Melissa's Blog: May 2012

THE FINAL WEEK

April 29, 2012

After spending last night in a lovely little RV park located right on the river in Clarkston,
Washington, we drove about 45 miles to gather with some friends and relatives in Orofino, Idaho. We were only there for about 2 hours as we had 1400 miles to drive in order to be in the Twin Cities by Tuesday night, May 1^st. In a short time, however, we were able to do a lot of “catching up”. Of course, I made everyone “pose” for a group shot before leaving. They all suffered a great deal over it, but I know they’ll be pleased to see their smiling faces at the top of the page! J

You won’t be surprised to hear that the subject of Tillamook’s Udderly Chocolate Ice Cream came up. My cousin, Diane, informed me that Udderly Chocolate was one of her favorite flavors! Who knew? I said, “You can buy that here???” And she said, “Of course”! “Where”, I demanded!! I was told that Tillamook was sold in all 3 grocery stores in town, but if I wanted Udderly Chocolate, I needed to backtrack 1 mile before we headed east in order to get it. Guess what the first thing we did was when we left town? Naturally, we went back the mile to get our ice cream! They had 2 one half gallon containers in the freezer – I took both of them. It’s probably a good thing they didn’t have more as I would have been tempted to get more than 2!

The drive from Orofino, Idaho to Missoula, Montana is one of the most beautiful drives in our vast and beautiful country. It first follows the Clearwater River and than the Lochsa River. The entire drive along the Lochsa is located in the wilderness. The river is wild and beautiful, and used for kayaking and rafting. In fact about 17 years ago my sister, brother in law, Tom, and I did a raft trip on that river. Tom tried to fall out of the raft, but my brother in law, Tony, grabbed him by the foot and pulled him back into the raft! We have very fond memories of that trip, but don’t think we’ll be doing it again anytime soon! My sister had reminded me of how much she loves that drive right before we left Orofino. So, Sonda, the picture below is just for you…

The highlight of our drive along the Lochsa was when we stopped for lunch. We fixed a sandwich & sat outside & watched the river go by as we ate our lunch. After lunch, there were Udderly Chocolate Ice Cream Cones to enjoy!

Our goal today was to drive to Bozeman, MT. It was a long drive, but we really wanted to be in the Twin Cities by Tuesday night. So we decided to “bite the bullet” and do it.

This is the funny story for today. We started out in the Pacific Time zone, and when we got to Missoula; we entered the Mountain Time zone. Upon seeing the time change sign, we said, “Ok, let’s move our clocks back an hour.” We proceeded to change the clock and our watches. It was about 6:15pm when we commented on how pretty the late afternoon light was over the mountains. All of a sudden, I was having this BAD feeling. I looked at Tom and said, “I think we moved our clocks the wrong way!” We don’t always agree on everything, but we did agree on this! And we weren’t just one hour off, because by moving one hour the WRONG way, it made us 2 hours off! It was really 8:15, not 6:15! No wonder the light was so pretty! So instead of getting into Bozeman at 7:30, we got there at 9:30! It’s always so fun to get to your campsite after dark… The good news is that we got to have some Udderly Chocolate ice cream before going to bed!

April 30, 2012

Why is the train track often times very close to the campground?? We were awakened at 4:00am by a very loud train with a very loud whistle. Since we were unable to go back to sleep, we decided at 4:30 to just get up and get going! We drove from Bozeman to Bismarck, ND. The day was fairly uneventful, accept for we had more Udderly Chocolate ice cream and got lots of sleep that night!

May 1, 2012

Today we drove from Bismarck to Apple Valley, MN. We got to Michele’s house about 4:00pm – after resetting the clock in the right direction! We slept in her driveway as the Lebanon Hills Campground doesn’t open until May 2^nd. Of course, it was great fun to see the Graves’ Family again!

May 2 & 3, 2012

This morning we hauled ourselves over to Lebanon Hills to set everything up for one last time. Lebanon Hills is the most amazing campground space right in the middle of Apple Valley. If there is such a thing as a great “city” camping experience, this is it! Anyway, we spent Wednesday & Thursday doing errands and playing with the twins.