Hello, Hello, Hello! Yes, we are “on the road” again! We left Columbus June 16 and our first stop has been Minnesota. It was hard to say goodbye again to family and friends, and we appreciate all the well wishes from you all!
It didn’t take us too long to remember how to do this “RV thing” again. It probably took us longer to hook up and prepare for take-off than normal since we were a little rusty, but I think we’re back in the groove now. We do love our RV and life on the road. It makes us happy! Gerry did not miss a beat and has adapted to his back seat palace just fine. Really, the back “seat” of our truck converts to a very spacious doggy palace that has been outfitted with multiple doggy pillows, toys, food and water bowls and things to chew on. He even has a doggy puzzle that he uses his nose to find treats in compartments to fight any boredom. 🙂
One reason we came to Minnesota was to visit with Guy and help him launch a new business. I’m happy to report (for so many reasons!) that he has formed a new business, Aspire Sober Living. We have formed a partnership with him and have purchased a house that will be a sober living home. He has been a live-in manager of a sober house for over a year now, and wants to own and operate his own. Sober homes are very common here in the Twin Cities, they are independently owned businesses that provide a sober living environment for residents in recovery. A safe and supportive environment to live in, usually after leaving a rehab treatment facility, with like-minded persons to help each other.
Guy has put a lot of work and thought into making this happen. And we found out the housing market in the Twin Cities is incredibly competitive! Houses are flying off the shelves around here! But the stars aligned and we found the perfect house and won in spite of 6 other bidders on the same house. The house had been a “catagory 2” house which means it was condemed for habitation. The sellers did a total rehab on the house as a flip. It has 6 bedrooms and 3 baths and will house 7 residents plus Guy. Guy said, “How fitting…a house that was condemed, rehabed, and now will provide a home to people in recovery, rebuilding their lives.” Really.
So we have been super busy looking at houses, going through the offer, cross your fingers and wait to hear if you won the bid, inspection, etc, etc, etc process for the last several days. We’ve also been completing the zoning applications, drawings and other requirements for the sober housing certification. All has gone smoothly and is on track for a fall opening.
In the meanwhile, we have also been fortunate to have met and getting to know Guy’s girlfriend, Katelyn. What a delight she is, beautiful and smart and as warm and friendly as can be.
We’ve been staying at an RV park a little over an hour outside the cities – there are no RV parks in or very near the cities. In spite of the driving, which has been significant, we have loved staying here. It is right along the freeway, but once you get down the drive way you enter a beautiful 40 acre oasis with a lake, lots of trees, very well spaced RV sites and very nice owners. They have paths mowed all around the lake that we have enjoyed strolling and Gerry has loved running on. Tons of birds right out our window every day.
We leave tomorrow morning for the Denver area. We will spend a few days staying near Samantha and visiting with her. She moved there the end of May, after college graduation. More on that later when I give you an update on that visit!
New beginnings indeed! And beauty really is all around us, sometimes in the most unexpected places.
Guy & Katelyn in front of the new houseAspire Sober Living will open here in the fall!Gerry loves running on the paths around the lake!
Howdy folks! I have been learning how to make videos from pictures on my computer. I realize this is not a new skill for many of you…but for me, it’s a huge stretch of my technical abilities! I want to preserve the memories from our big trip to Alaska and all the the great experiences we had. And we have hundreds and hundreds of pictures. So, I decided to put together some videos and these are the first 2 of that endeavor.
The first video is from when we left in late May thru June; the second video is from the month of July. I’m working on more videos, stay tuned!
Going through all the pictures to make these videos brought back so many memories…what changes we have made in our lives!! 🙂 I had tears running down my face half the time I was working on these, and was laughing the other half of the time. When we go back and look at the pictures, we still can’t believe we actually were there and saw the things we saw. Don’t be too surprised if another trip to Alaska happens at some point in the future!!
