Well, we arrived last night to Tacoma, WA, which is about 10 miles and change from where we will live outside the gates of Fort Lewis or Joint Base Lewis McChord or the home of I Corps, the Army’s First Corps, although it’s never called that.It’s called “Eye” (phonetically) Corps for my non-military peeps.It is by far the largest Army or Navy installation that I have ever lived on or near.It’s huge.I had a crisis of military wife personality upon arriving at the PX (Post Exchange) after getting a “Welcome Packet” and getting the Sailor a regulation hair cut.My crisis (which I think I have every time we move) is the realization that while everything is achingly familiar on an Army base (Anthony’s pizza, O’Charley’s, PX, commissary, etc) it is never quite the same as where you left, or quite the same lay out or quite the same design.I was overcome by a sense of panic and anxiety that “by golly I am a fish outta water!”I am not sure that I can explain that sense of familiarity juxtaposed with unfamiliarity in a new environment compounded by fatigue, a to-do list out the wazoo, and uncertainty of when everything will level out.I am somewhat proud though, that I have at least reached the level of maturity, or numbness, in which I now know that this too shall pass.I soon will be able to tell what aisle the toilet paper resides and the best day to miss the crowds and which gate will be fastest, but it is a matter of time.And if anyone knows me, patience isn’t exactly my best virtue.Give me a bit and I will get there.
That being said, I have to say one of the best things that I love about the area and an impression that I left when I last visited the area for work was the sheer impressiveness of customer service and kindness by everyone in the service industry.Now y’all know I am from the south and we are pretty well known for our hospitality, but I have to say, the PNW really caps it.There is sincerity to every individual I have met and the desire to give 110% whether it is in food service, at the library or in giving directions.These are the nicest people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.
The drive in yesterday was wet and cold – appropriate for our arrival to the PNW.We considered stopping along the way but the kids wanted to do the complete drive from Montana to Washington – and they cheered loudly when we crossed into Washington, only to be disappointed when they learned that we had 300 more miles to drive.When we finally got into Tacoma (and survived the rush hour traffic), we checked into our downtown hotel with a beautiful view of the harbor and sound (thanks to Priceline) and then enjoyed a waterfront dinner with one of my good friends.After dinner, Mr. Hawking was walking into the hotel and accidentally let go of his helium balloon in the hotel lobby – and cried as it slowly floated up 40 feet against the expansive ceiling.There was nothing we could do, but I did notice the looks of sympathy from the front desk and the lobby bar.About five minutes after getting to our room, the front desk called and asked me to come back downstairs.Everyone at the bar felt so sorry for Mr. Hawking that the hotel staff used a tall ladder and a telescoping pole to retried the balloon.That’s the hospitality I’m talking about!
We have had a successful first day of transitioning.We are now ensconced at the hotel in which we will reside for the next week in anticipation of our household goods (HHG) arrival.If you think military wives know how to make a house a home in short order, you should see what they can do with a hotel for the duration.Our house is gorgeous.It is going to be fun and challenging to find a place for our stuff, but we are up to it.We both have library cards, the kids have dentist appointments, I have found dates for camps, we have an eye on some churches to try this weekend, I have most of my Child and Youth Services paperwork complete and I have a line on some babysitters.Things are going well so far.
Tomorrow will be inprocessing, getting the truck, meeting some JAGs and their wives, running errands and praising God for Friday.I have found my sense of calm again after my moment of personality disorder earlier in the day and I am confident that this will be a new and good home for us.The door is always open.
As an aside—if you are amused by my rants as a military wife, you MUST read Allison Buckholtz’ “Standing By.”Her story is about the struggles as a Navy wife, but she does such an excellent job touching on topics that are near and dear to every military wife that I would put this at the top of my must read list.I have alternately cried and laughed out loud.Her prose is excellent and she makes me look like a writer for the National Inquire compared to a Shakespearean great.I highly recommend the read.
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Please be aware your friends can forward your picture, video, and album share invitations to others or post the unique Web link to your share invitation on any number of sources (e.g. blogs), through which others could also gain access to your online photos. If you have private or sensitive photos you are sharing, please share them only with those you trust.
