After yet another late night, we all slept in until 8:30. That is totally unheard of at home (at home, if you can get littles to sleep until 7:00, you’ve done something!). I ran another three loads of laundry while the kids had breakfast and everyone worked to close up the camper and prepare to move out. We left the campground a little after 11:00 and went into town for gas and caffeine for the adults. By the time we pulled out of town, it was almost noon and the kids were already talking of lunch!

We took a scenic drive by the eastern shore of Flathead Lake. On the way we spotted a new Catholic church named Pope John Paul II. Further down the road, I was reading aloud to the kids when all of a sudden, Charlie took a quick turn. I stopped reading to find out what was going on. He had spotted a sign about the St. Ignatius mission church. We were in the town of St. Ignatius, Montana. He pulled in front of a beautiful, red brick church. I got out to investigate and found that it was open. We all got out of the van to see what we would find.

There was a sign indicating the history of the church, and that Mass was still being said there on a weekly basis. We saw a gentleman doing some odd jobs around there, and he told us that we were welcome to go in. As soon as I stepped into the church, my eyes filled with tears. It was so beautiful! It was just as beautiful as any of the cathedrals I have ever been in, and I would go so far as to say that I felt that it was just as beautiful as the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. The kids old enough to appreciate such beauty were instantly awed. What a magnificent church built and decorated to give glory to our Lord!

We learned that this was another mission church established by the Jesuits for the area Salish and Kootenai tribes. However, not only was a church built here (the current church was actually church number 3), but pretty much a whole self-sustaining village. They had a hospital, a school, a home for the priests, a home for the Ursuline sisters who came here to work, a flour mill, a water tower, a garden, a cemetery. Most of the buildings have burned, but the priests’ and sisters’ residences still survive as well as the mill building. They have quite the museum of pictures of the priests and sisters working with the Native Americans. There was a very moving picture of a tribal chief in his full regalia sitting outside on a log with a priest having a discussion. In the church, there were gorgeous paintings of Our Lady and baby Jesus depicted as a Native Americans as well as another of Christ depicted as a Native American. I picked up a booklet explaining more of the history and look forward to reading it soon. What a treasure for the people of that area and for all who encounter it. I had no idea there was such a rich Catholic history in this part of the country (Of course, we have been doing so much side reading in our American history this year that we haven’t quite made it up to the Civil War timeframe, and this mission was established not long before that – so I may have been more educated if I had made it to this point in time with our study of history. I guess we will keep working on that next year.)

After we said goodbye to St. Ignatius Mission, Charlie mentioned that he had seen on a map there that there was a National Bison Preserve just down the road. So, we drove down the road just a minute or two when we saw a lookout for the Bison Preserve. We pulled in there too and were able to see some bison grazing in the distance. There were signs explaining that agreements between the state of Montana and the Kootenai and Salish tribes about building the highway we were on had been established so that the highway would not bisect the grazing lands all around it. Therefore, there are lots of underpasses around this highway so that animals can move back and forth from one side to the other and to hopefully lessen the probability of animals being killed by vehicles while trying to cross the road. It was nice to see evidence of something positive coming out of agreements between the state government and the Native Americans. While at Glacier, I had read so many stories of misunderstandings in agreements between the US government and the Native Americans. The Native Americans have been so taken advantage of that I have felt truly ashamed.

We finally got moving again and headed for another WalMart farther down the road. What a wonderful day! God is good all the time (even when I’m having a bad day), and all the time, God is good (a saying we learned from the movie “God’s Not Dead” – if you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it. It’s on Netfilx now.)

Blessings,

Rebecca

 

 
This morning we woke up and got ready for Mass. We drove into the town of Kalispell, Montana and went to the 9:30 Mass at St. Matthew Catholic Church. I didn’t find out the history of the church, but it was a beautiful church on the inside and the outside. A lady was playing the piano and cantoring. She did a lovely job. The priest was from Africa, I believe, and although he had an accent he spoke excellent English. We had a beautiful Mass and afterward took the kids to a local restaurant for brunch.

