Dan & Annie's
Summer Adventure 2006

July 18th, 2006:

Now some of you have indicated that while you love following our story and looking at the pictures,

you really have no clue as to where we really are. (e.g. “Have you visited the Grand Canyon yet?”) 

So here I am including a map of our journey across the country so far:

Also, here is the current status of our “states visited” map, pasted to the side of our camper.

We have added Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho:

Enough geography. You either get it or you don’t.

We left Glacier National Park a few days ago and headed west.

Here is one last picture, taken as we drove out for the last time.

This is not a postcard, I actually took the picture with my own camera:

Our next stop was Whitefish, MT., 25 miles from Glacier. We stopped to do some biking at a ski area

called Big Mountain. You go up in the chairlift and ride down from the top. Sound easy, right?

Well it’s 8 miles from top to bottom, and we did it twice. Now two days ago we did this 13 mile hike.

I didn’t mention it before, but the day after the hike both Annie and I could hardly walk. We had blisters

on the bottom of our feet, and we fought over who would drive the camper the next day, because driving

involved pushing down on the accelerator, and damn it even that hurt!

Here we are at the top of Big Mountain:

Turns out we didn’t have to worry about sore feet today. Biking down a mountain for 16 miles allows you

to torture an entirely different set of body parts. These include arms, wrists, thumbs, and don’t forget your ass.

Next we drove on towards Idaho, but right before we crossed the border we stopped at a little roadside

turnoff and found this swinging suspension bridge strung across the Kootenai River. A good place for photos:

That’s all for now.

Dan & Annie

July 18^th 2006

Joe’s bike at the top of Big Mountain, Montana: