The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet

2012-01-21T21:35:00.001-08:00

Seems as though time just slides by beautifully when winter slips in. This was a work week for me, and the one day I had to drive to town to the “real” office was the day before the huge northwestern snow storm blew in. Lucky me! The rest of the week I worked at home, snug as can be in my little office with the wood stove cranked up high and the cat snuggled in next to me in his bed. Mo plowed a few times, I shoveled and ran the snow blower, and we hauled half a cord of wood to the porch, but the storm didn’t cause us a bit of trouble.

I am working on a rocky soil problem, and my head is filled with stones, cobbles, boulders, and gravels of all sizes. Each of these has a specific size and description of course, and eventually I will get it all sorted out and plugged into all those nice little NASIS fields and someday someone will request some interpretations for the Knot Tableland and out will pop a nifty little report, generated specifically for their area of interest from the data we gather, refine, and populate.

As I sit in the office fiddling with numbers, my mind wanders back to 2004 and 2005 when I was mapping out on the Knot Tableland, and dug a ton of holes in those stones, cobbles, and gravels and described those soils. It was hot and dry, and most of the time I was alone. That is the way we work in soil survey more often than not.

So this week, my mind has been split between recalling those memories as I look at my old descriptions, and talking on the phone with the project leader in Klamath till my ear was sore. ( I gotta get another ear piece!) We resolved the issues, and on this Saturday night, two more soils are written, cleaned up, and put to bed in NASIS.

Then, right in the midst of the worst of the windy snow, I got a call from my daughter Deanna saying that she and her husband were coming down the five and did we want to meet them for a short visit before they chained up to go over the Siskiyous. Wow! Deanna and Keith have their own truck and haul jet engines all over the country, but they haven’t been down this way in at least two years. I don’t get to see my daughter very often, so Mo agreed to drive, whiteouts or not, and we headed over the pass to Medford.

We had a great visit at Shari’s, next to the big Pilot truck stop where they could park the rig. I even remembered to bring the sweater I am working on for Deanna to check the fit. It was perfect and she likes the colors. I still can hardly believe this little girl of mine drives that great big truck.

Somehow, in the midst of everything else, remembering the last days of our trip home from the desert up the California coast just slid right by with an occasional thought, “Oh yeah, that!”. So here is the promised “rest of the story”.

When we left Vandenberg, there was a bit of fog hanging around making the hills look mysterious and mystical. The route led through Pismo Beach, a beautiful place to spend some time, but since it was only 9:30 in the morning when we arrived and still quite foggy and chilly, we decided to continue on to San Luis Obispo. First I had to check out the local quilt shop, and with early morning traffic in the small town almost non-existent, we had no trouble parking the MoHo right in front of the store. I browsed through the windows, but decided that waiting another 90 minutes for them to open was silly and we continued on toward breakfast.

Our route home from Vandenberg AFB could have been simply a run up the 101, but why do simple when challenging is an option. We instead decided that we were up for the winding beauty of California’s scenic coast highway 1. Listed in many places as one of the most beautiful drives in the world. Why in the world would we miss the chance to crawl along the steep cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean in a motorhome towing a car.

One of my favorite restaurants along this part of the coast the the Apple Farm in San Luis. We were seated in the beautiful glassed in gazebo with brilliant sun shining in the windows framing the lovely hills surrounding us. As usual, breakfast was scrumptious, with home fries and “California Scramble” which included lots of spinach, artichokes, olives and other California stuff. I really appreciate my California upbringing and being exposed to things like artichokes, avocados, and olives as everyday food. I grew up eating lots of fresh stuff from the lush gardens and orchards where we lived that are now just pavement.

We continued north to Morro Bay and our last chance to hightail it back over to the simpler route along 101. The sun was out, the skies were clear, and when we saw the sign saying it was only another 135 miles to Monterey we decided to go for it. It was a great drive. Winding and a bit challenging at times, but nothing too difficult. The only thing about this road that is bothersome is the lack of places to pull over and actually spend time. I was in the passenger seat, and the skies were a just a little bit murky from the morning fog, so my photos aren’t that great. Of course, with the proliferation of digital photography and google search, there are at least a bazillion photos of every single stretch of this beautifully amazing stretch of road. I even have some from other trips we have taken, so I wasn’t too concerned about missing out. In fact, it was nice just being able to do the white knuckle thing now and then without worrying about photography.

Our evening destination was the Military Family Camp at Monterey Pines RV Park and Golf Course. This camp is on the grounds of the Monterey Naval Postgraduate School. We called ahead for a reservation, because even at $30 a night, that was cheap for anything else around that part of California. It was good that we did, because the camp was nearly full. Our rig is technically 26 feet long, and that is what I answer when asked when making a reservation. We were given a nice pull through site on the phone, but when we arrived we were told she had moved us to space 22. I think it was the shortest, tightest space in the park, and a big 40 footer was in our originally assigned space. After crawling around slippery ice plant to try to hook up, and struggling to get level, we decided that in the future we should say we are 30 feet long so we won’t get relegated to the worst sites in the camp!

The campground is adjacent to a beautiful golf course, but the camp itself is really crowded and tight, and is backed up directly to the airport and hangars. Loud noise for much of the night, and the occasional bomb going off now and then made things interesting. We settled in, and decided to try to find a grocery store. Safeway was only 1.5 miles away, but my gosh, the traffic was horrendous! One of those things I forget about California until I get back there. We were glad for a nights rest and hookups, but might not try to come back to this one unless absolutely necessary. There aren’t any Passport America parks anywhere in the vicinity, though, so it was good for a night.

The next day we decided to do another 250 mile run and spent some time searching around Streets and Trips, CampWhere, and AllStays for a place to spend the night. We considered trying to get as far as Trinidad and the free casino, but then found a beautiful little park right on the 101 just north of Willits. Creekside Cabins and RV Resort looked really great on the internet. I tried calling to verify the Passport America Park status, but no one answered so I left a message. After driving through the Bay Area, we were ready for a nice night in a quiet place.

Winding down into a damp, dark canyon, we felt a bit of consternation, but thought maybe the park would be OK. The turn in came up suddenly and we pulled into the driveway only to discover a huge iron gate, tightly closed. It was dark and spooky there, even in the afternoon, but I got out and rang the bell. No answer. We were in a pickle because the rig was cocked at a weird angle and there was no way we would get the car unhooked and we couldn’t back up or turn around. I finally walked into the park and realized that this place might not be the best place to be. There were really old rigs with blue tarps, big dogs with spike collars, strange looking people, and a LOT of junk.

I finally flagged down a somewhat “high” dude and asked him if he could open the gate to let us come in and turn around. He was hemming and hawing but then the camp host appeared, another strange looking woman with wild hair and a gazillion tats and piercings, and said we could come in and look around. One of the reasons we wanted the park was to see some TV that night, Mo was looking forward to one of the debates, and when this woman said, “Yeah we have maybe 6 channels”, we decided boondocking was a far better choice and we managed to get turned around and outta there! Whew!

It was getting late and dark but we got back on the highway thinking we could find a casino, or a pull out or something. I had no cell phone signal, but unbelievably there was still a Verizon signal on the MiFi and I found a park about 40 miles farther up the road. We pulled into Richardson Grove RV Park a little bit later, settling in just before dark and hard rain started falling. We thought we had it handled when we left Monterey. I used all the tools available, found a Passport America Park, used the MiFi and GPS to find it, and still ran into the unknown factor. We still laugh about just how much different that Creekside park looked in person than it looked on the nice internet web site. By the way, it was no longer a Passport America Park, either, and the fees would have been 40 bucks for one night if we had decided to stay.

We surely were glad to return home the next day to our beautiful, safe, cheap, gorgeous space A12 at Harris Beach State Park in Brookings. Ahh, home, or almost home. It was so good that we settled in for two nights and three days before packing up the Tracker, putting the MoHo to bed in the storage building, and traveling home to Rocky Point.

Bungalow Heaven and taking the coast route home

2012-01-16T15:15:00.001-08:00

As I sit here at my desk in Rocky Point, it is hard to believe that less than a week ago I was ambling along the coast highway in brilliant sunshine. The sun is brilliant out my window today, but it is reflecting brightly off the first significant snowfall we have had since October. I say significant, but I think it is hardly more than an inch or two out there, nothing to worry about, but also nothing to help with the local scanty snowpack.

Our time in Desert Hot Springs was perfectly incredible, with sunny skies and warm temperatures the entire time we were there. Our trip home up the coast was equally as brilliant, with a bit of morning fog here and there but not a drop of rain and not even the typical coastal overcast to mar the warm days. We only needed a jacket now and then to ward off the slight chill of ocean air and breezes.

We left the desert on a sunny morning, late enough to miss the worst of the LA traffic and yet early enough to spend a couple of hours on a sweet little side trip without compromising our planned nightfall at Vandenberg Air Force Base. I was born just north of Pasadena and raised in the adjacent mountain town of Sierra Madre. LA smog and traffic, and the crush of people drove me out as a young person, but there are some sweet memories of the area as well. One of those memories include the solid coziness of the modest bungalow homes on the shady oak lined streets.

I always dreamed of having one of these Craftsman bungalows, with trapezoid pillars, wide porches and big oak doors. I remember the sunlight playing on my gramma’s hardwood floors and the smell of baking cookies. Something about a Craftsman bungalow really takes me back to a life with different values than what we have today. No McMansion for me, please, just a perfect little bungalow. Ah well, so far that dream is one I have had to set aside, but I still love to cruise old towns looking for the perfect dream Craftsman.

Bungalow Heaven was a place on my want to visit list for a long time, and on this bright sunny California morning we parked the rig at a shopping center and took the time to drive to the approximately 12 square block area in Pasadena that has been set aside as a “Landmark District” I wasn’t disappointed, although I had forgotten how dark some of these houses can be with their overhanging roofs and wide covered porches. I guess sunlight isn’t in short supply in Southern California and the shade of the huge old live oaks and dark porches are a welcome relief.

The rest of the day was uneventful, with amazingly light traffic on the freeways, from the 210, to the Pasadena Freeway, to the Ventura Freeway, across the Golden State, and all the way to the 101. Piece of cake!! We thought about staying at one of the California State Parks along the beach, but they are expensive ($35 per night with no hookups) and crowded. Instead we just kept driving north to Vandenberg Air Force Base and the Military Family Camp we knew was waiting.

By the time we got there, most spots with electric were full, and it was a bit confusing to figure out where to go since the camp host was nowhere to be found. We opted instead for the $8. per night overflow camping where we could be away from the main part of camp and sleep peacefully. It was a bit like boondocking but with the extra safety factor of being on the base.

“On Base” however, had it’s own story! We read on the website that we should be prepared for a rig inspection and that we needed to go to the Lompoc gate rather than the main gate since they wouldn’t do inspections at the main gate. We arrived at the gate around 4, and after a bit of waving and gesturing, we followed the instructions of the officer and moved through the inspection area. I guess we didn’t need an inspection after all. Ambling slowly through the base, we were trying to find the campground when the dreaded blue lights started flashing behind us. Mo couldn’t figure out what she had done, since she is especially careful on any kind of military base, but sure enough he pulled us over.

We were informed that we had driven through the inspection station against the orders of the officer in charge and were to be escorted back to do it properly. The officer and his cohort led us through the base, to a proper turn around and then all the way back to the Lompoc gate. That was a bit embarrassing! It seems that a wave through didn’t mean what we thought it did! The inspection itself was strange. Several security folks told us to undo all the rig compartments (on the outside) and then they ran mirrors all under the bottom of the rig. They told Mo she had to stand in the holding room, and that I had to get out of the rig. When I told them not to lose the cat, they relented and said, “Oh fine, you can stay in there”. Funny part of the whole thing is that they never once looked INSIDE the rig at all!

We passed the inspection and drove once more through the base to find the Family Camp. It turned out to be a decent place to spend one night, but I don’t think I would want to stay here for any length of time. The only good part is that it is conveniently located to the coast, just 41 miles to Pismo Beach, and about the same to Solvang. It is cheap in a part of the state where there isn’t much available, even with our Passport America pass.

After reviewing Streets and Trips and doing some internet surfing (I LOVE the MiFi) we settled in to a nice supper and an early evening of reading and sleeping as the fog rolled in and muted the waxing moon. Instead of traveling fast, we decided to go just another 200 miles the next day to another family camp in Monterey.

Next: Monterey Pines RV and Golf and don’t depend on what you see on the internet!

Miles driven: 267

Day Trip to The Slabs

2012-01-08T09:38:00.001-08:00

It is five am and I have been awake for awhile now, who knows why. We have been traveling for the last few days, choosing to follow the coastal route through California north from the desert. We have taken our time, ambling north at a rate of about 250 miles per day, taking advantage of Military Family Camps and Passport America to park for the night in reasonable comfort. As usual, when I can’t sleep, I thought perhaps I could write about something with a bit more depth than I am inclined to write later in the day when real life is closer than my dreams.

For many days now, I have been thinking about what to write about Slab City, otherwise known as the Slabs. It is easy to post the photos, to write about the physical reality of the place. Many folks on the road in this part of California have done just that. The physical reality of the Slabs is simple. It is located in a wide open part of the desert east of the town of Niland that has little to offer except simply space. On a section of state land that once held the Camp Dunlap Marine Training Center, there is now a free boondocking oasis for RV’rs of all kinds.

At first glance, entering the area is somewhat shocking, depending on your point of view. Folks who come here seeking refuge because they know about the culture will feel welcomed and safe. Mid America types of RVrs in their big rigs coming here for the first time might be overwhelmed by the apparent lack of any sense of beauty or order. Boondocking types who seek wide open empty spaces might think the place is much too populated. Boondocking types who love the Quartzite atmosphere of daily social gatherings of like minded folks will love it.

We had no plans to boondock in the Slabs, but I wanted to see it. Occasionally I read about folks coming here with their thoughts and experiences, but my view of Slab City has been forever altered by the writing of just one man. Randy, of the Mobile Kodgers, let me see this place with completely different eyes than I would have ever seen on my one afternoon drive-through. Randy’s blog isn’t your everyday blog of the typical RVing full-timer. Much like Debra in Bisbee, Randy says things that might make some people a bit uncomfortable, but he tells stories like few people are willing.

Instead of simply gawking, Randy makes the effort to dig in deep and get to know a place and the people who inhabit it. I think it is because of Randy’s blog that I have been unable to actually write about Slab City, knowing that I can’t come close to expressing what Randy has found and the stories behind the trash and the once homeless lost people who have chosen to live there. If you have an opinion of the Slabs and haven’t read Randy’s blog, check it out and learn something. I surely did.

After a bit of a disappointing drive around the Salton Sea, we saw a sign for Niland and Salvation Mountain. Mo had no idea what awaited us, but I told her that we needed to go there and see it in person. We took the gravel road east and in a short time the multicolored painted mountain appeared. Salvation Mountain is a story of it’s own, again Randy has written about the artist in depth, in ways you might not find on websites telling the story of this amazing piece of crazy folk art.

I cannot even come close to writing about Leonard Knight the way that Randy has. Here is his story about the creator of Salvation Mountain. It was with awe and respect for all the different people in the world that I walked through the nearly psychedelic interior of the hill. We walked past great piles of paint buckets donated by every major paint company in America into one man’s vision of the message of God’s Love.

Deep inside we found four young folks and their dog, taking photos, and they asked me to get a shot of the four of them. They were friendly, open kids, who had driven from Tucson to spend New Year’s Eve at Slab City. They looked at me when I asked why they were here with surprise, as if I should know that the New Year’s Eve party at the Slabs was something not to be missed. While one young woman casually rolled a joint, they told me that Slab City was a dummied down version of Burning Man, only it lasted all year long.

There are no police here, and rules of any kind are conspicuously absent, an important feature to folks who choose to come here and stay. Dogs run freely, rigs range from huge Class A’s to ancient trucks covered with folk art. There is a library and an internet café, tucked away in old buses or tin shacks behind cape verde trees. There is trash everywhere, and much of the trash has been converted to art.

In the midst of the dusty dirt roads, we suddenly realized that an airplane was landing in front of us, and like the other trucks driving around, we pulled over to the side of the road to let it land. The pilot of the small plane taxied up to his big Phaeton, greeting some fellow campers. No rules.

I am pretty sure that Mo and I will not ever choose to boondock here. Our vision of boondocking is more on the level of wide open and silent, like the area behind the Alabama Hills in California, or the Top of the World Highway in Alaska. We have parked in Quartzite, but not during the high season, and our idea of fun socializing is more often one couple at a time rather than big gatherings of happy hour get togethers. Still, I am so glad I got to see this place, had the chance to walk inside Salvation Mountain rather than just look at photos, had the chance to watch a little plane land on the dirt road, and to see the myriad types of shelters that so many people call home.

I am glad there is a place like this in the world for those who choose to be there.

Day Tripping in the Desert

2012-01-06T20:11:00.001-08:00

The sunshine has been a welcome gift here in the desert. The days have been in the 80’s, but I have never felt uncomfortably warm. Long lazy afternoons are spent relaxing in our lounge chairs in the shade of the MoHo with a book or some knitting and sporadic conversation now and then. Our plans for this day were simple. We wanted to go on a nice hike early enough to avoid the mid day heat. The Gabby Hayes trail was Paulette’s favorite so we decided to give it a try.

The route to Palm Desert is familiar to us now, and once again we trundled off west on Dillon Road to turn south to cross the interstate to the more populated side of the Coachella Valley. The City of Palm Desert has an extensive trail system, and the Gabby Hayes trail is one section that is dog friendly.

The trail was marked well at the beginning, but not so clearly on the trail, so I was glad that I paid attention to the general route since the several forks are not marked and lead into areas where dogs aren’t allowed. We hoped for a three mile hike but I don’t think that the loop we did was quite that far, maybe two miles or so. It was a nice trail, however, with view of the valley below and a well worn path with comfortable switchbacks.

By the time we reached the Engstrom Point shelter, Abby was ready for the cool bubbling water just at perfect doggie height. Sitting in the shade of the palapa we enjoyed the view of the city below us. There are a LOT of palm trees in Palm Desert, and they are not the native palms at all. We could see a road leading south into the mountains, and our friendly local, also sitting in the shade, told us it was Highway 74. Ding! Both of us suddenly remembered that the Pines to Palms Scenic Byway was on our list of things to do when we were here last year; a plan that was completely thwarted by the heavy rains and snows in the mountains that closed the road.

There was no such problem this year, and in minutes we were traveling south to the infamously curvy, steep road. I didn’t bring any maps, but we had the phone, and the garmin was tucked away under the seat from the last local outing. I was really glad that we weren’t trying to go up that road in the MoHo! It was seriously steep and narrow, breathtaking views of the Coachella Valley below and even on a Wednesday morning, the traffic was fairly heavy.

We really had no idea where the road led, except I thought I remembered something about Idyllwild. Sure enough, we went right through the tiny mountain town. As a kid in the 50’s I would come to church camp at Idyllwild and as we passed through town I saw the old sign for Idyllwild Pines Camp and Mo pulled in.

There were the old bunkhouses, and the main hall where we ate meals and did crafts. I think I was ten the first time I camped here. It seemed so exotic and remote, so wild and mountainous to me then. Actually, where I live now in Rocky Point is much more wild and remote. 56 years ago, though, I had no clue what life was going to bring my way, I just knew I wanted to get out of LA, somehow, anyhow, I knew that even at ten years old.

Our route led us in a big circle, and we stopped at the overlook toward the south and west to see San Diego in the distance and then marveled at the south facing cliffs of Mt San Jacinto, the same beautiful mountain that we see from our spot in Desert Hot Springs. The ride down the hill toward Banning was also breathtaking, with a drop of a few thousand feet in just a few miles and some more narrow, winding highway.

We reached the Palm Springs exit in late afternoon, hungry of course since the trip was unplanned, and decided it was time to try out Rick’s recommended Palm Springs Deli, Sherman’s. The sun was still hot and we couldn’t leave Abby in the car so I planned to pick up something to go. Instead, the patio on the shady side of the restaurant was dog friendly, and we settled in to a nice table with a great view. Of course, the view wasn’t of mountains or valleys, but of local colorful folks having a late lunch/early supper right along with us. Palm Springs is definitely a great place for watching people.

Sherman’s was delightful as well, with New York style pastrami and corned beef, but I only had the free pickles and a small scoop of potato salad so I could try one of the mile high cakes. The desserts at this place are huge, and the carrot cake was quite delicious, although I think there was more frosting than cake! I will say I took home a berry cobbler for breakfast that was a pretty big disappointment, so don’t expect all those desserts to be as good as they look. However, the pickles are the best I ever ate, bar none, so don’t miss them.

Back on the road crossing the valley, we tried a different route. Somehow, for reasons known to no one, the overpasses of I-10 have been under construction for a very long time. Last year when we were here, it took forever to get back and forth between the two sides of the valley. We attributed it to the weather. This year, all the main roads across the highway are STILL under construction. Ah well. We aren’t in any hurry to get anywhere at all.

That’s how it goes in the desert sometimes. Start off on a morning walk and who knows where you might end up.

Meeting up with another blogging mentor

2012-01-03T09:09:00.001-08:00

Last year when we were in Desert Hot Springs, Rick and Paulette were still tucked away at home in British Columbia, but since I follow Rick’s blog I knew that this time our visit would hopefully include a meeting with the two of them. I emailed Rick and we said we would catch up with each other sometime during the week. Rick didn’t waste any time and as we were relaxing with tea yesterday morning I heard the sound of a diesel truck slowly passing our site and looked outside to see a familiar face. Rick was hunting us down!

As is so often the case with RV bloggers, it was instant recognition and familiarity. We sat in the warm morning sun for awhile visiting and making plans to get together on Monday night at a local restaurant.

