Stop 23 – Pacific Beach, Washington

From Cliffside, we headed south. We stayed in Pacific beach which is located near Olympic National Park on the Pacific Ocean. Making use of our military benefits, we stayed at a Navy run recreation area. The campground sat on a cliff overlooking the ocean.

We stayed for 3 nights with water and electric hook-ups. Every afternoon the fog would roll in off the ocean creating a mystical mood.

The weather was pretty overcast in general, but relaxing. Certainly nothing we could deal with for a long period of time though.

The beach was nice and we were able to drive the truck right down to the ocean. Marcos found a bunch of squid eggs on the beach which was pretty cool. It was something none of us had seen before.

We went one day into Olympic National Park to explore. While beautiful, the park is not very accessible. There is a LARGE park loop (I would guess several hundred miles for the loop) with access roads off of loop that extend partially into the park. We were able to drive up two of these access roads, but only able to experience a small portion of the park. Ideally, it’s a hiking park – but for serious hikers that tote in their tent and goods on back for ten nights. Regardless, it was awesome to visit a temperate rainforest and see all the moss covering the giant trees. The plant diversity is truly worth protecting and preserving.

The PNW has some huge trees! We got to see the world’s largest Sitka Pine and a really large cedar. Pretty amazing!

Overall, this area was great for all of its natural beauty. However, there really isn’t a lot out this way for human civilization. It’s amazing that an area so close to Seattle could be this uninhabited.

Stop 22 – Oak Harbor, Whidbey Island, Washington

Whidbey Island is located on the Puget Sound about an hour-and-half north of Seattle. We stayed at the Naval Air Station, Cliffside RV Park, on the outskirts of Oak Harbor for 6 nights. We had full hook-up and perfect views out over the ocean.

There were beautiful flowers growing everywhere at the RV park, a huge undertaking for one of the hosts of the park. He plants 1500 dahlia bulbs every spring, along with hundreds of other flowers. All of his efforts made the stay absolutely amazing. The smell of fresh flowers mixed with sea air can only make one practically giddy.

There were great, huge trees hugging parts the coastline and paved paths within the base that allowed us to wander the cliffs for hours gazing out over the water.

One of the bonuses of our wanderings is that we found some huge blackberry patches. Almost everyday we would go pick a pint to enjoy at breakfast or for a snack. Delicious!

The beach itself was also great – very secluded with lots of driftwood everywhere. We all enjoyed observing breaching whales, seals and sea otters in the distance. Maggie enjoyed freedom from her leash and would run like a crazy dog up and down the beach, spraying sand all over us and loving every moment. The beach here is so much different from South Carolina. Free from people, still so wild. But also cold (water and air), so there was no swimming or sunbathing. Regardless, I think we all enjoyed the ocean here more than in SC. Additionally, it had been since Maine since we’d seen the ocean and it was great to back on a coast again.

OK, so we’ve all heard about the weather in Seattle and we were expecting a lot of rain. Fortunately, we had great weather though! 60’s and 70’s during the day and 50’s at night; one day of rain, 2 with clouds and 3 with pure sun.

While on Whidbey we took the time to explore the nearby towns of Oak Harbor and Coupeville. The weekend we were there, Oak Harbor hosted a Hydro Boat Race which was fun for the boys.

And Coupeville was more up my lane. It was a small, historic town tucked into Penn Cove. There were wonderful store fronts, small restaurants and a charming marina which made the town unforgettable.

The six days flew by and we tried to soak in the charm of this island as much as possible.

Stop 21 – Spokane, Washington

Yup, I’m getting a bit behind again! Hopefully I’ll catch up this weekend in my spare time. Now that Marcos has started online school, when we are done with the computer for the day, I just want to be done with it!

