Home, Suite Home (09-28-14)

As you might imagine, the first few days of settling back into our Mobile Suites was a bit hectic.  First we drove over and checked on it to make sure there were no issues. 

There weren’t, so we dropped the camper off at the RV Park and headed over to pick up the trailer.












It felt very strange, in a good way, to have the trailer tagging along behind us.

Everything is a bit of a mess, as we move back into the trailer.  Anything that will “live” in the camper is in a pile in the trailer, pending a thorough cleaning of the camper.

Dozer was practically hugging the carpet he was so happy to be back!

He is so happy to have his recliner back.  He takes turns sitting on our laps.  It’s been 4 months since he has had that opportunity!

Mostly our days have been filled with projects.  Some of them easy, like installing a solar panel on the roof of the camper. Ok, that was easy for me, anyway.  I didn’t even have to climb up to take the picture- Paul took it.  But he is very happy with the result.








I have been busy with paperwork and the not so fun task of taking care of our medical needs.  Finding new doctors and dentists on a regular basis is one of the things I detest about full time RVing.  Figuring out where we will be, and when, is tough, and it never seems to be the same place twice.  We are hoping to change that by finding doctors in Tucson.  We like Tucson and its a large enough city to have numerous quality medical options.


Anyway, lest you think that it has been all work and no play………

Fun with Friends in Fresno

Our social calendar has been quite full since we arrived. We’ve had dinner several times with our friends, although having everyone over to our place will wait until the camper is squared away.

We attended a “Wine Walk”- food and wine tastings were set up in a large parking lot, with about 15 wineries being represented.  I am not sure why they called it a “walk” though.  Security guards were everywhere, making sure we didn’t walk with our wine.  We had to finish each sample before we moved outside the small perimeter.  Fun time though!

  You may have noticed that the final phase of our Alaska trip has taken place- Paul’s beard is back to “normal”.

The weekend was spent at Kirk and Karen’s cabin at the lake.  We tried out the new version of Monopoly where the game pieces are things such as cell phones. How weird is that?  I guess what’s more weird is that the cell phone looks
“dated” already.







The game involves no cash- just credit cards, and properties worth millions of dollars. The rent on New York Ave., with a hotel, was 9.5 million dollars.  Huh? It was a little difficult to get used to it!










The projects are continuing and so is the planning.  We will pack up the camper again on Thursday and head to sunny Burbank California to spend a few days with our daughter.

Oregon (9-20-14)

Yup, the whole state fits in one blog post. Not because there isn’t anything to see, but because we don’t have time to see much! Here’s the short (ish) version of what we’ve been up to….
  Our goal was to get to Crater Lake National Park- by way of Umpqua National Forest, but first we had to stop for some

Cheese!

Tillamook Cheese is located in Tillamook, OR.  I am surprised we made it out of there inside of a week!  We took the self guided tour of the cheese factory and then chowed down on grilled cheese sandwiches and ice cream (not in that order).  Its great stuff but the Cabot tour in Vermont was better.  At the end of that tour we were led to a room where we could eat whatever Cabot products we wanted, for as long as we wanted to stuff ourselves.

Tillamook just had a few samples of cheese for us to try. 

Anyway, back to Umpqua National Forest. There’s a lot to do just in the national forest. North Umpqua trail is almost 80 miles long, and you can hike segments of it.  We elected to do the Mott segment- 11-12 miles long.  That’s a pretty long hike, but there isn’t too much elevation gain so we were up for it. It wasn’t a very picturesque trail but we enjoyed it…..right up until what we thought was the end…

The sign said this is a loop trail but apparently we missed the exit trail head because when we got “back” to the truck, this was our view:


See our little tiny truck at the bottom of that cliff?  Yeah, I spent a few minutes looking for the stairs or the zip line! Sad to say, we had to turn around and retrace our steps to find the exit, which made the hike a total of 15 miles- the longest I have ever gone in one day.  Yup, we were tired!



After we recovered we continued our journey through the national forest.  Along the way there are quite a few waterfalls. Luckily the trails to get to most of them were pretty short.

We stopped at several, which gave me an opportunity to play with the settings on my camera.

Crater Lake

Eventually we made it to Crater Lake itself. Gorgeous would be the word I would use to describe it. Created by a volcanic eruption, this caldera forms the deepest lake in the United States.





It contains some of the purest water in the world, and the color is an amazing blue.




