Canada, Outlaws, and Harry Potter

I went to the Royal British Columbia museum and saw the Titanic exhibit. I have always been deeply obsessed with the ship and her disastrous story so I have always wanted to go to the traveling exhibit of all her artifacts. It was one of the coolest things I've seen and the museum guides were spectacular. I spent hours there and saw the IMAX show "Titanica" (which was alright) and the other exhibits were mediocre. The only thing I was bummed about was not being able to take pictures so that I could forever capture the awesomeness of the display.

Victoria was really pretty and I enjoyed my short time there. I've driven in a foreign country now and Kilometers are pretty crazy-- luckily the rent-a-car has this neat-o feature that allows you to switch from miles into kilometers.

We took the ferry from Victoria to Vancouver and that was pretty awesome. We have become real fond of the ferry system up here in the NW- despite the expense of it all. (whew-some $$)
In Vancouver we stayed at the Burrard Inn the first night-- the whole city was booked and this interesting motel was all we could find.It was so interesting, esp the retro style bathroom---

The first day we got in it was Harry Potter 5 time!! The theater was a few blocks away so we walked over and saw the best movie of the year! We've been waiting for this all summer (I have been waiting quite a bit longer) but all summer FF and I have been reading all the HP books and had just finished #5 a few days b4 the movie. It was sad b.c. we couldn't go right into #6-- but the day after movie we started #6 and sure enough- finished within a day or so.

We didn't do too much in Vancouver other than HP, walk around, go to book stores, etc.

On the 16th we started working our way towards Denver (there's a deadline of the 23rd for dropping FF's cuz off at the airport) It took awhile at customs which gave us lotsa time to read HP #6.
That night we stayed in SE Washington and camped. The next day we worked out way through Oregon and into Idaho. Idaho isn't tremendously exciting. It reminds me a lot of Texas when driving through. We stayed in Boise National Forest that evening and again read HP 6.

After a night in Idaho we got to Salt Lake City, UT. It's pretty nice there-- I could actually imagine myself going back just for a visit. (Really-- bc it has the largest family history library in the world, but hey- the city is nice too!!) We stayed with FF's uncle who was there for a bike conference-- it was nice to get showers and beds!

The next day I spent a little while at the Family Hist. Library and all I had was 2 hrs bc we had to get on the road. Unfortunately-- that was not enough to even find one family member in the records they have. I will DEF have to return to Salt Lake for like an entire week and just stay across the street- walking over every morning and back every night-- dedicating my whole vacation to the research of my genealogy. I was by far the youngest person in the place by like 40 years and even I, who am a genealogy guru- was overwhelmed with the expansive place.

We started out I-80 towards Flaming Gorge-- went into Wyoming then back into Utah to stay for the night. We camped at a little campground right outside F.Gorge and the 20th headed into the park. Flaming Gorge is real neat b.c. you can see history sketched in rock. There's all this info about how the different layers of rock formed millions and millions of years ago-- like in the Jurassic and Pre-historic times. I really liked this aspect and enjoyed seeing all the geological history of the place. Not to mention, the place wasn't ugly.

We decided, in leaving here, to take a scenic byway through Outlaw country which was just north of us. We checked out the F.Gorge Dam and then-- were pretty much on un-paved roads the rest of the way!! Gravel, dirt, etc.. it was quite fun. Took forever.
We got to the John Jarvie ranch-- Jarvie is this guy who built a general store, blacksmith place, post office, etc for the town of Brown's park, UT back in the 1880s. His was the central pub of the town until he was robbed and murdered in 1909. Poor guy. Then his sons basically never kept up the place. Well the outlaws of the Old west-- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the Wild Bunch used to hide out at Jarvie's ranch. I thought it was pretty neat to be somewhere they had-- groups who had helped form the American West. It's a pretty gorgeous country out in Utah.

After trudging through the un-paved roads-- which were actually roads made up of full rocks and boulders (the road, as we found out once halfway out, was used for ATVing and Four-wheeling purposes during summer!! Yeah, us and our chevy Malibu obviously made it but only quite. Also, considering the fact that it started pouring down rain while we were on this crappy road for 40 some miles, makes me feel that I could accomplish any problematic road now.

We got into Vernal last night (the 20th) and searched down a motel. All we could get was the Super8 as everywhere was either booked or was jacking up prices b.c. people were getting desperate at that point. I never knew of Vernal-- it's quite the hotspot for all the travelers to Dinosaur Natl Monument, Flaming Gorge, Outlaw Country... etc.

After checking in, watching Tom Cruise's "Cocktail" on TBS, we were counting down the minutes to the arrival of Harry Potter #7 at the Walmart just a few blocks down!! The final and last installment of pretty much the best book series EVER caused a mass exodus of ppl to storm to Walmart and purchase the long-awaited book. We got there just in time to grab bookmarks, posters, and bracelets all for the momentous celebration. Throngs of people were buying stacks of the book and I was tremendously excited about all the hubbub. Getting back to the motel, we read the first 6 chapters then went to bed so we could be ready for a full day of reading and touring the Dinosaur Natl Monument.