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tbutler

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  1. tbutler
    Having traveled the country for 14 years in a motor home there are many places mentioned in the news Louise and I have visited. They become more than just abstract names of places in the news, they become familiar territory. In the news in the last few weeks, Phoenix, Lake Havasu, Tuscon all had major flooding and damage. We stayed in RV parks and visited friends and relatives in those cities. Today Joshua Tree National Park was in the news with flooding also. We've hiked many miles in Joshua Tree and thoroughly enjoyed the desert scenery and the trails to old gold mines and oases.
    Weed, California is in the news today. A ferocious fire has destroyed over 100 buildings in the town. My history with Weed (the town) goes back more than 30 years. Weed is a small town along I-5 in northern California. It is a few miles northwest of Mount Shasta, a beautiful composite volcano. Mount Shasta is in the Cascade Range of volcanoes that include Mount Ranier, Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens among others. The whole range is active though the activity at any one volcano may be hundreds or thousands of years between major eruptions. Active in this sense is a geological term more than a human term. Still any one of these volcanoes could have a significant eruption at any time.
    I mention that because it was the framework for my first encounter with Weed (yes, still the town). We (my first wife and I) were on summer vacation with our two pre-teen children, We had been to Crater Lake which is a caldera from a collapsed Cascade volcano. These were our tent camping days and grocery stops were frequent. The whole family, our camping equipment and clothes fit into our Chevrolet station wagon so the quantity of groceries was pretty slim, a small ice chest and a box of what we needed for the next two or three days. So we pulled off I-80 at Weed and found a grocery.
    After a swing through the store we lined up at the cash register to pay for our food. When it came time to pay for the groceries I wrote a check (remember those days?) and was asked for my identification. I dutifully produced my Missouri drivers license. The clerk, a young woman, took a look at the license and noted that it was from Missouri. She looked at me and asked, "How do you live there with all those tornadoes?" I told her it really wasn't that bad, we had never been affected by one. She said, "I could never live there." I shrugged it off and we loaded our tucker (an Australian term I learned this year meaning grubstake or food) into the station wagon. Then we were off to return to I-80.
    As I pulled onto the entrance ramp to the highway I looked at the road ahead and there straight ahead was Mount Shasta with the cinder cone Shastina on its northwest flank. So here we are in the shadow of an active volcano and the clerk is worried about the danger of tornadoes. I had to laugh at that. For years I incorporated this story into my Earth Science classes. The 8th graders always laughed when I mentioned Weed, I can't imagine why. I used the story to help them understand that almost anywhere you live you will find some danger from nature. In some places it is tornadoes, other places have floods, earthquakes and tsunami's are common in still other places. You might wonder why anyone would live near a volcano but people do that also. It is just one more of natures dangers.
    Fast forward to 2002, the first summer of our RV travels. We started in southern California in the early spring. We visited deserts, Joshua Tree, Death Valley, and others. We tromped our way among the trees of Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks. Further north we stopped to explore Mount Lassen, the most recent active volcano in the US (before Mount St. Helens) and yes, a Cascade Volcano also. Traveling further north we pulled into Weed and found a very pleasant RV park there as our base to explore Mount Shasta. I am a volcano junkie, I love to explore volcanoes of all kinds. We stayed there for a week, partly to just rest and partly to do some climbing on Mount Shasta. We found many interesting hikes to other areas nearby and enjoyed the entire area very much. We've stayed there again and explored the area since.
    So Weed, California has for me many pleasant memories. It is a town that has been in my lexicon and in my memory for almost half my lifetime. A sleepy little town along a major highway. Now Weed is a smoky disaster area. We'll make a swing by Weed on our trip this year. I hope that the RV park is still there and that we'll be able to find a place to stay for at least one night. I'm sure there will be sadness to see an old friend in its despair. Perhaps we can lend some support to those by our presence.
    Travel makes life so much more vivid. These aren't just names in the news, they are places. Places with personality; parks, homes, forests, bike trails, mountains and people. When you know them, the news is so much more than just a story. Now Weed, in the shadow of the mighty Mount Shasta, has fallen victim to a forest fire. Mother Nature is beautiful but very dangerous.
  2. tbutler
    Leaving the midwest in late June we battled temperatures near or above 100 degrees on a regular basis. Even as we traveled to Montana we were still enountering temperatures in the high 90s. When we got into eastern Washington we began to notice some cooler temperatures. Now, after crossing the Cascade Mountains we have arrived at Chehalis, Washington. We are about 90 miles south of Seattle on I-5. Temperatures here are in the 50's and 60's at night and highs have been in the upper 70's or lower 80's. We've had some rain and plenty of clouds. This is more like what we expected when we decided to travel in this direction.
    Our ultimate goal is the Olympic Peninsula and Olympic National Park. The weather will be even cooler, cloudier, and wetter than it is here. We'll see how long we can stand the cool weather! We are having some repair work done at Cummins Northwest here in Chehalis. The parts should all be waiting for us now and we have an appointment on Monday morning. If all goes well, we should be on our way to the Olympic Peninsula by Monday afternoon.
    We have had a great time in central Washington. This was our second visit to the Grand Coulee area and we learn more each time. The tour at Grand Coulee Dam has changed as they are now remodeling the powerhouse which used to be the tour area. This time we toured the pumping facility for filling Banks Lake which serves as the reservoir for irrigating this part of the state. Banks Lake fills the Grand Coulee from near Grand Coulee Dam on to Coulee City where a small dam across the coulee blocks its flow. The town of Coulee City has a wonderful community park there with a beach on the lake. The RV sites have full hookups with 30A for some and 50A for others. The pull through sites are not real level but we managed to find a spot where we could level the coach. We fell in love with the town. Everyone was friendly and helpful including the people at city hall where we had a package shipped.
    Just below Coulee City is one of the truly amazing features of the area, Dry Falls is a waterfall that was active for only 48 hours as the glacial lake, Lake Missoula, emptied when its ice dam failed. Lake Missoula was larger than any of the Great Lakes today and was as much as 2000 feet deep. Imagine pulling the plug on that and the ensuing havoc that occurred. The Grand Coulee and other coulees in the area were formed by this sudden flush of water over the land. Dry Falls is 3 1/2 miles long and 900 feet tall. When the water was flowing over the falls it would have been 300 feet deep and reached speeds of 60+ miles per hour. This ripping force tore away the columnar lava flows in the area easily forming these great gashes, called coulees, in the landscape.
    It is a wet year in the northwest and all the dams in the area show this. The spillways are running at or near capacity to keep the level of the lakes from becoming higher than dam design. This makes for a very dramatic scene and the sound is nothing but pure power. Of course the Corps of Engineers sees this as a tremendous loss of resouces, energy and irrigation that will be needed someday. On our tour of Grand Coulee Dam where we got a ride across the dam in a bus and a stop to look over the dam to the spillway with its flowing water. Several days later we toured the Chief Joseph Dam, about 30 miles from Coulee City at the town of Bridgeport. This turned out to be a hidden gem. We pulled up to the security gate and called the security office. It indicated tours were available so we asked for a tour. We were checked through security, ID's, car inspection, under the hood, opening doors and hatch, and finally using a mirror to check under the car. Then we were given our visitors badge and directed to park in an area where the tour guide would meet us.
    After a wait of about 10 minutes our tour guide arrived. She loaded us into a golf cart, just Louise and I, no one else. Hard hats were brought along, this was going to be good. We drove past the power house with its 28 generators all in a row, right up to the base of the dam. Unlock the door and we were inside the base of the dam. An elevator took us to the top where we were able to look over the side of the dam above and get the layout of the flow of the Columbia River up to the dam. This dam is a "flow of the river" dam, designed to allow all the rivers flow through the dam. As a result there is only a small lake above the dam. Even with 28 generators, there was still water going over the spillway here. We walked down several flights of stairs to the trunion bridge. This is a walkway along the front of the dam at the level of the trunions or bearings on which the flood gates pivot up and down. Just below and in front of us we were looking at the water spewing from below the gates which were all lifted except for four and an additional one under repair. The roaring water on the spillway was below our feet about 20 feet.
    We made a pass through the visitors center which has exhibits that are only seen on tour now. In the good old days before September 11, 2001 people could drive across the dam, park on top of the structure and then walk into the visitors center and take a tour. Now the tours are on-demand and no one staffs the visitors center. We viewed a short film on construction of the dam and its operation then put on our hard hats. We were escorted into the power house to walk along the top of the generators. One was being rebuilt, new bearings, new turbine, etc. This gave us a chance to see the equipment disassembled. There was the monsterous rotor, sitting on the floor. Its massive magnets visible as were the windings of the stator past which the magnets spin to generate the 60 cycle current we all desire. Our guide points out an assembly on the floor next to the rotor and gives a Jeopardy clue then asks what those blocks look like. She mentioned automobile work and I correctly identified the brake pads which are used to stop the generator when it is shut down. Easy, they were 2 feet by 3 feet and looked about 4 inches thick. An arrangment of eight were spaced around a huge brake shoe which had a hole for the shaft, they had to be brake pads!
    We stand atop one of the operating generators and feel the vibrations in our feet. Then it is down a long flight of stairs to the operating floor. We walk past several generators in operation to go down a short stairway and walk right up to the spinning shaft that connects the turbine to the generator above. We are encouraged to reach out a hand a touch the shaft. For a science teacher, this is a cool as it gets! Then we go down two more flights of stairs and now we are looking a the top of the turbine assembly. This one is operating and water is flowing through the turbine just below us. We can see the actuators which move the gates that direct the water into the turbine. On our way our of the power plant we pass two small generators which provide the electrical power to operate the power plant and dam itself. I laughed and pointed out to Louise the cover of the "in-service" light atop one of the generators was off and there in all its glory was a twisty flourescent light bulb. Here we are in the middle of a facility that is generating more than 2000 megawatts and they are using a flourescent light bulb to save electricity. We were touring the dam for almost two hours. It was without a doubt the best dam tour we have ever had. The only downside was that cameras were prohibited so we have no pictures of all this great stuff.
    Back to the car and into Bridgeport for lunch. Surprise, this little town is larger than we expected. We are welcomed into town by a series of creative sentinals. Trees that once lined the street had died and their stumps were carved into figures of people, animals and other art forms. Wow, another unexpected find. There was an advertisement for Nel's Cafe and Bait Shop so we had to eat there! We enjoyed a nice lunch then drove around town to see what else this town offered. We found a nice RV park right along the Columbia River. As we exited the town we drove across the bridge over the Columbia River which gave us our best views of the Chief Joseph Dam. Louise snapped pictures as I drove across the bridge. Then it was back to Coulee City for a BBQ and rest watching the sun set over Banks Lake.
  3. tbutler
    Here is how our travel decisions occur. As full timers we don't have a home to return to, so none of those pressures factor in.
    We hadn't set a definite date for our departure from Sandpipers Resort in south Texas until today. Several days ago I picked up a message that mentioned the dates for the Sun 'n Fun Airshow in Lakeland, Florida. We were planning to be in Florida for the launch of STS 125 and STS 127. Those are two Space Shuttle launches scheduled for May 12 and 15. The dates for the Sun 'n Fun are April 21 through 26. So I checked out the RV camping facilities and it looked good. We talked about it, thought about it and today made a decision to go. We'll move our departure date up about a week from what we were initially thinking.
