Uhmm

Welcome back boys and girls! Are you ready for some new adventures from your favorite road trippers in the whole western States and Canada? We saved a couple of them the last 3 weeks, because we are just lazy at keeping something like a blog up-to-date.

Well, the last post was about Pokemon, a nice way to kill the time if the Hoff is taking a holiday. But before the Hoff decided to become a stubborn little van with a dead battery in Columbus, we had our breaks checked in Rapid City. Afterward we drove to the Badlands. This national park was created for Boss Bruce to live safely with his enormous jaw, but contains some nice landscapes too. The plains at the park have been eroded like crazy, leaving a rugged landscape with all kinds of wildlife. Too bad there was a acute shortage of hiking trails in the park, which made us decide we had to go to the Devils Tower, as the lack of trails was surely this block's doing.

The Devils Tower in Wyoming is an old magma reservoir which is beautifully exposed in the surrounding landscape, a real surprise for us. We camped at the foot of it and joined a nice lecture by a ranger about porcupines. This nice lady had some interesting points of view about this creature, for example: it can be compared to teacup and a little porcupine is called a porcupet. After this moving story we went to bed with heads bulging with porcupine thoughts.

The following day, it was a Saturday as I recall, we headed out for a long driving day. The three bends in the stretch of 400 km kept us wide awake and alert, and this day ended at the free campground in Columbus. How that went is already described in the previous two posts. The mechanic who helped us on our way on Monday told us it was a dead battery and something might be draining it. We, having faith in the Hoffs capacities, decided not to let him look any further and headed out to Bozeman, a nice college town in Montana, fully enclosed by hills and mountains. In this town Sanders uncle, Ewout, and his family live.

The following day we visited the Rocky Mountain Museum in Bozeman, a museum with all sorts of things, especially the dinosaurs are impressive. Though when we came back, had a nice bike ride and a small hike, we tried to start our Hoff which was parked on Ewout's driveway. I wouldn't have written the last sentence if our effort had been successful, so the Hoff was broken down again. The same thing happened: a dead battery. We towed the Hoff to a shop with Ewout's car, meeting strange and entertained looks on the way. The next day, after the mechanic checked a lot of stuff, he couldn't find any draw whatsoever. We decided we would disconnect the main battery every night when we were parked somewhere.

So after some really nice days in Bozeman, we left again, stuffed with cookies, cheese and sausage for on the road. After a long long day driving the Hoff finally stopped his noise in the National Forest near Glacier NP in northern Montana. After a deserved nights rest, we woke up and hiked up one of the mountaintops which was accessible. A lot of the park is still not opened yet due to the harsh winter and snow. The hike brought us to a fire lookout, a nice wooden building surrounded by two meters of snow. The inevitable outcrop-dance was preformed not on a outcrop but on the building itself.

A visit to lake MacDonald was preformed the next day, Sunday, where we hiked over a ridge down to Trout Lake. The weather wasn't good, a lot of fog and some spatters of rain. On the way back over this ridge, we had lunch in a switchback. Suddenly a brown creature appeared some way down, cutting of the switchback and lazily continuing his way down the trail. This brown creature proved to be a grizzly bear. Thankfully our bear bells and our scents must have warned him of our presence. Back at the parking lot a second surprise waited for us. The Hoff had drained his battery again! With some help of a family from Arizona, I (Frans) drove to the ranger station with them, meeting halfway with the law enforcement ranger send for us earlier by an old lady. So I drove back with this friendly but stern woman, in between us two big shotguns. And so we discovered that the National Park Service of the US has rangers with battery chargers which they use for free on the Hoff! Not long after, we were on our way again, towards Columbia Falls where we parked next to the shop. Jasper pitched his tent on a even weirder place then his Walmart-camping trip, this time it was behind a autoshop next to a supermarket.

We got up early, got the guy from the shop to look at our battery and he decided the battery was bad. Though Sander and me had bought this battery last year, so we got a waranty! We went to another shop, picked up the battery and went on our way again, over the continental divide towards the east. We stopped at a beautiful lake and after the hike and a bath in the lake, the Hoff's battery was dead again. Luckily we could call our friends of the National Park Service with a payphone and a ranger quickly charged our battery again. From now on we disconnected the battery every time we are parked for more then an hour. After our second Ranger meeting we headed out to Canada, to Waterton Lakes NP. As it was getting late we camped in the campground in the park, which hurt our wallet, as one night was 28 dollar!

Waterton lakes took two days to discover. The dude at the visitor center warned us for snow, but apparently he must have thought we are really old, as the snow was almost non-existent. The second day we had some more snow. That evening we drove to Pincher Creek, where we stood at a campground again, this one with a better price. The following morning we skyped, or at least as long as the internet could hold it. We got some food and beer and headed out to the Crowsnest pass area, where we would team up with my family and all the friends which where camping out there.

Though this camping was a bit different from the standard Dutch holiday traditions. Almost everyone had a huge trailer or big RV-touringbus. Besides that, everyone had a quad or crossmotor. Thus the following three days Sander and me enjoined ourselves with quadding, Jasper couldn't come as it would have broken his back even more than it already has, so he made some nice hikes in the area, including a hike up to Turtle Mountain, a mountain which collapsed in the early 1900's onto a mining town. The adventures of getting stuck in mud, rivers and bumping over rocks, trees and steep hills are countless. Though the biggest story is about Sander, who decided to fly a bit with the quad. He got launched from his quad after bumping in a ditch with a speed of 40 k per hour. He hit a tree, followed by the quad, and ended up some 10 meters below the trail under the quad. Luckily, very luckily, he didn't break anything and is walking like a daisy again now. The quad is riding like a daisy again as well.

This happened on Sunday, the last day of camping in Crowsnest. In late afternoon we drove back to Taber where we stayed at my aunt and uncle on Monday en Tuesday. We did some laundry, got some hair cut, visited a doctor due to tickbites and got our van fixed. At least, that is what we hope. Our eight year old auxilary battery was cooking so we bought a new one and had someone check our divider. Some wires where weird and we have to get a new electric divider. Hopefully the Hoff won't let his batteries drained again by the draining ghost!

Sander will be heading of to E-town (Edmonton) for a wedding of Kaylee's sister, Jasper and I will head to Banff NP for some more hiking before picking up Nienke and join up with Sander again during the fireworks festival Thunder-In-The-Valley in Crowsnest pass.