Drive Across Canada and ....

Leaving from the cottage in Mom's new Ford Escort wagon with Mom and Danny.

The Mackinac Bridge spanning the gap between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

American long horn cattle in the midwest.

Pioneer farmstead and equipment.

Danny playing with prairie dogs.

The Badlands in South Dakota, (above and below).

Mount Rushmore.

Devil's Tower, Wyoming.

The Prairies.

Cowboys doing a cattle drive from paddock to paddock.

The Grand Tetons, Wyoming, just south of Yellowstone.

Reflections of the Tetons. 

Old Faithful, which erupts every 44 minutes.

Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone NP.

Mother moose and calf in Yellowstone.

Snow in July.

Three photos of our drive across Beartooth Pass from Montana to Wyoming.

Parliament Buildings in Victoria, B.C. 

Dan, me and Mom on the beach in Pacific Rim NP on Vancouver Island.

And Deb, who we had picked up in Victoria.

The water is freezing!!

Tuesday, July 6, 1999

My mother, Rosemarie, and my son, Daniel and me left from the summer cottage in mom's 1998 Ford Escort station wagon for a road trip across North America. When we got to Sault Ste Marie we had a choice of in staying in Canada and driving north around Lake Superior, or entering the States and driving south of Superior. We chose the later. We crossed the Mackinac Bridge, which is the longest suspension bridge in the world. We drove through Michigan and on into Wisconsin and Minnesota. On July 10th we arrived at Badlands National Park. The forces of erosion have sculpted and carved the soft rock formations into amazing hills and valleys. From there we drove to Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills. The monument is incredible and brings tears to many American's eyes. Next we drove the Needles Highway and into Wyoming where we discovered the Devil's Tower. It is a mass of molten rock that welled up in the sedimentary rock but never broke the surface. After millions of years all of the sedimentary rock was eroded away and the great monolith was exposed. It stands at 265 metres. It has unique wildlife on top from snakes to insects that don't exist at the bottom. The monument was used for the end scene of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We continued west into the Grand Teton National Park where we stayed in the town of Jackson. We drove through the park and eventually arrived in Yellowstone, where we visited Old Faithful and Mammoth Hot Springs. We exited the park via the Beartooth Highway, which is one of the most beautiful routes in the world. Via switchbacks you drive up one mountain to another and then down the other side. There were still deep snow banks on the sides of the road. Then we drove through Montana, Idaho and into Washington State. We crossed back into Canada at Osoyoos, B.C. We arrived in Victoria on July 16th and picked up my wife Deb and had a good visit with her family. We drove to Port Alberni and visited Cathedral Grove, a stand of massive Douglas Fir trees and then to Tofino on the west side of Vancouver Island. Kathy and I had camped on the beach here in 1973 and 1974. As you can see the weather was cool and the water freezing!