Makoshika State Park - Glendive, MT

 Getting here was a pretty short trip, so we made a few stops on the way.  Our first stop was Pompey’s Pillar, a national monument.  It is a place where William Clark, of Lewis & Clark,  carved his name on July 25, 1806.  A must stop for L&C fans.  Lewis’s first name, by the way, was Meriwether.  We thought of starting a Lewis & Clark school and call it “William and Meri.”  

For lunch we stopped in Miles City, at the Black Grill.  It was our first indoor dining experience since the pandemic.  We were so proud of ourselves, we didn’t even giggle!  

Makoshika State Park is the largest state park in Montana, but has only 12 campsites, no electricity, limited water, and no dump facility.  It’s sort of the bad lands of Montana with strange rock formations and fossils.  Even though it’s Memorial Day, it’s very peaceful.  We spent the day hiking and saw nobody.  

Billings KOA - Billings, MT

 

We left the snow capped Rocky Mountains for mesas and buttes.  Billings is the corporate headquarters for KOA and the Billings KOA is the first campground they built.  Sort of interesting because we have been using KOA’s as our maintenance and laundry stop for the past seven years.  There seems to be one around every time you need one.  It was about 90 in the sun and 60 in the shade, so if you sit outside you either melt or freeze.  The only obvious solution is a round of miniature golf...Deb cleaned my clock!  

Tomorrow it’s off to the Montana badlands.

Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park - Whitehall, MT

 It’s 3,600 miles from Seattle to Boston and we have 18 days to get there.  This was a 350 mile day which would be good but we are spending two days at Lewis and Clark State Park.  We visited here several years ago, Deb loved it, I got stung on the inside of my lip by an irate Yellowjacket that had fallen into my wine just before I took a sip. 

This time we had the opportunity to visit the caverns.  Today was the first day that they were open.  The ranger suggested that the tour might not be right for me.  It involved some duck waddling, sliding on my butt, 600 steps, 2 miles of walking.  

Wow, too old for the tour...now that’s a challenge.  We were up for the challenge, no problem! Well, at least we didn’t complain, or have to crawl on on our hands and knees like some people on the tour.  

Deb felt that two miles of duck waddling wasn’t enough so she added a three mile hike in the afternoon.  We finished the day with pizza on the Barbie and a quick campfire, as the temperature plummeted to 50.

Farragut State Park - Bayview, ID

We drove through the apple orchards of Washington and then to the Grand Coulee Dam, the largest hydroelectric dam in the world. One million gallons of water flows through the turbines every minute.  California must be soooo jealous!  From there it was just a short drive to Farragut State Park.  It was warm enough to sit outside for awhile.  We were in site number 368 which makes you realize how big the place was; however, there didn’t seem any reason to leave our site and we had to be out early in the morning to be positioned in a rest area for a board meeting.

Pearrygin Lake State Park - Winthrop, WA

 Relatively speaking, it was a short drive, 116 miles, along the North Cascades Scenic Loop.  This was one of the most memorable drives we have ever taken.  The Northern Cascades are called America’s Alps.  

Diablo Lake is sort of the epicenter of the area.  We took a 4 mile hike up Thunder Knob which had some nice panoramic views.  From Diablo Lake the road climbed up to 5500 ft elevation which is the portion of the road that is closed from November to May.  There was still a considerable amount of snow and there were waterfalls everywhere.

Winthrop is one of those theme towns where everything looks like it was in a western movie.  We arrived at the campground, apparently too early.  The day had been perfect, but it was raining when we arrived.  15 minutes later, the sun was shining, the weather got warmer and we sat outside for the first time in two weeks.

Raser State Park - Concrete, WA

The drive was only 76 miles today and 116 tomorrow.  This is wonderful, but it is very slow progress

getting across country to get to Boston.  During our little hike today, through giant western cedars and cottonwoods, I pondered this dilemma.  Upon my return, I ascertained that our return trip was indeed three weeks, not two as I had assumed.  This is the problem of planning a trip in February for June.  Raser State Park is another small Washington Park, absolutely lovely with 3.75 miles of interpretive hiking trails, mostly along the Skagit River.  There are dozens of interpretive signs identifying all the flora in the park.  We are learning the difference between raspberry, hackberry, huckleberry, gooseberry, thimbleberry, snowberry and service berry.  We now know what horsetails are and what to use them for (scrubbing dishes...).

