yes we had no potatoes

Last week we were in Coeur D'Alene, ID for four nights.  We met up with old friends Chris and Larry, who  we met two years ago in the Keys.  They also are full timers and are traveling east from Washington state (their home state) while we are traveling west to Washington state (where we are now).  We had a terrific time and fell in love with Coeur D'Alene.

Having never been to Idaho before I made a foolish assumption that Idaho was all about potatoes!  WRONG, no way, no how, notta, just plain incorrect!  

Coeur D'Alene is a beautiful little city on the banks of gorgeous Lake Coeur D'Alene.

Right in the middle of "downtown" is the Coeur D'Alene Resort ~ WOW what a beautiful place.  I swear they must have planted 25,000 beautiful red geraniums around the property and in window boxes spanning parts of the  walkway and dock area.  I fully expected to see Auntie Gert tending to them!

What a lovely, "posh" property with rooms ranging from $199. to $499. a night with all kinds accommodations and activities offered.  Such "luxuries" are out of our range these days but it was truly a beautiful place.

Of course there were sea plane tours ~ no we didn't but I suspect King Richard would have enjoyed it!

Apparently this is one of the latest water sports - standing up on a surfboard type thing with an oar that you paddle yourself along with!  It's a mystery to me but I guess some think of it as fun - I think of it as a whole lot of energy required to do this!  Then again I guess that is one way those bodies look like they do and mine looks the way it does!

As I mentioned there is a boardwalk and docks all along this property.  Also, there is a large walking bridge over the access to the inside docks.  The photo below was taken from the top of that bridge looking down on one of the sections of the boardwalk.

And the photos below taken from the boardwalk looking out ~ is it gorgeous or what?

Check out the log cabin tucked into the mountain in the photo below - not a bad location huh!

There were a few of these lovely old wooden boats ~ two of them are shuttles for the resort.

surreal?

What is it about this photo ~ taken somewhere between Garrison, MT and Coeur D'Alene, ID that I love?  I think it's all the contrasts! 

Yellowstone ~ part 2

A bit longer than I anticipated to post this second part of our Yellowstone adventure.  Sorry!  

Saturday was a travel day (as will be today after King Richard gets up and going ~ last night was not a good sleeping night for anyone in this house other than Sir Arlo).  Additionally, I spent another marathon day at my sewing machine yesterday ~ yup should have taken a break and done the post but I didn't want to break my momentum and the "progress" I was making!  Anyway, better late than never and hopefully these pictures make it worth the wait.

The photo above is just a random shot of Yellowstone beauty.  

As I mentioned in the first post we stopped at Mammoth Hot Springs then we went on to Old Faithful.  Well as we're circling around and around and around the huge parking areas trying to find a spot Rick notices that OF is erupting!  DARN I wanted to see it so darn badly, well I thought I did, but I wasn't willing to wait 90 minutes for the next eruption!  Below is Sir posing oh so nicely in front of OF. 

After leaving Old Faithful we continued on our "loop" (which ended up being somewhere in the vicinity of 120+ miles) we came upon Yellowstone Lake (who knew).  These next two shots are coming down a mountain with the lake off in the distance.

Elks (Rick and I) looking at elk.

Random shots of the Lake - it was so outstandingly gorgeous!  Cold but beautiful, with awesome mountains in the background and a beautiful sky!

Yeah, this was a traffic stopper for sure

I think he just wanted to get to the other side to play with his friends!

More random shots to close with!

Yellowstone ~ part 1 of ??

Seriously, how on earth could a blog post about Yellowstone National Park be done in one part?  I can't imagine it being done in less than five parts.  I will, however, try my best to keep it as contained as possible.  And hopefully this Yellowstone experience will force me to figure out why I can't export photos from iphoto to picassa, like I used to be able to ~ a simple two step process, but not since we got the new lap top nearly a year ago (yup, I am a slacker aren't I!)