After our day circling the Salton Sea we were happy to spend Sunday relaxing, swimming, going for some park walks, and for me, knitting. I will be working on my daughter’s birthday sweater for a very long time. KarenInTheWoods saw a comment of mine regarding sock knitting and sweetly sent along a sock pattern to me. She called it a simple pattern, but I don’t exactly think it is THAT simple, Karen, but Thank You!! I’ll keep working on the sweater and try knitting up these fat warm cozy socks next winter. Karen mentioned that she loves to knit while riding along in the motorhome. I love that as well, although the bumpy California roads have made that attempt a bit awkward.

The warm weather and gorgeous sunshine is conducive to real relaxation, and we planned another day of the same on Monday so that we could watch the Rose Parade and then the Rose Bowl with our home team, the Oregon Ducks actually winning the Rose Bowl. Fellow blogger Merikay is actually in Pasadena seeing the parade and the game and I am looking forward to her stories about that fulfilled dream of hers.

After the parade and before the game we decided to drive out Dillon Road to the east to find Blair’s RV shop, highly recommended by Rick for obscure RV parts and an extensive knowledge base tucked away in the owner’s head. We found the small part we needed to fit the smaller than usual sewer pipe at Catalina and were on our way farther east to check out Thousand Palms Oasis. Our plan was to hike with Abby, but even on the east side of the Coachella Reserve we found signs saying “No Dogs”. Ah well, there are lots of other places where we can go with Abby and tomorrow we will head for one of them.

Mo and I both love roads that wind off into nowhere and as we drove back north toward Dillon road, we found an old worn out once paved track leading up into the hills. Let’s go! The road was rough, but the Tracker can handle that and we followed the path through the desert. The desert seems to be a very popular place for people and guns, because scattered along the road were several groups of people shooting. I noticed most of them had targets that looked like human silhouettes, and while shooting at bottles or bulls eyes seems innocuous enough, those human targets really bother me.

The road looked like it would wind back toward Indio Hills but instead we ran into a complete dead end right in the middle of a large group of young, somewhat rowdy looking shooters. They all had plugs in their ears and basically ignored us except for some irritated looks as we attempted to turn the tracker around on the half lane dirt track. I had a close up look at the guy’s pistol, black and pretty scary looking.

We found several places that looked as though they might be great boondock sites, but I didn’t think we wanted to compete with the shooters or listen to the gunshots all day long. The desert has an earned reputation as a haven for independent sorts of people that don’t particularly like rules and treasure their freedom. My favorite of all time, Ed Abbey, was one of those types, as are these gun toting shooters. Philosophies as wide apart as night and day, and yet both still at home in the desert.

Trundling back to our safe and sane site at Catalina, we turned on the game and spent the rest of the afternoon cheering along (and sending little encouraging emails to Russ) when the Ducks kept getting touchdowns. The game started at 2 and our dinner get together was scheduled for 6. It was an exciting game, with each team scoring like leap frogs, but the Ducks carried it off in the end. Our only problem was we had a half an hour drive to Palm Springs and had to leave during the last four minutes of the game. I fired up the phone and Mo fired up the radio and we managed to finish out that last four minutes while heading for town along Dillon Road.

Downtown Palm Springs was all lit up with Christmas lights and people were walking the streets as usual in the warm desert evening. Parking wasn’t a problem on a side street and we saw the smiling faces of our new friends waiting in front of the historic restaurant. Rick took some great photos and wrote about the restaurant as well, so I won’t try to do it all over again.

I will say that we had a great time talking about some of the similarities and differences between our two countries. My favorite part was learning that watching American politics is a spectator sport in Canada! Of course, Paulette and I share the delight of daughters, she has four and I only have three, and each of us has only one son. Discussing adult children and their various life choices made for some funny observations for all of us. Paulette is a lovely person with a great blog of her own all about her quilting passion and I so enjoyed having time to visit with her.

I must say that meeting Rick was wonderful. Back when I first discovered a blogging community, Laurie pointed me to Rick’s tips about how to manage blogger and blogging in general. I learned a lot from Rick, and he has never failed to almost immediately answer any question I have asked him via email with excellent instructions. I discovered in person a kind, funny, easy going man who is willing to spend time writing about stuff that many of us haven’t a clue about in a way that is understandable. There are times when Rick’s instructions get right to the point of some hidden trick and I really appreciate that he takes the time to put it out there.

Thanks, Rick.

The Polar Plunge for New Year’s Day

2012-01-01T12:03:00.001-08:00

I followed a great tradition this morning, celebrating the first day of the year with a plunge into wintry waters. However wintry waters in Desert Hot Springs for me consisted of 94 degree F crystal clear spring water in the lower pool at Catalina Spa and RV Resort. Not a bad way to start the year. I floated silently on my back watching the stars and then swam a slow breast stroke while seeing the sun brighten the skies to the east.

It was only 5:45 am or so, and Mo slept peacefully back at the rig with Abby and Jeremy while I ventured the short walk to the pool. By 6:30 other folks appeared in the pool and spa area for a morning soak. These pools are my favorite part of coming here in the winter. The water is exchanged at a rate of some 35,000 gallons per day, with no sulfur but plenty of healing minerals for achy bones. The swimming pool is cooled from the springs temperature of 130 degrees by adding cooled water, and the spa tub is kept just hot enough at 104 degrees or so. Gotta watch out for the exchange jets, though, that water coming in is HOT!

We love the desert, the silence and emptiness of it all. This part of the desert isn’t exactly silent and definitely not empty, but the air is still desert fresh and the skies are blue and cloudless most of the time. As much as I love being alone in the wild, I also love being tucked into a spiffy spot in a pretty park with goodies all around. It is a completely different experience, yet just as wonderful.

There are more than a dozen different parks in this area, all of them with springs and pools of some sort. Some are expensive and elegant, some are members only resorts, some are just trailer parks and others filled with manufactured homes. It is definitely a snowbird haven with open desert to the east and Palm Springs and shopping south and west.

Catalina Spa and RV Resort seems to be the one we have settled on, and neither one of us has much interest in looking around for anything else. Since this is a members only resort, we can only stay here for seven days with our CampClub USA card, now converted to Passport America, although the folks at Catalina are as yet unaware of the shift. We taped our old CampClub card back together when we realized that maybe we would still need both cards. Good thing. The rate here is fifty bucks a day plus internet without some sort of discount.

There are two areas, the older section called the “lower” park and the newer section called the “upper”. The Upper has a bigger pool, a fancier clubhouse, and 50 amp spaces for the big rigs. The lower section has a funkier adults only pool and only 30 amp sites. It also has older eucalyptus trees and big shady tamarisk rows with oleanders that have to be cut back every year to keep from taking over all the space. Perfect for us since the MoHo is a 30 amp rig.

We stayed up until midnight to watch the ball fall last night, but since that was midnight eastern time, I got plenty of sleep before my early swim this morning. Yesterday we spent a long day driving around the Salton Sea and visiting The Slabs, but that is a story for another day. Today will be a quiet one, with a trip to town for groceries and washing the Tracker, an afternoon of reading and knitting, and finished by a movie trip tonight to see “Warhorse” on the big screen.

Perfect. Just Perfect.

East to the Desert

2011-12-28T19:47:00.000-08:00

In spite of the fact that we could have continued traveling south along 101, we decided to take the quickest route to the desert. From our overnight at Camp Roberts we turned east at Paso Robles toward the dreaded Interstate 5. For the first time, the central coast was thick with dirty air, something I had never seen in this area, and as we continued east toward the Great Valley, the pollution got worse.

Highway 46 was busy with traffic, and a surprising number of RV’s were headed west. The landscape was dramatic in it’s lack of drama. The annual grasses of the California grassland zone were shades of tan and gray, with nothing to punctuate the hills except a few cattle here and there. With the brown tinge to the air, it made the grasslands all the more drab.

Ugly is relative, however, and when we reached the Lost Hills area just west of the I-5 onramp, we saw landscapes that were impressive in their ugliness. The alkali flats west of Bakersfield would be bad enough without man’s intervention, but the forest of oil wells made it breathtakingly ugly. I felt a bit guilty complaining about the ugliness while I rolled through it in an RV sucking gasoline. How to reconcile that disconnect? I haven’t a clue. I hate what oil does to our country, the wars fought over it, the landscapes destroyed by it, but I love my RV and the freedom to travel. Hypocritical as heck, but I probably won’t stop traveling!

Once on the five, the pavement again deteriorated while the air pollution got worse as we approached the Grapevine. I reminisced with Mo about the days back in the 50’s when my family would leave Duarte at 2 am to drive the Grapevine when it was truly a grapevine of curves and steep hills, traveling north on Highway 99 for our annual camping trip to Yosemite. Good memories! I also remember driving the “new” Grapevine in my Volkswagen bus as a brand new driver scared to death and surrounded on all sides by semis. It was the same today, semis on all sides.

We took a quick exit off the highway for signs claiming “fresh sweet oranges” and the small family farm store and petting zoo. The Murray Farm had 20 varieties of citrus, all from their own groves, and the navels were just in. The owner said that they were six weeks late this year. There was a cooler with samples for all varieties including Meyer lemons and a very strange looking fruit called Buddha’s Hand, actually citron. I had no clue that the stuff in fruit cakes came from something that was this strange. I settled for a six buck bag of incredibly sweet navel oranges and we were again on our way.

As we climbed the grade, the smog began to thin a bit, and we were spared the worst of it by turning east on Highway 138, a direct road to the desert and the town of Lancaster. I lived in Lancaster in the 60’s, for just a few months, and for the life of me I couldn’t find a single thing that looked familiar. This sleepy town that once was barely 50,000 has now exploded to a strip mall metropolis of more than 150,000 people.

We thought about boondocking somewhere, but the landscape was broken up by private “ranchette’s”, and we didn’t have a BLM map with us. I pulled up the AllStays web site and began searching for campgrounds. There are surprisingly few places to camp in this area, but we found a state park due east about 17 miles from town and decided that 18 bucks for a dry campsite would be a close second to camping for free somewhere in the desert, and probably safer.

It was a great choice. Saddleback Butte State Park campground was completely empty except for a camp host. The park had shelters for the picnic tables, fire pits, water available, and even a dump station. We chose a spot near the northern part of the park, farthest from the camp host ( whom we never saw) and settled in.

An evening walk before sunset was perfectly quiet and we found beautiful Joshua Trees bigger than any we have seen. The park is a haven for desert wildlife, including the desert tortoise, various snakes and rodents, coyotes and even mountain lions. As night fell, the silence was perfect, the skies dark with a new moon, and the stars were brilliant. I brought some soup from home that made a perfectly simple supper and we settled into to complete darkness and silence for our first night in the desert.

For the rest of the photos, including several shots of the Saddleback Butte campground, click here.

Why we do it

2011-12-28T18:52:00.001-08:00

This:

Is why we do

This:

Oregon is beautiful, even in winter, but sometimes the desert calls and we just have to make the journey south to find that unknown “something” that is tucked away in desert landscapes. The trouble with this plan is that the deserts that are warm enough for winter camping require the long journey south through California.

I have stories to write, thoughts to put down, but tonight I am worn and the writing will come later. In the mean time, I am listening to the desert silence east of Lancaster where we are the only campers in a park containing 44 spaces. I need to go outside in the deep darkness and check the night skies, I need to listen for coyotes. Several hundred miles behind us now and we are slowing down, stopping to breathe and listen and be still. The desert does that.

The Coastal Route 101

2011-12-27T21:07:00.000-08:00

There are two major routes available to travelers attempting to traverse the length of California. I-5 is a straight shot from Oregon all the way south, fast, and unless you are skilled at paying attention to fine details, incredibly boring. Highway 101 on the other hand, is gorgeous, a winding road that narrows to two lanes fairly often, and skirts the edge of the Pacific at least part of the way.

When we left Trinidad in the morning, the skies were clear and the predicted rain nowhere in sight. We caught the early morning light gilding the waves and meandered through coastal forests intermingled with dunes, beaches, and hills shrouded in intermittent fog. It was my turn to drive, and with light traffic and beautiful scenery, I exclaimed over and over again, “I’m so glad we aren’t driving down the five again!”

The stretch I drove (hence no photos) all the way from Trinidad, through Eureka into Willits was paradise, and then things started to shift. The traffic got heavier, the drivers more aggressive, and we realized that we were no longer in heaven, we were in “the Bay Area”. Stopping on the side of the road near San Rafael, we switched drivers. Having lived south of San Francisco in Monterra for 25 years, bay area roads are familiar territory for Mo. She negotiated the lanes and the cars over the Golden Gate Bridge while I shot photos from crazy angles and navigated our route with a combination of the iPhone, the NUVI GPS, and the internet. Yes….the internet.

A week or so before we left, I decided to purchase a nifty little gadget called MiFi from Verizon. Last fall Laurie and Odel had theirs with them when visiting Rocky Point and it worked just fine. For a long time, high speed internet was an impossible dream out there in the forest, but lately a new tower has given us the delights of cell phone service. We still don’t have cable TV and my only option other than dial-up for the internet so far is HughesNet satellite, an expensive and fairly cumbersome system. Amazingly, the MiFi works great and I can actually do my work with it. And! it travels!! Yes!!

So far, it travels quite well and I have been having all sorts of fun doing internet stuff on the computer while Mo drives down the road. As we passed through San Francisco, I spent a bit of time searching out places to get cheap gas, found a restaurant to get some supper, and did some internet searches of possible boondock locations for Wednesday night in the desert. Thanks to Laurie for testing the Rocky Point Verizon bars, and to Randy for sending me a great email detailing how well the MiFi has worked for him while on the road.

For some reason, when planning the trip with Streets and Trips, I decided that we could make it to San Miguel in a day. I don’t remember seeing that it was nearly 500 miles, only that we could stay at the Camp Roberts Military Family Camp for ten bucks with full hookups. As the day progressed, we thought a few times about stopping earlier, but once we hit the bay area there really wasn’t a reasonable stopping point.

Mo did great, much better than I can do driving in the dark, and we pulled into the camp around 8pm. Now describing what it is like to drive into Camp Roberts in the dark is almost impossible. It is about two miles from the gate to the campground, and there is no light at all, and the road meanders around a portion of the camp that has been abandoned. Once we arrived, our reserved site was waiting, and setting up went smoothly, even with the tiny flashlight. No TV, and of course no internet, except I am now armed with Verizon and I had five bars of rip roaring speed. Amazing!

There are 22 sites in this camp, and there are absolutely no frills, but who cares?! I think we have paid ten bucks just to dump, much less camp. The highway runs parallel to the campground and is a bit noisy, but on a mid week dark night this time of year it wasn’t much of a problem. I read a scary post recently from Janna and Mike where someone attempted to hijack their toad while they were sleeping in the rig! Sure made me appreciate a reasonably safe place to park! We slept great and woke up early to 27 degrees showing on the thermometer and before the sun was all the way up it had dropped to 24. That is F, not C by the way. UhOh. Even though our little electric heater kept us cozy for the night, the outside water hose was frozen solid.

We still had plenty of water in the fresh tank and within a short time the sun brought the temperatures up dramatically. Mo thawed out the hose with the hair dryer, we cooked a good breakfast, and took our time getting back on the road since the day ahead was to be a short one.

San Miguel and Camp Roberts are just a few miles north of Paso Robles and our route east toward I-5 on highway 46. It was a fine stop for one night, but I surely wouldn’t want to actually camp there for any length of time. As we left the camp, I took photos of the abandoned buildings, and only in the distance did we see some nice buildings in good repair that were still in use. Mo did training at this camp back in the 80’s when she was in the Army Reserve, but she didn’t recognize much of what was left.

Traveling South

2011-12-26T19:53:00.000-08:00

Our departure from Rocky Point seemed easy. With hugs all around in the morning, and daughter and grandson on the road back to Portland, we left Christmas behind us. Without a speck of snow on the road at home, very little snow even on the pass at 5,200 feet, and clear skies to the west, the drive was simple. The prediction was for a huge rain storm to pummel the northwest, but we slipped out of town just in time to miss the entire thing.

The drive to Brookings is beautiful and simple, with only a short stretch of interstate between Medford and Grants Pass and the beautiful highway 199 through the Illinois Valley and along the Smith River to the coast. Reaching Brookings in mid afternoon, we were happy to see that the MoHo was still safely tucked away without any unexpected mishaps.

Except for the smell. I think I have read a lot about strange smells in RV’s, but we were sure that something had died in there. Mo checked all the mouse traps, the cupboards, and the basement, but found nothing. It didn’t smell like sewer, it smelled exactly like a dead thing in the wall. We opened up all the windows, turned on the fan and drove across town to Freddy’s to gas up with our ten cent discount. By the time we got there, the smell was almost bearable, but I surely wasn’t happy about it. I kept thinking something must have found it’s way into one of the waste water tanks.

The other moment of truth was when Mo hit the button to turn on the lights and…nada…nothing….not even a click. We tried the generator startup, again…not a click. Oh. yeah….we are supposed to hit that switch that takes the system out of storage and puts it back on “use”. Duh! Then after filling up we tried to hook up the baby car and hunted and hunted for the electrical connection cord that we keep under the drivers seat of the Tracker. No cord. Mo couldn’t figure out why in the world she would have taken it out but it was nowhere to be found. Until….she looked in back of the spare tire holder on the MoHo and lo and behold, it was right there where we decided last trip that it could stay all the time. Duh again! I guess that is what happens when we have almost two months between trips. As Mo said laughing, “Stupid Us”.

After a few hours of driving, the tank smells seemed to dissipate completely and with some extended reading we figured out that maybe we need to add something to our gray water tank the way we add to the black water tank when the rig is going to be stored for any length of time. Lots of folks out there have lots of suggestions about all this, so next time, (if we remember) we will be sure to follow some of those suggestions. AKA…water softener in the tanks, maybe some bleach down the drain, and who knows what else. I’ll have to go read again I guess.

We thought we might reach Eureka on the first evening, but then decided that it would be nicer to boondock somewhere a bit sooner since it was getting dark. I hate to pay for an expensive park when all I plan to do is sleep! I pulled up my trusty AllStays Camp and RV app on the phone and found a free OP site (overnight parking) within a few miles of where we were, near Trinidad, California. Within minutes we were comfortably parked in a very brightly lit casino rv lot, with a faucet for potable water if we needed it and very few folks around. A quick call to the Chere-Ae Casino confirmed that parking was free and we didn’t need to check in. It was late and dark by the time we arrived, so we managed to park for free without spending a single cent at the casino, in fact, we never even went inside!

Christmas

2011-12-25T07:57:00.000-08:00

I am writing this post from the comfy MoHo sofa waiting for the frozen water hose to melt. Of course, we are in California and it dropped to 25 degrees last night. Silly us. We saw rumors of freezing temperatures but kind of ignored them. Couldn’t be THAT bad, right? We are on the road again, but instead of writing about the trip (that will come in the next post), I wanted to write about Christmas. As the years go by, how would I ever remember where we were and what we did if I missed blogging it?!

For the first time I can remember, there was no snow in Rocky Point for Christmas. We had a month of gorgeous sunny clear days, short as they were, and cold temperatures, but not a single day of plowing or shoveling. It made for a good month for me to spend time decorating the house inside and out. Two comments from the day made it all worth while. My youngest said, “Thanks Mom, it finally feels like Christmas to me”. And my oldest said, “Thanks Mom for a true “mom” Christmas”.

The lack of snow made travel easier for everyone, and Deb and my grandson Matthew drove down from Portland on Friday without a hitch. It was wonderful having two nights with them here before Christmas, with time to just hang out together, eat good food, watch a sweet little movie, and have time to talk. Then on Christmas morning the rest of the local family, with Melody and Kevin, grandkids Hillary and Elric, and my sister Sally and my niece Savannah arrived early for our traditional family breakfast of eggs benedict.

The house was warm and festive with family all together laughing and talking and sharing stories. Something that happens all to rarely it seems, so I treasured every single moment of the entire day. After breakfast we opened packages and a highlight for me was the soft sculpture coyote that my granddaughter Hillary made for me. She couldn’t find a pattern so she just designed her own, personally designed and hand sewn. Hillary is an artist who spends much of her time drawing, so somehow she had the ability to picture something two dimensional turning into something three dimensional. Amazing to me, since I am the one that always had trouble with those shapes tests! Vocabulary and reading skills off the charts for me and forget the mechanical stuff! I failed miserably.

Since there was no snow, we settled on another family walk through the Rocky Point neighborhoods, amazed at the 40 degree temperatures and light skies. I hear that winter is coming with a vengeance this week, but lucky us, we missed it! Most of the family left just before dark on Christmas Day, but Deb and Matt waited to leave for Portland until Monday morning, just in time for Mo and I to pack up the baby car and leave Rocky Point behind for two weeks of traveling.

Of course, most of you know to hover over photos to see captions and click to enlarge the picture. For family who want to see the rest of the photos, click here for the web album on Picasa. It seems that these albums are also viewable on Google Plus for plus users as well. I made them visible to anyone interested.

Once all the Christmas hoop-de-do died down, I had some time to read some of the blogs and see all the wonderful Christmas posts from everyone. Beautiful. A belated Christmas to everyone and thanks for being part of my world.

Making a List

2011-12-18T12:13:00.001-08:00

Checking it twice. Christmas is almost here and it is time for the final lists: groceries, gifts sent, gifts still in the waiting, cards? yes or no. All the little details that go with this season. After two weeks off while I traveled to Florida, I now have two weeks working full time in order to prepare for our two weeks coming up in Desert Hot Springs. Something about this plan isn’t working that well. It seems as though all my time is spent working or traveling.

Where oh where do I find the time for the baking, the wrapping, the decorating? the Open House? All those special little pieces of the Christmas holiday that make me want to spend it at home in Rocky Point. The snow?? A mixed blessing, of course, with icy roads and shoveling always a part of it, but this year the snow has evaporated and no new snow is on the agenda before Christmas day. Nights are clear and cold and days are brilliantly sunny. It is gorgeous, but surely doesn’t look anything like Rocky Point at Christmas.