Tomorrow, we continue along the Cascades Scenic Loop to Pearrygin State Park, another tiny park in the Washington Cascades.  We are planning to stop for lunch at Diablo Lake, the photographic icon of the Cascades.

Lake Pleasant RV Resort (2) - Bothell, WA

 Our last day of visiting included not only a spring walk around Green Lake, a park next to the apartment, but also the requisite board game.  These are not the board games from my youth; they are slightly more complex.  We played Mysterium, a twist on the classic Clue game that I used to play.  Here, you play six Clue games simultaneously and the “clues” are apparitions from the ghost of the victim.  Of course, in the end everyone wins together as a team, including the ghost.

Our son’s partner has taken an interest in cooking Korean food.  We really have no idea what we ate but it was delicious.

Tomorrow we start our return trek through the Cascade Mountains with the forecast of snow in the higher elevations!

Lake Pleasant RV Resort - Bothell, WA

 Took the ferry from Kingston to Edmonds and arrived before noon, which gave Deb time to do laundry,

and me time to pick up a rental car.  Deb had spent some time this spring in the attic and found several boxes of books, and other memorabilia that belonged to our sons.  We had carefully packed them into some of the less readily available storage areas on the RV.  I’m not sure, but we may have lost a mile or two per gallon carrying all that stuff across country.  About half of it went to son one last week and the rest was loaded into the back of our rental SUV, including “paws,” the stuffed polar bear that our youngest son said that he would keep for the rest of his life when he saw it in Jackson Hole, WY at the age of five. I just couldn’t let it go, could I!

It’s warmed up to near 70, and it’s been sunny, so we have been able sit out in the backyard and go for walks in the Washington Park Arboretum.  

Eating takeout Thai food.

The azaleas and rhododendrons were gorgeous!

Jerrell’s Cove State Park - Shelton, WA

 It was an easy drive today, so we made Time for a long lunch at Lake Sylvia State Park.  We have not had much experience with state parks in Washington.  So first of all, there are literally hundreds of them.  None of the ones we have seen are very big.  After lunch (we only buy Bologna on road trips, it’s one of my tricks to get Deb to go with me), we hiked a loop around the lake.  My first covered bridge on a hike!

We arrived at Jerrell’s Cove in the early afternoon.  You can choose either a wooded site or an open site.  There was already a camper in the wooded site, so we took the open one.  Although very small, it is a nice park, well maintained. Deb got a real campfire, with dry hardwood.  Bologna and a campfire in the same day, I really know how to spoil a girl.

Tomorrow we have a choice, around Puget Sound counterclockwise, through Tacoma and Seattle, or clockwise, up the coast and take a ferry.  I love ferries, when I offered the two choices to Deb, she just rolled her eyes!

Wild asparagus grows everywhere! Oops, I discovered this is really Horsetail!

Ft Stevens State Park - Hammond, OR

 We have been continuing up the coast on route 101, driving along rocky shores, sometimes precariously close to hundred foot precipices, sometimes crossing giant dunes. The Oregon shore goes from desolate, to quaint, to honky-tonk every couple of miles.  It’s probably still to early for most vacationers, but all the scenic vistas are full of picture takers.  

Even though it was a fairly short day, mileage-wise.  We managed to consume it with slow driving and a Walmart stop.  By the time we arrived the mosquitos had already set up camp.  Dinner was beef stew cooked in a small crockpot that sits in the sink while we drive (I just think that it’s cute that we can do that!)

We should be able to get a nice walk on the beach before we leave.  It will be our last look at the Pacific for this trip.  From here it will be another day to get to Seattle for the week-end.

We took a walk on the dunes trail to see the Peter Iredale wreck. I wouldn’t want to be famous for that!

