San Francisco

We spent a great day (and night) in San Francisco, CA with the Lachmanns'. Chris, Suzana, and their daughter, Sofia, have a beautiful home in Walnut Creek. Chris and I went to Hopewell Valley HS together. Chris and Suzana were great tour guides pointing out all the sites of the big city. We went down to Fisherman's Wharf for lunch. Daiv actually slept in his camper on the wharf 40 years ago. A lot has changed since then, but the sea lions still lounge about on the floating docks, and the seagulls still fight for scraps of food. We hiked a massive amount of stairs to a monument tower overlooking the city. From the top you could see the long line of cars winding down Lombard Street, the crookedest street ever! We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and caught glimpses of Alcatraz. Unfortunately my forethought was not adequate enough to get us tickets to visit Alcatraz close up, next time.
Today, Sunday, we will visit the Walnut Creek Farmer's Market and stock up for Yosemite NP, while we get an oil change on the truck (we traveled over 7,000 miles so far).

Link to photos:
Take me to San Francisco!

The Redwood Forest

We felt like Hansel and Gretal today walking through the giant redwoods. We hiked a trail that meandered us through the monster trees, stopping along the way to hug them, climb them, crawl inside them, and gaze at them in awe! They were huge! We saw banana slugs and Stellar Jays. We lunched on the CA beach with a herd of elk. Then headed south toward San Francisco. It was beautiful driving through wine country, but we did not have time to stop this trip. We are spending the night with a college friend of mine in Santa Rosa. After a nice dinner, we are all tucked into bed. Goodnight.

A whale of a tale

Today was a travel and grocery day. We have not found the farmers markets we had hoped, mostly because the snow was so much this year that crops are just beginning to grow as the snow is cleared. Lots of snow still where we are!
We arrived in the Redwood Forest around 5pm to find all the park sites full. We travelled on....lucky we did too. We were driving over a bridge in the small town of Klamath when we saw lots of people looking and pointing over the side of a bridge. "What is it?", I called out the window, expecting to hear "school of fish, or bear, or boat". To our surprise, the man called back, "WHALE". "Pull over", the rest of the car yelled. A grey whale had made it's way up the Klamath River and was swimming back and forth under the bridge. The state trooper told us this has not happened in 22 years! I will post the whale photos on the website. We are now retelling our whale of a tale from a quiet little campground just south of the park. Another incredible stroke of Butcavage luck.

Crater Lake National Park

We arrived at Crater Lake late in the day Tuesday and checked in to get a campsite within the park. The attendant told us we had no chance of getting a campsite with electricity because it was so late and campsites are 1st come 1st serve. We hit the F loop anyway! Low and behold a site with electric was open, we nestled ourselves back into the site and turned on the heat. Good thing as temps dropped into the 30's both nights we stayed in the park! We had one full day to explore the park and we did it all. We toured Rim Road and stopped at all the overlooks, went to a Ranger program to earn a badge, hiked to the bottom of the crater and swam in the lake, hiked back up the crater (the equivalent of 67 flights of stairs), came back to the crater at night to view the milky way (and possibly several other galaxy's, it was so incredible), and became Jr. Rangers. A full day indeed!

Link to Photos:

https://picasaweb.google.com/118346869766657799203/CraterLakeNationalPark

Portlandia

We stopped along the Washington Coastline to have a picnic lunch on the beach. When we set foot on the beach the sun was shining above, 5 minutes later, the fog rolled in and hid the ocean and the kids (see video on web page)!
We left WA and headed to Oregon. We spent two nights with the McLernons. Brian used to live in NJ and moved to Portland, OR when he met his beautiful wife, Gayle. Alexis and their daughter, Brenna, hit it off instantly. We toured downtown Portland and drank from the Bubblers. Bubblers are cool quad water fountains spread throughout the city streets. Portland is a beautiful city with lush greenery all around.
We all had a very nice, relaxing visit, got all the laundry done, but most importantly, got to spent some quality time with good friends.

