Welcome to Virginia City!

Virginia City

Welcome to Virginia City a real ghost town!  As we entered Virginia we parked the trailer, and eagerly headed out. Virginia City is truly an amazing ghost town. It’s not like you are looking into empty stores, you are actually looking into fully stocked shelves! Pretty amazing! Right? Walking down Main Street you have everything you need in a town. Clothing stores fully stocked shelves with variety of patterns, hats, and boxes full of shoes. Looking at the shoe repair shop brought back some memories for our parents. At the General store there were fully stocked shelves of cans, lots of kitchen ware, and fabric. There was actually about two to three general stores fully stocked some more than others. The clothing stores were really cool to see what the clothing they wore back then the “newest” styles, shoes, hats, and trunks. The toy store had toy cars, dolls, xylophone, and play horse and carriage. At the bell telephone Co there was the very historic switchboard. What a job!  The stagecoach and horses had mostly pretty buggies, not good for the hard trails they would encounter on their way. There was also a barber shop with nice reclining chair. Catch up on a nice nap while getting you haircut! The old church was built in 1875. It was only 70 years old when they left.  I really enjoyed looking at all the old buildings, and learning about the history behind it! Some of the buildings haven’t been used since the last day of business 1945! It was very interesting to see!

 

 

 

 

Yellowstone Pictures!

Yellowstone 2…

After going to Yellowstone twice, and doing school. We decided to go to where the Madison Earth quake occurred. Here’s some back ground. “On the Evening of August 17^th 1959 an earthquake hit the Forest Service Campground it was 7.5 on the Richter scale. 80 million ton of dolomite came crashing down, killing 28 people.” It was devastating. At the sight of the earthquake we got to see the memorial rock naming all the people who died during the earthquake, Madison River, Earthquake Lake, and walking around reading the different signs.  After seeing the sight we headed down the road and stopped to take a walk. We walked down to Madison River. While down there we saw where the cabins were and how they shifted during the earthquake. What an interesting place. We enjoyed looking around!

           

The mountain slid down during the earthquake, and went across the road to the other side.



Memorial Rock.

The day before we left for Glacier, we headed over to the store in Yellowstone Holiday. Melissa and I were so excited when we were asked to help out in the store. We learned how to work a cash register, clean the glass on the soda machine, learn how they worked the cabin cleaning, and mingle with the hosts! Later on in the day Patrick came with us and we had some ice cream, and helped close up shop! What a fun day it was! 

                                                       Sunset at Yellowstone Holiday

                                              

                                                               

Welcome to Yellowstone Part 1.........

We arrived at Yellowstone Holiday, In Montana. Yellowstone Holiday is a wonderful campground right on Hebgen Lake; it was close to Yellowstone, wonderful showers, and store.  We loved this campground last time we came to Yellowstone we wanted to return. And what a great return it was! With warm welcomes we set up camp, and right away started cracking down at school. The next few day we did school and went to Yellowstone National Park two times. We were impressed by the wildlife! We saw tons of Buffalo, maybe some moose,  osprey ( osprey are fish eating birds that dive into the water for their food. It is really cool to see them dive!) What a great viewing of Wildlife. The first day we went to Yellowstone we did some of our favorites from last time and some cool new ones. First stop was Lower Geyser Basin, the basin is filled with mud pots, shimmering blue pools, geysers, and bacteria mats. Stopping at  Old Faithful the geyser everyone knows about is a sight to see. Right next to the Visitor Center where you can stop look at the museum, and watch the film. Natalie stamped her passport book and picked up some postcards.( Adding  to the  collection!) Hit the road again and headed  to  West Thumb. West Thumb is beautiful. On the Yellowstone Lake this the place you want to stop to see crystal blue water, geysers mud pots ,all while strolling the board walk. Headed over to   Lower Geyser Basin, and Fishing Bridge is where we saw a lot of Buffalo up close in the safety of our car! ,  and Yellowstone Lake. During the time we were not at the park we were doing school,  mingling with the camp hosts, and eating ice-cream( one of the great plusses of having a store!) Our second visit to the park was just as good! We went to the part of the park we have never been before. We enjoyed it! We went to artist paint pots is lovely you take the trail up and around getting different views of the geysers, mud pots ,and blue water, Upper falls were spectacular, you take a short walk to the falls you get to literally stand above them on the platform moving around to the different sides to get all kinds of angles. , Grand Canyon of Yellowstone was breathtaking looking at the yellow, red and orange the colors spoke for itself, Petrified tree was shocker since we been to the petrified forest before we weren't to impressed with the tree. But it was still interesting to see. Tower Roosevelt was a town we drove through looking around, and Mammoth hot springs were beautiful! We wish we came earlier because it was 120 degrees out( Natalie being sarcastic) What we saw of it was really pretty! We love our trip to Yellowstone. All the sites we saw were beautiful!  

