Yesterday was a Sad, but Happy day. Our vacation had come to an end and it was time for Ms. Pat, Megabyte2 and me to head for home. I hate “goodbyes”, always have. It was sad to leave our good friends Mike and Janna. It was 450 miles home to Custer....a long, one-day trip but not enough to make it a 2 day trip. So, at the crack of dawn, as usual, we were ready to head back to the point from which we started. HOME.
I noticed it was 7:00am when we finally finished hooking up the truck and were leaving Mike and Janna’s place. What a beautiful time, of a beautiful day, to leave such a beautiful place, after a beautiful visit with beautiful friends. (Did I get enough "beautifuls" in that sentence? I don't know any other way to describe it.) The weather for this entire trip has been outstanding. We were gone for just one day short of 2 weeks and never had any bad weather days…
Here we are parked in Mike and Janna’s driveway between their house and garage.
I told Ms. Pat that we would just drive until we got tired, stop for the night somewhere and get home early Wednesday. Our stop at the Flying J in Billings for fuel was our only real stop for the day. We made a couple more stops, just briefly at a wide spot along the road for a nature call and I like to walk around the RV for an inspection check. It seemed like in no time we were in Gillette, WY. Things were rolling along so easy, I couldn’t believe what an easy trip it was.
When we turned off I-90 at Moorcroft, WY and headed for Newcastle, I felt we were almost home. I have been so impressed with this Foretravel 40’ Motorhome. The 450hp Cummins engine so effortlessly moves it along and it handles so well that I could drive it forever. I did let Ms. Pat take the wheel for a couple hours so she can stay familiar with driving this rig that looks so big but handles like a pickup truck. The powerful engine, along with the Cruise Control and automatic Allison 6 speed transmission with retarder and a tag axle make unbelievable comfort in driving it.
We pulled into our driveway and up onto our "little hill in Heaven" at 3:30pm....just in time for HAPPY HOUR!! A great happy hour it was! Finally I had fulfilled a dream of seeing Glacier National Park and more importantly, showing Ms. Pat Coeur d'Alene, ID. I had been telling her I wanted to show her what I thought was the most beautiful town I had ever seen for over 25 years. We had tried to plan a trip up to that area for 10 years or more. Something always came up that prevented it, but we finally made it. I seriously began to wonder if we would make it but I finally was able to show it to her. She now says it is the most beautiful city “she” has ever seen. I can relax now, another mission in life accomplished… Praise the Lord!
What a way to top off such a wonderful trip, with a few days at Mike and Janna’s. They showed us their area and we told them we were disappointed we hadn't seen a BEAR on the entire trip. Mike drove us up the side of a tall mountain, about 10 miles in hopes of showing us a BEAR. But no BEAR. It was ironic, too, because Janna said that when they came out of their driveway to show us where they lived the day we arrived and lead us back to their house, they had seen a big black BEAR right on their driveway. So it looked like Ms. Pat and I were BEARLESS!! The drive up the mountain wasn't a total waste, though. We unloaded our chairs and Happy Hour fixin's and enjoyed the beautiful scenery from the top of the mountain.
When we returned from the long trip down the mountain road and arrived back at their house., he said “Lets go look up in the gulches behind the house again”! Ms. Pat wanted to see a bear so bad and Mike was determined to show her one. We scoured the gulches out back and still no bear. We were turning around starting home, when Mike squinted his eyes and said “Hmmm, what's that way over there on the side of that hill? It's too dark to be deer." We all turned our eyes in that direction and at first couldn't see anything. So we looked through our camera’s telephoto lens and could see 3 little black dots....hmmm, they were moving dots.
Mike slowly drove that direction and these little dots became a lot clearer. They were definitely BEAR. Mike said “We better walk from here so we don’t scare them off." So we began walking towards the BEAR! Not one BEAR, but THREE! A mother BEAR and her two cubs. We got to a fence 2 or 3 hundred feet back and stopped quietly to watch. They had seen us but weren’t too alarmed. However, they did slowly turn away. I felt pretty safe as I felt my holster to make sure I had my new .45 Cal pistol and I knew Mike had his .44 but the last thing we wanted to do was shoot these bears. I told them that if that Momma Bear started running towards us they would see how fast a fat guy can run!:-) We stayed our distance and watched them as the cubs playfully followed their mother. Janna got some great pictures with her camera and I got a few that weren’t quite so good. But we were thrilled to have finally seen a BEAR!!! Praise the Lord again! You can see the pictures of the BEAR in the slide show below. The two best one's are Janna's......I just had my little camera and she had the better telephoto lens.....
We did so much and had so much fun that again, the best way for me to show you a little more of everything at Mike and Janna’s is to include a slide show from my Web Albums. Click on it to enlarge the pictures and go picture to picture. I wish I could tell you about each picture but I’m out of time.
Thank you so much for stopping by and thank you Father in Heaven for your many blessings,,,,,,,,,,,
It is a GREAT WEEK!!!!
Home Sweet Home!!
Mike
This Blog is Published every Wednesday and Sunday..
I noticed it was 7:00am when we finally finished hooking up the truck and were leaving Mike and Janna’s place. What a beautiful time, of a beautiful day, to leave such a beautiful place, after a beautiful visit with beautiful friends. (Did I get enough "beautifuls" in that sentence? I don't know any other way to describe it.) The weather for this entire trip has been outstanding. We were gone for just one day short of 2 weeks and never had any bad weather days…
Here we are parked in Mike and Janna’s driveway between their house and garage.
