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A Very Montana Summer

Greetings from Montana!

It’s been a while since we checked in here, and today is a great day to update the blog as it’s stormy and raining outside here in Seeley Lake. Andy is busy working, and I’m doing my best to keep Gracie from trying to curl up on top of my keyboard as I type this. If any portion of this blog isn’t up to standards, you can take it up with her.

We’ve traveled a fair distance (by Turtle standards anyway) since our last post in South Dakota! We made it to Billings after a quick overnight in Gillette, and headed to Riverfront Park right when we got into town so Scout could catch some sticks in the Yellowstone River.

Then we went to Scheels to ride the ferris wheel! If you’re ever passing through Billings, be sure to check out this perplexing sporting goods store. It’s a mix of an outdoor store and a carnival, and just hilariously bizarre. We rode the 3-story ferris wheel, saw animatronic presidents, got our pictures taken with some wild animals, and also got our fishing licenses.

Then we spent a few days with our friend Grant, who I went to high school with, and who is staying in Billings for the summer. We went to Alive After 5, rode our bikes all around town, and sat on the patio at Thirsty Street for a beer. Check out this place for sure; not a lot of places in downtown Billings have patios, and their patio gets great sun, plays good music, and the beers are super tasty!

We did a lot of bike riding, even though the temp was in the 90’s the whole time we were there! We had to pull over one day so I could run around in some sprinklers for a while. We took the dogs to Pioneer Park, had nachos on the patio at The Granary, and stayed up late playing games and gabbing outside in the grass. Fun times with Granty!

One night we also came across this extraordinary line of garbage cans, which Andy was so taken with we had to take a photo with them. It really was an impressively long line of pristine garbage cans. (It doesn’t take much to keep the three of us entertained.)

We also spent a few days with Blake and Martha, who always show us a great time! We went to a Mustangs game, and Andy offered to hold little Harper’s mitt for her. . . then wore it the whole game. She was too busy with her ice cream sandwich to mind.

We had lots of great meals, the boys stained the deck, and Martha and I snuck out again for a beer while the boys watched Harper. I secretly think they just wanted to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Harper is a good patsy.

Then we moved on to Bozeman to visit my mom and sister Kari’s family for a few weeks. We even timed it just right (accidentally) so we were able to see my Grandma and Uncle Brian while they were in town visiting! They were only able to stay for a day and a half, but we got to spend lots of time sitting around sipping coffee and sharing stories. What a treat! Plus Grandma finally got to meet Gracie and Scout, who had never made the trip to Newberg with us when we would visit her there. I only realized after they left that I never got a photo of all of us together! Bummer. So instead, here’s a photo of a Bozeman sunset.

We also got to see a new baby Lipizzan pony! My sister and her friend and all their kids were going to see her, and Andy and I jumped right on that bandwagon. She was so sweet and funny, leaping around at top speed on those spindly little legs. Lipizzans are a special breed of horse with a fascinating history that we learned about from their owner while we were there. They are dressage horses who are super nimble and can perform some incredible dance moves cued only by tiny twitches in their rider’s bum and legs. Crazy!

Then we went to the Museum of the Rockies, where there was a Pompeii exhibit that we really enjoyed. And their dinosaur bone collection is simply incredible.

That weekend, David and Kari invited us to an evening fishing trip up Hyalite Canyon. We picnicked, Scout swam, and David kept very busy helping the kids bait the hooks and reel in all the fish they were catching! The beginning of our trip was quiet on the fish front, but after we moved to another spot by the dam we all had better luck.

Scout and Gracie love being at my mom’s the most, as they get lots of attention and total run of the place.

My niece Bella and I went for pedicures one day, and both of us are now sporting some killer sparkles. Bella even has fireworks on hers!

When we got back to their house, the kids had an impromptu clothes-on pool swim.

We ate like kings while we were at Mom’s, as she’d just cleaned her BBQ, and Andy installed a few parts to get it looking and working like new! So there were lots of fancy dinners off the grill, including a feast of salmon, steak, and chicken with ginger asparagus and grilled polenta for just the three of us. We could get used to spoiling ourselves like this.

On our way out of Billings toward Seeley Lake, we stopped for the night in a gorgeous spot in the middle of nowhere, and also made some fishing stops along the way.

We decided to reach Seeley via Garnet, so we could visit the Garnet Ghost Town. The roads there are treacherous, and when we saw the caution sign, we decided to see what the Turtle was made of and just go for it! (Ok, Andy decided. I just said yes and wiped off my sweaty palms.) There were some seriously steep hills that were knuckle-biters. Andy was thrilled.

