t know how to relate to each other in a kid free environment. Kids do act as a great buffer in a way. It’s all about the kids for such a long time, you often don’t deal with couple issues you might be having. Lee and I recognized this as a possibility well before Kasey left home and part of what started all of this was our desire to ensure our relationship didn’t die a slow death the way we had seen many others. What I didn’t count on was full-timing would escalate the time-table on dealing with some of that stuff and it would be done in an environment where both people were out of their comfort zone. Personally, and your mileage may vary here, I believe this lifestyle in the beginning is relationship high stakes poker or maybe the better analogy is extreme sports. The rewards are amazing if you can work through it, but there is risk. Again, you may not agree, but that has absolutely been my experience and truth and I have been wanting to share it for a long time.

Have we worked it all out? Absolutely not, but hopefully we have moved forward into a better place. I need to own my choice in this life and respect that when he wants to deal with something in advance we should do it. Lee needs to learn to not let his feelings build up and let me know when things are bothering him so we can immediately address them. Next week I am on vacation and we are on the East side of Glacier with minimal cell coverage, if any. We can take that time to reconnect with each other and enjoy the most beautiful aspects of this life and I think it will be good for both of us. Plus, we are with our friends Deb and Steve who have 4 kids and have been married for 30 years so if anyone gets it, they do. And just so you don’t think it was all bad this week, I finally got to go kayaking with Deb. Something I have been looking forward to all year. It was fun and she answered the long running question of who steers the kayak. She took a 3 day class and what she learned was the person in the front is the person who steers and the person in the back is the power. Dammit, Lee was right about that too.

Whitefish Lake

Around White Fish Lake

In the kayak

Kayaking with my friend Deb

Whitefish Lake State Campground 1615 W. Lakeshore Whitefish, MT 1 out of 5 pinecones

Older campground with small heavily wooded sights which make generating sufficient solar power in this no services environment difficult. The sites themselves are less than optimal either extremely close to an active train track or on a steep incline. No dump station but water in the campground at various spots. Beautiful lake with great access, but AT&T barely works but the Verizon signal was strong. Close to town and numerous services, yet still feels isolated. So it would be a good campground except when the train is running and unfortunately that is far to often. Unfortunately because the trains go by every 30-60 minutes and are so loud (numerous times we had to suspend our conversations because you simply couldn’t hear each other), unfortunately I have to give it my lowest rating. I would never stay here again.

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August 28, 2015 by Lee and Tracy

First Time in West Glacier

Sunday was the only day off I would have on this side of the park and since none of us had been here before we decided to drive the Road to the Sun. Everyone who has driven it raves about the experience and conventional wisdom was absolutely right. We drove to the park and saw that admission for a 7 day pass was $30 per car so we finally broke down and bought the America the Beautiful pass. The pass is pricey at $80, but since we would need to spend $30 twice for the two-week stay it made more sense. I have nothing against this pass, which offers free admission to all federal parks and lands for a year and I love the fact that when you hit 62 it’s $10 for life. I just don’t recommend it until you are going to be in some of the more expensive parks. We have been on several federal land areas and most cost $4 or less to enter. The big parks require more maintenance, however, thus the higher fees. We talked to the volunteer who sold us our pass about visibility and she said that it was pretty clear up near Logan’s Pass. We were relieved at least part of the drive would be good and of the group I was the most optimistic overall. It turns out I was right to be optimistic because although the smoke was bad early and late in the drive, in the middle when we hit some of the more spectacular views the conditions were at their best. There is no way though I could do the experience any justice in words, so let me just show you some of the pictures we took. Keep in mind when the picture is a little cloudy that was due to smoke, but overall I was thrilled with what we saw and the pictures I took.

At the entrance

The trees were beautiful and so green

Lake McDonald from the east side

We walked down to the water and I loved the rocks

McDonald Falls was amazing and one of my favorite parts of the day

We walked right down on the rocks and got some great shots

Deb came down on the rocks with Lee and I

I am standing on a rock which is why I am taller than Deb 🙂

The grooves in the cliffs were amazing. this is Lee’s shot

This is not enhanced. The sparkles are caused by mineral deposits in the water. For a rock lover it was amazing

Again not color enhanced, the water is this turquoise due to mineral deposits

Loved this mountain reminded me of Doom Mountain from Lord of the Rings

Lee and I

Since there were 6 of us we went in two cars and Steve, who was in the lead, stopped at any pullout that looked good or had several cars parked alongside. The signage is not as good as I have seen in other parks, so plan on stopping a lot along the way so you don’t miss anything. We also used walkie-talkies so we could communicate between the two cars. It worked well and I thought the pace was perfect.

I wish this view had been clear. Looked like a painting I had in college

Great lunch spot

The white on the top was ice. I loved this mountain too

VERY curvy road

There is a Hoary Marmot in this picture Ellen spotted

Flowers find a way everywhere

At about the halfway point we stopped at Logan’s Pass. There is a large visitors center with very limited parking and since a couple of popular hikes start near the center people stay parked for a while. We circled for quite a while but all the open spots were taken by smaller cars. Finally Lee said, “You certainly see a lot about humanity in a crowded parking lot” and just then a young man walked by and asked if we would like his spot. It was so sweet and he let us follow him then refused to leave the spot when a smaller car tried to sneak in. So relived we finally found a space I got out of the truck and immediately grabbed my jacket, ready to go. When Lee said, “Are you going to grab your camera?” I thought, somewhat annoyed, “Yes I am getting my camera as soon as I put my jacket on”, when he said, “Turn around.” Directly in front of me, standing at the front of our truck was a Bighorn Sheep. I just stood there for a second and then grabbed my camera and got some shots. I followed, it keeping back what I thought was a good distance when two rangers came running up. I found out later it was 25 yards for sheep and goats and 100 yards for bears and wolves. Apparently on occasion the sheep and goats ram people. It was so incredibly cool…I felt somewhat giddy during and after, and Deb, Steve, and Mario watched the whole thing from balcony of the visitors center. Unfortunately Ellen had already gone inside and missed the whole thing . It was such a great moment and I can say since I was so close they are absolutely beautiful animals. The horns are amazing.

I was standing on the near side of that car hood

Check out the horns

The rangers chased it off then stayed in the parking lot on watch for quite some time in case it came back

Mario, Deb, and Steve who saw the whole thing

Even though the wait for a spot took awhile, I absolutely recommend stopping at Logan’s Pass and not just for the sheep sighting!! The visitors center has some great educational material, a very nice, great gift shop, and volunteers who talk about the area and answer questions. Workampers maybe?? It’s also the starting point for the Hidden Lake Nature Trail, which has some nice views of the plateau. Bear, Sheep, and Goat sightings are not uncommon and Deb, Steve, and Lee saw some Rocky Mountain Goats. It is a steep climb though at high elevation and Mario, Ellen, and I decided to stop about half way and just enjoy the view. The goats were closer to the end at the lake.

Ellen, Mario, and Deb starting on the trail

This is the view you walk towards

Since it was starting to get late and a little smokier we decided to head back. We decided we would and drive the other half of the Sun Road when we were on the East side of the park next week. On our way back down the mountain there was a little excitement though when a woman on a motorcycle fell over going up the mountain. Luckily she was going slow (which was why she fell) and Lee who was the lead car stopped immediately to help her. She was fine but it was gratifying to see how many people stopped to help and she was embarrassed but gracious about the whole thing.

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All the guys helping with the bike

We all absolutely loved the Sun Road and it is a MUST do, but take a lunch and be prepared for a long day. It was one huge check on my bucket list and it absolutely did not disappoint. Can’t wait until next week when Steve and I are both on vacation and we can get deeper into the park.

August 28, 2015 by Lee and Tracy

Fires and a Flat

The next day we started off feeling excited, but a little worried about the fires. We had been in contact with Deb and Steve the day before and they were closer to the fires and were dealing with a lot of smoke. Plus, a crazy storm happened the night before and there were several downed trees and road debris. Ellen and Mario seemed OK as they were farther back like we were, but I was getting nervous about what we were getting into. Part of our drive was HWY 2 and we knew part of it was shut down but we weren’t sure which part and in any event the situation was constantly fluid. Because of all that we decided to take the longer way around and stay off 2 all together. I did want to stop and dump first though because I was worried about what would happen if we got rerouted or evacuated. Didn’t want to drive into an unknown situation with full tanks. Well, there are only two places in Helena that have dumps. One is on a slight hill and you would have to pump up..weird and no not doing it. The second one was a standard dump but someone put a second trash dumpster in the place where you make the turn and it was TIGHT. Lee got so far and then we couldn’t make the turn without either scraping the tire against the curb, (how we got the flat the first time) or hitting the logs that were on the border on the other side. We got out and looked and talked and Lee pushed the timber with his foot and it came loose. One of them was removable (obviously someone else had this problem) and with gentle negotiating he made the turn and no tires scraped. He did a really good job and we stayed very calm with each other and helped each other which was great. Whoever designed that turn though..not cool.

