Day 101, Loveland, Colorado

We drove down to Loveland and checked into a campground.  It was the Carter Lake Campground.  It had pretty level sites but only 30 amp electric.  It was $31 a night which is cheap compared to other RV parks in the area.  The high cost is due to the closeness to the Rocky Mountain National Park.  After we got parked we headed for the Park.  Twila and I had been to the Park when we took a trip West in 2004 and came back through Colorado on the way home.

There is one road in the Park that isn’t paved.  It goes one way only from the East to the West and ends up at the Alpine Welcome Center.  The road is called the Old Falls River Road.  It isn’t a 4 wheel drive road but it is a dirt/gravel road all the way.  It has some of the most spectacular views in the park.

I also took a picture of a waterfall that came down a very narrow chasm cut in the rock.

We also saw some Grouse on the side of the road.  I was no more than 8 foot away when I took this picture.

 

After we got to the welcome center we found out they were re-surfacing the parking lot and we had to wait until they let cars through which was about once an hour.

The trip back was on the highest through road in the USA.  It is over 12,000 feet high at the highest.

As we drove back we saw a large herd of Elk grazing on the side of the mountain below the road.

These are some more pictures I took.

Day 100, Laramie, WY

Today was a long day, we left the Burley Wal-Mart and drove all the way to the Laramie Wal-Mart.  We took Highway 30 Southeast of Pocatello, Idaho to get to I-80 in Wyoming.  We then took I-80 all the way to Laramie.  The way we went it was 533 mile in one day.  If you have been following my blog you know that isn’t the way we normally travel but we wanted to try to slip in a day at Rocky Mountain National Park.  We did see a very interesting site as we were passing by Rock Springs, WY.  It was a huge rainbow but it was in the clouds which made the different colors really wide.  Twila tried to get a picture of it but it was really difficult since she had to shoot through the windshield.

 

We stopped in the very small town of Cokeville, WY at the flying J to fuel up and eat lunch.  The diesel was $2.989 per gallon and I put in 62.355 gallons for a total of $186.38.  I had driven 424.81 miles so I got 6.8 mpg.  The last 30 some miles into Laramie we started seeing a lot of snow fences.  These were new snow fences and were of a different design than I have ever seen before.  Again Twila took a picture.  They must be 10 to 12 foot high.

Day 99, Burley, Idaho

We drove up to Trinity Lake which was about 14 miles from Featherville, Idaho.  It was a typical Forest Service road.  Gravel with lots of washboards and chug holes but it was pretty.

There were actually two lakes at the top, Little Trinity Lake and Big Trinity Lake.  Neither one was really very large.  They both were filled from run off from the melting snow in Spring.  This is a picture of Little Trinity which we came to first.  It was about 40F when I took the picture which is why you will see a misty fog rising from the lake.  Remember you can click on the picture to enlarge it.

This is Big Trinity, I don’t know why but I didn’t see any fog on it.

When we got back down off the mountain we took the road to Rocky Bar, Idaho.  Rocky Bar is an old mining town and there were no trespassing signs everywhere.  All of the old buildings are privately owned.  On the way over to the town we had a mother black bear with two cubs go across the road in front of us.  I grabbed the camera and got a picture of one as they disappeared into the forest.

We had planned on staying another night at Doug’s Mother’s Place but after we got back to camp we decided about 4:30pm to head for Burley, Idaho Wal-Mart for the night.  The trip to Burley was just under 150 miles.  After leaving so late, it was getting dark when we pulled into the parking lot at Wal-mart.

Day 98, Featherville, Idaho

We went to Camping World and got my TV antenna.  It is the newer model that is suppose to be better for digital TV, we’ll see.  We got loaded up and drove the RV’s to the downtown area of Boise to look at the football stadium.  It has blue artificial turf and is quite impressive.  I forgot my camera so no pictures.  I took some with my phone but I don’t know how to transfer them to my computer.  You can teach an old dog some new tricks but not all new tricks.

We went about 15 miles south of Boise and I filled up with Diesel again.  It was $3.099per gallon and I put in 63.31 gallons.  I had driven 518 mile so I got 8.18 mpg and it cost me $196.20.  We also ate lunch at the restaurant there.

It wasn’t a very long drive to Featherville although we actually turned a little bit before we got to Featherville.  We parked in the yard at Doug’s mother’s house.  She isn’t living here at the moment, she is at her daughter’s house in Missouri.  It is pretty here, sort of a dry forest area with mountains all around.  It is very quiet and secluded here as her nearest neighbor is 1/2 mile away.

