TravelStream™ news feed for member rahall on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/rahall en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:17:37 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rahall/1/1248063281/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rahall/1/1248063281/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rahall/1/1248063281/tpod.html Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:17:37 -0400 Rick & Amanda's Cross-Country Road Trip

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North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

We did it....10,575km and arrived home in one piece (well mostly). Good times!...........and yes we live in a big country!
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Portland, Oregon, United States

We've made it to Portland....spending 2 nights here for the Portland Highland Games, some Scottish pipes and beer..... then heading home Sunday to complete the trip!!!!!!!!!
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Mountain Home, Idaho, United States

We left Mt Rushmore early Tuesday and after hiking around the monument in beautiful sunny weather we headed for Yellowstone National Park. It was probably the hardest drive we have done yet. It went from very windy open plains to climbing up to over 8000 feet, then back down again then back up again into Yellowstone. We arrived at our campsite around 9pm and checked in no problem. Yesterday we took a short drive up to Grand Canyon of Yellowstone which was spectacular with two huge waterfalls and a small scale grand canyon like landscape. Today we left our campsite and spent the morning at Old Faithful and the dozens of other geysers. We watched as Old Faithful spouted water right on cue at 10:48. Who knew we could predict mother nature that precisely?? Yellowstone was really beautiful...tons of animals...we saw moose, hundreds of bison, elk, deer just to name a few.
We are now in Mountain Home, Idaho...a small hick-town in the middle of no where except for a military base, but nice though. Tomorrow we head for Portland and Amanda celebrates her 33rd birthday on the road.
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Rapid City, South Dakota, United States

We left the racetrack a couple days ago and made it to western Iowa last night next to the Missouri River. I caught 4 small mouth bass in a lake we were camping beside. Today we headed up and into South Dakota on our way to Mt. Rushmore. On the way we noticed these very dark clouds building in the distance with lots of lightning. It seemed like our highway drove right into this storm but we kept driving. The storm rapidly got worse with heavy hail and rain and a tornado forming right before our eyes. We couldn't believe it. I was excited...Amanda was a little scared, but luckily a gas station appeared and we drove under the cover at the pumps to save the windows on the camper from the huge hail. Lots of people were running inside the gas station just as the tornado touched down....so we dove inside for cover. I got some great photos though and it passed over us in a few minutes.
After a few more minutes it was sunny and we watched the storm move out over the grass plains of South Dakota. We are at Mt Rushmore for the night now and are heading out towards Yellowstone Park tomorrow. More big thunder storms here tonight. At least we are not in a tent.
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Joliet, Illinois, United States

We spent three awesome "red-neck" racing days here at Chicagoland Speedway. Hundreds of campers....tail gate partys....bar-b-qs and beer....and oh yeah Nascar racing. The perfect weekend.
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Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

Hi,
Today we spent the whole day doing the Niagara Falls attractions. We started with the Maid of the Mist boat trip up to the falls, which was a really fun....wet trip. We then walked up to the top of the falls and went on the Journey Behind the Falls, which gets you behind the falls in tunnels to see the falls from a different perspective....so loud...and wet. We also went up 750ft up the tower to get an amazing view of the whole area.
We just ended the day with a fireworks show!
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Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

Hi,
We've made it as far east as we're going....Niagara Falls! This morning, even though the weather was cloudy, we decided to take a 2 hour cruise on the Island Queen around Georgian Bay and the many islands there. It was well worth it! The weather cleared a little and we were one of the only ones on the boat. We saw all the cottages and multi-million dollar homes on all the islands. It was a great trip...alot like the Gulf Islands back home. We drove around very busy Toronto passing a very nasty car accident and finially arrived in Niagara Falls. We can see the spray from the Falls from our hotel room and are spending all day tomorrow here.
Nice to get out of the camper for a couple nights and give our trusty camper a rest!

R.I.P. Michael Jackson
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Parry Sound, Ontario, Canada

The roadtrip continues.....we started today by visiting the old locks in Sault Ste Marie. For over 100 years ships have been using the locks to go from Lake Superior to Lake Huron. It was a little rainy but still cool to see because we were in the Panama Canal earlier this year. We are now in Parry Sound which apparently has over 30,000 islands or so the signs say. We may go on a 2 hr cruise on the Island Queen around some of those Islands tomorrow morning before heading to Niagara Falls!
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Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada

Hi,
We had a really scenic drive around Lake Superior today. We were suprised that a lot of it had really great views of the lake and the highway was quiet today. We had lunch on the beach at Terrace Bay which was nice because we were the only ones there. We had a little rain today which was ok because it washed the huge collection of bugs off the camper front. We saw a black bear today and lots of deer, no live moose, but one dead one. I'd hate to be in the car that hit it!! Lots of signs warning about moose running on the highway at night.
Hopefully check out the locks on the lake tomorrow and then we drive around Lake Huron to our next stop....Parry Sound.
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Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada

After a very long drive we've finially made it to Thunder Bay, Ontario. We started today a little late because we wanted to see something of Winnipeg. We did a 45 min tour of the Royal Canadian Mint which was really interesting. They were making coins for Costa Rica while we were there. They actually make coins for over 70 countries, not just Canada.
After we went to the Forks market which is a lot like Granville Island.
Driving out of Manitoba we entered Northern Ontario and thousands of lakes...everywhere. I dragged my fishing rod over 3500km and I was going to use it. I caught two rainbow trouts in about 20 min of fishing, then we had to drive again because we were already running late and I had forgotton about the time change to Eastern time....oops.
Anyways we made it to Thunder Bay!

Rick and Amanda
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