A'Hoy Matey!

[2009_08_30]
Today I went on a ride on a Tall Ship through Sydney Harbour. On my way to the ship I passed this huge tall ship at had just come in from South America. Can you imagine sailing from South America to Australia in this day and age?

I made it to the ship I was to sail on. It was a 1920s era ship that had been a cargo ship, then retrofitted to be a passenger ship, then retrofitted again to be sailed to Sydney as a bi-centennial re-enactment, now a tourist ship. The ship was very nice, it was in good condition. We used the onboard engine to go against the wind, then turn around, and set sail. On our way up they grilled out for us, I had (ready for this?) Shrimp on the Barbie... on a tall-ship sailing in Sydney Harbour. It was very exciting to actually be sailing on a tall ship (not just touring one docked at a museum) and to be doing it through Sydney Harbour of all places. I'll let the pictures below speak for themselves ;) Also check out the video.


Afterward I hung out around the Rocks (went to the Rocks history museum, learned a lot about the area) then took some nighttime photos of the bridge and the opera house. As it turns out a tripod would be quite useful. I made do, check out the shots below.

Friday Night Lights

[2009_09_04]
Sandy, one of the engineers that I am working with here in Australia, took me to a Rugby game on Friday night. It was my first Rugby game. It was the Tigers Vs. the Bulldogs. It was a Rugby League game (versus a Rugby Union game or an Australia Rules game).

I really didn't know much of anything about Rugby going into the stadium. Honestly I still don't know much. What I do know is that it sure is a rough game! Its similar to American Football in that the field is about the same size and there are end posts. There also are two teams fighting over a football. This is where the simularities stop. When a team has the ball, they get to have it for 6 tackles (simular to downs). A player grabs the ball and runs like mad until he's tackled. He's let back up, then he gently rolls the ball behind him and another team member picks it up and goes for it. There is no stopping the clock to regroup. No timeouts. No coach. Just the guys on the field and 4 alternates. They play 2 halves. The video I have near near the end of the first half so the players are pretty tired.

The players are able to pass the ball, but all passes must be behind the player passing. Any player may pass. So far as I can tell everyone basically plays the same roll. It is quite a fast paced an intense game! Rather than scoring touchdowns its called a 'try'. Not only do they have to cross the line, they have to control the ball onto the ground. Many times they just tackle the ball once they get into the endzone. That's worth 4 pts.

After scoring a Try, they can score a conversion. Its worth 2pts. Its a kick through the uprights. The kicker must line up where the score happened, meaning that if they scorred near the edge of the filed the kicker has to kick from the edge. He can go as far bacl from the end-zone as he want but he'd have to stay on the edge of the field. Hence its a good idea to try and score near the center. There is no trying to block a 2pt conversion.

Beam me up Scotty!

[2009_09_01]
So obviously I've been spending a lot of time near the Sydney Opera House. The other day I though I should find a show at the Opera house to go to. After all I'm here, its here... I found one that I was interested in seeing, it was a comedy, but it wasn't in the concert hall, it was in the playhouse. I figured that was good enough, it'd be a good show, I'd enjoy it. (I'll blog about that another time)

On my walk back I ran across the poster at the left. Whoa, whats that? A Star Trek poster at the Sydney Opera House? I did a double take! Its a concert of various Star Trek music through out all 11 movies! And its this coming weekend! Its in the Concert Hall! And I'm here to see it! It seemed like destiny!

So the next day I stopped by to buy a ticket. They had a couple left but they were all in a spot where the screen (showing clips of the movies while the music plays) wouldn't be viewable. What a bummer! I figured I'd take the day to decide (this was Sunday). I did my little adventure for Sunday (again, something I'll blog about later) and when I got done I decided to go purchase my ticket.... Guess what? Sold out! Major Bummer! I was really disappointed with myself for not just purchasing the ticket right away. Don't let a good thing slip by! Just go for it...

Well all day Monday I was regretting what happened. They said try stopping by an hour before the show to see if ther were any last minute cancelations. That seemed like a slim chance, even though I needed just one ticket.

Tonight (Tuesday night) I decided to call them back up and see if by some chance they had a ticket... Voila! One was available! I can't even describe how excited I am for this! Can you believe the luck? Its like destiny ;) (Let's just not discuss the cost of a once in a lifetime event like this, ok?). I've included some pictures showing where my seat will be. Its going to be good!

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay...