Doug and Pam stayed and had supper with us before they went back to Boise.  Gary cooked some hamburgers on his grill.  Mummm Good.

Tomorrow we will drive up a local mountain to a lake high in the mountains.

Day 97, Boise, Idaho

We left out and took our time getting to Boise, Idaho.  Boise is where Gary’s cousin, Doug Brown, lives.  Gary parked next to their house and Twila and I parked in the driveway of a neighbor friend of Doug’s that was away till Sunday.

I really liked Doug and his wife Pam.  We also got to meet their 2 sons, Joe and T.R.  We also met Pam’s mother.  Her mother lives with them.  We enjoyed visiting with all of them.  We got pizza at Papa Murphy’s and ate it at their house.  Tomorrow we plan on going out to the local Camping World to replace our TV antenna.  Somehow the plastic top got blown or knocked off on a tree limb and then the aluminum bar on the front was flapping in the wind.  After we get back from Camping World we will head for Doug’s Mother’s house close to Featherville, Idaho.  Doug and Pam have decided to drive their car down with us.

Day 96, Eagle’s Hot Lake RV, La Grande, Oregon

Not a whole lot to talk about today since it was a traveling day.  We drove 245 miles from the campground in Washington to an RV Park almost 10 miles Southeast of La Grande, Oregon.  The trip was mostly uneventful until we came to Cabbage Hill on South I-84.  It is a stretch of Highway Southeast of Pendleton, Oregon about 3 miles long with inclines in excess of 10 degrees.  It has 3 lanes and trucks are only allowed in the 2 outside lanes.  I pulled it in 3rd gear at about 2000 rpm most of the way with speeds from 35 to 38 mph.  Quite a pull.  It must be a nightmare in the winter.

We got to our campground about 4pm.  We have full hookups with 50 amp electric.  With our Good Sam discount it was $27.

Day 95, Little Natches

Mattie and Twila made breakfast this morning.  Twila scrambled eggs and Mattie baked biscuits, made gravy and fried sausage along with strawberry jam.  Now that’s the way to start a day.  Especially since we ate at 9am.  After breakfast John took us to a mountain with several microwave towers on top of it.  It is called Raven’s Roost.  I don’t know what the elevation was but I think it was about 6,000 feet.  It had a spectacular view of Mt Rainier.

A lady came up just after we did so we ask her to take a picture of all of us.

When we came back down from the mountain we went to a place called Whistlin’ Jack.  It is the closest place to the campground where you can get ice and Mattie and Gary were going to make ice cream in the evening.

After you pass Whistlin’ Jack this is the sign you see.

When we got back to camp it was about 2pm and John started fixing his “Heart Attack in a Pot”.  It is potatoes, onion, margarine, and hamburger all cooked together.  Real good.  We ate that about 4pm and had ice cream at 6pm.  Do you get the idea we do a lot of eating?

Tomorrow we get back on the road.  We are planning on stopping at an RV Park in La Grande, Oregon.

Day 94, Campground at Little Naches River

Well Janine might not have been hitting on all 8 cylinders but she was ready to go camping.  We pulled out about 9:15am heading for the National Forest East of Mt Rainier National Park.  We took Highway 410 out of Bonney Lake and it took us all the way to where we turned off onto Little Naches Road which is just north of Cliffdell, Washington.  It was between 85 and 90 miles from John’s house to the campground so we rolled in about noon.  It is just a place beside the river that has been used by lots of campers and hunters.  I took a couple of pictures of the area.

After lunch John took us out on some of the forest roads that he knew about from hunting.  We ended up circling around the mountains and ended up on the West side where we had driven in from that morning.

Day 93, Bonney Lake, Washington

What is it they say about the best laid plans of mice and men?  We got up this morning about 8am, got the motor home all packed up and left to go get diesel and propane at 9:30am.  The plan was, after we got diesel at Fred Meyers, I would drive to the propane place and then call Gary and he and his brother John.  Then they would pull out and when they came by the propane place I would fall in behind them heading for the camping area over in Mt. Rainier National Park.  Well I got the diesel and when I got to the propane place Twila called to tell them we were ready for them to pull out.  No such luck!!  Janine, John’s wife had gotten very dizzy along with getting sick.  She had even passed out on the floor.  They ended up calling for an ambulance to take her to the hospital.  They were at the hospital until after 4:30pm and then didn’t get home until after 6pm.

