Our Trip To Eureka, Part 1!

As everyone knows, Mom and I came down to Eureka Montana on Friday to go to the outdoor quilt show that they have here every year on the first Saturday of August. We left home at 10:00 AM our scheduled time of departure, got almost to the border at Del bonita, and realized I had left my Quilt Templates business cards at home, so we were back home at 11:00 AM. We got a phone call from Steve, who had locked himself out of his car in Raymond (second time this week), so we went there with the extra key and got him back into his car. We were finally on our way by 11:30 AM.

It took about 3 hours to get to Eureka, which is about 50 miles west of Whitefish. We hadn't pre-booked a motel, so from about East Glacier on, we were watching out for one, but everywhere was "no vacancy"! We got all the way to Eureka, and there wasn't a room to be found.

This is a picture of Dickie Lake, a beautiful blue colored lake about 20 minutes before Eureka. We drove by it three times in the last couple of days, and there were all kinds of boats on it, and water skiers, wake boards and etc. There's a campground at the far end and a small beach.

Anyway, we got to Eureka and there were only 2 motels, the first had no rooms, so we figured we might have to drive another hour to Fernie (the border is just 10 minutes from here) to get a room.

We decided to stop at the second motel and ask if they had a room before we left town. It's another Bates Motel looking place (for all you road trip fans), even has a casino attached to it. I went in, and at the truly Bates style motel desk in the lobby, asked if they had a room. Someone had just cancelled 5 minutes before and we were in luck! (We talked to some other guests later, who had pre-booked, and they said that all kinds of people had been to the motel trying to get a room, but the motel had been pre-booked and full for the weekend). We were the lucky ones!

Actually, the motel has been refurbished in all the rooms, and it is actually a fairly nice place. We decided to stay 2 nights. It was only $79.50 per night!!! Nothing anywhere near this price in Kalispel and Whitfish.

Eureka is actually a very nice little town, with an historic main street with buildings built in 1903 etc, and lots of interesting stores selling clothes, antiques, quilts, souvenirs, fancy household decorations and etc. There's also a really interesting historic village in the town park, where the main part of the quilt show was set up yesterday.

Friday afternoon and evening we went for a drive west along HWY 37 to Rexford where we ate supper at a pretty neat restaurant. The fried chicken dinner was huge and really good. All kinds of people there eating.

After supper we drove further west to what the waitress called the Big Bridge, to look for an Amish community that lived out there some where. The waitress said to cross the Big Bridge and turn right.

A few pictures of the big bridge,In the second picture you can see where Hwy. 37continues along the shore of the lake, which is the southern end of Lake Kookanusa. Hwy. 2 west crosses the same lake in BC. Anyway, you turn right off Hwy. 37, and drive across the bridge. At the other end of the bridge is an old Hwy. and you have to turn left or right. Left goes to Libby Dam, about 45 miles away along the lake, and right goes to West Kootenai a small town where the Amish settlement is. We went right, and drove for quite a ways, about 15 minutes along the lake, through beautiful forests till we got to West Kootenai. There were cottages all the way, and lots with RV's, lots more civilization than we would have guessed. You couldn't see most of them, unless you turned down the numerous access roads where all the cottage hamlets were. We drove down a couple.

The forests were full of these beautiful Larch trees. The bark looks really neat. We took this picture of an especially red one.

At West Kootenai there was a store/restaurant run by the Amish where we could have had supper. It was Friday night and their buffet night every week, and they had mashed potatoes, gravy, all kinds of stuff in the buffet. It looked good! And great looking pie for desert. Another time! There were quite a few people there. They serve meals from 9:00 till 6:00 everyday but Sunday. 

We went back to Eureka and had a huckleberry milkshake at the Jax cafe on mainstreet. It was fabulous!

 Mom says to end the Epistle, so I'll write about Saturday later.

Our Trip To Fort McMurray

Got to Fort McMurray yesterday afternoon, after staying in Edmonton the night before at Em and Trevors' place.

It was Tylers' birthday a few days ago, and we got to give the birthday boy our gift yesterday morning. It was too late when we arrived the night before. He got a really neat remote controlled car from his parents. He was thrilled with it! He had also received a buzz cut, to keep him cool during the summer.

It rained a little on our way to Mal and Codys' from Edmonton yesterday, but the trip was uneventful, and the traffic was really pretty good. We met Mal at the WalMart store.

A few pictures of their townhouse. It's very nice, and the air conditioning has come in very handy today.

They live in a very nice neighborhood, very quiet, and really clean streets. Some of you will have to come visit them and see what a nice city it is.

The main reason we came was to see Brady Harris, and he's so cute, just like all our other grandchildren. Here are some pictures I've taken.

We're having a very restful day today, it's hot outside and we've spent most of the day just relaxing and enjoying having nothing to do! Here's a picture of Mom, I think she has read half that book today. She's sitting in the shade on their patio.

I'll finish today with another cute picture of Brady that Mom took just a little while ago.

