A Full-time Life

THE END OF THE TRIP AND HOME AGAIN

      

Yes, our annual summer migration is over.... in real life we've been home since the very end of June and, with this early August post, the trip will be over even in blog-land.    (It was a long trip, but not quite as long as it's been here on the blog.)

 

 

 

 Since our ultimate destination (our Northwest home) was Eugene Oregon  ....

 

 

.... I'm tempted to say, in the words of local icon and world-famous  author Ken Kesey "What a long, strange trip it's been." 

 

But although our home city might be a little  different -- "left of normal" (and we're all proud of that), our trip itself was actually a great one, with nothing strange about it.   We explored new places and favorite old ones, had not a speck of trouble on the road, and arrived safely.

 The above pictures are from around town, close to our apartment.   The Eugene Parade was held about a week after we got home ...  we were watching on a street corner less than a block away from our upstairs terrace apartment  -- where the street noise doesn't reach,  but the street excitement is  close by. 

  

 

 

Here is the road-map for the last part of our trip -- from Longmont Colorado  (where we stayed with our son and daughter-in-law) to Eugene Oregon.   The map for the first part of the journey (from our winter home in Florida to Colorado) is HERE.    Because we always break up the trip with a lovely stay with our Colorado family, I've called that our half-way point, but  that's not at all accurate.    (We drove 2,159 miles from Fort Myers to Longmont and then 1,222 miles from there to home.  A total of 3,381 road miles -- not counting side-trips  (mostly in Colorado and Utah).   

 

Abandoned -- along a back-road somewhere  --- Wyoming or Utah or Idaho  -- but the poppies don't know or care.

 

We did not necessarily take the shortest possible route on either 'half' of the journey  and we do not drive long days.  We never have enjoyed that kind of travel -- even when we were younger.    We also took a little longer on the second part of the trip because, while we were in Idaho, we read that temperatures of over 100 F were happening in Eugene.  So we decided to play on the road a bit until it cooled down some at home.

 

Onion seed field somewhere in Idaho

 

Temperatures in the triple digits do not make for good moving-back-in-weather.    And we knew that, this being western Oregon, the extreme heat would not last for long.   Happily it did soon cool down a bit and we arrived in good time for the family picnic on the Fourth of July:

   

  

 

Here are two members of the clan who do not mind having their pictures taken one bit.   We were in the "woods" .... the far back part of the boys' grandparents place.   (Their grandparents are our daughter and son-in-law. We are proud to be the 'GGs' ... the great-grandparents.)  

I took the bird pictures below a couple of days before the Holiday, also in our daughter's yard (closer to their house.)    I was meant to be unpacking our travel van, which we leave out there (we have a small generic car for city use) -- but it was more fun to sit and chat with the family while watching the birds.

 

 

I'm not having any luck identifying this amusing 'little brown job'.  We used to call all our brown feeder birds "LBJs" but that was years ago .   Now it bothers me not to be able to name all the birds we see and I'd love any help I can get with a name for this one.

 

 

Seen in many yards in Eugene 

 

It's good to be home on the West Coast.  We like it here!

   

LINKING this week to:  OUR WORLD on Tuesday; ALL SEASONS; NATURE NOTES; THROUGH MY LENS; WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY; SIGNS SIGNS; SKYWATCH FRIDAY; SATURDAY CRITTERS; and RATHER B'BIRDING.

Thanks to all of the hosts for providing these sharing opportunities. 

 

SCENIC IDAHO

 

This week's pictures, nearly the end of the road-trip,  are all from the State of Idaho.   We've spent quite a bit of time in that State  over the years (both of us grew up in a tiny town in Washington State that borders  Northern  Idaho) and we have camped in  and traveled through parts of it many times in our life.     But surprisingly on this trip we found several new and interesting places to explore.

 

 

This is Shoshone Falls on the Snake River near the town of Twin Falls.   I love waterfalls and Shoshone Falls was stunning.  We don't know why we'd never visited  before, as we have driven through that town several times in the past.    The contrast between the swiftly flowing water and the rugged Idaho landscape was fascinating.

 

 

The Park area above the Falls was donated to the city of Twin Falls by the ranchers who owned the land, for the purpose of public enjoyment -- and of course we were not the only members of the public doing just that on this day.

 

 

Among all the other tourists there was also a group of plein-air painters set up at various points around the Falls.  It was fun to sneak a peek over their shoulders to see the various artistic interpretations.   (I'm more than happy to let my camera interpret for me.)

 

 

We saw these petroglyphs  in the Snake River canyon near the tiny town of Melba. Humans have lived in this area for at least 10,000 years.   We walked the trail to try to see some of the etchings left on the rocks.  They are quite faded and hard to see and the trail was fairly rugged, so I'm sure we missed a lot.

 

 

We visited the World Center for Birds of Prey near Boise.  Naturalists at the Center are among those working to re-introduce California Condors into the wild.  This vulture, the largest flying bird in North America is also the most endangered bird on our continent.  Although ancestors of the bird were alive during prehistoric times, by 1982 only 22 of the species remained.  All of these were placed in captive breeding programs at that time.   Most of the young condors born here in Idaho are released near the Grand Canyon.   

Today, the greatest danger to the newly wild condors are lead bullets.  Because the condors eat only dead animals, they may ingest particles of lead in animals left by hunters.   There is a push to stop the sale of leaded bullets, but I believe they are still being sold.   In addition to breeding condors for release, this Center also treats sick condors for rehabilitation.

 

 

 

This pretty little Kildeer was among several wild birds we saw on the grounds of the Center.   At 9 inches or so, it looked awfully small  after we had just gazed at the Condors which have over a 9-foot wing-span.  

 

 

There were lots of reasons to be glad we spent some time in Idaho on this trip.  And this amazing rainbow upstream from Shoshone Falls was definitely not the least of them.

 

 

LINKING this week to:  OUR WORLD on Tuesday; MOSAIC MONDAY; ALL SEASONS; NATURE NOTES; THROUGH MY LENS; WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY; SIGNS SIGNS; SKYWATCH FRIDAY; SATURDAY CRITTERS; and RATHER B'BIRDING.  

 

Thank you to the hosts for making these wonderful sharing opportunities available to all of us.

 

DRIVE-BY WYOMING and a STOP IN UTAH

 

   

We've been happily at home in Oregon for over three weeks, but I'm still road-trip blogging -- because there are still  fun pictures and experiences we don't want to forget .  

After  we left Colorado on our way to the Utah stop I showed last week, our route took us across southern Wyoming.    We don't drive a lot of miles in a day, so we did stay overnight in Rawlins,  but, as it's been on most of our cross-country trips,  Wyoming was pretty much a drive-through State.    

 

 

Blue sky, green grass and red rocks when we first hit the Wyoming border -- outside of Laramie -- but it wasn't  many more miles before we began to see the landscape that defines this part of the State ... endless miles of sagebrush.

 

 

 It gets monotonous, but Sagebrush  is an important part of the ecological system ....

 

(click for easier reading)

... as the above sign (at a highway rest-stop area)  explains.

 

 

 

In the mosaic above, one farm animal behind the fence and some wild animals in the open are browsing that sagebrush.    We always lose count of how many pronghorn we see when driving across Wyoming.  I think there might be more of them than there are people.  

Among the 50 States, Wyoming ranks 50th  in population but is the 10th largest in area.  According to Wikipedia there are 584,000 people populating just over 97,000 square miles.  (That leaves a lot of room for sagebrush and the wildlife it supports.)    

 

 

 

We stopped in Kemmerer for lunch.     It is in this tiny town that James Cash Penney founded his first department store in 1902.   This, the "mother store" is still in the same downtown location where it all began.   Nowadays, you would almost always  find this national chain store in malls.   (If you found it at all, the way things are going these days. )  That very morning, we'd read yet another story about how brick and board stores are rapidly declining as more and more of us do our shopping on line.    

 

We arrived at Bear Lake  (on the Utah/Idaho border) that afternoon and that was where we took the bird pictures I showed last week.   That State line is one of the few in the country (in our experience)  where you actually notice a difference in terrain and landscape almost as soon as you cross into the next State.   

 

 

  Bear Lake Valley  as seen from Logan Canyon Scenic Byway, Utah

   

 

LINKING THIS WEEK to OUR WORLD on Tuesday; MOSAIC MONDAY; ALL SEASONS;  NATURE NOTES;  THROUGH MY LENS; SIGNS SIGNS;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY; and SATURDAY CRITTERS.

 Thank you to all of the hosts.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

BIRDS OF BEAR LAKE

  

  On our way home to Oregon, we spent a couple of nights camping at Bear Lake.  The Lake, which straddles the Utah/Idaho border,  has been a favorite stopover  for years.  

 

 

 

It is one of the prettiest, bluest lakes ever -- though I never seem to quite capture that technicolor blue in pictures.   We always see birds when we stay there and again we weren't disappointed.    On this hot summer day we didn't see as many as on past visits which were in the Spring or Fall, but we had one sighting that made the stopover oh so worthwhile ... 