Finally we got out on the road and since 90 is a major highway we felt pretty confident we wouldn’t have to deal with closures. What we didn’t count on was the steep grades. Lee is a really good driver and did a great job navigating the road, but when I saw he was using his brakes on occasion (instead of letting the engine slow us down) I knew it was really steep. I breathed a sigh of relief when we hit flat land again, but it was short lived. We felt a jerk (as if the trailer had come unhitched) and then looked and saw smoke coming from the back right trailer tire. Lee pulled over immediately (always, always pull over immediately) and the tire was not only flat it was shredded. Thankfully though he stopped in enough time that the rim was not damaged at all that we could see. After taking a few deep breaths and saying a quick thank you to God because the flat could have happened coming down the hill, Lee pulled out the Rapid Jack we had bought after the last flat tire. So here’s the thing. We rapidly found out the jack was not so much a jack. The idea is you can roll the good tire onto it and it will lift the bad tire enough to change it. We were on a two lane highway and pulled over into the gravel, as you would be in this scenario. He rolled the tire onto the jack and it immediately sunk 6-7 inches into the gravel. So not enough height to put the spare on. Lee pulled out these rubber mats we have to roll tires onto and tried it again, but again the good tire was not high enough to put the new one on. Plus the good tire was smushed alarmingly by the whole process and I started to worry we could have a second failure. OK, so now what? Well, we decided to call Good Sam roadside assistance. The experience was largely the same as last time. It took over 45 minutes to find someone to dispatch and then another 45 for them to arrive. I think the problem here is Good Sam just doesn’t have enough people to call. Both times we were less than 30 minutes from a major town so seriously it should not be that hard to find someone to dispatch. Although I am grateful to have someone come, and in both cases the people who came were very proficient, when this is up for renewal I think I will change to AAA. I also want to mention here that parts of the tire were wrapped around the brake. He had to use a special tool to remove it and even if the jack had worked, Lee doesn’t think he would have been able to get the tire off.

Shredded Tire

Trying to get jack to work

These guys stopped the train before hitting the mountain and walked over to see if we needed help…amazing

At least the view was good while we were waiting

So I am sure your first question was “Did we have TPM or Tire Pressure Monitoring?”. The answer is yes, and we were getting a low air warning light, but it wasn’t extremely low and this is not uncommon in the mornings before the tires heat up. The difference this time was the all the other tires went to normal pressure but the fourth one didn’t. We discussed checking the air and were actually talking about the next rest area when we hit the mountain pass that was unexpected. Should we have pulled over before attempting the hill? Maybe, but it had been a big morning with the fire smoke, route change, and dump station from hell and we had a lot on our minds. Also I will say, I am not convinced that the low pressure is what caused the problem. Everyone knows these E tires are absolute crap and we absolutely have to spend the money to get new ones. It’s not just about the money though, the coordination to get them all changed is difficult and with the way our schedule has been we haven’t been any place with enough time this could be easily done. Since we are headed to Susanville for 2 months for Lee’s work kamping job that should be the best place to do it and we will just have to bite the bullet and get 5 new tires, because seriously, we could have died.

By the time all this was done we were seriously behind schedule and we still had to travel Route 93, which although it’s only 112 miles takes a good 3 hours to traverse. There was lots to look at though as we went through several small towns and it gave us some time to settle down before getting to Whitefish Lake State Park. We even took a few moments and stopped to look at Flathead Lake which is a huge lake that is very popular in Montana. Have to say though that after spending a month at Lake Kabetogama we weren’t that blown away.

The view helped with the stress

Flathead Lake was beautiful

By the time we got to the campground we were pretty beat. A 4 hour travel day had turned into an 8 hour travel day, but thankfully Steve and Deb made dinner for us. Plus, when we pulled into our site I saw she and Ellen had decorated it for my birthday. So, so nice especially after such a day and I almost started crying. They were so thoughtful and I was so glad to be where we were supposed to be… it was a great feeling and how wonderful to have such nice friends. We had dinner and then I got some awesome presents (everything does two things) and then we had cupcakes for dessert. They both went all out and you can see from the smiles on my face what it meant to me.

Mario, Ellen, deb, Steve, and Lee

Dinner was yummy

Cupcake for desert

A Camper photo frame!!

They bought me sunflowers and Ellen pt them in this cool teapot she found in a thrift store

They bought me sunflowers and Ellen put them in this cool teapot she found in a thrift store

I loved that Deb wrote on this rock for me…so thoughtful since she knows I love rocks

Plus a big rock with a tiara

Hurley, deb’s dog. not such a fan of the tiara lol

Deb Mario and Steve

So so nice

Tomorrow we are all going to Glacier and I am so so excited. Hope the smoke doesn’t ruin the experience, but I choose to think positively and believe I wouldn’t travel all this way and not get to see the thing I have been looking forward to.

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August 27, 2015 by Lee and Tracy

First Time in Montana

Although my expectations were set pretty low, for some reason I was expecting a ton of oil fields, we really loved Western North Dakota. Lots of farms with rocky outcroppings spread throughout and when we hit the Teddy Roosevelt National Park are we were both in awe. I didn’t even know it existed and was so sorry we had to pass through quickly but that is a place we definitely want to go back to. After driving through some more farmland we finally hit Belfield, ND which is known as the gateway to the west. The view went from farmland to ranches and the change in terrain was noticeable. Many years ago Lee used to drive a truck cross-country for a production company he worked for and he always came home from those trips raving about the views and now for the first time I was seeing what he had been talking about. I looked over to tell him and I saw a tear rolling down his cheek. (A bug flew in my eye. Shut up. – Lee) He was obviously visibly moved and I said , “Honey we made it. ” His quiet reply was “It only took 15 years.” That took me a minute to process. I was thinking it took us 9 months to get here, but for Lee the wait was 15 years. The moment was significant. The West is the place Lee has always wanted to be and I was so happy for him that we finally had made it. It was a great moment.

This sticks and bricks has quite the view

Big Sky

Lee intentionally scheduled a long drive day, so we would have more time with his family on Friday, but with my new work setup in the truck it wasn’t an issue for me. Also, my cell coverage was excellent. I have to say as much as I have heard that Verizon is the way to go for FTers, my AT&T has been really good. Thus far we have actually been in two spots where our Verizon friends had no cell coverage and ours worked. That being said, Lee and I are concerned about what happens when we get out west though and had talked about numerous options including a Verizon plan and a “pay as you go” phone. Right now the thing that makes the most sense financially is all AT&T., but things may come to a head soon. For right now, I was on a conference call while going through Bozeman Pass and heard everything just fine. I was absolutely amazed by that, plus the conference call was a lot more pleasant with the amazing views.

Finally, after driving for several hours we stopped for the night in Columbus, Montana. Our hometown is Columbus, Ohio so we got a kick out of being in Montana and staying in a town with the same name. Columbus, Montana is one of the really small towns out West with a struggling Main Street. It’s hanging on but you can tell it’s not a prosperous town. We stayed in a free city park, Itch-Kep-Pe , for the night and it was nice but definitely could use some TLC. The spots were good, it was near a river, and the people were really friendly, but it was all vaguely unkempt and overgrown. That being said, we were happy to stay there for the night for free and would even recommend it for a little longer stay, but it would be great if they hired a camp host to come clean it up. It could be amazing. A nice bonus was the local farmer’s market was on Thursday night. I love a farmer’s market, and this one, for such a small town, had a nice varied selection. Lee bought some hot, seasoned nuts and I got about $10 worth of fresh locally grown vegetables, plus we put back a little in the local economy which we always like to do.