    I scheduled some work at Camping World for Tuesday the 14th. They will install a new sine wave inverter/charger in our 2004 motor home. Our old modified sine wave inverter had a few things that wouldn't work; in fact it destroyed the electronics in several inexpensive items. I tried an infinite number of doorbells but none would work with the modified sine wave inverter. We also like our heated mattress pad and we've ruined several of them, forgetting to unplug them before disconnecting the shore power. With several new TVs and an ever-increasing list of electronics on board, the risk becomes greater. Last year the generator auto start function failed so we decided to replace the old inverter. Camping World had a sale a few weeks ago and that pushed us over the edge. We'll leave the bay with access to the inverter open for the repair work and then do the final packing up when we return to Sandpipers for a final night before departing on the 16th for Florida. We will have 5 days to travel just over 1,600 miles.
    Our original plans were to spend some time exploring along the Gulf Coast in Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida panhandle, but we'll sacrifice that for the chance to walk the flight line and see all the vintage aircraft, warbirds and current military hardware. We'll enjoy some spectacular air shows and just visiting with a multitude of other pilots. With the motor home we'll be able to eat many meals "at home." The camping is dry camping which is no problem with our motor home. We'll watch our water consumption and may have to restrict our generator use depending on where we are parked. Our costs will be less than the motel costs alone for someone staying there for the week. After the airshow we'll spend two weeks exploring Florida before we head for Cape Canaveral and our reserved spot at Jetty Park to watch the launch(s) of the shuttles. Sure hope they go off on schedule!
    So now we begin the final push to get everything in the motor home ready for travel. You can really get settled in when you park somewhere for five months. The motor home needs a good wash. I'll flush the water heater before we go. The water filters in the basement compartment will be changed, batteries and engine fluids checked. The tire pressure will be checked and the Pressure Pro sensors will be tested. There are things to be stored in the shed on our leased lot and things that have been stored in the shed to be loaded into the motor home.
    So when we get an opportunity, we are free to chase the dream! Look out Florida, here we come!
  4. tbutler
    Nitmiluk National Park is a small park just a few kilometers east of Katherine in the Northern Territories. The primary feature of Nitmiluk is the Katherine River which has cut a gorge into the rocks. The gorge is rather unique in that it developed as the rocks were lifted. With its path established prior to the rocks being lifted, it encountered resistant rocks and created a new path along the stress cracks in the rising rocks. These stress cracks are in a pattern with near 90 degrees angles between two systems of cracks. The result is a gorge which is a series of stair-step zigs and zags. In the case of the Colorado River, the meandering pattern of the river set the course for the Grand Canyon as the Colorado simply continued on its established course cutting deeper and deeper into soft rocks. In the case of Nitmiluk and the Katherine River, the rocks were very hard and thus played a role in establishing the pattern.
    Trails within the park provide access to viewpoints overlooking the gorge and the Katherine River. The river itself is navigable for short distances between falls and rapids so they have boat tours and canoe rental. There is no swimming in the river because of the crocodiles. That’s a good enough reason for me! We never saw a crocodile but I’m not going to put my toe in the water to test that observation.
    We spent some time in the visitors center. They had an excellent interpretative exhibit which explained a number of things we have noticed and/or wondered about. One of the most interesting was the information about termites and their role in the ecology of the tropical rain forest. Termites it turns out will eat the heartwood out of trees. The heartwood is the wood in the center which is no longer transporting nutrients and water to the leaves. In its place, the termites store organic matter which is another food source for them. This organic matter decays and fertilizes the tree. So as they attack the tree they are also beneficial to the tree. In addition, their hollowing of the interior trunk and branches of the trees results in hollow places in trees in which animals live. The exhibit stated that an amazing half of all mammals here in the rainforest live in cavities produced by the termites. But that wasn’t all, one fourth of all reptiles (think lizards) live in these cavities and one fifth of all birds in the tropics live in these cavities as well. The Aborigine used the hollow branches of trees to make one of their musical instruments, the didgeridoo. So, it turns out that termites aren’t all bad. At least when they are not attacking your house! As an aside, the utility poles in this part of the country are all metal poles, there are no creosote soaked poles here. My guess is that a wooden pole wouldn’t last long with the abundance of termites that exist here.
    Other exhibits showed the scientific explanation of the formation of the gorge as well as the Aborigine legends about the formation of the gorge. This was particularly well done with an exhibit that displayed both sets of information on a ribbon with one side being the science and the other being the legend. The entire exhibit area was one of the best and most informative that I have seen anywhere and I told a staff member just that.
    After exploring the exhibits we hiked to the viewpoint closest to the visitors center. Starting the hike we were greeted by a huge flock of fruit bats hanging in the trees along the river. These were the same kind of bats we had seen a month before near the visitors center in Boonah as we wound up our trip on the New England Highway. Here they were in their native habitat in the northern rainforest. Just as before they were flapping trying to keep cool on a bright sunny day. We noticed that they stopped their flapping and their noise stopped as soon as a cloud blocked the sun. It was an amazing change in behavior with just a little cloud.
    Continuing the hike, we climbed up the cliff face on a series of metal stairs followed by more stairs cut into the rocks. The rocks were fascinating with alternating layers of sandstone and conglomerate. Some of the sandstone looked like the sandstone at Uluru while the conglomerate reminded us of the Kata Tjuta.
    Eventually we reached a platform built out on the edge of the cliff overlooking the gorge and river. From there you could see both upriver and downriver along a good stretch of the gorge as well as looking out over the landscape in the area around the river. This was the lower end of the gorge so looking downriver there was quite an expanse of land visible.
    Just uphill from the viewing platform was a canvas shade with a bench. We made that our picnic area, breaking out a simple lunch, we had a great view, shade from the sun and a nice breeze on top of the hill. The trail continued on past the water treatment plant and water storage tanks for the drinking water at the park offices and campground. From that location we were overlooking the entire developed complex of the park.
    The trail followed the access road for the water treatment system back to the main park road and the visitors center. Hiking along the road we enjoyed flowers, rocks and birds. All these were new and different from what we see in the US as well as what we have seen here in Australia. The heat of the day began to affect Louise so we had to slow our progress and take advantage of the available shade. We had plenty of water with us so there was no emergency but we have a new rule now, no hiking if we aren’t on the trail by 10:00 a.m. The mid-day heat gets to be oppressive. Perhaps this will abate, this is fall in the southern hemisphere but in the tropics there are really no seasons like we are used to at the mid-latitudes. April is the beginning of the dry season here, referred to only as the Dry. That will last until August when the storms from the Pacific and Indian Oceans begin to bring rains to the area. That is known as the Wet.
    Our hike concluded at the visitors center where we found ice cream and cold drinks and air conditioning to drain away some of the heat of the hike. Returning to the campervan we changed into cooler and dry clothes and then returned to camp for a good shower.
  5. tbutler
    Here is another question. In a recently posted picture the ground looked rather dry, not the lush green paradise that many imagine for New Zealand. Let me assure you there are many places that are lush and green. The North Island and indeed much of New Zealand has experienced a rather dry summer. They are quite a bit behind their normal rainfall. So farming areas are dry. The moist rainforests, protected by shade from trees holds moisture better and tree roots help the forest absorb almost every drop of water that falls there. Right down the road from the picture of the farm on the shore is a forest preserve. The picture with this posting shows that green forest, it makes quite a contrast.
    There is a rainy season as well. It varies in different parts of the world but winter and spring here will be wetter than the summer or fall. I mentioned in a previous post that this is hurricane season in the southern hemisphere. Hurricanes and tropical storms will deliver large amounts of precipitation this time of year but they are hit and miss and everyone pretty much is rooting for a miss on that rain.
    Louise and I had compared some of the places we were seeing with what we are used to seeing in California during fall visits when the hills are a golden brown color. Some areas here look like that right now. There is some irrigation here but not too much. We have seen only a few of the large sprinkling systems that are common throughout the prairie in the US.
  6. tbutler
    We started our first day on the New England Highway with a visit to the yellow i. That is what I call the visitor’s center here which are identified on the blue signs with a simple i for information. Many of these are commercial operations, others are operated by the community. I suspect that if you pay the state or national government your money, you too can be an i. They all have a variety of brochures on the local activities and some regional activities. They tend to be pretty parochial, having only those things nearby and the brochures do not include brochures from other states even when they are relatively close by.
    Tamworth’s claim to fame is a country music festival which is held in town each January, early summer here in Australia. It started in 1972 with a local radio DJ putting together a small gathering of local country music stars. Held on a weekend, it attracted a good crowd so the festival grew. Today, they have a 10 day festival, two weekends and the week in between. The festival is now held at several locations throughout town and people come in flocks to see big name stars including many from the US. The town hosts the Australian Country Music Gallery of Stars with the great ones recognized with wax statues. Tamworth is also an equestrian center with the Quarter Horse Association and Appaloosa Association headquartered in town.
    We visited with one of the aides at the visitor’s center who could have talked all day about the country music festival. When we left, we decided to walk around town. There was a walking trail that started at the visitor’s center and ran along the top of the Peel River levee which separated the town from the river. At the campground we had seen pictures of the river in flood so we understood the need for the levee. On the town side of the levee was a park which included sculpture, gardens, memorials and fountains. As in many of the city parks we have seen in our travels this summer, the park was alive with people walking dogs, riding bicycles, mothers with children, elderly people walking and dozing. It was a wonderful cross section of Australian society.
    From there we drove north out of town on the New England Highway. Our first stop was at the top of a long grade about 15 kilometers north Tamworth. A sign indicated a scenic overlook. We turned off and were rewarded with a quite spectacular viewpoint. Unlike some viewpoints where you peer through the trees that have grown up, this viewpoint was a platform atop a 30 foot diameter boulder of granite. Built in 1938, it was a county (they call them shires) project. There were steps of concrete up one side of the boulder. Those led to two platforms, one at an intermediate level and another on top of the boulder. From there you could look out on the valley all the way back to Tamworth. You could see forests, fields, horse farms and small communities all laid out in this luscious green valley. We delighted in seeing a pair of Crimson Rosella, parrots with bright red bodies and blue, yellow and green wings and heads. They were cavorting in a tree right next to the intermediate platform. Parrots are fun to watch, they readily turn upside down and pick fruit or seeds from the trees. Their colors make them a feast for the eyes. Their calls will rattle your ears.
    We continued on enjoying the scenery along the road until we reached the town of Guyra where we stopped for the Mother of Ducks Wildlife Preserve. This was just off the road and sounded very interesting. Arriving there we saw that people were camping there. We joined them parking in the most level spot that we could find. This was free camping as it is called in New Zealand and Australia. There was no electric, no internet and no fee. Our campervan has limited battery and no generator so we would be going to bed with the chickens or perhaps I should say ducks.
    I enjoyed a walk around the area, following a stream channel for some distance before it looped back toward the camping area. I didn’t see a duck but heard a constant chorus of frogs. In the camping area I visited with one of the other people in the campground. He knew the area and told me that in normal times, the entire area here would be underwater but that this had been a very dry year and so there was a poor showing of ducks this year.
    This place turned out to be quiet and an excellent place to stay for the night. It was a warm night and we slept with the windows and roof vents open. In the morning the birds woke us. There are many noisy birds in Australia, crows, magpies, parrots and cockatoos to name just a few. We’re working to identify as many as we can and having a great time doing it. I spotted a small yellow bird working in the bushes near our campervan and was able to identify it as a silvereye. It’s identifying feature being a prominent bright white ring around its eye.
  7. tbutler

