Jamie's Travel Log

2010-09-04T20:14:00.076-04:00

2010 – Week 4

August 27, 2010:
It was a slow morning at the Alphas. Wed took the dogs for a walk to see if we could get them acquainted. It worked; by the time we returned home they were fine together. It helped that the Alpha dogs were males. The only animals that didn’t join the party were the 2 cats. We had lunch and went to the Corning Museum of Glass. We stayed for about 5 hours, after having been joined by Karen a bit after 5:00pm. Karen told us the late Katherin Hepburn was a member of the Houghton family, majority stockholders of Corning Incorporated. When we returned to the house, Nick, the younger son of the Alphas, was there, having come from NYC on his way to the family cottage in Canada. It was a late night (at least for me), and I finally crashed just before mid-night.

August 28, 2010:
Saturday morning, a school friend joined Nick, and they left for Canada about 10:00am. Jim drove us to Rockwell Museum of Western Art shortly after, and we spent about 2 hours there. This was another great museum of paintings, photographs and sculpture by artists, some of whom we had seen before and others new. The most famous were Charles “Charlie’ M. Russell whose museum in Great Falls MT we visited on an earlier trip. Jim picked us up and took us for a drive through the Corning area. He worked for Corning Incorporated for 33 years and has a great sense of history of the area. Most of the stock of Corning Incorporated is owned by the Houghton family and have strong ties to the area. They and Corning Incorporated were the driving force for rebuilding of the downtown when, on June 22, 1972, the remains of Hurricane Agnes started dumping rain in the area. By Friday June 23, 1972, dams on the Chemung River broke and the water crested in downtown at 9:00am. There are painted lines on the exterior windows of the Museum of Glass showing the height of the water at maximum flood stage. I think it is fair to say that without the support of the Houghton family and Corning Incorporated, the city would not be what it is today. Jim told us the story of some massive compressors that were on the loading dock of the Ingersoll-Rand Plant a few miles upstream that were swept by the flood through the town, crushing buildings and other structures. Eighteen people were lost in the floods and some of the buildings still have mud in the basements. We returned for lunch and then headed to Watkins Glen and Seneca Lake for a late afternoon sail and dinner. We saw the John Alden designed schooner Malabar VII built in 1926. No much wind, but still a beautiful sight.
Back to Corning for an early to bed.

August 29, 2010:
Leaving day, unfortunately. We had a terrific time, and Karen sent us off with a huge waffle breakfast with genuine NY maple syrup. Happily, no excitement on the trip home. We followed US15 that is slowly becoming an Interstate Highway. Northern PA, before we met the Susquehanna River, was beautiful with rolling green hills and trees. We stopped at a Wendy’s for salads and then arrived home at 7:25pm after traveling 262 miles. Into the house, open the windows, turn on the water, plug in the electrical cords, turn on the fans, turn on the stove, clothes dryer and hot water heater and then into the shower. Then to bed!

Summary:
This trip was very different from the ones we have taken in the past. We were on the road for three and a half weeks, drove only 1,480 miles as compared to 2008 when we traveled about 18,000 miles and were gone 6 months. The scenery is very different, and we spent most time focusing on ‘GEMS’ as identified by AAA. The Finger Lakes were the highlight of the trip, and we will go back to see more in the future. Thanks to all the friends who took us in. Your hospitality made a good trip a great trip.

2010 – Week 3

August 20, 2010:
A beautiful morning! Susie had the best sleep of this trip, and we hope she is finally winning the battle over whatever she has. The wind shifted to the northeast, and the morning temperature was 61º. We wandered around for a bit and had breakfast before leaving for Canton NY and the Antique Boat Museum. Let me say right now, if you are anywhere near Canton, you need to set aside about 3 hours to tour the facility. The facility not only displays old wooden boats, but several of the restored craft are operational and tickets can be purchased for an on-the-water trip.

Many of the small craft, lovingly restored, are rigged for sailing. There were gaff-rigged, Marconi-rigged, sloops and yawls. Many of the craft had wicker seats, a feature Susie loved.

We saw two skiffs that had a device known as ‘the disappearing propeller’. The propeller shaft has a u-joint that allows the propeller to enter a waterproof housing inside the boat when the skeg, attached to the strut holding the end of the propeller shaft, strikes the bottom and pushes the shaft, strut and propeller up into the waterproof housing. Neat!

There was an Indian dugout, stained a light blue color. In a separate building we saw the start of the restoration of the ‘Wild Goose’, the motor yacht that is the signature of the Museum.

There was a separate building showcasing the quest for speed and world records. The first record was about 20 knots and the highest speed about 340 knots.

We also had a tour of the Boldt family houseboat. It had sunk during WWII as the mahogany hull failed, but only the first floor was affected. The McNally family of Rand-McNally fame purchased the boat during WWII. He had a steel barge built and, through a complicated set of maneuvers, placed the houseboat (without the mahogany hull) on the new hull. He kept the houseboat for about 50 years before donating it to the Museum. We had lunch at Bella’s, on the St Lawrence River, hoping to see some shipping action, but there was none. For desert we went to another place that specialized in fresh pies. Susie had strawberry rhubarb, and I had blackberry. It should go without saying that both were a la mode. We returned to the campground to find that almost every empty spot was filled with new arrivals. Lots of kids and dogs, all trying to define their territory. Everyone loves Daisy and wants to pet her so they run to be the first. It was a nerve-wracking walk getting her to the water to burn off some energy as she had been in the RV most of the day. Tomorrow we drive about 50 miles to a one-night stand in another state park on the northeast corner of Lake Ontario.

August 21, 2010:
Woke up this morning to complete overcast and flat calm. Temperature was 64º. The families who moved in yesterday, were out in force, especially the kids. Bicycles, push scooters and almost any other sort of transport were roaring up and down the road. One mother hoped that her son would learn how to ride is bike without training wheels. She said it was the perfect place, no loose gravel or potholes. I made a comment to another mother, as her son roared by on his push scooter, that he was ‘a hoot’. She replied that he certainly was, from 6:30am to 8:30pm. I think she briefly considered giving him to us for a few hours so she could get some rest. We left the campground just before 11:00am and headed southwest on NY12, through Clayton to Cape Vincent where we discovered a Farmer’s (plus several other things) Market in the town square. There were three agriculture vendors plus the US Coast Guard Auxiliary, a lady with snakes and a huge (24” diameter) tortoise. One man had a snake draped around his neck. There was also a family with 3 llamas including one baby. Daisy was really interested in all these things, and many people were interested in her. There was a small art gallery, and Susie went in while I stayed outside with Daisy. She came out a bit later and told me that I should go inside to see the steel sculptures of trees without any leaves on the branches. They were terrific and probably worth the $900+ the artist wanted. During the War of 1812, American troops were encamped at Cape Vincent, plus many other towns along the St Lawrence River. I need to do some checking on the War of 1812 to refresh what little I really know about this conflict (aside from the Battle of New Orleans). Susie bought a woven basket for a bathroom, and not to be outdone, I bought a basket for the mail. We should have had the man who made them sign his work. Susie also bought some vegetables. It was a little bit early, but we decided to stop in a small shop for a light lunch that was very tasty. Back in the RV and head further to the southwest to visit the Tibbetts Point Lighthouse, first constructed in 1827 and reconstructed in 1854. It is not the first lighthouse into the St Lawrence River, but a very important one.

The drive along the shore of the St Lawrence River from Cape Vincent was slow and scenic. There were some wonderful old houses and other newer homes and cottages on the riverfront. Some of the newer stuff wasn’t so good, but most had terrific views of the river and the wind turbines in Canada. As we wandered through the Tibbetts Point Lighthouse complex we came to the foghorn building. As we entered the vacant building, a motion detector sensed our presence and the sound of a foghorn (muted) filled the building. Susie almost jumped out of her skin. We went into the Visitors Center and discovered a sheet showing the water levels and locks that make up the seaway from Duluth MN, passed Montreal and into the Atlantic Ocean. Now I can go back and check my facts in the earlier blogs. We left the lighthouse and headed south to Long Point State Park. This drive was different as it was away from the water. Farmland was everywhere, but the buildings were slowly falling into disrepair. We checked in and took Daisy for a swim before the rains started a bit after 5:00pm. We experienced a windstorm and rolled up the awning to prevent damage. We also brought everything inside that we could.

August 22, 2010:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO SUSIE! She woke up at 12:45am, so I told her then. It rained intermittently all night. We took showers, had breakfast and did some other chores. The most exciting moment was when I discovered I had planned to spend 2 nights at Long Point SP. A mad scramble on the telephone and with the local park people to see what could be done. We canceled the second night at Long Point, moved the reservation for Cayuga Lake State Park forward one day and added a one night reservation at Taughannock SP, a park we learned about from a fellow camper. We left Long Point SP, headed south and then west following the Seaway Route that runs from the intersection of VT, NY and Canada borders to the NY and PA border at Lake Ontario. We passed several War of 1812 sites and as I said before, I have some reading to do on this conflict. One of the prettiest views was the water around Henderson Harbor. They sail Lightnings there. It rained for pretty much the entire 47-mile drive. We checked in Cayuga Lake SP and even though it looked as if it would rain any minute took a walk to stretch our eight legs. It didn’t so we cooked hamburgers outside on ‘George’, much easier than over a campfire! The rains finally came a bit before 8:00pm. We had opened the awning so we had put everything, except the big plastic rug, under cover. A few mosquitoes infiltrated the RV. I finished the book ‘Blue Highways’ last night, so I now will listen to podcasts. I had been griping about not having a map in the book, but at the end, there it was. The author circled the perimeter of the Lower 48. We have been to many of the same places during our travels.

August 23, 2010:
We think it rained all last night. We were parked under the trees and the rain would collect on the leaves, but whenever there was a gust of wind, all the collected water came down with a crash. The good news is that there were no leaks. The steady rain stopped around 8:00am, but intermittent showers continued. We had breakfast, took showers and packed up to leave for a 32-mile trip south along NY89 to Taughannock Falls SP on the west side of Cayuga Lake. It was a nice gentle drive, and we were ale to see the lake about 40% of the time. There were numerous wineries along the lake. Must be something about the lake moderating temperatures during the growing season. We pulled in to the park and followed the signs to the Falls. It was raining pretty hard so the viewing was quick but the Falls were impressive. The water drops 215 feet and is the highest waterfall (33 feet higher than Niagra Falls) in the State of NY. We returned to the Park Office to check in and then went to our site. As it was still raining, we did some reading and took naps. Around 2:30pm we headed south on NY89 to Glenwood Pines Restaurant for lunch. The restaurant has received the award of ‘Best Burger in Ithaca” for several years. I had the burger and corn chowder soup and Susie had split pea and ham soup followed by something called corn balls. I would have said they were corn fritters, but they had corn kernels and were sweeter. The restaurant had several maps on the wall, and we were able to follow the water from Cayuga Lake (and five others) on its route north to Lake Ontario and down the St Lawrence Rive to the Atlantic Ocean. When we finished lunch, we headed back to the Park and decided that a walk would be a good idea.

We took the path along the Taughannock Creek to the Falls, a one way distance of 3/4 of a mile. As with all high falls, there is mist at the base and everyone came away wet. We returned to the campsite and found a father and son had set their pop-up camper and dining fly in our spot. When we got out of the RV, the father explained that the Park had given them the wrong spot and his wife was down at the Office trying to sort things out. Anyway, we took their space and they took ours and life is good. It looks as if the weather is trying to clear, but just cannot make it. We’ll just have to see what tomorrow brings. As I think back about the day, it seems that there has been more inept maneuvering of camping vehicles than we have ever seen. First, a there was a couple trying to place their trailer in site whose size was much more than adequate. It took them more than a half-hour. Next, there was a family trying to place an RV (a bit smaller than ours) in a spot that was also more than adequate. They went forward, backward, forward for a good long time, finally knocking over the electrical power pedestal for that site. Luckily, they didn’t knock out the power for the entire campground. They then tried for another 15 minutes trying to get the electric working. They couldn’t do it and left, only to return 20 minutes later. At that point we stopped watching. Tomorrow we may do another hike along the rim of the Taughannock Creek before leaving for Watkins Glen SP to stay for 2 nights.

August 24, 2010:
We awoke to clear skies after a night of rain. The family at the adjacent site, the ones who hit the electric box, must have leaks because they had placed a tarp over the top of their rig. While walking Daisy I saw a group of young ladies packing up their tents. They looked a bit wet, but still had their sense of humor. I talked to some of the other campers before we left the campground to take a 3-mile walk around the rim of the 400-foot deep gorge created by the Taughannock Creek over the last 10,000 years. Before we started the hike, we decided to take advantage of the sunshine and lower humidity to clean and air out the RV. Then it was time for the walk.

There were steps at the start and end of the walk to get us to the rim, and it was up and up until we reached the turn around spot at another set of falls when it was down and down. We saw several dogs, all but one friendly. We ran into a young lady who gave us some hints on photographing waterfalls. She told us that the top of the falls should be at the top of the picture, not in the middle. We tried, but we have to wait until we download the photos to see if we agree. After completing the walk, Susie took Daisy to the shore of Lake Cayuga for a swim. The water was clear and Daisy came out much cleaner than she went it. Susie made a picnic lunch that we ate on the edge of the lake, and then Daisy went swimming again. She should be a very tired dog tonight. We packed up and headed to Watkins Glen SP where we will stay for 2 nights. While the trip was only 27 miles, it was a bit circuitous as the glaciers not only scoured out the Finger Lakes but also left some serious hills running north-south. Since we were going west, it was up and down the entire time. Contrary to the trip down the lakeshore, most of the farming here was corn and soybeans and lots of them. The glaciers left some pretty remarkable and fertile soil in this area. We went into the campground, took showers and went to dinner at the Seneca Lodge, a recommendation of a local we met on the hike. My strip steak was delicious, but Susie’s lamb shis-ka-bob (spelling????) didn’t taste like lamb. Daisy will have some good snacks for breakfast and dinner. Tomorrow we’ll take another hike, this time through the gorge at this park.

August 25, 2010:
It was cloudy when we awoke and so we decided to start our walk as soon as possible. We parked the RV at the starting point and got organized. We took our raingear, and one person asked if I expected to get wet. I told him that if I took the gear, it would not rain. He shook his head and responded that he liked the theory. Off we went. It was one good view after another.

The gorge is awesome, and everyone we saw commented on the beauty. Lots of pictures. One of the boards along the walk indicated that 400 million years ago, the area was under water and the sedimentary rock we saw was created then. We ran into a couple whose RV was parked next to ours in the parking lot. They have been doing the same type

of trips as we have, and it was fun to swap stories. Their RV is a Winnebago View, the small M-B diesel powered vehicle that gets about 19-20mpg. Continuing upstream, we ran into numerous families; kids, grandparents, parents, etc. All were having a great time, but the kids seemed to be the most curious and excited about the falls. Another board indicated that this area was the point at which the North American and African continents had collided, creating vertical compression factures through the sedimentary rock.

There was no vertical displacement on either side of the fractures and that is why they believe the cracks were caused by compression. A railroad bridge was at the head of the gorge and another sign told the story of the destruction of the original bridge in 1935 as the result of large flood that piled debris around the center pier, located in the center of the creek, and then collapsed the pier. The 1935 flood created severe damage, but the CCC restored the Park. For the return trip, we decided not to take the trails along the rim because of our experience yesterday where everything we could see from top was better seen from the gorge. SUSIE AND I AGREE THAT THIS WAS THE BEST SCENERY OF THIS TRIP. We returned to the RV, changed clothes and walked through downtown to find a place to eat. As we walked through the downtown, it was apparent that this town is in desperate need of help. There are many abandoned storefronts and vacant lots. The Cargill Inc. plant at the south end of the lake seems to be the largest industry in town. There is a big motor sports industry here with NASCAR, SCCA, Formula 1and motorcycles using the track. The first race was held in 1948, and the sports cars used the public streets as the track. I was excited because the MG TC car from Britain was a big participant, and I had one of them when I was 16. They had the steering wheel on the right hand side, making it a bit hard to pass a slower car (probably going the legal speed). The engine was 1498 cc’s or 90 ci. Compare that to the size of SUV’s of today. It was a fun car to drive, and I wish I still had it. We walked back to the RV and returned to the campground, stopping at the restaurant of last night’s dinner. I went in and when the lady heard that I didn’t really know if the meat was tough because I hadn’t actually eaten it, I came unhinged. Nothing will come of it, but we won’t return if we are in this area again. Camping next to us is a group of bicycle riders who are on a one-week trip. They were here last night, and Susie talked to them this afternoon. They had just taken a 60-mile trip. That would have been OK for our son-in-law Brian, but not for us. The husband of the lady providing the logistical support was scheduled to ride, but he is home sick. I give her great credit for providing the support for the other riders. At 7:00pm, a car was driving around the campsites and a German Shepherd Dog was off leash and playing with the kids. The car hit the dog. There was a lot of wailing, but he seemed ok. We all hope for the best. Susie worked on taking photos of her drawings to post to her blog when we get home.

August 26, 2010:
The first thing I saw this morning on my way to the shower was the German Shepherd Dog that has hit by the car, or actually ran into the car. He had a bandage on hit foot, and was a bit groggy from the drugs. The emergency animal service here in the Watkins Glen and surrounding communities is provided by Cornell Veterinary Hospital. It cost the guy $500 but it was well worth it. We took our showers and went to visit my cousin Bea and her husband Yoram who live in Ithaca. We arrived a bit after noon and sat outside in their wonderful garden for a bit, catching up on old times. Bea served a luncheon that was wonderful. We were overwhelmed by the food and the hospitality. After lunch, I felt like I needed a nap, but Bea offered to drive us through Cornell University. The students were just back, and it was easy to identify the freshmen (do they call the females freshwomen?) because they were always looking at a map trying to figure out where to go next. Bea took us to the house where my great aunt Daisy Farrand lived during the tenure of her husband, Livingston Farrand, as President of Cornell from 1921 to 1937. We left Bea and Yoram at 5:15pm and ran into our first traffic jam as we were leaving Ithaca. Not a big one, but still our first. We headed southwest to Corning NY to stay with Jim and Karen Alfa for 3 nights. Karen was one of Susie’s classmates at the Penn Hall School in Chambersburg PA. On the way there, we passed through areas of rolling hills and saw a sign boasting that this was the glider capital of the country and offering rides. ‘Hmmm’ mused Jamie. We weren’t sure what we would find in the city of Corning, but it seemed clean and vibrant as we drove through. We arrived at Jim and Karen’s and tried to get the dogs introduced. Karen prepared a great dinner, and Susie and I slept in a real bed for the first time in several weeks.

August 28, 2010:

Saturday morning, a school friend joined Nick, and they left for Canada about 10:00am. Jim drove us to Rockwell Museum of Western Art shortly after, and we spent about 2 hours there. This was another great museum of paintings, photographs and sculpture by artists, some of whom we had seen before and others new. The most famous were Charles “Charlie’ M. Russell whose museum in Great Falls MT we visited on an earlier trip. Jim picked us up and took us for a drive through the Corning area. He worked for Corning Incorporated for 33 years and has a great sense of history of the area. Most of the stock of Corning Incorporated is owned by the Houghton family and have strong ties to the area. They and Corning Incorporated were the driving force for rebuilding of the downtown when, on June 22, 1972, the remains of Hurricane Agnes started dumping rain in the area. By Friday June 23, 1972, dams on the Chemung River broke and the water crested in downtown at 9:00am. There are painted lines on the exterior windows of the Museum of Glass showing the height of the water at maximum flood stage. I think it is fair to say that without the support of the Houghton family and Corning Incorporated, the city would not be what it is today. Jim told us the story of some massive compressors that were on the loading dock of the Ingersoll-Rand Plant a few miles upstream that were swept by the flood through the town, crushing buildings and other structures. Eighteen people were lost in the floods and some of the buildings still have mud in the basements. We returned for lunch and then headed to Watkins Glen and Seneca Lake for a late afternoon sail and dinner. We saw the John Alden designed schooner Malabar VII built in 1926. No much wind, but still a beautiful sight. Back to Corning for an early to bed. Leaving day, unfortunately. We had a terrific time, and Karen sent us off with a huge waffle breakfast with genuine NY maple syrup. Happily, no excitement on the trip home. We followed US15 that is slowly becoming an Interstate Highway. Northern PA, before we met the Susquehanna River, was beautiful with rolling green hills and trees. We stopped at a Wendy’s for salads and then arrived home at 7:25pm after traveling 262 miles. Into the house, open the windows, turn on the water, plug in the electrical cords, turn on the fans, turn on the stove, clothes dryer and hot water heater and then into the shower. Then to bed!
This trip was very different from the ones we have taken in the past. We were on the road for three and a half weeks, drove only 1,480 miles as compared to 2008 when we traveled about 18,000 miles and were gone 6 months. The scenery is very different, and we spent most time focusing on ‘GEMS’ as identified by AAA. The Finger Lakes were the highlight of the trip, and we will go back to see more in the future. Thanks to all the friends who took us in. Your hospitality made a good trip a great trip.

2010 – Week 2

August 13, 2010:
It was 61º when we started the day. Susie had a good night sleep, and it was a pretty restful day. I went up to the bathrooms (didn’t want to run the generator) and charged my computer while I read more of my book ‘Blue Highways’. This book is the one that ‘Travels with Charlie’ should have been. I have been able to follow the travels in the areas we have traveled, but Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana were challenges. Since Susie seemed to be feeling better, we took a slow 6-mile bike ride around the park. Daisy took a swim with me while Susie rested. Susie worked on her drawings. We bought firewood and cooked dinner of pork chops, beets and corn over the fire. The corn wasn’t over the fire long enough, but it was getting dark, and we were hungry. To bed at 10:00pm.

August 14, 2010:
It was 68º and more humid when we awoke. Susie had a bad night, and the morning was slow. As we were eating a pleasant and quiet breakfast, there was a loud roaring noise coming from the northeast. We never saw anything, but suspect it was some sort of fighter aircraft from Plattsburg Air Force Base. A bit later, I went down to investigate the possibility of renting a canoe; there were plenty available, but when we both went down to check the wind and waves, they were too much for us. Next activity was a bike ride on some trails through the Park. If there is one thing that drives us crazy it is the lack of information on park activities. Luckily for us, we have the GPS with a supplemental chip that adds some trails, but it is not enough. On our bike ride, we came to 2 dead ends without any warning. Anyway, we rode for a bit more than 7 miles and returned back to the RV for a late lunch and nap. We also heard another loud roaring (another aircraft?) but never saw anything. I started the fire with lots more wood than last night so dinner should be fast and more complete, or so we hope. We read, and Susie drew for the rest of the afternoon. I also took Daisy for a romp in the water. The lake is so shallow that she doesn’t really swim. Returning, I put the lamb chops on the fire. It was a delicious meal. I am getting the hang of it! Weather forecast talked about rain, but nothing. As it became dark, we listened to some podcasts before going to bed.

August 15, 2010:
The temperature was 68º when we got up. I took Daisy for a walk and then another swim. I am afraid that she’ll be really sore, but she loves the water. We decided to take another bike ride as the weather forecast is calling for rain and thunderstorms late in the day. We did 10+ miles and had a good time. The sky was mostly cloudy and that kept the temperature down. The wind was again from the south and the waves still a bit too much for canoeing, at least for us, but I did see some kayaks traveling near shore. I started another fire to cook burgers for lunch and that worked out well. More reading and as we were sitting at the site a small RV passed by pulling what I thought was a VW ‘Command Car’ that was imported into the USA 30 years ago. When we took our last walk of the day, we emptied the trash and then decided to find the car. It was in a campsite on the water, and turned out not to be a VW but a Citroen. Very basic without any safety features, an ideal vehicle for back roads. We also discovered a family camping using solar panels to recharge the house batteries in their trailer. It was a good discussion and now may be the time to incorporate that technology to avoid running the generator, which we did for an hour today. We discussed batteries, and told me that Consumers Digest did a report on deep cycle rechargeable and that the one we are using was at the bottom of the list. He gave me the name of the top-rated battery, which he is using. Since we have become convinced that we need to replace this battery, that’s what we’ll use. Daisy swam again from their campsite with the granddaughter throwing her a stick. When we returned to the campsite, we ate dinner and Daisy was given a pain pill in addition to her dinner. We think she’ll need more over the next few days. There was a light sprinkle so we brought everything inside to prevent it for getting wet. Just as we went to bed, there was more rain, but not significant. Tomorrow we check out of this campground and head north to the Messina area to visit the Eisenhower Locks on the St Lawrence River. We’ll also do some food shopping and clothes washing on the way.

August 16, 2010:
It rained last night, and I jumped up to check if anything was blowing in the windows. A bit, so I closed them, creating more heat in the RV that we wanted. Rain stopped, windows opened; problem solved. However, it was a good thing that we brought everything inside last night. At 7:00am, the skies cleared, and the winds blew. The temperature was in the low 60º’s. About an hour later, thunder and lightning with rain. We ate breakfast. A short time later it cleared again. We finished storing stuff, prepared the laundry for washing, emptied the waste and refilled with water. As we were packing up, a neighbor stopped by. He lives in the area but has special dispensation to stay in the Meacham Lack Campground for longer than the 14 days we common folk are limited to. He told Susie about what the locals say about the Adirondacks: “Black flies, deer flies, snow flies, summer”. It was 10:30am when we departed and headed north on NY30 to Robert Moses State Park near Messina NY. We’ll spend 2 nights there. We stopped in Malone NY, washed clothes, had lunch and went food shopping. From the amount of ‘chips’ Susie bought, it was a good thing she wasn’t hungry when we were shopping. She managed to get everything into the ‘frig, but I suspect some of the ‘chips’ I put away will be much smaller than when we bought them. I called our neighbors to see if there was any excitement at home and was told that there has been 7.5” of rain since we left home 10 days ago. Glad I got a big lawn mower. We continued north on NY30 and then west on NY37 through the Awkasasne Mohawk Reservation located on the US-Canada border. Gas outside the Reservation was $2.93/gal, but inside it was $2.80/gal. We filled up. We turned north on NY131 and headed into the Park and under the Eisenhower Lock on the St Lawrence River. We passed by the power dam, checked in at the Park HQ at 4:15pm after traveling 63 miles. At check-in, the Ranger said he was glad to see us, as he had to chase many people from our site, as it was the best one in the Park. We got there, and it really was! We are in Site 205 in the Barnhart Island Camping Area. For all you technical types, we are located at N45º00.627’ and W074º50.724’, about 50’ from the water and 300’ from the US-Canada border. It is blowing here so we may not have a cooking fire tonight but we’ll see. It is now 6:25pm and Daisy has been swimming twice since we arrived. The winds were from the northwest, the humidity was down and it was cool. Great sleeping weather tonight.

August 17, 2010:
It was beautiful this morning. Absolutely clear skies and light winds from the west that built as the morning went on.
After breakfast and Susie took Daisy for a morning swim, we decided that we would take a bike tour around the Park. We biked to the Visitor Center for the Moses –Saunders Dam that generates electricity for this part of the country. It also was, I believe, the reason that General Motors and Alcoa located plants here. The refining of aluminum takes huge amounts of electricity and cheap power is necessary for a profitable facility. The southern part of the dam is owned and operated by the NY Power Authority. The northern section is owned and operated by Canada. It was completed in 1961 and generates 2,515 megawatts of power for the US and the same amount for Canada.

