In Canada

Friday night we stayed at Tunnel Mountain campground in the Banff National Park in Canada. Yesterday we headed to Lake Louise which is a mountain resort located on a lake. Everything there was incredibly beautiful. Then it was up 93 highway through the mountains. The Rocky Mountains in Canada are HUGE. We saw lots of snow and many glaciers. The rivers are a blue hue from the small mineral flakes in the water ground from the rocks as the glaciers move. We also saw mountain goats and bighorn sheep in our travels. This was our first sunny day since we have left home. The first picture is of the icefields. If you can increase the size of the picture, you can see buses that take people to the middle of the icefield.The second picture is of the wildlife crossovers that are built above the highway near Banff.

Glacier National Park

Thursday we visited Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana. Glacier Park has many glaciers, mountains, waterfalls, and mountain goats. We saw mountain goats as they were in a cliff area where they lick certain boulders for their minerals. We drove half of the Going-To-The-Sun Road because the pass through the mountains was still closed. It was a rainy day so there was new snow on the high mountains. This is one of my favorite national parks.

LIttle Bighorn

The battle between Custer's soldiers and the Indians covered several miles. On the rolling hills above the Little Bighorn river are white markers where soldiers died and brown markers where Indians died. Custer divided his troops with Majors Benteen and Reno. Custer and his 225 troopers were all killed because he did not realize that the Indian village he was attacking have 2000-3000 Indians.
This national monument is very well done and an interesting place to visit.

In Montana

The wifi connections have been poor or worse. We were in Gillette, Wyoming for two days. We spent Sunday checking out the Devil's Tower. It is 825 feet high and is the core of a volcano. It was designated the first national monument by Teddy Roosevelt in 1906. This morning we toured a coal mine. The Powder River valley sits on a 100 foot layer of coal that is mined from a large pits. There are 15 coal mines in the valley. It was very interesting and the Eagle Butte mine we visited sends coal to St. Mary's. Tomorrow we are visiting the Custer Battleground. Sorry there are no pictures but I hope to have some soon.

On the Road

For those of you who are expecting something about sewing or quilting, you are going to be disappointed. We are headed to Alaska with our fifth wheel and so for the near future my blog will be about our travel adventures. I had a doctor's appointment this morning so we could not leave until 12:00. But at 12 we left Carbondale with two other couples. We thought we were going to head north to 36 highway but we ended up heading west. We are stopped this evening at Hays because the Mercer's have a daughter, granddaughter, and great granddaughter who live here. All nine of us ate Mexican and now are just relaxing. We had a great visit and a good drive today. Tomorrow I may have pictures.

Cupcake Decorations

These are cupcake decorations that I made with my embroidery machine. The design was made from a star shape with a circle in the middle. I used temtex as the stabilizer and fused fabric to it. My trusty Bernina sewed the satin stitch around the inside and outside. Frost your cupcake and then one of these decorations will fit about half-way up around the cupcake paper. These will be used for our July celebration. There is a website that has many paper "cupcake collars" that can be purchased. They are printed on paper and then laminated.

The Stitchout

The is the stitchout on the back of my jacket. I have a lavender top that I will wear with it, so the purples are just right. I like it.