Please let me know how these work, I hope you will be able to see them okay. I think viewing on a larger screen (tablet or computer) will be better than a phone, since the pictures are small.
Hi everyone! We’ve been back since early March, getting settled again into the apartment and Steve is busy at work for tax season. We loved our trip south and have booked the Port St. Joe spot again for next winter.
We are enjoying catching up again with family and friends, and Gerry is loving doggy daycare…he comes home so tired, and that’s a good thing! We try to get him there at least a couple of times a week.
We plan to leave again in late May for another long trip, heading northeast to eastern Canada – Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island. Then to the New England states for the fall – Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, upstate New York.
I have been working on some videos from our Alaska trip – I will post them soon!
Thanks for all the comments, it is great hearing from you!!
We moved here almost 2 weeks ago, we’re still in the panhandle, about 1 hour from our last spot in Carabelle Beach. Port St. Joe is a nice little town, with a nice grocery store and a few shops and places to eat. A little more going on here than Carabelle Beach, but still not very commercial. No hotels, no high rises, but beautiful beaches and vacation homes on the shores.
The highlight of our stay here is the visit from Guy. He was here for almost a week. We took him to the airport this morning, and he has arrived back home to St. Paul, MN safely. It was so great having him here, and he enjoyed the break from work and the weather back home. Speaking of weather, it is finally seeming like Florida around here! After several weeks of not so great weather, the last several days have been perfect. High 70s by day, 50s at night, lots of sunshine and beautiful sunsets. We took full advantage of the weather while Guy was here, we went to the beach every day, rented a pontoon boat one afternoon and rode around St. Joseph Bay, and ate tons of seafood. Perfect!
Gerry is loving the beach life, and has made friends all up and down the beach. We go to Cape San Blas for the beach, which is directly across the bay from the RV park, about 15 minutes by car. He loves playing with Cora the Chesapeake Bay Retriever, and he totally has a crush on Maude the Goldendoodle. I have a picture of Maude below. It’s funny to watch him prance and perform when she’s around! The beach is beautiful and we walk 3 or 4 miles each day up and down the shore.
The pontoon boat was a great way to see the bay, and Gerry was very comfortable on the boat, as you’ll see from the pictures below. The bay is very shallow in many areas, and Guy and Steve got out and walked around a lot. We saw lots of Stingrays and Horseshoe crabs while we were on the boat. We’ve seen a lot of Dolphins swimming along the shore, and we’ve seen Eagles several times while driving around in the area also.
This RV park is right on the shore of the bay, and has a small marina as part of the operation. It’s not the nicest park we’ve stayed in, but we’ve seen worse too. It’s been a good location and has a perfect view of the sunset over the water each night. I’ve included some pictures below. Everyone is very friendly and lots of nice doggies here too. Several RVer’s here from Ohio, and most have been coming here for several years.
We leave here one week from tomorrow to head back home. Can’t believe how fast time has gone by, and it sure feels good to have sunshine and warm weather. But we’re looking forward to being back home for awhile, we miss family and friends! We’re working on plans for our next big trip, we will leave mid-May. We’re going to Nova Scotia and other points in eastern Canada, and the New England states – Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and possibly others. We’ll also spend some time in the Finger Lakes region of NY and likely some time in Pennsylvania also. It’s all still in the planning stages, so stay tuned!
Thanks for your comments, we love hearing from you!
Hi again everyone! We moved about 300 miles east to Carrabelle Beach, Florida a few days ago. We’re here for a week, then we move one more time, to Port St. Joe, Florida which is about 55 miles from here.
