Making it into Canada

Because Lucian and Sequoia’s school started earlier than the other kids we had to get them back sooner. We planned to meet Justin in Twin Falls, Idaho and give him the boys. Then we were to meet Bekki’s parents in Boise where we would pick up Emilio. Then onto Oregon City where we would pick up Zoey and Fynn, arriving in Canada after that. All of this, we anticipated, was a 2-day drive.

As we were preparing to leave Yellowstone we realized that the water pump in the RV had gone out. Fortunately, Dale has switched these out before, and there was a large RV store in Twin Falls. We told Justin to meet us at the shop where we bought the new pump. We all ate lunch in the RV, gave Justin his boys and we went our separate ways after Dale installed the new one.

We made it to Oregon City by Saturday mid-morning, meeting Clayton and Jen at the park. They brought pizza and a ton of food for our trip. Jen always makes sure that everyone has lots of food.

On our way to Canada

Kids played while Dale and I repacked the RV for this 2^nd part of the grandkids trip. I made sure that passports and consent letters were all together, along with all of my immigration paperwork.

6 hours later we were at the Canada border. We thought that it would be best to go over at the Peace Arch, even though it was so busy, with over 1-hour wait. I already knew I’d need to go thru 2 interviews so it was no surprise to go into the immigration office after going thru the border check.

Canada, our new country

The immigration interview can be difficult, at least according to info from the various websites. But, I’d watched an interview with an immigration attorney so was quite prepared. My interview was quite easy and the officer was really nice and helpful. She did ask again if I’d ever been convicted of a crime anywhere in the world, this is after going thru 2 FBI checks. I answered no, she signed my immigration papers and welcomed me to Canada as a new permanent resident! All of the years of planning and work, it really happened!

Our next huge concern was getting over to Vancouver Island. We had an hour drive to the ferry and were certain we’d miss the last one to Victoria. Sure enough, when we got to the ferry building the last ferry to Victoria, we did see, however, that there was still a ferry to Nanaimo. This meant a 1-1/2 hour drive down to Victoria, but we’d keep our campsite and could still do what we wanted to do in Victoria.

We got onto the ferry to Nanaimo. Poor kids were so tired and fell sound asleep. Our big mistake was not taking them into the truck to sleep, instead, we let them sleep in the lounge. Then trying to wake the kids, get them into the truck and get off the ferry quickly was a real challenge.

1st Ferry ride for these kiddos

We made it to Victoria by 2 am, set up our RV and fell into bed.

Yellowstone Day #2

 The plan for today was made around the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center, as we needed to be there for the 3:30 pm food hiding session. This worked out well as we always take the grandkids out for 1 nice breakfast so we headed to Yellowstone for breakfast at the Old Faithful Inn.  

Grandkids were on their best behavior, sitting up straight, napkins on the lap, using the flatware properly, no elbows on the table. Each kid acted as the etiquette police on the others.

From breakfast 2 kids got the Jr. Ranger badges then watched Old Faithful and finished off with ice cream, this time from the Old Faithful Inn. We sat on the balcony eating our ice cream like we did with the older grandkids many years ago. After one last eruption from Old Faithful, we had to get back to West Yellowstone for the bears.

The bear feeding does not include giving food directly to the bears. The staff clears the bears out of the enclosure, into another separate cage. The bears are separated from the kids and staff by 3-200 lb metal doors.

The outdoor enclosure is quite large. There is a ditch between the visitors and the bear habitat. Then after an area of grass, there are rocks, not large rocks but probably up to 1’ in diameter. The rocks are piled up several feet deep, in the area about 4’ across and 60’ long. Behind the rocks are plants and grass.

The bears were cleared out of the enclosure and then kids, in a line, followed the staff into the main enclosure. Kids were given apples to throw into a pond. Then each kid was given a bucket with special food that kids described looking like dog food. They were told to bury the food under the rocks, with bigger kids helping the smaller ones when they finished.

Our 3 kids were most interested in trying to make it as difficult as possible for the bear to find the food. This meant finding the heaviest rocks to pile on the food. Sequoia and Zaya worked together while Lucian worked alone. They were certain that the bear would not find or access their food quickly.

