Glacier National Park

7/29/2011
Last minute changes took us to Glacier National Park instead of Banf in Canada. 

On our first night we camped at Bowman Lake.  This pic was taken the next morning.

We later went on the Road to the Sun drive.  These are a few of those pics.
4,760 Miles and counting. You can see cars going up the road in the background.

This is how close you could get to a mountain goat.

At the Road to the Sun Visitor Center.

At the Road to the Sun Visitor Center.

This shows evidence of an old forest fire.

Keith and I were driving into town to get gas and eat and the traffic started slowing down but I couldn't see why.  Eventually, I realized something was running down the road.  Apparently this got away from its owner who was following it in his pickup, trying to catch it.
Keith took this "drive by shooting" shot.

Glacier National Park-River Rafting

Oscar with the black ball cap, Keith is behind the blonde girl.  Click pic for full size.

This was pretty fun for our first rafting experience.  I think we're ready for a little bit harder stuff.  Water was 48 degrees warm.

Almost to Canada.

July 28th, 2011


It is now almost 11:30 p.m. and we finally got settled.  Not sure how many miles we drove today, but it was quite a bit. Just as it was getting dark tonite, Keith noticed the trailer lights weren't working.  After a little bit of troubleshooting he discovered we had a 20 amp fuse that had blown in the truck.  Had to get a replacement at Walmart.  Then we continued to drive north hoping to find an RV park  before we hit Canada.


We found Blue Lake RV Resort.  This resort does not appear to be of the same caliber as the Durango resort. Anyway, we're here and ready to go to bed.  They have WIFI so I thought I'd post a quick update.
Should be in  Banff National Park tomorrow.


No pictures to post today.

15.34 MPG avg. so far, over the last 4,000 miles.

New Pics on Photobucket.

July 26, 2011

Sorry for not posting any pics or updates lately.  We've been in locations where WIFI was not available.  I hope you can acess the link below where I have posted some of the many pics from the last several days.  They are not necessarily in the order we took them.

http://s292.photobucket.com/albums/mm19/oscaraldapeleal/Western%20US%20Parks/

But he only caught one fish. -Keith

I caught 100% more fish than Keith yesterday! -Oscar

Heading to Oregon's pacific coast highway

Heading to Oregon's pacific coast highway

Snow along road to Crater Lake. 71 Degrees. NICE!

Woke up to 36 degrees in Lapine, Oregon. Keith turned on the heater last night.

Goin fishin

Hello Oregon!

Bumpy, not very interesting drive to Redwoods.

7/23/2011 Saturday


Writing this update on the drive to Redwood National Forest.


Left Sequoia National Park today and headed for Redwood National Park. It’s over 400 miles so I decided we wouldn’t take the longer more scenic route. Ronda did some travel consulting today and found out no campsites were available in the vicinity of the park. I guess it would have been just as bad in Yosemite, so I’ll take that as a good call. We’re staying in Red Bluff at an RV Park Resort. RV Park and Resort should be anonyms. I guess we’ll find out when we get there. I’ve been really surprised by how much agriculture there is. In Texas most of the agriculture you see along the road is stuff cows eat. We must have passed by millions of orange trees and at least that many grape orchards. Actually I don’t have a clue when you call something an orchard or a grove. Someone please comment. Every one of these is drip irrigated. Sometimes the orchards are on both sides of the road. You can see this requires a major investment.

California really likes to line their roadways with oleanders. They grow to be like giant hedges. I guess that’s better than the concrete barriers we like to use.

We passed by a ship channel that really seemed out of place. Huge ships parked (moored?) there. I figured that’s how we get California fruit to other countries.  Didn't get a picture of that.


An irritating law here in California is that all vehicles towing trailers and truck have a speed limit of 55 MPH. That’s even if the speed limit for all others is 70 MPH. So we crawled all day today. What’s even more irritating is that we only passed up only two vehicles all day. So I guess it’s a speed limit in theory but not in practice. Never saw a highway patrol either. For a state that’s broke, they sure could get a lot of revenue from speeding tickets.


Looks like the resort really is a resort!

This is a really nice place. Swimming pool, hot tub, showers, tv sitting area with leather couches, two laundromats.  When you check in, they escort you to your site. This will probably be the nicest RV park of the whole trip.

