Montana and South Dakota

 

We continue on our journey back to Southern California, but first we had to make a stop in South Dakota to renew our driver licenses.  Before arriving in South Dakota we made a couple of stops in Montana, one of which was near the Little Bighorn Battlefield (Custer’s Last Stand).  It is always fascinating to actually see what you read in your history books.  The town where it all started is called Garryowen, Montana, which is where our RV park was.  Here is where Custer set up his camp on the Little Bighorn River.  He then moved through the hills to try and circle the Indians that were not living on the reservation.  What he did not know was that he was out numbered 10 to 1 by the Indians.  The Indians had over 2,000 warriors.

The battlefield has a nice 5 mile drive through it to show you how the troops and Indians moved and to give you perspective of the where everyone was.  The actual battle spot that claimed Custer’s life is on a small hill and is marked by a monument to remember all the Army personnel that are buried there.  Custer is buried at West Point.  What is interesting is that throughout the battlefield are makers indicating where army soldiers and died.  Their bodies were all removed and buried on the hill where the monument is.  It was a fascinating visit.

Monument where many of the soldiers are buried.

Markers on the battlefield where soldiers were found.

Gravestone for an Indian warrior.

From Montana we proceeded to Spearfish, South Dakota.  This was the closest city where they have DMV service so we could get our licenses renewed.  Just as it is in Madison, South Dakota (where we got our first license), the DMV comes into town only one day a week.  We had our needed documents and were warned by the RV park owners that the office is very busy, so we showed up 30 minutes before opening and there was a short line.  It moves fast as the only transactions are for licenses.  All vehicle items are handled at county offices.  We were done within 30 minutes after they opened and went out sightseeing.

First stop was Deadwood, South Dakota.  Great old west town that has retained much of its character.  As we had watched the HBO series “Deadwood”, it was fun to see it in real life and get information on what was really true.  We took a bus tour of the town which also takes you to the cemetery where Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane and Sheriff Bullock are buried.  Hickok was shot and killed in a saloon in town.

Downtown Deadwood

Saloon where Hickok was killed.

Calamity Jane is buried next to Hickok

Hickok grave.

From Deadwood we drove over to Sturgis, South Dakota.  Most of you have probably heard the name of the town as it is where an annual motorcycle get together is held.  The event is the first week of August so they were in the process of getting the town ready.  As it is the 75th anniversary of the event they are expecting over a million bikes to arrive in town.  It was interesting to drive through it but other than some very large bars and motorcycle shops we did not see anything else worth stopping for.

We are now in Wyoming then a stop in Utah, Nevada and then into Southern California.  This will be my last post for a number of months as we take a hiatus.  Hope you all have a great summer!

It has been awhile!

 

When I last posted we were in Bothell, Washington, just outside Seattle.  That was over 3 weeks ago.  Time to get you caught up on our travels.

We left Bothell and drove to Soap Lake in central Washington.  This was about the halfway point of our next stop, Spirit Lake, Idaho.  We stopped here for a couple of nights.  The town gets its name from the minerals in the lake that foam up making it look like soap.  The water is very oily and is supposed to have great healing powers.  We touched it and decided we did not want to go in to see about the healing powers.  The RV park is right on the lake and attracts many eastern European visitors who like the waters.

It was a nice relaxing stop and I had a enjoyable conversation with the owner of the park who is in the process of totally renovating the park.  He told me about the history of the park and his plans.  Lots of work to be done!

Our next stop was our friends house in Spirit Lake, Idaho.  They have 10 acres of land so we are able to park our rig out on their land in front of their house.  The downside of this visit was the heat wave that hit the Pacific Northwest.  It was over 100 degrees everyday for about a week.  As they did not have a powerful enough electrical circuit we could only run one A/C and it struggled, failing to keep the trailer cool during the day.  Fortunately we could hang out in their house and by nightfall it cooled down enough so we could sleep in it.

The highlight of the visit with our friends was attending a lawn tractor race on Father’s Day.  They have taken this up as their new hobby.  The race was held in their little town, Spirit Lake.  It was a fun day except for one of their tractors breaking down.

Our friend Marsha racing her tractor.

Our friend Mike being towed after his breakdown.

They took us out on their boat on two lakes in the area.  We especially liked the stop at a restaurant that served adult milk shakes.  Amazing how good various kinds of alcohol go together well with ice cream!

Next up was our start of our Alaska trip, but we decided to postpone the trip to handle some things.  We did decide to meet up with everyone in Calgary for the Stampede, but to only stay a week then move on.  We drove from Idaho up to a Kimberley, British Columbia.  A quaint little town with forest all around and a very fast moving river.  The RV park was very nice but in desperate need of tree trimming.  I had to saw off many branches to make sure our rig to get into and out of the spot without tearing the roof.  We spent a couple of days there before moving onto Calgary to meet up with our friends and see the Stampede.