Our plans for this area fell apart rather quickly, unfortunately.  We were going to take the tour boat ride but we missed the last trip of the season by two hours. Their website had bad information.  Then we decided we’d just do a couple of hikes.  Nope, the park was having one of its semi-annual “vehicle free” days on the rim road, so unless we had bikes, we wouldn’t be able to get to the hiking trail. As we drove around part of the lake, we debated sticking around for a few days so we could get in a few hikes, but the campgrounds were filled to capacity with people toting bikes in anticipation of a rare chance to bike the rim road.  Oh well, we left, figuring we’d be back next year, hopefully.

The Roads less traveled

One of Paul’s favorite things to do while driving is to, literally and figuratively,  jerk the steering wheel to the side while exclaiming “I wonder what’s down this road?” After I pick up everything that got strewn all over the truck, I reply “gee, I guess we’ll find out!”  This happened a lot this summer, since it’s much easier to do in a camper than a 5th wheel.

Sometimes it works out pretty awesome, sometimes-not so much. We took one of “those” roads before we left the Crater Lake area.  This is a Fire Road that leads to a look out tower. I’m not sure the word road is appropriate- more like “trail” but we made it to the top.

This is an active fire tower and we chatted for quite a while with the young, 20 something year old man who was working. He apparently enjoys being by himself, and prefers assignments that allow him to sleep in the tower rather than the ranger station. We were surprised to hear that only a couple of people a week make the trek up the road, and most of those people don’t even get out of their car!



Its a pretty remote life that he lives but he does have a  “SPOT”, provided by his parents. 


A SPOT is a device that allows the holder to send a small variety of pre-determined text messages, using satellite. It also sends the GPS coordinates, so when he messages his parents that he is OK, it shows them where he is.  He said the only time it got used in an emergency was when his parents had an issue.  Their truck broke down in a very remote area and they sent an S.O.S. to their son.  When he saw that they were on a road, he assumed it was vehicle related, and headed in their direction with a variety of supplies to fix vehicles.  They were successful and got the truck back on the road.



Anyway, moving on….we were now headed back to the Oregon coast. What’s the old saying?  Why take 2 hours to get somewhere, when you can take 4?  Well, that’s what we decided to do.  We took the Bear Camp coastal road over the mountains to the coast.



I’ll admit a part of me was queasy when I saw the sign at the entrance to the road.

This road isn’t even open in the winter, but isn’t that difficult to travel in the summer time.  Its very windy and very narrow. In fact, much of the road is one lane and there are pullouts in case you meet someone coming from the other direction- which we did- 23 times.

The views weren’t all that great most of the time, so it got a little boring.  For me.  I’m not sure Paul was relaxed enough to actually get bored. 









Coastal Oregon is spectacular, although completely different from the east coast.  The waves were huge, and pretty dangerous.

 
We had one more scenic road in our bag of tricks and this one took us through Redwood National Park.  The park road is lined with beautiful redwoods, and numerous hiking trails, but we didn’t really have time to hike much.

We did get out and stretch our legs a couple of times.  I just marvel at the size of these trees!

  

The rest of our journey will be on major highways as we beeline back to Fresno.

Hiking our way through Washington (09-17-14)

    We know that we don’t have enough time to spend in the pacific north west this year, so we are just sort of meandering south, trying to find some hiking to do along the way.  Paul has several fraternity functions he wants to attend in Fresno this month, and his high school reunion is next month, so we are headed back to Fresno at a pretty good pace.



I say sort of meandering south because, we are taking the time to do a quick loop around the Olympic Peninsula and Olympic National Park, and hiking some of the trails.

We warmed up by hiking a short 2 mile trail from our campground in the National Park.   The trees here are huge and quite a few have fallen over, exposing some really neat looking root systems.

Our next trail was the Klahhane Ridge trail in Olympic National Park. This is a popular trail that we shared with a lot of people and animals.

After a few miles we were hiking along the ridge line and the views were awesome.

Mountains on one side….

And the Strait of Juan De Fuca on the other…

Since we were so close to Cape Flattery, the northwestern most point of the lower 48, we decided to check it out.  The trail out to the point wasn't too long.








This is the view from the end of the trail.  Very dramatic and the water was beautiful.
















In fact, the views all along the coast line were spectacular and there is something so soothing about the smell of the ocean.






Our weather has been great, giving us the chance to see some incredible sunsets along the way.

 

And once the sun set, we could sit outside and enjoy a star filled sky.

  
We hiked two more “trails’' along the shoreline in Washington.


The first trail is called the “triangle trail”.  I have no pictures of that trail for some reason.  Obviously its a triangle- 3 miles in the woods, 3 miles along the “beach” and another 3 miles in the woods- except it has to be done at low tide, or the beach trail “disappears”. Well, either we waited too long, or the trail wasn't marked because we lost our way and had to turn back (but only after trailblazing for a half hour or so).  We still hiked 9 miles but not in a loop.