[2009_08_29]
Today I got my Internet up and working in the apartment, woohoo! With it I got a chance to call Anna (via Skype) before heading off to a day of adventure.

The day started off fairly early, I leave the apartment about 11am. I started walking down the hill I'm on toward the bay. I walked toward the Sydney Harbour bridge. Along the way I had some good views of the bay. This picture hardly does the view justice but in it you can see some iconic landmarks. You can see the bridge, behind it you can make out the Sydney Opera House. In the foreground you can see Luna park (an old Coney Island style amusement park).


I continued my stroll and eventually came upon the foot of the bridge. I decided to walk across, what a great experience! Its not often I that I take the time to enjoy a stroll, yet along walk over the Sydney Harbour bridge. The view just kept getting better as I walked along. All the cars rushing past seemingly ignorant of their surroundings, a shame. Walking along the bridge you can see all the iron work hat makes up the bridge, the worlds largest iron arch bridge, As I made it across, the far pylon had a museum and a lookout. I stopped in and learned a lot about the bridge and the area. Quite fascinating. It was completed in 1932.



At the other end of the bridge is an area known as 'The Rocks'. Its one of the oldest parts of the city and still has many old buildings. Its an interesting place to spend time, many shops and cafes. I stopped at the market and bought some German sausage curry. It sounded pretty iffy to me but what the heck, give it a whirl. It was actually quite good! If I had the recipe, I'd try and make it at home. I took my food down the the Circle Quay (pronounces Key). This is where the various public ferried disembark from. While sitting there this strange white birds approached. He didn't stay long, just long enough for me to snap this photo. Have you ever seen a bird like it?


After my late lunch I decided I'd head to the Taronga Zoo. It sits just North East of Circle Quay on the bay and was a 12 minute ferry ride away. It was quite a nice zoo. Its sits on a hill, thankfully they have a 'sky safari' that takes you up to the top of the hill via gondola. It was a very cool ride up to the top, though the view was great, the highlight for me was passing over the Elephant exhibit. It was quite exciting to 'fly' over a bunch of elephants! If you look closely you can see a baby elephant, he was just born here at the zoo a couple of months ago. So cute!


The zoo has a 'Wild Australia' path where you can encounter a variety of Australian animals. I saw many more that I have shown here but here's the highlights. One of the first things I saw was actually an open exhibit called a 'walkabout' where you walk in through double doors (like an aviary) but instead of bird, there are Kangaroos and Wallabies around you. I have a photo of my near them, its really neat that they have it open like this. Soon after I encountered this 'dinosaur' bird. It sure looks goofy! It looks a lot like modern mock-ups of the missing link between dinosaurs and birds. After that Koala bears, they were all high up in a Eucalyptus tree snoozing the day away but I did get to see this guy. Don't you just want to hold him? The next photo is a wombat, I think this one was rather young but I might be mistaken. He a cute little guy too. I'll spare you the rest of the animal photos but if you want to see more, the me know!




Here is another view of the Harbour I stitched together. I just find it spectacular!


On my way home I decided to take a quick walk through Luna Park. I think if I was a kid this entry way would scare me! Just look at those teeth!

New Diggs

[2009_08_28]
I thought some of you may be interested in seeing what my apartment looks like. Here are some photos!

G'Day Mate

[2009_08_27]
G'Day mate! I made it to Sydney this morning. The last leg of the journey was good but long, about 14.5 hours from Los Angles to Sydney. I flew V-Australia, I'd highly recommend them. Business class was exceptional. I had a cranberry juice before we took off. They gave me a pouch with toiletries, a face mask, and ear plugs. Soon after takeoff, dinner was served. While waiting I started a movie , they have on-demand movies right at your seat. I chose to watch 'Watchmen'. Quite an interesting movie, though in hindsight perhaps not the most appropriate to be shown on a flight. It was also 2hr50min long! I was tired so right after my meal I went to sleep. They gave me a pair of pajamas & flip-flops to wear, never had that before. The seat I had was able to lay down flat during flight and I was able to lie down for much of the flight. Very nice but I still have a hard time getting more that an hour or two worth of sleep at a stretch on a flight. All in all I rested for about 8-10 hours I think. Before I knew it, it was time for breakfast, time to finish my movie…

Once I arrived at Sydney, I had to fill out an entry form. The forms asks all sorts of questions regarding quarantined items. The last few times I went through customs I got into a bit of trouble so I am now quite conservative when it comes to what I declare. You fill out the form by checking 'yes' or 'no' to certain declarations. I made three declarations. I declared peanut granola bars as both a potentially quarantined food (all food products are subject to quarantine) as well as natural products (nuts, wood products, etc). You show the form to the first customs agent, he gives you your passport stamp, checks your VISA, etc. The guy gave a good chuckle but thanked me for declaring. I also declared anti-histamine medication as a potentially controlled substance because 'medicine' was listed in the 'may' be controlled list. Again he had a chuckle but he said sometimes people get into trouble because what's over the counter in one country isn’t legal in another. For example in Australia and New Zealand their ibroprofin typically also has codeine in it where in the US you need a prescription for it.

