With two 25K weekend excursions to Island View Beach under our belts, we headed across the border towards Yellowstone "super volcano" Park, about 14hrs drive from Tsawwassen. The preparatory trips assured us that our T@G M@X trailer interior is comfortable and flip-out kitchen is cookable.
We slept warmly in -2C one night and woke to ice on the windows. Our
first morning we made and ate a wonderful breakfast of poached eggs,
toast, bacon, and fresh espresso (with warmed milk for Yolanda' latte).
We took sister Sonia's last-day-of-sailing advice and piled the dishes
into a bucket to do in our dishwasher at home. We learned how to bring
down the overnight humidity and how to conveniently store clothing and
shoes in a bag in the cubby holes and boat-like cupboards. Our evening
meal on the second trip was pasta, which was delicious and worked out
well (again the dishes went into a bucket). So, we feel we have things
mastered well enough to make this inaugural trip a success (well, we
still need to figure out dishes...!).
Our plans include meeting up with
good pals the Reids (Dave and Johanne) and exploring Yellowstone's
spectacles (or heading further south if the wintery weather is too
much). Riding roadways on our bikes allows us to stop when we see a
photo worthy moment; hurtling along at car speed results in scenic
memories, but no images to share. There were three spots on Highway 2
towards Spokane which would have been spectacular photos. One was of the
back lit, wet, moss-laden trunks and high-reaching branches of the rain
forest cut by the highway, which wound along the Columbia river. The
sun was bright and filtering through and up from the river valley below.
The many greens of the wet, lit moss were dayglow to deep emerald.
Occasional rainbow mirages wavered in sprays of mist. The second was
also a range of greens as we flew around a cirque above Scenic. The hills
were plush in bright green sunlit sections with emerald shadows that
snaked up and away from a town towards an azure sky and bright blue-grey
cloud puffs. In the valley bottom below a clustered village, a
string of blue and rusty red rectangle cargo box train cars bordered
the scene, with the river banks in the foreground. The third and final
missed shot was smooth, intersecting fields of greens, again in bleeds
from bright to emerald with blue sky and white clouds. What made the
scene fantastic was the rhythm of telephone poles with top cross-beams
carrying thick black wires that organized the random wafts of clouds
into semi-circle framed packages. We arrived in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho (home very fancy motorboats and motorhomes) in time to set our
T@G in place at our riverside parking spot at Blackwell Island RV Park and arrive just before the
last seating at the local floating restaurant, Cedars.
