RV Romance

Hungry Horse Reservoir, Montana

Hungry Horse Reservoir, Montana

Hello, fellow travelers and romantics!

It has certainly been a while since I blogged, that’s for sure.  Work, a trip out of town to visit family and work have all come between me and you! 

We went over to see my daughter, son-in-law and adorable grandaughter in Eastern Washington over the weekend, and on the way back, stopped at several RV dealers in the Spokane Valley area.  At one dealer, we ended up touring several newer Class A’s, though I’m certain we plan to get another fifth wheel because as “working full time RVers,” we need two vehicles.  The Class A’s are great, but I cannot believe we could not find one that didn’t have leather seats in the cockpit.  And if any of you know me at all who read this blog, you can imagine, I don’t do leather unless I have no other choice (like the belt on my uniform for work).

But aside from that, the Class A’s were great, though we still need to find a fifth wheel.  I suppose we could continue to drag our oversized one bedroom apartment down the road to the tune of several thousand dollars in diesel money, because after all, the truck and RV are paid for.  Or I could take on a payment…and still drag the new fifth wheel down the road to the tune of over a thousand dollars in diesel money.  Decisions, decisions…  This thousand or that thousand…  Now, don’t go getting any wild ideas about me paying cash and such for a new RV…   I had that notion for about one month but have quickly woken up to reality.  Save money???  Hah!  That’s obviously for lesser folk than I!  ;-)  I am waayyyy above that sort of thing.  There are plenty of trees around here with green things growing on them, and I intend to pluck a few of those bad boys…

Anywayzzz, when the salesman finally figured out that he wasn’t going to be able to put me in a Class today or that I wasn’t going to be taking one home today (well, yesterday…), he bid us a fond farewell.  The door did not hit us on the way out, not one little bit, don’t you worry.

I know what I want…the trick is finding a dealer that carries it…at least one that isn’t closed on Sundays and happens to be along the road when I drive from here to Eastern Washington to see my family.  One salesman told me something about “territories” or some darn thing where this dealer will sell this line only if they can have the exclusive and won’t carry other lines because of this and that.  Geez!  What’s a shopper to do!

So, this one salesman was showing us Holiday Rambler Savoy fifth wheels.  Now, I’m sorry, but Holiday Rambler???  In what lifetime am I ever going to be able to afford a Holiday Rambler fifth wheel?  I didn’t even know they made fifth wheels.  Or hey, how about a Bighorn??  What???  Don’t I wish!  But do they come in 30 feet?  Noooooo…not thinking so.  Actually, he didn’t really show us a Bighorn.  They have plenty on the lot and I’ve cruised through a bunch of them with appropriate sighs of envy, but the salesman had already sized me up as lower middle socioeconomic class if not upper lower class or quite possibly middle lower class, and he must have suspected my goal in life was simply to cut the grass on the 18 hole of the green, not actually play the course at the country club.

Where was I?  Oh…I know, poor.  So, off we went in a blaze of glory back home to our 37 foot hovel.  Did I tell you about the wicked wind, rain, lightning and thunderstorm we had tonight while we tried to lower our awning in just about near nigh on typhoon winds??? In Montana???  I kid you not!  Why will those awnings never work (it’s a manual deal, of course, what did I say about lower lower middle class, socioeconomically speaking?) when the wind is howling and rain is beating down on my head?  And no, the guy across the way in the $300,000 rig was not struggling with his awnings.  They didn’t even blow in the wind.  Must be made of solid 14 K gold…like his hubcaps.  I think I saw Dorothy’s house go by…on it’s way to Kansas, no doubt.

Just a quick note from me to say I’ve missed chatting with you all, and I hope to get back on track soon.  Did I tell you how tiring work was?  Not to mention how hard it is to be poor when one is working.  That dang money.  I just can’t find enough ways to get rid of it fast enough.  Just to keep my lowest of the lower middle of the road socioeconomic class…don’t ya know…

In the romance writing world, don’t forget, I have three releases coming out in August.  One book in print (see signature block below) and two in e-book format for all your sensible folks who don’t want to haul paperback books around in your RVs!

Join me in supporting the Humane Society in it’s efforts to make the lives of animals more bearable and more humane.  I am asking you to consider not eating veal.  I gave it up many, many years ago when I discovered how the calves were kept chained in small crates (to keep the meat tender) for the extent of their short lives.  They cannot turn around, lie down or spread their limbs.  Isn’t this nuts?  These animals are infants and should be with their mothers.  Calves know pain, grief and terror.  Just because they don’t speak like you and I doesn’t mean they should be subjected to such torture.  Nothing can taste that good.  Nothing.  I truly believe that.

Till we meet again, my friends, may the wind howl and beat rain down on your face only when your awning is up and may the road lead you to the RV dealer of your dreams!

Hungry Horse Reservoir, Montana

Bess McBride

“Romances for Armchair Travelers”

www.bessmcbride.com www.myspace.com/bessmcbride

www.rvromance.com

Love of My Heart available now

A Sigh of Love available now

A Trail of Love coming August 16, 2008

A Train Through Time coming August 22, 2008

www.thewildrosepress.com www.amazon.com

The historical past of beautiful Montana.

Hello, fellow travelers and romantics!

Well, there I was yesterday…on a Sunday…one of my two precious days off, and my significant other had been bullied into some sort of road trip. What’s a gal to do? Come up with a plan, I tell you, that’s what! Would it be a 7 mile hike…after a two hour drive…when it was already noon? Noooo, better save that for next weekend and an early morning start. Can’t test my significant other’s patience too far. Wait! I know! “Let’s go down to Missoula (a two hour drive) and go RV shopping!”

“Yeah!” my significant other says…anything but hike 14 miles in mosquito land (which is just about everywhere outdoors these days)… We hop in the car…in shorts (after all, there won’t be any mosquitoes in the RV lot, right?) and off we go. A half hour later, we discover that if the local RV dealer is closed on Sunday…uh oh…wouldn’t the one two hours away be closed as well? A short phone call later, and we have our answer. Closed!

What now? What’s a traveling gal to do? Stay put! Never! The 14 mile hike? After a two hour drive? Okay, how about we just go to Glacier National Park (where I spend five long days a week) and take a short hike? In shorts…with no bear spray…and no bug spray.

Stop the car! Let’s figure out what we’re going to do. Wait! Is that a cherry stand? Get me some cherries!

Munching away on cherries (only me, of course, he’s a guy), we speculate…hmmm, we’re awfully close to the Canadian border, a mere 60 minute drive away… Let’s do it! After dropping the cherries off back at the RV…to avoid…em, stomach complications, we proceed on to the nearest border crossing at Roosville.

And instantly, the landscape, which had progressively been growing more dry and brown, changes. It becomes greener. What’s that all about? Anyway, off we toodle toward the north with a plan to make a “loop” back south into Waterton Lakes National Park and back into the U.S. By the by, the highways in Canada, at least those I drove on, had shoulders…wide, wide shoulders, and nice flat, well paved roads. I’m just saying…

Majestic Canadian Rockies on Highway BC 3

Fabulous scenery along the way through eastern British Columbia and Alberta, with rocky mountains reminiscent of Devil’s Tower and Mount Rushmore. Just beautiful! We saw the aftermath of the partial collapse of limestone Turtle Mountain from a famous early 1900s event called Frank Slide, looking for all the world as if it had just happened yesterday. You can Google “Frank Slide Canada” for more info. We couldn’t get pictures as we had to stay one step ahead of a slow-moving coal truck that we’d been following up hills for the better part of half an hour. I’m not kidding…about staying one step ahead of him. He had over twenty cars backed up as he often fell to 20 miles an hour chugging up hills. And people thought I drove slow.

Crowsnest Mountain near the British Columbia/Alberta border

Speaking of driving slow, the speed limit on highways BC 3 and AB 3 was a max of 100 k which translated to about 62 mph in our car and kept me buzzing along at a comfortable speed. I must say, I’m not sure anyone actually drives at 100 kph because most cars seemed determined to pass me…after we’d all managed to pass the coal truck.

Waterton Lakes National Park in the distance, the “northern half” of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park

Where the mountains meet the prairies!

And yes, gas was slightly higher but food was definitely less expensive than our stores. I sampled the local fare by stopping at Wal-Mart for bread, cheese (soy, thank you very much) and plums. Just kidding again, about the local fare, of course. We got some serviettes and bon jour’d our way right out of that Wal-Mart with my significant other having picked up a smattering of French along the way! Next stop! Quebec!

No, not really. We headed back down into Waterton (which most of you know is attached to Glacier National Park), did not get time to check out Prince of Wales hotel at Waterton Lakes Park, which I can’t wait to do next time we head north…albeit on a more planned trip, and continued buzzing back south until we crossed Going to the Sun Road again and headed back to the pasture after a quick stop to watch a handsome bull moose grazing in a pond in Moose Country and mosquitoes grazing on my arms and legs, all available in beautiful Glacier National Park.

Beautiful Alberta, Canada. Looking back over the valley from Waterton Lakes Park!

A riot of color along the side of the road, Glacier National Park

The moon rises over Glacier National Park!

Day’s end, 9:15 at night, and Bullwinkle gets some dinner, Glacier National Park

And that, my friends, is it for me today. I actually have to head over to Night Owl Romance and do a guest blog spot there.

Don’t forget! Join the Humane Society in helping to prevent cruelty to animals–domestic, farm and exotic. Apparently, I gave you the wrong web site last time (and linked to a Chinese restaurant), so I’m going to make sure and put the right link in. It’s www.hsus.org.
They’ve got so many campgaigns going on, sometimes it’s hard to prioritize which campaigns need the most attention. Suffice it to say they all need attention. If you can’t donate money, then donate time, your voice, your friendship, your support and your love. Qualities that money can’t buy!

Until me meet again, may the road be smooth and may the wind be always gentle on your face.

Bess McBride

“Romances for Armchair Travelers”

www.bessmcbride.com www.myspace.com/bessmcbride

www.rvromance.com

Love of My Heart available now

A Sigh of Love available now

A Trail of Love coming August 16, 2008

A Train Through Time coming August 22, 2008

www.thewildrosepress.com www.amazon.com

Hello, fellow romantics and travelers!

Well, the news in my little part of the world is that Going to the Sun Road is finally open, and my significant other and I drove over it yesterday. Here are a few photos and a little bit of story with some of the pics. For those of you with big RVs and no toad, don’t worry, the free shuttle is running!

Fabulous Bird Woman Falls, Glacier National Park

Mountain goats and a kid scooting down the side of the mountain near Logan Pass. Note the view of Going to the Sun Road in the background.

Logan Pass on July 6. Still lots of snow. Folks were skiing and snowboarding.

A hiking sign…which should be at eye level! Logan Pass.

Bighorn sheep in Logan Pass parking lot who is sadly waiting for food and manages to find garbage on the ground to eat. It’s obvious he’s gotten food from some source. I did see children eating bags of chips at the side of the parking lot seemingly unattended by parents. A good way for him to get hit by a car or a visitor to get “rammed.” We saw one man running after him until the visitor actually got the camera in the bighorn’s face. What a dunce! Not the ram! This particular ram got chased out of the parking lot by a fast moving hand clapping ranger no doubt saying “scoot,” “go.” But he kept coming back.

The cute little ranger holds onto her hat in the windy pass after she chased the bighorn sheep out of the parking lot. He kept trying to come back in, to try to get more food from visitors, and she kept heading him off at the “pass.”

This year, July 6, 2008.

Same spot last year, July 4, 2007. What a difference!

The beautiful wildflowers near St. Mary’s Lake

The boys take over the road at dusk!

A sentinel above the road at dusk! And that was the last picture available on the memory card of the digital camera.

That’s it for me tonight, folks. Thanks for joining me on the trip! The Humane Society provided two web site addresses for those of us who want to adopt a rescued or sheltered pet. You can view them on line now near your location and make a match! www.petfinder.com and www.pets911.comcan match you with a pet who will become your lifelong companion. If you have a penchant for purebred dogs, they definitely have some of those as well. Check it out first before you buy a dog from a puppy mill, pet store or pay exorbitant prices to commercial breeders. Don’t forget those sweeties rescued from the massive puppy mill in Tennessee. They’ll all be up for adoption soon! Me…if I could right now…I’d take one of those little mommies (who will all soon be spayed, no doubt), just to give her all the love she deserved as a dog!

May the road rise to meet you and the wind be always at your back!

Bess McBride

“Romances for Armchair Travelers”

www.bessmcbride.com www.myspace.com/bessmcbride

www.rvromance.com

Love of My Heart available now

A Sigh of Love available now

A Trail of Love coming August 16, 2008

A Train Through Time coming August 22, 2008

www.thewildrosepress.com www.amazon.com

Hungry Horse Reservoir, Montana

Hello, my fellow romantics and travelers!

I can’t believe three days have gone by already since last I blogged. I’ll admit to being absolutely pooped by the beginning of the 4th of July weekend, which actually falls on Thursday this year… The day was long, arduous, hard, hot, demanding, hot, taxing, tiring, more hot and exhausting…and then I went to work. Hah! Just kidding. I knew it would be a long day, lots and lots of visitors dashing in to acquire a campsite or travel over Going to the Sun Road which just opened up yesterday morning for the first time this year. As many of you who have visited Glacier National Park know, the road is old, old, old, narrow and old, and it needs a lot of babying to keep it carrying millions of visitors over it every year. It snowed a lot this year, late (in June), spring was cold and then it got very hot early on, causing avalanches so that the plowers had a difficult time getting through. If you want to see some of the plowing operations, you can see that at the www.nps.gov/glac/ web site. Anywayz, the road is opened, although they are continuing a rehabilitation on it and road construction will continue.

Going to the Sun Road, Glacier National Park, Montana

So, I’m a bit puzzled about local RV dealers. We went to visit three of them in early June, just to get a feel for how much RVs cost, and if they stocked the one I really want. They don’t carry it up here, one salesman said, something about “territory.” Okay…. At least two of the salesmen at two different lots informed me that sales weren’t really down because “Canadians” were coming down and buying a lot of RVs because their dollar was much stronger against the U.S. dollar than it had been. Now, don’t get up in arms, anyone. I’m just repeating what they said. One salesman even took a phone call while showing us an RV and when he got off, he said, “See, that’s a guy from Canada who wants us to hold an RV for him. He says he’s coming down to get it.”

So…opinions? Okay, you know me. I’m happy to share mine. I thought that this would be a great time to negotiate for an RV. Well, in September when we get close to traveling to the south again. No point in buying an RV when I’ve got a perfectly good one just sitting here on the site keeping me nice and comfy. I’m looking for something a little bit smaller, a little more travel friendly and a little less living space… Anyway, so I thought…and maybe I’ve read…one can get “great deals” now because fewer people are buying RVs due to the gas crunch. I’m pretty sure I read that. Yet, I’m told by two different salesman at two different lots that since the Canadians are coming down buying the RVs, our RV dealerships won’t really experience any problems such as other RV dealers are having… Took the wind right out of my negotiating sails, I’ll tell you that!

Okay, so tell me. Hype? Sales pitch? Talking out their…? A “going fast, this deal won’t last long” kind of thing? Or is this a fact? Do I have to go to a state in the middle of the country, remote from either the northern or southern border, to get a good negotiation going? If I soak my dollar in starch, can I make it stronger?

I’m waiting to hear from you, folks!! And Canada, too! Lemme know…

My fabulous book cover by Tamra Westberry

On a satisfying authorly note, I finished the galleys for my dear Caribbean Dreams of Love manuscript last night…no, this morning at 1:11 a.m., and returned them to my editor. I hope to get a release date soon. On rereading the entire manuscript yet one more time…I really enjoyed the story and I liked my characters. The story features a Caribbean cruise, a lonely woman, her precocious teenage daughter, a ghost, a pirate, a musician, and love, love, love…

