From Mount St. Helens, Wa to Saint-Lazare, Quebec (Canada) (July29-Aug5, 2011)

It's time to go home... First day of our trip back, 625 kilometers.
July 30, it's a shorter day from Lewinston, Idaho to Drumond, Montana 447 kilometers (280 miles). We get up at 6:50 am (not much later than to go to work), breakfast, shower, folding the tent and loading the motorcycle. We arrive at the local BMW dealer to change Alain's tyre at 9:00 am. We finally hit the road at 10:30 and ride through the Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail.

Their expedition was the dramatic first step in the westward expansion of the United States. The temperature went only to 33 degrees celsius. Today, a bird was the victim of the road. It hit my jacket while I was riding at 90 kilometers. The police was not called, but I had traces of blood and probably what I assumed is brain matter on my jacket. Tonight, we are the only campers except for another guy sleeping in his car.

July 31: Drummond, Forsyth, Miles City 660 kms  (412 miles). Hot, hot, hot ! The temperature started at 16 degrees this morning and went up to 38.5 degrees celsius  The temperature hit the 38 degrees celsius. We have given up on wearing motorcycles jackets and pants. We ride in T-shirts and jeans... Not as safe, but the feeling is great ! Hard day because of the heat anyway. The road was flat except for the first 200 kilometers.

August 1 : Miles City, Enchanted Highway (North Dakota), Bismark. Another 577 kms (360 miles). The rain threatens us all day. Tonight, in the campground, we are invited to put our motorcycles under a shed as there might be hail ! Enchanted Highway stretches for 32 miles where you can  see some of largest scrap metal sculptures in the world : Geese in flight in 2001, Deer Family 2002, Grasshopper in the fied 1999, Fisherman's Dream 2006, Pheasants on the Prairie 1996, Teddy Rides again 1993, Tin Family 1991. All these sculptures were created by Gary Greff, a teacher in his former life. This is not spectacular, but worth seeing and probably our only souvenir from North Dakota.

The winning formula of the day is : "better slowly than never'', this has become my motto, when Alain asks me: "where are you?" or tells me I should have bought a bicycle... As there is not much to do on the road, we spend our time chit chatting through our communication systems. A lot of nonsense and empty jokes most of the time. This keeps us busy and entertained.

August 2, Bismark, Remer (Minessota) 570 kilometers (357 miles). In the end, there was no storm, and we leave under a blue sky, however with a strong side wind. We live North Dakota for Minessota, the State with 10000 lakes and already it looks like the Quebec Province. Too bad, we are not quite ready yet. We have already driven 2800 kilometers since Mount St. Helens, but our bums are still as sore at the end of each day. We camp behind a motel tonight for $ 29.00.

August 3, Remer, Duluth, Marquette, 570 kilometers again today. Great weather, 27/28 degrees, no humidity. We camp close to Lake Superior. Lake Superior is so huge that it looks like a sea, with waves.

August 4, Marquette, North Bay 695 kilometers (434 miles). Another long riding day, but we are now eager to arrive home. We cross the border at Sault Ste-Marie without any problem. The event of the day was the fact that I was stung 4 times by a wasp on the belly (did not wear my jacket again). Apparently, I screamed quite a lot in the helmet and we stopped. Luckily, thanks to the first aid kit and the soft hand of my beloved husband, the burn faded quite fast. For our last day of camping, we went to celebrate duly with nachos, chicken wings and a beer !

 Our last campsite

The last notes for the blog

August 5, North Bay - Home 490 kilometers (306 miles). We stop quickly to have breakfast and arrive home at 3pm. We are happy ! The lawn needs to be mowed and there is one year of cleaning inside that needs to be done.  However, it is still standing !