Fran and some of the others (not all) did the parade on Friday, opening day of the Stampede.

Mounties marching in the parade.

We went to the Stampede park on two days.  The first day was to see the rodeo and the second was to see the grandstand show.  Both were great with the fireworks at the end of the grandstand show a favorite. 

Been there, done that picture!

  $8.00 beer anyone?

This horse really did not want a rider.

Another outing was to the Olympic Park.  This is where the 1988 winter Olympics were held.  It is neat in that they have been able to maintain this facility as a training facility and a tourist attraction.  They offer bobsleigh rides (wheels on sleds in summer, skids on them in winter), a mountain biking course, a cool luge ride using sleds on wheels that all ages can ride and a zipline from the highest ski jump to the bottom.  Fran and our friend Mike signed up for the bobsleigh.  You go down the actual Olympic track.  It was the two of them with a driver who is training for the Olympics.  The ride last less than a minute and they reach a speed of about 58 miles per hour.

  This is the turn where we watched them on their run.  Due to operator error (two operators) we did not get any good pictures of them in the sled.

We did a drive to the ski jump tower which offers a great view of the entire complex and the city of Calgary in the distance.

Ski jump tower.

This is the view from the top of the ski jump.  Where those two people are sitting is where the zipline starts!!!  Nobody wanted to do the zipline.

Fran and I did the luge ride on our last full day in Calgary.  It was a blast as you take a ski lift to the top of the hill then ride this little sled on wheels down the course.  You can really get it going fast, if you want to.  We did one ride and regretted not buying the multi-ride package. 

We had a great time in Calgary seeing the sights and visiting with our friends.  We left on the 9th and headed towards South Dakota.  First stop was in Great Falls, Montana for one night and now we are in Garryowen, Montana (Little Bighorn Battlefield) for the weekend.

Route:  From Bothell, WA we took Interstate 90 east to Highway 283 and Highway 28 to Soap Lake.  From Soap Lake we took Highway 17 south to Interstate 90 east to US 95 north to Spirit Lake, Idaho.  From Spirit Lake we took US 95 into British Columbia to Canada Highway 95 to 95A into Kimberley.  From Kimberley we took 95A to 3/93 to Highway 22 north to Canada 1 east to Calgary.

Seattle, Washington

 

We just finished up a two week stay in Bothell, Washington which is just outside Seattle.  This was our first stop in the area with an RV and our first chance to meet up with our daughters in-laws.  We never really got a chance to spend any time with them at the wedding so this was great. 

We did some sight seeing of the city before we met up with our daughter, her husband and his parents for the weekend.  First we drove into the city to see if we could with the truck and find parking.  Much to our amazement it was fairly easy to get around in the truck and we found street parking at all the stops we made.

Our first stop was Pike’s Public Market to stroll the booths and have lunch. 

 

  Line to get into the original Starbuck’s.  People there is another one just around the corner!

Next we drove to the Art Museum Sculpture Garden.  Nice park near the water with some interesting works.

  Interesting

Our next visit to the city was to check out the Seattle Center.  This is where the Space Needle is.  Of course we went to the top.

  View from the bottom

Selfie (or is it a groupie??) from the top

That brings us to the weekend where we had dinner with the Hurst’s (our daughter and son-in-law came up from Portland).  We had a great time at their house and spent the night so that we could do some things with our daughter and son-in-law the next morning.  We had a nice breakfast in downtown Kent (where his parents live) and then went into the city to drink some cider.

 

On Sunday the entire group took a Duck Boat tour of Seattle.  Our driver “Marty Graw” was so funny.  It is the best duck tour we have ever taken.

We found out that there were a few wineries very close to our RV park. One of them is Chateau Ste. Michelle, which is a favorite of ours.  So on Monday we ventured out to do some wine tasting.  The grounds for Chateau Ste. Michelle are huge as is their tasting room. 

Just one of the buildings. 

We tasted some of their estate reds and were not disappointed.

Across the street was Columbia winery, so we made a stop.  The also have very nice grounds and a large tasting room.

We were the only visitors in the tasting room and we had fun as we got a host who was on his first day of working the counter.  He was fun and his trainer made it even more enjoyable.  We liked their wine so much I signed up for their club.  If you are keeping track that would be 5 clubs I joined this year but I have cancelled the first two, so only 3 are active.

