The Travels of Jim and Rosie

Getting noticed!

2012-01-27T20:01:00.001-07:00

Just a quick note to acknowledge eight new followers to my humble blog. Welcome to Joe and Betty, Nan, Merikay, Susan and Bob, John and Ellen, Russ Krecklow, Michelle (my daughter) and Michael Ultra. Thank you for signing on.

I have read a good portion of each of your blogs and look forward to many more. It appears that RV Full Timer blogging is a great social network for meeting interesting people with similar interests. I think it would be great to meet all of you at some time in the future if our travel paths should cross.

Nothing new to report on our preparedness journey except our meeting with a realtor. We should be putting the house on the market in February.

Update time.

2012-01-25T20:12:00.001-07:00

It has been awhile since I wrote anything. That is because not much is happening yet. I would say we are “hibernating” here in the Idaho winter, but the fact is that it is 42 degrees today and there is almost no snow on the ground. Very little snow and/or cold weather in the 8 day forecast either. This is not really hibernating weather. Global Warming maybe?

Got over to the rig yesterday and Tim (my new RV repair shop friend) measured the camper for new carpet. I need to get a remnant 12’ wide and 33’ long, plus the same amount of high density padding. Rosie and I will do some shopping over the next couple of weeks and we plan to get started on the recarpeting project in March. I will post before, during and after pictures of the carpet project. I also gave Tim some data on 2 Xantrax 600 watt inverters and a 125 watt solar panel I found on the internet. I already have a smaller solar panel a long time friend gave to me years ago and we will include that in the project. I also purchased a XM Satellite radio and installed it in the truck. Now all I have to do is get another car docking kit and install it in the RV and we will have satellite radio on the road and in the rig.

A friend who is a Realtor is coming over tomorrow to talk about listing the house, so that aspect of the plan will be taking shape. We have packed up most of the personal collections, photo albums, and other memorabilia and stacked it in the basement. A 5’ by 5’ storage space is going to be more than adequate for all that stuff. We still have a couple of large paintings we want to keep so I will need to find some “mirror boxes” for them.

Trying to you informed of our progress.

Reflections!

2012-01-10T16:13:00.001-07:00

Deciding to enter full time RV living is only the first step. Now the work begins.

We are in the process of sorting, selecting and packing. We are keeping only those things that cannot be replaced; such as photo albums, personal collections (my extensive collection of shot glasses, for instance), art items, gifts from family and friends that are important to us, etc. We have checked out storage places and discovered that the smallest space available is 5’ by 5’ by 10’ tall. So I have marked out a 5’ by 5’ area on the floor in the basement and we are placing packing boxes in that area. It appears that a 5’ by 5’ area will be plenty adequate. I had a box full of video tapes transferred to DVD’s. About 25 tapes reduces to 6 DVD’s in a small case about 3/8” thick; our life from about 1985 to about 2003 reduced to a very small space. Rosie and I have been watching some of the video and we marvel at how many places we have been and how many activities we have enjoyed. We have also been throwing out stuff that has no resale value, is too big to take along and hasn’t been used by us for years. I had 2 boxes of 3.5” floppy disks; how long has it been since those have been in use? We are keeping only 3 items of antique furniture; a table from Grandma Sathe; a chest of drawers from Grandma Doering, and a child’s rocking chair that was mine as a toddler. Everything else will be sold in a giant moving sale in May. Anything left over will either go the our church for their annual rummage sale; or get hauled to the dump. Rosie decided that she really didn’t need to keep her car, so that will be sold; one thing less to worry about storing. I really admire her for that decision. Her car was an important symbol of independence for her.

Other decisions have been made as needed. We are going to maintain Idaho as our State of Residence. We will get a mailing “address” at the local UPS Store. I checked with the DMV and we can use that address on our Drivers Licenses. They said something about an “RV” stamp on the license to identify us as resident RVers (seems a little odd). The local court system will hold us accountable for jury duty, but if we are called, we can self determine a specific week in the upcoming 12 months when we would be available to show up for jury duty. We are getting dental work scheduled before we leave that perhaps could have been put off for longer. E-mail and phone contact on the road will be readily handled by Verizon. They have a smaller version of an I-Pad that is also a mini-WiFi spot; so we can access both of our laptops to that WiFi and both be on the internet at the same time.

I have been researching Government campgrounds and private campgrounds in the western US. It is amazing how much BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and Forest Service land is out there where camping is either very low cost or outright free. Then there are State Parks, County Parks and City Parks that have low cost to free camping. Anyone interested in those web sites, e-mail me at jimsathe@msn.com and I will send you the links. Most of the really free or low cost campgrounds don’t have electrical hookups; so we are looking at installing a solar panel system with a partial inverter system to power our electronics, like TV and laptops. We have a generator and a bank of 4 batteries, so we shouldn’t run out of power and still have a comfortable lifestyle. We have already redecorated the interior of our camper with new paint, a chair rail wallpaper border and new trim. We plan to replace the carpeting in March. We met some new friends that own an RV Service and Repair Shop. We are really happy to find someone that will do good work on our future home at a reasonable cost.

There is a local private campground that has sites with full hookups for a monthly rate of $425. We plan to move into a space there in mid-May. It will take about 4 weeks to leisurely sell all of our stuff and clean up the house before departing stick house living. That will be an interesting, and probably emotional, experience. So around mid-June we should start wandering our way east. I have already made reservations for 6 nights in Custer State Park near Rapid City, SD; which will include the 4th of July Holiday. July 5th, we will travel from Custer State Park to the family reunion in Colome, SD. June, July and most of August will be spent in South Dakota, Nebraska and Colorado. We will return to Idaho Falls area for 3 weeks or so in early September before we head for the Oregon Coast and ultimately wend our way to Ventura County in So. California for the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays. After that, we want to experience Quartzsite, AZ for the annual gathering of RV people. Then who knows where we will go.

Life is good.

One More Time

2011-10-12T21:08:00.001-06:00

I was resigned to putting the camper away for winter storage last week. Then, out of the blue, Rosie says “Let’s go camping one more time before winter”. She is so persuasive! It took her about 2 seconds to convince me to hook up and head out.

We decided to make our last trip this year to the place where we made our first trip last year (are you following this?). So here we are at Ririe Reservoir about 15 map miles from home, but is seems like another world. This is a County Campground with full hookups for $16 a night for us Golden Age folks. It is set high on a bluff overlooking a man made reservoir. The sites are large and paved. The site we wanted was the one we stayed in last year, but it was taken. There is dirt moving work going on adjacent to Loop B. It appears that the campground is being expanded.   It looked like all of the other campers were construction workers staying near the job site. We got here on Monday and on Tuesday, our desired site was vacated. So we moved into it today, Wednesday. We took the pups for a walk on a trail leading out from the site. When we returned, Rosie spotted a snake near the back of the trailer. When I took a look at it, I discovered it was a baby rattlesnake about 6 inches long and the thickness of a pencil. It was actually coiled up in striking position. I hate snakes.   I really hate poisonous snakes. So I killed it with my mighty axe. Yuk. I don’t like to kill natures critters, but I make an exception for insects and reptiles.

Since we returned from our 6 week reunion trip to South Dakota, we have been working hard on the camper getting it in shape for going full time next summer. We washed down the walls and ceiling inside; then painted the walls a very light tan color. We put in a wallpaper border at chair rail height. The biggest part of the project was adding wood trim to the top and sides of the slide outs.   Here are some pictures:

We think the bathroom really turned out pretty nice. In the spring, we are going to replace the carpet with a light beige color. That will really finish off the redecorating project in a nice way.

The plan for this winter is to pack up boxes with the stuff (albums, books, collectibles, etc.) we want to put into storage. In late May, we will have the packed boxes and the furniture in our bedroom and the guest bedroom put into long term storage.   At that point, we will move into the camper and set it up at a local campground while we clear out the house. The first weekend in June we plan to have a “We are moving into our RV; everything must go sale.” That should be interesting, selling off most of the “stuff” we have accumulated over the years. Whatever is left, we will either trash or donate to Goodwill. We will keep Idaho Falls as our base by getting a mailbox mailing address at the local UPS store. We can call them and go over the mail by phone at any time and they will forward the mail we want to where ever we are. I checked with the DMV and we can change our driver’s licenses to the UPS address. If all goes well, we should hit the highways and byways in mid June. My family reunion is moving up from mid August to July 6th next year. so we will head towards South Dakota first. Not sure where we will go after that. We plan to be near Simi Valley for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Then off to the California and Arizona deserts for the winter.

This week we have been “pretending” to be full timing; just to try to get the feel of what it will be like to not have a “home” to go back to. We really feel comfortable with the space in the camper. It feels good. We think of it as having a small home, but a really big yard; and we don’t have to maintain the landscaping. We really feel like this will be a final “adventure” in our lives. Hopefully our health will hold out and we will enjoy many years before we have to to give it up and move into an apartment or condo somewhere.   So this will be my last post until next year. I plan to keep on writing about our travel adventures. We hope you will follow along and enjoy it with us.

Home Again

2011-09-11T06:32:00.001-06:00

I guess I should know by now that lines on a map don’t reflect reality when it comes to elevation and terrain. US 14 from Ranchester, WY to Cody, WY doesn’t look too bad on the page; in fact the road surface and width are great. However, this is a steep grade up and down the Big Horn Mountains. It reminded me of Highway 12 in Idaho; miles and miles of trees, granite and wondering if we would ever get to the top. I was carefully monitoring the temperature gauges for the engine and transmission on the Chevy. I guess the recent oil change and complete transmission service paid off. Temperatures did rise slightly, but nowhere near as high as they have in past experiences. We ran into a fellow “Alpenliter” at a pullout viewpoint about 3/4 of the way up the hill. He and his wife have been full timing in their 2001 Alpenlite for about 3 years and love every day of it. He has installed a solar panel system that works very well for him. I picked up a lot of great information from him that will be useful when we enter our full time phase.

The KOA in Cody is pretty ordinary. For some reason unknown to me, we got a free upgrade to a “deluxe” site, meaning we had a patio slab with a patio table and four swivel chairs. However, we were only in Cody because I had some work assignments in the area. It took me a whole day to visit 3 remote natural gas processing stations. My final assignment was in town and I did that one on the way out of town in the morning.

We pulled into the East Entrance of Yellowstone Park about 11:00 am. By the time we could see Yellowstone Lake the air was heavy with smoke from a fire many miles to the south of our position. We pulled over for lunch near Fishing Bridge. Gave the pooches a chance to walk in the woods and check out the good smells that dogs seem to relish in. About 30 minutes down the road from our lunch break, traffic came to a complete halt and we couldn’t see why. After a few minutes traffic started moving ever so slowly and then we got the first glimpse of the cause. It was a “bison jam” on the highway. Buffalo were on the road just sauntering along; seemingly oblivious to the cars and RVs all around them.

A little further down the road, Rosie got this great shot of buffalo cooling off in the Yellowstone River.

We arrived at Henry’s Lake in Idaho about 3:30 pm. Rosie loves Henry’s Lake because of the extensive hiking trails nearby. I like it because it is a popular fishing destination. This is an Idaho State Park which means the sites are large and the fee is low; $19.08 for 50 amp electrical service. I threw a couple of lines in the water, but (as seems to be normal) no fish were interested in my offerings. Rosie was on a hike with the dogs when she noticed a Moose Crossing sign. She was really surprised when a cow moose with a calf came ambling by. She was afraid that Annie would start barking and making a scene which could agitate mama moose; but Annie strangely enough was silent for a change. Maybe she realized she was not safe in the back seat of the truck and that really big animal might hurt her.

After four weeks and one day on the road, we returned to Idaho Falls about 11:00 am. After much reflection on where we are in this stage of our lives and what we want to do with the rest of our time; we have decided to embrace a full time RV lifestyle. We had planned to spend the winter in warmer climates this year as a final test of whether we were ready for this new adventure. However, we have come to the mutual conclusion that RVing is what we want to do for as long as our health holds out. So we will put the camper in storage for the winter and start the process of divesting ourselves of our house and most of the “stuff” we have accumulated over the years. Sometime in the late spring or early summer of 2012, we will begin our new adventure. That means I will get to write more blogs about our new life. Until then, thanks for following along.

Feel free to make comments on this blog in the comments section below.

Shufflin’ off to Buffalo

2011-09-05T21:12:00.001-06:00

Buffalo Wyoming that is. Wow.   How time flies. It has been almost two weeks since I last wrote about our adventures, so I have a lot of catchin’ up to do.
I last wrote from the campground in Yankton, SD after catching a rather handsome catfish. The other thing I caught on that fishing day was a good sunburn on my feet. After a whole summer of wearing socks and sneakers, I decided to spend a day fishing (in the bright sunlight) wearing sandals. Rosie has been questioning my intellect lately, maybe she is onto something . Several applications of a good Aloe lotion is helpful.
We pulled out of Yankton on Thursday morning on a little over 300 mile push to Lake Maloney State Park south of North Platte, Nebraska. We discovered this place last year. It is a good stopover between Yankton and my brother Bill’s place in Eaton, CO. We already had a State Parks sticker from Chadron earlier in the trip, so the cost for this overnight was $15. It is set on a lake with big sites and wonderful sunrises.

We decided to take the “back roads” to Colorado instead of the interstate. Two event occurred on this journey; first I turned over 200,000 miles on the Chevy and we got a close up look at a lot of corn fields and grain storage silos. These silos are right on the Nebraska/Colorado border.

We arrived at Bill’s home in Eaton about 3:00 pm. It is nice to wonder around a large home for awhile. Bill and Joanie found a real gem in this house last year; about 3,000 sq. ft. with a 3 car garage and a large, beautifully landscaped yard, complete with hot tub.

Bill and Joanie have 3 sons and 6 grandchildren. Sunday afternoon is dinner at grandma’s. It is sort of controlled chaos, but mostly chaos.   This Sunday’s feast included pulled pork sandwiches with a lot of good side dishes. I don’t think anyone went hungry. Bill presented me with a large bottle of Stolichnaya Vodka for my birthday, which I reluctantly accepted.

On Monday we headed up the into the mountains southwest of Denver to our old neighborhood in Shawnee, Co. Shawnee is so small that you are required to go to the post office to pick up your mail. There are no retail stores in Shawnee. We set up the camper in the yard of our former neighbors, Mark and Janice Richter. They have a beautiful home on a mountain hilltop.

It is a little tricky getting the camper into their yard, but once there it is a great setup. The builder originally built it for himself and included RV connections, including sewer, in the yard. Obviously he changed his mind and sold the house, but that little feature sure comes in handy. Mark and Janice are great hosts; treating us to a filet mignon dinner the night of our arrival. Mark has a pool table, so I always pack my personal cue on these trips. We based our operations from here for a week. I took the truck into Denver to have major service work done (an expensive celebration of 200K miles) on Tuesday. Also got some personal shopping done while the service was happening. Thursday Rosie went hiking with her old hiking group; followed by a gathering at Shari Sorensens's home in Conifer.

Friday night we and the Richter’s enjoyed dinner out in Conifer. Saturday morning Mark (a former truck driver) expertly helped me get out of his driveway and we headed back to my brother’s home for the Labor Day Weekend. On Saturday afternoon, I had two work events, one in Cheyenne and another in Laramie. Rosie and the pooches went along for the ride. That evening, we enjoyed a great meal in a snazzy Mexican Restaurant in Greeley with Bill and Joanie. On Sunday, Bill cooked up two fantastic pork loins for the family gathering. The food was excellent and the company wasn’t bad either.
It is now Monday and we are in Buffalo, Wyoming for a night stop over on our way to Cody, Wyoming. I have 4 work events in the Cody area and will get them done on Wednesday and Thursday. We are in a great campground in Buffalo with very large sites and full hookups, 50 amp. electric, water, sewer, Cable TV and a good wi-fi connection. The dogs are settling it to a more restrictive environment after having the run of Bill’s big back yard for several days. Rosie and I are settling back into the quiet life on the road. Life is good. We expect to be back home in Idaho Falls on Friday.

Home Town Happenings

2011-08-24T20:23:00.001-06:00

I left Yankton, South Dakota in September 1965 and moved to Los Angeles, CA, where I met my wife, raised our children and enjoyed an interesting career. I didn’t return to Yankton much over the first 30 years, but my visits have increased over the past few years. I have two brothers, a sister-in-law, and a niece and a nephew who still live here. My mom passed away two years ago, so that reason for returning has gone away. Over that last 4 or 5 years, we have made a practice of stopping here on the way to, or way from, the Amick family reunion in Colome, only about 135 miles away. Rosie and I also both enjoy the campground we stay at; Chief White Crane Campground, which is part of the South Dakota State Parks system. The sites are spacious with long, level parking pads. This year, like last year, we invited all of my local kin to the campground Monday evening for a BBQ and evening of family visiting. This time, my sister, Marla Sathe, drove all the way from Omaha, Nebraska to join us.

Here are some pictures from the evening.

Family visiting                                                                                 Niece Jill and Sister Marla

Nephew Chad, me, Brothers Larry and Danny                           Group photo

Tuesday afternoon I picked up Larry and we went out checking potential fishing holes for our planned Wednesday fishing outing. We drove out near the farm where we grew up and went to Lake Marindahl. The lake was much larger than I remembered it, but it has been at least 50 years since I was last there. Then Larry tells me that an old high school friend, Jim Starr, has been bugging him to bring me by to see him the next time I was in town. Now Jim works Mondays and Tuesdays at The Ice House, an institution in Yankton going back to my childhood and perhaps before that. It is a Drive In Beer Bar. Yes, that’s right; a Drive In Beer Bar. You drive up to the loading dock in front of the building and someone comes out and takes your order and brings you the brew of your choice. As a kid, I remember seeing on duty Yankton Police Officers sitting a in squad car taking a beer break. So Jim Starr comes out to ask our choice of beverage and recognizes Larry and says hello to him. He looks at me and I say “I hear you been looking for me”. He reaches out to shake my hand and says “My God! I would not have recognized you walking down the street”. Of course, the last time we saw each other was 1962. So he waves us into the building (I have never been inside the building before) and he gives me a Bud Lite on the house. We yakked for an hour and a half about the old days and the current whereabouts of friends from High School. It was an interesting afternoon.

That evening Rosie and I attended the Yankton chapter of Drinking Liberally’s weekly meeting. We are full time attendees of the Idaho Falls Chapter of this national organization and it was great to meet people of like political persuasion in my home town. It was a small group, but we had a great time.

Wednesday morning we awoke to a new phenomena, a May Fly hatch. The camper was covered with May Flies.

Fortunately, they were almost all on the outside and only one or two on the inside.

I drove up to the local convenience store to get some fishing bait (worms) and a couple of newspapers. After breakfast I drove about a 1/4 mile to the Missouri River and settled in for a day of fishing. The River is at near flood levels. The spot I was at is about a mile from the dam where the Corp of Engineers is letting out record amounts of water. The water level is easily 10 to 12 feet higher than it was last year when we were here. In the first 30 minutes I had a good hook up with something really big. After about 10 minutes I could see that it was a good size catfish, about 24 inches long. To make a long story short, I managed to lose it trying to land it. So I chalked it up to my notoriously bad luck with fishing. My brother, Larry, came out about noon and joined me for the afternoon. He caught several fish and I caught one more, none worth writing home about. Then about 3:30 I had another good hook up. Whaddya know, it turned out to be the twin of the catfish I had lost in the morning. This time Larry was going to make sure I didn’t lose this one, so he goes out into the water a bit and scoops it up onto the shore. What a guy. So my day was not a complete loss.

Here is me with my 5 and 1/2 lb., 26 inch channel catfish.

Rosie and I are not fans of catfish for eating, but a friend of hers in Colorado loves catfish. So I have two nice catfish filets for her. The only other noteworthy event for the day was that I sunburned the heck out of my feet and ankles. I normally wear socks and sneakers. Today I was wearing sandals and my lily white feet and ankles got really red. It will be a few days before that pain and itch subsides.

Tomorrow we hitch up and head for Lake Maloney near North Platte, Nebraska and on Friday we will arrive at my brother, Bill Sathe’s home in Eaton, Colorado. We will catch up with more on our travels early next week.

A Gathering Of The Clan

2011-08-22T14:34:00.001-06:00

Reunions, especially family reunions can be joyous or dreadful, depending on the perspective of the participant. My family reunion is clearly a joyous occasion. For the last 20 some years, the Amick/Strochine clan has held their annual family reunion at the Roger Pochup farm near Colome, South Dakota. Biologically, I am the son of an Amick. However I was adopted at the age of 3 by Marvin Sathe, who married my mother in 1947. I did not meet my biological family until 1993 when my father, Ivan Amick, reached out to contact me. In 1994, I was invited to the Amick/Strochine reunion where I met a large number siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, and nieces and nephews for the first time. That was an exciting and rewarding experience and I have returned every year since on the 3rd full weekend in August. Sadly, my father died suddenly two days after that 1994 reunion, limiting the time I got to know him to a meager 14 months. Through the stories told at the reunion and long conversations with dad’s sister, Rita Strochine, I have learned a lot about him and the life he lived before we met in June 1993.