We then turned around and biked to the Eisenhower Lock on the St Lawrence River. There is also the Snett Lock, the last lock of the project, a few miles further downstream. The construction of the power dam and the Eisenhower Lock required a massive modification to the flow patterns of the St Lawrence River and the construction of the Wiley Dondero Canal entirely in the US. All these modifications probably would be very difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish is these times with the tougher environmental laws. Not only were the power dam and the locks built, but also another dam, the Long Sault Dam, was built to close a branch of the river to divert more water to the power dam. The Eisenhower Lock looked small to us, having seen the locks at Sault Saint Marie, and it was the largest ship the Eisenhower Lock could pass was 740 feet in length and 78 foot beam. The Sault Saint Marie locks can accommodate ships of 1,006 feet in length, 106 feet beam. The Sault Saint Marie locks are the biggest in the system, but the boats that use them never go further east than Lake Erie. The dimensions of the locks on the Welland Canal that bypasses Niagara Falls set the dimensions of the remaining locks. The Welland Canal has eight locks with to compensate for the 326-foot difference in elevation between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. The bike ride was 16+ miles. Daisy was full of energy, and we weren’t. She swam and we tossed sticks for the longest time. Finally she settled. We had hamburgers over the fire and sat outside as the moon rose and the sun set. The few clouds were colorful. There is a family, looks like 2 sets of parents and one set of grand across the road from us. Lots of little kids and it sounds as if the stress level is increasing. Hopefully they will settle soon. The embers in the fire ring are bright orange, but it won’t last for long.

August 18, 2010:
We goofed off this morning before leaving the campground at 10:30am. It was very relaxing and what we needed after yesterday. We drove to Ogdensburg NY, following the St Lawrence River. We noticed the long lengths of dikes that were constructed to hold back the raised level of the river. The Canadian side didn’t seem to have many, if any dikes, and so the river just flooded the land. At Ogdensburg, we toured the Fredrick Remington Museum. I didn’t know much about Remington, but thought he was born a cowboy in the west and did most of his art out there. It turns out he was born in Canton NY, very close to Ogdensburg, and loved the country. Later in life, he lived in New Rochelle NY. He also owned a small island in the St Lawrence River where he spent the summers. In addition to his paintings and sculpture, he wrote and illustrated books. Teddy Roosevelt had him illustrate some of his books. I saw a large Tiffany grandfather clock in the museum and commented that we have one, not nearly as elaborate as this one, which was given to my stepfather’s mother as a wedding present in 1905. One of the guides was able to tell me that the Durfee Clock Works of Providence RI probably made the case for our clock. We had lunch in the RV and then went across the street to the Ogdensburg Library to catch up on mail. I decided to avoid the news. We pushed on and arrived at the Wellesley Island State Park (near Alexandria Bay NY) and set up camp. I made reservations for a cruise around the 1000 Islands and tour of Boldt Castle tomorrow. Daisy is sacked out on the sofa for the night. We met a family from the Chicago area, and they gave us some other places we should visit.

August 19, 2010:
When we got up this morning, the skies were clean and the wind from the southwest. The forecast is still calling for rain in the late afternoon so we think we made the correct decision on taking the cruise today and touring the Boldt Castle and boathouse afterwards. We left the campground shortly after 11:00am and drove to Alexandria Bay to pick up tickets and take a quick around a very touristy town. We had to park the RV way out of town at a spot they care ‘the desert’. I took the RV with Daisy and got her set up, tucked behind some large RV’s to protect her from the sun. The shuttle bus delivered me back to town. I couldn’t find Susie, but did find the ice cream shop. By the time Susie found me, I was halfway through the cone. She had scoped out most of the stores and didn’t find anything she wanted. We boarded the Uncle Sam Sightseeing Lines and started off on the ‘2 Nations’ Tour, a duration of 2.25 hours. We had a buffet lunch with the most awful ice tea I have ever had. We saw numerous houses that we just too much to imagine.

The skies were filled with large cumulus clouds and the winds still blew from the southwest. It was just delightful. At the end of the tour, we were dropped off at Boldt Castle. This complex was being constructed for Mr. and Mrs. Boldt as a summer place, but she died unexpectedly in January 1904, and Mr. Boldt stopped all work, never to return there again. The house and grounds fell into disrepair through several owners until it was donated to the Thousand Island Bridge Authority. Repairs are being made as money allows. All the entry fees and donations go to the repairs. The outside skin of the building was the first order of business, and it appears that the weather no longer is affecting the building.

Now to the inside. I would say that the 1st floor is about 80% restored and the 2nd about 50%. Falling plaster has been removed as needed and interior doors and woodwork have been salvaged for later use. We toured several of the out buildings, including the powerhouse for generating electricity and providing water to the home. The floor plans we saw had a very large, capacity unknown, water tank on the top floor so that there would be water pressure on the floors below. We boarded a small shuttle boat and visited the boathouse that was across the river. It was big enough to moor Mr. Boldt’s 100-foot long private yacht and the doors were tall enough that the masts could remain upright when the vessel was inside. It was also possible to raise the boat out of the water during the winter. The boathouse now has several restored power racing craft, and they are beautiful. One was 38’ long with a beam of 4’10” and had a top speed of 20 knots.

No much compared to today’s craft, but pretty good for the early 1900’s. There were also two 40’-50’ vessels built in the early 1900’s. They have also been restored. There were a few sailing vessels, also long and narrow. One sail had a Ratsey and Lapthorn label, confirmation of times long past. We discovered that Mrs. Boldt had a houseboat that was pulled by a tugboat. We were sure that the vessel must have been long gone, but wee heard that it is in the historical boat museum in Clayton NY, a few miles down the road and up the river. We were going there to kayak anyway, so a tour through the museum is a must. Hope the weather is as great as the forecast.

2010 – Week 1

August 6, 2010:
After a frantic day and a half, we managed to leave Howard Lodge Drive for our trip to the Delaware Gap NRA (National Recreation Area) located about 25 miles north of Stroudsburg PA. The trip was generally uneventful, but we didn’t always follow Gabby Garmin’s directions, especially around York and Harrisburg PA. We knew we were smarter and tried to go through Harrisburg PA on the Interstates, and it was a disaster! The next failure was Gabby’s fault as she had us going on US22 around the north side of Allentown PA rather than taking I-78 across the south side and then heading north. Susie made a great move while the traffic was stopped, but the driver delivering a new truck tractor took umbrage and blew his horn for a long time as we took a detour and got back on I-78 for about 20 miles, then north on US209 to Dingmans Ferry and Dingmans Campground where we pulled in at 6:00pm. The breeze was blowing and the humidity low. Daisy and I walked the campground and noticed that the Delaware River is low so our planned canoe trip tomorrow may not be as good as anticipated. Sleep came early, 9:30pm.

August 7, 2010:
What a wonderful sleep! It was cool and the surroundings quiet. There are no heavy vehicles allowed on US209, and therefore no truck noise. Susie took a run, and I took Daisy for a walk through the Delaware River along the edge of the cornfields. Once again, Daisy has been our chief ambassador with many people stopping to talk with us about her. We met a couple from Baltimore. We loaded up and were driven to the start point for the 8-mile, three plus hour canoe trip down the Delaware River. At the start, the wind was with us, but we soon discovered, without rhyme or reason, it could (and did) come from every direction

Only the current flowed south. Unlike our trips out west, there are deciduous trees everywhere, and the river scenery is refreshing. There were 2 canoe companies on the river so it was loaded, but the pullout point for the other company was a mile upstream from ours so we had very peaceful last mile with no other canoes in sight. We learned of another section of the Delaware River, north of Port Jervis NY, that has been designated a ‘scenic river’ by the NPS. It flows through deep canyons, and we were assured that it is worth a stop on some other trip north. The rest of the day was relaxing, and I received a long overdue haircut. I tried to hang the hammock for some well deserved rest for both of us, but we found that the mice had gotten there first, leaving a big hole right were our bodies would be. At least we didn’t drag it around until the end of the trip and discover the damage then. Into the dumpster now! Tomorrow we head north, stopping at West Point and then continuing to a NY State Park north of Poughkeepsie NY for 2 nights.

August 8, 2010:
The temperature this morning was 58º. I took Daisy for a walk and found a mother/daughter who were lost and looking for campsite 29. I had no idea so off they went to find someone more knowledgeable. There were 2 chocolate labs free of their leashes and both came over to talk to Daisy. Thank goodness they were males. We left the campsite at 10:20am and headed northeast to tour the USMA at West Point. On the way, as we approached Port Jervis NY, we saw a large tower, similar to the Washington Monument in profile, on the NJ side of the Delaware River. This monument marks the intersection of the states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. We traveled up the west shore of the Hudson River near Newburgh NY. Many of the commercial buildings along the river must have been abandoned decades ago. The only activity seemed to be around the large oil storage tanks. We arrived at West Point and signed on for a bus tour that was OK, but not as good as the walking tour we took of the USNA in Annapolis.
West Point takes pride in being ‘locked down’ after the attacks of 9/11, and it is hard to get information about the history of the place. After the tour we had to have an ice cream before heading north through Poughkeepsie and Hyde Park to the town of Staatsburg NY. We are staying in the Mills-Norrie State Park for the next 2 nights. I thought there was electricity here but was mistaken. Tomorrow we will be tour FDR’s Home and Museum and Eleanor’s house, Val-Kil. My Uncle Phil will be turning in his grave as we enter the premises. We walked along the shore of the Hudson River, and Daisy was able to take a swim for the first time in a number of days. We’ll see how sore she is tomorrow. Across the river is a huge building built like a castle with a tall watchtower. We have no idea what it is. There are threats of isolated thunderstorms this evening and night. I am sitting outside the RV as I write this and we are being bombarded with nuts or something hard from the trees. It seems a bit early for this, but maybe it portends an early winter.

August 9, 2010:
It was a hot night last night (15º higher than last night), and the humidity was up. We had a slow morning, and Susie had her run. We left the campground around 11:30am and headed south to the FDR home and Museum. We took a break around 2:30pm to check on Daisy and get a bite to eat. Even with the fans going and reflector screens in place, the interior temp of the RV got to 91º. We turned on the generator and found a place where we could park in the shade, reducing the temperature to 85º for the rest of the day. We, and seven others, took a US Park Ranger tour to FDR’s ‘Top Cottage’. This was the place that he planned to write his memoirs and organize his papers but was unable to accomplish because of his death. This was a small group, and we sat in a semi-circle listening to the Ranger talk about FDR and his life. It was very interesting and the hour-long discussion was far too short. Later, we also walked around the premises of the house that Eleanor Roosevelt built in 1924. She lived in this house from the day FDR died in 1945 until her death on November 7, 1962. There is another, and much more handsome, house on the property that was built earlier. As the last act of the day, we drove through the property of Frederick Vanderbilt, a large summer mansion built in 1898 in the Beaux-Arts Architecture style.

The National Park Service now owns the property. The exterior details of the house are wonderful and the NPS has placed a very fine netting to prevent birds nesting in all the nocks and crannies. We were too late for a tour of the house, but the views of the Hudson River Valley were spectacular. About 150 feet from the back of the house, overlooking the Hudson River, there is a very steep slope down to river. We noticed electric fencing at the top and bottom of the slope and soon discover a herd of goats that keeps the slopes ‘mowed’. Much more efficient than humans! We returned to the campground, filling up with gas and water and dumping the wastewater so we are ready for the trip tomorrow to Bob and Ginny Harrison’s place in Schuylerville NY. It is not yet a house as they are securing permits, etc. We last saw them in June when they were in Baltimore to support their daughter Kim when she presented a paper on sports medicine. It is now 8:15pm, the sun has set and the generator and AC are still running. It is going to be another hot night. We turned the generator off at 9:00am and soon after the CO alarm rang, and we had to blow all that nice cold air outside to clear the inside of the RV.

August 10, 2010:
It rained early this morning, not hard, but the raindrop falling through the trees make a very great sound as they it the RV roof. It is warm and sticky, and the ground is muddy enough that Daisy must stay in the RV. We decided to wait on breakfast and stop at the Mill’s home and property that comprises part of the State Park we camped in. This home was originally the property of the Livingston family, an early family in the upper Hudson River Valley. A Livingston daughter married Ogden Mills and the property became the Mills House. In our tour of the home, we learned that the Livingston family owned 1.2 million acres on the east side of the Hudson River from Albany south to New York City. Susie and I had a private tour of the home that was built in 1832, replacing the original house that was constructed in 1792. In 1895, the house was expanded from 27 rooms to 79 rooms. There are 2 rooms, one in each wing, that are 30’ by 50’. One is the Dining Room (north wing) and the second a parlor (south end), All the furniture and furnishings are original. Next we headed north on the eastern side of the Hudson River, planning to travel through an area that National Geographic includes in its tour book titled “America’s Hidden Corners”. We stopped in Rhinebeck NY to have a very late breakfast or early lunch in a restaurant named ‘Pete’s Famous Restaurant’. I’m not sure if it was famous, but my omelet and fresh blueberry muffin were terrific. We didn’t pay much attention to Chelsea Clinton’s wedding in Rhinebeck when it occurred, but the locals were certainly discussing it in the diner. Continuing north the road in ‘America’s Hidden Corners’ was closed for repairs so we missed the entire area. We drove north on US9, through Albany and then turned east to Troy NY when Susie and I took a self-guided tour of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, my alma mater. It certainly has changed in 48 years.

The campus has almost doubled in size with the addition of many new buildings. The newest, a performing arts center, is less than 2 years old. It is visible from Albany and the focus of the campus, even though it is on the corner of the property. We left Troy at 4:45pm and headed north on US4 on the west side of the Hudson River, past the Saratoga Battlefield and into Schuylerville to Bob and Ginny’s new home site on the Hudson River. They took us to dinner in an old hotel, a great old building with high stamped metal ceilings and good millwork. The portions were huge! We had planned to stop at the ice cream store on the way home for dessert, but it was closed (thank goodness). We’ll go tomorrow. I think the weather is starting to break, and the humidity is falling. Susie is fighting a cold and cough.

August 11, 2010:
Susie is much worse this morning. This morning we spent talking with the Bob and Ginny while eating breakfast and drinking coffee. We watched boats going north and south on the Hudson River, traveling to/from Lake Champlain on the Champlain Canal. All the sailboats have their masts down to clear the low bridges. We walked out to Lock #5 and watched several boats pass through. The locks are much smaller than the ones we saw in Sault Saint Marie at the east end of Lake Superior, but we were able to get close and watch them in operation. The locks have a max draft of 12 feet, max vessel length 300 feet, and max beam of 43.5 ft. The change in elevation at Lock 5 is 19 feet. Barge traffic uses the locks. On the way back, we picked blueberries for breakfast tomorrow. After a great crab salad lunch made by Susie, we went to the ice cream store for dessert. I had ‘Danish Cream’, a sweeter version of vanilla. It was great. Ginny had ‘Green Tea’. No exotic flavors for Bob and Susie. Next we drove through the town of Schuylerville and discovered that the original name was Saratoga. The name was changed to avoid confusion with Saratoga Springs to the west. The Saratoga Revolutionary War Battle took place here and culminated with the defeat of the British General Burgoyne on October 17, 1777. We went to the Visitors Center, but did not have time to drive through the battlefield. The monument marking the battlefield, completed in 1883, is four-sided with all sides but one having a statue of a hero from the Colonist ranks. The fourth side is blank. Had Benedict Arnold not become a traitor to the American cause later in the war, he would have been on the fourth side as he was a hero in this battle. Back to the Harrison’s where we took a greatly needed shower before a great steak diner with Ginny’s two sisters, Vivian and Valerie. They are craftspeople working with flat glass. Vivian lived in Alaska for a long time and several of her projects are in Anchorage. Great talent! Susie ended the day having a hard time talking. To bed at 10:30pm.

August 12, 2010:
Susie woke up this morning unable to talk. She was in misery all day. We had breakfast, packed up the RV and left Bob and Ginny just before noon. We’ll definitely return when their house is complete next year. We refilled the propane tank in the RV, drove into Saratoga Springs, bought colored pencils for Susie and fuses for an extension cord. Time for lunch at Panera Bread. It is the horseracing season here, and the place was jammed. I wonder how it is during the winter months. We drove up I-87 to Exit 25, refilled the gas tank and worked our way west then north through Adirondack Park. PS, we should have gone to Exit 30. There were a few rain showers but nothing serious. 189 miles later, at 5:30pm we arrived at Meacham Lake Campground. We are now about 50 miles south of the Canadian border. We’ll be here for 4 nights and plan to do some hiking and canoeing if Susie feels better. It should be cooler tonight.

2009-09-01T10:10:00.011-04:00

2009 – Week 19

August 20, 2009, Thursday:
Meredith left the house at 7:00am and headed to DePauw University to start her teaching/orientation duties. For the rest of us it was work on the house. Susie painted in the butler’s pantry with its multitude of shelves. Michael Ray was working through the list. I went to Lowes to buy more paint and a smoke/carbon monoxide. It was difficult getting there because of road construction, without any directions as to how to maneuver through the detours. I was gone forever, or so it seemed, but was able to return before Susie ran out. I hung a few newly painted cabinet doors, but the paint was a bit soft so they’ll needed to be touched up. The fuel oil tank was removed, good riddance to that. It will take a few days for the smell to clear. We went to dinner at a Scottish pub, and Michael Ray had haggis for the first time and found it very good. Susie stayed up working on her blog. She wasn’t sure when she went to bed, but Michael Ray said when he went to the bathroom at 1:00am, she was still up. We were going to leave tomorrow, but have decided to stay one more day and leave Saturday morning.

August 21, 2009 Friday:
Meredith was out of the house at 7:00am again, but was able to return around 6:00pm. Susie continued to paint while I drive to buy more special dog food for Daisy and buy a new ladder for use inside the house. This time it was Gabby Garmin who sent me to two food stores that were closed. What a pain! Lots of activity at the house today as the masons repointed some of the brickwork and prepared to repour some of the sidewalk. The painters for the exterior of the house appeared and replaced broken glass and reglazed all the windows. I managed to remove the TV cable and the TV satellite dish from the wall of the house. Susie was able to take her first walk through the neighborhood to see all the old houses. It was fun, and we find it incredible that houses from the 1880’s are still here and in pretty good condition. Meredith was home earlier than last night, and so we had dinner at the house.

August 22, 2009 Saturday:
Happy Birthday to Susie! We went out to breakfast, and when we returned to Meredith’s house, Michael Ray discovered warm moisture in the kitchen cabinet adjacent to the dishwasher. A quick trip to the basement uncovered a leak in an old galvanized pipe. The hot water was turned off, but then the question about how to remedy. Michael ray and I talked about some options, and then we had to leave. We drove 400 miles to our favorite WV State Park, which we use when traveling east or west from home. It is a bit less than 190 miles from home. We pulled in, and it there was one spot left, except for a vacant handicap spot. We took showers and went to bed. The spot wasn’t even close to level so we ended up sliding downhill all night. Not a great sleep.

August 23, 2009 Sunday:
Up in the morning and off we went to the dump station to empty and the n partially refill the tanks with clean water to slosh around for about 90 miles before we would pull into a rest area on I-70 to dump again. We discovered than the Rest Area that have the dump was closed for reconstruction. No dumping there so we arrived home with partially full tanks. We had a coolant leak for the last 1,000 miles or so and had to refill as we traveled. We arrived home OK, but I think a leaking water pump was the problem. One more thing to fix. It was great to be home! Our friends and neighbors had done a superb job keeping their eyes on the place. Since we hadn’t driven enough the last 2 days, we went to Bethesda to see Kimberly and Brian. We had not seen her (other than photos) since April, and she certainly is pregnant. It was a great dinner, and when we returned home it was right to bed. We had a great sleep in a bed that seems significantly larger than the RV (both are queen sized so says Itasca). Tomorrow starts the process of unloading and washing everything for winter storage. It will take about a week. This trip we traveled 11,990 miles over 18.5 weeks. Longer mileage and longer time than we expected.

2009-09-01T10:04:00.013-04:00

2009 – Week 18

August 13, 2009, Thursday:
Well, yesterday I said that we were going to take a bike ride, but after Susie looked at the description of the ride and the traffic patterns we decided not to take the ride but go by RV. I think I neglected to say that Susie was talking to a couple on the beach last night while I was swimming Daisy. They tipped her off on a kayak trip that would be a great memory for the future. So we really had two excursions to take today. We did get up early, and I took Daisy for a swim. I was astonished to see at least a dozen cars lined up at the Campground Registration Office at 7:30am waiting to take the places of those who were leaving. Unlike most parks, we would have had to commit to staying another night by 8:00pm last night. When we came back, Susie had Daisy’s breakfast ready and coffee and donuts for us. Off we went to the Platte River Campground and found that the only spot available required tents, and we didn’t have any. The Park had prepared a list of optional locations, which they gave us. I called a few, and it looked as if we would be able to stay in the area. We continued south to Riverside Kayak and Canoe on the Platte River and signed up for the Upper Platte trip at 11:00am. They were very careful to warn us of the speed of the river and low branches, but what they didn’t tell us about was the numerous fallen trees. Susie and I both dressed in quick drying clothes since the history on the Upper Platte was 50% upsets. Well, our group of two matched that statistic. I am under orders not to say who swamped so……… Anyway it was a wonderful four-hour trip, drifting with the current most of the time. I took a pill, in advance, to protect my shoulder but I’m not sure it was necessary. We returned to rental shop, bought some trinkets and ice cream and left for the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

We stopped at a garden stand and bough more cherries, apricots and corn. I am glad we didn’t take the bikes as the road was narrow, the dunes steep and the cars in a hurry. At the Lake Michigan Overlook, a young man asked if he could pet Daisy and told us that his family had 2 black Germen Shepherd Dogs that died of bad food imported from China a few years ago. We have heard that the FDA, after several complaints, is investigating the dog food we normally feed Daisy. Daisy is still on her special food, but we’ll have to make a change when we get home. We left the Scenic Drive and checked into the Empire Township Campground, which it turns out is next door to the airport, not a big one, but still an airport. Several planes took-off just before dusk, and then it was quiet. We had dinner and took showers before working on our blogs.

August 14, 2009 Friday:
The plan was to get an early start this morning, but I asked the lady from the adjacent campsite how she was enjoying MI. She lives in southwest Oregon and is traveling cross-country visiting friends and doing some music gigs. Her next mandatory stop is Toronto, and we talked about what to see in Michigan as she heads north. She told us what to expect as we head south. From Toronto she is going to Maine to see the changing of the colors, then south along the east coast and finally back to Oregon. She packed up and headed north as we ate breakfast and loaded up the RV. Just before we started the engine, another couple from MI came over because they had heard us talking about ice cream. According to them, the store voted the best in the country and featured on Good Morning America is Moomers Ice Cream in Traverse City MI. We also learned that the area surrounding Traverse City and Harbor Springs is a destination for movie actors and actresses who have 2nd houses in the area. We don’t have any way of verifying this, so we’ll accept it at face value. We were able to got out of this vertically tight campsite much easier than we had come in. Susie walked Daisy as I filled the water tanks and dumped the wastewater before we left. This turned out to be a better than expected decision. Off we went and headed south along the coast on MI22. This is great fruit and vegetable growing area, and we took full advantage of the fresh produce. We stopped at the ‘Starving Farmers Produce Stand’ then stopped for gas and food in Frankfort. We were planning to go about 40 miles and check in to the Orchard Beach SP near Manistee MI. This Park is right on the beach, but unfortunately it was full. We were given a few hints and decided to continue south to the Lake Michigan Recreation Area, run by the US Forest Service. As we drove around the campground, we had a sinking feeling that became more pronounced as the time passed. All the campsites were either full or reserved for the entire weekend. With regret we left and were looking for a place to have lunch when Susie spotted a trailer in the woods. Since this is Forest Service, anyone can camp on their land as long as they are 1/4 mile off the main road. We found a spot a bit further in and stopped. The winds were blowing and the humidity was low so we decided to stay for the night. When our neighbors came back I asked them when the MI schools started and they said after Labor Day. I had hoped they started next week. Our neighbors also said they arrived yesterday and the campground was filled then. We are in a bit of trouble. We have been avoiding commercial campgrounds, wanting to stay in government parks, but I think our string has run out. The mosquitoes came out, and I think we may be in a swampy are. Unfortunately the winds died at sunset. We plan to stay here for 2 nights, but that may change in the morning, and head south to visit Meredith and Michael Ray in Indianapolis. It is a drive of about 350 miles so we’ll probably do it in 2 days.

August 15, 2009 Saturday:
It was warm last night, and we are in shock. I slept on top of the lightweight comforter we just bought for most of the night. Eventually we used a lightweight blanket. We had a slow morning and then went down to the beach for a swim, suntan and book reading session. We met two kayakers and had a long chat. In the process, we pulled a kite from the water and helped rescue a beach ball that escaped the clutches of a youngster and was well on its way to the Upper Peninsula. Talking to several people, this beach, and all the parks on the Michigan coastline, are unusually full. The locals attribute it to the cold and rainy weather earlier in the year. One man we talked to said they were in the area around the Fourth of July, staying at his parents’ house, and not only was it cold and rainy, but the TV didn’t work and there weren’t enough games to keep the kids occupied. We returned to the RV, had lunch at 3:00pm and decided to return to the Lake to eat supper and watch the 8:30pm sunset. Susie took photos of her drawings for the period 8/2/09 to 8/14/09. W ran the generator for at least an hour to charge the computers and house battery. What a noisy and disruptive process that is! Susie made sandwiches, and we rode our bikes back to the beach to watch the sunset. No one had picked up the kites we pulled from the water so I tried to untangle the mess, especially the string, but surrendered. One of the kites has a broken plastic piece, but maybe I can fix it at home. Another toy from our trip! The sunset wasn’t spectacular because of a cloudbank to the west, but the day was great. I used the largest fresh water laundry machine entirely in the US (Lake Michigan) to rinse the pair of shorts I had spilled ice cream on after our kayak trip. We didn’t clean up the TV before going to bed. It’s a job for tomorrow.

August 16, 2009 Sunday:
It seemed a bit cloudy this morning, but it cleared later. Susie finished coloring her pictures from yesterday’s events. We had breakfast and took Daisy for a long swim in Lake Michigan. Of course, Susie and I had to join in.