Touching the Pacific

Today the kids touched the Pacific Ocean for the 1st time in their lives. We got up early and headed to the coast. We missed the Ranger-meeting spot and headed down the rocky beach on our own. To the left of us was Ocean, with huge cliff walled rock outcroppings spread about and pelicans diving for a school of fish. To the right of us were piles of sun washed giant spruce trees, fallen years ago ands washed up here. It was a playground, like giant pick up sticks tossed on the beach. And the thick forest beyond that. The layers were unique.
The tide was low as we reached Hole in the Wall, an archway thru one of the outcroppings and we found lots of sea life in the tide pools, star fish, sea anemone, crabs, small fish, hermit crabs. The tidal carvings of the rock were amazing. We picnicked among the driftwood.
As we headed back to camp, we all agreed to spend the rest of the afternoon at the campsite. Our campsite is a hidden gem. From first pass, the site looks small and exposed. Many just pass by. But we stopped, "look, we can at least see the river". Daiv walked down a shaded path at the rear of the campsite to paradise. The lush green rain forest made a canopy above our heads, with a hole above to let out the smoke and let in the stars. To the left was a path..... It winded thru the forest toward sun. A small set of natural stairs and a rock bridge put us at the rapid water's edge. Here is were I now sit writing this.

Upper left corner!

Yes, that is where we are now, Washington state, the total opposite side of the country! WOW! We spent an afternoon in Seattle and went to the top of the Space Needle for a fantastic view before heading to Olympic National Park. Our first night we stayed at Salt Creek Recreation Area. A simple campground overlooking the Puget Sound. We had an amazing view of the water and Canada from our site and watched huge ships go by as we roasted marshmallows. In the morning, we played among the tide pools and discovered some really cool sea life within. We are now making dinner at our new campsite within the Hoh Rainforest inside Olympic NP. Our campsite is riverside nestled in the ferns among 200+ foot tall pine trees. I am watching the rapids rage down the river as I write this. We are so happy here that we are staying an extra night. Tomorrow morning we are headed to the Pacific Coast to take a Ranger lead beach hike.

A three hour tour!

We picked up my new bike yesterday, shipped from Hart's in Pennington. It's a hybrid mountain bike and it's real pretty. Prior to going to bed last night, Elizabeth asked if we wanted to go for a bike ride in the morning (remember I mentioned she was a Ironman Triathlete!)? Daiv and I got up at 6:20 and rode for a 1:50:00, a mere 21 miles (uphill, both ways!). We felt exhilarated all day.
We once again headed to the lake, it was a gorgeous sunny day, not a cloud in the sky! We took a speed boat out to Wild Horse Island, an island used by the Indians to defend their horses from thieving Blackfoot Indian tribes. We hiked 2 miles across the island to see the wildlife. As we headed back to the boat, we heard thunder in the distance. The weather started getting rough, our tiny ship was tossed, if not for the courage of our fearless Chip, we would have been lost! We are now sipping wine, fireside. Another great adventure!

Ahhhhh, Civilization!

We arrived at the Grundy's Sunday evening to a cocktail, a hot shower and Montana steaks on the grill! I could get used to being spoiled by this civilization stuff! The Grundy's (Chip, Elizabeth, Vaughn, Mary, Tom, and James) are a wonderful family from Pennington with a gorgeous home overlooking Flathead Lake in Big Forks, MT. They set Daiv and I up in the guest cottage, a separately entranced suite with a cozy bedroom with a view of the lake, a kitchenette/wet bar area and a spacious bathroom (don't tell them, but we may never leave!). The kids bunked with the Grundy kids in the lower level of the main house.
Monday morning we set off on a two hour horse ride thru the Montanta wilderness, the best way to see the countryside is on horseback. After lunch, and Ryan learning to drive an ATV, we headed to the lake for a kayak (Elizabeth, the triathlete, swam alongside!). Then that evening, we all took the ATV's down to the horse corral to watch some real cowboys do some roping! It was a true out West day!