I truly have no clue where to start with this post.  Yellowstone left both Rick and I speechless (hard to believe, but true) and in absolute awe.  I have no idea what I expected going into Yellowstone ~ I really didn't know what the park entailed, other than the fact that it was a National Park, therefore it must be pretty special.  We had a couple National Park books, but apparently in one of our "downsizing" exercises in the coach we donated them somewhere along the way to a Goodwill.  Another thing, we got a new National Parks pass - our previous one expired a year or so ago and we never replaced it.  It will be less expensive to replace this one in two years when Richard is 62, but for now and next year it is $80.00 yearly, but well worth it (if we use it, and we used the first one a lot).

I think I'll just post some random shots of the beauty of the park and descriptions when needed.

There are five entrances into the park and the park covers 2,219,789 acres (mostly in Wyoming).  We entered at the "north entrance".  The first amazingness we encountered was "Mammoth Hot Springs"(this link has some incredible photos - places we surely didn't see, we did have Sir Arlo with us and there were places we wouldn't/couldn't go with him).  I knew about "Old Faithful", in fact that was the reason I wanted to go to Yellowstone (silly me) and I will get to the Old Faithful story later, probably in another post.  I had no idea, however, that there were all these really cool (intended pun) hot springs throughout the park.  We first saw this hill that was covered in "spillage" (yes I'm sure there is a correct term) from these springs

Seriously, check out these photos we took - bubbling ground, smelling like sulfur!  Way awesome!

Fabulous shot Rick took (below) of the boiling water!

Below is photo of a different area in the park, but the color variations are because of the content of the seeping water.

Photo below is of one of the "hot spot areas" from a distance.

There was one area called "roaring mountain" that had several of these hot spots (I thought I uploaded a photo of it for this post, but apparently not ~ DAH!) and if the person next to you wasn't yapping away and there wasn't traffic going by you honestly could hear the rumbling and gurgling of it ~ it was surreal to say the least.

Below, sister Candy this one is for you!  There was six or seven of them but I couldn't get the camera and focus and drive all at the same time, but darn I wish you were with us to witness it ~ what a moment that would have been after all the hours we spent "moose hunting" on those trips to Moose Hillock all those years ago!

Below, more random beauty.

Stay tuned for part two.

tease ~ a Yellowstone tease that is!

Well seriously, we took over 300 photos that I've gone through and edited and deleted and "narrowed" it down to 180 ... how to decide what to post ...

Not to mention the fact that I should do a post to the best of my ability of King Richard's battlefield trip ..... (I have tried the Bethalene slant and requested that himself, King Richard, do a "guest post" about HIS trip to the battlefield, but to no avail ~ no way, now how is it gonna happen (DARN, something will certainly be lost in the interpretation, don't you think)

But I did digress there for a moment ~ today we set out with "emergency overnight bags" packed, just in case (who married a boy scout ~ always be prepared even at 60 years old ~ what a guy) for Yellowstone.

To be continued!  "Stay tuned"

the question I ponder so often

My view every morning for the next five mornings, my view every evening for the next five evenings ..... how the heck did I get this lucky?

the BIG fix

Remember the trailer "issue"?  

Without going into details, out of respect, the "issue" was taken care of on Thursday while we were in Buffalo, WY ~ thank you Marcus for your suggestion that the King take care of the trailer, although with all due respect to himself, the decision was made within about 20 minutes of pulling into the campground in Buffalo!

What to do we say ~ with at least six hours to occupy ourselves, as well as Sir Arlo, in Buffalo, WY (and truly it was a marvelous town, and a terrific area), when we did a big "field trip" the day before!  DAH, poor planning on the "planners" part for sure.  Speaking of which, how is it that one sort of falls into the role of "navigator" and/or "planner"?  Hmmm I will ponder that extensively a bit later, in the meantime I will be "blogger".

So, with this dilemma of too much time without our "house" to return to, sort of in the middle of "nowhere", well the closest "city" is 40 miles away, what to do, what to do, what to do?