    Kaka Point

    By tbutler,

    As we drive on to the east, we are getting further south as we go. We are near the southernmost point of the South Island of New Zealand. The southernmost point is on private land and we missed the sign for that so we came close but didn’t get to that spot. One of my goals is to see penguins and we had already seen a pair at Curio Bay the day before. I woke Louise early this morning so we could get to Kaka Point in time to see the penguins leave their nests in the morning on their way to the sea to feed. We arrived just after 7:00 a.m. and met someone coming from the hide (a blind for spotting wildlife). They had seen several. We walked down to the overlook on the beach. From the hide I spotted several seals resting on the beach. There was little activity and the hide was quite cool early in the morning. Louise decided to return to the campervan.
    Now I was on a mission, I had to see at least one penguin or this early morning trip would have been completely wasted. I prepared the camera for taking pictures, I needed evidence to support any report I gave Louise about seeing a penguin. Another couple came into the hide and we talked briefly when all of a sudden, there was a penguin standing on the beach. It paused, moved closer to the surf. Soon it was hopping from rock to rock. Then it walked out onto the wet sand and into the surf. As it moved into deeper water it finally dove into the water and was gone. I had my pictures and now had seen a penguin in a completely natural setting. It was a yellow eyed penguin, the same we had seen the day before.
    From here the scenic route moves inland. We were now on our way to Dunedin, the second largest city on the South Island. We were now on a mission for Louise. Dunedin is the home to the Cadbury Chocolate Company. They have factory tours and she wanted to take the tour. We arrived at noon and were quickly signed up for the 1:15 p.m. tour. Our guide called us shortly before that time and formed up our group. We were escorted into the factory after being suitably outfitted with hair nets and other protective clothing. The tour took us through the factory. Some equipment was operating, other was idle. We were given the history of the Cadbury Chocolate Company and information about chocolate refining and the basics of chocolate manufacture. If we answered questions correctly we got a candy bar! We also got samples of candy, some to be consumed on the spot and others for our pleasure later.
    At the end we were ushered into a large vertical tank that was at one time used for storing chocolate crumb. The tank is now empty except for some equipment. It was moved from its former location when the plant expanded. Even though they had no use for it now, it was a landmark with the Cadbury name across the top of the tank. A very expensive, very large sign. After our guide arranged everyone we were treated to a liquid chocolate waterfall as one metric ton of liquid chocolate poured from above into a large funnel. As this pour started they took a photo of the group. That is Louise in the blue shirt. She obviously enjoyed the sight of so much chocolate pouring down in front of us. It lasted about 20 seconds before it slowed to a dribble. Our guide explained that they do this “because they can.” That liquid chocolate will never be used for any product, it is used for demonstration only and what a demonstration it was!
    Leaving Cadbury we returned to the campervan which was parked in a street parking spot. We had better than an hour on our parking pass so we decided to take a look at the train station which was only a block away. We found a train tour that looked interesting and booked that for the next afternoon. That done, we headed for the TOP 10 Holiday Park in Dunedin.
  8. tbutler

    A Day of Exploring

    By tbutler,

    Our summer has been one of little travel and few activities beyond medical care. Fortunately, this has not been life saving medical care. The medical care was more like quality of life care. My left knee was replaced on June 2 and my right knee replacement was done July 28. As a result, I haven't been getting out and about as much as normal.
    Exploring has been a big part of our life since we started living full time in the motor home. We've traveled all 49 RV states and most of Canada. Along the way we drive, hike and explore our surroundings. This summer we have missed that activity until this last week.
    With the healing well under way, I'm becoming more mobile. A fellow camper here at Goldstrike Village in San Andreas where we are staying mentioned that California highway 4 was a wonderful scenic drive into the Sierra Nevada mountains. Having nothing scheduled on Friday we decided to explore that route.
    Our first stop was in Angels Camp to drop off our water pump at the UPS customer center. It's going back to the factory center to be repaired. Leaving Angels Camp our next stop was at Murphys to top off the gas tank, always advisable when heading into the mountains. From there it was a steady uphill drive. The highway is excellent here with a good stretch of new pavement that hasn't been painted yet. We stopped for lunch at Bristol's Ranch House in Big Trees, a fair sized town near the state park of the same name. Louise had the special for the day, stuffed peppers and rated it first class. I had one of the best French Dip sandwiches I've ever had. Prices were reasonable and we were able to eat outdoors on the deck and enjoy the nice weather, sunshine and comfortable in short sleeves and shorts.
    Leaving Big Trees we were headed into high country. We passed up Big Trees State Park wanting this to be a thorough exploration of highway 4. The state park is close enough to our base that we can visit it another day. Once we are at higher elevations scenic view points start popping up. We stopped at several, enjoying the view taking pictures and doing some light hiking. The first stop had just a short trail out onto the white granite bedrock. At the second stop we found longer trails through a feature named H*ll's Kitchen. The granite bedrock was strewn with granite boulders weathered from the native rock. I guess you could picture it as a very messy kitchen.
    We walked around the whole area taking our time and plenty of pictures. This was my first real experience with rough terrain since my surgery so I was slow and deliberate. My right knee is just nine weeks old and I'm still favoring it a little when it comes to up and down grades. I was also being sure footed when picking my way along the trail. Scattered over the landscape are giant sequoia trees which dwarf the tall pine trees among them. Still, these are not the true giants which are found in the state park and further south in Sequoia National Park. It felt good to be back out on a trail.
    As we left this area we passed a sign for the Spicer Meadows Reservoir on the Stanislas River. Louise asked if we could drive to the reservoir and I agreed. It was a ten mile drive into the valley on a smaller, unmarked road through some spectacular scenery. There was very little traffic and one hardy bicyclist on the road. We took our time and enjoyed the ride. The reservoir is beautiful with the surrounding scenery being truly spectacular. I've seen the California reservoirs dreadfully dry in past years but this year the level was quite good for the end of the summer. We walked onto the dam as far as the Department of Homeland Security would allow, then drove below the dam to hike to a view of the generator housing and discharge pipe which feeds the Stanislas River below the dam. There was a full flow of water coming from the six foot diameter discharge pipe and additional water coming from two active generators. This put out a nice spray which the wind drifted to us from time to time. We enjoyed viewing the resulting river rushing downstream as we walked over a low bridge.
    After returning to highway 4, we continued on east toward Pacific Pass and Ebbetts Pass. It was now getting late in the afternoon. As we drove the road narrowed and became serpentine. The road was entirely unpainted, not even a center stripe. Signs cautioned snow plows not to continue past the point where the road narrowed. They also indicated permits were needed for vehicles over a certain size. This was going to be true mountain driving. We continued on for about a half hour, passing over Pacific Pass and descending to the bridge over the North Fork of the Mokelumne River. We had about an hour of daylight left. I elected to abandon further exploration so we could return over the narrow steep curving road in the daylight. We had already had a pair of deer stare us down and there were sure to be more as darkness descended. Besides, who wants to drive on a narrow snake of a road in the dark with oncoming traffic. No thank you!
    We made it all the way back to the town of Big Trees before stopping for dinner. The final 30 miles back to Goldstrike Village were done in the dark but on much better road. We had seen some spectacular scenery, walked among some of the big trees. I felt like an infant that had taken their first steps, I was going to get better and we would be returning to our life of exploring.

