Category: Uncategorized

Day 42

          Our last day in Yellowstone was a huge success even though we picked the slowest lane at the Entry Gate of the Park. This was our third time driving into the Park and each of the previous days we were able to drive right up to the Ranger, show our Old Guys Forever-Pass, exchange pleasantries, and be on our way.  This time was different and maybe it had something to do with the improving weather situation. I guess folks decided to press the GO button and take advantage of the somewhat warmer and sunnier forecast. We thought that we were in trouble and that there was going to be the proverbial wall-to-wall stands of multitudes of shuffling tourons taking selfies, clogging up the works.

          We were wrong.

          This place is so immense that the amount of people flowing into the Park at this time of year gets easily swallowed up by all of the places (and vast distances between them) that it hardly registered as anything but a minor delay when we went to take our selfies!

          Our goals for the day were to finish up with our visits to the remaining places in the Park that were open at this time of year. There are still a few roads and destinations that will not be open for a few weeks. Elevation plays a key role here when it comes to snow cover and how long it hangs around. We already started at over 6000’ of elevation back in West Yellowstone and this slyly gets shifted to the background as the roads in the Park gradually got us up to over 8000’ above sea level.

          And we were still relatively flat!

          We were not on top of a mountain!

          But all of the evidence of what lies below here, the hot springs, thermal vents, and geysers, were still all around us and were constantly a reminder that the Volcano could blow its stack at any minute!

          Mind you, a minute in Geological Time is equal to several hundred thousand years of our time  😊

          One of the more awe-inspiring views in the Park (or anywhere for that matter) is the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. It’s too bad that the nomenclature of “Grand Canyon” gets used here. To us, this canyon deserved its own identity as no matter where you looked, upstream or downstream, the view was nothing short of magnificent all in its own right. But someone before us named this geological formation, so that’s what we’re stuck with.

          But it is a canyon, and it is grand, and it is the Yellowstone River, so…..

          Anyway, there are two falls in this section, and I think that the same guy with no imagination named these also. We have here, for your inspection, some fine photographic examples of …….

          The Upper Falls and the Lower Falls. (Sigh)

          Someone needs to take a class in Creative Marketing!

          After spending a lot of time going back and forth across the River to get to all of the Vantage Points on the map (and never being disappointed) we left the Falls area and went about forty miles north to get to Mammoth Hot Springs. This area is not named for some woolly elephant-like creature that may have roamed here; it is named this because that adjective aptly describes what we encountered here.

          A series of hot springs so tall that it rises several hundred feet above the floor of the valley in which it is situated. It required a labyrinth of stairs, steps, ramps, and railings, that wound around and through the steaming and bubbling watercourses. The colors were vivid and the steps and terraces that have been formed over the millennia rival the most magnificent fountains found in any palace, anywhere!

          The last place we visited was the Norris Basin Geysers. This area is constantly shifting and the geysers within it, (there are well over fifty) wax and wane with no regularity whatsoever. They are completely dependent on the ebb and flow of ground water and the underground thermal features of the moment. The most active one shown here sounded like the roar of a jet engine as it spewed its boiling, steamy water out of a narrow slit of a crevasse which only heightened the pressure behind it, creating that distinctive sound.

          On the way back to West Yellowstone (about fifty miles away) we were thankful that this end of the Park did not have the amount of Bison that were encountered the previous two days. It felt rather odd not wanting to cross paths (literally) with these furry beasts. I don’t want to say, “Seen one, seen ’em all”, but they do tend to cause massive traffic jams on the roads here. I know that its better than a Construction Delay, but when you are trying to fit far-flung destinations into a finite time period, well, I hope that you get my drift.

          But we did come upon a slowdown caused by an unknown spottage of something as yet to be determined. Yielding to that Touron Behavior lurking just beneath our skins, we promptly pulled over and investigated. Apparently there was a Mom Black Bear and a cub or two safely screened by trees on the far side of a stream. Unfortunately, it was not even worth a photo as they could barely (pun intended!) be seen. Back to the car we went.

          Paula has done all of the driving in the Park as I am constantly on the lookout for nice places to pull over at, jump out, and snap a few pics. That, and I tend to nod off in the afternoon and with no guardrails and those million-foot-high precipices to be hurled off of, we prudently decided that Paula would be the DD.

          We did see a couple of those road-clogging fuzz balls on our way out and we did slow up to take  a pic or two,

          Guilty as charged!

Days 40 and 41

          We’ve had a few close calls in our travels.

          The one that I am about to relate to you could have had catastrophic consequences.

          Given the slightest provocation, an upheaval of cataclysmic proportions that was lying just below us and it  would have brought our quest to drive around the country to an untimely and abrupt halt.

          Volcano!

