Category Archives: family

Family Stories

Another unseasonably rainy day here in Montana, a good opportunity to do some laundry & get a haircut while the car is being checked out – got to love those Check Engine lights. Apparently a Check “Check Engine Light” Light would have been redundant, as for some reason the engine is misfiring a little. No big deal, at least I hope so, & I suppose if the car had to be in the shop for a day it’s good that it happened here in Billings where we can get chores done.

I was surprised to see a oil refinery in the middle of fields beside I-90 last night, apparently Montana is one of the bigger oil producing states in the country. Also, we saw three big fuselages (I assume of 737s en route to/from Seattle) on railcars last night as we pulled in to town. That’s something I’ve never seen before.

So with the gloomy weather & uncertainty while waiting for the car verdict, I was pleased to see a very sweet post from Megan this morning. She even managed to get a nice picture of Finn & me the morning we left.

I think I’d be hassled if I didn’t also mention the amusing photo of me & her early one morning twenty-five odd years ago. But if you want to see that you’ll have to go to Megan’s page & read the entry – she takes better photos than me & writes a whole lot less wordily.

Update – after occupying ourselves in Billings all day, we got the car back.  It was just a timing issue – so with new plugs & leads the engine is firing as it should.  Also took the opportunity to patch a small hole in the exhaust & replace a CV boot – car is now much quieter.  Nice to get all this out of the way on another very rainy day.  JR’s was a great workshop, a self-proclaimed Subaru guru (that rhymes nicely) & JR did everything possible to get us back on the road that day & gave us tips as to where to stay next along the I-90.

The persistent rain continued as we travelled south-east towards Wyoming.  Pleasingly, the battle site of Little Bighorn (somewhere I never thought I’d ever go) was a short hop from the interstate.  We managed to get there just before the Visitor Center closed & had a look around before braving the wind & rain to look over the area of Custer’s Last Stand.  I think that battle sites are best viewed when the weather is so bleak – it doesn’t come close to the horrors that must have happened there, but it does turn it in to something less than a walk in the park.

I was surprised to learn that the battle was in June 1876, for some reason I expected it to be earlier than that.  The Lakota & Cheyenne managed to comprehensively win this famous battle, but lost the war.  As we continued towards our overnight stop of Sheridan, the miles & miles of beautiful rolling countryside continued – we began to understand why the local tribes fought so hard to keep their nomadic way of life, it really is a spectacular area – even if it was raining a lot.

Already, this short distance in to Wyoming everything is much more western – the main street looks fantastic, we shall have to explore it in the morning before heading to South Dakota.

Yellowstone & Inescapable Winter

Our last two days have been spent in Yellowstone National Park.  The drive up the Yellowstone River valley from the interstate to the park was quite interesting with plenty of snowy mountains to look at on the edge of a wide valley floor with still more irrigation.  As the valley narrowed closer to the park there were some interesting, sheer rock faces.  We got our annual park pass, which is a steal at $80 when one considers how many parks we are going to visit in the next three months.

With the weather forecasters warning of a lot of snow to fall (about a foot), we were pleased with just a little light drizzle in Mammoth Hot Springs (near the northern entrance).  There was a little geothermal activity here, so we pottered around the boardwalks for an hour.  Having spent so much time in Rotorua (NZ), I wasn’t overly impressed by most of it – but there were some pretty cool little features.

At least the slight whiffs of hydrogen sulphide reminded me of home.  This was the best of the area.

After noon we took the drive east towards the northeast entrance, as that was supposed to be the best route to take for spotting wildlife.  Bison (buffalo – same thing, with bison being the more scientific name apparently) were exceedingly easy to find.  With their big shaggy coats & rather small horns, Valerie seems to have decided that they look cuddly.  I’m not so sure about that – they can run pretty fast, jump higher than you’d expect & have been known to gore humans that aggravate them.

Still, we saw a lot of them.  Elk weren’t quite as plentiful, but having lived in Canmore I wasn’t so fussed (same goes for the bighorn sheep).  Best sighting of the afternoon was three wolves around a carcass – we watched for quite some time as two of them fought the other, the howls were impressive & intriguing to hear close up.  After crossing the river, they proceeded to walk along the other side of the road – so we continued to get a good look at them.  We saw a few grizzlies as we got further up the valley.  The first pair we got a good look at from about a hundred metres away as they meandered their way to the valley floor eating as they went.  We never quite made it to the NE gate, because as we climbed it got snowier & snowier & there was less chance of spotting any animals.

We took a different route to the park today, this time driving up the Gallatin River valley to West Yellowstone.  This valley was a lot closer in than yesterday’s, with more traffic coming from somewhere.  It was a beautiful drive, despite (or perhaps, because of) the cloud & drizzle.  Entering the park, we headed straight for Old Faithful.  About halfway there, the rain started to turn to snain (snow-rain) & then it was puking snow on us – big, wet heavy flakes.  This continued as we went in to the comprehensive & grand new Visitor Center & then quickly went back outside to the wet as Old Faithful was due to go off again in ten minutes.  We waited patiently, getting snowed on more & more, & finally the geyser blew.