It turned out she has Vertigo which is caused from the fluid in the inner ear.  They gave her a prescription for nausea and sent her home. 

We will now see if she is alright in the morning and if she is, we will still go camping.  If she isn’t OK we will probably just start working our way home although we won’t be in any hurry.

So either way I’m not sure when I will have internet access but will post when I do.

Day 92, Just hangin out

We didn’t do much today.  I filled the water tank and drained the grey water tank in preparation for leaving tomorrow morning for the 3 days of dry camping but other than that I slept late and loafed around the RV.  In other words, it was a great day.

We all went out this evening to Pizza Hut and had some “Supreme Pizza”, my favorite, and then we came back and watched some TV.

I know from talking to John that we won’t have a cell phone or a broadband signal where we will be camping so don’t expect a posting until at least Thursday the 26th.  I plan on writing everyday but won’t be able to post them until then.

Day 91, Seattle, Washington

John drove us all into Seattle today.  This is the first time Twila and I  have been in downtown Seattle.  Most of the time I would avoid it like the plague.  I guess it is what you are used to, but the number of people and the amount of vehicles on the road is a bit much for this country boy.  I figure I could do it but I really don’t want to.  Anyway, we went to the Space Needle and like any tourist got a ticket and went to the top.

 

If you’ve ever been to the top of the Space Needle you know what a view it gives you of the entire Seattle area.  It was a little cloudy so we couldn’t see Mt. Rainier but you could see a lot of the bay area and where the cruise ships are berthed.

Of course it gave a great view of the downtown area.

I also got a good picture of John and Janine House.

After we got down from the Space Needle we walked down to the pier area for lunch at a place called Antonio’s.  It was a Sea Food Restaurant and actually had fish and chips better than we got in Alaska and cost about half as much.

We then walked to an outdoor market called Pike Place Market.  We might have enjoyed it a lot more if it hadn’t been so crowded.  They had some very nice fruits and vegetables but we didn’t buy any.  The only picture I took there was of some flowers growing in a planter up above the street.

We must have walked over 2 miles and a lot of it was uphill but it was worth it.  We had a great time.

Day 90, Mountains and more mountains

Well I got a few things wrong yesterday when I said we would be on back roads to get to the North side of Mt. St. Helens.  There is actually an Eastern entrance to the St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.  The road begins in Randle, Washington and goes South into the park and it is blacktop all the way.  It is a much less visited site than the main entrance from the west that we visited in 2005.  Over there they have a nice visitor’s center that overlooks the crater of St. Helens.  The great part of coming in from the East is it goes past Spirit Lake.  Spirit Lake is below the mountain and was drastically change the day of the eruption.  When the mountain blew it’s top, several hundred tons of material was blown into the air and some of it landed in the lake.  This cause a large wave which rushed up the sides of the mountains surrounding the lake.  When the water came back into the lake, the debris had raised the bottom of the lake by several feet.  The water also carried the trees on the side of the mountains back into the lake.  This picture shows what the trees on the mountains looked like after the blast of hot gasses from the volcano.

 

This is what Spirit Lake looks like today.  It has been 30 years and the trees are still floating on the lake.

This is a picture of the mountain I took in 2005 from the West entrance.  You will notice steam or smoke rising from the crater.

This a picture I took today from the East entrance.

We saw lots of major mountains today.  From a distance of course but still impressive.  Mt. Hood is actually in Oregon, 11,239 feet.  About 45 miles away.

This is Mt. Adams, 12,276 feet.  About 25 miles away.

This is Mt. Rainier, 14,411 feet, highest peak in Washington.  About 40 miles away in this picture.

This picture was taken in Bonney Lake and would be about 15 miles from the mountain.

Day 89, Bonney Lake, Washington

We really had a great day.  Slept late and then washed the motor home.  John, Gary’s brother, has a power washer and he helped us wash first my motor home and then Gary’s Fifth Wheel.  The rest of the day we did nothing but sit around.  Mainly because we could and partly because we were too tired to do anything else.

Twila, Mattie and Janine went shopping in the afternoon and seemed to have a really good time.

Mattie made a spaghetti recipe for supper and Twila fixed a mixed salad and garlic bread.  Then after supper we went outside and made peach fried pies over a campfire.  It doesn’t get any better than that.