          Unlike the previous day’s cheap attempt to lure you into reading one of these posts by alluding to fierce Anacondas, this one is actually true.

          Well, maybe just a little stretched.

          Let’s say by about 500,000 years or so.

          The last eruption of the Yellowstone Super-Volcano was about 650,000 years ago and if memory serves me, we have another bunch of eons before it erupts again. But it’ll be a big one! The last eruption covered most of the US in ash and other remains of a Big Blast, so we’re only spending a few days here, just in case!

          We’ve decided to plan just a few days ahead of ourselves because the weather has been a tad unpredictable. We left Anaconda and headed south to Yellowstone National Park where Winter has doubled her grip on the area. Ten degrees Fahrenheit (overnight) is just a bit too low for our somewhat delicate on-board systems to tolerate for any length of time, so our track is definitely in the southern direction.

          The road between Anaconda and the town of West Yellowstone (both in Montana) runs mostly through a valley, so the hills and curves of mountain driving were mostly absent from this leg. What a relief!

          But…..

          This is where Mother Nature disguised herself as the ol’ Widow Winter and provided us with some Whiteout conditions as we were driving along a large (and reputedly) beautiful lake, but we couldn’t see it! Luckily, the snow did not stick to the road, they thankfully remained just wet, so we did not have slipperiness to contend with.

          While the snow did not stick to the roads, it did stick to almost everything else, including the Bison crossing the road. This camouflage trick almost worked had it not been for an oncoming motorist who flashed his lights in warning. Peering into the distance we could see that there were indeed big critters on the road. See example!

          We also came across some Bighorn Sheep which, even down in Colorado, is not an everyday occurrence.

But hey! This is Montana (and Wyoming) where the Mountains are large, and the National Parks are even larger! At over 3400 square miles, Yellowstone is our largest National Park behind the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska. Wrangell-St. Elias  is enormous at over 20,000 square miles!

          But no one goes there!

          Everybody goes to Yellowstone! At least in the summer, and for good reason. Yellowstone is another one of those other-worldly places here on Earth. It boasts the largest collection of geologic/thermal sites (and sights) on our still geologically active planet.

          The Volcano that I mentioned in the beginning sits down underneath this area and still provides pools of magma to heat the water that eventually finds its way to the surface in the form of geysers and multi-colored hot springs that are absolutely everywhere in the Park. Yellowstone Lake at twenty miles long and ten miles wide is the remnant of the caldera of this super-volcano so that should give you an idea of how large this beast really is!

          But while the activity below is frantic, the life on the surface is quite tranquil. Especially in winter when all is snow covered and the steam from the thermal activity is that much more pronounced. It was like looking at far away villages with everyone inside sitting by their fireplaces, smoke curling out of their chimneys.

          I believe that I have found a new favorite River.

          Mind you, I’m not sure that I had a favorite before this, but I am quite sure that I have one now.

          The Madison River guided us all the way from Anaconda down to West Yellowstone. It was her valley that we traversed while driving. I liked it then, but when I found out that the Madison is one of the major rivers that define the topography of Yellowstone… Well, that just solidified it. Everywhere it ran gave an opportunity to view one beautiful scene after another.

          We decided after getting into West Yellowstone at a decent time, that we would just go and get a map of the Park and speak to someone in anticipation of a next day visit. Upon our arrival and subsequent conversation with a Ranger, we decided to give Old Faithful a try. It is about an hour’s drive from the Entrance. Even though the weather was snowy and cloudy we figured we didn’t have anything to lose, so on we drove. It did make for some interesting sights, or non-sights, as the visibility was not that good.

          Who needs visibility anyway!

          It was an Adventure of Volcanic Proportions so who are we to judge? On we went, did some reconnoitering for a return trip the next day and had a frozen good time. At twenty-six degrees and with a wind speed of fifteen miles an hour, it made for some very cold forays into the features of the Park. Note Photo!

          All of this just primed us for the return visit the next day when the Weather promised to be nicer to us. It had snowed all night so that in the morning we had a gorgeous blanket of pristine mountain snow covering everything, and a Bluebird Sky to back it up.

          We repeated our trip from the day before and now that we were seasoned veterans, we were able to bypass all of the Bison that roam freely and stop traffic frequently. Well, we almost bypassed them all.     Who can resist  a photo of Bison traveling across a vast river plain starkly contrasted against the new snow?

          I can’t!

          Our return to Old Faithful was another highlight as the steam and skyrocketing hot water of the geyser were not lost against a cloudy, snowy sky. This time we had a beautiful background to witness a spectacle that has repeated itself with regularity for thousands of years. All of the thermal features of this enormous waterpark are fed by water dripping down into the ground. This groundwater is then heated by the volcanic activity and then reverses itself, finds other vertical passages and comes back to us via geysers and hot springs.        

