Author: areeb

Hi Everyone and Happy New Year!

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!

 

Hi Everyone:

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.

https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0plh5E31vPFJBztvGS

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!

Some pictures below, and also at this link:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0plXnzlR8S4Wu3mLgx

 

Greetings!

I hope you all are doing well and enjoying autumn wherever you are.  I love this time of year, the cooler weather, transitioning into different recipies, cozy fires and tea.  I’m writing this post at our current spot, which is east of Portland Oregon, on the Columbia River Gorge.  I’ll do a separate post of our time here.  We’ve had some great fall weather, but, yesterday it started raining, and its been cool (49 degrees right now).  So I have a cup of tea (Cinnamon Stick by Bigelow 🙂 )  and we’ve been running our fireplace almost non-stop.  Even though it’s an electric fire, it’s very cozy and provides a nice ambiance.  I have a cinnamon candle going too…guess I’m in a cinnamon kind of mood!

All morning I have been watching 2 hummingbirds that are enjoying the hummingbird feeder the RV next door to us has out.  The folks in the RV next door looks like they live here long term, they have a kind of deck built on their trailer, and have lots of “yard” kind of things set up including several bird feeders.  On the side by us, is the hummingbird feeder and these 2 hummingbirds are there all the time.  I am surprised, I thought hummingbirds migrated for the winter, but maybe the temperature here in Oregon is temperate enough they stay for the winter.  I will try to remember to research that.  Anyhow, I am happy to have them to watch.  And, Gerry finds them very interesting too!  He’s been sitting looking out the window at them for a long time this morning.

We spent about a week on the Oregon coast – we were between Seaside and Cannon Beach, which is in the northwest corner of the Oregon coast.  We loved Washington and the beaches there…but…the Oregon coast is simply amazing.  We fell in love with the area and really enjoyed our time there.  We did a couple of great hikes, in addition to walking miles on the beaches.  We hiked Saddle Mountain – about 7 miles roundtrip and it was a challenging hike.  The view at the top was outstanding – we could see the pacific ocean, Mt. Saint Helens, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams and a fifth mountain we are not sure which it was.  The photos in the link don’t do the view justice, it was starting to get hazy while we were up there.  There were 3 or 4 Peregrine Falcons flying around also, chattering away.  They followed us as we hiked back down, talking and chattering all the way.

We also hiked Cape Falcon (I am sensing a theme here!) a beautiful hike through a heavy forest then out onto a cape with a stunning view of the pacific ocean.  We sat and had lunch looking out into the ocean and kept saying, “I can’t belive we are actually sitting here looking at this!”  It was about 4 miles roundtrip, and relatively easy hike.  All of the forests here and in Washington are beautiful, heavy, lots of moss and various shades of green.  We keep trying to capture it with our pictures, it’s hard to describe the feeling you get while in the forest.  Enchanting, peaceful, alive and vibrant.

We drove up and down the coast, sampling a few different beach towns and beaches.  Hands down our favorite was Cannon Beach.  Super cute seaside town and very dog friendly.  We ate lunch one day at a restaraunt, with Gerry on the patio.  They invite dogs to dine alongside their people guests.  Gerry sat next to me on the bench, they had dog water dishes all over, and they served Gerry his very own plain hamburger!  Yes, we have become those people!!!

We went back to Cannon Beach two evenings for the sunset, which occured about 6:50 pm – early to us, especially after the very long daylight days in Alaska.  We loved the changing light and watching the sun drop into the pacific was spectacular.  We also purchased a “chuckit” throwing thing to lob a tennis ball for Gerry to fetch.  He has decided he loves the beach even though he tries very hard to not allow the surf touch his feet.  He also discovered it is very easy to dig in the sand, and spent the better part of one evening digging a tunnel.  Lots of pictures in the links below.

So happy fall to you all, hope you enjoy our pictures, and I’ll be back soon with an update on our next adventures!

Saddle Mountain Hike and Cannon Beach:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0plTMWUz-ZNuFyN_W3

Cape Falcon

https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0plU46rpJ-HWQGc9GS

 

 

 

Hi again!  We spent a great week on the Washington Olympic Peninsula.  This is home to the Olympic National Park, miles of rocky beaches and national forests.  We traveled to the Olympic Peninsula by Ferry, thanks to the advice by Steve H’s brother, Richard, and his wife Joyce.  Richard and Joyce live north of Seattle, and came to visit us while we were still on the “mainland” of Washington state.  It was so nice to see them, and since they have been RV’ing for many years, they gave us a lot of very helpful information.  (Picture below – those of you who know Steve H will notice how much he and Richard look alike!) We had planned to drive through Seattle and around to the Olympic Peninsula, but they told us about the ferry, and recommended it as a better alternative to driving through Seattle.  We were worried about managing the RV onto the ferry, but, it was as easy and uncomplicated as promised.  So glad we did it that way, saved us hours of driving and much less stress than navigating Seattle with the beast in tow.