We even had the amazing gift of a perfectly clear dark morning to view the total eclipse of the moon. I packed up the camera and the tripod and Mo drove while we searched for some open sky among the trees. The temperature gauge in the truck read a clean 7 degrees F and my fingers had a hard time finding buttons on the camera in the dark. Still, we watched in awe at the heavenly sky treat, punctuated now and then with a shooting star to make it all the more dramatic.

So far, I seem to have at least managed the decorating part of Christmas at home. Mo and I have a lifetime of accumulated Christmas “things”, and as usual her collection is much smaller than mine. We agreed that anything that we couldn’t find a place for this year would get passed on, either to my kids if they want it or to Goodwill if they don’t. Needless to say, there are little treasures that have been tucked into places where we might not think to put any decorations, just because we want to keep the particular item. We are sticking to the rule: If there isn’t a place for it, it goes!

Case in point: all the Disney decorations that Mo had tucked away for at least 25 years. I put them on the little white tree with white lights and we set it in the laundry room next to the cat food. Works just fine with the white appliances and I think that Jeremy likes the lights while he is eating. Lucky for me, we also have porches where things can go. We have managed to eliminate several boxes of “stuff” and when we get back from the desert in January, the packing up of Christmas should be easier than it has in the past. Yeah, I still have my village, but am giving away a bunch more stuff when Christmas is over. I still have a tree inside the house, with my pears and partridges and special ornaments, and Mo still has all her keepsake ornaments from around the world on the green trees on the front porch, protected from weather and lit up at night. It all works.

I will have at least part of my family here for Christmas. Oldest daughter and my grandson are coming south from Portland for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day this year. Youngest daughter who lives in Klamath will be here with her family. Sister and niece might drive out if the snow continues to wait till January, she has 2 wheel drive and is scared to death of snowy roads. Middle daughter is hauling jet engines around the country with her husband in their big rig and will be here in spirit. Holidays off are not part of their trucking life right now. Son and his wife are tucked away in Missouri and a trip west in the winter won’t be on the agenda any time soon. Grandson and his wife and my great grandkids will be in Texas. Other grandson will be going to his father’s family up in Washington State. I have no idea when or if I will ever again have my entire family in one place at one time. I’m just grateful for the internet, email, and telephones to make keeping in touch with everyone so much easier.

I returned home from Florida just in time to attend the traditional Rocky Point Ladies Luncheon, where many of the men of our community volunteer to cook a special dinner for all the ladies, and some of the ladies volunteer to dress the tables in Christmas finery. It was a lovely day spent connecting with the folks who live out here that we don’t often see. The joke was that we show up now and then between travels to take a nap before we head off to some other destination. The favorite comment we get is, “Where are you two going next?”

In the midst of all this fun, I am finally knitting a sweater for my trucker daughter. I have had the yarn for almost two years now, and this time the promised sweater may get finished by her birthday at the summer solstice. Ah yes, I am NOT a fast knitter, especially with all these other projects in waiting. My quilt is sitting in a bin in the closet waiting for another chance to set up the sewing machine. Cookies and tarts are waiting to be made, and I found an online recipe for my favorite goodie from Starbucks, “Cranberry Bliss Bars” that will find their way into my Christmas pile of sweets and savories to share with the family.

I love Christmas. I plan to keep knitting, keep cooking, play some carols on my piano, and enjoy every single minute that I have with family and friends and sparkly lights in my living room.

Women and Dirt

2011-12-07T11:10:00.001-08:00

A dozen years ago, a great soil survey project leader and I had a joke. If a woman collected rocks at 3, refused to come inside out of the rain, and loved mud pies, she had the makings of a soil scientist. When I first traveled into the world of soil survey in the 70’s, women soil scientists were rare. Times have changed, and more than half of the young soil scientists in the field are now women.

I had the pleasure of working with one of these dirt loving young women when I managed my last project in the foothills of California. Of course, we insiders know that “dirt” and “soil” are two very different things, but sometimes insiders lovingly refer to our particular specialty as dirty. AKA, the bumper sticker that says “Do It In The Dirt” and other such silliness.

Alison came to me by way of Chicago, detailing to California to map soils when we were bringing people in from all over the country to help complete soil survey in areas as yet unmapped. Most of the eastern and central parts of the country have existing soil maps, but out west there are many areas with no certified soil information available. Alison came with enthusiasm and energy and brought a great work ethic to Sonora. Her nickname was “Scoopy”, since not one of us could dig a hole as fast as Alison, guys included! Of course, the fact that she has run 10 marathons (including the Boston Marathon twice) probably helps.

Why am I talking about Alison on the travel blog? Because visiting in Florida gives me a chance to spend a day hanging with a fellow soil scientist who has also become a good friend. Alison left Chicago and took a well deserved promotion to Florida and loves it. With a project office in Tavares, a beautiful new home in Eustis, near the charming town of Mt Dora, and a life filled with year round running routes, Alison is happy. Her husband Matt has settled in as well, teaching marimba and music from their home, although he does mourn the loss of easy access to university culture.

With 8 days available for Bel I didn’t feel badly about taking a day on my own to drive south for a visit. Once again the open space of the roads around Ocala amazed me. Traveling east on 40 and then turning south on 19 led me through the Ocala National Forest and miles of traffic free highway. I passed Juniper Springs and Alexander Springs, remembering stories from Karen and Al’s blog about their camping sites in this part of Florida and day dreaming once again of the time when I will be here with Mo and the MoHo and the kayaks.

It was wonderful seeing Alison, laughing about some of our shared soil survey stories, catching up on good inside gossip about fellow crew members and work in general as we walked around her favorite little sinkhole close to her home. The area has been fenced and protected and has a great trail around the ravine through some lovely habitats. Why we were walking enjoying the warm breezes, Alison came up with a line that I loved. “People say we don’t have mountains in Florida, but we do…they are just up in the sky.” She said that watching the huge cumulus clouds build in the afternoons always gives her the chance to look up and appreciate the scenery.

Matt joined us for a drive to Mt Dora for lunch at the little French restaurant with a lovely patio and live music. Mt Dora is a storybook town, with surprising hills surrounding several lovely lakes lined with beautiful homes. Just down the road from the main part of town is the lakefront and boardwalk giving us another wonderful walk through the woods with views of the water. I still am trying to take photos of “velvet air” to no avail. I think a real photo challenge is getting a picture that evokes that feeling. Still haven’t managed it, but I keep trying.

Mt Dora was quite busy on this Sunday afternoon, with many people shopping the cute shops and stores. The Christmas music was piped outside with strains of “White Christmas” serenading the 80 degree balmy weather. Floridians really get into the Christmas thing, and the decorations are everywhere. Must be all those retired New Englander’s missing their homeland, but not enough to actually go back and weather the awful winters. I found a perfect Christmas flag that has eluded me, a sturdy applique two sided flag with good colors. Even an internet search didn’t yield anything I wanted. I will hang it in the snow at Rocky Point and remember this warm, delightful afternoon in Mt Dora.

Bel is doing well, medications are current, her health has improved a bit with the help of “Heart of Florida” in Ocala, and I had a chance to meet her neighbors and exchange contact information. Bel’s laptop is running well and she is getting used to using the mouse and Windows 7. She now knows how to get online, either in her back yard with a local internet from an agreeable neighbor, or a couple of miles away at Wendy’s.

By the way, Wendy’s is a really great connection spot, none of that interface stuff that happens at McDonalds, and a really fast connection. I have learned to search out a Wendy’s when I need to get online and don’t want any hassles. Wish I had a connection that fast at home!

I talk to Mo every day, and home has been uneventful. The night temps are in the teens with daytime highs in the low 40’s at best. I have enjoyed the break, the warmth, the sunshine, but I am ready to get back home to my real life. Time to haul wood, hug the dog and the cat, hang the flag, have cable TV and an internet connection again, and work in my home office in my pajamas.

Florida Velvet

2011-12-04T13:53:00.000-08:00

Florida Velvet Air, at least that is how it feels to me. This morning I somehow slept in until 8:30 and when I woke the breezes were billowing puffy whites around a blue bird sky and the air felt like velvet on my skin. The prediction for today is in the 70’s. Bel and I ambled (yes I amble a lot with Bel) downtown to visit the Ocala Farmers Market in the historic town square. Just last night, we visited the same square to walk around the downtown streets for the First Friday Art Walk of Ocala.

So much seems to have changed around here in the last ten years or so that I have been visiting, but so much also remains the same. Fort King Street is still beautiful, lined with stately old Southern homes embraced by gnarled oak arms that cover entire city lots.

The square this morning was vibrant with color and happy people enjoying the sunlight and fresh food. I love seeing the painted horses from the Horse Fever event a few years ago. I think one of them actually auctioned for 80,000 bucks that went to the art council here.

Yesterday afternoon we slipped to the west side of town searching for a rib truck. Fabulous sweet sticky ribs, dripping with juice, served with yellow rice and green beans full of bacon fat. We sat on the picnic table in the parking lot and slurped up the amazing stuff watching lots of local folks dropping in to pick up supper in huge to-go bags.

I didn’t have the camera with me, sadly, because as we left the parking lot and tried to keep off the main route, I managed to slide into a part of Ocala people don’t talk about much.

In spite of all the years that have intervened, in spite of the fact that Ocala used to have a black mayor, this part of town could have come directly from the pre-sixties. My time warp again. Women on porches looking worn and sad, young men looking angry and sullen, tiny black ladies the color of ink walking slowly with carts and old sweaters. I know we have segregated neighborhoods out west, I have traveled in them in most cities, but there is something very different in the south, something residual, and it was disturbing. Poverty is disturbing wherever you find it, I guess.

After the market, this morning we dropped into a couple of downtown shops, Ocala Traditions, with gorgeous displays of fine china, sterling, and crystal set up on beautiful tables, and the Paddock, a large, wonderful store dedicated entirely to horses, hounds, racing, and fox hunting. Ocala is still the horse capital of the world (they insist it rivals Kentucky) and this shop catered directly to the genteel owners of the beautiful horse farms that surround the area. Those at least that haven’t been converted to gated communities with million dollar homes. After all, John Travolta hangs out here and lives just north in Anthony in a community that lets him land his jumbolair jet. I guess the difference between all this genteel southern stuff and that neighborhood we were in yesterday is still in the back of my mind.

As the afternoon slides by, the sun is still warm, I have downloaded all the photos and will eventually get down to Wendy’s to catch up on email and blogs and such. The time warp is definitely back again…I have no idea what time it actually is right now…maybe I’ll go for a walk.

Time stops in Florida

2011-12-03T13:36:00.001-08:00

It probably doesn’t help that I just finished reading Stephen King’s novel “11-22-63” about traveling around in time. When I am here in Florida, I somehow feel as though I have stepped into a time-warp of sorts. Bel isn’t working, and her days seem to run together in a flow of cat food plates, letting kitties in and out of the door, a break for a cigarette, more cat play, and short store runs.

The first day I was here we delivered prescriptions to Wal-Mart. The second day I stood in line to pick them up, almost an hour for that process. Today we ambled mid-day down to Staples so I could buy a computer mouse for the laptop I sent her last month.

Tonight I think we are going to go downtown to see the First Friday Art Walk at the Downtown Square in Ocala. Those of you who know me, or even those who have read my stories for a bit of time, know that I usually am kind of attached to “getting stuff done”.

My job when here with Bel is to slow myself down and listen. To sit and knit, and wait until the time is right to do whatever I can manage to do to try to be a good friend to Bel. Yeah, it wears me out. I am not the least bit in control of anything at all. Bel’s conversation wanders, and I learn to wander along with her and learn not to tell her what she needs to do or when or how. Any idea how very hard that is for a type A person like me??!!

A good part of this morning was taken up with bathing. Bel doesn’t use her hot water heater, instead she heated up pans of water and provided me with several gallon jugs of perfectly warmed bath water to use in the shower. After 5 jugs I had a truly fabulous shower, clean hair including conditioner, and it felt just great. Reminded me of camping.

Yesterday after picking up the prescriptions I just couldn’t quite make myself go back to the house and instead I said, “How bout a trip to Micanopy”. Bel complied, as long as I stop for smoke breaks and make sure she has plenty of Mountain Dew, she is fine with a couple of hours or so in the car.

The sun was brilliant and warm coming through the car windows, and within minutes of Wal-Mart we were driving north on 336 toward Anthony and then on to MacIntosh and Micanopy, the “other” Florida. On the way, we passed through Citra, stopping for huge sweet oranges fresh from the trees.

When I was traveling the Alaska Highway, my favorite parts were the stretches without any other cars on the road and somehow in this part of Florida I get those same moments, minus the mountain grandeur of course, but still. Open road…no cars…either direction. The live oaks stretch across the road, dripping with gray Spanish moss, with vines meandering through the branches, catching all the light and reflecting it back like stained glass.

Micanopy is very nearly silent, quiet in the way it seems that only a southern town can be. Big old houses, old brick buildings now selling antiques, a bed and breakfast here and there, an ice cream shop. We park in the shade and walk the streets before being told by a storekeeper about the Thursday chicken and dumpling special across the street at the café. The bowl is styrofoam, but the chairs are “real” naugahyde and the chicken and dumplings are true south.

On the way back home, we stop at Lowe’s for something or other and are sidetracked by the garden shop, filled with blooming plants and flowers on this winter day in Florida. Bel, with her wacky sense of humor, finds a pink plastic flamingo and takes it for a ride in her cart until she finds a proper resting place for the poor guy. Time has stopped again. My real life seems far away and unreachable, in spite of the daily phone calls home. I feel a bit loose, a bit disoriented. My friendship with Bel is from another life, one I barely remember, yet still meaningful and important to honor. So here I am, in Florida, in the time warp.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-25T07:52:00.001-08:00

Here in Rocky Point Black Friday is actually black. The sun has yet to rise, and I have no plans whatsoever to tackle all that crazy shopping that is going on out there in the world today. I woke with the disquieting feeling that I was terribly behind for who knows what reason. Yesterday was a beautiful day, one of the smallest Thanksgiving dinners I have ever hosted, though not as small as many full-time folks who managed a great dinner for two from the compact kitchens of their rigs.

My children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are scattered across the country, and as the years go by it gets harder and harder to get everyone together for the holidays. For many years I managed huge dinners shared with extended family and friends. Times change, and the delights of a small, intimate dinner can be wonderful as well, as I discovered yesterday with my celebration for five.

I cooked ahead with the same fervor I would have if serving fifteen, but with much less food. The morning was beautiful with sunlight and light winds blowing the pines around, temperatures in the 40’s. Melody and her family thought we would be sledding as usual on Thanksgiving Day, instead there were only a very few residual piles of snow at the base of steep roofs and the lawn showing beautiful green grass. NOT a usual occurrence in November in Rocky Point.

Communication was different as well. Although the phone was busy for much of the day, with long distance visits from my kids and friends, I also read emails, read blog posts from full time travelers, saw photos of pies and turkeys from all over the country on Facebook and Google+. Our communication is different but some things never change. The smell of the turkey as it roasts, the delight of pies on the table, and the warmth of family hugs as the front door opens to the brisk fall air and coats and shoes are shed at the door.

We sat together holding hands before our meal, each saying what we are most thankful for, a long time tradition for us. Some roll their eyes at this, others embrace it fully. My 18 year old granddaughter said “Grandma, I practiced for this”, and then proceeded to voice her thanks in words that made me cry.

With no snow for sledding, we instead took “the family walk” between dinner and pie, also a long time tradition for our family. Just enough to convince us that we were indeed working off all those pie calories, and of course we knew better but it didn’t matter in the least. It was a lovely day and I am so grateful that in the midst of busy life and busy world, there is always family and shared traditions.

Back to that feeling of being terribly behind? I need to work today, finalize the last few weeks for the California survey before I move to the next few weeks working for Oregon again. I hope to take down all the fall decorations. The brilliant fall colors have brightened the house for the last two months, and I love them, but Christmas is coming. I need to get out the Christmas stuff. My quilt is waiting to be finished, the fabric for a dress I want to make is crying to be cut.

Instead, tomorrow, Mo and I must travel to Northern California once again for a memorial for Mo’s fabulous Uncle Don, who passed away recently. Sad to lose such an amazing man, WWII and Korean Conflict pilot who actually passed away on Veteran’s Day. We will visit my sweet mother-in-law who lives in the same area and return on Sunday. Hopefully I will find time to pack Sunday afternoon for my trip to Florida on Tuesday. Once again I will be off to Ocala, to spend some time with my long time friend Bel. In between all this, on Monday, I get to visit the dermatologist for one of those fun outcomes to a youth spent in Southern California sun and a lifetime of an outdoor career.

Writing has slipped again. I suppose I may never actually manage the day by day, blow by blow description of our last cruise to New England. Instead, I hope to actually write about the last three weeks that included a fabulous visit with my life-time friend Maryruth in Oroville, California. I drove past Shasta on a gorgeous sunny day and spent four wonderful days to a girly weekend of spa and our favorite hand and foot game. I started that blog post yesterday, and when I opened up LiveWriter this morning decided instead that I needed to write about Thanksgiving, before it slips into that accumulated list of life moments that are as yet unwritten.

Another Rocky Point Sunday

2011-11-13T18:50:00.001-08:00

The air has finally started moving again, and as I look outside the bedroom window I can see the last of the leaves twisting in the breeze. There is snow on the ground, still, from our foot of snow dropped a week ago, but it is thinning. Not that bad, really, for mid November. Sometimes during this time of year in our part of the world the air gets still and cold, with fog from the basin around the edges of the lake and smoke from the slash piles and prescribed burns making the air murky. It was like this for a week or so, and then a couple of nights ago the winds started blowing, dropping pine needles into the snow like pick-up sticks, and clearing the air. I love the sound of the wind at night.

Check out that great new stain on the house! The job is finally finished, with the crew coming to put the last touches on the last day before the snow fell. They did a great job, but we certainly weren’t very happy with the amount of time they spent doing it. The job was started in late September and only finished on November 3rd. Sometimes the crew wouldn’t come out until mid afternoon and only stay a couple of hours before leaving. We live a long way from town and we could never figure out how the contractor expected to make money doing business like that. Maybe he had too many jobs going on at once and was trying to keep everyone happy. Whatever. At least the job is finished and the house looks great and we didn’t have to do it ourselves!

On November 1st, Mo and I traveled west to Brookings for three gorgeous days on the beautiful sunny coast. On Monday, the 31st, Mo turned to me and asked, “Remind me again why we couldn’t leave for Brookings today?”. Halloween, silly! I had to be home for Halloween with my kids, actually the kids are only part of it. The rest of the story is the wonderful tradition of walking on the dark sidewalks filled with happy costumed families on Pacific Terrace, where I used to live in Klamath Falls. One more time I met my daughter and grandkids to walk through crispy leaves, smell the popcorn that one family hands out every year from their outdoor popcorn machine, and be amazed at all the wonderful decorations that line the street for a mile in each direction. There is no better place to be at Halloween than Pacific Terrace in Klamath Falls.

When we left Tuesday morning for the coast, the weather was incredible. Blue skies all the way, without even a hint of fog over the ocean to mar the views. We went immediately to Harris Beach State Park, hoping for one of the ocean view sites, only to discover that those sites were all taken, even on a weekday in November! Instead, we settled into a roomy spot just across the road from those premium sites, power and cable and water for 22 bucks and still a great ocean view.

Our main purpose for the trip was to get the MoHo settled in to her storage berth, so we immediately went to meet the owner to be sure that the unit was easily accessible. Turns out that it is just fine, and when we slid the MoHo in on Thursday morning before traveling back to Rocky Point, it was a piece of cake.

In the mean time, we spent a good deal of time looking at possible properties in the Brookings area, but none were just right for what we wanted. Still, it was fun driving up the Chetco River to look, and then to the north end of town, just hoping for the right combination of view, price, and of course a big RV storage shed to appear. We took some wild rambling roads and were surprised to discover that many roads around Brookings are incredibly narrow and steep. Saw a spot with a gorgeous view of the ocean, with the words “great for a two story cottage”. That should have been a clue, since the property was on the side of a mountain with just enough flat ground for a very tiny home, and no space for an RV shed.

We saw another truly beautiful home and giant perfect RV shed with a gorgeous view, and an unbelievable 8 foot deer fence surrounding almost all the property, enclosing 50 roses and some beautiful gardens. The price was OK, but then there was more than 5 acres that needed subdividing, with some weird garages with no windows and with people actually living in them! Very strange. All a bit too complicated, and we laughed and said, “Let’s go find the fish and chips”. Once more we went to the Chetco Café down in Harbor where the ambience is certainly funky but the fish was as perfect as last time, thin thin very crispy perfect coating on tender, flavorful perfect fish. Yum. And a decent white wine at 3 bucks a glass. Can’t beat it.

We spent the next day relaxing, or I should say Mo relaxed while I went into town to use the coffee shop internet for a work conference. Finally in the afternoon we headed for the gorgeous, sunny beach. Dinner was a perfect steak brought from home and a great campfire and then a walk that took us to the campsite of some local Rocky Point friends who just happened to be camping there as well. They invited us in to their fire, offered more wine and conversation, and the evening stretched out to the late hours with fun and laughter. Seems as though Harris Beach is a pretty popular place for most of us.

On Thursday, once the MoHo was settled in to the storage unit, we drove north to take the back road route from Gold Beach through Agness and back to Grants Pass. The road is called the Bear Camp Coastal Route, and is not maintained after November 5 through the winter and spring. We made it just in time. Although on the map the road looks like it should be a short fast way back home, in reality, it is steep and slow and absolutely beautiful. It follows the Rogue River to Agness then climbs the coast mountains before dropping back down to the Rogue near Hellsgate. Even in the Tracker, the road was a bit daunting, especially on the passenger side. It was beautiful, though, and while we may not have to do it again soon, I am glad I finally got to see the famous route over the mountains. Let me just say, DO NOT ever even think of driving this road in any kind of motorhome!