  There was a time, about eight hundred years ago, that Old Faithful turned into Old Unreliable because a drought encompassed this region and all the groundwater that is needed to fuel the eruptions was not to be had. Ouch! It’s a good thing that we hadn’t built the Old Faithful Inn back then because we would have had scores of Unhappy Tourists!

We next plan to visit the northern part of the Park. Mammoth Hot Springs and everything in between is our destination. Mammoth lies about fifty miles from where we are so this will be an all-day excursion. Reports to follow!

Days 38 and 39

          Anaconda.

          If you know anything about snakes, this word will send shivers up and down your spine. Usually about twenty feet long and weighing better than one hundred pounds, these constrictors lie quietly in the water waiting for you to swim by and then, Slam! They’ve got you (a tasty snack) all wrapped up. Just ask Jim, the quintessential sidekick of Dr. Marlin Perkins of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, one of my favorite TV shows from the ‘60’s. Poor Jim was wrestling with one of these biggies while Dr. ”I Never Go In Harm’s Way” stood on the shore narrating in his deadpan style, “Jim’s going down for the third time, gee, I hope he’ll be alright. That snake sure does seem to have a good hold on him! Keep up the good work Jim!”

          Anaconda, (Montana) did send shivers through us but not because there are lots of snakes there, it was because there was lots of cold there. Winter has a tempestuous grip on this area of our Country and true to anyone with that type of personality, is refusing to let go and is taking delight in making others keep a wary eye out for them.

          Much like its namesake.

          Anyway, we spent two nights in this mineral-rich region of southwest Montana. Copper is/was the most mined ore in the area. The National Mining Museum (yes, there is one of those) is located one town away in Butte, Montana.

          We did not spend our two days here scraping out open-pit mines looking for copper. We instead spent that time wallowing in the hot springs of the Fairmont Hot Springs Resort where the naturally occurring, from deep down under the earth, dissolved good-stuff minerals, non-Sulphur smelling waters are pumped continuously into their big pools. In fact, the waters come out of the ground at about 160+ degrees, which is good for cooking some things, but bad for a toe-dip. So, they cool them down for us non-lobsters so that we can sit and soak leisurely without a fear of being someone’s dinner.

          Not even an Anaconda!

          So, I’ll bet you’re wondering then, why Anaconda?

          Back in the day, the local mine was started by Michael Hickey, a Civil War veteran, who liked the way that Horace Greeley described the tactics of General Ulysses S. Grant when opposing General Robert E. Lee. Greeley wrote that Grant had Lee surrounded “like an Anaconda”.

‘Nuff said.

The End.

Days 36,37, and 38

          We find ourselves sitting in a nicely appointed suburban neighborhood of Spokane, Washington. The weather gods have forsaken us, and thusly abandoned us, in this seemingly far-flung locale.

          Spokane? Why here?

          The answer is simple, as we are visiting friends!                      One of the fun parts of this travel is winding and worming our route to include dropping in on folks that we know. And, since we carry our home on our backs, we are never a burden to those that we crash in on.                          Oops! I mean visit!                                                                         (Think Cousin Eddie in Christmas Vacation)

          We are here on East Handy Road parked in front of the home of Greg, Kim, Gavin, and Kaydence. Greg is a former Marine buddy of Danny’s and the families have stayed as close as they can considering the distance between Texas and Washington state. We, on the other hand, are as close as a fifty-foot extension cord running from the house to the street can allow!

          I have alluded to our weather woes in some of the previous posts, complaining because we are not experiencing the better-than-perfect weather that we had for almost a month.

          Please tell me to just shut up!

          Weather/shmeather, who cares? We still get to drive around and visit peeps and places!

          Kim, Greg, et al, have been great hosts as we have been treated to many of the local sights that Spokane has to offer. A nice visit downtown to the Waterfall District is a good example of what a city can do when it puts its collective minds and efforts into a long-term project. They even have a nifty way to keep the area litter free.

          The Garbage Goat.

          I kid you not. Since 1975 this bronze goat-like effigy has been “fed” garbage and litter much to the delight of its “feeders” because at the touch of a button the Goat comes to life and sucks up the offending litter placed in its mouth.

          What self-resecting little kid wouldn’t scour the area for litter to feed the goat? I almost feel that you would be doing some young litter-seeker a favor by dropping an errant candy wrapper or two so that they could “find” it, do a good deed, and have Garbage Goat be fed!

          The Spokane River Falls were running nicely as evidenced by the photographs. The volume of water cascading down the cataract reminded me of Niagara, albeit on a smaller scale, these falls are just as dramatic in their own right.

          Get a load of this Radio Flyer Red Wagon! You could be the envy of all of your friends because you could fit all of the neighborhood kids and their families in there and tow them around the block with your Schwinn Sting-Ray bicycle!