This years attendance was light, primarily due to school years starting earlier and earlier. Many families with school age children cannot attend because of the timing. There were about 40 or 50 blood relatives plus their spouses and additional members of the local community are invited to participate in the Saturday night feast of a pork main course with a variety of yummy accompaniments. There are hay rides on a flat bed trailer pulled by a farm tractor across the fields with at least one stop at the rock on Hoop Snake Hill, where Roger Pochup tells the tale of the Hoop Snake and how the snakes affected the lives of the settlers in the early days. There is always a “posse” of young horseback riders trailing along. There is a silent auction, and fireworks, and karaoke, and lots to talk and lots of eating. I always weigh more on the Sunday departure day than I did on the Thursday arrival day.
Here are some pictures from the event:



This year some of us made a trip into Nebraska to visit an old cemetery where I have several relatives lying at rest. The cemetery is located about a mile off the nearest paved road and is used infrequently these days. Among aunts and uncles and cousins that are buried here, my great grandparents ( my father’s mother’s mom and dad) are here. Here is a picture with me standing between their headstones.

After the reunion, we hitched up the camper and drove east to my home town of Yankton, South Dakota. We are set up in Chief White Crane Campground, a South Dakota State Park. We always take a day or two to adjust to the increased humidity.   For some meteorological reason that I do not understand, the humidity goes up dramatically as soon as you cross the Missouri River. Anyway, we are here and comfortable with 50 amp electricity to run the AC and everything else we need. Tonight, Rosie and I are hosting a gathering of the Sathe Clan, two of my Sathe brothers and my sister and a nephew will join us at the campground for grilled burgers and fixings. After that we are headed for Colorado to visit more of the Sathe clan and our old neighborhood in Shawnee, Colorado.

Chadron State Park, Northwest Nebraska

2011-08-16T13:20:00.001-06:00

We discovered this little gem quite by accident several years ago. For a short while, about 10 years back, my mother lived a half mile down the highway from the entrance to this park. I made a mental note of it when we made a trip to visit her. After we got our first camper, we stopped here on the way from our home in Colorado to the family reunion in South Dakota. We liked it a lot at the time and vowed to return someday. Well, last Saturday was someday. We have been here for 3 days now and it is as wonderful as we remembered it. The sites are large and well spaced, with 30 amp electrical hookups. There are flush toilets, showers and a laundry room about 100 feet from the campsite. There is an extensive trail system; and we have taken the puppies on some of the shorter trails. We may even try a longer trail before we head out of here on Thursday morning.

Rosie is always happy at a trailhead. Our camper is in the center of the picture.

The only thing that has me a little grumpy is no television. There is nothing from the “over the air” antenna on the camper. I spent more than an hour trying to find the DirectTV satellite; but there are too many trees and the hills to the south are too high to get a good shot at the satellite. The access to the internet via my Verizon air card is spotty; sometimes good, most of the time not at all, and it is not predictable when it will be good or it will be bad. There is a reliable good reception area in the park about a mile from our site. If I absolutely must send/receive anything, I just drive up there for a few minutes to get it done. However, I have been able to work from the site most of the time.

Yesterday, I took Sammy and Annie for a ride into Chadron to run a few errands; refill one of the camper propane tanks, refuel the truck, pick up some groceries and go to the post office. The puppies always enjoy going for a ride. Of course, whenever I get a newspaper, I give it to Sammy to carry into the camper and he gets a treat. Of course, it is only fair to give Annie a treat also, even though she didn’t “earn” it. Typical female, living off the fruits of the labor of a male .

The weather here, for the most part, has been good. We have had a few night time sprinkles. Last night the wind blew hard enough to shake the camper for about an hour; along with some lightning and thunder. Yesterday was hot; 97 degrees. The camper AC got a workout keeping us cool. We had a great moonrise on Sunday night. A big, orange colored full moon rose out of the trees, keeping us entertained for about 20 minutes.

It seems I will survive my mishap of last Wednesday. The pain and tingling sensation in my arms has diminished and the dull, throbbing ache in my shoulders and neck has dissipated. The only part that still hurts is my right shoulder. That could be from driving (with my right arm) and/or the fall on Wednesday could have triggered a relapse of an old shoulder injury from an auto accident when I was 16 ( a bazillion years ago). Anyway, Aleve seems to be handling that nuisance pain.

I got a fair amount of maintenance work done on the camper this morning while it was cool. Cleaned off the bugs from the front cap and cleaned up the road dirt on the lower front that we picked up going through construction zones on Highway 26 in Wyoming. Even spent about an hour tightening loose screws (not the ones in my head).

Thursday morning we hitch up and head east to my family reunion in Colome, South Dakota. We always enjoy our reunion time. I will blog again from there.

Our trip starts with a bang; and a CT Scan

2011-08-11T19:41:00.001-06:00

The day before our departure date for South Dakota and Colorado I did a really dumb and clumsy thing. I was walking around the camper parked in front of our house. I had my gaze on the ground and my mind on my next task. I ran my forehead smack dab into the open bedroom slide on the camper. That knocked me out. I fell backwards hitting the back of my head on the pavement. I came to with one of my neighbors kneeling over me asking if he should call 911. I said “No, I don’t think so, but let me lie here for a minute and think about this”. I was dazed, numb and had tingling sensations in my neck, shoulders and upper arms. He helped me to my feet and I went in the house and told Rosie she should drive me to the Emergency Room. The first thing they did after giving me an initial evaluation and hearing my story, was to put me in a neck brace. Those darn things are exceptionally uncomfortable. I was in the neck brace for 3 hours; first waiting to get into the room for a CT Scan, then waiting for a doctor to come in and give me the results. I was a worried dude. Finally, a nice doctor walks in, reaches to remove the neck brace and says “I ‘m the good news guy”. I did not have a concussion or a broken neck. What a relief that was. He also gave a full thumbs up to driving, even pulling a fifth wheel, the next day. I had been lying there in Bed 16 of the Idaho Falls Regional Medical Center Emergency Room fully expecting that the trip was off; and my camping days were over. So dramatic! Anyway, my fears were not grounded. I survived the experience with some shoulder and neck pain, sorta like whiplash, only whiplash while walking.

This morning we pulled out of Idaho Falls about 8:00 am. We headed east for Jackson Hole and then north alongside the Grand Tetons to Moran Junction. Then east over the mountains, with Highway 26 undergoing major construction, to Dubois, WY.

The Snake River south of Jackson

The Grand Tetons over the top of my truck. Sorta goes with the Alpenlite decals, eh!

A buffalo next to the road on the way. Rosie is getting to be a great wildlife photographer.

We arrived at the The Longhorn Ranch and RV Resort about 2:30. This was our second visit here this year. When we were here in June, the river next to the campground was rising. Now it has subsided to something more resembling normal. We really like this campground, but their rates went from $29 in June to $45 in August. Ouch! However the setting is great. The dogs love it. Rosie loves it. What could be better?

The river. Our site in the shady trees.

I now have to show off our little Annie’s new look. We took her to the groomer for a bath and a hair cut. She is a different gal.

Tomorrow morning we continue east to Douglas, WY. I have a couple of farm inspections for an insurance company along the way. I will be back with you in a couple of days.

The final week!

2011-07-23T21:46:00.001-06:00

Almost a week has gone by since my last update on our travels.

Monday was pretty much a work day for me. I had 6 insurance surveys in Carpinteria. I got back to the site about 3:00. I wrote up a couple of my reports, then spent the rest of the day relaxing. Tuesday we were hosts to Rosie’s sisters, Helga and Gigi and their husbands Fred and Harlan, and Helga’s grandson, Shane. We prepared a campfire dinner of chicken, potatoes, and veggies with some cream of mushroom soup and a little wine all mixed together and wrapped in six layers of heavy duty foil. After 45 minutes over an open campfire, everything was fully cooked and ready to eat. Add some French bread and butter and top it off with an apple tort baked by Rosie and we had a meal. We sat and visited for a couple of hours enjoying the surroundings and each other’s company. Of course we had to take a group photo.

From left to right; Fred, me, Rosie, Gigi, Helga, Shane and Harlan.

Wednesday was a day without any commitments or plans. I wrote the rest of my reports and we chilled out at the site. Thursday I had 2 surveys in Santa Barbara scheduled, but one of them cancelled while I was driving up the coast to Santa Barbara. It has been at least 18 years since I have driven the Pacific Coast Highway. It was strange to see the ocean again after living inland all these years. I had also forgotten how crowded Santa Barbara is; small homes on narrow streets are the rule until you get into the mansions in the foothills. Thursday evening Heidi had us over for dinner; she picked up chicken and fixings from El Pollo Loco, one of our favorites. We put our pooches in the back yard and Heidi kept her three little canines in the house during our visit. It was good to spend some more time with our grandsons Robert and Tyler. We are looking forward to being able to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with them this year, since we have decided to spend the winter in our camper exploring warmer winter climates. We stopped at Albertson’s in Simi Valley for a final stock up on groceries for our trip home.

Friday morning we hooked up and pulled out of the Ventura Ranch KOA, our home for the last 10 nights. This is the longest we have stayed at one location since we started camping. It was a good experience. We had a great site. There were many places to walk Sammy and Annie. The local wildlife consisted of little bunny rabbits and peacocks. The peacocks are birds with extraordinary color patterns. This one came right into our camp one morning.

Friday was the beginning of our desert journey home. We stayed Friday night in Barstow. The campground did not have a single blade of grass anywhere. Puppies like to pee on grass; so we took a ride to a local park where they could take care of all their business on lush green grass (a rare site in Barstow, CA). We continue to meet Europeans in our travels. A large Class C rental RV set up next to us. A family from Switzerland; husband, wife and two sons. Their English was pretty good, but their German was better. Rosie really enjoyed a long conversation with them Saturday morning as we were getting ready to go.

I was dreading driving through Las Vegas; but it was not so bad. The major road construction they have been working on for the last few years is completed. I was able to stay in one lane all the way from the south to the north end of town. The temperature kept climbing all day, by the time we reached our destination in Mesquite, NV, it was well over 100 degrees. The only RV resorts in Mesquite are connected with Casinos and Hotels. This means they are cheap, $20 with full hookups, because they expect you will drop some money at the tables. The RV area is a large paved parking lot. We lucked out with a corner site that is very wide and very level. I plugged into the 50 amp circuit and we fired up the main air conditioner; and the circuit breaker in the camper tripped. Not a good sign. So I reset the circuit breaker and set the fan to low on the AC. That seemed to make it better. After about 30 minutes I set the fan to high and it has been running good every since. Then I turned on the front (bedroom) AC. After five minutes, that circuit breaker tripped. I have been trying to run the front AC on low for a couple of hours and it always trips after 10 or 15 minutes. Finally, I said to heck with it, I will run it on high for as long as it will go. It has been going for about 40 minutes now without failure. Maybe it is because it is cooling down outside and it doesn’t have to work so hard. We were thinking about hitting the slot machines for a bit, but decided it was not a good idea to leave the pooches alone in the camper if the AC were to trip the breakers it could get too hot for them.

Sunday we headed out about 7:00 am for Nephi, UT. We came upon a serious accident on I-15. A SUV was upside down in the center median and many motorists had stopped to give assistance. We saw one person sitting up against the vehicle holding a towel to his head; unable to tell if there was anyone else still in the vehicle. First responders had not yet arrived, but many folks were talking into cell phones. These things are always a reminder to us of how fortunate we are and how your life can literally be turned “upside down” in a second. We arrived in Nephi about 2:00 pm (back in Mountain time now) and are set up in the High Country RV Camp. We have a shady site on level gravel and are able to stay hooked up to save time in the morning. Both AC units going full blast with a good 50 amp connection and no circuit breakers tripping in the camper. Temperature is a cool (compared to Mesquite) 90 degrees. Also have 26 channels of “over the air” digital television from our roof antenna. How good is that?

So, part of our “lessons learned” on this trip now includes avoiding desert travel in the summer. We will head home in the morning and be there for almost three weeks before we head for the family reunion in Colome, SD followed by a trip to our old neighborhood in Shawnee, CO.

I will write next time from Chadron State Park in Nebraska.

People and Peacocks

2011-07-17T22:15:00.001-06:00

Concrete Deer Real Peacock

We arrived at the Ventura Ranch KOA Tuesday afternoon. The site that we were assigned to was way too small for our camper, so we ended up moving to a much better site with the gracious cooperation of the KOA staff.

This is a nice, private site. No other camper on our street side with plenty of room to set up chairs for our many expected guests.

The drive to Santa Paula was uneventful. We had very little traffic until we got onto Interstate 5 at Gorman and headed down the long grade to Los Angeles. Fortunately, we were able to avoid the real LA traffic since we were able to turn off on highway 126 towards Santa Paula; a modest size California community about 10 miles from the Pacific Ocean. The proximity to the ocean makes for cool temperatures at the campground. It is in the mid-seventies here while it is in the eighties about 15 miles away in the Simi Valley area. Wednesday was a day to explore the area. We drove north of Ojai to check out a forest service campground I found on the internet. It is in a very nice, heavily wooded setting with a stream running through it; but, the Karma (as Rosie called it) was terrible. The camper trailers there were very old and run down. The people were kind of scary. It looked like a setting for a Hollywood Horror Movie. We drove down to the beach and were struck by the smell of sardines and rotten kelp. There were a lot of camping units along the beach front. I don’t know how they stand the odor. I checked the “Gas Buddy” app on my Android phone and went to a Fleet Fueling station that was supposed to have diesel for $4.05. When we got there, the sign out front and on the pump said $4.09. I put the nozzle in the tank and started cleaning the windshield. That finished, I went to check on the fueling when I noticed the price was now $4.17. I stopped the fill up at $94; not a very happy camper. Apparently the $4.09 was the price if you were a “Fleet” member. Arghhh!

We headed back to the campground to wait for Michelle to arrive. She is spending two nights with us instead of making her usual 60 mile (one way) commute to her home in Pine Mountain Club from her job in Santa Clarita. Dinner was grilled salmon for her (she has gone meatless (vegan)) and brats for me and Rosie. She was the first one to test out the pull out bed in the couch in the camper. She and Annie found it pretty comfy.

Thursday was the day for Heidi and our grandsons, Robert and Tyler to come out for lunch. Rosie prepared chicken the way the boys really enjoy and I put a few pieces on the grill in addition. Every one enjoyed lunch and then the boys (including a friend of Roberts) went down to try out the rock climbing wall. After that we followed them to a skate park in Santa Paula, where Robert and his friend did their skateboarding thing for awhile.

On Friday, we went to Trader Joe’s in Simi Valley before I dropped Rosie and the pooches off for lunch at Heidi’s house. Heidi was hosting a lunch for Rosie, her sister Gigi, and a cousin, Joy, and Joy’s infant daughter.

Rosie Joy Gigi Heidi Tyler with Scoobie

While they were doing the “girl” thing, I had lunch at El Torito, my favorite Mexican restaurant and had the truck treated to a thorough wash and wax job at the local car wash. We stopped again for groceries on the way home. We are freaking out at the food prices in the grocery stores here compared to the Wal-Mart in Idaho Falls.

Saturday morning I drove into Moorpark to watch Tyler in a Basketball Game. His other grandparents, Bob and Connie, were there with Heidi. Tyler made four baskets and his team won 26 to 25. I took many pictures at the game, but I guess I am not a sports photographer; none of them are worth sharing.

Saturday afternoon our son Karl and his girl friend Shana came over to spend the afternoon and night with us. Karl always goes out of his way to prepare great meals when we visit them, so we grilled steaks and salmon, threw in some large shrimp and Rosie’s famous scalloped potatoes. After Karl and Shana left on Sunday, we found a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Oxnard and stocked up on groceries and other needed items. It was good to find some reasonable prices again, compared to the local Supermarkets like Vons and Albertsons. Rosie did the laundry in the campground facility and we started to relax after a rather hectic week so far.

Tomorrow I have six inspections to do in Carpenteria. Tuesday, two of Rosie’s sisters, Gigi and Helga, are coming out with their husbands to have dinner with us. We are planning a feast of chicken, potatoes and vegetables in mushroom sauce cooking in heavy foil over a campfire.

Lone Pine; The Rest of The Story

2011-07-11T21:48:00.001-06:00

In my last post I mentioned there was a story about Lone Pine, CA; a sleepy little town at the base of Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states. In November 1966, I was sent up to Lone Pine as part of a crew from General Electric Medical X-Ray Division to install X-Ray equipment in the Inyo-Kern Hospital. On Saturday, December 3rd, I had a blind date with a certain Rosemarie Seese down in Los Angeles. This date was arranged by one of her co-workers who was dating one of my two roommates. Rosemarie worked for Union 76 Oil Company and was new in LA. Union 76 was having it’s annual Christmas Party at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in downtown Beverly Hills. I was to be her escort to the Christmas Party. After work on Friday night I walked out to the parking lot of the hospital to discover my car had a flat tire and a flat spare tire. My paycheck had been mailed to my apartment in Glendale, CA. I had less than 10 bucks in cash and that was a long time before I had my first credit card. I managed to snag a ride to Glendale with one of the X-Ray techs (I actually was out on the highway with my thumb out when he picked me up) who was headed for LA for the weekend. I got to my apartment and cashed my paycheck the next day. I then rented a car for my blind date. I picked up Rosemarie at her parents apartment in Los Angeles. We went to a very luxurious and splendid Christmas Party; live orchestra, free drinks, prime rib or lobster (or both if you desired), etc. You get the picture. As often happens at these events the table centerpiece is given to the lucky person at the table with an envelope under their chair. My date won the centerpiece, a pair of elves in Christmas dress sitting on pine cones. Now, 45 years later, those two elves sitting on pine cones are set in glass globes and come out of storage every season as Christmas decorations in our house. After our date, my roommate gave me a ride back to Lone Pine on Sunday and I was able to get my tires repaired. On Tuesday evening I called Ms. Seese and asked for a second date; she agreed. We were married in May of 1967 and are traveling together on our adventures today.

So back to current times. We left Fallon, NV this morning at 7:00 am and headed south on US 95. We cut over into California just above Mono Lake and picked up US 395 headed south. We stopped for groceries in Bishop (Rosie was shocked at the prices) and filled up in Big Pine, CA. Arrived at our campground about 2:30. It is 95 degrees out and Rosie is not fond of heat. To top it off, I didn’t like the site they assigned us (not level) and went to the office to get it changed. It took about 45 minutes in the heat to get set up. The puppies were hot. Rosie was hot. I was hot. Things got better when I plugged into the 50 amp electricity and turned on both air conditioners in the camper. I helped carry our laundry to the laundry room and Rosie got to work with the washers. As I returned to the camper, I noted another Alpenlite Fifth Wheel had pulled in two sites down from me. I greeted the owner and we exchanged pleasantries. A little later I took the pooches for a walk and as we were coming back, two more Alpenlite Fifth Wheels pull in. I asked one of the drivers if this was an Alpenlite Convention. He said “Heck yes” and I told him I had an Alpenlite. He said “Welcome to the convention”. As it turned out there were 4 Alpenlites all in a row; and they all knew each other and were headed to Mammoth Lakes for the Jazz Festival. We had a drink and snacks with all of them up in the campground clubhouse. They are quite a group and take frequent trips together. They all live in the Los Angeles area.

The Alpenlite Club – All In A Row

Tomorrow we reach our destination of Ventura Oaks KOA near Santa Paula, CA.

Tires, Travel & Tailgating

2011-07-10T20:06:00.001-06:00

This seems to be the season for tire failures; but I think I may have caused this one. We had decided to bypass Wild Horse Reservoir as a campsite due to potential temperatures (it is hot) and lack of power to run AC; and move on to Elko to get a site in an established RV Park. When we arrived at Wild Horse, I was inspired to check out the BLM site across from the reservoir for future potential. It turned out to be a narrow dirt road and spaces to small for our camper. While exiting the area I noted in my rear view mirror that the camper tires on the right side were on the edge of the road and in the bushes. After we got back on the highway, I pulled into a country road department materials yard across from the reservoir to set up for lunch. As Rosie was directing my back up activity she noticed that one of the camper tires (right side) was flat. So in this very pretty area, we were stuck with a dilemma.

The View! The Dilemma!

So I call the 800 number for the Good Sam Club Emergency Roadside Assistance plan to whom I have been paying an annual fee of over $125 for about 5 years. I get Jonathon on the phone and he is very sympathetic to our plight. He calls their only contract tire dealer in Elko and they tell him that we are out of their service area (70 miles from Elko). This starts him on a telephone hunt for an “out of system” tire dealer who will come out to where we are. I now have an appreciation for Les Schwab tire dealers. They run these commercials about how they go “above and beyond” the call of duty, etc., etc., Well, they were the only ones in Elko that said they would come out an change our tire; but it could be up to four hours since all of their service trucks were out on calls. Long story short; Levi from Les Schwab shows up in about 3 hours to rescue us. He removes the flat and mounts the 10 year old spare (brand new, but old) and finds a good size hole in the center of the tread of our camper tire. He departs and we head down the road to Elko for the Les Schwab dealership. When we get there, they repair the tire and put it back on the camper and replace the spare in it’s proper place. By this time it is close to 7:30 Mountain Time (the time our stomachs are on) even though we have now entered Pacific Time. We are grumpy and hungry; and the dogs cannot figure out what the heck is going on. They think we should be in a campground and fed and walked by now. As some of you know, we typically eat our evening meal at 5:00 pm; so we are really late. I set the GPS for the RV Park. On the way, there was an Albertsons with a large enough parking lot to safely pull into. One broasted chicken, potato salad and baked beans were quickly purchased; we made it to the RV Park in 20 minutes (on a street under construction with poor signage-will it ever get better?) and unhooked, leveled and connected in another 15 minutes. So about 8:30 (our tummy time) we finally get to eat. Boy, was it good!!!

Because of the late meal, stress of the events of the day, etc., we did not sleep so well last night. We arose around 5:00 am (pacific time), took the dogs, had breakfast, went to Albertsons to buy groceries and get fueled up ($3.85 a gallon – not bad). At 8:30 we headed west on I-80 for Fallon, NV. We arrived at the Country Fairgrounds Campground ($14 for electric and water and a level site) and settled in..