Next, it was time to head back to Glacier National Park. After changing our clothes, we decided to drive up into the western side of the park that I believe isn’t quite as popular. We had a lovely drive through an area of burned forest that had become more like meadows. In one area we saw probably a dozen deer grazing. Some of the area that we were driving in took us just to the outskirts of the park where several homesteads were established. There is no electricity run to this part of Montana (around 30 miles south of the Canadian border), so all of these homesteads were off the electrical grid. We saw lots of solar panels, but there may certainly have been some people up there not using electricity at all. This kind of lifestyle always intrigues me as I have had a desire to be a pioneer living on the frontier for a long time. Charlie and I would love to one day have some solar panels generating most, if not all, of our electricity.

Due to my adventuresome spirit, I had Charlie take a narrow dirt road to Bowman Lake in the park. This was only supposed to be a 6 mile drive, but it took us at least 20 minutes to get to the lake. When we got there, everyone jumped out for a trip to the local pit toilet. Charlie got out and left the van door wide open. Soon after, I noticed giant, bird-sized (at least they seemed bird-sized!) mosquitos flying into the van. I quickly ran around and closed his door and rolled up the window. They were everywhere while we were up at that lake. I know that mosquitos love water, but we have been around a lot of lakes at Glacier and haven’t seen any mosquito problems until now. Believe it or not, this was really our first encounter with mosquitos on this entire trip. We haven’t opened up a single bottle of bug spray yet. Due to the mosquitos and needing to get back to the camper to do laundry, we only drove by the lake and took a few pictures instead of getting out for a hike. The way back down that road didn’t take as long because we didn’t encounter any other vehicles heading toward the lake that we needed to pull over for.

On our way back we stopped into a local store/restaurant/tavern called Home Ranch Bottoms that was selling Huckleberry ice cream. This was one of those locations that was off-grid, so I enjoyed seeing some of their set-up. The couple that owned the place was really nice. He explained how labor-intensive picking huckleberries is. Evidently they are so small that it can take 4 hours to pick one gallon. That is so much worse than picking blueberries! Anyway, the kids loved the huckleberry ice cream! Silly me didn’t take any pictures of that experience!

 

 
Back at the campground (we were staying at a really nice place in Kalispell called Spruce Park on the River: RV Park and Campground), the hostess was so nice to keep the laundry open for me a little later than she would normally have had it open. I managed to get 5 loads of laundry completed. The kids pitched in to clean up the camper and van. Charlie made dinner, and then they settled down for a Wilderness Family movie (the grizzly bear and mountain lion scenes don’t seem to have scared anyone away from hiking in areas where grizzlies and mountain lions live – thank God!). Charlie and I took a beautiful walk along the Flathead River there at the campground and were even able to watch the moon glowing on the river. What a blessing! How beautiful it was!

Blessings,

Rebecca

PS: I’m starting a new segment: Kids’ corner, especially for things that non-writers want to say.

Kids’ Corner

In the last week, tell me about something you saw and enjoyed.

Annette: My favorite thing was going to that church, St. Matthew. The church was really beautiful. The huckleberry ice cream was REALLY good. At the Old Mission Church in Idaho, I liked the circle part in the middle of the top of the church that had the letters IHS on it. It made the church look really pretty. In the church there was this old confessional where two people could go in on the sides and the priest could be in the middle. There was a person on one side of the priest and another person on the other side of the priest. The priest would hear one confession at a time. While he was hearing one, the other sliding screen to the other side is closed. When he finishes hearing one, he closes that screen and then turns to the other side and opens the screen to hear the other.

Our intention today was to get up and head out nice and early, but we all slept in to almost 8:00. We finally got everyone into the van and started driving back to Glacier. We made it about 15 minutes away from the campground when we realized that no one had grabbed the breakfast food for the kids (we were going to eat breakfast in the car to save us time this morning). I let everyone know that it wasn’t a big deal – we would just stop at a grocery store and pick up something. Probably two hours later we still hadn’t found a grocery store. We did finally find a gas station, so I ran in there and bought peanut butter crackers and pretzels for everyone. We had wanted to get an early start because we wanted to get to the eastern side of the park and hopefully see some wildlife over there. Several of us really wanted to see moose, and a ranger had told us that we had the best chance of viewing moose on the eastern side of the park.