          The Town Hall building began its life as the Montgomery-Ward Building. Constructed back in the late 1920’s it is a fine example of the Art-Deco movement that proliferated at that time. Its architects were none other than the Montgomery-Ward Design and Construction Department. Interestingly, they did it all in-house!

          After the downtown tour we went way up into the highlands and found ourselves at the Arbor Crest Winery. It is housed on the former estate of a guy with the unlikely name of Royal Riblet. He was not the inventor of the item that appears on the McDonalds menu from time to time, but he was the inventor of many items such as the square-wheeled tractor and a host of other innocuous contributions to society. Anyway, his family was successful in the tramway business, and he hitched his wagon (or tram) to that and parleyed that into a living of sorts.

          The best part is that his estate sold this mountain top aerie so that it did not fall into disrepair. In the 1980’s it was purchased by the Winery, and they have transformed it into one of the best catering venues that I have ever seen.

          Take a look!

          After a watching and cheering at a thoroughly entertaining girls volleyball game in which Kadence was one of the best players, we had some great local pizza and retired to the curb-side seclusion of our traveling abode.  

Back at home……

Zzzzzzz…….

          Tomorrow we figure out where we aren’t going and try to patch in some destinations that are a little more seasonally-friendly.

          Stay tuned for further developments.

(No, not a new event in the upcoming Olympics)

Days 33 and 34

          I wish I could tell you that we are experiencing our usual extremely gorgeous weather.

          I cannot report that.

          In fact, the weather does not look good for the foreseeable future.

          But…. we’ve traveled this far, so what’s a few clouds and raindrops? While not ideal, so far, it has not been a wash-out. Our first expedition of this leg was to visit Olympic National Park. Everything about this area is rugged and lush at the same time. One of the finest examples of a temperate rainforest is located here. The Hoh Rainforest (which we did not visit) is on the other side of the Park, more than a two-hour drive from where we were, and the forecast for that area was worse than our local spot! Our destination for that day was the ominous sounding Hurricane Ridge, an area at the end of an access road that barely penetrates this immense Park. In the center of the Park, Mount Olympus climbs to 7980’ and is the central, and highest mountain in this chain.

          Who knew that there was this rugged mountain interior in this area? I didn’t! I can now see why and how a good portion of this Park is still closed because of winter conditions. This is the issue that we are facing more and more as we try and visit other Parks in the Northwest.   Yellowstone is high on our list but by the time that we arrive there a several-days Winter Weather Event is forecast to be in full-swing. We shall see. There have been other times (Sequoia) where based on the forecast, (who decided to place their weather station way back in the interior and at an elevation that is twenty degrees colder that most of the visited stuff?) that we have found wonderful conditions instead of doom and gloom!

          We shall see!

          Anyway, we traveled up the mountain road with an accompanying cover of clouds above us. As we ascended we could see that we were going to break out of most of the cloud cover sooner or later and we were correct. There were just enough clouds left below us in the valleys and around the peaks to give a nice perspective to the mountains all around us.

          It was the descent that was a little disconcerting because on our way down, the clouds moved in big time and made for a slow, foggy (full-on dense stuff) ride down.

          With no guardrails.

          We are constantly amazed with the lack of guardrails out here. I guess that there is no way to effectively place these security blanket-type items in any amount that would actually make a difference.  

There’s just too much road mileage to be covered.

                So, we all hold our collective breaths as we travel the Wonders of the West. Knowing that in fifty-one years of driving I have never even come close to driving off the road makes no difference. The fact that the car goes where you point it, especially at the lower speeds needed to navigate these twisty-turny thoroughfares, makes no difference to our brains that can only imagine us piled in a heap at the bottom of some random ravine, never to be discovered until a kid hiking in the area 32 years from now stumbles across us.

          Enough about the gene-pool altering lack of roadside safety devices. Paula did the driving because she gets nervous when I start looking around at the scenery trying to find that perfect location for a photographic opportunity. Maybe in hindsight that is why we are not at the bottom of that ravine!

          The next day we booked passage on a Gilliganesque three-hour tour of the waters off of Port Townsend. The idea was to try and get a glimpse of some whales. California Grey Whales are in the area on their way north to Alaska for the summer. They pop into Puget Sound for some snacks and a rest stop on their thousands of miles swim fest. Not wanting to jinx things, I deliberately did not ask any of the crew what the chance of seeing Orcas was. This was actually the goal of this venture, and I wasn’t going to mess it up with any stupid questions!

          Well, I needed not to fret because not fifteen minutes out of the harbor we were directed to a pod of whales by a radio announcement. It seems that all of the Captains, (tugs, commercial, and other whale watching competitors) share this info readily. It’s an “All for one, and one for all” attitude that makes everyone successful.