Before I get on track with my storytelling (which has been the absolute truth thus far), let me tell you about Huckleberry Pie. All throughout Montana and Wyoming, there have been cafes advertising huckleberry pie. I am not usually a pie person as I find that most people make the dessert too sweet, so I have put off any association with huckleberries thus far—although I did have a taste of huckleberry ice cream and did not think much about it—so I have been reluctant to try anything else. But on our last dinner in Montana, I decided to give it a go for dessert. My diet is shot anyway, I might as well enjoy it. SWOON. Let me tell you about homemade graham cracker crumb crust, a thin layer of cream cheese filling topped with a thick layer of huckleberries. Oh Lord. Sin on a plate. It was so good. I am salivating as I write this. I could have eaten the entire pie in one sitting. It was that good and I doubt I’ll ever have anything like it again. The Café was called Luna’s in East Glacier park. The Sailor dined on Buffalo Bratwurst while I tried a local Indian dish that was a puffed flour tortilla, topped with chili and salad. Yummy! It probably wasn’t very healthy, but it sure was good. The kids enjoyed a cheese quesadilla, but their true delight was in learning that we would be driving to Washington and moving into our home a week later. LMS was dancing in the restaurant when she heard that and Mr. Hawking has declared that only he and LMS are allowed on the playground. They are super excited.
Prior to the dinner festival, we enjoyed a hike to Baring falls and Sunrift Gorge on the Eastern side of Glacier as well as a picnic on Two Medicine Lake, a drive through of the eastern side of the Going-to-the-Sun Road and Many Glaciers. What an incredible relaxing and peaceful place. Even the fits of my children were quickly dispelled amongst Father Mountain (s) and Mother Earth. And the funny thing is that my kids are perfectly content to skip rocks in lakes, rivers, puddles and any source of water than anything. Mr. Hawking loves to hike, but LMS gets carried around by daddy wherever she goes. She has him wrapped around her little finger. We are leaving Montana today in hopes of making it to Washington and/or Dupont tonight. Even the kids have said they would rather spend one long day in the car instead of two shorter ones. We will see how it goes. The weather is an apropos arrival to the Seattle area—it is pouring down rain, so we would not have been able to do much hiking either way.
Some random thoughts I realized that I have forgotten: we now have pictures of the Montana State University stadium. We only did a drive by of the University of Montana stadium. I think the Sailor must have been tired of driving as well. He has been trying to convince me to detour down to Boise State to see the blue field. I roll my eyes. And if one more person tells me that we should turn around and go back to Omaha for the baseball game, I will tell them that they can drive around with my kids for three weeks in a small car while I check myself into a spa for the duration. While I am thrilled that Clemson has made the College World Series in Omaha, NE, I am NOT turning around. Ain’t happening folks. Not to mention the Army owns the Sailor—helloooooooooooo!!!!!
While driving through Bozeman, we HAVE to recommend the Museum of the Rockies. This is the coolest collection of dinosaur bones in the US. They have a full T-Rex skeleton on display and parts of 16 others including the oldest known T-Rex to have been found. Its head is HUGE. The interesting thing I learned is that T-Rex was probably a carrion predator rather than an executionist—it cannot run fast, nor use its forehands well enough to fight a live animal. To my dear friends the Pretes—if LL is still into dinos, this is a must do when you come to see us.
We have also been following the World Cup, but like many of our military friends we are perplexed by the lack of frenzy in the US as we experienced overseas. The last world cup match we watched was in 2002 at the Athens airport with Germany playing Brazil for the final. People were GLUED to the TV and it was a party in the Airport. I am sure people missed flights for the game. It’s a great experience and we kind of wish our American brothers and sisters got into it too. Ah well. Cest la vie!
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Or Rainbow Lake or Rainbow River—I think that is what the rivers and lakes in Glacier National Park should be called.The stones that have been washed or oxidized the limestone come in every shade of the rainbow.There should also be a Mirror Lake instead of McDonald and Flat Head Lakes as you can see a perfect mirror of the mountains in the lake.I have only see a lake this still and clear in my life once before in Germany.It’s an amazing sight.