So now we have the tires and the travel; where does the tailgating come in. Well in this whole camper park, I see only one picnic table and that is in use by a large family (maybe they brought it with them). So I am trying to figure out where to set up the grill for our Sunday standard of steak and salmon when Rosie says “Use the tailgate of the truck”. I am glad I married such a bright woman. So I leave you with pictures of tailgating and relaxing in Fallon, NV. Headed out tomorrow for Lone Pine, CA. Great story to tell about Lone Pine, but that will be in another blog.

California or bust!

2011-07-06T15:48:00.001-06:00

Here we are; off on a thousand mile trek to the Golden State. Home of our children and grandchildren.

After a great dinner party hosted by our friends, Joe and Anne Hayes on July 4th, we pulled out of Idaho Falls about 9:30 on Tuesday, July 5th. Our first stop on the journey is Three Island Crossing State Park in Glenn’s Ferry, ID. This is a spot where the early pioneers chose to cross the Snake River with their stock and covered wagons. We haven’t gone to the Interpretive Center yet, but my understanding is there are 3 islands in the river at this point that made crossing easier. A walk along a trail this morning also shows the water is calm and appears to be shallow. Considering the Snake River continues to run very high and fast, it was surprising to see the calmness of the water.

This is a beautiful State Park Campground. Mature trees and lots of green grass in between well spaced sites with level asphalt pads along with 30 amp electric and water hookups.

Of course the electricity makes it possible to enjoy one of the pleasures of modern life; satellite television. The Verizon cell connection is good so we have phones and internet. All for $11.00 a night (senior rate and Idaho residency discount).

After about an hour or so of air conditioned comfort in the camper, I made the error of overtaxing the 30 amp circuit. I had turned on the electric hot water heater, the crock pot was going with dinner, the air conditioning was going and then; I put some bread in the toaster. The second I pushed down the toaster handle, everything shut down. I went out to the electric post and reset the circuit breaker; no power. So we ate dinner wondering what we should do next. I kept trying to reset the breaker; no change. I took Rosie’s hair dryer out to the post and plugged it in; no power. So I drive up to the campground host site at the upper level campground. No campground host is home. Went back to the site to ponder some more. Went back to the campground host site at six pm; no host is in. I met another couple wanting to see the host about the exact same issue; AC for a while, then nothing. On my way back down to our site, I noticed large electrical boxes in the campground. I went to one of them and they were actually open (not locked). There was a circuit breaker for each of the numbered electrical poles. The numbers on this box did not include our site. I went to our site and spotted a box nearby. I opened the box and “yahoo”, there is a circuit breaker for Pole 75 that is tripped. I reset it and we had power once again. I went back up to the upper campground to let the other people know what I had discovered. As I was pulling in, the campground host and his wife returned to their site. I found the people that I had met earlier and told them what I had found out. He went to talk to the Host while I chatted a bit with his wife. Turns out they are from Bend, Oregon; one of our favorite places on the planet. Small world!

The rest of the evening was uneventful. We got a good nights sleep and went for a walk this morning on a trail along the river.

After our walk I drove into town to refuel and get a local paper. The rest of today has been pretty typical, me taking care of business and Rosie cleaning the inside of the camper and cleaning the windows. I have been more diligent and aware of electrical limitations, so no drama so far today. One more day here and we head south for Wild Horse Reservoir in northern Nevada for two nights of boondocking (no power).

Cody to Flaming Gorge

2011-06-30T21:04:00.002-06:00

My Monday appointment was with a company that has developed a special lever action rifle. They will be going into production at their plant in Cody this year. I really get to see some interesting things in my insurance inspection work. After my appointment, I wrote two reports and then we chilled out at the campground. We took the pooches for a long (my definition)/short (Rosie’s definition) walk. Had a guy pull into the site across the rode from us that lives north of Bishop, California. He was interesting to talk with; he had been in a lot of places that we had also traveled. I also had a nice conversation with a man from Alberta, Canada.
Tuesday morning we hit the road for Flaming Gorge National Forest Recreation Area. We are set up in a place called Firehole Campground. The close up landscape is small, scrubby plant life and a lot of sandy, desert type soil. The views, however, are pretty spectacular:

View from the recliner inside the camper.                                     View from a short distance away.

We had a lot of fun fitting the camper in a space designed many years ago when campers were not quite so big. We did manage to get squeezed into place though. These sites were set up with a sheltered, partially covered picnic table area.


We munched away on grilled turkey burgers and potato chips. Dessert was a new lite ice cream from Wal-Mart. Small individual portions that are quite tasty and low-cal at 150 calories each. It was a little warm when we arrived, but began to cool down about 8:00 pm. By nightfall it was comfortable for sleeping with just a couple of open windows providing a breeze in the bedroom.
Wednesday morning the sun was shining on the canyon walls to our west and the air and the water were dead calm. It was really spectacular. For the first time on this trip, we sat outside with our coffee looking at the view and letting the dogs run around in our sight at all times. There are not many others camped here. Two sites have tent campers and that is all besides us. I had two inspections to do in nearby towns, so I headed out about 7:30 am. I found a Starbucks in Rock Springs where I could use their internet to take care of e-mail and fill orders from my Internet business.
After the two inspections, I returned to the campground about 3:30. It had been windy and warm all day. Rosie and the puppies had been for two “long” walks, so the puppies were pooped. I still got a glorious reception on my arrival. Doggie love is so special.
The wind is picking up as a I write this and there were a few rain sprinkles. I am grilling pork chops for dinner and we hope to eat outside if the wind calms down (which it should). Tomorrow we head for home. I have an appointment at the Chevy dealer for my last complimentary oil/lube jobs on the truck. I don’t know why, but last year, Chevy sent me a coupon for 4 free oil changes from July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011.
Next Monday is the 4th of July and we are a attending a dinner party at our friends, Joe and Anne’s home. Tuesday morning we hit the road for southern California where we will sit in one place for 8 days while I do some work and we visit family and friends. The blog will continue next week from Three Island Crossing State Park near Glenn’s Ferry, ID.

Evacuated!

2011-06-25T19:33:00.001-06:00

We pulled out of Idaho Falls on Thursday morning about 9:00 am after dumping the holding tanks and refilling one empty propane tank. The drive through West Yellowstone (the town, not the park), then north to Bozeman and east toward Columbus was uneventful UNTIL we made our usual off site pullover to let the dogs run and to stretch a little ourselves. During my walk around the truck and rig, I noticed the right rear tire on the truck was very low (40 psi).This is not a good thing. I pulled out the air compressor, fired up the generator and pumped the tire back up to 80 psi. By the time I got the air compressor put away, the pressure was down to 70 psi. I checked Barbie (our GPS) for the nearest Tire Store; 28 miles away in Big Timber, Montana. So, we got back on I-90 and headed east. I angled the right side rear view mirror so I could keep an eye on the tire. It was obviously low, but not flat. We limp into small town tire store where the shop owner takes the tire off the rim, looks at it and says “It toast”. The tire has “separated”, something I had never heard of, but later found to be a not unusual occurrence on tires carrying heavy loads. “I only got one tire that will fit” he says. How much, I say. He checks and says “$215”. Well, this is one of those times when you are a captive customer. I could not go shopping around for tires. So, $215 later, we are heading towards our destination in Columbus, Montana. The only good thing about this situation is there is no sales tax in Montana. We pull into the City Park there about 5: 30 pm, an hour and a half later than expected.

Did I mention the City Park in Columbus is on the edge of the Yellowstone River? Like every river in the country in Spring and early Summer of 2011, the river is fast and rising. We met my brother, Jon and his wife Dawn and set up the camper in what we thought was a great spot. We had my world famous chili for dinner and then it started raining a little bit, then it stopped. We sat around the campfire until about 10:00 pm and called it a night. Waking up Friday morning at 5:30, a look outside reveals puddles of water where there were no puddles the night before. Jon says the river is still rising, causing the ground water in the park to seep out to the surface, sorta like a lot of little “springs” were bubbling up all around us. We relocate to the highest ground in the Park. About 4:00, my brother Ron and his wife arrive in their motor home along with my sister Deloris. Several relatives of Dawn arrive a little later. About 6:30 we are making dinner plans for a communal pot luck. The local police come by and tell us we have 30 minutes to evacuate, they are closing the park because of flood potential from the still rising river. So we go to Plan B; we all head to Jon and Dawn’s house in Billings. She had prearranged for Ron and I to park our big rigs in a commercial contactor friends parking lot near their house. We prepare all the food for our pot luck; ribs, brats, chicken, various salads, etc. and are dining in the back yard. Just as we are finishing up the meal, a huge dark cloud comes overhead; lightning, thunder then a driving hard rain. I got soaked walking the dogs back to the camper; where I waited out the storm with Sammy and Annie. When the rain diminished (not stopped), I left the dogs and headed back to the house. We had a yummy cake and ice cream desert (it was somebody’s birthday).

After a night to think, I decided it would be the safest to get a new set of tires for the truck. So off to Wal-Mart where I got a great deal on good tires. I put the new tire purchased in Big Timber on as the new spare. My old spare had never been used, but was 7 years old. So now I have a $215 spare tire. We had lunch in the camper and went to Jon’s house to visit a bit and take the annual group photo.

Saying our goodbyes until next year, we headed down the back highways towards Cody, WY. We set up at the Buffalo Bill State Park on a reservoir. What a beautiful setting (considering no trees to note). I took a couple of pictures from inside the camper looking out.

After a fine meal of linguine with Rosie’s famous meat spaghetti sauce, we took the pooches for a walk. We are settling in for the night. We will be here until Tuesday. I have a work appointment in Cody on Monday at 9:00 am; other than that it is relaxation time We are really liking the idea of spending a lot more time in the camper.

Wyoming–Montana Continued

2011-06-20T19:14:00.001-06:00

Tuesday evening I went to the office at the campground to check on the likelihood of the river cresting into the campground overnight. I was assured if that were a probability, the Sheriff’s Department would already have come by to evacuate all of us. That was a relief. While I was in the office a man came in seeking help with a cell phone. He spoke with a distinct German accent (how would I know that), so I asked him where he lived in Germany. He says, Heilbronn; and I about fell over. I was stationed in a small army base in Heilbronn for 30 months from 1962 to 1965. So I pumped him for information about the current status of my old army base (or Caserne as it is called in French). He said it had closed long ago. He and his wife and another couple had flown into Denver and were on a circle tour of the Tetons, Yellowstone, the Black Hills and the Badlands. An interesting small world story. How unique is it to run into a German from the town I was stationed in back in the ‘60’s here in a small town campground in Wyoming.

When we rose to a beautiful day Wednesday morning the river had risen a few more inches. Not close to getting into the campground, but I wondered what the next few days would bring. We hitched up and got on the road about 9:00 am headed for Hebgen Reservoir in Montana. We entered Teton National Park from the south and then into Yellowstone Park.

There is still snow on the ground in mid-June. Le Grande Teton

We pulled into a turnout in Yellowstone Park and had a leisurely lunch. We let the puppies run in the woods nearby. They love all the smells that only dogs can smell; running around with their noses close to the ground. You gotta wonder what they are thinking when they stop and take a deep sniff at some particular spot. Anyway, we sat on a fallen tree and did a little sniffing of the forest air ourselves.

Arrived at the Lonsomehurst Campground at Hebgen Lake about 3:00 in the afternoon. Lo and Behold; a minor miracle occurred. One of the four sites that have electricity was available; and it was large enough for our 34’ rig. Oh Joy. This means satellite TV is in our immediate future (some roughing it campers we are). After we got all settled in we went for a walk around the campground and discovered our friend from last year was also here, camped in the same spot he had in 2010.

Thursday morning we took a day trip further back into the woods along the lakeshore. Let the dogs out to run loose when we found an open area with no one around. On the way back to the site, we turned a bend in the road and there was a mama black bear with a little bear cub walking on the road. Mama got between us and the cub until the cub could get into the woods. I am glad we were in the truck. Unfortunately, we had not brought the camera along so missed an opportunity for a really cute picture.

That evening we had a spectacular moonrise over the lake.

Our daughter Michelle arrived about 4:30 in the afternoon. She was on the downhill side of a national book signing tour promoting her recent book, “Pit Stops”; a story about a cross country trip she took in 2009 with a rescued pit bull dog to bring about a general awareness of the myths and misconceptions of the Pit Bull breeds. She had left California several weeks earlier and driven across the south to Florida, up the east coast to Baltimore (where the Mayor of Baltimore bought one of her books), and back across the mid-west catching up with us here. She will have a book signing event at the Animal Shelter in Idaho Falls on Saturday. You can follow her blog about her travels at www.pitstopsbook.com .

Friday morning I drove up to Bozeman, Montana for a work assignment that took most of the day. I got back to the site about 6:00 pm, just in time to grill up salmon for Rosie and Michelle, with a couple of turkey bratwurst for myself. It was starting to drizzle a little, so we all spent a quiet night inside the camper.

Saturday morning I set up the tripod for a family photo.

During this trip Rosie and I continued our ongoing conversation about the possibility of taking a couple of years and going “full time” in the camping lifestyle. We are not getting any younger, but we are currently in pretty good health. We really love traveling around the country seeing beautiful places and meeting new friends. So now might be the time to take the plunge. We did not come to a final decision on full timing, but we did decide to go on a trial run by taking 6 months and “going south” for the winter. So, sometime in October, we will close up the house, hitch up the camper and head in a generally southerly direction. So be warned all of our family and friends in California, we may be stopping in for a visit sometime over the winter months.

We head back home this morning (Saturday) for Michelle’s book signing event and a party we are having for her at our house Sunday evening. Next Thursday we are back on the road headed to Columbus, Montana for a gathering with two of my brothers and their families. I will be back at the blogosphere in one week.

Work and play in Wyoming

2011-06-14T13:27:00.001-06:00

We are wondering if summer will ever arrive in 2011. June 12th and it is raining and cool when we hook up and head towards West Yellowstone, Montana. We travel in a steady rain into the west entrance of Yellowstone National Park. From that point the rain tapers off until about halfway through Yellowstone it stops and it is just a cloudy grey overcast. Hardly any animals in sight through the park; only a few bison. We were shocked to see Yellowstone Lake is still frozen solid. There is still substantial snow above 7,000 feet; sometimes 8’ high on the sides of the road. Our destination today is Cody, Wyoming. We set up for one night in a decent RV Park on the east side of town. There is a small lake across the highway, so we took the pooches over there and let them run free for a bit. Set up the DirectTV dish and had it working in less than 10 minutes. We are getting better at this process of satellite TV.

Monday morning I fill up with diesel ($3.99 gal.) and head into downtown Cody for my work assignment; an inspection on a company that sells custom made rifles and films hunting video productions in the US and internationally. Back to the campsite to hook up by 10:00 am. Started chatting with a nice couple from Pennsylvania. He is a retired Army guy and they have been all over the world. They were actually living in Berlin when the wall came down in 1989. We meet the most interesting folks in campgrounds. On the road by 11:00 am headed for Dubois, WY. Stopped at Wal-Mart in Riverton to stock up on a few special items for our daughter when she meets up with us on Thursday. Arrived at our campground near Dubois about 4:00 pm. Settled in at a great site in a lot of trees near a river. The river is very high. The house across the river has put sandbags between their house and the river. The water is over the bank slightly, but it would need to rise 18 to 24 inches (my casual observation) to get over into the campground. This is a very nice place. Rosie thinks it is “spiritual” here.

Full hookups, cable TV, Wifi and cell phone service. How good can it get for campers? Dinner was linguini with meat sauce and garlic toasted French bread. Yummy! The only rain today was a short shower just east of here. It did rain during the night, waking us up about 4:00 am. I rose at 5:45 am, started the coffee and took the puppies out for their morning communing with nature (potty call). As we finished breakfast we looked over at Sammy and Annie and this is the look we got:

This is the “So when are going for a walk, mom and pop?” look. After a nice journey along the river, we returned and I got dressed for my assignment in Dubois. I was doing an insurance inspection on a camp for Developmentally Challenged Teens. It is located on a nearby mountain top and was very interesting to see.

One of the camp counselors had carved this eagle from a tree stump last year. This is the view from the camp. This job took about an hour and a half. On the way back to the camper, I stopped at Daylight Donuts (a local favorite) for a “pine cone”; think apple fritter, but 3 times the normal size. Yum. Yes, I got something for Rosie, too! Filled up with diesel at $4.12 per gal.

We will stay put here for one more night before heading to a forest service campground on Hebgen Lake in Montana. That is about 12 miles west of the town of West Yellowstone. Now that I have finished this blogging task, I need to get on to writing my work reports. Will write more in a few days.

Palisades Reservoir

2011-05-24T12:50:00.001-06:00

On Sunday morning we packed up the camper and drove 55 miles to a Forest Service campground at the base of the dam on Palisades Reservoir. We are about 15 miles from the Wyoming border right alongside the Snake River. The water management folks have been letting water out of the reservoir at a greater rate than normal, which causes the Snake River to be higher and faster than normal. The snow pack up in the Tetons is much higher than usual and the weather has been cooler than normal. The concern is that a sudden warming spell will melt the snow at a faster rate than normal which would create flooding conditions if there wasn’t enough room in the reservoir for the extra water. Here is a picture of our campground taken from the road at the top of the dam.

We got here Sunday afternoon and set up in an electric site at the far end of the campground. That is us all by ourselves in the top center of the picture (the little white dot).

Rates for Senior Citizens here are $8.00 a night. (There are advantages to old age .) We could have set up in one of the “boondock” sites closer to the water and in the trees, but I wanted to try out my new DirectTV setup and needed a steady flow of electricity. I got the dish mounted on the tripod stand and connected the cable to the cable TV connection on the camper. I set the dish in the general direction of the satellite and hoped for the best. Aiming the dish requires the efforts of two persons, one to watch some numbers on the TV screen and the other to fine tune the dish aiming. After several tries, we got no numbers indicating the presence of a satellite. So I brought the cable through the front door and hooked it directly into the receiver. Viola! We got numbers. So I started testing cables in the audio visual cabinet. It turns out the cable wired into the camper was not carrying the signal, even though it worked great in the last campground when we hooked up to the campground cable system. So after a lot of close inspection of the bowels of the camper by removing several cover panels in the basement , I found a way to feed the cable through to the AV cabinet. A little final adjusting and we had satellite TV. So here we are in a great campground by a scenic river with electricity, satellite TV, and (thanks to my Verizon air card) internet access. Life is good.

On Monday I had a work assignment about 40 miles away at a rural lodge and cabins. It took me a little over an hour to get that done and then back to the campground for lunch with my sweetie. After lunch, we took the pooches on a day trip to a nearby wilderness campground intended for smaller campers than ours. We went on a short hike with the dogs and came back to the campground to prepare dinner.

It started raining Monday evening and has been raining pretty steady ever since until now, which is about noon on Tuesday. I am glad we got the TV thing going, because cabin fever would set in quick if I was shut inside and didn’t have some form of entertainment. When we check to see if the puppies want to go for a walk, they go to the doorway of the camper, look out at the rain and turn around and curl up on the floor (Sammy) and on the couch (Annie). Smart dogs! It is supposed to clear up tomorrow. Maybe I can get in a little fishing. We are headed home on Thursday. The next trip is scheduled for June 12th. Catch up with you then.

First journey, second phase.

2011-05-09T20:35:00.001-06:00

I left off describing our first camping event of the season on Wednesday evening. Thursday morning we awakened to discover the water hose had frozen and water from the RV Park was not flowing. A simple fix is to turn on the on board water pump and use water from the camper fresh water tank. Peter D. came over about 7:00 am with an electric hair dryer in hand to thaw out the water pipe and hose, but it they had just thawed a few minutes earlier and everything was working as it should. My water hose did not burst, so no harm done.

I drove 30 miles to my appointment with a resort operation that caters to the tour bus trade. It is an old farm operation from the early 1900’s. Now they have accommodations for up to 52 persons to spend the night. They also offer a 30 minute horseback ride around the property. Many of their guests are Europeans and Asians that have never been on a horse, so it is quite a novelty to them. A taste of the Old West, so to speak.

Thursday afternoon it was time to fill the tank, replenish the larder from Wal-Mart and get some ice cream from the local Dairy Queen. We took the dogs for a good walk and settled in for a quiet evening of cable television after a dinner of grilled pork chops and scalloped potatoes.

Friday we pulled the rig back to the City Park in Columbus. My brother, Jon and his wife Dawn, had arrived the day before and set up their tent trailer. We took an adjacent pull through site and got all set up. It started raining very lightly, but we had a fire going and got a chance to sit around the campfire and visit. Jon had prepared our evening meal of lasagna and garlic bread. Rosie made a salad and we had a mini-watermelon for dessert. We forced Jon and Dawn to watch the slide show of our RV adventure from 2010. They did not seem to mind too much.

It rained fairly steady all night. I kind of enjoy the sound of rain on the roof; as long as it is not a downpour and there is no lightening and thunder included. After a quiet breakfast, we hooked up the trailer, said our goodbyes and headed for home. No snow on the trip home like there was on the first day out. We took the same route, but the weather had warmed up about 10 degrees. We stopped at Subway in West Yellowstone for a sandwich. The puppies got a little bit of my chicken for a special treat for waiting so patiently in the truck.

We arrived home about 3:00. It was also raining in Idaho Falls. We emptied the refrigerator and most of the dry foods. Sunday we cleaned everything out, dumped the tanks and took the rig back to the storage lot. Our next trip should be on May 23rd to Palisades Dam about 60 miles from home. Back at you next time.

