We bought our last National Park Annual Pass last August at Bryce Canyon and it was well worth the $80. In that year, the girls started to really step up their Junior Ranger game and now we are officially hooked. We might not collect them all but we are damn well going to try. It was another no brainer to buy another pass today at Yellowstone.
We left Coeur d’Alene the day after Mila’s special day and started making our way east into Montana. Just east of town, we stopped for a bite at the little town of Kellogg. We got off of the freeway because we saw a sign for Subway but we decided to eat at Sam’s Restaurant next door instead.
Dear Mila,
TODAY YOU ARE FOUR YEARS OLD! Woohoo! And you have spent half of your birthdays in the Airstream 🙂
This year you requested a My Little Pony party. Ahem, excuse me, a PINK My Little Pony Party. And that is what you got. I hope I never forget the look in your eyes when you first woke up in the morning surrounded with pink balloons and ponies ponies ponies.
We split from the caravan and headed west from Banff in order to make our way back into the United States through the top of Idaho. Our original plan was to head over the Calgary to check it out but not having steady Internet and phone is becoming a bit of a drag. After having been with the group for the last couple of weeks and with the Works before that, it will give us a chance to spend some quality time alone for a change.
During the summer of 2012, we met a few of the folks that we are on this caravan with in Denver for the inaugural Alumafandango rally. Before we parted ways at the end of 4 days hanging out together, we decided that we should try to get together again in a year. Tiffani from Weaselmouth said to us, “Hey! What do you guys think of Banff next year?” We didn’t think much of it at the time. As you might already know, we often don’t even know where we will be next week let alone a year from now. We said, “Sure, if we are around we will try to make it.” My thought at the time was that there is about a 25% chance at best that this will happen. Well, today that chance became 100%.
The drive from Kelowna to Glacier National Park is about a 150-mile drive. Though not necessarily a long one, it takes some coordination for a bunch of Americans, most of whom have never towed a trailer in Canada before.
As we headed towards the border crossing just north of the town of Oroville, Washington, our caravan was already pretty segmented into several groups. One of the rules of traveling with this many trailers is to not all stop at the same restaurant or gas station at the same time so we don’t jam up traffic for any one location.
Last night we parked next to the Works at the Walmart in Omak, Washington. Although they have stayed at Walmarts in the past, this is not usually in their repertoire. Apparently it has been months since they have done this so thankfully last night was nice and peaceful.
We woke up at the Walmart parking lot of Mt Vernon this morning. Little did we know, Josh and Jessa have been staying at the campground right next door ever since we parted ways 3 days ago.We have been waiting for the green light to be able to drive across the North Cascades mountains as a recent landslide had taken the only road through there out of commission.
When we got back to the Airstreams in the campground at Anacortes, both of our batteries were really low. Even though we have solar panels on the roof, the thick canopy from the trees prevented from charging. We ran our generators to get them back up so we could spend last night here before heading out this morning.
So many of you might know that we are woefully behind in this blog. These posts are dating back nearly 5 months. Part of the reason is because we are clinging to the daily post format. Although we are not officially abandoning that format, but for the sake of expediting the pace as well as getting our memories documented before they escape us, we will be switching to more of a location-based posts until we are up to date. With that out of the way, enjoy reading about the rest of our time on San Juan Island.
This morning we got our tent camping gear ready and packed everything we needed for a couple of days into the van and headed to the ferry terminal. Our plan is to boat across to San Juan Island and possibly island hop for a couple of days without the Airstream. We got to the ferry terminal and found a bunch of people who also had the same idea.
