time flies when you're having fun!

It's been too long since my last blog, so here I am. I realized how much I enjoy reading others' blogs and yet I haven't updated mine. I was going to post pictures but realized they're in another laptop so I can't. Alan and I have been walking (climbing or hiking) some pretty steep hills. We call them mountains. Our friend Adam, from Missoula, runs them on his lunch hour. He even told us one of these trails climbs, then flattens out, climbs, then flattens out. We told him he isn't allowed to use the word "flat" and "trail" in the same sentence. He doesn't know what FLAT is until he's been to Texas. I've also been sewing. I have quilt top fabric layed out, ready to cut, plus I've been sewing some dresses. I also have cute apron patterns and fabric ready to sew. Can't wait!
But this week I'm in Atlanta. A family friend fell off scaffolding and broke her arm, had surgery and had pins put in. And all her local friends work during the day, so I volunteered to stay with her for a few days and help her dress, do some cooking for her, drive her to the doctor. I have time to help. I'll miss Missoula's wonderful weather, but I'll be able to return to my wonderful husband and grat weather soon. He'll hold down the fort while I'm away.
I don't have much more to write about so until I can get my hands on trail blazing pictures of our hikes, I'll sign off. But we're still alive and kicking!
Mimi

bicycle seat or hatchet?

This is our week to get in shape. Or to start getting in shape. For life. Forever.

Monday we walked through Greenough Park. I forgot the camera, but believe me, we looked good. We were dressed for walking. I carried a small pack with snacks, water. Wore my cool Keen shoes, my On Deck for breast cancer cap. Alan looked like a local walker: nothing he had on matched and he didn't carry anything. We walked for about 3 miles, a pleasant walk, and decided the maps throughout the park are incorrect. We couldn't find a trail that was on the map and continued out of the park, so we walked back to our car through a neighborhood. The only hill was right before making it back to our car, and I thought we were both going to have to rest before we could drive off, but we were fine. And we didn't need snacks! We decided that night to ride the Hiawatha the next day, Tuesday. So I got online and reserved our comfort bikes (not the standard ones), helmets, lights, and shuttle.

We left our MH at 7 am to drive to Lookout pass on the Idaho/Montana border, 100 miles away. We were the first ones there when they opened, and while our car was hooked up with the bike rack and bikes, I got the helmets, a lunch made for each of us, tickets for the trail and shuttle, and directions to the trailhead. We had to drive 5 miles back to park at the trailhead of the Hiawatha Trail.

The Hiawatha is a Rails to Trail that is 15 miles long, is part of the route of the original Hiawatha Olympian train for the Milwaukee Railroad, a section of railroad that ran from Chicago to the Pacific coast. It was completed in 1911, sold many times, and went bankrupt in 1977. The train that traveled the tracks was named the Hiawatha Olympian after a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow about an Indian named Hiawatha who could run so fast that when he shot an arrow it would land behind him. Now that's fast.

Riding the Hiawatha is a 2 1/2 hour easy ride the brochure says. From our trailhead, it's downhill, a 1.7% grade most of the way. It is a gravel trail that includes 10 tunnels and 7 high steel trestles.

We started at the top elevation and the first tunnel is 1.7 miles long. We knew it was going to be dark, but the small LED lights we were given were like looking at a tiny pinhole light through a black paper bag over your head. Plus it was between 42 and 45 degrees! We were so cold, it was foggy in the tunnel, and ice cold water dripped as we biked through. I peddled and kept peddling, tried to stay in the middle of the trail, but I couldn't see the walls. Just when I thought we were almost through, I realized we were only half way. So I peddled some more and the light starting to show at the end made me so happy.Just as we came out of the tunnel there was a beautiful waterfall to the side. Remember to turn your light off.

We peddled and talked, looking at the beautiful scenery as we rode along. We were the only ones on the trail. It was great, no people, no guides, just the two of us trying to stay on our bikes and peddle in a straight line.