That’s it for me tonight, folks. It’s early to bed for me tonight to gear up for lots of work tomorrow. The Humane Society has been sending updates on their rescue of over 700 dogs at a puppy mill in Tennesse, including some of the most heartbreaking video I’ve ever watched. I did not realize…like so many of you…how these purebred females are kept in captivity their whole lives, stuffed into rabbit cages, and bred repeatedly every single cycle to produce more and more pups to be sold to pet shops, for the most part. At the price of dogs in pet shops, it boggles the mind how much people make from this horrific process. I’m naive, I’m blind. I didn’t know. Yes, I’ll admit. I bought a dog from a pet shop once. We kept him until his death, but had I known how his mother must have suffered all her life…forced to produce puppies until she died…because you can imagine, these unlicensed and unregulated puppy mills are not going to keep females around alive who cannot breed, I never would have participated. And I don’t go gawking at the puppies in pet shops anymore. Won’t do it. $400 to $800 dollars a dog! Please… And the mother gets what? Life in a small cage, some food? What if this were happening to humans?

My fellow RVers, I cannot believe how many small purebred dogs I see walking on the end of leashes through the RV parks. Please, please, please think before you buy a dog from a puppy mill or a pet shop. As you look at the love of your life, your pup, ask yourself if his or her mother suffered endlessly, never to know the loving touch of a human being, her health ruined due to human monetary greed. Then stop by the local shelter, and pick up a little dog there. The best pups I’ve ever had came from shelters. Join the Humane Society in asking for regulation and licensing of commercial dog breeding. It’s just a free for all out there! Here’s the web site www.hsus.org

May the wind be always at your side like a good shelter dog and may the road rise to meet you like your favorite shelter pooch when you get home!

Bess McBride

“Romances for Armchair Travelers”

www.bessmcbride.com www.myspace.com/bessmcbride

www.rvromance.com

Love of My Heart available now

A Sigh of Love available now

A Trail of Love coming August 16, 2008

A Train Through Time coming August 22, 2008

www.thewildrosepress.com www.amazon.com

South Fork of the Flathead River, Montana

Hello, fellow romantics and travelers!

Exciting events for us yesterday, some wonderful, one utterly devastating, and yet another too bizarre but all a day in the life of a traveler!

My significant other and I decided to visit Hungry Horse Dam and Reservoir here in Montana where as most of you know, I’m working for the summer. It’s only a few miles away, but I’ve never been. The reservoir is a beautiful blue-green body of water formed by the damming of the South Fork of the Flathead River. The perimeter drive is a 108 mile, mostly gravel, sometimes rutted, but always spectacular circle of the reservoir. Pictures follow:

The beautiful azure waters of Hungry Horse Reservoir

An inlet of Hungry Horse Reservoir. I need jewels in that color!

Can the colors of Hungry Horse Reservoir be more stunning?

After that arduous trek around the reservoir, I talked my significant other into heading into Glacier National Park, only miles away, to see what we could of Going to the Sun road which had opened an additional 29 miles. I promised him a chocolate snack which he acquired at the restaurant in West Glacier, and off we went, up, up, up Going to the Sun Road. We did run into some gravel road, and a pilot car led us through a mile or so of ongoing construction on the road. The project looks massive. I don’t envy the workers one little bit because they have to work at night, so visitors can travel the road during the day.

Here are some photos!

Stunningly beautiful Glacier National Park. You can see Going to the Sun Road on the left across the face of the mountain.

The Weeping Wall on Going to the Sun Road which slows to a trickle after the spring melt.

The Weeping Wall, a great place for a car wash, weather and traffic permitting!

On the way back down, on the flatlands, we passed through an area often referred to as Moose Country though no one seems to know if that’s an official term or not. Basically, it’s a perfect pond for any self-respecting moose to munch to his heart’s content. Lo and behold, cars were pulling over. Can you believe it? After working there all last year and a month into this year, I finally…finally saw a moose in Moose Country. Everyone sees a moose but me. He was a nice sized bull moose, and a park ranger was directing traffic trying to keep people from running each other over. I had met said park ranger (law enforcement type) last year and see him several days of the week at work, but I had to reintroduce myself…just to get the scoop. I wondered if he always stood guard there while the moose visited.  Sometimes!