We did have a couple of maintenance issues, right before we left to take the ferry, so we had to delay our trip by a couple of days.  I found a mobile RV service that came to the campground we were parked at and they replaced the breaker that controls the outlets and the gfci outlets (again!).  You may remember we had trouble with this breaker at the beginning of our trip, and had it replaced while at the factory.  We discovered our issue this time while parked at Walmart for a night, which was our staging area to get the ferry the next morning.  Since we had no hookups in the Walmart parking lot, we were using battery power and generator/inverter power.  That’s when the outlets quit working again.

A phone call to Rob (he is so nice to be our “on call technical support”! 🙂 revealed that our batteries in the RV – we have 2, 6 volt batteries, the same type used to run golf carts – were pretty low on water.  Who knew you had to put water into battery cells????  Not us!  A quick run into Walmart (they are smart to let RV’ers park in their lots, we spend a lot of $$ every time we are there) to purchase distilled water and Steve filled up the battery cells.  But, the gfci outlets would not reset (again).  So the mobile guys replaced the breaker the next day.  They also tested our batteries and said we should have them replaced.  They were losing their power and would not last much longer.  So, we found a battery place nearby and had them replaced the next day.  Was much easier than we anticipated, they were used to dealing with RVs, had a spot for us to pull up to easily, and half an hour later we were on our way to the ferry!

The Olympic Peninsula is very beautiful.  We did the Hurricane Ridge drive in Olympic National Park, and several hikes in the area, including one on Dungeness Spit – a long spit out to a lighthouse.  We love the rocky beaches in this area and also the mossy forests.  The weather was great also, which is a big plus!  We visited a few small towns in the area:  Sequim, Townsend, Port Angeles.  We found a local food co-op that had great produce and local meats, and we also found a local restaraunt that specialized in soups, bakery and coffee…we literally went every day!  There was an area that had a lot of totem poles and a Native American gallery – we enjoyed visiting it and purchased some gifts there.

Hope you enjoy the pictures in the links below!

Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pk1RMo-4ioXyxr6qG

Olympic Peninsula:  Ferry, beaches and totem poles:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0plQRrH_fktZ70rq2A

Hi!  We have been absolutely loving Washington!  We stayed for about a week in the Bellingham area, north of Seattle.  The RV park was one of the best we’ve been to so far, and the weather has been perfect which helps too!  We did so many fun things while in the area including a great hike on Mt. Baker.  We started our hike at the end of a long national forest service road (about 12 miles), at 4400 feet in elevation.  We hiked about 2.5 miles up, to about 6,000 feet in elevation.  The views were awesome!  As good as some of our views in Alaska.  A great hike.

We also took a ferry to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.  We walked onto the ferry, we didn’t take the truck.  Gerry got to go, he loved the trip on the ferry.  So many people to pet him and tell him how cute he is!  You’ll notice in the pictures we have started using a “Gentle Leader” collar on him – it goes over his nose.  So if he pulls on the leash, it pulls his nose, which he hates, so it stops him from pulling so much.  He has gotten so big and strong he was doing damage to my arm and shoulder from pulling on the leash so much.  We will be taking doggy manners training classes when we get back to Columbus!  Friday Harbor was a very cute tourist town, we really enjoyed visiting it and enjoyed the ferry ride too.

One day we took Gerry to doggy day care are spent the day touring Bellingham, Fairhaven (a super cute historic area in Bellingham) and drove Chuckanut Drive, an attraction in and of itself in the area.  Beautiful drive, beautiful homes and a great little restaraunt too!  The restaraunt looks right out onto Puget Sound and an oyster farm.  So of course Steve had oysters!  Wish I liked them, but, they are not for me!  We also went to a Tea Room – first time I have been served tea with a cozy over the tea pot – loved it!

We did another hike in the area, in a beautiful forest – the forests here are very thick with vegitation and moss.  Like walking in an enchanted forest.  All in all a great area to visit and we loved it.  This was our first stop after the “Alaskan Adventure” and it felt good to be in an area with more “stuff” around.  But still beautiful.  I think we were ready for a little touristy activities and this filled the bill!

And I have to mention the blackberries!  They are everywhere – along the roads, along the trails, and our RV park had a large grassy area (great for running Gerry!) that was surrounded by wild blackberries.  We picked to our hearts content, I made blackberry cobbler and a blackberry syrup we put on ice cream….Steve literally cannot walk past a bush without picking and eating!

i’ll have another post soon about our trip on a ferry (RV and all!) to the Olympic Penninsula and our beach visits there.  In the meantime, hope you enjoy the pictures of Mt. Baker, Bellingham, Fairhaven and Chuckanut Drive!

https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pk0cHsXn8Mbv75Nno

 

 

 

Hello again everybody!