We went through more tunnels, looked out over valleys, beautiful mountains still with snow on them, then came to the first trestle. I have a fear of heights, especially a height of a small road over a gully or valley. Alan said to just look straight ahead, not out, not down, just straight ahead where I was steering. That would work. I started out and kept going, telling myself I could do this. Then not quite halfway across, a little chipmunk comes scurrying out right at my bike. That freaked me out, I almost fell trying to dodge him, my bike veering towards the edge. My worst nightmare. But I got it straight and make it across this trestle and 6 more even higher. The highest trestle is 230 feet. Alan enjoyed looking at the creeks and rivers running under the trestles, and I enjoyed getting across them.

Along the trail are signs that explain the building of the Milwaukee Road, as it was called, and about the men who risked their lives building it. There were signs showing where we were on the trail, what happened at certain sites, and information about the railroad company. At each sign we made a brief stop, only to realize we were getting more and more sore. We were peddling more than the brochure said we needed to or the road was no longer going downhill. We couldn't get comfortable on our bikes. Plus my knees were hurting me. Just before our lunch stop Alan declared, in case I was wondering, he could no longer have children, the seat was killing him. I remarked it didn't matter because I felt like I had just birthed multiple children. He asked if possibly his bicycle seat could be on backwards. He said it felt like his comfort seat was actually a hatchet. He also realized that if in fact the trail went downhill, why couldn't a sofa cushion be attached to his bicycle and he sit on that while riding the trail? After all our whining and complaining, we still saw the beauty in the ride and found a wonderful spot for our lunch.

We were near the end of the trail where our shuttle would take us back to the trailhead, 3 miles below where we started the route. We had to peddle 3 miles uphill and through that 1.7 mile long pitch black tunnel before we could get back to our car. Before entering the tunnel, we stopped and put our long sleeve shirts back on, agreed we wouldn't wait for each other going through the tunnel, we would see each other at the car. I went in first and had to stop for my eyes to get accustomed to the dark, which never happened because fog had rolled in and nothing could be seen anyway. Finally we weren't alone on the trail! There were bike riders coming towards us in a straight line, all having a dim little light in front on their handle bars. They flew by adn again it was so dark and cold, seeming to last forever. It was like having a labor contraction on a printout, nothing good about it, just wanted it to be coming down from that spike. I wanted the tunnel to be over. Alan was just about a minute behind me and we were both sorry the trail ended so quickly. Our first Hiawatha was over. We could hardly walk. We felt great though. We decided if Hiawatha was riding a bicycle he probably wouldn't have beat his arrow. We also decided the brochure doesn't state the tunnel on the return can be tough for out of shape fat people. And I decided the woman who checked out the bikes to us shouldn't be allowed to use the words "comfort" and "bike" in the same sentence together.

Today we stayed at home. Tomorrow we're walking another trail in town. Not sure which one but there's plenty to chose from, and they're all beautiful, along streams, creeks, hills, woods, and have lots of birds and very few people. I love Texas but there's nothing like this in Texas.

Mimi

Mooses in Missoula

It's been a while since my last post. Not sure everyone knew what we were doing, but we went to Texas for a week and a half. We flew back for doctor's appointments (check ups) and to help Judy and Mark paint and move some stuff into their new home. Plus we had to get Sadie kisses to help us get through our summer. We had a great time, planned on attending my family reunion, but because I was sick the day before and the day of, didn't make it to the reunion. After 2 days of flying standby to get back to Missoula, we finally made it. That's another post in itself one day.
Today we went to the Farmer's Market in downtown Missoula. Our friends Adam and Larue drove us there and pretty much were our guides for the morning. We bought fresh homegrown vegetables, yummy, then walked through the craft booths where I purchased an awesome large hat that screams "tourist". But it was very sunny and I burn in 10 minutes. After a great lunch Adam drove us to places where we can park and day hike. Alan and I have it in our heads we're going to get in shape this summer. It's sounds great while it's nice and cool and breezy, but let's see how it goes by the end of the summer. The neatest part was when we drove past a pond and there was a moose swimming and eating the greens on the bottom of the pond! It was floating and swimming and staying under water completely submerged. Just bobbing along, not bothered by the traffic or noise. In the middle of the day. How cool is that? There are trails, creeks, rivers, hills, and mountains just about every turn here in Missoula. We have some flat trails and slow grade trails picked out. And even though it might get into the upper 80s or 90 degree weather, it isn't humid here so the heat doesn't feel as hot as in Texas. As we start our "getting in shape" summer, I'll take my camera and post pictures--probably of me almost passing out from walking, but we'll see. And we want to tube the river here when it warms up a little first. We have high expectations for ourselves. But Nathan, we want to be ready for a hike with you when you visit us here this summer!
So until next time, happy hiking!
Mimi