Campsite in Columbus, MT

The downtown

Farmer’s Market

The next day was a shorter travel day and we were planning on a stop in Helena, Montana. Lee’s mom’s oldest sister, Mildred, stayed in this area of the country when some of the kids lived out east and Lee has a cousin Kim, he has only met once and another cousin Gerry he has never met. His cousins have owned this really trendy shoe and clothing stop called Sole Sisters on the main street of Helena for over 20 years. Before meeting everyone though we needed to find our campground and finish out the work day. The campground, Riverside at Canyon Ferry, was a bit hard to find. Lee intentionally picked one outside of town, because the campgrounds in town had pretty poor reviews, and were full anyway. It didn’t look like much from the google earth pictures but again, only one nigh,t so not a big deal. Wow, were we pleasantly surprised. This was one of the nicest campgrounds we have ever stayed at. It was immaculately clean, on the water, and there is a hug dam within sight. There is water throughout the campground , stone picnic tables and really nice fire rings all for $15 a night. Crazy!! We loved it and would highly recommend it to anyone passing through the area, but I will warn you the drive to get to it is a little steep and curvy. So worth it though.

Our camper by the dam

The lake

The dam must be beautiful when the water is running

The hills behind us

View of the campground from the dam

Unfortunately we were also really starting to see smoke in the area so the views weren’t as dramatic as they could have been. August in Montana means smoke from fires. I talked to a person who has lived there a while and he said it’s normally about 20 days a summer of smoke and the worst is usually in August. This year by all accounts was really bad though, and they have even brought in fire fighters from Australia to help combat the flames. We weren’t near any fires, but the smoke does travel and the day we were in Helena is was “foggy” like conditions. When we got to Mildred’s house she was very concerned about the fact we were heading into the fire area and worked with Lee to look at road closures and alternative routes. She really wanted us to stay longer and we talked about it, but Glacier is a RV bucket list item of mine and we were planning on meeting our friends Ellen, Mario, Deb, and Steve. I loved Helena and definitely want to go back when we have more time. Plus, Lee’s Aunt Mildred will be very disappointed in us if we don’t go back and she is not the kind of person you want disappointed in you!! She had made plans for the evening so we drove down to Sole Sisters and checked out the shop. It was really great, with quality merchandise. This is not a place to find a bargain, but definitely worth a stop to check out what they have. Plus, ask for Kim or Gerry, and say you heard about them from Lee and I…that will be fun since they were so fascinated by the blog and the lifestyle.

Mildred helping Lee with the road closures

Mildred looks great for 84!!

Beautiful local catholic church St. Mary’s

I adored the name of the main street downtown

Downtown reminded me a ;little bit of Keene

Sole Sisters

Inside the shop

Great dressing area

Of course I had to try on some shoes. I was good though didn’t buy anything

Kim’s 15-year-old son Cole

After checking out the shop, where Mildred still works sometimes but only when she feels like it, we went down the street to Bert and Ernie’s. It doesn’t look like much from the outside but inside is really great and has a separate wine bar and wine area. I really liked it and the pizza was good. We didn’t even have to pay because Mildred very slyly picked up our check. Seriously, I am usually pretty good at spotting that but didn’t even see it happen. Gotta love a free dinner!! We said our goodbyes and I gave Kim my card so she could read the blog. She and her husband Devon were very interested in the lifestyle, and we absolutely promised we would come back when we had more time.

The 2nd floor of the main bar

Wine Bar

Wine area

On our drive back to the campground we saw some deer down on the sand by the lake. Lee pulled into a side street to see if we could get down there and there was a deer with fledgling horns right in the neighborhood. Neither one of us have ever seen a deer with any kind of horns so it was pretty cool. We stayed and watched it for a while as it calmly ate the persons bushes. It was a great day seeing people and a great campground but can’t wait to get to our friends and Glacier!!

Campground Reviews

Itch-Kep-Pe City Park Columbus, MT 3 out of 5 pinecones

Totally free and along a river. The people were nice and sites were very large and well spaced. There is water, but no dump and the bathrooms are very basic but it is definitely priced right. The campground was a bit overgrown and definitely needed some TLC, but the price was great and certainly good for a short stay. My AT&T cell coverage was very good. No wi-fi and there is a train track behind the campground and the occasional train did go by.

Riverside at Canyon Ferry Canyon Ferry Lake, MT 4 out of 5 pinecones

This is the nicest campground with no services we have ever stayed at. It was immaculately clean, on the water, and there is a hug dam within sight. There is water throughout the campground , stone picnic tables and really nice fire rings all for $15 a night. Crazy!! We loved it and would highly recommend it to anyone passing through the area, but I will warn you the drive to get to it is a little steep and curvy. There is water in the campground in a few places, and the only major drawback is no dump. They really should put one in. I don’t know what the noise is like when the dam is running, but since I like waterfall noise I think that would have been a plus for me.

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August 21, 2015 by Lee and Tracy

First Time in North Dakota

(To begin with, I thought this post should be called “Go West Young Man And Ferociously Hanging On To Middle Age Woman”. It has a certain zing to it, but I’m not the writer, I’m just the editor, and so I have no vote, and so you won’t be seeing that. Except for in this part that I just wrote. – Lee)

Finally, we are headed west!! When we started this journey that is all Lee talked about, and he has been very patient, or at least what passes for patient with him, with doing the stuff on the East Coast first that needed to be done. For the first time Lee planned the whole trip by himself as well, which was great for me because it can be a very time-consuming process. (I also dress myself, and do my own hair. – Lee) He used Good Sam Trip Planner, which is what Cori uses, and not only planned our travel days to coincide with some stops we wanted to make, but also found us very inexpensive campgrounds along the way. My contribution was to pull out the Roadside America app. I absolutely love this phone app which shows you all the quirky and unusual things along your route. It helps break up the long drive days and we got to see the World’s largest Buffalo statue, World’s Largest Sand Crane, and World’s largest black duck statue, among many other cool things. Plus, it led us to the Enchanted Highway which is the mother lode of quirky and unusual, but more about that later. (That’s what we call, in the business, a “teaser”. – Lee)

World’s Largest Black Duck in Black Duck ND

Polar Bear eating a sea-lion statue in front of a gas station

The baby looked cranky

The mom looked cranky too 🙂

The cool think about slowing down or stopping for these attractions is you often find other neat stuff as well and a little history of an area. Makes you feel more like you visited a place than just passed through.

Old lumber tractor

Lumber sled

Loved the fire engine since I am in the fire sprinkler business

First white settler in this small town

Basically, the travel days work out to be two long days, with two short days in between, and the first day ended up being 7 hours. Thankfully Lee found us a wonderful campsite to stop at. The non-designated sites were free and designated were only $10, and the place was practically empty. All dry camping with no water, sewer, or electric, but the view of the reservoir was amazing and it was a great place to stop after a long day of travel. Paying was on the honor system and since we really couldn’t figure our what was designated and what wasn’t we just paid the $10. Totally worth it.

Parkhurst Recreation Area

Our view from the site

Lee checking out the view

Then he picked me flowers on the way back…so sweet.

I think this is the first time Lee ever picked me wild flowers for me. I think the West agrees with him.

(Again, I know I’m just kibbutzing here, but I really think there should have been several paragraphs about the wildflowers I picked, but alas, the “writer” didn’t see the need. – Lee)

The next day was a much shorter travel day since we were going to see the homestead where Lee’s mom was born. She spent her childhood on a farm in North Dakota and we have both heard about it and we knew we had to see it. Oh I should definitely mention that my new truck office setup worked great, I used my MyFi box for internet and had strong phone and WiFi almost the entire way. I actually had numerous conference calls, and did two presentations from the car and it worked beautifully. If you want to see the setup link back to here.

On our way to Dickinson, our next stop, we had the added benefit of huge beautiful fields of sunflowers along the way. I have been seeing pictures of these sunflower fields my whole life and was very excited to try my hand at taking some of my own. Also, there were more roadside attractions and that’s always a good thing! (Notice how she’s taking her time and building suspense getting to the Enchanted Highway? Apart from leaving out things I think she should put in, and her atrocious grammar, spelling, and insistence on using emoticons, she’s not a bad writer. – Lee)

After stopping several times for pictures, we made it to the campground. I have to admit after the previous night’s experience I was a little disappointed. The train tracks ran right behind the campground and there was also industrial noise from a plant nearby. Still at $15 it was fine for one night so we quickly dropped the trailer then took the truck back out on the road. It took about an hour to drive from Dickinson to the farm where Lee’s mom grew up and I am so glad we did it. We got to see the back roads of North Dakota plus Lee was obviously moved by being in the place his mother came from. (Nuh uh. A bug flew into my eye. Shut up. – Lee)

The remains of the house

What was left of the outhouse..with it’s old wooden seat

Lee in front of the backside of the house

The barn and shed

Plus along the way we got to see some other cool stuff including Lee getting some amazing pictures of a Swainson’s Hawk who because he was startled from his meal of rabbit on a hay bale continued to circle the area and screech at Lee until we left. VERY VERY cool and my first close up sighting of a hawk.