Kids were let out of the enclosure and we all stood on a viewing deck to watch as one bear came out. The bear went straight to Lucian’s cache, tossing the rocks aside as if they were pebbles. She found the food and stuffed it down. Then she went to Zaya and Sequoias, again tossing the rocks aside with little to no effort. The kids couldn’t believe it, they’d worked so hard to hide everything but the bear, with no effort, found everything.

We visited the wolves and raptors once more, then said goodbye to Yellowstone.

We did not encounter wild animals inside of Yellowstone, but Dale and I were fine with that. The animals can cause huge delays and with grandkids, we were concerned about safety. The Discovery Center gave them a wildlife experience in a safe environment.

A Close Encounter with a Bison

A Day at Yellowstone

We did not wake up early, rarely do on these trips, but, figured we’d make it to everything in the two days we had in the area.

We started at the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center www.grizzlydiscoveryctr.org because it was close by and we wanted to see what was offered. The kids had to visit the animals right away and we signed the kids up for the Bear food hiding for 3:30 on Thursday. The wolf pups were out so we were all happy to see them. We drove on to Yellowstone.

14-Week old wolf pup

The kids mainly wanted to see Old Faithful so that is where we headed. On the way to Old Faithful there are plenty of areas of fumaroles, kids went wild seeing them. The wildflowers with the fumaroles in the background were so beautiful.

We finally made it to Old Faithful and Dale dropped us off at the Visitor’s Center. While Dale parked we picked up the Jr. Ranger books and headed out to see Old Faithful Erupt. As we waited, a ranger came along and gave a talk on the Super Volcano, Old Faithful, and the local environment. He told us why people should stay out of the roped-off areas; ie: the crust has taken several hundred years to form and the water has various minerals in it.

Old Faithful

 Kids looked out for rule offenders and started warning people after the ranger talk; “the water is dangerous” “don’t damage the crust”. Finally, I told them to just let the rangers get after people, there were too many disregarding the signs. But kids were still discussing between themselves when someone would disobey the signs.

We bought ice cream and 4 of us sat down on logs out of the sun. Lucian didn’t join us as he found a table with 1 chair for himself inside the lodge.

On the way back to the RV we took a leisurely walk around the Lower Geyser Basin. There are several geysers located close together that erupt at the same time, mud pots and beautiful pools of water. I had a wonderful time shooting photos and kids were amazed by the sights.

Locked Out But Lucked Out

We had a 14-hour drive to West Yellowstone, our next stop, and had paid for a campsite that we couldn’t cancel. But, after letting kids swim on Monday morning, shopping at Trader Joe’s and Costco, we got a late start. That meant driving not so far as we’d hoped on Monday and arriving later on Tuesday.

We finally got into West Yellowstone just before the RV park office closed on Tuesday. I ran into the office with my wallet while Dale stayed in the truck with the kids.

As luck would have it, Dale let kids out to play at the playground next to the office and he then got out of the truck. A bag of mixed nuts fell out of his door so he went to retrieve it and as he did that, shut his door which promptly locked all doors. This, of course, meant that both sets of keys were locked inside.

We called AAA right away and they said they would send someone out. The office also suggested calling the local police as they might provide some help. The office gave us bottles of water and offered to get us dinner if we would need it.

After we waited for nearly 45 minutes with no response from AAA I called them to see what we could find out. Then, after waiting another 15 minutes on hold, we gave up and called the local police who recommended a local (1/2 hour away) locksmith.

I called the locksmith and he said he would come right away. By this time it was getting dark and cold. We could see our sweatshirts thru the windows.

The locksmith came within ½ hour and opened the door for us. We chatted as he worked and he said that this was his evening job, he worked at a non-profit animal rescue center during the day. As we walked to his truck he reminded us of the rescue center and said that the kids would enjoy it. He gave us a brochure and went on his way.

We got into the truck with the kids and I looked at the brochure. There were bears, wolfs and birds to be seen. There was a bear feeding time in which kids could participate in hiding the food. All of this 2-blocks away from our campsite and we would have missed out if we would not have met the locksmith. What great luck!