We like our spot here in Carrabelle Beach, we’re right across the road from the beach. We can see the ocean from our windows, when all the RVs are lined up just right! The weather has been getting a little better, we’ve had several days in the 60s and still cool at night, in the upper 30s or low 40s. Not bad! We’ve been taking Gerry to the beach several times a day, they are very dog friendly here which is nice, since we couldn’t take him to the beach at our last place at all. This part of Florida is very undeveloped, and they call it the “Forgotten Coast” and I can see why. There’s no commercial development, no hotels, no condos, no shopping. Some nice houses along the shore which are mostly empty right now. We went to Tallahassee yesterday to find a good grocery store, which was over an hour drive. But it was a nice day trip, Steve found a gym and we ran a few errands. Otherwise, we’ve just been chilling and enjoying the beach and all the fresh seafood. There’s lots of small fresh seafood “shacks” here and it’s all been good. 🙂
Before we left our last spot we went out to see the sunset on the beach and also the super moon that came out a few miles away over the bay. I’ve put a few pictures below of that and also of our new beach.
Guy is coming to visit us next week, we’re excited to have him and I think he’s excited about getting out of the frozen tundra in Minnesota! I will be sure to post an update about his visit. We plan to go on a fishing charter…that should be interesting!
Thanks for the comments, we love hearing from you! Stay warm!
Sunset in Gulf Shores, AlabamaSuper moon rising in Gulf Shores, AlabamaOur new spot in Carrabelle Beach, FloridaGerry loves our new beach! It is very pretty and hardly anyone around!
Hi everyone! Hope you all have stayed warm this January, I know there’s been some really cold weather for some of you. It’s not been a great weather month here either. We’ve had a few days of sun and 60’s, but mostly cloudy, rain and cooler. Not complaining, but a little more sunshine would be nice 🙂
We’ve been out and about all around the area, exploring. We found out the beaches here do not allow dogs! We took Gerry a couple of days anyhow, hoping it wouldn’t be a problem with the cooler weather and not very many people out. We didn’t have any problems, but we’re told they are pretty strict with the no dog rule and there’s a $500 fine. So we have stayed away from the beaches. The weather hasn’t been very beach friendly anyhow, most days. We have found some nice dog parks near by and also a good doggy daycare that Gerry has been to a few times so we could go do things.
We visited Ft. Morgan, an old fort on the coast from the Civil War. We also took the ferry over to Daulphin Island which was nice to explore and we found a great little place on the shore for a seafood lunch. We also visited the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida. Very interesting place, with airplanes used by Navy, Marines and Coast Gard from early 1900’s to present day. This is also the home of the Blue Angels.
Gerry has made a new BFF here at the RV park…Hamish the English Mastiff is 18 months old and weighs 210 pounds! He’s huge and so nice. He makes Gerry look like a lap dog next to him. They love each other and we frequently meet up at the dog park here in the RV resort so they can run and play. We have hiking trails right here at the RV resort, and they connect to the Gulf Shores State Park. So we can access about 25 miles of trails right out our door. So we’ve been walking a lot, and walked to the beach one day too, which is about 4 miles each way. We’ve seen 2 coyotes and a snake, but no alligators yet, although we’re told they are around.
Lots of great seafood here and we’ve sampled all kinds of fresh catch. I’ve been cooking a lot and trying out new recipies. We’ll be leaving here on Feb 1st to our next stop in the Florida panhandle. I’ll be sure to give you an update from there. In the meantime, stay warm!
Hard to believe it’s 2018….time really does go faster the older we get! We have a lot of catching up to do, so grab a cup of tea and get cozy!
We left Ohio on New Year’s Eve, it was a balmy 7 degrees! It was great being home again for a few weeks, visiting with friends and family and enjoying the holidays. The time went so fast we didn’t get as many visits in as we had hoped to. As much as we have enjoyed our journey and being in the RV, it was great being home again for awhile too.
We are in the Gulf Shores, Alabama area for the month of January, and then will move about 400 miles east on February 1 to Port St. Joe, Florida. The deep freeze has reached here too, when we arrived on Jan 2 it was about 34 degrees that afternoon. It’s been getting down in the low 20s at night. But, it is gradually starting to warm up, it was 54 today and will be around 32 tonight. I know it’s been super cold everywhere and snow in places that don’t normally see snow like Hilton Head and Myrtle Beach. They had snow not too far from here also.