Once I made it through customs (what a breeze!) I went to pick-up my baggage. I was quite nervous (and I though for sure) that my checked luggage did not make it to Sydney with me. My first flight (out of Appleton) was over an hour late and I did a mad dash in Minneapolis to just get onto the next plane before it took-off. As it turns out, somehow my luggage made it on the flight too. . It turns out that my luggage was the second bag off of a full 777 flight! What are the odds of that?

After getting my baggage, I had to have my bags screened to check for quarantine items, etc. Good thing I made the declarations I did as the screening found the items in my baggage. I told them what it was their sensors had found and I was one my way.

I made it to Sydney, converted $200 US into ~$207.85 AUS. That was a bit of a rip-off but I needed Aussie cash. I tried to use my new calling card from work, no luck. After a while I did manage to get a hold of my hotel but being 8am, they didn’t have any rooms open yet. I desperately needed a shower and found a free shower at the airport. No towels or anything provided though. I shopped at the convenience store at the airport but they wanted $12 for a small towel. No way to that! I ended up using the pajamas they gave me on the flight as my towel, they worked well enough. I guess Ford Prefect was right, you should always bring a towel with you when traveling around the Universe. (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy reference for those that missed that one)

Then onto work, I took a Taxi to work. It was a whopping ~$65 ride! Yikes! We drove under the Sydney Harbour via tunnel, interesting tunnel. Most tunnels you drive through are flat, this one dives down then back up as it goes under the harbour.

Work was good, I got pretty tired by the end of the day.

I was going to stay at a hotel for the first 3 days then switch to an apartment for the rest of my 4x weeks here. It turns out the apartment was available straight away so I was able to move in there. It’s a nice place. Its like a hotel room, a bit bigger. It has a small kitchenette, a washer/dryer unit, etc. No phone or internet though! ;( That’s going to make it challenging to stay in contact with everyone!

I walked around the neighborhood a bit, there is a small underground mall down the road attached to the train station. I bought some groceries. Whoa, are they expensive here! To give an idea:
~20oz bottle of Coke - $3.50,
Quart of skim mile - $4.80

I hope all is well with everyone!

Leaving on a jet plane

8/25/2009
Long time, no update! I plan to change that soon!

Today I leave for an assignment in Australia! I'll be there for ~ 4weeks. Its a long time, I know. Poor Anna, I just had gotten back from a 2 week vacation without her and now I'm gone for another 4 weeks!

Once I get to Australia, I'll be in Sydney. For those that have asked, I've already looked for 42 Wallaby Lane, Sydney. No dice. I should be arriving at ~7am Thursday 8/27 Sydney time.

The first few nights I'll be in a hotel but after that I'll be in a short stay apartment. Its pretty exciting, I'll share pictures once I can (though I think I forgot my camera cable, we'll see what I can pull together).

The start of my travels was rough. My first flight (from Appleton to Minneapolis) departed about 1h15min late due to congestion in MPLS. Apparently one of the runways in MPLS is closed due to construction. It sure was a mad dash from B-terminal to G-terminal! Even after the tram, there was quite a bit of hiking to make it. My second leg was running about 10minutes late, good thing too because I needed every minute of it. I made it onbaord, whew! Needless to say, no time to grab any food ;( Just peanuts on the flight.

Now I'm in the V-Australia lounge at LAX, its 12:30pm at home, 10:30pm local. They've got drinks and some veggies, hopefully there is a meal on the flight ;) The next flight is ~14.5 hrs long, should be exciting. I'm hoping to catch some Zzzs but I have a poor track record of that on flights.

Talk to you all later! Have a great day!
-Terry

A Tale of a Milling Machine

[11/25/08]
A friend of mine from work, Mark Panzer, recently purchased a milling machine. For those that don't know what one is, check out these links: Wikipedia, American Machine Tools.
It a very versatile tool for machining metal (as well as other materials for that matter.)

