Donuts

Two maple bacons and one apple fritter.   .....probably 3,000 calories! !!

Two Medicine Lake Hike in Glacier Park

Dick digging in!

This was one half of a bigass roast beef sandwich.  It had a delicious roll
with slow cooked roast beef covered by cheese covered by French fries!

Picture tells the story

While taking our long walk, we came upon this food cart.  Portland is famous for its many diverse food carts.

Williamate River Walk view

Today we took a long walk by the river here in Portland.   Perfect weather.

Voodoo Box

Boxes r famous

Voodoo Donuts

Standing in line for Portland's famous donuts.

Wenatchee, Washington

View from the River Walk.

Cannon Beach, Oregon

View in the other direction.

More Wenatchee

Looking across the Columbia River.

Cannon Beach, Oregon

One of the most beautiful beaches in the world.  Every year this tiny town (1,690) hosts a sand castle competition with as many as 1,000 participants turning out with their buckets and spades and their are some 10,000 spectators!

Columbia River and Pacific Ocean

This was so beautiful. It is remarkable to know that we walked where the Core of Discovery walked.

Washington hike to lighthouse

This was on way to see the mouth. of Columbia River.  I will send a picture of lighthouse later.  Along the way we waled past a gated entrance to a Coast Guard Station.  They man a spot right by the light house.  By the way this place is referred to as Cape Disappointment..."named by the early explorer Capt. John Meares, who in 1788 incorrectly interpreted the treacherous sandbars offshore to mean that, despite reports to the contrary, there was neither a major river nor any mythical Northwest Passage here."  Sure glad that Lewis and Clark came from the other direction!

Watertown Park in Canada

Prince of Wales Hotel

And the view from the hotel.

Wheat Fields

We saw so many gorgeous fields in Iowa, North Dakota, Montana and Washington.

Wenatchee River

This was taken on way to Seattle.  The river was really this color.

Wenatchee, Wa

We spent last night here. It is known as the Apple Capital of World. They an eleven mile River Walk that is beautiful. Wish we could have stayed longer

Red Bus

Here is picture I promised.

Route 66 Destination

Dick and Tom are sutra enthusiasts!

Grand Coulee Dam

Today we drove from a little east of Spokane to Wenatchee,  the Apple Capital of the world today. We stopped at the Coulee Dam pictured here. 

The scene at the end of a beautiful day

After our long hike we went to the park store and got a beverage.  I got a Belgium White beer and someone on the porch shared his cheeze-its with me.  This is the view from porch.

Lake Mary

What a beautiful time of day!  It was around 4:30 pm and we still had over an hour to go.   We learned so much today.  We are so lucky to havethis park for all of us to enjoy.

Red Bus Tour

We started this morning at 9 am on this all day tour of Glacier.  I will send u a picture later of the Red Bus.  We left East Glacier and drove over to West Glacier entrance an thos stop was at Lake McDonald, largest lake in park.

Big Horn sheep

This guy was relaxing right next to parking lot at Logan's Pass.

Glacier National Park

This is our first day in park and we saw this mountain goat.  This park is breathtaking!  We are staying at East Glacier Park. This picture was taken at Logan's Pass on a hike.

Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, Great Falls

This a wonderful place.  It was as if we had been on trip across the country with Lewis and Clark as part of their Core of Discovery.

C M RUSSELL MUSEUM

This was a fabulous museum. Charlie Russell grew up in St. Louis and then left home to become a cowhand out west.  He became a prolific painter in oils, water colors and even some pen and ink.  Also he did some sculpture.  Most of his art captured life of the old west including cowboys and Indians.  If you get to Great Falls, you must visit.

Housing in Williston

This is an example of some of the temporary housing for the oil workers.

Spill way at Lake Fort Peck

This Spillway is 1 mile long and is in process of being repaired.   Fort Peck Lake is a lake that has 1,600 miles of shoreline..,more than California, but there didn't seem to be much activity there.  Not many people live near there.

Powerhouse at Fort Peck Dam

This powerhouse generates electricity from water from Lake Fort Peck created by backing up Missouri River when an 4 mile earthen dam was built during Roosevelt's New Deal work corps from 1934-1938. We took an interesting tour of the powerhouse.  The night before this trip we spent it in Wolf Point which is the largest town in the Fort Peck indian reservation.  When we had dinner at hotel dining room the only other diners were a table of 8.  I overheard one person say something about Chapel Hill.  Dick asked them what state and they said NC! Turns out that 4 of them grew up in Burlington!   One couple bought a 1700 acre ranch near Wolf Point 8 years ago.  They live in Montana 8 months and Burlington 4 months.   Small world.

Dakota Drug Store, Stanley, ND

This and a machine identical to it were put to use at this store on 1949 and are the last Whirl-a-Whip milk shake machines in the world. They were big and delicious! Check out this link...

https://www.google.com/search?q=whirl-a-whip&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari

Then scroll down to you tube about whirl a whip.

1. 

Fracking in ND

This is what we saw in even the backroad area of ND.  Blow up this picture to see the oil pumping head to left and the flame on the right.

Rugby, ND

This is the geographical center of USA.

South Fork, ND, high water marker

This marker sat on a hill that was way above the river bank. 1997 was devastating! Grand Fork is a neat town.  It is surrounded by huge fields of wheat and sugar beets.  The sky is huge here.

Bemidji, MN

We spent several hours here today. These statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox have been here since 1938 I think.  The Mississippi River flows from its source about 34 miles before flowing into Lake Bemidgi and then flows out a much bigger river.

Standing in headwaters of the Mississippi

The river flows out of Itasca Lake.

Pretty sunflower field

As we traveled in MN on the Great River Rd. we haf to stop and take a picture.

Our room tonight

We drove from Minneapolis on Great River Road through Little Falls and Brainerd then on to the mouth of the Mississippi in Itasca State Park.  We are staying in a hostel at the park.  There r only 2 other people here.  The manager is great!  We r both on the bottom bunk.  Sweet dreams.

Minnesota Science Museum

This museum could easily take an entire day. It is right on the Great River . We had only enough time to visit the newly created and opened in June MAYA EXHIBIT.  The picture u see is some actual writings done 2000 years ago! This exhibit goes on the road in Jan 2014.

Hobo Festival activity

I loved to watch this pedal tractor pull. This little fellow won the 4 year old division. They had separate categories for each year up to 12 year olds. Just like the real pulls except for the power.

Mill City Museum notes

We went to this museum today which was all about the huge flour industry on the Mississippi.  The picture I posted was taken on the top floor of the tower in the museum.  It shows a part of the remains of the mill, the River with St. Anthony's falls that provided power for the mills' operation and the beautiful Stone Arch Bridge that we walked on yesterday at 8 pm when sun was setting. 

Later we had dinner at the famous Mickey's Dining Car in St. Paul .

Mill City Museum

Day #1

We finally left house at around 11 am...only to have to stop anout 6 miles out because I couldn't find cord to GPS.  I discovered I was sitting on it! We are on our way!!!!  

This picture should show because I just figured out a way to add.