July 12, 2012 --- to Detroit Lake, Detroit, Oregon

July 12, 2012 ~~~  Got up and whisked out of camp from Vale, Oregon toward HOME!  This is not the best stretch of highway for the trip... long, boring, seen a thousand times before, and not much to look at other than sage brush!   And a few pretty desert flowers.

We did stop at a pull-out for a stretch and saw where someone lost their size 7 thong alongside the road.  Hmmm... probably don't even WANT to know the story behind that!

About the time we got to Sisters, we decided we wanted one more night of "camping".  We drove on to Detroit Lake, about 35 or 40 miles from home, got us a spot and built a campfire.  No power/water/sewer/etc. ... pretty primitive for this trip!  LOL

I re-heated some deli-chicken and roasted a couple fat ears of corn in their husks over the campfire... yummy! 

AND, just to prove that Walmartians also go camping... here's a photo of one camped next to us, and yes, that is a denim mini-skirt that just barely covered her cheeks:

I missed the one when she bent over (from the waist) to get a beer out of her cooler with her butt toward us.  It's probably just as well.  We nearly went blind.

Happy Trails!!

July 11, 2012 - Westward bound

July 11, 2012 ~~~ After driving through some gorgeous Montana mountains we entered beautiful Idaho mountains, and stopped for the night in Challis, Idaho in an RV park.  Nice, clean, quiet park... but was a gravel parking lot. No trees, no shade.  Not our favorite kind... BUT WiFi worked for a change.  :-)

Up and down the road intending to go south and west through the Salmon River Mountains... but missed a turn!  After about 50 miiles realized we were going southeast!  NO!  No "EAST" stuff for us!  Too late to turn back so we just go with the flow until we find an intersection to turn west again.  Here are some rocks we drove through that we would NOT have seen if we hadn't missed our turn!

And here is one of the best sights of all!

July 8-9-10, 2012 Lost Moose Bend Rd, Whitehall, Montana

July 8-9-10, 2012 ~~~ The days just seemed to slip away, and way too soon it was time to get back on the road today.  We spent a few days watching the wood cutter thingy, then I forgot to get the AFTER photos!  Tuffy and Merlin have several mountains of cut and split wood in their side yard.... enough for 3 years or more!  Wow!  How great is that?!

Yesterday we went for a ride to find the Ringing Rocks... up and up and up on a single track four-wheelin road and all of a sudden there was a HUGE pile of rocks jutting out from the side of the hill.  They don't look like anything special, just a pile of rocks.  But start pecking at different ones with a hammer and some will ping, or clang, or sing to you!  Amazing!  Some just go "clunk" like any ordinary rock... others make the sounds of bells.  Of course I didn't get a photo of them... I was too busy video taping so we could hear the sounds they make.  If you're ever near Whitehall, it's well worth finding them and pecking away with your hammer to see if you can play a melody!

Here's another Lost Moose Bend sunrise that I watched this morning.

Neighbor Jim Powers stopped by to visit and brought his granddaughter Megan with him, and Tuffy and Merlin came up too for coffee and a visit before we had to hit the road.  Tuffy and Jim are in a deep conversation.  Jim is a REAL Montana cowboy!  And he and Tuffy never run out of stories to tell. 

Marla Fay (aka Merlin the Magical One) is not a cowgirl, but she grows a mean garden, and raises some handsome chickens who lay lots of eggs! 

So we left this "morning"... after coffee, and several rounds of story tellin'... was sad to go!  We had such a great time.

We stopped by Big Hole, Montana.... another US Cavalry massacre, but minus Custer this time... then went on down the highway to Challis, Idaho to spend the night. Sure is beautiful country.  Mountains, trees, rivers, deer, huge rocky bluffs... and it was one of the routes Lewis and Clark took.  Here's one of the osprey nests we saw... a little while later we spotted one with 4 "babies", but couldn't get a photo in time.

One more night on the road after tonight... and we'll be HOME!  Geez... wonder what that will be like??   :-)

July 4-5-6-7, 2012 Whitehall, Montana

July 7, 2012 ~~~ Having way too much fun here on Lost Moose Bend Road, Whitehall, Montana and now have to try to play catch up!  Tuffy and Merlin had an old friend and co-workers daughters (Terry and Laurie) come to visit for a few days.  One of them, Terry, was fun to be with and to listen to and obviously likes people and animals, especially dogs and horses! 

Here's The House.... perfectly lovely inside and out, and no greater views anywhere we went on this adventure!

View from our "camping spot" at the Thompson Compound.... Montana sunrise.

This is a couple of Tuffy and Merlin's little friends who came to visit the side yard ... by the time I got the camera they had started to wander off.

THIS is the impressive pile of logs laying in the yard... we thought maybe Tuffy was going to build a log guest house for the visiting public, but NO, he's chopping it all up into firewood!  An estimated 18 CORDS of firewood!! 