A hillside metal sculpture of a cowboy on a horse

A minion made from hay bales…Lee loved this

Tons of ducks

The hawk with it’s squirrel

It was not happy with us

Loved this one

And the best of the best (ah, finally, here we are….- Lee) was that along the way we saw signs for the Enchanted Highway. The Enchanted Highway was the brainchild of a local teacher, Gary Gref, in Reason, ND who felt his town was dying when the local high school closed. Although he was not a sculptor, he raised the money to create huge sculptures along the road leading from the highway to his town. We love weird stuff so of course we were intrigued. and it was absolutely. positively, amazing. Depending on who would donate the land, the artist created sculptures all along the 32 mile stretch of road to his town. Although the longest stretch was 12 miles, we kept going and the sculptures got better and better. Each one costs him around $60K to make so it takes about 6 years to get the money and material together for each one. It’s a true labor of love and for me an example of the American spirit. But don’t let me convince you, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. We spent several hours doing this and I loved every minute of it. (She’s not over selling it. It was just delightfully kitschy and all American. The sculptures are wonderful, and the drive along the road is beautiful. They are impossibly gigantic, and most of them you can see from several miles away, and each one has a sign telling you the name and distance to the next one. The whole road is 32 miles, and again, worth every minute. If you don’t do this, you’re a big dummy head. – Lee)

Geese in flight

Deer crossing

This fun maze was next to the deer

My favorite was the grasshopper

Rideable Grasshopper

Little grasshopper

This one was called Fisherman’s Dream and was huge

Check out me in the bottom to show the scale

Lee loved the boat

Teddy Roosevelt

Lee liked the Stagecoach also

Giant Pheasants

What was cool was we saw the real thing near the statues another new bird for me

Baby Pheasant

Pheasant blends in the grass…Lee has an amazing eye but I took this pic

Finally we made it to the end and saw the World’s Largest Metal Family. This is what was in his mind the entire time because he thought people might drive 32 miles to see the World’s Largest something. He was right…and I did…and it was amazing. As a side note when researching links for this story I saw this attraction is one of National Geographic’s Top 10 Roadside Attractions. How cool is that????

The Tin Family

The World’s Largest

Lee’s closeup pic…amazing detail

At that point we just HAD to see the town, which is of course the whole point, and stopped at the Enchanted Highway gift shop. We went inside and a nice unassuming man got us some ice cream and a magnet. Lee asked about the artist and we were surprised that it was him! He raises about $10K a year from the gift shop and the rest come from donations. That’s why it takes him so long to do the sculptures. Really interesting guy and seriously if you are ever in this area check this out, or you can go to his website and email him. He’ll write you back!! And if there are any philanthropists out there, this guy deserves the help. His next sculpture is a Spider Web and looks pretty cool!!

Teh gift shop with a metal Christmas Tree outside

The gift shop with a metal Christmas Tree outside

Me and Gary

Finally, on his recommendation, we went to check out the Enchanted Castle. Some enterprising people in the town had turned the old high school into a Hotel, Restaurant, and bar. Again, American ingenuity and I loved i,t although the restaurant prices were too steep for us.

Old School

Enchanted Castle front door

Hotel Lobby

The school hallway with hotel rooms on the left

Loved that they left the gym

Didn’t get to see inside the rooms but guessing they were classrooms

The cafeteria was turned in a bar with a medieval dungeon motif

The restaurant was a nice steak house

It was a terrific day, but next up is Montana which we are really looking forward to!!

Campground Reviews

Parkhurst Recreation Area HWY 281 Jamestown, ND 4 out of 5 pine cones

Beautiful sites with strong ATT 4G coverage. No services but there is a dump station and several sites for people with horses including a corral. $10 a night and there are some free non designated sites according to there website although we weren’t sure which ones their were so we just paid the $10. Really beautiful and quiet yet close enough to the highway it was not far off our route.3749 114th Ave. S.W., Dickinson, ND

Patterson Lake Recreation Area 3749 114th Ave. S.W., Dickinson, ND 2 out of 5 pinecones

$15 a night for primitive camping and $25 a night for full hookups. We stayed on the primitive side and the lake was beautiful but the recreation area was behind a train track and industrial area and there was quite a bit of environmental noise. We booked online but the booth was unmanned because it was off-season and the signage was very unclear. We called and the person who answered was friendly and directed us to our site. The sites were small and we actually had to move to 25 to accommodate us. Fire rings are set behind the RV or on the wrong side. It’s really designed more for tent campers and the site itself was more of a patch in the ground. It was ok for an overnight but I wouldn’t stay here for any length of time.

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August 20, 2015 by Lee and Tracy

First Time Turning 49

Yes, I know, it’s the first and last time turning 49, and no, I won’t be one of those people that refuses to turn 50. But for some reason this birthday feels important. Maybe because it’s my first birthday on the road, or maybe because it’s the penultimate before 50. I love the word penultimate and rarely get to use it! Either way, this post is mostly going to be pictures, so here we go.

On Saturday, the day before my birthday, Rick showed up on our doorstep. That may not sound like much, but he not only found us from reading the blog, but took the trouble to come and see us. It was so great seeing him, I don’t know if you remember, but when I took that white water rafting trip Rick was the one who fell out of the boat and we had to pull him back in. (I’ll just take this moment to mention that Tracy also fell in, – Lee) He and I really bonded over that trip and when he knew we were crossing paths but would miss each other by a couple of days he changed his plans and came straight to us. Rick is a widower who just retired and travels with his wonderful dog Maxine. He just started a blog too and I really like his pictures. We had a great time catching up and then I invited him to my birthday dinner the next night.

Rick cut hi head on the bottom of a cabinet and surgical glued it.

Rick cut his head on the bottom of a cabinet and surgical glued it.

Maxine, Rick’s very sweet dog

Sunday, Lee and I ran a few errands, including stopping at Rick’s campground, Woodenfrog State Campground (review below). Then Lee and I went to the Bait and Bite for lunch. I have been wanting to go here since we arrived. Combination diner and bait shop with a tag line saying “Eat Here and Get Worms”. Seriously how can a diner junkie like me pass that up? And it was really good.

The Diner

Sure there are fish on the walls

My favorite part was the window that looked from the diner into the bait shop

My BLT and salad, my standard diner order, was excellent and only $7.95

Sure live bait next door to food 🙂

Really nice bait/fishing shop

After lunch Lee and I went over to Linda and Howard’s so Lee could shoot some video. Throughout the month Lee has been working with H&L on multiple videos and today they were shooting some introductions and a video about their truck hauler bed. My plan was to just hang out, but since it was so windy Lee needed to use a certain kind of microphone which is too big to mount on the camera, so I got to be the boom operator for a little while. It was a lot of fun and I learned quite a bit about their Utility Body Werks custom truck bed. I have to say, after watching them load and unload it, I am sold. Unfortunately, a new truck bed is not in our budget for right now but I’ll definitely keep it in mind. If you’re interested in more info on that check out RV-Dreams.com.

Beautiful setting for the shoot

Operating the Boom

Linda and Howard emptying the truck I couldn't believe how much stuff fit in their

Linda and Howard emptying the truck I couldn’t believe how much stuff fit in there!

Tons of storage plus two gas tanks

After work was done, Linda cooked some dinner and I helped a bit. We had fried fish (they had caught from the lake), beets (which were really good even though I don’t usually care for beets, and two kinds of green beans. Howard likes his mushy, Lee likes his squeaky and I am an equal opportunity green bean lover and had them both. It was a delicious dinner and afterwards we sat around the fire and had a very nice night. It was a great birthday and I was so happy that for two years in a row I got to spend my birthday with RV friends. That’s pretty unusual since we have this rolling lifestyle, or maybe not. I have spent more time with friends and family since we started rolling around than I ever did when we stayed still. Either way, it’s been really wonderful getting to know Howard and Linda on a personal level and I am so glad we got to spend this time together.

Linda taught me how to zest. That was fun!