I told Ms. Pat that we would just drive until we got tired, stop for the night somewhere and get home early Wednesday. Our stop at the Flying J in Billings for fuel was our only real stop for the day. We made a couple more stops, just briefly at a wide spot along the road for a nature call and I like to walk around the RV for an inspection check. It seemed like in no time we were in Gillette, WY. Things were rolling along so easy, I couldn’t believe what an easy trip it was.
When we turned off I-90 at Moorcroft, WY and headed for Newcastle, I felt we were almost home. I have been so impressed with this Foretravel 40’ Motorhome. The 450hp Cummins engine so effortlessly moves it along and it handles so well that I could drive it forever. I did let Ms. Pat take the wheel for a couple hours so she can stay familiar with driving this rig that looks so big but handles like a pickup truck. The powerful engine, along with the Cruise Control and automatic Allison 6 speed transmission with retarder and a tag axle make unbelievable comfort in driving it.
We pulled into our driveway and up onto our "little hill in Heaven" at 3:30pm....just in time for HAPPY HOUR!! A great happy hour it was! Finally I had fulfilled a dream of seeing Glacier National Park and more importantly, showing Ms. Pat Coeur d'Alene, ID. I had been telling her I wanted to show her what I thought was the most beautiful town I had ever seen for over 25 years. We had tried to plan a trip up to that area for 10 years or more. Something always came up that prevented it, but we finally made it. I seriously began to wonder if we would make it but I finally was able to show it to her. She now says it is the most beautiful city “she” has ever seen. I can relax now, another mission in life accomplished… Praise the Lord!
What a way to top off such a wonderful trip, with a few days at Mike and Janna’s. They showed us their area and we told them we were disappointed we hadn't seen a BEAR on the entire trip. Mike drove us up the side of a tall mountain, about 10 miles in hopes of showing us a BEAR. But no BEAR. It was ironic, too, because Janna said that when they came out of their driveway to show us where they lived the day we arrived and lead us back to their house, they had seen a big black BEAR right on their driveway. So it looked like Ms. Pat and I were BEARLESS!! The drive up the mountain wasn't a total waste, though. We unloaded our chairs and Happy Hour fixin's and enjoyed the beautiful scenery from the top of the mountain.
When we returned from the long trip down the mountain road and arrived back at their house., he said “Lets go look up in the gulches behind the house again”! Ms. Pat wanted to see a bear so bad and Mike was determined to show her one. We scoured the gulches out back and still no bear. We were turning around starting home, when Mike squinted his eyes and said “Hmmm, what's that way over there on the side of that hill? It's too dark to be deer." We all turned our eyes in that direction and at first couldn't see anything. So we looked through our camera’s telephoto lens and could see 3 little black dots....hmmm, they were moving dots.
Mike slowly drove that direction and these little dots became a lot clearer. They were definitely BEAR. Mike said “We better walk from here so we don’t scare them off." So we began walking towards the BEAR! Not one BEAR, but THREE! A mother BEAR and her two cubs. We got to a fence 2 or 3 hundred feet back and stopped quietly to watch. They had seen us but weren’t too alarmed. However, they did slowly turn away. I felt pretty safe as I felt my holster to make sure I had my new .45 Cal pistol and I knew Mike had his .44 but the last thing we wanted to do was shoot these bears. I told them that if that Momma Bear started running towards us they would see how fast a fat guy can run!:-) We stayed our distance and watched them as the cubs playfully followed their mother. Janna got some great pictures with her camera and I got a few that weren’t quite so good. But we were thrilled to have finally seen a BEAR!!! Praise the Lord again! You can see the pictures of the BEAR in the slide show below. The two best one's are Janna's......I just had my little camera and she had the better telephoto lens.....
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| Mike and Janna in Big Timber, Montana Aug 2012 |
We did so much and had so much fun that again, the best way for me to show you a little more of everything at Mike and Janna’s is to include a slide show from my Web Albums. Click on it to enlarge the pictures and go picture to picture. I wish I could tell you about each picture but I’m out of time.
Thank you so much for stopping by and thank you Father in Heaven for your many blessings,,,,,,,,,,,
It is a GREAT WEEK!!!!
Home Sweet Home!!
Mike
This Blog is Published every Wednesday and Sunday..
6 comments:
I'm glad to hear you had such a wonderful vacation and are home safe. Think you're nuts to drive 450 miles in one day though. We just don't like to do that anymore. But you got home in time for Happy Hour and that is so worth the drive.
glad to hear that you had such a great vacation!..you captured some breathtaking scenery and visited some lovely friends!!..using your word of the day 'beautiful'!!
Wow, what a nice trip. But 450 miles in a day, not for me.You MUST have been riding in comfort!
Yep, I know that feeling of rolling down the highway with everything going smoothly. No point in stopping so just keep er rollin:)) Nice that you got to stop in & see Janna & Mike. I think I maybe remember you first meeting them in Bouse a few years back. Very long time since I have seen a bear & it was at a garbage dump in northern Ontario. Now, time to go out & sit on your new porch:))
Glad you guys made it home safely--really enjoyed your photos and most of all we enjoyed your visit. Lonn and LoraLee both said today they enjoyed getting to meet you guys.
Man did that go fast! Seems like you just left.
Sounds like a fabulous way to end a great two weeks...bear!
Yes, we need to thank our Heavenly Father each and every day!!!
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