          We found ourselves following a family pod of about twenty Orcas, the patriarch of which was gentleman by the name of, (I kid you not) Chainsaw. He got his name not by his reputation for acts of violence, but by the distinctive markings on his six-foot dorsal fin. Although, I am quite certain, that somewhere in his past he has committed some violent felonies. They aren’t called Killer Whales for nothing!

          We swam with the Killers for quite a while until the Captain announced that we were going to go north and see if we could find some Grey’s that they had seen the previous day. On or way there, we spied some Puffins sitting in the water. These little guys were that first ones of the season that the crew had observed. They spend most of their time way out in the central Pacific and only come back to land to raise their little Puffs.  

          It was quite a treat to actually see one in the wild.

On our way we also encountered a raft (yes, that is what a group of them is called) of Sealions resting comfortably on an island desperately trying not to become snacks for the Chainsaw Family!

          We did find the Grey Guys after that. These whales are forty to fifty feet long and we only saw a little of them as most of their bulk stays below the surface. No breeching today! I did mange to get a few tail fluke photos as they began their deeper dives and went vertical.

          The whole cruise was delightful, and I want to thank the crew for arranging such pleasant sailing conditions, not a wave was to be found on our millpond-like floating experience.  Much to my dismay, but definitely to Paula’s delight!

          Our next leg will bring us to Spokane to visit family friends of Paula’s. That means that we’ve turned the corner, made a right, and are headed eastward hopefully to be in New Jersey by mid-June.

          The weather will decide our fate (and route) !

Day 33

          As many of you know, we sometimes find ourselves in locations that are significant, but we had no idea that we were in such a place. Last year at this time, we needed to go to Forest City, Iowa and visit the Winnebago Fix-it Place, which was right next door to the Buddy Holly crash site.

Who knew?

          A few days ago, we were disappointed to find out that our plans to stay at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds here on the Olympic peninsula in Washington State were not going to materialize. Apparently they still had some maintenance to do. The nice office lady suggested the Fort Worden State Park which was just down the road from them. I called and got a reservation, and even managed to arrive a day early and still be accommodated.

           We had planned on a trip to Olympic National Park and possibly a Whale Watch, all of which depended on our luck with the weather.

          What we had not planned on was being smack dab in the middle of the entire location where ‘An Officer and a Gentleman” starring a very young Richard Gere and an equally aged Debra Winger, was filmed.

          Not much has changed since they did the movie which seems about a thousand years ago, but in reality was only back in 1982, which is almost a thousand years ago!

          Anyway, here are a few photos from today with some hints as to where they were in the movie. Also, they shot all around Port Townsend, the local town, using motels, bars, homes, and street scenes galore.

          We watched it last night…. Had a ton of fun recognizing everything in it.

Here goes…

Day 32

          You may have surmised by the title that the Tour Bus did, in fact, stay another day here in Pacific City. Trying to figure out the near-term weather situation up in the Olympic Peninsula led us to decide that another day here was in our best interest.

          And the fact that it is hard to leave the little fuzzy dogs that live here. Oh, and Liz and Beth too!

          Our Big Adventure for the day was a hike in and around the Sitka Sedge State Natural Area.

          No…. we did not travel to Alaska for the day, so not that Sitka!

          Sedge is a family of grasses that grow in marshy areas. Think the large grassy areas down the shore that are near the shorelines of the bays.

          Sitka (sedge) is a member of that family that grows out here in the Western States, hence Sitka Sedge State Natural Area.

          So now that we have today’s lesson out of the way, I am going to apologize to you in advance. The apology is for the photographs that accompany this particular post. My goal when photographing a subject to present to you folks, is to have you yearn to be there with us. I try to have the photos be an honest representation of what we  are experiencing at the time.

          So, here’s my apology……

          I could not get the photos to accurately depict the incredible scenes that lay before us, especially down inside the wooded areas of the hike. The sunlight filtering down thorough the canopy overhead and illuminating the lush green carpet that lay before us, and the other-worldly sweaters of moss that the trees were sporting, were particularly difficult scenes to portray with any amount of surreal realism.

          Yet, here they are in what I hope will be a half-way successful attempt to convey to you the absolute subtle grandeur that one feels as you walk immersed in a kind of splendor that belongs fittingly to creatures that should live here, like Wood Elves.

          Every time I rounded a bend there was another scene just begging to be photographed, so come on a walk though this realm with us, I hope that you get at least half of what we did.

          One of the best parts about Sitka Sedge Natural State Area is the diverse zones that it spans. We started out with Tidal Flats keeping us company until they handed us off to grassy forests on our way to the dunes.