We left the Recreation Area at 12:15pm and headed south on US31. We made a few detours, trying unsuccessfully to stay on the shore of Lake Michigan. However, we did manage to see a few sights such as numerous fruit stands, dune buggy rides, Stony Lake (large enough to support a fleet of Flying Scots), sunflower fields covered with big yellow flowers and a Moped rental shop named Numbutts Moped Rental. We stopped at a produce stand and had a hard time containing ourselves. We bought black cherries, blueberries, apricots, corn, tomatoes, peaches, bananas, bread, sweet rolls and pastries, cucumbers, yellow beans and noodles. Humm, looking at that list, I guess we didn’t control ourselves very well. We passed through the town of Silver Lake, a major tourist town in the area. The lake is separated from Lake Michigan only by a tall sand dune and is suitable only for small powerboats. There is no question that the Lower Peninsula is a creation of the glaciers. There is sand everyplace, and it is difficult to keep it out of the RV. As we went south, I noticed that the engine temperature gauge climbed whenever we stopped for a red light. Suspecting low coolant, we pulled into a Wal-Mart and purchased 2 gallons and used all but 1/2 gallon. Temperature problem fixed, but where is the coolant going? There was an area on US31 where road reconstruction was underway and our 2 lanes had to narrow to one. In general everyone was polite, but there were a few vehicles that had to ride the through the median strip to advance a few places. An 18-wheeler had enough of that and rode down the center of the 2-lane section, blocking most people. There were a few areas of rain as we came south, but nothing serious. We were worried about finding any spot in a State Park, much less one with electric, but lo and behold the Van Buren SP, near South Haven MI was open. Unfortunately because of the MI Health Dept, no dogs are allowed on the beaches so Daisy cannot swim tomorrow before we leave. We had a huge dinner of brats, corn, green beans, and peaches with yogurt and maple syrup for desert.

August 17, 2009 Monday:
It rained last night and into the morning. We packed up early and headed south to Indianapolis after filling with water and dumping wastewater. It was just drive, drive and drive some more. The further south we went, the more ‘civilization’ we saw: more traffic and big shopping center and box stores. We stopped at ‘Steak and Shake’ for lunch and after winding our way around the east side of Indianapolis arrived at Meredith’s and Michael Ray’s new home. It is in a very old neighborhood named Woodruff Place. Woodruff Place was laid out between 1872 and 1873 and consists of a tract of land surrounded by an attractive stone fence and three streets, East Drive, Center Drive and West Drive. It is bounded by 10th St on the north and Michigan Ave on the south. The three drives are more like boulevards and have a 20-foot wide island with grass, trees, sculpture and fountains. The houses are generally single family, but there are a few old apartment houses. Nothing is taller than three stories, and most everything is in good repair. A few of the larger houses were converted to apartments back in the 1950’s but recently some were reconverted to their original configuration. Woodruff Place was designated a historically protected area in 2001. Susie and I are very excited for them and their new home. Just because there wasn’t enough turmoil as they moved into their new place, they adopted a four-month old puppy and named him ‘Boots’. He is very active and not afraid of Daisy. We went to dinner and crashed about 10:00pm.

August 18, 2009 Tuesday
Today was a day of chores. There are electricians working in the basement installing a grounded electrical system. Susie and Meredith worked on painting prep, Michael Ray was at the garage doing woodwork, and I was on the phone, calling firms to find out how to remove an old 1/2 full fuel oil tank from the basement plus remove the co-ax cable and the Dish Network receiving antenna removed from the house. No one wants to spend money to remove the old equipment so they give you a date long in the future hoping you’ll forget. Our solution to this was to disconnect the co-ax, coil it up and throw the coil on the roof of the garage at the back of the property. At least it will be out of sight. The Dish either goes in the trash or on the curb with a ‘FREE’ sign. Daisy, Boots and Mr Green played in the yard, and Boots has become a bit more aggressive with Daisy, but Daisy is being very good. We think ‘Boots’ has some hound dog in him as he will howl at times. Michael Ray cooked a great steak dinner, making all of us full and sleepy.

August 19, 2009 Wednesday:
Again it was paint, paint and paint. The fuel tank removal guys came at 10:30, and we gone by 1:00pm. They were really clean, but the smell of fuel oil permeates everything. It will take a few days to clear the air. I removed cable from the house siding so tomorrow we can finish the job. Daisy and Green are hiding under the furniture; they must be hearing the thunder. Michael Ray was working on replacing the sash weights on the windows pretty much all day. Susie and Meredith finish painted pantry and closet shelves so by the time we leave on Friday, they should have a place to put the dishes. The dogs played hard again with most of the activity between Daisy and Boots. Starting tomorrow, Meredith has three days of meetings and greetings at DePauw University as the students arrive for the Fall Semester. We’ll not see her until tomorrow night. It has rained here off and on all day and at 9:30pm I looked at the weather radar and saw a large are of thunderstorms and a few tornado watch boxes just west of Indianapolis. The sun was down so the danger diminished as time went on. There was a ‘Flash Flood’ warning west of Indianapolis.

2009-08-19T11:33:00.020-04:00

2009 – Week 17

August 6, 2009, Thursday:
This morning was as the weather forecast promised. Daisy had her two walks, one with a swim as a treat, before we jumped on our bikes and headed out to see the town of Silver Islet, a 6-mile one-way trip. We took our time in the town and noticed that several of the houses were from the 1870’s, the time the silver mine was operating.

We stopped to talk to some folks and discovered that the wife had lived here all her life, her husband for 33 years and the daughter for all her life. The parents and kids (more than just the daughter we met) had bought a 2nd house and were in the process of fixing a drain that diverted a seasonal stream that flowed under the house when the snow melted. I had noticed that each the houses had a pump and a pipe running out into the beautifully clear and cold water. I asked the couple if that was for drinking. It turns out that they used the Lake water for everything but drinking. Drinking water came from a treated source. I also asked them which island had the silver mine. They identified it by saying it was the small one with trees. I noticed that there were several rocks protruding above the water about 200 feet east from the islet and figured that they were the remnants of the island. The mineshafts were under water. The story is that the mine became filled with water when the barge carrying coal to run the pumps couldn’t get there because the lake had frozen. Another twist is that the real reason was that the barge ran aground and couldn’t get there. Probably there is some truth to both stories. I had hoped to go in the General Store, but although it was scheduled to open at 11:00am, it didn’t. The view looking south towards the US Isle Royale NP and Lake Superior was stunning. I still have not been able to understand why Isle Royale is a part of Michigan rather than Minnesota because it is much closer to MN, and I certainly don’t know why it is a part of the US when it is so much closer to Canada. My guess is that the reason is lost in history, but it may have to do with the route the Voyageurs took from Montreal to Grand Portage MN prior to the Revolutionary War. We left town and headed back to the Campground, both of us thinking that this was a bit of heaven, and we could live here during the summer (about 3 months). We decided to take a bit of a detour and followed some bike trails, hoping we would get more views of Lake Superior, but no luck. Once again, we were happy that we had new bikes with fat tires. We returned to the RV, had lunch. Susie took Daisy for her 2nd swim while I cleaned up. We took showers, dumped the RV and headed east to Neys Provincial Park, a distance of 164 miles. The first 20 miles got us back to the main road. The glimpses of Lake Superior and the islands were awesome. Once again, it is hard to describe, but they reminded us of the Apostle Islands off the north shore of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and the San Juan Islands in Washington State. About half way to Neys, the great scenery became even better. We stopped for gas and put in $110.00 worth. I haven’t done the numbers, but gas must be more than $4.50/gallon. We also bought a 1/2-gallon of milk for $4.50. Get us back to the US! When we reached Neys PP, we discovered that the site had originally been a POW Camp for Germans during WWII and was accessible only by rail at that time. When Susie took Daisy on her walk, she came back with two pieces of news. First, there was a black Newfoundland dog across the way, and it was doing tricks. Second, Queen Elizabeth of England was camped in an Airstream trailer a few spots away. Later when we walked Daisy for a swim in the Little Pic River, Susie pointed her out, but I thought the lady looked more like the late Queen Mother. I think the hat did it. We listened to a talk on trees and came to realize that many of the trees we have been seeing during the last week either don’t grow in the US or if they do, they are right on the border. We were in a boreal forest. No wonder we cannot identify them. The Ranger told us that it should be in the low 40’s tonight. We’ll see. We were told that the water temperature in Lake Superior, except in some of the bays and near the coast, generally stays at 40 degrees F, plus or minus 4 degrees all year long.

August 7, 2009 Friday:
It was 46 degrees at 6:45am so I went back to bed. I got up at 8:15am and took Daisy for a walk. The Queen Mother had left, and I didn’t see the Newfoundland. What I did see we many campsites in which the people had erected large blue tarps as windbreaks, protecting them from the winds off Lake Superior. Daisy and I took our walk, and Susie made a breakfast of corned beef hash and eggs on the theory that a substantial breakfast would hold us for a while. She was right. All three of us took a hike up the Lookout Trail to have a better view of Lake Superior and the boreal forest.

The rocks were a bit slippery, but we reached Lookout 1. We were a bit disappointed because the trees had grown and most of the view was obscured. Since it was a loop, we continued on and about a 1/4-mile later, popped out on to a big rock outcropping from which the view was spectacular. We stayed for a while and then started down. Near the bottom, we came across sand and lots of it. Many years ago, the Little Pic River flowed through the area and left all the sand. Looking back, when we took Daisy for a swim yesterday in the Little Pic River, there was sand on both banks. This is hard rock country, and it must have taken millions of years to grind the volcanic rock into sand. We pushed off and headed south to Lake Superior Provincial Park. After just a few miles in the town of White River, we came across a sign that said ‘It all started here’ with a Winnie the Pooh sculpture and playground. We had to stop! The story is that Canadian Lt Colbourne of the Veterinary Corp was headed overseas to fight in WWI and stopped in White River, ON. He purchased a bear cub on August 24, 1914 and named it ‘Winnie’ after his hometown, Winnipeg. The bear cub became the unit’s mascot until he was to be shipped to France. The bear was loaned and put in the care of the London Zoo on December 9, 1914 for the time he was away. In 1919, the bear was given to the Zoo where it lived for almost 20 years, giving joy to the people and children of the London. Visitors included author A. A. Milne and his son Christopher. As a gift to his son, Milne wrote the story ‘Winnie the Pooh’ in conjunction with illustrator E. H. Shepherd. The rest is history! I cannot image how many little children have had this story read to them over the years. The road to Lake Superior PP moved away from the coast for a while but then came back. We entered Lake Superior PP from the north and all of a sudden the great views were greater and more often. We passed 2 campgrounds, but we wanted to be on the Lake so we checked into the Agawa Bay Campground. We got the last site with electric service and could see the Lake. We took Daisy to the Pet Exercise Area, which included a section of beach, and she swam and swam. We drove the RV back north 5 miles to look at pictographs located on rock faces on the edge of Lake Superior. Lake Superior was calm and so we were able to walk out on a sloping ledge to view them. The Park has placed numerous ropes into the lake so that if you fall into the water you have a chance of surviving. There are numerous signs that start off with 'Numerous persons have been hurt or died on these rocks....."
We came back and had dinner before going to a presentation about The Group of Seven, artists who painted this area in the 1930’s. We were tired and decided to go to bed without doing anything on our blogs. The weather forecast for tomorrow is rain with winds from the west and sea 3-foot seas by the afternoon. We’ll see.

August 8, 2009 Saturday:
The weather service was correct and so we decided to head south to the USA. We crossed at Sault Saint Marie. The border crossing was jammed, but the line moved quickly. We saw one Great Lake boat (empty) in the locks heading west towards Lake Superior and another one (full) heading east to Lake Michigan or Lake Huron. After we passed through US Customs, we headed to the Visitor Center and picked up road maps and campground information before heading south to St Ignace. I-75 is a very straight road through the Upper Peninsula and pretty boring. We checked into the Lakeshore RV Park and had a view of Lake Michigan and the Mackinaw Bridge. We did laundry and headed into St Ignace to have dinner. Susie had a craving for fresh whitefish. We found a small restaurant on the water and then had a problem finding a parking lot big enough for our small RV. The meal was a decadent with raw oysters, broiled whitefish, baked potato and finished off with rhubarb pie a la mode for Susie and apple pie a la mode for me. We returned to the RV Park and did a few things but went to bed as soon as we didn’t feel bloated. I recovered more quickly than did Susie. It rained lightly through the day, and I had hopes that the weather was breaking.

August 9, 2009 Sunday:
At 4:30am, the thunder could be heard in the distance, and Daisy scrambled to tuck in under the table. It became worst and between 4:45am and 6:00am, it was flashes and bangs, some very close. It stopped for a bit, but the rains came again. I took Daisy out at 8:30am, after the rain had stopped. Weather radar indicated we had seen the worst, and I saw a bit of blue sky off to the west. We took our walk, and when we returned, all the bad weather was off to the east. I saw 2 Great Lake boats in Lake Michigan. We left the campground just about noon, filled up with gas and tried to buy some 1/2&1/2 for coffee but no luck. We were lucky enough to find a fruit stand with fresh black cherries, blueberries and tomatoes. We crossed over the Mackinac Bridge and found an attraction on the other side.

It a replica of the English Fort Michlimackinac which was located at the same point as an earlier French fort which used by the voyageurs prior to the French and Indian War. The French lost, and Canada was ceded to Great Britain. We walked through there, and it was a good time and the staff engaged the public for their skits. As we entered the site, we saw a group of re-enactors who were ‘French’. Susie talked to one gentleman who told her about who they were and more exciting, the harrowing effects of the wind and rain this morning. Since they were using only the same equipment as the French did, everything was soaked, tents blew away and water poured down the slope, through the encampment, and into Lake Michigan.

We were told that the French, and then the English, had to travel 30 miles to get wood because they had cut down everything closer. Inside the Fort, activities included the firing of muskets and cannon, which frightened Daisy almost as much as the thunder early this morning. It has been a tough day for her. We finally found milk, and since it was late we decided to camp in MI at The Wilderness SP. This park is located on Waugoshance Point of the Lower Peninsula, 10 miles to the west of the Mackinac Bridge. We found a spot on Lake Michigan and pulled in. Next to us was a family from MI who had been there for 10 days. I think that the family consisted of three generations and was headed by a brother and sister whose parents took them camping when they were young. I think there were about 15 people next to us. I wondered if they would be there for the night, but they left a few hours after we arrived. The brother had one of those high-powered ski boats that served at the trailer for taking all the toys home. Because of the rain this morning I image most everything was wet, but no one seemed to care. We had taken Daisy for another swim, and she was happy again. NOAA has thunderstorm warnings until 11:00pm so we’ll see what happens. We decided to spend an additional night here so I went to extend our reservation, hoping to stay in the same spot. Unfortunately we’ll have to move, but we’ll still be on the water. We were told about a shop that makes donuts for breakfast. It is about 3/4-mile from the campground. It opens at 8:00am, and my job for tomorrow is to be there with hopes to get blueberry muffins. The fog enveloped the area around 9:00pm. It is very quiet here now.

August 10, 2009 Monday:
I had my duties to perform this morning so I was up early and took Daisy for her walk, although it was a bit short, I jumped on my bike and pedaled furiously to The General Store to purchase blueberry muffins, but I had misunderstood, they were blueberry donuts. They had not yet started making them, but had an ample supply of plain, cinnamon, chocolate coated, vanilla coated, vanilla coated with sprinkles and probably more, but I was overwhelmed. I bought a cinnamon donut and a cup of coffee and then another cinnamon donut before the blueberry donuts were done. I bought six blueberry and four plain donuts. When I arrived, the bike rack, with spaced for 18 bikes, was empty, when I left the rack was full and with at least another dozen bikes scattered about. I was back at the RV by 9:15am, and we had donuts and more coffee. We sat in our L. L. Bean chairs and looked out over Lake Michigan as the skies cleared. We had to move sites, and we did that just before 1:00pm. We took Daisy swimming and had lunch before jumping on the bikes for what turned out to be a three hour bike trip as far west as we could go. We were still about 2 miles short of the tip of Wougoshance Point and beyond were two other islands, Temperance and Wougoshance. Looking off into the distance, we saw one and then another lighthouse.

I don’t know the names, but I am hoping Todd Johnson can help as he has raced the Chicago-Mackinac Race numerous times. The one closest to shore was a large bulky structure (probably abandoned) that reminded me of Fasnet Rock off the coast of Ireland and the other was a tampered cylinder painted with alternating red and white spiral stripes. We continued on our ride and talked to a fisherman and wife. We continued on a track that sometimes was fit for a truck, other times only fit for hiking or biking and sometimes questionable for anything. We came up 2 teenage boys who were looking at a map, and when I asked if they knew where they were one answered “sort of” in a questioning voice. They didn’t have a map so I gave them ours and pointed them off to the west. It would be about 6 miles before they returned to the Campground. We assume they made it because there has not been any call for volunteers for a search party. We returned to the RV and eventually moved our chairs to the beach. Daisy was very annoyed, as she wasn’t permitted there. The winds grew and the skies darkened so we went back to the RV, and I prepared for the worse while Susie took a shower. When she returned, I took my shower, after which we had dinner. We ate indoors as there were intermittent rain showers. I actually rained hardest as the sun set, very visibly, in the west. We are moving on tomorrow, but I still may need to go for donuts! Wilderness SP is full to the brim, again.

August 11, 2009 Tuesday
The sky was overcast when we awoke, and I took Daisy for a short walk. We packed up the RV and headed to The General Store for our morning fix of donuts. Susie selected what she wanted, and I told her that was not enough. She was astonished when I told her we had consumed one dozen the day before; said it wasn’t possible! Well we did, and the storeowner confirmed that I had bought a dozen. Susie was fascinated with the donut-making machine. I told her she could have it, but she would need to buy the store and the waterfront home.

She is pondering how she can live here and also a wanna-be Wyoming cowgirl during the same season. We drove west to the coast and the town of Cross Village, weaving in and out and absolutely confusing Gabby Garmin. From there we drove south on MI119 and traveled through the ‘Tunnel of Trees’ that ran almost to the very upscale town of Harbor Springs. The houses along the north portion of this Tunnel were tucked into the woods and often had wonderful views of Lake Michigan. The further we traveled south, the bigger and more ostentatious were the houses. Michigan may have trouble with its economy, but you would never know by the lavishness of the houses, the size of horse farms and the number of golf courses. We stopped in Petoskey to get more AAA TourBooks and CampBooks. Of course, this being Michigan they didn’t have any tour books of this state but told Susie we should come by tomorrow as they should be delivered by then. No thanks and off we went south along US31, along the coast of Lake Michigan and then Grand Traverse Bay to Traverse City, bought a lightweight down comforter, as we are now in warm weather, found another AAA Office to try again and ask where we could get our oil changed. The lady gave us a few names, but none had tall enough doors. Finally one of the spots where we stopped gave us the right info. While the RV was being serviced, I went across the street and bough BBQ sandwiches and baked beans for lunch (at 3:00pm). Most of our chores done, we headed north on MI22 and MI201 to Leelanau SP for the night. The skies had begun to clear so our moods improved. Driving north along MI22, we passed the Traverse City Yacht Club and saw a fleet of Lightnings lined up on their trailers. This looks like a nice place to sail. The Park is on the tip of the peninsula with Grand Traverse Bay on the east and Lake Michigan on the west. A lighthouse was built there in 1852 and then relocated in 1858 because the light was visible for north and southbound shipping, but not east or westbound. The light was only moved about 200 feet. If you think you’ve heard this story, so do we but right now cannot tell you where. I do know that at Point Loma in San Diego, the original lighthouse was built on the water’s edge of the Pacific Ocean, but another had to be built on the top of the hill because the fog on the ocean surface obscured the original one. This is not the story I remember, but maybe it will to come me a bit later. We tucked into a campsite facing the water, but the shore is too far away. The rules don’t allow Daisy to go across the shoreline because of nesting birds, especially the endangered Piping Plover. The Piping Plover is an endanger species and there are only 63 breeding pairs in the US. Susie noticed that in the three hours we’ve been here, the Park Ranger and the County Sheriff have driven through. We wondered if there have been some problems here. I measured the distance from this Park to Door Peninsula in WI, and Lake Michigan is 70+ miles wide. Tomorrow we are heading south to visit Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for two nights.

August 12, 2009 Wednesday:
It was a bit warm and very humid. There was no wind on the water. We had a breakfast of coffee, donuts and bananas. What a combination. Susie worked on her drawings and a bit later told me that she had heard there was a meteor shower last night. We missed it. We left the SP around 11:00am and headed south along the west coast of the Lower Peninsula. We passed by the boarding school where her sister Priscilla spent 2 years and decided to stop by. The school has been relocated and has been focusing on ‘special needs’ students. We continued south into the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Seashore and checked into the D. H. Day Campground around 1:30pm. This campground doesn’t take reservations so we needed to be here a bit early. After lunch we jumped on our bicycles and headed to the historic town of Glen Haven and the Maritime Museum at Sleeping Bear Point, which features the U.S. Lifesaving Service and its history. We had seen different types of lifeboats previously, but the most amazing piece of equipment was a metal watertight container that a person needing rescue from a stricken ship was placed and sealed inside. The container was then pulled to shore, and the container pulled back to the stricken vessel. Another person was place inside and the procedure repeated for a long as needed. As I think about it, I’m not sure I know have the last person was rescued. This container was about 7’ long 2.5 feet wide and 1.5 deep. Susie said I would have perished, as I never would have fit through the access port. This was very effective and in 1851, 201 persons were rescued from a stricken ship off the coast of NJ. If it took 10 minutes for the container to make a round trip, t would have taken 35 hours to rescue all 201 people if nothing had gone wrong. This procedure was eventually replaced by the breeches buoy. There was a demonstration of the breeches buoy, and the visiting children managed to save Raggedy Ann (women and children first) and then Raggedy Andy.

The Captain of the ship elected to swim ashore and was lost. We then went to the Cannery Boat Museum where numerous old boats, sailing, rowing and powered were stored. The newest were about 50 years old. We returned to the campground and were going to bike into Glen Arbor for some ice cream, but the road traffic was heavy and fast. Eventually we ate dinner and then took Daisy for a swim in Lake Michigan. Now I want to tell you the legend of Sleeping Bear. Many years ago, a forest fire in what is now Wisconsin forced a mother bear and her two cubs to swim across Lake Michigan. The mother bear made it and climbed the sand dunes to wait for her two cubs. They did not make it, and so the gods created a dune for her and two islands (North and South Manitou Island) for the cubs. There is a large dune in the park, which marks the spot where the mother watched for her cubs. The erosion of the shore is such that the Sleeping Bear Dune is expected to fade away in the near future. Tomorrow we are headed south to take a bike ride on the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive before heading south to the Platte River Campground. Platte River has more amenities than does D.H. Day and fills more quickly.

2009-08-19T11:31:00.014-04:00

2009 – Week 16

July 30, 2009, Thursday:
We awoke this morning with mosquitoes wing to wing on the RV windows and screens. The good news was they were on the outside! Daisy and I escaped and took a long walk, and when we returned, we closed up the RV and headed to the Katetogama Lake Visitor Center. We decided that we would not spend a 2nd night in the Woodenfrog Campground and managed to get one cup of coffee down before leaving. I went into the Visitor Center to make sure we were on the list and to pay the bill, but no problem. The tour was scheduled to leave at 11:00am, but suddenly the skies darkened, and the rains came. The tour boat was another pontoon boat, and the Captain had some reservations as to whether we should go. He couched his concerns by saying we wouldn’t want to go if we couldn’t see anything. Good point, but being a sailing curmudgeon, I watched as he had the Rangers get radar information from a local site. It showed the storm cell moving south and lo and behold, by the 10:45am, the skies had started to clear. With the side curtains down, there was no way we would get wet. However, the engine exhaust swirled back inside through the stern opening. It affected a few passengers, including Susie. Of course it didn’t help that we were the last to board and in the seats furthest aft. She was able to move forward to an empty seat. We were about a 1/2-hour into the tour, the rain had slowed, and the port side curtain was rolled up. The folks (me included) on that side had a great view. Once again we saw numerous bald eagles, cormorants and seagulls but this time the Ranger told stories about the different animals. We heard how the bald eagles are captured and banded early in life and how seagulls don’t make a nest but just drop their eggs anyplace. They show no interest until the eggs hatch and suddenly a fuzzy little thing appears. Then they show interest.
We heard stories about local people who lived in the area in the early 1900’s. There were some characters living here! We had lunch at the Kettle Falls Hotel. This hotel was originally constructed to house the construction workers who built two dams near Kettle Falls. Rumor has it that the Madame who used the profits from that business to pay for the construction. Who really knows? We headed back at 2:15pm and arrived at 4:00pm after a round trip of 48 miles. Two geology tidbits: the Park lies at the southern portion of the Canadian Shield; the rock along the lake shore and the islands is Pre-Cambrian (2.7 billion years old) and everything above this layer was removed, probably by the numerous glaciers, some were 2 miles thick (how do they know that?), that came through the area. When we returned, Susie took Daisy for a swim. That made Daisy very happy! Into the RV and off we went south on US53 to the McCarthy Beach SP, which is located about 15 miles north of Hibbing MN. If we had been coming from the south, the signage would have been great, but coming from the north, it was a bit challenging. The SP sits between Side Lake and Sturgeon Lake on a piece of land less than a 1/4-mile wide. It is full of big trees, and there seemed to be a lack of flying insects. We were unable to get an electric site but were more than content to be there. After all, the Park had showers. There were kids running around and having a great time. All of a sudden around 10:00pm, the Park went silent so I think the kids had crashed. We did so a bit later.

July 31, 2009 Friday:
When I awoke around 7:00am, the Park was as quiet as could be. Daisy and I took our walk and found the fog so thick that we couldn’t see across Side Lake, a distance of less than 1/2-mile. I took another shower and filled the water jugs. We had a cup of coffee each and decided to head south to Hibbing MN with the Hull-Rust Mahoning Mine for our first stop and breakfast. Gabby Garmin got us there, but it was along a dirt road when there was a perfectly good paved one two streets away. The mine is 3 miles long, 2 miles wide and 600 feet deep at the deepest point. The footprint covers 3,075 acres.

The town of Hibbing was relocated to make space for the mine. We drove through a bit of the old town and noticed that the original streetlights and roads exist. They used the roads as circulation for a park for camping. The cost is $15/night, and we should have taken advantage. This mine started operating in 1895 and has shipped out over a billion tons of material. At the present time, the mine is closed down due to the weak economy and resulting lack of orders. It is expected to reopen next summer. There was a retired dump truck that had a carrying capacity of 170 tons. The new ones have a capacity of 240 tons. The tires were so large that it takes only 162 revolutions to go a mile. We discovered that Greyhound Bus Lines started in the town of Hibbing so we had to stop at the Museum.
It was a nice history but stopped in 1983. I don’t know the details, but I think the company is in deep financial trouble. Hibbing is the birthplace of Bob Dylan (really!) and Kevin McHale, the pro basketball player. We had lunch in the parking lot before heading north to Chisholm MN to the AAA ‘Gem” the Ironworld Discovery Center. It was almost impossible to access because of all the roadwork and lack of signage. They have dropped the Ironworld and have added (we assume) exhibits that had no connection to the mining. The only exhibit that was fun was a special one about different types of animal poop and how it was used. Too complicated to discuss, and this is a family show. We were very disappointed and would not recommend stopping there. We are in a RV Park in Chisolm for one night. No internet, but electricity and showers. The County Fair is being held this week and the campground is full of trailers that provide sleeping facilities for the workers. We have never seen these before, but these trailers have individual ‘apartments’ that are about 6’ by 8’. Each has a bed and wash sink. Don’t know about showers but assume the people use the campground facilities. Could be interesting tomorrow morning. One note on geography: about a mile north of Hibbing, there is a hill that the Native Americans called ‘Hill of Three Waters’. From this hill, a drop of rain may find its way to the Gulf of Mexico, Hudson Bay or the Atlantic Ocean. This is a follow-up from the blog of 7/29/09. I wish we could have seen it, but that’s life. It is interesting that the Native Americans knew of the water flows long before we, with our sophisticated surveys, did. Tomorrow we plan something exciting for tomorrow, so stay tuned!