I couldn’t quite place my finger on the difference between Glacier and Yellowstone/Tetons at first and then it dawned on me how much more peaceful the area is in relationship to its southern sisters.Glacier, first off is quiet.The forest is dense and old and many sounds are muffled.On top of that it doesn’t reek of the tourism of Yellowstone and people are not on a mad pace to see everything that Yellowstone has to offer in a short period of time.I find Glacier extraordinarily peaceful and calming.My favorite part of the day was building a dam with Mr. Hawking in the river’s edge.It was so much fun diverting the water flow and polishing new rocks and looking at the marvelous colors.We literally could have spent hours together doing this, but we had a hike to finish through the Cedar trail and then on to a boat trip on McDonald Lake.
The Cedar Trail was amazing.This forest has trees that are hundreds upon hundreds of years old.There are waterfalls everywhere which we all adore.And it was the perfect length for my two rug rats.We’ve decided to change Little Miss Sunshine (LMS) to Little Miss Know-it-All, since she corrects us on context all of the time.Today, when we were discussing going home following the boat trip, she informed us quite imperiously that we don’t have a home, we have a hotel.These types of comments have been happening a lot lately.
Our boat trip was guided by an 84 year old park ranger named Doug.He has been a ranger at Glacier for 51 years.His knowledge and stories of the park are amazing and you can see that he feels as he has grown old and changed, the park has too.I think he will be quite happy to die in this park.He was so cute.I could have just given him a bunch of kisses and hugs.He was so adorable.Although I am not sure an 84 year old man would like to be considered adorable.We’ll see!:)
We are unable to complete the Going to the Sun route since the Logan Pass is still snowed in.Yes, Jane, it is June and yes, there is still snow in the mountains.In fact, we are a tad concerned about one route to Lewis that has been snowed in this past week….hmmmm…The Sailor assures me that this won’t be a problem.We did the first 15 miles of the Going to the Sun Road today and tomorrow we will drive around to St. Mary’s to do the Eastern entrance and as far as it will allow us to go as well as a couple of hikes.I have yet to find Elk Medallions.I am a tad sick of Lunchables that we take on our hikes.Easy and cheap, but I am sure my cholesterol is through the rough.
An addendum to the Yellowstone trip: I forgot to mention that on our last day in Yellowstone we drove to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.You step out on these viewing boxes to see this amazing Grand Canyon and two extraordinary waterfalls.Unfortunately, I am plagued with depth perception issues and heights make me a little nervous.Stepping out over this gorge immediately sends my head into a tizzy and I literally felt the bottom fall out of my stomach.I thought I might hurl.UGH.What a terrible sensation for such an amazing view.We got to see an osprey nest and every time the babies ran up to the edge to see the gorge and waterfalls, mommy almost had a heart attack.
And the Sailor was relieved to get a text message as we left Glacier finding out that the Tigers are off to Omaha.If only we didn’t have to be in Washington this week, we’d be backtracking to Omaha – so the Sailor says!
The Volvo’s issues keep mounting.The passenger side window is now cracked.In case you haven’t been keeping up, the list of issues as is follows on this trip:
Engine Light comes on and off; electrical surge with warning of LMS’s door being opened when closed, air bag failure, lights coming on, passenger side mirror fell off and broke and has been replaced by one that is not the right size, coolant issues, electric window on passenger door broken and now a broken window.Oh, and my car got backed into.I must note that in driving my Volvo the last 5 years I have not had ONE problem with this.I take it in to ensure that it’s all ship shape for the trip and look what happens.I still love my car, but really.This is ridiculous.
On the upside, I am so relaxed from Glacier, I don’t seem to care.We’ll be at Fort Lewis by Thursday and I have a hold list of shinola to take care of.And now, if transportation would only call us to schedule the delivery of our household goods, we will be right as rain.
Well, the lack of technology in the vast reaches of Wyoming caught up with me.Not only am I behind on the blog, but work came to a screeching halt upon arrival in Yellowstone, where use of Wi-Fi and/or cellular connections is considered a sacrilege to the surrounding environment.People are forced to go on real vacations here.After a day of panic, I decided there was little I could do to control the lack of connectivity and figured that I shouldn’t be working anyway while trying to move and will simply do what I can.Yeah…I’ll let you know how that goes with my personality.