Our trip to High Prairie

I've started with 5 views of the Cooper's house in High Prairie. We spent the long weekend there as everyone knows, and I thought you should see the beautiful home that Dan, Jen and the Kids have there. We enjoyed our stay there, and were very comfortable and felt at home. They live in a pretty quiet neighborhood and have some pretty nice neighbors. There seemed to be lots of kids around for the grandkids to play with, and every day we were there, the boys were playing hockey with their friends on the driveway.

Next we went for a quick tour of the area near their home. The hospital where Dan works. , and Dan's office in the hospital. The school where the kids study hard!! And Madison's very pretty bird and the cage Dan got at a garage sale on Saturday while I was with him. The bird is actually a very pretty light blue color.

Saturday we went to Lesser Slave Lake and had a wiener roast and picnic and hiked around the trails by the lake shore for a while. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and we had a lot of fun. The beach was fabulous white sand, but the water was still a little cold.

Sunday we went to church, very nice branch and people. Had Sunday dinner, ham, scalloped potatoes and veggies. Visited the Hatches in Valley View, and then spent the evening at another lake where they like to go to. We had a fun evening there to.

All in all we had a great trip and a very enjoyable visit with our family in High Prairie. 

I've Been Busy at Other Things

I guess that four months between blog entries is a long time, but my excuse is that I've been busy. I've spent hours on the computer getting the new website store set up and running; the site went live November )1 for anyone who didn't know. Its quilttemplatesandmore.com and if you haven't visited the site yet, shame on you! Go to the site often, and make comments, read the blogs, and follow them, you can add it on google to the list of blogs you follow. They are pretty good blogs if I don't say so myself. You can reach the blogs at quilttemplatesandmore.com/blog/.  They are well worth the read. If you haven't already done so, don't forget to click the like button for Face book at the bottom of the page.
As I mentioned in my e-mail to all my daughters, get your friends to like the Face book page as well when you get them to check out the website. Start quilting to and buy some templates, you'll all be grandmothers one day and will need a grandmother hobby.

Wouldn't you like to be able to create beautiful quilts like this one, Bev's latest. If any one wants to learn i'm sure Mom would teach you so the quilting art can continue into the next generation.

Picture change

Did anyone notice that I changed the picture about two or so weeks ago? The gazebo wasn't there in the old picture, just the blocks on the gravel bed where it was going to be. Also there are way more flowers now, and the trees are bigger and fuller. So many people have said I haven't done anything on my blog for a while.
Well, we're up in Fort McMurray right now and having a great time. The population here is about 76000 which is only about 10000 less than Lethbridge. It's actually a pretty go to place. Lots of traffic, loads of busses taking workers back and forth to the oil sands plants , lots of parks and recreation centers, and most of the big shopping places. A pretty modern city actually, that has road construction every where you go.
I'll add pictures to the blog after we get home. Mallory and Cody live in a eery nice, fairly new apartment in one of the newer areas of the city.

Trip Home

Well, we made it home. Actually we got to Lethbridge about three this afternoon, and did some errands before coming home. It took about an hour, maybe, longer to get home than the all day marathon last Wednesday going out. We took Jen and Dan's suggestion and followed Hwy. #5, the Coquahalla or whatever Trail. It was a very beautiful drive and we enjoyed it. We had never been that way before, so every place and town etc. was a first for us. We spent last night in Golden, and ate at this restaurant that didn't look all that great, but the food was excellent. We got to Golden about nine last night. We had planned on staying at Kamloops, but we got there at six thirty and figured we could be in Golden before eight, which we did, but eight Vancouver time, as we passed through the time change between Kamloops and Golden and arrived at nine mountain time. We left Golden about nine thirty this morning, and we by-passed Calgary by taking the 22 to Black Diamond and then driving east past Okotoks to High River where we had Dairy Queen for lunch. Hey Coopers, you wouldn't recognize south Okotoks along that highway now. There were huge subdivisions past the Okotoks turnoff, along the north side of the highway, and even a big new mall with all kinds of stores plus a Costco. Amazing, but I guess we haven't been there for a few years now.
We're thinking of heading to Edmonton Thursday night to see the Patricks especially "Little Pete".

Saturday activities

It was a typical Saturday, lots of lazing around, watching tv, and wondering what to do. Madison was gone for about four hours at a stake Activity Girls program, and Clayton was gone all afternoon at a laser tag birthday party. Dan was called into work at the last minute, and was gone all day.
That left Mom, Me, Jen, Mac and Spencer for most of the day. We went shopping at the mall, walked the trails at the salmon hatchery, and walked down to the village and did some grocery shopping and looking around.
Once everyone was home in the evening, we had a nice pork roast supper with all the works, spent some time at a park with all the kids and then had mango ice cream for desert.
The weather was on and off rain and sun, but it never got to awful, just a little damp and cool.We're having lots of fun with the Coopers, and are glad we came!!!