We had a great time in the Seattle area but did not like the traffic.  It seemed to be busy at any time of day in all directions.  Very frustrating when trying to get somewhere.  Also the weather was very hot during our entire stay, generally in the mid to high 80’s every day.

We have now moved east and have stopped in Soap Lake, Washington for a few days before moving to our friends house in Idaho.

Route:  From Portland we took Interstate 5 north to Interstate 405 to Bothell, Washington.

Portland, Oregon

 

We just finished up a two week stay in the Portland area.  Here is where our oldest daughter and her husband live so it was nice to be able to catch up with them.  We had also made arrangements with our friends, the Sherwood’s, to join us for a few days to do some wine tasting in Hood River, Oregon.

We had a great time visiting with our daughter and husband, tasting ciders, going bowling and taking a hike in a Portland park.

Morning hike in Portland followed by fantastic donuts at Blue Star donuts.

On this trip to Portland we were at the perfect time for the roses blooming at the International Rose Test Garden.  Fran was in heaven walking the gardens and taking pictures.  There are over 500 varieties of roses in the garden.

Our friends flew in and our daughter joined us for three days in Hood River, Oregon.  We actually stayed in a hotel!  This is a beautiful area of the Columbia River Gorge about 60 miles from Portland.  There are many vineyards here along with a number of wineries with a quaint little town.  It is nice as this is a developing area so the tasting fees are minimal and not busy tasting rooms.  We had a great time visiting about 15 wineries over the 3 days.

Our wine tasting friends!

We all agreed that the tasting room where we had the most fun was a downtown Hood River tasting room for Naked Winery.  It was by far the busiest one we visited.

 

We also visited a tasting room for Stoltz wines that was in a former funeral home.

We had a great time with everyone and tasted some very good wines. 

We left the Portland area this past Thursday and moved to Bothell, Washington which is just outside Seattle.

I wanted to add one additional item to this post regarding our travels.  While I was updating our route map I remembered a post that was floating around Facebook a few months ago showing the route to take to see 50 of the top attractions in the United States.  I copied that map and have included it here, along with our trip map, so you can see how we have done.  We have seen two thirds of the 50 spots on their list.

     

Perfect road trip map                                         Our map

Route:  From Seal Rock, Oregon we took US 101 north to Highway 18 east to Interstate 5 to Interstate 84 to Fairview, Oregon.

California–Oregon Coast

 

We left the Napa Valley area as we totally drained our wine budget for the entire year!  We followed US-101 north to Klamath, California.  For those of you who have not traveled US-101/CA-1, it is a real treat.  The highway goes along the coast of California and Oregon and gives you some spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean.  The downside is that it is mostly a two lane highway with many hills and sharp curves.  So if you get behind a semi or, someone like us towing a trailer, you end up going really slow.  When driving it you need to add additional time as you will only average 40 MPH.  For us, besides the slower driving, it was the horrible gas mileage.  I do not want to know the actual miles per gallon but I am sure on the trip to Klamath and then Seal Rock, it was probably around 6 miles per gallon.  It is all worth it!

So, as I mentioned, we first stopped in Klamath, California.  This is right in the heart of the redwoods.  The Redwood National and State Parks are north and south of the city.  We had a nice time taking the scenic drives through the forests, although US-101 actually goes through a big part of it.  The weather was much cooler as we moved north and the clouds and rain moved in as is the case in coastal northern California and into Oregon.

Here are some pictures from our stop in Klamath.

Redwood forest

  Herd of Elk next to the highway

  Neat lighthouse in Crescent City

From Klamath we continued on US-101 into Seal Rock, Oregon.  It is a small town right on US-101 about half the distance from Klamath to Portland (our next stop).  We found a nice little RV park right next to the ocean. The downside was that it we were very close to US-101 so the road noise was a little loud.  It was not bad at night and views of the ocean made up for the traffic noise.

Here there were great ocean views and beautiful coastal drives. 

  View from our RV

  Oregon coast

  Devil’s Punch Bowl in Otter Rock, Oregon. 

We leave here on Thursday for a two week stay in the Portland area where we will get to visit with our daughter and son-in-law and meet up with our friends the Sherwood’s to do some wine tasting in the Columbia River Gorge area.

Rout:  From Cloverdale, CA we took US-101 north into Klamath, CA and then to Seal Rock, OR.

Been a few weeks, where are we???

 

In my last post we were in Moab, Utah visiting the last of the Utah National Parks.  It has been a few weeks so a good time for us to get caught up. 

Following Moab we drove to Salt Lake City for just a few days.  This was a good stopping point for the weekend and it allowed Fran to fly to Kansas City to attend her nephew’s wedding.  It was a short trip for her but she had a good time seeing her sister and family.