Settling in Missoula

We arrived in Missoula, MT a few days ago, along with a forecast of cold, wet, rain. But it doesn't matter, because we're surrounded by God's magnificent mountains and usually the sun is out. When it rains, it gets cloudy for a little while and temps drop about 5 degrees, then the sun comes back out after the rain. When it rains it's beautiful cuz you can see the rain fallling against the mountains in the background, and quite often the rain never hits the ground due to a dry atmosphere. It's gorgeous--I'll try to catch a photo of it next tiem I see that.
I want to post a couple of pictures we took at Glacier Nat'l Park before he headed out from there. We had a great hike one day and enjoyed the brisk air. We saw one deer in the woods and several mountain goat on a steep rocky mountain side. For Alan it was a blue ribbon day since he spotted wildlife.
Okay, so back to Missoula. Thursday we visited with our long time friends Adam and Larue. It was a brief visit, but we enjoy their company so much and we'll hopefully get to see them over the summer. Alan might have a chance to help Adam with some remodeling while here--Adam if you're reading this call Alan!
Monday we're driving to Plains, MT to visit Mark's fellow Marine Darren and his wife Mylinda at their Christian camp, Bighorn. We met them a few years ago and when we found out they were just 30 minutes from our RV park, of course we wanted to go see them again and meet their kids and see what their camp is all about.
I've set up my sewing machine in the MH and have almost finished a quilt top for Sadie. When I saw this cowgirl fabric I knew it would look great in her new room.
Some of the RVs sites here have flowers, yard art, and the owners have really moved in to their site by putting out almost everything they own. I purchased flowers but when I have some yard art to be proud of I'll post pictures.
Here's a note to end my post: No one commented or added anything to my "I'd be a millionnaire if" so I'm adding 2 more.
Alan would be a millionnaire if he could graft good grass onto nut grass weed.
I'd be a millionnaire if I could figure out how to get readers to add a comment.
mimi

we'd be millionnaires by now if:

1. we had invented a no-seam-at-the-toe sock. When Nathan was a little boy, he HATED the sock seam when he put his foot in his shoes. I've found out other kids hate it also.
2. Alan had engineered a transition between bridge pavement and the road pavement without a bump, jolt, or change in levelness. Think about this the next tiem you drive over a bridge. There's always a bump, jolt, dip, uneven road, broken up road, when you move from the bridge pavement to the road pavement.
3. we had financial stock in the company that makes the orange construction barrels and orange netting

Go ahead, list the areas you know could have made you a millionnaire if only you'd....

Settled in

Thought I'd update what's going on with us. No pictures today, just info on what we're doing. We're in West Glacier until Wednesday morning, then we'll drive to Missoula and set up there for about 2 months. Here in West Glacier the high today is 64 degrees, overcast, and very cozy in the MH. Alan's playing computer games and I'm computering and watching tv. I think Alan is wanting to learn how to surf the web for certain things he wants to look up--instead of always asking me to look it up! Wouldn't that be wonderful? We'll see.
It's fun to be in the MH and watch an incoming RV back in, set up, and everything they do. Some bring out every little single thing when they hook up, I mean everything one would use if they were living there. This man just backed in and he's been bringing items out for over an hour now, BBQ grill, step stool, tire covers, window screens to go across windshield, table cloth, all his cleaners, and right now he's dusting the tires before the tire covers go on! Oh my, there's more stuff he's pulling out. Interesting. I could go on and on but I guess it's boring to readers.
There's still snow on the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park. Alan read that there was 35 feet of snow still at the pass, and usually the road opens all the way through the middle of June. This year they're thinking they may not open it all the way through until end of June. It's a 50 mile road and we're allowed to drive 15 miles from the west side. All backcountry permits are available starting June 15--that's why there's not many people here yet. Starting June 15 the backpackers are everywhere we've been told. We like being somewhere just before the tourist season. There's enough to do without everything being open.
That's our update for West Glacier on Sunday.
Mimi