First Journey 2011

2011-05-04T19:47:00.001-06:00

It has been a really long winter. All of us, Rosie, the pooches and I, have tired of the Idaho winter hibernation routine. The last week in April, I retrieved the 5th wheel from the storage lot and started the dewinterization process. I won’t bore you with all the details, but there is a fair amount of effort in getting this rig ready to roll.

There was an opportunity to do some insurance inspection work in Billings, MT and Sheridan, WY. So we thought why not make a camping trip out of it. The good news is that I can earn enough money to pay for the trip. The bad news is that I have to work on a camping trip. I can live with the “good news” part of that equation.

After some scheduling with the companies I have to visit, we pulled out of Idaho Falls on May 1st and headed for Columbus, MT. There is a City Park in Columbus with free (donations are solicited and we made a donation) camping along the Yellowstone River. The Park is huge with the river to the south and a golf course to the north. We got set up under a big old tree next to a quiet water part of the river. Very few other campers in the park at this time of year.

We relaxed after our arrival on Sunday. On Monday, my brother Jon, and his wife Dawn, came out to visit from their home in Billings. We had a nice lunch of bratwurst, potato salad and baked beans. I left at 1:30 for my appointment at the Billings Athletic Club (this is the closest I ever get to physical fitness places ). I got back to the site about 5:00 o’clock. I had to stop at Verizon to get a new air card modem as my old one quit working. We walked the puppies and settled in for a quiet evening. The Park does not have any hookups so no TV, etc. for entertainment. Tuesday morning we awoke to a nice sunrise and I was able to get a couple of pictures of a male duck swimming nearby. Note that I took these pictures through the window from the comfort of the camper.

We made a short run to Sheridan and arrived at Peter D’s RV Park about noon. Pete’s wife was on duty and gave us a great site at the end of the park. As you will see in the picture, this is a pretty average park on the way it is laid out. Sites are pretty close together and there are no shady trees. However they do have full hookups including cable TV, so we felt we were back in civilization again. Later in the afternoon we met the owner Peter D. He is a character. The facilities here are spotlessly clean and Peter makes every attempt to have only happy campers in his park.

We made a quick trip to Wal-Mart and Radio Shack. I needed a special part to hook up our new DirectTV system for RV’ers. I set up the dish on the tripod and used my new compass to find the right direction at which to aim the dish. After fiddling around for about 20 minutes I found the satellite and up came a glorious picture on our new Sony Bravia 32” flat screen. WOW!. Of course, we already had the RV Park cable hook up so once I was satisfied the DirectTV system was working, I took it all apart and put it back in the storage basement of the camper. This will be great when we are in State Parks where there are electrical hookups, but no cable. Here is a picture of the park and a picture of Annie snoozing on the couch (with her eyes wide open so she does not miss anything).

Wednesday morning I traveled many miles of gravel roads to find my next inspection site, a Dude Ranch out in the middle of nowhere. People actually pay $1,500 to $1,900 a week per person to come out here and work on a 25,000 acre ranch. Seems like it should be the other way around. But the Lodge building is new and very nice.

Business from my web site has also been brisk this week. Today, I got my first customer from Canada. That was interesting. So that is all for now. Need to pour a little Schnapps into a cup of hot chocolate and chill out.

Journey’s End

2010-08-29T09:15:00.001-06:00

After six weeks to the day, nine states traveled, close to 5,000 miles driven, and wealth of wonderful experiences, we arrived home in Idaho Falls about 11:00 am on Saturday, August 28th. On this journey we spent time with all of our children and all of our grandchildren, five of Jim’s siblings, one aunt, two nephews and too many cousin’s to count. We stayed in 17 campgrounds, most of them public State Parks, BLM Land and Federal Lands. We camped on private property of friends and family and slept one night in a real house (Jim’s brother’s home in Eaton, CO). We had weather from the low 40’s at night to over 100 during the day. We experienced some heavy winds, but not much rain. Both dogs had to visit vet’s during the trip; Sammy for a swollen leg and Annie for throwing up for several days. We both managed to stay healthy for the entire trip. The camper fared well with only one glitch when the refrigerator gave us some problems, but this was cured by a generous soul at an RV Repair Shop in Denver at no cost. There are still a lot of good people in this world, despite what we see on the news. Speaking of news, we had very little TV and very few newspapers to read. A scan of the cable news networks on our return shows very little has changed during our travels.
My last post was from Roundup, Montana. After I completed my work assignment on Thursday, we relaxed for the remainder of the day. Friday morning we hitched up and traveled to Henry’s Lake in Idaho. Every time we go to Henry’s Lake, we marvel at how beautiful this location is. Rosie and the dogs enjoy the long trails starting at the campground. I enjoy the lake and the opportunity to wet a fishing line. We met a nice couple from Grand Junction, CO in the campground. Jim and Carol Erickson are retired and travel often in their 5th wheel. They were planning to go to Lake Louise, Banff and Jasper in Canada in a couple of years, so we shared our Canada/Alaska DVD with them.
It was a bit windy when we arrived, but Saturday morning there was only a slight breeze and the water was calm. As dawn broke, about 10 boats showed up on the lake in view of the camper. There were also ducks, pelicans and one muskrat in the lake.

The two hour ride home was with mixed emotions; the trip was over, but we were ready to come home. Jim is rethinking how ready he would be for “full time” RVing. Even though our new camper is spacious compared to our first camper, it can still be confining after long periods of time. We found our house as we left it, except for the huge stack of mail on the kitchen counter. The yard looked great, thanks to recent rains and the diligence of our good friend Kym Lewis who performed the lawn care, mail retrieval and house plant watering during our absence. We should get the camper unpacked today and also get it cleaned up inside and out; then off to the storage lot for awhile. We do not plan any more major trips this year; just some local Idaho trips during the when the camping population is less than the weekends. We will update this blog on our next trip. So long for now.

The Journey Home – Part One

2010-08-25T19:44:00.001-06:00

It was really hot and humid on the last day at the reunion, so Rosie asked me if the weather would be better where we were going next. It should be, said I, since it is north and west of here. As we approached Mobridge, SD, the thermometer on the truck kept creeping up; 98, 99, 100, up to 103; and the wind was fierce out of the south at over 35 mph. So much for my “sensible” weather forecasting. We set up the camper at Indian Creek State Recreation Area. It blew hard all night long. The pooches were restless and whiney all night. By morning the wind started to die down. We went for a fuel and grocery run in the morning. Then Rosie spent an hour and a half at the Laundromat. On Tuesday morning, we awoke to a beautiful sunrise

and no wind. So we had a leisurely breakfast and hitched up and headed for North Dakota. Our destination there was Buffalo Gap Campground in the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands area west of Medora, ND on Interstate 94. What a pleasant surprise. A well arranged Federal Campground with nice trees, flat paved sites and only a couple of tent campers in our loop.

View through the camper window. Our site. $3.00 a night for Golden Age folks.

A typical site set up. Really nice. A great moonrise.

The temperature was a balmy 75 when we arrived and it got cooler as the evening wore on. I actually put on the heater when I got up at 5:00 am to take the pooches on potty call.

Wednesday , we hit the interstate at 7:00 am, headed west and south on 94 into eastern Montana. Our destination was Roundup, a small town north of Billings. I had found this on the internet under “Free and Low Cost Camping”. Roundup has a city park along the river that has grassy sites and a lot of big shade trees. Camping is “free”, but there are signs soliciting “donations” to help maintain the park. We will cheerfully make a donation before we leave because this is really nice and not crowded. I have an Insurance Company Inspection to do on a large farm about 40 miles from here, near Ryegate, MT. Doing inspections along the way helps pay for these extended trips and I am grateful for the supplemental work.

Here are some pictures from the city park in Roundup.

Our site. An overview of the park.

The Sathe family in relaxed mode. Annie is ever on the alert.

We plan to be home on Saturday. One more overnight at Henry’s Lake in Idaho on Friday night. I will write the final blog for the trip early next week. Thanks for following along. Feel free to make comments on any of my posted blogs. I welcome feedback (except critical writing advice from my author daughter :-))!

Family Gathering

2010-08-23T05:11:00.001-06:00

This is the 17th consecutive family reunion Rosie and I have attended in Colome, South Dakota. This event was the focus of our summer vacations when we were working and is the focus of our summer RV travels now that we are are retired. The primary organizers of this annual event are my 3 cousins, Connie, Gaye and Jeanne, who are daughters of my aunt, Rita Stroschine. 2009 was the 20th annual reunion and was very well attended. Rosie and I typically arrive on Thursday. Most of the other out of towners show up on Friday and many local neighbors join us to enjoy the evening meal on Saturday. Locally grown vegetables are in abundance. I have the honor and privilege of being the Grill Meister on Friday night with able assistance from my brother Roger. Burgers, dogs and brats hit the grill about 6:00 pm and everyone has a great time. This photo is from 2009:

The weather this year was definitely among the hottest ever, hitting 100+ on Saturday; and the humidity was up there also. We spent most of the afternoon in the camper hoping the generator wouldn’t quit on us so we could get some cool air from the air conditioner. Fortunately the nights were very cool by comparison and sleeping was comfortable.

Here are some pictures from this years event:

RV Central Some of the younger generation.

Chow down on Saturday night. Typical scene for a mid-day meal.

Staying cool in the shade. The kids love the horseback rides.

Nothing eventful in our trip here from Yankton. It is only about 125 miles over rolling country highways. I had the truck 5,000 mile service attended to in Yankton. I was concerned about the brakes after that descent down Monarch Pass, but they passed inspection with flying colors. We left the reunion site about 10 am on Sunday headed for Mobridge, South Dakota; specifically Indian Creek State Recreation Area on the Missouri River. That part of the journey will be covered later.

Hometown Visit

2010-08-19T06:34:00.001-06:00

After leaving my brother’s home in Eaton, we continued eastward towards my hometown of Yankton, South Dakota. We stopped over a night at Lake Maloney State Recreation Area south of North Platte, Nebraska. This is a very pretty campground located right on a large reservoir with a lot of boating activity. The sites are large and of the 40 or so electric hookup sites, we were one of 3 campers. Of course it is Sunday evening so the weekenders have left. Here are some scenes from this campground,including a nice sunrise at 5:30 am:

The original plan was to stay over a night in northern Nebraska, but we decided to pull all the way through to Yankton. The biggest adventure on the drive was when I tried to save a few miles from the journey by taking a straight route from O’Neil, NE east instead of curving southeast then back north again. It looked like a piece of cake on the map, a nice straight line east out of town. The nice straight line turned out to be a paved, but narrow country road through farm country and up and down the rolling hills of Nebraska. We often found ourselves behind very large and very slow moving farm equipment. It seemed forever before we came onto Nebraska 14 north to Niobrara. A note of history here, my great grandfather on my mothers side homesteaded in this area in the 1800’s and I have a copy of the original homestead document. Someday it would be interesting to go to the county records department and find out where that land is and go see it in person.

We arrived in Yankton about 3:00 o’clock and found exceptionally cool and dry weather for this part of the country. My sister-in-law, Joanie, had told us that a severe wind storm had passed through the area a week before blowing down many trees at Chief White Crane SRA, our campground destination. When we arrived, we found the campground pretty much cleaned up of all fallen trees. There were some large uprooted tree trunks left around, but the fallen trees and branches had been removed from the facility. This is one of the nicest campgrounds we have ever visited. The sites are spacious and the pads are paved and level and there is electricity on site. Here is a picture of our site on this trip:

Tuesday morning we restocked on food and supplies at the local Wal-Mart Supercenter and filled up the truck with the lowest price diesel on the trip at $2.85 a gallon. I had arranged to meet my brother Larry to go fishing in the Missouri River nearby at 1:00 pm, so I had purchased a 3 day fishing license and some bait. After 3.5 hours of fishing, I had brought in two fish to small to comment on, but Larry pulled in 4 large fish in the last half hour. Here is a picture of Larry and his fish. That is Lake Yankton in the background, not the Missouri River.

Larry and I did the fishing thing again on Wednesday with no more than a few bluegill to show for our efforts. In the evening, we prepared a picnic supper for Larry, another brother Danny and his wife Marcia and my nephew Chad. Grilled and broasted chicken, potato salad and baked beans were the main items on the menu (good country cuisine). We had a good visit with all of them; showed off pictures of our travels so far this summer and sat around a nice campfire until breaking up around 10:00 pm.

Larry, Rosie, Chad (standing), Marcia and Danny.

It is now Thursday morning and the humidity is slowly returning to southeast South Dakota. It is a good day to be heading west. The magic line for bearable and unbearable humidity seems to be the Missouri River. We will be crossing the Missouri early this afternoon on our way to my family reunion in Colome, SD. Interestingly, the reunion is held at a farm about 6 miles south of the land that my mother’s parents homesteaded and where my mother grew up. We will stay at the reunion until Sunday; then head north towards North Dakota with one more stop in a South Dakota SRA.

Back in the “hood”

2010-08-15T06:21:00.001-06:00

We had the great pleasure of spending 4 days back in our old neighborhood this week. Our former neighbors let us park the camper in their back yard from Tuesday to Saturday. We got reacquainted with old neighbors and Rosie was delighted to be able to get out into the mountains on Thursday and hike with her former hiking group.

After the hike there was a gathering at the home of our hosts Mark and Janice, with all the hikers and some other friends that Rosie had not seen in many years. Mark boiled bratwurst in beer and water, then touched them up on the grill.

Janice spent many hours preparing a very special sauerkraut. The guests all brought a variety of yummy side dishes and I managed to eat way too much food.

There were many hours of lively conversation and catching up with the lives of many old friends. Before people starting heading for home we managed to get a picture of the whole group.

I managed to keep busy with some maintenance work on the camper in between games of billiards with Mark. Friday evening the four of us enjoyed a superb dinner at the South Park Steakhouse in Fairplay, CO. Fairplay is the county seat and a delightful old small Colorado town that has been resurging in the area with new eateries and shopping venues. I wish I had taken my camera to capture the food presentation. I had BBQ braised buffalo short ribs with caramelized onions that was incredible. The French Onion Soup was also to die for.

Saturday morning reality returned as we were preparing to leave. The refrigerator refused to switch to gas and it would not even light up when I put a grill lighter torch to it. Since we were headed through Denver, we stopped at Camping World to see if we could get it looked at. The lady behind the service counter said they could get to it on Friday. I said that I had to be in South Dakota on Friday. She pulled out a card and referred me to an RV repair shop about 2 mile away. I called them and they said “Sure, we can look at it right away”. When we arrived, a service tech came out, opened up the refrigerator panels, removed the metal coverings around the burner mechanism and pointed to a BB sized accumulation of gunk on the pilot lighting mechanism. He pulled out the air hose, gave it a couple of blasts of high pressure air and lo and behold, the flame started right up. He would blow it out and it would immediately re-ignite. After he buttoned everything back in place, I asked him how much I owed him. He wished me a good day and safe travels. I insisted 3 times on payment for his service and he continued to decline. This is an example of the good people in this world. We feel so fortunate to have this problem fixed; and to have it fixed at no cost is incredible.

After fixing the refrigerator, we continued on our journey to our next stop, the home of my brother Bill in Eaton, CO. Bill and his wife, Joanie, have just moved into a beautiful new home about 2 weeks ago. We had a great time catching up with them and their son, Brian and his family. We will be heading out for North Platte, Nebraska shortly on our way to my home town, Yankton, South Dakota.

Kanab to Bluff to Ridgway

2010-08-09T20:58:00.001-06:00

Michelle and Stefanie came over for breakfast at 7:30 Sunday morning. They got Rosie’s special apple pancakes and we all had a good time reminiscing about the last few days. They left about 8:30 and we hooked up the camper and headed east for Page, AZ. I did not know that Page was the main gathering point for activities surrounding Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Recreation Area. There were campers and boaters everywhere. We got through town and headed east in northern Arizona. We stopped for fuel and groceries in a little town called Kayenta. When we headed north towards Bluff, UT we were stunned with the beauty of a place called Monument Valley. The bluffs and rock formations were incredible. Here are some samples of what we saw:

We were looking for Sand Island Campground just before Bluff, UT. The map I had printed showed two entrances, which turned out to be incorrect so I ended up going down the wrong highway for about 8 miles before I found a spot to turn around. We did find this Federal Government campground after a another mile or so on the road that I turned off of (I hate when I do that) and selected a great site with no one else around. The price is right here; $5.00 per night for us Golden Oldies. It turns out that Sand Canyon has huge walls full of ancient Petroglyphs from ancient Native Americans. It was very interesting to see and of course I took a few pictures.

Sometime this evening Sammy developed a problem with the paw on his left hind leg. He was licking it a lot, then starting limping and then just carrying that leg and using the other 3 legs. We checked his paw and could not find a thorn or glass or anything so we surmised that he sprained it. He is using it more now and seems to be recovering.

Monday morning we broke camp and drove through Bluff where we were greeted by more stunning rock formations

and the rusted remnants of what appears to be a 1953 Mercury.

After entering Colorado we had a somewhat hair raising experience coming down a steep grade following a pilot truck. The cliff drop off was on my left. The driver usually doesn’t see this angle. The road crew was doing rock scaling (bringing down boulders from the cliff on the other side before they would fall “accidently”) . As we got close to the bottom of the grade we could see why; it looked like there had been a small rockslide of some pretty big rocks. I am glad we were not there when they came down.

We are now set up in Ridgway State Park about 5 miles north of Ridgway, CO. My wonderful bride of 43 years took me out to dinner at a local fine dining establishment. We both had Mexican food which was delicious. The restaurant provided the Mud Pie (to die for) as a birthday gift. Here we are celebrating my big 66:

Tomorrow we are on the our old neighborhood where we will be “camping” in our former neighbors yard. We will catch up with all of you in a few days.

Family, Friends and Best Friends in Kanab, UT

2010-08-07T21:06:00.001-06:00

This is a special stop in our trip for Rosie. Best Friends Animal Sanctuary is a place Rosie has visited several times. It is a very large, no kill, animal rescue organization with extensive facilities located here in Kanab, UT. Joining us here is our daughter, Michelle and her friend, Stefanie, from Salt Lake City. We arrived Thursday afternoon and set up in the Kanab RV Corral RV Park. Quite a different setting than the woods where we spent the last two nights. Here we get full hookups and neighbors less than 8 feet away on both sides. Friday morning I had some business to attend to in Colorado City, AZ; a small town about 40 miles away. Friday evening, Michelle and Stefanie came over for dinner in the camper. Saturday, Rosie, Michelle and Stefanie volunteered to take care of dogs at Best Friends. They had a great day walking dogs and helping with grooming, pen cleaning, etc. Saturday night Michelle treated us all to dinner at a local restaurant. The food was fantastic; here are pictures of our dishes:

Pasta with Prawns Baby Back Ribs Seafood cakes

We also walked the dogs on a local trail before dinner. The puppies really enjoyed getting out and getting off leash for a little bit. I got the truck washed; we got some groceries and I did some maintenance on the camper. Tomorrow morning we hitch up and head towards Colorado, although we won’t get there until Monday afternoon. Tomorrow night we will be at a remote site in Utah. Monday night we will be in Ridgway State Park in Colorado. It will be the big 66 birthday for me and Rosie has kindly offered to treat me to dinner in Ridgway. Tuesday we will arrive in our old neighborhood in Shawnee, CO where we will be camped at our former neighbors home for 4 nights. We were very sad to learn today that our longtime Colorado friend, Anita Williams, passed away a few days ago after a long battle with cancer. Every day we are grateful we are both healthy and able to follow our travel dreams like we do. You never know how long you have to pursue your dreams.

Here are some pictures from our time in Kanab:

Great city sign Pretty rocks

More pretty rocks Very happy pooches

Mich and Stef All of us.

BLM equals serenity.

2010-08-04T19:57:00.001-06:00

The above is the view from my office on wheels as I prepare the post catching us up to date on our western US tour for 2010.

Monday found us wending our way eastward on Hwy 58, then Interstate 40 from Barstow to Needles. The temperature kept hovering between 90 and 104. I kept watching the temperature gauges on the truck for engine and transmission heat and they stayed pretty much within normal range. We pulled into the KOA at Needles about 5:39. It was 101 degrees. I picked the KOA because of dependable 50 amp service to power both air conditioners. We needed it. KOA here is in the desert with sandy desert soil and few plants. I did not take any pictures.

Tuesday we crossed the border into AZ and filled up with cheap diesel and found a Wal-Mart in Kingman. It was a challenge to get into the parking lot and I ran the right wheels on the camper over a few curbs. From that point it was a steady climb to about 7,000 ft. in Flagstaff. Turned south on Interstate 17 and drove 13 miles to a BLM site at exit 326. A short 1/2 mile to the county transfer station and we were in a huge wooded area with fairly decent dirt roads leading to many options for camping. Just beside the Transfer Station is a huge tower that holds among other technological wizardry, a Verizon Cell site. So here we are in the woods, can barely see any other campers through the trees and five bar reception on the cell phone and Verizon wireless internet card. Life is really good.

Wednesday we drove into Flagstaff for groceries and a Universal Remote (for the TV) to replace the one we crushed when we let the slide out. We even get digital NBC over the air here. Well, we are getting ready for evening drinks (tea for Rosie and hot chocolate for me) sitting outside watching the sun set through the trees. Here are some pictures of this location, but they do not do it justice:

The view from the door of the camper. A great cloud. The cell tower is on the right.

A funky fungus in a tree stump. Alphie in the woods.