  9. tbutler
    Thursday, February 27 would be our last full day in New Zealand. On the top of our list was turning in the campervan. We packed up all our belongings in our suitcases and I dropped Louise at the Sudima Hotel which is right at the Christchurch airport. The Britz office was just around the corner, walking distance from the hotel. The process of turning in the campervan was much easier than I had anticipated. Being there early helped. The agent dig through several dozen contract packages before pulling ours from the stack. One customer ahead of me had just finished his paperwork. I waited about three minutes for my turn to begin the process. While waiting, I placed a number of food and cleaning items on a shelf that Britz has for people to leave any leftovers. As I pulled items from the bag Louise had put them in, several were picked up by people browsing the shelves of items left by others. One lady had a nice stake of items set aside and eagerly took the bag I used to bring in our goods. It is a nice way to share left-over goods with others who are going to be stocking their campervan.
    Once the agent was free, I turned in my keys and my original contract. He looked up the Britz paperwork and set about noting the date, time, mileage, etc. Then he went out to the campervan and I expected a return with a list of things that needed to be remedied. Upon his return he said the campervan looked good and our deposit would be returned. This was a pleasant surprise. In all, I probably spent 15 minutes getting paperwork taken care of and then was out the door on the way back to the hotel. Our bags were stored and we settled into a couch in the TV lounge to wait for check-in time to arrive.
    We have been a month without TV and the TV was on CNN News. The volume was muted so we could only read the trailer to see what was in the news. Louise asked a hotel employee if the volume could be turned up and after three people tried we got sound. We learned of the issues with Russia and Ukraine as the issues were reaching a crisis level. We also caught up on much other news from a US source. Louise had packed a lunch with some of our last supplies from the campervan and we consumed that while using the hotel wi-fi to catch up with e-mail and other internet business.
    When the 2:00 p.m. check-in time arrived we were allowed to go to our room. We spent much of the afternoon working our luggage into air travel condition. Checked baggage weight limits and restrictions on what could be in our carry-on baggage dominated our efforts to get everything packed properly. With no scale to weigh luggage, we simply had to work from feel. Once that was done we had a relaxing dinner in the restaurant and then turned in for the night. Our flight was scheduled for 6:00 a.m. the next morning so we set the wake-up call for 4:00 a.m.
    The wake-up came plenty early. We dressed, gathered the bags and headed for the lobby. As promised the shuttle driver was waiting for us and we were off to the terminal. I had missed the weight on the checked bags by 2 kilograms. I pulled several heavy objects from one bag and put them in the other and we were good to go. Our flight took about 4 hours and we were in Melbourne at 8:00 a.m., two time zones west accounts for the difference in time. Processing through customs and collecting our baggage took about an hour and then we contacted the shuttle which had been arranged by our tour service. We waited about 40 minutes for the shuttle to show up. The ride to our hotel, The Ibis Hotel in downtown, took about 30 minutes. We were there before noon and check-in time was 2:00 p.m. so we put the bags in storage and went to find lunch.
  10. tbutler

    Upside Down and Backwards

    By tbutler,

    We arrive in New Zealand at 6:30 a.m., two days after we left our house. Where did that day go? Crossing the date line erases a day. We are actually 19 hours ahead of Central Standard Time in the US. As I explained to our children, it means we are 5 hours behind their clock time so imagine moving the clock back five hours, and then turn the calendar ahead one day! Actually we are on the same day from midnight to 5:00 a.m. in the Central Time Zone. What about other time zones? Well, it is 18 hours difference for the Eastern Time Zone and 20 for Mountain Time and 21 for Pacific Time. When daylight savings time goes into effect we all effectively move east one time zone so adjust accordingly. What happens here in New Zealand? I have no idea. That is why I came to explore this strange land. I’ll tell you when I find out.
    As everyone knows, when you are in New Zealand and Australia, you are “down under.” It takes special concentration and great toe strength to hold onto the Earth and keep from falling off. Yes, we really are upside down. I saw the constellation Orion one night and the Great Orion stands on his head in the southern hemisphere! His sword is pointed up toward the zenith, overhead and his head is low on the northern horizon. In the northern hemisphere his feet are toward the equator and his head is near the zenith.
    The real thrill is to watch the water go down the drain. I haven’t been able to observe this just yet. The drain in the campervan sink is so slow that I could fall asleep before it finally drains out, no spin there. The toilets are water conserving toilets, there is no swirling to the water, just a strong splash and everything is gone. Another thing to be resolved. I can tell you that the rotaries do rotate in the opposite direction!
    Both New Zealand and Australia are former British Colonies. Despite being half a world away, they decided they would follow Great Britain’s model and drive on the wrong side of the road. This creates great confusion particularly in my mind. Knowing this they have taken special steps to ensure that everyone drives on the wrong side of the road. They have neat little blue signs with arrows to show you which side of the islands and barriers in the road to drive on. Every place you enter the road from a side road they paint large white arrows on the road showing which direction each lane is traveling. Clearly we need to work on the US roads and include these arrows to help remind our drivers where to drive.
    It is funny (and sometimes not so funny) to learn to drive completely backwards from how you have driven all your life. I worked for days just getting the position within the lane correct. I’m on the right side of the campervan. Constant reminding from Louise has moved me from the line at the edge of the road toward the center line. Louise insists that the line at the edge of the road is near the edge of the world and in a few places here it really is! When I turn off the road into a parking lot I revert to driving on the right side! Then there are the one lane bridges, come off the bridge and my first instinct is to go right – oops. I have tried to be at my most humble when being corrected by Louise. She has after all saved me several times by pointing out my mistakes. She will not take the wheel, at least not yet. Maybe I’ll find some remote road in Australia and convince her to take a turn at it. It is an experience that no one should miss.
    One of the best things I did before we started the trip was to order the map sets for New Zealand and Australia for my Garmin GPS. I ordered a hard copy as opposed to downloading it from a web site. It arrived in the form of a mini-SD card that simply plugs into the side of the GPS unit. On that tiny little chip is an amazing array of information. I could have rented a GPS here but that would mean learning how another unit works and we all know how painful that is. I have my familiar GPS, I know how it works and am able to use it to its full potential. It is just so wonderful to have step by step directions in a strange country with confusing city and street names, unusual traffic patterns such as rotaries and then learning to drive differently than in the past. Having those directions has taken one mental strain off my mind allowing me to concentrate on my driving. I think we have had to pull over to consult a map or check directions a couple of times. Otherwise, we just get in and drive to our destination. I have found it to be quite accurate and complete with parks and tourist sites usually in the data set. I switched it to read in kilometers and it gives distances, speed and speed limits.
    Of course it is summer here in the southern hemisphere. February weather here is the equivalent of August weather in the US. You no doubt have read or heard of the weather in Australia and the intense fire season they have had there. We aren’t in Australia. We started the trip in New Zealand which is an island nation. The ocean is within a one hour drive from most of New Zealand and the climate reflects that. We are using our heater at night to take the chill off the night. Daytime temperatures are in the 60’s, 70’s and a few 80’s.
    One of the mind-bending backward features of the southern hemisphere is that when you travel south the weather gets cooler. Go north to warm up! In fact when we are on the north shore of Australia we’ll be well within the tropics (in April and May, think October and November weather in US) and will see tropical rain forests at or near the end of their wet season. This time of year is also typhoon season. We get alerts from the US State Department regarding travel safety including notices about typhoons and tropical storms near where we are. What great service!
  11. tbutler