singing trees of the forest, jubilant fields...

I've read of singing trees of the forest, jubilant fields, rivers clapping their hands, and mountains singing for joy, and now I've witnessed it. (Psalm 96:11-13, Psalm 98:7-8) We overnighted in Havre, MT and headed out this morning for West Glacier. We stopped in Browning, MT where we visited the Museum of the Plains Indians (great museum--thanks for the tip Byron), had a picnic lunch, then rolled westward to West Glacier, the west entrance to Glacier National Park. Here's a picture of the Sweet Grass Hills in Montana. Remember the movie with Robert Duvall called Broken Trail, where he and his nephew drive a herd of horses, along with 5 Oriental girls, across Montana? Well, the picture below shows where they were supposed to be. Here in Monatana is where the Sweet Grass grows. At one of the girls' funeral, Duvall mentions "from the Sweet Grass to the packing house". This is where we get our best wheat, Golden 86 and Red Chief. It's grown here in this corner of Montana, and the fields are beautiful.

"Amber waves of grain" is all we saw for awhile.

Then we arrived in Browning. We remembered being there 2 years ago when we sagged Nathan (son) on his Texas 4000 bicycle ride from Austin, TX to Anchorage, AK with a group from UT who were riding bikes 4000 miles and raising money for cancer awareness. We were in our RV and about 25 college kids were on their bicycles. Browning brought back many memories Nathan! And Glacier National Park is calling you!

As we approached the park on highway 2, we could see the snowcapped mountains.

We drove through the west entrance on The Road to the Sun, the 50 mile road that goes through the middle of the park. It was open for only 15 miles, but we walked a little, took some pictures, and then drove 3 hikers from the Netherlands, Germany, and the Czeck Republic to their meeting point. They were here for 2 weeks with a group of 15 young adults seeing the National Parks from Seattle to San Fransisco. They had walked too far and were worried they might miss their sag van.

See them in the background? I think they drew straws who would ask us for a ride.

While Alan and I were walking in a picnic area, we saw a tree that had fresh wood shavings on the ground. We saw all these rectangle and square cut outs. At first we thought some kid did it with a pocket knife, then remembered we read about the Pileated Woodpecker here does this, looking for insects. They can hear the insects inside the tree, and they peck out a perfect square or rectangle "hole" in the tree. The picture shows the rectangles down low and up high. Alan put his cell phone next to them to show a size comparison.

We're going to stay here a couple of nights, then on to Kalispell. I haven't told any of you yet, but I have marked on my atlas where every quilt store is! Thank you sister Judy for giving me my first Quilt Store Travelers book several years ago. I faithfully mark in yellow every town along our route that has a quilt shop. How fun is that? Alan agrees to drop me off at the front door of the ones I want to visit while he takes a short nap. His motto is "Stop, Shop and Roll". And he can maneuver our MH in some pretty small downtown streets and find a place to park our Mothership and Pod (motorhome and Jeep Liberty). Kalispell has 2 quilt shops I think. Woohoo!

So as the picture below shows, Alan is a man on a mission. We are rollin' along. He's so focused. Maybe I had just finished serving him his midmorning cup of Cafe Vienna.