 

 

 

The American Avocet wasn't  a first-timer because in our previous  (pre-retirement)  life, we used to see them sometimes when we went camping in Eastern Oregon.  But that was long before the days of digital cameras (or blogs).   And even though I know these birds hang out sometimes in Florida as well as in Oregon, it had been years since we'd seen one.    So I was delighted with this sighting.   

 

 

 

Above are some other birds near where the Avocets were hanging out.   I am guessing that the top birds were Wilson's Phalarope, but am more than willing to be corrected.  And we saw quite a few White Pelicans -- it always surprises me to see them on inland waters.   

 

 

 

This yellow-headed blackbird watched the water birds from a fence post and sang loudly to let them (or us) know he was claiming the territory.  

The red-winged blackbird below is from when we were back in Colorado earlier in the trip, but included because it is interesting  to compare the two blackbirds.... 

 

 

 

...and also because this picture  was taken by Geoff (our son) and it's a much better blackbird picture! 

 

 

 

Here are a few more shots of the Avocet  --just because it was so nice to cross this beautiful bird off my photo wish list!  (I'd still love to see them again though -- anytime, anywhere!)

 

LINKING this week to :  MOSAIC MONDAY; NATURE NOTES; OUR WORLD;  ALL SEASONS; THROUGH MY LENS; WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY; SKYWATCH FRIDAY; SATURDAY CRITTERS; and RATHER B' BIRDING.  

  

THANK YOU to all of the hosts.

 

 

 

ABANDONED

We took secondary highways instead of the Interstate Freeways as much as we could on our recently completed roadtrip.   We like looking at fields and farms and small towns, even though we were a little short of time on this trip and our exploration was often limited to drive-by shooting.  

 

Abandoned  homesteads seemed to be a motif for much of our  trip.  All the way through East Texas into Colorado, Wyoming, and Idaho we passed way too many houses and outbuildings left to fall into ruin.  

 We always hope the people moved away under pleasant circumstances, but we are always afraid that wasn't the case.

 

  

 This one was probably someone's mining cabin.  

 

This abandoned home was even more poignant because there were still beautiful yellow roses growing in the front yard.    

 

Someone loved this home once!

 

Inviting the participants at OUR WORLD along on the roadtrip --  with thanks to Sandy for hosting.

WATER ON THE ROADTRIP

FOR WATERY WEDNESDAY

For a couple of slowpokes, we're moving along pretty quickly on this leg of our road trip -- really just traveling, not touring.  But we have found some lovely watery places to spend the nights.  Great parks for stretching road-weary legs and lovely water to look at while unwinding before dinner and bedtime. 

    

Night one (still in Florida -- we had some planned work done on the Roadtrek in Nokomis).  That's Oscar Sherer State Park

Night two -- the mallards at a fishing pond in the RV Park in Albany Georgia

Night three -- Lake Lurleen State Park, Coker Alabama

Night four -- JJ RV Park Hot Springs Arkansas (that's a picture from Fall 2008 -- we are parked right now at the exact same spot we had back then.  It's greener -- and hotter -- now.)

 

POST CARD FROM HOT SPRINGS

    Shared with the blogging community at             THAT'S MY WORLD. 

Sunday June 5.  We're living our full time life on the road again this week, right now in Hot Springs Arkansas.  We spent a week in this lovely area in Fall 2008.  One of the highlights of that visit was visiting bathhouse row at Hot Springs National Park.  It's just a quick stopover this year, so no time for a bath (maybe a shower in the campground ;>).  So this is a repeat of a post from our earlier trip.  Click on Arkansas on the category list to read more about this area --   It's a great place to visit.

November 17, 2008

SOAKING UP SOME HISTORY (HOT SPRINGS NATIONAL PARK, 2008)

Hot Springs is quite an unusual National Park.  Water -- for bathing and drinking -- is the main attraction.  The Park is a developed area in the small city of Hot Springs, Arkansas.  Some beautiful scenery surrounds the city, but the main part of the National Park is located along one street in downtown Hot Springs called Bathhouse Row. There is also is a series of walking paths through a park area behind the Row.  This is the Buckstaff Bathhouse, seen from the path behind it.

Hot Springs isn't a volcanic region.  The water began as rain that fell over 4000 years ago.  It is heated by a combination of rocks that lie deep in the earth here and then it surfaces in springs on the slopes of the Hot Springs mountains.  It gets hot because of gravity compressing the earth and by certain elements decaying the earth crust. When it gets to the surface it is an average temperature of 143 degrees F. 

Many people believe in the therapeutic powers of the spring water.  There are free fountains fed by springs throughout the town and we saw people collecting it by the jugful to carry home.   The water has no taste or odor at all.

There are records and pictures showing that various American Indian tribes bathed in these springs in the 1700s and probably their ancestors used them before that.  People soon began to build shacks and wooden covers over some of the springs.  After several disastrous fires, the government took control of the springs in the 1870s and began to license private bathhouses.  The area was promoted as "the Nation's Health Sanitarium."  Water therapy was one of the few treatments available for many diseases.  In the 1920s and 30s, the area was a hugely popular health and vacation destination and a major rail travel destination.    

But as medical advances provided a surer way to cure disease and car ownership made it easier for people to travel for longer distances, Hot Springs began to decline as a vacation/health destination.

By the 1950s, only one Bathhouse was still operating and some of the others were left to become eyesores.

After years of decline, the National Park Service began working to restore Bathhouse Row and preserve it as an historical attraction.   The Foredyce Bathhouse is where the Park Visitor Center is located.  It has been restored to the glory of its hey-days and there is a self-guided tour.  The room pictured here was part of the men's bathing room.  The women's side of the bath house was not as elegant. Taking the baths was quite the social occasion in those days, as well as being therapeutic.

Now there are eight preserved bathhouses along the row, but only a couple are operating.  The Park Service regulates and supervises, but they are run by private concessioners.   Others are still in the process of being renovated..   

We felt like it would be a shame to be in a National Park and not sample its main reason for being.  So we went to the Buckstaff, which is the one that has been operating continuously since 1912.   It isn't quite as glamorous as it used to be, but being pampered felt great.  Ahhh!  Who would ever think that taking a bath would be a part of a National Park experience. 

What a fun way to "soak up" some history.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

 This is a sticky post -- just for the purpose of quicky letting people know (sort-of) where we are right now.  Scroll down for newer posts.

 (Cue up the Willy Nelson.) 

We are ON THE ROAD AGAIN!)

On our summer road trip this year, we are heading for Colorado, where we will visit our son and daughter-in-law (and the beautiful scenery their home state offers).  And, from there off for Oregon to visit more family and old friends. 

 

 

 

WINTER 2010 ROADTRIP WRAPUP

This was the quickest cross-country trip ever for us.   It was faster driving in the RoadTrek than pulling the Fifth-Wheel!    Here's the Link (once more) to the post we wrote last Fall about our decision to downsize our traveling home.  (The Roadtrip was delayed after it was posted, but everything else in it is accurate.)

We made it from Oregon to Florida  (3,919 miles) in 16 days.  I'm sure our grown grandchildren  -- or anyone of their generation  -- would laugh at that time, but our days of sharing driving and only occasionally pulling over to sleep at the side of the road are long past (if, in fact, they ever existed).  We stayed in RV Parks each night.  We spent two nights in Redlands California and three in San Antonio TX and otherwise it was just overnight stops.

Our mileage was 16.68 MPG -- pretty good we thought. 

We really had fun traveling in the RoadTrek and we look forward to taking it on another trip this summer.  On this trip, we found that we'd brought too much of some things and not enough of others.  And just about the time we got here, we had finally figured out where everything belonged; we did spend quite a bit of time rummaging around for some particular item we had stashed in the wrong place.  Next trip should be a breeze, now that we have the bugs worked out.

I've heard people traveling in Fifth-Wheels or large motor homes refer to it as "roughing it in style" but really when you travel pulling your home behind you're not roughing it at all -- you're just living on the road. Our Fifth-Wheel has everything in it that our stick house did; the only difference was the change in scenery.  

This time, with our little RoadTrek, it was a lot more like camping, but with the ease of a soft bed, bathroom and kitchen -- and computer.   While we wouldn't want to have lived fulltime in it for years the way we did in the Fifth-Wheel, at this stage it is perfect for the travel we plan to do.  

LEAVING PLACES, LEAVING PEOPLE -- ROADTRIP FEBRUARY 2010

We are travelers and we love to GO and we love to explore.  But that doesn't mean that LEAVING is easy!  Anytime we love a place, it is a little bit hard when it's time to leave, because there are always thngs you wanted to do and see that you didn't have time for and often new friends that you wish you could spend more time with. 