We have had a major change of plans.  We are not going over to the peninsula after all.  The campground we were going to said we couldn’t stay for 6 nights and a private campground in the area said we couldn’t get in until Tuesday so we have changed our thinking.  We plan on leaving tomorrow morning and driving John’s crew cab pickup over to the North Slope of Mt. Saint Helens.  This is a back road trip and where most people don’t get to go.  Then Saturday and Sunday we plan on going into Seattle.  Monday morning we will go to an area South of Mt. Rainier around Randle, Washington and dry camp for 3 days.

Day 88, Bonney Lake, Washington

Yup, we’re back in the USA.  We left the campground in Chilliwack about 9:20am after going to the Golf Course’s Restaurant for breakfast.  One of the best breakfasts we had on the entire trip.  We were less than 15 miles from the border crossing at Sumas, Washington and after a short visit to the Duty Free Shop we crossed over into the USA at about 10am.  The traffic was really bad after we got to I-5 headed towards Seattle.  We took I-5 to I-405, then to 167, and finally to Highway 410 to Bonney Lake.  Gary’s brother, John, lives in Bonney Lake.  He has at least an acre of land so we are parked using only a 20 amp plug in on an extension cord.

We will stay through tomorrow night and then plan on driving over to the Northwest corner of the state close to Port Angeles.  John and his wife Janine are going to take there RV and go with us.  We plan on staying for 6 to 7 days before heading back to Oklahoma.

Day 87, Chilliwack, BC

We left our pull out campground at 8:30am and went through some very beautiful country.  It was lots of mountains with a river running next to the road most of the way.  Sometimes the river was a little below us and sometimes it was several hundred feet below us.  We saw lots of rafters in rubber rafts floating areas that looked really rough.  We ended the day just West of Chilliwack.  Chilliwack is very close to the Washington Border.  We will crossover tomorrow morning and be back in the “lower 48” as they say in Alaska.

We went through an area called “Hell’s Gate” where they had a tram going from the highway down to the other side of the river.  It might have been fun but at $17 each we passed since it wasn’t any better than the tram we rode in Juneau.  It advertised it’s self as the longest unsupported tram in North America.

 

We are actually in a campground for the night.  It is called Royalwood RV and Golf Resort.  It is $35 a night with 50 amp electric and full hook ups.

Day 86, Pull out South of 100 Mile House, BC

We left our side of the road campground about 9am and drove into Prince George to the Flying J Station for Diesel.  We had last filled up in Haines, Alaska before getting on the ferry.  I had driven 514.5 miles since filling up at Haines and I put in 282.91 liters.  At 3.78 liters per gallon this equals 74.84 gallons.  I got 6.87 mpg with several days of dry camping using the generator.

After we filled up we went back up the road about a mile to a casino Twila and Mattie had spotted.  Gary and I played a little Black Jack and Twila and Mattie play the slots.  Twila was the only lucky one in the bunch.  She came out ahead $150 in Canadian Dollars and since I lost $60 we were still ahead $90.

We left Prince George and drove to another pull out about 3.5 miles South from 100 Mile House, BC and spent the night.  

Day 85, Pull out East of Burns Lake, BC, Canada

We didn’t leave the campground in Prince Rupert until about 11am.  Twila was doing some laundry and I had to wait until she got through to pickup the sewer connection and then I had to go up to the office to send my last blogs.  We drove until it was starting to get dusk and then pulled into a pull out on the south side of the road about 16 miles past the town of Burns Lake heading East.

We had something we haven’t had in a long time.  HOT!!  The temperature got up to about 88F.  That was the main reason we drove so late.  In a way I guess it might be a good thing since we need to be getting prepared for Oklahoma weather which has been running over 105F.  We are planning on getting back to Oklahoma September the 4th and are hoping it will have started to cool down by then.

We went through a small town called Moricetown and pulled down a side road to an area where the Bulkley River comes into the Moricetown Canyon.  As you can see in the picture below, the river is really constricted down to a small opening in the canyon.  The native people have fished here for who knows how many years.  The salmon come up the river and try to get through the canyon and up the falls to spawn.  You will notice the walkways on the right of the picture.  This is the area where they try to catch the salmon in nets.

This is a picture of a native man with his net and he is trying to catch the fish as they jump in the air trying to clear the small waterfall to the right.

As you can see he seems to be doing alright.

