Taste of Kiwi: Blog of Author Shelley Munro

The internet link is really slow today but I think I can load one photo. We visited the John Day Fossil Beds yesterday, which were really fascinating. Scientists are still discovering new species of plants and animals on a regular basis.

This is a shot of one of my favorite beds. The minerals in the soil (from volcanoes) make the rocks look blue/green in color.

We’re off to look at covered bridges today. Guess what will be in the next blog…

USA has some awesome National Parks. We’ve visited Olympic, Mt. Rainier and Mt. St Helens during the last few days.

I mentioned a little about Olympic in the last post. It’s a huge park and it covers both rainforest, lakes and mountains as well as the coast. My first shot today is of one of the tide pools on the coast. We were lucky enough to visit while it was low tide.

Mt. Rainier National park was beautiful. The day was clear and visibility good. I was disappointed during our last visit because we missed the wildflowers. This summer seems to be later and they are in full bloom. We wandered around the portion of the park called Paradise. The name is perfect because it is indeed Paradise.

Our final visit was to see Mt. St Helens, which erupted in 1980 causing great devastation. The area has regenerated but it’s still easy to see the damage with matchstick-like tree trunks, the lava flow area plus the side of the mountain that collapsed.

Of the three my favorite was Mt. Rainier but I’d recommend a visit to any of the three if you have a chance. They’re all beautiful.

I enjoyed our time in Canada, and we’ve decided we’ll return to Vancouver Island at some future date to catch the places we missed. After Campbell River we traveled to Port Alberni where we stayed at a wonderful bed and breakfast called Cedar Wood Lodge.

Stamp Falls

Our hosts were originally from Utah but were very knowledgeable about their new home. They suggested we visit a local beauty spot called Stamp Falls Park. We heard the magic words salmon and swimming and off we went. Mr. Munro swam with the salmon and took a few photos, although they were hard to catch on film because they moved so fast. The water was too cold for me. I was content to watch the salmon leaping from the water and to soak in the scenery. The fish ladder that the salmon use to navigate the falls was fascinating and we watched their struggles for a long time.

Gabriele – if you’re reading this you’ll laugh because we had dinner at the Little Bavarian Restaurant. It’s very popular with the locals and the people at the B & B booked for us. We were lucky enough to get a cancellation and had a wonderful meal. It seems quite a few Bavarian people settled in British Columbia and Washington. The food was yummy and it was easy to see why it was so popular.

On the way to Victoria we stopped at Coombs to view the Goats on the Roof. There’s a wonderful food market here where you can buy all sorts of delicious treats. The roof of the building is covered with grass and several goats graze up there during the summer, much to the amusement of the tourists. The goats were shy when we were there but I did glimpse one.

We also visited a town where all the buildings are painted with murals depicting the history of the area. They have some very talented artists. And thanks to our B & B hosts, we stopped off at Cathedral Grove where they have some very large Douglas Fir which were over 300 feet high and very old.

Victoria is beautiful, albeit touristy. The harbor is pretty and the parliament buildings look like a castle. At night they are lit up with hundreds of lights.

We ended up going whale watching. I’ve been fascinated with orcas or killer whales since I wrote an orca shifter story a few years ago. We spent about an hour with a Transient group of orca. They’re the ones that eat seals, whales, birds and other animals rather than fish. They travel from place to place unlike the Resident orcas. This particular family group had a new calf – about two days old, according to the naturalist onboard. Because of this they moved at a slow pace and didn’t do any deep dives. We also saw lots of fur seals and seabirds. It was a fun outing and much more rewarding than the bears!!

At the moment we’re back in the USA at Crescent Lake in Olympic National Park. We’re staying at Log Cabin Lodge and our room looks over the lake and forest clad mountains. Before we went into dinner several deer were grazing in front of our room. It’s a real slice of heaven and you can bet the story ideas are popping. We walked into the main lodge after reading about the depth of the lake – over 600 feet in parts. I was muttering about the Loch Ness Monster and we sighted a painting and a small card about the local sighting of a strange monster in the lake. Obviously I’m not the only one with a vivid imagination!