And when you leave places where your family is, it is even harder.  It doesn't matter whether it is a few months -- like when we left Oregon a couple of weeks ago -- or a few days -- like when we left San Antonio this week. It is never easy.  And I am usually not a very happy camper for the first few hours after we get back on the road. 

Leaving San Antonio  (last view at left) was not made one bit better by the fact that as we got farther away from it and closer to Houston the air got smoggier and smoggier, the traffic got heavier and heavier, and the roadside view was mostly oilrigs and industrial scenes with a few ugly generic strip malls thrown in for contrast.  It was not beautiful.  I think I'd rather have the miles of nothing back there on the desert. 

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So, really, lovely San Antonio was kind of an oasis in between two different kinds of deserts!  Of course, if we had kids who lived in Houston, we would love being there because they were there -- but it sure is a  wonderful bonus that they live in a beautiful area instead.

We did make it into Louisiana on the first night after we left though and as soon as we got there, my mood improved considerably. 

SAN ANTONIO FAMILY TIME - ROAD TRIP FEBRUARY 2010

We spent time in the beautiful and historic city of San Antonio on one of our first RV trips.   We celebrated the new Millenium on January 1 2000 at the city-wide party.  We really enjoyed our stay then and loved the area, but now we love it more because we have a grandchild (and his parents)here!     

We got to see the kids and their new home.  And we spent some Saturday time together on San Antonio's historic and beautiful River Walk and in one of the nearby artisan neighborhoods.

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Here are the three guys -- Ryan, his Dad Pete, and his Grandpa Bill -- on the River Walk.  As you can tell, it wasn't a very warm weekend.

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Ryan is the grandson who spent a couple of weeks with us at Fern Ridge Shores last August while his mom and dad were finishing up their preparations for moving here from Tacoma, Washington.  Here he is at his new Texas home  with one member of his reptile and amphibian menagerie.  (It is a leopard lizard, which is native to Afghanistan and Iraq.  Because its habitat is being destroyed by the war there, Ryan explained to us, it is now an endangered species.) 

It was a great visit.  Not long enough, but we'll be back!

Here are a few more of Ryan's animals: (Click to enlarge)

MILES OF NOTHING - RoadTrip February 2010

Between our stop at Joshua Tree in California and our stop in San Antonio Texas, we covered a lot of miles of, well... as Bill said "there sure is a lot of nothin' out there."  We wanted to get to San Antonio on the weekend, so we stayed right straight on I-10 through overnight stops at Quartzsite Arizona, Deming New Mexico, and Fort Stockton Texas.

There are some pretty cactus hillsides just past Tucson (bordering Saguero National Park), but before and after that, it is just scrub desert like the picture, except sometimes without even the mountains in the background.

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At El Paso, we took a trans-mountain road around the city, happily missing the stop-and-go city freeway traffic and instead getting this view -- looking down on El Paso and beyond it, across the Rio Grande into the dangerous territory of Ciudad Juarez Mexico.  We recently read that El Paso has a very low crime rate, in spite of it's proximity to the most dangerous city in Mexico. Probably true, but we still aren't tempted to spend much time in El Paso. 

So this part of the journey was really just a road-trip.  Traveling along for miles and miles and reflecting on the acres and acres of this big country where nobody at all lives. 

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We were happy to get into the Texas Hill Country and then into San Antonio, which is a beautiful city -- and especially so because we have family there now.   

ROADTRIP FEBRUARY 2010, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

One different thing about traveling with the RoadTrek instead of the Fifth-Wheel and truck is how easy it is to park.  With the fifth-wheel, when we pulled into our spot for the night it always took time to jockey our longer house into our spot.  Then Bill would plug in our electricity, water, and sewer connections while I went into the "house" to put out the slides and straighten up a bit.  When Bill came in from his work, we were home for the evening -- two or three hundred miles down the road, but at home, just like we were the night before.  With all the conveniences of any home, albeit on a smaller scale, we didn't really feel like we were on the road while we were in our traveling house. 

But with the RoadTrek there is no separation between the vehicle we drive and the home we're sleleping in.  Getting into our night's spot is no more difficult than parking a car -- and voila -- we are home, without even having to open the car door. It still takes a few minutes to hook up the connections, but it feels funny to me for a few minutes since I really have no chores to do at all.   We usually go for a walk around the RV Park (as we did when we pulled the Fifth-Wheel) and by the time we return from that my head is in the right place.   After all, although we are still living a Full-Time Life, we are only traveling through part of it in the Road-Trek!

Here's another highlight or two from last week.

Picking oranges at Orange Grove RV Resort, Bakersfield CA.  Bakersfield isn't the most lovely city in California, but this is a great RV park -- built in an old orange grove and they kept the trees. -- the orange pickers are provided free in season.  And in season is right now -- these oranges are SWEEET!!!  Sadly, since we have limited storage space in the RoadTrek, our harvest is gone already.  A great place to stop.

From Bakersfield, we drove to Long Beach to visit my Aunt Sally Roberta (who is 102) and my cousins.  We had a wonderful day talking politics and hearing old family stories.  We had hoped to stay in Long Beach and have breakfast the next day with family before moving on, but there was no room anywhere in the area.  Next time, we will make reservations in advance.  Sadly, as usual when I'm with family, I forgot to take pictures.  Too busy listening and talking (not necessarily in that order).  We had a great day before moving on to Redlands, where we found a nice RV Park.

We took some oranges to Sally Roberta.  When she moved to the area in the 1940s, she could visit orange groves near her home, but those days are long past as housing developments have covered over all of the groves.  So people in the LA area buy pretty much the same oranges as you get at Safeway in Oregon or Idaho or Texas.  The fresh-picked ones are so sweet they're almost an entirely different fruit.

ROAD TRIP FEBRUARY 2010 Oregon and Northern CA.

After quite a few late-night hours of work "we" have fixed our Verizon connection and are back on line.  And by "we" I mean Bill, completely alone and unassisted.   Computers seem to me to have minds of their own that I don't understand.  I'm glad Bill does! 

We are doing fine in our new little rolling home and adjusting to the small space.  We are putting in more miles each day because the RoadTrek drives like a car -- we can actually drive in the fast lane sometimes. 

Here are some highlights from the first couple of days of the current roadtrip:

  

We stayed the first night out at Seven Feathers Casino in southern Oregon.  The casino is owned by the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Indian Tribe.  This is way closer to our Oregon headquarters than we'd usually stop, but we didn't get out of Fern Ridge and Eugene until about 5 p.m.  This is a beautiful RV Park, clean and modern. We didn't use any of the amenities the resort offered, but they are many (beautiful indoor pool, game room, spa plus everything in the Casino).  As usual with Casinos, if you used the facility there were second night discounts offered -- but we were in a hurry to get on the road so we didn't take advantage of that.  We walked along this Creek to go out to breakfast the next day.  The Tribe is using Casino funds to restore it for fish habitat.

In November, when we first learned that we wouldn't be leaving on our roadtrip until February, we knew that if the weather was bad then we could take the slower Coast route south so that we wouldn't have to drive over any Mountain passes. 

Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for Oregon and Northern California, there was almost no snow to contend with.  The Siskyou Pass in Oregon was completely bare and there was very little on Mt. Shasta.

Unlike the rest of the country that is getting dumped on, the West has had little snow and this is probably going to mean a drought this summer.

Here is Mt. Shasta in the distance. 

Both of these pictures were taken through the car windshield as we drove.  They didn't turn out too badly.  It is a good thing the camera has that little shaky hand icon. 

Everything is straight out of the camera, because I really want to try to post as we go along and I don't have much time to edit.

WELCOME TO OUR FULL-TIME LIFE

We've been full-time RVers for ten years  -- traveling around the country in our fifth-wheel trailer pulled by a Freightliner truck.  Click here to read about why we're now traveling in this RoadTrek instead.   

SCROLL DOWN to read our latest posts.  Click on any of the pages or categories listed on the right to read older posts about some of the places where we've traveled.  All pictures can be clicked to enlarge.  You can leave comments on any post, even an older one, and we will see it.

Thanks for visiting -- come again! 

OUR WATERFALL COLLECTION (so far)

We watched a program about art collectors last night.  Some of them seemed a little obsessed.  We are obsessed only with scenery.  Our memories, even with pictures, take up a little less room.  Waterfalls are some of our favorite collectors' items.

Left:  Sahalie Falls, McKenzie River Oregon

Below: Annie Falls, Crater Lake N.P.           

Left:  Sahalie Falls 

Above:  Alsea Falls OR

Below:  Lost River Falls, Bowling Green KY

Below left:  Whitewater Falls, North Carolina.  Below right:  Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota

    

Left:  Vidae Falls, Crater Lake

Click here for more watery pictures from around the world:  Watery Wednesday 

ROADTRIP WRAP-UP, SPRING 2009

 

The season started late for us because we even didn't arrive at our summer destination until July 15.  But we are here at Fern Ridge Shores now and, oh my goodness, it really is SUMMER now.   Last week, there was a heat wave of record proportions here in the normally mild Willamette Valley.  The temperature reached 103 on a couple of days, almost unheard of in this part of the country.  We are lucky to be here though.  The Park is partly shaded, the Lake is inviting and cool (and our AC works).   Hot or not, it's great to be here.

