Wolf Lodge is a beautiful campground just east of Lake Coeur d'Alene in Idaho. The lake is a very beautiful mountain lake and the campground is a place where there are lots of animals. Some campers have seen a moose in the creek by the campground. Edward was hoping to see a bear.

It is going to be a quick stop because the camper needs to get all the way to Big Timber tomorrow and Rapid City on Friday. That is still more than 800 miles to go. The camper rides smoothly behind the truck and the traveling has gone well, even though it was a rainy day until they got past the Cascade Mountains. You couldn't even see the tops of some of the mountains because of all of the fog and rain.

Wolf Lodge campground is a good place to rest for the night.

Edward was glad to have Ted and Susan come back from Japan. They were very tired the first night, but they had Elliot and Emmala for a sleep over the second night. It was their last night in Mount Vernon. Eliza came over for stories before her bedtime as well. It was a really, really fun time. Edward likes it a lot when grandchildren come for a sleepover. They are always kind to Edward and make him feel happy.

It was a little sad to think about leaving Mount Vernon. Edward knows it will be just a few more nights and then the camper will go into storage for the winter. Edward hibernates in the winter, so it works out all right, but he has had a wonderfully fun summer of traveling this year.

With all of the traveling, we have not kept up with the Adventures of Edward Bear, so we will post a few updates this evening.

On Sunday, we traveled on the Aomori train to Hachinohe and the Shinkansen from Hachinohe too Ueno. Ueno is on the main Tokyo circle, so it is in a really, really big city. The first picture with this post is of a busy shopping area where Susan and Ted went to look around. Near the train station is a big park that has many famous museums in it. There are art museums, a science museum and the national museum of Japan. There is a zoo in the park, too. There are also several temples in the park. Susan and Ted visited one of the temples and bought their supper from vendors who were there. They had skewers with lots of crab meat and a roasted ear of corn. It had soy sauce on it and was served with a pair of chopsticks pushed up into one end, so you could hold the chopsticks and eat the corn off of the cob. For dessert, we had some little donuts. Each donut was shaped like a panda bear. There are lots of panda things in Ueno because the Zoo has two panda bears in it.

The man who sold the bear donuts made them right in front of us. He stood next to his fryer, which had a lot of hot oil, so his job was a really hot one. He first brushed oil onto metal molds. Then he poured the batter into the molds. Then he closed the top of the mold and turned it over so it was down in the hot oil. After a few minutes, he turned it over and used a chopstick to lift the bear donuts out of the mold. Here is a picture of him flicking the bears out of the mold.

The next day we went for a walk in the park. We saw lots of interesting things. One was a woman who could get the pigeons to land on here hand. She stood very quietly and still and they would fly into her hand and she would look at them. It was pretty fun to watch.

We also saw a woman and a girl who were blowing big bubbles for the children. They set their bubble making supplies next to a playground and made lots and lots of bubbles for children to chase and watch. They were really good at making bubbles. The girl made lots and lots of smaller bubbles and the woman made some really, really big ones.

After we had walked around the park, we had lunch in a cafe that was in the park and later got our suitcases and got ready to take a train to the airport and fly back to Vancouver, Washington, where Elliot, Emmala and Isaac came to meet our plane. We were excited to see them.

Our last day in Japan was a lot of fun!

WOW! We saw one of the biggest and brightest and loudest parades ever last night! Aomori is at the northern end of the main island of Japan, right on the sea. Each summer there is a week-long festival of parades and special events and we went to Aomori to see the festival. We rode the train from Misawa and got of into a large crowd of people. There were all kinds of people selling food and souvenirs and costumes and fancy hats as we walked to the place where we could watch the parade. Tens of thousands of people lined the parade route to see the bands and dancers and floats.

Everything was spectacular! There were huge drums that you could hear coming for blocks. There were bands of flute and cymbal players. There were hundreds of dancers with each float and the floats were enormous and all lit up with bright colors and fantastic figures. All of the floats are pulled along the parade route by people who lift heavy beams and pull the carts and floats. There are even people whose job it is to pull carts with barrels of water and dippers for the workers to get a drink during the parade.

Everyone can join in the dancing. Even tiny children and babies are dressed in costumes and allowed to take part. It is a wonderful celebration filled with lots of bright colors. The hats that people wear are amazing and fun, covered with birds and flowers and bells.