Pretty beets

Yummy plate of food and all from local ingredients

Linda put a question mark on my cake 🙂

So nice that Linda spent the ridiculous $7.19 they charge locally and got my favorite kind of ice cream.

Another beautiful sunset

Monday I took the day off for our big birthday splurge. Lee loves boats and Howard had negotiated a special price for us to rent the resorts brand new pontoon boat for the day. I really like it here at Lake Kabetogama but seriously, it’s all about the lake, and without a boat there is so much you cannot do. We had been waiting all month for our special boat trip and the day was finally here. We spent just a little time in the morning filming H&L fishing and then it was all us for the rest of the day. It was another great day, with 6 eagle sightings and multiple stops, but I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Howard and Linda on their fishing boat excursion. I drove in circles around them while Lee shot video that was kind of fun.

So many beautiful islands

Loved the complex forests on the islands with many types of trees

Fisherman staked out little coves throughout the lake but we went from place to place

The rocks were just beautiful

The Ellsworth Rock Gardens, our first stop, were created over multiple summers by a husband and wife. They created art but are not professional artists, and Voyaguers National Park has maintained their work and provided a nice picnic and restroom area. By the way, I can’t say enough about the park service. All the places we stopped were free, they all had pit toilets that were clean and had toilet paper in them, and it was obvious in every case there was an ongoing effort to not only maintain but improve the properties. I know I have said it before, but it bears repeating, we are so lucky to live in a country with such a wonderful National Parks Service.

First stop Ellsworth Rock Gardens

Table and Chair

Loved the flower ledges

This duck was one of my favorites

My very favorite. MR. Ellsworth made the sculpture, built the pond, and planted it

Bunny!!

This “meteor” on was kind of weird, but the “crater” was cool

After the rock garden LEe found a quiet cove and we tied up for lunch. Cute butt !!

An eagles next, one of many, we spotted

My best eagle pic

Lee got this amazing shot of two eagles

This was my shot of a juvenile with the sun coming through it’s wings

In between eagle sightings, and seriously, how cool is it that it was plural, we stopped and saw a couple of the older island resorts that the park service is maintaining. There was great information on the people who started the resorts and lived there plus several of the buildings you can walk in and look around. Lee was particularly interested in one of the old ice houses and the machinery used to pull the ice blocks out of the lake.

Vacation Cabin

Ice House

Our pontoon boat at the dock…it was a nice one

Lee in the honeymoon cabin

Generator house

Old Fashioned electric

So the day was wonderful, but most of you probably don’t know that I am a boat albatross. Seriously almost every time I am on a boat it breaks down. In this particular case, we ran out of gas. I had asked at least five times if this was a possibility, and was assured it was not so, but when we were very close to the resort we did run out of of gas, and had to call Alex at the resort to come get us. Unfortunately, the engine wouldn’t start after refueling and while trying to start it we drifted onto some rocks. It was a bit stressful getting us off the rocks, but we stayed calm and then were towed back to the resort and everything ended just fine. Apart from the very end, it was a great day and although pricey, even with a “friends and family” discount, I am so glad we did it. Really, you can’t visit this area without taking a boat out for the day and it was the perfect way to cap off our month long stay. Next we are headed out west…so stay tuned!

Howard coming to rescue us

Lee walking the boat around the dock

With Howard’s help

Linda was cracking up

Campground Reviews

The Pines at Kabetogama 12443 Burma Road 3 out of 5 pine cones

I have been really on the fence on how to rate this campground. It is the nicest campground we have stayed in and the staff was by far the best we have dealt with anywhere. We loved Site #1 up on the cliff and the marina, views, and access to the water was amazing. Wifi was strong and we had excellent AT&T coverage although our friends with Verizon did not fare so well. The cabins are absolutely amazing as well and have a daily cleaning service. The reason I have marked it as average, however, is for the price: $60 for a non-premium site and $100 for a cliffside premium site. I felt they needed to continue to make some improvements. Our site did not have a picnic table and the markings around the non premium sites on the cliff were very unclear necessitating some creative parking. They obviously have pride in ownership, however, and are constantly working to improve so I would expect them to reach a 4 or 5 rating in the near future. Basically, if you have the mone,y and a boa,t I would definitely stay here, but not sure I would recommend a long stay if you are on a budget because there are cheaper alternatives in the area.

Woodenfrog State Campground Kabetogama, MN 3 out of 5 pine cones

If you’re looking for a cheaper alternative in the area, Woodenfrog Campground is a no services campground, first come first serve, for $14 dollars a night. It is well wooded, has good access to the water, and site 52 (along with others) had plenty of space to accommodate a large rig. Cell service was spotty and needed a booster to get Verizon. There is water at several places in the campground although not at the sites, and nature trails are spread throughout. Lots of space between sites and feels very isolated, but is close to the resort areas.

Recipe

Grilled Potato Skins

2 large baking potatoes
2 TBL melted butter
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 green onions chopped
3 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled

Poke three holes in potatoes and microwave for 10 minutes
Cut each potato lengthwise into 4 wedges
Cut away the white portion of the potato leaving 1/4 ” or so potato on the skin
Combine butter, rosemary, salt, and pepper then brush over both sides of the potato
Grill the potatoes skin side up, uncovered over direct heat, for 2-3 minutes until lightly browned
Turn the potatoes and place over indirect heat and grill for 2 minutes longer
Top with cheese, cover and grill for 2-3 more minutes until cheese is melted
Plate then sprinkler with bacon and green onions
Serve with sour cream

Grilled Potato Skins

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August 14, 2015 by Lee and Tracy

A Not So Good Week

I was going to title this post a terrible week and I actually starting typing “terrible” and stopped, because terrible is a ridiculous overstatement. I am sitting in a beautiful place, with people I care about. I have my health, my husband, and enough food on the table and I am living this really cool adventure. I mean really, how terrible could things be? As my kids say, “first world problems.” And for those of you who would give anything to trade places with us, let me apologize in advance. I fully realize that my one year ago self would have felt the exact same way as you probably do. When I was in my home,waiting for it to sell, I would have given anything to have the kind of week I have had this week. The irony of that does not escape me. But as grateful as I am to be doing this, I still have bad days. Not many, and certainly I have had very few bad weeks. They do happen though, and since I want to portray as balanced a picture as I can I’m going to write about it. (None of this applies to me, my life is a never ending sunshine parade of happy awesomeness. I have no idea what she’s always whining about. I try not to listen, lest it harsh my groove. – Lee)

There’s no pretty pictures in this one, no fun activities (except dinner with Howard and Linda last night ) and really that’s the crux of the problem. Being full-time and working from the road is an interesting dichotomy. Linda put it beautifully last night when she said I still have a foot in both worlds. It’s a bit of a split personality because you are in beautiful “vacation-like” settings but you’re not on vacation. So sometimes the beauty around you can get completely displaced by other things. It doesn’t have to be work that does this, either. Family issues, money issues, health issues, can all have the same effect, but hopefully those types of things don’t happen with the same frequency as work problems. Most of the time my work is great. I truly am grateful to have a steady income and the flexibility to work and live this lifestyle, but it was a stressful week and this was coupled with not doing any fun things.

Basically my life working on the road falls into 4 major categories and 3 of the 4 are just fine. I’ve boiled it down to the following scenarios;

Work is good and there’s lot’s of fun stuff to do – so that’s the best of the best.
Work is good but nothing much to do – that’s still fine, sometimes you just need to chill.
Work is stressful but there’s cool stuff to do – that’s when I really appreciate the lifestyle in comparison to my old life. Having a bad day? Take a walk on the beach, have cocktails with friends, take a nature walk, watch the hummingbirds for awhile. These are all great stress relievers and really helpful in putting work in perspective as to its relative importance in your life.
Work is stressful and there’s nothing fun to do. (I would have stopped the list at #3. Nothing good happens after #3. – Lee)

So the last one is where it gets interesting, because obviously there is always something to do. Nature is still out there, and the things I listed in my third category haven’t changed, but they aren’t having the impact they should. So I have to wonder “Why?”. Why do I have a day, or in this case, several strung together where the surroundings don’t elevate me from the work stress? Why do some days I sit here at my desk working and look outside with wonder and other days I see the same view and either ignore it, feel cooped up, or resentful that I am not out in it? It’s a good question, and frankly one I have not totally figured out. Obviously mood has quite a bit to do with it. Sometimes you’re just in a bad mood and nothing can make you happy. But mainly I think for me it’s the newness of our surroundings that can elevate category 4 into a category 3.

