Travels with Murray

Tuesday, April 7, 2026

Lets Get This Party Started

Sierra Vista Arizona and Silver City New Mexico

April 3 - April 8, 2026

This year, I am travelling with My mom and her dog Pookie. I guess I should change the name of the blog but I am not going to. Sue will be meeting us at a few places along the way so that will be fun. It will be strange travelling without her but looking forward to spending time with my mom. The main goal of this trip is to not fall and break something.

Murray briefed Pookie before we left on the proper procedures and forms for all things travel. It is going to be difficult not having a full time Human Resources Professional along. And Pookie has already forgot everything Murray told her. Oh well, we will muddle through.

We left on the same date as last year, April 3. The first leg was a long one. We drove to Sierra Vista Arizona, an hour southeast of Tucson or about 500 miles. Calvin is completing his Army specialist training in intelligence. It was great to see him doing so well. I was a bit worried for a while but he is on a good path. Both kids launched (for the most part).

Nancy was alert as always on the ride out. There were serious winds for the first half of the drive but then it finally calmed down a bit. Arrived in Sierra Vista around 6:30 pretty exhausted. Had to re-learn driving the rig but it came back quickly. We found all the noises and rattling that happen and silenced as many as we could. The first leg is always a bit of a shakedown.

The next day, I was able to go on base and pick up Calvin for the day. He just got off-base privileges so that worked out well. My mom's cousin Lillian (my second cousin) lives here and worked on base for a long time. She took us all to breakfast a nice local diner. Lillian knows all the comings and goings of everyone in the very large extended family. I was mostly lost as I do not know most of them but it was fun to hear about all the crazy relatives.

After breakfast, we went to Tombstone, you know, the OK corral thing. It was very touristy but kinda fun we saw a cheesy gunfight reenactment / show at the Oriental Saloon, Wyatt Earp's place. Mostly just walked around and took in the atmosphere. Sushi for dinner, I think Calvin had not had sushi for at least 5 months. A very nice place called Tanuki that Lillian recommended. Calvin had to be back on base at 9:30 which was good since I was a bit wore out.

Next day, I picked up Calvin early and we went to Kartchner Caverns. It is one of the few living caves in the US. They do not allow any electronics and are very fastidious in preventing any damage to the cave so I do not have any pictures. It was very cool though. I have been in a few caves and this was one of the better ones. The glisten of the living formations juxtaposed with the dull dead formation was pretty interesting. After that, we chilled at the RV park while Nancy dropped some packages for Georgia, her friend that is a full timer and had a bunch of stuff sent to her house. Calvin and I decided to watch the 1990s Tombstome with Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer. I cant believe i never saw this before. Calvin immediately fell asleep on the couch. It is the Nguyen in him. They can all sleep anywhere and all fall asleep in movies. he had to be back by 5:30 since it is a school night. they get up at 4:00, do PT, then school all day. Tough schedule!

The next day was a travel day. Got out at 11:00 after working the morning. I am now half time so committed to two days a week and a few other mornings for meetings. Was only 160 miles to. Silver city and Gila National Forrest. Nancy drove Riganante for the first time. She did good for the most part but since it was my first time in the passenger seat, It looked like we were riding the right side of the lane (and a bit over at a few parts). No issues though and we made it to New Mexico by 3:30 and set up.

It was raining pretty hard so I put up the awning. When I did, the new foot mount that I installed cracked!. I think I had one slider in the wrong position causing lateral stress. Anyway, that is what keeps the awning attached to the RV while we drive so i needed to fix it. Silver city is a very small town and i could not get a replacement, so I bought some JB weld and some metal pates and jury rigged the thing. I think it will last until we get to a bigger town with a RV parts store.

My beautiful jury rigged bracket.
The hose clamp is there in case it falls apart.
(which is quite likely)

Yellowstone

West Yellowstone, Montana

July 26 - Aug 2

It was a long drive from glacier to yellowstone but mostly went through some very pretty scenery. Most of Yellowstone is in Wyoming but the western side is at the very edge of Montana. The RV park was a in the town and a short ride to to the park entrance. If you haven't been to Yellowstone, you should put it on your list. As Sue put it, it is the all you can eat lobster buffet of wildlife. Elk, Buffalo, Eagles and Osprey for a few. We missed Moose, Bear, and Wolf.

Of course we went to Ole Faithful. Named that because it's one geyser that gushes on a regular basis. We had an hour to kill until show time so we had a drink at the beautiful Old Faithful Lodge. The interior seems made of all raw wood with ta huge stone fireplace!

The bar had these groovy cut glass windows separating it from the restaurant that depicted scenes with animals doing various human stuff. Think dogs playing poker of Fabulous Mr. Fox. Beautiful woodwork all around.

The geysers and hot pools are otherworldly. Bubbling pools of all different hues. Water shooting up hundreds of feet! the bacteria mat of life forms that thrive in the hot, sulphurous environment.

Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park, Montana

July 18 - 26

Welp, we did a lot of research for this trip, including ensuring the dogs had the proper paperwork to cross the border to Canada, and back into the U.S. We entered Canada completely uneventfully - they did not even check our carefully-prepared dog paperwork. Unfortunately we did not so much research going back into the U.S. In short, once again we were dumb. We completely missed the sign that advised us to declare all produce, food, wood, etc. Happily we were assisted by a very kind border agent, Officer Chin. She calmly asked us what all we were bringing across the border that might be of concern. Here's a short list

frozen bacon
eggs
frozen ground pork
apples
avocado
tomatoes
Sue's beloved herb garden!
firewood

Thanks, Officer Chin!