Day 84, Prince Rupert, Canada

Things didn’t quite go as planned today.  We were supposed to leave on the ferry from Ketchikan at 11:30am but it was late and we didn’t get away until about 1:50pm.  So instead of getting to Prince Rupert at 6:45pm we got there about 9pm and didn’t get to the campground until 9:30pm.  Luckily we had called for reservations or I don’t think we would have had a place to park for the night.  It is now 11pm so I don’t think I will spend a lot of time on this blog.  This is a picture of Prince Rupert’s Harbor as we were coming in with the sun going down.

This is what was making the house look like it is on fire.

We have decided not to stay another night in Prince Rupert since the campground is $35 a night.  Tomorrow morning we will head towards Prince George, Canada but we don’t plan on going nearly that far the first day.  Again it will depend on where I can get Wi-Fi as to when I post again.

Day 83, Last day in Ketchikan

No visit to Ketchikan should be without a trip to Creek Street.  In the “olden” days, Creek Street was where the houses of ill repute were located along with some of the rougher saloons.  Today it is the location of lots of stores.  You can buy anything from “T” shirts to gold nuggets.

Now the last store on the right in the above picture said they were selling something else.  I don’t know since Twila made me leave.  All I know is I was offered a good time.

Actually it’s supposed to be the location of the last legal “Brothel” in Ketchikan and they give tours for $5.  At least Twila told me that was all it was.

Ketchikan also claims a couple of other titles, the Salmon Capital of the World,

and the most rainfall.

The above fact, most rain, is what makes our visit this time so usual.  When we were here on a cruise ship in May of 2007 there was so much rain that when you crossed the street it was 2 inches deep in water.  This visit it has been beautiful.  No rain just sunshine.

Ketchikan is a tourist town that shouldn’t be missed.  They do have some really good prices on their sale items too since there is so much competition.

In the morning we get back on the ferry and head for Prince Rupert, Canada.

Day 82, Ketchikan

Today the girls went into Ketchikan to do a little shopping.  Gary drove them in and I decided to stay at the motor home and do my blog for yesterday.  After I had finished I walked outside and saw Gary’s Truck was back.  It seems they had him drop them off and he came back to his RV.  The plan was for us to pick them up at noon and have lunch.  I also found out Twila had forgotten her purse and had borrowed $100 from Gary.  I told him I hoped he liked what ever she bought with his money.  We went to one of the downtown tourist restaurants called “Fish Pirate’s”.  It wasn’t wonderful but it wasn’t bad either.  After lunch Gary and I sat in the truck for a little less than an hour while Twila and Mattie finished their shopping.  We went back to the RVs and about 6:45pm drove out to the fish hatchery I talked about before.  We had been told that sometimes a momma bear and her cubs came to the creek where all the fish were swimming about dark.  Guess they weren’t hungry tonight since we didn’t get to see them.  No bears, no pictures.

Yeh, I did have to pay Gary back for the $100 he gave Twila.

Day 81, Ketchikan

We drove south on the Island today.  You can only drive about 9 or 10 miles south from Ketchikan’s downtown area but we had met a lady on the ferry coming into Ketchikan that lived in the area and she told us about some things in the area.  First there is a Hatchery, there were a lot of fish trying to get “upstream” to spawn.  I don’t know for sure what kinds there were but some were red on the side and some were black.  They were big fish by our standards.  In the neighborhood of 30”.  There was a pipe at the end of a holding tank that had water running out the end of the pipe and the fish were trying to jump into it.  Of course they couldn’t but they kept trying.  It was kind of sad since they were all at the end of their life cycle.

We then drove to the end of the road which followed the ocean.  It normally would have been really pretty to us but by now it has to be spectacular or it doesn’t impress us.  Kinda like eating too much ice cream.  You get where you don’t want anymore ice cream, at least not right then.  As we drove back we had been looking for a place called “The Hole in the Wall” which the lady said was a local hangout for people in the area.  She had marked it on a map for us but it wasn’t where she had marked it so we had about given up when we saw a sign.

We had to walk down a trail to the edge of the ocean to get to it.

We decided to pass it up this trip but it was in a pretty setting right next to a dock.

She had also told us about an eagle’s nest on the road.  We missed it going out but saw it coming back.  It still had a young Bald Eagle in it.  As I’ve mentioned before, the young eagles don’t get the bald headed look until they reach maturity at about 3 years old.