It was a good roadtrip.  We saw  some beautiful country between Florida and Oregon.  We drove 5400 trailer miles in the two and a half months (not counting miles put on the truck exploring while we were unhooked).  We took the Northern route and so almost all of the time we were on roads that were new to us.       

We stayed for at least one night in fourteen different states, four of them new to us.  We added a National Park to our list of those we've visited.  And we explored new parts of some states where we'd spent time on earlier trips.  Click on the "states where we've stayed" page on the right for a list of the RV Parks where we stayed on this trip. 

We had some great visits with family this time, something that we have never been able to do on previous roadtrips (until we got back to Colorado and then Oregon).   This time, we were able to spend some time with two sets of our grown grandchildren.  We parked the house for a while in Charleston, South Carolina where we had a lovely visit with our grand-daughter and grandson-in-law who had just moved there.  Then, later in the trip, in a nice bit of serendipity, we crossed paths with our traveling grandson and his wife in Illinois.  And we even were able to drop in on a sister and brother-in-law whom we hadn't seen in a while in Bemidji, Minnesota.

We spent three wonderful weeks near our son and daughter-in-law when we got back to Colorado (which is actually more like a home-away-from-home break during our roadtrips, because it is so familiar to us by now).  This picture is Golden Pond near their house and a view of some of the many snow-capped Mountains that you can see from Longmont, where they live.

We really like having our own house when we visit people.  We feel like we're neighbors for the time we're there, instead of having to impose on our hosts as houseguests. 

Here are a few bits and pieces that didn't make it into the posts we did as we traveled.  (If you haven't already seen those, just scroll down through the posts below --  back through to the first of May -- to read the major highlights.)

Most of the time on our overnight stops we were able to find RV Parks where the spaces were long enough so that we didn't have to unhook.  It's a pain to have to go through that if you don't really intend to go anywhere in the truck that night.

When I opened the curtains one morning, I found myself looking at a Teton and Freightliner exactly like our own, kind of like I was seeing a reflection.  These people had come in late the night before and pulled in right next to us.  We're all looking for those nice long pullthrough spaces!

 

The other thing we like in an overnight spot is when there is something interesting to look at when we take a walk after we're parked and hooked up.  It doesn't have to be anything amazing --  the local wildlife will do beautifully.

For a little while, we thought our trip might be jinxed because just an hour or so into our trip -- the very first day, somewhere near Ocala Florida -- we were stopped in a traffic tie-up for almost three hours.  We never did find out why.  But people just got out of their cars, sat down in lawn chairs, played frisbee, walked their dogs, and visited.  We even saw someone unload a horse from its trailer and walk it along the roadside.  Nobody seemed too concerned about the delay, they just sort of turned it into a roadside party.  So it turned out to be kind of interesting after all.

Road construction projects were going on everywhere, so we saw a view kind of like this one just about every day we were on the road.  In Minnesota, they say there are two seasons:  Winter and Road construction.  We never did have any more long delays anywhere, but sometimes it felt like we were running an obstacle course with the trailer.

 We love traveling and learning -- that's why we live in an RV. Here are a few extra pictures of things we learned.   (click on 'em).

A tortoise patrols at a roadside rest area near Savannah

Inside Teddy Roosevelt's N.D. cabin.  It was made of railroad planks. (At TR National Park in North Dakota). 

Below:  Pioneer women weren't always happy with their lot (with good reason).  (Somewhere between Fruita CO and Beaver Utah)

 

 

There are some great things about small towns!  Donna and Sherm, friends of ours in Springfield, grew up in tiny Richardton, North Dakota.  He went to high school at this Benedictine Abbey.  It is a beautiful building -- and the Abbot of it remembered them very well when we mentioned their name!

 

We always enjoy our roadtrips, but after a few months it's great to be settled down again.  We're especially happy to be here at Fern Ridge Shores, where we can visit with family and old friends.   It's going to be a great summer!

 

 

THREE STATES AND THREE DAYS ON THE ROAD

 

We chose a different route than we usually take when we left Loveland last Monday.  Our usual route out of Colorado involves Route 80 and 'Whyoming'.  This time, we chose the more scenic I-70.  And we can't remember when we've seen as much varied scenery in such a few days.   

We drove past Denver and through the Eisenhower Tunnel near that mile-high city.  This is the highest automobile tunnel in the world at over 11,000 feet.   It goes under the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains.  Beautiful mountains and green trees lined both sides of the highway.  We passed turnoffs to the famous ski resorts of Vail, Glenwood Springs, and Aspen.  

On past visits to Colorado (pre-blog, even pre-camera) we made sidetrips to all those towns -- even stayed overnight at Aspen (in the off-season, when it's affordable).  This picture is near Glenwood Springs; the mountain scenery is typical of most of the drive on this day.   I-70 runs right through the canyon and along the Colorado River.  We saw quite a few people rafting.

Some of the mountain passes were very slow driving, low gear.  We stayed that night at Fruita (still in Colorado). 

Tuesday, still on I-70, we crossed into Utah where we drove through some beautiful scenery that was in total contrast to the previous day.  This was all moonscape-like rocky scenery, granite reefs and uplifts.  Also in contrast to the day before -- and to add to the surreal feeling -- there were no services for over 100 miles of the Highway -- no signs, no old towns, no nothing, but the amazing scenery. 

There wasn't even much traffic, although we passed turnoff roads that led to several National Parks (Arches and Canyonlands, Bryce, Zion, Grand Canyon, Capital Reef).  We've been to those parks on earlier trips, most of them before we started to blog.   

Wednesday morning we left I-70  and hopped on to Utah State Highway 21, which has to be the longest, loneliest road ever.  Straight as a die for miles and miles.  Scrub desert scenery all the way. 

We had to stop a couple of times to wait for large dust devils (or small tornados) to cross the road.  

Into Nevada, we got on Highway 50, which we have seen billed as "the loneliest road", but it definitely isn't if you've just come off of SH 21. 

Since our Winter in Florida and the Low Country, we had almost forgotten how much space there is in the West.  Mountains and lots of flat land under them.

 

If only there were water!

 

The differences between these three neighboring states reminded us yet again of how varied and beautiful this country is. 

The actual on-the-road portion of our trips is not always this interesting . Sometimes the road is just a way to get where we're going.  But for these three days at least, life was about the journey and not the destination.

We were happy that we chose this route.

OH FOOSH!

Here we are stuck in the muddy grass in Belle Fourche (the locals call it Belle, but the second part of it is pronounced Foosh).   Which is now my favorite euphemism when experiencing life's little problems.  The mid-west has had a terrible rainy spring and lots of problem due to flooding.  We have been incredibly fortunate in avoiding heavy weather.   Some rainy days, but none that kept us from seeing what we wanted to see.  So we realize that this really wasn't a big problem in the greater scheme of things.  Still it is is the kind of thing that makes you say Foosh!

It was raining hard when we drove into our reserved campsite (never fun).  But also, and more importantly,  the ground was saturated and there was no gravel behind us.  There was a very large tree right on the corner of our space, which would make it impossible to turn right on the narrow road in front and a steep and muddy hill to the left. (So, it was a pull-through site going in, but we wouldn't be able to pull-through going out.)    The owner of the park, just a nice guy trying to make a go of it on his 15 acres, said he didn't have any other spaces where we'd fit.   He said we wouldn't have any trouble getting out in the morning.... "oh just give yourself plenty of time to warm up and go for it."  Then he added, "I know what these big trucks are like.  I've got one that's been stuck since February."    Yikes! 

Of course, it rained hard all night long.   And the next morning, even though the sun was shining and it looked like a nice day, the ground was so wet that our feet whooshed in the mud when we walked.  And so, when Bill backed up to pull out, the truck sank too.  What a nice rut we made.

We looked around for wood or gravel or anything that we could use for traction, and gave it a few tries, but no luck.  So it was a 'Thank God for Towing Insurance' moment.  When the truck arrived, it was really just a small pickup.  But the driver (who was dressed like a CPA on casual Friday) was kind of a tow-guy genius.  He just attached a couple of winches to the truck and a couple of trees and stood there and watched them pull Bill right out.  He said he was called out to this park all the time.  They really need to buy some gravel! 

So we drove on down the road.  Bill was so happy to leave that he didn't even want to take time to change his muddy clothes.  (We don't ever exactly dress up for our road trips, but this is the first time he's ever driven with mud on his knees!)

The day wasn't a total loss.  Just a few minutes out of Belle, we drove through the town of SpearFish and then through beautiful Spear Fish Canyon.  The Canyon is one of the loveliest drives ever.   The picture is from our 2004 road trip when we stayed in Sturgis and spent quite a bit of time exploring the area.   We didn't stop this time, but it's pretty from the road too. 