After a 3 ½ hour drive we finally made it to a Visitors’ Center where the kids were able to buy their postcards and such. Then we drove to the Many Glaciers entrance to the park for some wildlife viewing (hopefully) and some more hiking as the weather had cleared up from the very rainy morning that we had started with. We did another wonderful hike to the Redrock Waterfall and got off the trail just in time to avoid the brewing thunderstorm.   We made another quick stop for some of the older kids to stick their feet in one of the lakes up there, but they came whooping and hollering back about how cold the water was. Unfortunately, the only wildlife we saw were a couple deer on the trail and about 4 horses that we encountered hanging out in the middle of the road. We wondered if they were wild, but they had brands. We had noticed signs to watch for ranging cattle and had crossed cattle guards going into the national park, so we figured there were just free-ranging horses too.

I did ask a ranger about the purple and green rocks that I had seen. She explained that they were argillite. There is a small amount of iron in their makeup. If oxygen was present when the rocks formed, then they took on a red color (or reddish-purple in my opinion). The lack of oxygen present at a rock’s formation created a green color. Anyhow, they are beautiful. She also explained that the rivers were a beautiful green color and the lakes a beautiful blue because the water came from the glaciers, and as the glaciers move they have ground some of those colorful rocks up so finely that the rock particles end up in the lakes and rivers giving them beautiful colors.

After we finished our hike, we drove up to the Canadian border. We were only about 15 minutes or so away from it. As I have never driven out of this country, it was very different to see signs that said, “Leaving the USA”. Of course, none of us has valid passports anymore, so we couldn’t venture across the border, but the kids really liked the idea that they could look down the road into Canada.

The kids have been busy working on their Jr. Ranger booklets again, so tomorrow we shall go back to Glacier so that they can turn the booklets in and get their badges. Tonight we decided to try someplace local for dinner on our way back from the eastern side of Glacier. We stopped at a place called Elk Grill. I have been wanting to try elk, moose, or something of the sort, so I ended up ordering a Bison chopped steak with mushrooms and onions. Boy was that good! Ryon also was adventuresome with his food choice, so he tried an Elk burger and enjoyed that also. Charlie doesn’t step out of his comfort zone in terms of his food choices very often, so he settled on a grilled sirloin steak, but he did try a bite of my bison.

What a beautiful country we are blessed to live in! Glacier National Park is only one of the many treasures that the United States has to offer. However, I have also experienced over and over on this trip that our most important treasure this country has to offer are the wonderful people who live here. We have been so blessed by all of you, our friends and family, as well as by the many people we have met on our journeys. Thank you for the blessings that you are to our lives!

Blessings,

Rebecca

We began our day at a WalMart in Kalispell, Montana. After running into WalMart for “just yogurt and sandwich meat” and coming out with a whole lot more than that as well as Charlie having to make a quick repair to the cable that hooks up the camper breaks and lights, we were finally on our way to our campground where we dumped our camper so as to head off into Glacier National Park.

We had a nice picnic beside a quiet lake, but we were attacked by large black flies, so we didn’t stay for long. It was nice to have flush toilets in that area as much of what we have encountered within national parks are pit toilets aka vault toilets. We headed off to the Visitors’ Center to get information on area hiking. I learned that Glacier National Park had an estimated 150 glaciers in 1850. Today they are down to 24 glaciers and are estimating that the glaciers will be completely gone from the park by 2030. We were all a little disappointed that we wouldn’t actually be able to get close to a glacier. The hikes that allowed this were not in our ability.

After we decided where we wanted to hike, we made sure we read all the safety information regarding bears as grizzlies and black bears are common in this area. We finally went on a hike to Avalanche Lake that was about 2.5 miles in. These hikes take us forever due to one little boy who is very pokey and distractable. Even his younger brother will hike quicker than he does. When we finally get there, we are rewarded by seeing three waterfalls coming down the side of the mountain behind Avalanche Lake. The kids had a great time skipping rocks on the lake and putting their feet in the cold, glacial water. On the walk back I became very curious about the green and purple rocks that we were seeing in abundance. I shall definitely have to ask a ranger about that in the future. We saw a big doe that liked to wander along the edge of the trail. Some of the kids and Charlie even saw a black bear further up in the woods. I just tried to hurry the littler kids along and continue to make a good deal of noise so it wouldn’t want to come close to us. Making noise for us is, obviously, not a problem. Towards the end of the trail we ran into another large family and stopped to talk with them. They were a local family with 10 children and had another family with 6 children visiting and hiking with them. Again, we enjoyed visiting with another family with similar values and life situations.