So, our first stop in Washington was Spokane. Incidentally, we found out it is pronounced (spo-CAN) not (spo-CANE). We spent three nights at Clear Lake Recreation Area, an Airforce campground. This stay was crazy since it was the start of the school year for Marcos. The night before his first day, I was rushing to get all of my learning coach online orientation done. Then the next day, his first day, was his orientation to the program. Here he is on his first day of school; looking so studious and handsome!

The next two days were hectic. We were just trying to get a handle on all the sites we needed to click on, where to access the live lessons, paperwork, etc. Now that we have settled into a routine we are both starting to like it. It has been a great way for Marcos to receive a traditional education in a nontraditional manner. And I feel more connected to his schooling than ever. With me being there for every lesson, I’m able to integrate the stuff he’s learning in school with our everyday lives. And an even bigger bonus is that he is loving school and getting great grades. It is so rewarding to see my boy succeeding and finally loving school. He is confident and proud of himself. And, Jon and I love seeing his change in attitude about school.

Unfortunately, since we were so wrapped up in school we don’t have much to say about Spokane. Marcos and I were pretty much camper bound for those three days, and Jon was getting acclimated to being the do-it-all dad. Jon picked up all duties; doing laundry, cooking all the meals and taking Maggie for a much needed bath and haircut.

Stop 18, 19 and 20 – Montana!

Hi All,

I got a little behind on the blog so I’m just going to put all of Montana into one post. This is not an attempt to minimize how spectacularly beautiful it was, but to simply catch up!

OK, so first we spent 3 nights in Norris, Montana at the Water of Gods Campground. This was another hot mineral springs campground, which we LOVE! We spent some time in the pool and some time exploring the area.

Southern Montana is dry, high plains and mountains. The views were amazing (as all of the west has been so far).

The site at Water of Gods was small, but we had full hookup and the views onto the wetlands and hillside were great. We could see white tail deer and cranes from our camper.

We went one day into Ennis, the closest town. Jon purchased his first fly fish pole and we checked out a local distillery which was owned and operated by some fantastic ex-Special Forces guys. Shout out to Willie’s Distillery in Ennis – they’ve got great products and are great people.

On the way back to Norris we saw our first moose, which we have been searching for since Maine. She was a beautiful momma with two babies.

One of the days we went for a nice hike in Bear Creek Canyon about 10 miles east of Norris. Thankfully, no bears were sighted.

Next stop – Great Falls, Montana for 3 nights. We stayed at the campground in Malmstrom Air Force Base. It was rainy and cold all three days. Maggie enjoyed this stay the most because lots of prairie dogs call the campground home. She spent every waking hour watching and attempting one of the critters. Unfortunately, no photos taken from base, but below are a few photos from the ride from Norris to Great Falls.

From here, we headed to Glacier National Park. The ride up was a wet one, but it cleared up in time to set up camp for the week.

We spent 7 nights in West Glacier at Glacier Campground.

My parents flew out and joined us for the week – roughing it in the tent they shipped out!

Love those two!!

We all had a great time exploring the park. On the first day we drove the “Going to the Sun Road”. Simply AMAZING.

We went for a couple of great hikes. We chose to hike the National Forest so that we could bring Maggie along with us.

We also spent some time exploring the nearby towns. We all liked the town of Whitefish and took the chairlift up to Big Mountain to get some better views.

On one of our final days we explored Lake McDonald a bit more. We took a nice boat cruise around the lake and went to Agpar Village.

Overall, we loved Montana! Not too crowded and everywhere you turn is another spectacular view. Most of all we loved that mom and dad came out and joined us for a week on our amazing journey.

Stop 17 – Grandview Campground, Ashton, Idaho

The drive to Idaho was amazing!We passed through Grand Teton National Park and loved the soaring mountains. It reminded us of the Dolomites in Italy.Betty (our truck) made it over the mountains like the beast we expected her to be!

