A bear that says moo?

24 Aug - drove 327.6 miles (527 kms) heading north. We felt Montana had more to offer than we were seeing and the country side certainly got more Montana-ish as we travelled. Brilliant roads!. There were huge rocky craggy mountains and lots of ranches and quaint houses with high pitched roofs for winter snow. We stopped at Helena (the capital) to visit the Post Office and Bank. It got a bit cooler as we went north - very hot when we started out.. We lunched at Great Falls and camped for the night in East Glacier Village (National Park). We drove up another of THOSE roads to get there. Steep, winding, death drops on one side. Ours was the largest vehicle allowed to drive there. There had been big wash aways and we later found out they planned to close the road because it is too dangerous DOH! Of course there was another way to get there but we didn't know till we got there lol. Now this is bear country and there are warning signs all over and while I was driving - clinging to the cliff road - I saw a big black thing on the rock side of the road. Log..I thought...then it moved and I yelled out to Lee "Bear! Bear!" Then it turned around and looked at us with it's big cow eyes...yup...twas a cow. I still have my suspicions it may well have been a bear dressed as a cow though....ya never know :)

25 Aug - only 72.2 miles (116 km) today from East Glacier to West Glacier and we camped in the National Park. No electricity and no ambient light so come night time it was very very very dark. I took my pencil torch and headed off to the toilets and it was pretty scary. Bear warnings everywhere - Don't leave out food or rubbish or a bear WILL eat you :( I walked pretty fast lol - no Yogi was having me for a snack - well I would be more of a 3 course meal. A bit later Lee needed to go and off she went - was back almost immediately - was frightened mwahahah. I felt very brave after that. Lee made other arrangements in the vicinity of the back wheel. All the buildings in the villages are amazing and in some places you would swear you were in Europe.

26 Aug - big sleep in. Lee went kayaking and I finished a book in a nice shady spot. Stopped at a bear park where you drive in amongst them. They are BIG!...but they look cute.....but I know they aren't :(  Have driven 209.8 miles (337 Kms) en route to Yellowstone where we hope to end up tomorrow. I think we are in an RV Park near Hamilton - not quite sure. There is a Scottish Highlands Games here tomorrow so may have a quick look on the way out Bugs# 504

Sunday in Vancouver and more....

21 Aug - Lee went out for the day with a friend she met whilst in NZ so I just walked and walked and walked for 6 hours around downtown Vancouver and along the beach. Some nice young men playing volley ball in their DT's caught my eye and some others in Granville St doing break dancing..very clever stuff.  Caught up with Lee and Tracey later and as we were walking home we saw a skunk ....in the city!!!!  fercryingoutloud!!! I think he was lost.

22 Aug - We left Vancouver with the intention of driving to Calgary but we have had problems with money in Canada. We cant access the pre paid money on our travel cards as they are in US dollars and if you use a credit card you need a pin which Lee doesn't have. We are nearly out of  US and Canada cash so we have decided to forget Calgary and continue our US trip. Drove 371 miles (598 Km) to Kettle Falls  (Washington State) and stayed in and RV park. The van was running like a dream and then we kept hearing a weird noise and we got to thinking...NOOOO!!! NOT AGAIN!! We finally tracked down the problem...they painted the van in such a hurry they forgot to remove a long piece of masking tape on the roof of the van and it was flapping as it came loose. lol It had rained pretty heavily most of the day and as it got soggier it worked loose.  The RV park was next to a lake and we soon found out why it was so cheap....35 million mozzies lived there and they all came to visit.. we had to lock ourselves in and spray everywhere.

23 Aug - got up early and was on the road by 6.45 - big drive - 424.4 miles (683  kms) Doesn't sound a lot by Australian standards but  it's a bit different in the van. A lot of today's roads were excellent and the speed limit was 75 mph (120 kph) so we were hoofing along. Speed bunnies!! Tonight we are in an RV park in Butte Montana. We have been in 3 states today - Washington, Idaho & Montana. Montana is having problems with wild fires at the moment and we saw one and also a lot of burned grassy areas. Other than that it is dry and dusty and they could use some of the rain we had yesterday. Bugs #476

A day out in Vancouver

Went to Capilano Suspension Bridge and park . The park was wonderful. It was quite warm outside but in the park it was like a rain forest (in fact a 300 year old rain forest)  and nice and cool. We went across the suspension bridge - felt like I had my wobbly boots on lol There was also a cliff edgewalk GULP!  After lunch we booked into the YHA and went into Vancouver itself. It wasthe day of the Zombie walk and there were some hilarious costumes and a seriously good Jack Sparrow.

. After the Zombie walk we went to Granville St where they were doing street Karaoke. There were some really bad singers but the few good ones were well worth the wait. One young girl about the size of Tom Thumb was obviously an opera singer and had the most tremendous and powerful voice. She was so little I don't know where she kept it when she wasn't using it. lol.  We sat on the side of the road for over 2 hours in a nice balmy summer evening - was lovely. Went off food hunting after this and ended up over indulging in the beautiful food at a Japanese Restaurant. This is going to have to stop or I'll have a lot of excess baggage to account for  Bugs # 447

Vancouver or bust!

Vancouver is only 175 miles (281 kms)  from Seatlle but we managed to make it 200 miles and an 6 hour trip!! Went to put my glasses on at start of trip and screw had come out - drove around looking for optician to fix - found one and bought a screwdriver - back to car - lost the screw - back to optician who fixed it. Uneventful trip to to the border of Canada. It was a gorgeous day and the border area has beautiful gardens and scenery which was just as well as there was a half hour delay. Once we got into Canada it was most interesting....to add to the driving on the other side of the road dilemma we are now in a car that has a speedo in miles but Canada works on kilometers so brain is trying to do instant metric calculations. As it turns out there was no need - there was an enormous traffic hold up and it took us over an hour to do the last 20 miles - couldn't have speeded (?) if I wanted to.  The first view of Vancouver is quite awe inspiring...it's the biggest city we have seen yet and all the high rise buildings are bloody high and all look very similar. Lots of huge bridges and a beautiful harbor add to the spectacle By this time it was Friday evening peak hour and there was lots and lots and lots of cars. Our Satelite Navigator wouldn't work in Canada and we got a text from our US phone providers saying we were now on roaming and all calls would be very expensive - upshot is we couldn't use the navigators in the I Phones. Result - we got lost - very lost! Also we had no Canadian money (oversight). They won't take US $$$$'s and won't let us use our travel cards as they are loaded with $US only.  We drove around (now 4.30 pm Friday) looking for a bank. We finally found one and had to change our last cash US money into Canadian $$$'s. Not a good exchange rate. We finally found our RV park after going over the same bridge about 4 times lol. Pretty unforgiving roads here - you make a wrong turn you live with it for some time. It seems we were about 2 miles from the park originally but we turned that sucker into 20 miles mwahahaha. Once again the traffic was horrific and the drivers less accommodating than the Californian ones. We finally got settled and flaked. bugs # 431