Vacation Wrap Up

Learned a lot on vacation this year... the most important being that I love vacations...I always get stressed out ahead of time about going new places and doing new things.. and then by the second day I am getting into it and can't wait to explore more places. I need to just relax and just have fun and not worry about it so much. LOL good thing about the motor home is if we end up somewhere we dont like.. we just keep driving :)

I also figured out that the kids hate road trips. They love the new places... the National Parks were all big hits but the getting from one place to another was not the part of the trip they liked... I am sure they could not tell you anything about any part of the trip that was in the motor home... all they did was sleep or play games while we drove. The best parts where when the phones had no service and the ipods were not charged...then they would interact. It was hard figuring out a balance of letting them have their "stuff" and making them interact. Wanted it to be a good vacation for them... but.. also had not planned on bringing all their friends. Since it was the last big road trip with them.. we did not stress it too much... they seemed to be enjoying the important parts.. the parks and the family games and sitting around the fires and hot dogs and swimming.. so we let them have the phones the rest of the time. Any more trips with the kids will just be local, the ocean or dirt biking.. where we go someplace and do something for a week and then come home. In no time they will all be grown and moved on and then we will have plenty of time for road trips.

This trip did confirm that Dave and I will have a great time in a custon built motor home and that we will use the heck out of it. Now we are really starting to focus on and make plans to be able to start working on that as soon as possible... we need to get some things paid off.. then buy a truck.. and decide where to have the box built.. then we can start working on the inside.

here are some links to some motor homes with the same sort of idea we want.. when you see us coming down the road we want it to be all semi truck... and then motor home in the back :)

Kingsley Coach the truck is nice the motor home is a bit bus like for me

Cobra Motor homes Sort of gives you an idea of what we will be driving around in... will have a built in garage in the back under the bedroom so we can haul the harley around and then can pull a trailer with the jeep in it if we want too.

After this vacation I am so ready to get this all started as soon as possible... not tomorrow but you know what I mean... it has gone from something cool we want to do.. to something we REALLY want to do. Time to really focus on getting more and more self suffient so that there is no working 9 to 5 at the office... luckily Dave has the kind of job he can do from anywhere anytime.. so as his business grows this is becoming less of a dream and more of a reality.

For now I am trying to figure out how we can get away again as soon as possible.. lol... I love being home but I am sure now that if we had a motor home that was built for us and it had a comfortable bed and what not... that it could be home too. Pretty sure we would keep this place on the island... it will always be a good place to come home to and to meet up with family for get togethers and to play on the beach. Would also love to have a place more in the mountains.. like in Durango Colorado. I could see spending chunks of time there too and can see family and friends coming to visit there for snow sports and for camping and jeeping. Durango and Camano could balance each other very well and with lots of traveling between and around.. life could be better than anything I have ever dreamed.

:)
~Michelle

Home

We made it.. and it feels good!

We started off Sunday morning geocaching along I-90 on our way home. We did not find hundreds but it was still fun... a lot of places we can not take the motor home... hmmm guess we will have to come back with the jeep :) Since we love road trips...and caching..... this seems like an awesome plan.

The ride home was long... and hot... everything went pretty smoothly... some caching... some sight seeing.. Love the town of Wallace Idaho..hoping to go back and spend some time there. That is where Interstate 90 used to go right through the middle of town.. and it is the home of the last stop light on 90. They have routed the interstate around town but the stop light is still up.. it is an old town and has a lot of character. There are also a lot of jeep trails near there and caches out in the woods. I am hoping to find some time to spend at least a long weekend there.

We got close to Ellensburg and started feeling like we were almost home.. decided we would stop in Cle Elum for a milk shake at this place we love.. and stretch our legs... well before we made it through Ellensburg we figured out that was going to be a great plan ( or so we thought ) Traffic was totally clogged up.. we were moving about 5 miles an hour.. on an interstate.. and this was no holiday weekend. Listening to the CB it sounded like it went on for at least 50 miles.. so we decided to get some dinner with the milkshake and kill an hour or so, along with everyone else that pulled off.. dinner took about 2 hours. Sun had gone down... it was 9 pm.. we should have been home by now.. but oh well... traffic would be so much better... and no sun in our eyes... well half right.. traffic was even worse... we got on the interstate and did not move.. traffic was totally stopped. Then we would go for a short distance.. and then we would all stop again... we talked about the rubber band effect... Arghhhh. This was just the traffic going back over the mountains.. no accidents.. and no construction. Heck of a welcome home... even in Salt Lake City downtown rush hour traffic we moved faster. Finally made it home about 1 am.. house was 900 degrees... lol all the sun/heat we thought we would have on vacation was here while the rain/storms followed us for the last 2 weeks. Opened all the windows and turned on the fans... house finally cooled down and we were asleep by 2... alarm went off at 6:30 and back to the real world :(