Neither of us had been to Garnet Ghost Town in over a decade, so we were excited to visit. We got there Saturday evening, and after the first 15 minutes, we were the only ones there! It made it really easy to use your imagination and picture what the town was like during the mining boom, when all the buildings were still standing. But the remaining buildings are well preserved, and they provide lots of information about the town and residents’ lives there.

You can boondock at the ghost town for free, so of course we did that! We returned to the town the next morning to see the inside of the buildings that had been closed by the time we arrived the day before, and then drove on into Seeley Lake in time to celebrate the 4th of July with the other 3,000 people who come yearly for the parade and fireworks! We just happened to be boondocking right on the parade line, so we were able to easily pop our camp chairs up and watch the festivities with zero preparation or stress.

After the holiday visitors took off we had our pick of the camp sites, so here we are now right on Seeley Lake. We hiked around the campground and harvested the abandoned piles of wood the holiday crowd left at their sites, so we’re all set to stay here for the next four days! In the next post, you can look forward to some sweet woodcarving projects, much like this impressive hot dog stick Andy made yesterday! We’ve got the time and plenty of sticks, so we’ll see what we come up with. . .

Everything’s Happy Underground

Ben Folds Five reference, anyone? Anyone?

Ok, well before we get underground, we have a few stops to make.

By the time we left Angostura Reservoir, we’d been there almost two weeks! We really, really enjoyed that spot. We have a freezer full of fish, the animals are in top physical condition, and Andy and I are tan and relaxed.

Additionally, we have an album full of photos of unbelievable views! The summer weather in South Dakota makes for some stunning sunsets and thrilling storms. Unlike the storms we’re used to in Portland, these lasted for hours and hours. We sat outside on multiple evenings, snuggled under the awning in blankets, drinking wine and watching the show.

So cool, right? South Dakota, man. We love it.

Eventually, though, it was time to leave the reservoir. We had other spots on our list to check out, so off we drove to Wind Cave National Park. This park is super neat! Wind Cave is one of the longest caves in the world, and that length counts just the 5% of the cave that has been explored. You get to walk down, down, through winding tunnels that open into big rooms with amazing minerals and rare boxwork formations. A lot of Lord of the Rings references were mentioned by members of our tour group from room to room.

I have very few photos of our cave tours, as they do the experience no justice. Here are two that help you imagine what it’s like, but as with most things, it’s much better in person.

I love spelunking! There’s something so far from normal about climbing deep into the earth and seeing things that were created without any help from humans. If you have any imagination, it will go wild down there! They even have caving tours you can take where you spend four hours crawling on your hands and knees in areas most people don’t get to go, but as a portion of the tour requires you to squeeze under rock with just a 10″ clearance, I passed.

We stayed two nights in the campground at the park, saw fireflies, rode our bikes through the park, listened to rangers tell stories at the amphitheater in the campground, and were gifted some homemade moose dinner by our lovely French neighbors.

As we left the park, we made a number of stops on our way to Jewel Cave. We pulled over in Pringle to see a huge bike sculpture. . .

We stopped to see Flintstones Bedrock City, and discovered it’s being torn down after 50 years for a Western-themed campground. . .

We visited the National Woodcarving Museum, where you can see charming animatronic carvings made by the man whose talents inspired Walt Disney to ask him to help build Disneyland. . .

We toured the Four Mile Ghost Town, a collection of antique buildings and items set up in a little town, with a cassette tape recording to guide your way. . .

And then after a tasty lunch at Pizzaworks and a beer at Sick-N-Twisted Brewery, we stopped for the evening in the Black Hills. Andy picked a lovely wildflower bouquet, I read my book, Scout played frisbee, and Gracie climbed trees.

The next day, we stopped by Jewel Cave for a tour.

Now let me interrupt myself to point out that, while it took us a day to make it from Wind Cave to Jewel Cave, for those of you planning trips, they’re not a day apart. That’s just Turtle Time. For travelers in a regular vehicle, they’re actually about half an hour apart! We move slowly, but you can easily visit both in a day. And it’s worth it; they’re very different caves.

Jewel Cave is the third longest cave in the world, and is chock full of sparkling formations and stalactites and stalagmites. We took a tour a few years ago, and I was excited to be back to see the shining crystals again. Unfortunately, it was a very popular day to visit the cave, and by the time we got there, the standard tours were all sold out for the day! They did, however, have a Lantern Tour a few hours later, so we got our tickets and had a picnic while we waited.