    Franz Josef Glacier

    By tbutler,

    Franz Josef Glacier is the name of a town and the name of the glacier itself that lies just a few kilometers from the town. We stayed at the TOP 10 Holiday Park in Franz Josef Glacier, the town. It was a pleasant enough park, clean facilities. When we got ready to go in the morning, the campervan would not start. The battery had been drawn down by the headlights so we had to call for a jump. We called the 800 number the rental company had given us. After some discussion it was determined that we were covered for the service call so it would not cost us anything. Someone would be out to help us within an hour. Louise left to do laundry while we waited. The service man arrived in about 50 minutes and we were ready to go before the laundry was done. That was fine, we had instructions to run the engine for about 30 minutes before shutting it off. Our first destination of the day was just a few minutes away so we might as well wait for the laundry.
    The Franz Josef Glacier is approximately 12 kilometers long and is melting away fast. The viewpoint today is where the terminus of the glacier stood in 2008, just six years ago. Now from that viewpoint you can’t see the terminus, it lies at the end of a tongue descending from an ice fall several thousand feet above the viewing point. The whole terminal end of the glacier is so fragile that tourists are kept off the glacier except for the very upper reaches which can be visited by helicopter. Still, it is worth going to see as it obviously isn’t going to be more easily accessible for the foreseeable future. Glaciers are the ice cube in the cold drink which is our Earth. When they are gone what will keep the drink cold? To me it is frightening to see ice disappear at this rate. This is of course true all over the Earth, in Alaska, in Greenland, in the Arctic Ocean and in Antarctica.
    Our walk from the parking lot to the viewpoint took about 40 minutes. There were several beautiful waterfalls along the way. Walking up the river flowing from the melting glacier we can see some of the rocks which melted out of the glacier in the past as it retreated its way back up the valley. Some of these boulders are the size of houses. As the mountainside is cut away, rocks fall onto the glacier and are carried along like riding on a conveyer belt. When they reach the terminus the ice melts from under them and they come to rest at that point. If the glacier begins to advance it will push the boulder ahead of it, otherwise the rock sits where it melted from the glacier. Rocks of this type are common in the upper Midwest of the US in the region once covered by the ice sheets of the ice age. They are called erratics. They are almost always a different kind of stone than the bedrock in the area, having been transported from some distance away. You will see them out in the middle of fields or in front yards of homes. Wherever you find them, they are evidence that ice once existed here.
    Leaving the glacier we drive a short distance to Fox Glacier. It is now raining again and we are not going to hike to the glacier in the rain. We did make a short stop to investigate several shops looking for a hat for Louise. We found one in the second shop we visited.
    We continued on to a small village of Haast. Not much to see here but a good overnight stop. The folks at the TOP 10 Holiday Park were friendly, efficient and put us into a powered site. The restrooms and kitchen were in a large Quonset hut. It was modern construction and was absolutely beautiful inside. The restrooms were some of the nicest and cleanest we have seen. They were even heated which was nice now that we are getting further south and in the mountains along the west coast. Temperatures are in the 70’s during the day but drop into the 50’s at night. The weather remains dry, we’ve only had two days with enough rain to stop our activities so far.
  12. tbutler
    I shall attempt to share some personal impressions of the culture and people of New Zealand. New Zealand has a number of things that remind me of the US in the 1950’s. Traveling through the small towns and rural areas is a distinctively different experience than traveling in the larger cities. The larger cities have motorways which are similar to our limited access highways with high speed exits and entries onto the highway much like ours. There are even some access ramps in Auckland which have metered entry onto the motorway, stop lights which permit one car to go through every 10 or 15 seconds to keep from having a strong flood of cars all trying to merge into traffic at the same time. In the rest of New Zealand roads through towns are very much 1950’s US in that they go right through the center of town with all the local traffic, businesses and foot traffic. Unlike the US today, downtown businesses are thriving here. We drove through a medium size town on NZ 1, the highway that is the backbone of New Zealand. It was Saturday and people were everywhere doing their shopping downtown. Once out of town traffic dropped off and became much more scattered than in town.
    We brought a small radio with us for keeping up with the goings-on around town. We don’t have TV so this is our entertainment source, listening to music on the radio and a little news and lots of commercials. The commercials are funny, all the small town ads you remember from years ago and can still find in some rural areas of the US. The announcers vary from really casual to polished professionals. One station which has lots of 60’s and 70’s US tunes has an evening announcer who thinks out loud as he is giving weather or news information. It gets to be comical when he begins to critique the weather report! That station is syndicated and has been on the air in a number of South Island towns. In other areas we are lucky to get any station at all. Much of the music here is from the US and as Louise pointed out today in the grocery, the entertainment magazines all have US movie stars on their covers.
    The radio has helped us learn New Zealand speak. They use many of the same words that we do but have a peculiar way of pronouncing them so it sometimes takes a few seconds to figure out what you just heard. The classic is aluminum which is pronounced as the British do, al-you-MINNY-um. In addition, they have a number of terms which are purely local. Carts in the grocery store are called trundlers or trollies. These can cause you to make some assumptions about what was said or to call a time out for an explanation. We met a nice fellow at our first stop. He said he had a business and described it but I didn’t understand what it was. Later his wife was talking to us and mentioned that her husband was a metal beater! She said that she didn’t know what our term for it would be and I guessed auto body and was correct. They call them fender beaters or metal beaters! I wonder what they do with all the fiberglass in autos.
    The people are delightfully fastidious. The facilities where we have stayed are always quite clean. The restrooms are universally tiled with ceramic tile and scrubbed clean. Many places provide cloths to wipe down counter tops after you finish shaving, brushing teeth or just washing. A few even provide paper towels in the restroom at a separate sink in the toilet area. I’ve never found a restroom that didn’t have soap in the soap dispenser. The above is true for the restrooms that I’ve used in commercial establishments as well.
    New Zealand presents a real opportunity for dentists, we have met any number of natives who are missing a considerable number of teeth. I don’t know if it is the rugby, their diet or simply a lack of good dental hygiene but teeth don’t seem to last into the sixties and seventies. It doesn’t seem to be a part of the culture to have implants, partial plates or false teeth to replace the missing chompers.
    Today I picked up a community paper. We are staying in a small town, Fairlie, located on the Canterbury plain inland and southwest from Christchurch. We are about a 2 hour drive from Christchurch. The Paper is published under the banner, The Fairlie Accessible. It is published twice each month and I have the January 29 issue. Printed on standard size copy paper and stapled twice on the long edge, it looks like a school newspaper might. It has black and white photos throughout with the exception of the cover which is green paper so the photos are black and green! I could write a whole blog entry on any one of these articles. I have had an afternoon of humor just reading through this paper.
    One of the cover stories, “Fairlie men in Firefighter Sky Tower Stair Challenge tells about two local firefighters training for the race up 51 flights of stairs, 1103 steps to the top of the Sky Tower in Auckland in full firefighting kit. It is a charity event to raise money for Leukemia and Blood Cancer New Zealand. A local fundraiser is announced for February 16, now just a week past. The closing paragraph reads: “Please come and support this event organized by Mayor Claire Barlow and Heartlands Fairlie. Bring along some money to donate – some coins for the kids to give to teach them how it’s done – and bring your tea! Let’s help get them up the stairs!”
    There is a quarter page real estate ad in the paper that advertises three homes in the community, one at $179,000 NZ has a heat pump and reconditioned coal range! Another is listed as quirky and is yours for just $215,000 NZ. The third is a “warm and spacious low maintenance home” and lists at $289,000 NZ.
    There was a small ad space on the inside of the last page that didn’t sell. That space is filled with a poem that starts off, “The computer swallowed grandma.” Use the link above and you can read the whole poem. Like I said, I could write a whole blog entry on any one of these articles.
  13. tbutler
    After five weeks at home we packed the motor home and set out to touch base with our families. The motor home fix-it list needs some attention so we'll try to get some of those items taken care of on this trip as well.
    Ten years of sun and wind have taken their toll on the awnings on the windows. The fabric is fraying and seams are disintegrating. My plan was to have them replaced locally on our way out of town. I contacted our local RV repair shop, listed as a dealer on the Carefree of Colorado web site. I gave them the appropriate information but never got to talk to the parts department. After several days expecting a return call, I called again. This time I talked to the parts department and they said that our awnings had been discontinued. I asked some questions about alternates and prices. When the information wasn't forthcoming I decided to stop by the shop and talk to them personally.
    When I arrived the parts man was off taking care of personal business. I talked to the office assistant that I had called the first time. In the course of our discussion I found that the part number I gave them didn't match the part number the parts department had researched with Carefree of Colorado. The office assistant had the correct numbers but the transfer to the parts department had been fumbled somehow. She called Carefree of Colorado and gave them the correct part number. Viola! They did have that item in the inventory. I could get exact replacements. So they were ordered. I told them I wanted the shop to do the replacement and I also needed a state inspection. Both were scheduled for the day we were leaving town.
    A week passed and I called to find out the status of the replacement awning fabric. After checking with Carfree, the assistant called me back to tell me they hadn't been shipped yet. She said they wouldn't arrive in time to be installed before we had to leave. I gave her my daughters address as a shipping address. My daughter e-mailed me that they arrived there the day we left town. I guess I'll install them myself. By the way, the motor home passed the Texas State Vehicle Inspection.
    I've dealt with this repair shop before and had positive experiences. The shop foreman retired last year, the office assistant moved up to manager and a new assistant was hired. It is summer in the Rio Grande Valley and the shop was looking pretty idle, a few RV's in the shop but not the time of year when they are usually busy. Most RV's flee north in the spring, taking their owners with them. I didn't see the new manager until I came in for the inspection. I never saw the parts man. The office assistant seemed to be doing most of the work. Will I continue to count on this shop for parts and repair work? Maybe once more just to see if it really is that bad or was this just a fluke?
  14. tbutler
    Our last day in Broome was a beach day. We drove to the beach about 11:00 a.m. and parked the motor home on solid sand at the upper part of the beach. Cable Beach is a large beach that stretches from near downtown Broome on the west coast for twenty kilometers. We were on Gantheaume Bay on the Indian Ocean. Waters were quite warm and the surf was mild, waves less than two feet made for a fun beach.
    There were vehicles all over the beach, many with boat trailers. This was a great swimming beach but locals also used it as a boat launch. It was interesting to watch them launch and trailer their boats from this shallow beach. But first, we wanted to get into the water. There are crocodiles in this area and most areas with crocodiles have strong cautions about staying out of the water. The reading we had done on Broome indicated that crocodiles were not a concern so we anticipated being able to swim here. There were several couples wading in the surf so we inquired. They were local and said there was no problem. So in we went, walking, wading into the mild surf and then getting out into deeper water to swim. We left the US in January and hadn’t been out in the water swimming since then. Under the tropical sun I called a stop after about 20 minutes. We retreated to the campervan and set up our chairs in the shade of the campervan. Louise fixed lunch and we had a light lunch.
    There was a steady breeze and warm temperatures which made for a great afternoon of people watching from the shade of the campervan. We saw boats being trailered while in the water with a tow rope to pull the trailer from the water. Others would back their four wheel drive out into the surf and load the boat onto their trailer at that point. It was still necessary for someone to wrestle the boat onto the trailer and pull the bow down until the ratchet could be used to draw the boat into its travel position on the trailer. One of the most unique was the boat that had three wheels, two at the stern and one on the bow. Once the boat was in shallow water, the wheels were lowered and you just drove the boat onto the shore. It could be driven forward or backward, it was steerable and if someone wanted to join you just lift the wheels until the boat was sitting on the sand. Once your passenger joined you the boat could be put back up on its wheels and driven into the surf to go out once more.
    Besides boats there were many sunbathers and swimmers. In mid-afternoon a couple of wind surfers showed up and they entertained us for the rest of the afternoon. A few people brought their dogs to the beach and let them run in the surf. Late in the afternoon one of the water jet devices arrived and we watched the operator rising up into the air supported by jets of water sprayed from nozzles on the platform they stood on. If you haven’t seen this device, it has a pump that floats on the water and is connected to the operator’s platform by two hoses and a control cable. The hoses connect to two nozzles which spray water down which raises the platform with the rider. It is sometimes referred to as a James Bond hovercraft.
    As sunset approached everybody and their dog showed up to watch the sun set over the bay. With the sun fading we went back for another swim then returned to the chairs to wait for the grand finale. We were not disappointed as there was a fine sunset over the water.
  15. tbutler

