Theodore Roosevelt National Park

We arrived at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota early Friday morning. The above picture is just outside the park, where we stopped to have breakfast.

Once inside the park, we enjoyed the scenic loop drive. 

Before long, we spotted this herd of bison! 

 And tons of prairie dogs; they are everywhere.

Some great looking badlands, North Dakota style. 

Another bison! This guy was by himself, but probably was the biggest one we saw during our visit; he was huge! 

We took a short hike up Buck Hill to get a great panoramic view of the park and these guys were also at the top of the hill. Don't worry, we didn't approach the bison. I don't know why anyone would, they are huge and have horns! 

And another herd of bison. We didn't see any huge herds of bison, like the first time I was in the park with my family back in 2010, but we saw more smaller herds and enjoyed it quite a bit.

The fall colors are starting to appear in North Dakota, there were a number of beautiful yellow trees, and a few that were orange or red. The contrast between the yellow leaves and the still green trees and brown mountains was wonderful. Leaves changing color in the fall always reminds me of my mom :-)

After enjoying the scenic loop, we drove to the northern part of the park and went on a hike to the petrified forest. The picture above is looking back after we started the hike; you can just see the van in the parking lot. 

 Our first view of the valley filled with petrified wood. It's a bit hard to see in this picture, but don't worry, there are plenty of close ups to come. Trees petrify when they are quickly buried, preventing normal decay, often by flood deposits or volcanic ash. This part of the park was thought to be a marshy area a long time ago. Silica dissolved in the water and soaked into the buried trees. Slowly, the organic parts of the tree were replaced by silica, turning it into petrified wood and preserving it.

Some of the trees even have visible wood grain, pretty crazy. 

After our hike, we found a place to camp in the grasslands outside the park and made cornbread and chili for dinner. 

It's a MONSTER

On the Road in Montana

We left Glacier Wednesday afternoon and started driving east again, across Montana. I enjoyed the gently rolling grass lands. I love trees, but there is also something beautiful and freeing about open spaces. The golden color of dried grasses makes me want to paint.

I also love seeing the rolls of hay in the fields, and there are quite a few in Montana.

We stopped for the night in Havre, Montana. Pizza sounded too good to pass up, so we had pizza and beer for dinner with, appropriately, a cowboy movie. I actually didn't drink much beer, just a couple swallows of Joshua's. I chose a juice box instead :-)

Going to the Sun

Wednesday morning we returned to Glacier National Park and drove the Going to the Sun road, which crosses Glacier southwest to east (in the direction we drove) and is a beautiful scenic drive. The only other time I have been to Glacier, it was foggy, so we were thankful for a sunny day and great views.

We saw mountain goats!

We stopped at the Logan Pass visitor center and walked a short way on the highline trail. We only walked
 a short way because there was a freezing wind blowing. Even bundled up, we were cold and my ears felt like they were going to fall off. 

We also stopped at Rising Sun because they have pay showers at the general store there. After enjoying hot showers and feeling clean again, we finished driving through the park and came out on the eastern side at St. Mary.

Driving Through

We left Moose Lake Tuesday afternoon and drove through Glacier to the southern park entrance. It was a beautiful drive and we stopped at Lake McDonald to buy postcards.

We left the park and found a place to park off a side road in the national forest. After finding a level place to stay for the night, I went on a little walk around the area and took pictures.

Moose Lake

Late in the afternoon Monday, we drove up to Moose Lake, which is just outside Glacier. It was a long drive on bumpy gravel roads, but we finally made it and had a delicious dinner.

The next morning, we walked down to the lake. It was pretty, but freezing cold, so we didn't walk around very long. And we didn't see any moose. It was a great area to camp and we had planned to stay all day and spend Tuesday night there too, but we were too cold, so we headed off again.

Lake Ashley

We camped in a campsite for the first time last night, at Lake Ashley, Montana. 

We made pancakes for breakfast.

There was a cold wind blowing off the lake, so we didn't stick around long after breakfast. Instead we drove into Kalispell and did laundry. 

Northern Washington

Ray, Joanna, Laura, Sarah, Joshua

After a good breakfast Saturday morning and a challenging project of trying to move a new joiner off the back of a truck into the garage, we took a picture and said goodbye to our lovely hosts. We took 20 through beautiful northern Washington and drove through North Cascades National Park.

Joshua has to hold our spot in the picture while I get the camera set up. 

The park was unlike any other national parks we have been to; it had a town, a power plant, and a dam all in the national park, with power lines running all over the place. It was strange. But a lot of it was very pretty.

The water was a great turquoise color.

These mountains as we were driving out were my favorite part. 

We continued driving all day. We stopped to make pancakes for dinner, then drove some more. By the time we pulled over to sleep, we were getting close to the Washington-Idaho border.

Enjoying Family Time

After spending way too long stuck in traffic through Seattle, we finally arrived in northern Washington to visit Uncle Ray, Aunt Joanna, and Laura. We enjoyed a delicious picnic dinner together at the park while the sun was setting.

I couldn't resist stopping to take a few pictures as we were leaving. When we got back to the house, we enjoyed relaxing with cups of tea, strawberry shortcake, and good conversation. 

Gari of Sushi

 What vacation would be complete without sushi?! We figured we better get some before we left the coastal area and got into landlocked states. So on our way north today we stopped in Tacoma, WA and got sushi. It was so good. We got a tuna roll, a mango paradise roll (mango roll wrapped with tempura soft shell crab served with wasabi tobiko and spicy sauce), and a puyallup roll (BBQ eel, crab mix, avocado, cucumber, and shrimp). They were all so good, but the mango roll was our favorite, delicious!