Hole in the Wall is a beach trail.  It’s just outside the towns of Forks, and La Push, WA, which “Twilight” fans will recognize. We drove through town without stopping.  Although the books are set in this town, it wasn’t filmed here.

  This trail also has to be hiked at low tide, but this time, we made it. Once the tide comes in, you can’t hike through the hole. 

We had a great time exploring the shoreline and the tide pools.

Washington redefines the word “driftwood”. The beaches are littered with enormous trees, and signs warn you that floating wood can be deadly. Lucky for us we had no intention of swimming!

My Final Alaska Post- Numbers, Thoughts, and Highlights (09-14-14)

From the time we entered Canada in June, till we arrived back in the lower 48 in September, we traveled over 8000 miles- almost as much as driving from Boston to L.A., back to Boston, and then back to L.A. again. Wow, that’s a lot of driving. 

We didn't try to conserve mileage so if we wanted to drive someplace, we did.  In fact, we drove down Denali Highway twice. We spent an average of $1162 a month for fuel-almost double our $672 monthly average over the last 3 years.  I didn't track how much we paid per gallon, but I know that it ranged from $4.17 to $6.52 a gallon.


We spent a total of 95 nights on our “Alaska Trip”, staying in 63 different campsites. 22 of those nights cost us nothing, and 44 nights were without hook up of any type.  Many of the nights that we did pay for were inexpensive, unless we were in a major town, with fewer options.  Our average nightly campground cost was $20.09, which is $8 a night less than our average over the last 3 years.


Enough numbers.

Here’s what we thought were our best investments for this trip:

The truck camper itself, as discussed in my previous post was the key to this trip.  The sway bar for the truck was a crucial part of making the ride safe and comfortable. 

The Milepost Book was invaluable, literally listing mile by mile what we would find along all the major roads, including scenic pull outs where we could spend the night.

Our waterproof low profile hiking boots were our “go-to” foot wear.  They were comfortable and we didn’t have to worry about the inevitable rain.  The rain suits we bought were key as well.

Inexpensive, but this covered ice cube tray worked out great- with our small freezer, it would have been impossible to buy bags of ice, and it was easy to just make a tray every day or so.  Since it was covered, I could stack other things on top of it.


The new, good quality binoculars we bought along the way made a huge difference, not just when wildlife viewing, but the quality stood out every time we used them.






Here’s what was different from what we expected:


The bugs were no where near as bad as we expected them to be.  Other than the “night from hell” when we had dozens of mosquitoes in the camper, there were only a handful of times that they bothered us.

We expected to get better fuel economy with the camper.  We did slightly better than when we are towing, but not as good as we would have liked.

23 hours of daylight didn't bother us at all.  We had no problems sleeping and enjoyed being able to do things after dinner and still have daylight.  There were several times when we ate dinner at 10 pm though, because we had no idea how late it was!






Inevitably there will be disappointments.  Here’s what disappointed us:


The weather. I know I have been whining about the rain all summer, but seriously people, we had record rainfall everywhere we went.

There were times when we hiked for hours in full raingear.

Hiking was another thing.  We thought we would be overwhelmed with hiking choices and that wasn't the case at all.

The wildlife was somewhat of a disappointment.  Not the quality of what we saw, but the quantity.  We thought there would be more wildlife in Alaska.  We saw few bears and were just expecting more.  That being said, wildlife was also one of the    Highlights of our trip:

Eagles, flying through the air….

…and swimming through the water!

Both grizzly bears and black bears…

the ever the reclusive moose…..

 

the unusual Musk Ox, and the caribou….

fox, and the incredible sight of humpback whales using the cooperative method of bubble net feeding.




 









   and even though technically we didn’t see the Orcas on our “Alaska Trip”, I am counting them.
















Our favorite outings:

Sawyer Glacier at Tracy Arm Fjord  and The Arctic Ocean at Deadhorse, the northern most town accessible by road in Alaska both had “wow” factors, for very different reasons.

Hiking both under glaciers and on top of glaciers….

Pure fun:

Drinking an appletini from an ice glass in an ice bar and a Duck Fart at the famed Red Dog Saloon…


 



The History: From the gold rush to dog sledding, we learned a lot about what makes Alaska Unique.




















 We met up with old friends and made new ones!  Sorry Pam, I never got a picture of you guys!!  Next time!






One of the biggest overall highlights of our trip was the gorgeous scenery we saw everywhere we went.






















     

    

Our campsites provided some of our favorite scenery. The views were amazing!







































The number one highlight from this trip is, for me, one of the highlights of our 5 years of travel-The Northern Lights:











There is one final chapter that needs to play out before our Alaska Trip can be considered finished:

The beard needs to go.