 

 

 

 

 

Idaho

After a long car trip from Utah to Idaho we arrived at Oregon Trail campground  in Twin Falls, Idaho. The next day we missed the fires as we headed  to Hailey. To meet up with Dad's friend Chad and his wife VieVe. We had a great time! You can't go wrong with burgers, potato salad, lemonade with pomegranate ice cubes, and brownies! Yummy! We also celebrated Melissa's birthday today! Sweet 16! And some sweet gifts, Downton Abbey, camera case, memory chip, and some sweet treats! What a great day! The next day site seeing we went to the place where Evel Knievel unsuccessfully jumped over the snake river. It was an uproar for Twin Falls. After going to the jump sight,( as close as we could go, there was a no trespassing sign) we got to see how he jumped off and how hard it was to do it. After looking at the jump site we headed off to see Shoshone falls. The falls were beautiful! Here is a little about Shoshone Falls. Shoshone Falls are 212 feet, believe it or not it is taller than Niagara Falls. We went in August so the falls were not as flowing, but it was still beautiful. We went to the concession stand to pick up some postcards. The lady who worked there gave us a lot of information on Evel Knievel. It was really neat to talk with her! We headed back and  Patrick and Natalie did there daily rounds of pool.  Game on! As we were leaving Twin Falls we stopped at Craters of the Moon. If was incredible. We went around a loop in our car which was really neat. Stopping at the stops we wanted to see. We got to climb a lava rock mountain, and take a few little walks around looking at all the lava rocks. I was really fascinated by the lava rocks, and learned a lot! It was really cool!

Shoshone falls were beautiful!

Here I am on top of the Lava rock hill!

I touched lava rock!

Craters of the Moon National Monument!

Lava Rock!

 

 

Utah

                                           

Utah was are first official stop on our journey.(we stayed a few nights in Mancos, Co) Since we have already been to Utah we didn't stay long. We stayed at Lakeside R.V park just outside of Provo, Utah. The campground was great! There was a swimming pool, shaved ice R.V, a store, park, and basket ball court! We had a lot of fun with all of these activities! In Utah we celebrated dad's birthday! For desert we went to the shaved ice R.V, yummy! We also started getting our school stuff together. Since we are on the road we are doing a program called Switched on Schoolhouse. You use discs so it saves us a lot of weight. It has been working great!



                                                                                 

Lakeside R.V Campground!

Shaved Ice R.V!

 

 

 

Our journey has begun........

Our journey has begun and we are on the road! And loving it! It took some time to get used to, but we are making it happen. Our thirty-two foot R.V is now home. You might be wondering how do you squeeze five above average in height into a thirty- two foot R.V full time. Well you learn after a 3 week practice trip before our journey, that the stuff you thought you needed you actually did not need. And you might be thinking just stuff everything you want, but don't need right this moment into a storage shed. Not happening. Our family decided we weren't going to get a storage shed and just deliver five suitcases to my Aunt, and have some friends take two chairs and our ski stuff. ( they said the were going to use that to get us back to Bayfield for a visit!) We are learning to live with what we have and that you actually don't need all of that stuff. It's a chance of a life time and I am so glad my family decided to go for it!


                                                       



Wildcat!

                                                  
                                                                                   
                                                                                       

Our journey has begun!