That morning Brookings was shrouded in clouds with rain coming down and snow predicted for the mountains above 4,000 feet. Sure enough at the top of the route we ran into some snow, some deer, and even a bear! I WILL learn to keep my camera in my lap and on, but instead, at the bear moment, Jeremy was snoozing in my lap and the camera was on the floor. By the time we got home, there was fresh snow over the pass on 140 but no snow yet in Rocky Point. We would have loved to stay longer in Brookings, but too many details awaited us and thank goodness the heaviest snow held off till our Friday errands were run and we were safely back at home. I can’t believe how lucky we were to get in just under the wire with the first really big snowstorm arriving the day we put the MoHo in storage in snowless Brookings. Perfect.

I spent last weekend cutting and sewing strips for my very first quilt. It was a perfect day to be playing with brightly colored fabric with the dark skies and falling snow. It is just a simple panel, with borders, and I got all the borders on and am now attempting to learn how to do the machine quilting part. Mo is worried that I will now start collecting fabric the way I collect yarn. Hopefully I will refrain from getting too carried away with all this.

I have been knitting, and quilting, and working soil survey stuff, and somehow the time to write has slipped. Winter is here, life has simplified a bit for now, and I am enjoying that a lot.

Sunday test only

2011-11-13T15:43:00.001-08:00

Seems as though Live Writer can't get to the blog today. Since I have been remiss in posting and finally managed, I am bugged that the thing refuses to go up. So this is a test to see if I can make a post directly from draft blogger. Just a test. minus the photo that I just tried to add and it wouldn't add it. sigh. Thanks for the comments, guys, I can see this post as well, but the dang LiveWriter post is still grinding away after more than an hour. Hopefully it will work eventually, since I haven't created a post with photos, formatting, etc here on draft blogger in at least two years and I am sure it would look like ...well...excrement?

Rocky Point Sunday

2011-10-30T09:53:00.001-07:00

No, I still haven’t put together the rest of the stories about our cruise. Hopefully I can get motivated on that project before I completely forget all the little details. Instead, we arrived home last Sunday night and Monday morning I immediately went to work at my “real” part time job, the one that needs to have 40 good hours of attention every two weeks. Working from home is great, as long as the home computer does its thing without hitches. Instead, my old Dell computer running XP (for the government software) decided to burp and then basically throw up. So it was off to town for me and a couple of days working on the reliable government computer at my official office. I am lucky in that my bosses have all agreed that it is smart to have a real workstation available for me here in Klamath Falls, even though I technically work for Portland, Oregon, for Davis, California, for Sonora, California and for Klamath Falls, 30 miles away from my home in Rocky Point.

After some serious time with my computer guru in town, we managed to get the Virtual PC XP operating system working inside my new Windows 7 Dell. I only barely understand what is going on here, but with this system, I can actually install the government (XP only) software on my new machine. Good thing, since my old machine is still at the computer guru’s house getting gutted. Possibly too much information here for anyone but Rick, but what the heck, I need to have an excuse for not writing about the cruise yet! Back home with a working system and functioning software the rest of my work week went just fine.

I didn’t write, but managed to try to keep up at least a little bit on the blog world. Something interesting appeared that I thought would be fun to check out. It seems that several RV bloggers have dogs that are some kind of blue heeler, or blue heeler mix. We have figured out that Abby is mostly blue heeler with cocker spaniel overtones. Check out Travel with the Whippets and read their stories about the ability of their dog Bandido to disembowel any toy in a matter of minutes. Hmm. Abby does that. Check out Pheebs over on Al’s website. Al has regaled us with stories of the Pheeb’s energy repeatedly since she became a part of the Bayfield Bunch family. Abby. Another story, that I seem to have lost track of, talked about another heeler’s separation anxiety and panic attacks when left for even a moment in a car or a house. Again. Abby. Could it be possible that all this energy, toy destruction, separation anxiety and absolute complete devotion is a characteristic of the blue heeler breed? Just a thought.

The colors have changed here in Rocky Point, just a bit later than last year, but still beautiful. In fact, the aspens seem to have more pink and orange tones than usual. I thought that the pink color in an aspen was related to the variety, but some of these trees are usually just yellow and this year are many shades of pink and orange, so I guess my original thought is completely wrong. Back to aspen research, I guess. In the mean time, I am just really enjoying all our fall color right here at home after traveling clear across the country and missing out on most of the seasonal brilliance on the east coast.

The burning season has opened again for a short time and yesterday Mo raked some pine needles while I cleaned out the greenhouse. Mo also tore up the old boards on the back cabin deck that need replacing and built a very serious bonfire with them. Just one whiff of that wonderful wood smoke reminded me of hot dogs. Yes, hot dogs. I said, “We have some dogs and buns in the freezer, let’s do it!” Within minutes we had defrosted the dogs and buns in the microwave, skewered the dogs to the end of the pitchfork, drug the chairs to the bonfire and had ourselves a quick, impromptu perfect hot dog supper. I’m not on the diet officially any more, but still doing the maintenance thing, so Abby lucked out and got 2/3 of my bun.

I noticed as we were enjoying this wonderful home moment that I had no desire to run for the camera, to turn it into a blog moment, fully documented. I just wanted to enjoy the bonfire, the fall leaves in the background, the smell of wood smoke. So, no photos, but still worth writing about so I don’t forget how wonderful simple moments can be. Last night in the hot tub there was no moon to dim the brilliance of the stars.

Today we will continue a few outside maintenance jobs and start to load up the MoHo for the short trip to Brookings. This year the snow has held off for us, unlike the east coast and unlike last year. We as yet have no snow at home or on the passes, so our journey to the coast will be in time. With night temperatures dropping into the teens and the MoHo un-wintered, we will be glad to get her safely to storage where the temperatures don’t go below freezing. A couple of nights at Harris Beach and some days walking the sands will be fun.

Cruising New England with Princess

2011-10-23T10:25:00.001-07:00

We are comfortably settled in to our room at the Ramada Inn in Reno, great view of town, comfy bed, fat pillows, inexpensive breakfast downstairs, and screaming fast free WiFi on the tenth floor. One of the disadvantages of living in the west is the dearth of cruise ports, meaning if we are to cruise anywhere but Alaska or Mexico, we have to fly east to board a ship. Yesterday was a very long day, awake at 5 or so as we sailed into New York Harbor, then the long process of disembarkation, airport shuttles, airport security and time changes. We definitely needed a good night’s sleep before getting on the road today and traveling back to Klamath Falls.

I plan to write about each day of the cruise in the next few days. For those who do follow along using the various blog rolls, those posts will not show up because I plan to set the post date for the actual cruise day. A heads up in case you are interested in reading about this particular cruise. Just pop over to the archives and there you will find titles based on the date and the port. Eventually.

This morning I tried to count cruises, and I think this was the 8th one for me, and the 3rd cruise on Princess. To say it was disappointing might be an exaggeration, but to call it memorable would be a serious stretch. We have discussed a bit just what we missed on this cruise, and came to the conclusion that it was that sense of luxury that makes a cruise so enticing that we missed most.

In fairness, the Caribbean Princess was a beautiful ship, one of the biggest in the Princess fleet with 3200 passengers on board. The common areas were lovely, the ship spotlessly clean, the staff friendly and accomplished. Our stateroom was roomy and the balcony a nice amenity, our steward unobtrusive in the background, but everything was done well.

What I missed most was truly great food. The Palms dining room was basically adequate, but not spectacular. In fact, it was so nondescript that I felt no need to take food photos or even document the menu for the day. The one night that we passed on the dining room and chose to eat at the Horizon Court Buffet was a huge mistake. If we thought the dining room was bland, that was before we had the truly awful supper at the buffet. Another time when Mo decided to try the Calypso deck pizza for a late lunch was a huge bust, with crust that competed directly with thin cardboard and toppings thin enough to match. Ugh.

In addition to the bland and boring food, there were no great artistic presentations, beautiful ice sculptures, carved fruit, not a single special deck food event, not a midnight buffet or dessert extravaganza. Breakfast was tolerable, but the pastries were dry and nondescript as well, the bacon greasy and flavorless and the fruit not very sweet. ah well. It isn’t just about the food, but it should be at least more fun than a local cheap buffet restaurant. After paying big bucks for a cruise it just irritates me that to get a good meal we are expected to pay 25 per person extra for a meal in the steak house or the Italian restaurant.

We chose this cruise to see New England in the fall, minus the traffic. New England wasn’t in much of a mood for color, however, and we only saw a little bit of color here and there. That certainly has nothing to do with the cruise line, of course, but was still disappointing. We also discovered that when booking a cruise, we need to be sure that there are sea days spaced in between ports. Day after day of walking and exploring new places left us fairly well exhausted without much time to actually enjoy that relaxing thing that can happen on a longer cruise. Next time it will be a longer trip, with more sea days, probably somewhere WARM, and probably with a different cruise line.

I will save my leaf peeping for a time when we are willing to drive to the east coast and visit with the friends I have there. Yes, the traffic will be awful, the roads narrow, the campgrounds expensive. Hopefully when we do it we can take our time and follow the leaves on their terms. I do so much love hardwood forests and want to see them in their full glory of color.

There were definitely high points in some of the ports. I loved seeing Newport, Rhode Island, a place I barely heard of before we spent the day walking the town and the Cliff Walk. The weather was gorgeous, the town lovely. Boston was a treat, and we walked all day and enjoyed a wonderful bowl of truly good clam chowder at Cheers. The beautiful surprise of the trip was Bar Harbor, (or as I am told Bah Hahbah) Maine, on Mt Desert Island, home to Acadia National Park. We WILL return to Bar Harbor and the park someday with the motorhome and take our time exploring the breathtaking Maine coast.

Saint John in New Brunswick was an interesting city, with very old stone buildings and nice shopping. We don’t do cruises for the shopping, however, but we did enjoy seeing the Bay of Fundy in spite of the overcast day and dingy buildings. Halifax Nova Scotia was a complete bust, with our ship’s captain making the decision that 50 knot winds and 14 foot seas would not make for a comfortable ride. Instead we were routed into Portland, Maine. Docking in the rain, we looked out over the gloomy city with apprehension. Once walking around, however, we enjoyed the town and even found some great Mexican food to offset all that bland stuff we had been eating on the ship. Hot salsa and more jalapenos please in my lobster quesadilla!

Here in Reno the sun is shining and the skies are clear with temperatures predicted to be in the 70’s. Our route home via 395 will be beautiful, and we are both really looking forward to picking up the dog and the cat at the Double C and getting back home to our cozy house in the forest. We miss the MoHo as well, and the expense of this trip, the uncomfortable hard bed with a lumpy foam topper surely reminded us that RV travel is the true luxury, even if I do have to cook my very own fabulous food. At least it is fabulous and tasty!

I hear that the aspens are turning in Klamath, and am looking forward to seeing how our trees are doing and if the green tomatoes I put on the counter before we left have turned red. I look forward to writing about our port visits and having the time to review the photos as I think about what we enjoyed most about this cruise.

The beginning and the end

2011-10-15T07:36:00.001-07:00

It is the beginning of our New England cruise trip but the end is all about the last hour of our flight to New York’s La Guardia airport! Our non-stop flight from Denver was 3 hours of simplicity until we reached the east coast, until we reached New York, where there was a wild mess of storms that spawned tornados in Virginia. Thinking of Erin and Mui, of course, and hoping you two didn’t get hit by all that wind.

We circled over La Guardia for almost an hour with rumors of a diversion to some smaller airport who knows where before the pilot finally received the notice that we could land. The turbulence was a bit exciting, and watching the plane circle around those big thunderheads made for some interesting views. Our seatmate was a frequent flier from New York, you know, those kind of folks that are supposed to be so calm and jaded?? This lady was NOT calm, and with every jump of the plane she screamed and even said once, “I want my mother!”

Even though I had my camera packed and buried, I suddenly remember “airplane mode” and the camera in the iPhone 4 (no not the 4s yet) and pulled it out for some great photos of truly dramatic clouds. Once we landed, it was amazing to me how one dimensional the cloudy sky appeared compared to the three dimensional shape changing views as we circled.

We began our trip with a nice drive from home to Reno, down 139 to 395 into the wide open dry and very warm deserts. Staying at the Ramada, with the Park and Fly option, our room only cost 79. with all the taxes and ten days of parking for the car, including free shuttle to the airport. The room was lovely, and just 12 blocks from downtown where we parked right on the street near the Silver Legacy Casino. After dropping a bit to support Nevada in the slot machines we found dinner at Sterlings Steakhouse. A bit of a sticker shock didn’t stop us, though, and we proceeded to have one of the finest dinners we have had in a long time. In addition to perfectly mesquite fired steaks, our dinners came with amazingly seasoned spaghetti squash, butternut squash, snap peas, and sautéed spinach. Yum and double wow!

My daughter has supported me through the 40 days of 500 calories a day, and now I am on maintenance, and wow, maintenance is so much fun, Deborah! Somehow skipping the bread and potato and dessert didn’t feel a bit like any kind of suffering at all. Can you believe I brought my scale along on this cruise and will be watching daily? I don’t want to mess up all that hard work, and this morning somehow I was down another 2 pounds. Yay for Deborah and all her encouragement!

Our flight from Reno left at 6am, calling for a 3am wake up call and a dark ride to the airport. Check-in was simple, and security in Reno wasn’t the least bit daunting and we were in the air as the sun rose over the Rockies. Denver is a huge airport, but lucky for us we didn’t have to change terminals so spent a lovely 90 minutes wandering the great shops and eating some more of last night’s yummy dinner that I carried with me.

Once in New York, an hour late, we called the Comfort Inn shuttle to pick us up. No lost baggage was a relief, and in a short time we were settled into our very tiny room. Here in New York, the rooms aren’t cheap, with 157 dollars, yes that is US dollars, for our one night here. We are actually in East Elmhurst, Queens, not far from the airport. The room is at least very clean, but the bed is a bit hard and as I said, it is TINY! I guess that must be a New York thing.

We walked a couple of short blocks to the local recommended restaurant, Joey’s, an Italian place. A glass of wine and some simple antipasto with a ceasar salad was the perfect ending for a long day. We were entertained by a couple of big Italian guys at the table next to us speaking rapid Italian. I realized that on the west coast where we live there aren’t a lot of Italian neighborhoods, except maybe in San Francisco.

I have never been to New York before and am looking forward to our drive to the Brooklyn pier today and a gorgeous sunny, if windy view of the Statue of Liberty as we sail from the harbor tonight.

My blogging mentor comes to Rocky Point!

2011-10-09T10:38:00.001-07:00

I am reasonably certain that just about anyone dropping in to read my blog already reads Laurie and Odel’s blog, Semi-True Tales of our Life on the Road. I read Laurie’s blog long before I knew there was such a thing as an RV blogging community, and when we met in person in 2010, Laurie gave me a ton of pointers on how to do a blog, and where to find some of the other bloggers I might like to read. My “stretch” format for this blog was stolen almost directly from Laurie, with her permission and help of course.

Our paths have crossed a few times, and it was with great delight that I discovered they planned to be here on Saturday before leaving Oregon for the season on their way back to California. I spoke to the weather gods, who teased me with early morning freezing fog before bringing on a gorgeous, wind free, sunny day in the mid-60’s. Perfect kayaking weather! Especially for someone not familiar with that unsteady feeling when you get in a kayak for the first time.

“Just like a bicycle”, I told Odel. Watching that first wiggle as Odel got used to the boat reminded me of my first time after we bought the kayaks. I remember thinking, “OMIGOSH, I will never be able to do this”. Within minutes, Odel was racing along like a pro, although the exceedingly calm waters without a lick of current were probably a bit helpful. I was so busy worrying about Odel in that first few moments that I have no clue how Laurie did as Mo helped her first launch. I am pretty sure it was flawless, though, because I heard no splashes or exclamations in the background and when I finally looked up, Laurie was racing along even faster than Odel.

We spent a couple of hours meandering down to Harriman Springs, laughing and talking and enjoying every minute of the gorgeous sunshine and bluebird skies. Turns out it was opening day for duck hunting season and we were entertained by men in camouflage and boats that looked like some sort of grass hut plying the waters out to the main part of Klamath Lake where they could shoot. Lucky for us, there was no shooting in Pelican Bay or down Harriman Creek, and the white pelicans just meandered around as if everything was just fine. Surprisingly, we didn’t see many ducks, and from what they said, neither did the hunters!

After our kayak, we walked the short distance to the Rocky Point restaurant, still quiet enough in the early afternoon that we snagged the perfect windowside table for our refreshments. The laughing and conversation continued until we all realized that our late lunch/early supper plans were turning into much later than originally thought. We drove back to the house with hungry bellies. Before long Mo had the baby BBQ going and I had a Copper River salmon filet on a plank with a new homemade citrus rub I decided to try. Our guests brought some great Chardonnay to flesh out the meal. Dessert was a big adventure, since I decided to try the new “thing” that seems to be going around food circles recently. Fresh strawberries with a good 18 year old balsamic vinegar over vanilla ice cream. The real kicker to this recipe is the call for fresh black pepper. Yes, that is pepper! I was chicken to put it on, but in a flash Odel had that pepper shaker out and was peppering the ice cream with abandon.

His bravery inspired the rest of us, and amazingly, it was really good! Mo, who is the least adventurous eater among us, opted for chocolate on her vanilla. I offered my little bit of leftovers in my bowl (yeah I am still dieting and only ate a tiny bit!) to Mo, who smiled and said, “I’ll bet Abby will like this.” Abby of course, thought it was great, pepper and all.

Here is a map of where we kayaked today.

A few more photos of our visit are linked here.

Happy October Everyone!

October Heaven

2011-10-02T11:05:00.001-07:00

As much as I love the delight of Spring, I don’t think there is any time of year in Rocky Point more beautiful than early fall. Our springs can be wet and cold, and when they warm a bit, the mosquitoes tend to visit. Mosquitoes bring bats of course, a good thing, except a bit unnerving when they swoop down from the eaves while we are in the hot tub. As summer progresses, the frogs proliferate like the proverbial rabbits, tiny little green guys lining up on door sills, and sometimes sneaking into the hot tub for one last too warm swim.

When October comes, however, all is still. The leaves haven’t yet turned, flowers still in bloom, mosquitoes have gone to sleep and frogs are thinning out. Morning sunlight filters through the trees lighting up the now lush grass. It takes much of a summer for Mo to get that grass as thick and lush as she likes, with careful attention to dry spots, brown spots, moss, and edges. She is the lawn person, and am mostly the flower person. It works well.

I wait very impatiently for October 1st, refusing to put up any kind of fall or Halloween decorating before then. Then down come the bins, out comes all the fun stuff, the fall harvest flags go up, and we start building morning and sometimes evening fires. I love the smell of the juniper when it catches, and the feel of that warm glow. Jeremy loves it as well, lounging in front of the flames stretched to his full length to absorb all the warmth. The knitting comes out, homemade stock for soup on the stove, and the evenings are dark before 7.

Of course before this auspicious day, I had many things to do to fill up the last great week of September. My grandson, first daughter Deborah’s son Matthew, got married last weekend and I was able to fly to Colorado to share in the wedding. It was a lovely occasion, held at the only golf course in Sterling, with a sweet ceremony and a sit down supper and dancing afterward. Jessi’s family all live in Colorado, but our family is a bit more scattered and all weren’t able to be there. As always, weddings are such emotional times, with moments of gaiety and moments of nostalgia all wrapped up together in the tradition.

Deb and I had a day long layover in Denver and decided to spent it with Mo’s sister Edna. We visited at home with a chance to once again have lunch with dear Lucille, now 103 years old.

Then Edna, Deb and I checked out the Bear Creek Regional Park, a lovely campground not far from Edna’s home where she is planning a big family reunion next summer. It looks like it will be a perfect spot as long as Colorado doesn’t hit all of us with really hot summer temperatures. There are miles of biking and hiking trails, some shady escapes from the heat, although not actually in the campground itself. There is a swimming beach, and three reservoirs for kayaking and dog swimming. The group site holds 5 rigs with electric hookups and room for tents as well for only $70 per night for all. In addition, for family without RV’s there are two very lovely comfortable yurts, one in beautiful shade.

After exploring the park, the three of us drove 15 minutes farther east to Morrison and the southern entrance to Red Rocks Amphitheater. It was Deb’s first time to see the historic venue and she was enthralled. As a lover of music, she really enjoyed all the posters and history of so many great artists who have played there in the past. We enjoyed the gorgeous view of Denver from high above the stage, and especially enjoyed reading about the history of Red Rocks. Again, this is a place that would not exist without the efforts of FDR and the CCC who built the amphitheater around the existing natural stage of red rock. In the early teens, musicians would play there and the visitor center has some truly great photos of those old performances. The geology of the place is magnificent, with the great unconformity of the Rocky Mountains in full view here below Dinosaur Ridge. As a lover of the wild red sandstones of Utah, I thrilled at the color and beauty of this place carved from the same stuff.

Our flight back to Portland was uneventful, even though we arrived close to midnight and Deborah had to work the next day. I drove south on the 5, thinking of Russ and Donna, but they were off somewhere else having a wonderful time in Therapy so I didn’t stop in Eugene.

Then Tuesday morning Mo’s brother Roger and his wife Nancy came down from Lone Pine to share a few days with us at Rocky Point. They just bought a brand new motorhome, a 2012 Winnebago Aspect, 28 feet, with a full down queen sized bed, something I do envy! They decided to leave it behind and take advantage of our little cabin instead. The cabin is really comfortable, with cozy furniture, lots of farm and ranch antiques about, a very good little wood stove, hot water showers, and a composting toilet. My favorite part of the cabin is the light, huge windows on the east bringing in morning sunlight in a way I don’t get here in the main house. It’s lovely, and it’s always nice when folks choose to stay in the cabin.