And HERE is yesterday and todays result of the wood cutter/splitter machine chopping up wood ... Tuffy's kids and OURS would have loved to have seen it done this way about 25 or 30 years ago!  LOL

Look at those PILES of firewood!  AND, he's not done yet.  It was very tiring watching the guy run the machine that cust and splits all that.  We had to go take naps after watching all that!

And here is Tuffy and Merlin's company, who left today after breakfast and a trip through the Saturday market.  The one next to Marla is Terry.  Great gal, and we enjoyed her!  The one in the black shirt is Terry's older sister Laurie. 

July 3, 2012 -- Lost Moose Bend Road, Whitehall, Montana

July 3, 2012 ~~~ Drove through beautiful Montana WEST BOUND today!  Well ... we did drive a little north first and made a 2 hour stop at the Little Bighorn National Monument.  I "saw" this when I was about 13 years old (quite a LONG time ago!)... and it's very very different now!  Lots of parking, lots of "interpretive" stuff, ranger guided tours, museum, and a 5 mile drive through the battlefield, which includes story boards, cell phone audio, and now has red granite markers for the Indians who died there as well as the soldiers white granite markers.  Very impressive.

Every marker at Little Bighorn battlefield is placed where a soldier or an Indian died. 

They had trails out through the markers, but this is why I didn't want to walk out there:

And so on we went across Montana toward WHITEHALL.  Got out of the smokey stuff finally.  In Billings it was 102 degrees.... but then it started to rain.  This is what rain looks like when it falls out of the Montana sky ... with blue sky on one side, and black rain clouds on the other -- a torrential DUMP!

Montana mountains... where we lost the 102 degrees and got into more reasonable temperatures... at one point down to 68 degrees!

And FINALLY arrived at Tuffy & Merlin's house about 4:30 pm!  Went out and had a lovely dinner at Sparky's Garage then back to the house for root beer or orange floats and watched an episode of Deadliest Catch.  Great evening!

Here's Merlin and EvaGeneva..... 

And here's Uncle Tuffy... he loves having company and welcomed us with open arms....

;-)

July 2, 2012 ~~~  Took off this morning north, then WEST, with a drive through Sturgis, SD... looks pretty normal for now... that will all change in about a month! 

We knew we were headed in right direction when we spotted the first SAFEWAY store we've seen in nearly 2 months, AND further into Wyoming after we got past the smoke, we saw a few mountains with SNOW on their tops!! 

We also saw lots and lots of SMOKE!  At times we couldn't see any mountains at all.  Fires burning in Montana, Wyoming and Colorado contributing.  Hwy 212, our choice of route to Montana out of Sturgis, was closed completely because of fires.  We took I90 which made a lot longer loop, but we made it to Sheridan, WY.  Treated ourselves to a NICE steak and ribs in Sheridan, then went back to our little house-on-wheels to enjoy the smokey sunset, then the thunder and lightning show!  AND watched an old Elizabeth Taylor movie, "Elephant Walk" circa 1953. 

The further into Wyoming we got, the smokier it got!

JULY 1, 2012 ~~~  Can't believe JULY is here already!  We took the drive out to Crazy Horse mountain today.  I had read about it 20 years ago, or more, but didn't realize it was actually "began" with a letter and dream in 1939!  I think the sculptor actually started pounding rock in 1943... alone.  He lived in a tent for several years before he started chopping down trees and built himself a log house.  No running water, no electricity.  AND he built and climbed 741 stair steps (wooden ladders!) up the face of the rock to get to his work area.  He climbed those every day, sometimes many times a day.  Read the history... it makes it so amazing what has been accomplished so far.  It will not be finished in our lifetime, but our grandchildren will see the finished sculpture.

This became the sculptor's life's work.  He married and raised 10 children at this place, and the log house they all lived in is still there and open for viewing.  His wife lived in it until she passed away a few years ago.  Most of his children are still actively involved in the ongoing sculpture efforts.  It's a slow process because it's not "publically funded", and because it is a MASSIVE construction effort!  The entire 4 heads on Mt Rushmore would fit in the rock to the left of Crazy Horse's cheekbone above.  Well worth the money and trip!

Here is one of several really pretty places along the road we saw surrounded by granite walls and forest, with a handsome little creek running through it.

From here we went to another "tourist thing"... called Bear Country USA.  Kinda like Wildlife safari, but no lions or elephants!  It does have a 2 mile drive-through with Roosevelt Elk, reindeer, Arctic wolves, grey wolves, cougars, buffalo, mule deer, Big Horn sheep and Mt goats, and lots and lots of bears.

Can you tell which was our favorite part?  This Fat Boy didn't look too friendly and believe me we kept our windows UP because several were up and wandering around by the road.  NO FEEDING is strictly enforced, so no animals came up to the vehicles.

The cougars were laying in the shade so this is the best we could do.

And here is the best for last... this one is totally for Larry T... BEAR BUTT...

Can you figure out what the bear is doing?  Here's a hint... see that line of light color under his tail?  He's all hunched over takin' a poop!