Days 1-4

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DAY 1
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We left on Wednesday, August 29, a few hours later than we had hoped, but that's to be expected with us, I guess. ;)

We count Oregon as State #1, and Washington as State #2.

Our first stop was Mount St. Helens, even though all four of us have been there before, we haven't all been there together. Bill and I went a number of years ago after we first moved to Oregon, and the boys and I went just last summer along with my parents and their friends that were visiting from New York.

Our main intent this time was to give the boys an opportunity to become Junior Rangers, which they weren't able to do last year. And? Junior Rangers in the house! Stefan actually finished his first, actually engaging in conversation with Ranger Todd and answering a few questions. The best answer to this question in his Junior Ranger booklet, "Name three things that are wrong with this picture and why," was #3: He's standing on the flowers and that kills them and that's not cool. Marek's best answer was a drawing:

We ended our day at Ike Kinswa State Park in Mossyrock, WA in campground site 85, which has a secret path behind it that leads directly to a rope swing by the lakeside trail that passes behind the whole campground. Mayfield Lake is definitely on my list to explore more next time.

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DAY 2
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A lot of driving that day. Drove through White Pass just south of Mt. Rainier and were treated to a lovely viewpoint lunch with Rainier right in front of us.

Made it to Tri-Cities and decided to try and camp at Hood Park right on the river or lake or whatever it is. I think it's the Snake River, but it's also called Walulla Lake. This is an Army Corps of Engineers campground that is only open Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend, and it's super cheap and super nice: $11 a night with electric. Potable water is only available by the gatehouse, and the gates are closed from 10pm to 6am. There are about 40 spots, but it is right on the waterfront, there is an awesome kids playground, the camping loop is great for kids biking and scootering, and the bathrooms and showers are so clean. My favorite part of staying there was the camp host who greeted and checked us in: Wray "That's Ray with a W. Why's there a W? It stands for Wonderful."

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DAY 3

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Before we left Hood Park, we stuck our map stickers on the side of Sapphire. Oh, did I mention the boys decided to name our motorhome Sapphire? Bill thought for sure they would go for a Minecraft or gaming name, but nope, Sapphire won out. Bill thinks it sounds like a stripper name, ha! So Oregon and Washington stickers made it onto the side just by the door into the back.

Next stop: a couple of store stops in Spokane to pick up hooks to hang our lights on our awning and some toilet tablets at Camping World, then Home Depot to try and replace a couple of threaded fittings Bill tightened too much on the water filter.

Then on to Coeur d'Alene!

There is a huge city park with a giant play structure that reminded me of one we saw on Kauai a few years ago, but the boys were not very keen on playing on it. Too many kids, I think they decided. It was a cool playground called Fort Sherman and had all the trappings of an awesome play fort. They were more fascinated by the Mudgy the Moose Trail that we happened upon. We couldn't follow the trail because of time limits, but they sure liked the bronze statue of the moose. It's based on a children's book by a CDA author: Mudgy and Millie by Susan Nipp.

The city park backs right up to the lake, where I snapped this shot:

We ended our day camping in Missoula, MT, and the boys were excited that we could put two more stickers on our map the next morning.

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DAY 4

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Which brings us to today!

Woke up to this. Those are Stefan feet.

As we drove through smoky haze into our campsite last night, we saw this sign just by the entrance to the campground. Too dark for a pic, so we got on this morning on our way out. Fire danger is definitely on our minds as this summer winds down. If  you can't read it, it says Extreme.

Our next planned big stop was Bozeman, MT, where we had hoped to visit the Paleontology collection at the University of Montana campus here, but sadly, we found out they are only open on weekdays when the university offices are normally open. The boys were more excited about visiting the Lewis & Clark Caverns just west of Bozeman, and boy, was it worth it! Bill has the photos on his nice camera, so I will have to get to those next time we have wifi.

Since it was so late in the day when our cavern tour finished, we decided to stay in Bozeman for the night so we can visit the Museum of the Rockies, which has its own extensive dinosaur fossil collection thanks to the efforts of Dr. Jack Horner from the university, and also so we can visit the American Computer Museum. On our way to the campground, we detoured to Montana Ale Works to pick up a growler of something good since we had emptied ours of Bill's homebrew, and then I discovered that Bozeman Brewing Company was just a few blocks away as well so we dug out a second empty growler for something else. Tonight, we sampled Montana Ale Works Amber Ale on Nitro. Tomorrow: Bozeman Brewing Company's IPA.