We spent one day kayaking Recreation Creek, and the next day paddled south into Harriman Creek to the springs and back. It was perfect weather for being out in the boats and we had a great time.

After our morning kayak on Thursday, we all decided that a trip to Lava Beds National Monument was in order. Time for a bit of caving! I was game, although going down into caves isn’t particularly on my list of important life events. Even in Carlsbad Caverns I didn’t feel particularly comfortable. I was awed by the beauty and the formations, but still just didn’t want to be down there. Caves are a place for unearthly beings. Spirits and ghosts and who knows what. Bats and white crawly things and dampness. Ugh. Oh, right, I am a scientist, who supposedly doesn’t believe in spirits and ghosts. Ask me again when I am in a cave sometime, which won’t be in the near future!

Still it was a fun trip. Lava Beds is a quiet park, in the middle of almost nowhere beyond the Lower Klamath and Tulelake Wildlife Refuges and resting below our favorite Mountain Lake Highlands from which it emerged. Lava has flowed here for thousands of years, last time was less than 800 years ago, so the area is fresh and hot with jagged a’a lava. There are many lava caves, some as yet little explored, and only one that has light. We chose instead to follow the cave loop and see how many caves we could see in the time we had left on this afternoon.

After checking for our possibility of carrying bat disease, the ranger gave us a brochure that listed all the caves, with check marks for “can walk upright” “Must duck walk in some part” “Must crawl in some part” and the length of the cave. We started with Thunderbolt, and the very scary, very uneven trail descended some steep steps before crawling off into blackness and low hanging rock guaranteed to give you a serious head bump if you stood up too quickly. Deep into the tunnel, we did the thing all cave tours do and turned off our flashlights. That lasted just a few seconds before we all creeped out and turned our lights back on!

The next few caves that we explored weren’t quite as deep and black, but I still wasn’t exactly having fun and was glad when we emerged from the last cave of the day. Even with my heebie jeebies, it was still fun to go exploring and a great thing to do with company who have never been to Lava Beds. I guess if I have company again who want to see the park, I will have to go down in the caves once more. Ugh. We topped off our visit with a trip up to Lake of the Woods for a great dinner before the restaurant closes for the season.

I love having company, and I love when I have no company. Quiet days with a bit of gardening, some knitting, catching up on the DVR recordings, no deadlines, nowhere to be. Next week will be full again, I will work another 40 hours and hopefully the guys staining the house will eventually complete the prep and get to the actual staining! Toward the end of the week, another round of excitement will come to Rocky Point with a visit from Laurie and Odel! Yippee and Hooray! We are really hoping for a few more perfect kayak days to take them out on the creek, for what I think will be their first time kayaking.

Tomatoes, Eagles, Pelicans, Klamath Lake, Colorado…it’s life

2011-09-22T11:53:00.001-07:00

The title thing is making me crazy, especially when I choose not to post daily when I am home. Maybe I will revert to “Thursday September 22” or something equally as creative. For now, however, I just wanted to hit the highlights. It has been a delight being at home this time of year. I think September and October in the Klamath Basin are the most beautiful months. The days are warm and still long enough to accomplish something. The nights come earlier, but they are cool enough for early bedtimes with good books and the soft summer down comfortor.

Mo has been filling her days with outside tasks around the property, while I have been catching up on work, mostly at home, but going into the office every now and then. Sometimes it’s great to go to town for work, since otherwise I would just think the drive too long and the gas expense not worth it. When I go to town, I get to have great conversations with Chris, my local boss, about all the interesting mapping he is doing, all the soily gossip about what is going on in what survey office, and just general good stuff.

I also have a chance to shop, get fresh groceries and do the (wandering around kind of) shopping that doesn’t interest Mo in the least. Joanne’s Fabrics is always fun, and I walk around feeling everything and daydreaming about the great things I could make if I had a sewing machine. My sister is a quilter, my daughter makes amazing costumes for theater and her pirate gatherings, and for years I used to love to sew. My life changed, and I haven’t had a sewing machine in 20 years. Often I say, “well, if I had a sewing machine I could do X, or Y, or whatever”.

Enter my 66th birthday, and with some various contributions from various folks, including myself…ahahaha….I have a sewing machine! My sister suggested I try to find a used Bernina 1230, her go-to machine even though she has a much newer one. After some searching on E-Bay and on the local Craigs List, I actually managed to win the bid on a machine. After paying for it with a credit card, with my CURRENT ADDRESS on the card, I received a lovely email from the gentleman saying he had just mailed it with full insurance to my CALIFORNIA ADDRESS!?!?! OHNO! I guess that address was still buried somewhere in EBay even though I haven’t lived there for almost two years! With some panicky phone calls and some retracted insured mail, eventually I will get my sewing machine. Hopefully I will remember what X and Y were. We actually have a tiny quilt shop right here in Rocky Point and I have never checked it out. I guess it is time I did.

Beautiful warm days call for tomatoes, and finally I can say that the greenhouse is providing. The heirloom Brandywines I tried to grow are still green, but Yellow Boy is producing bundles of incredibly sweet yellow good sized tomatoes, and the Willamette variety is doing well for big reds and Sweet 100 has provided bowls of cherry tomatoes. With the fresh lettuces, spinach, chard, peas, onions, basil, baby carrots, 3 cucumbers, and a very few green beans, I declare the greenhouse a success.

I actually had enough ripe tomatoes to dig out one of Mo’s old family recipes for Tomato Chili Sauce. It was fun to make, a bit like a relish or chutney, with tomatoes, green hatch chilis, onions, with cider vinegar and some sugar, and then some very interesting combinations of spices including cinnamon, allspice, lots of chili pepper, and other sorts of things that I wouldn’t normally use in this kind of recipe. The resulting sauce/relish is delish on meat as a condiment, and if I ever stop dieting, I plan to try it on a hot dog!

The other major project going on around here is house painting. Mo found an outfit in Klamath that seems to be a bit more thorough than the last folks who stained the big cedar house. Even so, they seem to come and go at odd times, they are getting the old sealer stripped off in preparation for the new stuff. Living in the forest as we do seems to cause a lot of mold to grow on the cedar siding in spite of regular care. They have been power washing for a few days now and hopefully will get it sealed again before the rain starts.

I love this time of year, especially the Halloween season, and fall in general. My orange totes full of goodies are calling to me, and I keep finding little halloween-y things to add to my stash. One of the reasons for a stix and brix, I can decorate to my hearts content and somewhat to Mo’s consternation. I am using all my will power to NOT put out a single fall decoration until October 1st. Just a few days.

We celebrated the gorgeous late September days with another kayak out on Pelican Bay. The water is getting low this time of year, and the water plants and algae are thick. Even so, the water is still incredibly clear in Recreation Creek and out into the Bay. Only when you reach Klamath Lake proper do the weeds and algae get so thick that paddling is no longer fun. We have paddled some incredibly gorgeous lakes, with crystal clear water, and not a water plant in sight. They are beautiful, but then there a no birds, often we are lucky to see a lonely duck in those lakes.

Our Klamath Lake is fecund with life, and has been so since the 1850’s when John C Fremont declared the lake unfit for even horses to drink. It’s not all about pollution, it is about the natural life span of a lake formed many thousands of years ago, and filled with phosphorus rich volcanic ash from the Crater Lake (Mt Mazama) eruption 7,700 years ago or so. That beautiful, rich, smelly, plant life, brings in millions of birds in the spring and the fall, with many spending their summers here getting fat on all that food.

When in Alaska, one of the exciting things for folks are the eagles, with eagle traffic jams and many photographers excited about seeing eagles in the wild. I did take photos of eagles there, but was a bit less excited than some folks because we have eagles here in the basin. There are nesting pairs along the lake, and several hundred birds feast on ducks and fish in the wildlife refuges.

I actually get more excited about my favorite white pelicans than I do the eagles, but yesterday on the lake I was treated to both. We spent a couple of hours on the water and invited a Rocky Point friend to go along since we now have extra kayaks. It was a perfect way to spend a late September afternoon.

This weekend I will be running off to Colorado for my grandson’s wedding. First a drive to Portland to spend the night with my oldest daughter, then the two of us will board a flight to Denver, Colorado tomorrow. There we have rented a car to drive to Sterling, where Deb will hostess (and pay for!) the Rehearsal Dinner for her son and his bride-to-be and about 20 other folks. Saturday is the wedding with most of Jessi’s family, and only some of us from Matthew’s side who can manage to get away to Colorado. It should be a lot of fun, as well as a bit interesting, with all those side stories that go on in families providing some extra entertainment.

Life IS good.

There are photos of the gardens here and photos of the kayak on the lake and the birds here.

September 10 The Banana Belt Delivers

2011-09-10T16:18:00.001-07:00

Clear skies, temperatures in the 80,s and new friends, it was a perfect day on the coast. Mo and I were laughing as I sat down to write this blog, trying to come up with a title. Titles shouldn’t make a bit of difference, but I have found that they do. Our blog post last spring titled “Vandalism” has received by far more hits than anything I have ever written. I sometimes wonder if folks are actually searching that word when they find it. Other titles, simple ones like “A beautiful day at the ocean” can slip by with not a soul paying any attention at all. Makes me laugh. Not that post views are the only reason to blog, but of course I can’t help noticing. I thought about the title, “Shocking!”, and then letting my first sentence be something like, “Shocking that it was 85 degrees at the coast today.”

The morning dawned brilliantly, with most of the summer fog lifting even before we were out of bed. We called the storage facility at 8:30 and “Mr. Wilson”, a charming and very accommodating gentleman, said, “If you are a Harris Beach I’ll meet you at the storage facility right now.” Seems as though he made the right purchases at the right time, with several storage facilities and home rentals scattered throughout town. He drove up in his new Prius, and measured all the door openings to find one that was 12 feet high. We found a great space, with plenty of room to back in, and he was fine with us paying him now and having the rent begin on November 1st.

With that major chore accomplished, we wandered around town a bit and did some shopping before ambling back home to our lovely sunny spot with a view of the ocean in the distance. Lunch was simple and we relaxed and waited for Connie and Tracy to appear in mid-afternoon.

Right on schedule, at 2PM, the two of them walked into our campsite with Hunter, the beautiful greyhound dog with fine manners and an incredibly sweet disposition. Hunter and Abby got along well, and Jeremy who was outside on the step, thought that this large new creature was incredibly interesting.

As is often the case with RVing friends, we launched right into comfortable conversation at the picnic table. Comparing notes on coastal weather, campgrounds, RV destinations, rig configurations and all those interesting topics that make my townie, non RVing friends look a bit vague and simply yawn. A walk down to the southern end of Harris Beach on the South Beach Trail with the dogs was on the agenda, and with a couple of camera toting shutterbugs and two happy dogs we took off walking.

The time at the beach was great, and the dogs were perfect entertainment. We laughed and talked some more and did the obligatory time-release camera shots on the beach, propping cameras on near-by rocks to take photos of the four of us together. It was great fun. Mo and I are solitary travelers, enjoying our own company and not big socializers, but now and then some companionable friends are a delight. I know our paths will cross again, and next time we might actually have to get out the dominoes!

Back at camp, with some good Alaskan Amber and a few snackies, the conversations flowed on till early evening. The two of them had a couple of hours to drive back to their camp at Cape Blanco and hopefully they made it home before dark. Mo and I decided that all the excitement was just too much fun and we skipped the campfire for the evening and settled in to watch a delightful little movie called, “Love For Rent”. I think the R rating is for some of the four letter words in the beginning, the most of the movie isn’t R at all. We both really enjoyed it.

Sep 8 A day at the beach

2011-09-09T04:24:00.000-07:00

Maybe we were a bit optimistic when we thought we could just amble off to the Oregon Coast without worrying about planning ahead. After all, September and October are the best months of the year on the coast, and all those folks who know about the summer fogs have been waiting for the warm sunny skies predicted for this week.

When we left Rocky Point and traveled to Grants Pass before turning west on Highway 199 the skies were filled with smoke from fires nearby and far away. The temperature climbed as we dropped down into the valley, and as we passed the Valley of the Rogue State Park along I-5 the thermometer read a blistering 102 degrees. I thought of the Gypsy G-Mas, Connie and Tracy, as we managed to stay cool with the windows closed and the air conditioner going full blast. Last I heard, they were camping in this lovely park, although not quite so lovely on this incredibly hot September day.

The western route through the Illinois Valley is a familiar one to us. The winding curves that follow the Smith River in California to Highway 101 don’t seem at all scary any more. As the miles passed, we watched the temperature gauge drop steadily. Turning north toward Brookings, I could smell the ocean and the hot sun was gentled by a misty fog drifting from the ocean to the surrounding hills.

When we arrived at Harris Beach State Park, we were met by a sign stating that all electric sites were taken and the only available sites were for tents or rigs less than 20 feet. The attendant was a bit concerned, but she decided to let us try to slide into one of those sites. The MoHo fit just fine, with the Tracker parked sideways with ALL FOUR WHEELS ON THE PAVEMENT! Yes, those are the rules. The other rule is that no generators are allowed in the park, ever.

It was after 7 by the time we settled in, but supper wasn’t a problem because we had grilled chicken and cucumbers in vinaigrette while we drove down the road. Setting up the rig without hookups is an easy thing as well, and after a nice long walk through the campground we settled in for a cool moonlit night of reading and early to sleep.

The attendant was concerned that we were officially too long for the spot and told us to come in at 10 the next morning to see if there was anything available. Seems as though the park is almost completely filled every night this week. Waking to fog this morning wasn’t a surprise, and after tea we drove into town to get a few groceries, check out the potential storage place, and take a short drive up the Chetco River. There is another state park about 7 miles east away from the ocean and the sun was out. We both were in a beach mood however, and decided that if there wasn’t anything at Harris Beach we would go down to the Beachfront RV Park, right along the ocean, rigs lined up in a row on pavement, with a bit of dry grass, but full hookups.

After ten, back at Harris Beach, the new attendant at the window was skeptical about anything available for the next 3 days, but then as an afterthought decided to give us a site that is usually saved for last minute overflow. We got a site with electric, water, and great cable TV all the way through the weekend. Once again, everything worked out just fine.

The move across the park was a snap, and within minutes we were set up comfortably, and enjoying our space. I even opened up the awning and put up the chili pepper lights that I haven’t had a chance to use for a very long time! After lunch we took Abby for a long walk down the South Beach Trail to the ocean.

The fog was still drifting about, lifting a bit now and then, but never completely going away. In spite of the fog it was quite warm, and we could have worn shorts and skipped the jackets. It was surprising how much warmer it was down on the beach than is it a couple of hundred feet above the cliffs in the park. We had a great time with Abby, and for the first time she decided that going for her ball in the ocean waves wasn’t as scary as she thought. We found some brackish backwater for her to practice, and then Mo started throwing the ball toward the surf and Abby went right after it. Before our walk was finished, Abby was going right into the waves after her ball, and only once did a wave catch her and throw her around a little bit. It was great fun.

Tomorrow is wide open for relaxation, walks and one more special treat. Tracy and Connie are just north of us at Cape Blanco and plan to come down tomorrow afternoon for a meet and a visit. I’m tickled that we again have a chance to meet some fellow bloggers. Tracy and Connie have a great story, deciding to go full time and live a life outside the box. I have followed them for some time now and am looking forward to hearing some of their stories in person.

As early evening settles over the park, the skies are clearing and the sun is shining brilliantly. Tonight the moon is nearly full. Mo has a great big campfire going with wood we bought here at the campground. Crossing from Oregon to California with firewood is frowned upon so we paid the pricey 5 bucks a bundle to follow the rules and use local wood. I am so happy to be at the beach again.

A few more photos of our day at Harris Beach are linked here.

The Best Laid Plans and all that

2011-09-07T11:10:00.001-07:00

Mo and I met in early 2003, when I was brand new to Klamath Falls and didn’t know a soul. We discovered early on that we both like to travel and camp. Mo had a sailboat at the time, and one of our first shared camping trips was to Medicine Lake, a short 100 miles south of Klamath Falls on the Medicine Lake Highlands east of Mt Shasta. As you can see, in those days we camped in a tent and slept on the ground. A couple of years later, in the spring of 2005, Mo bought the first baby MoHo and we again traveled to our favorite little lake to camp and sail.

By 2007, we had a new MoHo and had decided that launching kayaks was a bit easier than launching a sailboat, but again we traveled to Medicine Lake to camp. The last time we camped there was during the fires in California in July of 2008. We keep telling ourselves we have to get back to Medicine Lake, but somehow other destinations keep coming up. In 2009 I was completing my final year of work. In 2010 we traveled 7800 miles or so to the northeast side of the country, in 2011 we went to Alaska.

Finally! We are going to Medicine Lake this week. I have completed all my work assignments, the skies are clear, the snow has melted (Medicine Lake is at 7200 feet) and all is a go. Until…as I said…the best laid plans.

Any of you who have followed this year read about the vandal attack last March on the MoHo when she was stored in Redding, California. We have been mulling over and over about our options for this coming winter. The one sure thing is that we want the MoHo OUT of Klamath Basin when the snow flies. Neither of us is particularly interested in chaining up a big rig and trying to exit any of the snowy passes that surround us. Mo started calling around, thinking maybe Medford, or possibly Grants Pass. Well inside, or even covered storage seems to be at a premium in this part of the country. There are no inside RV storage facilities in Medford, and the one facility in Grants Pass is full with no expectation of a vacancy.

We could park the MoHo there, uncovered, for 35 bucks a month, but that would mean winterizing every time we wanted to go somewhere. So where do we usually go in the winter? Toward the coast, of course. And South! My least favorite route is through the central valleys of California. Where is the banana belt of Oregon? Brookings! TADA!

Mo found an inside storage in Brookings, not cheap, and about a four hour drive from here. As we talked about it, however, even if we stored the MoHo in Grants Pass we would probably be driving to Brookings anyway. Now back to the best laid plans. Sigh.

September is almost completely filled up already. I have a Colorado wedding, family coming to visit late in the month, a major exterior painting project on the books for mid-month, I will need to work next week, and our only free time seems to be right now. Of course we want to check out the facility in person before we commit to six months of expensive storage. Guess what!? We aren’t going to Medicine Lake AGAIN!

Instead this afternoon we are packing up and ambling west to Brookings. We love Harris Beach. We have no reservations, and are planning on taking one of the first come/first serve sites. We are taking bikes for the great bike trail and knowing that the rivers will be too low for paddling, we are leaving the kayaks behind.

This time I am packing long pants, sweats, shorts, jackets, sandals, ready for whatever the Oregon Coast delivers. Forecast is for sunny, warm days, but it won’t matter, the ocean is always there, the rocky beaches are calling. Medicine Lake will still be there next year, I am sure, unless of course Mt Shasta decides to do her thing, but that isn’t too likely. We have talked of moving to Brookings, and it will be nice to spend a few beautiful September days in one of our favorite places.

August 30 Tuesday Fellow bloggers are FUN

2011-09-04T05:52:00.001-07:00

I follow a lot of RV bloggers, and have learned so much from many of them. Of course I have favorites, but I certainly don’t plan to publish a list! Most bloggers have something wonderful to say and interesting to report at one time or another, and in spite of my personal favorites, many of them could be a favorite for a day at least. Donna K and Russ just happen to be pretty high on that list, and are favorites almost every day. With their location just north of us in Eugene, I knew that we would eventually get to meet each other.

We had a leisurely morning at camp, and were especially glad that we had packed up all the outdoor chairs and rugs the night before since the morning was once again damp and misty. The RV dump at Silver Falls is at the far north end of the park, a few miles from the campground, so we hooked up the baby car and traveled that winding road one more time to dump, and then one last time to travel back south toward Salem and I-5.

I called Donna to confirm our ETA and we continued south on the 5 toward Eugene. It was an uneventful journey, and I had both a printed map from google and the iPhone tracking where we were and where we were going. We had agreed to meet at a pizza parlor on 126. Business 126. The exit east toward Highway 126 is actually on the freeway. I kept looking at the map wondering why in the world it was navigating us so far south and told Mo, “What the heck, take the 126 east to Springfield.” Less than a minute after the turn I saw my mistake, and the phone rang at the same time. It was Russ. “Hey, we just saw the MoHo turning off on 126 and that is the wrong turn!” I lost a bunch of points as main navigator in that moment and we laughed together on the phone while Russ told us how to cross Springfield from our new location and get back to the pizza parlor.

I think it is really amazing how well you can know someone you have never met from their blog and their comments on other blogs. Russ and Donna were exactly as I imagined them, fun, kind, friendly, honest, and lovely people. And funny! We laughed a lot together as we talked RVing, blogging, Oregon, and our families. Thank you for the pizza, guys, and the wonderful visit! I am looking forward to all of us getting together again when Russ and Donna head toward our part of the world. Russ was actually raised in Klamath Falls, and I found out that Donna and I grew up at about the same time within miles of each other in the Southern California world. In fact, I keep wondering if Donna maybe went to the same church camp I went to in Idyllwild, California.

Another fun little resource for me happens to be Facebook and now Google Plus. Laurie (Semi-True Tales) and I are Facebook friends, and even though she hadn’t yet blogged about her travels along the McKenzie River, she had posted a photo on Facebook of the lovely falls. Mo already had suggested that she wanted us to take a different route home over 126 to Sisters. I got out the Gazetteer map for Oregon and perused the route looking for waterfalls, and sure enough there was a trailhead with two waterfalls right near the road.