After we finished our hike we began our drive back to our campground. I was fortunate enough to see a black bear at the side of the road – the perfect place to view a bear is from the safety of my van. We made it back pretty late, but we all fell asleep quickly tired from our adventures.

Blessings,

Rebecca

 

   

 We started off this morning from a WalMart in Yakima, WA. We drove across eastern Washington which continued to be desert. I knew that eastern Washington was a good deal drier than Washington on the western side of the Cascades, but I had no idea that it would be desert. We finally made it through Washington and into Idaho. The aridness began to change around Couer d’Alene, ID as we entered a beautiful national forest and drove beside the Couer d’Alene River for just a bit.

 

 While driving down the interstate in Idaho, we had the most marvelous experience. We saw a state park sign for The Old Mission. Charlie and I both wondered what that was, and then I saw a beautiful old church located just off I-90 east of Couer d’Alene where we were driving. I asked him if we could get off and take a look. It turned out that this was The Old Mission. I got out and went to investigate. I quickly discovered that this was an old Catholic mission church established by the Jesuits. I gave Charlie the thumbs up for everyone to hop out so that we could go find out what this was all about. What a jewel we did find!

 We went down to the information center first where a lady explained that there was a nice museum explaining some of the history of the Salesh Native Americans and the Jesuits in the area. Fr. Pierre-Jean De Smet arrived here to evangelize to the natives, and eventually the Sacred Heart mission church was built along with a residence for the priests. After Charlie came in, we realized that we only had about 1 hour to take all of this treasure trove in. We spent about 20 minutes in the museum, 20 minutes in a film, and 20 minutes seeing the church and rectory. We learned that the church was built between 1850 and 1853 by members of the Coeur d’Alene tribe and Catholic missionaries. Today, it is the oldest standing building in Idaho. Each year on the feast of the Assumption, the Couer d’Alene tribe makes a pilgrimage back to the Sacred Heart mission church for an outdoor Mass and celebration. I wish that we had had more time there. Ryon was really taking the time to read a lot of the exhibits in the museum, and I really hated rushing him through that. The old church was so beautiful. The pews were no longer there, but the beautiful wood floors and walls were there (Dad, you will have to tell me what kind of wood that was – I think it was probably some kind of evergreen tree). It was such a blessing that we found it.

 

   After departing from the old mission church, we continued driving east through Idaho and into Montana. The area was just so beautiful. In Montana, we finally left the interstate and began driving up a highway along a gorgeous river with these beautiful railroad trestle bridges. It wasn’t long before we were in country where there were large tracts of land with cattle grazing. However, the land was once again fairly dry. Anything that was green was being irrigated.

The kids are doing pretty decent on this trip. We are still having the usual bickering between certain children who shall remain nameless. It would also be nice if some of the older children would act a little more mature and quit picking on some of the other children. However, sometimes you here kids just having a great time together in the back. I enjoy watching some of the older kids encouraging the younger ones in whatever they are attempting to do. We have been enjoying some read-aloud books while Charlie is driving. I’ve now finished a couple of them and am beginning to think that I probably didn’t bring enough read-alouds with us. Of course that just gives me an excuse to pick up a book or two somewhere for us to enjoy.

Blessings,

Rebecca

Last night Charlie and I were sitting outside while the kids were going to sleep. I looked up at the sky and said, “Really?” There were a couple stars out shining very brightly. After another day of cloudy weather obscuring the view of Mt. St. Helens, the stars were going to come out the night before we leave. So of course we woke up to bright blue skies this morning. We talked about driving back up to Mt. St. Helens so that we could finally see the mountain from the overlook, but we decided that it would just use way too much time and we didn’t want to have to drag the camper back up there with us since we had to be out of the campground this morning. We compromised by driving across the street to the Visitors’ Center and looking at the famous volcano on the computer monitor. Although the picture was much clearer, it still wasn’t a perfectly clear view, so we were glad that we had decided against making the drive back up there.