As our tour group assembled to hear the beginning of the tour and get our lanterns, a storm started to blow in. We hiked single file around the hill to the mouth of the cave, and right as we got inside, the clouds broke and it began pouring! We stood inside the dry cave and lit our lanterns, the thunder booming and the wind pushing the rain sideways in sheets outside. It was so exciting! It felt like being another person in another time. We heard some history of the cave’s discovery from our tour guide, and then walked into the cave.

If you ever want to know how it feels to be Indiana Jones, this is the tour for you! If you grew up watching The Goonies and wanted so badly to adventure underground searching for One-Eyed Willie’s treasure, this is also the tour for you. We just laughed out loud with excitement the whole way. The tour took us down incredibly steep and narrow steps that descend endlessly, until finally we reached The Heavenly Room. We all sat on rocks and listened to more stories, and then were instructed to blow out our lanterns. The darkness was absolute. It was thrilling.

We had such a great time on that tour! It was a great way to end our time in South Dakota, and we discussed how much we loved it the whole way to Montana.

And here we are now, fishing licenses in hand and ready to spend the summer playing in Montana’s backyard. Bring it on!

Livin’ By A Lake: Why We Heartily Endorse Vandwelling

When we were moving out of our house in Portland and into the Turtle, our friends Rhema and Lisa gifted us a wonderful going-away gift: Lisa’s Sensational Pickled Carrots. She’d popped open a jar during a BBQ at their place a few months prior, and I forgot to eat most of my dinner because I was too busy going back for sevenths and eighths of those carrots! I agree with you that pickled carrots sound different, but I promise, they’re super-duper awesome. Lisa’s crazy in the kitchen.

Lisa and Andy whipped up some serious turkey and stuffing last Thanksgiving.
Rhema and I helped by making sure the video games were played.

The only bummer was that since she’d just canned them, we had to wait six whole months before we could eat them! So we put them in a box and labeled it “Do not open until April 21st, 2016.” Before sealing up the box, I thought it would be fun for us to write a letter to our future selves, predicting where we’d be when we opened the box. So we wrote our individual thoughts down, dropped them in, and taped that baby up.

As the date approached, we thought it would be fun to open the carrots when we were somewhere really neat. So as we approached Badlands, we decided that was it. That worked great for me, since I was too excited to wait any longer!

They were SO GOOD. What a fun going-away gift! It was a tasty treat that reminded us of Lisa and Rhema and the fun times in John’s Landing. We miss you guys!

After our snack, we opened up the paper with our predictions. Interestingly, without consulting one another, we both wrote that we’d probably be somewhere in Utah! I suppose because there are so many great parks around there, and we’re both so excited to spend time in that part of the U.S. But in order to have made it that far, we’d have to be covering ground at a much quicker rate than we are currently traveling.

This is more the speed we’re interested in.

It was a moment of revelation and reflection for us; one that made us really appreciate an aspect of this lifestyle that we worked so hard to achieve. We wanted to be able to slow down and really enjoy each day of our lives, spending less time paying bills for a house we’re never around because we’re busy at work to pay the bills! Now we get to live virtually anywhere we like, for as long as we like. Unlike vacation time, we don’t feel stressed out trying to fit in all the fun right now. We can take our time and explore a spot at our leisure, take an extra day to do nothing if we choose, and see more of any area that interests us.

This is why we currently live by a lake. (We got here meaning to stay a few days, and we now plan to stay another week, or until this crazy 80-90 degree weather leaves!)

And this is also why we emphatically hope that people who have the capability to try this lifestyle out will do it! One of the reasons we decided to blog about our adventures was to encourage and support fellow adventure-seekers to see that it’s possible, and more than that, it’s the best decision we’ve ever made. We’re living much more inexpensively, efficiently, thoughtfully, and healthfully. There’s a daily dose of adverbs for ya! Every day is a new experience and just a ton of fun (with a fair amount of work and effort involved, of course). We keep asking ourselves why it took us this long to figure this out! Andy always says he feels like we’re cheating somehow. 🙂

Let me also acknowledge that I totally get that it’s not a possibility for everyone, and my intention is not to alienate those who aren’t able to make such a drastic life change. And according to lots of people we’ve met along the way, not everyone even wants this life! We get that too. It was hard work getting here, and can still be hard from time to time.

Our hope is that the blog can be both an endorsement for people thinking about this lifestyle, and also just a way to stay in touch with our friends, family, and other tiny house and travel enthusiasts, sharing what we’re up to for all interested parties. I know that for people with kids, it’s a much more complicated undertaking (though not impossible; we’ve met families living on the road!). I also know that we’re fortunate that both of us are able to work remotely, and that’s not true for all professions.