We spent 2 nights on the road getting here, and I have to say I think we were pretty comfortable operating the RV right out of the gate this time. There were a few moments of, “wait…how do we do that again???” But mostly we fell right back into our RV travel rhythm which was really nice.
The RV was in service from November 16 until December 23rd…. 🙁 A very frustrating experience to say the least. I had prepped the dealership and our factory representative starting in early October for our service appointment, sending lists of what needed done, pictures, measurements, etc. Multiple phone calls to the service department and factory folks to line up needed parts so things would be ready when we arrived. Nope. None of it was ready. In fact it was as if they had never heard of us or what we needed. No matter the email chains that went back to early October…. It was like a brand new conversation every time I called, as if nothing had ever been discussed before. To make a very long story shorter, we still don’t have the storage compartment door (remember it blew off during our last days on the road home in November) and we still don’t have the drawer cabinet front for under the range/oven that was supposedly ordered back in June when the factory installed the range/oven. The dealership ended up delivering the RV to us on December 23rd. This at least saved us the 2 hour drive each way to pick it up. We’ll be going back again in March for the rest of the work to be done. The good news is everything we needed done was covered by warranty so no expense for us which is great.
We had some work to be done on the truck, which Rob took care of for us. Then we also had to replace the 4 rear tires…turns out driving 21,000 miles pulling a very heavy RV wears out the tires!
I have a story to tell you about something that happened on our drive down. We made a reservation at a campground near Montgomery, Alabama for our 2nd night on the road. I had the directions up on Google Maps, and we were nearly to the RV park. The Google Maps lady said to turn left onto “Pappa’s Pond Road” which really looked more like a driveway. BUT, there was a road sign that said “Pappa’s Pond” and we could see RVs in the distance. So we turned. I said to Steve, “strange, there was no RV Park Welcome sign out front like we always see”. So down this long driveway we go, up the hill, to discover it is a PRIVATE DRIVE with 2 houses at the end. And a fence and the RV Park on the other side of the fence. Crap!!! Remember, we can’t back up with any degree of accuracy! But we had no choice but to back up, and aim for one of the “Y” branches in the drive.
So I’m sitting in my seat, looking out the window, directing Steve from my side using the mirror. Yup, I was too lazy to get out of the truck and do it right. It was cold outside, I was tired and frankly didn’t want to be outside walking around in some stranger’s yard. Like we weren’t already noticable enough! So I’m directing him towards the other driveway, thinking that little patch of grass we’re going to go over will be okay. Well, it wasn’t. It actually was a little ditch with a culvert in it. Would’ve seen that had I gotten out of the truck and done it the right way in the first place. Now, the driveway we were on was gravel and dirt. Nice red southern clay/dirt, nice and soft! The truck wheels were spinning and we couldn’t get the trailer out of the ditch! Double crap!!! Steve put it in 4 wheel drive and then the lowest gear (D3 I think it was), and, after digging some nice ruts in the yard and driveway, we got out of the ditch.
Now we were back to attempting to back up into this driveway so we could turn out and get out. We were probably about 15 more minutes, and many, many attempts, and it’s almost dark, and the full moon is rising over the field across the street. I’m thinking it is just a matter of time before some big guy named Bubba comes out of one of these houses, after an afternoon of beer drinking while watching football, with a shotgun. I was already thinking about where my checkbook was and how much should I start with to try to make it okay? $300? $500??? I know, a stereotype if there ever was one. But that’s what I was thinking, I admit it.
