Tumbleweed

We've had a fantastic few weeks since leaving Canada and returning to the US. On our way out of Canada, we visited Waterton National Park which is the sister national park to Glacier National Park in the US. It was spectacular and fortunately we avoided any grizzly encounters which is a constant concern in those parts.  We crossed the border into Montana and made our way to Helena to visit our friends Becca and Shaun for a couple days. We're planning to bike tour the length of New Zealand with them early next year so it was fun to connect with them in their home in Montana. They're REALLY into biking so Ginny and I have our work cut out for us if we hope to keep up with them on that trip.  After Helena, we drove south to Bozeman where I had plans to meet up with old friends for our annual summer backpacking trip. After striking out many times in trying to book backcountry permits for the Canadian Rockies, we decided to go to the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness (Beartooths) wh...

We’ve been in Canada for over a month now and have thoroughly enjoyed our visit. The wildlife alone is worth the visit – we’ve seen mountain goats, moose, elk, bald eagles, red tailed hawk, caribou and both black and grizzly bears (the grizzlies viewed from inside our van thankfully!). A number of places we visited on Vancouver Island had recent cougar sightings, but we fortunately didn’t see any. We’ve also gotten good at talking to ourselves and generally making lots of noise when walking through grizzly country to let them know we’re coming and avoid any surprise encounters. And of course the scenery is incredible as you can see from some of the photos below. Ginny and me in Banff National Park Banff is crowded but the scenery is spectacular At first blush, it can be challenging to find many differences between Canada and the USA – even the Canadian accent is virtually identical to the American accent for crying out loud! And of course they love ice hockey more than any other spor...

We’ve been back in the van for about three weeks so it feels like it’s time to fire up the Tumbleweed Blog again. I’m sure you’ve missed it sorely but please do not fret as it’ll be coming to your inbox intermittently for the next three months or so. After a soggy winter parked at our friend Susie’s house in Lakeside, CA, Gemma was in fairly good condition. We had to jumpstart Gemma to get her started as the battery was dead, which had happened last year as well. The bigger issue though was that we discovered mold all over a couple of our sleeping cushions, the interior siding and the bench. We’ve had a small roof leak ever since we bought the van and despite our best efforts to fix it, it obviously still persists. We were fortunately able to buy some foam in Santa Monica to replace the moldy cushions and we spent a couple of days sanding and treating the moldy wood to rid our van of all of the mildew. We’re hoping to find covered parking for our van this coming winter since that’s p...

Welcome back to Tumbleweed! I had put this blog post on ice for the last six months as we weren't traveling much and therefore there wasn't much to report on. But Ginny and I just returned from a 3+ week visit to Taiwan and South Korea so it seems like a good time to get the blog going again!  We were visiting Ginny's parents in Taipei (yes, they and all of Ginny's family are fine after the recent earthquake...thanks for the many messages!) and decided to add a side trip to South Korea since it's a fairly short flight from Taipei. We know Taipei pretty well as Ginny's parents have lived there for more than twenty years and we've visited many times during that period. Nevertheless, we always discover new things as it's such a vibrant and bustling city. One of the things that we really love about Taipei is how easy it is to get around. The city is very walkable and when we have to travel longer distances we take the subway which is very clean, affordable, ...