 A total of 37,773 kilometers for Alain (23,608 miles)

A total of 27007 kilometers for Francoise (16,880 miles)

This is what our itinerary looked like in the United States (you need to click on the map to see it completely). A great motorcycle trip altogether ! A lot of great memories, so many people met along the way ! It went by very quickly

Thank you to all who have helped us before and during our trip, Jean-Claude and Yves from Pointe-Cascades in particular for showing us the basics of mechanics before we left, the Lunsford family who very kindly hosted us in Nashville, Memphis and Los Angeles (friends of the family mean really something for them), Bruce Amshel in Pittsburgh, John and Wilma Branigan in Houston, Devita Cains Widmer and her husband Steve in Dallas (our charming Texan hosts), Tom Grohmann from TheMIGroup in Los Angeles, who let us store our motorcycles for 6 months for free,  Kate Adams (a spontaneous, generous Harley rider) and her daughter Laura from Springville, California,  our  dear friends Oscar and Alicia in Linares (Chile), the bubbly Pia Lopresti in Hawaii as well as Damal in Hawaii , Quiet Lily on the Island of Chiloe (Chile), Olga in Chile, Jose and Maria in Argentina.  Thank you to all of our faithful followers, colleagues, friends and family, who encouraged us to continue the blog regularly. Your kind words and comments really helped us keeping at it !

In addition, we would like to thank particularly our friends, Vincent and Christine, who kept a close and discreet eye on our house and our son, Julien. Without them, it would have been very difficult for Julien to stay on top of our mail, administrative work that was waiting for us at home. They were always here to help him out, whenever needed !

We will have another posting on this blog in a month or so with  ''the indispensables'' of such a trip and with our first reactions after being back...

Some of you have already asked... On the Road Again...? Where to next ?...

Mount St. Helens National Monument, Wa - USA (July 27-28, 2011)

We arrive at the Mount St. Helens National Monument after visiting Lava Canyon (not worth it...). The main entrance of Mount St. Helens is situated close to Castle Rock. We find a camping 5 miles away from the closest visitor Center. Alain has noticed that he put our locker chain to close to his exhaust pipe and it melted. Time to use our tool kit !

Problem : the numbers don t turn anymore ! Above picture of McGiver using a swiss knife !

The swiss knife did not work. Notice of another tool, the use of the key and the glove, so that it does not slip !

Victory ! it worked !

Time for celebration with red wine in our camping cups !





The history of Mount St. Helens is fascinating, as it is a changing landscape you can see there. On Sunday May 18, 1980, Mount St Helens blew 60,000 feet of heated ash into the sky. An earthquake with a 5.1 magnitude shifted the earth underneath the active vola
Fast facts :
- The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens caused the largest landslide in recorded history.
- The lateral blast removed the upper 1306 ft (396 m) of the volcano.

Above is a picture of Mount St.  Helens before May 18, 1980

Above is the picture of what it looks like now !



- Over 1000 commercial flights were canceled following airport closures due to ash and debris.
- During peak summer months, more than 800 truckloads of salvageable timber were retrieved each day. Weyerhaueser employees planted 18,400,000 trees by hand in an effort to rebuild some of the forest after the blast. It took workers four years to complete this projet.

We spend a full day in the Mount St. Helens Park as they are many stops on the way with visitor center to learn more about it. It`s another fantastic day under a clear blue sky and we can discover Mount St Helens.

July 29, 2011 and it's time to be On the Road again... towards Saint-Lazare, Quebec.

Vancouver Island (July 22-24) and Olympic & Mount Rainier Nat Parks, Wa (Jul.25-26)

July 22, 2011 : We have arrived in Nanaimo and camp there. We head as early as possible to the Pacific Rim National Park. We ride through Cathedral Grove,

which we had already visited about 20 years ago. We leave for Ucluelet in the only camping with some room left. The price of the campground is outrageous: $ 42.00 for the services we get. Their website in on Facebook and I can't wait putting some comments, once we have arrived home ! When you arrive, they are happy to tell you that the showers are free... they forget to tell you that they are not very clean !

July 23, 2011 : We think that we are back in Chile ! noisy neighbors and a short night ! We decide to stay at the campground anyway and we spent an easy day at the beach, reading. Alain is happy to see 3 times a whale jump ! It's wonderful to see these powerful and elegant mammals !

The following day, we leave already the island with a ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles, Washington. Yes, we are going back to the United States for a while. In Victoria, we can see one of the largest yacht in the world, which was bought by an American businessman.

We end up our day in Olympic National Park, riding up Hurricane Ridge (5230' with view on glaciers and the ocean). It's sunny with a blue sky, the perfect time to go up there.