So, we pulled out and began our journey back east. We drove east on US 12, which went between Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier. I was hoping that we may be able to catch a view of Mt. St. Helens on that highway, but no such luck. According to a woman I spoke with, we were pretty close to the base of each mountain, so we weren’t going to be able to get any great views without driving closer. There were too many other mountains blocking what we wanted to see. Oh well. I knew we would be coming close to Mt. Rainier National Park, so we kept driving. We decided to drive into Mt. Rainier National Park, have lunch, and do some hiking.

I was trying to use my AAA book for information on Mt. Rainier to decide where we would be able to drive with a camper in tow. We didn’t want to get into a situation where the roads were really too curvy for us. Unfortunately, don’t rely on AAA for that kind of information. I thought we might be able to stop at the entrance to the park where we would show our National Parks pass and ask a ranger questions, but you actually had to drive into the park for several miles before encountering the fee station with a ranger. There was a Visitors’ Center that I thought we would be able to get to, but the signs indicated that the road wasn’t suitable for our length. No mention of that in the AAA book (I think I need to find some RVing books). We did finally get to a fee station where the ranger indicated that we would be fine on the road ahead. We drove for a little while until we found a beautiful view of Mt. Rainier where we pulled over and had lunch. After lunch we drove to a hiking trailhead called the Grove of the Patriarchs. We took a beautiful riverside trail into an old growth stand of trees consisting mostly of Douglas Fir, Western Red Cedar, and some kind of hemlock. We had a wonderful time on the trail playing in the river, jumping on the suspension bridge, reading the informative tree signs, and seeing the beautiful trees. Of course, like on any good hiking trip, the heavens opened up and poured down rain while we were looking at the trees (the farthest spot on the trail from the van). Thankfully, Charlie had brought along our supplies backpack despite the fact that this was a short, easy hike. In the backpack were ponchos for each of us, so after we decked ourselves out in our ponchos we finished our hike in relative dryness. Note to self: buy a couple child-size ponchos because Dominic and Damien’s were too long for them to walk. We used my belt to hold Dominic’s up, and I carried Damien the whole way out (talk about a good workout for my arms – that is one heavy little boy!). We came out laughing and having had a great time.

After our hike, we needed to move on so we continued to drive east. When we reached the eastern side of the Cascades we saw some beautiful buttes. Next we noticed that we must have entered some of the Washington apple country. There were apple farms everywhere despite the fact that this was a very dry area. It looked like much of this area was irrigated to be able to grow anything. Still driving east, we realized that we were back in the desert. Much of this area looked just as it had in New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and eastern California. I have definitely decided that living in the desert would not be high on my priority list. I enjoy trees and gardening too much.

One of the things that I am hoping to do over the next couple days is to find a place to go pick huckleberries (first I need to find out whether or not they are in season – I don’t even know what a huckleberry is). I also want to find a local farmers’ market on Saturday and see what local food is available for us to try. I really wanted to try an elk burger at Mt. St. Helens, but when I drove up there to get one, they had already closed. I’m hoping some moose will be in my future!

Keep the comments and suggestions coming! We so enjoy reading them. You are all such blessings to us! We pray for your intentions daily and ask for your continued prayers.