Lancaster, CA

2010-08-04T12:47:00.001-06:00

After leaving Twin Lakes, we headed south on the 395 for a tad over 300 miles to Lancaster, CA. Our son Karl lives there with his girl friend Shanna. We set up the camper at the RV Park at the Antelope Valley County Fairgrounds. This is a large concrete parking lot with 62 full hookup RV spots. Not pretty, but very functional. After getting set up, we headed for Karl’s house where the dogs got to experience something they have not had for a while, a nice green lawn. Boy, were they happy. Karl prepared an excellent dinner of crusted halibut, shrimp and scallop kabobs, beef kabobs (filet mignon at that) with a great garlic bread; and berry pie with ice cream for desert. After dinner they brought in a forklift to get me back to the truck. Monday morning, Karl came by the camper to check it out and have breakfast with us.

After we said goodbye to Karl, we headed for Costco and Trader Joes to stock up on Vodka and wine at California discount prices. Then came the fun of trying to find a gas station with diesel fuel. When I found a Shell station with diesel, only 1 of the four diesel pumps was working and it was occupied with a gas sports car with a driver that took FOREVER to leave. Then stop and go traffic back to the camper and a hookup just after the eleven AM checkout time. Now I remember why I don’t like coming to So. California. Way too many people and cars. Anyway, by 11:30 we got on the road headed for Needles, CA. I am concerned how the old truck will handle the 100+ temperatures across the desert.

The Twin Lakes Gathering

2010-08-03T20:07:00.001-06:00

On Wednesday we transitioned from Tahoe National Forest to Twin Lakes near Bridgeport, CA. The drive was hectic due to being on crowded roads with a 6 ton rig attached to our truck. We had to navigate through the I-80 intersection at Truckee (did not go so smoothly), then along the east lake shore road of Lake Tahoe to Highway 50 down to Carson City, NV. What a downhill grade that was. I am sure glad we were going down and not up. I had researched a Wal-Mart Supercenter as being on Hwy 395 just north of Hwy 50 (the opposite direction where we were headed. We could not find it so I pulled off into a residential area to program the GPS (Barbie) to find it. Barbie led us through downtown Carson City to the Supercenter where we spent almost $200 (had to pick me up off the floor) before getting back on the road. You guessed it, about 2 miles SOUTH of Hwy 50 there was a Wal-Mart Supercenter right on the highway. AAARRGGHH.

When we checked in at Twin Lakes (Annette’s Mono Village) campground we were very surprised at how crowded it was. The place has about 400 sites, 90 of which have hook ups. Of course the hookup sites were all full. Just as well, as those sites are very close together. After wending our way through very narrow roads with trees close on both sides (inches of clearance in some cases) I was sure I was never going to find a spot I could get into. So I parked in the middle of the road and got out and walked until I found a suitable site. After a bit of close maneuvering, I managed to get the rig parked in a wooded area on a site big enough for all the family cars and tents to arrive on Friday.

One of the first things I had to deal with was that the refrigerator would not consistently switch to propane after being on AC. I fiddled around with it until I discovered that the spark ignition system was not lighting the pilot. If I manually lit the pilot, it burned forever. So ever since, we have had the fridge on propane, even when we had electricity.

Thursday was spent cleaning and spiffing up the camper for Friday’s arrivals. About noon on Friday, our oldest daughter Heidi and the two grandsons, Robert and Tyler arrived. We helped them pitch their tent on our site and they settled in.

About 4:00 pm, our other daughter, Michelle, arrived with boy friend Wayde. We had grilled chicken and baked chicken (Rosie’s yummy creation) with potato salad and other fixin’s for dinner. I took Tyler out fishing on the lake in my inflatable boat (no fish were injured in this endeavor). After we moved the campfire ring to get it away from the camper and started a nice campfire and marshmallows were sacrificed to the fire gods.

On Saturday we all took walks in the woods, checked out the wilderness fish hatchery, admired the wildlife, include very tame deer that came right into camp and generally relaxed and had a good time. Wayde had taken off with his off road motorcycle to explore an area about 20 miles away. He also had a great day. In the evening, I took Robert out on the boat in an attempt to catch fish, which was as unsuccessful as the night before. Rosie got some great pictures of Robert and a deer that came right into the camp. After dark fell, we were sitting around the campfire when we heard people yelling “Bear in the camp”. Sure enough, a small black bear came ambling through about 25 to 30 feet from where we were. Caused some excitement , I tell ya. After that it was hot chocolate time with more sacrificial marshmallows toasted in the flames. Sunday morning we all packed up and departed for our various destinations. Here are some pictures from the event:

Robert and Bambi Grandkids on the rocks.

In front of a waterfall. On the bridge.

Rosie and the girls with Annie. Jim and the boys. How did that rock get there?

Tranquility and pavement.

2010-07-27T14:18:00.001-06:00

After enduring the 6 mile gravel road from hell to leave Butte Lake Campground, we have transitioned to a quiet, peaceful campground with paved roads and paved camping pads. What a difference a day makes. We are now comfortably set up in the woods of Tahoe National Forest at the Cottonwood Creek campground.

Another reason for the “tranquility” is we basically have had the place to ourselves. When we arrived there was one other “camper” (more about him later). We made a trip around one of the loops looking for site 40, which I had reserved. Not finding it on our first circle, we were about to try another loop when I noticed a tag with our name on it on site 2, just inside the campground entrance. The tag said we could camp here “or any open site”. So we went for a walk and found a beautiful spot at site 17. I thought it might be a little tight getting in there, but we should give it a try. I am still underestimating the size our our camper. We barely made it on the narrow, curving paved road to site 17. After 10 minutes of trying to back into the site, I gave up and we returned to site 2 and set up camp. This is a perfectly fine campsite, large and level, but we could still hear some traffic noise from the highway.

After we set up, it became clear that the Verizon coverage map on the Verizon web site was wrong, because there was no cell phone service here. So we drove back down the highway 6 miles to Sierraville, CA. We stopped for fuel at the only gas station/grocery store in town. While I was filling up the truck, Rosie went in the store and came back out saying they had very little to offer (definitely no bags of fresh salad) and what they had was very expensive. So we backtracked another 13 miles to a much larger store that had, among other things, fresh salad. On the return trip to the camp site, I found a strong enough Verizon signal to pick up e-mail and put a comment on Facebook.

On our arrival back at the site, we were greeted by the campground host, a really nice gentlemen who was camped a couple of miles away and managing 3 local forest service campgrounds. After getting through the paper work, I inquired about the other camper. This camper was a gentleman sitting in the passenger seat of a blue sedan. No tent, no camper, to chairs, nothing outside of him sitting in the car. I learned this guy comes up here every year for 2 weeks and sits in his car and uses the pit toilets. Nobody knows why, but he appears to be harmless. By now there was one other camper, a single lady in a minivan.

Monday morning we went for a walk and (wouldn’t ya know it) Rosie found a trailhead. The trail started gently over a couple of bridges across the creek. Then there was a fork in the trail with a sign indicating a loop back to the campground (level) and a hike to the “summit view” (not level). Of course we took the summit view fork and proceeded uphill for a mile or so. Took some pictures and returned to the site. I went into town to make an e-mail connection and found the local cafe had a wi-fi connection. So for the price of a cup of coffee I was able to get my internet fix.

Tuesday morning, after my trip to town for an internet fix, I returned to the site to observe our other lonely camper emptying the trash from his car to the dumpster. The trash company had just emptied all the dumpsters, so when I went to make a deposit, I observed that his trash consisted of 2 empty box wine boxes and one large champagne bottle along with one pair of men’s underwear. There are no showers in the camp, so I guess this guy doesn’t bathe for two weeks and just discards his underwear after it becomes uninhabitable. No evidence in the dumpster of what he might be eating for food. It is an interesting world.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, we move to Twin Lakes Campground near Bridgeport, CA. On Friday, our daughters will be coming up with their families to join us. I am looking forward to a little one on one fishing time with my grandsons.

Here are some pics from this site:

Rosie found the trail. Best pals.

Can you feel the stress?? A babbling brook.

Paradise at the end of the road from hell

2010-07-26T11:18:00.001-06:00

First, an Annie update; we took her to a vet in Alturas, CA, who diagnosed her having “stress” from the long travel days leading to a possible mild ulcer of the stomach or esophagus. He prescribed some antibiotics and provided 3 cans of a bland dog food. She is doing much better. The hacking cough is gone and she is eating better and not throwing up.

The forest service campground at Butte Lake in Lassen National Park, California is heavily wooded with huge sequoia trees. The lake is placid with hardly a ripple except from the oars of kayakers. It is very peaceful with generator use permitted only from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm. The problem is getting there. The 6 miles of gravel road from Highway 44 is 40% washboard. Average speed pulling the camper was about 15 miles per hour, and that was too fast. A lot of “stuff” in the camper came off the walls and out of shelves. I am going to leave here at a more judicious pace.

The tribulations did not abate upon our arrival. The site that I had reserved and paid for was simply not suited for our camper; not big enough and not accessible. The campground host was not in his trailer. We drove around and found a suitable site that did not have a reservation tag on it and partially set up, but did not unhitch from the truck. We started the generator to charge up the batteries on the computer and cell phone and our neighbor scurried over to inquire if we were going to “run the generator continuously”. We told him about 30 minutes should do it and he seemed relieved. When the camp host returned, we learned that the site we were in was reserved starting Friday. He and I rode around until we found a suitable site that was available for 4 nights. I then had the task of informing Rosie we had to move. She was not a happy camper at that point (but got over it fairly soon). In positioning the rig in the new site, the front bumper shroud came into conflict with a large rock and the rock won.

But we eventually got settled in to our site and even fairly level.

By this time we realized there was not even a hint of cell phone coverage here. That meant either ignoring possible customers to my internet business site and being out of touch with the world for 4 days or making at least one trip over the road from hell to check in with the universe. Thursday afternoon we decided to head into Susanville, the nearest town about 40 miles away. We got a cell phone signal about 20 miles down the road and found no customer requests on the web site. So we sent out the previous blog and I uploaded my last work report from my business in Twin Falls. Found some ice cream at the local Rite Aid and enjoyed that special treat. Filled up with diesel and headed back to the campground. We decided that we would just “tough it out” (like it is real rough here) without a connection to the world until our departure date on Sunday. So we have been reading, walking the pooches, eating and generally leading a very quiet existence. It is Saturday morning as I write this and the campground appears to be full. We have a group of 4 or 5 twenty somethings that are here on a work trip (maybe geologists or forestry types) who study maps every morning, don backpacks and head off into the wilderness to return about 5:00 pm. They are living in tents; making us really grateful for the comfort of our camper. The days are in the 80’s temperature wise, but the nights drop down to the high 50’s, making for good sleeping weather with windows slightly open.

This is our longest “boondocking” experience. We are really grateful for the generator and 4 batteries. On a side note, the generator “crashed” on Saturday afternoon before our departure. I was fortunate to find an Onan Generator dealer in town that was willing to come in to his shop to work on it on a Saturday. Ended up replacing the carburetor and a few other miscellaneous parts. The electronics in the old carburetor was sending bad signals to the fuel feed, causing it to flood out and leak gasoline, not a good thing. We are so fortunate we discovered this before we left, not after we arrived here in the boondocks where it would not have been possible to repair.

Two unusual events on Saturday. First, a butterfly seemed to take a liking to me. It came and settled on my hand while I was reading and stayed on my hand while I walked to the camper to have Rosie take some pictures. It came back four times and settled on my hand during the next couple of hours. I don’t know if this is unusual or normal, but I have never had it happen before. The intricacy of the color patterns on the wings is impossible to describe. Unfortunately, my camera does not do well on extreme close ups. Second, all of a sudden we started hearing helicopters. I looked up to see a red chopper carrying a water bucket. I thought that this could not be good news so I went to see the campground host. There was a Ranger with him. I learned there was a “little” fire on a hill some ways away and they were dipping water out of the lake. They seemed confident an evacuation would not be necessary. The vision of everyone in this campground loading up and heading down the road from hell; all at the same time, was not a pleasant one. As it turned out the fire was out in a couple of hours and peaceful tranquility reigned once again on our little slice of paradise.

Well, we are departing this morning for our next forest service campground; 3 nights in Tahoe National forest near a stream. The Verizon Coverage Map is reassuring that coverage is good at that location. It is also very near the highway, so no more roads from hell. I will send this out this afternoon. Here are pictures from our stay.

The whole family in the woods. Note the boulder nestled in the roots.

Through the tall grass. Butte Lake.

Butte Lake. My butterfly visitor.

Chickahominy Reservoir

2010-07-22T14:22:00.001-06:00

We arrived at Chickahominy Reservoir west of Burns, Oregon on Tuesday afternoon. This is a BLM site with designated and undesignated camping. There are no hookups. It is also only $4 per night for us Golden Age Passport holders. We were the first ones here about three in the afternoon. By the time it got dusk, several others had arrived, including tent campers and a small travel trailer. There is not a tree in site of this location. However, it does have it’s own beauty. The reservoir was very low, about 1/2 full by my estimate. There is a good variety of waterfowl, including cranes and large white birds that resemble a pelican. Sunset was gorgeous, with cranes standing on one foot reflected in the water cast in a warm orange glow. It was so quiet you could hear the bird chatter from a good distance. Several trails made Rosie and the puppies very happy. Annie is not feeling well. She has a hacking cough and threw up 3 times this evening. But, she has plenty of energy. We will try to find a vet on Wednesday on the way to our next stop in California. Here are some pictures from the day.

All alone. White pelican like bird.

Grillin’ and chillin’ Great rock arrangement

Cranes at sunset.

Bruneau Dunes State Park

2010-07-20T06:17:00.001-06:00

Our first stop on our long journey through the western US is a small State Park just south of Mountain Home, Idaho. I have started to search for State Park Campgrounds because they tend to be reasonable in cost and uncrowded with spacious, level sites. This campground has electricity and water hookups with paved camping pads. When we arrived on Sunday, we were the only ones here and it was getting hot. By 5:00 pm, the temperature hit 101 degrees. We were grateful for the 50 amp hookup because we needed both air conditioners going to stay cool. After getting set up, I had a chat with the Park Ranger who said he did not expect many campers during the week because of the heat. As of this morning, Tuesday, there are about 4 other camping trailers and 5 or so tent campers. There are flush toilets and showers available.

On Monday, I had some business to take care of in Twin Falls, about 90 miles away. I got back to the camper about 2:30. We drove around the park to explore some of the sites. There is an Observatory here, along with 2 small lakes. The campgrounds are away from the lakes. This is a high desert area. It was cooler Monday, down to about 88 degrees. Fortunately it cools down to the high 60’s at night so sleeping is comfortable without air conditioning. Today we are headed west to Chickahominy Reservoir west of Burns, Oregon. Here are some pictures from the last few days.

The Park entrance. If there is a trail within a mile, Rosie will find it.

A view of the campground. This little bird was singing his heart out.

The end of the day.

Kelly Island Campground

2010-07-02T07:38:00.001-06:00

We are wrapping up a 3 night stay at a BLM Campground about 15 miles from home. Kelly Island is a well developed campground with 14 sites; no electricity or any other hookups are available. The sites are nicely arranged with a level graveled pad, picnic table and a fire pit with firewood piled adjacent. The toilets are clean and the Snake River is about 60’ from the front door of the camper. When we arrived on Tuesday, we were the only campers here so we got to choose the very best site; a very long pull through facing the river.

This was another test run for the camper; the last one before the big trip starting July 18th. We had some battery problems during our last campout. I took all four batteries in for testing and discovered that one of the batteries was stone cold dead. The interesting thing about that discovery was the dead battery had been purchased less than a week before the trip. So that battery was draining the other 3 batteries, not allowing the battery bank to get above a 50% charge. Good news. With the new battery in place, all is working well. During our time here the batteries did not get below a 50% charge and that was with the fans frequently going for air circulation.

Fishing was not great. I caught one small rainbow. The river is high and fast. Many float boats going by with high paying clients sending flies in and out of the water. There is a large boat launch site directly across the river, so we had the opportunity to see many boats coming and going.

Wednesday we started getting neighbors and it is expected to get crowded later today (Friday, the 2nd of July) for the 4th of July weekend. We experienced a generator problem yesterday evening. The generator appeared to be “flooded”, based on the strong odor of gasoline when I opened the generator compartment. Fortunately one of our neighbors is a skilled engine mechanic and he took one look at it and stuck his finger on the choke lever, completely releasing the choke and it started right up. We did not have a problem this morning, since the generator had a chance to cool down overnight. Another lesson learned. He suggested I get a spare spark plug and a spark plug wrench to carry with me; also to use some gasoline additive to clean the carburetor on occasion.

Thursday evening, our friends Joe and Ann brought us dinner, broasted chicken and accompaniments including desert. We had a great evening with good food and good conversation.

Here are some pictures from our trip. Ending with a great sunset picture from Wednesday night.

The site. My fishing buddy Joe and Rosie

Joe and me fishing the Snake River.

Sunset on Wednesday.

We will post again when we start our trip on the 18th.

A short trip

2010-06-20T14:43:00.001-06:00

We took a one night trip Saturday to join some friends at Sealander Park near Idaho Falls. This was a fun gathering with great people, good food and good music provided by a couple of the participants.

Here are some pictures:

We just took everything out of the camper and pulled it over to the storage lot. Our next planned trip starts July 18th, but we may take some local trips before then.

A long wet road!

2010-06-16T18:27:00.001-06:00

We have just returned from a nine day journey to Columbus, Montana. I have had only very limited internet access along the way, so I will try to capture the whole adventure in one blog posting.

On June 9th, (Wednesday) we headed north on Hwy 20 towards Henry’s Lake, ID. It was our intent to stay at a free County Campground on the west shore of the lake. However, when we arrived we were greeted by massive swarms of mosquitoes and other nasty flying insects. They were so thick we could hardly see the sky. We quickly changed our plans and headed around the lake to the southeast side where there is an Idaho State Park campground. We got a great spot near the shore with electric hookups for $19. Rosie got to walk the dogs for miles and I got to try a little fishing, but no catching. Here are some pics of the lake and our site.

On Thursday, we traveled to the town of Columbus, Montana and found our way to the Town Park and Campground. This is a great find for low cost camping (it is free, but the town does solicit donations). There are many campsites with picnic tables and fire rings. The sites are not designated, which means you can camp anywhere. There were four camping rigs in our group so we formed a circle around a table and fire ring. We met two of my brothers and one of my sisters here for the weekend. One of my sisters-in-law had members of her family there and we all had a great weekend, except for the rain on Thursday night and all day Friday. Saturday and Sunday were much better. I also had a contract assignment to complete in Billings, which I did on Friday morning. This campground is huge. It is all dry camping (no utility connections, but they did have flush toilets). Rosie and the puppies got to go for long walks. Here are some pics from the weekend.

Monday, we pulled up stakes and headed for Yellowstone National Park. We went in the north entrance at Gardiner, Montana and came out the West Entrance at West Yellowstone, Montana. About 12 miles out of West Yellowstone is a USDA Forest Service Campground on Hebgen Lake. No hookups again, but the price is right at $8 per night for us old folks with Golden Age Passports. We meet some really nice people camped next to us. They were also from Idaho Falls so we may have made some new friends. One of them had a boat and I was invited to go out fishing with the two guys, Bob and Ron. We were trolling for trout and I caught an 18” Rainbow ( a rare exception for me) and had a great time. The Verizon service was really spotty, so internet access was limited. The site is wooded and right on the shoreline of the lake. We got to take the pooches for good walks. Monday evening was nice. Tuesday morning was good, then the wind came up in the afternoon and by evening it was starting to rain. Wednesday morning it was still raining so we hitched up and headed for home. We got home about 11:00 am. Here are pictures from Hebgen lake.

The batteries on the RV don’t appear to be charging as fully as they should. I kept having to run the generator to charge the batteries, which does not please some fellow campers. But I kept it as minimal as possible. I may have ignored the RV Forum advice to replace all batteries when you get any new battery. I had purchased 2 new batteries for this camping season and kept 2 of the old batteries. We may have to bite the bullet and spring for 2 more batteries like the 2 I just bought.

We have a one night campout this Saturday with a local group of friends. Then we are headed for a major trip starting July 10th and ending about August 28th. We will be traveling through Oregon, California, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana. The high point of the trip will be my family reunion in Colome, South Dakota in August.

Heading Home

2010-05-25T06:12:00.001-06:00

My business is complete and our trip is coming to a close. We have been at Waggonhammer RV Park for the last 3 days. Unfortunately, the weather has been less than ideal. There have been many showers on and off, day and night. We did have sunshine for a couple of hours Sunday afternoon and took the dogs on a trail. The sign says it was part of the Lewis & Clark Trail, but it is hard to believe they would have chosen this route when an easier route is nearby (now highway 93). Saturday afternoon we took a little side trip to Shoup, ID. Shoup was named after the first Idaho Governor when this was an active mining area. Shoup now consists of one store/cafe. The unique thing about this store is that it has the oldest, functioning gas pumps in Idaho. Here is a picture.

We enjoyed a delicious vanilla ice cream cone and enjoyed the scenery. Here are some pictures from the area.

This section of the Salmon River is known as The River of No Return. It was named that back in the 1800’s because men would try to float the river on a raft or in a canoe and they would never be seen again.

It is a few minutes after 6:00 am and we are all anxious to head for home. Our next trip starts on June 9th when we head for Billings, MT to meet up with family for a campout. See you then.