Sequoia National Park

7/22/2011 Friday

This morning when we woke up and headed up to see the General Sherman Sequoia tree, it marked our first week of travel. Sitting here at night in the Potwisha USFS campground, and typing out the update for today. There are a lot of families that camp out and I think the kids have the most fun considering they appear to be laughing most of the time. Some adults are hanging out fixing supper. The Hispanic family across from us was playing Mexican Bingo last night. Brought back memories of when I used to do the same, except not at a campground.


There’s a roaring river that runs through the campground and at our distance, it’s just a constant white noise. Went down to the river and took some pics and video. Met some kids coming up from the river and talked to them a bit. They said it was cold, but it got warmer the longer you were in it. Not sure exactly where they were getting in because there didn’t appear to be a safe place anywhere. The river is working like a Maytag washing machine. A sign by the river says someone drowns in this river every year.

We left Pancho at the campground for one more day because we weren’t allowed to take him with us. Vehicles were restricted to an overall length of 22’. The roads are really windy and I can see how long vehicles would make it dangerous for everyone. Our plan was to camp at one of the other campgrounds higher up. We were looking for a campground that had cooler night temps. We gathered up our gear and took off. We bought our tickets for the Crystal Cave tour then drove over to the cave.  It was at a lower elevation than the forest, so the mosquitos were pretty bad.  It was not a very big cave, but still neat and the temp was a cool 50 degrees.

General Sherman is quite a spectacle. I wish cameras did a better job of capturing its size. Our sight is some much better than a camera for things like this. I learned that when the Sequoia gets old, the top of the tree quits growing so it doesn’t get any taller. At that point the trunk starts getting thicker. The thicker the tree the older it is.

The largest tree has a trunk 30’ across. After they get so big, you can’t really tell which one is bigger unless they were next to each other. The Grant tree looks as big as the Sherman tree.

THE SHERMAN TREE

K

GRANT TREE: Keith is standing about 50' in front of the tree so he would look even smaller if he was right next to it.

After checking out the trees we went to find a campsite at the upper campgrounds. There was not one site available anywhere. On the way back to the Potwisha campground we took a wrong turn and lost some travel time but saw more of the Kings Canyon National Park. We finally got back to camp by dark and ate some venison sausage, took showers, etc.  Oh yea, and we saw this bear along the way to the Crystal Cave tour.

BEAR

Tomorrow we head for the Redwood National Forest to see the Redwoods. I originally planned to go to Yosemite but it being a Saturday tomorrow, I figured the park would be really packed. Will update with more pictures soon.

Guitar Hero?

Ronda got us booked at the Durango RV Resort in Red Bluff, CA.  The Lodge room had a Wii and Keith is having a therapy session with his left arm.  I was busy updating the blog and washing clothes. Guess who was having more fun?

No campsites avail. In redwood forest. Staying in town of red bluff. Will update blog tonite with pics from Sequioa.

Interstate 5 in CA is terrible! Shoulder looks better than the slow lane.

We have seen over 100 miles of all sorts of orchards and groves. Oranges, lemons, grapes, corn, pecans, alfalfa, plums, and peaches. Lots of dairy farms too.

Skipping Yosemite headed to Redwood National Park

Just coasted 15 miles downhill in the Mojave Desert!

Hello California!

Las Vegas, NV

Keith had only been to the airport in Las Vegas, so although it was late we drove down the strip so he could see all the casinos.  I hadn't been here in about 14 years.  Things look different.  Anyway we were really tired last night but we managed to take a shower before going to bed and Keith washed some clothes.  Las Vegas didn't take any of our quarters or dollar bills, except for RV park, ice, gas, and washateria.

Zion National Park

Click on the picture. Can you see Keith?
I'd post more pics but we have to get rolling to Sequioa Natl Park.  It's 410 miles away.

2,000 Miles.

We were in Hurricane, Arizona when we hit 2,000 miles, so we pulled over and took a picture.  This is on the way to Las Vegas from Zion National Park.

Bryce Canyon National Park

106 Degrees 70 miles from Vegas in the shade at sundown.

Living on the Edge.

It's scarier than it looks.  I hope he has a parachute in that backpack!  Don't do it Keith, things aren't that bad!