August 1, 2009 Saturday:
It rained and blew all last night, and when we got up, it felt like a late fall morning at home. The temperature this morning was 58 degrees. It seems unbelievable for the 1st of August. Wonder how it feels in January? Today we headed northeast to Soudan SP and then Ely MN. Well, we never made Ely. We took showers at the RV Park and gassed up the RV. While paying, I asked where we could get breakfast in town. The owner of the gas station suggested the place a few doors down and then pondered where there might be another place as an alternate. A few seconds later, she said that she couldn’t think of a second place and then mused that the town seemed to have many more bars than places to eat. I allowed that I was too old to drink in the morning so off we went to the Iron Kettle. I had my usual omelet and Susie had waffles and sausage. At the end of the meal, I overheard the group at the next table talking about Ironworld and said that we had been there and been terribly disappointed. One of the couples was local and was very interested in our comments and allowed as he was of the same opinion. He said a lot of money had been spent on the project, and it was having a terrible time making a go of it. We left and headed northeast towards Soudan SP but we diverted trying to find more overlooks into the open pit mines. We found one and gave up on the second. There was rain and wind on occasion, but that didn’t slow our progress. The variety of trees was interesting even though they were not very tall. I noticed in several areas beyond 50 yards off the road, there were numerous pines and suspect they had been planted. Along the road, there were numerous varieties but aspen seemed to be the most numerous. There are neat looking in the wind and the rain. We also stopped at an ATM to replenish our funds. We reached the Soudan SP at 12:15pm. Soudan SP is the location of the start of iron mining in MN. It is in the Vermillion Range, the oldest and richest of the three ranges in MN. On July 31, 1884, the first shipment of hematite was made. The original ore was excavated from the surface by means of seven pits. It was dangerous work due to falling debris from the unstable pit walls. We looked down into one of the pits and were told that this year snow remained until mid-July. It was both cold and wet work. The ore was so rich that the decision was made to start sinking a shaft to get to the ore below. The peak year of production was 1892 when 568,000 long tons were shipped. In 1982, production was stopped, and US Steel gave the mine to the state of MN. They made it into a Park and have kept the mine open for visitors. I purchased tickets and at 1:00pm we entered the mineshaft riding the same type of car as the miners had used to go up and down and to haul ore from the shaft.
The cars have added a few safety features, such as solid walls and doors. Down we went at 1,000 feet/minute (or 11.4 mph) until we reached bottom or Level 27, a distance of 2,341 feet. The temperature is a constant 50 degrees, and the air is changed two times per hour. The miners considered this the ‘Cadillac’ of mines for the reasons above plus it was a dry mine. Many mines have water seepage, as does this one. Here they pump 33,000,000 gallons/year; other mines have pumped as much as 2,000,000 gallons per day (730,000,000 gallons/year). In spite of these benefits, it was hard work with limited lighting making it even harder. Ore was loaded by hand, ore carts pushed by hand until mules were brought into the mines, there were no mechanical rotary drills to make holes for the dynamite and so on. Another benefit was the strength of the rock. It did not need shoring, making the vertical shafts and drifts (horizontal shafts) safer. There was also no methane gas as there is in coalmines, making the danger of explosion negligible (except for maybe a defective piece of dynamite).
The drift we toured was 3/4 of a mile long. So we were a bit less than 1/2-mile down and 3/4-mile off to the side. The reason production at the mine stopped in spite of the excavated material (hematite) being superior than the magnetite found in the open pit mine was that open pits are much more efficient. One year of open pit mining produced as much iron ore as did 80 years of production in the Soudan Mine. We pushed on to Bear Head Lake SP and we relieved to find that there was a spot for us, one of three remaining. The Park has showers but no electricity. It rained on and off, and the temperatures fell. At 8:30 pm it was 54 degrees and as I took Daisy for her nighttime walk, I noticed numerous folks sitting outside around a big campfire. They were wearing warm pants, warm coats and hats.

August 2, 2009 Sunday:
We expected temperatures in the 40’s last night, but it only dropped to 52 degrees. When we woke, the sky was clear and a beautiful blue. W took our walk, and I took a shower. We decided to drive on to Ely and find a place for breakfast. We did, and it was named ‘The Front Porch’, and there was (slow) internet. We both had coffee, quiche and a cinnamon twist. Susie spotted a place to get her hair cut. The sign said ‘Open on Sundays’ so she walked over to check the times. When she returned, I thought she said 2:00 to 4:00pm, but she really said Noon to 4:00pm. We did some grocery shopping, walked through the town and did some shopping. We stopped in one store and found what we thought would be a perfect gift made from wood, but when I noticed the type of wood, I asked the owner if it was made locally. She said ‘No, it was from China.’ I shocked her by saying that there were enough people in this part of the country who could make the same product and I wouldn’t buy it. Susie was getting her haircut at this time, but agreed. We jumped back in the RV, filled it with gas and headed southeast on the only road to the shore of Lake Superior. As we were approaching the Lake, we came up a hill and around a sweeping bend, and there it was, Lake Superior. It was a wonderful shock! We headed northeast along the coast through a few small towns and numerous State Parks. As we approached Grand Marais, we had to stop at ‘The Pie Shop’ for lunch. Mine was Dutch Apple Pie a la mode, and Susie had Strawberry Rhubarb Pie a la mode. I still seem to be losing weight but don’t know why. The RV Park is run by the City of Grand Marais and is the only one in the town.
The price was a bit high, but at least the funds are going to a good place. There was some sort of event going on it town and many campers, who were supposed to check out at 1:00pm hadn’t left, creating turmoil in the office. We found a spot that someone had turned down because it was too wet. We loved it and were parked next to a family from Ontario. They were a good source of information for our trip around the north shore of Lake Superior. The Canadian City of Thunder Bay has just opened a Visitor Center in Grand Marais with the hope that it will attract some of the many Americans who come this far but can’t seem to get across the border. We’ll stop there tomorrow before moving on. Daisy went swimming in Lake Superior, and it was really cold. We took photos of the harbor, breakwaters and entrance lights when the clouds separated enough to give us good light.

August 3, 2009 Monday:
The sky was overcast when we took our walk along the edge of the harbor. There was no wind, and the water was calm. A large powerboat pulled in at 7:30am. I’m not sure where it came from because they are not many harbors on this shore between Duluth and the US/Canada border. Susie had stayed up late last night dumping files from her computer in an attempt to get more free space on her hard drive. She was successful in increasing the free space from 2.0GB to 9.0GB before she came to bed. She was at it again this morning and managed to clear another 3.0GB to get to 12.0GB. That should hold her until we get home and figure out what to do. These computers seemed so big when we bought them less than3 years ago. We had a hearty breakfast of bacon and hot cereal. It felt good in the cool morning air. The RV Park had begun to clear out before 7:00am, and by the time we left just before noon, it was probably 50% full. It should be nice there tonight. We went to the new Thunder Bay Visitor Center, but they had just opened and weren’t well organized. We drove through the old part of Grand Marais, saw a donut shop and Susie jumped out. We stopped at Grand Portage National Monument, just a few miles south of the border. This site was the headquarters of the North West Company until 1803 when the headquarters was moved north to Fort William, a point at the southern edge of what is now Thunder Bay. The North West Company was owned by Scots and problems of citizenship, licenses, etc. made the move necessary. The Grand Portage was an 8.5-mile path that went from Lake Superior to Fort Charlotte on the Pigeon River. Numerous rapids and falls were avoided by making this portage, but it was a tough start of the trip west with an elevation change of more than 800 feet, carrying two 90-pound packs, over the 8.5 miles. The north canoes heading west were approximately 25 feet long, and those heading east (lake canoes) 35 feet. The lake canoes carried about 4 tons of cargo and traversed the route between Montreal and Grand Portage Bay. From there we headed into Canada. Immediately after crossing the border the land is very different from that in the US. There was no significant farming in the US, but there was in Canada. The hills in the US rolled gently, but in Canada, large rock outcroppings and vertical rock faces existed wherever we looked. After visiting the Ontario Visitor Center just across the border, we went to Kakabeka Falls SP for the night. This is a pretty falls and according to the information, its height is only 49 feet less (128 ft vs. 177 ft) than the Canadian Niagara Falls, but there are a few differences: 1) it isn’t near as wide (233 ft vs. 2,215ft), 2) the water cascades down the rocks rather than an uninterrupted drop, and 3) the volumes are nowhere near as great. Other than those items, it’s almost as good as Niagara. By the way, the American Niagara Falls is 184 feet high and 1,075 ft wide. When we arrived at our campsite, we couldn’t find the electric and when we did we didn’t have near enough cord, including our extension. Luckily, the Park Warden came by, he called the office, and we were able to move to a spot where our cords were sufficient. We took a bike ride through aspen and birch tree and then went down to see the falls. After that it was showers. We had a light dinner and then talked about what to do the next few days. We’re not settled yet, but we know we’re headed to Fort William tomorrow morning. We went to bed at 10:00pm EDT, or 9:00pm CST, much earlier than usual.

August 4, 2009 Tuesday
It was a clear morning and not as cold as the last few days. Susie penciled in more pictures, trying to catch up again. We left the PP at 10:45am and headed to the Fort William Historical Park. We thought that our tour would take about 2 hours, but were we ever surprised.
This reconstruction is not on the original site, but a few miles up the Kaministiqua River from the original site on Lake Superior. This is the 4th historic recreation we have seen on our tours, the others being Williamsburg, Fort Steele BC Canada and Louisbourg NS Canada. At the end of the day, we thought this was the best. The re-enactors were happy, exuberant and glad to hear that we were from ‘the States’. We went through the Visitor Centre and had a 10-minute walk to the entry of the site. A young lady who informed us that it was 1815, and we were about to enter the site of the headquarters of The North West Company, established here in 1805 met us. If you remember, the Company originally had its Headquarters in the US at Grand Portage MN, about 100 miles south. The stockade area covered 25 acres and had 42 structures. She established the mood and directed us to the Ojibwa Indian campgrounds outside the stockade enclosure. We saw them making bread, smoking fish and drying pelts. We also saw teepees made of birch bark skins, rather than the animal hides we had seen on the US Plains. When we asked about the difference we were told that the Ojibwa were much more stationary than the Plains Indians and actually had 2 houses, the 2nd being further north to permit hunting for larger animals such as moose, caribou and bears.
On we went and were invited to join the crew of a Voyager birchbark canoe for a paddle around a small island in the river. That was great fun, and we didn’t capsize! Finally, into the Fort for a review of the buildings. We were in the 1815 mood. It is interesting to note that the Fort is a very good reproduction because when the Hudson’s Bay took over the Northwest Company in 1821, plans of the structures were drawn and an inventory of the contents was taken. It was interesting to note that the reconstruction was done using only period tools. We noticed that the glass in the windows had a wavy surface, as was the standard before float glass was developed. We saw a cooper making wood barrels, a tinsmith making cups and pitchers, a hand operated fire pump, canoe building and a farm among other activities. We saw the gaol and the butter making facility that was above the icehouse. All of a sudden it was 5:00pm, and they had closed down the exhibits.
I think we were the last ones out. What a wonderful, but exhausting day. We went back to the RV and had a snack before moving to the west side of Thunder Bay to the Trowbridge Falls Campground run by the City. We were parked adjacent to the Current River, which flows south through Centennial Park (we’ll go there tomorrow) and into Lake Superior. Susie took Daisy for a walk and discovered the falls and all the hard rock that lies just below the dirt in this area. It looks as if it is sedimentary, but it is awfully hard. We heard the Falls as we went to sleep.

August 5, 2009 Wednesday:
Today we walked Daisy, took showers and left the Trowbridge Falls Campground. On my morning walk I discovered another set of falls, and later Susie took her last walk and took pictures. We drove to Centennial Park and decided that it would be a good place to ride our bikes. Most of the Park is old growth and probably the largest trees we have seen in quite a while. There is a dam on the Current River about 1/4 mile from lake Superior. The only purpose of the dam was to create Boulevard Lake within Centennial Park. We saw canoes and kayaks and a few brave souls in the water. The dam has a fish ladder but no fish. The bike/hiking path around Boulevard Lake seemed to be heavily used, especially for a Wednesday morning. After the bike trip, we loaded up and drove along the Thunder Bay waterfront with a marina with mostly powerboats. I suspect the water is very cold, but I do know of a Lightning sailor who sails here. We met him in Sheboygan WI at the 2005 North Americans. I talked to a man who was brushing his dog and mentioned that the geography in Canada was very different that that in US. He agreed and said that with all the mesa, etc, you might have thought we were in New Mexico (except for the temperature) rather than Canada. We then headed east to Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, a drive of about 50 miles. Sleeping Giant is named for a large rock formation and an Ojibwa Indian Legend. Nanabosho (the Giant) was the son of Kabeyun (the West Wind). He led his tribe to the north shore of Lake Superior to protect then from the Sioux, their traditional enemies. Nanaboshho discovered silver and had his people move it to a tiny islet at the end of Sibley Peninsula. A few days later, he saw a Sioux guiding 2 white men to the secret hiding place, raised a storm that capsized the canoe and killed all three. Kabeyun was so mad that he turned Nanabosho to stone, and Nanabosho still lies in repose where his father struck him. He can be seen from Thunder Bay. It turns out that the white men found the silver and mined approximately $3,225,000 of silver from Silver Islet before it was overcome by the Lake Superior waters. The mining has stopped, and approximately half of Silver Islet has been eroded away. After we arrived at our campsite, we tried to take a bike ride, but the maps were so poor and the attendants at the Visitor Centre so unknowing, and it started to rain lightly before we could get very far. Eventually we were able to look at a much better map, and the weather is expected to be better tomorrow so we’ll do out trip then. Susie madly colored her pictures with the hope that she’d be caught up tonight. Daisy was able to take another swim and now is sleeping peacefully.

2009-08-08T19:02:00.008-04:00

2009 – Week 15

July 23, 2009, Thursday:
We survived the mosquito spraying last night. About 1:00pm, when the smell was gone, Susie put he fan in the RV window and sucked the cool air inside. Daisy was much happier and so were we. We left Oakwood Lakes at 10:30am and headed southeast into Brookings to visit 2 AAA Gems. The first was McCrory Gardens on the grounds of South Dakota State University. As a matter of fact, all three Gems were on the campus of SDSC. We walked through numerous plantings and landscape features, trying to avoid the irrigation systems that seemed to spray water wherever we stood. As with all gardens, you get what is flowering at the time of the year you are visiting, but I can tell you that there was enough color for sensory overload. From here we headed to the Agriculture Heritage Museum. In this building were several very old tractors, some steam driven others gas driven. It is interesting to see the tools that farmers had available to them in the 1910’s. There was a brief history of the Briggs & Stratton Company. Briggs never went to college, but he had the knack for things mechanical. He eventually left the company and went on to head the Outboard Marine Company. There was another display of farm chores in the 1930’s based on books and illustrations by Bob Artley, born in 1917. If you get chance, look him up on the internet and get one of his books. We bought “Seasons on the Farm”. His work made the display fun, and we noticed several children laughing and wondering was this really how people lived in the 1920’s and 1930’s. As a side note, we were told that we had to go across the street to the Microbiology – Farm building where the students were trying to improve ice cream and create new flavors. We held off on going there and went back to the RV for lunch. After lunch we headed to the South Dakota Art Museum. Many artists with very different stories to tell. From here we went back for ice cream and milk (for me). The ice cream was wonderful and rich, and I needed the milk to wash it down. I returned to the Agriculture Heritage Museum to see if they had any sheets on what SD produced and how it compared with other states. Hooray for the internet, 2 minutes later I had all the info. Returning to the RV, we decided that we would head directly to Pipestone MN and skip Sioux Falls. There was a major reconstruction project on I-29 from Brookings south, creating single land traffic flows. We were on it only for about 10 miles before we exited and headed east into MN. Gabby Garmin was wrong again as we tried to get to Pipestone NM from town, but eventually we figured it out. We checked in to a Campground nearby where Susie gave me a much needed haircut, and we had dinner of hamburgers and corn plus we washed a few loads of stuff, mostly covers for Daisy’s bed. This seems to be a friendly campground with people wandering around and talking with each other. We went to bed around 11:00pm.

July 24, 2009 Friday:
Daisy and I went for our walk at 7:30am and returned to have a cup of coffee for me and breakfast for Daisy. Susie was up a bit later. We spent a good amount of time discussing what we would see in MN. We have decided to keep to our plan of visiting the outlying parks and special features. We headed off to Pipestone NM and discovered that not only was this a monument to protect the material that the Native-Americans used in the past to make pipes and other objects, but the NPS has taken the opportunity to turn the facility into a study of prairie grasses and how to rid the area of all non-native plants, most brought to the area by settlers. When they started the project of restorative burning, about 1/3rd of the plants were non-native. It seems like a tough task, and we wish them well. We left the NM at 2:00pm after having spent time with a couple who are riding a tandem bicycle across the country, Portland OR to Portland ME. They are stopping at friends and families places as they go. Actually we saw them yesterday Susie at McCrory Gardens and me at the Agriculture Heritage Museum. They are in their mid-50’s and must be retired. She has had both knees replaced, and she says he is due. They stay in hotels or B&B’s so there is no need for them to carry tents and all that other stuff. There are numerous wind turbines in the area. Most are smaller, and so must be older because the new technologies permit larger ones now. We were talking to some people in the campground today who were escort vehicle drivers for turbine blades, which are now 130 feet long. Stay tuned, I’m sure they’ll be longer soon. Once again, this is glacial lake area, and we are seeing numerous lakes, some small and some bigger. It is amazing what glaciers leave as they advance and retreat. We eventually stopped at Silbey Lake SP, approximately 10 miles north of Willmar MN. We were able to get the last spot, for one night due only to a recent cancellation. There is no electric, but we’ll make due. We took a short hike in the park to the top of Mt Tom. It was 2 miles round-trip and had a gigantic net elevation change of 100 feet. At the top of Mt Tom, there is an observation tower that just barely got us over the trees. We took a few pictures and started back. The mosquitoes began to get me as we were walking down and when we returned to the RV, I jumped inside. A bit later Susie came in and said the mosquitoes were gone. I took no chances and put on long pants and a long sleeve shirt before venturing forth. There are numerous dogs and young kids in the campground, all having lots of fun. I wonder what time curfew is here? We had green beans and meatloaf for dinner. Remembering our experience in 2006 returning from Canada where we lost all our venison at the border, we are eating all unlabelled food now. It is going to be a bit warmer tonight because we are nestled in the trees and there is not much airflow.

July 25, 2009 Saturday:
We awoke this morning with cool temperatures, blue skies and wind in the treetops. It wasn’t until Daisy and I went for our walk and got away from the trees that I realized how hard it was blowing. We took showers and because the showers wouldn’t shut off, all the hot water was gone in just a few minutes. A waste of water and electricity. We had eggs, sausage and orange juice for breakfast, cooked on the outside stove. We left the Park at 11:00am and headed north towards Alexandria to visit the Runstone Museum. This museum is primarily dedicated to the discovery in the late 1890’s of a stone with ancient Viking symbols and tools that cast further doubts on the belief that Columbus discovered America. The stone tells the story about the attack and resulting death of some of their comrades while in MN. I had known since 2006 that there are the remains of a Viking settlement on the northwest corner of Newfoundland. We had wanted to go there, but ran out of time. Also Jared Diamond’s latest book “Collapse” in which he discusses Vikings in Greenland and there adventures further west. It seems very possible that they sailed into Hudson Bay, walked upstream to Lake Winnipeg and walked further south into Minnesota. According to information in the Museum, the authenticity of the stone has become more certain as investigative technology has become more sophisticated. There were other exhibits, and the one that sticks with Susie and me is a story written by a man and his experiences as a boy with the old (pre-rotary dial) telephones and “Information, Please”. He thought there was a wonderfully smart lady inside the phone who would answer any question he had. He asked her how to spell words, help with homework, etc. Even after the boy was grown, he kept it touch and was devastated he called and she had died. However, the lady had left a note with the other operators, and it was read to him. That softened the blow. After we left the Museum, we went to the local bakery for bread, an éclair and napoleon for a treat. We then continued on north, but were going to take a detour along a route marked as scenic by Rand McNally. We traveled about 10 miles and realized it wasn’t scenic at all. We took a series of back roads, which were much more scenic and arrived at Itasca SP. There were 3 spots with electricity remaining and we took one for two nights. One again we dodged a bullet. A heavy rainstorm came through and washed the RV. We had internet so I looked at local radar. This was the only precipitation within 100 miles. We noted that this land, while it has different trees than home, has the feel of the east coast with large trees and big woods. There are 11,000+ lakes in Minnesota (no matter what the State license plate says), and everyone seems to have vacation houses. We went to bed early and plan to take the day off tomorrow to relax. Probably won’t be as successful as we believe. Last night we discovered that I had forgotten to fill the RV water tank, and it was empty. That was a first, and something we’ll have to remedy.

July 26, 2009 Sunday:
Today was a bit of a rest day, and we enjoyed it. About 11:00am we decided that we should ride our bikes to the Headwaters of the Mississippi River, the outflow from Lake Itasca, and then continue around Lake Itasca, a distance of approximately 15 miles. The Minnesota folks said it was a bit hilly, but we weren’t worried. Susie made a lunch and off we went. The place was full of people of all ages. The youngest was a 19-day old, and the oldest, who knows. Kids, adults and dogs were all in the water, and it was easy to walk across the Mississippi as it was only 18” deep at worst. As we watched, the scene reminded us of the one at Upper Emerald Pool in Zion NP a couple of months ago. We finally left and went to the Visitor Center to have lunch and buy a commemorative pin for the Headwaters and the State Park. Off we went around the Lake in a counterclockwise direction. For a while the road was 2-way, but soon it became one-way and less stressful. Up and down small hills without any trouble. We stopped to see an Eastern White Pine Tree that was more than 300 years old. It was in good health. We continued on, but noticed that every time we stopped, the mosquitoes and deerflies swarmed and bit. Back on the bikes. And we stopped again to see a 300+ year-old Red Pine. It was not as healthy as the Eastern White Pine, but it had the distinction of being the co-holder champion of being the biggest Red Pine in the USA. We kept on going and returned to the RV around 4:00pm. Showers were in order and then a quick steak, potatoes and cooked carrot dinner. We unhooked the RV and drove to listen to a trio of local singers, Alabaster Falls. They were wonderful and most everyone stayed for the entire 2-hour show. We returned to the Campground and did some computer work. I was working in iPhoto and noticed for the 2nd time in the last few days that photos had disappeared from iPhoto but not from the hard drive. What a stressful time! I finally just went to bed and hoped that they would re-appear tomorrow.

July 27, 2009 Monday:
Daisy and I took our walk this morning, and she was a bit perky. Susie was drawing and I working on downloading my blog. Something bad seemed to have happened there also, and I hope I was able to fix it. We took showers and left the Park at 11:45am. We headed northeast east on US71 to International Falls. The road was often straight as an arrow as it tracked across the gently rolling hills on MN. I commented to Susie that if there were no trees, we would be able to see for miles. This area had been heavily logged in the early 1900’s, and it has been slow to recover. However, there now seems to be a plan and the timber industry is slowly coming back. The trees do not grow as fast as they do in the warmer climate, but they are making progress. The winds were blowing hard all day, making the driving a bit tough at times. We arrived in International Falls and immediately stopped at the Visitor Center in hopes of find material on Voyagers NP. Susie was successful, and we then shopped for groceries, gas and a place to stay. We found a small RV Park and settled in. I spent a time trying to figure out how to take the Boise Cascade Paper Plant tour and see as much of Voyagers NP as possible. I think we have it under control, but I need to call the tour boat company to see if the published schedule is the correct one. I have an inkling from our neighbors that it may not be. Our neighbors have an older RV, and while talking with them, realized that this is their send one, the first having been junked after 220,000 miles. On that basis, ours is just broken in. I talked to them about our battery problem without coming up with a solution. He told me that he had added more metering of the electric system so that he could tell more accurately what the charge levels were. We’re going to be able to get back home without too much inconvenience. I am actually more worried about my computer and all the photographs. We had a thunderstorm, but later the weather cleared.

July 28, 2009 Tuesday
The weather was wet, cloudy, windy and raw, just like a fall day at home. Having hot cereal for breakfast pretty much says it all! It pretty much stayed that way all day. We toured the Boise paper mill from 11:00am to 12:15pm. Two financial businessmen took the company Boise Cascade private from the country of India a few years ago. The papermaking process started with the delivery of logs from the 335,000 acres of land owned by Boise in Minnesota. The bark is stripped from the logs and used to generated heat for drying the paper pulp. The logs are chipped and turned into pulp in vats that are about 10 feet in diameter and 15 feet deep. From the vat the highly diluted pulp is distributed on to a fine meshed fabric. The water is drawn away, and all that is left is the continuous moving fiber mat. This mat, or sheet, then enters the drying section where steam heated cylinders evaporate most of the remaining water, and then heavy steel rollers finish the sheet to the required thickness and smoothness. On the smaller of the paper machines, the sheet moves at 29mph, and on the biggest machine (cost $525M) the paper moves at 41mph. The most exciting time is when there is a weak point in the paper, causing it to break. The machines shuts down automatically but just visualize the mess created by 40 -foot wide sheet of pulp/paper traveling wild at 41mph (60 feet/sec). This happens 2 to 3 times per 24-hour period. We just missed seeing this happen on the big machine, but we did see the wet mess on the floor. The cutting of the paper, wrapping and boxing the product were fun to watch, but I just kept thinking that it takes us about 15 months to go through one box. Not all of the boxes had Boise labels, there were some from Staples and other companies I did not recognize. So the lesson is to buy the weight and color you want at the cheapest price. It is probably the same paper as the most expensive brand. We drove to the Rainy Lake Visitor Center of Voyagers National Park. This entrance is at the west end and closest to International Falls. We were able to get reservations on 2 boat tours for tomorrow afternoon, leaving from RLVC, and then another trip on Thursday from Kabetogama Lake Visitor Center on Thursday afternoon. Susie and I think that we’ll get a much better view and understanding of the Park looking from the water. After all, 38.5% of the area of the Park is water. There are wolves in the Park, but the Ranges didn’t seem to know how many or where. Minnesota has not imported wolves, as has Yellowstone NP, all are native. We watched 2 movies and took a short hike before returning to the RV Park, the same one we were stayed in last night. It rained a bit as soon as we were tucked in, and we hope that tomorrow will be better. At least we have good wet weather gear for the boat trips.