So then we spent a night in Whyoming (Ft Laramie) -- and then on to beautiful Colorado.  

After all, you can't fully appreciate nature's grandeur without a few Oh Foosh moments.

 

 

 

 

 

BE GRATEFUL

We've seen this roadside sign in a couple of places since we've been in the mid-west this time.  I'm not usually a fan of billboards, but I liked this one this because we do have so much to be grateful about. 

But sometimes the drive between places can get boring, so it's good to be reminded of how fortunate we are to be able to enjoy this lifestyle. 

We are on the road.  Grateful that we're heading to our next adventure and for all we've seen already and all we've learned along the way .

 

 

 

 

SPRING GARDENING - the RV Way

This is the first time in several years that we've seen typical Spring flowers.  They're usually gone by the time we get back to Colorado and Oregon, but by traveling the  Northern route this time, we've   followed spring (with a few days feeling like a return to winter).  It was especially lovely to see -- and smell -- lilacs.   These are in Duluth -- in June, which I think is later than when they bloom in the Northwest.  

So now that Spring is almost over, here's a little more gardening the RV way.  No mess, no work, just pure enjoyment.  Somebody has to appreciate all the work other people do!

These pictures below are from the Japanese Garden at House on the Rock, near Spring Green, Wisconsin.  A group of Buddhist (I think) monks were touring at the same time as we were.  They seemed to enjoy it.

  More from House in the Rock

 

 

 

 

Bemedji, MN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some from other gardens, other Springs.

Iris, Denver Botanical Garden

 

Water Lilies, Chinese Garden, Portland

ALABAMA and FLORIDA, the end of the 2008 road trip

Our last stop before we arrived at this year's Winter destination was on the Alabama Gulf Coast.  A familiar spot -- and yet different.  We spent the 2004-05 Winter in this area.  That time, we arrived on December 1, less than three months after Hurricane Ivan had devastated the region.  The RV Park where we stayed then had not been much damaged but the surrounding area was still showing serious effects.  The road along the beach was covered with sand (it didn't even open for traffic until a month or so after we arrived), many buildings and homes were in complete ruins, and there were seas of blue tarp roofs in evidence, where people were still living in homes with the roofs blown away.  When we left in April '05, the area's recovery effort was still really just at an early stage.

This time, we stayed at Gulf State Park, which was completely closed to the public when we were here before -- the whole camping area had been destroyed.  It is rebuilt now and is a great RV spot.  The state took advantage of rebuilding to modernize the facilities, so that there are full hookups and lots of space.  This state park has most of the amenities of a private winter resort in addition to being close to the Gulf Beach.  Some people we talked to said that they missed the trees that used to be here before they were blown down by Ivan, but since this was our first stay, we thought this park had everything.

These are two views from our site.  We didn't see any alligators this time, so we didn't even have a chance to not aggravate them.

The picture below is on the nearby Bon Secour River near Billy's, which is our favorite fisherman's market ever.  Many varieties of local fresh fish and shrimp, caught daily, are available.  We only had time to visit it once this time. I hope we'll find something as good in Florida.

It was interesting to see how this area has recovered.  Now, you can't tell that it was ever hit by a hurricane.  We re-visited  many of our favorite places and enjoyed the sunny weather before heading to our Winter destination.

We arrived at North Ft. Myers, Florida, where we plan to spend this winter, on December 1.  This is on the Gulf of Mexico side of the State. 

We are staying at Upriver RV Resort on the Caloosahatchee River.  It's about three miles upstream from downtown Ft. Myers.  We really like our spot and, of course, will post more as we explore the area.

So our 2008 road trip is over.  It was true cross-country travel this time -- from Oregon in the Northwest to Florida in the Southeast.  We had a great time and saw some interesting country.  But it is good to be settled in one spot for a few months.  We're going to enjoy it.

 

 

 

 

 

A few more things about MISSISSIPPI

 

At the Natchez Visitor Center we watched filmed interviews of some lifelong residents of the area.  One lady said she loved living here where she could look every day at the Mississippi River.  And, she said, think about how boats could go North on it all the way to Minnesota and South -- all the way around the whole world. 

We loved looking out our window at the River too (for the few days we "lived" across from Natchez).  But I don't think we could spend too many months with that view before we would yearn to do those trips ourselves.  We're just hobos at heart.

This is a picture of Kudzu "the plant that ate the South".  Years ago, the vine was imported from Japan as an erosion-control measure and farmers were paid to plant it.  But the Southeastern US has the perfect conditions to allow kudzu to grow out of control-- hot, humid summers, frequent rain, mild winter temperatures with few freezes and no natural predators.  So now it is a pest weed.  A sign by a patch of it on the Natchez Visitor Center grounds said that kudzu will wrap itself around poles, other plants, buildings, even you if you stand still long enough. 

So don't forget to keep moving when you're in the Southeast!

ROAD TRIP 2008, Part 3: Arkansas, Mississippi

We saw a lot of new country on this leg of our journey, but Arkansas was our first completely new state.  We had never before set foot or wheel in it.  We crossed into the state almost as soon as we left Branson; it was 250 miles to Hot Springs and it was a beautiful drive.

We stayed at J&J RV Park , where we were parked looking at a lovely little creek.  This was a friendly, quiet place very close to downtown (and the National Park).  A nice amenity was two (count 'em) two  different newspaper boxes.  We hadn't been anyplace where we could buy a daily paper for days and days. It was especially good timing because we arrived on November 5 and were able to see the historic election day headlines.  I know the newspaper business is fading fast, but Internet and 24/7 cable news coverage notwithstanding, it would have been just wrong not to have seen this historic election day coverage in print.

We liked the Hot Springs area a lot.  Our original plan had been to spend a couple of days here so we could visit the National Park (just scroll down a little bit to see our post on it).  We ended up staying a week.  One of the joys of RVing is sometimes being able to do that when a spot unexpectedly catches your fancy.   Here are a couple more places we visited while we stayed here. 

Crater of Diamonds State Park in nearby Murfreesboro is the only place in this country where diamonds can be found.    There's about 40 acres of plowed field where for a small fee you can prospect as much as you want to and keep whatever you find.  Diamonds and other gems have been discovered and the most perfect diamond in the world was found here a few years ago.  We didn't find anything -- we didn't really look very seriously -- but it was a good excuse to play in the dirt on a sunny afternoon.  (We learned later that the best time to find diamonds is immediately after a rainstorm.  People who are serious about their prospecting drop everything to arrive then because the rain washes up the stones.)   Check out their website by clicking right there on the blue; it really is very well done.  

Little Rock, the State Capitol, was just an hour away.  We toured the President Clinton Library and Museum there.  There's a lot of stuff packed into this building.  Those boxes that form the walls are full of schedules and letters that you can take out and read.    The other picture is a replica of the oval office.   

The Presidential Museums do provide a good overview of a particular era in history.  On an earlier trip, we visited the Truman Library in Independence MO and I think we got more out of it.  Maybe this one is just a little too close to the present to be fully appreciated.  But one display here pointed out that the Federal budget was balanced and the country was at peace at the end of President Clinton's term.  What you heard everybody say as they viewed that was "what a difference eight years had made."

Arkansas definitely goes on our "hope we get to come back" list.  We really enjoyed our week in Hot Springs and could easily spend more time there -- and there is a lot more of the state to see as well.

The day we left Hot Springs we stayed overnight in Vicksburg, Mississippi.  No  beautiful view for the first time in two weeks; we stayed at Ameristar Casino RV Park.  We paid more here than we had per night in the last two places (where we had those great views) so it wasn't a huge bargain.  But we did get a coupon for a pretty good free breakfast at the Casino hotel the next morning. 

Our next stop was not exactly in Mississippi but it was all about it.  Scroll down to the post "Miss Lou."  I don't know if this is true everywhere, but a hundred years ago or so back in the Northwest I learned how to spell the name of this state this way:  M straight letter crooked letter crooked letter, straight letter, etc etc.  Staying here I learned that it would be a lot easier if we spelled it like people pronounce it, which is more like this:  Mizzippi.    It sounds good that way and it would be a lot easier on 4th graders if they could spell it like it is supposed to sound.

CROSS COUNTRY ROAD TRIP 2008, part 2: Oklahoma and Missouri

 

We left Tucamcari New Mexico on October 26 and, as Bill said, just "waltzed across Texas" (earworms anybody?) without even spending a night.  Although I can look at a map and see that the part of Texas between Tucamcari and Oklahoma isn't all that far, it was still shocking to me that we could get in and out of the great State of Texas during a day's travel.  I swear we've spent weeks and weeks in Texas on other road trips, but those were different parts of the state with more stuff to see. 

