Friday June 29, 2012

I don't have Internet access except with the iPhone so I thought I would attempt a short post for Friday so I don't lose any days. I may not have access for the next couple days so if this doesn't work bear with me and I will catch up as soon as possible.

Chuck an I left Mountain Pine Motel and the Glacier Park area about 09:30 and traveled east to Shelby MT where we stopped for breakfast before getting on I-15 and heading south to visit with Chucks cousin Bob Lundeen in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Breakfast was at a local Montana chain called the Country Skillet. It is "sort of" a quik trip truck stop combo with a full service restaurant. Long stop short the place is über clean, reasonably priced, and the food was awesome! I ordered a hamburger steak and egg breakfast and here's what I got! No I wasn't able to eat it all!!

We traveled south on I-15 the entire 7 1/2 hr trip and went trough some amazing mountain vistas and gorgeous valley views. Here are a few pictures to share with you!

ThursdayJune 28, 2012

Chuck and I spent today wandering around the Glacier National Park in extreme NW Montana.  The parks is bordering with Canada's Waterton Lakes National Park and in 1932 the two governments got together and the two parks were designated Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park in 1932.  It is an awesome place and it would take days and maybe even weeks to be able to see it all and enjoy it fully.  We are planning on coming back sometime in the future and spending more time here seeing the sites.  The park is handicap and disabled friendly with paths and treks that can be accomplished by all.  


Here are a few pictures from our day!

Speaks for itself!

First Stop and an easy walk

The falls were beautiful and fell into a crystal clear pool that flowed into a river!

Some flowers I found near the falls. 

Back in the car we traveled over to St. Mary and followed the Going to the Sun Road around the park. The St. Mary Lake is almost 10 miles long and is one of the prettiest ones I have seen.  The water is almost turquoise in color due to all the glacier sediment in the water.  Did you know there are almost 25 active glaciers in the two parks?  I didn't
t

Chuck standing in front of the lake at a stop to take pictures.

Island in the lake.

Piegon Pass is another stop along the way.  The pass has many trail heads to the mountain and the Siyeh River adventures.  There were a lot of people stopped enjoying the falls, the snow and the fun. 

Lots of ice and snow.  People were having snowball fights over this flowing river.

 We traveled up and around to Logan's pass before making the decent into West Glacier Park where we had lunch then back to the hotel for the night.  Here are some pictures from the pass and enroute home.

Ice and snow walls down to the road

Chuck and I waiting for the pilot car to take us through the road construction

A water fall near where we were parked waiting.

The back up of cars on Logan's pass

More waterfalls.

pretty!

One last picture...We came around a curve after getting out of the road work traffic jam and here was cars and trucks blocking the road, we were lucky we didn't hit them.  What was going on?  A bear was feeding out of the river and they had to stop and see it.

What can't see it...I barely could either but it was stopping traffic...it was a grizzly bear....Awesome beast.

More tomorrow as we travel south to Idaho to visit with my husbands cousin Bob.  Now these next couple days should be fairly lively!  

Wednesday June 27, 2012

After an great nights sleep Chuck was up early looking at meteorological data and decided that today and probably the next few days would be non weather days and we decided to head west to Glacier National Park and check it out.  The route couldn't be easier just get on Montana Route 2 and head west for 335 miles.    We bid our hosts adieu and headed west...

We stopped for lunch in Malta MT at the Westside Restaurant and Chuck had a great time flirting with our waitress and the food was home cooked and oh so good!  I highly recommend it if you like yummy food and reasonable prices.

The road across Montana goes from being rather barren and arid to fertile and green farming country.  Some of the fields are huge maybe hundreds of acres each planted in a patch work quilt effect.  Heres a few pictures.

Beautiful country to travel through.  Tonight we are staying at the Mountian Pine Motel in East Glacier Park MT  tomorrow we are going to go through as much of the park as we can and maybe even stay another night here at the motel.

WOYWW #160

My DH and I are currently out traveling around the northern US storm chasing so my crafting is kind of limited because I didn't want to carry around a ton of equipment or to be stressed trying to find time to create something.  I am going to be posting every day a trip journal with pictures if you would like to follow along and see what I am up to.

WOYWW'ers I don't have a picture of my desk to share with you today but I do have a picture of a tag that I made for a swap on creative block-stampersanonymous.  I really enjoy the interaction with the people on this group and it is a lot of fun swapping different projects.  Want to know what WOYWW is and why I don't have a picture of my desk?  Visit Stamping Ground and check out what Ms. Julia is up to.  Its fun!  I promise!

