California!!!

We traveled from the Oregon Coast on to the Redwoods in Northern CA.

Took 11 of us to go around this tree.

Monkeying around...

Hold those trees apart, Grandpa!

Those trees are INCREDIBLE!!

Here we are by "Big Tree"
This tree is over 1500 years old.

Cousins in a row!
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After our time in the Redwood National Park, we continued our journey south and Dennis' family headed back north.
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We tried to drive through a tree, but our "house on wheels" was too big...

...so we just stood in the tree instead.

We stayed overnight with a former director of AVA and his wife, Ken & Suzy Trough, in their beautiful northern CA home.

The next day we drove to Los Angeles, taking time to cross the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

It was kind of overcast, but still neat to be able to cross that cool bridge.

We stayed with college friends in the LA area and spoke at their church on Sunday morning.

Karen, Linnea, & Sarah ~ college friends
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Karen's sister, Tami, and her little guy, Beau, came down for an afternoon visit.

Tami, Karen & Beau

Cousins
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Our CA stay was way too short, but we had a great time visiting with friends and seeing some of God's amazing creation.

The Great Northwest!

After our great time in Yellowstone, we beat a path to WA. We stayed overnight in Spokane with Jill's family (our new neighbor in Brasil). It was great to put some faces with names, although Jill's dad was in Belem at the time we were in Spokane. We spent a great night getting to know them.With Jill's family in Spokane.

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We headed on to Seattle.
Monday was a full day with a golf outing for the guys and a trip to the zoo for the gals. We were joined by Dennis' cousin Susie and her daughter Amanda.

That evening we had a great gathering at Dennis' folk's church. We shared about our ministry at AVA with many friends and relatives.
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Tuesday morning we headed out on a family vacation with Dennis' parents and his sister Carol and her family.

Nathanael & Cousin Bryce
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Our first stop was in Astoria, OR. We went up to climb the Astoria Column, but discovered it was closed. We did enjoy the great view from the top of the hill.

Caleb reaches to touch the top of the Column.

We continued down the coast and made a stop at Cannon Beach. The sea water was about 55 degrees. It hurt your feet terribly to stand in the water. But the stop was great!

We continued down to Tillamook where we spent the night and then toured the Tillamook Cheese Factory ~a fascinating tour. Grandpa & Grandma Cooley with the Grandkids ~ Colin, Bryce, Nathanael, Elisabeth, Caleb & Hannah

One of the many beautiful lighthouses on the Oregon Coast
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Sand Boarding!!!In Florence, OR, we (most of us) went sand boarding...
Or at least tried...Ha!
Actually, the sand boarders had some pretty decent moves!
Although there were some pretty spectacular spills as well.

Everyone had a great time, including the official photographer.

Call of the Wild!

We have seen many wild animals on our journey thus far. We wanted to share a few of them with you.
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Here's a huge Grizzly Bear that came down to get a drink right next to the road in Yellowstone.

This Black Bear was walking through the woods and crossed the road two cars in front of us. (Also in Yellowstone)

This Elk was standing on the side of the road near the end of our journey through Yellowstone. We thought we wouldn't be able to get any pictures of one since we had seen a huge one while we were riding the horses (and my camera was back at the corral). This guy just stood there and posed for us. He was close enough he could have used the van to scratch off the velvety stuff on his antlers.

When we stopped to take a picture of these beautiful falls, this Raven just sat there and looked at us. He didn't respond with "Nevermore" when I called to him. I think he must speak a different dialect of Raven. Or maybe it was my accent. Brazilians seem to have a hard time understanding me when I speak in Portuguese too. :o) Who knows...

This coyote crossed the road right in front of us.

In Custer State Park in SD, we saw many cool animals too. Here is a group of mother buffalo and their babies.

Pronghorns were everywhere.

Here's a shot of a buck and one of a mother with twins.

Wild Donkeys??

Don't these donkeys look "wild"? They surround any vehicle that passes, looking for handouts. We fed them some dried bread.

This was a fun time of year to see wildlife. There were lots of babies. This little donkey just sunned himself by the road while the rest of his herd crowded around the cars.

These Big Horned Sheep were in the Badlands. They were quite a long ways away, but it was still neat to see them.

We saw a TON of these little Prairie Dogs. These two actually live at the Red River Zoo, but we saw lots of them in the Badlands and across the prairie.

So there is a look at some of the wild animals that we have seen so far on our journey.
What a great world we live in!

In the REAL West ~ Wyoming

We felt like we had truly entered the West when we crossed over into Wyoming. Maybe it was the bucking bronco on the welcome sign or all the incredible mountains. Whatever it was, we were officially "out west" and lovin' it!

We drove through the Bighorn National Forest. The Bighorn Mountains are beautiful! The mountain air was fresh, clean, and pine scented! It was a true pleasure to drive through this mountain range on our way over to Yellowstone.

The views we had were amazing during this drive. We pulled off MANY times to see the beauty that our Lord made.

Dennis looks out over a valley.

Snow in July!

We were even able to play in the snow on one of our stops. It is very cold on your feet when you are wearing flip flops in the snow, as three of the kids found out.

We spent the night in Cody, WY and then left for Yellowstone National Park early the next morning.

We drove through the park, stopping at some of the unique places.

Hannah is by a geyser that is located at the edge of Yellowstone Lake (in the lake).
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There are a whole lot of hot spring basins throughout the park.

NJ & Elisabeth are next to a pool where the water is said to be 179 degrees. HOT!

Dennis & the boys went up to see the Mammoth Hot Springs, but were disappointed to find that most of them were dried up.
Although the sulfur smell is strong in some areas near the hot springs, they are very unique to look at.

Old Faithful was a definite stop. He isn't quite as "faithful" as he used to be. The geyser no longer goes off every hour, but about every 70 to 90 minutes. We waited for nearly an hour to see it erupt. Just when we thought it wasn't going to, it did. We were glad we were there.

We ended our day in Yellowstone with a trail ride. The kids had a blast, even though we couldn't make the horses run. My only disappointment was that you can no longer take your camera on the trail ride. Bummer! That rule certainly shortened this post. HA!
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We had an incredible day in Yellowstone. If a person has more time to spend there, I'd recommend a few more days than we took. However, if one day is all you have...go for it! It's a fabulous park with a ton of beautiful creation to see.