Then, out comes a young boy from the house whose driveway we have now made a huge mess out of. He’s maybe 16… could be 14, 15, 17? Dressed in full cammo. I’m thinking, crap, Bubba has sent his boy out to give us a warning before he starts firing. I was so WRONG. This very nice young man says, in full Alabama southern accent, “Y’all need some help?” I said Yes! We do! So sorry for what we have done to your yard and driveway! He says, again, you have to imagine the accent, “Shoot, we have tractors and big equipment back here all the time, we can fix that – want me to back you up? I been drivin’ 18 wheelers all my life, I can do it”. Words cannot express how happy we were at that moment. He jumped into the truck with Gerry and asked “dog bite?” We took Gerry out of the truck thinking it would make it easier for this young boy to do this big back up job…I am not kidding, he had the rig backed up perfectly, first attempt, in about 10 seconds. Literally. We offered money to repair the drive and yard, he refused. We offered cash as a tip for his help. “No sir! Y’all enjoy your evening and Happy New Year!” WOW. People are so nice! And shame on me for imagining the worse!
When we checked into the campground which was the next driveway down the road, we mentioned the ordeal. They said, “Oh, you met Jase, yeah he’s a nice kid. Sorry we forgot to tell you about GPS having our address wrong, we try to remember to tell people that when they make their reservations”. Really.
Life is good. People are nice. We are so grateful.
We arrived to our January home all covered in salt, we could hardly see out the windows of the RV. We had a mobile cleaning service come the next day and in about 2 hours they had it all shiny again. Enjoy a few pictures below. I’ll keep you posted on our adventures in the area! In the meantime, stay warm and let us know how you’re doing!
Time to head south!We’re staying at Pandion Ridge RV Resort. Pandion means fish eating hawk or OspreyThe fountain out front was frozen
I wanted to let you know we’ve made it back to Columbus….or more exactly, back to Worthington. We arrived a couple of days ago, and have been busy getting the RV unloaded, cleaned and ready for it’s service appointment on the 16th of this month. We’re back to our apartment which will be home base for now.
We have lots of catching up with family and friends to do and are so happy to see everyone again! We’ll be taking the RV out again right after the holidays, heading south to the beach. But more to come on that later.
Once we left Colorado, we spent 4 days driving, just stoping for the night along the way. We spent one night at a Walmart and had the same electrical issue we’ve had before when not connected to shore power, and the Co2/lp gas alarm going off almost as soon as we entered the RV. When we run the generator it is okay. But when we don’t run the generator, the alarm goes off due to low voltage. And trust me, it’s a loud alarm. So we ran the generator for a couple of hours and it was okay. I have spent way more time than I care to admit trying to figure out the problem, but I think I have a good guess. I think the house batteries in the RV are not being charged correctly while we are driving. There’s a big plug on the RV that plugs into a special recepticle in the truck bed that provides power to the RV while we are driving. Then the inverter in the RV converts the power from the RV batteries to electrical power to keep the fridge and a few other things running while driving. I think there’s something wrong with the big plug or the recepticle that is causing the truck to not fully charge the RV house batteries while we are driving. This issue is at the top of the list for the service appointment on the 16th. I’ll report back the results!
It was a fairly easy drive for the last leg of this adventure. It was about 1320 miles from where we were in Colorado to reach Columbus. It was cold for much of time, and was only 19 degrees one morning when we woke up. As soon as we left the Loveland, Colorado area, we were into the wide open farm land of Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and of course Ohio. A rapid change from the mountains we have become very fond of. Everywhere we went on this trip we had mountains, even though they were different in each area. There’s something about being in or around mountains that is very inspiring and energizing.
We also realized how much easier it is to drive the RV in the west. Overpasses and bridges are all so much higher in the west, and you see RVs everywhere. There are many RV parks all along the way. Even on the Alcan Highway which travels through some very remote areas, there are RV parks easily found along the way. As we got further east, we had trouble finding RV parks, there just aren’t as many. And, many were already closed for the season. I don’t know why the midwest isn’t a hot spot in early November for RV travel! 🙂
Somewhere along the highway in Illinois is the door to one of our small storage compartments on the RV…. 🙁 It has been coming loose for quite a while, I always pushed it back into place during my “pre-wheels up walk around”. But alas, the bumps in the highway finally won and we discovered it was gone at a rest area stop on our second to last day on the road! A new door is on the service list too!