Blessings,

Rebecca

I woke up this morning all excited because we were going to be able to go see Mt. St. Helens today. (This was a very moving thing for me to see when Charlie and I were out here in the summer of 1998). The weather was supposed to be more clear, according to what we heard a couple days ago, but when I stuck my head outside, all I saw were clouds. We drove across the street to the Visitors’ Center to see the live picture of Mt. St. Helens on the computer monitor. It could hardly be seen at all due to the fog, but we knew today was our last day to give it a try, so we headed up there. By the time we reached the Johnston Visitors’ Center at the overlook to Mt. St. Helens the clouds had still not cleared. We were able to see a nice view of Windy Ridge and Spirit `in the distance. (Spirit Lake was devastated by the volcanic eruption. It was filled with ash, the water level was raised a lot, and it is now ½ as deep and much wider than it was. In 1998, it was filled with fallen trees.) We had a nice time at the Visitors’ Center and were able to see good pictures of how Mt. St. Helen used to look and how it has changed to look now with the northern flank of the mountain missing because most of it slid down the mountain and into the rivers and valleys below. After we finally reached the Johnston overlook, I realized that we weren’t seeing the degree of devastation that Charlie and I had seen in 1998 and that was because today we had approached the volcano from the western side. The fallen tree forests and devastating views of Spirit Lake were more evident from the eastern approach that must have been what we took in 1998 (a friend was driving on that trip, so we paid no attention to the maps and such facts as which way we came to the volcano). I also realized that we missed the opportunity to see the lava tube caves that were a result of previous explosions and could be reached from the southern entrance. Those other entrances would have taken a 4 hour drive or a 2 hour drive from where we were, so we missed them entirely. I was so disappointed that we weren’t seeing some of the things that would have been amazing to see, but as Charlie says, it all gives us a reason to come back.

We also stopped at a Visitors’ Center that was built by Weyerhauser. Weyerhauser is a forestry company that has a lot of forests growing in the area and that had a very informative visitor center with a lot of hands-on exhibits for the kids. We were finally able to touch some pumice and see how light it was and be able to see other volcanic rocks like obsidian and basalt. Unfortunately, most everywhere we were happened to be inside of protected areas where we weren’t able to get down to the rivers and see some of the volcanic rocks and such. They had some amazing pine cones on display there that we were able to pick up and hold also, one of them included the Coulter Pine. I asked the gentleman there supervising the learning center where we could find Coulter Pines to see them in the wild. He said that they weren’t very common but could be seen in the Sierra Nevadas. Robert III, I believe that it is now up to you to go take pictures and collect Coulter Pine cones for everyone back in South Carolina. Otherwise, I guess we will have to make another trip!

We went back to the campsite early so that we could get to bed at a decent time as well as to get some laundry and cleaning done. We are doing laundry about twice a week – not really going through all the clothes we brought, just because we need more cool weather clothes (not having brought enough of those) or because we have the opportunity to do it and aren’t sure when the next opportunity will be. While I did the laundry, the kids cleaned the camper, packed things away for pulling out the next morning, ate s’mores by the campfire, and watched a rare movie in the camper. We all got to bed at a decent time for once. Not being rushed through our day was such a blessing!

By the way, we haven’t been revealing our destinations in advance, usually, for online safety reasons, but that has also kept us from being able to take advantage of some of the destinations that some people have recommended to us in the comments (of course, it doesn’t help that I have been getting these out a couple days late at times). However, we have decided that we can reveal some future destinations as long as we aren’t giving away too much info. So, if you have any recommendations for things to do around Glacier National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Mt. Rushmore, or anything in between (especially great Catholic sites to see) please let us know. Hopefully we will be able to take advantage of others’ experiences. You are all such blessings to us!

Blessings,

Rebecca

Last night we did some research to find out when low tide would be on the Oregon Coast. We wanted to see some tidal pools at the beach as Charlie and I remember being able to see cool starfish and sea urchins and such in the tidal pools. All the recommendations we found were to make sure we get there an hour or two before low tide so as to have plenty of time to explore before the tide started coming back in. Our research showed that low tide would be around lunch time, so we got everyone up nice and early for our drive to the coast. They were all so excited because we were going to the beach. We kept reminding them that this beach was going to be different than what they were used to. It rained off and on during our drive, but we were going anyway.

We drove to Ecola State Park on the Oregon coast, just a little south of Astoria. We had decided not to bring any bathing suits because we were all just going to be wading around. Of course, I didn’t bring a change of clothes for everyone either. Will I ever learn? The one thing we did do right was that everyone brought their sandals that were able to go in the water. Those were great for climbing around on the rocks. When we first got there, it was quite chilly, rainy, and overcast. After a while, it began clearing up some. Despite the wet clothes, everyone had a great time. I don’t think anyone wanted to leave, except maybe Ryon who can’t quit talking about how he wants more food. We all really enjoyed climbing over the rocks to get to more tidal pools and seeing what wildlife we could find. We didn’t find any sea urchins, but we did find starfish and sea anemones as well as some beautiful shells and small sand crabs. The kids loved playing in the water. We never let AnaClaire out of her backpack, so she missed out, poor thing. I just didn’t want her getting cold. The things you miss out on as a baby…

