www.weather.com/science/nature/video/gray-wolf-howls-at-car-in-yellowstone-national-park

I hope he howls at me too 🙂 I was just checking weather and video caught my eye, went to sleep early last night and plan to hit road at 6 and get to Yellowstone at 10ish !!!

Hey. Only 3 minutes to go on dryer (how could I pass up this place after reading reviews!) then I head to hotel to check in. Hilton app said I got a free upgrade to River View! Avocado toast and coffee for dinner. It is 4 hour drive to Yellowstone tomorrow so I Must get to bed early so probably won’t do much posting of todays Spokane-Coeur d’laixn-St. Regis-Missoula journey.

I forgot that I would drive across a time zone and lose an hour so I made only a 10 minute visit to the Fort Missoula Historical Site 🙂

Solid 8 hours of sleep at the Hampton Inn, Spokane Valley. Did 30 minutes on bike and some Yoga/weights in gym. Listened to a Yellowstone 2022 podcast. This is the 150th anniversary of Yellowstone! First National Park in the World when designated by President Grant in 1872. The podcast was 90 minutes but 30 were the guy pushing his guidebook and YouTube channel and 30 minutes about how to avoid crowds. No crowds likely for me. Park only opened April 15 and many trails likely closed for snow still. Did get good tips on how to slowly drive car, and honk, to get thru any Bison herds on roads. He has another ONE day guide to Yellowstone that i will also listen to. I have 48 hours there so should be able to see everything currently accessible. Enjoying healthy breakfast (no hiking today so don’t need fuel) now. Will visit Coeur d’Alene, Idaho (kids must spend all of kindergarten learning to spell it) and then onto Missoula, Montana. I am still reading my surfing book “Barbarian Days” and there is a bit in there about Missoula. The Univ. of Montana is one of the best MFA in creative writing programs, has many famous writer, poet, musician, actor alumnae.

I think today was my longest planned drive. 420 miles made longer time wise as first 100 miles mostly just 2 lane roads. 10:30 am to 6:30 pm. Didn’t rush and stopped for lunch, short breaks and some photos but mostly just dashcam shots. If was REALLY living the van life would have stopped at a petrified forest state park and maybe the Grand Coolie dam and would have hiked up to the Wild Horses Monument.

I have NEVER forgotten watching the filmstrip in elementary school of the brand new Tacoma Narrows Bridge swaying and then crumbling in 1940. Somehow a windy day produced oscillations that grew and grew. Engineers don’t allow that anymore 🙂

And BOOM! It is almost 10:30pm. Staying at a Hampton Inn tonight here. Campsites last 2 nights did NOT have showers so I took a hot bath and tomorrow will shave, don’t want to grow the beard again like in Tanzania.

Slept blissfully until 6am, it was still drizzling a little so I went back to sleep. When I woke again at 7:30 it was sunny! Forest soooo green and shiny. Silent except for bird sounds and water dripping. As soon as I stepped outside and took a photo of moss I was joined by 3 birds I didn’t recognize. ….. blogging was interrupted (pleasantly) by a request from Alex to help with their Europe planning. They and their friend Laura have decided to rent a camper van in Iceland (like Alex and I did last year) rather than AirBnBs 🙂 … the birds, I used my iNaturalist app to load in a photo and they are Canada Jays. They are also called Lumberjack birds and Camp robbers because they don’t fear humans and boldly beg for or steal food. I saw a bald Eagle flying while driving yesterday and several other birds I still need to identify and then load into my Cornell Ornithology app. Good news! I discovered that by using the media tool I can bulk add photos to WordPress when I have good signal and then can add more easily to blogs. Here are this mornings. Driving to Spokane today. ❤️

FaceTime!

Here are some photos from Saturday in Olympic National Park. It is 11pm Sunday night now, I dozed off for a few hours while reading my kindle after dinner. The sound of rain on the Van is pure tranquility. I was planning to put top down to sleep tonight anyone since there is still a little snow here at 2000 ft. I spent a while editing and thinning photos so will save Saturdays “journal entry” until Morning. And …. 20 minutes later I am exhausted. On iPhone app each photo has to be separately added to blog post….. goodnight 🙂

I still owe my notes and photos from Saturday but as sunny now going to hike Ruby Beach and then head east to see a waterfall I didn’t have time for yesterday. Slept in the pop top last night which was great, like a treehouse and the bed up there softer than the fold out downstairs.

Long, amazing first day of Adventure. Details to follow but went from snowy mountain to rain forest to Pacific Ocean beach. Saw a black tailed deer and two groups of Elks! Bedtime under tall trees with so many stars visible and only sound the crashing waves.