Well a Mill is a very large piece of equipment. This one is about 2500lbs. So you can't just throw it in the trunk, or on the bed of a pickup for that matter! Mark being the engineer he is, planned out how to transport it. After days of searching for the perfect trailer, we went to a backup plan of renting a 10,000lbs fork lift. Fortunately for all involved, he was able to find the perfect trailer at the last minute.

Mike Schmitt and I took the day off to help Mark move his new toy. Plus Mike got to put is new truck to some good use ;) Mark decided to put the Mill in my garage since I had 220 and space available. Getting it there though, not simple.

Mark was able to find a rental place that would rent him a hydraulic trailer. The trailer is fantastic.
The center of the trailer lowers to the ground. It is basically flat on the ground with about a 1 inch incline. This was perfect because though we had a fork lift to load the Mill onto the trailer when we went to pick it up, we planned to use a pallet jack to unload it.

First we picked up the pallet jack. Ironically renting the pallet jack cost more than the trailer... Odd but not unreasonable.

Once we picked up the trailer (another rental place), we drove to out pick-up spot. lowered the trailer, put the pallet jack on (thinking ahead on this one, if the pallet jack wasn't under the Mill from the get go, how would we unload it at our destination?).

Everything went smoothly. The guy selling the Mill loaded the Mill on the trailer with a fork lift quite easily. Unfortunately the width of the base of the mill was far to narrow in that orientation to be stable (full weight on the pallet jack). Off came the Mill. We reloaded it after turning the Mill on the forklift. Perfect fit! Tie strap it down and away we go.

We almost made it back to my house without any issues. Mark was anxious the whole trip back, and rightfully so, we're towing a 2500lbs Mill that's fairly top heavy. After stopping and checking the straps were still tight, Mark kept a close eye on our payload. About 3/4 of the trip home Mark thought one of the straps was tearing. I thought he was being paranoid. We stopped to check it out. Sure enough, one of the straps had been cut through about 1/2 way. It was rubbing up against on of the glides on the Mill and that edge was razor sharp. Good eye Mark!

Once we got back to my place, drove across the lawn to get to the back garage and backed up the trailer. We were able to lower the trailer and jack up the front end of the trailer to level out the trailer. After some very tippy moments, and a sledge hammer, we were able to re-balance the Mill on the pallet jack. Then Mark and Mike were able to slowly pull the Mill off the end of the trailer and into the garage. They used 4x4's as fail safes in case they had to lower the jack suddenly. It worked out quite well.

After some huffing and puffing, the Mill found its new home. Congrats Mark on the new toy!

2008_11_25_MillingMachine

Goodbye Cable!

[8/8/08]
Last night I installed our new UHF Antenna. I've spent weeks planning on installing it on the roof. My main trouble with that wasn't getting it working on the roof, it was figuring out how to ground it to protect us from lightning damage. That's a whole discussion in and of itself!
I finally *tried* the Antenna just sitting in the attic. I have received a couple of channels so it was promising. It looked like we'd need a Pre-Amplifier though to strengthen the signal.
Last night I mounted the mast to the rafters on the attic using U-Bolts. This was pretty straightforward but it sure it hot up there! After mounting the Antenna to the mast, wiring the cable down to our cable distribution point, cutting the cable to length, and putting on a new connector, we had Free HDTV! Take a look at the list of channels below!

Base Cost:
$29.99 - UHF 75Mile Directional Antenna (Radio Shack)
$12.99 - 5' Mast/pole (Radio Shack)
$6.99 - 75-300 Ohm Matching Transformer (Radio Shack)
$3.58 - 1.25" U Bolts (True Value Hardware)
Total ~$56.25 (with tax)

Accessories (stuff you may already have or can borrow):
$54.99 - 100' of RJ6 Coax Cable (I have ~80' left...) (Radio Shack)
$19.99 - Crimp tool (to put Cable connectors on) (Radio Shack)
$5.49 - 10 pack of connectors (I have 9 remaining) (Radio Shack)
Total ~$84.50 (with tax)
P.S. I'm selling RJ6 cable at 55 cents/ft if anyone needs it ;)
Also if you need to borrow my crimp tool, let me know

