Moi: strong

Several days ago, as we rolled into our RV park in Banff, I saw the handwriting on the wall (actually it was a paper taped to the check-in gate): NO Wi-Fi, with a ghostbuster sign circling a single cell phone. [Interior monologue: stay strong, Jeanine, even if your wi-fi isn't.]
Not being connected to the outside world, as we normally are, made me more present in the current one I was experiencing with my family. So much has been seen and done in the last week, and although it would be interesting for me to tell every day's accounting, no one would read that much text. Here are some highlights:

Paint Pots-natural occurring color from an overload of iron. At one time, these were used as dyes.

A family picture on the Bow River, named after the wood the natives would search for along these banks to make their bows (as in bow and arrow).

Decided to go to Calgary for the day. Except, I didn't know Calgary was a CITY and so I wore my (recent) standard uniform of jeans and hiking boots. It's a modern place with well dressed Canadians walking from their office to the local restaurant in their European designer shoes. And I'm wearing Coleman boots from the $20 rack at Big 5. Oh well-it was a beautiful day and we got meat wasted at a Brazilian Churascarria.

Prince's Park in Calgary. A pristine park full of geese, bridges, playground and Shakespearean theatre! No riff-raff hanging out there, either.

But, back to nature:

Morain Lake-in my top five most beautiful places I've ever visited.

Jorja, the chipmunk whisperer. She didn't catch any type of disease from touching about a dozen of these guys. [Interior monologue: soap and water].

Nose is healing fine-thanks for asking. David's removing my stitches tonight. [Interior monologue: Where is that vodka I bought in Banff?]

It started snowing right after this pic. Snow in June? Welcome to the Canadian  Rockies.

Lake Louise-now it's really snowing, so the pictures aren't too clear. We had an amazing meal, with an even more amazing, snowy view of the lake at the Fairmont Lake Louise. [Interior monologue: what's more strange-that I'm wearing hiking boots while sitting in this hotel sipping Malbec OR that I don't care?]

Hiking along a catwalk to get to Johnston Canyon...wait till you see the color of the water...

No filter! 

Oops-just one more from Morain Lake! So much more to post, but I'll save it for next time.

Moi: happy camper

Radium Hot Springs! I've been looking forward to hiking here and ending the day with a long soak in naturally warmed springs. Kinda wish David hadn't reminded me about that scene in Dante's  Peak where innocent tourists, soaking in a hot spring, were boiled to death as a result of seismic activity. 

Gross on so many levels. I'd rather be boiled alive than wear a rented 1920's unisex bathing suit.

A gradual introduction for the kids into Euro swim culture. Large hairy men in speedos. Large hairy women in tankinis. Although this sounds like one of my family reunions, the good news is I am not related to any one of these people!

But first, we hiked!

Sinclair Falls, short hike from our RV resort:

Then we had lunch. I'll start with the moral of the story: sacrifice the wi-fi to use Yelp before walking into any restaurant. I'm sure you've been there before-you walk into a joint and the only person eating there is the owner, dejectedly reading the paper (which is like, three weeks old). You make eye contact. He gets a glimmer of optimistic hope in his eyes and he rushes to bring you menus. You're trapped-only Anthony Bourdain could leave and further break his French broken heart. It's like being trapped inside an Edith Piaf song.

So it is. We ended up being served frozen pizza, reheated in a pizza oven, by a depressed Frenchman, while listening to his YouTube loop of Don Williams Greatest Hits. Don't know who Don Williams is? Think George Jones off of his anti-depressants for a week. The armchair psychologist in me kept thinking, there's gotta be a good story in our melancholy Frenchman's past. Sure enough, as David's asking him for travel tips, for no good reason, the ex-wife comes up. [Interior monologue: I KNEW there was an ex-wife!] As we walked away, we all felt a horrible black cloud of sadness over our heads. Not only was that depressing, but we just paid through the nose for frozen pizza (although, as he told us, the secret to his "home cooked" pizza is he bakes it on a pizza stone). Ahh! I'll have to try that at home.

Reheated frozen pizza and Don Williams on YouTube.

But, we saw a bear!!! Just the way I wanted to: close up, from my car, with bear repellant spray nearby!

More hiking:

To all grandparents: this is an optical illusion.

And we had smores! 

All around great day for this happy camper!

Moi: crashing

I fainted.

Not the graceful type of fainting you read about in a Victorian novel-when a young wife, whose corset was strapped too tightly around her 12 inch waist gets word that her husband didn't arrive on the noon train, and she gently swoons onto her fainting couch, with servants rushing to her side with smelling salts.

My story is a bit different...

Our heroine had a 24 hour virus, that without getting into very un-Victorian details, left her in bed and dehydrated. Everyone had gone to bed and the heroine, always one to practice good dental hygiene, got up to floss and brush. As she flossed, she felt woozy...moaning...falling...crashing. But this heroine, always wanting to be the hero of her own story, tries to save herself from crashing and holds on tight to the counter on her way down. She did. Blackness. Then the real hero of the story is shaking her and yelling her name. She wakes up to blood all over her face, and the hero puts a cold can of Dr. Pepper on her nose, cleans her up and whisks her to the ER. A few tests, a couple stitches  and water bags later, the heroine's ready to get back to what she came for! Banff or bust!