As I’m sitting here thinking about what to write in this post, I can’t belive we are already done with our time in Alaska, driven back down the Alcan and the Cassiar highways, and have already been in Washington 2 weeks.  How time flies!  Today is the last day of September…how did that happen???

We truly loved our time in Alaska and also the drive to and from there.  It all was an experience we will always remember.  Even though the weather was not great, especially the last few weeks, it was spectacularly beautiful and unlike anywhere else we have been.  We try to capture it in our pictures, but I know they do not begin to convey the vastness and beauty we experienced.  The hiking we did there was exhilarating…I imagine all our pictures (and there’s more in the links below!) of mountains, hiking trails, and glaciers must look a lot alike.  “Oh, there’s another giant mountain with glaciers on it they are hiking again…”  but it does not feel that way when we are hiking.  Each hike and trail has it’s own unique beauty and our experiences on each hike were all different.  We did 2 hikes twice – Portage Pass (Whittier) and Mt. Marathon (Seward), taking visitors back to favorite hikes.   I think the hiking, challenging ourselves and experiencing the vast outdoors was good for our souls.  It makes us happy 🙂

We retraced some of the Alcan highway on our way out, then picked up the Cassiar highway, a 450 mile long stretch of road that goes further west than the Alcan.  It took us down near the southeast Alaskan panhandle, where Jueanu, Ketchikan, Sitka and the inside passage are, where a lot of cruise ships go.  There are no roads into those areas, only boats and planes can take you there, so we did not get to see that part of the state.  We did stop in Stewart, BC, which shares the boarder with Hyder, Alaska and there’s one road that you can take into Hyder.  They both are very small towns, surrounded by mountains, waterfalls and glaciers.  Hyder Alaska is on the Prince William Sound, on the opposite side of  the sound from Whittier.

We met a nice couple, Vince and Vickie, who are from Louisiana, at one of the campgrounds along the Alcan.  We traveled with them for a couple of days, and they joined us in Stewart/Hyder.  We had fun going to see Salmon Glacier together and also watching for bears at the river where they come to feed on salmon before hibernating for the winter.  Salmon Glacier was at the end of a VERY rough, pot hole filled, gravel road, about 12 or 15 miles long.  It took us over an hour (each way) to drive those 12 or 15 miles to get to the glacier.  But wow!  The biggest glacier we saw on the entire trip, other than the one we landed on in the helicopter.  It was amazing.  Lots of pictures in the attached link.   We saw LOTS of bears while in Stewart/Hyder also.  One in the RV camp, right by our RV, 2 or 3 in town on the streets in the evening, and 2 at the bear viewing area I mentioned above.  They all were black bears.

Choosing Alaska as our first destination on this journey was ideal for us.  It pushed us to figure out the whole RV thing.  We are still learning, but boy do we know so much more now than we did at the beginning of this trip!  It also took us to a whole new environment to explore together and that is good.

I’ve put together several albums of pictures from our last days in Alaska as well  as driving along the Alcan and Cassiar highways.  Hope you enjoy!

On the road again:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pknoM4F3tXVoUjR8Y

Salmon Glacier:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pkxa7KFeg4ADNIX8_

Stewart BC/Hyder Alaska:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pkzLGKFgC_-C6AIGF

Crow Pass hike:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pk1wWBGX2CjUlwIlK

Turnagain Arm Drive and Portage RV Park:  we stayed at this RV park twice, for about 3 – 4 weeks total, it is near Girdwood.  We were here for both Bill’s and Samantha’s visits.  We loved this RV park, we had fantastic views right our our door, and it was close to Whittier, Girdwood and only a little over an hour to Anchorage.  We drove the Turnagain Arm each time we went to Anchorage or Girdwood, which was dozens of times.  The Turnagain Arm goes along the Cook Inlet.  It was one of the most beautiful drives we have done on this trip and we stopped many times at the turnouts along the road to take pictures.  Here’s a round up of pictures from that drive and RV park:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0plFbuzrTXneTOLmm0

Hello!  I wanted to provide a quick update on our travels – we decided to skip Vancouver, BC.  After a careful look at the map and talking to fellow travelers, it seemed too difficult with the RV.  It’s a big city, and we would have to stay about 45 minutes – 1 hour outside the city to avoid driving the RV into heavy traffic and potentially difficult roads with such a big rig.  We could have taken a day trip with just the truck into the city, but in the end we decided to skip it.