A lunch break. Since I’m the only one in this photo, I’ll just go ahead and take credit for the lot.

But we have met a whole bunch of people who have always dreamed of becoming vandwellers or full-time RV’ers, and who could potentially take the plunge, but are still on the fence. When we started out, we had a hard time finding online resources of people who were doing something similar to what we had in mind. So if that’s the case for you, please follow along with us for tips on what’s working for us, or feel free to send us a message and we’ll do what we can to help you along the way! It’s a huge undertaking, but the end result is worth all the hard work. I mean, we get to live by a lake, for free!

For those just following along to see where we ended up and what we’re doing there, here’s a quick photo summary of what we’ve been up to for the last week.

And if you’re wishing for greater detail on how Scout and Gracie are doing, just take these photos of Scout swimming for sticks and Gracie pouncing on buggies, repeat them to infinity, and you’ll have an idea of how they’re spending their days by the lake. Happy days for our best little friends. Happy days for us.

Bring On The Badlands!

Hello there! I’m here today to help you plan your next trip. For quality purposes, we just tried it out for you, and we can say with confidence that you are going to LOVE it.

It’s a week-long stay in Badlands National Park!

Ok, you don’t have to go, but it’s absolutely our favorite place so far, and I highly recommend it! 🙂 Neither of us had ever been, and we both had no idea what to expect. We were completely floored by how beautiful this park is. We often weren’t even able to come up with words for it; we just kept laughing out loud with happiness and complete awe!

We drove into the park from Scenic, SD on Sage Creek Road to Sage Creek Campground. It’s a free primitive campground (that’s the term, though I figure if it has toilets and garbage cans, it’s pretty fancy) and it’s outside the portion of the park with all the iconic formations. It really doesn’t get super Badlands-y until the point where Hwy 240 drops into the park.

There are lots of spots to park and set up tents, and though the days were quiet, every evening it was full and bustling, with people playing frisbee, hiking the hills and picnicking. We kept wondering when Dave Matthews was going to show up and start the show.

We decided to stay at the site for four days, as we got a strong enough wifi signal through our hot spot for Andy to log into work. What an office, huh?

If you do end up with extra time in Badlands, this is a great spot! Ok, here’s what you can do, if you want to take me up on my offer to be your trip planner. There are trails in every direction with magnificent views at the top of every hill. Hike as many as you can.

You can add your own cairn to the collection at the top of the nearest hill. . .

And sit at the top of the world and enjoy the view.

You will likely get a taste of the powerful evening weather the Badlands can conjure up! While it’s sunny and hot all day (in May, anyway), towards the end of the day, it gets wild.

Oh, and you will definitely see bison. They graze right through the camp for hours every day!

At one point, we heard a shriek, and our neighbor came racing back to her boyfriend at top speed, breathlessly giggling about the buffalo standing right outside the bathroom door as she exited. They’re not worried about us (humans) one bit.

All of our neighbors were great while we stayed at Sage Creek! Maybe you will be lucky enough to camp next to a fun outgoing couple who is on a long trek in the US before moving back to Holland. Maybe they will also gift you a map to scratch off the states you travel through. So nice of them.

These scratched off areas are limited to where the Turtle has been, of course. We’re excited to scratch off more! But our goal is to take our time and really experience the places we stay. Which was really easy this week. We knew we loved Badlands already, but then we drove to the Pinnacles Overlook.

Oh, wait! We didn’t do that yet. We were planning to drive there, but the Rim Road access was closed. So we diverted up to Wall to check out the famous Wall Drug. And holy cow! I’ll let Bill Bryson sum it up for me. “It’s an awful place, one of the world’s tackiest tourist traps, but I loved it and I won’t have a word said against it.” Yep!

I loved every weird minute we were there. They allow RV’s to park in the lot down the hill for free, so we did that, and then drove back into the park the next day via the Pinnacles Overlook entrance.

Again, holy cow.

There are loads of hikes you can take in the park, each with a very different landscape to explore.

We started with Window Trail, a super-short walk to a stunning viewpoint:

Then we played on the giant playground next to the parking lot.

And then we hiked Door Trail. This one is also fairly short, but can take as long as you want it to take, since it’s a wide open expanse of peaks and valleys to climb around on. We liked it so much we came back on our last day to sit at the end of the hike and have a picnic, sketch and read books.

After leaving Door Trail, we hiked up Notch Trail. This one has an incredible view of the geologic slump and the Cedar Pass campground, and the hike itself feels like a Star Trek set!

We stayed a few nights at the Cedar Pass Campground, which is a pay site, but totally worth every penny! It’s bordered by the peaks, which are so beautiful to see in both the morning and evening sun.