True out of pocket $140.75

HD Channels that we receive:
2.1 - WBAY-HD [ABC]
2.2 - WBAY (Weather)
2.3 - WBAYRTN [Retro Television Network]
5.1 - WFRV-HD [CBS]
11.1 - WLUK-HD [Fox]
14.1 - WIWB-HD [The CW, formally The WB]
26.1 - WGBA-HD [NBC]
32.1 - WACY-DT [My New 32, formally UPN]
38.1 - WPT1 [Wisconsin Public Television]
38.2 - WPT2
38.3 - WPT3
38.4 - WPT4
38.5 - WPNE-HD

Return on Investment Analysis:
$122.10 - Old Monthly Cable bill (Cable + DVR + Internet)
$40.90 - New Montly Internet Bill (internet only, 12 mo special promo)
$81.29/mo savings

So in less than two months we'll have already paid for all our expenses via our montly savings!

There's no place like home!

[July 18]
We made it back home! The house is still here! Thanks BellCorelli's for taking care of the place! Another big thanks to our neighbors, the Debruins, for mowing our lawn.

For those who are interested, here is some quick facts about out trip.

FUEL SUMMARY
Most paid per gallon: $4.36 (Yellowstone, Canyon Village)
Least paid per gallon: $3.84 (Albert, MN)
Most paid at pump: $60.67
Most Miles between stops: 290.5
Least Miles between stops: 43
Avg Miles Per Day: 323.77
Most Miles In A Day: 913
Overall MPG: 18.004
Total Spent On Gas: $956.21
Total Miles Driven: 4209
Total Gallons of Gas: 233.78

LODGING SUMMARY
6-Jul - Comfort Inn --Brandon, SD
7-Jul - KOA -- Devils Tower, WY
8-Jul - Xanterra-Canyon -- YNP
Jul 9-Jul 11 - Xanterra-Bridge Bay -- YNP
Jul 12-Jul 13 - Xanterra-Canyon -- YNP
14-Jul - Econo Lodge -- Missoula, MT
15-Jul - Glacier -- GNP
16-Jul - AmericInn -- Dickinson, ND
17-Jul - Morris City Park -- Morris, MN

Sore Butts

[July 16]
This morning we thought we’d get up early and go white water rafting. Unfortunately it was raining when we went to get up. We hemmed and hawed about whether we should go but decided to skip rafting. After a long run of great weather, the rain man finally caught up with us.

We listened to the Park Ranger’s suggestion and went to a the KOA outside the park for showers, for a service fee ;) It was a great campground, like all KOAs.

Once we got all ready to go, we punched in new destination in the GPS… home! Hello Highway 2… Oh Highway 2, the bane of our existence for the next umpteen hours… The route is flat, barren, straight… The towns are far and few between. Each time we got near ½ tank we got gas, just to be safe. Turns out that is a good idea we got from Grandpa, thanks!

Funny story, our GPS updates us for *every* turn we need to make and any intersection it feels isn’t 100% clear. As we were going through a town it said, “turn left on Main Street, drive straight for 324 miles on Main St.” Yikes, 324 miles on a 2-lane highway without a turn or anything notable! It became the running joke. We like Main Streets ;)

In Chester, MT we saw some old cars along the side of the road for sale. We stopped and looked at the cars. The owner came out to talk to us and showed us his favorite, his sweet Red 1942 Ford Super Deluxe Coupe… Oh, what a sweet car! A mere $25k and it could be ours! It seemed like fate. Its Red, Terry’s favorite color, it’s a ’42, Terry’s favorite number, a Ford, Terry’s favorite brand, and a coupe that’d look awesome pulling the teardrop. Plus get gets 20 MPG! More than we’re getting pulling the trailer ;) We passed on the car, maybe we’ll build one ourselves. Anyone know of one in need of restoration? Or maybe a kit? Or does anyone got $25k they’d like to donate to a good cause?

Further down the road we got stuck on Montana’s only hill for ~100 miles behind truck painting lines on the road going 5mph… What are the odds?

Today’s tagline? Sore butts! Our goal, get the heck out of Montana.

Success, we've made it to Dickinson North Dakota.

Of Billy Goats and Anna

[July 15]
Good morning Missoula! As we were packing back up we were watching George Bush’s press conference. I don’t know why it’s on at 8-9am on a weekday, who can watch that, but we watched it and almost missed breakfast. We made it in time for the continental breakfast and everyone was watching it in the lounge too, so we kept watching it. We’ll spare the politics but it was interesting watching the president take questions and listening to his views on current issues.