So we crossed the boarder late yesterday afternoon into Washington.  We are parked at a lovely RV park in Ferndale, WA, which is near Bellingham.  We’re off today to a hike at Mt. Baker, we have a ferry trip to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island planned for Sunday, and we’re getting the oil changed and tires rotated on the truck Saturday in Bellingham.  So excited to get a good hike in today – we all need it, especially Gerry!!  He had a doggy daycare day a few days ago while we were in the Prince George area, which tired him out a bit, but these days he is always full of energy!

I still have at least 1 or 2 posts to do from our last stops in Alaska (lots of bears and a huge glacier!), so stay tuned.  Hoping to get that done in the next few days.  In the meantime, it feels good to be in the lower 48 again, the sun is shining, Mt. Baker looks beautiful and we can’t wait to hike it today!

Howdy!  Guy came to visit at the end of August and we had a great visit in spite of rain every day.  We moved to Valdez, Alaska, after Samantha and her friends left.  We made the drive in 2 days, it was about 7 hours all together.  We stayed at Bayside RV park, right in town and next to the boat harbor.  Valdez is a beautiful area, surrounded by mountains, glaciers and lots of waterfalls, and is on Prince William Sound.  I’m sure it is even more beautiful when it’s not raining…but I couldn’t tell you since it rained every single day we were there.  Steve and I finally bought rain boots, we couldn’t walk Gerry or go outside without getting our feet soaked.  The RV park was busy with a lot of Alaskans there to fish the Silver Salmon and fill their freezers.  Many of the campers had full size deep freezers sitting in their camp, they would fish all day every day, filling their freezer for the year.  Some were also fishing for shrimp and I’m sure other creatures as well….we were one of the few RVs that didn’t have Alaska tags.  The tourists are all leaving quickly  before weather becomes an issue.

We didn’t let the weather dampen our fun (pun intended 🙂 )  We did several hikes, and Steve and Guy went on a Salmon fishing charter.  We had booked a Halibut fishing trip, but it was cancelled twice due to high seas.  So they did the Salmon trip instead, which only goes out about 14 miles into the ocean, vs. the Halibut trip that went 50 – 70 miles into the ocean.  They each caught the daily limit of 6 fish, so we had plenty of Salmon for dinner and to ship home.  They saw sea lions, porpoise, seals, sea otters and eagles and also a spectacular rainbow came out while they were on the boat.  On one hike, a black bear came onto the trail, about 100 yards in front of us.  He looked at us and then went into the woods.  We were glad he wasn’t any closer!

We also did a great helicoptor tour of the mountains and glaciers.  We saw seals from the air, laying on huge chunks of ice floating in the ocean.  We landed twice on the tour – once on a beach that had lots of ice on it from nearby glaciers, and then we landed on a giant glacier named Shoup Glacier.  It was absolutely amazing.  The pictures do not begin to capture the vast landscape we saw.  None of us had ever been in a helicopter before and it is amazing what you can see when riding in one.  We have seen a number of glaciers on our trip so far, but what we see from the road or from a hiking trail is nothing compared to what they look like when you go way up and back into the mountains and land on top of one.  An experience we will not forget.

You’ll be happy to know we continued our bakery quest while in Valdez…. and I can report we found a great bakery right on the harbor front, in a converted 1950s camper.  Super cute and very good.  We went every day we were there.  Guy declared the breakfast croissant with ham and the blueberry scones “one of the best things I have ever eaten!”  The very nice young lady who was the owner even baked us 2 loves of bread – multigrain and a beautiful round loaf of rye.  We had asked about bread, she said she was done making it for the season, since she was closing in a few days.  Then she said she’d make some just for us – it was delicious!

We cooked tons of seafood while Guy was here – crab legs, scallops, shrimp, salmon, halibut.  Now you know why we hike even in the rain….we have to work off all the bakery goods, delicious dinners and ice cream!  We didn’t find any great ice cream shops in Valdez, but the grocery had  plenty!

Sharing a part of this adventure with Guy was great.  No one is prepared for how big and beautiful Alaska is, and I think Guy really enjoyed exploring a little bit of it.  He’s the last of our visitors for the summer – it was so nice having everyone – we are loving our RV lifestyle and are so thankful to be able to do this, but we do miss family and friends.  Visitors help bridge the gap a bit.

Guy, we love you and are so proud of you and the happy, healthy life you are living in Minnesota.  Thank you for coming to visit and sharing this experience with us.  Life is good.

Pictures at these links:

Hiking:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pkkIi-rWnzsvAFatq

Helicopter:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pkheVp9beEjy7lnJd

Salmon Fishing:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pkiPmWB61Ys8oyjZw

Valdez:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pklLl_bjzOJlcdG_Z