The next day, we hiked up Saddle Pass (steep and slippery!) to Medicine Root Trail and then back on a portion of Castle Trail. It’s about 4 miles of flat, picturesque views and takes you through the prairie and through some of the crazy formations.

We were so happy during our entire time in Badlands! It’s other-worldly, and so very relaxing.

Scout liked it quite a bit too! But if he was your travel planner, he’d encourage you to take a driving tour of Badlands, see the sights, and then leave the park to stay somewhere that dogs can be off leash and play frisbee!

We’ve compromised with him, and after our glorious, sunny, and exhilarating week in Badlands, we’ve moved along to Angostura Reservoir. He gets his own waterfront frisbee spot, so his week of leashed walks will soon be forgiven.

I hope you enjoy your stay at Badlands as much we did! If you follow the travel plan I’ve laid out for you, I don’t see how you can go wrong. 🙂

The Black Hills of South Dakota: Actually Quite Green

We left Spearfish last Friday feeling excited to explore the Black Hills, our list of recommended hikes in hand and a warm and sunny weekend weather forecast displayed on our phones. On our way out of town we stopped for lunch at Barbacoa’s, a tasty Mexican spot downtown. It’s set up like a Qdoba or Taco Del Mar, with a build-your-own style ingredients bar, but it’s way, way better. Super fresh ingredients, good daily specials, and the staff there is so legitimately friendly and helpful that we talk about it during our meal every time we go there!

As we sat on the patio eating our steak tacos, the clouds started rolling in.

We commented on how dense and beautiful the clouds are in South Dakota, then loaded up and headed into the Black Hills.

The drive is stunning, with tall, dramatic rock walls and lush green trees. And if Scout is to be believed, the smells are worth trampling your mother in order to get your face one inch farther out the window.

We decided to start with a hike to Devil’s Bathtub. It isn’t marked, so you just turn off onto Cleopatra Pl. just south of Bridal Veil Falls. From the small parking area, you cross the bridge and then follow the trails directly on the other side. There are a number of trails, but we found that you can take whichever you prefer; they all lead to Devil’s Bathtub. We were told that much of the hike traverses the stream, so we strapped on our Chacos and looked forward to a nice cool hike on a sunny day!

I think the earlier mention of the clouds was sufficient foreshadowing to give away what happened next. As we started into the woods, it started raining!

And it rained the whole hike through, with continuous thunder and off-and-on hailstorms. Not a big deal, but pretty funny considering how perfect the hike is for hot days! Luckily, it was still warm and the hike is easy, so it didn’t interfere with our plans at all. It actually made for a very “enchanted forest” ambiance, which I enjoyed very much.

As you near the little falls, you come to a beautiful corridor with layered limestone walls. If it had been a warmer day, we could have spent a fair amount of time right there, wading around and enjoying the view.

By the time we reached Devil’s Bathtub, we were soaked through! There’s a little overhang next to the waterfall that we stood under to take pictures, then we waded out into the shallow water and splashed around with Scout.

It’s a wonderful hike that I highly recommend to anyone traveling through the Black Hills! Next time, we’ll pack a lunch and spend the day there, weather permitting.

By the time we returned to the Turtle all three of us were drenched, and after drying off and wringing out the dog, we decided to skip the other hikes on our list as the thunderstorm was still booming along. We drove into Lead just as another impressive hailstorm was wrapping up.

Our cancelled hiking plans left us with some extra time to kill, so we stopped into Dakota Shivers Brewing for a beer. What a cozy little spot in a cozy little town! While it continued to rain, we chatted with a local who had identified us as the occupants of the crazy blue Turtle parked out front. She was charming and fun to talk to, and gave us lots of great travel destinations for our next trip through the Black Hills. So nice!

That night, we parked at a quiet secluded spot on a Forest Service road. Hooray for free camping! As we made our coffee the next morning, Scout and Gracie ran around outside and surveyed our spot.

It was decided by the committee that we could happily stay in that very spot for the allowed 14-day maximum. But we had to remind ourselves that we generally feel that way about our camping spots, and that our plan to make it to the Badlands by Sunday would make leaving worthwhile.

So off we drove toward Badlands National Park!

Scout and Gracie Take On South Dakota (Also, Amy and Andy go to Devils Tower)

Well here we are in South Dakota! We spent a week in Billings with some friends, Blake and Martha, and had a month’s worth of fun in that one week!