Our heroine, high on saline, at the Kootenay ER in Coeur d'Alene.

Beautiful drive into Canada, through the Kootenay region of BC.

Moi: naturally

Souvenir shop hats, bear repellant spray and emergency kits (thanks Papa George!) are packed. The camping road trip has officially begun! 

Due to a few setbacks, we had to reroute from our itinerary to the Lake Siskiyou Campground in Mount Shasta. Great choice! Beautiful campground on a lake. Our camping neighbor is from Napa. Yup-drove all the way from Santa Rosa to meet folks from Napa. He told us that he and his wife had a group of friends meeting them that night for a camping weekend, complete with "a potluck and sing-a-longs." [Interior monologue: I want to camp with 10 of my friends and have a potluck and sing-a-long!] I grabbed some flyers to pass around to my friends and promised Lake Siskiyou I'd be back.

Jorja playing around the lake.

This is me getting in touch with nature. I'm wearing hiking boots.

I'll be back, Lake Siskiyou, with 10 of my friends for a potluck and sing-a-long.

Moi, camping again?

Why did the blog come to a crashing stop? That would be the meltdown of '14 at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone*. It's all fuzzy now, but I remember fragments of the scene: David wants to hike a waterfall, I've locked myself in the car, I vaguely remember some children, there was rain (or were those tears?) and there was a bolo tie (ok, I made that up). David is asking me why his family is the only one sitting in the car and I remember saying because the other families hadn't had 15 straight days of nature. Wrong answer.
Fast forward 12 hours and we are at the Circus Circus midway in Vegas and I'm drinking a well margarita while wearing a cowboy hat I bought at a souvenir shop in Arizona. Not my finest moment.
Two years later and we have planned a road trip that personifies every longstanding marriage: compromise. Picture Donny and Marie singing, "I'm a little bit country...I'm a little bit rock and roll." Our upcoming road trip itinerary is city-nature-nature-nature-nature-nature-nature-city-city-city. We were tempted by pictures our friends recently posted from their road trip to Banff and Jasper to recreate our own Canadian memories-Banff or Bust! Of course, if we're driving by it, why not stop in Seattle and Portland? Plus a little Shakespeare in Ashland never killed anyone.

*To all my new friends I've made in the last year, please reference blog posts dating back to May 2014 for full explanation of my thoughts, analysis and insights on camping. Alternately, listen to Jim Gaffigan's Camping

Moi and Old "Geezer"

I'm talking about the nostalgically famous "Old Faithful Geyser" in Yellowstone National Park. Actually, the park is full of geysers and geothermal hot springs. Jett kept mistakenly referring to the geysers as "geezers" and I stopped correcting him because "geezer" is an appropriate name for an act of nature that consistently spews the scent of a hard boiled egg fart. In Yellowstone, however, the public receives impending warnings (give or take 10 minutes) that grandma never could predict about her old geezer's eruptions.

The amount of water that Old Faithful gushes is amazing. Like that broken sprinkler in your backyard, it can always be relied upon to go off and flood its surroundings. But, the smell-oh the smell of sulphur-is a gift that keeps on giving.

We ran into some geyser fanatics (similar to the desert weirdos' fascination with rocks, but they carry a little pencil and notebook with schedules of pending eruptions, plus or minus ten minutes) who were out of breath, running, telling us the Beehive Geyser was about to erupt (plus or minus ten minutes) and it is bigger than Old Faithful. Since it was obvious they knew their stuff, we followed. They were right. A massive gush of sulphur scented water blasted into the air. Then, an unfortunate wind shift blasted the lookie-loos, including David and Jett. Drenched!

Now onto the hot springs...

Imagine it's June, but so cold out there's still snow on the ground. You've just left the desert, so you're wearing light clothing and a rad cowboy hat. As you clutch yourself to stay warm, walking down the trail, you come across a gift from God: a natural hot tub in the ground! It even has jets, as evidenced by the bubbles coming to the top. The warmth is floating off the ground and steam surrounds your face. It feels so inviting you're willing to ignore the sulphur smell. Just one foot goes in...

But stop-CAVEAT!

You will literally be boiled alive, as hundred of people have been before. Remember when you were a kid, avoiding the "hot lava" or else be killed? This is the real life version of that game. Even walking near them, on the thin, crusty surroundings is not allowed because the ground is so thin a person can fall through, as hundreds of people have before.

There are signs of impending doom throughout Yellowstone.  I'm a rule follower, and I kinda like my kids, so I'm scrambling all around them in a panic-"Don't walk off the trail! HOT LAVA!" I can see Jett put his foot ever so lightly on the dangerous ground to "test" it out. REALLY??? Why test the gods of hot lava??? Didn't he learn anything in second grade? My chest is getting tight and panic is filling my lungs as my family happily skips on a wood plank trail-the only thing coming between them and hot lava!

Then we see it. Huge piles of bison crap on the thin, crusty layers topping the hot lava. Here it comes. I know it. My eight year old says, "If huge bison can walk on the ground without falling in, why can't we?" 

Touché.