I'm having fun blogging this, so I'll probably keep it up even after we get to Missoula for the summer.

from sea to shining sea, mimi

2 days, 800+ miles, and still rolling

It's been two days since my last post and we've rolled through Minnesota and almost through North Dakota. Alan's pick for one night was an Indian casino parking lot where there were free electrical hookups. so we arrived about 5 pm to see about 600 pup tents--you know, the small domes. They were all next to the casino at a huge park. When Alan goes outside to hookup to the electrical post, he realizes it's a small outlet and he doesn't have the correct connector for it. So we end up boondocking (parking for the night without any electrical, water, or sewer hookups, usually in a place that isn't an RV park or campground), which we like to do. It's fun to see how little electricity and water we can use. Plus it's free. So while he goes into the casino to check it out, I hear the drums. Loud, Indian drums. We soon realize it's the Indian tribe's Pow-Wow, and they have it during Memorial Day weekend. Alan quickly comes back from the casino to say everyone in there was smoking. And he means everyone. We've noticed here in the north that so many people smoke. And especially the Indians. We've traveled through quite a few Indian Reservations and see so many smoking. So back to the Pow-Wow. Alan walks over to the Pow-Wow to check it out. By now we hear the "hey, yeh, yeh....Hey, yeh, yeh. He reports the costumes are beautiful, many people are dancing, and it's a competition of costumes, dancing, drum beating. We have the windows open because it's about 55 degrees, no humidity, and the drums and chanting are louder and louder. They have a loud speaker system. At 10 pm it starts raining. Alan states their chanting is working. It must be a rain dance. Hundreds of cars start leaving, like from a small town football game on Friday night. Maybe the Pow-Wow is over. 30 minutes go by and the drums start back up. Then the chanting. We went to sleep with the drums beating until midnight. If you've never heard a Pow-Wow, it's like laying in bed and your heartbeat is on a speaker, a very loud speaker. The rythym doesn't change, I still can't figure out what they were competing for, other than who could hit the drum the loudest.

The next morning we headed west on highway 2 and made it across the rest of Minnesota, but first we had to go see Alan's childhood friend. Paul Bunyan. We stopped long enough for me to take a picture of the giant statue of Paul Bunyan and his Blue Ox Babe, while Alan sang the Paul Bunyan song over and over. He says I've led a sheltered life since I've never heard the song and couldn't sing along with him.

I realized after seeing my photo that you can't tell how big they are, but believe me, they're BIG. Our motorhome and tow car is in the background on the right. Babe's legs are taller than me.

We cross over from Minnesota to North Dakota, and see a sign for the geographical center of North America. Who wouldn't stop for that? See my picture?

Alan and I start a discussion of where the southern line of North America is. He first says it's at the Panama Canal, then he says it's in Ecuador at the equator. I can google it, but does anyone know? In the meantime I turned around from this marker and saw this, which I believe to be more interesting than the geographical center of North America. I didn't ask what it was, and still don't know, not sure I want to know.

Can you imagine being from Rugby, ND? If I were from Rugby, ND I'd say "hello my name is Mimi Hildebrandt and I'm from Rugby, ND, home of Toe Jam." Now that's an ice-breaker.

Last night we rolled along longer than expected. We started out at 7:30 am, and driving about 200 or 300 miles is what we like to do, but who wants to stop at 2 or 3 in the afternoon? We continued on until the skies turned dark and blue. We saw miles and miles of miles and miles. We finally stopped at the busiest and tiniest fuel station in North Dakota. We boondocked in Stanley, ND. The temp got down to 38 degrees, but we were cozy in our MH. This morning I read about the tornadoes in Minnesota. Sounds like God had us get out of Minnesota just in time.

Here's a picture of the northwest corner of North Dakota. Not sure the picture does justice to just how far and wide this land is. This is where we get our wheat and corn from. The farmers don't live very near each other, so just think how lonely it must get in the winter months, and they have a whole lot of winter months. I used to ask God why He had me from Houston where the weater is so humid. I love Texas, but never was crazy about the weather. Now however, I say, Thank you dear Lord for giving us corn to eat, wheat to make bread, and thank you for not having me born in North Dakota.