She confiscated all of this except the firewood which she directed us to cross the border back into Canada to dispose of! Also we had not filled our the proper forms for the dogs! Sue quickly downloaded and emailed the forms to the proper place but when we reentered the U.S., no one even seemed to care. Lesson learned! The hard way! Officer Chin was amazing though -- she cut down my herbs, packaged them in paper, and returned them to me in their planter which she had washed! Gone of course were there roots but we had some herbs to use for the next couple of days until we replaced the plants.

Sue's favorite instrument!

Anyway, we eventually made it through and went about 5 miles into the US to stop for the night as it was a bit too far to do in one go. The next day we continued on to West Glacier, Montana, which is about 1 mile from the entrance to the park. The RV park was very nice with grassy sites and a bike lane to the town.

Do I need to catch up on my roots!?!?

We took the bikes on the border trail until we saw the bear signs. These were the most serious signs we came across so we turned around and headed back. Glacier National Park contains a long drive through a glacier cut canyon. Very pretty but a lot like the Banff canyon.

We took the 4 hour drive and saw some goats and glaciers is the distance. Very pretty but unless you are going to hike one of the many trails, not great. We had the dogs so were limited to paved trails. The Visitor Center was more of a store for national park merch.

We decided to do a white water rafting excursion. It was only a 3 hour tour, (a three hour tour). The first part was a leisurely float with the second half picking up to class 2 and 3 rapids. No one from our boat fell out but we all got a bit wet.

Sue got out for a brief swim (water cold!)

Flathead River

Klaus chastising us for not filling out dog forms.

Klaus driving the getaway bus

Murray prepping to go back to Canada
to avoid Trump's awful policies

Huckleberries abound in the park

Typical dramatic sky

Embroidery update!

Finally giving up on this recipe

We had a super nice spot with a firering!

Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Banff

Banff and Lake Louise, Alberta

July 13 - 18

Banff is super famous and we found it, along with Lake Louise, to be another international tourist destination. Germans, French, Chinese, Dutch, Indians, etc. All main attractions were swarming with peeps. We had a lovely campsite with great views of the surrounding mountains and the gigantic sky. Our campground was around 15 km from Lake Louise and about 30 or so km to Banff. The site was a Canadian National Parks site and had no hookups so we were on solar and battery which never went below 80%! This was also the beginning of the Great Mosquito Attack on Sue. Denis gets bitten but doesn't react. By the end of this week Sue was a giant itchy welt.

The Chateau

The "uncrowded" side

The crowded side

Kamloops, Revelstoke

Kamloops & Revelstoke, British Columbia

July 3 - 13, 2025

We extended our stay in Vancouver by a few days so we could do DeCourcey but did not have plans after that. We had 10 unplanned days until our booking at Banff. We thought we would boondock for a few days so we found a free camping area in the Canadian equivalent of BLM land. It did not look too far off the main highway and the map showed a road so we decided to give it a shot. We pulled off the highway, detached the car and started up the "road" it quickly turned into a very rough and steep dirt road with lots of ruts. We got a mile up and decided this would not work. We had to turn around and head down. The car ant the entire back of Riginante was covered in dirt! We quickly made a reservation at a campground in Kamloops.

Not kidding when we said it was covered
in dust!

We spent three days in Kamloops. Not too much here - apparently it's Vancouver's "desert". We did short hike with the dogs around a lake and a trip to a local wildlife refuge. The refuge was not too bad. The environments were large and had plenty of hiding places for the animals. Their claim to fame was the only Kermode or "Spirit" Bear, a white variant of a black bear. We had a failed attempt at kayaking on the river. We made an appointment to rent kayaks at the riverfront park at 11:00 as the company said they opened then. We waited until about 11:30 before leaving as they never showed up to open - this is the only instance of Canadians being flaky in our entire travels!

This is a walk from our Kamloops campsite

Nice lake at Kamloops

After some research, we decided to spend the rest of the time before Banff at Revelstoke. We had never heard of it but it turned out to be a super cool and beautiful place. It is a ski area and home to Mount Revelstoke National Park. The town also had that quaint old timey ski town vibe with a small walkable downtown strip with lots of restaurants and shops.

We had a pretty site at Revelstoke.

A cool climbing rock in our
campground

Gondola ride was cool...

Because Revelstoke is a ski area, we took the gondola up to the top of the mountain for lunch featuring lovely views. But ... Denis had the bright idea to "walk" down so we did. Now, it was only 3 miles and it was downhill - what could go wrong? Welp it was almost all sharp large rocks going down. One mile took us 59 minutes (a typical hike mile is like, 17-24 depending on terrain). To add to the fun we did not have poles/water. It was simply awful. Lesson learned.

View from the top

Super steep and wearing dumb shoes

Little did we know how we would look
in 2.5 hours

Dining in Revelstoke was interesting especially as we chose a German/Indian restaurant! Again, what could go wrong? Sue was wise and ordered a German meal (pork schnitzel and red cabbage) Denis, however, tried the Butter Chicken Schnitzel. We will leave it at that.

Dogs at top of Revelstoke

We had a lovely space in Revelstoke and it was enhanced by Sue's bear sighting as she rode her bike to do laundry. Sweet little bear but she was too scared to take a pic. We drove up to the top of the mountain with the dogs to check it out.

View from top

Bike ride

Bear scat

All this wood smelled so good

So this is the part of the trip where Sue starts to lose it a bit. Remember that Denis works M-F so Sue is on her own all week. I began to assemble my teeny tiny jigsaw puzzle and, as usual I experimented with new recipes despite being in the tiniest kitchen on earth!