Bullard Beach State Park - Brandon, OR

 Northwestern California is a world unto itself.  There are few roads in and out, and they are all hilly and winding.  Our sojourn began with 40 miles of scenic route 1...twenty miles of rugged shorescapes followed by twenty miles of mountainous redwood forests.  Finally to route 101, the major thoroughfare for another 200 miles of the same seascapes and redwoods.  In Eureka, there was an interesting road sign, “Route 101, Road Construction 60 miles ahead, expect up to 2 hour delays.”  Since the only other option was to drive over the mountains to I-5 and then back over the mountains to our campground (an extra 3-4 hours), we continued on.  As it turned out, our delay was about an hour or so...stranded in our little mobile home with a kitchen and bathroom and a million dollar view.

  

Once past the construction site, we headed into Oregon, leaving $4.49/gallon gasoline in our rearview mirrors.  Bullards Beach is about a mile from the ocean.  We are camped right next to the trail.  Deb got her second campfire of the trip, but the firewood was wet pine, so after fifteen minutes of serious smoke, we abandoned the fire for chips and salsa and some reruns!

In the morning we took a hike to the beach. The trail was 1.5 miles round trip in sand! But the view was worth it!

MacKerricher State Park - Ft Bragg, CA

 We had a wonderful weekend with son one; we are now off to our next weekend with son two.  We have four days to travel up the coast from Monterey to Seattle.  Our first day gets us about 300 miles.  We drove up the 101 through San Francisco.  It’s been a long time, and I forgot that 101 is just city streets until you

get to the Golden Gate Bridge.  Fortunately, in some sort of dark way, the pandemic has turned the entire Bay Area into a trafficless ghost town.  North of San Francisco, we got back on route 1 and wound our way up the coast through Bodega Bay and Mendicino to Ft Bragg.

Years ago, we took an RV trip with Deb’s parents and rode the Skunk Train deep into the forst where they used to lumber redwoods.  MacKrerricher State Park was the ocean terminus where the lumber was loaded an ships. 

Although it only got to about 56, the sun was out and we got to sit outside for awhile.  We also got to sleep in our sweat pants and sweatshirts.

Marina Dunes RV Resort 2 - Marina, CA

 Haven’t seen Justin in over 15 months. Went wine tasting on Saturday at Odonatta Winery. Then on Sunday went for a chilly walk on the beach. So nice!

Marina Dunes RV Resort - Marina, CA

 We drove the coastal highway from Morro Bay to Monterey.  The marine layer had receded quite a bit. (Marine Layer is just a California fancy way of saying fog).  North of Morro Bay, the elephant seals have taken over all of the sandy beaches.  This is our third trip on the coastal highway, our second in the RV.  The first RV trip was southbound in 2014, where Deb, as the passenger, hung precariously over the edge of 100 foot drops.  This time, northbound, she was precariously riding under potential debris flows. (Another California fancy word for mud slides).  

Of course, there was very little traffic, the views were stunning, and the weather was lovely.  We arrived in Marina, the home of son one, with sufficient time to do two weeks of laundry.  The washers and dryers are all controlled by an app on your phone.  Of course they are!  We tried not to appear old and out of touch.

Son one came over for dinner, our first guest since before COVID.  It’s really starting to feel like the beginning of the end!

On Saturday, we went wine tasting at Odonata Winery (outside, of course).  Sunday, a walk on the beach in Marina.  With the temperature in the 50’s, it was a brisk, enthusiastic walk. After lunch, we strolled the historic section of Monterey.   Then came thought...should we? ...would it it be right, so soon?  

Yes...just do it...and we did! We ate dinner at a restaurant! (Of, course it was outside)

Photo of Big Sur coastline.

Morro Bay State Park - Morro Bay, CA

 This morning has been the morning that I have dreaded since first planning this trip - the drive through downtown Los Angeles. Fortunately, it was pretty easy.  We stuck to the 5 until we got to the 101 and we were done!