Bull moose at sunset, Glacier National Park

Reintroduction to ranger accomplished, I alternately stared at the moose and watched the ranger deal with visitors, when what should appear? But a female in the river on the other side of the road. Several cars and some twenty visitors were between her and where she wanted to go, which was the pond. Love was in the air! Luckily, she managed to work her way through the crowd who wisely let her go, and she sashayed shyly into the pond. Then she and the bull moose ate…

Okay, it was still light. There’s time!

Just a poor little 1000 pound female trying to get to her pond and her guy! Don’t get in her way!

So…..my significant other and I, having swatted a bazillion mosquitoes, made our way to Jammer Joe’s, a little pizzeria/grill near Lake McDonald Lodge, which was wonderfulicious. I kid you not. We ate dinner and drove off into the dark, me worried about the darkness and reminding him that deer would be crossing the road to get to the lake for water.

Isn’t she a doll? And so trusting!  And no, we don’t feed her…ever.  It’s a good way to get her killed by cars.

Out of the dark, a flashlight signaled us to stop on the road just at the entrance to a popular campground. A visitor, having been tasked with stopping traffic from proceeding down the road, told us that a deer had been hit by a car (the driver of which took off), that its hip was broken and that the ranger was preparing to shoot it. I could see the ranger, the same one we’d just seen at the moose crossing, standing some distance away, but I couldn’t see the deer. My worst fears had come true. Not only had someone hit a deer trying to cross a 40 mph road to get to the lake, but I would hear the sound I never hoped to hear in my whole life. A gunshot to end the animal’s life. Two…in fact. We were allowed to proceed after that, and we drove past the scene, thankfully unable to see in the dark. While I cried and railed against the fates and the sad ending to a deer’s life, I fussed and fretted, telling my S/O to slow down so we wouldn’t hit another deer. (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen the little guys and gals saunter across roads, never suspecting that a hunk of steel will kill them. You can occasionally find me on the road urging people to slow down to do the speed limit…which I actually get to do on my job.)

We proceeded along when suddenly a car came up behind us in the dark, tailgating us. We made a turn to head for the exit and the car turned as well, at which point, I noticed it was the ranger. Unfortunately, he really pushed up behind us to the point that my poor S/O, trying to go slow to comply with my grief and anxiety and worried about the tailgating, must have wished he were on another planet. Then the lights flashed…and this ranger, yours truly, got pulled over by another ranger.

When he came to the car, we both greeted him by name wherein he recognized me…us. He wondered why our car had crossed the center line several times…and inquired about alcohol use. (We don’t drink.) We reminded him that we had only an hour before been with him at the moose “event” and only moments before, we had waited…the only car on the road…faithful witnesses…while he shot a deer to death to end its suffering. I didn’t get a chance to remind him that being followed by a law enforcement vehicle is enough to make anyone act suspicious or drive erratically, always looking in the rearview mirror, waiting for those lights. That’s the bizarre encounter of a long, strange day. But I think I got a feel for how busy the day of a National Park ranger can be, even if I was the one being pulled over.

Thanks for letting me share, folks. According to Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society, “this November, voters in California will vote on a ballot measure that will improve the lives of 20 million farm animals. Proposition 2 would phase out the worst abuses in industrial factory farming, and ensure that all animals have enough room to turn around, lie down, and extend their limbs.” Californians: Please vote for the proposition, and let’s hope more states move to help these little guys and gals toward more humane lives. I urge you to join the Humane Society in supporting this initiative. Please don’t worry that a vote for humane farm animal practices will ultimately lead to some kind of imposed “vegetarianism” on everyone. It’s not possible. Humans don’t want to do without their meat, but there is no reason that the food on our plates has to suffer for the length of its life.

May the wind be always a warm breeze at your back and may the road rise to meet you without mirages.

Bess McBride

“Romances for Armchair Travelers”

www.bessmcbride.com www.myspace.com/bessmcbride

www.rvromance.com

Love of My Heart available now

A Sigh of Love available now

A Trail of Love coming August 16, 2008

A Train Through Time coming August 22, 2008

www.thewildrosepress.com www.amazon.com

A bike path through the forest, Glacier National Park

Good evening, fellow romantics and travelers!

It happened! It happened! I FINALLY saw bears…real live bears! It’s one of the reasons I signed on for this “I gotta work in National Parks” gig when I gave up a lucrative job, bought the RV and hit the road in semi-retirement. The visitors see the bears all the time, but all I see are…uh…visitors.