Across the road from our hotel was a RV Super Center. We’ve seen a lot of interesting rigs at the various campgrounds so we decided to stop in and see what they have. In particular we looked at some Airstream trailers. They were *very* nice! We only looked at the weight of the small one, no prices (we still want to be able to dream!). We’ve got some friends, Craig and Jane, who have an Airstream and they are sure happy with theirs. We focused on looking at Smaller Class B/C motorhomes. We looked at 23 and 24 foot models. They’re like large conversion vans. We really liked the Itasca and Itasca IQ Models. In fact we took the latter for a test drive! It’s a mere 6 figures so, you know, pocket change right? After we got back the salesman asked if we should pull up to the sales office. I replied “only if you have a winning lottery ticket sitting there for us”. A lot of people buy things like Motor homes in Montana because there is no sales tax. I guess you setup a L.L.C…

We hit the road, on our way to Glacier National Park. 50,000 casinos later we arrived in Kalispell. Apparently Casinos are a dime a dozen here, most gas stations have casinos lounges build right in them. We got hungry, so we popped into a Taco Johns followed by Dairy Queen. When we were in the drive through for DQ, Terry’s Grandpa called. He said he was waiting for us on the corner of Highway 93 and 2 at the Exxon. He said we’d have to make that turn to go to Glacier. Our call ended, we got our DQ treats and looked. We were already at the corner of 93 and 2! No Exxon station to be found. We drove down HWY 2 one way and didn’t see one. We drove the other way and didn’t see one either. We tried to call Grandpa back, no luck, straight to voicemail. We thought maybe he was sitting at a corner where it said ‘To 93’ and 2 instead. We looked up the nearest Exxon in our GPS and drove to it. It was on the way to Glacier. Sure enough we see an Exxon on a corner ~15 miles out of town. Who’s there? It’s Grandpa. We stopped and chatted for a while. He’s looking good. He’s excited and raring to get on his way to Alaska. He’s already planning his next trip… To Arizona. He’s doing a circle of the states in alphabetical order. We think its going to be tricky to get that motor home to Hawaii. It sure was cool to meet up with Grandpa in Montana of all places!

After parting ways with Grandpa, we headed to Glacier (He had just left Glacier). It wasn’t too long before we entered West Glacier. It a mix of a town and the National Park. We drove around for quite a while looking for a parking spot. No luck. Strange layout, it’s a National Park with no real RV parking! Quite frustrating with a trailer. Anyway, Anna got dropped off at the visitor center and Terry drove around in search of a parking spot. Voila, back into a boat trailer spot…

The Park Ranger we spoke with was pretty grumpy and not terribly helpful. He must have been having a bad day? What we did find out was that most people intentionally don’t stay in the campgrounds in the park because they don’t have any shower accommodations. Strange that they don’t pick up on that and put in some facilities like Yellowstone. We also found out about the 21 foot rule. Only vehicles 21foot and shorter can go on the “Going-to-the-Sun Road” so we can’t take the trailer over. We decided to claim a spot at Apgar Campground just inside the park. Basically we drove around, found an open site, parked the teardrop in it, and then filled out a form for the site. It was about 5:30pm and Terry decided to head up and over the Going-to-the-Sun Road. The drive up was great. There was construction going on so we had to stop and wait for a pilot car to take us down the one-lane sections but we got to stop and see the view while we waited.

We crossed the 3 arch stone bridge. This was quite impressive to see. Amazing feat built in 1933! The roadway is amazing, the road edge stops and then thousands of feet drown below. Crazy scary riding in the passenger seat! The views of the valleys and the glacier carved sides of the mountains is just spectacular. Terry could just sit there all day taking it in.

We made it up past Logan pass. This part of the route had just opened a couple of weeks earlier, before that there was too much snow to have the road open! The visitor center up at the top had just closed for the day so we walked around outside. We decided to forgo the 1.5 mile hike to Hidden Lake since it was very much snow covered, steep, and getting late. Maybe next time ;). We pushed on to Jackson Glacier overlook and got to see one of the last remaining glaciers in Glacier Park! It was very small. By 2030 it’s projected that *all* the Glaciers in the park will be gone. That’s sad. Only 2 Glaciers in the world are growing, they’re in New Zealand and Terry has been fortunate enough to see them (even get helicopter lifted to hike on one of them!)