We are absolutely, positively sure that we spent the night at Morro Bay back in 2014;  but what we remember was a parking lot with dirty restroom.  There is no mention of the place in our blog.  Either we were never here, or we have found a wormhole in the universe.  This campground is lovely, with a long boardwalk that goes out into the bay with great views of Morro Rock.

Deb got her first campfire, last night.  Siri told us that sunset was at 8:00, which put lighting the fire around 8:30...as I was putting the last log on the fire, Deb’s chair was empty and there was a lump in the bed.

Tomorrow, we are off on scenic route 1 to Monterey to see son one.

Silver Strands State Park - Coronado, CA

Our propane regulator cracked and yesterday we spent a few hours successfully searching for parts in Yuma, AZ.  The drive from Yuma to San Diego goes right next to the Mexico boarder and the wall, and then goes over mountains of boulders.  After traveling through the desert for a week, arriving in San

Diego was a culture shock.  The RV park is a large parking lot with lines painted for each site.  Each site is large enough to be able to fully extend your awning with at least 6” to spare before hitting the RV next to you.  The ocean is only a few feet away.

In the morning we walked a few of the miles of Sandy beach.  After lunch we went on a great adventure.  We crossed over to the bay side where there was a hotel.  A large hotel, a hotel with a Mexican restaurant, a Mexican restaurant with outdoor seating.  We bravely put on our masks and for the first time in fifteen months, we ordered a beer, tortilla chips and salsa.   From here on, the world is our oyster!   

Tomorrow, Morro Bay, and the rest of the world! 

bougainvillea

Picacho Peaks State Park - Picacho, AZ

 

May is not the peak season in the desert.  We are in a pretty large campground with two or three other RV’s.  It has been a very dry spring, so there is no water available.  We have our 35 gallon tank and two 5 gallon jerry cans, so are in good shape.  The nights are in the 50’s and the days in the 90’s.  We went for a walk in the morning while it was still fairly cool, back for lunch and a siesta until around 5:30 and then back outside for the sunset.  There is a trail to the top of the peak, built by the CCC in the 30’s.  It has cables attached to the rocks to pull yourself up.  Yeah...no!  We took a nice stroll to the look-out, much more our style.  It’s nice to see some of the cactus in bloom.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and we talked to both sons and to Deb’s mother.  As a celebration, Deb made chili and I made stovetop cornbread.  So good, we’re having a redo tonight!

Tomorrow we head for the beach in California where it is 60.

Huecho Tanks State Park - El Paso, TX

Ocotillo plant

 Huecho Tanks is not just your ordinary run of the mill state park.  You need to be here at least one hour before the gates close to get your mandatory indoctrination.  As we rushed to get here, Deb said, “This doesn’t make sense. The timing is all wrong!”  It turns out that this little tiny corner of Texas is on Mountain Time, so we got a one hour reprieve...phew!

We got our indoctrination orientation certificate, which we are suppose to carry at all times.  Three quarters of Huecho Tanks is only accessible on guided tours.  The tour started out easy enough, and then we got to the part where you have to scamper up a rock face, sneak along a narrow ledge before sliding down a ledge on your butt.  After that you can crawl into a cave, lie on your back and look up at some pictographs.  We were an awesome standout in our group of ten because our shoes did not slip on the rocks.  We taught all those youngin’s that retirees are a force to be reckoned with!

After lunch and our siesta (okay, we’re still a little wimpy), we explored the North Mountain (elev 4800 ft), the only place you can go without a park ranger.  The elevation is impressive until you realize that the camp ground is at 4,200 ft.

The wind blows constantly with some pretty health gusts so we sat in our little picnic pavilion, enjoyed scenery and talked about renting an apartment in the Southwest for a year so we see all the seasons.  By 8:00 we decided to eat dinner.

Motel 6 - Dallas, TX

 We finally escaped from Jackson.  To be fair, it was an absolutely gorgeous place to be trapped. They got the trees cleared from the roadway and pushed several of the power poles off the road. We still had to drive over the downed lines in several places.  We got out at 2:00 and made it Dallas by 10:00. We were on the road again by 6 AM. With any luck we should be pretty much caught up on our route this morning.

