Now the MONTANA Watts Family: July 2008

Here are some pictures to go along with our vacation story...

After a long journey we finally made it to Montana May 27th.

R U ready to take that journey with us???

Here We Go.......

Mom and Joe visited us just before we left Jackson, here are a few pictures from their visit

(JACKSON to UTAH)

We started off April 30th and went to Salt Lake. Spent a couple days there with Cammie and said good bye to our pet gerbal Gus Gus who is being cared for by Aunt Pearl, Armani, and Angel (THKS Pearl) then down to St. George. We explored the red rocks for the day then we went to Las Vegas to see sister Diana and Blake reicieve a blessing.

On May 4th

We showed up to the church 20 minutes late, right after the blessings were finished. Then we spent time with the family and Diana and Kelli for the night. Blake is such a cute baby, not as cute as Casey though.

CASEY AND BLAKE REALLY LOVED HANGIN' OUT TOGETHER.

May 6th (NEVADA to CALIFORNIA)

We drove up State Road 95 towards Death Valley and ended up taking a scenic route off towards Scotty's Castle in Death Valley National Park and turning around 10 or so miles to head back to the 95. Then we took the 266 West towards Bishop, CA, went South on the 168, then North on the 395 and we camped out near Toms Place, CA. We drove out the next morning.

May 7th

We drove up the 395 the cut off to the 89 towards Markleeville, we stopped for lunch and a soak in the Markleeville hot springs (highly recommended). That afternoon we drove on through Lake Tahoe and spent the night near Marysvale, then over to Ukiah and up the 1.

May 8th-11th (ABALONE WEEKEND)

We spent a few days on the ocean near Fort Bragg where it was windy and wet. We met some RVers that were cooking up some abalone chowder (like clam chowder) and we had dinner with them. Casey got his first taste of some real food and loved it so much that we ended up wearing it. Skyler made friends with all our camping neighbors and came home (to camp) with two big abalone shells. (the ones that are all shiny and colorful inside). We took a family nap down off the cliffs on the beach and enjoyed the sounds of the ocean. It was a nice break from all the driving and moving camp.

(HIPPI VILLAGE)

then to the US 20 to the 299 West over to Redding where we spent time in a little Hippi-eco village for a couple days, soaked in the hot springs near Big Bend. We made a lot of new friends and enjoyed some good times. (HEY GUYS!!!)

We lost track of the days from there...

Maybe Thursday May 15th (SWEAT LODGE)

We drove up I-5 from Redding towards Oregon with our new friend Moonflower. We stopped in Mount Shasta and camped out a few days at the Budha hole. While we were there, we visited an indian sweat lodge in Weed, CA. The sweat lodge was on the property of a nude resort, Stewart Springs. This was a great place of relaxation, there was soft instrumental music playing, mists of water on the deck, nude sun bathing, mineral baths inside the bath house, massages, a sauna, and a store where you could buy oils and incences as well as other items. (MOM, you would have loved this place). Even little Casey loved the sweat, that was until the loud hollering took place and scared him. It was really spiritual and the indian who lead the sweat prayed so powerfully. I believe that this was just the way God wanted to spend the day with us. I guess the sweats were more of a healing room for this particular tribe. ??

Saturday & Sunday May 17th -18th (CALIFORNIA to OREGON)

From there we went back to camp in Mt Shasta and spent the night. We woke up the next morning and went to church with a guy that we met at camp at a Borean church in Weed. From there we headed North toward Oregon.

(OREGON)

We drove all day til we hit Ashland, we stopped at Lithia Park and locked ourselves out of the jeep. Well it was almost dinner time and we were just taking a break and we found out that the local churches were serving a community dinner for the homeless and community at 4pm so we were fed and fellowshiped with the people in Ashland. It was pretty awesome. In the meantime the locksmith came to unlock our doors. We spent the rest of the evening in the park and hiked to the Fairy Ponds which were covered in water because the water level was so high from all the rain and runoff.

(GRANTS PASS)

We then dove another 40+ miles North to Grants Pass where our new friends and Moonflower's friends Ali and Bob and their girls Lizzy (Elizabeth) and Willow, two beautiful twins. These were one of the most generous, loving people we have ever met. Ali cooked us some great meals, not to mention that by now we hadn't had a real home cooked meal in quite some time. But even better, she had made it veggitarian for Moonflower and we were really laking some fresh veggies. Just the salad had everything you could ever think of putting in a salad plus a few extras. (Ali, if you read this I would like some of your recipes). I think we had spaghetti. She didn't stop there. She had cooked a huge sit-down meal for just about every meal we were there. We spent time with them in the night of Oregon looking into the stars from their lovely home, swam in their hot tub and just really enjoyed our experience there so much that we really considered settling down. Ryan started looking for work and a place to rent. We camped in Valley of the Rogue State Park (right on the famous, so they say) Rogue River. It sure rained alot. We managed to stay dry between staying at Ali and Bob's and our tent. It sure was a good time. THANKS Bob and Ali!!!

May 23rd

Well, we were kind of tired of the gas prices and spending all our money and we had decided we'd better finish what we started and that was make it over to Montana to see Jared, Mandy, and Panda. So we packed up our camp and started driving. We drove and drove til we hit Portland, we though once about staying there but we went looking for a camp and ended up driving too far outside to go back to look for work. It was Memorial weekend and camping was hard to find, plus we ended us having to turn around from one camp we had set out for because it was a State Park (NO DOGS ALLOWED) so we ended up in the gorge on the I-84 and camped at a KOA. They had SHOWERS YEAH!!!

(MONTANA)

We drove out the next day towards Spokane and on the I-90 East through Idaho and drove and drove til we made it to MONTANA. We tried camping at Wildhorse Hot Springs but it was like 10pm and no one was around to tell us if we could camp or not. So we drove North and ended up a Flathead lake campground. We were tired and pitched camp and fell asleep.

We woke up to the best view. It was flathead lake. We spent the next day collecting neat rocks on the shore and enjoying the peace of making it to our destination. About 20 miles north from there was where we are today.

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