The grassy forests gave way to those deep lush areas that you just experienced. This zone is in the natural valley that gets formed on the lee side of the dunes. Down here the moisture level is critically different than the Tidelands or the dunes themselves. It allows for what you have seen in the photos. We emerged out of “Elvenland”, climbing out of the dim interior of that area, into the bright sunshine of the grassy sedges, still on the lee side of the dunes.

These grasses help preserve the dunes and protect the interior of the area from being washed over when Pacific storms roll in. Finally, the sedge grass petered out at the top of the broad dunes as we strode over them to the windward side. These important shore protectors eventually flattened out to a fine, long, sandy beach.

          The whole journey made for a perfect example of zone transition and the best part was that we were able to experience it all again as we were only halfway through our hike!

          We sat on a huge log of driftwood for quite a while, both resting and admiring the absolutely pristine and vacant beach that lay before us. One of the best things about Oregon and her Coast is that there is no shortage of spectacular scenes for you to explore.

          There is, however, a shortage of crowds.

          Come to Oregon.

Days, 28, 29, 30, to Infinity and Beyond!

Getting to drop in on old friends and family is one of the benefits of traveling around. In our case, since we carry our house on our backs, it is harder to wear out our welcome!       

          Most of the time.

          There are other times when we visit someone who genuinely is happy that we’ve dropped in and seems to be 😊 unhappy when we are planning to leave.

          The Test of this hypothesis comes today.

          We are here in Pacific City on the Oregon Coast. Please don’t let the nomenclature lead you astray. Pacific City is no more a city than a “Jumbo” shrimp is a large creature! Pacific City does not even have one traffic light, but it does possess a stop sign or two. It also possesses an abundance of coastal beatitudes that will soon be apparent to you in the accompanying photographs.

          Back to our stay at Liz’s home, or as we have named it, The Fuzzy Dog B&B. Yes, there are fuzzy dogs here. They clamor for our attention and love to sit on our laps, snuggle in, and fall asleep. It’s a good thing that these fuzzy dogs, Adelaide and Jackson, are true lap dogs and not Great Danes who think that they are lapdogs!

          Anyway, Liz and I have known each other for about forty years. She started at Ritter Food shortly after I did and has just retired from Sysco in Portland where she was the company President. Most of her time was spent at Sysco in New Jersey where she was responsible for just about everything in her preparation to be a Sysco President. That meant that we still got to see each other at any number of Sysco sponsored customer events over the years.

          This visit is only one of a few that have required us at park Miss Biggie somewhere else in order to visit with someone. There was no way that she would have fit in the driveway of either home that Liz owns out here in Oregon. So, Liz made provisions for The Motorhome to be safely confined behind the big guardian gates of Sysco in Portland. Our only problem with this arrangement is that she would be stationary for a spell and not connected to any power source, which would be fine except for our refrigerator, which for obvious reasons needed to still be kept running.

          The solution to this dilemma, other than having the generator run constantly for our entire stay, was to remove said groceries, and deposit them in a handy extra refrigerator that Liz has in her Portland home.

          Done! Now we can shut everything down and not have to obsess (that’s me) over the state of the motorhome if we had to have kept things running. Which leads me to the next issue here in the Northwest.

          Weather.

          It is either glorious or godforsaken.

          And we have experienced both.

          So, as I write this we are contemplating extending our stay here at the Fuzzy Dog B&B. Liz, and her friend Beth, have made us feel quite welcome and the places that we are planning to visit after we leave here have less-than-perfect weather prognostications attached to them. Our immediate destination will probably be Olympic National Park, located on the Olympic Peninsula, northwest of Seattle. It seems as if the next few days will not be conducive to a pleasurable visit up there. We are also planning to take a Whale Watch out and hopefully score some Orca views, which really needs good weather!

          One of the things that we did not consider when we were planning this Coast-to-Coast foray, were the Seasons. We did plan to be in this Region by late April or early May, so we did succeed in that department. Where we failed miserably was in our lack of knowledge about how long Spring takes to be sprung at these latitudes (and elevations).  They’re still coming out of Winter in many of these National Parks, which makes visits to them far less than ideal.

          So, our stay here in Pacific City may be extended. Better to be here among friends (who truly don’t mind) than sitting in a campground waiting for the weather to clear up.

          We have taken advantage of some spurts of sunshine that make their appearance between the bouts of clouds and rain, to have Liz show us some great spots here that are a bit off the beaten path. Oregon has been forward-thinking when it comes to how they treat their coastline and forests. Both of these natural wonders out here are used and not abused by the locals. Our hikes around were most pleasurable and it is obvious why folks that visit Oregon come away proselytizing the beauty and attributes of this area.

