What I Did on My Summer Vacation

I drove 6,000 miles. I had a car in Olalla, WA (across the sound from Seattle) and had to go get it. Steve and i picked it up and drove through Washington, Oregon and eastern Nevada to Arizona to visit our daughter and her family.

We celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary with them at a beautiful spot in the canyons of Northern Arizona (pics will be posted). Then up through Utah, a corner of Idaho and Oregon and back across Washington to Seattle.
Steve flew back for work and my mom and i drove around Washington and southern British Colombia for a few days, then i hugged Mombo in Vancouver and drove up the highway home by myself, the last 1,500 of those 6000 miles.

That was interesting.

Kept to myself more than I thought I would and I also didn't have much energy by that time so i didn't have a whole lot of gumption to do anything but head for home.
I traveled the Alaska Highway to Prince George and then I went west to the Cassiar Highway. The Cassiar is 800 miles, mostly paved and pretty remote. There's one stretch for a couple hundred miles that has no services, phones, gas stations.
Indeed, there were only four gas stations open in the entire 800 miles and two of those were at each end. I saw six cars and eight semi-trucks...that's it (on the Cassiar)British Columbia is big and beautiful, and I live in Alaska so I know big and beautiful. Go there if you ever get the chance.

I drove with a herd of horses, first thing in the morning! No kidding. I stopped at a campground about 12:30 am and slept in the car till 5 am. I got up and peed in the woods, stretched, rubbed my eyes and got in the car - "I need coffee!" - and took off.
Dawn had not yet come so it was still sort of dark. I was pulling out onto the highway and a huge horse jumped out in front of me, then another, another, until i was surrounded by an entire herd, just trotting along. They weren't wild, I could hear their bells. it was crazy and a little bit scary, they were bigger than my car! Amazing, they were beautiful.

So i'm cruisin down the highway, still trippin over the horses, sun's up, I see a "Watch for Livestock" and chuckle since my day started with livestock...in a big way!
Anyway, I come around a curve and there in the middle of the road is a llama. No, I am not kidding. No shit it was a llama. That wasn't the animal I expected to see. Next was a herd of cows and then I didn't see anymore livestock...but I saw seven bears, three at one place and the other four all separately! two were cubs standing on their hind legs playing. It was sooooo cute. By the time I backed up to shoot them they were gone so alas...no pics. luckily i got some video of the first one or nobody would believe me...it still sounds like a bit of a fish story, eh?

Wrote our names in the rocks outside of Whitehorse. There's a stretch of highway where people have been adding names and it now stretches about thirty or forty miles. So I stopped and added my bit of stones.It was a big trip...

This Exciting Life