Before I explain that last statement, I’d like to point out that we had a very nice impromptu dinner with Howard and Linda last night, and we spoke quite a bit about this. They’ve been doing this for 10 years and getting their perspective is very helpful. Plus, just having people you admire validate that you’re not a crazy person is wonderful, so thanks guys, for spending part of our night letting me talk this through. (I was there, and I can assure you that at no point did anyone even suggest that she is not a crazy person. – Lee) So, on to the explanation. When we get to a new place, I rarely have bad days. I am so transfixed and excited by the newness of our surroundings that almost every day is a 1-3. But after a few weeks, the newness wears off and if this corresponds with a bad work week number 4 happens.

I don’t have bad work weeks much. I really like my job and feel good about what I do, but it happens. Also, when I was living in a sticks and bricks the bad work weeks almost always results in number 4 versus number 3 because it was hard for me to find things to transport me out of it. So this lifestyle has had a major, positive impact on my life which is maybe why when a number 4 week happens it can be so jarring. I know I am happier than I have ever been, but I question how much of that is due to the newness of the constantly changing surroundings. And if that’s the case, is that necessarily a bad thing? This is where my small town upbringing gets in the way. I love the way I was raised and the ethics it instilled in me, but in some respects it can be very limiting. The small town mindset (for lack of a better way to explain it) is suspicious of the adventure. Suspicious of the newness, and the feelings it evokes. I have known people in my life who have an adventuresome spirit and always wistfully thought, “I would never have the courage to do that”. But surprise, here I am being the adventurer. Mostly I am embracing it despite the terror it sometimes evokes, yet a part of me, the small town girl part, is waiting for it all to go horribly wrong. She’s a real pain in the ass, by the way. (I concur. – Lee) I appreciate what she’s done for me in my life, but I’ve outgrown her in so many respects. There’s a whole wide world out there and I want to see some of it before I go. And I’m happy, really happy, in a way I’ve never been before. But the bad days let in the doubt, and that can start a tough downward spiral to fight my way out of.

So let’s look at it head on. Write about it, talk about it, say the thing out loud to lessen it’s power. That’s what Howard, Linda, and Lee let me do last night and I felt so much better afterwards. Maybe it is the newness that appeals to me. As Linda said, the newness leads to growth and life enrichment. And yes, I know as time goes on there will be less new. We will need to stop in places for longer stretches so Lee can work. We will go back over territory we have already covered. We will get road weary and just decide to stay for a while in a place. That’s all part of the life too. Every day can’t be Eagles and Waterfalls although that would be great, wouldn’t it? There will be rainy days and boring days and category 4 weeks. The real question is: am I spending more time in categories 1-3? The answer thus far is a resounding YES! If that changes, we can reevaluate, but for now that small town girl needs to shut the hell up so I can get on with my adventure. (I concur. – Lee)

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August 8, 2015 by Lee and Tracy

First Work Trip from the “Middle of Nowhere”

Generally I don’t blog about my work trips, but because this one was a bit unique, and many people are trying to figure out how to work from the road, I thought I would share this one. Up to this point we have been within an hour and a half of an airport, not including smaller regional airports. Plus, I had the company car so if I needed to travel for work, I would drive to the airport, leave the car in parking, and pick it back up when I returned. We knew when we turned in the car this would get more complicated, but I spoke to my boss and since he was open to me renting a car in those situations it seemed like it would work out OK.

So, when the work trip came up while we were in the remote location of Lake Kabetogama I thought it would work out. I always judge how remote we are by the distance to the nearest McDonald’s because sadly, in my mind, that is a sign of “civilization.” In this case we are 30 minutes from the nearest McDonald’s and 2-1/2 hours from the closest large airport in Duluth, MN. There is a small airport 30 minutes away in International Falls, but only Delta flies into there and the minimally offered flights run around $1100. Yikes! Since Lee didn’t want to drive the 5 hours round trip to the airport, twice, I decided to rent a car one way to get there, and do it again to get back. The first problem was finding one. The only agency anywhere close was Avis and they were at the International Falls airport. Still, a 1-hour round trip is better than 5 hours round trip and I booked it. My company books all travel through AmEx though and Avis is not on the approved list so I had to make the arrangements myself. A one-way rental is pricey ($131 plus gas each way), but there really weren’t any other choices. I picked the car up Sunday and then drove the 2-1/2 hours Monday morning. The drive was very pleasant, two lane highway with minimal traffic and I found a delightful local talk radio station to listen to along the way. The whole program sounded like an over the fence backyard conversation and I enjoyed it immensely as local radio is a great way to get to know the people in a place.

When I reached the airport I was surprised by how small it was. It only had four gates, and was shared by two airlines; United and Delta. Unfortunately, it only had one little snack bar/restaurant in it though, and they were packed. One of the planes got pulled for mechanical issues and one of the downsides to flying out of a small airport became apparent. There are no other planes to catch if something happens to yours. So it’s wait until the next one comes in or come back the next day. Luckily mine was OK and I made it to O’Hare with minimal issues. Normally I carry on my luggage but I was headed to Louisville (Howard and Linda’s hometown) and she had jokingly talked about these nuts she loved that were only in a store in Louisville. Since I was going to be 15 minutes from GFS (a restaurant supplier that regular people can also shop at) I was happy to go. Well, I was glad I did because the store was very cool, and if I would have left it at the nuts I would have been fine, but they had some other stuff I couldn’t pass up including a 10# bag of restaurant rice for $4.99 that I just had to have. That damn bag of rice led to a serious of unfortunate events as they say, but here I am jumping ahead again, so let me walk through the week.

Linda’s special mixed nuts

Would have loved to take advantage of this deal not that I have the freezer space for it

This is what I bought for Lee and I

I was in Louisville to attend a 2-1/2 day meeting but I had two full travel days on either end. Unless you’re going to a hub city like Atlanta or Charlotte, flying out of small airports practically guarantees a full day of travel. But that’s OK, I generally don’t mind and if you take an early flight you have some time the first evening to see the city or whatever. When I was on my way it occurred to me that I should take advantage of civilization and try to get some errands done. First, they have Super Cuts which is my haircut place of choice when I can find them, and I decided to get my hair cut and the highlights in my hair redone. I carry a color card from my Super Cuts back in Keene so it’s easy to use them when I want the stripe in the front of my hair done. I made the appointment online Tuesday and after the meeting headed over. Unfortunately the entire ATT network was down for data for several hours that day. Not sure if you heard about that but it was down for several hours in Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky. So I had to go old school and use Map Quest and print out directions. Our company doesn’t get GPS in the rental cars so I am used to using my phone, but no phone and wow gotta say are we all in trouble if these data systems ever go down for long periods of time. I followed the directions and about two minutes from the destination got stuck waiting for a train at a crossing. Not any old train, but the longest one I have ever seen, and it was stopped on the tracks for a while. I couldn’t go around because I had no idea where I was or how to get there so I sat in that line for 30 minutes (not an exaggeration ) until the train finally moved off the tracks. Once I moved over the tracks I could not find Super Cuts anywhere. Finally I stopped in an auto parts store (I am not too proud to ask for directions) and saw that I had put in Old LaGrange Rd instead of LaGrange Rd and the Super Cuts was across the street and I would not have had to wait. ARRRGGGGG. No way! Thankfully I had used their online check in system (which I am a big fan of) and even though I was a half hour late they brought me right to the front of the line. On the way back, same problem, the freeway was closed down to one lane and again could not reroute myself. I ended up getting back to the hotel at 8pm but on the plus side a major check mark against the task list.

I also made an appointment at Aspen Dental. As I have talked about before, getting dental care on the road has been a major issue for us, and while in Florida I tried out Aspen Dental since they have a network of over 400 locations and I don’t have to go through the new patient rigmarole every time since they can look my records up on their system. On the plus side, at Aspen Dental the care itself is fine and no new patient nonsense, on the downside they do the full court press on services and you really have to be able to say no to go into one of them. Not everyone can say no to a medical professional, but having grown up with medical people I certainly can. So when I walked into their office Thursday evening for my appointment and was told, “We need $40 for a fluoride treatment today,” my response was “Excuse me?” She repeated the statement a little less certain and I said, “I just want a cleaning.” To her credit she let the issue drop. Let me be perfectly clear, if I needed work done I probably would not do it here, but they are fine for cleanings, just don’t be fooled into out-of-pocket up charges that are unnecessary. It’s turned into a decent option for me on the road though, but I still won’t send Lee there because he is one of those people who says yes to everything medical people say. I would rather in his case keep finding local dentists to send him to, but that’s stressful as well. Thankfully it’s only something that needs to be done every 6 months.