Lolo Hot Springs

2010-05-22T13:29:00.001-06:00

Since my last post we have traveled from Cascade, ID to Orofino, ID and then over 120 miles of winding mountain highway into Montana and are set up alongside a stream at Lolo Hot Springs Resort and RV Park. The drive to Orofino was a white knuckle trip for me. It was the first time I had to drive for about 3 hours in pretty heavy rain pulling a camper; and to do it with our 6 ton rig on narrow, winding mountain roads alongside several large rivers was a bit nerve wracking. Here is a picture taken at a turnout on the road, taken just before the serious rain started.

We made it to Orofino without any serious mishaps and checked into a newer campground right on the Clearwater River. It was very modern with full hookups and wi-fi. I liked it a lot; Rosie not so much. She thought it was basically a parking lot; there were no trees to speak of and no good place to walk the dogs. But it was close to the work I had to do and I didn’t want to continue on in the rain so we set up for two nights. Here is a picture of the site.

It took me most of Wednesday to complete my work project. We found a grocery store and stocked up the fridge. Thursday morning we headed up US Highway 12, known locally as Lolo Pass because it ends in Lolo, Montana. It is a beautiful drive, but it is basically 90 miles of a constant uphill grade in the mountains. About 8 miles past the Montana State Line is Lolo Hot Springs Resort. There is a lodge, restaurant, bar, two hot springs pools and an RV park. We picked a spot right next to the stream and got all set up. We had electricity, but no water hookup. We had the place to ourselves and could let the dogs pretty much run free; up until Friday evening about 5:00 pm. Cub Scout Troop 15 from Florence, Montana started arriving. Turns out the Scoutmaster had reserved the whole area that included the site we were in. Unfortunately, the person who he made the reservations with failed to inform the person that was on duty when we arrived. The Scoutmaster was very nice when he knocked on the door to tell me what was going on. I told him we were leaving Saturday morning and he was happy about that because most of the Scout group was arriving on Saturday. They set up tents all around our camper, but did leave me room to hook up and a path to get out. Here is a picture of me before the scouts arrived; relaxed with a beverage by the stream.

Here is what it looked like Saturday morning when we left.

Oh, before I forget; when we woke up at 5:30 Friday morning there was frost on the ground, ice on the RV steps and the temperature in my truck showed 23 degrees. Since I was not sure how much propane was left in our second tank, I put the empty tank in the truck and we all took a day trip to Lolo to get propane and some groceries. Since diesel was only $3.08 a gallon, I also filled up the tank. We checked an RV Park closer to Lolo that we liked a lot. We will probably stay there next time in the area. I will write again when we get to Idaho and Waggonhammer RV Park.

Business and Pleasure

2010-05-16T19:40:00.001-06:00

One of my clients was in the need of my services in central Idaho. So instead of the usual fast paced, stay in hotels and get it done trip that I usually do; Rosie and I decided to take the camper on a serious run through the Sawtooth Range in central Idaho.

We traveled to Stanley, ID on Saturday and found a great spot at the Elk Mountain RV Resort.

Today we continued on the Cascade, ID where we will spend two nights at the Arrowhead RV Campground on the River. Just as we were pulling and setting up, these deer came through the campground and crossed the river. By the time I got the cameral out they were on the other side.

Tomorrow morning I have to meet with the Chief of the So. Idaho Forest Fire Protective Association here and in McCall, about 30 miles north of here. After about a half day with him, I will be back on site to enjoy this great setting. Tuesday we are pulling out of here and headed for Orofino, ID, which is further north. We will be there for two nights.

Lessons Learned

2010-04-28T20:44:00.001-06:00

We learned a couple of valuable lessons on this short trip. This was the coldest season we ever attempted camping. One lesson learned was that you go through a lot of propane when the heater is going all day and all night. I didn’t think to check the propane tanks until this afternoon when I discovered that one tank was very empty. Not knowing when the first tank became empty, I was not too sure how much was left in the second tank. So it was off to find a propane refill source. Fortunately, an internet search found an RV Resort about 5 miles away with propane. A phone call confirmed they were open for business and off I went. The internet is a wonderful thing. The other big lesson was mentioned in my previous blog; the value of checking where your slide-out is going to go, and doing this before you unhitch.

Overall, not a bad trip. The wind was pretty bad and the 6 ton camper shook a little. The dogs took a while to adapt, but they seem to be getting used to the different environment. This trip was probably better than expected since an electrical hookup was available; so we have the luxury of TV and fully charged batteries in laptops and cell phones without turning on the generator.

We are going to go boondocking next week for 2 nights about 5 miles from here in a Forest Service site, Kelly Island Campground. The price is right, $5 per night with our Golden Age passports (the joys of old age), but the sites are primitive. It is right on the Snake River, so I hope to go fishing again (we will see if I do any catching). The 10 day forecast shows 60 degree temps next Tues and Wed. This will be our last good opportunity before we head out on a thousand mile journey to north central Idaho on May 15th.

Ririe Reservoir, Idaho

2010-04-27T15:00:00.001-06:00

We are 24 hours into a 3 night adventure 21 miles from home base. We are in a great State Park campground managed by Bonneville County. The sites are large, but it makes little difference in the big scheme of things because there is no one else here. The campground web site says they open May 1st, but when we arrived yesterday prepared to “boondock” it, we were pleasantly surprised to learn the electricity and water to the sites was turned on. The Campground Host is on the job and we are settling in very nicely.

I learned to check the location of the power outlet box as it relates to our super humungous slide out. With the slide fully extended, it “nudged” the power box about 1/4 inch. Of course I didn’t realize this until we had unhooked and set down all the stabilizers, etc. We are also adding to our standard camping checklist for all the items we forgot.

There are several nice trails right from the campsite and the puppies are very happy to be able to wander off leash. Annie is showing a tendency to pick up burrs and other assorted vegetation in her fur. She also got a cactus needle in her nose and gave us a lot of resistance when trying to remove it. They did not sleep to well last night because when ever one of us got up for a potty call, they both started whining. They have their regular beds and should have been very tired, but they did not seem to be able to settle down.

Rosie is getting used to the bigger and better kitchen arrangement. She prepared a very nice dinner of German Goulash with pasta. When we pulled out some bread to go with this, we discovered we came without butter or margarine. Oh well, that is the purpose of trial runs close to home. My Verizon service is providing both cell and internet access of very good quality. My business continues uninterrupted even out here in such a lovely, natural setting.

Tonight we are having grilled chicken with roast potato wedges, corn and homemade coleslaw. I tried fishing in the lake for about an hour this morning with no luck (so what is new about that). The wind started up early today and is pretty steady, especially coming off the water. Rain showers are predicted starting about 10 pm tonight. Tomorrow will be cooler, down to mid-40’s and may be wet on and off. Oh well, such is the camping life.

Happy trails from Ririe Reservoir in Idaho.

First camping in 2010

2010-04-10T21:35:00.001-06:00

Well, we took the bull by the horns and ventured out all of 2 miles on our first trip for the year; and the maiden voyage of Alphie, our (new to us) 1997 Alpenlite 5th Wheel Trailer. Our destination was South City Park in Idaho Falls, where the city is kind enough to allow one night camping for free. There are about a dozen campsites, all are paved and most have a grill and a picnic table. The park is on the east bank of the Snake River about 3 miles south of Downtown Idaho Falls. Here is a picture of us on the site.

This was a tryout voyage to test all the systems. We were happy to learn that everything seems to be working fine. We used the stove to prepare dinner; the hot water heater to clean up; and the microwave to heat hot chocolate. Since there are no hookups here, we had to conserve our battery power. We installed 4 LED spotlights and discovered we should get about 6 more. The night was cold, down to the mid 20’s, so the heater fan was working a lot even with the thermostat set on 62 degrees. The batteries were pretty low about 5:30 am and I cranked up the generator to recharge the batteries and get the coffee maker going. I took Sammy and Annie for a walk along the river. Since we were all alone in the park, they got to run off leash and they were very happy.

We had our first RV guests; my fishing buddy Joe and his wife Ann came out to see us. We had a nice chat and a little wine was flowing.

Here are a couple more pictures of us inside the camper

When left we visited the free dump station to empty the tanks. The biggest lesson learned was that it is a little early in the year to boondock (camp without electrical hookups) in this part of the country. The fan for the heater really drains the batteries. In about 2 weeks we may head out about 15 miles to Ririe Reservoir east of Idaho Falls. There is a great county managed State Park Campground there.

Spring Prep

2010-03-30T15:20:00.001-06:00

It is that time of year to start getting ready to take the ol’ camper on the road. Yesterday we got 4 new tires, had the wheel bearings packed and put in a new Battery Disconnect switch. Eagle Rock RV here in Idaho Falls did a great job with spring preparation, including adjusting the slide by 3/8’s of an inch to center it in the opening. This will save a lot of wear and tear on one side of the main slide where it was too close to the chassis. The owner, John Henry, also spent some time in the rig with us giving us tips on maintenance and utilities.

Thursday is April 1st. I will go get the rig licensed and registered for the year. Idaho does their RV registration and licensing by calendar year. By waiting until April 1st, we get 25% off the annual cost. After I get the license plates on, it is up to the local propane dealer to fill the propane tanks; then back home to start cleaning it inside and out. We have to line all the cabinets and drawers with rubber matting and then start stocking everything that has been stored in the basement since we sold Thumper last October.

If the weather is nice next Monday, we will take our maiden voyage with “Alphie” to the local City Park where we can boondock for one night for free. It is a very nice little park right on the Snake River. I will take pictures and post how it goes.

Spring??

2010-03-05T15:30:00.001-07:00

Here it is, March 4th. Temps in the 40’s for the last few days. Snow is melting. I went over to the storage lot to check out the camper yesterday. No leaks observed. One tire seems low on air, but not bad for sitting for 4 months. On April 1st, I can go get the license plates and registration for 2010. Then up to Big O for tires and a wheel bearing pack. We are anxious to check out all the functions of the rig to see if everything works. I hope it is warm enough in
April to make a couple of very local overnight trips.

Our big trip this year is all planned. I am waiting on siblings to make up their mind on a location for an early June get together somewhere between here and Rapid City.

Cabin Fever

2010-01-29T08:13:00.001-07:00

Here it is, the last Friday in January. It is 6 degrees at our house. Snow predicted all next week. Can spring be that far away? It is all this die hard RV traveler can handle to hole up in hibernation mode until we can de-winterize the rig and go someplace.

I have been doing a lot of planning for our major RV trip in 2010. About 7 weeks in time and 4,400 miles in distance. We will spend about 12 days in Oregon, then head south into the No. Calif. redwoods. Then through Arizona to Kanab, UT so Rosie can spend a couple of days at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. From there to the old neighborhood in Colorado for a week; followed up by a trip to Yankton, SD (my home town) on the way to the family reunion in Winner, SD. Will wander back home through Wyoming, Montana and Yellowstone Park. We will spend our last night on the road at the Madison Arm campground in Yellowstone.

As soon as the weather warms up I will pull the camper out of storage and get it all shaped up for travel, including some new tires, wheel bearing pack, etc. We are so looking forward to having soooo much more space in the 5th wheel after 6 years in our smaller travel trailer.

Our long range wish list includes a whole winter trip through the South and Southwest. We are just not sure what to do about the house for 7 months while we are on the road.

January 2010 update

2010-01-18T15:59:00.002-07:00

We are still snowbound by winter in Idaho. We cannot wait for the snow to melt and the temperatures to rise so we can try out the new camper. Our first trip will be local where we will stay in 3 public campgrounds for 2 nights each. That will let us break in the rig and get used to battery and generator use. YIPPEE.

Our New Camper!

2009-11-11T15:41:00.003-07:00

We are so excited to report that we have purchased a 1997 Alpenlite Cypress 5th wheel trailer. It is 34' long, has a generator and 4 batteries; and with a 100 gallon fresh water tank we can set up in the wilderness for a week without power and be very comfortable. This is a huge improvement over Thumper, our previous travel trailer.

Here are 2 pictures, one of the outside and one of the living area.

4th Of July On The River!

2009-07-04T11:45:00.003-06:00

Our last stop before heading home tomorrow morning. It is the Fourth of July and we are comfortably set on a great site about 20' from the Salmon River just north of Salmon, Idaho. This is Waggonhammer Campground, the place we often start or end one of our journeys. Last year this was the first stop on our way to Alaska and the last stop on our way home from Alaska. As always, the owners and the staff are friendly and very helpful. This afternoon, they are having a hot dog grilling event with guests bringing side dishes. We meet the nicest people here.

The one down side this location is the darn, pesky misquitos; they are everywhere. Which means we either wear long pants and long shirts; or load up on repellent. There is a bridge on the edge of the park to an island in the river. The owners have cut a long path/trail in the tall grass. Sammy and Annie are happy to be able to run off leash over there. It is really funny to see Annie bouncing up and down or standing on her hind legs to try to find Sammy in the tall grass.

I have seen an eagle fishing in the area (he is better at it than I am) and I keep the binoculars at the ready. Met some nice people from California, Arizona and Wyoming so far. Will probably meet more tonight at the grill party.

It has been a good trip. It was great to see our daughter, Michelle, and meet her 4 legged traveling companion, Loren. She, and her friends Michelle and Randy Vincent, were great companion campers at Deception Pass State Park in Washington State. After we parted company we had a great drive across the northern edge of the Cascade Mountain Range.

Once we arrived in Idaho, we spent Thursday night at Winchester Lake State Park. I did manage to catch 3 trout in this beautiful setting. The camp sites are in the woods and the lake is surrounded by a forest. The trip between there and here was over 100 miles of mountain forest and river driving. I never thought I would get tired of forest and river scenery, but yesterday I got tired of forest and river scenery. We stopped in Hamilton, MT for last minute food supplies and got here about 4:00 pm. It is good to be back in the Mountain Time Zone again. Tomorrow we are about 4 hours from home. It will be good to get back.

The best laid plans!!!

2009-07-01T21:39:00.003-06:00

Sometimes planning doesn't go so well; specially when you plan to stay at a very popular State Park in Idaho the 3 days prior to the 4th of July, without making a reservation well in advance. So we are changing our schedule and our route. Instead of Priest Lake State Park or Farrugut State Park, we are headed further south to stay at Winchester State Park for Thursday night and ending up at Waggonhammer Campground in North Fork, ID on Friday and Saturday night.

After we left Deception Pass in Washington we wondered towards the upper Cascade Range to Skagit County Park Campground. This is a beautiful site right on the Skagit River with large sites and well manicured grounds. We had a site about 40' from the shore of the river. There were trails nearby (to Rosie's delight) where we could take Sammy and Annie and let them run off leash for a spell.

A family of geese kept us entertained on Wednesday morning before we departed. Mom and Pop goose and 5 little gooses kept cruising by.

Tuesday, after crossing over the Cascade Range with many waterfalls and other wonderful sights, we arrived at Lincoln Rock State Park near Wenatchee, WA. The name comes from an island in the Columbia River that looks like Abe Lincoln's face in recline. We liked the place so much we decided to stay an extra night and catch up on some much needed R & R. I actually took a nap in the morning. Then we headed into town to find an ice cream shop and get some groceries. The ice cream was really great; but I hate to add up the calories for it.

So tomorrow on to Idaho and Lake Winchester. I hope the fishing is good.

The Good Life

2009-06-28T17:08:00.005-06:00

Life is good at Deception Pass State Park in northwest Washington State. We arrived here on Friday about 3:30 in the afternoon. Our daughter Michelle arrived about 30 minutes later. Our friends, Randy and Michelle Vincent showed up about 5:30. We have a group campsite, meaning it is set up for 2 campers to share a large site. The sites here are wonderful; set in a thick forest, each site is spacious and separated by many trees from other sites nearby. If you didn't hear a bit of conversation or an occasional car/truck drive by; you would think you are out here all by yourself. The best part is the park has electric and water hookups for RV's and the Verizon service is good enough to get high speed internet access.

The ladies have been for many long walks along the lake shore. Randy and I have been fishing twice; resulting in a nice trout for each of us. There has been some good natured conversation and a lot of food sharing in the last few days. The locale includes several fresh water lakes as well as access to the Pacific Ocean. The weather has been great; sunny days, but not too hot. No rain or drizzle. No unusual overcast conditions.

It is late afternoon Sunday. Randy and Michelle have left to return home. Our Michelle is hanging around with her mom and dad for one more night before heading south for home in California. She is at the tail end of her 7 week, 29 state journey with Loren, a rescue pit bull.

We have decided to leave here a day early and make an additional stop in the mountains near a river about 50 miles away for tomorrow night.

I have received a request to post a picture of our new little Annie; so here it is. Ain't she cute.

One more day to the Pacific Northwest

2009-06-25T19:05:00.002-06:00

After my post yesterday, I realized that I had not explained the one week delay in the start of this trip. Sadly, my mom passed away on the 16th of June, the day before we were scheduled to leave for Loon Lake, Oregon. I flew to South Dakota for the funeral and to wrap up final estate details. I got back home Sunday night after 11:00 pm.

Now back to our trip; today we traveled into Washington State, just past Spokane to a great place, Peaceful Pines RV Park. There is a large area nearby where we can let the puppies roam free; which they really enjoy. Annie continues to be excited about this new experience. She slept in her bed under the dinette table last night and did not bother us one bit. Today was a very pretty drive along I-90. Jim has been to Spokane on business before and has seen the panhandle area of Idaho a couple of times. Tomorrow we will be heading west on I-90 to Seattle; a route neither of us has been down before. At one point today, Michelle called us and she was about 350 miles ahead of us on I-90. Tomorrow we will catch up to her at Deception Pass State Park.

On the road again!

2009-06-24T19:50:00.002-06:00

Finally. Rosie and I and the two pooches, Sammy and Annie, hit the road for Deception Pass State Park in northwest Washington State. We left Idaho Falls this morning and had an uneventful (just the way I like them) journey to about 15 miles past Deer Lodge, Montana. The campground we are in is great with old trees and large sites with full hookups. We did not even have to disconnect from the truck for our one night stay. We have taken the puppies for 2 walks so far and have one more scheduled when it cools off about 8:30 or so. Annie seems to be adjusting to camping quite well. She rides in a carrier in the back seat of the truck. When we stop for breaks, she jumps right back into the carrier as if to say "OK! Lets Go".

Rosie prepared a scrumptious German Goulash with pasta. I am so stuffed. Tomorrow we will get a late and leisurely start to our next stop in Cheney, Washington.

We are good to go!

2009-06-13T14:14:00.001-06:00

Rosie has been cleared for RV travel by her doctor. We will be leaving on June 18th for Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.

Trip Delayed

2009-06-09T21:04:00.001-06:00

We were scheduled to leave tomorrow; however, Rosie has not fully recovered from bladder surgery a couple of weeks ago and her doctor has adviced us to hold off on traveling. She has an appointment on Thursday (June 11th) so we will get the latest medical advice then.

22 days and counting.

2009-05-19T14:58:00.002-06:00

Three weeks from tomorrow is launch day for our Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana summer RV Trip. We will spend 5 days each at Lava Lake and Loon Lake in Oregon. Then we are meeting Michelle (our daughter) and friends north of Seattle at Deception Pass State Park for 4 days. Then various spots as we head back home through the panhandle of Idaho, into Montana and over the Continental Divide into Idaho to finish up at Waggonhammer Campground.

Our daughter Michelle just started her 7 week USA tour with Loren, a rescued pit bull. You can follow her adventures at www.dogdaysbook.com.

2009-01-30T15:22:00.001-07:00

January 2009.

As is typical for winter in Idaho, we are buried in snow. I pass the winter months planning for summer trips and am taking this opportunity to update family, friends and blog readers of our RV plans for this summer.

In early June, we will make a short (5 day) trip to Devils Tower area in Wyoming to meet with family members for a early summer campout at Keyhole State Park. We will probably travel through or near Yellowstone and Teton Parks on the way to and from Keyhole.

After about 3 days back home we will head out on a 3 week adventure through Oregon, Washington and Idaho. We plan spend a lot of time lake side and oceanside. Our travels will include Lava Lake, Loon Lake, and several state parks. We plan to end up in Waggonhammer RV Park north of Salmon, Idaho at the end of the trip.

In August we will leave for Colorado to visit our old friends and former neighbors; also spend a few days with Jim's brother near Eaton, CO. From there to Yankton, SD to visit Jim's mom and another brother. We will stay at White Crane, a beautiful South Dakota State Parks campground near the Gavins Point Dam on the Missouri River. From there to Colome, SD for Jim's annual family reunion weekend; followed by a few days in Rapid City, SD, then home to Idaho.

We have acquired a new addition to our family, a little female terrier mix we rescued from the Idaho Falls animal shelter. We hope she adapts to RV life as well as our other pooch, Sammy.

Journey's End!

2008-07-12T19:29:00.003-06:00

Our last post was from Cassiar RV Park in Kitwanga, BC. We departed there early Friday morning, the 4th of July. While America was celebrating it's birthday, we were still far north in British Columbia, Canada. The further south we went, the better the roads became and the warmer it was. We started to see temperatures in the low 60's instead of the high 40's. Wildlife sightings became less frequent and the critter's were smaller; foxes, a coyote and at one point a lynx crossed the road ahead of us.

Friday afternoon found us in Vanderhoof, BC at a delightfully immaculate campground called Dick's RV Park. There we met a couple from Merritt, BC; Morley and Henny. They were on their maiden voyage in their new Class A motorhome (think Greyhound Bus size). We got along very well and had a great chat about the RV life. After saying goodbye on Saturday morning, little did we expect that they would pull into the same campground in Lac La Hache, BC later that day. The picture above is our site at that campground. I made my last attempt to catch a fish in Canada that afternoon. After dinner, we joined our new friends in their coach for drinks and conversation.