    California Girls

    By tbutler,

    After our stay at the factory service center in Oregon, we are now in California staying with our daughters family in the Gold Hills south of Sacramento. We come here every fall to take care of the two girls, age 6 and 8. Their school is on a year-round schedule and they get a break this time of year. Mom works in another school district which has a different vacation schedule. Dad has a varied night work schedule. So we take care of the girls for a week. It saves them money for child care or a babysitter and we get to know our granddaughters better.
    We've been here for one week, the week before our babysitting duties. The girls have been in school and we've been free to do some shopping and relaxing. There are no RV parks near where our daughter lives. For a number of years we stayed at a park about 20 miles away. We tried several parks over the years but none was convenient and we were often driving home in the dark. Last year the kids put in a 50A outlet and we there is a water faucet about 50 feet away and a sewer connection. Life is so much more convenient when we are living next door.
    We've had an opportunity to go with the girls for their gymnastics lessons. They have been attending classes for several years and they are showing nice improvement. It is fun to watch them develop their skills. The girls love to visit the motor home. They find excuses to come visit us when we aren't at the house. We keep a store of coloring books and drawing paper to entertain them. There are some other toys and games and they enjoy those as well.
    Both the girls are in 4-H and we will take them on a 4-H field trip to Apple Hill next Wednesday. Apple Hill is a fall festival area for children. There are dozens of apple orchards, wineries and farms. In the fall they all market their wares, pumpkin patches, corn mazes, petting zoos, and a host of other activities for children. For adults there is food, a pleasant outdoor shopping and recreation experience and a place to entertain the children. We've taken the girls in the past. This year it will be part of a larger group. Both Louise and I have done many field trips with children when we were classroom teachers. This will be a flashback experience for us.
    Today we went with Mom and the girls to the Grape Stomp in the town of Murphys. Each year they hold a festival to celebrate the grape harvest. As part of the festival they hold a grape stomping contest. This is "I Love Lucy" grape stomping. There are two person teams, one person stomps the grapes and the other moves the grapes and pushes the juice out the drain to a collecting bucket. Each team is given 5 gallons of grapes, freshly harvested, still attached to the vines. The grapes are in a half barrel which has a one inch drain. Contestants are sometimes in costume, sometimes just shorts and t-shirts. They have five minutes to get as much liquid as they can from their 5 gallons of grapes. It is as much fun for the spectators as for the teams. Louise posted the girls near the stage so they could see the action. They were close enough to catch some of the splattering juice from one of the teams! We only watched one of the preliminary flights of contestants. There were over 50 teams competing in the contest this year.
    The main street of Murphys is lined with vendors and all of the wineries in the area have their tasting rooms open. In the park where the contest is under way you can purchase a souvenir wine glass and there are many wines there to be tasted as well. With the girls along we didn't do much wine tasting. As the designated driver my job was to entertain the girls while the ladies tried some of the wines. We brought home three bottles of wine. The girls enjoyed wading in the stream that flows through the park. They met several of the dogs who were also enjoying the cool water on a warm afternoon. They spent some time touring a real old-time toy store. It had all the great stuff many of us remember from the neighborhood dime store. I resisted my impulse to steer the girls toward some of the musical toys even though mom refused to pay for my silence! We all had a good time.
    We've taken the girls on trips in past years and this year will be no exception. We're going to take the girls on a trip to Oregon. Mom and dad have a family vacation house not far from the Oregon coast and they will spend a week at the vacation house. We'll take the girls in the motor home for the trip to Oregon. It will just be a two day trip, no special destinations, just a road trip in the motor home and the girls will be thrilled with that. After we spend several days with the family we'll begin our trip south for the winter.
    There are so many ways that having a motor home enriches our lives and the lives of those we love. We truly are fortunate to have this wonderful home.
  16. tbutler
    Friday brought the end of the FMCA International Convention in Bowling Green, Ohio. Everyone was up and moving early. Neighbors said good-bye, caravans formed up, a few wise individuals sat in lawn chairs and watched the parade of motor homes. The electric was shut off as I was winding up my cord. We were away a few minutes after that. The parade out of the campus was orderly and didn't take long at all. The police were manning the signal light to ease our way onto the highway.
    Louise and I set out for Fremont, Ohio and the Hayes Presidential Museum and Library. We were the second motor home to arrive at the museum. The RV and bus parking was back in only so we circled through the parking lot and found a spot to park along the road. I checked in the office and they said that would be fine. A little while later motor homes 3 and 4 pulled onto the grounds. Apparently there were four people who wanted to sign up for the tour during the convention but the tour was canceled due to lack of interest. We had a lovely tour of the home. The Hayes home is quite stately. The museum was interesting as are all Presidential Museums. There was a special display of the gowns of the First Ladies which Louise thoroughly enjoyed.
    Leaving there we were headed for an RV park near Bellevue but found the park to be less than expected. We cancelled out of our reservation costing us the fee for a one night stay. It was a misunderstanding. We asked for full hookups with the expectation that included water, electric and sewer. At this campground, full hookups meant water and electric. Somehow that was never conveyed in the conversation. We called ahead to the campground we planned to stay at near Salem, Ohio and they had a site for us so we traveled on. Two and a half hours later we were welcomed into Chaparral Family Campground. It is Christmas in July here. Everyone is wearing Santa hats and decorations are up all over camp. Santa arrived this morning in a fire truck!
    We have just been joined by friends who will be traveling with us for the next few weeks. We will visit a number of our winter Texan friends as we work our way to the northeast. We'll work out our plans as the trip continues. Tonight we're doing dinner out with one of our friends from Berlin Center, Ohio. RVing makes great lasting friends!
  17. tbutler
    Our travels this year have been delayed by family illness, a trip with grandchildren, a broken awning, a Monaco International rally and the FMCA International Convention. So it was almost the end of July when we began our summer travels. We will have to return to Missouri to take care of painting the awning we had replaced. We'll head west to California by the end of September and be in our winter resort by the first of November. So we get about six weeks of travel this summer.
    Like all people, we fall into habits. We're used to traveling at a leisurely pace, doing sightseeing for a day or two and then just spending some time around the campground to do laundry or fix a problem item on the motor home. We've learned to rest once in a while just to catch up on sleep. A good rainy-day do nothing day never upset our schedule in the past. There was always something to do indoors. We never had a definite schedule, just a general agenda for the summer. In a good summer we would even tack on an additional stop or two between family visits.
    We hardly ever play golf in the summer but we've played once a week for the last month. Tennis is a winter sport for me but I've managed several matches in the last month. Louise has had several days of card playing. It has been fun but not our normal pattern. In past summers we visited a few friends for a short while then resumed traveling. This summer we are visiting at least 10 of our friends and relatives. When we travel we seldom visit cities. This summer we'll stop in a string of large cities, we are outside New York City right now. Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa are all on our itinerary.
    So this summer we'll experience travel in a different way. I think of it as vacation mode, travel for those whose time is limited. I know real vacationers would love to have six weeks but we've modified our travel plans several times to fit in as much as we can while keeping the quality of our travel. When we read the blogs of others on this site, we feel extremely lucky to be able to travel at all. We are, after all, among the most fortunate people on earth to be able to live this lifestyle. Carpe Diem
  18. tbutler
    Noumea is the capital of New Caledonia. It is the largest city in these islands and has many multi story buildings in the business district and also condominiums and apartments in buildings up to ten stories high. Located on the island of New Caledonia is a large port with shipping facilities as well as docks for cruise ships. We were within walking distance of the city center. Within sight of our ship was the major portion of population and in the opposite direction a large nickel smelting operation. Nickel mining is the heart of the economy of New Caledonia.
    We had two days in port in Noumea. During our stay we took two guided tours on the island. The first was a tour of the botanical garden and bird sanctuary. We were driven by bus to the garden and then toured on foot with a guide. French is the first language of the people here but many including our guide also speak English. We were introduced to a number of trees common on the islands and also saw many of the birds which are common here as well. Other than the waterfowl, the birds were all caged. Louise and I took our binoculars which we found to be very helpful in observing the birds, even those in the cages. Tropical birds have such wonderful colors we enjoyed being able to see them as best we could. The binoculars help by gathering more light which makes the colors more vivid. Even birds in the shadows show nice color in the binoculars. Of course they also help us see more detail that would be missed without magnification.
    The first evening in port in Noumea we were entertained by a local group performing native songs and dances in the theater on board the ship. A troupe of five women and four men entertained us for about 40 minutes. They had two guitars and three ukuleles, all other instruments were made of materials used by the indigenous people. It was a high energy performance with men dancing for one number and then women dancing for the next.
    Our second tour was the following morning. We were taken by bus to a park on the Dumbea River just a few miles outside Noumea. There we were given instruction on kayaking before launching our kayaks for a trip upstream. With about 10 kayaks in the group, we were a small enough group to see and hear our guide throughout the trip. The Dumbea River is a source of drinking water for the city of Noumea and is known for its wildlife. At our put in point, the river is near enough to sea level to be partly salt water but as we move upstream it is all freshwater. After about an hour working our way upstream, we stopped. Those who wanted could swim, we and another couple chose to continue kayaking on upstream for a short distance. This allowed us to get away from the large group and move more quietly. We saw several flocks of birds and some ducks on this part of the trip. We were back at the ship by lunchtime. Having developed a good apatite during the morning, food was welcome. We spent the rest of the afternoon on the ship. At 6:00 p.m. we left port sailing for our next stop in the Fiji Islands.
  19. tbutler
    Our trip to California had one commitment, taking care of our two granddaughters, ages 5 and 3, during their two week school break. The school is on a year round schedule which explains the vacation this time of year. We look at this as a special privilege of grandparenthood.
    Monday we stayed with the girls at their house. Tuesday morning Dad dropped the girls off on his way to work. The girls would be ours for three days and two nights. Mom had several night events at the school where she works. Dad's schedule runs in 12 hour shifts. We'd save traveling to and from and the girls get the fun of staying with us in the motor home.
    All of our grandchildren think that the coolest thing about our motor home is that the couch folds out into a bed. We have wheels, a big engine, we can go anywhere. We have satellite TV, satellite radio, hot running water, cold drinks in the refrigerator, air conditioning and heat on demand. But none of that matters ... the first thing the girls want to do is turn the couch into a bed! It's ten o'clock in the morning and they want to turn the couch into a bed.
    We had plans for the day, a trip to the local zoo and amusement park, Micke Park in Lodi, California. After two weeks of near 100 degree weather, the weather has been rainy and cool this week. We arrive at the zoo after several attempts to navigate an area with roads that have been rerouted after our GPS data. There are about a dozen cars in the parking lot. We pay to enter, where are the restrooms? We enjoy walking through at a child's pace. Check 'em off, eagle, snow leopard, turtles - yawn, baboons - he-he!, iguana, doves and ibis. Thirty minutes later, we're leaving the zoo.
    The attendant at the zoo had told us she didn't think the amusement park was open but a short walk and we found the open gate. The young man who sold us the tickets for the rides left the booth to be the train engineer for our first ride. This is a small amusement park, the most challenging ride is the scrambler which grandpa rides with the girls. They both love the scrambler. The girls ride the cars, the airplanes, merry-go-round, the strawberries and the fish. Along the way the girls make friends with a boy who is here with dad. They exchange names, become friends in an instant. They are the only three children in the amusement park. The two boys who are running the entire park today take turns escorting us all from ride to ride.
    There is a Japanese Garden so the three children and adults go to see the carp swimming in the ponds. The girls love fish and enjoy watching the carp, marveling at all the interesting colors and patterns. Did I mention that dad is an avid fisherman and the oldest girl has a stuffed fish that she sleeps with? Yes, as in a mafia novel, she sleeps with the fish! The fish was with us this morning, waiting in the car while we enjoyed the park. Both girls give their new found friend a hug goodbye and we're off to the parking lot.
    Lunch comes next. We're off to Denny's where the girls start with a trip to the restroom. They order kid pizzas and smoothies. And yes, there is another trip to the restroom for both. We need a quick stop at Wal-Mart which turns into another trip to the restroom for both girls. Boy, grandma is getting a real work-out doing restroom duty. A quick stop for gas and we're on our way home. Day one comes to an exciting close as we fold out the couch into a bed! The girls sleep well through the night.
  20. tbutler