          One of our class trips involved a visit to Tillamook Cheese Company located coincidently in the town of Tillamook. You may recognize this company as their products are available nationwide. Tillamook is a dairy cooperative, much the same as Cabot is in Vermont. Their popularity is legendary out here and was quite obvious when we paid them a visit. They desperately needed to expand their Store and Visitor Center which now is nothing short of impressive. In there you can watch the production of cheese from start to finish with the accompanying educational information that explains each step along the way.

          Technical,……..  yes.

          Fascinating, …… yes

          Boring, ……… No!

          Mostly because the subject matter is presented nicely, but also because you get three free samples at the end of the tour! These were spontaneously devoured and then replaced by their big brothers from the retail department!

          We then had lunch in their open and airy foodservice dining area located in the same building. As you may imagine, their fare is based around……  Cheese! We had some Tomato Basil soup that had cheese curds used in it much like you would use a crouton. There was also a Grilled Cheese sandwich that found its way onto our tray, one that any kid (or me) would be proud to devour. After lunch we walked to the opposite side of the room to partake in the other products that come from dairy cooperatives….. Ice Cream!

          Yes folks, Tillamook Dairies produce some fine, high quality, premium, ice cream. I know this because I had some. I also know this because I’ve partaken of this dairy delectable from some of the best creameries around, Penn State Creamery, Ben and Jerry’s, and of course, our hometown favorite, Bluebell in Brenham, Texas. Tillamook is right up there in the good company of the others.

          Most of our other activities have been interspersed with great meals, a pool tournament (in which we were handily dispatched) and numerous expeditions to forest highlands and beach headlands. There is even a stretch of beach here that you may drive your appropriately licensed vehicle on, especially at low tide when the beach ends up being several hundred yards wide, and Liz has a really cool Jeep Wrangler that is kept here specifically for this purpose.

After our Jeep Junket we partook of the local breweries version of some delicious Fish ‘n Chips and I had a “growler” of their home-grown Root beer…… Accolades all around!

          Updates to follow as the final “Where’s Waldo” decision has yet to be made…… But, there is still plenty to experience here on the incomparable Oregon Coast!

Day 27 (ish)

          Travel Days can be relaxing if we don’t have a particular timeline or destination. Yes, we are on this sojourn and eventually we will arrive in New Jersey, but in the interim, we only have a few reservations at campgrounds that we make usually only a few days in advance.

          Travel Days can be harrowing if the highway that we are traveling upon winds its way through the Cascade Range of volcanic mountains that run up the middle of  our States in the Northwest.

          The long upgrades that sap our speed are a challenge. We fight for road-position with all of the trucks. In some cases, we are able to out pull them as we climb the grade. Other times, we get caught behind a slower one and we lack the acceleration that would allow us to get out and pass them. It’s all a game of leapfrog that the truckers know oh so well. We are the neophytes.

          The story flips (hopefully not us) on the decline of the grade. Here, the big rigs, with their eighteen wheels to contact the road with, and their exponentially higher experience rating, zoom past us until the next uphill jousting match.

          Downhill is the worst. Careening may be a better word to use here. Downhills are never straight. They plummet just as a curve comes into the road usually with a precipitous drop-off on the other side which would hurl us through space until we shattered into tiny pieces on the canyon floor miles below.

          Or so it feels like.

          Thank goodness for our Exhaust Brake. This marvelous invention uses the power of the exhaust to slow the motor down, having much the same effect as the noisy Jake-Brakes that we hear as big trucks go down hills or come to a stop.

          With this nifty apparatus engaged, it allows us to take our foot off of the brakes (so we don’t burn them up) and just tap them every so often to keep further control of our speed. That, along with our trusty Allison six-speed automatic transmission that downshifts at precisely the correct time, allows us to maintain some semblance of control on these dizzying death-defying descents.

          But the scenery is awesome, so it all balances out!

          So, there is this town in California named Weed.

          I know, you just can’t make this stuff up!

          Those of you who know me better know that I have never even held a marijuana cigarette much less done anything else with it!

          But I couldn’t help laughing at this seemingly deliberately placed town in the first state to legalize marijuana (for medical purposes) and eventually recreational use. As we approached the town, which is right off of Interstate Route 5, I saw a sign that read,

                                      WEED, Next Three Exits

          And I imagined that stoner-guy leap with joy at the prospect of getting off of the highway at any of the next three exits and procuring his cannabis stash. We were not quick enough to grab a photo of that sign, but we were able to get a quick, fuzzy shot of the exit sign as proof!

          FYI, the town was named for Edgar Weed who back in the late 1800’s founded a sawmill here which became the largest sawmill in the world.

          I knew that there had to be a reasonable explanation!

Day 26

          About ten million years ago there was an uprising.

          No….. not a revolt. We weren’t around back then.

          But the Geology Family was, and they were hard at work.