Our return trip back over the pass was much more notable. We stopped just past the visitor center at Logan pass to do a little walk that we didn’t do on the way up. Anna walked ahead and started to walk up the stairs. She was looking down at a pair of Men’s Hanes Tube socks, wondering what a new pair of socks is doing there. Terry calls out and says “Watch Out!” Anna looks up and and made eye contact, she’s staring right at a big Billy Goat heading right for her, not even 10 feet away. It was heading down the short set of steps that Anna was heading up. She immediately started heading back to the car. The Billy Goat kept after her, not charging or anything but obviously intent on intercepting her. Terry stood by the car photographing the billy goat in awe at the whole scene. Anna ran right to the car and jumped in. Terry stayed out. A bunch a young goats showed up with several more adults. It was obvious the first billy goat (Anna Chaser) was protecting the group and making room for the rest. It successfully displaced both Anna and Terry into the car. It got so close, it nearly brushed against the car. Really cool.

Some other people showed up to check out the spectacle. Just then someone spotted something behind us up the road, Terry opened up the moon roof on the car and stood up through it. It was a group of about a dozen Big Horn Sheep running down the road. Straight for us, in quite a hurry to. It was awesome to see them running toward us. Then we realized they really weren’t slowing down. Just as they got to us they slowed down and lingered and played within 10-15 feet of us. Just amazing. They played and butted heads. Then they ran off. Again there was 1-2 ‘guards’ that made room for the others. As the others left, one stood in the road intentionally blocking cars to let the rest run back up the road. A car tried to pass and the big one tried to block the car -- Unsuccessfully. It ran up along side the car, up the snow along side the road then jumped out in front of the car further up the hill. We thought for sure the car was going to hit it. Whew, collision averted. What a sight!

We drove on. Further down the road we came across the weeping wall. It’s a long wall that the road was cut out of. A large amount of water pours down the side, like a 300’ long waterfall along the road. We rolled down the windows and left the moon roof open. We got wet! That was awesome ;)

We stopped at some waterfalls and to see the sun starting to set over Lake MacDonald before we got back to out campsite. We had some sandwiches in the dark in the car, then time for some Zzzzs. It’s been a full day!

Farewell Yellowstone

[July 14]
Today is the day we leave Yellowstone. We’ve had six nights here (ok 5.5 really). We woke up and headed straight to do laundry… They had facilities right at the campground. After the laundry, he drove up past T. Roosevelt Lodge, past Mammoth, and out the North Entrance of Yellowstone. We got to drive through the Theodore Roosevelt Arch (They were building it when he rode through on his tour of the park. He laid the corner stone). It was a little weird getting out of the park and seeing a regular town again.

We drove along the Yellowstone River Valley in Montana for a while. A very pretty valley. On our drive the landscape turned from lush forest to a dryer landscape without a lot of trees. We saw lots of ranches.

Our next stop was in “Downtown Trendy Bozeman” Montana. It’s a bigger city than we were expecting it to be. Downtown was a happening place, but seemly quite hoity. Supposedly a lot of movie stars hang out there but we didn’t see any.

As we were leaving we decided we needed to get an oil change. We stopped at a Jiffy Lube and where shocked by their $40 price (and that we would need to disconnect the trailer). We decided to try somewhere else. It turns out that the normal price for oil changes here is $40-45 for a standard car… Little did we know that we were just starting to learn about the high prices in Montana…

One more stop, a quick visit to McD’s at Wal-Mart… Well we have re-enforced our distain for Wal-Mart, even though it was really McD’s that was bad this time. We had McNuggets. Super dry, yeech.

We pushed on and made it to Missoula. We decided to stay at a motel for the night, to get cleaned up better and hopefully find a pool ;) We stopped at several hotels, going rate was $145+ after AAA discount! Yikes! More high prices in Montana. We kept looking around and found a much more reasonably priced Econolodge. As soon as we checked in we headed out for Pizza. We stopped at Mackenzie River Pizza Company. Wow, this was great. We had a 50/50 pizza, half was a Taco Pizza, the other half a Hot Hawaiian. The toppings were fantastic; the taco side was our favorite. It was on a scrumptious sour dough crust with blue corn chips as one of the toppings, yum! We’d definitely eat there again.

Now before everyone thinks that all we did was eat out, so far we have had two loafs worth of sandwiches, packages of summer sausage, salami, and ham. Lots of beef sticks and some cheese curds from back home. Lets not even talk about the tubes of Pringles and Herseys bars…

When we got back to the hotel, we hit the hot tub. It didn’t satisfy the desire for a swimming pool but it was still great.