So our first overnight stop on the second part of this road trip was in Elk City, Oklahoma.  This was the first time we had RV'd overnight in this state, although, in contrast to Texas, we'd spent a hour or less crossing it on several other trips.  Those other times were across the panhandle, which is uninteresting, at least the little we see driving across it.  So we were pleasantly surprised at how lush and green everything was as we entered this part of the state.  

The previous day, back in not-so-beautiful Tucamcari, we had grazed a post pulling into our spot, (which wasn't nearly as big as advertised) and put a slight ding in the trim.  So after we settled in at Elk City, Bill went out to repair the damages and a whole bunch of guys came out to kibitz.  There is no quicker way to meet people on an overnight stop.  It was fun though, because that whole entire day on the road we actually didn't see one single human being outside of a car.  Sometimes on the road it seems like we are all pod people and there is no life outside of the vehicles.  So the RV Park here was a welcome and friendly overnight stop.  It is called Elk Creek RV Park.  There's no web site, but the review sites give it a positive rating and so do we.

The next night, still in Oklahoma, was in Checotah at Lake Eufaula West KOA.  Again, it was a beautiful drive and this was an interesting stop with woodsy walking paths and nature trails to the Lake and a small restaurant on site.   

The only problem is of course, now that we've seen the good part of it, we want to spend more time in this lovely state. 

We arrived at Branson View RV Park, Missouri the next night. Here we had one of the loveliest view spots ever.  It took a little juggling to get into it, but it was well worth it.   Every so often we are lucky enough to get a beautiful water view, but this was the first time ever we'd had a hilltop view looking down at a City.   We liked this park and if we'd stayed longer, our leg muscles would definitely have grown stronger.  Walking up and down the steep hills, was ...well, breathtaking. 

In some quarters, RVers have a reputation of being a little bit tight with their money.  Merchants think we bring everything with us and don't go anywhere. We feel that reputation is generally unfounded and certainly doesn't apply to us.   We eat (in and out), go to theaters, movies, shop ... whatever we'd do if we weren't RVers.   But our week in Branson threw us right into the tightwad stereotype.  We  couldn't find a single thing in this entertainment city that interested us enough to shell out the big bucks for tickets.  Even the restaurants seemed uninteresting and the whole town too glitzy and fake for our taste.  But we liked our RV Park with its beautiful view and enjoyed enjoyed driving around to see more of the scenic Ozarks.   

One of those drives was to Point Lookout where we had Sunday brunch at The Keeter Center, the restaurant of Hard Work U (otherwise known as the College of the Ozarks).    This is a fully-accredited and well-rated liberal arts and sciences University founded on the premise that each student works on campus to pay for his or her education.  These aren't make-work but real jobs that the students do in restaurants, the farm, and about 80 other jobs or industries right on the campus.  These kids graduate free of debt and with an appreciation for work.  We were impressed.  Some of the job stations are in the dining room and kitchen of the restaurant.  The brunch table included produce and meat raised on their own farms.  After our lovely meal, we toured a little bit of the campus and learned some of history of the school and the Ozark region.  

Chasing Autumn is one of our favorite things to do and we loved the Ozarks.  We drove through more of them on our way to Hot Springs, our next stop (and the next post).  But if we get to visit this area again, we'll spend more time in Oklahoma and Arkansas and less in Branson.

MISS LOU, 2008

When we left Hot Springs this Fall, our next destination was Mississippi, which, like Arkansas, would be a new state for us.   (We had taken a side trip into the state in 2004, but this would be the first time we'd had the RV there.)  We planned to stay in Natchez, but it turned out that our RV Park was in Vidalia, Louisiana, just across the Mississippi River.  (We did actually stay a couple of nights in Mississippi, on the way to Natchez/Vidalia and after our stay there.)  This barge is going right past our Vidalia front door -- looking across to Natchez.  The whole area around Natchez-Vidalia is called "Miss Lou", which sounds to me like it should be the name of somebody's sweet Southern Aunt.  Half of the businesses in and near the two towns are called Miss Lou something or other.  

The main reason we wanted to stay in Natchez was to explore part of The Natchez Trace Parkway.  The Trace is a living monument to the history of people on the move.   It is built along what were paths for Choctaw Indians that eventually came to form a trail from the Mississippi River into the valley of Tennessee.

Around 1780, farmers found they could build boats and float their crops and products downriver to the good markets of Natchez or New Orleans.   Then, instead of taking the empty flatboat back up the River, they would sell it as lumber.  But then they would have to hike back home.  So they used the Indian paths and with frequent use, the paths eventually evolved into the Trace (trail).  The picture above was taken from the bottom of the trace--in places it was worn into an eight to ten foot deep "ditch."

This is Mount Locust, one of the oldest structures still standing on the Trace.   Built as a family plantation, it was one of the first to open its doors to travelers.  Food and accomodations for the night cost about 25 cents.  

We only had time to explore a few miles of the Trace, but you can drive it from Natchez to Nashville, almost 450 miles.  Maybe someday we will be able to do that.  It was interesting that this long Parkway, with so much of historical interest, is only designated as a national historical area, while back in Arkansas, Hot Springs, just a few blocks long, is a National Park.   

While visiting Miss Lou, we also toured Frogmore Plantation (on the Louisiana side of the border).  This 1800-acre working cotton plantation has been operating since the early 1800s.   Part of it is kept as it was in the early 1800s, including slave row cabins and assorted plantation buildings, called dependencies.  These included barns, cane mills, butcheries and other buildings necessary to keep the plantation going.  This is from the inside of a slave cabin, looking out at the fields where they would have worked.

This tour wasn't exactly a fun and relaxing afternoon, but it is a relatively painless way to sort of experience this history. You have to commend the owners for keeping a portion of their property the way it used to be, so that the era won't be forgotten.  It was easy to imagine what it must have been like back then.  The tour also touched on reconstruction and the sharecropping era, which wasn't a barrel of laughs either. 

 

Cotton Gin

 

 

 

 

Cane Mill

 

Scales for bales

 

 

 

 

 

 

If we had gotten there a little earlier in the season, we would also have seen the current cotton ginning process, but it was the very end of the harvest season, so the action was just about over for the year.  There was still some cotton growing though.  We learned that cotton is a member of the hibiscus family and that when it first blossoms it is pink. 

 

CROSS-COUNTRY ROAD TRIP 2008, part 1 -- OREGON TO NEW MEXICO

 

In mid-October of this year, we were still enjoying family, friends, and beautiful Oregon weather at Fern Ridge Lake.   The Lake is actually a reservoir and the Corps of Engineers was getting ready to "pull the plug" as they do every year before the rainy season starts.  Here's Bill getting ready for the last boat ride of the season.  Our son-in-law met him on the other side of the lake and pulled it to their house and barn, where we store it. 

It is always hard to leave Oregon, but our plan for this Winter is to visit new parts of the country and it's a long trip cross-country to Florida (especially the way we like to travel).  So it was time to say goodbye and hit the road again.  Click here for posts about our Oregon stay.

We left Fern Ridge Shores at noon on October 15 and arrived in Bakersfield California on the 17th.     That was pretty fast for us -- we don't travel long days, but we have been over this road many times and there was nothing we wanted to spend any extra time visiting.  We stay at Orange Grove RV Park whenever we travel to California and it really is a very nice place.  Usually when we're there, we've been able to step outside and grab a few delicious oranges right off the trees, but it was too early this time -- they were still green.  

We rented a compact car so that we could drive to Long Beach to see my Aunt and cousins.  We left the Freightliner at the Rental Agency Parking lot; the guy in the RV next door to us took a look at the little white car and said  "Looks like your truck shrunk." 

My Aunt's home is in a beautiful neighborhood on a Canal.  The streets are narrow and winding and certainly not made for baby Freightliners, so renting the car made sense. 

My Aunt is 100 years old and is more informed on politics and current events than we are.  She is also generous about sharing her knowledge of old family history.  She's a great role mode and we had a wonderful visit. 

Because it is on the water, there is no smog in my Aunt's neighborhood, but it was heavy the whole time we were in Bakersfield and on the trip to her house and back. Although Orange Grove is a great park, we wouldn't want to spend too much time in Bakersfield because of that depressing smog.

Our next and last stop in California was in Needles where we stayed at Desert View RV Resort.   This was a nicely designed park with flowering hedges between each spot -- and nice long spaces.  It was definitely still summer here (maybe it always is).  Quite a few people winter in this area because it is very close to the Colorado River and Laughlin, Nevada (so you could have your choice of outdoor or indoor sports).  But although the park was very nice, the scenery around it is barren and desolate.  And still a little bit smoggy, so we were happy to be leaving California after one night here. 

We were now traveling on Route 40.  It overlaps or parallels the old Route 66, so all of the towns sounded very familiar. 

We stayed the next night in Flagstaff Arizona.  It wasn't a long day, but a hard driving one -- all mountain passes and lots of construction projects and wind most of the way.  Quite a difference from Needles -- we were up in the mountains and the air was beautifully clear, but (no surprise) cold!  We had to dig out the fall clothes again in order to take an evening walk. 

