It's Piper's Birthday- YAY!!!

We have been doing so much lately that Miss Piper chose do nothing on her birthday-funny girl. We got up went to the water for them to collect more sea life, ate donuts and for dinner she had sushi- simple but wonderful. Tonight we are going to a movie at a drive-in theatre, which none of us has done before.
Yesterday we drove to Rialto Beach which is near La Push/Forks on the Pacific Ocean. It was Keigen's first trip to the Ocean-glad we got to experience it with him. It was a longggg drive-longer than we expected but it was surreally beautiful. The fog turned into rain and the kids wanted to get back to the camper-so it was a long drive for a short trip.

At Experience Music Project in Seattle

The EMP

Friday at Olympic National Park

Friday at Rialto Beach

Piper's Birthday-this morning

Scout's hermit crab in a barnacle

These are extremely low tides

Tomorrow we plan to leave here and arrive at our park in Portland-the kids are crazy excited to get to Portland-I guess our PR scheme worked. We are thinking that Nathan will take the job offer he received from Sacramento, even though it was not in the plan. It is the best offer, and most affordable living expenses. We shall see....

Seattle/Olympic National Forest

Our site on the water

Well this was day 3? I believe here in Washington. We were headed for Mt. Rainier on Monday but decided instead to head to the Seattle/Olympic Peninsula area. We are staying on the coast of the Hood Canal at a town called Hoodsport. It is beautiful, and the kids LOVE the "ocean" life.

Ferry Ride to Seattle

Jellyfish!

Jellyfish

The 14ft diameter Cedar

On Monday we hung out by the water, there was some sort of jellyfish migration, although perhaps they heard we were coming and just came out to say hello. We ate dinner in Hoodsport at a little mexican restaurant-it was just what we needed after 8 hours on the road! On Tuesday we went into Seattle by Ferry-that was another award winner for the kids. In Seattle we went to the Market, took a double decker city tour and then scoped out the places we wanted to hit when we came back (which will be tomorrow.) we then walked back to the Pier to take the Ferry back. I think we would enjoy a 3 month stint in Seattle, but it was quite cool, and actually rained the beginning of the day. I know that is the norm for Seattle but I prefer a little more sunshine, so I think we will head south at the end of the week, but not before one more day in Seattle. Today we went into the Olympic Forest and did a small hike, we went past Cushman Lake, and hiked the "Staircase" on the Skokomish River. We saw a 14 ft. diameter fallen Cedar, WOW! is all I can say. We came back to the camper and the kids played in the water for the rest of the night. They all "plucked em' and shucked em'" -oysters that is, it is the season here and so I brought salt, pepper and lime juice down to the water and everyone (except myself) ate FRESH oysters by the water.

Coeur D'Alene

The Park by the Lake

I have always wanted to stop and stay in Coeur D'Alene every time I have passed through it, so I am excited to be here today. We arrived yesterday and our camp is beautiful! Right on the water. Also the Ironman event was going on today and so we watched the top 5 finish-very inspiring. Kids are swimming right now, it turned out to be a pretty warm afternoon and evening. Last night we had our first hail storm, luckily no damage to anything. We plan to head to Rainier tomorrow, can't wait to see the sites and hike around.

Stache watching the Ironman

The 1st place finisher- Victor something....

We Heart Glacier!!!

We Heart Glacier!!!

 Well- Grandeur comes to mind when it comes to Glacier, also Majestic, Spectacular-you get the picture...

We drove up Hwy 93 on the way to Glacier, a trip down memory lane for myself. It has changed in many ways, but so much is the same.

Flathead Lake

Avalanche Lake Hike

Mushroom we found near Avalanche Lake

After leaving Lolo, we stocked up in Missoula and headed to a campsite just outside the West Glacier entrance. We drove "going to the sun road" and hiked, then hiked again, oh and shopped-why do kids like to shop so much? The hike to Avalanche Lake was amazing, and I think the kids really enjoyed it-

 Then we drove down to Big Fork shopped some more, had tea and hung out by the water, Nathan had his first experience with a paddle board and was pretty damn good at it. We decided that tomorrow we will go back to the Flathead and spend a night there before returning to Missoula- I knew my family would love Flathead, as I do.

Woah! June 22nd already!!!

Okay, so I will need to work on this updating in a timely fashion thing. It has been eight days now since we left Spearfish-and time flies when you're having fun.

 We left Spearfish and arrived in Buffalo WY where we stayed at Deer Park RV park, it was very beautiful, and the kiddos loved the pool. Jerry and Marsha met up with us there and so we spent most of Father's Day with the "old man."
 From Buffalo we headed to Bozeman to meet up with Brandon who was heading home from a wedding filled weekend. On the road from Buffalo we had our first tire blowout-funny thing if you have a triple axle and a dully truck you don't even notice a blowout-oops! So some very friendly folks came to our aid at a gas station in Drummond MT, and sped our "recovery" along. We also stopped in for a "potential" repair at All Phases Repair just outside of Missoula where another friendly gent named Jim helped us out. It is wonderful to know good people are out there and I hope our luck continues with us along the road. After we were all fixed up we met Brandon, had dinner and tooled around Bozeman.

 From Bozeman we were Missoula bound. When I was 18 I lived in Pablo/Polson/Flathead area and we often went to the hot spring that we called Bob Weir-which is actually named Weir Creek Hot Springs, so I  was excited to show my family my old hangout. Well we didn't go to "Weir" but we stayed at Lolo Hot Springs, and then drove up to Jerry Johnson Hotsprings which is only a couple miles west of Weir, I can't believe we never went to those springs back in the day- they were wonderful- the hike in was almost as rewarding as the springs. We then ate a late dinner at Lochsa Resort-which was also a wonderful new place I hope to return to someday.