We stayed 5 nights in the national forest campground. The site was large and private with electric hookup.We bordered scenic Mesa Falls and could hear the rushing waters from our site.We chose this location due to its proximity to Yellowstone National Park. We went into Yellowstone on two of the days.The immense beauty of Yellowstone is unfortunately overshadowed by the crowds of people. To me, nature brings a sense of peace and tranquility, however, crowds and bumper to bumper traffic brings a sense of anxiety. It was hard to truly appreciate the beauty because the presence of so many people seemed to destroy it. So, we decided to cut the stop short and picked up camp and headed to Norris, Montana.

Stop 16 – Thermopolis, Wyoming

Three nights at Fountain of Youth RV Park in Thermompolis. Happy to report that Jon and I are in our 20’s again! 😁

Campground has the largest hot mineral pool in Wyoming with three separate pools of differing temperatures. We went to pool each day and enjoyed the relaxing properties of these warm mineral baths.

Our campground was only a few miles from town and we went to Hot Springs State Park one day.

The park also had a herd of bison which we enjoyed viewing.

On this stop we also went whitewater rafting. This was the first time any of us had been, and we all had a blast on the class 3 rapids of the Wind River.

Marcos said this was his second favorite activity so far (with Cedar Point Amusement Park being #1). Overall, we all had a great time splitting our time between R&R and adrenaline pumping rapids.

Stop 15 – Hill City, South Dakota

Four nights at Horse Thief Campground in the Black Hills.

Our site was in a great location; about 7 miles to Mount Rushmore,

and 2 miles to Custer State Park. We spent two days exploring this fantastic park. 1300 wild bison roam the plains,

along with antelope, mountain goats, deer, and tame donkeys.

We went swimming and hiking at Sylvan Lake. The water was quite brisk!

And traversed the narrow roads of the Needle Highway.

Also a short drive from our campground was the Crazy Horse Memorial and museum.

The Badlands National Park was about 100 miles from our camp. We drove over one day to check it out. It reminded us of the Teddy Roosevelt National Park, however the cliffs and spires are more dramatic in the Badlands.

It’s truly amazing the diversity that exists in such a relatively small area of South Dakota. It seems to offer a little of everything! This was my (Melissa’s) favorite stop so far.

Stop 14 – Dickinson, North Dakota

Three nights in North Park Campground with full hookup (yay). The trade off for a full hookup though seems to be small sites, sandwiched together with limited privacy (boo).We chose Dickinson due to its close proximity to Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP). The park was beautiful; a mix of grasslands, valleys and buttes.

Sightings of wild horses, prairie dogs, bison and one large bull snake.

We visited town of Medora on the outskirts of the National Park. The town contained beautifully preserved homes, hotels, stores and saloons.

We hiked down into the Painted Canyon the following day and brought our “good” camera to capture some great photos.

Overall, we loved the TRNP. We only explored the southern portion of the park since the northern part was an additional 70 miles. The weather was hot (80+), but the air was dry and therefore bearable. It was not crowded with loads of tourists as we expect some of the more popular parks to be. We were free to explore in relative solitude.

Stop 13 – Valley City, North Dakota

We spent four nights at Eggerts Landing, an Army Corps of Engineers maintained campground on Lake Ashtabula. Sites were large and private with nice lake breezes.

One big negative (for me) was the plethora of spiders at our site. Hundreds if not thousands! Yuck! I made a concoction of ground cloves, garlic, peppermint and tea tree oil to help keep them away.

In Valley City we visited the town museum which had dinosaur bones from a nearby dig along with some other great historical artifacts.

We also visited nearby Jamestown and explored the Frontier Village,

The world’s largest buffalo,

and went to the national buffalo museum where in addition to some great exhibits were able to view some bison grazing in the back field.

Overall, a great place to stop.

Stop 12 – Duluth, Minnesota

3 nights in the home of Bob Dylan. Although this rough city has seen better days, it still holds a certain charm.

The port is a bustling area with ships coming and going from around the world. Lake Superior and the St. Louis River offer endless water opportunities. The city appears to be making a comeback with a rejuvenated downtown area, well maintained hiking and biking paths and breweries popping up all over town.