We stayed at a park called Black Bart's.  It's an older park, but the spaces were long and we didn't have to unhook, which is always what we aim for on overnight stops.  The RV Park is adjacent to Black Bart's Steakhouse and Saloon.  Of course we had to try it, especially since we received a 10%-off coupon for dinner upon check-in.  Dinner was a fun experience.  The waiters are all performance students at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and they took turns performing in a music revue.  Our waiter sang the signature tune "Route 66" and whenever he came to the line about Flagstaff, all of the locals cheered.  The food was good too and service excellent (even though the staff was doing double duty with the entertainment plus serving a couple of long tables of bus tours).  So this was a very fun overnight stop. 

On Thursday, October 23, we reached Grants, New Mexico.  This is where we visited the Acoma Village of Sky City.  (Click on the link to read our post about it.)  We loved our visit here.   We stayed at Bar S RV Park, a small and very reasonably priced park (about $15.00 per night).  There's no website, but this was an excellent place to stay for a few days.   There were some train tracks nearby, but they didn't really disturb us at night and the park was clean and convenient.  

When we left Grants, we got on Route 40 again and it was long, straight and monotonous.  There was no interesting scenery and very little traffic.  I was afraid Bill would fall asleep out of boredom.  (I don't think he did, but I'm not sure, since I slept a lot of the day.)  That night we were at Tucumcari, one of the very few places in New Mexico that I haven't fallen immediately in love with.  The name seemed to be the cutest thing about it.  So that made it easy to leave the next morning and head on to the second part of this road trip, which would bring us into some states where we'd never stayed and a whole bunch of new places to explore.  

SKY CITY NEW MEXICO, October 2008

Sky City is the oldest continuously inhabited community in the country. Acoma people have lived in the Pueblo for almost 2,000 years.  It is the spiritual center for all of them and still the physical home for about 600, even though the village has no electricity or running water.  Other Acoma live in nearby villages, but return for special cultural occasions to celebrate their ancestral homes. 

Sky City is on the National Register of Historical Monuments, but it is owned and operated  by the Acoma People.  Like all of the Southwest Tribes, the Acoma trace their ancestry to nearby Chaco Canyon , a National Monument that we visited on an earlier trip.

Sky City has over 300 structures made of mud brick (adobe) and white sandstone.  The Acomas are a matriarchial society and mothers pass down the homes to their youngest daughter.  Here is a closer view of one of the homes.

 

 

  For defensive purposes, the Pueblo was built 370 feet above the desert floor, and untill 1959 was only accessed by hand cut trails. This picture was taken near the Museum and Visitor Center at its foot. It is an impressive sight looming above when you are standing on the desert below. 

We had a very good native Acoma tour guide, whose English name was Gary.  He gave us a good overview of the history of his people.  As always with Native American history, it was not something that is exactly easy to hear, but it is something that all of us should know about. 

  

The mesa in the distance is sacred to the Acoma people.  It was where they originally lived.  Their spoken history tells that once, when most of the people were on the valley floor, a terrible storm occured, washing out the only trail up the mesa.  There was no way to rebuild the trail.  A Grandmother and her grand-daughter were trapped on top, and rather than face a slow starvation, they jumped to their deaths. 

Prayer ladders are still used ceremonially, to access the Kivas (religious chambers).  The arrow near the top of this one serves to protect three Kivas that are located on this passage way through the village.

Because the Acoma still live in this village, it was a great opportunity to experience living history.  Acoma women are noted for their pottery and it was sold in the village and displayed in the museum.  Food was also for sale (homebaked bread and pies) and that is what we bought, because we don't know much about pottery, but we can always use a few good carbs.  

Here are a few more pictures from Sky City.  We really enjoyed our day; it was an enjoyable way to increase our knowledge and, hopefully, understanding of Southwest history.

To the right is a picture of one of the ovens the Acoma have used for centuries to bake bread.           The gentleman at left is pounding clay to prepare it for the women to use in making pottery.    

      
 

An Acoma family that has been living and working elsewhere and have now retired are building this new house on the edge of the pueblo, so that they can return to their ancestral home.  We were told that a lot of the residents go elsewere during the winter because of the zero to minus 20 degree weather. 

ROADTRIP Part 2 - SOUTH DAKOTA TO OREGON, June 2008

The first night out of Loveland, we stayed in Cabela's RV Park beside the chain's flagship store in Sidney, Nebraska.  It is hard to remember the name of the town because we were just calling it Cabela, Nebraska.  The store and corporate offices are way bigger than the tiny town and people drive from miles around to work here. Cabela's is a big sportsman's chain that started in Sydney.  Each of their huge stores feature a fresh-water aquarium of local sports fish and a diorama display of (stuffed) game animals.   It was an ok full hook up rv park for an overnight stop--walking to the store and browsing the aisles was a fun and different way to do our usual evening walk. 

We were heading for South Dakota, where we had to be before August to renew our drivers' licenses (we've been residents for five years now and that's how many years the license lasts).    Click here for information about our South Dakota residency: 

http://travelingrainvilles.typepad.com/traveling_home/2008/03/a-south-dakota.html

As long as we were in the state on our "official business", we checked out these two favorite spots:

http://travelingrainvilles.typepad.com/traveling_home/2008/06/custer-state-park-south-dakota.html

http://travelingrainvilles.typepad.com/traveling_home/2008/06/chief-crazy-horse-monument.html

In the Spring or summer, after we stay in Colorado (and then South Dakota this time) we head to the Northwest to visit family and old friends.  To get there, it is necessary to drive through part of the State of Wyoming (which I usually spell WHYoming -- as in WHY do we have to be here?)  Yes, poor Wyoming is not my favorite State.  Part of it is not really the State's fault -- by the time we've visited our kids in Colorado, we are ready to be in Oregon and Washington visiting the rest of them.  The adventure is kind of gone at this point and we need a jetpack!  But the other part of it is that this state (other than the beautiful Teton/Yellowstone corner) is really not very scenic AT ALL. 

 

 

 

 

Usually, when you cross a stateline there isn't any obvious difference at all from one side to the next.  But when we left Custer in SD we dropped down in altitude and, as we crossed the border into Whyoming, the terrain changed immediately from the lovely Black Hills into dry and uninteresting high desert country.  And there were a lot of open pit coal mines -- pretty horrible to look at, in my opinion.  We have a bit of a disagreement about this though.  Bill agrees that they're not beautiful, but he would very much like to tour one to see how they operate.  I'd rather try to pretend they aren't really there.  Someday, we probably will take that tour -- and then I will learn something in spite of myself. 

The Wyoming terrain is apparently perfect for pronghorn antelope.  We see hundreds of them on any trip through the state.  Although wildlife watching is one of our joys, there are so many pronghorn that we now often don't even bother to comment.  It would be like saying "there's a cow."  Wildlife has to be little bit hard to spot for watching it to be a sport!

Our first overnight stop in Wyoming was in Casper.  We wanted to visit the Teton plant, so that we could save shipping costs on some parts we needed for our rolling home.   When  we picked it up from the factory two years ago --  and when we visited the city to tour the plant a few years before that -- we had stayed at a little RV Park called Fort Caspar.  That park is on the North Platte River and it is next door to a historical museum.    It's not a bad place to stay at all because of the river.  This year, it was full and we had to stay at a nearby KOA.  We aren't crazy about KOAs -- they are expensive and usually not in the most scenic part of an area.  One reason they cost so much is that they have a lot of activities for families.  This probably makes it worth the extra expense when you're camping with kids, but we don't care about game rooms and so forth, so those are wasted amenities for us.    At least it was just for one night. 

The next night we were in Rock Springs, where we also had to stay in a KOA.  This is Independence Rock, one of our rest stops during our 243-mile day between Casper and Rock Springs.  (I have mentioned that we don't rush our road trips, haven't I?)  Independence Rock, which is on the Emigrant Trail, was called that because wagon trains heading from Missouri to Oregon or California needed to make it to this landmark by July 4 in order to reach their final destination before it snowed in the mountains.  It was a tradition for emigrants to carve their names in this granite rock.  It's an easy climb and there's a big parking area-rest stop right near the rock, so it's a great short stop for us.

We shared the rest stop with several big busloads of kids on a summer camp experience along the Trail.   All of them were wearing pioneer clothing.  It was cute to see -- they looked authentic, except for their modern running shoes. 

We had a three-state day when we left Rock Springs.  We almost never travel over 250 miles or so in a day, so a three-stater isn't at all common when we're in the West.  But we breezed  through Utah and spent the next night in Declo, Idaho at a very nice RV Park.  Lovely family-owned and run park called Village of the Trees.  It was aptly named.  There was even a small fishing lake with a walking path around it.  The park was next to the beautiful Snake River and it was amazingly quiet, even though it was just yards off of Highway I-84.    Wish they could all be this nice.   http://www.villageoftreesrvresort.com

We actually might have been tempted to stay another night at this park and explore some of the surrounding area -- but we were eager to get to Oregon.  Maybe another time.  It's a travel dilemma -- so many new places we want to see, so many old places we'd like to visit again.