We met little Harper for the first time, climbed up the Rims, had relaxing chats in Blake and Martha’s sunny back yard, took some nostalgic drives around town, the boys almost watched Blake’s dog get smashed, Martha and I snuck out to watch some bluegrass, and Andy and I were taken to many of the tasty new spots that have sprouted up in Billings since I grew up there. (The last time I was in Billings, the exciting action in the restaurant scene was the second Chinese spot to arrive in town. Yikes.)

New and delicious places of note: Cafe Zydeco for Cajun food, Carters for a very cramped but cozy Missoula-esque brewery experience, Angry Hanks for a more modern and airy brewery experience. . . and while we’re on the subject, let’s never forget Great Harvest for a killer sandwich on freshly baked bread, and of course the best sweet in history, Caramel Cookie Waffle. Okay, so next time you’re in Billings, if you go hungry, you can’t blame me!

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Image Sources

On our way out of Billings and into South Dakota, we went just a little out of our way to go see the first National Monument, Devils Tower.

Fun fact for us nerds: Originally the spelling was Devil’s Tower, with an apostrophe, but while signing the documents to make it a National Monument, Teddy Roosevelt accidentally omitted the apostrophe. Nobody ever corrected it, so the official spelling is now Devils Tower. The more you know!

It’s a really amazing natural formation with a few theories regarding how exactly it was formed. There is a 1.3 mile walking path around the monument, and with us taking our very sweet time, stopping to watch the squirrels and climb around on the boulders, it only took us about an hour. It’s really neat to see how different the formations are on all sides.

There are a number of Native American tribes living near the tower, and it’s considered a sacred site where they worship and perform dance rituals. I loved seeing all the prayer bundles hanging from the trees.

In the photo below, if you look closely on the tipped-over column, you can see some teeny-tiny people making their way up the side of the formation. Devils Tower is a popular spot for climbers. Crazy!

Not to be outdone, Andy also found a miniature Devils Tower and climbed it.

Ok, enough about Devils Tower. On to South Dakota!

We are presently staying at Andy’s sister Maggie’s house outside of Spearfish, and our new backyard is surrounded by trees, spring flowers, and deer families. It’s absolutely gorgeous. Plus we’ve had lots of sunshine and barefoot days!

If you’ve been following along with us on our adventures, you can probably guess who’s having the best time in our new spot:

Yes, Scout and Gracie are absolutely loving life out here. These kids have the run of the place!

Gracie climbs trees and tags along with us on walks through the hills.

And Scout has two best buddies, Will and Ellie, who love to throw his frisbee and play with him all day long. He’s going to leave here spoiled!

Then again, so are we! We’ve been having so much fun with everyone here. But there’s so much to cover, we’ll just have to save that for the next post. . .

(Oh, and if you want to stay apprised of what we’re up to in this crazy Blue Turtle, don’t forget to click the “Follow” button on our page, and you’ll be notified every time we post! We like to have our friends all accounted for.) 🙂

Family Fun in Bozeman, MT

The continuing adventures of the Blue Turtle now bring us from Craters of the Moon into Montana! My sister Kari was having a baby, so all the sisters descended upon Bozeman, and the Summers brand of fun and hilarious chaos commenced.

As anyone from a large family knows, it’s impossible to quantify the specific goings on of family time together. It’s just a continuously-morphing cloud of gabbing, laughing, playing outside, putting out the occasional fires, more gabbing, eating meals, more fires, board games, staying up too late, and—if there’s any remaining time—cleaning up.

With that in mind, this post will simply be a massive photo gallery. Because all I can say for sure is that we parked in Mom’s driveway, we were there for somewhere around three weeks, and in the meantime, this happened:

Thank you, tiny Elora, for being born and giving us all an excuse to get together and play! I missed capturing a lot of the action when the phone wasn’t available—if you can believe it—but there you have the general bullet points.

So with that we say goodbye to Bozeman! We were sad to leave, but adventure calls. . .

Catchin’ Some Crabs on the Oregon Coast

As I mentioned in the last post, while on the coast we’ve been on a mission to catch ourselves a crab dinner! And on the Oregon coast, we have primarily Dungeness, which is a meatier, sweeter crab than all the others. It’s YUMMY.

We’ve learned a bunch since we first dropped our rented crab pot over the 12th Street bridge in Seaside. And as we just attended the Crab Races in Garibaldi today—yes, that’s a real thing—this is an appropriate time to discuss what we learned and if we ever caught anything. So let’s talk crabs!