So arrival in Yellowstone started with Old Faithful herself, who blew her cap at 1136 precisely.While I found it neat, I have learned that the unexpected belching of random geysers is far more exciting.Old Faithful is, well, faithful, she’ll give you a show, but when we walked past Beehive Geyser, who isn’t supposed to blow her cork but every 10 hours- 5 days, we got drenched with her love.We have a friend that has come twice to Yellowstone and stalked Beehive with the opportunity to see her 100-200 foot geyser, with no such luck.Hopefully, the pictures of the Beehive erupting at the same time as Old Faithful erupted in the background (this time at 1311) survived the camera’s drenching with mineral water.We on the other hand, have such great luck to be showered.The kids were not cool with this, while the Sailor and I giggled like school children.The camera got nailed and we are not sure how much longer it will last.So far, so good.LMS is such a girl, getting sprinkled just ruined her day.Thereafter, we heard, “I want to go to the hotel” while we dragged them through one beautiful geyser and spring after another.The area is mystifying.I am not sure if I am in a Lord of the Rings movie with so much smoke and shadow surrounding me, or if I feel that I am walking through areas that have been gorged by a nuclear warhead.The geysers and springs are not hospitable to green/growing things.The trees that drink the spring water soon get calcified by the mineral deposits and they drop dead like grey skeletons.It’s at once depressing and awe inspiring.And the colors created by the microscopic bacteria and critters create rainbows in the earth.Places like Firehole Falls seem to come out of a Science fiction movie and there is a constant battle between the geysers/springs and those things that want to grow.
Yellowstone leaves me perplexed.It has multiple personality disorder as the upper loop and lower loop have little in common.Except for buffalo and elk.My kids have buffalo and elk fatigue.They are like, whoopideedoo now.It’s like castles in Germany.After awhile, you’ve see one castle, you’ve seen them all.Our tally of wildlife includes HERDS of buffalo, elk, a moose, an osprey, 2 black bear cubs, geese, ducks, blue birds, magpies, pronghorn deer, Big horn sheep,many chipmunks and marmots, one jack rabbit and the Sailor swears he saw a Grizzly and her cubs (if that’s what you can call tiny dots on a distant hill).We’ve chuckled twice as buffalo have marched down the middle of a lane with LINES of cars behind then with no clue that a buffalo is leading the way.It’s their park after all.From our hotel, we have a family of Elks that sit around our cabin and the lodge just showing off.
From Old Faithful, we checked into our cabin (no toilet or shower people) because of the rain—LMS was done with being wet and proceeded to enjoy a phenomenal meal of prime rib, homemade mashed potatoes, warm goat cheese and pine nut salad and a lovely huckleberry crumb cake desert.YUM.The Sailor traded World Cup soccer barbs with our water server, who is from England, and told him that we’d be happy with a draw with England and two wins.One down…
The following day had us hiking from our cabin up through the Mammoth Hot Springs terraces that are a spitting distance from where we are staying.These suckers are HUGE and awesome and again an incredible testimony to the volatile geological structure of Yellowstone.Yellowstone was essentially created after a volcano blew its fuse about 2 million years ago, created a lake and left an unstable network of hot springs below the earth’s surface to which results in an ever changing oasis of color, waterfalls, steam, geysers, and springs.I actually find the sulfur smells kind of cleansing, the kids just think it’s stinky.The Yellowstone volcano erupted twice more – 1.3 million years ago and 640,000 years ago.While we’re due another eruption soon, she’s been quiet this week.
As I am typing this on the porch of our cabin, a mother elk and calf just walked by less than 10 yards away.Well duh.
Lunch was a nasty forage at the local ‘fast food’ place.Nothing special.(However, I should note that, except for one Happy Meal for Mr. Hawking as we left St. Louis, we’ve gone over three weeks without eating at a real fast food restaurant.Take that!)
From there, we headed out for the drive by tour of Lamar valley, which is known for its wildlife viewing.I have to interject here and discuss bear sightings.This is a communal event, which is known for a critical mass of people stopping and staring hard into the woods in order to make a bear appear since one individual “swears” they saw one.There is a core group of photographers and grizzly groupies that hang out at certain places in the park and rangers usually have to come by and do traffic control because people randomly line the roads at haphazard intervals.This could go on for hours, but my patience does not last that long.We spotted two baby bears in the trees and that filled my bear frenzy.Not so much for others.This goes on all over the place.If you see a line of cars, pull off, because I am sure there is something to look at.