I plan to put together a wrap up of this adventure soon, along with more pictures from the 5 months we were on the road for this trip. In the meantime, there’s a few pictures below from our last leg of the trip home.
Howdy! I mentioned in my last post that I was writing from a hotel room….we spent 4 days and 3 nights at the Hilton Hotel in Ft. Collins, Colorado. A very nice hotel, right next to Colorado State University. AND they allow dogs…they even give you doggy dishes for the room! It was Gerry’s first hotel stay and I think it would be fair to say he wasn’t wild about it. We were on the 5th floor, he really didn’t like the elevators – they were glass elevators and the floor was slippery. We used the stairs as much as we could (mostly going down, it was a long way up!)
We had to stay in the hotel while we were getting some repairs done to the RV. Somewhere in Wyoming, at a rest stop, I noticed the tires on the curb side (passenger side) of the trailer were excessively worn, especially the one in the back (we have 2 axles, so 2 tires on each side). We were pretty worried about continuing to drive very far on the tire. So, many phone calls later, we found a truck repair place near the highway not too far from where we were staying that night who said they had the right tires in stock. We arrived the next day for the tire replacement, and it didn’t go too well. First, they said putting new tires on would only mask whatever the real problem was that caused the excessive wear in the first place and they didn’t do that kind of work. And, after we said we would like the tires (2) replaced anyhow, so we could safely drive to somewhere that could figure out what the underlying problem was, they couldn’t get the hub off the first tire. They tried for a short while, then said we needed to leave and find somewhere else to get repairs. Yes folks, we were “kicked to the curb” on that one. Gee thanks!
So we drove on to our next stop somewhere in Wyoming (we drove interstate 80 across the southern part of the state). I spent hours (literally) on the phone and online, trying to find a repair place. I tried RV dealerships with service departments (they don’t do this kind of work I was told by them all). I finally found an RV dealership that said they would look at it, and the first available appointment was in 3 weeks! After many calls and piecing together information from the folks I spoke with, I found a diesel truck and trailer repair place in Ft. Collins, Colorado, which is where we were headed for next. This was a Thursday, and they had an opening for the next Tuesday – we took it!
Next, I called our super great helper, Rob, in Ohio and gave him the run down of what had been happening. He had me go under the trailer and take a few pictures for him, and also pictures of the tires. Well….why didn’t we think of looking underneath??? I’m telling you, our brains do not work that way. Well….both shocks on the side of the trailer with the tire wear were completely bent! They are supposed to be straight up and down, and the ones on the other side of the trailer were. But these 2 were bent into a “L” shape. Those pot holes on the Alcan came back to haunt us. We do recall hitting one pretty hard on the way out of Alaska/Canada – we couldn’t see it until it was too late.
Rob did a great job of guiding me through looking at a variety of things on the trailer – he really is so patient and so helpful, explaining things in a way I can understand them. He had us take the seal out of the hub and check for lubricant – bone dry! Just like the batteries in the earlier story I told you – who knew you were supposed to check these things!!! He sent us a picture of what to buy, and of course the local Walmart in Cheyenne Wyoming had it. Steve was able to fill all 4 hubs with the lubricant. I believe this is for the wheel bearings.
So we spent a couple days in Cheyenne – we had very high winds – steady at 30 mph and gusts over 60 mph. The RV was rocking and rolling! So much fun! We then drove to Loveland, CO and spent a few days there, and then on to Ft. Collins on Tuesday and turned the RV over to the great folks at Diesel Services of Northern Colorado. They even backed the RV around their building to the work area for us. We packed up a few bags of clothes and things and headed to the Hilton. It was very weird leaving the RV and moving into a hotel!