Glacier National Park

The best word to describe Glacier NP..... SPECTACULAR!!!!  The Northern Rockies were so amazingly huge and beautiful.  We had a sunny campsite facing St. Mary Lake with the mountains as a back drop.  The sunny campsite was key as the mornings and late afternoons were quite cool.  The 1st of our 3 days in Glacier we took the park shuttles up the "Going to the Sun Road".  The road opened 2 days prior to our arrival in the park because of all the snow this year!  We had several snow ball fights at the top of Logan Pass on the Continental Divide.  The snow was over the top of the shuttle bus.  The mountains were filled with waterfalls of melting snow that were diverted under the road.  Simply Spectacular!
Our 2nd day we traveled over to the "Many Glaciers" area of the park.  Here were took a wonderful hike UPHILL to an incredible waterfall.  The hike back was much easier!  Then we took a boat across Swiftwater Lake, hiked, took another boat across Lake Josephine, and hiked to Grinnell Lake.  From the boats you could see a multitude of glaciers in the mountains.  All the lakes are glacial lakes and are a beautiful turquoise blue from the fine glacier sediment that is suspended in the water.  On the hike back to the boat we encountered a HUGE Grizzly Bear!!!!  He was meandering up the path we were on.  Luckily we were with a large group from the boat and we all started making noise, the grizzly slowly walked off the path and into the woods to continue his journey.  I will post a video of him on our webpage.
On our last day in Glacier NP the kids got their Jr. Ranger badges and we visited several other sections and lakes in the park as we headed toward the Grundy's in Big Fork, MT.  Due to the size of our camper, we had to travel around the park rather than thru the park on the "Going to the Sun Road".  The outskirts of the park is the Blackfoot Indian Reservation.  We stopped at one point at a place called "Goat Lick Pass", looked down into the crevasse and saw a herd of Mountain goats including babies!
We were sad to leave Glacier National Park, it was so SPECTACULAR!  David and I are already talking about when we can come back!

Big Sky Montana

We understand why they call it that now! As we drove across Montana towards Glacier National Park we watched HUGE storms moving across the landscape towards us. You could see the entire cell, black and angry. It was frightening. We spent our 1st night in a hotel instead of a camp. There was a threat of flash floods and hail. The last thing we need is holes through our camper! Unfortunately when we did stop in Great Falls, MT we noticed a large gash in one of the tires of the camper, went about 1/2 way thru. We will be a little delayed this morning while we put a new tire put on the camper.
We should be in Glacier by early afternoon. We will be primitive camping again, no electricity, water, or Internet. I will update the blogs soon after our stay. After Glacier, we are headed to our friends Chip & Elizabeth Grundy who have a home on Flathead Lake, MT.

Two Badlands that are Too Amazing

The 1st Badlands were in SD, Badlands National Park. It looked like God was making sand castles. They rose out of nowhere and the colors and textures were incredible. We saw bighorn sheep and a coyote. The landscape was very harsh and dry. It's amazing anything can survive. We learned that prairie dogs don't drink water at all!
The 2nd Badlands were in Theodore Roosevelt NP, ND. These Badlands were lush and green. Feral horses roamed the landscape, majestic is the best word to describe the horses. We got caught in rush hour traffic, buffalo rush hour that is! There was a HUGE herd in the middle of the road. We all feel completely relaxed here, we saw maybe a total of 8 people all day,lunched on a cliff overlooking the landscape, and fished in the Little Missouri River.
The Badlands have been very, very good to us!

 Buffalo Rush Hour

 Catching a breeze

 Magestic!

Close Encounters of the Third Kind!

We left the natural beauty of Yellowstone and headed out on the next leg of our adventure (the map even changed on the website!). We enjoyed our stay and the many interesting places we visited including our horseback ride and fishing in Lake Yellowstone. It is truly a place of amazing things that must be seen first hand.  On our horseback ride, one of our guides said that "97 percent of Yellowstone is back country" and we saw only a small part of this beautiful place. We set out of camp passing the famous fishing bridge and headed out the East Entrance of Yellowstone. We drove into Cody Wyoming and stopped at the Old Trail Town... a replica of an old western town, the structures were originals moved here from all over the area. Old photos hung on the wall, The Hole in the Wall Gang walked thru these doors.  Jeremiah Johnson was buried there... we got Ryan the movie near Boulder on our way south and we have been quoting ever since. "you skin that one pilgrim and I'll git you another" "watch yer top notch... watch yourn."  It was a cool stop in a hot little town. We then stopped at the famed Irma hotel in downtown (one main street) Cody, WY.  Excellent stop and bought Alexis an awesome pink cowgirl hat. We then drove to Devil's Tower in the upper north Eastern corner of Wyoming. An amazing tower of rock that conjures up the thought of the theme sounds of the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." It looks like a place that you could see a UFO.  We ate lunch and worked on our junior ranger workbooks before  heading southeast towards Custer, South Dekota in the middle of the Black hills.
We searched for a campground and read many reviews... We finally settled on a place called The Broken Arrow Campground.  As it turns out this is one of the best in the area and we are very pleased with our choice.  It is a campground for people and horses.  You can hear the horses whinnying in the background as you fall fast asleep, such a nice sound.  Horse folk are super nice, they were fighting over whose horse they got to put Lexi on.  She got to sit bareback on one and ride western saddle on another (photos on website).  She could not stop smiling!
Yesterday we toured Crazy Horse, Mt. Rushmore, and Wind Cave.  We were actually disappointed at how touristy Crazy Horse and Mt. Rushmore were.  You were nickel and dimed at every turn when all we wanted to do was stare in awe at our countries beautiful monuments.  The granite rock sculptures were very impressive and the stories behind them even more so.
Wind Cave National Park was our last stop late in the day.  We caught the last tour of the caves and were the last four souls into and out of the caves.  We lagged behind in several places and got some great photos.  At one point, the Ranger guide shut off the lights in the cave so we could see how the 1st 16 year old boy who discovered the caves saw it.  He had entered the cave thru a 16" hole with only a candle and a ball of string.  When the lights went out, it was so dark you could not even see the hand in front of your face.  I grabbed what I thought was Ryan to hold him, and when the lights went back on, I actually had Alexis!  There are 84 miles of mapped caves at Wind Cave, with an unknown amount still being explored.  It is the 5th largest cave system in the world.  No wonder you need a REALLY big ball of string!