I won’t deign to speak of the cafeteria we stopped at for dinner. Barforama.However, of all the places in this huge place, we did happen to cross paths with the other couple heading from C’ville to Fort Lewis.Go figure.The world really is that small.We also ran across a German couple that we had already chatted with once down in the Tetons, they are spending 8 weeks traveling the US for their vacation.Sweet.It makes my day that they aren’t wasting their time on NY, Miami, LA, etc.Mr. Hawking is so shy but loves meeting new kids, and had the mother translate a few things to their two boys (ages 3 and 6).When we left, he was upset that we didn’t get their phone number so that he could have had a playdate with them.This led to 5 minutes of questions about how long it would take to get from Germany to Washington State on an airplane, a jet plane, a car, etc.
After living in Germany for three years, we’re especially attuned to the Germans we see.We’ve had a couple of good chats with some other Germans.One couple told us, when we mentioned that we lived in Wuerzburg for three years: “Bayern?”“Ja,” The Sailor responded.“That is not Germany, it is northern Italy.”One other German-meeting didn’t go so well.When we got to our cabin, Mr. Hawking and LMS unleashed their car-inhibited energies and ran wild in our room. The adjacent room in the cabin (the walls amplify sound next door) was inhabited by a grumpy Germancollege student, who told me that she didn’t appreciate the gleeful sounds of little children playing.While I sympathize with her alleged plight (she said she’s slept 3 hours in the previous 3 days), it was just 4:30 in the afternoon!
A dude just walked by with a shirt that said, “Unathletic club, XXXXL.”The Sailor made me comment.
Today began with a great hike through the Artist’s Paint Pots Geyser basin.The kids and I have lovingly dubbed this area “tootie geysers.”These are mud filled geysers that when they go off, sound like a toot (and please, my mother reads this, don’t make me use the un-lady like version of toot).My daughter, who obviously comes from my husband’s side of the family, is going “toot, phfffft, toot, phfffft, *giggle*, toot, phffffft, toot, *giggle* over and over and over.We have this on video.These are seriously the most entertaining geysers that spray mud and do their business.This is the sort of thing that entertains a 2 and 4 year old.
Mr. Hawking loves our hikes and often runs so far ahead of us that we have to chase him down.More than one fellow hiker hascommented to us: “I bet he’s never quiet, is he?”We’ve both realized after spending three weeks straight with no break from the kids in close proximity that this is a correct assumption.If Mr. Hawking is not asleep, he’s talking. LMS enjoys hikes too, but for her hiking consists of sitting on daddy’s shoulders or mommy’s shoulders while we cart her around everywhere.Even bribes of “energy pills” (Skittles) can’t entice her to walk more than a couple minutes at a time.
From there we enjoyed a picnic (of our usual: Lunchables, cheese, bison/antelope sticks, and Pringle’s) at Norris Geyser Basis and a tour of yes, MORE geysers, springs, fumaroles, hot pots and dead trees.It was lovely.The afternoon was taken trying to get online in the gateway town of Gardiner—no such luck for work and doing laundry.Dinner was a Bison Burger with bacon, barbecue, jalapenos and pepper jack cheese.Need I say more?
The weather has been unseasonably cold: 30s to 50s, which is like January in SC.It is calling for 3 feet of snow about 9000 feet tonight.We’ve been blessed that only one day of weather slowed us down.I am not sure how many people can say they’ve seen as much of Yellowstone as we have in 3.5 days.We went back a billion times to find the grizzlies again, but no such luck.We are just groupies now.
We’re off towards Glacier National Park tomorrow.I’ll be sad to say good bye to Yellowstone, although it kills me to say that I am getting a bit of “grandeur fatigue.”How much beauty can you see this regularly and get numb?More seriously, I am getting to where I miss my own bed and packing up the car is tedious and we’ve had numerous meltdowns that show me that it gets to the kids too.We are getting close.I think I can taste our new home.Surely it will come soon.In the mean time, I am genuinely thankful and blessed to experience God’s good earth and actually slow down enough to enjoy.Peace.Although slightly annoyed that I have still not found Elk Medallions.
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