Last month when we swapped the first 20 people to sign up and get into the swap had the opportunity to get a free stamp from Stampers Anonymous to use on this months swap.  The Dream A Little Dream stamp was a lot of fun to use.

here is an upclose of the face.  I used a jump ring for a monocle and filled it with Glossy Accents to give it a glass look.  No it isn't an original idea but fun anyway!   I also used the glossy accents on the dream a little dream sentiment at the bottom to define the words.

Well thats it for me and I hope to be able to get around to a few desks this week when we stop over in the hotels if I have internet access.  Have a great week.  

Tuesday June 26, 2012

On the road again after a great breakfast at Perkins.  I haven't eaten in a Perkin's in years so it was a real treat to have their french toast and bacon!  Chuck seems to be enjoying his pancakes with blueberry syrup too!

I know, I know not a very nice person to post a picture of someone enjoying his breakfast!

We have a slim to none chance of a storm today but we are looking forward to the drive as we head out to Glasgow Montana to visit with some friends and hoping we will see something good along the way.

Biddle Montana...this ones for you Matt!

Tornado look alike in GlenDive Montana.  Not much of a storm and it all went to rain really quick.

An old church or school 

We drove just over 570 miles to get to Glasgow, Montana and it was a long day.  We stayed with friends and enjoyed a end of season party for their son's baseball team.  I hadn't met Tanja or her family yet and it was a real joy visiting with her after the party was over!  Tanja and her husband Mike are both meteorologist and Tanja works for the National Weather Service and Mike works in IT.  They have two awesome boys 13, 16 and one of the most awesome fur babies going...Ella!

Tanja, Chuck and I

Ella the sweetest fur baby!  Ella is about a year old and loves to play ball and will play for hours long after you are all slobbered out!

Great day and fun times with friends!  I love storm chasing!

Monday June 25, 2012

Hi again!
Today we were up and about early and went to breakfast with friends in Goodland, KS.  Pam Murray Varney is a forecaster at the National Weather Service (NWS) and her partner Al Pietryka is a SOO at the NWS.  We were instructed to meet them at the Butterfly Cafe at the airport and we were both a little skeptical but once there were pleasantly surprised at what a nice place it is and I would actually say it is the best kept secret in Goodland.

Renner Fields is THE airport in Goodland KS

Our friends Pam and AL

We left Goodland around 10 am and headed north setting down in Gillette, Wyoming a mere 572 miles along a variety of roads with a lot of different views and vistas to enjoy.  Here are some pictures to enjoy.

Wheat harvest in Nebraska

Burlington Northern train hauling...

Coal back east

We went from seeing the flat or rolling plains of Kansas and Oklahoma to the mountains of
Pine Ridge Mountians in Nebraska.

You can see for miles in this flat country!

Pine Ridge Mountains in Nebraska

Just so you don't think we are just running around having fun on a road trip I thought I ought to show you a couple pictures of some weak storms we saw towards evening today.

iPhone radar

a gap between storms

fluffy outflow dominated clouds

a storm over Spearfish South Dakota

Anyhow that's what we saw as pitiful as it is it was still nice to see some storms and lightening today!  We are at a Day's Inn in Gillette WY and contrary to some online reviews that were negative I find it to be a really neat and clean place if a little older and more then worth the money we paid.

Off to Montana tomorrow!

on the road again, just gotta get on the road again!

Thought that I would blog my storm chasing trip this year and keep everyone up to date as to where I am at and what I am up to!

Today we left Norman, Oklahoma and traveled about 510 miles to Goodland, Kansas where we set down for the night.  A couple of reasons for choosing Goodland were good friends, Al Pietryka and Pam Varney Murray, and it was a reasonable start to a northward trek into Montana and Wyoming where there is a possibility of weather in the next couple days.

The Super 8 in Goodland is a great place to stay. it is inexpensive and very clean.  If you just need a place to sleep you can't ask for more.  There are limited places to eat in Goodland on good days and at 8:20 pm on a Sunday night we felt fortunate to find a Wendy's available.

On the way to Goodland we passed through an enormous wind farm that paralleled 1-70 for quite a few miles.   As you can see from this first picture there are a lot of the wind turbines and this was on both sides of the highway.

Took this out of a moving car but you get the idea of A LOT of wind turbines!

Three that were closer to the road

I think this is Moxie KS but once again it was a dominate feature of the landscape as we traveled west.  Farms and fields of corn and wheat everywhere.  The wheat was in the process of being harvested and the corn still has a ways to go.

Sunsets on the plains are awesome! Thought I would share one with you!

 More tomorrow.