So off we go to Sheridan.  Well Sheridan, from what we saw of it, seemed like a fun place.  A beautiful "downtown" area, beautiful old buildings, lots of stores and places to be ~ to eat, drink and be happy and do a bit of shopping if the spirit moved (the spirt would have moved, but I'm not a big fan of shopping these days what with limited space and far more limited needs or wants).    

We visited the local Elks Lodge (photo above) - great old building, of which we got a tour.  This lodge is number 520, numbers are assigned as charters are given ~ Rick's Lodge is number 146, my Lodge is number 1872!   I have no idea what the most recent Lodge number assigned is ... hmmm, when I remember I just might research this, cause I truly am curious). 

On our way up to Sheridan and on our return to Buffalo, we stopped at beautiful Lake DeSmet ~ what an absolute treasure we found.  There are a few (two or three) boat ramps, several campsites (no hook ups at $10.00 a night - oooooh what a place).  Sir really and truly needed a place to just be and act like himself - a big old silly goof.  Seriously, check out that photo above, see that paw - he is doing a great dog paddle isn't he!

So we stayed at the Lake for a while, threw some sticks for Sir to retrieve and Sir did some great sniffing of the area around this boat launch and it was all good (although gosh darn hot) for an hour or so to and from Sheridan.

As we were leaving, both times, we saw these critters that I thought were deer until I got a "real good look" and Rick and I both decided hey those aren't deer.  For sure, they were far less timid than any deer I'd ever seen.  So I asked the owner of the campground we were at and she informed me that they are antelope.  I thought they were a bit scraggly looking for a deer, then again what the heck do I know?!?!

After we picked up the trailer (ahhhhhh the "improved, big fixed, trailer, sans new axle and two brand spanking new, once again, tires) as well as the coach ,that we'd left at the repair facility, ... we went back to the campground, "re-connected" all connections, and chillaxed for an hour or so.

Then, we headed out to downtown Buffalo, to the Occidental Hotel (that link by the way goes on and on with great information of the hotel and its history), where on Thursday nights they have a local jam session.  OMG, what a treat this was.  

It was absolutely packed in there - seriously standing room only.  Come to find out the locals (those most definitely in the know) reserve the tables every Thursday night and the bar was mobbed.  We did, thankfully, get seats eventually.  Good thing, 'cause I was beyond hungry ~ you know when the head ache starts and the bitchy sets in?  

Check this out ~ a grilled caesar salad ~ WOW in spite of the roasted pine nuts, it was an absolutely out of this world, outstandingly delicious, a wonderfully terrific culinary delight of the greatest magnitude (could I have two right now as I'm diligently working on this blog post, pleeeeease)

What a plethora of local talent.  We had so much fun, I didn't want to leave ~ you know sort of a date night, on the town, whatever anyone wants to call it, it was nice to be out and have a great meal (which by the way included the seafood pizza - ooooooh so good) and outstanding entertainment.

The place was just so packed ... I'd never been to a "jam session" before and it was so neet to watch it all and enjoy the tunes ~ everyone jut sort of made it work so smoothly.

And how 'bout this photo below - ooooh that would be Lynn Young - a local legend who plays a multitude of string instruments and obviously has such a jolly smile! 

And Maureen, here is a photo for you - ooh la la girlfriend ... (oh and he sang oh so wonderfully ~ as good as he looked).

So we left ~ another campground I left so sadly ~ Buffalo yesterday and came to Hardin, MT (yeah, a post for another time ~ oh yeah, what a place).  Leaving Hardin in the morning headed to Livingston for a few days.

Today was, for me, another creative (seven hours straight, other than brief dog walks) day at my sewing machine (seriously, what the hell is with this creative thing happening with me lately), while himself, King Richard, toured battlefields.  It will be a bit of a challenge to do that blog post, I guess Rick took several photos and I asked him to do a "rough draft" of  a post but he didn't seem to like that idea ...

We're "outta here" in the morning ... stay tuned.