Yellowstone National Park

We just spent 4 of the most glorious days in Yellowstone NP. I think everyone's highlight was the hour long back country horseback ride. The Wranglers put Ryan on the LARGEST quarter horse on the ranch, named Glendive, he's still walking funny! Alexis rode a beautiful appaloosa named April. I was on Ranger and Daiv rode Spade. We took an evening ride that went across open meadows, along cliff edges, and thru the woods. It was incredible! We will definitely take another trail ride in another park, horseback is a great way to see the back country in the park.
Four days was a perfect amount of time to spend in Yellowstone. We strolled along the boardwalks between colorful hot springs and geysers; hiked along the canyon edge to waterfalls; picnicked among the elks at Mammoth Springs; and fished along the shores of Yellowstone Lake. We saw hundreds of bison, elk, and prong horned antelope, and yes, we finally saw BEAR! 3 bear actually! Photos will be posted on the website.
My favorite was the geyser areas, including Old Faithful (watch the video I will post on the website of the eruption). The geyser areas, within the Caldera ring, were so unique. They were of all colors and temperatures. You felt like you were in the "Land of the Lost", looking into the center of the earth. Many of them were quite odiferous and smelled of sulphur. The colors in the hot springs ranged from browns and oranges, to greens and brilliant blues, depending on the temperature of the spring. The hotter the water, the less micro organisms that could survive, the bluer the water was. There were also some very acidic springs and geysers. The rangers told us the the water we were seeing was actually a 1000 years old by the time it reached the surface!
Our campsite was beautiful, we were nestled in a forest of lodge pole pines. Very shaded and quiet. We were in Canyon Village Campground in the middle of the park. I leave you lakeside in Yellowstone sipping a cocktail as the children fish.

Dinosaur National Monument and Grand Teton NP

Wow, it's hard to believe we have been traveling for over a week now. I have actually lost track of time (and sometimes even which state we are in!). We are all having the time of our lives and wish you could all be here to experience it as well.
Yesterday we traveled from CO to WY and stopped at Dinosaur National Monument, on the Utah side. It was so incredible to touch actual dinosaur bones in the rock wall! It was a quick stop, but totally amazing.
This morning we woke up to the snowy peaks of the Grand Tetons. We met up with Daiv's mom, who is staying in Jackson Hole with an old college friend. We traveled into the park together to see the sites. The kids loved working with Mare to complete their Junior Ranger program and once again, we all learned alot of very cool information. We saw a small herd of bison grazing in the field, a trumpet swan (really long nose), and a sand hill crane. Still no bear! Although on one of our hikes we were told that a mama bear and her two cubs were just ahead. But that mama was bluff charging to protect the cubs. We turned around! I'll wait.
Tomorrow we head to Yellowstone NP for 4 nights. Mare will spend 2 of those nights with us and then head back to VT. We will not have electricity and I am doubtful that we will have any Internet or cell phone access. We will update our adventures when we get back to civilization. I have switched to posting all our photos on our website, so please check them
out there.

https://sites.google.com/site/wherebethebees/