Sunday was our last full day in Canada. We traveled to Oliver, BC by a lesser highway with great scenic views. The last 40 miles or so was along a very large lake that was obviously a popular resort area for southern British Columbia. We had a good spot in a combination motel and campground with 2 special attractions for us; a great supply of fresh cherries picked from trees in the campground and a swimming pool/jacuzzi that we enjoyed very much. It is getting much hotter now that we are near the US border.

Monday morning found us crossing the border into Washington state about 9:00 am. For the first time, a customs officer decided to take a look into the camper. She was very brief and did not find anything to confiscate, so we were on our way towards the KOA in Spokane. While in Spokane, we met up with a brother of my sister-in-law, Joanie. Charlie and his 5 year old daughter came out to the campground to chat for an hour or so. We had a good visit.

Tuesday morning we crossed the panhandle of Idaho, going along beautiful Coeur d' Alene Lake before crossing into Montana and the Mountain Time Zone. We were starting to feel close to home. We had made reservations at the Wagonhammer RV Park in North Fork, ID for our last night on the road. This is the same RV Park where we spent our first night of the trip. The owners remembered us and welcomed us back. They have a 5:00 pm cocktail hour in the main building every night and we met several other wonderful folks there.

Wednesday morning at 6:30 we headed down highway 93 for home. On the way, I completed a work project for my former employer (had to make a little money to help pay for this trip); but we managed to arrive back home about 1:00 pm. It sure is different to have 1,800 sq. ft. to live in than the 200 sq. ft. we have been in for the last 7 weeks. I went to the post office and picked up 2 tubs of mail and we manage to start going through that pile before the end of the day.

Well, it is over. We drove 8,422 miles from start to finish. We did not have any flat tires, no chipped windshields or any mechanical failures. The truck and camper did get seriously dirty, but a little soap, water and elbow grease will cure that problem. This is something we will remember for a lifetime, but will not do again. Alaska is incredible, but it is a long ways away, and Canada is a very expensive place in which to travel. Diesel fuel in Canada hovered above $6.00 per gallon. Food is also very expensive. About the only reasonable cost we found in Canada were the campground fees.

We hope you enjoyed taking this journey with us. Our next trip will be starting August 10th when we head for the family reunion in South Dakota, followed by a stopover in our former neighborhood in Colorado.

Iskut to Vanderhoof, BC

2008-07-04T21:25:00.003-06:00

After leaving Mountain Shadow we continued south on Highway 37. The road is starting to improve, but we are still in the remote area of British Columbia. Wildlife sightings Thursday included 2 black bear cubs and one coyote. All sightings were brief and we didn't get any photos. We spent Thursday night at Cassiar RV Park in Kittwanga. No TV or Wi-fi, but the nice young lady in the office let me use her dial up account to check my e-mail. Since there was nothing pressing to attend to, I decided to relax and enjoy the local area. Rosie and I took a short walk down a path towards a nearby river, where we came upon a field of white wildflowers which is the background for this picture of Rosie.

It rained again Thursday night in Kittwanga and was raining when we left Friday morning. We had a long drive planned for today, about 300 miles to Prince George since we needed to find a good supermarket. We did not expect to find one until Prince George, but were pleasantly surprised to find a full blown Safeway in Smithers, where we were able to stock up on food for us and for Sammy. That gave us the option of finding another overnight spot prior to St. George. We discovered this really delightful park in Vanderhoof. It is exceptionally clean and well laid out and in a great setting. They also have cable TV and a really good internet.

Wildlife today was limited to one fox. The roads are getting much better and I was able to put the cruise control on 55 for long periods of time. We are finally back in cell phone range; although still subject to a 69 cents per minute roaming charge for Canada. Two more nights in Canada and we cross into Washington State on Monday morning. Photos will be updated tonight, but they are becoming somewhat limited. You can only take so many pictures of highways going through mountains. We are getting more into farm country with fields and cattle grazing. That is a welcome change of scenery.

The journey home!

2008-07-02T21:11:00.004-06:00

We have completed our last day in Alaska and have headed home for Idaho. We left Skagway on a rainy Tuesday morning. The grade that you climb out of Skagway is long and appears to be very steep. However the old Chevy Duramax Diesel did it's job and we made the top of the grade in due time; to be greeted by the Canadian Customs Agent. After a few questions, we were on our way.

We drove out of the rain in about 2 hours and headed northeast, back towards the Alaska Highway. Our first choice for a campground was deserted and there was no one in the office. We headed into Watson Lake, BC and stumbled into the Downtown RV Park. Sure enough, the wi-fi worked and there was cable television. We got our CNN news fix and learned more than we needed to know about Seattle current events. There was even a decent grocery store and we stocked up on a few things. A caravan of about 20 big rigs pulled in about 4:30 in the afternoon. What a sight.

On Wednesday morning, we checked out the signpost forest in Watson Lake before we left town. As you can see in the picture, Rosie found a sign from her homeland. We put another $100 of diesel in the Chevy and headed back west up the Alaska Highway. Why west, you ask? Well, we wanted to come home a different way than we went so we could see some more of Canada; so we were going back west about 10 miles to connect with Highway 37 south through British Columbia.

While the scenery was new, the view through the windshield continues to be a highway (a bit rough in places) going through the forest. We cannot believe how many trees there are in this country. Wildlife is becoming a rare site. We saw 3 foxes at 3 different times. Only one hung around long enough to get his photograph taken. After 210 miles we arrived at our destination; Mountain Shadow RV Park. This is a beautiful park in the woods, near a lake and nowhere near civilization. No cable TV, but the wi-fi works great; which is how I am getting this blog out tonight. Two more days on the route will get us to Prince George, the largest town we will see until we arrive in Spokane, WA on Monday. I will see if the signal here is strong enough to upload photos. Be back at you later for more of our journey home.

Skagway, The end of the journey!

2008-06-30T20:33:00.004-06:00

Well, here we are on our last night in Alaska. We arrived in Skagway yesterday about 1:00 pm and will be pulling out of here about 7:00 in the morning and will be headed home in earnest. The photo you are looking at is of two cruise ships docked in Skagway.

Let's get up to date on our travels. We pulled out of Dawson City about 7:00 am on Saturday. It was a nice, but not spectacular, drive to Carmacks. We spent the night in a campground next to the Yukon River.

Sunday we left about 7:00 am again and kept on a southerly route towards Skagway. The further south we got, we began to see more of the mountain ranges. It had rained all night on Saturday night and was still drizzling when we got on the road. We drove into the sunlight about 10:00 am. We reached White Horse and refueled at a bargain price of $1.62 per litre (over $6.00 per gallon). The drive from the Canadian border into Skagway is a long grade downhill for miles.

Our campground is in town and not much to look at; but is convenient for everything going on around us. We went on a last minute Alaska shopping spree in the afternoon; buying up lots of t-shirts, sweat shirts, caps and other souvenirs. This morning we hiked to a point and a bay nearby; about 3.5 miles round trip. Rosie is very happy, Sammy is tired and I barely survived.
At 1:00 pm today we joined the organized walking tour of Skagway led by a young lady with the Forest Service. We learned about the rowdy history of Skagway in the late 1800's at the time of the gold rush in Dawson City; and went into some old buildings that have been reconstructed with some of the original furnishings.

It was steak and salmon night for dinner, usually a Sunday meal, but we are off our schedule just a wee bit. In the morning, we pull up the long hill back into Canada and head for Watson Lake. We have cut one day out of our return trip and will be going back through Spokane and Salmon, ID insteaed of the longer route we originally planned. We are kind of anxious to get back to our home (and a king size bed). The camper is getting smaller every day (or so it seems). We will be updating the blog in Canada as often as we can get an internet connection that is strong enough.

Chicken, Alaska

2008-06-27T22:38:00.004-06:00

Well, I finally made it to the world famous Chicken Saloon. What a journey it was. Over 5,000 miles and 5 weeks to get to this very place. I have a picture of the interior of the saloon that I will put on the picture upload later.

But; I digress. The last time I wrote was after our bay cruise in Valdez; so let's catch up on our travels. Tuesday morning (the 24th), we pulled out of Valdez and headed north. Slowly the breathtaking mountain views faded in the mirror to be replaced by the rolling hills (large hills) covered with trees. Have I mentioned there are a gazillion trees in Alaska? We arrived in Tok about 2:00 pm and picked up a few groceries and fuel before checking into the campground. This time we took advantage of the free entertainment and listened to a local singer/songwriter tell us all about the local area and history.

For those of you who have the original planned schedule for this trip; we were supposed to go directly from Tok, Alaska to Dawson City, Yukon Territory, on Wednesday. However, we had an abundance of alcoholic beverages, along with some fresh fruits and vegetables that Rosie was reluctant to part with at the border. So we decided to check out the campground in Chicken. When we got there we found the old Chicken very quickly; but then also discovered a new Chicken. The Chicken Gold Camp was built in 1999 and has a store serving breakfast and lunch, an RV Park with electricity and Wi-Fi and an opportunity to pan for gold. We (Rosie in particular) fell in love with the place so we decided to stay a couple of nights to ingest the aforementioned alcohol and fruits/vegetables. Rosie made a new best friend and went for a long walk with Crystal and they took Sammy along. The wi-fi was very weak and in fact, I could not get an Internet connection the first day. They said no one with Vista on their computer had been able to get it to work with their service. So to every ones surprise, when I turned on my computer Thursday morning, all my e-mails loaded up and I was connected to the Internet. I could not get a web site or send any files, but I could send and receive e-mail. Another first for Vista. Another charming thing about this place is the fact that all the electricity is from a generator; which is shut down from 9:00 pm to 6:30 am. Happiness is hearing the generator fire up and having your coffee pot begin to brew the morning caffeine fix.

Thursday morning we got to the old Chicken Cafe early to get a cinnamon roll before the tour buses came in. Then we made the 100 mile journey to Eagle, Alaska; the northern most point in our trip. The 100 miles takes 3 hours because it is on a rough dirt and gravel road with a maximum of 40 mph possible, but more typically it was 25 mph. We arrived about noon and were pleasantly surprised with the beauty of the town. It is on the Yukon River and is very old. There are about 150 full time residents and most of the visitors are from Holland America Cruise Lines. They bus guests in to here where they catch a river boat to Dawson City. Then they pick up the passenger that came in from Dawson City and bus them back to their cruise ship or the airport in Anchorage. We had brought lunch with us and while eating lunch we struck up a conversation with a local gentlemen and his little granddaughter. We returned by about 4:00 pm and I took a much needed and long overdue shower. We purchased some souvenirs from the store and had a pleasant evening meal.

This morning (Friday) we hooked up and headed for the Canadian Border and Dawson City. The road from Chicken to the border is all dirt and gravel and the truck and camper are getting dirtier by the mile. Hit the border about noon. The border agent did not even ask us about fresh fruits/vegetables or booze. I guess we stayed in Chicken two days for nothing!!

The road became paved at that point and we entered what is known as the Top of The World Highway; and on top of the world it is. Views are forever in any direction. The highway follows the ridge line of the mountains for about 65 miles before you drop down into Dawson City. Then we had a first experience with a ferry. There is no bridge across the Yukon River here, so the Yukon Government provides a free ferry ride across the river. It is interesting to drive the truck and camper onto a large boat with 3 automobiles and several bicyclists also on board. We made the trip across in about 5 minutes and drove off with no unusual events occurring.

We checked into the campground; nothing special to look at, but cable TV and a good wi-fi system is much appreciated. We went downtown and I got a 6 day fishing license at the Trading Post. We picked up some groceries and a danish at the local bakery. I tried my luck trolling for Grayling ( a trout with a sail like fin). No results. After dinner, Rosie and I headed into town to the local gambling hall for some slots. They also put on an old time vaudeville show complete with can-can dancers. The Europeans from the tour groups really love this stuff.

Tomorrow we head south towards Skagway for our last Alaska visit. We will stop at Carmacks, Yukon Territory on the way. I don't know if the wi-fi signal here is strong enough to upload multiple pictures. I will try, but no promises.

Valdez, Alaska

2008-06-23T22:36:00.005-06:00

We arrived in Valdez on Saturday and signed up for a Glacier Cruise on Sunday. It started raining Saturday night and continued into Sunday morning. After checking the weather forcast on the internet, I rescheduled our cruise for Monday. Sometime in the early afternoon Sunday it stopped raining so we took a short walk around town. It was a very short walk because the town is really small and not really touristy with little shops, bakeries, etc. Rosie took the opportunity to catch up on the laundry and I caught up on computer stuff. I also headed out to the large boat docks for some dock fishing. A nice guy that was fishing there gave me a frozen squid to use as bait and I got to wet a line for a couple of hours; to no avail, of course.

Monday we were picked up at the RV Park office by the cruise company at 8:00 am. The cruise boat holds about 85 persons and was completely covered. There was enough inside seating for everybody. Rosie is really getting past the motion sickness thing she has had in the past. So the boating experience was great for both of us. First thing going out of the harbor we came upon a group of about 15 sea otters. These critters are absolutely cute and adorable. Once out of the harbor into the greater Prince William Sound, we saw a bunch of seals hanging on the beach; followed by several sightings of humpback whales. Ultimately, there was one time with 3 whales on the left side of the boat and 2 more on the right side of the boat. After the whale sightings, we headed into the glacier area. We were really surprised at how many icebergs there were in the water as we approached the Columbia Glacier. On two occasions, there was an eagle perched on the top of an iceberg. The eagle appeared to be posing for us as the Captain took the boat close enough for pictures. After getting as close to the glacier as was safe, we turned around and headed back to the port. After 7 hours out, we docked and caught the bus back to the RV Park.

We paid the nice lady who took Sammy out twice while we were out. We are headed out for Tok tomorrow morning. The original plan was to drive from Tok to Dawson City on Wednesday. However, due to an overabundance of booze and fresh fruits and vegetables that we don't want to throw out before crossing into Canada, we decided to spend Wednesday night at an RV Park in Chicken, Alaska. Chicken has a reputation for being a crazy and unusual place, so what the heck. We will let you know how that works out.

We are on the downhill side of this journey and will be back home in Idaho Falls two weeks from Wednesday on the 9th of July.

Homer to Valdez

2008-06-21T22:45:00.005-06:00

Hi again! The picture on the left was taken in front of Horsetail Falls about 8 miles northeast of Valdez, Alaska.

It has been a while since I wrote; so here is the latest. We pulled out of Homer on Thursday morning and proceeded north of Anchorage to a State Campground with no electricity, much less any wi-fi; which explains why the delay in these updates. After settling in to the campsite, Michelle and I drove into Eagle River to find wi-fi at the town library. Later in the day, we headed for the airport in Anchorage. On the way, we stopped for dinner at Chili's Restaurant. Got to the airport about 8:00 pm and went in with Michelle. I used the airport wi-fi to fill business orders while Rosie and Michelle had some mom and daughter time. Rosie and I headed for the campground about 10:00 pm. Michelle had to wait for her flight to leave at 1:45 am on Friday.

During the day Friday, we just relaxed. I went fishing at a nearby lake and caught my 3rd six inch trout for the trip. We shopped for groceries and filled up the tank in the truck. We picked up broasted chicken with potato salad and cole slaw from the deli for dinner. I crashed around 7:00 pm. I don't do well entertaining myself without electricity to run the computer!!!

Saturday morning we got up at 5:00 am and hitched up; hitting the road by 6:30 am. The schedule called for us to spend the night near Glenallen, Alaska. However, we arrived there by about 9:30 am, so we decided to continue on directly to Valdez. The drive from Glenallen to Valdez was the most spectacular to date. The last 30 miles before Valdez is breathtaking. There are waterfalls on both sides of the canyon walls. We went over a pass at 2,600 feet which was incredible, considering that elevation is nothing in the Rockies, but here it was so dramatic. We dropped down into Valdez, which is on the edge of Prince William Sound. We checked into the Eagles Rest RV Park and got set up. We have reservations for a ship tour of the Sound tomorrow, including a glacier and several other interesting wildlife observation spots along the way. There is a lady in the RV Park that does pet sitting; so she will take Sammy out for two walks while we are gone for about 7 hours. Will post new pictures and a new blog after our adventure tomorrow.

Soldotna & Homer

2008-06-18T15:28:00.004-06:00

On Saturday, the 14th, we drove the 90 or so miles from Seward to Soldotna. We checked in to the Klondike RV Park, which is nice in appearance; but has the most rigid rules we have ever come across in a campground. Pet urination or defecation is prohibited in the campground; subject to instant ejection from the park. Any spillage of waste or cleaning of fish will result in a fine and ejection from the campground. The owner did not seem to enjoy working with campers. I think she was just in it as a business. We stocked up on groceries and did some sightseeing in the area. We drove over to Kenai and saw a moose alongside the road that was patient enough to stand there munching away while we drove up alongside her and took pictures. Michelle was impressed. Except for the Moose is Loose Bakery, which has the best apple fritters on the planet, Soldotna was pretty disappointing. Mosquitoes were everywhere. I caught my second 6 inch fish of the trip, in the Kenai River which is famous for the largest King Salmon ever caught.

On Monday we drove south about 85 miles to Homer, the Halibut Fishing Capital of the World. Rosie and Michelle had finally convinced me to not be so cheap and to splurge on a halibut charter boat. Michelle made a contribution as a Fathers Day gift. We checked in at the Ocean View RV Park. What a change from the park in Soldotna. The check in person was friendly and helpful. She had set us up in one of the better spots in the campground with a great view of the ocean. She set us up for a fishing charter for me and a bay cruise to a nearby Island for Rosie and Michelle. After getting settled in, we went for a walk on the beach and drove down to the Homer Spit to walk around, do a little shopping, confirm our reservations for our outings, and have some ice cream, courtesy of Michelle. The spit looks like a typical pier boardwalk on any coastline. Wooden sidewalk with lots of shops and other places to spend your money. Michelle bought a genuine alpaca and wool sweater with a hood. Rosie and I managed to not buy anything.

Tuesday morning I arose at 4:30 and headed down to the spit for my ocean fishing trip. Had breakfast at the Spit Sisters Cafe (limited menu, but the only place open at 5:00 am). I joined 4 other guys on a boat and we headed out to sea. My fishing buddies were from Minnesota, South Dakota and northern California. We were on a combination halibut and salmon trip. By 11:00 am, we had all caught our limit of 2 halibut. Mine were 15 lbs and 25 lbs. The 15 pounder was my first one and I could have chosen to release it, but my fishing luck has been so crappy, I was concerned I wouldn't catch another, so I kept it. My second one was about 20 lbs, but I did release it to take a chance on something bigger, which I did get. The largest halibut we brought in among the five of us was about 40 lbs. We moved the boat and went trolling for salmon. We brought in 2 King Salmon (neither one was caught by me) during a 3 hour attempt. When we got back to the Spit, our fish were cleaned and Itook mine back to the camper. We had halibut for dinner and I cut the rest up and put it in the freezer. I weighed my halibut filets before I left the pier and I had 24 lbs of filets for my efforts.

After dinner, I think I crashed at 8:00 pm. I should tell you that Michelle and I managed to darken the interior of the camper with velcro squares holding black construction paper over the door glass and under the skylights in the ceiling. It is much easier to sleep when you can create some darkness. I will put together a photo record of the last few days and post it on Snapfish.

Today Michelle and Rosie are out on their bay cruise/luncheon. Sammy and I are holding down the fort. He and I went for a walk on the beach, I refilled a propane tank and am doing other minor housekeeping chores. Tomorrow we head back north to Anchorage. We cancelled our reservations at the terrible campground in town and chose a State Park campground we heard about from our fellow campers.

Anchorage & Seward

2008-06-13T23:55:00.005-06:00

Hi everbody. It has been awhile since I updated. So here goes.

We arrived safely in Anchorage to a really low grade campground. It was a gravel parking lot in front of a motel located right on the Seward Highway in downtown Anchorage. The spaces were tight and we had to park the truck in the motel parking lot. On the plus side, all the utilities worked; we had 35 channels of Cable TV and the wi-fi signal was strong. We were disappointed in the visual look of the campground since this was going to be Michelle's first impression of our trip together. However, I checked around and this is one of the two campgrounds in Anchorage and the RV Forum web site said the other park was worse.

We went to FredMeyers and stocked up with food and drink. Also got diesel for $4.65 a gallon so that was a good thing. My sister, Marla, has a good friend, Jo, that lives near Anchorage. Jo and her daughter came to the campground on Wednesday afternoon and took us on a tour of Anchorage and Girdwood, the nearby ski resort. She showed us a waterfall that not many tourists get to see and took us out to dinner in a great local restaurant. After she dropped us off, we cooled our heels for a couple of hours before going to meet Michelle at the airport. Michelle's plane was only a few minutes late and we had a joyful reunion.

Thursday morning we hooked up the camper and headed south to Seward, Alaska. This is a beautiful drive, with the ocean bay on the right and high mountains on the left of the highway. There are waterfalls coming down the mountains near the road. It only took us about 3 hours to make 135 mile trip. We checked into the Stoney Creek RV Park about 11:30 am. This is a beautiful place, surrounded by woods and there is a stream nearby. The wi-fi works great in the rig and we get 12 channels on the TV. Life is good.