Going to Bryce and Zion National Park today.  Will try to drive to Las Vegas afterwards instead of trying to get there tomorrow.  That would save us about 200 miles of driving.

Grand Canyon Pics, 1,553 miles.

133 Miles

 JULY 15, 2010




This was our first stop on the trip.  Hard to see, but that's 133 on the sign.

This was our first stop in Santa Anna, Texas.  I thought I had lost these pics but found them on my camcorder.

 

Paul and Tammy, Keith's parents.
They received Paul's Grandmother's garden plow.  This thing is really old.



Out of Sequence.

JULY 19, 2011
The Blog postings won't necessarily be in the chronological order they occurred because sometimes we don't have WIFI access and I will post when I can.  I will start each post though, with the date it's related to.

Arizona, hotter than Colorado.



You can't tell, but Keith had a headache.

 JULY 19, 2011

We found a nice RV park with showers last night.  I'll have to check the sign but I think I know what the word "Hot" is not in front of the word Shower. The showers were hot inside, I guess because the water only changes from cold to cool.  The valve is very touchy and since you're kind of expecting hot water, you get a surprise when you turn on the water.  I thought Keith Polar Bear Reese would have enjoyed it, since he likes sleeping with the air conditioner down to 68 degrees.  He thought it was not warm. I think we'll be taking showers in the camper. 

We'll be leaving Pancho at the park to fend for himself while we go to the Grand Canyon.  There's another pop-up next to us so maybe they'll share some stories while we're out.  

I had more of Dwight's fish (three times now) last night.  Keith tried the Boudin sausage but thought it didn't taste right grilled on propane.  I tasted it and could tell it had onion in it, that's as far as that went.  Anyway, the fish is gone.  After three nights, I won't each fish for awhile.  For me, the Tony's Cajun Seasoning style tasted better than the butter and garlic style.  However, Dwight texted me and told me I just didn't do it right.  Next time I ask Dwight for some fish, I'll have to ask for smaller portions :)
O.K. we're out to G.C., later.

Keith was excited to know he still had 6,500 pictures left he could take.  He was afraid he'd fill up the camera, so I think he was holding back.

We learned that while traveling some places look like your on a level road, though if you're driving you can tell the truck is pulling up hill.  Kind of deceiving.

Dare Devils.

Keith took this pic of this chipmunk along Missionary Ridge Rd. in Colorado.  These little guys would race back and forth across the road right when your vehicle got to them.  Of course, some of them didn't make it sometimes.

Lemon Reservoir from Missionary Ridge Road

Here's a pic that Keith took yesterday, on our way up Missionary Ridge Road.  We later drove back down to Lemon Reservoir and took a look around in that area.

Uh Oh! 4WDriving

On the way up to checkout a possible camping spot for this October.  We did get up this thing.  However, don't let the pic fool you.  All you have to do is tilt the camera and you can exaggerate the angle.

This is more what the road looked like.  It was pretty bad.  I might need to add a leveling kit to my truck.

Here I am going to the back of the truck to verify we won't drag the bumper off.

Four Corners!

On our way from Durango, CO to North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  Had to stop at the Four Corners Monument for a picture.

No AC power cord for Laptop. I solved the problem.

Somehow I forgot my AC power cord for my laptop. I did bring my AC adapter that works off of DC for use on a plane or car.  So it seemed like all I could do was charge the laptop's battery in the truck or use it while in the truck.

I thought that leaving the laptop charging in the truck all night might run down the truck's battery.  So, I just connected the 12V battery charger for my camper batteries to the laptop's cigarette lighter plug. 

The battery charger provides just enough power to run the laptop.

We're in Paige, AZ.

Nice RV Park that has free WIFI so I hope to post some updates and pictures tonite. 

Getting to New Mexico.

07/15/2011
Left home around 6:30 a.m. and headed towards Santa Anna for a short visit with Keith's parents. Got there around 9:30 a.m.



Paul was busy building breakfast for us. We had eggs, bacon, sausage, french toast, and actually some decent Dunkin Donuts coffee. We ate and checked out their new home. By the time we left at 10:30 a.m. it was 100 degrees on the front porch.