Montana

We do Love it here... now that I have been to Colorado it would be a tough choice if I had to pick one place to move to... I am hoping to visit both a lot more and then possibly decide.. Durango was pretty awesome... but parts of Montana are wonderful too.

This morning we left Bozeman and headed towards Idaho... headed down I-90 the rest of the way home home. Headed towards St Regis, which is not too far from the Idaho border and a place we know we can make it home from on Sunday. Had done some searching online for camp grounds and they had one there that looked nice, Nugget RV Park. Thought it would be nice to get in a little early tonight and have a good night on the last night. A swim and a fire and some games. This was a nice camp ground... and cheap.

They had a smaller pool and it was outside so it was abit chilly.. but once you got swimming it was fun.. and again we had the place to ourselves... the showers were nice because they were their own little rooms. We had a small fire and got out the games... we played a few.. but the problem we have with camp grounds.. we are night people.. and everyone there had gone in their trailers and shut off all their lights by 9:30 hard to have too much fun when you have to be so quiet. Kids were tired anyway.. they were so tired of vacation by this time and just wanted to be home... so they went off to bed and Dave and I layed out and looked at the stars for a bit.. until I was asleep and cold.. then off to bed.

In the morning we packed up and headed out... homeward bound :) We decided that the kids were pretty much just going to be grumpy anyway.. so we were going to get some caching in. We had noticed the night before that there was a cache in a cemetery that was pretty close, Dearly Beloved .. had thought about walking to it in the dark.. but.. not knowing the area and of the 4 gps's we had going we could not get all of them to line up together... thought we would wait until the am. Good thing we did.. it was a bit further and across a river.. than we would have been able to walk to... and it was one of those caches that you look and look until you swear it must have been muggled.. then go back and there it is in plain site...lol

Grand Tetons and Yellow Stone

We woke up slow this morning... thinking this will be our last day of camping and sad to leave the campsite and the town. We are planning on just driving through the Tetons and Yellow Stone and not spending too much time. Hoping to see some animals but we have been here before and can come back again easily enough.

That is not how it happened... we did just drive through the Tetons.. and we will be back again... we only hit the top part of it and really would like to spend a bit more time there. We then started through Yellow Stone.. every intention when we started of just doing a quick drive through on the corner of it... and .. we ended up driving all the way around the outside circle.. and leaving in the complete dark. We were able to take some roads that we had not been on before and saw some places we look forward to going back to explore :)

We saw so many animals and it was a nice drive.. it was cool and a little damp... rained on us a bit.. thing is... that was awesome... so many people melt in the rain.. that it was like having the park to ourselves. The only place we really saw a bunch of people was at one spot.. where there also happened to be a few bears. Would have loved to have been able to pull over somewhere and spend some time getting some really good photos.. but.. with the motor home there was no way that was happening.

When we came out of Yellow Stone at the west enterance it was 10 pm and we were way past hungry and tired... thought we would stop at the MacDonalds and grab some quick, cheap and easy food...so was not happening... first off.. it took three of them to take our orders.. possibly one of them spoke some english... and then...when they got the order all correct.. they asked for 3 times what we have ever payed for the same order. I thought at first it was a language issue... nope! If you know us.. you know from looking at us that we are not strangers to MacDonalds...and with five kids the things I love about it is that it is ALWAYS the same.. and it is always cheap.. this is a kid friendly place.. not a five star restraunt. I looked at the lady like she had spouted a few extra heads... then my jaw dropped... I was not even sure what to say... I asked how much for the mcchicken ( it is like a dollar here) and she said $3.78 .... I ripped my debt card out of her hand so quick I thought for sure part of her hand was coming with me... no way was I supporting that. We headed back to the motor home.. after using the bathrooms and looking at the other people in there like they were nuts... and had some soup and crackers. Last time we went to the west enterance we were there for the most awesome doughnuts we had ever had... and we were so disspointed then too.. the shop had been taken over by someone who served up doughnuts or egg rolls.. both having been cooked in the same grease :( * yes I know some of this post is not very nice .. but... my problem is people who can speak english just fine when they want something.. and then can not speak it at all when something is expected of them...and as for egg rolls and doughnuts.. I love them both... but do not think they should be cooked in the same grease at the same time just to save a buck*