July 29, 2009 Wednesday:
This morning was a it colder, but there were signs of sun coming through the clouds. NOAA still is forecasting 20% chance of rain and thunderstorms for the next 4 days. Susie took pictures of her drawings, and I prepared the RV to go to the Rainy Lake Visitor Center to take 2 boat tours. The boat was a pontoon boat with a seating capacity of 20+ people and was named the Borealis.
As I said yesterday, we thought that the way to see this Park is by water, and we were correct. We saw the western part today and will see the eastern part tomorrow. There were numerous houseboats, mostly rental we suspect, cruising around or moored to the shore. The more fancy houseboats have waterslides and hot tubs. We were told that the Park has 204 campsites that are accessible only by water and maybe 30% were in use. It is ‘first come, first served’ for all these sites, and there were numerous kayaks and canoes pulled ashore at them. I am sure the Park is almost full during the weekends. We had a brief tour of Little American Island, the largest gold mine in the area. The gold rush went bust in ????years, but the remains of the shafts and tailing still remain. What we have seen so far reminds me of the San Juan Islands in WA, the 1,000 Islands and Adirondack Park in NY. This is much smaller, but it gives me a sense of peace as we traveled across the water.
By the way, we learned that MN has 11,864 lakes, according to the National Park Service. I wonder how big a piece of water needs to qualify as a lake? We saw numerous bald eagles, but the young have not yet fledged. There are 36 nesting pair of bald eagles in the Park, about as much as it can support so now the population is spreading in all directions beyond the Park borders. We saw a family of Loons: mother, father and one chick. The parents were teaching the chick how to dive and fish for dinner. Every so often we would hear the mother and father calling to each other with their wonderful song. We saw a single large turtle, about 12” in diameter, slip from a rock and disappear into the water.
I thought that the Rainy River, which flows through International Falls, flowed east into Lake Superior, but the Ranger corrected me. After a bit of investigation, I found that one the border between the US and Canada sits Moose Mountain (about 35 miles from Lake Superior). The water that flows down the east side of the mountain flows into Lake Superior and eventually to the Atlantic Ocean. The water that flows down the west side flows west through Voyagers NP, down the Rainy River to the Lake of the Woods in Canada and eventually empties into Hudson Bay. So now we know that water flows 2 directions in MN, but let’s add a third, the water that flow down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. A look at a National Geographic Hydrological Map of North America indicates that this is the only state that has water flowing to 3 different drainage basins. We finished the 2nd boat tour at 5:00pm, loaded the RV and headed east to the Woodenfrog Campground, a MN State Forest campground, near the VNP Kabetogama Visitor Center from where we’ll take our tour of the eastern portion of the Park to Kettle Falls Hotel (accessible only by water). It rained a bit as the sun went down.

2009-07-27T11:09:00.017-04:00

2009 – Week 14

July 16, 2009, Thursday:
I discovered this morning on my morning walk with Daisy that if we had gone to the south side of the reservoir to camp, there were showers and other facilities that we didn’t have on the north side. It turned out that we had unknowingly made the correct decision. Dogs were not allowed on the south side, and the mosquitoes were vicious. We had our showers and left at 10:30am, planning to stop at the Bighorn Canyon National Recreational Area, located in both MT and WY. We would spend the night in one of the campgrounds that was accessed from the south through Lovell WY. On the drive there Susie identified another flower, the Mexican Hat. This flower grows along the eastern base of the Rockies from WY south into Mexico. We stopped at the Visitor Center (BLM), and they were very helpful. We were told that the Bighorn Lake was 6 feet above normal, the first time in years that the level has been above average. Looking at the exhibits, Susie remembered a PBS program, titled Cloud, on wild horses in the west. The film was made here in the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range, which is to the west of and partially included in the BCNRA. The BLM is charged with managing the herd and has tried ways other than helicopters to herd them to capture. Unfortunately, the alternatives are much more costly, and there is a question if the more expensive program will be continued. We drove north on WY37, stopping at the Horseshoe Bend Campground to check availability. There wasn’t a tree in sight, so off we went, headed north to Barry’s Landing to check out that campground. On the way, after crossing back into MT, we stopped at the Devil’s Canyon Overlook where the Bighorn River flowed 900 feet below the overlook. Across the river was a meander that had been cut off over the years and had left exposed Natural Corrals, proving, I suppose, that the climate in this area was much warmer a long time ago. Down on the river was a privy placed on a floating barge so that people boating had a place to do their business.
As we continued north, we saw a female big horn sheep. The animal was in the process of shedding its winter coat and looked very scruffy. Also, all those pictures you see in the magazines of big horn sheep, those are generally rams with the big horns; the females have much smaller horns. A bit further on we saw 5 wild horses drinking water from puddles beside the road.
We are glad to report that the small herd of one stallion, three mares and one foal were in excellent condition The elevation of Barry’s Landing was about 3,700 feet and the temperature about 90 degrees. We decided that we had seen all that we wanted to and headed out, proceeding east on Alt 14A crossing the Bighorn Lake on a causeway. When we were here in 2006 and coming west on Alt 14A, there was almost no water flowing under the bridge. Now water seemed to be everywhere. Good News! We wanted to reach a higher elevation so that the temperature would be less, and so we started climbing a 10% grade from 5,700 feet to 8,900 feet at the Porcupine Campground in the Bighorn National Forest. A wonderful surprise, here we were some 3,000 feet above the floor of the Bighorn Basin, 15 miles from the nearest town, just entering the Bighorn National Forest and the cell phone rings. It was Kimberly. She and Susie talked about all sorts or things, especially the new Dalmatian puppy, Violet, and her (Kimberly’s) pregnancy. She is due in mid-November. At 8:30pm at the Campground, the temperature is 58 degrees and possibly could fall into the 40’s. I am now in the process of resolving the impossible task of how to stay at this altitude all the way home so we don’t get too hot. There are rumors of a wonderful hiking trail from the Campground. We’ll confirm that tomorrow. The mosquitoes around here are thick and aggressive. They don’t seem to bother Susie as much as me. She can sit out, and I need to be indoors. Just after the sun set, I was walking over to the pit toilet and thought that I saw an odd shape. I turned on the flashlight and saw the hindquarters of a large animal. I thought horse, but then it backed away from the tree, and I saw the big head of a young moose. I returned to the RV and told Susie. We both went out, and I was unable to find my moose, but Susie saw two, we believe a mother and her baby. I guess they had enough of us, jumped the fence and wandered off. That was it for the night. The skies were dark, the moon had not risen and the stars were bright. Nothing like being in a place with no light pollution.

July 17, 2009 Friday:
It was 48 degrees this morning and there were two (that I know of) very short rain showers before 7:00am. This morning we decided to stay for a second night, giving us time to take a hike someplace through the surrounding meadows. The Camp Host directed us to a NFS Station one mile down the road, but they were all on work detail. We found a map posted in a shelter, but a critical part had been removed, and it was such a small scale that the detail didn’t show. We tried to sort it out and then return to the campground to tell the coupe from Memphis what we had found, but by that time, they were already a trail that showed on my GPS and the NFS map. It wasn’t much of a trail, or maybe it had been and was abandoned many years ago. We are finding that maps and GPS data has not been updated or new roads replacing old, and the old ones still showing. Pretty aggravating. We finally straighten ourselves out and returned to the RV to make a lunch and get proper equipment, plus prepare Daisy for the hike. We had a nice 4-mile round trip walk across meadows full of wild flowers and indications of places where animals had laid down to sleep or rest.

We at lunch in the woods and walked back taking a slightly different track to avoid crossing Porcupine Creek and some small streams. Susie did better than I, more patient I suppose. Both my feet were wet but neither of hers was. We returned to the RV at 3:30pm and had a rest before starting our afternoon activities. I am trying to work out our schedule for the rest of the trip.

July 18, 2009 Saturday:
Today is the day we leave the Bighorn Mountains. It is a neat place and feels as if a set of mountains were uplifted about 6,000 feet above the land below. I say that because you have to climb that amount to get onto the plateau and then go down the same amount to get off. The highest we went was at Medicine Wheel NM, just a bit below 10,000 feet.
This is an ancient Native American sacred place, and a spoked-wheel laid out on the ground and marked with stone. It is not a building, and the only indication of living quarters, and this is a guess, were the small circular rings at the perimeter of the big ring that may have been there to hold tepees in place. I can visualize the winds that blow across this mountain top all times of the year. We continued east an US14A until it ended at US14. We continued east on US14 and found that they are in the process of straightening this road and taking out many, if not all, of the switchbacks. Nothing like big equipment and dynamite to move rock! US14 in Wyoming is the northern-most road in the state, and we suspect truckers will use it extensively. Of course, when it really snows, it may be difficult to keep open. US14A is closed during the winter. When we came down out of the mountains we came across a viewing area for the ‘Fallen City’, a number of very large granite rocks that were about the size of buildings with a height of 6-10 stories, thus the name. I don’t think we have ever seen anything like this before. When we reached the plain, and the boring part of the trip, we stopped in the town of Dayton WY where we had lunch at the Branding Iron Restaurant. The food was good, especially the pie a la mode. The waitress was a bit old than we, and she kept us in line. The land out here is mostly sage and used for grazing, plus it seems that natural gas grows well here. It is not very attractive, but I suspect we knew that in our hearts as we left the Bighorn Mountains. We stopped in an RV park in Gillette WY because we were afraid that the State Park some 30 miles further would be filled, being it was Saturday night. Susie made the comment that Wyoming equals big trucks, ATV’s and chainsaws, but she could become a western WY and MT girl, but only during the summer months.

July 19, 2009 Sunday:
Daisy had a bad night last night; once again the effects of coming down from high altitude (10,000 feet) to lower altitude (4,800 feet). She was up every 2 hours, and I had to take her for a walk. I finally stayed up at 6:00am, took a shower and rattled around the RV (making more noise as it became later) until Susie got up. It was a bit cloudy, but we followed our plan to visit Devils Tower National Monument as our last big event in WY before we passed into SD. As we drove from Gillette east on I-90 we saw numerous oil/gas drilling rigs, but the most surprising was the coal generating plant on the south side of the road and a small but growing open-pit coal mine on the north. A conveyor under I-90 connected the two. The BNSF has a set of railroad tracks that pass by the plant, and Susie and I wondered if they were selling any of the coal or if it was all being used to supply the plant. A few miles east, we saw three long coal hauling trains, and we assumed that they were waiting to be loaded so some of the coal from the open pit is probably being shipped some other place. We passed north of the Thunder Basin National Grasslands, with an area of 1,800,339 acres. In the early years settlers familiar with farming in humid areas homesteaded the area with catastrophic results. The area turned into a dust bowl. It has now been replanted with native plants and is being used with great success as grazing land for sheep, cattle and pronghorn antelopes. At the north edge of this grassland, which is blessed with great energy resources, operates one of the largest coalmines in the US. There was a two-issue article in the New Yorker magazine a few years ago about this mine and the challenges of transporting the coal, some of which was sent to a huge power plant somewhere in the southeast. The train never stops as it is unloading and returns empty to WY for another load. There is a scenic road that includes Devils Tower, and the routing is, from I-90 Exit 153, US 14 north, continuing past Devils Tower and then turning left (south on WY111. It is very different from the land we past through from Buffalo WY to Moorcroft WY on I-90. Susie and I couldn’t believe the difference. The route was generally flat with an elevation of approximately 4,000 feet until past Devils Tower

when it climbed in to the Black Hills National Forest and the Bear Lodge Mountains to reach a high elevation of 4,400 feet. It seems like an insignificant amount, but all of a sudden the grass turned green and lush and we found many ranches that were harvesting and bailing hay. It reminded us of the east coast with its lushness. We returned to I-90 and continued east into SD and Rapid City. Rapid City is host to one of the largest and most famous Harley Davidson rallies in the USA. We only know about this because in 2006 we ran in to some folks headed there. It was hot today, but a cold front was expected and did arrive with thunder and lighting and heavy rain. The RV Park we are in is packed full as it is close to Mt Rushmore NP, Wind Cave NP, Custer SP and the incomplete Crazy Horse Memorial. We are hoping to get the RV house battery issue resolved in Rapid City before we push on further east. Tomorrow Meredith and Michael Ray close on their new house in Indianapolis IN. Happy Days are here!

July 20, 2009 Monday:
Oops, talked to Meredith today, and the closing will be on Wednesday due to a law that requires the buyer to have the appraisal in hand for 3 days before the closing. That makes the closing on Wednesday. Today was unusual one in that whatever we had planned seemed to go amiss. We tried to go to Safeway for some minor stuff and Gabby Garmin had us doing all sorts of silly things. We eventually took measures into our own hands and got there. Next was the stop at the Interstate Battery store to check on the RV house battery. There has been some road configuration in the area and Gabby had us on the wrong side of the tracks, figuratively and literally. In addition, the address on the Interstate web site was wrong because they had recently moved. It turned out that the battery was in good shape, but for some reason it was not getting a full charge. More investigation is needed, but when we get home. Off we went, headed towards Badlands NP in SD. Along the way, we noticed great areas being hayed and even the areas between the fence and the road surface (the right-of-way). This serves to give the ranchers more feed and eliminates the need for the road departments to mow. Seems like a good concept to me. Most of the ranchers out west no longer bale the hay in rectangular shapes, but now make roll bales. The roll bales are easier to handle in large quantities. We took the scenic route US44 along the south side of the Park and entered at the southeast entrance. We took the road through the center of the Park from east to west, losing some of the easterly progress we had made earlier in the day. We saw a herd of 25+ Bighorn Sheep, primarily females and young ones, at the end of the drive. It was 5:30pm when we pulled into a RV Park in Wall SD. If that rings a bell, Wall Drug is really a mini-mall in the town and seems to be the obligatory stop if one is traveling the northern route across the country.
We saw at least 6 tour busses in the parking lots, and many people with nametags pinned to their shirts. Back in the 1930’s Wall Drug’s first marketing ploy was to offer free ice water to shoppers. We toured the many stores in the evening and will stop there in the morning to get 5-cent coffee and fresh donuts. They seem to sell everything in this place, but we only bought a commemorative pin and an ice cream cone. We had steak, corn and green beans for dinner, mostly cooked outside. The little Coleman stove had a hard time boiling water due to the strong north winds. It was a much cooler day than usual, and most everyone we saw commented on this fact. Daisy is feeling much better, and we hope we are near the end of her altitude problems.

July 21, 2009 Tuesday
It was cooler last night, and we had a better sleep. Susie gave Daisy a bath, and she smells much better. There was a hair-cutting shop across from the RV Park and needing help Susie called over for both of us. The earliest they could take us was 11:00am and too late. We took showers and left the RV Park at 10:00am and headed to the public parking lot in Wall. We found a spot near the trees and in the shade. I thought we would be able to keep Daisy cool and pull right out after Susie took her pictures of boots and hats, and I bought fresh donuts.

When we walked back, we noticed several RV had pulled in, and from a distance I thought we were trapped. Luckily we were able to back out and escape, but I’m sure some others were trapped for a while. We headed east on I-90 through gently rolling grasslands. We saw few houses and even fewer cattle, but lots of hay bales. They even harvested the hay down the median of I-90 plus along the shoulders. We continued east and to be truthful it was a bit boring. We were desperately looking for a rest area so that we could stop and make lunch, but I guess out here no one stops for anything so we drove straight to Fort Pierre SD and had a late lunch at a restaurant we learned about from the Visitor Center. It had recently reopened after major renovations (we were told) but it really needed help with the food. I was dying for an omelet, thinking that would be fresh but had to settle for a club sandwich that wasn’t anything to write home about. We continued along to visit the State Capital complex.

The building is coming up on its 100 birthday. We spent about an hour inside walking three floors. It is a great building with materials and workmen from all around the world. Hopefully the pictures will show you the magnificence. We discovered that even though the dividing line between the Mountain and Central Time Zones is down the channel of the Missouri River, leaving Pierre and Fort Pierre in different time zones, the people have decided they belonged in the Central Time Zone, so we lost an hour. At least tomorrow morning the sun will not be rising before 6:00am. We have pulled into the Oahe Downstream Recreation Area for the night. They have electricity at the sites but no water, not a problem for us. Susie is working on her pictures for the next issue of her blog. Daisy wanted to go swimming so badly, but now that she is clean and doesn’t smell, it will be a while.

July 22, 2009 Wednesday:
HAPPY 42ND ANNIVERSARY TO US! Since we were operating as if we were in the CDT Time Zone, even if we were on the west side of the Missouri River, the sun came up later than just the day before. We were out of bed at 7:30am and on the road by 9:30am. We decided to drive over the top of the Oahe Dam and discovered to our amazement that there didn’t seem to be any way for commercial water traffic to pass upstream of the structure. When we have wifi again, I’ll check on that question. We headed east on US14 to Miller SD and turn north on SD45, planning to intersect US212 east to Watertown SD. When we reached US212, We found that the road was closed, so we turned around and headed south to SD26 and headed east again. After a few zigs and zags, we were able to get back on US212 and head into Watertown. The trip across SD from Pierre to Watertown was a study in rolling hills, pastureland and crop producing land. It was green without irrigation. The farms were well kept and the equipment was generally new. There were more John Deere and Case International dealers than Wal-Marts. What a refreshing change. Approximately 30 miles west of Watertown, we passed through the town of Clark, with a population of 1,285 people. What was most interesting and first caught my eye was a grouping of 7 cars, all the same model and year. All were painted the in the same color scheme and were lined up in 2 columns. After that we saw a sculpture of old steel wagon wheels and then two sculptures of wooden poles installed in the ground at a slope.

There were no signs about the origin, so we named this area the Stonehenge of SD. We pushed on, realized we were hungry and stopped under a tree in the town of Henry, population 268, and had lunch. Interestingly, there was a restored 2-story square house, with additions, that was the class of the town. It seemed a bit out of place, but it was nice. AS we drove east from Henry, the more lakes and ponds we saw. There were white pelicans on most of them. This northeast portion of the state is known as the Glacial Lakes Region. We finally reached Watertown and the Terry Redland Museum. I had never heard of him, no great surprise there, but neither had Susie. According to the magazine, US Artists, he was voted the most popular American artist 8 years running. It turned out that he had donated $1.8 million towards the construction of the building, which was designed by his son. Anyway, when we walked it, the paintings reminded us of velvet paintings we have seen on street corners. He must have sold numerous prints from the original oil paintings hung in the museum, but they weren’t to our taste.

There was a small room where approximately two dozen of his graphite sketch drawings that were studies for his paintings. We thought these were the best, but to each his own. Susie said that she had never been in and out of an art museum so quickly. We jumped back into the RV and headed south to Cottonwood Lakes SP in preparation for going to Brookings for three AAA Gems tomorrow. There are 2 campgrounds in the Park, There are big trees everywhere in Campground 1 and small going to be big trees in 30 years in Campground 2. We’re in Campground 1. We have been warned that they are going to spray for mosquitoes tonight between 9:00pm and 11:00pm. Glad we’re not tent camping. It has been a long time that I’ve heard about spraying, but the SD SP’s we’ve been in seem to do it regularly. We stopped at 5:00pm after having driven 266 miles.

2009-07-18T23:03:00.018-04:00

2009 – Week 13

July 9, 2009, Thursday:
Susie and I were up at 6:30am. Daisy had 2 walks, and we were able to leave the RV at 8:15am for the 9:00am boat. Once again, we were transported by 2 woodies that were in magnificent condition. We were told that the boat on Lake Josephine, the farther of the two lakes we would travel, a few years ago had been in need of a major overhaul. She had been hauled over the glacial moraine between Lake Josephine and Swiftcurrent Lake (an artificial lake in front of the Many Glacier Hotel). The boat normally on Swiftcurrent Lake was hauled the other direction to Lake Josephine and placed in the fully enclosed boat shed for the winter. As luck would have it, an avalanche hit the boat shed and sheared off the roof so that boat operated as an open boat for the following season. Given the afternoon rains that seem to come through here every day, it must have been a wet tour season. To get back to the activities of the day, we took the first boat across Swiftcurrent Lake, walked a 1/5-mile across the moraine where we boarded the other boat to go to the far end of Lake Josephine. There were tall mountains all around the lake, and not much space available for paths along the water’s edge. We had the choice of 2 hikes; an easy one led by a naturalist, the other a more strenuous hike by ourselves. We, along with several others, took the more strenuous one named the Grinnell Glacier Overlook. Along the way, we saw fresh bear scat and a discussion followed as to what our thoughts would be if the scat wasn’t on the trail as we went up but was when we came down 20 minutes later. We were unable to go the entire way because of snow blocked some of the trail. If we had tried and slipped, it would have been a long way down.

We saw five people, all young, ignore the gate and keep on going. We thought our 2- mile hike from elevation 4,858 feet to 5,876 feet was enough. So did lots of other people. There was a Ranger at the high point who answered the question “Can we go on?” The Ranger’s answer was short and to the point “We can’t stop you but none of you have the proper equipment to proceed beyond this barrier.” Silence; no one asked anything more. Eventually we all headed down only to see many more people of all ages heading up. The wild flowers were colorful, helped I’m sure by all the moisture this year.

We opted to walk back along the north shore of Lake Josephine rather than wait for the boat. As we walked, we noticed several avalanche chutes where the trees had been cleared out from the top of the mountain almost to the lake. However, for some reason the avalanches seemed to stop about 150 feet of the lake and never took the trees out. We ate the rest of our lunch while waiting for the boat, and then went into the Lodge for some snacks. I rested (slept might be a better word) around the large fireplace while Susie allegedly headed to the gift shop. However, when she returned, she told me she had been talking to a lady who had a Kindle 2 from Amazon. The lady loved it! Susie thought it might be a bit pricy. We made one attempt to ride our bikes back to the campground but it was raining a bit with a promise of more to come. We waited for a while and then decided to tough it out. About 15 minutes after we arrived at the RV, the sun broke through so we got wet for no great reason. Susie took a nap, so the recharging of the RV battery was delayed. We had dinner and went to a Ranger talk on fire in the forests. It started to thunder and lightning and then rain so the program was moved under the motel porch. She was here in 2003 when there was a fire on the west side that threatened to jump the ridge and burn the east side as it had a few years earlier. The Many Glacier area was evacuated, and she and her young children went into Canada for 3 days before returning. She also talked about the fire in the spring of 2006 on the east side that jumped US89 and burned part of the Blackfoot Indian reservation before it was put under control. When we passed through here in September 2006, the smell and the burned bark on the trees was still there. This year the smell is gone and the bark has fallen to the ground. There is also some new growth. It rained quite a bit last night, and the bikes are cleaner than they’ve been in a long time.

July 10, 2009 Friday:
We were very lazy this morning and eventually settled on doing a 6-mile roundtrip hike to Ptarmigan Falls, taking us into the 3rd different valley in three days. The weather looked great and we eventually started the hike at 11:15am. Before we left, Susie had taken Daisy for a last walk down the main road and was stopped by another camper warning her than he had just seen a black bear sow and cub crossing the road where she was standing. Evidently that spot was a major known crossing route. The first 1/2-mile was the toughest, or so it seemed. We passed a family taking a break, and they were eating oranges. They seemed like a great snack and Susie vowed to get some when we came down. We walked through woods, and as we gained altitude we passed through fields of wild flowers and low shrubs. This was definitely bear (black and grizzly) country and so we hollered “Here Bear” is an effort to warn to warn them off. We passed very fresh bear scat and a spot along the trail where a bear had torn up the grass to find grubs and roots. As we went further into the valley, the Horrigan family (Leo, Margery and son Eamon) we had passed earlier caught up, and the five of us joined up. We were now close to the magic group of six people that the NPS had found bears had not attacked. It turned out that this family was from Baltimore. The usual “You’re kidding!” and other comments were passed. We stopped at the Ptarmigan Falls, talked, had a snack and then Susie and I decided that we would carry on to Iceberg Lake. This would make the hike a 10-mile trip. Off we went, climbing higher all the time and hollering “Here Bear” more often and a bit louder.

About half way up, we saw the first major wildlife of the trip, a Golden Eagle. This large bird was sitting on a rock ledge about 100 feet above us and the same distance off the trail. It doubt if it was watching us, but all of a sudden it took off and put on quite a show as it soared over our heads and the valley below. Continuing on, we started to hear news of a grizzly bear about 5 minutes ahead and about 35 yards off the trail. All the people coming down the trail confirmed this and were very excited. We approached quietly, but when we arrived, the bear had disappeared. We hope he would pop up again, but after 10 minutes we continued on, more than a bit disappointed. We kept looking back, but it was Susie who spotted it moving across the fields.
It took the rest of us a bit longer, but eventually we all saw it. There was another person nearby, and try as we might we never could get his eyes in the right place. Susie took the pictures, and we’ll see how they turned out. Up we continued and came upon a small lake. The GPS and the map showed only one lake, but this was a disappointment. We continued up the trail, popped over a small rise and there it was: a beautiful blue lake sitting at the bottom a semi-circle of 2600 foot high mountain cliffs above the water surface.

We had lunch there, soaked our feet, and gazed in awe of the scenery. We saw Mountain Goats on the cliffs and steep rocky slopes.

Leo and I tried placing ice on our knees to reduce the swelling before heading down. Off we went, making noise and encouraging those coming up the trail to continue on: the view was well worth the effort. Eamon had a great recollection of the trail, and he was right on when telling us when we were approaching a point where something exciting happened. We stopped at the Ptarmigan Falls for a rest and then continued down. We reached the bottom at 6:30pm and headed to our respective campsites with an agreement to meet the next morning to exchange information, etc. Susie and I had corn-beef hash and eggs, real comfort food, before heading off to hear a Parks Canada Ranger give a talk. Evidently, the US Park Service and Parks Canada swap programs during the summer, and we had a great one. On the way to this program we were slowed by the sighting of a black bear on the mountain slopes above the road. It was a black bear even though it was blonde in color. The two major differences between the species are the big muscle hump and the dished face on the grizzly bear. This bear had no such hump so it was a black bear. We returned to the campground and took showers. All of a sudden it was 10:15pm, and exhaustion set in. Off to bed!

July 11, 2009 Saturday:
We were slow getting up this morning but managed to have one cup of coffee before the Horrigans came by. We exchanged info and wished them good luck on their remaining visit. They headed to Two Medicine Campground for a couple of days before heading back to Whitefish MT where they would catch AMTRAK home to Baltimore. They were hoping to get a white-water trip in before leaving. Susie and I headed to St Mary Campground and decided to make today a rest day. Tomorrow we’ll spend a few more hours in Glacier NP before starting to head east. Susie drew, inked and colored like crazy while I tried to catch up on my photographs and prepare a blog for the next time we have internet.

July 12, 2009 Sunday:
Today we did as we had planned, plus a few more things. We took the shuttle to Logan Pass and then jumped on another bus to The Loop, a 180 degree-hairpin turn on the western side of the Going-to-the Sun Road. We didn’t want to go all the way to Avalanche, because the cliffs and valleys were not as spectacular. We passed The Weeping Wall, but it wasn’t as wet as it was when we passed in late June. We returned to Logan Pass where we took a short hike along the Highline Trail. The exciting portion of the hike was a rock ledge varying in width from 4 to 6 feet. Just to help us along, there was a steel cable covered with old garden hose that we could hang on to as we walked if we wanted.