After the dentist appointment I stopped at GFS to get the nuts and really got excited about the other things they had. Suddenly I am thinking “How much can I fit in my bag?” and chose a 10# bag of rice (Lee loves rice), a big bag of powdered cheese, gravy, and fruit punch mix. I know, odd combination, but those were items we use commonly, and the prices were great. When I got back to the hotel room it took some careful packing but I got everything into the bag. It did feel heavier than usual, but I didn’t think too much of it. The next morning I was up at 4am and headed to the airport. I turned in the rental car and then checked in with my bag. When they weighed it, it was 13 pounds overweight…YIKES. So I moved to the side and started rearranging. Well, the rice and powders I bought were roughly 13#, so there you go. I could have thrown the rice away…thought of it, but I got stubborn.. and so the saga begins. OK, saga is a bit of an exaggeration but it definitely had a cascading effect. First, I ended up putting my work laptop in the checked bag, which I never do, because I didn’t want to carry all that through O’Hare. Second, when I went through security (not once but twice) the rice threw off all kinds of warning flags and I got pulled out of line for a second scan. When in O’Hare (my fault went outside to smoke) they actually did a full body pat down because it scored a warning. To be clear I don’t mind the security (I flew two weeks after 9/11 and never want to go through that again) and the TSA was extremely polite and professional. Still, I kept thinking “Is this damn bag of rice worth all of this?”.

I got on the plane to fly to Duluth and we made it all the way down the runway when we were forced to turn back for a mechanical issue. Thankfully they let us deplane (opportunity to go the bathroom, get a snack etc) and then finally decided to bring a new plane up. Again there are a limited number of flights so I was thinking I might be stuck overnight and the two-hour delay to change planes was better than the alternative. Actually, when we landed the airport was clouded in until 100 yards above the ground and the pilot said if we would have been on the original flight plan we might have had to reroute. So these things happen for a reason and as a seasoned traveler in general I try to be philosophical about them, but my forbearance was about to be tested in a big way.

Small airports have the huge advantage of being easy to pick up your luggage, so I was surprised when halfway through the luggage process the baggage carousel stopped working. It took at least 15 minutes for them to fix it, so I used the time to get my rental car back, and then I watched as person after person got their bag. Well guess whose bag didn’t come off?? Mine. And when I asked who to talk to this is when small airports are a major disadvantage. I stood in line for the one person at the counter and he said he couldn’t help me because he was a Delta employee not a United employee. He asked that I move aside and wait and I stood there for another 15 minutes watching him help other people. During this time a young woman in her 30’s came up and asked if she could book a flight to International Falls. Turns out Stephanie had booked a one way car from Alamo online but when she came to this airport they had no such reservation. Probably because they have no Alamo in International Falls. Avis wouldn’t help her because they said they had no cars and she talked to the cab driver who said it would cost $350 to take her there. She was bearing up well, but I recognized the look on her face because I was feeling the same way and I said, “I’m going to International Falls, why don’t you ride with me.” I meant it. The day was turning to complete crap, the airline was totally not helpful, so why not be people and just do the right thing. Plus it cost me nothing to have her come along and she looked like a normal person in trouble. She got an off look on her face though, don’t blame her it was a weird offer, and she went to talk to her boyfriend. Simultaneously I asked the young man at the counter if he was going to call someone or not, and he got on the walkie to get someone to come down and talk to me. So Stephanie comes back and asks very tentatively if she could send a picture of my driver’s license to her boyfriend (sure why not) and I am going through the painful process of having another kids take my baggage information which instilled absolutely zero confidence in me. Yes they would deliver the luggage 2-1/2 hours away but no he had no idea where it was.

Stephanie by this time (along with her boyfriend who was on the phone and rightfully concerned) had decided I was the best of their bad options so we walked across and got the rental car. Turns out Stephanie was a very nice person, mother of a 14-year-old and this was the first time she had ever flown alone. I appreciated the company because by this time I was very tired and having someone to talk to really helped me to focus on driving and not get super upset about the bag. We finally made it to the very small airport in International Falls and Mark her boyfriend tried to give me some money. I said, “Absolutely not” and told Stephanie that in some time in her life she would have a chance to pay it forward with someone else and to please just do that. Actually the whole experience really salvaged the day for me and I am grateful to her in a way for letting me do something nice for her. I gave her my card with blog info so Steph if you’re reading this it was a true pleasure meeting you and good luck getting through those teen years with your daughter lol. She sounds like a great kid though so hopefully you will have an easy time of it.

So it’s Saturday morning and they still haven’t found my bag but I am feeling better just writing this all down. Is travel from a small airport easy. No. Can it cause issues that wouldn’t happen necessarily in a larger airport, absolutely. Was the experience enough for us to restrict our travel to always be close to an airport…nope, but it was not a fun 14 hour travel day and I can absolutely see having similar issues in the future (the rice aside I am NEVER doing that again). It’s a price that, in my case, must be paid for the lifestyle and I am willing to pay it for the great views and isolated settings.

Update: I made a mistake on the July budget missing the $400 payment for our RV. This takes us to $3800 for the month which is still our lowest month but not the significant difference I thought it was. Very sorry for the mistake and I have updated that page for future reference. Thanks so much to Bill for pointing the mistake out to me. It was caused by rushing to get the post done prior to the work trip, but I will absolutely be more careful int the future.

Luggage Update: After 24 hours of watching the website and feeling like nothing was happening I sat on hold with the Indian call center until I got an actual person on the phone. I was polite but firm and finally the agent got Gail from O’Hare on the phone with me and she had actually opened my bag very recently trying to find a black bag for another person. Thank heavens!! She was wonderful and promised to put it on the noon flight to Duluth. So thanks Gail…I owe you!!

Lessons Learned

When printing out directions from the web make sure you have the correct address
Never ever check your laptop (or anything else you can’t lose) in your luggage
Count on long travel days from small airports
Count on fewer services in small airports
One way rental cars are expensive; think about the cost in both dollars and time when you make that decision
If you can help someone…do it. It really is a great feeling.

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August 7, 2015 by Lee and Tracy

Crossing into Canada

It’s been many years since we have traveled to Canada (since before they started requiring passports) so when I needed to go to International Falls to pick up a rental car, Lee and I decided to go early, see International falls, and then make the crossing into Fort Frances. Lee had been to International Falls a couple of times, but I had not,so I did a little research to see what there was to do in town. I was naturally intrigued because I saw on a map a major river ran through it, and thought there must be a falls there. Unfortunately for me, the falls had been commandeered by two paper plants (Boise Cascade on the American side and Resolute Forest Products on the other. So apparently there are man-made falls, but according to the locals you can’t really see them because they are under the bridge that crosses into Canada. 100 years ago the natural falls existed though and the locals are pretty philosophical about the fact that the largest part of the waterfront in downtown is taken up by Boise Cascade and there definitely is an industrial smell in the air. At one point I overheard a conversation between a local woman and her visitor, “Like we say, honey, as long as you smell the mill it’s the smell of prosperity.” Interesting viewpoint and pretty practical in a “mill town” of 6,154, but personally I wouldn’t want to live there. Even on a Sunday the smell really permeated everywhere outside. Let me start by setting the expectations pretty low on this post.

Industrial buildings all along the river around the border crossing

With the falls a bust, I had a couple of other items on my list. There is a small park in town called Smokey Bear Park that has a giant statue of Smokey the Bear and a football statue for Bronko Nagurski. I love football but wasn’t really familiar with Bronko who according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame “was the symbol of power football during the 1930s.” He was a fullback for the Chicago Bears in the 30’s and was known for his “sheer brutal line smashing.” This was back in the days when almost all players were bruisers so that’s saying something. I didn’t go into the museum though, my football interest is definitely more modern area, plus this little park is right next store to the Boise Cascade plant and the smell in the air really doesn’t encourage you to linger. No offense to anyone who lives there who might happen to read this, but I am pretty sensitive to smells and compared to everywhere else we have been in Northern Minnesota (which is blissfully pollution free) it was quite startling.