The drive was beautiful, with a stop at another small donated state park along the river for a walk before we passed through small towns and tiny communities. Not long after the road starting rising to the pass we came to the parking area for the falls, and with an amazing coincidence, the lone space for an RV was empty, even though there were many people parked in the lot. We took it, turned on the fan for the cat and were thrilled that we could hike with Abby on a leash.

By the time we arrived, it was mid-afternoon, and we did want to get home before dark, so we opted for the shorter hike on the east side of the falls. Laurie’s photos of the falls are from the longer west side hike and she has some very interesting information about the formation of the falls and the McKenzie River on her blog. Check it out here. I kept looking at Laurie’s lone photo thinking this had to be the same waterfall. Sure enough, when I arrived home later Laurie had posted her wonderful account of their hike and it was the same place. Thanks, Laurie, I might not have known that the stop was worth finding if I hadn’t seen that photo.

When I got out of the rig, I could immediately smell the huge falls. So much water! The forest was damp and dark, and the elevation was high enough that I didn’t see a speck of poison oak, bane of the western slope of the Cascades as well as the Sierras. The trail was excellent, with lots of steps, some roots and rocks along the way, but only a mile and a half to the lower of the two falls. I would love to return sometime and do the entire hike. It was lovely.

We continued north over the pass and entered into the area decimated by the huge B&B Complex fire in 2003. There are now fire interpretive signs at several turnouts along the way that explain the biology of fire in the western forests. We pulled into one just over the pass to see smoke south of us in the Sisters Wilderness near Mt Washington. As we continued east, the smoke darkened the skies over Bend from the huge complex of fires ignited in Central Oregon from lightning the previous week.

Mo’s brother Roger lives south of Bend in LaPine and we just couldn’t go by without stopping in for a visit. When I called Nancy, it was close to suppertime, but she said, oh yes, come on right now! We didn’t want to eat, so we all sat around and talked about RV’s and travel and good beer. Roger and Nancy just returned from a big RV trip to eastern Oregon and their stories of the nightmare of driving their big, older, wide-body Class A were scary. They actually lost brakes on a steep hill and ended up leaving the rig in Enterprise and sleeping with their kids and grandkids in their trailer.

They spent quite a bit of time in the MoHo with us, asking questions and checking out our smaller rig, making lots of noises about how it was time to downsize. The next day we got a note from Roger saying they bought a new rig in Bend, about the same size as our MoHo. I am so happy for them, especially for Nancy who was the one having to ride in the scary passenger position with all that glass overlooking the cliffs and seeing that back wheel go over the white line on the right side of the road. I hate that! Things should be easier for them now.

When we finally arrived home in Rocky Point after our long meandering day, it was 9 pm and dark out. Driving down highway 97 in the dark from Chemult is one of my least favorite rides, there are deer everywhere. We were spared any big scares, however I was sure glad when we finally turned into Easy Street.

The rest of the photos are linked here

August 29 Monday The Dahlia Festival

2011-09-02T18:37:00.001-07:00

Seems as though there is always some kind of festival going on during the summer months. Usually named for a flower, a fruit, or a vegetable, these festivals are really worth the effort. The Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California and the Asparagus Festival in Stockton are some down-home country festivals that got completely out of control. Thousands of people crowd the hundreds of booths and the original concept is lost. Can you count the Apple Festivals and Strawberry Festivals that are dotted all over the United States and Canada? A google search will open your eyes to that one!

Our short little camping trip north was inspired by one such festival. The difference with this one is that it isn’t a town or village thing, it is a chance for a local grower of dahlias to open their land for just six days a year to the adoring public. I had no clue just how adoring the public was until we arrived at the parking lot on Monday morning and found row after row of cars, buses, vans, and fields filled with folks admiring the dahlias.

Let me backtrack a bit. When we woke up Monday morning, the skies were cloudy and overcast and the temperature was in the low 50’s. A very light mist created a chilly, damp atmosphere. Remember I said I only brought shorts? Even though the forecast was for 85 degrees and sunshine for the entire week, I should have known better. Digging around in the few clothes I brought delivered my kayak pants, just in case, so I donned the kayak pants and the one sweatshirt I managed to pack, and I was ready for the day in spite of myself.

Even though I had no WiFi in the park, my iPhone had 5 bars and 3G, so I loaded up google maps to locate the Swan Island Dahlia Farm. It was just about an hour north in Canby, an agricultural paradise between I-5 and the mountains in the northern part of the Willamette Valley. We took our time, and when a sliver of lavender blue appeared in the distance, we ambled off the course to find amazing fields of annuals grown for seed by the Silver Falls Seed Company.

I used to grow annual larkspur for drying, and always had trouble finding seed that was an individual color not a mix. Lying in front of me were gorgeous fields of blue, lavender, pink, and rose, all perfect tall lush flowers of larkspur. Other fields were filled with godetia, one of my favorite little annuals, and other flowers that I didn’t quite recognize. In a way I was delighted to have subdued skies so the colors would show up more dramatically in the photos.

It wasn’t long before we arrived at the Swan Island Dahlia Festival, to join in the admiring crowds with their oohs and aahhs. Even little kids were getting into the thrill of seeing a truly amazing huge dahlia bigger than a dinner plate, amazed at the sensory overload of row after row of flowers bred in every conceivable shape and color.

Swan Island Dahlias is the largest and leading dahlia grower in the United States. The farm is now located in the town of Canby, in the rich soil of the Willamette Valley of Oregon. The farm was originally located in Portland, Oregon, with some buildings on Swan Island, which is where the farm derived its name. There was also a roadside stand in Sellwood, a suburb of Portland, so the business was known as both Swan Island Dahlias and Portland Dahlia Gardens at that time.

Swan Island Dahlias was moved to Canby, Oregon on rented land in the 1940’s. Around 1953, 20 acres of farmland was purchased in Canby, and the business was relocated to its present site. This particular bit of information was helpful because Mo grew up near the real Swan Island and picked beans there and she couldn’t understand why the dahlia farm in Canby was called Swan Island Dahlias!

If you have ever grown dahlias, you know how much work they can be. A difference in this part of Oregon is that the climate allows you to actually leave your dahlias in the ground over the winter and still have flowers come up in the spring. Where I lived, I had to lift my hundreds of dahlias one by one every winter, divide them and pack them carefully in sawdust in the root cellar. I treasured those flowers, believe me. So I was like all those little kids ooh-ing and aah-ing through the fields, thrilled and amazed, and especially excited when I would find an old friend variety among the bunch that was still in cultivation.

After we wandered the 40 acres of fields, we visited the big storage shed where one of the granddaughters in this family owned business demonstrated how to arrange dahlias while she talked about every possible cultural need. Many folks asked lots of questions and I was amazed at her knowledge. Grandpa passed away in 2007, but the family carries on with this beautiful family business.

Thoroughly overloaded with dahlia heaven, we were still in for a big surprise when we entered the indoor display, with three rooms of dahlia arrangements. I knew about the indoor rooms, but imagined something a bit like a county fair, with vases of flowers. What an understatement. The huge displays in the three large rooms were mind boggling, huge lush over-the-top craziness, piles of dahlias of every color and type. Hundreds of flowers in a single arrangement and literally hundreds of arrangements. It was a great way to pick your favorites and then go to the order desk to buy tubers for spring delivery. It’s a good thing I don’t have a lot of room or a long growing season, or I would have parted with a good chunk of money.

When we finally left the farm, the sun was warming up a bit and we ambled around Canby to explore the town and the area. We found Molalla River State Park, a perfect place for Abby to run in the off-leash dog area, with many trails along the river, but no overnight facilities. Just north of the farm, we found the Canby Ferry crossing the Willamette River and saving many miles of travel for folks going north. The ferry is free for pedestrians, but we just chose to sit on the bluff above the river and watch for awhile. I couldn’t help comparing the gentle crossing with the wild currents of the Yukon River at the ferry in Dawson City. This crossing took all of two minutes, and the cars lining up on either side of the river had at most a 5 minute wait in line. I love how these remnants of older times appear on the back roads of Oregon. Many of the old ferries have been replaced by bridges, so it was nice to see this little piece of history still in operation.

We traveled home through Silverton, with a stop at on of my favorite grocery stores for a few supplies. Back in camp, we decided we had time for some good biking on the beautiful trails and enjoyed the emptiness of the day use area even though the campground was still full to the brim. No one was swimming, and no one was out on the bike trails either, and the waterfall trail was nearly empty. Abby is pretty good at going along on the leash while we bike, but now and then she gets a bit excited and crosses over to the wrong side. We have learned that if I stay in front of Mo, Abby will try to keep up with me and not dawdle. The best part of this for Mo is that Abby actually helps pull her up the steep parts of the trail! I finally said, “My turn to have Abby, this hill is steep”! We switched, and I couldn’t believe just what a difference she made. Mush! Abby!!

Home to camp and grilled veggies and another beautiful campfire.

The rest of the dahlia photos are linked here

Tomorrow: We meet Russ and Donna and hike the Mackenzie River waterfalls

August 28 Sunday Camping at Silver Falls State Park

2011-09-01T08:06:00.001-07:00

It has been less than two weeks since we returned from our long trek to Alaska, but a short three day jaunt to a beautiful Oregon State Park seemed just so simple. We planned this trip for a couple of reasons: For one, we loved Silver Falls when we visited in the spring of 2010. The real reason for the trip, however, was to see the dahlias in full bloom during the Swan Island Dahlia Festival nearby in Canby.

I grew hundreds of dahlias at one time, selling cut flowers at a weekend farmers market along with my dried flower bouquets and fresh herbs. It was a good time in my life, but oh sooo much work. Here at Rocky Point, I don’t have much opportunity to grow dahlias, although I still plan to at least try. Mo and I plan to downsize by 2020 or so, and my one request is that we do so in a place where I can putter in a real garden with a real growing season and grow dahlias.

As we readied for the short trip, 255 miles total, everything seemed just incredibly simple. The MoHo was spotless and lovely, and I only needed clothes for three days and two nights. With the temperatures predicted for the area in the mid 80’s, shorts were in order, and I didn’t even bother with sweats or long pants. (Oops, we live in Oregon for pete’s sake!). Food was simple as well, just two dinners, a couple of breakfasts, and some hiking food for daytime. Gee. We were loaded and ready to go in no time. After the long preparations for the Alaska trip, this was such a delight.

We took our time getting on the road, enjoying the warm, sunny morning. Dressed in shorts and sleeveless tops, we were glad to have returned home to Oregon in August to enjoy what Laurie and Odel called the “elusive Oregon summer”. Yes, it IS elusive at times, but less so on the east side of the mountains where we live.

Fire is a given in the west, and as we crossed the Wood River Valley just north of home and the Upper Klamath NWR, there was smoke evident to the east and north from the many fires ignited in Central Oregon over the past couple of weeks. The route is familiar and a bit boring at times, especially north on Highway 97. The soils are deep pumice from the eruption of Crater Lake (Mt Mazama) more than 7,000 years ago, and the vegetation is dry lodgepole and ponderosa pine. Only after the route rises to Willamette Pass does the timber begin to thicken and darken to lush Oregon green.

The Willamette Valley is the heart of Oregon, even though the actual area is very small when compared to the entire state. Eugene is the largest city south of Portland in this valley, and as we entered Eugene we noticed the brown pall of smoke in the air from burning fields of blue grass, from dust rising from busy plows, and yes, from cars. I think that is actually smog, although being raised in Southern California I do know that real smog is a bit uglier than what we found on the Eugene skyline.

By the time we got to the park, it was evident that even on a Sunday afternoon, this was a very popular place. I am glad that we made a reservation back in April, since the park was completely filled for the entire week! It was warm and sunny, and we were glad for a shady site with power and water to enjoy the late afternoon. Jeremy was really anxious to get out of the rig and explore, and I put on his fancy city harness and he was out of the rig before I could get down the steps. He is funny, sitting quietly for the harness, and the minute the last snap is done he jumps down to the door knowing it it time! Even at 15 years old, I think he might want to explore farther than I would want, so I keep him harnessed when we are camping for safety.

As the evening progressed, we took the beautiful paved bike trail to the dog exercise area, a special treat in a state park because this one if for dogs off leash! To our surprise, on this warm Sunday evening, there were no dogs there. Families were everywhere, with children playing in the swimming area along the Silver River, bbq’s going at every picnic table, volleyball and soccer games in progress. The park is within easy driving distance of Salem, Albany, and even Portland, and from what we saw on this Sunday afternoon, it is a popular place to spend a Sunday.

The presence of huge, extended families with grandmas, grandpas, babies, aunts and uncles, all enjoying the afternoon together was heartening. Most of these families were speaking languages we didn’t know, but with the din of so many conversations that really didn’t matter. The language of a park on a Sunday afternoon is universal, after all. We had a great time letting Abby run uphill, hoping to wear her out. Later in the day, we expected to have to leave her in the rig while we hiked the waterfall trails where dogs are not allowed.

The Silver River was low at this time of year, and I was surprised to see just how lovely the falls looked even with less water. The stream slips over South Falls in a clear, wispy ribbon, much different from the crashing torrent we experienced in April last year. The trails were full of families, dads carrying babies in backpacks, grandpas with canes (me with my walking sticks!)

One more time I did a stupid crash, this time thank goodness without the camera in my hands! Stepping out of the MoHo I missed the step and bent the weak ankle one more time in a direction it doesn’t particularly like and went down. I know to hold on to the door handle, and had a good grip, so didn’t go all the way down. Mo laughed again, saying I must have bones of steel because with all these stupid falls I don’t seem to break anything. Who knows what that is about. This time again, it was a big divot I didn’t see because it was UNDER our entry rug. Sigh. Hold on tight and keep your eyes down, I guess.

We chose a camp on the A loop again, but it was more open than I might have liked. Our neighbors were right behind us, with their campfire so close to our back window that I had to close the night shade all the time so they couldn’t see inside. Our fire was far enough forward in the site that we could sit there without being in their back pocket, and we were glad that the folks directly on our other side seemed to be indoor types, so we had a bit of space to ourselves. I couldn’t believe how many kids were in that campground, and dogs, and bikes. It was some kind of biking heaven, I guess, with tiny little kids on trainers with helmets bigger than they were. The sound of screaming, laughing kids and barking dogs was almost deafening.

So often, in this lifestyle, we hang with retired folks in sedate RV campgrounds that are quiet and calm. We are retired ourselves, and live in a community that is composed mostly of retired folks or summer visitors. My grandkids are all teenagers now, and as I sat at our campfire watching all those kids, I realized just how insulated we can be from the din of family life. Have I used the word “din” a lot? Hmmm. Sunday afternoon at Silver Falls State Park was a lovely and noisy place.

Next: the dahlia show!

The rest of the photos are linked here

It is time

2011-08-27T19:42:00.001-07:00

Time for what you say? Time to write something again that isn’t related to the Alaska Trip. I know, I know, we got home on the 15th, and I think it now is the 27th of the month. The first week home, of course, was spent cleaning up and settling in. The second week home I had to go back to work and put in a good 40 hours or more trying to get everything to work properly again after a government software upgrade. Can you say “nightmare”? Finally, today, I managed to finish writing about the last few days of the trip. Somehow I just couldn’t make myself write about it, and each morning my ‘todo’ list had on it, “FINISH BLOG”. I am also not sure when I will be ready to change my header photo from that picture of Joe Lake on the Denali Highway. I am just not quite ready to let go yet.

At least I am finally caught up. At least I will be until tomorrow! The MoHo is lined up in front of the Tracker in the driveway tonight as we prepare for launching once more tomorrow morning. This launch is a short one, though, just a 2 night trip to Silver Falls State Park a few hours north of here. We will hike waterfalls, check out all the amazing dahlias in full bloom at the Swan Dahlia Farm festival, and sit by the campfire in the forest, this time under starry skies. We will cap off the trip on the way home with a much anticipated visit with Donna K and Russ from TRAVELS IN THERAPY. I’m tickled about getting a chance to meet our fellow Oregonian blog friends.

As I write, Irene is bearing down on the east coast, and Al has posted photos of the sad damage in the Ontario town of Goderich. So far, everyone I know who is east is doing OK. My daughter the trucker was in Connecticut, but traveled south and is now in Orlando. She managed to get out of the way of the storm. So far, all the RV’rs back in that part of the country seem to be hunkering down and doing OK, at least the ones who can blog about it. Out west all is calm, a few forest fires ignited last week in a thunderstorm are burning in Central Oregon, but everything around here is peaceful. Nights are in the 50’s, days are in the mid 80’s, humidity is low and skies are brilliantly blue. Oregon in the summer, when summer finally comes, is perfect.

Within a few days of getting settled back in, we had the kayaks out for a paddle. It was a gorgeous morning, just cool enough to need a long sleeved shirt out on the water for about half an hour before we started peeling off our shirts. The lake was so calm and there was a bit of smoke hanging over the mountains to the east, but I didn’t care. Snow was still on McLoughlin, and just a bit on the rim at Crater Lake and Mountain Lakes Wilderness. It felt good to be out in the boats in familiar water. The funny part about familiar water is that on Klamath Lake it is never the same twice.

The lake levels vary and sometimes the refuge can get pretty low, but on the morning we went out, the water was deep enough that we had no trouble paddling across what is called “The Wocus Cut”, a route that nearly did us in for a late fall paddle last year. At that time we were paddling in late evening and our paddles were scraping bottom. That was a rough ride that I don’t want to repeat! We traveled the beautiful canoe trail through the refuge and so enjoyed all the birds. I packed the camera along in the waterproof pelican case and took bird photos. Since I just bought a serious wide angle lens, battered though it may be, I won’t be getting a fancy bird lens any time soon, so I have to settle for the best I can do for now. I’ll let Judy take the fancy bird photos while mine will at least remind me of what was out there and how lovely they are.

The greenhouse has created a jungle of tomato plants and at last a few are getting ripe. You have no idea what an amazing feat that is at Rocky Point! I planted some more spinach and lettuce for the fall, and am enjoying having a little bit of veggie garden to putter in.The daylilies are blooming beautifully, and so far the deer have left us alone. I sprayed the Liquid Fence almost immediately, and I don’t know if it makes the difference or if there just aren’t any deer around this year.

The birds are back after a few days of filling the feeders, of course there aren’t nearly as many as there were in the spring before we left. It seems the finches and wrens are the most prolific right now, and I have seen several flickers and this morning a tanager graced my office window. For some reason the flicker was harassing the tanager as they both fluttered around in the sprinklers. Strange.

I am not a daily blogger, unless we are traveling of course. I often wonder about whether I need to even write anything at all when we aren’t moving. Then I realize that I want to share the birds, and the lake, and the daylilies, and what better place to do it than here? While on our Alaska trip we gained quite a few new followers, and I thank each of you for checking in and paying attention.

The rest of the photos for our kayak outing are linked here.

Day 41 August 15 Home to Rocky Point and the trip stats

2011-08-19T08:56:00.000-07:00

I took not one single photo today. Not one. The 278 mile trip from our COE campground at LePage on the John Day River to our home in Rocky Point is a well traveled, well known route for us. Familiar. I suppose if I were in a different mood I could find something wonderful to photograph, there is beauty everywhere if you take the time to look and to see it. But on this day, Mo and I were what my daughter calls “barn sour”, we were heading home, fast, and not taking any time for anything except filling the MoHo in Madras. The sky was a bit cloudy in the morning and the heat of yesterday had cooled. The temperature was a balmy 60 degrees with a stiff breeze, and we were still in shorts.

We did take a bit of time at our favorite little funky café at the Crater Lake Junction of 138 and 97 for lunch. We started this trip with breakfast there and decided it would be fitting to try lunch on this final day of travel. The place is not only famous for breakfast, but has sandwiches, burgers, and real chocolate milk shakes that are renown. It’s not Western Oregon Cool Food, it’s Eastern Oregon Comfort Food. Great lunch!

Instead of driving the shortest route home across the beautiful Wood River Valley, we continued south toward Klamath Falls, with plans to stock up on home groceries at Fred Meyer, fill up the MoHo with gas, and dump at the free/donations accepted RV dump in Moore Park. It added a few miles to our trip, but we wanted to get home fully stocked and ready for the next go round.

I was feeling a bit low as we traveled, remembering all the magnificent beauty we had seen over the past weeks, and the dry dusty eastern side of Oregon between Biggs and Bend wasn’t doing much to cheer me up. However, once we began slipping into the Klamath Basin, and Klamath Lake opened out in front of me, the magic returned. I do love this place. The skies blessed me with clarity as well, no fires adding muddiness to the horizon, and the big white puffies accentuated the gorgeous blue. There were white pelicans cruising above the lake, and the east slope of the Cascades were reflected in the water. There is still snow on Mt McLoughlin, a very unusual sight for mid August. It has been a cool summer in the Cascades for sure.

As we got close to town I got all teary, and told Mo, “I have to see Melody”. She patiently negotiated the town traffic and parking lots with the MoHo and Tracker so I could run into Melody’s workplace for a serious daughter hug. It was great for me to see her, and I think that the hardest part of the trip was the inaccessibly by telephone while we were in Canada and in many parts of Alaska. Like so many busy families, we often keep in touch by telephone when we can’t get together, and I really missed that.

Once filled and loaded with groceries and dumped, we traveled around Klamath Lake to our home. It’s always just a little bit scary coming in after being gone for so long, especially since our home caretakers had to leave a bit before we arrived. The long driveway opened up to the cabin, the greenhouse, the gardens, the big house, all sitting there in the brilliant afternoon light, welcoming us back.

The deer still haven’t eaten the roses or the azaleas, even though I last sprayed Liquid Fence more than six weeks ago. The lawns were still green, the greenhouse intact with tomato plants to the ceiling. The cool summer has blessed me with a ton of green tomatoes, still, but hopefully they will ripen eventually. We spent the first afternoon just walking around a lot, unloading the necessities, and enjoying that great feeling of coming home.