Perhaps it was the general gloom of the day, but it didn’t seem overly impressive – I’d back Pohutu in Rotorua in a fight.  Still, it was neat to see it & it’s quite incredible that it is such a regular occurrence.  I would have like to stayed up that way a bit longer to wander around some of other activity, but the snow & icy walkways were prohibitive.  We did manage to lunch opposite another small, but still interesting, geyser a little way from the masses.  Dropping altitude, we left the snow behind & went & walked around the Norris Geyser Basin.  Although we had to climb over a lot of snow where the boardwalks were too far from the warm ground, it was nice to stretch the legs.  Some of the pools were brilliant colours & this little detour was well worthwhile.

Heading east & then south we made for Yellowstone Lake.  As we climbed & went through various meadows beside the river, it was astonishing how much snow there still was.  I though it was pretty bad around the Canadian Rockies, but this was something else.  It’ll be well in to the summer before this all melts.   The highlight of this little bit was seeing two otters playing in the river & then in the snow on the bank – they were frolicking around & having a great time.  The lake is much bigger than I expected – one big white blanket.

Returning towards Canyon Village, we snuck a quick look at the Lower Falls – these & the soft looking rock on the side of the canyon (running out of adjectives now – how can I keep this up for three months?) were also impressive (what a cop out).

Some of the canyon wall crumbled while we watched & fell in to the river (which I suppose is better than having your castle walls burning down & falling in to a swamp).

Distance travelled: 1100 km (two days – 419 + 681)
Best road sign (caution):  ROUGH SPOT AHEAD (now road signs give life prophecies?)

On the Road

My last couple of days in Canmore were spent organising, packing, sorting out car things in Calgary, a short trip to Banff so Valerie could see the Banff Springs Hotel.


& spending time with friends.  I even got to go on my first bike ride with Finn in (literal) tow.  Granted, it was only along the riverside & pretty flat – but after this winter, it’s always nice to be on the bike.  For the last game of Settlers for a while I managed to dish out a good thrashing, while drinking the last of the Amarula & fittingly toasting Adrian & Carmen’s baby news.

With a great all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ meal & some amusing farewell gifts (those purple tassles are going to look great on my handlebars), goodbyes were said without any tears being shed.

So this morning, with the car packed up (there is a surprising amount of space left to fill) we hit the road & drove south.

on the Cowboy Trail.

Stopping for lunch in Turner Valley we managed to avoid this place:

I enjoyed driving further south through the foothills, it was a nice change from huge mountains or prairies.  At times it felt a bit like driving at home – rolling country, similar road surface, cloudy, a bit of livestock around & not much traffic.

We took a little detour west towards Crowsnest Pass as I was keen to check out the Frank Slide.  I had been hearing about this slide off & on in various conversations for the last year.  Early one morning in 1903, while the town of Frank was sleeping Turtle Mountain pretty much collapsed.  30 million cubic metres of limestone fell & slid down over the river & up the other side of the valley three kilometres.  Part of the town was swept away & about a hundred people were killed.  Driving through on the highway, we were staggered by the size of some of the boulders & how far they had traveled, in some places the rock is thirty metres deep!  It was all quite astonishing.

We continued south to Waterton Lakes National Park.  They’ve had an incredible amount of snow this winter & there are still two metre high drifts around parts of town.  We rolled up to the Parks information center just as it was closing & I was surprised to meet Dan closing up, I met Dan a few months ago on the avalanche course I did.  With promises to come back in the morning for tips where to go the next morning, he sent us off looking for somewhere to stay in the mostly closed-until-summer little town.

Distance driven: 409 km
Gas Price: 125.9 (Canmore)
Best meal: Alberta Beef Burger & Yam Fries

Snow, a visitor & last ski

For my last day of work at Lafarge, I got the hardest commute I’ve had yet.  When I got up on Friday morning I quite surprised to see that a foot of snow had dumped overnight.  My car looked like this:

The roads hadn’t been ploughed, so it was a slow & tricky drive in to work.  The day warmed quickly & in the afternoon most of the snow had melted off.  Friday was a nice day at work, a good lunch with the maintenance staff, a lovely card, lots of gifts & plenty of well-wishes.

My last ski at Sunshine was Saturday morning – it was nice & warm & very empty.  Unfortunately, the runs were still pretty icy by the time I left.  Still, I have good memories of my skiing improving by orders of magnitude there & I’ve forgotten just how many times I went this season – definitely got my money’s worth from the season pass.

After what can be considered a sleep-in on Sunday morning, I hiked off to Calgary (it’s been a while, thankfully) to pick-up (my aunt) Valerie from the airport.  Air Canada, true to form, had managed to put her bag on a later Vancouver-Calgary flight; hence, we waited around for another hour.  It’s really nice after a year here to have a visitor & not having to poach other people’s visitors.  Various road-trip planning discussions ensued – we still have a bit to organise.

With all the snow that’s been around, Lake Louise is staying open an extra week.  In an act of generosity/scheming-to-poach-Sunshine-passholders-for-next-winter, all North American resort season passes are good this week.  Today Valerie & I headed out to Louise with Megan, Alex & Finn at a very reasonable hour.  The sun was out in the morning & gradually melted some of the ice off the runs at the top of the hill.  We took turns minding Finn as we went up & explored a little.  We weren’t up for anything extreme, but had a most enjoyable time skiing around on various amounts of slushy snow.  It was quite different to what I’m used to, but all good fun.  Rock stars that we are, Alex & I posed for photos with Asian tourists/sightseers at the top of the gondola – we must have looked the part.  It was nice skiing somewhere different with big views out over the Bow Valley to Lake Louise & Mt Temple.

We popped over to Lake Louise so Valerie could walk on a lake for a little while.