A Elegant Stay in Reno

The grandkids love the Peppermill in Reno. They love the Tower rooms, the café, the buffet, and the pools. When we are going thru Reno at the beginning of a trip, they all clamor to stay one night there. This was no exception.

We pulled into the Peppermill parking lot, as we have many times before and found a place to park our RV and truck. We all got out of the truck and were going to pack up an overnight bag quickly and hopefully check in early so that kids could start swimming.

As we were walking to the RV security came over and told us we could not park there, or in any of their lots. We were thrown off guard, we’d always parked in their lot, and besides, we were parked next to another RV.

Well, it turns out we were there on “Hot August Nights” a huge classic car meet that occurs in all of Reno. We were really angry at first because they gave us no options, but then we had to realize that security was only doing their job.

As we waited for the manager, we were talking with the security woman and it turns out that she grew up fairly close to our city. She then said that we should park on the street right by the lot, that security would be checking the street that night. She also pointed out which spot would likely be the safest.

We re-parked the RV/truck, packed out bags and went off for some fun.

An elegant breakfast

The 3 kids swam to their hearts desire, watched TV while bathing, and felt very glamorous.

A Stop At Lassen National Park

We had to leave early Saturday morning for the official start of the grandkids trip. We drove away from Long Ranch at 7 a.m. and headed for Redding to meet up with our grandsons.

We met our grandsons’ mom and had a nice visit with her. We were happy to see our grandsons as well, as we had not seen them for a few weeks.

Our plan had changed slightly when we realized we were closer to Reno then we originally thought. We decided to stop at Lassen National Park. We got into the park and were told that this was the Dark Sky Festival, a once a year festival and that the park was full. This park is certified as a “Dark Sky” park. https://www.nps.gov/lavo/planyourvisit/dark-sky.htm

 We decided to try to get a campsite anyway, but if that failed we’d do all of the activities possible then drive to a rest stop.

We got to the campground and were told to go thru Loop B. If we found a site without a reservation slip then we could take it. We found a site and snagged it immediately. The camping site goddess was with us.

Playing at Manzanita Lake

The Dark Sky Festival consists of various displays in the plaza by the Ranger Station. Someone was  from NASA, people with solar scopes to view to sun, and a special canopy with lots of art supplies for kids.

The festival also included several astronomers with telescopes set up in a meadow just beyond the campground. The area was to open at 9:30 p just after the Ranger Program.

The program was commemorating the 50^th Anniversary of the moon landing. The person giving the talk had been acquainted with the astronauts and told lots of stories. Toward the end of his presentation, he announced that the space station would be flying overhead soon. Everyone looked up in the sky and some people thought they saw it. We didn’t.

A ranger was going to lead the first group of people to the telescope area using her red light. They left and several of us, including the 3 grandkids stayed back and were asking questions. As we talked the space station flew right over our heads, incredibly bright, so beautiful!!

We went with the next group to the telescopes. The sky was so amazing, so full of stars, Jupiter and galaxies. It was a beautiful sky with or without a telescope.

This was a great start to our trip.

A Little Quiet Before the Storm of Grandkids

We left for Nate’s on Monday, this grandkids trip different as we started out by ourselves. A little piece and quiet before the gang of grandkids.

Truck Mileage to start

We helped Nate and Bekki can apricots, babysit kids, clean and ready for friends.  Dale worked with Nate on repairing a piece of equipment, something he loves to do. Unfortunately, there was no time for a backpacking trip.

Prior to leaving home, I’d asked Bekki if she had basil, she answered that she had lots. I brought my Cuisinart so that I could make Pesto for us. Well, Bekki had basil, lots of basil, probably 20 plants, loaded with leaves.

Pesto

On Wednesday Bekki and I picked basil, filling 2 baskets. We roped Christabel into washing everything while Bekki and I took the leaves off. Finally, a couple of hours later, we had 12 Cups of leaves. We made 5 whole pints of Pesto.

On Thursday, I thought I’d try to make a little more. I went out and picked a bunch of basil then proceeded to clean the leaves and make the pesto. 5-hours later I had 5-pint jars of pesto. The pesto was really good but I’m not sure worth the time.