We drove into Seward to explore the town and the surrounding area. Walked on main street and picked a place for lunch on Friday. I was advised by 2 local fisherman that the Sockeye Salmon were coming in with the tide at a certain point on the bay at an entrance to a river. High tide was at 9:51 pm on Thursday. I found the area, put on my waders and wading boots and headed out into the bay. There were about 50 persons out there fishing. The fishing method was different than anything I had ever seen or done. The process was to tie a large treble hook with a lead weight on the shank onto your line and throw it out into the water across a channel where the salmon were running. Then you jerked the line and reeled in; repeating this process until you retrieved the line. Then you did it again. Hopefully, you would snag a salmon. I was out there for about 4 hours and boy were my arms sore. People were catching 25 to 40 inch long salmon to my right and to my left; in front of me and in back of me. I never hooked a salmon. I did hook a small "18" flounder, which I released. So no success fishing, but the setting was incredible. Snow capped mountains on all sides, standing in the ocean up to my knees at times with people battling salmon all around. I wish I had thought to bring my little pocket camera out there. For the first time on the trip, I saw the sun go down. That was about 10:30 pm and it went down over a high mountain. Have I mentioned that it never gets dark up here in June?

On Friday, we went to the Seward Aquarium and Sea Life Center in the morning; followed by a great lunch at a local restaurant. In the afternoon we hiked up to the Exit Glacier. The hike was about a mile and a half from the parking area; but the elevation gain was not too difficult. The glacier was quite an experience; not as dramatic as the glaciers that send skyscraper sized icebergs into the ocean, but dramatic none the less. I made some more attempts at fishing later in the day, but still with no success. I hope that the next 5 days will be more fruitful in the fishing department.

In the meantime, it is great having Michelle with us for this time and we are enjoying her company. Tomorrow we move on to Soldotna and the Russian and Kenai Rivers.

The Denali Park Rangers Dog Sled Team

2008-06-09T22:25:00.003-06:00

Today we visited the Dog Sled kennels and saw a demonstration of the use of dog sleds in Denali Park.

We petted the dogs and took a lot of pictures. There was also a litter of 8 new puppies that are incredibly cute as only puppies can be.

The rest of the day was uneventful. We treated ourselves to ice cream at a local store.

Tomorrow we hook up and head for Anchorage. On Wednesday Michelle arrives at 9:45 pm. We are all excited about her coming to join us for a week.

A day in Denali National Park

2008-06-08T22:27:00.002-06:00

What a great day! We arrived for our bus tour at 7:00 am. The bus arrived on time and we left the visitor center about 7:40 am. The first sighting of the day was a cow moose with a radio collar about 20 minutes out from base camp.

We were to travel about 65 miles one way into the park today and return by the same road. Jim and Carol from Tampa, Florida were sitting across from us in the front row. A nice retired couple that decided to come up here and work at odd jobs for the summer. Our driver, Ray, is from Michigan and comes up here to drive for the summer. The first 15 miles or so is paved and a piece of cake. After that it can get a little hairy; gravel roads going over some mountain passes with no room to pass two cars, much less two big buses. But the park people have it all worked out.

The system is like this; the driver watches the road and the passengers watch for wildlife. When someone spots an animal, they yell STOP and the driver stops. We all try to locate the animal(s) with binoculars and (hopefully) cameras. I am so glad I bought my new Canon S5IS for this trip. I got pictures that were the envy of the bus. In fact, I was asked to e-mail my pictures to two of our fellow passengers. During the day we spotted caribou, dahl sheep, moose, ptarmigan, a great horned owl chick in a nest, a beautiful fox, hundreds of snowhoe hares and 5 grizzly bears; including a mom with 2 cubs at the very end of the day. That did it for Rosie; she was so excited she could hardly contain herself. The only major park animal we didn't see was a wolf. Ray gave a great narrative on the history of the park and the latest on wildlife populations.

We got back to the base camp about 4:30 and headed back to the RV Park. Sammy was so happy to see us. I talked with the nice lady who took him out for a walk and he was a really good boy for her. I grilled some BBQ chicken and Rosie fixed rice and beans. As I write this, it has started to rain quite heavily. We are really greatful that we are past the tent camping days. It is so nice to sit here in comfort with electricity, heat, water, a sewer hookup, cable TV and a good internet connection. Life is Good and The Living is Easy.

Tomorrow we plan to go see the dog sled kennels where there is a litter of 4 week old husky puppies. I may never get Rosie away from them.

Alaska trip - Days 15 to 18

2008-06-07T18:53:00.000-06:00

Greetings from Denali National Park. I am finally in an RV Park with a strong enough wi-fi signal to continue the blogging process. Blogs need to be written while online and that takes a certain level of wi-fi strength.

After our day from road hell on Tuesday, we drove from Tok to Fairbanks. We set up in Fairbanks at the Rivers Edge RV Park for 3 nights. This is a really great park with good cable TV (we can watch CNN again) and full hookups. Only the wi-fi was weak. While we were here, a lot of housekeeping issues needed to be attended to. Rosie did a large load of laundry and scrubbed the floor of the camper. I repaired some things that had fallen off the walls and the dinette seating from the rough road. I got the truck serviced with new oil, etc. On the way out earlier today, we used the RV Wash to try to clean the camper exterior.

Fairbanks is like any mid-size town in the lower 48. Nice streets, shopping malls, lots of trees and parks. The city is surrounded by rolling hills with more trees than you can count in a lifetime. We took a couple of day trips out of town in pursuit of fish; with very limited success. All I have to show for my $145 license so far is a little rainbow trout out of a stocked lake. All the rivers are low and muddy. I am beginning to wander if the only way to enjoy the Alaska fishing adventure that is so heavily advertised is to spend a $1,000 or more on a float plane and a guide. That is certainly not in our budget. Well, we will see how it goes as we get further south.

The caravan of 17 RV's rented by the group from Denmark that we met in Ft. Nelson showed up in our park in Fairbanks. I can't imagine what it would be like to try to keep a group that large organized. We met some of our other neighbors in the park. Nice folks from Wisconsin, Virginia and other parts of the lower US.

Today we traveled about 125 miles to Denali RV Park; about 7 miles north of the park entrance. We drove down to the park Visitor Center and encountered a moose grazing roadside. Rosie got some pictures which were sent out separately. Unfortunately we were on the south side of the north bound moose, so the view is not the most inviting. We have our tickets for the 8 hour tour of Denali National Park tomorrow. The RV Park where we are staying offers pet sitting services (they will take Sammy out for 2 or 3 walks while we are gone). The tour bus leaves on a 66 mile journey at 7:30 am and we can get off anytime to hike or sightsee, then get on the next bus that comes along. We will be bringing our own lunch and water. Hopefully we will see much beauty and many animals. We are scheduled back about 3:30 or 4:00 pm.

We will report on our adventure tomorrow evening.

Alaska trip - Day 14

2008-06-05T09:20:00.002-06:00

This was not such a good day. The road was pretty bad from Haines Junction to the Alaska border. A lot of gravel stretches and even more paved highway with frost heaves. Those are areas where the pavement ripples every 20 feet or so, causing the trailer to be going down when your truck is going up and vice versa. It is like a bucking bronco. That meant a lot of slowing down to 25 or 30 miles an hour. When you have 290 miles to travel, that makes for a longer day.

We finally got to the Alaska border where a couple from the Chicago area was taking pictures at the Welcome to Alaska sign, so we got them to take some pictures of the two of us together. See photos to come later. The road got a lot better in Alaska. The US Customs was quick and easy. We continued on to Tok, Alaska where we checked in for the night. We were exhausted by then, but the bad karma for the day wasn't quite over. The cable TV was partially down and the wi-fi connection was expensive with a limited capacity. As it turned out, the owner of the RV Park has her permanent home right around the corner from our home in Idaho Falls.

I got my Alaska fishing license along with a new baseball cap and t-shirt. I am so ready for Alaska. Tomorrow we move on to Fairbanks, where we will rest up for a few days.

Alaska trip - Day 13

2008-06-03T22:00:00.003-06:00

Wow! Our last full day in Canada. We continue northwest on our journey.

This was a fairly uneventful day. The scenery was wonderful, some of it spectacular. There were no wildlife sightings of any note. We traveled about 285 miles from the Continental Divide RV Park to Haines Junction, Yukon Territory.

After checking in at the RV Park, I detected from listening to conversations of other campers that we were surrounded by Germans. There were Germans everywhere. It is amazing how many Europeans fly to Canada and rent RV's and head towards Alaska. Rosie struck up a conversation with a German couple that lasted for an hour or so.

The days continue to get longer. Tomorrow we cross into Alaska.

Alaska trip - Day 12

2008-06-03T21:47:00.002-06:00

We awoke at 4:00 am because of the bright daylight coming in the windows. I may never get used to this. Stayed in bed until 5:15 then got up to take Sammy out. Headed down to the boat dock with fishing rod in hand, but there was a breeze coming off the lake that was downright cold. I went back to the camper to fix breakfast and warm up with coffee and Peppermint Schnapps (a morning favorite of mine while camping). After breakfast, I tried the dock again, but no luck. We stopped over and said goodbye to our new friends, Jim & Jeri Tyndall; then hit the road north.

The first wildlife sighting of the day was a bull caribou that walked out of the woods on the left side of the road, took one look at the road and the traffic and did an about face and went right back into the woods. No time to get the camera ready. A little later traffic ahead of us stopped for 2 black bears running across the road; missed that shot also. Next we did manage to get a picture of a large bison standing by the road. He didn’t care enough about traffic to even move a muscle. After that we missed a shot of a bull moose that came out of the woods on the right and ran along the edge of the woods until we had the camera ready, and then he dove back into the forest. Not a good day for wildlife photography.

We are still in the Canadian Rockies; a lot of grades to climb and descend; snow capped peaks off in the distance and several large rivers to cross. I did manage to get some pictures of the scenery.

After 250 miles, we pulled into the Continental Divide RV Park. This is a nice, newer, campground with some trees around it and large sites. The wi-fi system is down (story of my life in remote areas) and no cell service either. Oh, well; it is Sunday and I don’t have web business customers to serve today. We spent some time this evening with another couple that are full time RV’rs. They live in their motor home full time; wintering near Phoenix and traveling from April to November. They are headed out on their first trip to Alaska also.

This campground has a free RV washing station so we rinsed the grime off the truck and the camper. Rosie, trooper that she is, scrubbed the floor of the camper on her hands and knees. What a woman. Well, I hope to send all this stuff out Monday night from Haines Junction, our last night in Canada. We cross the Alaska border on Tuesday.

Alaska trip - Day 11

2008-06-03T21:40:00.001-06:00

Rosie says I must tell you about the group from Denmark that has rented 16 RV’s and is headed for Alaska. They were staying in the same campground as us last night. We know this because one of them came over looking for advice on how to use a cell phone in Canada. Since he had a European cell phone and European cell plan, we had no idea; but he was interesting to talk with. We are starting to recognize some of the RV’s that we have seen in earlier campsites.

Today we drove 156 miles from Fort Nelson to Muncho Lake. This is one beautiful spot. The highest price for a campground ($42.00) and fuel ($1.63 per litre); but we have a site 20’ from an incredible lake. We were setting up at the same time as another couple and we got to talking. They are from Alberta, Canada; just north of Calgary and they were headed for Dawson City in the Yukon Territory to pan for gold. We spent a lot of time in the afternoon talking with them and he went with me over to the boat dock while I did some fishing. First cast brought in an 18” lake trout. After that, nothing that evening or even the next morning. He and I surmised that I had caught the last trout in the lake. I do have a photo of this fish for all of you doubters out there.

We saw one bear, 3 mountain sheep and 2 deer on the road today. Got pictures of the deer and 2 of the sheep (they may be goats, I am not sure). The weather was a mix of overcast and partly cloudy. It did get a little sunny in the afternoon after we set up, so we got to sit in the sun on the lakeshore.

Tomorrow we head north again. I am not certain where we will spend the night, but there are several possibilities.

Alaska trip - Day 10

2008-05-30T21:42:00.003-06:00

I think the picture says it all. We are on the Alaska Highway. After 9 days on the way to Alaska we are finally on the official Alaska Highway that actually gets you to Alaska!

After a full day of rain yesterday at Mile O RV Park, we awakened at 5:10 am this morning to bright sunshine. Not a cloud in the sky. We were so excited we got up, packed up and headed up the highway by 7:00 am. Have I mentioned that daylight is from 4:00 am to 10:00 pm? And the longest day of the year isn't until June 21st. Considering we will be much further north on the 21st, it will probably be daylight from 1:00 am to midnight.

Anyway, we were up the road about an hour and a half and came upon a cow moose and her calf alongside the road. Rosie was holding the camera and I managed to slow down long enough for her to get a few good shots. They will be in the photos for the day.

We made it to Fort Nelson (283 miles) by about 2:30 and found a decent RV Park with a functioning Wi-Fi. After dinner, we drove to a nearby lake so I could start the fishing part of this trip. Rose was standing by to photo document my first fish of the trip. Unfortunately, as I was trying to hold my first Canadian northern pike, it managed to slip the hook and my grip. The picture was snapped just as the fish dropped out of view of the lens; so no photo of the first fish of the trip.

Tomorrow we have a short drive (200 miles) to Muncho Lake where there is a lakeside campground where I hope to continue the fishing experience in Beautiful British Columbia.

No blog tomorrow because there is no internet connection at that campground.

Alaska trip - Days 8 & 9

2008-05-29T19:04:00.003-06:00

This blog will be fairly brief since there is not a lot to talk about for the last 2 days.

On Wednesday, we drove about 285 miles from Hinton to Dawson Creek. This is the start of the Alaska Highway. The drive here was not as dramatic in the views as we have experienced so far in the trip. It was mostly forested areas of rolling hills with an occasional small town. We did see a moose cross the road about a 1/4 mile ahead of us, but he was way into the forest by the time we got close to where he crossed.

We are set up in a nice campground with a whole bunch of American license plates on RV's and Motor Homes. In striking up conversations with fellow campers last evening, it was clear that almost everyone here is headed for Alaska. We even met some fellow Idahoans who were traveling with a group from Washington and California. There were some real characters in this crowd. There was one guy who was in the Army in Germany in '62 and '63; the same years I was there in the Army.

Overnight it started raining and it has rained all day. We had planned an extra day here to sightsee and restock the camper. We did manage to get the laundry done and did get to the grocery store. However, the rain all day put a damper on any other activities, including fishing (which I was hoping to kick off today).

It is now about 6:00 pm Pacific Daylight Time and we have finished with dinner. The rain has finally taken a break. A check of the internet for a weather forcast holds some hope for a partly cloudy day tomorrow. We will be heading out early Friday morning for Fort Nelson. Maybe I can get in a little fishing along the way; I hope. I won't be sending any pictures out today as there is nothing really remarkable to post.

Alaska trip - Day 7

2008-05-28T19:22:00.005-06:00

Here we are at the end of one full week on the road and we have barely tackled Canada.

We had a leisurely breakfast and headed north from Lake Louise about 7:30 am. The drive from Lake Louise to Jasper is along the continental divide and is overwhelmingly spectacular. The only comparable area we have ever seen is in various parts of Colorado. The upper lakes are still covered with ice. There is one glacier along the way. The lower lakes are clear and blue from the snow and ice melt.

As we were coming close to Jasper, we noticed a bunch of cars stopped along the road and people out with binoculars and cameras; a sure sign of a special wildlife sighting. We slowed down and pulled over to the side just in time to see a grizzly bear amble off into the woods to the right side of us. By the time I got out and had the camera ready he was too deep into the woods to get a picture.

We had been to Jasper in 1996 on a vacation to a lodge about 60 miles away. The town looks the same as I remember except for some growth. We pulled over on a roadside stop just north of town for lunch. While we were there, we saw a pair of bull elk across the river. Too far for a picture though.

We arrived at the KOA near Hinton about 1:00 pm. After unhooking and getting set up, we headed into town for fuel, propane and groceries. We drove only 193 miles today. The sun was still bright at 9:30 pm. This long daylight will take some getting used to. But we were really tired so we crashed in broad daylight. Those who know me well will remember I can pretty much sleep under any conditions. This was no exception; I was asleep in about 10 minutes.

Alaska trip- Day 6

2008-05-27T16:38:00.003-06:00

There are two consistant and predictable events for a night in Lake Louise; the trains will run and the rain will fall. We were awakened by a blast of the horn from the passing train, followed by the steady drip of water on the roof. Sammy was not so much in a hurry this morning so I got to brush my teeth before heading into the woods. The rain was really very slight and not falling constantly. By the time we finished breakfast, the rain had stopped completely.

We had decided to make a day trip to the west to see a place called Emerald Lake. By the time we were 20 minutes down the road, the sun was peeping through the clouds and the temperature had risen from 39 degrees to 48 degrees. We first stopped at the Natural Bridge; a place in the river where water had cut a a rather large hole in the granite. We got some pictures and a brief video. A nice couple from Singapore asked me to take their picture and so we also got the husband to take a picture of the two of us. Another 20 minutes and we were at Emerald Lake. What a beauty; deep blue green water and a fantastic lodge on the lake shore ($400 per night according to my local guidebook). Where to people get the money? We leashed up the Samuel and headed on the trail around the lake. Got a lot of pictures and Rosie got to hear a loon for the first time. I also got a great picture of the loon.

We had lunch back at the camper and then took off north on Route 93 to explore the Continental Divide. The guide book says this is a spectacular drive and the book was right. We took more pictures and pulled into all the turnouts to look around. We turned around at the Saskatchewan River and headed back to Lake Louise. We filled up with fuel and hit the market for a few items, then headed for the camper for the rest of the day. We had a great spaghetti with sausage dinner followed by a walk along the Bow River followed by the movie "Ray" about the life of Ray Charles. Jamie Foxx did an incredible job playing Ray Charles.

It is time to call it a day. Tomorrow we are back on the road headed north through Jasper to the KOA near Hinton, Alberta.

Alaska trip - Day 5

2008-05-27T16:24:00.002-06:00

It is Sunday morning and it continues to drizzle. Not enough to wear rain gear, but enough to get you a little wet if you stay outside too long. We awakened at 5:30 or so and could not get back to sleep; especially since Sammy was standing at the foot of the bed with that plaintive look that says "I gotta go pee". So I slipped on some sweats and we headed into the woods (about 10' away).

After a relaxed breakfast, we loaded up with a picnic lunch and headed down Canada Highway 1 towards Banff, taking pictures along the way. When you see the picture of the stone arches, you should know they are designed for wildlife to cross over the highway instead of walking across the highway. Cool idea, we think. Banff is very much like Aspen or Vail; with a quaint, touristy downtown. There is the usual high end hotel, priced the same as the one on Lake Louise. You will also see some pictures of a waterfall that is near the hotel. We did go to a natural history museum with hundreds of stuffed replicas of wildlife, including animals and birds.\par\parOn the way home, we took the alternative to Highway 1, which is the Bow Valley Parkway that runs parrallel to the main highway, but more in the woods and with a 45 MPH speed limit. We stopped at a roadside table for lunch. Other than a few deer and a couple of cow elk, we did not see much in the way of wildlife.

Stopped at a liquor store ($11.00 for a bottle of wine that costs $3.99 in Idaho Falls) and the local market for two grocery items and a bottle of shampoo. We did find out the reason for the high liquor prices. About 70% of the price of alcohol and tobacco products go to help finance the Universal Health Care in Canada. Maybe they should give international visitors a break since we don't get the benefit of the health care system.

By the time we got back to the camper, it was cocktail hour (hurrah). Soon after I lit up the grill (RVQ) for the traditional Sunday steak (for me) and salmon (for her) dinner. After dinner it was a little Canadian TV (we get 2 over the air channels at the site) followed by a DVD movie (chick flick with Diane Keaton called "Because I Said So"). I did a little more reading from the Milepost (book that details every mile on the way to Alaska) and hit the rack about 9:30. It is still daylight at 9:30; this will take some getting used to, especially as we get further north and the days get even longer.

Alaska Trip - Day 4

2008-05-27T13:55:00.001-06:00

We awakened about 6:30 and had a yummy breakfast. Rosie took Sammy for a walk and I started to pack up the camper for the next leg of our journey. We left the RV Park around 8:00 am and headed into Radium Hot Springs to fuel up. Diesel here was $1.42 per litre (about $5.10 per gallon).

About a mile and a half from the gas station we came to the entry point for Kootenay National Park and paid our entrance fee of about $50, which also covers Banff and Jasper National Parks for the 3 days we will be here. Just past the entrance, we stopped to wait for the one way traffic to come through the rock scaling area. We got going after about 20 minutes and headed into a gorgeous canyon. This looks like the Colorado Rockies, only more dramatic.

About an hour up the road, we came upon a black bear snacking it's way along side the highway. Rosie got really excited, but managed to get a picture anyway. We came on another bear a little later and I got a picture of that one. We also got a shot of a bull elk grazing along the roadway.

We arrived in Lake Louise and checked into the campground at exactly 11:00 am. This was a short day on the road. After settling into our site, we headed up the road for Lake Louise. What a magnificent place. The lake was still frozen except on the very edge. There is a huge hotel on the lake shore that goes for $560 a night (non-lake view) and $670 a night for the lake view side. There were a lot of people here and we leashed up Sammy and headed around the lake shore hiking trail. Along the way we met a couple from Holland and had a nice chat with them in an interesting mixture of German and English. They were also camped at Lake Louise Campground in a rented motor home.

Dinner was delicious BBQ chicken with rice and corn, grilled on the RVQ. We did bring the RVQ inside for the night, since this is bear country and the guy at the gate was emphatic about leaving no food items or cooking equipment outside. Did I mention the RR tracks are about 200 yards from our site. The trains run often and seem to have a need to blow their horns a lot.

After dinner, it was a short drive through the forest still covered in about a foot of snow to Morraine Lake. Another magnificent scene. Most of the lake was frozen. There were a lot of downed trees along the shore. We got back to the site, checked out the shower facilities, took a short walk and crashed for the night. I was exhausted and actually turned in around 8:00 pm. Tomorrow we will hit Banff and the scenery between here and there.