We headed up towards Lubbock and filled up with fuel in Sweetwater. We also started thinking about our destination today and decided we'd try to make it to Santa Fe instead of Tucumcari. When we got to Fort Sumner I called Ronda to she if she could find us a campground in Santa Fe. Our new found travel advisor (Ronda) suggested we stay in Vaughn instead of going to Santa Fe because it would take us out of our way. So that's what we did.


We had our first official setup in this rinky dink RV park (9 spots) and Pancho didn't complain at all. We decided to cook hot dogs on the RVQ. We found some chili at the convenience store but they didn't have any can openers (we didn't buy one before we left). So we ate naked hot dogs, but they were good. Keith likes them with ketchup and mustard. Yukkkk. :(


The door latch on the camper had been a real pain since I got it. Previous owner put in a new one, but it didn't appear to be working right. After taking it apart we found a spring was not set in the right place, so it works great now.


Met a nice couple from San Antonio that left out of there this morning. They're two slots over.


BAD NEWS: Before we left, Ronda took pictures of us and I also took pictures of Paul and Tammy at their house. For some reason Ronda's camera would take the pictures but would not store them onto the memory card. Good thing she made me take a spare memory card because that one works and is plenty big enough. So no pictures to post today.


We drove 583 miles today! A good head start. On to Durango in the morning.

Getting to Colorado

Last night around midnite the carbon monoxide detector went off and woke us both up. That was rude. Don't know why it did that but at least it only did it once. A little later I woke up and noticed the A/C was barely blowing any air. We figured the unit had frozen up, so we ran it on "fan only" and before too long we started getting some air flow. When I woke up around 4 a.m. I set it to low cool. Worked fine after that. It got down to 60 something in Vaughn so it was a comfortable night.
We made up some oatmeal, took our showers, organized stuff between the truck and camper then left around 9:45 a.m. mountain time. Yep, we changed out watches. Fueled up and headed out toward Albuqurque(sp?)
We finally got to Colorado after 921 miles.

Got to the Junction Creek Campground outside of Durango withou too much trouble.  Here's Keith as we're getting ready to grill some fish we got from Dwight.  It was great.  Also had some of the venison sausage Margarito and I made earlier this year.

Headed back into Durango to find a WIFI connection then I couldn't connect my laptop.  Don't know what was wrong.  I handed it to Keith, he hit the Internet Explorer icon and it just came right up.  Go figure.  Anyway, it's getting late and we're heading back to the campground.  A bear was spotted getting into a dumpster a couple of months ago, otherwise the raccoons are the biggest problem.  Good night.

Hwy. 371, south of Farmington is very rough. Won't come this way again. Little traffic, but it's obvious why. Lots of alfalfa fields.

Left Vaughn, NM at 9:45 a.m. No WiFi. Headed to Durango, CO.

On hwy 84 north of Lubbock. Lots of dust devils 100's of feet tall.

Just leaving Lubbock. 100 Degrees here to. Changed plans. Trying to get to Santa Fe tonite.

The night before the Big Adventure.

Tomorrow morning around 6 a.m., begins with pulling out of the driveway on a 6,000 mile road trip. 

The truck is gassed up, propane is full, tires checked, oil changed, groceries bought, gear packed, anticipation is high.

My nephew Keith, agreed to tag along and keep his uncle out of trouble.  I wish him the best.  I thank God for having a great job that granted me a four week sabbattical making this trip possible.  God also did a good job in giving Ronda this idea of a road trip.  I don't think she considered she'd be without me for 29 days!  We will both miss each other.  Love you Honey!

Keith and I will be hitting most of the National Parks across the Western United States and Banff in Canada. Part of the trip will also be used scouting out a new hunting area for this fall's elk hunt in Colorado.  Also plane to hike into some really cool areas and fish in some remote areas.

Blogs are new to me.  Never done this before, but I figured it would do me good to document what we do and where we go.

I've never taken a trip with an RV so this might be a terrible way to get my feet wet, but it's a challenge I look forward to.  My popup camper, affectionately named "Pancho", will hopefully prove to be trust worthy.

The first part of the trip is heading towards Durango, CO with a stop over in Tucumcari, NM.  I'll do my best to post pictures as I have access to the internet to update the blog.

Updating this blog is the last thing I'm doing before going to bed.  So I'll see ya'll down the road a bit.