It has taken us three days to finish the cleaning up process, but that is less time than I imagined when I looked at all the dirt on all the rigs. Everything has been washed, cleaned, rubbed, and scrubbed. The laundry is finished, the ironing is done, the only big job left for me is the final writing of the story. I somehow stopped when we got to Hinton and never got back to the blog. Soon.

I did figure out the stats of our trip:

We traveled 7,243 total miles in 41 days, 1,265 miles in the US getting to and from Canada, 3,991 miles in Canada, and only 1,987 miles actually in Alaska.

The total cost of the trip was $6,168, with $4,659 spent on fuel, with an average of 5.14 per gallon since so much of our mileage was in high priced Canada.

We stayed in campgrounds, either dry camping or with hookups 30 nights, with an average cost per night of $23. Our 11 nights boondocking brought that average down to $17 per night.

We spent very little on excursions, with the Discovery River Trip and the Columbia Glacier Trip costing just $360.

We didn’t eat out very often, and actually managed to cook from our grocery stash for a very large part of the trip.

Total cost per day including food, fuel, camping and all incidentals came to $150.44. 75 bucks per day per person is a darn good price for a fabulous, incredible, life time vacation like this one.

I took almost 6,000 photos and managed to delete some with about 3,200 left in my Picasa albums. Maybe I’ll delete some more, who knows, but not for some time yet. I’m having fun picking my ten favorites of each subject, just for fun.

Day 40 August 14 Visiting old friends Bonners Ferry Idaho to LePage Oregon

2011-08-14T08:54:00.000-07:00

Waking up to gorgeous sunny skies and toasty temperatures, the four of us decided that Sunday brunch beside the Kootenay River would be a great way to share some good times before we continued on our way home. The casino in Bonners Ferry is beautifully situated along the river and the “everything” veggie omelette was wonderful. We finally left our good company at ten, and pointed the MoHo south on 95, through Sandpoint, toward Coeur d’Alene.

I lived in the Coeur d’ Alene area for more than 30 years and coming back always feels like coming home. I have so many memories of those landscapes. Some of those memories are of my children growing up, some are of happy times at the lakes and rollercoasters with my grandsons, others are of the years I spent driving all the back roads and working the mountains. I never fail to feel a bit nostalgic when I am in Northern Idaho, yet as much as I love it, I know I was a different “me” back then. I don’t think I could go back.

Of course I have old friends there, but none quite so dear as my friend Laura. Although her kids were the same age as my grandkids, we have great memories of them sharing egg gathering, garden dirt, and summer lakeside playtimes when Coeur D’Alene was one of the loveliest places in the world. I looked forward to seeing Laura on this sunny summer Sunday.

Among many other things, we especially enjoyed shared gardening, our horses, camping trips with our women’s group, and cooking together. With so many miles between us, we don’t get together often, but when we do it is just so wonderful. Heart friends, that’s what we are. Laura is married to Alvin, a homebuilder in Coeur d’Alene, and he had some sad stories about the homebuilding industry in the last four years, but good news is that he just finished a beautiful home for some doctor. According to Alvin, the doctor even had trouble getting financing, and the rules and regs associated with building the house were far more daunting than they had been in the past when dealing with the financing companies. Interesting stuff.

The best part of the mid-day visit however, was the fun getting lost in Laura’s crazy gardens. Laura laughingly called herself a “garden hoarder”, and I think she is right. Lush, crazy, out of control gardening at its finest. Laura is a respiratory RN at Deaconess in Spokane, and I’m not quite sure how she manages her acre of garden insanity while working full time and taking care of her little granddaughter. We had a lovely lunch of garden goodies, topped of with some iced herbal tea while catching up on stories about old friends, family, kids, and grandkids. It was a great way to make a long drive a bit more fun.

By the time we left Laura’s it was close to 2 in the afternoon, and we decided that we were going to just drive until we reached the Columbia River. It put us ahead of time an extra day, without the night in Spokane that we originally planned, and that sounded great to both of us.

We drove through the dry, open, dusty farmlands of eastern Washington, negotiated the winding ramps and exits of the Tri-Cities on 395 and fought the winds on I-84 along the Columbia River. Our favorite little overnight spot at the LePage COE campground had number 11 open and waiting, even without a reservation. Half price at ten bucks for electric and water is a deal for sure. Again, it was hot and we really wanted power, but once we settled in the breezes started up in full force and we cooled down for a good night’s sleep before starting the last leg home. We started the trip with the first night out in LePage and spent out last night on the road here as well.

Miles driven today: 359

The rest of the photos from this day are linked here

It’s not over yet

2011-08-13T13:04:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning missing Alaska and the Highway, the open road with no cars, the memories of the road to Valdez, the road to Haines, the utter silence of Joe Lake on the Denali Highway only a memory in my mind. We are parked in the Wal-Mart in Cranbrook, British Columbia, just 50 miles north of the border and this morning will be traveling to visit our friends in Bonners Ferry and spending the night there.

I have the past three days still to talk about and remember, thank goodness I have the photos to remind me.

I still have the camera to take the photos which is amazing, but that also is part of the story still to write. These last few days have all run together, filled with the magnificence of the Rockies, Alberta and the beautiful Canadian National Parks. There are still gorgeous photos of beautiful mountains and lakes to come, the rest of the story is still to be written. The stats of the trip to soon be calculated, more than 7,000 miles so far and more to come.

Parking at the Wal-Mart here has been delightful. It was a long day yesterday trying to find a place to be on a hot August Saturday night in an area that is focused on golf and resorts. Wal-Mart is filled with RV’s, but still not as crowded as the slide to slide packing we saw in the few RV parks we passed yesterday afternoon. We have free Wi-Fi right here in the rig from the McDonalds down the street. Enough for now, just know that there is more to come. We still have several hundred miles to go before this trip is finished.

I had no clue that the trip would be as amazing as it turned out to be. I had no clue Alaska and the Yukon would capture me the way it did. I had no clue. Enough for now. There will be plenty of time to write about the past few days on the long road home.

Day 39 August 13 Back in the USA Cranbrook BC to Bonners Ferry Idaho

2011-08-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

We woke to beautiful sunny skies in our filled WalMart parking lot. Out behind the rig a dad was tossing a baseball to his two kids and they were yelling at each other like it was mid-afternoon in a park rather than 7am in a parking lot. It was nice to have shopping a few steps away, and a cheap RV dump just down the street at the Husky station. We even had fast WiFi right in the parking lot from the McDonalds located WalMart.

We sent and received emails from our friends in Bonners Ferry, confirming an afternoon arrival when Georgette would be back from Spokane. Since there was time to spare, we decided it would be great to backtrack ten miles for the 10:00 AM opening of the Fort Steele Heritage Town.

The site contains restored buildings from the original town, as well as re-constructed buildings that would have been typical to the area during the period between 1890 and 1905, complete with costumed actors discussing the daily (1895) news as they walk the streets. It turned out to be a great experience and a truly lovely little town. I found myself often slipping back to a time when the streets were quiet except for the clip clop of horses pulling wagons. There was a working blacksmith, and a wonderful bakery where I bought heavy loaves of great sourdough bread for us and for our Bonners Ferry friends.

The glacial lake terrace nestled at the base of the Kootenay Mountains above the Kootenay River is soft and lush. I can see how it would have been a perfect place for a settlement of any kind. The buildings have been restored and furnished with loving care and the setting is beautiful. We ambled along the streets for more than two hours, finishing our wanderings with a cone of home made fabulous ice cream for Mo and I had a root beer float. It was hot, and I do love root beer floats, especially when made with vintage root beer.

Nina and Paul (the folks over at one of my favorite blogs “Wheelin’It” would appreciate the dog friendly atmosphere, with Abby welcomed into the site and bowls of doggie water conveniently placed around for the hot day. It was a great deal for only 5 bucks per person, with a two day pass including all the wagon rides and the vaudeville show available for only $20 per person.

By noon it was about time to amble down the road a few miles to the US border and once again cross into our home country. We were ready with all our papers and passports, having become old hands at this border crossing thing after so many times coming and going on this trip. At the crossing, we stayed well back of the big white line and the stop sign while a few cars ahead of us seemed to be crossing without incident. When it was our turn, we could see at least a dozen cameras aimed at all the strategic points of our rig recording every possible angle. We also know about the scanners that can see the hidden lines in US paper money and let the guards know exactly how much money you are carrying if it is in bigger bills.

The questions were simple, and our border crossing guard was an amiable guy. He didn’t even ask how long we had been away, what dates we left the USA, when we left Alaska, etc, all questions that we had memorized with careful checks of the calendar. He simply looked at us and asked Mo what the license number of the rig was. Now come on! How many of us know our license numbers by heart! Luckily I could answer quickly because I am the one that usually goes inside when we register for campgrounds and after this trip I had it down! He waved away my offering of the animal papers with a friendly smile, and said “Welcome home”. That was just so easy.

In just 30 more miles we were driving up the narrow dirt road to Georgette and Chet’s beautiful spacious log home overlooking the Kootenay Valley at Bonners Ferry. We visited last year on our way out for our trip to the northeast, and now this year on our way back home from Alaska.

Georgette trains Australian Cattle Dogs for herding and is now working on herding ducks, in addition to sheep and cows. Her dog is a great champion, and he thought Abby was just the cutest thing around. We found out that the racoon tail that looks like it was grafted on an Australian Cattle Dog is a sign of their pedigree, and the “lesser” blue heelers (which Abby has a bit of in her genes) have docked tails.

Georgette is a great cook and an even greater talker and we always have a wonderful time when we get together over wine and good food. They have a nice level site for the MoHo with water and electric, and enough power that the AC ran just fine to keep Jeremy nice and cool during the exceptionally warm evening. It’s always nice to spend time with good friends and we laughed long into the dark night before going back to the MoHo to greet a very lonely and vocal cat.

Miles traveled today: 85

A few photos from this day are linked here

Photos of the Fort Steele Heritage Town are linked here

Day 38 August 12 Jasper NP to Cranbrook, BC

2011-08-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

By the time morning came and I had a good night’s sleep, I was in a much better mood, and knowing that I still had a camera that worked helped my mood as well. We didn’t have much of a plan for the day except to continue south along the Columbia Icefield Parkway, to see at least part of Banff, maybe visit Lake Louise, and then find a place to camp for the night.

We left the campground quite early, hoping to have plenty of time to amble along and see whatever caught our fancy. In fact, it was so early that I had trouble taking photos with much of the landscape still shadowed by the incredibly high and steep Rocky Mountains all around me. As we climbed to the summit of the parkway, I was excited about seeing another glacier and the famous Columbia Icefield.

Jasper is certainly beautiful, and the Rockies have their own personality, all that limestone makes shapes that are very different from the volcanic and wild metamorphic mountains that we have traveled through in Alaska. We arrived at the glacier early enough to miss the most of the tourists.

I had somehow expected lots of ice along the Icefields Parkway, I have no idea why, but I pictured it all snowy and icy and that we would be driving very close to the icefields and the glaciers. It isn’t that way at all. The glacier itself is just a small piece of its former glory, like so many others, it has receded dramatically in the last half century. We walked around a bit, but weren’t inspired to do much hiking through all the rubble to the tiny bit of dirty blue ice that was visible to us from the trailhead.

Again, there were the markers showing the extent of the ice in years past, and the incredibly fast rate of recent recession. The visitor center at the summit of the parkway is reputed to be beautiful and interesting, but the parking lot was already getting full and we just weren’t up to another battle to see more stories about the Columbia Icefield.

Do I sound jaded? I don’t mean to. It was truly a beautiful drive, but we were so very spoiled by the beauty and especially the isolation in Alaska that it was hard to get into visiting here. I hope we go back sometime, and take the time to enjoy the special beauty of the Canadian Rockies and the beautiful national parks, and especially some of the surrounding areas. Sometime when I am not filled with images of solitude and isolation and roads that stretch for miles without another vehicle in sight.

As we continued south, the traffic started picking up and it was hard to pull over into any of the turnouts for pictures because they were already full of cars and people. There were some incredible lakes along the way, with reflections that were breathtaking, and the photos I got show a bit of blur to the trees because I had to get them while we were moving, out the window. Still, when I look back at these photos, I am amazed at the color and shapes.

The road south to Banff is excellent, with interesting bridges constructed across the highway to allow the animals to cross safely. Literature suggests that these barriers and bridges are actually working, although I couldn’t help wondering what would happen to an animal who happened to find its way inside the big fences along the highway. How would they get back out?

We decided early on that driving east into the actual town of Banff wasn’t something we wanted to do. Camping there is tight and expensive, we had no reservations, and after all this was a Friday night. Instead I just wanted to see Lake Louise, maybe hike around a bit, maybe even go for a kayak. Silly me. Once we arrived in the town of Lake Louise, the crush of traffic and tourism really became fully apparent.

I once heard that Moraine Lake was even more beautiful and a bit more isolated, so we decided to go there first. Parking the big rig in the visitor center parking lot was easy enough and we unhooked and loaded up into the baby car with the dog. It was under 20 miles of narrow winding road to the parking lot for the lake and another 1/2 mile to walk from the long line of cars already parked along the road outside the lot. Hmmm.

In spite of the crowds, though, the short hike around the lake was well worth the effort. Moraine Lake is a lovely turquoise gem set into the rugged mountains. The lodge was lovely, small and inviting, with wonderful cabins overlooking the lake with huge picture windows and fireplaces. It might be fun to be there in the morning and evening after all the people thinned out. Abby loved swimming as well, even though the water was cold from the glacier that feeds the lake.

After our hike, we returned to the car with the plan to take a similar hike at Lake Louise. We drove past the lodge and tried to figure out just how many miles we would have to walk before we got past the parking lot. The traffic was thick, and jammed to a halt trying to get into the filled lot that was farthest from the lake. Maybe I will see Lake Louise on another trip, but this time we looked at each other, hooked a fast u, and drove back to the motor home and out of the town in short order.

In very little time, on that broad smooth fancy highway, we were traveling west on Highway 93 toward Kootenay National Park, another Canadian gem. There were far fewer people on the road, and the vistas were lovely, but it was still too early in the day to think about stopping so we just continued on west toward British Columbia and Radium Hot Springs.

I have always wanted to visit Radium, and many of my friends from the Spokane area loved to go to Fairmont Hot Springs for skiing and winter sports. Radium Hot Springs was a charming little town, but the crowds were again building and the traffic was getting heavy. We stopped for a photo of the odor free pools, filled up with gas and continued south on 93, admiring the beautiful Columbia River Valley from high on the hill and laughing at the bighorn sheep wandering around through town.

Mo was getting a bit tired with all the driving, and we were both in the mood for a steak of some kind, so we thought that a stop in the Invermere Visitor Center would yield some good information. Usually the visitor centers are wonderful places with great volunteers eager to share their joys with us. That was not the case here. The two women were incredibly snotty, acting as though we were unbelievably stupid to think there might be a place to stay on a Friday night, and that we were even more stupid to think we would find a steak in Invermere. Well, excuuuuussseee me!!

I guess this strip through BC is fairly toney, with most of the RV parks converted to lease lots and resorts not particularly suited to travelers just passing through. We found a tiny place on the map called Fort Steele, and I asked one of our non-friendly ladies if there might be something there, and she seemed to think we could park in the Pioneer Town parking lot. Fine. Another 80 miles or so was nothing, right?

There were several provincial parks along the way, but we were just in the mood for boondocking and knew that probably on a hot summer Friday night there wouldn’t be any space for us there anyway so we continued south. Finally at Fort Steele, we were surprised to find the lovely little pioneer town closing up for the evening with very LARGE signs saying No Overnight Parking. Hmmm. To my delight, however, one of the young women closing the place down said,”There is a WalMart in Cranbrook and you can park there.”

Yaay! Off we went down the road, ten more miles, to the sweetest WalMart I have seen in a long time. We certainly weren’t the only ones with the same idea as the parking lot was filled almost bumper to bumper with motorhomes and fifth wheels, some folks even set up with chairs. I told Mo the boondock etiquette suggests we don’t open our slide, but we decided to do it anyway. Our rig is half the size of most even with the one slide extended! We did not set up the bbq or put out the chairs at least.

There was an employee in the parking lot and I asked him where I could find a good steak and he sent us down the road to Mr Mikes where we had a great steak supper with a “cheap” bottle of red house wine that set us back $31.00. Guess we should have asked the price when the waitress told us about the 5 bucks off special on the house red. LOL That dinner cost 100 bucks but it was a deal at any price after our long day, and our night at WalMart was free and just about perfect. I slept like baby.

Miles driven today: 288

The rest of the photos of Jasper are linked here

More photos of Moraine Lake are linked here

And some other photos from this day of travel are here

Day 37 August 11 Hinton to Jasper NP and the worst moment of the trip

2011-08-11T16:42:00.000-07:00

We woke this morning to misty drifts of fog slipping in and out of the hills around us and by the time we dropped down to the town of Hinton for fuel, the fog was so thick it was hard to find the gas station. Even early in the morning, there was considerable traffic on Canada 16, where Hinton is the gateway town between Edmonton and Jasper National Park.

We were in no hurry, though, and as we climbed into the massive Rockies, the fog lifted, exposing a higher level of cloud cover above us. When you enter the National Park, if you don’t plan to stop, they will wave you through without a fee. We told the agent that we wanted to kayak a bit and then find a place to camp somewhere between Jasper and Banff and she smiled and charged us a little over 16 bucks for a pass to both Jasper and Banff that was good until 4PM tomorrow. Perfect.

With a park map in hand, we decided that Maligne Lake looked like a perfect spot for kayaking and turned east, crossing the Athabasca River to travel beyond Maligne Canyon to the lake. About half way there we found a great empty turnout and parked the MoHo, thinking we could save a bit on gas if we just drove the baby car. I am so glad we did that, because the parking situation at the lake was tight to say the least, and while there was plenty of room when we arrived at 10am or so, by the time we got off the lake it was an entirely different story!

We launched the boats in cloudy skies, but after a bit of time on the lake the sun peeked through, warming us and making everything in view just sparkle. Maligne Lake is famous for the island at the far end of the lake, Spirit Island. It was a photo of this little island that made me want to put my boat on this lovely water. The only problem is that once again, we are in a very popular national park, and concession boat rides to Spirit Island are the only way most folks get to see it.

The cruise boat traffic was busy, with a boat leaving about every ten minutes and another one returning. The lake was beautifully calm, so the big swells from the wakes from these boats were dramatic, and we just rode along with them. The lake is more than 7 miles long and we really didn’t have the time for a 14 mile paddle, so we traveled along the west side of the lake about half way before crossing over to the eastern shore for a break. The water was perfectly clear, and Abby loved her swim while we walked a bit along the shore.

It was a beautiful day, a beautiful moment, a beautiful time on a beautiful lake. Ahhhh.

When we arrived back at the launch dock, we were surprised to find it crammed with people. They were all hanging around in the middle of the boat launch taking photos, standing around everywhere, and there were so many cars in the parking lot that we knew there was no way we would manage to get the car down to the launch. Instead, we picked up our 34 pound wonder boats and carried them up to the lot for loading. The rental RV’s were bumper to bumper trying to find parking, and one lucky person in a sedan had managed to park in the ditch and was stuck. We just loaded up the boats and got out of there as quickly as possible. By this time the sun was out in full force and it was actually hot.

We were happy to see the motorhome peacefully waiting in the one turnout that wasn’t occupied, hooked up the baby car and made some lunch before heading back out the Maligne Lake Road to the highway. On the way we saw several wildlife traffic jams, but one of them was actually worth stopping for, and I joined the crowds taking photos of a very unconcerned bull elk. Mo said she had never seen a rack as big as this guy, and I don’t think I have ever been that close to a bull elk ever. Probably not very smart. Back in my soil survey days, we had stories about encounters with bull elk, but usually that was in the fall during the rut. This guy was pretty darn tame, I guess.

We ambled on through the park, enjoying the views and the animals and decided that stopping in Jasper for cute little shops wasn’t worth the effort to park. Instead we drove slowly with all the other tourists, and I took photos out of the window cafes, and stores, and tourists. Jasper town was really quite nice, with many old homes converted to B&B’s, and lovely gardens. I could enjoy staying in Jasper for a week or so and taking more time for hiking the many trails and kayaking the many lakes. The maps looked so enticing.

Instead, we were getting into the home mode, and after six weeks traveling magnificent Alaska and the Yukon, this lovely little park full of tourists was a bit less exciting than it might be if it were our planned destination. We continued on south along the Athabasca River, planning to stop at any of the campgrounds along the Icefield Parkway that had room for us without a reservation.

Not far south we saw a campground down along the river, missed the turn somehow, and pulled into another turnout to retrace our steps. Mo said, “Wow, that is a great mountain”. I stepped out of the rig with the camera in hand to get a good photo, and Mo said one minute I was there and the next minute I was nowhere. With my eyes gawking at the mountain and my camera pointed up, I stepped into a deep hole in the asphalt and went down with a very hard crash. All I saw was broken glass and plastic strewn out in front of me, and I didn’t give a whit about whatever was going on with my body. There were half a dozen people in the parking lot who must have thought I was nuts, screaming, “It’s thousands of dollars, it’s thousands of dollars!!”

I was a bit skinned and bruised but that had nothing to do with the sick feeling in my stomach. Deanna’s lens. The super fast, super heavy, (later I found out it is $1539 bucks of super) lens took the full brunt of the fall. Not to mention my brand new camera. The lens filter was splintered and the metal edge of the lens was bent, the mechanism was stiff and acting funny. Duh. I clicked. Nothing. Clicked again. Nothing. I am so sick I can’t even cry. I put one of my other lenses on to see if it was just the lens. Click. Nothing. Then I look a little bit closer and see that the on/off button has shifted in the fall. Turn the camera on. Click. IMAGE! I put Deanna’s lens back on. Click. IMAGE!!