Steve has a client in the Ft. Collins area, and he spent part of a day there doing some work. We caught up on errands and some shopping and did some hiking. Gerry spent a day at doggy daycare and we went to Estes Park, near Rocky Mountain National Park. We had planned to hike that day, but it was snowing, windy and too cold! So we walked around the cute town, had lunch and enjoyed sight seeing. We saw several Elk, including some males with huge antlers. A coyote ran across a field near us too. The weather here in Colorado has been crazy – 80s one day and snow the next!
We also had a great visit with Sarah, Jeremy and baby Hazel (2 years old now!) who live in the Denver area. They kindly had us over for dinner which was so nice. Hazel was happy to show us her yard with a great play house and swings and her cute bedroom! It was so good to see them and to catch up. Gerry had a blast playing with their dog, Rio, too!
The RV was ready on Friday, as promised. They had to order some parts from the manufacturer so that took a little time. Luckily, the axles and frame were okay. The wheel was not bent either. So, new shocks, new tire and hub and we are good to go!
We were happy to get back into the RV and moved to another RV park in Loveland, CO, where we’ve been for the last few days. It feels so much more like home than the hotel, and we really missed it. Gerry is much happier too! On the day we moved into this RV park, there was an owl in the tree right above us. I was making dinner, and I could see our neighbors out the window, looking up into the tree. So I went outside and there was the owl! They said a family of hawks had been here all summer, and they had enjoyed watching the young ones learn to fly and catch dinner. I also saw an owl along the road from Cheyenne. We see hawks almost everytime we are out hiking.
I’ve been cooking a lot and have made apple crisp a couple of times. The leaves are falling here and it’s getting cold at night. We purchased a special drinking water hose that has an electrical cord through it, and you plug it in, outside, by the water hook up. Keeps it from freezing during the night. Again…who knew??? A nice lady at the RV park we are staying at told us about it. We’re pushing the weather envelope a little, I think, and it’s time to continue east for home!
I have a few pictures below and in the link of our hikes and time in Colorado.
Hi everyone! We have been moving east, slowly, with plans to be back in Columbus before Thanksgiving. My last post was about our time on the Oregon coast. From there we moved inland Oregon, to the Columbia River Gorge area. Unfortunately, we couldn’t access any of the hikes or scenic drive along the Columbia River Gorge, the roads were all still closed from fires this summer. The highway, interstate 84, was back open, but the historic Columbia River Gorge road and all the state parks and hiking areas were still closed. So we found a couple of hikes in other areas nearby, and crossed the Bridge of the Gods across the Columbia River over to the Washington side. We did this in the truck, leaving the RV at the campground – Steve has a hard time with bridges and heights, and there is NO WAY he would have considered crossing this bridge with the RV in tow! We hiked to a beautiful waterfall, hidden way back into the forest, I have a picture of it below.
We then moved on to Mountain Home, Idaho, then to Brigham City, Utah, then to Rawling, Wyoming, then to Cheyenne Wyoming. We spent 2 – 3 days in each stop, and got in a hike just about everywhere. We visited some sand dunes at a state park in Idaho – Gerry loved running up and down the dunes. You can see our terrain is changing quickly! From the lush, green forests and waterfalls of Washington and Oregon to very desert like terrain.
There’s not a lot to report about these stops, they were pretty functional. We took interstate 84 to interstate 80, which took us through the not-so-pretty parts of Idaho and Utah and Wyoming. We plan to visit these states again at some point, and go to the more attractive areas and national parks. But, for this trip, we were ready to spend some time on interstates and wanted to get moving east, so this route worked for that purpose. But, we still got out and hiked and tried to explore the areas we were in and enjoyed the good weather we have had.
I’m writing this post while in Ft. Collins, Colorado. We have some repairs to the RV that are underway, I will have a separate post about all of that our our time at the Hilton Hotel (yes, they allow dogs and Gerry is not sure he likes hotel living!)
In the meantime, hope you all are enjoying fall and Go Bucks this weekend against Penn State!