    Therapy

    By tbutler,

    We have been in Missouri visiting our children, grandchildren, my mother and other friends. Our visit has been punctuated with numerous trips for repair of our motorhome. We've been in the shop three times now to get the Carefree awning properly installed, painted and adjusted. Our KVH dish has taken two repair trips. An oil change and wheel bearing service took two trips. Each trip requires picking up and moving to the repair shop and then returning to base to set up house again.
    Normally we move once during this visit, from my daughter's driveway to my mother's driveway or vice versa. We got all our visits, friends, relatives and repairs done, but we were always under pressure to get from one place to the next. There were very few lazy days spent relaxing in the shade and listening to the birds.
    Today we had the final two maintenance stops. The Carefree awning had a pivot pin dropping out of the support arm. It was fixed in a few minutes by two techs who knew what they were doing. Then it was off to Clarke Power for the wheel bearing job. We got there early and checked in. Louise decided to stay in their comfortable waiting room rather than accompany me to the airport to sit in their pilot lounge while I did a little flying. She normally loves to fly if we are going from place to place, but today was "batting practice," as she likes to call it. The FAA says that if you make three takeoffs and landings in 90 days you can keep flying. In truth, the takeoffs are easy; the landings are the challenging part of the flight.
    I left for the airport early, a bonus for me. One of the rules for safe flight is to have your mind totally on the flying and not have distractions dividing your mental abilities. Safe flying is an exercise in mental discipline. It does require your total attention. Having the pressure of a time schedule causes pilots to cut corners and make poor decisions. These have a way of coming back to bite you at just the wrong time. So after considering the day's schedule and putting myself in a time box, I was having second thoughts about the wisdom of flying. Should I cancel and hope to fly somewhere else in the next two weeks?
    At the airport, I took my time preparing for the flight. It was my first flight since getting checked out at this airport in June. Once all the preparation was done, I climbed into the cockpit and began to run through the checklists. Flying is serious stuff. You can't just say, "Wait a minute, I'll pull over here and look at the map." Everything has to be at your fingertips so you can stay mentally ahead of the airplane.
    I took off from the incredibly rough runway and flew to a nearby airport with better runways to make several landings. The first landing was not my best. That is why we practice. The second and third were better. Now I had to return to land at the home field, that rough, narrow runway.
    I made a wide circle over the countryside to enjoy the view. I'm flying out of St. Charles, Missouri. This is the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Everywhere I look I'm seeing flocks of white pelicans, some on the water, other flocks in flight. Thousands of white pelicans were on their way south to our winter home in south Texas and the Gulf of Mexico. Over there is a huge tow with its barges making its way north up the Mississippi River. Water is everywhere, with two major rivers running near full. It has been a wet summer in the Midwest and the rivers show it. This is one of the major perks of flying. I love the scenery. Even dismal places look awesome from 2,000 feet in the air.
    Landing at St. Charles Municipal airport, I am on my game. I make the required soft field landing to save the nose gear from the abuse it would get on this rough runway. If I touched it down at high speed, the relatively fragile nose gear could be damaged. It takes a fine touch to keep the nose wheel up but not so far up that it brings the plane up into the air again. I was pleased with the landing.
    I taxied to the ramp and parked the plane. Once all my belongings were gathered, I stepped out of the Cessna 172 and as I did, I realized that I hadn't thought of the motorhome once in the last hour and a half.
  21. tbutler

    Sydney is Vivid!

    By tbutler,

    With this entry, we are clearly outside the realm of motor home experience but the remainder of our trip started with almost three months in the motor home so I'll finish off the last three weeks just to give the story an ending. We've flown to Sydney after turning in the campervan at Britz in Perth.
    When we checked into our hotel they gave us some information about a festival starting in Sydney on Friday night, the night we arrived. It is a two-week festival of lights, sound and ideas. There are 60 exhibits set up around town with various kinds of visual activities. Some are large like the projection of lights on the Sydney Opera House and others are small like an exhibit with a camera that you looked into and it put your face on a wall. Your face was altered and blended into a colored spot. The exhibit was called Graffiti Me. There were simple things like a light tunnel to walk through. Others exhibits were very complicated. An exhibit downtown near Circular Key projected a cartoon image with clouds, lightening, rain and a light bulb cartoon character walking across the walls of several skyscrapers. The ferries in the harbor were lit in coordinated constantly changing colors that matched the color on the ferry terminal. Other boats were lit in a variety of colors.
    We went down town to the famous Sydney Opera House to tour the building. Louise would have liked to see an opera there but the season doesn’t start until July. When we arrived to tour the building there was a huge crowd with more arriving every minute. This was the opening night of Vivid Sydney! Our tour of the Opera House lasted until sunset. Before the tour was over the building was the palate for ever changing patterns and colors. Once outside we enjoyed watching many of the exhibits. As we walked back to our hotel I took pictures of some of the exhibits and the city at night. Crowds were huge throughout the city with throngs of people walking everywhere.
    We stopped for dinner at Gallagher’s Irish Bar and continued our walk back to the hotel. Part of the way we walked through Hyde Park, a very nice park with lighted fountains and wide well lit walkways. At one point another person stopped to photograph something. I looked and they were taking pictures of a possum. These are much different than the Opossums we have in the US. They look more like a squirrel. We saw a second, a female with a young one on its back. By the time we arrived home it was late and we had pictures to process and needed some down time to relax before turning in for the night.
  22. tbutler

    The Best Laid Plans

    By tbutler,

    On Friday, January 24, 2014, just five days before our scheduled departure for New Zealand, we stopped on our way into the park to pick our mail. In the mail was a summons for jury duty for me, Tom. Oh, Great!
    I read the information carefully. The report date was scheduled for after our departure. There was an information sheet to be completed and returned within 5 days. It was possible to submit the information by computer, so I logged on and filled out the required information. At the end were a series of reasons that would exempt me from jury duty. None of them mentioned New Zealand or Australia!
    There was an opportunity to request a postponement, so I checked that. Then it wanted a date for the postponement. I submitted June 23, a week after our planned return. That was accepted immediately, no questions asked. I was told I would get a confirmation e-mail within a day or two. On Tuesday I called to confirm that they had indeed received my information as no e-mail ever came. All was good, I was free to go.
    January 29, 2014, arrived and our much-anticipated trip was under way. We left the house at 5:00 a.m. on the way to the airport for a 7:00 a.m. flight. Our friends Bill and Laura drove us to the airport. It is a 20- to 25-minute drive to the McAllen, Texas, airport. There are four gates for commercial flights, so the long security lines at some airports are usually not a problem here.
    We approached the access ramp to US 281 South, only to find the ramp closed. This was odd, we’ll just go on to the next ramp, who knows what the problem could be. The next ramp was also closed. Hey, there is no one on the highway. Well the temperature was near freezing, there was a light drizzle and no one in this part of Texas has a stock of salt to deal with ice nor the equipment to spread salt if they did have it.
    We had to take the trip through town and found the ramps on the expressway, U.S. 83. also closed. As we approached the airport, the street crosses U.S. 83 and that overpass also was closed, so we had to detour onto the access road and cross under the highway and return to the street to the airport. This was absolutely crazy.
    Guess what, we got to the airport and our flight was delayed. The 7:00 a.m. departure would now be leaving at 11:00 a.m., maybe! We checked bags and cleared security and waited. As we waited we began to see the news reports from Atlanta. Yes, this was the day of the great highway disaster in Atlanta.
    Obviously, the road officials in Texas were watching the news and decided to head off their own disaster. That was why all the major highways and overpasses were closed. Our plane was coming from somewhere in the southeast and weather was delaying it also. Louise investigated and found a connecting flight in Houston that left later than our original but allowed us time to get to Los Angeles in time for our flight to New Zealand. We made all connections with no further complications.
    At 9:10 p.m. on January 29, 2014, the Boeing 777 pushed back from the gate and we were on our way. The flight was scheduled to arrive in Auckland, New Zealand at 9:00 a.m. on January 31, 2014. We would cross the equator and also cross the International Date Line.
    We arrived in Auckland at 6:30 a.m. thanks to a ferocious tail wind, more than 100 mph as we approached New Zealand. On the trip we had a seatmate who was making a return trip to New Zealand after going to the Netherlands to visit her mother. She was a delightful young woman, an educator and statistician working on testing and assessment in New Zealand. We had a very nice discussion as we were all waking up from our long flight. She suggested several things we should try to see while in New Zealand. Tomorrow I’ll share my first impression of some of the myriad of things that are different down under.
  23. tbutler

    On to Las Vegas!

    By tbutler,

    Picking up the story where I left off with the previous entry, we are on a trip from Western Oregon to our winter home in the southern tip of Texas. As I write this we have been at home for three weeks. Returning home means a flurry of activities which have now started to normalize. I'm back to writing...
    Leaving the Susanville area we continued south toward Reno, Nevada. Once across the California line the 55 MPH speed limit for vehicles which are towing is behind us. The speed limit rises to the regular speed limit for other vehicles. It doesn't sound like much but getting the speedometer up to 62 or 63 is significant when you are driving all day and on a trip of 2400 miles. At least it sounds and looks as if you are going faster. Counting utility poles goes just a bit faster! We take US 85 south through Nevada. We're through Reno in the early morning and a short jaunt east on I-80 to Fernley to US 95 South. A check with the Gas Buddy app takes us to a service station with diesel at 3.699 which looks really good after purchasing fuel in California and Oregon. Even Seven Feathers Casino in Oregon had diesel at $3.919. It is the 18th of October at this point and the fuel prices are dropping fast everywhere but on the west coast.
    The traffic is really light south of Fernley and there are long stretches of flat straight road that allows faster traffic to easily pass. We cruise on with the occasional slow section through a town. Towns are few and far between on this section of highway so it is generally easy traveling, just keep it between the lines. Cruise control is my standard mode of travel in situations like this. Death Valley lies just to our west and we see highways that lead into the National Park. Our first RV trip west in 2002 we spent three weeks exploring Death Valley and we still have fond memories of that trip and the time in Death Valley. We are talking about our rate of travel and possible stopping points as we travel along. As sunset is approaching we are near Las Vegas. I'm thinking that Las Vegas would be a good stop, we just need to find a good place to stop. Louise starts checking with campgrounds for rates and availability of campsites. We spent last night in a rest area and the truck noise has me wishing for a nice quiet RV park for Saturday night.
    In our quest for our first choice of campgrounds we took a wrong turn and ended up taking a tour of part of southern Las Vegas. While turning around we were on several side streets and passed the pawn shop that is featured on Pawn Stars. We also briefly followed a truck painted with advertising for the Machine Gun Experience. We passed another campground that advertised overnight RV sites and ended up spending the night there. We had water and electric and a good nights sleep. In the early morning we paid for our stay, checked out and continued on our way. Before we left Las Vegas we fueled up at a nearby station which had diesel at $3.659 per gallon. Because we are anticipating less expensive fuel around Phoenix we take on just enough fuel to get us to Phoenix with fuel to run the generator. Highway 95 continues south into California. US 93 takes us on across the Colorado River at Hoover Dam. The new bridge that bypasses the dam is a spectacular engineering project. We've crossed the dam many times while the bridge across the canyon was being constructed. Our last few trips have been over the bridge which is an equally spectacular trip. Large vehicles are instructed to drive the center lanes, presumably to avoid strong winds which frequent the canyon.
    From the Hoover Dam we continue on US 93 to Kingman, Arizona. Here we join I-40 for a little more than 20 miles before US 93 turns south directly toward Phoenix. The desert scenery is spectacular along the way. Part of the route is designated Joshua Tree Forest Parkway of Arizona. Saguaro cactus are common sights along the southern part of this route. Once in Phoenix we used Gas Buddy to find a station with the lowest cost diesel in the area. It was a small station but the pumps were accessible so we pulled in and filled the tank, 95 gallons at $3.259, the least expensive fuel of the entire trip. To get to the station we were on city streets for about 2 miles south of I-10 and then the return to I-10 was about 5 miles to the east. The distance was almost exactly the same, we simply went south then east while the interstate went east and then turned south toward Tucson. Approaching Tucson we saw dust clouds as a storm whipped the area. We pulled off the highway briefly to let the fury of the storm pass then continued on in Tucson. We pulled into Wal-Mart on the north side of Tucson and spent Sunday night there after receiving permission for our stay.
    Up to this point we have been fortunate to have very comfortable temperatures for traveling and with clouds we've had one of our better trips. When it gets really hot we turn on the roof air conditioners to keep the interior comfortable. On this trip we're using the vent air and occasionally the dash air conditioner. Overnight temperatures have been comfortable with only a little light duty from the heater. Even in Las Vegas and Tucson we found the overnight temperatures comfortable.
  24. tbutler