Kids swimming

Grandkids swam, I read a book and we had a glass of wine with the neighbor. This was a perfect way to start a vacation.

Plans for Grandkids Trip #2

Now our dilemma was that the girls had a grandkids trip to look forward to while the boys had nothing. Besides Fynn made it very clear that he was going to Yellowstone.

We’d planned to head for Canada from Yellowstone so presented the plan that we could just take the 4 grandkids with us. But just as we settled everything, Justin found that the boys would be free during the week we would go to Yellowstone. Here we go again!

After lots of going back and forth with texts and emails we settled on a new plan: we will go to Nate’s for a few days and do a little backpacking in the Warner Mountains. We will then take Zaya on Saturday and drive to where we will pick up the boys, Lucian and Sequoia. We will then head to Yellowstone with a stop at the Peppermill.

After Yellowstone, we will meet Justin in Twin Falls and give him the boys and pick up Emilio from his other grandmother in Boise. We will then go to Oregon City and pick up Zoey and Fynn who will have just returned from their other grandmother’s house.

From there we will go to Canada and after I go thru immigration we will hop on the ferry to Vancouver Island for a couple of days, then back to Vancouver.

After we meet Clayton and Jen and give them Zoey and Fynn we will start looking at areas we might like to settle in. As I have to wait for my Permanent Residence Card, we will have time to look around.

San Francisco with a 4-Year-Old

Bekki bought our youngest grandson, 4-year-old Jasper to Sun River and the plan was that we’d take him on a very short Grandkid trip. He gets quite wild with other kids so we thought it was best to just take him by himself. He’d decided that we would go to every ice cream shop in the world. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time for that.

We left Saturday morning and drove, in one very long day, to San Francisco. Unfortunately, RV parks in San Francisco are not plentiful. We have stayed at the RV park at Candlestick Park when it was actually the baseball park. Now the ballpark is mostly dismantled but the RV park is still there. The RV park was jam-packed with RV’s and getting into our space, in the dark, was most difficult. Fortunately, a permanent resident who pulls a trailer every day was able to back our RV into a site for us.

We planned to spend the 1^st day at the zoo. We had great memories of taking our boys there when they were young. 

We found that while some things have changed, many things remain the same 35 years later. We were most disappointed with the Lion House, a large room with cages around 3 walls. When the boys were young feeding time was at 2 pm. The zookeepers would let the cats into the cages then give them fresh meat. The roars would reverberate around the room and it was both exciting and eerie. Now, probably 80% of the house is walled off. There are cages for 2 cats at the most at the front entry.

Stinky Flamingos

We timed our visit around the feeding time in the Lion House, visiting animals along the way. Jasper loved looking at the animals but the fun part of the Lion House was the tiger up close. A thick glass wall separated us but the tiger was very close.

The zoo has a sculpture park that is just sculptures of animals of every sort. He climbed on the giant ant and petted the others. He had to pet and talk with each one.

We were walking along and another family asked us if we could use tickets for the carousel ride. They had more tickets than they could use. We took 3 tickets and just before we left we rode on that. Jasper chose a tiger!

Day 2 we went to the Academy of Sciences. We caught the planetarium show and Jasper tried to grasp the concept of the star nursery. He really preferred the zoo with “real animals”, but loved the aquarium and the rain forest.

We started for home tired but full of good memories but not ice cream from every shop in the world.

Fun in Sun River Oregon

We made the best of our weekend in Seven Feathers swimming at the pool, taking walks along the stream behind our RV and walking down to the casino store to buy ice cream. The playground wasn’t much to write about and we didn’t spend much time there. Emilio was so anxious to get to Fynn but he did well with our stop.

On Monday morning we got a call, the shop found that a fuse had gone out and the truck was ready to go. We couldn’t believe it, such a simple fix.

Clayton and Jen left Lost Lake that morning as there were no hookups. Their fridge had lost power when the battery went out, they ran out of water and needed showers badly. We all drove straight to Sun River.

Sun River is a resort town and we camped close by at a private RV park, Thousand Trails. The RV park has a pool, kayaks to rent for the river and games for kids. Sun River has a small amusement park with bumper cars, jump houses, miniature golf and a climbing wall.