          They pushed the Sierra Nevada mountains up at a crazy angle which made all the streams and rivers flow faster and faster. These erosion causing factors made room for another Family to move in, they were the Canyons Family, and they got along very nicely with the Geology Family. All was good for about five million years.

          Until…… (cue dramatic music by John Williams)

          The Glacier Gang moved in.

          The Glacier Gang were sweet-talked to expand their activities by their allies, the Ice Agers.

           The scouring of the area that Yosemite Valley is located in had begun with a vengeance. No stone was left unturned in their drive to reshape everything in their path. In fact, no stone or three-thousand-foot granite monolith was safe from the Glacier Gang. They wielded their forces and scooped out all the dirt and rocks from the Valley like a kid eating pudding with a spoon.

          The Glacier Gang are our friends    😊

          Without them, what we see and experience in Yosemite National Park would still be buried right up to the top of Bridal Veil Falls. That is a lot of scooping as the top of the Falls sits a little over 600 feet above the Valley floor.

          So, as you can see, the Glacier Gang really are our friends!

          Our visit to Yosemite National Park was accompanied by our other good friend, Great Weather. Luckily for us, she seems to be following us wherever we go.

          I think she comes along just for Snack Time.

          Which we had while peering up at Bridal Veil Falls.

          We did not need any timestamp reservations at Yosemite as our trip commenced before May 20^th. After that date, and during the peak visiting season, you will need to procure a timed reservation to enter.        More and more National Parks are being forced to initiate this procedure as the overcrowding of these Parks has reached epidemic proportions, which in a way, is a good thing. It’s no use having a park unless folks go to it, but I guess that everything has its limits, and that includes National Parks and their capacities.

          We are staying about an hour outside the Park at the Mariposa County Fairgrounds located appropriately in the little town of Mariposa. It turns out that Mariposa means Butterfly in Spanish and we just missed the annual Butterfly Festival at the fairgrounds that concluded the day that we arrived. I’m not sure what a Butterfly Festival is as these little guys kind of have their own life cycles, but I wonder if the attendees bring their butterfly pets along? Let them fly around on tiny thread-like leases like dogs at a dog show?

          I guess I should find out and report back to you.

          We entered the Park along with a few others and while we were there we never experienced the throng-like atmosphere that prompted the need for timed entries. Yosemite was one of the first Parks to offer, (then insist) on having its own mini transit system. Even though the Park covers almost twelve-hundred square miles, the vast amount of visitors, (95%)  travel in the seven square miles of the Valley floor. From here you can see most of what Yosemite is famous for. El Capitan, Bridal Veil Falls, Half Dome, and Yosemite Falls (both Upper and Lower) are visible and accessible from the various loop roads that wind around the Campgrounds, Lodges, Hotel, and vantage points here.

          We have Abraham Lincoln to thank for the initial protection of Yosemite Valley and that was way back in 1864. It took another twenty-six years for it to gain further stature when John Muir convinced Teddy Roosevelt to protect it even further. It finally entered our infant precursor of the National Park Service in 1890 as a stand-alone National Park and was one of major reasons for establishing the National Park Service in 1916.

          It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site for all the right reasons.

          As I’ve alluded to before, timing is everything when visiting these places. It affects your experience in many ways. Getting here early was great as most people like to sleep in and start there days a little later, which is fine if you are watching TV, but not good if you are planning on entering one of the most visited places on the planet.

          So, early is good.

          Except, for lighting up a deep, high-walled, valley with that great illuminator of photographic scenes, Miss Sunshine. She needs to work her way across the sky and then she  is very specific about what, and when, she sheds her radiance upon. When we arrived, Bridal Veil Falls was deep in the shadows and El Capitan was bathed in glorious brilliance. Half Dome never really showed its face until much later in the day, probably late afternoon and by then we were on our way back to Butterfly Town. But because there were no crowds we were able to make numerous round trips around the loops over the span of our visit and capture some nicely lit scenes that may have otherwise been only visible to us in the shadows. If you have ever seen the work of Ansel Adams and his camera, you know what I am talking about. Ansel was the one who brought the Sierra Nevada and particularly Yosemite into the family rooms of America with his stunning black and white photos of this region. He really knew how to use the available light to his advantage. Fittingly, one the Wilderness Areas that surround Yosemite is named for him.

While we were there, Paula spied a group of crazy people scaling the vertical wall of El Capitan. It takes so long to do this that you need to spend the night (or two) suspended above the valley floor in a special platform-tent or just a sleeping bag. I told you they were crazy!

          If you have never been here please do not let my description of over-crowding stop you. It is well worth the visit as is any of the other great National Parks in our system.

           Just plan accordingly and all will be fine!     

          Lastly, I may I suggest that you  put the Glacier Gang on your Christmas Card list…. We have a lot to thank them for!