    Gems Everywhere We Go

    By tbutler,

    We've been on a discovery tour for the last month. We left familiar territory at Coulee City, Washington. Traveling south we decided to stop in Yakima. The decision was more about taking a breather than exploring. We had arranged to have our mail delivered there and we decided to stay a week just to catch our breath and wait for a service appointment. So we played golf at one of the most beautiful golf courses we have ever seen. Apple Tree Golf Resort is a resort housing development in an apple orchard. You play a hole or two and then drive through the orchard to the next hole. You are encouraged to help yourself to an apple from their trees. There are fountains in the water hazards, a waterfall beside the 14th green, flowers everywhere and the 17th hole par 3 has a tee 60 feet above the green. But the 17th green isn't just any green, this one is surrounded by water and shaped like an apple with a leaf-shaped sand trap on the left top of the apple and a bridge to the green on the right top that makes a stem. So there is a gem we weren't expecting.
    On the way to Yakima we stopped at a scenic overlook on the Columbia River. Information at the overlook mentioned two dams on the Columbia just below that area, Wanapum Dam and Priest Rapids Dam. It also mentioned Ginkgo State Park and petrified wood. So that became a Sunday outing for us. The first stop was Ginkgo State Park where a wide variety of trees were petrified in a shallow lake. Petrified logs were discovered by a geologist in the 1920s. During the depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) helped excavate the site and built a visitors center to display some of the logs. There are dozens of logs at the visitors center, many pieces of petrified wood inside and some logs left in place and protected that can be viewed by hiking over the area where they were found. It turns out that the number of tree species at this site are larger than at any other petrified wood site in the United States. There are also petroglyphs which were relocated to the park when the dams flooded the area where they were located. Gems on top of gems here.
    We had packed a picnic lunch and ate that before hiking the 2 mile trail around the park grounds to veiw the logs that were left in place. Then we drove south to view the two dams. Wanapum Dam is named for the Wanapum Indians who lived in this area. Their fishing grounds were displaced by the dam and the visitors center highlights the tribe, its heritage and traditions. The museum is well worth a stop. The dam itself is undergoing remodeling and is not open for tours at the present time. Construction also kept us from seeing the Priest Rapids Dam from close range. Both dams were sending large amounts of water over their spillways. This only happens when there is much more water than they are able to hold back or send through the turbines to generate electricity. The scenery along the Columbia River in this area is spectacular, the Hwy 243 runs alongside the river which is in a steep sided coulee. Further south, Hwy 243 joins Hwy 24 which takes us past the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, site of one of the first nuclear reactors. Hwy 24 also takes us back to Yakima and gives us another surprise. As we approach Yakima we see huge fields of hops, a key ingredient of many if not most beers. The fields here are extensive, I estimated that there must be something like 8 to 10 square miles under cultivation here. Yakima was giving us surprise after surprise.
    We left Yakima traveling Hwy 12 which runs between Mt. Ranier to the north and Mt. St. Helens to the south. A short scenic drive bring us to Chehalis, WA. Chehalis is a small town on I-5 about 80 miles south of Seattle. We wouldn't have thought to stop there but that is where Cummins NW has a shop which could do repair work on our generator and the chassis air conditioning. We've been working on the air conditioning repair for almost two months. The generator quit on us several weeks ago. We got an emergency appointment for the generator at Cummins in Billings, MT. They found the problem and patched up some burned wires but they didn't have time nor parts for a proper fix. We had the parts for both repairs sent to the Chehalis location and had an appointment for the repair. Trent welcomed us and got work under way. We had one of the most welcoming friendly experiences we've ever had at any repair facility. Trent kept us informed on progress and explained the repairs. Our stay in Chehalis before our repair appointment was at the Riverside Golf RV Park. We were parked backed up to the first hole with a screen behind us to stop stray golf balls. We played the course, it is almost 100 years old and a challenging course. We had dinner on the deck overlooking the ninth green. The campground is a parking lot type campground. There are full hookups. You park on sturdy, clean concrete pads with gravel between pads. There are no other facilities, no showers, no playground (unless you count the golf course) and no store. We had a nice view of the road and the Chehalis airport. Being a pilot I wasn't complaining about that.
    After our day of repair we headed for the Glen Ayr Resort in Hoodsport. This beautiful resort is located on US 101 and Hood Canal which isn't really a canal. Hood Canal is actually a fjord, formed by a glacier, it is 60 miles long, several miles wide and as much as 600 feet deep. Our site was up the hill in the campground. From there we can see Hood Canal over the roof of the resort hotel. We are able to watch the boats and see the tides change from the motor home. We took a day to drive north on US 101 to the Walker Mountain viewpoint. You get a nice view of Puget Sound and Seattle on a clear day. Then we did wineries for a day. A scenic drive along Hwy 106 which borders Hood Canal led us to Belfair. We turned south to Shelton and then north again to Hoodsport. Along the way we netted a little over two cases of wine, stores for the winter. Olympic National Park is a primary objective of our trip and we finally made it when we drove from Hoodsport to the Staircase Ranger Station. A day hike with Ranger Jeff introduced us to the forest and streams of this wonderful wilderness park. Our last day in the area we drove to Olympia to see Paddle to Squaxin. This is a celebration and gathering of the Pacific Coast native Americans from Mainland Canada, Vancouver Island and the US. We watched as 94 ceremonial canoes arrived from as far away as southern Alaska. Rowing their large canoes for over three weeks, crews of 10 to 20 or more in a single canoe paddled into the harbor at Olympia for their final landing of the trip. The host tribe, the Squaxin people, welcomed the canoes with drumming, chanting and singing. The next four days there will be a Potlatch on Squaxin Island as representatives of many different tribes gather to renew acquaintances, much like an FMCA Rally!
    After a week we moved further north on the peninsula to the town of Sequim. We left the motor home at the Gilgal Oasis RV Park and took the Blackball Ferry to Victoria, BC on Vancouver Island. We have friends there and they showed us around the island for three glorious days. We visited art galleries and helped our friends open the art show sponsored by their art society. One day was devoted to a trip to the western side of Vancouver Island to see the Pacific coast. Along the way we saw lakes, mountains, forests and the town of Alberni which was partially destroyed by the tsunami from the 1964 Alaska earthquake. Our last day we visited the Kinsol trestle, a 1920's railroad trestle restored for the Trans Canada Trail. The wooden trestle built on a curve makes quite a spectacular sight. We finished the day in Parksville to see the results of the 30th annual sand sculpture contest. We ate well (perhaps too well) and had a great visit with friends. Our ferry ride back to Port Angeles led to our latest adventure. We drove west from Port Angeles to the town of Joyce. We enjoyed Joyce Daze and Wild Blackberry Festival in Joyce, Washington. A pancake breakfast served up by the Blackberry Princesses was followed by a tour of the history museum, visits to vendor booths and live music. We saw lots of classic cars but skipped the pie eating contest. We did conduct our own personal test of the blackberry pies and they were judged to be wonderful.
    We are looking forward to at least another month here on the Olympic Peninsula. We've already had a spectacular summer. I wonder what the next month will bring.
  25. tbutler
    This will be a short note to let all know where we are located and what conditions are in Riverton, WY.  On Saturday we set out from Fort Morgan, CO for Idaho.  We spent Saturday night at Little America, a fuel and food stop on I-80 in SW Wyoming.  Sunday morning I checked weather conditions along the line of totality and found the forecast for Riverton, WY to be about the same as Boise or Pocatello, Idaho.  Since Riverton was closer to Colorado where we would return, we decided to head for Riverton, WY.
    This morning I am up because the internet here was not accessible.  As I explained to a fellow camper, the local system was probably designed to handle 1000 connections and now it is getting hit with 10,000 connections.  Nothing works when the system is overloaded.  Anyway, back to Sunday morning.  As we left I-80 in Green River, Louise called a campground in Riverton.  They had a cancellation and we got a full hookup site.  We arrived about 2:30 p.m. and were welcomed to our eclipse home.  There are several astronomers in camp.  One couple we've met is from Belgium.  Our rate for two nights stay was well over double the rate posted on the office board.  The fee includes a pair of eclipse glasses, a mini moon pie (label says since 1917 how appropriate, 100 years old this year), tickets for a root beer float here in camp and also a Sunday night dinner.  So we get more than just a site. 
    The forecast here calls for clear skies but there will be patchy smoke from the fires in Oregon.  I saw some of that last evening.  Boise has clear skies - sunshine, no mention of smoke.  Pocatello has patchy smoke.  Casper, WY which was also on our option list has patchy smoke.  Our other option for viewing was to stay in Colorado at Fort Morgan and then drive to Scottsbluff, NE.  There the skies are forecast to be sunny.  When we made the decision to leave Colorado on Saturday the forecast called for storms in Scottsbluff. 
    We should see the eclipse, perhaps not under the best skies but it will be visible here.  There are a whole set of activities going on in the city park and the town is positively humming with activity.  There is even an eclipse shuttle.  They were well prepared for the crowds, everyone here seems to be well informed.  The casino in town has lots of dry campers and they have a program for those saying with them.  There is a county-wide newspaper with a schedule of all the activities going on and information about viewing the eclipse including times for a number of locations within the county.  It's going to be a memorable day.
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