Anyway... sort of was a sour night... but we drove on to Bozeman and slept in a Walmart parking lot again. We love Walmarts.. you can just pull in and park and sleep... in the morning there is a bathroom and a MacDonalds with fair prices.. and anything else you could possibly need. I do have to mention.. this Walmart had more Rv's and people in cars sleeping... than any other I have ever seen. Very clean and friendly and gas right there on our way out :)

Wyoming

Woke up in Rawlins and had a look at the map.. called some places near the Tetons and YellowStone and decided to head towards Dubois and a KOA campground there. It was one of the only places that did not charge an arm and a leg to camp that had showers and laundry services... so we reserved a night and started on our way.

We made a geocache route and I used the lap top and new gps program ( gsak and street atlas) to find out what was coming up and get the information about them. It worked really well... we were able to get a few caches along the way that day. Most of them not that big of a deal but there was one called High on Rocks that was pretty awesome. Driving along all day and there is really nothing to see... just brown everywhere... mountains far off.. and then you see these huge piles of rocks. We pulled off to grab an easy cache and while we were there decided to check out the earthcache... it was not that difficult.. would have been easier if we had gone the right way the first time... we started off walking around the rock pile... we needed to climb up the rock pile... and I am so glad we did.. it was easy climbing.. and when we got the top the view was amazing... it just felt like we were on top of the world and the only people for thousands of miles. I really want to go back some day and spend a whole day exploring the rocks.

This is a pool we found while looking for the cache... it is on top of the rocks.. and I noticed when looking through photos today.. it is in the shape of a foot print... hmmmm

When we arrived at the camp ground it was only about 5pm... well some where in the last few hours my cell phone had deicided to jump into centeral time zone.. so I was an hour ahead of everyone for a couple of days.. but I think it was about 5 pm at the camp ground... driving into town ( Dubois ) we knew we would want an extra night there so when we were checking in we asked about another night and there was one open so we grabbed it. The camp ground was awesome... lots of space for each site... we were right on the river again.. and had lots of green soft grass in our spot. There is a game room with pool table and ping pong and some other stuff.. and a HUGE indoor swimming pool. As soon as camp was set up we headed for the pool... and we had it to ourselves... it was so much fun.

( would insert photo here but it turns out we had so much fun that we forgot to take any photos, please click *here* to learn about the great town and *here* to check out the campground)

The next morning the kids took off for town... camping right in town was really nice.... it is one of those towns that shut down early... no pizza after 8 pm... and... it is was quiet the whole time we were there. Dave and I headed out too... we had a couple of caches in town we wanted to look for.. and we had noticed a doughnut place on our way into town. First we stopped at Weltys general store... and we loved it.. wonderful selection of moose things for the house... and hats... we both tried on some hats... big mistake... we both love hats... but we did not buy any... decided to think about it for a bit. We then walked to one end of town and peeked in a few more windows. Went after a cache... in a park... but had no luck.. another cacher showed up... not a very friendly one... and he had no luck either.... reading through the logs this cache has not been maintained and keeps ending up missing. The other cache in town was by the same person so we decicided to skip it. We did find the doughnuts... a bit past where we thought so we ended up walking about 2 miles for them..including the walking around for the cache and checking out the town.... makes them guilt free.. which is good because they were not all that special.. good but not Awesome!

On our way out of town we did stop back in at Weltys and we did each buy a hat :) Mine is a straw cowgirl hat.. and I love it... Daves is a black felt, both are Stetsons. Next purchace will be boots to go with them.. I could wear the boots I have... but... any excuse for new boots is good.