Daily Adventures

So when we realized just how much time we were going to be spending in Karen's basement, we decided to do some traveling. Not as much as we thought we might have to do when we thought we'd be living on the road until our house was done, but more than we would if we'd been able to move straight into the new house.

The two trips were one to take Jet north to Canada to see some of the sights that John and I saw up there when Jet was in Europe, and the other is going to be to Seattle to stay with John's mom and explore a bit with her and revisit a lot o the amazing Asian restaurants we loved when we were there over Christmas. Jet insisted that we try new things, go to places that we didn't go on our trip so that we'd have a fresh perspective, too, and it worked out really well with John's ability to plan and research things.

I'm going to give you the full photo album right up front, so you can see all the views (many have some information on the side and I think you can see the info by clicking on the picture and clicking on the circle with an "i" in the middle. I'll just pull out a few as I talk about why and what we got out of the places we visited.

( Cut for the pictures, as usual. )

When we were in Banff, we'd found out that the next two days were going to be cloudy and rainy, so we decided not to be that ambitious on the 25th. Besides, it had be cold enough during the night, that I actually put my stocking cap on for sleeping so that I'd be warm enough. John let me sleep in while he built a fire and made coffee and had his breakfast. So I didn't get up until nearly 10 am, to a beautifully overcast day. *grins*

( Cut for pictures... )

We spent a really great day on the eighth at the Lewis and Clark Caverns and the camping site that was just at the foot of the mountain that held the caverns. On the ninth, however, due to a series of unfortunate events, we ended up spending most of the day in Butte, Montana, waiting in car repair shops and getting ferried by various people as the Eurovan got carried by flatbed truck to said repair shops.

What exacerbated the experience was the fact that Butte was having a festival and a rental car couldn't be had for love or money, and the guys at Car Tunes, where the Eurovan is now being repaired, did just about everything they could. We ended up staying the night in a Comfort Inn, taking advantage of the "stranded motorist rate", which I didn't know even existed until now, and being wished well by nearly everyone we met. That was pretty cool.

So now we're another 700 miles to the West and a bit north, in a rental car from Enterprise. We went to Bellingham for a wonderful visit to the sea, some amazing seafood and views, and are now in Redmond, where we got to visit friends and will have other people to see all around Seattle for the next few days. I've only written through most of the caverns, and past the Unfortunate Events, into Bellingham, and I'll try and get the rest tomorrow.

( Details of the caverns, camping, and getting back on track. )

I spent the entire weekend at La Foret, a UCC-supported retreat out in the Black Forest just west of Colorado Springs. It was an all-family retreat, so it included nearly anyone wanted to go, and was headed by Luke, our new pastor.

The Graff-Fryes also did a lot of the organization for the camp, including the schedule, content, and running the show. It was a very nice weekend, though the cabin beds, as usual, left a little to be desired so far as comfort was concerned. I really enjoyed lots of small aspects for the entire trip, not the least of which was sleeping the entire way there and the entire way back. *laughs*

( Lots of lovely little details of how things went. )

Jet is a very happy camper. He got all packed yesterday and we dropped him off at La Foret today. Got him all registered, unpacked, and set up and then we all gave each other hugs and said good-bye.

I kept looking for him in the back seat. *laughs softly*

( The rest of today, Jet's setup, and the wedding we attended yesterday that was a legal lawful marriage between two ladies eventhough same sex marriages aren't allowed in Colorado yet. AND YAY, NEW YORK! )

My lips are wind burnt, as are my cheeks. *laughs*

We had quite a time out on the Pawnee grasslands, on two group sites with a bunch of families, lots of kids, and plenty of bird watchers. There were plenty of kids for Jet to play with, lots of migratory birds, Miller moths in plentifulness, and the wildest weather I've been in for camping in quite some time.

The Pawnee grasslands are all high desert grassland, that, for a while, were part of the Dust Bowl. Turned sod dried up over years' worth of drought and blew away in the Black Dust storms of that era. 100 million acres were affected. The US Government bought back 4 million acres and turned them back into native grasslands, for grazing and ranchers to lease.

Grover, a tiny town nearby, had t-shirts that said, "Beautiful Downtown Grover -- Conveniently located in the middle of nowhere."

It's no wonder that the Grasslands have the lowest population density for all of Colorado.

( Read more... )

In which we brave rain, mists, Forest Service Roads, the high plains, lowing cattle, and camping in the cold, get taught the ways of the Wildlands Restoration Volunteers. We learn how to identify four different kinds of high-altitude wild grasses on the plains of Wyoming, pick just the ones they want, eat a lot of great food, listen to a real black-hat rancher who seemed to be a good guy, sleep again in the cold, do more gathering, and end up being dispersed by a thunderstorm to the various parts of the square states we belong to and get home again.

( Read more... )

It really was. *laughs* I actually enjoyed it rather more than I suspected, even at 7200 feet... we seem to have figured out how to do this well enough, even with short notice preparation, and I really got to relax and enjoy the outdoors and use every single bit of clothing in my little duffle bag. *laughs*

It also amuses me, greatly, that I usually think of my trips in terms of food, and this one is no different.

( The rest of the trip after the night in the nice little hotel in Glenwood Springs. )

When it rains in Colorado the rain comes in waves. Unlike Seattle or Indiana rains, there isn't usually the constant downpour or the slow, constant drizzle. Here as each cloud runs by it drops its own load of rain, and there are waves of clearing between.

So by the time we got up to the campground, the waves had left snow caps on the mountain tops all around our campsite. We were surrounded by twisted Ponderosa pine trees. The mountains brooded over clouds that scudded by, dark and dripping with rain. It was beautiful, bone-chilling, but it got better.

( We managed to do a lot in those waves of clearing. )

The miracle that is the modern bathroom was never so much appreciated as after four days up on a mountain with nothing but a pit toilet and one water spigot that gave only rusty, iron-tanged, but potable water. After using the sparkling clean facilities in the little Japanese restaurant and using more potable water, just washing my hands of seven layers of mosquito repellent and alcohol-based hand sanitizer, than I'd used in any single day, I felt like I'd rejoined the modern world.

( Though, I'll admit that the going away was both enjoyable and rather fraught with unexpected challanges. )