While we were in Seaside and Wheeler, we talked to loads of locals who were happy to share their knowledge with us. And here’s what we discovered about the best way to catch crab:

Drop your pots at high tide
Crab rings are the very best
Drop your pots at low tide
Crab traps are the very best
Always use only chicken for bait
Always use only fish carcasses for bait
Always use a combination of fish and chicken for bait
Never try for crabs after a storm
It’s best to try for crabs after a storm
. . .You can see where I’m going with this.

It’s likely that there’s a very best way to catch crabs all the time, every time. What we ended up liking best, after numerous trials, was a simple combination of a crab trap, chicken odds and ends and fish carcasses, and dropping our traps in whenever we felt like it—because you really just never know when a crab will be dropping by.

We left Wheeler with no luck, but right as we were leaving we met a guy who mentioned that if we were interested in some delicious crab and fantastic people-watching, that we should look into the Garibaldi Crab Races that were happening the following day. I said “WHAAAAAT? We’re going.”

So we did. But first, we had to stop at Hug Point, which we had passed by on our way north. If you’re driving by, do not miss this! We thought initially that it was a fair hike around the rocks to get there, but it takes all of 4 minutes. And it’s breathtaking!

Fun times were had by all—mostly Scout I think—in the driving rain and unpredictable blasts of wind! The Oregon coast is so wild and dramatic when it’s stormy.

Then we got to Garibaldi, and had to wait until the next day to see crabs race. So we parked near the marina, and dropped our pots off the pier.

We parked overnight in the misty parking lot there, after asking permission from a shop owner on the pier. He said people do it all the time, so we settled in for some coastal boondocking.

The next morning, after a hearty breakfast at Fisherman’s Korner, we headed to the Crab Races. They did not disappoint.

Six crab “coaches” volunteer to race a crab. They are allowed to coax the crab down the ramp any way they like, though the preferred method seems to be pounding the ramp, to get the crab to fall into the net at the bottom first. There are prizes, and varying categories for entries. Andy participated, but his crab was a real bum. He barely even moved, despite Andy’s superb coaching job.

They sold whole Dungeness crabs for just $10 each! We shared one, and took one for that night’s dinner too, in case we hadn’t caught anything in the meantime.

The good news is, that we DID catch one! And it just so happened to be a keeper. HOORAY!

The following night, we ate the freshest crab cakes you can ever imagine. A successful crabby weekend, and a happy way to wrap up our time on the coast, as we’re now headed inland on our way to Montana!

Let’s Refurbish a Van – Part 3: Tires (by Andy)

A Post by Andy

Maybe you noticed the tires. Maybe, like me, you love tires. We have fancy tires, and I would like to tell you all about them. Let’s start with what we had.

Pretty standard look for an 80’s era Class-C RV. The Turtle’s stock tire size was 215/85R16 on 8-bolt Ford rims. Single wheels in front, and dully rear.

We wanted to be able to go most everywhere, up dirt roads, over snowy passes, through water and mud, so we wanted a taller tire for more clearance, with an aggressive mud and snow tread. Also, as a general rule I am a fan of tall, skinny tires. Pizza cutters, some people refer to them as. Lots of trucks these days have big, fat tires, and they look pretty cool, but for most conditions they are less than ideal. I really like the Cooper A/T3 tread and have run it on other vehicles, so that was the choice for sure. As to the size: to get added clearance, a greater load rating, and to keep it nice and narrow, we went with 235/85R16.

Image source

The new tires are almost 32″ tall- a significant improvement over the stock height of about 30″- so we gain almost an inch of clearance with the new tires. Additionally the 235’s have a load rating of 3042 lbs per tire vs. 2680 lbs for a typical 215. The additional load rating does not increase the load we can carry, but it is just a stronger tire so they will live a long and happy life rolling along far below their load limit.

After selecting a tire and size, special consideration was given to the rims. It seemed reasonable to replace the 30 year-old rims, and due to the tire size change, this was actually necessary. You see, dual tires need an air gap between them to stay cool. The gap is a function of how wide the tires are, and the distance between the center of the rim and the plane where the rim bolts to the hub (a measurement called wheel off-set). Because the new tires chosen will be slightly wider, we needed rims with a greater offset, so we ordered 7 new rims with a 5.35″ offset (the old rims had a 5.15″ offset).

The rims actually lived in our house for many months before we were ready to get the tires. Though they did finally get their tires attached.

And they finally made it onto the Turtle.

Some additional touches included new lug nuts all around, and lug nut covers. We could only find the covers in stainless steel, so we ordered them, had the 32 brand new covers powder coated black for $40, and installed them. They add a nice, finished look, and will keep the threads clean too!