July 25 & July 26 , 2011 : Port Angeles to Mount Rainier National Park: our trip will be done under a threatening sky with some showers and in the evening, we will stop in Cougar Rock campground. Tonight, the weather forecast is not great, but our camp fire will heat both our body and our spirit. The next morning, after folding the tent quickly and all the rest between showers, we leave to visit the Paradise Henry Jackson Memorial. We will arrive at the center, which is still surrounded by snow and after enjoying a coffee, we will ride the loop. We will be lucky enough to see a cute little fox, blue and black !

We then head to Sunrise Visitor Center. The weather has now completely cleared up and we can see the Mount Rainier in all its strength and awe. Once again, we realize how little and insignificant we are. With binoculars, we will see its glaciers and its crevasses.

It has been a great day and we reward ourselves with a night in a motel. We have not slept in a real bed in about a month !!!... and this time, we sleep well !

On the Road Again...

Vancouver, BC - Canada (July 19-21, 2011)

Vancouver brings back many memories to both Alain and myself. This is the place where we chose to immigrate in Canada in 1988. We will always remember our arrival at Vancouver airport on June 4, 1988 with a clear blue sky and a great temperature. Awesome for 2 relatively young people to see the mountains in the back and then, the ocean !

This time, when we arrived on July 19th, 2011, via Whistler, we were slightly moved. We found a campground on the North Shore, very close to the highway, actually any closer and we would have ended up on the pavement!

It is obviously noisy but nothing will affect our mood, not the noise and not the rain. After all, the train does not whistle here and it's not pouring cats and dogs. The temperature is mild at 20 degrees. So we are back tracking our steps in Vancouver, we ride with our motorcycles through the Stanley Park, take the traditional pictures of totems in the Stanley Park

and downtown

With the weather being slightly overcast, we have the same feel as 20 years ago. There is just an atmosphere in this park, joggers, bikers everywhere, like in San Francisco. We spend some time in Grandville Island where we enjoyed shopping in the past. Later during the day, we go to see our first appartment, then second townhouse, then our third house (which does not exist anymore) and our final townhouse on Lynmoor Place. Downtown has changed a lot, but apart from that, we find our way fairly easily. Vancouver is still the beautiful city we have left ! We stop by the office of TheMIGroup in Richmond to say hi to Tyler and May. We then had supper with my former colleague and friend, Steve and his lovely spouse, Kitty !

Enough nostalgy ! On the Road Again on the ferry to Vancouver Island !



and we did not forget that you can eat an excellent clam chowder on the ferry !

Banff and Jasper National Parks, Alberta, Canada (July 9-18, 2011)

... and yes, we are now back in Canada. We feel weird being back in Canada. Although not quite home yet, our minds are drawn back to work and Montreal. But we have another month or so to go. We visit our son, Thomas, in Calgary, who has been living here on its own for 3 years. Alain has helped him buy a car, his first one, a Jeep Laredo 4x4... He wanted a big car, he is getting it... well, he is the one who will have to pay for gas, insurance, maintenance. Let him have his experience !

Now that Thomas has his car, we think we have probably invaded his space for enough time and we leave after four days. We take the road to Banff National Park. Alain and I have lived in Vancouver before, from June 1988 to April 1992. At that time, we had visited the Canadian Rockies. We must say that we had forgotten how beautiful this part of Canada is. The Canadian Rockies are breathtaking with their summits, glaciers, lakes with different colors (blue, green, white), wild open spaces without any houses on the horizon.

Lake Louise and Glacier in the background in the above picture

Real colour of Lake Morraine above

Paint pot above

 Picnic on the side of the road !

And the wild life is present too...

Our days are so filled up with walking, visiting, riding the motorcycles, that by the time, we come back to the tent, we are too exhausted to write our daily notes. It is not a joke. We find it sometimes difficult to have the discipline to keep up with the blog every day. We are glad that during our trip, we have shared as much as we could and as often as we could. Hopefully it does not get too boring for our followers, as in the United States and in Canada, we are mainly visiting National Parks with many different sceneries. In all cases, we have documented our memories. Alain and I are already talking about reviewing all the pictures. Sometimes, we just loaded them on Picassa without even having the time to really look at them. We keep on meeting wonderful people on the road, sometimes just for 10 minutes and sometimes we end up on the side of the road talking for an hour or more, and sharing our different experiences. There are many travellers nowadays and it is fascinating to meet and talk with them.

Time to go. On the Road to... Vancouver !