For 2 days, Tues and Wed it was just Dale, Emilio and I along with Clayton’s family with Zoey, Fynn and twins. We took the kids to Sun River 1 day where kids did lots of jumping, drove bumper cars and then made a stop for ice cream. Back at the RV park the kids would swim in the pool and try to catch frogs at the river. One day Clayton rented a kayak and he and kids took turns paddling and catching frogs.

Bekki arrived on Thursday with two more grandkids, we went to Bend and spent time at the river there. The playground was large and gave the kids lots of options. The walk to the river was beautiful and made for some photo opportunities.

Fynn and Emilio have never spent much time together but they got along so well, like the best of old friends. But it was also good for Emilio to have his other cousins to himself before the rest of his siblings arrived.

The week went by quickly and on Saturday morning we had to say goodbye. On to the next adventure.

A Poor Start to a Trip

Having worked all winter and spring we made plans for a trip with the Jag and an elaborate plan for grandkids trips. Note the plural!

We had a great plan to include a trip with our 6-year old grandsons to the Oregon coast and 1 for the 10 and 9-year-old granddaughters to Yellowstone National Park. Our 12 and 10-year-old grandsons would be busy this summer with swimming and a visit to their mom’s so we would need to figure out another trip for them at a later date. We even had a little trip planned for our 4-year old grandson to San Francisco.

Our plan was to drive to Northern California and pick up 1 grandson, Emilio, then drive to Oregon City and pick up the 2^nd one, Fynn. We’d take them to a Safari Park and a beach day.

We would then drive to Lost Lake and meet our youngest son and family. From Lost Lake, we’d all go to Sun River for a week. Our oldest son’s family would also meet up with us in Sun River and from there we would take our youngest grandson, Jasper to San Francisco for a 2-day stay.

It worked out that Emilio came to our house prior to our departure so we headed straight to Oregon City. We spent the night before Oregon City at a rest stop and figured we be at our youngest son’s house by 1pm. Fynn was ready to go and couldn’t wait for us to arrive and Emilio could hardly wait to pick up Fynn.

Mt Shasta

About 10am we stopped for fuel at Seven Feathers in Oregon, a place we normally stop. Unfortunately, when we started to get back on the highway, the truck wouldn’t shift out of 1^st gear. Mind you, this was a Friday.

We got off the highway and stopped so that Dale could check everything out. Some local guys came by and suggested that we go to an auto shop just down the road. The mechanic tested the car and it pointed to the transmission control module. He suggested that we drive the truck back to the Seven Feathers Campground, unload the 5^th wheel and bring the truck back. He said it would take about 1 week if the transmission had to be sent out. UGH!

We drove to the Seven Rivers Rest Stop and called AAA who gave us the names and phone numbers of the approved mechanics in the next town, Roseburg. We called the shops and one told us to call the AMCO shop, that he sent his employees’ there for training. We appreciated his honesty. The AMCO shop said to have the truck towed there, he would order a control module and start on it Monday.

We soon also realized that we needed a place to have the RV towed. AAA said to have it towed to wherever we and it would be safe. I started calling RV parks and my daughter-in-law was calling them as well. There were no spaces at any parks in Roseburg. I then called Seven Feathers, right next to us and after working on a site for several minutes they found one. We could stay for the week if we had to.

In the meantime, while all these phone calls were taking place, a lady who had parked beside us took matters into her own hands. She couldn’t get her mirrors to work so we showed her the button to set them. We mentioned that we were having truck problems. She then pointed at our truck and commanded Jesus to fix our truck. We started the truck as per our mechanic at home to see if resting had helped and the lady was so happy as she was sure that she’d healed our truck. As resting didn’t help we went back to the rest stop and called to make verify with AAA to tow both the truck and trailer. The lady seeing us parked again and me on the phone came over to our truck and laid her hands on the hood, then prayed. Oh,

we of little faith, we didn’t even bother to talk with her, we only laughed. We wondered why she needed our help to get her mirrors working.

The truck was towed to Roseville and the RV was towed into the RV park next to us and poor Fynn and Emilio were not happy.