Sometimes we did and sometimes we didn’t. There were hikers coming from the other direction, but the most interesting obstacle was a male mountain goat coming at us. He passed on the outside, but only after we had averted our eyes. These mountain goats, while not actually friendly, do not seem to fear humans. We returned to Logan Pass after a 1/2-hour hike. We jumped back on the shuttle to St Mary and decided it was too late to travel on, so we checked back into the campground. When Daisy was settled, Susie and I took our bikes to a trailhead and hiked the 3-mile loop around Beaver Pond. We returned to the RV around 6:15pm, and Susie took Daisy for quick swim that turned out to be 40 minutes. Daisy came back all refreshed and happy. The Park Host came by on his evening rounds and found us running the generator out-of-hours. Oops! We had dinner and tried to plan an exciting way across MT and WY, seeing places we haven’t seen before. It’s a struggle, but I think we have a plan. Next struggle will to do the same for SD.
Tonight really is our last night (of 12) in Glacier NP. As you can probably guess, it has been great and there is more to see.

July 13, 2009 Monday:
This was the last day in Glacier NP; twelve nights on both the east and west sides of the Park and well worth the time. It rained last night, and the weather for today was forecast to be rain most of the time. We decided to get breakfast in St Mary before heading to Great Falls. It was a real local place and very popular. We left St Mary and headed south on US89. The terrain changed from the foothills to the plains where we first saw cattle ranching and then as the land was better, there was still ranching but much more hay cultivation. To the west of the road, there was the Bob Marshall Wilderness and beyond that, even though we couldn’t see it, was the Abolt’s house and the town of Condon MT.

We kept heading southeast and came to a small town, almost abandoned but it had a Post Office. We stopped to change drivers, and I took a walk with Daisy. As we had approached the town we saw seagulls and wondered why, but when I got out of the RV, the ground was covered with grasshoppers or some other such bug. They were everywhere. No wonder the birds liked the place. We passed by Freezeout Lake, which is a bird wildlife refuge, but it was empty this time of the year. We continued to be amazed by the land and ranching until we reached Great Falls at 2:15pm. We stopped to refill the food stocks, get gas, purchase more dog food for Daisy and wash laundry. We finally reached the KOA at 7:15pm and had sticker shock at the price. It is a beautifully maintained place, but we didn’t need that. There was a husband-wife team who gave a small concert, and we met a couple and two young children who live in Michigan. It turns he was from Nova Scotia, but moved because of a lack of job opportunity. His father was a coal miner in an area we visited, but the job killed him at age 42. Tough life in the mines. The concert was a nice end to the day.

July 14, 2009 Tuesday
We work on computer stuff until 10:30am when Susie took Daisy for a walk before we left for Billings MT or thereabouts. I disconnected the RV from water and electricity and move it to the propane filing station. When I was in the office I discovered that they had ‘Cookies made just for you’, and I had a few and picked one up for Susie. They were delicious and just what we needed as we headed down the road. We continued south on US89, once again through wonderful farmland. It was raining intermittently, and we actually passed through an area where it had snowed. There were about 3” inches remaining on the edge of road, making it a bit slippery. Remember, this is July 14th! We passed by the Sluice Boxes State Park, so named by the early miners for the shape created by vertical rock walls and flowing water at the bottom. The signage stated that this area had been under water Unfortunately the road didn’t follow the river so we had just a short view. We continued south through the Little Belt Mountains where we passed the rough the town of Niehart, a place with a sense of humor. One street was named Compromise St. and the one store was named ‘The Inconvenience Store’. There didn’t seem to be much activity here but in earlier times it was an active mining town. We saw the remnants of two vertical mine shafts. We crossed the Kings Hill Pass at 7,393 feet where we found the base of a skiing facility. We went down the other side and turned east on US12 with the Little Belt Mountains on our left and the Castle Mountains on our left. This is true ranching land, and it is hard to find any houses anywhere. As we continued down, we began to see land under cultivation and irrigated for hay. We saw one cattle feed lot, but it wasn’t very big. We passed through a few very settlements, but they did have Post Offices so they must have been towns. We then turned south to Billings where we were planning to spend the night. The trip from St Mary to Billings has been wonderful and very different from the areas we have visited over the last three weeks. We have had a touch of the MT plains that we have not had before. Nearing Billings we called RV Parks and the prices were outrageous. We traveled a bit west on I-90 to Laurel where there was one with more reasonable prices, but it was behind a truck stop, and the smell of diesel fuel was too much. We moved on and started south on US310 and US212 and as we passed over the Yellowstone River (on its way to join the Missouri River) we saw a County Park. We though we had it made, but it was adjacent to a large refinery and while the wind direction was fine and the smell went the other direction, all that was needed was a wind shift, so we passed that one up also. We continued south and eventually stopped at 6:30pm at Cooney Reservoir State Park. The reservoir was above overfull. We settled in on the north side, right next to the water, and had dinner. It was quick and great and we needed the refreshment after having traveled 288 miles. Just after dinner, Susie looked out the window and there were two rainbows, one brighter than the other. I took Daisy for a brief walk and as the sun was setting Susie went out again. Daisy dearly wants to swim again, but it’s going to be cold tonight. The skies cleared and suddenly the Beartooth Mountains at the northeast corner of Yellowstone NP became visible. There was still snow on the peaks and in some of the areas protected from the sun. As we were going to bed last night, we heard a singing in the distance and discovered that there was a powerboat on the reservoir with a group of young folks and a boombox. They were far enough away and seemed to be having a good time without being a nuisance.

July 15, 2009 Wednesday:
Beautiful clean skies this morning. We have decided to spend a 2nd night here and so we are looking out over the reservoir with Daisy mostly of her leash. There is not too much activity here, but with the numerous homes on the north side, I suspect it is busy on the weekends. Susie is desperately trying to catch up with her drawings, and I am trying to identify the individual mountains we see off to the southwest. The Park staff has confirmed that these are the Beartooth Mountains
so we feel good about that. We have now seen the Beartooths from all sides, and the view never seems to get worse. I have pulled out the chairs and lowered the awning to provide shade. The generator is running full tilt to recharge the house battery and the computers. I have begun to take Susie’s battery when mine is low on juice. Either the battery is going bad or the iPhoto program with all our pictures is an energy hog. Well, I have a 3-year guarantee that expires in November so I’ll just go get a new one! I’ve already replaced it once. As I sit here with clear skies, I am beginning to think we should get a solar charger for the computers so that we don’t have to run the generator as often. There are 2 powerboats on the lake, often with water skiers behind. Oh no, a 3rd boat was just launched and it has a very loud boom box. Daisy is swimming in the water with a big stick and having fun not being on leash. She will be exhausted tonight. We have noticed that as the days go by, the winds shift from the south to the north and then back as night falls. It makes orienting the RV so the generator exhaust doesn’t infiltrate the cabin; closing the windows isn’t sufficient. Susie drew and drew and drew, finally stopping at 5:30pm after many hours. She took a rest and made a meatloaf and Brussels sprout dinner. I prepared a Byrd’s pudding, shortbread and peaches desert. She is now working on here photographs to prepare for the next time we get to a wifi site. It may be a while. It beautiful out as the sun sets. We had a 5-minute shower with very big raindrops, but that has all cleared away. We had a tent camper come and decide that he would pitch his tent between the water and us in our campsite. Susie politely asked him to move, and he did. Don’t know what he was thinking. There is much more activity on the Reservoir than yesterday. PWC’s seem to be everywhere as they roar up and down the lake. Susie had trouble with her pictures so she may need to take them again tomorrow.

2009-07-18T19:58:00.024-04:00

2009 – Week 12

July 2, 2009, Thursday:
Today we moved on from the west side of Glacier. We went to breakfast in Eddie’s Restaurant in Apgar where Susie had pancakes, and I had buffalo hash and eggs. Great meals, and we hoped they carry us to dinner. We took a drive on the west side of the Park on the Camas Road and, being at a higher elevation, were able to see more of the mountains of Glacier Park, plus the mountains of Waterton Lakes National Park, its sister park in Canada. This area was totally burned in 2003 but is coming back. Shortly after the Camas Road exited Glacier NP and went into the National Forest, the road turned to gravel. We went on for a bit before we met a road grader and decided to turn around. We headed south and eventually went into Kalispell. I remembered a self-serve car wash with enough clearance for the RV so we headed there. We scrubbed and pressure washed for a while, and the owner felt sorry for us and added 10 minutes free and access to a high volume hose for rinsing. I think we were scrubbing and rinsing for at least 25 minutes and while it’s better, more work needs to be done when we get home. We headed back out of Kalispell and found a spot in a Rocky Mountain ‘Hi’ Park where only we could fit. They had good wifi and showers. We had dinner, and I posted another blog while Susie kept on drawing. We went to bed a bit after 11:00pm.

July 3, 2009 Friday:
I had an early shower and am glad to report that they were terrific; lots of hot water with high pressure. I felt pressure washed like the RV. Susie and I worked on the blogs, and the owners of the RV Park allowed us to stay until 12:30pm, well past the normal checkout time. Both of us posted week’s blog. I also called around to find new lamps for the bathroom light that failed during the night. Flashlights were really inadequate. Finally we found one source, but they would close early because of the holiday weekend. Off we went and also filled with gas before heading south to Condon MT where the Abolts live. Susie knew the Larrine and Russ Abolt when they lived in MD, and they were fox hunting. They now live in Condon MT, off MT83, in the valley between the Mission and Swan Ranges.
The Mission Mountain Wilderness is to the west and the Bob Marshall Wilderness to the east. The land they own was homesteaded in 1917, really not so long ago. We learned that the entire area encompassing the Rocky Mountains from Missoula MT north into Canada just south of Calgary is known as the Crown of the Continent. Russ Abolt is deeply involved in understanding and maintaining the nature of this section of the country. The Abolt’s son Chris and wife Kathy arrived from Baltimore after a long flight made longer by an airline flight plan change. Russ’s sister is also here from FL, having driven her RV. The Abolts have a yellow lab/husky, Abby, and she and Daisy got along well. There is a pond nearby, and it won’t be long before they are both wet. We had a wonderful dinner of bison burgers, asparagus and yam potato salad, all of which were exceptional. Everyone headed to bed around 9:30pm in preparation for tomorrow’s Fourth of July Parade and festivities.

July 4, 2009 Saturday:
Happy Fourth! Susie and I were sitting in the RV and all of a sudden Daisy jumped out and stared out the front window. We looked out intently expecting to see some wild animal, but while it was a great animal, it was Abby out for her morning walk. There was no group breakfast as everyone was working towards a 10:15am departure to the parade. The parade started promptly at 11:00am and took about 45 minutes. MT83 is the only one route through town (and through the Swan Valley) and was closed for the duration by the Sheriff. Participants included representatives of the military, the Shriners, cowboys and cowgirls, numerous spiffy Corvettes, the Fire Department, motorcycles, restored automobiles, the US Forest Service and that’s about all I can remember.

When we saw the Sheriff, we knew it was over, and the cars that had been stopped at the south end of town started coming through. While I am sure some were a bit annoyed, most had smiles. What they didn’t know was that there were other parades further north on the road and that they’d probably be stopped again. Next was the opening of the food concession and selling of huckleberry ice cream. We had Polish Sausage, but the ice cream was gone by the time we went for dessert. It seems amazing that it wasn’t until 2006 that we had ever heard of huckleberries. That was the year we were taken up into the mountains by Barbara and Dick Strevy in Idaho to pick them. Next were the horses. We watched for a while and then returned to the Abolts. The Abolts had arranged a dinner and more people and dogs arrived as the day went on. By dinnertime, there were 7 dogs and 11 people roaming around loose. Daisy had a great time. We were a bit concerned that she would wander off, but no problem. After dinner, we went up the hill to see the log house that was under construction by one of the dinner guests and his brother (not present). The view to the west was wonderful, and we all suspected that the morning view would be even better. The last event was watching the town fireworks from the porch at the log house. The fireworks started at dusk (10:00pm) and went for an hour. Back to the RV to sleep. A great Fourth of July!

July 5, 2009 Sunday:
Breakfast was scheduled for 9:00am, and while the food huckleberry pancakes and bacon were ready, not all the people were. After breakfast, we help put netting over the strawberry plants to help keep the chipmunks from stealing them. Here’s hoping it works. Next we took a walk in the meditation garden that Russ Abolt has constructed. He has quite a talent for taking pieces of wood and making sculptures from them. He and Abby go to the garden every morning where he sits in a chair and has tea while Abby wanders around. Today it was a bit different since Chris, Susie, Daisy and I were there. Daisy finally found the water, and she and Abby had a wonderful time swimming and running around and through all the trees. All the humans had a good laugh, but the dogs smelled a bit at the end of the hike. We left the Abolts at noon and headed north, stopping at ‘The Merc’ to purchase food for the next few days. We then drove around the south end of Glacier NP to the Two Medicine Campground and Lake in the southeast corner of the Park. The southern boundary of the Park is delineated by the Flathead River and Bear Creek. The BNSF Railroad follows these, as does US2. We saw snow sheds over the BNSF tracks. We first saw these in Canada in 2006. They were built to deflect sliding snow over the tracks during the wintertime. Looking directly uphill from the sheds, it is easy to discern the snow chutes down the mountains. We also saw 2 small waterfalls where the Middle Fork of the Flathead flows down from the Flathead Range and into the Flathead River. They were not large waterfalls, but did cascade gently over a series of rock shelves. The entrance to Two Medicine is very different from the west side. Here the mountains are much closer and have the same steep slopes. We are viewing them from the floor rather than from the tops as we did at Logan Pass. Susie took Daisy to the lake where she swam and swam, cleaning herself from the other swim. There was a young baby, Anna, with her parents watching Daisy, and every time Daisy leaped and splashed Anna laughed and laughed. The plan for tomorrow is to take a boat ride to the southwest corner of Two Medicine Lake and then a Ranger-led hike to the Twin Falls. However, the Park Host just came by and said there is an 80% chance of rain for tomorrow. Adjustments may need to be made.

July 6, 2009 Monday:
NOAA Weather forecast this morning was lousy for the entire day with 100% chance of rain, with strong cold winds. We found a better spot for the RV where we can look at the mountains and watch for wildlife. At noon it still hadn’t rained, and while that was no guarantee we decided to take some short hikes that would allow us to return quickly if the weather started to go bad. The first hike was up the Appostiki Creek to the Appistoki Falls. They weren’t too big, but it was nice. The best part was the hike where were went through several growths of Beargrass. They are in bloom right now and a treat to see. The second hike was to take us up into the mountains to Scenic Point. We never made Scenic Point but did manage to climb about 1,700 feet to elevation and a total distance of 5.75 miles.

We climbed past the limit of live trees and came across a section of dead Limber and White Bark Pine trees, all stripped of their bark and bleached out. We climbed above them and suddenly there were no living plants. We had another 600 vertical feet to go, but it started to rain and as we were coming down we experienced a shower of small hail. Hard rain followed, and while we had rainjackets, we didn’t bring pants so we were soaked from the waist down. There were numerous college age kids on the trail, and they were much faster than we, actually some were running down the rocky trail. One girl fell flat on her face, but was able to get up with a bit of assistance. A group of their friends, about a 1/2-mile and 6 switchbacks behind, applauded the fall. This area is sedimentary rock and reminded me of my late stepfather’s slate quarries in VT. There were all sorts of colors, including a purple and green mixture. The rain stopped and our pants dried as we continued down to the bikes. We loaded up and the rain began again, this time much harder but with less wind. We returned to the RV and had hot tea. There were numerous wet and bedraggled hikers trudging into the campground. The rains stopped, the sun came out and the winds grew stronger. I went to talk to 2 Canadians about the most scenic route through Ontario Canada. The trip around the north side of Lake Superior to Sault Ste. Marie is a winner, but they advised us to head south through the Michigan LP after that. They have saved us several very disappointing days. We had a steak diner cooked on George Foreman and mashed potatoes; great comfort food. At 8:00pm we attended the Ranger talk on the Mountain Goat. We did not realize that a full grown male weighs 300 pounds going into the winter and comes out having lost about 1/3 of his weight. The biggest predators of mountain goat kids (weighing 7 pounds at birth) are Golden Eagles. The biggest killers of full gown Mountain Goats are avalanches during the spring. The sky has cleared, and the wind direction changed. The rumor is that the high temperature for tomorrow is expected to be 65 degrees, but only a 20% change of rain.

July 7, 2009 Tuesday
When I woke at 7:30am, the thermometer indicated about 55 degrees, but when I stepped out it seemed warmer than that. Daisy and I took our walk and once again, people thought she was a wolf. I went to purchase tickets for the 1:00pm boat ride to the west end of Two Medicine Lake and the store to buy a dozen eggs. We had a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs with a small piece of cinnamon roll as a chaser. Daisy had another walk and swim before we left for the boat trip. At the west end of Two Medicine Lake stands Sinopah Mountain with a top elevation of 7,995 feet. This lake was glacier-created and has a natural (not dam assisted) depth of 285 feet. There are also mountains on the north and south sides of the lake. The motorboat that transported us was constructed in 1928 of wood and has been kept in magnificent condition. There was a hike to Twin Falls after the boat trip, and we had thought it was to be led by a Park Ranger. However, an employee of the boat company was the guide. It didn’t take us long to figure out that it was going to be very slow so we hooked up with a group of 10 who not only wanted to go to Twin Falls, but also proceed further to Upper Two Medicine Lake. The glaciers here, like many other places, are receding, and the forecast is they will be all gone by 2020. On the way back to the RV the rain started, and by the time I was inside I was wet. Susie had made lunch and we took a rest waiting or the rain to stop. It did and we saddled up for a hike to Redrock Falls, a one-way distance of 1.9 miles. We were feeling good that we continued west to the upstream end of Bullhead Lake. It rained quite heavily but not for too long as we walked. We had the necessary gear, which is more than I can say for many other hikers. Bullhead Lake is about as far as you can go before the grade increases as you climb towards the Continental Divide. We were about to turn around because time was getting short, but a hiker told us about a moose just off the trail about 1/4-mile ahead. We had to see that so off we went. We smelled him before we saw him. Susie was only about 50 feet from him when she took the pictures. We then beat a hasty retreat and headed down to the Campground. We thought it was late, but we saw about a dozen other hikers headed the other way. We thought they were taking a bit of a chance because the animals will be on the move as evening falls. It rained again. We reached the Campground and made the decision to take showers, the first in four days, and then had dinner at the Swiftcurrent Hotel. The Swiftcurrent Hotel has rental cabins, and they were home to Meredith and the Duffeys when they were here. We returned to the RV feeling very clean and stuffed with food to write and draw for the blogs. Tomorrow when have a 9:00am boat to catch, so we were in bed a bit earlier than normal.

July 8, 2009 Wednesday:
It was about 45 degrees at 6:30am, and I stayed in bed until the temperature rose to 52 degrees at 7:00am. Daisy and I took our walk and afterwards, while she ate breakfast, I loaded the bikes and picked up around the campsite. We were able to leave Two Medicine Campground at 9:00am and head north to Many Glacier. Two Medicine has been wonderful three days, primarily because of the small size of the campground and wonderful scenery. We reached Many Glacier at 9;00am, and our stomach did flip-flops as we read the sign indicating the Campground was full. We pulled in anyway and found the Park Host who assured us there were numerous places available. We had a hard time finding them, but when we found one, we parked. It is a bit small, but centrally located. We had lunch and afterwards I rode my bike down to the Visitor Center to check on hikes and the status of grizzly bears, moose and other animals. There are bears here, but the Park has been successful in keeping them away from people by very strict enforcement of food and trash rules. I continued along to the hotel to purchase tickets for the boat ride across two lakes to allow us to get closer to Grinnell Glacier. The glaciers here, like many other places, are receding, and the forecast is they will be all gone by 2020. On the way back to the RV the rain started, and by the time I was inside I was wet. Susie had made lunch and we took a rest waiting or the rain to stop. It did and we saddled up for a hike to Redrock Falls, a one-way distance of 1.9 miles. We were feeling good that we continued west to the upstream end of Bullhead Lake. It rained quite heavily but not for too long as we walked. We had the necessary gear, which is more than I can say for many other hikers.

Bullhead Lake is about as far as you can go before the grade increases as you climb towards the Continental Divide. We were about to turn around because time was getting short, but a hiker told us about a moose just off the trail about 1/4-mile ahead. We had to see that so off we went. We smelled him before we saw him. Susie was only about 50 feet from him when she took the pictures. We then beat a hasty retreat and headed down to the Campground. We thought it was late, but we saw about a dozen other hikers headed the other way. We thought they were taking a bit of a chance because the animals will be on the move as evening falls. It rained again. We reached the Campground and made the decision to take showers, the first in four days, and then had dinner at the Swiftcurrent Hotel. The Swiftcurrent Hotel has rental cabins, and they were home to Meredith and the Duffeys when they were here. We returned to the RV feeling very clean and stuffed with food to write and draw for the blogs. Tomorrow when have a 9:00am boat to catch, so we were in bed a bit earlier than normal.

2009-07-02T22:07:00.019-04:00

2009 – Week 11

June 25, 2009, Thursday:
We left Mammoth Springs at 11:00am and headed north following the Yellowstone River and US89 towards Livingston MT and I-90. The Yellowstone River flows northeast until it empties into the Missouri River in ND and was a decision point in the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The valley is beautiful and lush with many irrigated ranches with large herds of cattle. We headed west on I-90 towards Bozeman MT with the hopes of making contact with Jessica McGowan Mason and her husband Seth. We first went shopping at Safeway to restock the larder and be prepared for the time at Glacier NP. We had found the cell phone and were calling Jessica when she called us. She is sponsoring a family reunion and will be coming, with her sister and parents, to Glacier NP at the same time we’ll be there. It’s going to be a full week with Meredith, Michael Ray, his brother and sister, and Jessica and her family. We have heard that the Going-to-the Sun road is open so we’ll be able to see lots of things. We continued west on I-90 and stopped at the Lewis and Clark Cavern SP. We passed by a Woodstock want-to-be, the Headwaters Country Jamboree. From the looks of the layout, they are expecting a large crowd. Once again, we have been to Lewis and Clark Cavern SP before, but it’s a nice park with not too much activity. We found a spot with afternoon shade 1that will carry us through the evening. There are dark clouds around, and every time one shows its ugly face, the wind changes directions and increases in strength. There are cottonwood and pine trees throughout the area. The feature attraction of the park is a large cavern up the hill from where we are. Lewis and Clark were never there, but the headwaters of the Missouri are just a few miles away. The temperature is 81 degrees and relative humidity of 25%. Back when we were planning this trip, I thought it would be 10,000 miles. We have traveled 6,640 miles so the number sounds good.

June 26, 2009 Friday:
We left Lewis and Clark Caverns SP at 10:30am and weren’t too sure where we were headed until the last moment. The final destination turned out to be Missoula MT. We jumped on I-90 heading west, crossing the Continental Divide (again) and passing by Butte MT. As we approached the city from the south, we saw the large open pit mine that is a Superfund site and is mentioned in Jared Diamond’s latest book titled ‘Collapse’.. Anaconda Cooper Mining Company owned the mine. The oil company ARCO bought out Anaconda and the British Oil Company BP bought out ARCO. Anyway, ARCO bought a mess, and BP bought a bigger mess. ARCO and BP have spent hundreds of millions of dollars so far to remediate the site and expect to spend more, maybe as much as $1 billion total. Last year we looked down into this open pit on a tour of the city, but looking at it from 2 miles away, it seemed much bigger. Passing by Butte, we saw the tall stack that was part of the Anaconda smelting operation. After Butte, we followed the Clark Fork river to Missoula. The Clark Fork flows past Missoula, to Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho and north into Canada where it joins the Columbia River. If you have read about Missoula Lake, created about 10,000 years ago, the ice plug that created the lake was on the Clark Fork at what is now the ID/MT border. The valley, through which the Clark Fork flows, is flat and wide and as result the river meanders along. We saw sandhill cranes and blue heron plus several other animals unidentifiable at 60+mph. We came into Missoula and stopped at the RV Park where we had been in 2006. It is shady, and the price is right. We washed clothes, worked on the blogs and finally realized it was late when the sun went down at 9:35pm. It rises at 5:43am! We may stay here one more night as our reservations for Glacier NP don’t start until Sunday night, and we’re only 150 miles away. Daisy is in a bit of a funk because she misses her Uncle Andy and his treats.

June 27, 2009 Saturday:
We are going to stay one more night. We have the opportunity to tie up some loose ends and be up to date when we leave to go to Glacier NP on Sunday. Of course, we’ll fall behind at Glacier NP because we’ll be with Meredith and Michael Ray for part of the time and also Jessica and her family. The early morning treat here was the arrival of a lady from Cosco with free coffee and muffins plus cost-saving certificates. The muffins were great, but we didn’t join. Don’t know where we’d put all the stuff we would want to buy. Susie worked hard on her blog and was able to post a few more weeks. She is now just a week behind – that doesn’t sound like much, but I can tell you it is lots of work. We are now down at 3,600 feet elevation after having been up high for several weeks. Daisy’s tummy is a bit sensitive, but we finally know what to do. I tried to print out some info from the internet, but I couldn’t get the black ink cartridge to work. The gauge shows 60% full, but I can’t get the ink to flow. I suspect it is the low humidity and lack of use.

June 28, 2009 Sunday:
We left the campground at 11:0am after a morning of miscellaneous work around the RV and Susie finish coloring of her drawings and taking pictures of them for post next chance we get to be near a wifi site. We drove north on US93 and saw a most amazing sight. There was a bicyclist pedaling south, and like so many cyclists, he was pulling a trailer. We have seen people carrying a dog or camping equipment, but this guy had a small kayak strapped on his. We came upon Flathead Lake, a beautiful clear fresh water later about 25 miles long and 15 miles wide. The wind was from the south at about 18k, and we noticed a PHRF-type race going on. It must have been a non-spinnaker fleet. I know the Thistle Class has held at least 2 national championships here, and I think I read an article on sailing here in a recent Sailing World magazine. We were on the west side of the lake and stopped at a pullover (about 200 feet above the water) and had lunch. On we went, going through Kalispell, before turning east to enter Glacier NP on the west side. We stopped at the Visitor Center and then checked in to the Fish Creek Campground on the west side of MacDonald Lake. We were scheduled to connect with Jessica McGowan and some of her family who were at the Park for one night. They arrived around 5:00pm, and we all went to dinner at a local Park restaurant. It was good food, and the company was better. All seven of us went out to the lake and had our picture taken by a couple from Galveston TX who were headed to Alaska for a 3 week trip. We returned to the campground at 9:45pm, they went to their tents and we to the RV. Jessica’s husband Seth had twisted his ankle, and we were able to give him an ice pack and Ace bandage for the night. They have to leave early, but we should see them before they go. It has been a treat to see them. Tomorrow, we should see Meredith and Michael Ray for a bit as they travel across Glacier NP to stay at Many Glacier on the east side.