LeFleur Bluff State Park (Day 2)- Jackson, MS

 We are still here, still waiting for our freedom.  We have walked the “downed power pole” walk several time.  Yesterday, an RV decided to just leave.  We came out to watch.  After about 1/2 mile, he stopped, pulled off to the side of the road to wait. About three hours later, he was back in the campground...that’s about as much excitement as we have had since the storm hit, two days ago.

Yesterday was Cinco de Mayo.  We decided to celebrate as best we could.  We made tacos, spanish rice,  beans, and some taco seasoning for our beef burritos.

They promised that we would be out by noon. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.

LeFleur State Park - Jackson, MS

 We left the northeast corner of Alabama at 7:00 and drove non-stop (except for one relief break) to Jackson, MS. With impending severe weather projected for 2:30 to our campground, we pulled up to the gate by 1:15.  By 2:35, we were in the restroom watching the wind whip everything around.  The severe weather only lasted a few minutes, and we were safe. Of course, we are without power, along with half of Jackson.

Went for a short walk to survey the damage.  The park rangers were working on clearing the road, several large trees had fallen.  They had to wait for the power company to turn off the power to finish clearing.  Most of the power poles had snapped and there were lines all over the place.  They won’t have power back for weeks!

Hopefully, we will be able get out soon.

We have walked the road, Deb counted six power poles broken.  By evening, the number of electric customers without power has gone from 152,000 to 40,000, we were hoping for 39,999 or less!  We are staying positive, but we are ready to move on...maybe tomorrow.

DeSoto State Park - Fort Payne, AL

 Our trusty GPS told us that the fastest way to get from North Carolina to Alabama was to go back through Virginia.  That seemed just wrong! Not only that, but we had to wind our way over a few mountains to do it.  As we slowly left North Carolina, Virginia (again), Tennessee, and Georgia in our wake, passing a plethora of infrastructure projects, we left the interstates behind in Alabama for our final nine miles.  But, of course,  one final hurdle...a mountain slide has taken out the road to the park.  We found a back road with a sign “Absolutely No Trucks on this Road.”  It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and in one optimistic moment Deb said, “We’ve been on worse!”

Our gnarly inverter popped on of it’s wires, but it was quickly fixed.  We had defrosted a chicken breast that turned out to be chicken legs, but it still made a pretty good Curried Chicken dinner.  For Alabama, this is quite a campground, with camp WiFi(sort of), full hook ups, and even cable.  We caught the last half hour of “Bohemian Rapsody,” one of Deb’s all time favorite films.

This is our first two night stop, but the rain has literally dampened our hiking hopes.  By mid-morning the rains were pretty much gone and we were able to do some fall watching.

We found out that the WiFi is in the bathrooms.  I’m not sure I need to understand the correlation! Anyway we moved our RV to a site closer to the restrooms and were able to get solid WiFi.

We are keenly aware of the fact that severe weather is moving our way and is going to be a factor in getting to Jackson, MS, our next stop.  Our plan is to leave early enough to avoid the brunt of it, but we are going to be cautious.

Pitcher plant

Stone Mountain SP - Roaring Gap, NC

 Our first day out.  We left 15 minutes ahead of time, but somehow the minutes kept slipping by.  Our GPS said that our expected arrival time was about 3:30, then 4:00, then 4:30, then after the start of happy hour. Well so much for conservative driving...pedal to the medal.  Even with two construction site (with no construction) we pulled into our hidy-hole at 4:58...phew.  

Just before we left, our inverter (the thing that converts the 12 volts DC to 120 volts AC) died.  After much scrambling and some vehicle modifications, it was installed 12 hours before departure.  The new inverter is 25 years newer than the old one.  One big change is a small little fan that comes on and goes off randomly, especially at night.  It sort of like a purring kitty, or an annoying fly, depending on your point of view.  Hopefully, I will get used to it.  

We arrived so late that we had no time to explore until the morning.  We took a short hike that was not very strenuous...well, actually labeled “wheelchair” access.  We saw Stone Mountain which was quite impressive.

Wild iris, about 5” tall