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You can see we have a nice narrow tread but a taller traction tire. I did add a 1/4″ wheel spacer for the front tires to cancel out the additional offset of the rims and preserve (within 0.05″) the stock wheel center line for the steering. Luckily, the front hub was just proud enough to accommodate that and still have the hub-centric wheels centered properly.

The spacing between the rear tires actually increased slightly. All in all, it really worked out pretty great. The new tires will keep us safely stuck to the road in all kinds of weather and terrain, and I sure think they look pretty nice too! Maybe someday we’ll get even bigger tires…

The Oregon Coast: Seaside

We’re almost all caught up here! Hooray! We’ve only just left Seaside, so one more post update and we’ll be reporting our adventures in real time again.

We left Astoria on Sunday the 21st with Lisa and Rhema and drove down to Seaside to have lunch before they headed back to Portland. After lunch at Seaside Brewing, Andy and I checked into the RV park where we’d be staying. We were treated to another day of unseasonably beautiful weather on the coast that lasted almost an entire week!

We were so pleased with our spot—the bright indoor pool, hot tub and sauna, and the bike-able proximity to town—that we decided to stay a while longer. Not to mention the fact that one of the main reasons we went back to Seaside instead of going north to Long Beach, WA, is that we’d had our hopes set high to catch some crabs, and we could get our in-state shellfish licenses if we stuck around!

We rented crab pots and rode our bikes up to the 12th Street bridge to drop them in.

If this isn’t evidence that Andy’s the cutest, then I don’t know what is. He duct taped a box onto his bike rack and wrote the tide tables on it, marked the minimum size for keeper crabs, and illustrated a reminder of the difference between the males and females. You can’t keep the ladies!

Halfway through our stay, Andy ordered some crab traps online so we could leave them in longer. With the rings, you’re supposed to check them every 20 minutes or so, but with the traps, if a crab comes in, he’s there to stay! Andy strapped them onto the crab box with bungee cords and we tried again.

This guy.

Throughout our stay, the locals were eager to share their advice on the best crab bait. Fish heads, chicken, squid, frozen turkey legs, cat food, herring. . . the list goes on, but we stuck with chicken. We were also told that this month has been especially bad for crabbing, proven by the fact that we didn’t see anyone catch any, despite all the traps hanging from the bridge. Sadly, we had no luck crabbing either, but we have high hopes for Wheeler! (That’s right, we’re heading south now. . . details to follow.)

Of course, the other appeal to Seaside is beach time. . .

Patio lunches at Seaside Brewery. . .

Outdoor kitty time. . .

The Wine and Beer Haus (they have Stone Ruination on tap, so Andy was a very happy camper!). . .

And having friends come to visit! Lisa and Rhema came to spend the weekend with us again, and we had a blast. Rhema climbed a huge rock.

Just kidding.

The wind was blowing like crazy on the beach!

Rhema gave us some pointers on throwing a frisbee golf putter. I’ve never seen anyone throw a frisbee as far as this guy can!

Every frisbee golfer could use a fetching-obsessed dog while practicing.

Lisa and I were cracking up watching Kona dig rows of holes!

When the weather turned stormy, we visited the Aquarium, played some Cribbage and Settlers in the Turtle, swam, shot some pool, and ate pizza. A great weekend!

Well, a mostly great weekend. When we got up on Sunday morning, Andy noticed that my bike had been stolen! Boooooo. I’m heartbroken. I loved that bike. And it feels so ratty to know some jerk was skulking around outside the Turtle while we slept. Grrr. 😦 Also, what gives?? First my phone and now my bike! *Sigh*

But we’re all still healthy, happy and active, so in the grand scheme of things, I suppose it’s a minor setback. Anyway, as a bike is a necessity for our lifestyle, we picked one up at the bike shop in town, so my heart will heal and I’ll still be able to get where I’m going. Plus, it’s purple!

The following weekend our friend Dan came up to visit with his friend Sarah. They stayed at the most charming hotel called Ashore. It’s quite small, but it has loads of accommodations. A small deep pool, a wet sauna, and a darling wine bar that stays open until 11pm! We enjoyed them all. Plus a night walk through town to check our traps and admire the little coastal homes.

We had breakfast at a place called The Firehouse Grill, and YUM! Perfect fluffy biscuits, fat strips of bacon, spicy sausage, fresh grilled veggies. . . wait, to be clear, I didn’t order all those things—we sampled each other’s breakfasts. It was a relaxing and enjoyable weekend; so fun to see Dan again, and great to meet Sarah! Thanks for coming up, guys! 🙂

We left that morning, which was yesterday, which means we’re all caught up here! We’re back at our middle-of-nowhere tent site outside Wheeler on our way to Montana. But more on that next time!

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