June 29, 2009 Monday:
We spent most of this morning trying to figure out our schedule for the next few days. We wanted to take as many hikes as possible without overdoing it. We learned that the shuttle doesn’t start running until July 1st and questioned why so late, but as we thought about it, we remembered the snowplowing operation that the Going-to-the Sun Road did not open until this Friday the 26th, just a few days ago. We have seen some of the shuttle busses traveling along the roads, probably doing a bit of driver training. We decided to take a brief hike along the west shore of McDonald Lake to Rocky Point.
It took a bit longer than we expected because construction in anticipation of the 100th Anniversary of the Park in 2010. We returned to the campsite, and Susie went out for a few moments to take some pictures.
As happens with me most times, she met the Camp Hostess who admitted that she loved the flowers Susie was photographing and then offered to take her to another spot to see the flowers Susie had not yet seen. On the way, there was a horrendous noise and the Hostess and Susie ran to the spot and noticed 2 kids had collided on their bicycles. Neither had helmets on. The boy was still on the pavement, but denied he had hit his head, but why wasn’t he standing as was his sister? Everything was eventually straightened out, but not before the parents were given a gentle reminder that the kids should wear helmets at all times. So when Susie finally returned it was a bit longer than a few minutes. We loaded up and headed north on the east side of McDonald Lake, hoping to take a small walk, but before we were able we realized that Meredith should be arriving around 3:30pm. We hustled back and reached the Apgar Visitor Center at the same time she did.
WE had about an hour with Meredith and Michael Ray plus all of the Duffey family present. They then took off and headed over the Going-to-the Sun Road to the east side of the Park to Many Glacier where they’ll spend the night in some cabins. We returned to the campground and had dinner before heading back to Apgar Village to hear a song program done by a Blackfoot family. It was fun, and we returned to the campground for the night. I was very tired (probably because of the cold I was fighting) and went to bed almost immediately. Susie stayed up and drew for a while.

June 30, 2009 Tuesday
We were up before 7:00am and were on the road by 7:30am heading north to the Avalanche Lake Trailhead. Just after we left the campground, we saw a little fox kit sitting on the road, but near the edge. As we approached, it moved off to the grass and seemed very interested in us, but still a bit skittish. We wondered where the rest of his family was. We were early and parked on the road until I discovered a dedicated (or so the sign said) RV parking area. We found our spot, had breakfast and loaded up for the hike by 8:45am. We walked through an old growth of Western Red Cedar Trees. For some reason, no forest fire had not reached these trees for the last 500 years. They were a stark contrast to the areas burned in 2003. After the walk through the trees, we started up the Avalanche Creek. It was flowing fast and full, and we noticed numerous trees had fallen into the Creek and had partially blocked and redirected the Creek. After 2 miles we popped out of the woods to see Avalanche Lake, a beautiful blue piece of water.
As we gazed with wonder, we realized that there were 5 waterfalls falling 2,500 feet. None were a clean fall, just water bouncing off the rock cliffs as it fell. The source of water is the Sperry Glacier at an approximate elevation of 7,500 feet.
We didn’t stay long enough for the sun to move to the west so that the light would shine on the cliffs and waterfalls. We walked back and when we were almost to the trailhead, we saw an animal sitting in the middle of the road. It eventually moved off, but didn’t seem really scared of humans. One person thought it was a mink, but Susie and I bet on it being a fisher, but checking with the Park Ranger, he thought it might be a pine marten and brought out a picture for us to look at. Sure seemed like a pine marten to us. So on this hike we saw several chipmunks, a yellow-bellied marmot and pine marten. We took Daisy swimming in McDonald Creek and had lunch before driving south to a very short paved road on the west side of the road. We climbed out and took the McDonald Trail back north to the McDonald Falls. These falls are not where as big as the falls we saw before, but we were much closer. The McDonald Creek has cut through sedimentary rock and the banks are rugged. Just south of McDonald Falls there is a bridge for horses and people that allows great photos of the falls and turbulent waters. If we had known about this bridge, we could have stopped on the main road and had a much shorter walk. Oh well, the walk was nice and peaceful. We continued south to the Apgar Visitor Center where we asked about the pine marten and some flowers Susie was unable to identify. Daisy took her 2nd swim of the day. Successful in identifying the flowers, so we went over to the ice store and sampled their moose tracks ice cream. While standing in line we talked with a young couple with 2 boys from Minnesota. They were a hoot. We are amazed at how many people from Minnesota we have seen this trip. We started to go back to the campground, but Susie noted that we would be coming back for a Ranger talk on cougars, mountain lions or whatever you chose to call them. Susie took Daisy for her 3rd swim, and saw a couple take a bath in McDonald Lake. They said it was cold, but survivable, so she came back to the RV, got her swimsuit and towel and took a standup bath and head wash in the lake. I followed, and it was wonderful. We had supper and then went to the Ranger talk. I’m sorry to say that it was one of the worst we have experienced. Back to the campground where we prepared for tomorrow’s adventure. The shuttle starts, and we’re getting up early to ride our bikes to the Apgar Transit Center to catch a bus. The first one leaves at 7:00am, but I doubt if we’ll make that one. We’ll travel most of the Going-to-the-Sun Road, getting off to take some hikes if the trails are not snow-covered.

July 1, 2009 Wednesday:
I was up at 6:15am and walked Daisy. When I returned, Susie was up and had prepared Daisy’s food. We left the campsite at 7:50am and arrived at the Transit Center at 8:10am. The next bus to Logan Pass, the high point on the Going-to-the-Sun road was at 8:22am. We loaded up and off we went, arriving at 9:45am. The construction delays were minimal, but they’ll probably be worse in the afternoon. The Park has two different size shuttle busses due to the roadway restrictions between Logan Pass and Avalanche Creek on the west side. The large shuttles busses operate on the east side from Logan Pass to St Mary and from the Apgar Transit Center to Avalanche Creek on the west side. So except for the very first runs in the morning on the west side, you take the large shuttle to Avalanche Creek and transfer to the small shuttle for the remainder of the trip to Logan Pass. The reason for the shuttles is the ongoing re-construction of the Going-to-the-Sun road, scheduled to take 10 years to complete. They are now in the 3rd year of this project. We followed McDonald Creek upstream until we made a U-turn and headed generally southeast along the south side of the Garden Wall, a cliff with completely covered with trees. At this time of the year is brilliant green. Of to the right, we looked down into the deep valley with Logan Creek at the bottom. Logan Creek flows into McDonald Creek. The difference in elevation from the Going-to-the-Sun road to the creek bed is about 1,400 feet and is accomplished in less than 2,000 feet horizontally. There is some protection against driving over the edge, but not much. When we reached Logan Pass, we decided to hike to the Hidden Lake Overlook. Most of the trail from the Visitor Center to the Overlook was still snow covered, but the warmer temperatures made the snow were slippery. I fell twice, but Susie was fine.
We saw another type of animal, a hoary marmot. It has a silver coat. Two of them came to the Overlook and had very little fear of humans. We also saw several mountain goats, including a kid. They are very sure-footed on rock and the snow.

Find the Mountain goat in the picture above.

We saw people carrying snowboards and also skiers. Returning to the Visitor Center, we took a shuttle towards St Mary. As we left Logan Pass, we saw another valley more beautiful than the first. I was only 800 feet deep and did not have as severe slopes as the other. We also saw several big-horned sheep. We exited the shuttle at Sun Point and were able to hike along the north shore of Saint Mary Lake, seeing Barring Creek Falls.

We saw them in the fall of 2006,, and they were much less impressive than they are now. We continued on and picked up a shuttle that returned us to Logan Pass. We transferred to a small shuttle and headed back to Apgar Transit Center.
The Weeping Wall looks more like a RV wash station. Too bad we couldn't get there.

It was the end of a long day for us, but even a longer one for Daisy who had been confined to the RV for almost 10 hours. As a treat Susie took her swimming while I tried to clean up the RV and put away the bikes. This is our last night on the west side of Glacier NP, but we are thinking that we need to look at the east side before we leave the area. It's a long way to come and not do it all.

2009-06-26T16:38:00.020-04:00

2009 – Week 10

June 18, 2009, Thursday:
It rained quite a bit last night, and we found some water inside the RV. A check of the outside taping job will be necessary later today. I took Daisy for a long walk and then took the garbage out. Actually, the garbage was only an excuse to go check on the Great Horned Owlets.

There was lots of human activity, and I discovered that one of the owlets had lost its balance and fell to the ground. The Park Ornithologist was there; they had expanded the restricted area and placed the owlet on a tree stump with the hope that it would be able to climb to a safe perch. I went back to the RV, and we didn’t do much and left for the National Museum of Wildlife Art around noon. On the way we came across a herd of bison along the road. They are magnificent animals and to see them in the wild is a treat. We were at the Museum before, but the exhibits just seemed to be a bit better this time. We had a phone call from daughter Diana telling us that she had successfully defended her PhD dissertation so we can now call her Doctor Diana Hsieh. We left at 4:30pm, returning to the Gros Ventre Campground. I went back to see the owls and discovered many photographers with very sophisticated cameras. If we had been insecure, we would have thought our new camera was inadequate (which it was compared to these monsters) but we can carry ours on hikes with little difficulty and they can’t. The owlet on the ground had moved a bit, but was unable to climb a tree to a safe perch. It eventually waddled off, and we all feared for its safety tonight. The parent owls were in the trees above, but no one knew if they could protect the owlet if a predator found it.
The skies have cleared, and we are hoping for a warm day tomorrow for the raft trip.

June 19, 2009 Friday:
A beautiful and clear sky this morning as I took Daisy for her walk. We headed towards the river where the owlet had headed in the hopes of finding it, but Daisy showed no interest in anything but prairie dogs. She didn’t even want to go near the fast flowing river. We headed back to the RV. Susie woke with a sore throat and the start of a cold. She wasn’t sick all winter so this was a real downer. I returned to the owl area and saw some of the people who were there last night. < >
One lady was going to take a walk in the area where the owlet had headed. I checked on the one owlet we knew about, and it was still in the same place as last evening. Just as I was heading back to the RV, a man stopped me and said that they had found the other owlet, and it was in a tree about 20 feet off the ground. He gave me the location and darned if the owlet wasn’t there. I suspect that it didn’t fly up there, but somehow there it was, safe and sound. What a great way to start the day! We left the Campground at 11:30am to get to the rafting meeting point but were detained by a herd of bison walking along and then crossing the exit road. We eventually were through and headed north to Moose and were about 5 minutes late. We were OK, loaded up and drove10 miles north to the drop-in spot. The Snake River was full and flowing quickly, averaging more than 5 knots. To our right as we floated down were the Grand Teton Mountains rising some 7,000 feet above our heads.

As yesterday, the top of the Grand Teton was just above the few clouds in the sky. Steve, our guide, pointed out 5 bald eagles, more than 6 elk, 3 moose and indications of beavers. As you might surmise from the earlier blogs, this has been a good year for snow and rain. Steve said that as of a few days ago more than 90% of the average yearly precipitation had fallen. There were several years when the precipitation was less than normal, but the last 2 years have been above normal, a welcome change. The river water course has changed direction over the last months as more water has undermined trees, moved river rock downstream and destroyed or created new channels. We heard an eerie noise as we were traveling the river. Steve told us this was the sound of river rocks rolling down the river and crashing into other larger stationary rock. The rolling rocks fetched up against the downed trees, diverting the water and creating islands. We saw the moose near the end of the trip, and the last one was wandering around at the raft takeout point. When I went back to see Steve, I turned a corner and there it was munching on a tree. Steve confirmed what we had heard about moose being a dangerous animal. He said that they were dumb, bad tempered, strong, had numerous weapons (hoofs, antlers, etc.) and most of those type of people were in jail. We had a wonderful time, and AAA was right on when they called the trip a “Gem”. We would recommend the Barker-Ewing Company and ask for Steve as a guide. We drove north along the scenic route, passing close to Jenny Lake and checked in to the Colter Bay Campground. We had good long, but expensive, showers before moving on the restaurant at Leeks Marina for pizza. I took Daisy for a swim in Jackson Lake. We returned to the Campground, tied Daisy outside to give her a chance to rest outside the RV. All of a sudden there was a very different bark from Daisy, and Susie went outside to see what was up. About 50 feet away there was a large and very healthy coyote scouting around for food. It finally decided to go away, but we fed Daisy inside the RV just to be safe. Our guess is that it will be back later.

June 20, 2009 Saturday:
The coyote didn’t come back, but Susie awoke with a temperature, terrible head cold and headache. She spent all of the day on the couch taking DaQuil and ColdEase without much effect. Hot chicken soup wasn’t much help either, but at least it was food. I drove from Grand Teton NP up the John D. Rockefeller Highway, through the west side of Yellowstone NP and into the town of West Yellowstone MT to stay the night. I stopped to see Old Faithful, but there was so much on-going construction and so many people, I just kept moving. I saw nesting bald eagles, elk and shoulder-to-shoulder fishermen. The weather report for tonight is wet and cold.

June 21, 2009 Sunday:
The weather report was correct. It rained and the temperature in the morning was 48 degrees. The sky to the west is not dark, it is black, and so I don’t see much improvement. We’re going to push on to visit another Hotchkiss classmate, Andy Andrews, who has a ranch just outside the northeast corner of Yellowstone NP. He, Dan O’Day and I were in two different schools together from 2nd grade through 12th grade, very unusual. We saw each other briefly at our 50th Hotchkiss Reunion last fall. We drove up the west side of Yellowstone NP, and the trees fairly glistened after the rain. The rivers are flowing full, and the waterfalls are wonderful to see. We drove past steaming fumaroles. It is always interesting to see steam pouring from holes in the ground. We stopped at Mammoth Hot Springs in the northwest corner of the Park to have lunch. This area was the headquarters and barracks for the US Army troops who were responsible to protecting the Park in the early years. The original buildings are stone and are in good repair. The plan was to hike again the deposits of the Hot Springs, but Susie wasn’t feeling well enough. Off we went, heading east, towards the Northeast Entrance to the Park. We saw many elk, but unlike others, we did not stop to take pictures. However, we came to a big traffic jam and asked what was up, we were told grizzly bear. That’s worth stopping for. We parked as far off the road as we could but were told to keep the road clear. No problem, just around the corner was a pull-off, and we went there.
I took several pictures of this big dark brown grizzly. It was only about 100 yards away and laying in the grass. It rolled over, legs in the air, and proceeded to wiggle around scratching its back. Then it was up on all fours and ambled away, looking around as it went. We continued through the beautiful Lamar Valley. It is said that the wolf population resides here, but we didn’t se anything but elk and bison. We exited the Park, continued east along US212, Beartooth Highway. It is being renovated and mud splashed all over the RV. When we reached WY296, Chief Joseph Highway, we turned right and about 6 miles later, reached Andy Andrews place. It is in the middle of the Shoshone National Forest, in the valley of Crandall Creek. He has owned the place since the mid-1980’s. Most of the timber and a barn were burned in the 1988 fire that devastated Yellowstone Park.
He built a log house using timber harvested from the fire. The views to the west are inspiring, and the only structures visible are those on his property. Andy cooked lamb chops on the grill, and we went to bed early.

June 22, 2009 Monday:
I was up by 6:45am due to the sun streaming through our east facing bedroom windows. Daisy didn’t want to walk; she just wanted me to throw her the ball in the enclosed area around the house. She has been cooped up in the RV for the last few days and needed some exercise. I took a shower, and then joined Andy downstairs for coffee. We decided to visit the town of Red Lodge, and Andy drove. To get there, we returned to the Beartooth Highway (US212) and headed east.

We climbed to 11,000 feet and were able to get a marvelous view of the Rocky Mountains and Yellowstone NP. There is still snow above the 9,500 feet level. This makes the views clearer and more exciting. Near the West Summit, there is a ski area, and it was still in use. Andy pointed out areas where he skied, camped and horseback rode throughout the year. As we went down from the high point to the town of Red Lodge, he pointed out areas where avalanches had destroyed sections of the road, effectively closing it for the entire summer a few years ago. The avalanched cut a v-shaped trench 30 feet wide and 10 feet deep as it roared down the mountain. Susie and I walked around Red Lodge. She sent me into a candy store with permission to buy anything I wanted. After filling a bay with 1+pounds of goodies, I emerged. We had lunch with Andy and headed back to his house, another opportunity to see the sights, such as the ‘beartooth’ (for which the mountains are named), waterfalls and scenic vistas. The trip back took almost 2 hours, and Susie and I are grateful for his efforts. It was Monday, and Andy picked up his mail. It is delivered once a week. We all took naps. Around 7:00pm we were sitting and looking out to the west as the sun set, and Andy spotted 2, then 3, Golden Eagles soaring around the valley. Three is always a crowd, so then there were 2 and finally one. I grabbed the camera and tried to take pictures, and I want you to know that I had several shots of the empty blue sky. Those devils are hard to find when the camera is at full zoom. I was lucky and have two shots of the eagle flying and another two of it sitting on the fence. The sun went down; we had dinner and talked about our youth and upbringing. All of a sudden it was after 10:00pm, late for Andy and I, so we cleaned up most of the dishes and went to bed. It was a great day, and seeing the Golden eagles was a great. They are more common here in the mountains than the Bald Eagle, but we have not been close enough until now to really identify them (with help from Andy). We’re going to extend our stay one more night, and we’ll all leave Wednesday morning: Andy to his winter home in Tucson to move his wife Lynn and dogs here for the summer and fall, and we north to Glacier NP.

June 23, 2009 Tuesday
Daisy and I threw the ball, and I fed her breakfast. When Andy and Susie awoke, we had coffee and then breakfast before going for a walk through the western part of the ranch to look at new trees, the course of the river and the horses (who wouldn’t come near, probably because of the strange dog. Daisy swam, and the rest of us got wet feet as we crossed areas that have not yet dried from all the rain and overflow from the river.
When we were back, we decided to head west to Cooke City where we had lunch, highlighted for Andy and me by root beer floats. We wandered through the one well-stocked story, and we’ll return tomorrow to see if we want to purchase anything. Susie also went into an art gallery and came back gushing with praise for the artist who works with watercolors. We returned to the ranch where we realized we had a case of sugar shock combined with too much fresh air. To bed for a power, or better, nap. Even Daisy took a nap, overwhelmed a bit by the swim and walk. Andy finally recognized that tomorrow was the day he was headed to Tucson and the house needed a bit a straightening up before he leaves at 5:00am to drive to Cody to catch his plane. The house is in great shape, but ‘his room’ where he and Lynn sleep is also his office and he says needs a bit, maybe a bit more than a bit, of straightening up. Procrastination is a wonderful thing.

June 24, 2009 Wednesday:
Daisy heard Andy leave at 5:00am, but all of us went back to sleep until 7:00am. Susie was up a bit later. We changed the sheets, took showers, had breakfast, washed the dishes and took the trash to the RV for later disposal. We said out sad goodbyes at 11:00am, drove the RV out the gate and closed it. We headed back to Yellowstone NP the reverse of the way we came to Andy’s. We stopped in Cooke City MT for a few minutes and then continued west on US212 across the section that was under repair. It was better today because of the 2 days of sunshine that dried out the dirt. The road was down to one lane at times, and we had a delay of 15 minutes, hardly an issue. We then re-entered the Lamar Valley, and it was more beautiful than ever. The amount of green vegetation was overwhelming. Our first stop was a pullover where a couple were looking up at the cliffs to the south. They had found a mountain goat and kid plus several bighorn sheep and lambs. They were all resting in the sun, safe from predators. These people had telescopes and were very generous with anyone who wanted to take a peek. We could barely find the animals with our binoculars, even knowing where they were. There was one section where a ridge of rock had closed off the valley a long time ago, but the river had cut through the rock creating a gorge that was narrow and fast flowing.

On we went, spotting occasional bison, pronghorn sheep and elk as the valley widened, allowing the river to meander. All of a sudden, the occasional bison turned in to large gatherings of bison cows and calves in separate groups from the male bison. My guess is that we saw approximately 1,500 bison before the valley ended as the road rose into the hills. At Tower Junction, we saw a chuck wagon headed towards the evening barbeque location, and 2 wagons carrying tourists. Also there was a male elk with the largest antlers I think we have ever seen.
A bit later there was a traffic jam, but the Rangers had just arrived and moved everyone on. They were looking up the hill, so our guess was a bear in the vicinity. We continued to Mammoth Springs and decided to see if there were camping sites available for the night. There were lucky. We checked in, and drove to the town to get a very late lunch. Susie had a soda, chicken soup and French fries. I had a soda, grilled chicken sandwich, French fries and a double scoop of huckleberry ice cream. We checked at the Visitor Center to see if Doug Smith, the coordinator of the Yellowstone NP wolf re-introduction program, was available. His father and Susie’s mother were neighbors on Lake Erie when Susie was there during the summers. No luck so we went back to the campground and took a rest. I pulled down the awning to protect us from the sun’s heat, as it was getting warm. Back to short sleeve shirts and shorts. The sun went down behind the hills, and I rolled up the awning. We went to the Ranger Program, as the subject was bison, and the depletion and recovery of the number of animals in the country. At one point, the only surviving wild herd was in Yellowstone NP, but there were some bison on private ranches. With an aggressive, yet controlled, breeding program, the herd in Yellowstone NP is now about 3,000 animals. A few years ago it was 4,700 animals, but there was a hard winter and about 1,700 went out of the Park, causing lots of anger amongst the ranchers. Bison can carry a disease known as brucellosis, and the ranchers around the country are scared to death of it because when a female catches it, the first birth after contacting the disease is aborted. After that all is OK. We have heard lots about this interaction, but what we heard for the first time in all our travels is that elk also carry this disease. Elk hunting is a big business out here, and no one wants to acknowledge that the many more numerous elk are much more of a brucellosis problem than the bison. Also, it turns out that brucellosis was brought into the west by imported stock in the early 1900’s. Before the talk, we heard the Ranger warn all of us to stay away from wild animals. Today a person approached a bison too closely and was tossed into the air. The rumor was that this person had been gored! Nothing like rumors to expand the scope of a story. We enjoyed the talk and returned to the RV for a good night sleep.

2009-06-20T18:32:00.023-04:00

2009 – Week 9

June 11, 2009, Thursday:
It was overcast this morning, and we were fearful that the sun would never come out. However, when I took Daisy for her 2nd walk, there was blue sky to the west. The plan for the day was to hike the Navaho Trail loop from Sunset Point, a distance of 1.3 miles with a vertical drop and climb of 550 feet. After that we would take the bus to Bryce Point from where we would take the Rim Trail 2.2 miles north, returning to Sunset Point. It would be an easier day than yesterday and leaves us a 13-mile drive south to Rainbow Point tomorrow. The trip on Navaho Trail was the one that Susie really wanted to do because it took us through deep and narrow slots between tall and narrow rock fins that she remembered from 2003.

The Park suggested that we take the loop in a clockwise direction and so we did. The walls are deep red, and the area between the fins is covered with sand from the eroded sandstone. As we traveled in the bottom of the Bryce Amphitheatre, we noticed the areas of runoff from the heavy but infrequent rainstorms and snowmelt. We also noticed, because we were close to the rock, the mud drippings from the eroding soft rock above. In a way, some of these rock fins looked like sand castles that we made on the ocean beaches years ago.

When we finished the Navaho Trail, we jumped on the shuttle bus and went to Bryce Point. We were lucky enough to be able to talk with a Park Volunteer, a young man who with his girl friend are touring the country and volunteering at as many parks as possible. Susie had the opportunity to ask and get responses to several questions that have bothering her for the last few days. We parted company at Bryce Point, and we headed north along the Rim Trail. We saw a dead tree we had photographed in 2003 and re-photographed it this year. We also saw the small overlook where Susie and I sat in 2003 while another park visitor took our picture. I have to check, but I think the stone has eroded considerably in the 6 years. Neither of us wanted to go out there this time even if there was someone who was willing to take a picture. During the hike we looked out to the west and noticed another area of red cliffs and when we looked through the binoculars, the rock formations were the same as in Bryce Canyon. Looking east, the view reminded me of an ocean storm. The green trees and white sandstone cliffs were breaking waves. I took several pictures; maybe one will come out well.
We completed the hike, and Susie wanted to go to the Visitor Center in the hope of finding a knowledgeable tree person. I stayed at Sunset Point. On the bus, she saw the same Park Volunteer as before, and he took her into the Visitor Center and introduced her to the right person. The chemistry between them must have been perfect because Susie came back to get me at Sunset Point with a bigger than big smile on her face. Lots of answers and explanations. It will be good to leave the Park with such remembrances. The skies were partly cloudy all day and into the evening. The winds were blowing from the west, and the humidity was low.

June 12, 2009 Friday:
At 8:30am this morning were headed out and turned south to Rainbow Point, the far end of the Park, or at least as far as the road took us (13 miles all uphill). The views were different, but wonderful. The amount of erosion that caused the development of the hoodoos at the Bryce Amphitheatre was not as great here, but we could see hoodoos in the making. We had breakfast at Rainbow Point and then headed north stopping at each of the 8 overlooks.
We met a couple from Virginia, they had also driven out here, and at every stop there they were. Finally we had to stop talking otherwise we would still be there. They were headed to Moab UT, a trip of about 270 miles, in the afternoon. We finished the trip and stopped to dump waste and fill with water before heading to the showers. We scrubbed and rinsed and scrubbed and rinsed before the timers shut off the water. My ten minutes was shorter than Susie’s ten minutes. We continued north and stopped at Ruby’s Inn, just outside the Park. Before the park was a Park, one family had moved to the area and bought a ranch. They didn’t know anything about the hoodoos, but when they found out, they built a small Inn and the business grew. When the park became the Park, the Inn was inside the Park boundary, so they built another, and have created a vast business complex including motels, restaurants, general store, auto and truck repair facilities and so forth. The Park Service runs its shuttle busses through the area to collect passengers. This is same procedure that was used at Zion NP. We had lunch there before heading east on UT12 into the northeastern portion of the Grand Staircase-Escalante NM. UT12 is the first America’s Scenic Byway in the State of Utah. We were able to see many of the features that we had seen from Bryce Canyon NP, but from the eastern edge. The name John Wesley Powell popped up again. He was the first person to successfully traverse the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Here, he has a very visible peak at the bluff of south end of a mesa named after him. It tops out at 10,000+ feet and was very visible from all of Zion NP. We continued through the Grand Staircase-Escalante NP seeing farming aided by irrigation, sheer cliffs of different colors and shapes and cottonwood trees along stream edges. We stopped by a road sign information panel, and it identified 2 storage bins that the Fremont Indians had used during the 1050AD to 1200AD period. We started looking for campgrounds and found the Calf Creek Campground run by the BLM. It was full, but the volunteer Host put us in a spot, and said we could stay for 2 nights. We took Daisy for a swim in the cold Calf Creek until she decided she wanted food more than cold water. We had dinner and went to bed early.
It has been a pretty intense couple of weeks. Even though we have been most of these places before, we are digging deeper for information. I think we’ll try to have a relaxed day tomorrow before heading out Sunday morning. We have a pretty full schedule until the first week in July; then it eases off.