Right now we're in the northeastern part of Montana, Big Sky country, The Big Open (Alan says he read that in one of his many western history books), and there's even more miles and miles of miles and miles, or, a whole lot of nothin'. It's beautiful, breathtaking scenery, and we can just picture buffalo herds on these rolling hills and in the Big Sheep Mountains just south of us. We're still on highway 2, The Old West Trail. Byron (son) rode this route on his bicycle a few years ago. Byron, we're talking about you on this lonely road, and seeing what kind of hills you had to climb on that bicycle of yours. For those of you that don't know, Byron rode his bicycle across the top of the United States--by himself. He did it in one summer. You saw some beautiful scenery, and had lots of thinking time!

That's all for today's post. I'm not sure where we'll stop tonight but I'll catch up in a day or two.

mimi

where is my 4 wheeler?

To live up north you must own a 4-wheeler--or a snow mobile. There are trails everywhere. Some towns even make paths for each vehicle, with light poles no less. One school district had a wonderul path with victorian lamplights so the kids could walk, ride or snowmobile to school! And there are trains with coal on them. The larger cities have huge coal factories with huge mountains of coal outside them. This weekend is Memorial weekend. To the people who live up here, it means 4 wheeler weekend. They're everywhere, even on the highway. That's all you hear, the 4 wheeler motors. A few days ago Alan and I drove to the Taquemenan Falls in Michigan. It was cold and rainy, but we needed to get out and do something. I'm posting pictures of the Lower and Upper Falls.

The waterfalls are rusty looking. We were told it's organic matter. It looks like iron to us. While at the Falls, we saw a busload of kids unload and visit the falls. The teacher told us in Michigan every Junior High and High school class gets to take an overnight field trip. This class of 7th and 8th graders combined had a 2 night field trip to the falls. Wow.

I'm also posting a picture of last night's sunset. It was beautiful. God sure gave us a beautiful world to live in. He could have given us a solid color sky but His awesomeness gave us a multicolored beautiful sunset.

And I'm also posting a cute Dairy Queen that's in Sault Ste. Marie, MI.

We woke up early this morning and drove through all of Upper Peninnsula, MI, then through the top of Wisconsin, and now we're in Minnesota, just west of Duluth. The RVs are here for fishing. Many of the owners are from Texas here for the summer. They call it here for the season. And they fish all the time.

Alan's tired from his long day of driving so we don't know if we're going to spend 1 or 2 nights here. We'll decide in the morning. Sweet dreams everyone.

mimi

You are here!

May 20, 2008

We're in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. That's in the U.P. (Upper Pensinsula) . We're going to stay here for 3 nights, then head west towards Missoula, MT, seeing sites along the way. We've never been this far north in Michigan, and I've never been to Wisconsin or Minnesota, so that'll be interesting. The temp here is 38 degrees, gale force winds I think, and raining off and on. And I packed my flip flops and Hawaiin dress! We drove up here to see the Soo Locks, the locks that every ship and freighter must go through from Lake Superior to Lake Huron and vice versa. These Great Lakes are so interesting, such a different lifestyle than what we're used to. Also the speech is different. I was told today that the weather right now is crazy-- pronounced like "Eeeet's crizy" with a long "e" in the first word and a short "i" in the second word, very nasal. I finally found my diet cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper, but the expiration date was yesterday, plus they charge 10 cents a can for bottle deposit, which added $1.50 to the total! I said no thank you and put them back, especially since they were expired and could have been flat. Then my groceries were put in a paper bag--they have no plastic bags at this small grocery store! Yesterday Alan and I were sitting in the MH and looked out the window and saw clouds of millions of tiny flies. We've named them May flies, and they were everywhere. They were on the MH, on the windows, and this morning he had to brush the slides off before the slides could be brought in. Here's a picture of the flies on the window and in the air--millions of them. When you go outside they were in your face!

As you can see in the top pictures of Alan, he's growing his moustache again. We took pictures of each other for our geni website profile pages. Okay, that's all for today. I'm going to try and keep up with this blogging, but I have to learn how to put the pictures in the right spot on the post!

Mimi