Fran with her nephew

From Salt Lake City we made two stops in Nevada, just overnighters, and then proceeded into the San Francisco Bay Area.  There are not a lot of RV parks that service the San Francisco area, so after looking at all of them and reading the reviews we settled on one in Bethel Island, California.  It is somewhat further out than we would have liked but since they extended BART to Pittsburg, CA it ended up not being that big of a deal to get into the city.  However, it was a fairly long drive to the Napa wine country area.  It was an OK park but I do not think we would stay there again.  The spaces were very close together and you had to park your car right next to your trailer, leaving no room at all outside your trailer.  In fact, our neighbor opened his truck door and gently hit our bedroom slide.

While in Bethel Island we visited with a former co-worker of mine when I worked in San Francisco.  It was fun to catch up with her and her husband.  The best thing of this stop was our youngest daughter, Kim, flew in to spend a few days with us.  She was very young when we lived in the area and does not remember San Francisco, plus she enjoys wine and wanted to see the wine country.  We toured San Francisco on the weekend and then wine country on Monday and Tuesday.

The famous Painted Ladies homes in San Francisco

Kim on cable car

Outdoor lunch in Little Italy

Golden Gate Bridge

Kim learned of an ice cream sandwich place called Cream that had a shop  in San Francisco.  You pick the cookies, the ice cream and any toppings and they make a cookie sandwich.  It was a little bit of a walk to find it, but then we discovered it was very close to a BART station for our trip back home.

The ice cream sandwich at Cream

In wine country we first did the Silverado Trail on Monday, visiting about 5 wineries. 

This was our second stop, Andretti winery.  The former race car driver, Mario Andretti, is a part owner.

On Tuesday we toured the main tourist area of Highway 29.  We had a great picnic lunch at V. Sattui winery and then finished up the day taking the cable car to Sterling winery for the great views.

In the cable car for the ride to the top of the mountain to see the Sterling winery.

We did a lot in the four days but had a great time visiting with Kim, tasting wine and seeing the sights.

As I write this we moved from Bethel Island to Cloverdale, California for Mother’s Day weekend.  This is the northern part of the wine country area.  We took a drive through the hills and stopped at one of our favorite wineries, Mauritson, to do some tasting and buy some wines, before heading to Healdsburg for an outdoor lunch at Oakville Grocery.

Next up is Klamath, California before heading into Oregon.

Route:  From Moab, Utah we took Highway 6 north to Interstate 15 north into Salt Lake City.  From Salt Lake City we took Interstate 80 west to Highway 160 and Highway 12 into Bethel Island, California.  From Bethel Island we took Highway 4 north to Interstate 80 east to Highway 37 north to US 101 north into Cloverdale, California.

Arches and Canyonlands National Parks

 

We are on our last day of our month long adventure through Utah to see the 5 national parks.  This last stop, Moab, Utah, allowed us to visit Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park.  To add to the fun, our friends, the Cover’s, from Idaho joined us in their RV.

Arches is comprised of many large sandstone formations and cliffs which have created some natural arches from erosion.  It has a fantastic scenic drive with many great viewpoints.  As is our routine, we did a few of the short hikes which took us up close to a few of the arches.  As with the other parks, pictures do not give you the full beauty and majesty of the park.  These hills, canyons, etc., go on for miles.

Here are some pictures:

Top of entrance hill looking down at highway into Moab and the visitor center.

    How do these rocks not fall over???

  This is called Park Avenue.

     

 

The last picture is Landscape Arch.  You can see how it has become very thin.  In 1991 some people were standing beneath it when they felt dirt and small rocks falling on them.  They quickly moved and within minutes 170 tons of rock fell from the arch.  You can see the debris towards the bottom of the picture and see the jagged edges where it broke off at each end of the arch.

The  Canyonlands National Park is about 30 miles away from Moab.  The park is very large and is divided into three sections of which one, Islands in the Sky, is close to Moab and has a scenic drive.  The other two sections are much further away and are more for 4 wheel drive use.  It is a much different perspective as the drive has you on top of the plateau looking down into canyons, like the Grand Canyon.  What is fascinating about this is the canyons have so many levels, hence the term “Islands in the Sky”.

 

We had a great time visiting all the parks and will continue to debate what is our favorite.  We definitely will be back.

We are now headed to Salt Lake City for the weekend then a couple of stops in Nevada before heading into the San Francisco bay area for a couple of weeks.

Route to Moab: From Torrey, Utah we took Highway 24 east to Highway 95 north to Interstate 70 east to highway 191 south into Moab.