Anywayz, there I was working and working at the park, and there…crossing the road, not 200 yards from me, were two young black bears…moseying along. A car driving wayyyyy tooooo fast almost hit them. You should have heard me hollering at him to slow down. I doubt he heard me. But he managed to stop anyway. I didn’t get to ogle the bears like I wanted, and I certainly didn’t get to chase them into the woods with a camera like some folks have been known to do (this is not a good thing, by the way), but I got to see the guys, and that was great. Now, I always look for them. The park rangers said the bears had been quite active crossing back and forth across the road which creates quite the distraction for visitors. My coworkers and I have taken up carrying bear spray when we eat at our lovely outdoor picnic table since we know the bears are in the area and may be attracted to the scent of food. We have to hope that does’t happen because the rangers would have to trap the bears and relocate them if they became a problem. But so far, they’ve managed to stick to eating bear grass…

Bear grass. Yummy!

And no, not a chance in…that I had my camera with me, not on the job… Besides, all it would have shown is a car barrelling at about 40 mph down the 25 mph marked road towards the bears. Perhaps a skewed photo as I ran towards the car hooting and hollering for it to slow down.

Glacier National Park has a great little bike path, and my significant other and I finally took the bikes out on it. I’m not an avid rider… None of this spacey helmet, tight biking shorts and standing on my pedals while I struggle up a hill for me. No, sir. Give me a nice level asphalt path through a wonderful forest.

A little buckaroo eating bear grass. Isn’t he cute? Look at those little wanna be antlers!

The bike path where horses get to cross!

Pileated Woody woodpecker. He just wouldn’t stay still long enough to pose. His head is actually bright red!

What a great bike path, isn’t it? That’s my kind of biking, where I get to stop and take pictures of a beautiful forest and animals.

The RVs came rolling in today, more than I’ve seen any other day. Folks are heading to the park to go camping!! Yeah! My coworkers, none of them RVers, are astounded at the size of some of the RVs coming in, and frankly so am I. Quite a few of the campgrounds can accommodate the biggers RVs, but I think the longest spots are 40 feet in length. You all know, of course, there are no hookups for RVs (except the campground hosts), right? But they do have dump stations. There are specific generator hours as well and all that information is available at the campgrounds.

And speaking of bears and bear rangers, my romance called A Trail of Love is coming out August 16th, and features Glacier National Park, a woman running from her past, a handsome bear ranger (and they certainly don’t have any ugly ones at this park…sigh…) and grizzly bears. I should have a review coming for it any day, and it’s a very nice one. I was pleasantly surprised!

That’s it for me tonight, folks. Please join me in supporting the Humane Society’s fight to shut down puppy mills. I’ve seen a LOT of small purebred dogs traveling with you folks, and I’m wondering if you were aware (like I was not) that many of these pups are bred in puppy mills where their mothers spend their entire lives in small cages breeding endlessly without the chance for human contact. I could not bear to think of my pup’s mother suffering for a lifetime so I could have a “purebred” dog. Please be sure you are getting your dog from a responsible owner. Check out the facility and ask to see the whole thing, not just a front. The Humane Society recently rescued 700 dogs, that’s right, 700 dogs from a Tennessee puppy mill…many of them injured, ill, near death…mothers who were kept in small wire cages no bigger than a pet carrier all their lives. Yorkies, poodles, all sorts of tiny breeds. It’s absolutely heartbreaking. If we stop buying from puppy mills, they will stop this horrendous practice of breeding these little guys and gals. Consider getting your next RV traveling companion from the shelter. You can contact the Humane Society at www.hsus.org. They just need to know you hear the message.

May the road rise to meet you as happily as your beloved dog and may the wind be always at your back…like your favorite dog!

Bess McBride

“Romances for Armchair Travelers”

www.bessmcbride.com www.myspace.com/bessmcbride

www.rvromance.com

Love of My Heart available now

A Sigh of Love available now

A Trail of Love coming August 16, 2008

A Train Through Time coming August 22, 2008

www.thewildrosepress.com www.amazon.com