Smokey the Bear Park

Bronko Nagurski Statue

After the statues, we were looking for an outfitter. There was one in the “Top 5 Things To Do In International Falls”, but after driving in circles then stopping and walking up to the building we realized the business was no longer open. Fortunately, I had seen a couple of others as we were driving around and we stopped at Ronnings Borderland Outfitters to take a look. The store is way bigger than it looks from the outside and they have work clothes, hunting clothes, and a little bit of hiking stuff. They had just gotten in a few pairs of hiking pants and since this is something I would never want to buy without trying them on, I found a pair of Dakota Grizzly’s that looked like I could fit into them. Turned out they fit perfectly (Men’s size 34/31) and I really liked the color (Iguana green). Lee wasn’t crazy about the price ($59.99 on sale and really he may be taking this budget stuff to seriously), but he researched online and it was comparable with what they would cost at online retailers. Plus, I just don’t like buying clothes on the internet. I like to try things on and make sure they feel comfortable and these really did. After we bought my pants we walked downstairs and, wow, shoe heaven! They had a HUGE stock of hiking boots, working boots, and all kinds of Moccasins. Again, the prices weren’t rock bottom, but definitely in line with what I have seen in other places. I exercised some self-control and no shoes were bought. I would really like a pair of those fur-lined Moccasins but I can’t see spending $55 on them and although Lee and I agree at some point we need to get hiking boots, we have no idea what brand, type, etc and definitely need to research and hike more before investing in something like that.

I was hungry after the shopping and Lee knows when I’m the first of us to say “I’m hungry”, there is a ticking clock on maintaining my sweet disposition. So we headed to the Chocolate Moose, our chosen dining “experience” restaurant. I love little local places and wanted to eat some Walleye since our friend Steve had recommended it. The service was very good, the decor was awesome, and we both really like the walleye. I did skip the dark chocolate mousse desert (not a fan of dark chocolate) and instead got a very delicious milk chocolate moose pop. Had a nice time and at $25 (before tip) not too pricey for an experience lunch.

Loved this coat hanger

And this carved antler (not a real one)

I’ve seen these signs everywhere and check out the bear climbing the wall to the left

My kind of place

Loved the water glasses and the water was ice-cold!!

This carved beaver statue was very cool

Lee bought me this yummy chocolate moose

Unfortunately their as a serious moose accident before I even got to the car. It fell off right into my mouth :)

Unfortunately there was a serious moose antler accident before I even got to the car. It fell off right into my mouth 🙂

After lunch, we stopped at another outfitter hoping to find Lee some hiking pants. This place was mainly fishing and hunting equipment and the folks working there were not nearly as nice. I did like their sign outside though and ended up buying two Coughlan mosquito head nets we can slip on when things get too buggy. I could have saved $1.75 if I would have bought it at a Wal-Mart but since the nearest one is 1-1/2 hours away, I didn’t mind ponying up the money…plus supporting a local business.

So since the outfitting was a bust we decided to pop over into Fort Frances, Canada. I will admit I was a little nervous crossing the border and it turns out I had some reason to be cautious at least. First, I was surprised to see a sign for a $6 charge to cross the bridge. Since the bridge was extremely short and nothing special, and only took cash, I was suspicious. Ridiculous really to charge to cross this, but at least it was only a one way charge. This is not a major crossing and it was obvious locals moved back and forth through here. But I have to say despite the line of vehicles being long (at least 15 vehicles going into Canada) it was only 21 minutes going out and 10 minutes coming back. Also, we remembered to turn off our cell phone roaming as Linda recommended. Actually, we weren’t sure what the rules were so we just put them into airplane mode. I recommend knowing how your plan works prior to getting anywhere close to the border so you don’t inadvertently charge yourself extra fees. Also, coincidentally there was a Class A in line in front of us, and although they made them turn the engine off and an agent walked through the rig, it was quicker than I thought, taking less than 5 minutes.

The end of the $6 bridge …ridiculous

Two lanes open for crossing

Where the experience got interesting was the questions we were asked. Going into Canada we were stumped by the following questions:

Where are you from? “Uh…..we are FT RVers who roam the country.” We got a cocked eyebrow on that one, so going back the other way we just said our “home state”, Florida which has the advantage of matching our driver’s licenses. Plus do you really want to have a long involved explanation with a customs agent???
Whose RV are you going to fix? “Uhhhhh..whaaat?” Oh yeah, Lee has the magnetic signs on his truck for RV repair work. “Oh no we are just going to explore a bit not working on anyone’s vehicle.” This we got grilled on a bit, next time leave the signs at home and this was a non-issue when we returned to the US side.
Do you have any eggs or poultry with you? “Uhhhh…no.” But I had to think about it, and frankly we should have checked the rules prior to crossing.

So there were a couple of uncomfortable moments but we made it through so thought we were OK. Coming back we had totally different questions.

Are you bringing anything back with you? “Yes, we bought some potato chips.” which she didn’t seem to care about. Again, should definitely have known the rules before buying stuff.
Where did you get that firewood? OK this one was bad. We carry a significant amount of wood in the truck at any time and the US agent was surprised they let us into Canada with it. (The Canadian agent never left his chair so he probably didn’t see it). Lee told the story of where he had gotten the wood and she seemed a bit bemused, stating “I can’t believe you made that up, so it must be true.” So we got lucky twice and were allowed to bring the wood back into the US but we could have lost $40-50 worth of wood either way.

So, lesson learned, no such thing as a “simple” border crossing in today’s world and a little bit of research prior to each trip is in order. Once we got to Fort Frances Lee turned on our GPS and I was really pleased that it not only worked,it also immediately translated our speeds into kilometers and still gave speed warnings. We weren’t sure what to do, so Lee said “Let’s stop at the grocery store and check it out.”. That was interesting as the prices were really good in some areas (especially with the exchange rate) and not so good for others. Plus we were fascinated by the new brand names, different packaging for established brands (Oreo’s had a cool package), and the new flavors of certain items like Lay’s potato chips. We bought about $27 worth of chips and snacks and used our American Express Gold Card which I vaguely remembered did the exchange for free (not 100% sure about that though.) After that we just drove around a little and looked at the town. It’s waterfront area was much nicer than the International Falls side and apparently people are much hardier as there were folks swimming on the 75 degree day. I guess it’s all relative.

There is an invisible line in the middle of the river and if you cross it you are supposed to go to customs. This water skier stayed on the american side of the line

Couldn’t resist the black and white pic

Loved the sea plane area

These planes take fisherman to remote camping areas

So it was an OK day but sometimes I plan days and they are kind of a bust. That’s part of the story though. Sometimes you start a day with low expectations and end up being totally wowed, but other days you go in thinking things will be amazing and not so much. Lee enjoyed it way more than I did, but I felt vaguely uneasy the entire time we were in Canada. Hopefully that will change with more crossings, but I did feel pretty unprepared, and really didn’t like not knowing the rules. I am traveling to Louisville for business this week, so you won’t see anything from me for a little while.

Lessons Learned

Be familiar with your cell plan rules prior to getting close to an international border.
Use your home state to answer the question where are you from when leaving the country.
Take magnetic work signs off your truck prior to crossing the border so they don’t think you are working in their country.
Check the restricted product rules prior to making the crossing. These do change.
Remove wood from your vehicle prior to making the crossing

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Camper Chronicles

Travel Tales from Working Full Time RVers

Month: August 2015

First Time Seeing a Grizzly Bear

Campground Reviews

First Time with No Cell Coverage

First Time in West Glacier

Fires and a Flat

First Time in Montana

Campground Reviews

Itch-Kep-Pe City Park Columbus, MT 3 out of 5 pinecones

Riverside at Canyon Ferry Canyon Ferry Lake, MT 4 out of 5 pinecones

First Time in North Dakota

Campground Reviews

Parkhurst Recreation Area HWY 281 Jamestown, ND 4 out of 5 pine cones

Patterson Lake Recreation Area 3749 114th Ave. S.W., Dickinson, ND 2 out of 5 pinecones

First Time Turning 49

Campground Reviews

The Pines at Kabetogama 12443 Burma Road 3 out of 5 pine cones

Woodenfrog State Campground Kabetogama, MN 3 out of 5 pine cones

Recipe

Grilled Potato Skins

A Not So Good Week

First Work Trip from the “Middle of Nowhere”

Lessons Learned

Crossing into Canada

Lessons Learned