ROADTRIP Part 1 - TEXAS TO COLORADO, Spring 2008

"Getting There is Half the Fun" is the adage we live by as full-time RVers.  You have to enjoy the trip as well as the destination, because there are going to be some road trip days.  Sometimes those days are amazing, sometimes not, but they are always worth it.  Even on the worst road day, we have our house with us at the end of it and we're always heading on to the next adventure.    

It was still tornado season in Colorado when we were ready to leave Port Aransas at the end of May, so we had to choose our route carefully, based on watching the weather. We actually stayed a couple of weeks longer in calm and cozy Port A than we'd originally planned, waiting out some really bad weather to the north of us. By the time we left, the local papers were full of tips on preparing for the coming hurricane season, which starts the first of June.  You've got to hate it when those two seasons overlap.  On this leg of the journey, we had a lot of thunder and lightning and a few nights of big hail -- but no damage at all.  It was a nasty spring in so many places this year -- we were fortunate.  

On our first night out of Port A, we stayed overnight at Armadillo Junction RV Park near Kerrville.  This is in the Texas hill country -- like the Gulf Coast, this isn't the typical Texas that people from the Northwest tend to imagine.  It's green and rolling hills.  The Guadaloupe River flows nearby.  We like this area and have stayed there longer on past trips.  But it was terribly hot this stop -- definitely time to head for cooler climes.

Next we stopped at San Angelo State Park.  Texas State Parks are excellent -- we had purchased an annual pass on our way to Port A.  This makes the cost quite reasonable (and we like the idea of supporting the parks).  This one is on a huge reservoir, lots of birds even this late in the season.  While settling in for the evening, we saw a jack rabbit that we honestly thought for a moment was a small deer.  Huge.  Walking later on, we saw a badger heading for its den.

We had decided to stay a couple of days here because we thought it would be busy on the weekend, with school out and Memorial Day.  It wasn't -- we practically had the park to ourselves -- but it gave us the opportunity to explore the area a little bit. 

Just before getting to the state park, we had driven past the tiny, tiny town of El Dorado.   This little village and the town of San Angelo had been much in the news just before we got there, because it is where the State had removed FLDS children from the El Dorado polygamist compound.  The courthouse where the hearings were held is in San Angelo as is Fort Concho, the frontier era fort where the mothers and children stayed for a time.  We took a quick tour of the Fort, which has now been restored to its status as a historical museum. 

This whole area is quite isolated and it was interesting to see these places.  News-people from back east must have felt like they were in another world.  We kind of did.

We stayed the next night at Amarillo Overnight RV Park.  This is an appropriate name for the park.  It's nothing outstanding but perfectly adequate for one night and easy to find.  You can take a Texas limousine from the RV park to a restaurant called "The Big Texan" in downtown Amarillo.  So this park and the restaurant (for which "big" is a good description, both of the restaurant and the food) are about all we know about this city besides the song "Amarillo High Morning." 

There sure are a lot of Texas cities that have songs written about them!  (I just have to "sing" a bit of them when we drive through El Paso, Laramie or Amarillo....I'm pretty sure Bill wishes that those songs didn't exist -- as I can't carry a tune in a bucket!)

Amarillo to Colorado took us across this skinny little part of Oklahoma.  There is nothing in that part of that state but dead looking grass.  No towns.  We had to stop quickly though just so that we could say we'd been on Oklahoma soil.  I think it only took us about  an hour to cross that panhandle. 

The first night in Colorado we stayed in a town called Lamar at a park called Lamar Sportsman.  The sport of choice here was horseback riding -- and the stables were rather close to the RV spots.  Hot -- and flies.  This was not the Colorado we know and love -- and have already posted about (extensively actually). 

We got to the "real deal" the next day and we had a wonderful time as always.  In case you missed those earlier posts -- or just want another look at the beautiful part of Colorado where we stay -- click on these earlier links:  

http://travelingrainvilles.typepad.com/traveling_home/2007/11/colorado.html

http://travelingrainvilles.typepad.com/traveling_home/2007/12/more-from-color.html

http://travelingrainvilles.typepad.com/traveling_home/2008/06/sculpture-gardens.html

http://travelingrainvilles.typepad.com/traveling_home/2008/06/colorado-in-june-2008.html

 

 

OUR TEXAS ROAD TRIP, 2008

We take our road trips slow and leisurely.   After we left Arizona on March 11, the next major stop we had planned was Port Aransas, on the Gulf Coast of Texas.  We arrived at Port A on Tuesday, April 1.  It was 1,600 miles in 21 days -- just about right, we think!

The first night after Tombstone, we stayed in Vado, NM, halfway between Las Cruces NM and El Paso TX.  We love New Mexico, but not this part of it.  There was nothing really to recommend the park either, except that it was there when we wanted to stop and we had a pull-through site, so that we didn't have to unhook in order to park.

The next afternoon we arrived at Balmorhea State Park (Texas), the home of San Solomon Springs.  It's an oasis in the desert flatlands.   There is a huge V-shaped swimming pool, built by Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, said to be the biggest spring-fed pool in the world.  At about two acres in size, it's certainly the biggest swimming pool of any kind that we've ever seen.  And what a lot of fun to swim in.  A little cool at 75 degrees, but really worth it.  The CCC also built Spanish-style overnight tourist cabins in the park.  The cabins have been upgraded as a motel and the State Park now operates it along with the RV Park/Campground. Pretty fancy for a State Park!  We stayed a couple of nights here.  There is a wetland restoration project and therefore a lot of birds.  http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us

Our next stop was in Alpine Texas at the very nice Lost Alaskan RV Park. http://www.lostalaskan.com  We stayed three nights.  It got terribly windy while we were here and so we didn't do too much exploring this time.  Alpine is one of the funky little places where we also stayed stayed a couple of years ago on our way to Big Bend.   You can drive from here to Marfa, an old Texas town where you are supposed to be able to see alien lights in the distance.  We never saw them, but it was fun to watch the true believers. This is a very interesting part of Texas with a kind of liberal old-hippy vibe.  You are far more likely to see political signs urging you to vote for Kinky Friedman than for George Bush.  Being old Eugeneans, we feel quite at home here. 

Our next stay was at Del Rio, near the Amistad Reservoir (on the US/Mexico border).   Our RV park was old but adequate and the new owners and managers are working hard to upgrade it further.    www.americancampground.net  Because there were so many people out and about for the Easter Holiday and Spring Break, we ended up staying here for 8 nights.

Del Rio is a not a bad a little town -- it is smaller than it's neighbor across the border, Ciudad Acuna in the state of Coahuila, Mexico, but has everything you need in a city.  We like to visit Acuna because it is safe and not touristy at all.  (Because not many tourists go to Del Rio.)  Most of the shops and the places to eat are those the people of Acuna patronize -- not so much of the touristy stuff you see on the Mexican border towns near Tucson or San Diego. 

On Good Friday, we walked there from a Del Rio parking lot across the International Bridge.  (It's about a two-mile walk across and into the downtown.)  Although we hadn't planned it, we arrived during the Good Friday procession, part of the Semana Santa (Holy Week) celebration.

We followed along with the procession for a time, until we got thirsty (being the Heathen Vagabonds that we are) and so then we headed for a nearby cantina.

We had fun just people-watching in the Plaza.  There were a lot of visitors from the surrounding countryside in the big city for the Easter Weekend holiday.   We ate at a good restaurant (for a very reasonable price) before heading back to the bridge for the two mile walk home.

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Our next stop was Falcon Lake, between the tiny towns of Zapata and Roma. Falcon Lake is about 60 miles long, formed by damming the Rio Grande.  This is another nice Texas state park (50A electric, sewer connection at each site) and one where you feel more eccentric for not carrying binoculars than you do carrying them!  It really is a birding paradise.  This picture shows two Caracaras (Mexican Eagles).  The desert was in bloom and it was lovely to walk on the many paths around the campground.

We stayed a week.   It would be fun to have a boat here, because Falcon is such a good fishing lake. (But there's essentially no culture, no town, no shopping -- so not a place we could stay for a long time.)   A huge bass fishing tournament was going on while we were there.  There is a lot of money in this sport -- lots of fancy rigs.  One fisherman said he had traveled over 18 hours the day before and almost as long the day before that to get to Zapata for the tournament.    He has a different definition of road-trip than we do!

it was beginning to get quite warm by the end of our stay at Falcon Lake and we were glad to move on to the Coast.  Right now the weather here in Port A is perfect. 

If we had to choose only one spot in Texas to stay, it would definitely be in this area.  (Last winter, we stayed just across the bay in Fulton.) 

But we had a lot of fun exploring on our way and, after all, that's the reason we drag our house behind us.