June 13, 2009 Saturday:
W decided to leave this morning due to heavy fire pit smoke and late night noise from the younger set. This Campsite is a very busy place, probably because of Calf Creek, the 126-foot waterfall and all the other hiking trails in the area. I took Daisy for another swim, and Susie went to identify some flowers she had seen last night. For some reason, Calf Creek seemed much colder this morning than last night, so it was a short swim. We left the Campground at 10:00am and headed north on UT12 towards Price UT. We didn’t expect to make it in one day, as there is wonderful scenery along the way. As a side note, we try to hold up traffic as we travel, but today I drove into what I thought was a pulloff, but it was a short abandoned piece of road with no turnaround. Pulling out on to the new road was problem due to a blind corner. I’ll be more careful and less accommodating in the future. UT12 follows the top of a very narrow ridge, just enough to a 2 lane road. It was aptly named ‘Hogback Ridge’ and was turned into a road by the CCC in the 1930’s. Completion of the road enabled the town of Boulder Town to have year around mail service by automobile.

Boulder is in a valley and is very productive farming due to the availability of water. We left Boulder and started climbing through the mountains with a top road elevation of 9,600 feet. As we reached the top, we saw lush green meadows and the Henry Mountains to the east. When we rounded a corner we saw Capital Reef NP. The view from the top is awesome with all the different bright colors of rock. We had been through the Park in 2003, but the view from the outside and top said to us that we didn’t need to go through again. We passed through the town of Fremont UT and saw a herd of cattle with unusual markings, or at least they were unusual to us. The cows were all black with a band of white around its belly. We climbed again up to about 8,800 feet before going through Hogan Pass. On the way down, we saw what we thought was a lake, but it was dry. I found out later that is was Paradise Lake, only full in the spring when there is snowmelt water is available. We eventually reached I-70, headed east about 5 miles and then headed north on UT10. UT10 was straight as an arrow for 11+ miles before taking a slight bend to go through the town of Emery, then it ran straight again for another 3+ miles. Not much to avoid out here. We continued to Ferron where we headed west to the Millsite SP. We stopped at 2:45pm after traveling 134 miles. The campsite was full, but for the second night in a row we were allowed to park in ‘overflow’ area. There were four RV’s there. We took Daisy for a swim because she wanted to plus we wanted her to sleep well during the night.
There have been intermittent storms in the area, and we had to pull all the furniture inside because of high winds and rain. All evening the winds blew, the clouds raced across the sky and every so often it rained. I remember reading an article in Sailing World about racing on the Great Salt Lake. If I remember correctly, the winds blew more than 25 knots all the time. I can believe it. When we went to bed it was still blowing.

June 14, 2009 Sunday:
I took Daisy out at 7:00am, and she took another swim. The water temperature was 50 degrees, and she didn’t stay in long. We had an early breakfast and Susie took Daisy for her second walk, and Daisy went in the water again. Before we had a chance to head out, a large RV pulling a flatbed trailer with 5 ATV’s fully loaded with camping gear pulled in. We guessed that they were headed into the hills for an overnight. We left the Campground at 9:30am and continued north along UT10 towards Price, the home of the College of Eastern Utah and its Prehistoric Museum. It bears repeating (in case I didn’t mention it before) that 90 million years ago, the Mancos Sea existed from what is now the Gulf of Mexico to the Artic Ocean. It eventually evaporated, leaving fossils, dinosaur bones, coal deposits and oil shale. This area of UT is a treasure-trove of dinosaur bones and other fossils, and many of the recovered skeletons are found in major museums around the country. While this is a relatively small exhibit, it is well done, and the exhibits are continually updated as new information is uncovered. I remember a few years ago paleontologists decided that they had mismatched a dinosaur head with a dinosaur skeleton. The proper head was discovered by the College of Eastern Utah. We spent 2 hours there and then continued our drive up US191 and US40 to the Dinosaur National Monument. We pulled into the NM and headed to the Green River Campground. The river is full and certainly not green; it is very brown! The Green River starts in the Wind River Range of the Rocky Mountains to the east of Jackson WY and ends by joining the Colorado River in Canyonlands NP in NE UT. The usual storms came roaring through. We tried to eat supper outside, but the showers kept on coming. Finally we caught enough of a break. The Campground has some of the largest cottonwood trees we have seen.
It is not full or noisy so we should have a good night sleep before continuing north to Rock Springs WY.

June 16, 2009 Monday:
We took our time this morning, letting Susie take photos of her drawings. She now has 139 drawings to be posted on her blog. Daisy and I took a walk and she want to swim in the fast flowing Green River but that would be too dirty and dangerous. We left around 11:00am and stopped at the temporary Visitor Center. I had some trouble with the engine shutting down for what seemed no good reason as we tried to leave. Eventually it seemed to recover. The original Visitor Center was built on expansive clay, and after 50 years the structural damage requires demo and re-build. We took a bus to the top of the hill and walked down, looking for fossils. Luckily for us, the staff had marked some fossils, but it still took time to identify the pieces.

We also think we saw some pieces of petrified trees based on the colors of the material. There is a quarry at the site where excavation work is proceeding but it was closed to visitors. The walk took about an hour and off we went, heading towards Rock Springs WY where I wanted a shop to look at the front end that shimmied when we applied the brakes. We were at this shop in 2006 when we had tire trouble and the warranted a return trip based on the work they done previously. We started the climb out of Vernal on US191, and the engine shutdown once again but restarted immediately. Hearts in our throats! We continued on, and everything seemed OK. We climbed to elevation 8,260 feet through numerous switchbacks and were passed by several empty, I assume, 18-wheelers on the way up. We noticed that off to the west of us, there was serious snow on the peaks of the Uinta Mountains which top out at 13,528 feet. We passed along the east side of the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area after crossing over the dam and finally stopped for lunch. The RV wouldn’t start; everything electrical was dead. We were 60 miles from anything, anywhere, but at least we had cell phone service. I opened the hood, jiggled the battery wires for a lack of anything else to do. Lo and behold it started. We continued along, but it was nerve racking. We finally came to Rock Springs and checked into the RV Park. The engine wouldn’t start again. Opened the hood, jiggled the cables and off we went to our spot. I immediately opened the toolbox, found some wrenches and tried to tighten everything, but I was missing the one I needed. I used an adjustable, but that’s not the best. I’ll try to buy one tomorrow. I don’t understand why the terminal loosened, maybe too much vibration. We cleaned the RV, washed clothes and then ourselves before accessing the internet to see what was new. I downloaded the 8th week blog. We have an appointment at 7:00am tomorrow for the front-end investigation.

June 15, 2009 Tuesday
There are no mountains to the east of us, and the sun came with a bang. I walked Daisy, and we drove to the tire/brake place, arriving at 7:10am. They took us right in and found that the rotors had been subject to heat stress and were warped. At least they found something! Now if I can just solve the electrical problem. On top of the 2 front rotors, we had to buy 2 new tires so we had a matched set on front. Off to the auto parts store for a proper-sized wrench to tighten the battery lugs. We also stopped at the vet’s to get more special dog food for Daisy. Finally, on to breakfast/lunch at 11:30am: great omelet for me, and poached eggs for Susie. Three more items to get before we headed north: gas we got, 1/2 & 1/2 unsuccessful and propane unsuccessful. Oh, well, off we went to the north with the Wind River Range to the east and the Wyoming and Commissary Ranges to the west. The Wind River Range was much more impressive with the snow line estimated to be 9,000 feet. The peaks are on the Continental Divide and top out around 13,800 feet. We stopped in the town of Pinedale and went into the USFS Fremont Lake Campground.
he Lake is at elevation 7,420 feet, and we are a bit above that. The water is clear and cold, but Daisy has been swimming twice, She was a wild woman. We camped among the aspen trees with dark clouds to the southwest.

June 17, 2009 Wednesday:
Susie said that it rained last night after I went to bed, and it was still raining intermittently in the morning when I got up to walk Daisy. We left the campsite 10:45am and noticed that everyone else had jumped into their cars or trucks and left, probably for town. The RV started without a problem, and off we went into town to buy milk and a few other minor things. When we tried to start the RV, it wouldn’t until I wiggled the battery cables. We went to the Library for internet services, and the RV had a bit of trouble starting but it made it. We were driving out of Pinedale and just about the last building was an auto repair facility. We turned around and asked for help. They were braver than I and really tightened the stud. I was told that the double cable setup we have is prone to loosening, and I will probably have the problem forever. Thanks GM! We drove north along WY191, joining WY189 towards Jackson WY. On the east side were the snow-capped mountains of the Wind River Range and on the west were the snow-capped mountains of the Wyoming Range.

The valley narrowed as we went north, and the views became more intense. We followed the Hogback River until it ended at the Snake River and turned north towards Jackson following the Snake River. The Hogback River was in a narrow and twisting valley. By then the snow-capped mountains had disappeared, but soon the Teton Range came into view with its snow-capped and cloud obscured peaks. We had lunch in a Chinese restaurant and talked them into giving us a small container of raw cashew nuts for Susie. We continued north through Jackson and went to the Gros Ventre Campground. This campground gets its name from the nearby river that at this time due to all the rain is flowing so full that they have half of the spaces closed. It’s not too long to the July 4th weekend so there are some who are wishing for sunny skies. We can see the Tetons from our campsite, and as I said before, the tops are snow-capped and partially obscured by the clouds. The rainsqualls keep coming and the humidity is the highest we have seen in a long time, maybe since the start of the trip. We made reservations to take a 10-mile raft trip down the Snake River on Friday. A special treat tonight: there is a family of great horned owls living in the Campground, and the NPS has taken the step of closing off the campsites nearby with yellow tape to protect the 2 young birds.
They are almost ready to fledge, and we hope to see that. As the sun set, the mother flew off to hunt. She came through the Campground at a height of about 20 feet off the ground. All the campers with small designer dogs should be careful!

2009-06-16T00:04:00.028-04:00

2009 – Week 8

June 4, 2009, Thursday:
Our last day in Grand Canyon NP and leaving was hard. The skies were completely cloud covered, not the bright clear mornings we have experienced in the past. We went to the cafeteria and bought some orange juice and used that as an excuse to work the internet for an hour. Finally we left and stopped at all the overlooks that we had skipped on our way in. The eastern end of the Park is really neat and not to be missed. We were so slow that it took 4 hours to travel 28 miles. There was a fire someplace to the south, and the hazy conditions were made worse by the smoke wafting into the canyon. I hope the pictures we took will capture the grandeur of the place.

Once we left the Park it was drive, drive and drive. We traveled north on US89 through the northern edge of the Painted Desert, the as we saw quite a way south before we went into Grand Canyon NP. The red Echo Cliffs were to the east and are the western edge of the Kaibito Plateau (6,100 feet elevation). US89 took us to the top of the plateau and elevation change of 1,200 feet in a short distance. It was a bit of a pull for large trucks and RV’s. We stopped for the night in Page AZ, the location of the Glen Canyon Dam that created Lake Powell and is a source of hydro-electric power. There is also the Navajo Generating Plant nearby, and we assume it is coal fired. The construction of Glen Canyon Dam started in 1956 and completed in 1963. After doing the laundry we went shopping for more food, and I tried to find a place to do an oil change. We returned just as darkness fell and noticed that a pop-up camper trailer occupied the campsite next to ours. There was more cranking and hammering as they raised the roof and put out the awning. It really is nice to pull in and be settled quickly as we can do. We worked long and hard trying to get our blogs prepared for another posting, but time was our enemy and we couldn’t do it. Susie did get her drawings photographed, and I selected most of my pictures. When we turned the lights out, we realized how many lightpoles there were and how much light they put out. It was almost daylight.

June 5, 2009 Friday:
Even thought we were still in AZ, I had set the clocks one hour ahead last night so as to be on MDT. The Wal-Mart Tire and Lube Express opened at 8:00am MST, and I was hoping to be there when they opened. We didn’t leave the RV Park until 9:30am MST, and I was concerned that we’d be last in a long line. Luckily, we took another road and passed by a quick lube place that was not a franchise and owned by a local. We pulled in there, the price was the same, and this guy really seemed to know what he was doing. Much more satisfying than dealing with a big conglomerate. We were in and out in a snap of the fingers. It was now 10:30am MST. As we continued towards US89, was passed several marine shops and sales places with the largest houseboats I have ever seen. They made some of the RV’s we’ve seen seem insignificant. These things were three stories (sorry to use a land term) and seemed in excess of 60 feet long and 20 feet wide. I guess they get special permits to move them to the lake from where they probably never return. We refilled with gas even though we were only a quarter down because of the concern about vast spaces and long distances. We crossed over the Colorado River by bridge near the Glen Canyon Dam and continued north. We saw a huge marina in Lake Powell, but I guess it had to be with those large houseboats. We entered UT, and the time became MDT, losing an hour for us. The US89 route took us along the edge of Lake Powell for a few miles and then turned northwest towards the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
We spent time in the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Visitor Center in Kanab UT where there was a very explanatory geology exhibit. We learned that the term ‘Grand Staircase’ referred to the way the rock had eroded, creating a ‘grand staircase’ of different layers and colors.
At Mt Carmel Junction we turned west onUT9, the road into Zion Park. We climbed and climbed until we reached the East Entrance where we paid $15 as the price for taking the RV through an undersized tunnel, 2 times if done within a week. As we approached the undersized tunnel, the type of rock and the formations changed.

No longer was the land generally flat with a few bumps, but almost instantaneously the formations were large and cone-shaped with wind-carved swirls on the surface. Once through the tunnel, the formations and colors returned to more what we were used to. We went through several switchbacks as we went down into Zion Canyon and the Watchman Campground. It has electricity to each site but that’s it. There are no showers so it’ll be sponge baths and hair washing in the sink.
Unlike Grand Canyon NP and most others where we’ve been on the rim, here at Zion we’re in the bottom of the gorge. While the sun sets at 8:54pm, the sun drops below the rim at 7:15pm. It rises at 6:11am, but who knows what time it appears above the other rim. It is a beautiful spot, and we can tell that school is out because there a numerous kids from crying babies to college age. From the noise we here now, they didn’t spend enough time hiking the trails and being worn out. We went to a Ranger talk on flash floods at 9:30pm. Made me wonder why we’re at the bottom of the canyon.

June 6, 2009 Saturday:
This morning was a slow morning. The sun didn’t come over the east rim until 7:45am, and we were very lazy. I managed to get started on a second cup of coffee before she had her first. She drew and colored for a bit before taking Daisy for a walk that turned into a swim in the Virgin River. I did more work on the bikes and think I’ve got them in proper condition. When Susie came back she made lunch and we biked to the Visitor Center and loaded the bikes on the propane-fueled busses, each with a passenger trailer. These busses are the only vehicles allowed to drive up the canyon. Information about these vehicles: each full bus with trailer replaces 28 cars, the exclusive use of busses reduces the number of visitor vehicle miles traveled per day by 50,385 and reduces the CO2 emissions by 24,201 pounds per days. The program began in 2000 and has been very successful. As the busses moved up the canyon, the walls became closer and closer until they could go no further. This spot is known as the Temple of Sinawava.

From here we were able to walk further, but were stopped because we had to cross the Virgin River that was fast flowing and cold. We saw a family wearing drysuits, and they were going to cross the river and continue up to the Narrows, basically the end of the trail. We jumped on the bikes and headed downhill, with the plan being to stop at each available viewpoint. At the first point, known as Big Bend, we saw 2 rock climbers working their way up a vertical wall. Just about this time, the sky began to darken and the winds blew. We passed by, stopping at the Weeping Rock where water percolates through the rock, creating a small stream. Next stop was The Grotto, the trailhead for the Angel Landing Trail. Successfully completing the 5-hour roundtrip to Angel Landing, longer than we had time for, allows you a broad overview of the canyon. Just about this time, the skies turned dark and the thunder rumbled. Now, if there is one thing that has been told to all visitors is that you don’t want to be on a high point if there is a chance of lightning. We looked to the top of Angels Landing, and there were about a half-dozen people up there, with one standing on the top of a very big boulder to get a bit higher. Now the rains really came down, we saw a downhill bus, loaded the bikes and jumped in. It rained hard for a while and then stopped. We decided to return to the Campground and make plans for the rest of the day. Not much day left because it was 5:00pm when we reached the RV. Daisy was fed and walked, and we headed back to the Visitor Center to sign up for a tour tomorrow, but when w arrived, we found that there were spaces on the tour that left in 15 minutes. We loaded up and went back up the Canyon, this time with a tour guide. It was another look at the Canyon as the sun was setting. We returned to the Campground at 8:30pm, had dinner and quickly went to bed. I was another great, but exhausting day.

June 7, 2009 Sunday:
I was up at 7:00am, assisted by the incessant barking of a small dog somewhere near by. Daisy and I took our walk, and when we returned, Susie was up. We decided to grab a snack and head to the Zion Lodge from where we would climb the Emerald Pools Trails on the west side of the canyon. We went up the Middle Emerald Pool Trail, stopping at the Middle Emerald Pool, then continued on the Upper Emerald Pool Trail where, surprise we stopped at the Upper Emerald Pool. This series of pools gets its water from seepage through the Navaho Sandstone that exits the wall when it hits the impermeable Kayenta Formation.

The Upper Emerald Pool is the largest of all three pools and has a big sand beach for 40% of its perimeter, the remainder being the stone cliffs. A big surprise was the number of families up here with small children. It was not an easy hike due to the traverse across large stones with relatively steep slopes. There were several fairly large logs floating around and some of the bigger kids were paddling them around the pool. It was interesting to watch the interaction of the parents. A few wanted to control their kids and not let them on the beach or near the water. Others just let their kids play, but watched them carefully. One family was from Salt Lake Salt City, and their two boys (7 and 3) were busy building pools and trying to catch sea life to put in them. The 7 year old was soaked almost to his waist (the water was cold) but it didn’t slow him down. I bet they could have played for hours, but finally they loaded the 3 year old in a back carrier and off they went down the trail heading for more adventures. We heard distant bird noises and saw several small birds harassing a much larger bird. I took some pictures while Susie talked with a couple who believed that the larger bird was a Golden Eagle, the first one in the wild we have ever seen in our years of travel. Very exciting! We have heard that there are CA Condors in the Kolob (northwest) Section of the Park. We will go there tomorrow as we leave. We stayed for bit more before heading down ourselves. We stopped by the Lower Emerald Pool and then continued down the Lower Emerald Pool Trail where we walked behind a small waterfall. Continuing on, we heard loud yells from across the canyon (there was a trail there also) and believed them to be kids just hollering, but they didn’t seem to stop. A few people were looking, but there didn’t seem to be any real concern. A few minutes later we heard a more adult voice calling, and while the words were difficult to hear, the yelling had stopped, and everything quieted. Looking across we could see several people on the trail, and everything seemed OK. We continued down and had lunch at the mass feeding section of the Zion Lodge where there were too many people and too few tables. Interestingly, a person from management, not the Park Service (I think), was walking around, stopping at each table to see if there was anything he could do to assist the visitors in their time at the Park. I don’t think we have ever seen that any place before. We jumped on the shuttle bus and headed down to the Zion Human History Museum where we watched a film on the Park and also attended a Ranger talk about predators in the Park, starting with the cougars and working down the food chain. It was well done and informative. We returned to the Campground at 4:00pm, and Susie took Daisy for a swim while I took a nap. When they returned we sat outside in the shade with a nice breeze. It is interesting that yesterday there was 0% chance of rain and we were dumped on, and today there was a 20% of thunderstorms in the afternoon and as of 5:30pm there were a few small cumulus clouds and a bright blue sky. We had planned our schedule around great weather yesterday and rain today. People started drifting back to the campground around 5:00pm, and we are starting to hear stories about their adventures of the day. At 9:30pm we went to the Ranger talk about predators and their prey. The program ended at 10:15pm, and I suspect there were several kids who had trouble getting to sleep. I went to bed fairly quickly, but Susie stayed up. There are ‘quiet hours’ in the campground, but there was a group who didn’t understand what 10:30pm meant. Finally someone hollered at them to be quiet and eventually they quieted at 11:30pm.

June 8, 2009 Monday:
I was awakened around 4:00am with the wind blowing and the awning rattling. I was unable to fall asleep again so at 5:00am, I went outside and rolled up the awning. Ah, peace and quiet and I awoke at 7:30am. We wanted to get an early start, but things happened, and we pulled out at 10:00am. Our plan was to visit 2 sections of the Park that we had not seen before, nor had many others We drove up the Kolob Terrace Road for 15 miles before we turned around and came back.

The scenery was wonderful and reminded us of Canyonlands, Arches and Grand Canyon all mixed together. At the start we were in the valley (elevation 3,550 feet), but then we climbed up to the Lower Kolob Plateau and then to the Upper Kolob Plateau (elevation 7,950 feet). At the higher elevations were we astonished to see excellent glasslands supporting horses and cattle. It was a magnificent drive both ways, and if you come to Zion NP, you must take it. We headed west to I-15 and then north along the 1,800 feet tall Hurricane Cliffs, the edge, more or less, of the Colorado Plateau. We turned into the Kolob Canyons Visitor Center (elevation 5,074 feet) and had lunch before driving up the Kolob Canyons Road, our last drive in Zion NP.

The end of the road is at elevation 6,195 feet, but there is a 1/2-mile trail leading to an overlook. We looked to the east and were able to see the top of the Lower Kolob Plateau and identify land features on Smith Mesa we had driven by earlier. From here we went to Cedar City where we checked into the local KOA, only to find that the internet service is very spotty. As usual it is ‘not my fault’, but we’ll muddle through. Daisy and I took our last walk of the evening and discovered that at the other end of the RV Park, there were about a half-dozen of the big and most expensive RV’s built. All these RV’s were pulling trailers that were at least as long as our vehicle. These trailers were custom painted to match the RV. Scattered amongst the RV’s and trailers are custom motorcycles. When we were checking in, I overheard a conversation by someone who was part of the group that one of these custom cycles had a 350 horsepower engine. I suspect that these cycles must have cost more than $50,000 each and live inside the custom trailers. I don’t think the lagging economy has hit these folks. I have a few comments about our Zion NP experience. The Park is very environmentally aware, from the propane busses to the recycling plan. The facilities are clean and everyone seemed happy to be there. I believe it is the 8th most visited National Park in the country, and it accommodates all those 3,000,000 plus people with courtesy. There are several motels, etc. outside the Park at the South Entrance, and the Park runs the propane busses picks up visitors to the Park, eliminating the need for people to drive their cars.

June 9, 2009 Tuesday
I was awakened by another small yapping dog at 6:15am, tried to ignore it but surrendered at 6:45am and took Daisy for her walk. We explored every corner of the KOA, but managed not to place her mark around the big fancy RV’s.
I prepared the RV to leave while Susie got up and made a traveling breakfast. We left the KOA at 9:00am, stopped at the grocery store to get some perishables. Susie saw a bread store that she headed for. Off we went, east on UT14 towards Cedar Breaks NM. The climb from Cedar City follows Cedar Canyon, and we were between twp steep walls. As we navigated some switchbacks, we came upon the Zion Overlook. We were higher than Zion NP and as such were able to look down on the features we had visited the previous days. Just before we turned north on UT143 into the Monument, we heard the noise of a helicopter, and as we crested the hill, there it was. There has been an infestation of pine bark beetles and approximately 50% of the forest has been killed. On the US Forest land, they have been harvesting the dead trees because the wood is still good and removal will reduce the forest fire hazard. The use of the helicopter eliminates the need to build logging roads across meadows that are ecologically very fragile at to the 10,000-foot elevation. We watched for a few minutes and recognized that it was a very efficient operation with no lost time. The helicopter picked up as many as three tree trucks at a time, the largest being 80 feet long and about 18” in diameter. While rental of the helicopter must be expensive, on the balance, it is a good way to remove the timber. On we went to the Cedar Breaks NM Visitor Center, but ended up on the Ramparts Trail along the rim to Spectra Point (elev. 10,285 feet). We were about 200 feet high as we traveled there. At Spectra Point we saw several Bristlecone Pine trees, the oldest of which is estimated to be in excess of 1,600 years old. While the oldest of these trees in other areas of the Southwest is estimated to be 4,500 years old, 1,600 years old is pretty impressive. While we didn’t really need to go to Spectra Point, the view from there was wonderful (even the resident marmot thought so). There is nothing subtle about the view at Cedar Breaks. It is a giant rock amphitheatre with Spectra Point at the focal point. You look down and see numerous rock formations of many colors. On our hike back to the RV, it started to snow. I am sure the snow didn’t stick because the ground was too warm, but it was a nice touch. We knew it was cold because the Visitor Center had its wood-burning store fired up. In certain ways, it is a Bryce Canyon NP in the making with hoodoos, rock fins and all the features that only erosion can create. And there were many fewer people visiting. What a waste, well maybe not, we had a wonderful visit. We are headed to Bryce Canyon NP about 60 miles away, driving along a very scenic road before hitting the town outside to NP entrance. We were not able to make reservations for the RV Parkground with its utilities because it was full, so I had placed my hopes on Sunset Campground that didn’t have utilities. Both tents and RVs (small sized) are allowed, but it is first-come, first served. We pulled in around 2:00pm, had lunch and then took a nap. We took a shuttle bus to the Visitor Center and that was it for the day. The weather forecast is not great for the week, but we’ll work through it.

June 10, 2009 Wednesday:
It was cold last night at 47 degrees when we woke. At times we thought we had a few sprinkles, but if so they were short and insignificant. We ran the generator for a bit to to recharge the house battery and recharge the computer batteries. The house battery must have been the first priority or the computer batteries were too cold, because the computers didn’t seem to get any charge. We left the RV at 10:00am and took the shuttle bus to Sunrise Point (elev 8,000 feet). While waiting for the bus, we had some hail but it stopped quickly. We stood on the rim of the Bryce Amphitheatre and looked out with amazement. As the clouds came and went, the colors darkened and lightened. The little bit of rain made the colors more vibrant. We started walking down the Sunrise Point Trail and saw many different shapes and colors of ‘hoodoos’.

Some of the hoodoos have been named, and we tried to find them. Pictures, pictures and more pictures! We weaved our way down and came to Queens Garden Trail. We took a short detour, looked up and saw Queen Victoria holding court over her garden. We also saw a figure of an angel taking a picture of all the sights. We wandered on, eventually coming to the Peek-a-boo 3oop. This trail wandered around, up, down and through man-made tunnels as we worked our way south into previously undiscovered (for us anyway) areas of the Amphitheatre.

A bit more than halfway around the loop, we came to a horse corral and saw some folks from Atlanta GA who we have met in Zion NP. They were taking a horse/mule ride in the Amphitheatre and were taking a break before heading back up to the Rim, following the trail that we had just done. We continued along the LOOP, until we came to a fork in the trail and took it (thank you Yogi Berra!) It was a mile long trail to Bryce Point, a vertical distance of 600 feet. There was never a downhill or flat section during the mile. We waited for the bus to take us back to the Sunset Campground (there’s a bus stop where we’ve been picked up several times) but the bus driver blew right on by it, tried to tell us a cock and bull story about it not being a stop even though it was on the posted schedule in the bus. We got off at the next stop and jumped on the next bus going back. At the Campground, it is windy and the temperatures are in the mid-50’s. It has been a cool Spring, but better than a hot one. The hikes are good, but we are drinking lots of water. The 8,000 foot altitude must be part of that. We haven’t had any headaches from the altitude and that’s good. We’ll have steaming hot chili and that will be nice.