I think it must have been the heft and solidity of that fancy NIKON lens that took the hit and saved the camera. I tried several shots with Deanna’s lens, and except for a bit of stiffness in the zoom, it seems to still have perfect auto-focus and the images look fine. Incredible. Of course, I have to replace her lens, and insurance is $1000 deductible, so it’s coming out of my pocket. The good part about all this is that I never would spend 1500 bucks to get that lens for myself, and now I have one. Maybe a bit bent, and maybe not perfect, but still working and now mine.

By the time we backtracked and settled in to Mt Kerkeslin campground, $12 for a dry site, I wanted nothing more to do than sit and drink a beer on the sofa. My body hurt, my mind hurt, and I was a wreck, even with the reasonably good outcome. I felt like any step I took was going to put me on the ground somehow, it was definitely disconcerting! Mo took Abby for a walk, and we canned any plans to hike Athabasca Falls. I sat there alone on the sofa saying a ton of “thank yous” to the powers that be for letting the worst moment of our trip not be any worse than it was.

Miles driven today (in the MoHo): 73

The rest of the photos are linked here

Day 36 August 10 Grand Prairie to Hinton

2011-08-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

When we planned this trip, one of the roads that intrigued me was the Big Horn Highway from Grande Prairie Alberta to Grand Cache and then to HInton, the gateway to Jasper. In the Milepost, the road was described in glowing terms, indicating beautiful views and abundant wildlife. From the way the road was described, I wasn’t even sure it was going to be an easy road for the MoHo. The road was better than many on the trip, and it turns out the only wildlife we saw much of were the fast moving pick-up trucks driven by guys that I assumed were working the abundant oil fields.

We took our time leaving the comfortable park in Grande Prairie, knowing that we planned to boondock somewhere along the highway for the evening, since we planned to spend the entire next day exploring Jasper National Park. No rush, no hurry. The MoHo was shiny clean, rugs all washed, fresh showers and fresh shampoos for us and we were ready for a day of just rolling along.

It was almost 11 when we pulled out of town and the air was a bit murky, but certainly not as bad as the previous day. The sun was hot coming through the windshield, and we spent most of the day with the windows open enjoying the breezes. I’m so glad that Jeremy now simply ignores open windows and happily lounges on the dash when the windows are open. Now and then he will lift his nose to the wind and smell whatever it brings his way.

This route turned out to be rather boring, and even though it is listed as a scenic route, there are very few turnouts, no interpretive signs to explain the landscape, most of the time, hardly any shoulder to even pull over for a photo. As we approached Grand Cache, we noticed a huge coal plant along the Shadow River and dramatic coal seams in the bedrock along the highway.

The town of Grand Cache was a beautiful bright spot in the sunny say, with brilliant blue skies and big white puffies, my favorite. There is a lovely visitor center that we thoroughly enjoyed. They are in the process of rescuing the historic fire lookouts, moving them to the visitor center park, and telling the story of each one. We spent some enjoyable moments walking around the park with Abby and reading all the interpretive signs about the First Nations culture in the area, the history of the coal industry, and the stories of the forest lookouts.

As afternoon began to lengthen, and we were just ten miles or so north of Hinton, a wide turnout appeared with a side road slipping behind the timber. Perfect! We unhooked so we could drop a bit out of sight and parked for the very warm evening. Even though there was a fire ring, the mosquitos and heat made a fire seem less enticing, and instead we turned on the fans and after an early supper settled in with our books. I liked that we were invisible from the busy road, and by dark most of the traffic subsided.

Miles driven today: about 208

Road condition: 2 lane paved highway with a ton of construction and lots of big pick-ups driving fast, the oil industry employs lots of guys in big pick-ups!

A few photos from this day of travel are linked here.

August 9 Day 35 Bougie Creek to Grand Prairie

2011-08-09T23:35:00.000-07:00

Passing through the city of Fort St John brought up some questions. This town is the oldest white settlement in British Columbia, established in 1794 in the low rolling hills of the Peace River Valley. In the early 70’s, when I lived for a short time in Edmonton, Calgary, and Prince George, the Peace River Valley was talked about with awe, a mythical place where the nights were long, the soils fertile, and where an ordinary family could still come and homestead to make a good living.

When the Alaska highway was started in 1942, Fort St John had a population of 200, swelling overnight to more than 6,000 people as the army used this area as the southern base for building the highway. We took the side route through downtown Fort St John, a community now called “The Energetic City”, a boom town bursting at the seams with oil and gas money. I’m not sure why the air here is so dirty. The gray brown haze stretches for miles in the distance to the east, and the beautiful broad agricultural fields south of the city are dulled by the smoky skies. maybe there are forest fires somewhere in the west, maybe it’s humidity, or dirty foggy haze.

I just know that it’s ugly, and today Fort St John looked pretty darn ugly. You can tell that most all the building is new, and most of it is related to oil. We didn’t see any oil wells, but many storage tanks, lots of trucks, and many square utilitarian buildings. I can’t help but wonder why money brings such ugliness. It seems that it is all about build and buy and use and grow, with no rhyme or reason to the growth and no concept of beautifying the area. I guess I should give credit to the folks that planted big planters of brilliant petunias to hang along the main streets of town, they were pretty in the midst of wires and concrete.

South of town, we were again stopped by a construction zone, this time for more than 20 minutes. We were entertained during our wait by some guys trying to get a big Barber Green something or other unclogged. Mo and I laughed, you could tell the foremen from the workers by how clean their clean pants. We also wondered if they actually washed their clothes or just threw them away.

So far, this has been the best entertainment we have had along this route between Fort Nelson and Dawson Creek. A moose cow ran out in front of us with her calf, choosing for some unknown reason to cross the highway at a lope, baby in tow. I have no idea why she thought crossing the road in traffic was a good idea, but she was fast enough that the telephone couldn’t catch her through the windshield.

The scenery has been simple, rolling tree covered hills, gentle landscape, hazy, smoky, or whatever it is skies, and the road, stretched out in front of us broken only by an occasional bridge, a frost heave, or construction.

We stopped at the Esso at Wonowon, surprised to find the shop well stocked and interesting. They even had 5/20 oil, what we use in the MoHo, and sometimes it is hard to find. They had a well stocked snack area and deli with lots of goodies of every kind. Too bad we didn’t need anything. Gas was down to 1.419 per liter, and I am glad we shouldn’t need gas again until we reach Alberta where it should be cheaper.

After stopping at Taylor for information about Peace River Country, we crossed another “mighty” river, the Peace. Mythical, magical rivers that lead into the north fascinate me. I loved looking down into the fertile valley, but at 50mph on a steep uphill with lots of trucks and no turnouts, it was just a momentary glance and no chance for a photo.

About 21 miles north of Dawson Creek there is a turnoff to the Kiskatinaw River Bridge, and for about 3 miles we had the opportunity to meaner along a piece of the original Alaska Highway. The beautiful curved bridge is the only original timber bridge built along the Alaska Highway that is still in use. It was a lovely bridge, with wide wooden planks over the Kiskatinaw River. It was just a few moments respite from the monotonous drive from Fort Nelson to Dawson Creek.

Within a few minutes we were in Dawson Creek, location of the famous Mile 0 marker. Trouble is, there is more than one marker. Stopping at the visitor center near the grain elevator museum for photos, Mo kept insisting there was another marker somewhere right in the middle of town. Couldn’t figure it out at all, but while there we ran into another person sharing their life story, this time a guy from Virginia in a truly antique motor home. When I asked if he had experienced any trouble on his way north, he launched into some very long, complex stories. He then offered to take photos of the two of us and it wasn’t until later I realized that he hadn’t actually managed to get a single photo.

In the mean time, we were still trying to figure out where that original marker was in the middle of town. A closer look at the Milepost map revealed it’s hidden location and we backtracked for a photo to match Mo’s photo from 1974. Where! that felt better. Mo was thinking maybe they demolished the whole town when they put up the new marker. At this point we have covered the entire length of the official Alaska Highway, although our route started in the middle, backtracked a bit, took a few side roads and then finally ended up finishing at Mile Zero.

We didn’t dawdle in Dawson and made a beeline for Alberta on Highway 2, headed east through beautiful prairie and skies that opened up toward the horizon. That stretch from Fort Nelson to Dawson Creek was pretty ugly today, and I am glad to once again be breathing clear air and seeing fresh blue skies.

Just a short 80 miles east of Dawson Creek is the sparkling clean city of Grand Prairie. There was every box store you could imagine along the highway, but still somehow things felt clean and fresh. We didn’t bother to check out the town and turned south on Wapiti Road, Highway 40, our route south to Grand Cache and Jasper. Not far out of town is the delightful Camp Tamarack, with full hookups and the words that made us go there, “hi pressure RV wash”.

It was definitely high pressure, and after $18.00 Canadian we had a reasonably clean set of rigs. I am sure that when we get home we will be cleaning things up for a long time, but for now it felt good to get all that road grime off the surface at least. There is a laundry, with nice big machines that were available, and I caught up on wash and cleaned out the MoHo again in readiness for the next few days exploring Jasper and Banff as we continue south toward home.

Miles traveled today: 306

Road condition: paved 2 lane highway, with frost heaves, gravel sections, and bumpy frost joints until we got to Alberta and then the road was like a wide Nebraska freeway without the wind.

The rest of the photos are here, but they are really really boring today, so it might not be worth the time

August 8 Day 34 Muncho Lake to somewhere along 97

2011-08-09T19:00:00.000-07:00

I suppose days like yesterday only come one at a time. We woke at Muncho Lake this morning, same place we went to sleep last night, but it didn’t take long for the magic to dissipate as we traveled east and south, leaving the Rocky Mountains behind and moving onto the great inland plateau that makes up a large part of British Columbia.

When we settled in for the night, Mo wanted to load the kayaks, but I had visions of a silent morning paddle on that beautiful lake. Instead morning brought strong winds, even in the early light, and we loaded up the boats and were on the road by 8am. This part of BC is gorgeous, and the road passes through Muncho Lake Provincial Park and then through Stone Mountain Provincial Park. It’s a narrow road, but not bad, with a few curves here and there and a natural, meandering kind of mode that was fun to drive.

We saw more Stone Mountain Sheep at their namesake park, all standing in the road along the highway and in the highway, looking almost exactly as they do in the Milepost photo. Very cute critters, but I’m not sure what it is that they find along the road that is so interesting. Once beyond the park, the road dropped down to follow the Tetsa River, and the views in all directions were wonderful.

We pulled into the Tetsa Campground with the promise of fresh baked bread, and I checked in at the camp store to find perfect round loaves of fresh sourdough bread and a warm cinnamon bun that was hands down ten times better than the famous buns on the Klondike Highway. On the counter in the crockpot, was a bubbling pot of incredibly good smelling soup, so I bought a bowl of that as well for our supper to go with the bread. The owner was charming and conversational, with that far northern accent that I am getting used to.

Continuing east we crossed the last of the Northern Rocky Mountains as we moved onto the plateau. The trees were thick and the aspen and birch was dark green, but there wasn’t much else to see all the way in to Fort Nelson. Some agenda items: get water, dump, get gas, get money, get food, wash the rigs. We succeeded in the first few, with a stop at the visitor center that yielded information about where to find an ATM. Right next to the ATM was a pizza place, and we haven’t had pizza in more than a month, so we ordered one to go.

The city operates a free dump and water station near the museum, so we took advantage of that, planning to boondock somewhere tonight and wanting to be sure we had enough water for baths. I still have sulfur in my hair and it does feel a bit weird. While parked at the pizza place, I discovered a hot spot and managed to upload a few photos and a single blog post while checking email and doing some more banking. Mo was anxious to get the rigs washed, so after I stopped into the IGA for supplies, we headed over to the car wash.

It’s hard to explain just how these kinds of chores can seem to take so long, can be so tiresome and can really take the shine out of a day. Before we washed the rigs, we needed fuel, and I paid the highest price ever at 1.46 per liter. I put 225 Canadian into the tank and it was still only 3/4 full. Trying to get out of the station added more frustration as some woman from Alaska seemed to think the middle of the driveway was the place to park while she shopped and took on water. When I asked her to move so we could get out, she pulled forward a few feet and then got out to do more stuff. Duh! Excuse me, but please, we would like to GET OUT OF THIS PLACE!

Not so fast, we still have the rigs to wash. Just a couple of doors down from the FasGas was a car wash with a bay big enough for both rigs and we just slid into position without a hitch. I went to get loonies, and the proprietor informed me it used only toonies, with each toonie giving one minute of wash time. I looked at Mo, we looked at the MoHo, and thought about just how far ten bucks would take us in that filthy mess. Maybe not.

We pulled out of town in a ton of traffic, lots of pickup trucks driving south to work the second shift on the huge natural gas plant south of town. In 1957, Fort Nelson didn’t even have power, but now with oil shale and natural gas the place it starting to really boom. It was actually hot for the first time since we left the lower 48, with a humid 90 plus degrees showing on the thermometer.

We are now driving south on the Alaska Highway, BC highway 97. Advertised road condition says wide road, 2 lane good pavement all the way to Dawson Creek. As the miles pass I think we are both feeling a bit better. It does make me wonder how things will feel when we have to deal with reentry into traffic and the frustrations of a populated world. For the time being, we plan to find another wide place in the road to boondock tonight, eat our pizza and drink a well deserved beer.

Later: Around 4 pm, maybe 40 or 50 miles south of Fort Nelson at an unnamed creek, Mo suddenly said, “Hey, this looks good!”. We crossed the little bridge and turned down the tiny road on the east side of the highway toward a nice wide area along the creek. Perfect.

It was hot. After settling in we made sure the fan was on before taking Abby for a walk down to the stream. Not sure why, but the stream was a dull brown color, hopefully not some sort of runoff from the oil fields. We heated up our pizza and relaxed with dinner, turned on the water heater for a good shower, and then, bam. Two big rigs saw that little narrow road as well and rumbled down into “our” campsite, jumped out, hollered at each other while backing and proceeded to set up their nice little camp, chairs and all, right out our front window.

Ok. Right. I’m a jerk. It’s NOT my campground, it’s not my creek, and they have just as much a right to be here as I do. Bummer. I have been spoiled rotten, and its time to get back to the real world. ugh. Little black flies are buzzing around INSDIE the MoHo, and I’m not sure how they got here. Big black spruce beetles are hanging out on the screen. Did I mention that it’s hot? Mo is hiding away in her book on the sofa, oblivious to my grumblings. Smart.

Miles driven today: about 230 from stop 20 to stop 21 on the Streets and Trips map to the left.

Road conditions: variable, but mostly good 2 lane highway. A bit of construction in BC, a bit of narrow stuff here and there, some frost heaves here and there, but we still traveled at 50mph most of the time.

The rest of the photos for this day are linked here

August 7 Day 33 Irons Creek to Muncho Lake

2011-08-09T18:28:00.000-07:00

In life sometimes there are good days. Sometimes there are really great days. Then sometimes there are days that are written in golden memory, shining and brilliant for the rest of a lifetime. This was just one of those days. Since I woke this morning beside a creek in British Columbia, time seemed to crawl along in some sort of slow motion. Every single moment of this perfect day was drawn out long and still, a gift I suppose from the land and the water and the skies, a gift so that I could savor it.

Our boondock site last night along Irons Creek was still in an area of road construction, so we thought it would be a good idea to get on the road early enough so we didn’t need to worry about falling in line with a pilot car.The skies were still light when I woke at 11:30, but by 1:30 when I again woke and checked for northern lights it was dark enough to see stars. I haven’t seen stars since we left more than a month ago. It was 31 degrees when we opened the back blinds at 5:30 the only one we had closed during the long quiet night. After heating a pot of water for tea, we closed up the rig and were on the road before 6.

The drama of the morning light was accentuated with mysteriously beautiful drifts of fog lying in the low lands along the Llaird River. We drove for awhile looking for a nice level pullout to stop and cook Mo’s favorite Sunday morning treat, poached eggs on toast. Then another stop for a walk down to the river to view the Whirlpool Canyon rapids was rewarding with cool fresh morning air and the roar of the river.

At Coal Creek, there was a small café advertising WiFi, and I thought it might be a good place to try to upload the backlog of blog posts, but even with the $5. fee, I couldn’t manage more than a simple update post with no photos and a quick check of email and bank accounts. That was really all that mattered anyway, the blog will be there when we are eventually.

Within minutes of leaving Coal Creek we encountered the first of many buffalo grazing along the highway. Most folks traveling this route will see these buffalo, and they seem to congregate along the wide highway shoulders thick with grasses. I wondered if they were native to this area or if they have been transplanted here by the BC Parks. Of course, with no internet, I will have to find that out later. We enjoyed taking photos of the huge bulls with their massive heads and the little ones protected by their moms as they moved along with heads down, grazing.

The reality of cars and wildlife hit home hard as we passed a dead buffalo beside the road, and saw her little one grazing alone along the highway. Huge signs warn of buffalo in the area, but still many are killed. In all, we saw at least 4 dozen buffalo, many bulls and many babies, so even with the sad moment it was encouraging to seem them. Later I found out that these are “wood bison” and that the herd was once completely decimated. Only in the recent decades has the BC government protected them and the herd has grown to nearly 100 animals.

The wide road opened up before us, dropping down off the Yukon Plateau to the valley of the “mighty” Llaird River. Yes, it is another mighty river, according to the Milepost. I do love the mighty rivers of the Yukon and British Columbia. It’s a good word.

One of my important “todo” lists for this trip was a visit to Llaird River Hot Springs and it was less than 80 miles from our night camp to the provincial park. At first I thought we might stop and camp here for the night, but then decided that it was worth the ten bucks to dip in the springs and then continue down the road to Muncho Lake, another big “todo” on my list and camp there. I wanted to dip my kayak in those famous turquoise waters.

We settled into a parking space and turned on the fan for the animals since Abby couldn’t go out on the hot springs trail. They have a boardwalk that passes through hot mud flats and wetlands, through the forest, to the first pool. The second pool is now closed due to an endangered animal that lives there. There was construction going on, with a new dam being built, but somehow it still felt silent and calm around the pool. There were a few people around, most of whom seemed incredibly respectful of the special beauty of this place.

I slipped into the mid zone of the pool, knowing that 126*F would definitely be too much for me at the source of the spring. It was heaven, just pure heaven. There is a bit of sulfur, but not too much, and there is every variation of temperature in the water, from bathtub comfortable at the lower end of the pool, to too hot for me to handle at the upper end.

I marveled at the feeling of incredibly hot surface water, with cooler water at my feet. Perfect for hitting that lower back spot without getting too hot! Mo doesn’t like sulfur water so I swam alone while she rested on the benches. I’m not sure how long I stayed, but while I was in that water, nothing hurt, just nothing. You know how it is when the years catch us, something somewhere always seems to be hurting. Nothing hurt at all while I was in that pool, and as I sit here by the campfire tonight, still nothing hurts. I could use one of those springs in my own yard!

Once again I met an Alaskan willing to tell her whole story. All it takes is a hello and a simple question, and they are off and running. I met Janet, a woman who has homesteaded at Healy near Denali for 29 years. She is driving back to the ‘lower 48” for the first time since then. Her daughter is in Colorado and needs her. She is afraid of dealing with the city, laughingly telling me that in all her time at Healy she only had to deal with one crazed bear. She hates the idea of dirty snow and of paying for water. But her daughter needs her. She quit her two jobs and is going to Colorado. She last dipped in the Llaird pools 29 years ago when it was all free, but promised herself this one stop on the Alaska Highway.

Not far beyond Llaird Hot Springs the view opened up to the lovely blue water of Muncho Lake. I think I expected it to be a bit more colorful thnt it looked at first because it has been touted so much in all the literature. Still, it was a respectable blue with edges of turquoise and emerald in the shallows. There is a campground listed in the Milepost at the southern end of the lake, with 15 rocky beach sites. On the information map for the park, however, we saw another campground on the northern end and decided that might be more to our liking.

Pulling in to Macdonald Campground we found 15 beautiful sites, each with it’s own perfect small gravel beach, a table and a fire ring. It was still early in the afternoon, and it was warm and clear. We set up in our private, perfectly level gravel drycamp site, opened the awning to shelter our chairs against the afternoon sun, and looked forward to a long, quiet afternoon of beautiful views, gorgeous water, and peaceful quiet.

For the first time on this trip, Mo had a chance to plug in her little electric chain saw to cut up the pallet lying near our site in addition to a couple of downed dry spruce logs. She discovered that with the generator going, the chain saw would only run on the outlet set up for the microwave, and run it did. We had enough wood for a great long fire after supper into the evening.

I can’t explain why one day might be more perfect than any other. The litany sounds like any other day on the Alaska journey. I know we have seen more spectacular scenery, done exciting things all along the route, traveled more dramatic paths. But something about this day seemed golden, slow and perfect. I sat in the lounge chair for a long time just looking up at the light filtering through the aspen leaves listening to the lap of water on the shore.

Earlier in the day I relaxed for a long time in a clear warm pool surrounded by green peacefulness, and later in the day I silently paddled along the shore of a perfect lake surrounded by perfect mountains. We had a great home-cooked supper with simple chicken breasts, my favorite grated carrot and apple slaw, and some super sweet corn brought all the way from Medford Costco in our little freezer. After supper I slipped out again onto the lake, and then while Mo relaxed with a book I took Abby for a walk along the shore. I watched the moon low in the sky to the east and the long twilight as the sun set behind the high mountains to our west.

I felt more quiet inside than I have on the entire trip, as if the accumulation of all the experience finally settled in to a deep place in my heart. I guess that is why is was somehow the ‘perfect’ day for me on the Alaska Highway.

Miles driven today: about 230

Road condition: beautiful roads most of the way with just a bit of construction here and there

The rest of the photos for this day of travel are linked here