From the Frigid Cold of Boston to the Bitter Cold of California? (12-10-13)

  Here I was, looking forward to leaving the cold temperatures of New England behind me, but I had forgotten that we were headed to the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California for the weekend.

I’m glad I brought my winter coat with me because temperatures up at Shaver Lake were in the teens.

Lucky us, we also got about 8 inches of snow while we were in the mountains.  It was actually really nice.  Very peaceful and beautiful. It’s nice being in the snow when you know that at soon as you come down off the mountain, you’ll be leaving it behind.

The truck has never seen so much of that white stuff!

Someone was very happy about the cold and the snow!

Our friends, Kirk and Karen, have a cabin up in the mountains and we were up there for the weekend so the guys could do some more work on the master bathroom renovation.

  Of course, the weekend was not all work and no play- we did plenty of eating, as usual. Dinner was particularly fun, since Suzy brought all the makings for fondue with her.

Some of us took advantage of the sunshine to go for a (short) walk.

Paul’s drink of choice, Smirnoff Ice lived up to it’s name for the first time.

Once the weekend was over, it was back down to the city of Fresno for us. That’s where I got to see everything that Paul’s been up to while I was away.  He bought all the fasteners needed to put a truck camper on our F450, and he is adding some switches to the cab of the truck.  We have two horns on our truck.  One is the “baby” horn that came with it, and the other is a set of train horns that Paul installed.  Hearing that horn is an unforgettable experience (the decibel level is incredible).  It’s not a horn that we toot lightly because beeping at an unwary biker, for example, could easily cause them to fall off the bike.  So, having a switch is awesome.  Paul is moving that switch from outside the grill to inside the cab.  We also have an air compressor in the toolbox so we can easily add air to things like the air horns, the air hitch, the air springs, and of course, the tires. He is moving the control for that into the cab as well.

   And of course, once again, life is not all work and no play.  While I was away, Kirk gave Paul a scooter.  Not the kind that’s like a motorcycle, but the kind we grew up with that had no motor. Except this one definitely has a motor. 

It goes so fast, Paul was a blur in every picture.  When I expressed concern as to what purpose this scooter will serve, and where on earth we’ll store it, I got no sympathy.  Karen was just happy to have it out of her garage (traitor!) and the guys suggested I use it to go back and forth while doing laundry. Ha.

We wrapped up our visit to Fresno by having people over for our standard Mexican food and Margarita Fest.  We always have a great time in Fresno, and we plan to be back in the spring.  I think we’ll use this as our jumping off point for our trip to Alaska, moving into our truck camper  and leaving the 5th wheel in storage here.

Yellowstone-Day tripping (06-30-12)

On the days when the weather looks particularly uncooperative,  we look for alternatives to being outside all day. 
Bear Tooth Pass…
The other day was supposed to be really hot, so we decided to drive out of the park, along scenic Beartooth Pass Highway, which took us out of Wyoming and into the high elevations of Montana.

We passed by a cascade waterfall that was screaming down the rocks with such force, I wouldn’t have even put my foot in the water- you could feel the cold breeze coming from the frigid water.

After passing two small resort towns, we headed higher into the hills. As we got above the tree line,  we could see the evidence of the winter snow depth.  If this much snow is left in June…..wow.

The views included mountains all around us, and numerous Alpine lakes, most of which still had ice covering them.

 






  The mountain peaked at about 11,000 feet, and soon thereafter we decided we had gone far enough, and were about to turn around, when we came across a ski lift!   Pretty much out in the middle of nowhere!

Being at such a high elevation, the sun was nice and warm, and the temperature was cool, but not cold, so we hung around to watch for a bit, and were totally entertained watching the skiers make the jumps.  (the little dot on the edge of the cornice is a skier about to make the jump).

Unfortunately one of the skiers fell, and slid all the way down the rocks that were sticking out of the course,  so we waited until the ski patrol took him out on the sled.  We did watch him walk away in the end, so although he was hurt, it wasn’t too bad.

Once the excitement was over, we drove back down the the hill the way we came, and when we got down in the valley, we were surprised to find the temperature  was  90 degrees.  We made a good choice to head to the snow!


West Yellowstone-

Paul’s family has owned property in the West Yellowstone area since the late 1800s.  He used to visit his grandfather at his cabin for many years but he hasn’t been here since 1974, so we took a day trip out to West Yellowstone so he could show me the sights. 

  Although his grandfather’s cabin burned to the ground many years ago, and the land has since been sold,  Paul’s great aunt’s family still owns their cabin, and we had the key to get in!  It brought back many happy memories for Paul and he regaled me with the stories of his childhood visits to Montana.

One of the awesome traditions at the cabin is the guest register. Anyone who visits or uses the cabin is encouraged to write their comments in the register, which dates back to the late 1960s.  After reading through all the previous comments,  Paul left his “we were here” note.