After our wonderful time at Ecola State Park, we decided to hit some outlets that we had passed on the way in. I had been wishing that we packed another pair of pants for everyone, so we bought pants for several of the younger kids. As we were leaving the outlets, Charlie saw a Claire’s store and decided to stop. We had told Alex for her birthday a month ago that she could get her ears pierced, so I took her in to mark it off our list. She did fantastic! She was a real trooper. I believe she now feels like quite the young lady. Charlie even decided to come in to witness it – he is struggling with his first girl getting older, but he is doing a marvelous job!

After the outlets, we went over to Fort Clatsop. This was where Lewis and Clark spent the winter after reaching the mouth of the Columbia River at the Pacific Ocean. They built a small fort there, which is no longer in existence. However, a replica has been made from the detailed journals that were kept by members of the Corps of Discovery. I am a real fan of the Lewis and Clark expedition, so this was fascinating to me. If anyone is interested in a good book on the subject, I read Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose a couple years ago and loved it. Annette, Isaac, and Amelia once again did the Jr. Ranger program and received their badges. Everyone enjoyed the movie and the museum. Some of the littles were even able to dress up as members of the Corps of Discovery. As we were leaving, we visited a little with another large family from Vancouver, WA, who were expecting their 11^th child. It is always nice to visit with people who have a lot of the same experiences in life as you do.

We finally headed back to the campground, about a two hour drive from the coast. The kids are now making comments like, “A two hour drive? That’s nothing.” God blessed us with another wonderful day together. The kids and I are really enjoying having Charlie around for our entire day. I think he is too. He certainly hasn’t made any comments about being ready to go back to work. If only we could find a way to do this for a living…

Blessings,

Rebecca

WalMart camping again. We stayed at a WalMart in the Vancouver, WA area after having driven from Crater Lake on Saturday. We drove a little further north and pulled into a campground to stay for a couple days while we go explore the Oregon Coast and Mt. St. Helens. After settling in at the campground, we head over to one of the Visitor Centers to learn about the explosion 35 years ago at Mt. St. Helens and the aftermath. Annette, Isaac, and Amelia worked on the Jr. Ranger program to earn their badges. After they completed the program, the ranger swore them in as Jr. Rangers and made them promise to brush their teeth twice a day or clean their rooms once a week. After touring the Visitor Center, we took a walk through a natural area they had along the edge of Silver Lake. We were able to hear woodpeckers and see waterlife, lily pads, various flowers, etc. The kids had a great time running around and enjoying the natural area.

While at the Visitors Center, we learned about how the Toutle River was dammed in different places from the sediment from the explosion. This created new lakes and changed the course of the Toutle River. The river is still a gray color, which makes me wonder if it is gray from all the ash that was deposited in the river. I read that the river had anywhere from 6 to 600 feet of ash deposited in it. How the landscape of this area must have changed so dramatically.
One thing that reminded me of home was the many rhododendrons they had in bloom. They don’t seem to grow wild in the mountains out here like they do in the Blue Ridge, but many people have them planted in their yards, and they are blooming beautifully right now. Unfortunately, I never seem to make it up into the mountains at the right time when they are blooming, so it has thrilled me to be able to see them blooming here, even if they aren’t wild.

I have to tell you about what Charlie calls, “little God moments.” Just prior to pulling into the campground, Charlie pulled over at a gas station to buy an iced coffee for me (while I sat in the van working on a blog). When he gets back in, he tells me that he doesn’t think they made the coffee the way I wanted (absolutely no sweetener at all!). So I taste the coffee and discover that it is full of sugar. I told him that I would run back in and have them make it correctly. He didn’t really like this idea because he was ready to get to the campground, so he started to head out. Well, I finally convinced him to let me run in and have the coffee made correctly. He let me out and went back up to where he had parked with the camper originally. When I returned to the van, I saw something on the ground that looked familiar. I bent down, picked it up and realized that it was ours. If we hadn’t gone back to get my coffee made correctly, then it would have been gone forever, and the loss of it would have caused a great deal of stress. What a blessing to have found it, especially when we didn’t even realize it was missing yet. God is good!