We’ve had a busy couple of days with mixed results. The rafting/salmon snorkeling adventure was lots of fun. After a rainy morning the sun came out. The rain chased everyone else away and Mr. Munro and I were the only customers. I didn’t snorkel since I have trouble seeing stuff without my glasses. There were so many salmon it was easy to spot them from above. I sat back and enjoyed going over the baby rapids in the raft. (Levels 1 & 2 for the rafting experts out there)

Here’s a shot of the salmon and one of me enjoying the day.

The bear-watching portion of our trip, that we’d looked forward to for months, was really disappointing. It’s the start of the season and, of course, there are wild animals involved who don’t perform on cue. We both knew this. We saw three grizzly bears grazing on grass at an inlet when we arrived. When we arrived at the viewing area everyone made so much noise the bears moved on. Understandable from the bears’ point of view. Right at the end we saw a bear on the road. Once again the rest of the group pushed and shoved and I ended up with a quick glimpse and no photo. As I said – really disappointing. Maybe another time.

On the plus side the scenery was gorgeous and the sunset spectacular. The rainforest reminds me of our bush at home. Oh, and the sun shone for the entire afternoon and the seas were smooth. It wasn’t all bad. We’re going to put bear-watching back on the bucket list for another day.

During the last few days we seem to have hit upon themes in Washington. Our first theme was a Bavarian one. Leavenworth is not far from Seattle (a few hours) and is a ski resort during the winter. It’s a very touristy place but still a lot of fun. All the buildings are painted with murals and we drank German-type beer while eating pretzels and bratwurst sausages. Yum! Here’s a photo of me standing at the bar.

And a photo of some of the murals and buildings. Even McDonald’s was in theme.

The next day it was a Western theme when we stayed at Winthrop. The town has wooden boardwalks and cowboy and western-type murals. This was also a fun place to stay.
Here’s a shot of the town.

The following day we drove through the Northern part of the Cascades and we had a tree theme going on. The scenery was really pretty and I kept thinking of Lauren Dane’s werewolves running around. They’re probably not situated in that part of the Cascades, but I imagined them peeking at me as I drove past. Here’s a scenery shot to finish my post.

I’ll be back tomorrow to tell you about our trip down the river/salmon and also our bear watching trip. I’m really looking forward to this trip, and luckily the weather is improving.

Happy Labor weekend to everyone in the US.

We;ve spent the last couple of days in Oregon and tonight are just over the border in Walla Walla, Washington. I’m posting a few photos today. The first is of Devil’s Tower, which is in South Dakota. We had our first snake sighting here. It slithered across the path in front of us.

Mr. Munro and I missed checking out the Million Dollar Cowboy bar last time we visited Jackson Hole. This time we made sure we visited. Here’s a photo of me sitting at the bar.

We both really enjoyed our visit to the Oregon Trail Center near Baker City. The displays were excellent and very interesting. Despite the passing of the years it is still possible to see the ruts made by the wagon trains. I don’t envy the people their long trip from Independence, Missouri to Oregon. It wasn’t an easy one.

They also had a man talking about birds of prey while we were there and he had two different owls plus a hawk with him. His talk was fascinating and it was great seeing these birds at close range. Unfortunately we couldn’t take photos. For some reason they had masses of mosquitoes at the Oregon Trail center. They were the size of small birds and very active. I hate mosquitoes! Here’s a photo of one of the wagons in the outside display.

We had a really early start this morning and were seranaded by wolves. I really wanted to see wolves but hearing them was as close as I came. Mr. Munro wanted to see a bull moose. We were actually disappointed by the number of animals we saw in Yellowstone National Park, although the park is very large and any sensible animal would stay well away from the roads and all tourists. The scenery is beautiful. I really like the mountain meadows with the meandering streams and beautiful wild flowers.

The Grand Tetons are very pretty. Once again, we didn’t see many animals but by this stage it was midday. Here’s a shot of the Grand Tetons.