After touring the house, we walked the property and of course Paul had to point out the old Outhouse!  Luckily they’ve had indoor plumbing for quite some time!







In the early days, the cabin had no electricity or running water and one of Paul’s fond memories was driving out with his grandfather to a nearby spring to fill tubs with water for use at the cabin.

It took us a little while to find it, but we did find the spring, which is still in use today.  In fact, while we filled our water bottle, we chatted with a man who showed up with his two sons to fill numerous water containers.  His family still owns their cabin in the hills and he still gets all his water at this spring!

Bye Fresno… (05-02-12)

Hello, Utah.  Well, tomorrow we’ll say hi to Utah.  Right now we are in Boron, CA overnight after leaving Fresno this morning.  We plan to leave here very early in the morning because the forecast calls for pretty strong winds.  We didn’t unhook, so we should be able to scoot out of here pretty quickly.

I really fell down on the job of picture taking in the last week or so, so I asked Kirk to send me the pictures that he took last weekend.  This is the best of them. Paul and I went up to Kirk and Karen’s cabin again to make them work on the cabin some more.  Paul and Kirk tore apart one of the bathrooms, moved the sink and were planning on moving the toilet, but they decided they need a corner toilet, which they didn’t have, so they stopped after moving the sink.

In the meantime, Karen and I were painting the living room wall, and a closet.  The projects were fun, partly because it wasn’t our cabin, and partly because we just have a good time with Kirk and Karen, regardless.

The month we spent in Fresno went by very quickly and had a different feel to it than our usual stops.  There wasn’t any sightseeing or hiking- it was more like just day to day living. We spent some days working on projects, or hanging out at the trailer.  Thanks to Suzy, I had a gym membership for the time we were there.  I didn’t go as often as I should have, but at least I went a few times!  We managed to squeeze in quite a bit of socializing between projects, giving us a pretty good idea how it would be if we actually lived near our friends, although we all agreed we are exhausted and couldn’t have kept up that pace.

Our original plan called for us to leave Fresno last week, but one of the major things Paul needed to do in Fresno was install the Straight-line System on the trailer axles.  We have tandem axles on the trailer and the way it works usually is that the front axle is pulled along, and the rear axle is pushed.  (In theory) That can cause irregular tire wear, which we have had an issue with in the past.  DRV, the manufacturer of our trailer, shipped us this Straight-line system for Paul to put on, at no cost to us. Unfortunately, the package was missing a few crucial bushings, which meant we had to wait for them to arrive to finish the upgrade. Once they got here, it only took him a few hours to finish the installation. Once that was done, he rotated the spare tire into the mix, so he can assess whether there is still a tire wear issue or not.

Since we had to stick around anyway, I decided to go ahead and order my new Verizon iphone. It arrived yesterday, so I’ve been busy updating all the contacts etc.  Unfortunately the phone that has most of my contacts is dead and I won’t be able to retrieve everyone’s phone numbers.  I have some of them, but not all. 

I’ve also been doing a fair amount of research.  In the next month we will probably visit 7 national parks and monuments, before landing in Salt Lake City at the beginning of June. I don’t in general like to over-research things, but I also don’t want to arrive at these parks with no idea of what we should see and do.  So, all of my traveling friends, if you have thoughts on Capitol Reef, Zion, Canyonlands, Grand Staircase Escalante, Mesa Verde, Arches, Moab, and Natural Bridges, bring it on!

I think we might have waited just a little too late in the year to visit these parks, based on the weather forecast, so I also did some shopping and got some new hiking boots that will be more appropriate for hot desert weather. My good boots are really backpacking boots- heavy, leather, hot, but very stiff and sturdy. I bought a pair the other day that will be lighter and not waterproof, so they’ll breathe better in the heat.  We are already figuring we’ll have to get up and out early every day, to beat the heat, but if we need to do that, that’s ok too.

I’ve also been calling and bugging Yellowstone National Park every few days.  When we booked our reservation there for this summer, we made two separate 11 day reservations, with a 3 day gap between them.  Our thought was that we would try to get there in mid June, but if it was too cold or snowy, we’d cancel and just use the early July reservation.  Now we’ve decided we might as well use both reservations, so we can relax and enjoy the park.  But, we still have a 3 day gap.  So, I call every few days to see if there are any cancelations. The people on the phone are awesome, and apologetic. They encourage me to keep calling- there’s bound to be a cancelation!  Of course, we’re so big, there aren’t many spaces that will fit us, but we’ll keep checking.

So, tomorrow it’s on to Zion National Park. One of the hikes we tried to do there last time, but couldn’t, was The Narrows. Hiking the Narrows is essentially hiking for miles in a river. In order to do the hike, the water flow has to be below a certain level.  Last year it definitely wasn’t.  This year we’ll have to see!