Back to the campsite for dinner and a bonfire. I was able to read to the older kids by the campfire while the littles were going to sleep. How I so enjoy doing that!

Blessings to you all,

Rebecca

We pulled into a WalMart last night in Klamath Falls, OR. It seemed like a nice area, but it evidently was a teen hangout. There was a lot of loud music, laughing, and carrying on. We were worried it would keep us from sleeping well, but we had no problems. We awoke to a quiet environment this morning. Charlie went and got the oil changed in the van while we finished up breakfast. We finally pulled out and headed up to Crater Lake.

When we got into Crater Lake National Park, I wanted to head to the Visitors’ Center first so that the kids could get there questions about how Crater Lake was formed, how deep it was, etc. answered before actually seeing it. The kids were so excited to see the snow when we arrived at Crater Lake.  We spent a good bit of time at the Visitors’ Center, and several of the kids even decided to do the Junior Ranger program (which is a commitment for us as those things usually take a LOT of time for us to complete – so many little kids want to do it, and they always need a good deal of help). After finishing in the Visitors’ Center, we went out to the camper for lunch. The kids were able to run around and burn off some energy, and we were all looking forward to a 2 mile hike on the rim of Crater Lake.

Back into the van we went to drive to the trailhead of the hike and to finally see Crater Lake. Well, we made it up to the trailhead, and there was nowhere to park the van and camper. It was so busy that probably a dozen cars had all parked in the RV parking spots, so there was no room for us. We got just a little glimpse of the lake and decided to drive further up the mountain and around the lake a little to find parking. Unfortunately, just about as soon as we started driving up the mountain, we encountered fog. We kept thinking that we would get out of it or it would lift, but no such luck. We did find parking, but the fog was so thick that you couldn’t see the lake at all.  We were even driving by snow that was taller than the van!  The road finally led us out of the park, and we just kept going. I was so disappointed. The kids were mostly disappointed that they weren’t going to be able to turn in their Junior Ranger booklets. I told them that we would mail them back. How disappointing though…there was nowhere to turn around, and we knew that once we had given up the parking at the Visitors’ Center that there was no way we were getting back in because it had really filled up since we had arrived. Once again, the weather was keeping us from seeing much. Oh well…I’m going to assume that God had different plans for us.

Driving again and once again unsure of where we want to go next. We were trying to decide between going to the Oregon coast and going to Mt. St. Helen’s. We just started driving north and knew we would make a decision on the way. About 5:00 we decided to look up Mass times for the vigil Mass. The only option that we could still make we knew would put us there a couple minutes late, but we decided to do it anyway. We stopped at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Cottage Grove, OR. Charlie had explained to the kids that we were running late and that they needed to hurry out of the car and into the church. It was so comical watching everyone trying to hurry out of the van. Just picture it… First of all, there is only one door on a 15 passenger van for the kids to get out of, so we open the door and everyone is trying to get out as quickly as they can. However, we also keep about 6 gallons of water, each in 1 gallon jugs, sitting at the sliding door. So, as soon as the door is opened, there is at least 1 gallon jug falling out of the van and into the parking lot. Then, there is always at least one child scrambling around trying to get the jug while there is usually another jug being knocked out of the van by someone else. We are also trying to get Damien’s shoes on and put AnaClaire in the baby backpack on my back – which she absolutely did not want since she was ready to get down and move. Isaac had his shoes on, but they weren’t tied, so I started trying to tie them. Instead, Charlie picks up this rather stocky, almost 7 year old and carries him to the church in order to speed us up. Of course, this is how it always is, trying to get out of the van, for us, but everyone is not nearly this fast on a normal excursion. Anyway, I was about to die laughing because we were all trying so hard, and it just looked so crazy. We finally did make it into Mass, and they had just begun the Psalm, so we weren’t too late.

Hopefully tomorrow the weather will be nice enough for us to spend some good time outside experiencing whatever we decide to visit next.

Blessings,

Rebecca