We were very excited to come across heaps of cars and people since we knew it meant an animal sighting. I thought it would be a bison again. Mr. Munro said he wanted to see a @#%&* moose and we were going to see what they were looking at! Mr. Munro turned out to be right and we were able to get really close to a bull moose. He stood in the middle of a stream grazing, ignoring all the people. And I have to add here that some people really need to act a little more sensibly. These are wild animals. Here’s the photo of the @#%& moose.

Today’s blog entry comes courtesy of Mr. Munro:

Last night, Tuesday, we went to the rodeo. Great fun. Very professional. It only lasted 2 hours but there was bareback, saddle, bull riding, barrel racing, steer wrestling, roping and there were kids chasing calves that had ribbons on their tails. There were also clowns. The cowboys and girls travel anywhere up to 48 hours to compete at the Cody Nite Rodeo.

We drove into Yellowstone from Cody where we passed a large meadow full of fire trucks, tents, porta loos, and firemen to fight the forest fire on the border of the park. We later found out that they are going to let it burn out naturally, unless it posses a risk to the Park or buildings. It was exactly 20 years ago to the day that a huge forest fire decimated Yellowstone, over one million acres of forest destroyed. The re growth is very slow. Luckily the wind was kind and it hasn’t affected our stay in Yellowstone.

We’ve seen bison, lots of bison [no threat of extinction there] to the extent that they roam across the road holding up traffic. They are not tame, each year a number of stupid tourists get the ultimate close up and are gored in the process. We saw a fox, coyote, badger, bald eagles/osprey, trout, bambies and tourists. We did see a grizzly bear that was sleeping off its meal of bison. That carcass was about 20 metres from the bear which was hidden by long grass. Every now and then it would stick its head up and did get up and wander around for a few seconds before laying down again. There must have been about 40 cars parked along the verge of the road trying to take photos. Waste of time as the bear was more than 100 metres from the road. The Park rangers were trying to keep the traffic moving but sightings are rare so everyone wanted to see. They have their own policing within the National Park service and watch out if you exceed the speed limit. Besides, if you travel too fast you’ll miss the scenery and wildlife.

This is Beauty, the mammoth. The mammoth place was fascinating. This particular one is called Beauty because it is almost perfect. There’s a tiny tip missing off one tusk but the skull is otherwise intact with few cracks.

This is a photo of a Bighorn Sheep. We came across three perched on a rock on the side of the road. They were males and argued over the choice bits of tree leaves with loud clashes of horns.

This unknown critter caused great consternation when it tried to stick its head inside the car to investigate me at closer quarters. I moved very quickly to close the window! Hubby couldn’t stop laughing and took this photo.

No photos today since I’m tired and can’t summon the energy to download my camera to my laptop. Last night we stayed at Grand Lake – actually outside Grand Lake – at a campground called Elk Creek in some darling little cabins. Mr. Munro has been very clever with our accommodation and we’ve stayed in a real mix. I was sitting our our terrace having a beer and watched a mouse run across the steps. Mice don’t scare me (unless they choose to run over my feet) so I continued sipping my beer and casually mentioned it to hubby. When he investigated, he found more mice. A family of the wee things. Later that night I kept hearing noises and at one stage shot upright in bed and woke Mr. Munro. It was raining and the patter on the roof had woken me. The mice hadn’t decided to come inisde out of the cold, so I went back to sleep.

Today we drove through the Rocky Mountain National Park. I purchased a book on mountain lions and questioned the ranger for some time. Ranger Michelle was lovely and my story idea is fermenting nicely after all the info she gave me. We saw some moose and stopped to take photos. We also stopped to take photos of some elk. Their antlers were HUGE. I don’t know how they manage to hold their heads up. When we traveled farther into the park, it started sleeting – freezing when you’re wearing shorts! I yanked more clothes out of the suitcase and layered. It worked all right and a hot cider at the information center at the top of the mountain completed the thaw. We enjoyed all our wildlife sightings. Next on the list is bison and beers. We have a list and we’re ticking it off.

Tomorrow we’re driving into South Dekota. Deadwood – here I come!

Oh, I forgot to say that we had a fun time in Cripple Creek and for the first time in history Mr. Munro and I won some money at one of the casinos. Me – the last of the big spenders who puts $1 at a time in the machines, played poker and won. I’m still in shock.