The Birthday Adventure

Well I have had many interesting ways of celebrating my birthday, a hotel bar in Texas, a suprise party, a party in New York that was more quiet than expected, dinner and bocci ball, and many others. But 29 was a good one.

Spent the day seeing the Grand Canyon with my mom, which was breathtaking, the sheer size of it is unmatched. Momma has dropped in for a few days of the adventure. Picked her up in the wild world of Las Vegas and drove across Route 66 to the Grand Canyon. Heading off today into Phoenix area and then she is off back to the Garden State.

To get to Vegas I drove across California. From the Redwoods through SF area, to Yosemite and across the pretty rural growing area of the state into the Mojave Desert. Stayed one night in Barstow.

Amazing a week ago I was in sweatshirts and pants on the cool Oregon coast and now I am sweating to the oldies in the hot southwest deserts...

That's all for now, just a quick update to say thank you for all the birthday wishes and thank you to the universe for another year here...

Cheers.

Kelly

Seattle

Insert this entry before the Oregon one...

The time between Mt Rainier and the escapades there and Portland was time in the Seattle area. Before going home for 2 weeks for 2 weddings, Liz and I spent a few days in Seattle. We walked around the downtown and saw the fish get thrown, stayed at a funky hotel, took a ferry to Bainbridge Island, went on a "relaxing" bike ride, and then my first sailboat cruise which I enjoyed a lot, saw the space needle and the entire city at night.

I liked Seattle but I wanted to like it more than I did. I was hoping to really really like it. I feel like I had a superficial view of it, need more time to really see it.

The next 10 days or so I was home in NJ, spent some time with family and friends, went to 2 weddings, did a little real life stuff and basically enjoyed being stationary for awhile. I flew back to Seattle on a Monday - the truck didn't smell too bad from the basket of laundry that didn't get taken care of before I left. (wow talk about literally airing your dirty laundry here)

That night I went to get Taylor and had a cup of tea with Johnna, the friend of a friend who was kind enough to let me park the trailer for 10 days at her house. Her husband Roni was back in Israel and Joey, her 3 year old son from Taiwan was too excited to sleep. Theirs is a true multi-cultural family. We talked for quite sometime about her living in Israel and Italy, teaching, family.

It was a nice connection to make and I ended up spending the next 3 days there. I went for a bike ride and nearly gave myself a heart attack on this really steep hill, had dinner and some beers at the Redhook Brewery, took a day trip to Vancouver - which I did love. There is something about that city that appeals to me and nearly anyone who has ever been there. Water, lots of parks, it feels youthful and alive, lots of independent small businesses, and a nice skyline to boot. Very nice.

I am missing a lot of the details in it all but that was a good time of the trip and I want to remember it. And say thank you to my very gracious hosts. The universe will respond with what you need if you put it out there...

Photos aren't loading now so will just post as is and update later with visual aids.

Hope everyone is well out there.

Cheers.
Kelly

Route 101

After the night out in Portland with Justin sampling the local hmm "fare" (we drank only Oregon microbrews) and some good breakfast we picked up Taylor from the RV place.


Taylor had an examination to see why the grey water tank was leaking (grey water is the sink and shower water). After ripping out a wall they managed to find a crack in the top of the tank like I thought. The picture looked like a hole but it was tough to tell. Either way I need a new tank but it will take weeks to get one, so at the end of this when I'm parked somewhere for awhile that will all happen. There's a whole story about being open on Saturday but not actually working and possibly having to make it from Portland to Vegas in 3 days...but that didn't end up happening. So I'll skip the details.


We drove out to Newport OR on the coast, heading down Rte 5 we saw these huge plumes of smoke to the east. Forest fires. There were a bunch of them burning in that part of the state and it was wild to see the smoke rising from them so far away.

Took pictures of the sunset and saw some sea lions chilling on the bank. We thought they were seals but the signs everywhere down the road indicated sea lions. Had some dinner and promptly passed out. The next morning we woke up and went to the beach. It was empty and kind of cloudy but beautiful. Justin also has a camera and it was fun to walk the beach taking photos with him...

We split up after that him back to eastern oregon and me south. I stayed on the 101 after getting some really good driving information from the woman at the KOA we stayed at. The drive down the Oregon coast was probably my favorite drive so far.

I was relaxed, it was interesting, I stopped and took pictures. It was what I envisioned this trip to be all about. I made it all the way to the Redwood forest of Northern California feeling wonderfully alive and blessed.


Summarizing the rest of the way...


...stayed in the redwoods, the towns up that way are a bit sad and lost, did "tree" in a giant redwood tree, got the creeps driving through the rest of the mountains of northern california, hit the sonoma valley late and drove a winding narrow road to the campground on top a hill, saw the most stars I have seen to date on this trip and then took off for Yosemite in the morning...

Yosemite and the rest of California for another posting. Have to get geared up and off to Viva Las Vegas to pick up my moms for the Grand Canyon adventure...

Cheers!
Kelly

Off the Reservation...

I'll work backwards from where I am right now to where the adventure left off...right now I'm sitting at Mother's waiting for what better be a really good breakfast with my cousin Justin. They somehow passed my name on the wait list and 30 minutes became 60. Not really a big deal but just fit in with the theme of the past few days.

Lesson learned - ask for the second best breakfast place in town, because the best will have a really long wait...

"I touched a Glacier." - Justin's contribution to the blog, and it's true, he touched a glacier. Well we think it's a glacier, we named it the Boop Jemima Glacier (see photo).

Yesterday we met up at Mt. Hood at the Timberline lodge. He's out in eastern Oregon doing a training class for some super secret government thing out here for two weeks and was heading to Portland for the weekend.

In a million years if we had planned to get together or tried to go on vacation together it wouldn't have worked out so well. It was cool meeting him at the top of a mountain, seeing him perched on the rocks in the parking lot with a big smile when I pulled around the curve was a great welcome.

Mount Hood was cool, at first I was suprised at how dry it is, then I realized it's a volcano. Duh. Ash. But you can ski it year round. We walked for a bit across the ski slopes into the tree line and there was this tangible change in the environment. We went off the reservation. Lots of wildflowers and this great view of the Cascade Mountain range.

More to come on the rest of the Portland and prior Washington experience. Oh and I did make a day trip to Vancouver, BC. So stay tuned...

Cheers!

Kelly

The Evergreen State

The rest of the journey through Idaho was uneventful. Armed with tour advice from Meg, we crossed the border into Washington and I crossed another state off my list. Drove through Spokane (spo-can) and across the suprising nothing of Washington State. I guess my impression of the state was forest and mountains, not the vast flat land that we encountered. Like Colorado, most of the state is actually flat - you know except for the really big mountains.

The KOA I wanted to crash at was booked, so we reserved a spot at the Yakima KOA, which worked out better as it was close to a good entry point of Mt Rainier. So Liz plugged in the address for the Yakima KOA into the GPS and away we went.

Having missed a key turn from the Garmin along the way, the re-route took us through Connell, WA which looked like the most promising place to stop and eat anyway. It also provided me the best church sign I've ever seen. Fantastic. Timmy, this one's for you.

Continuing to follow the Garmin directions we ended up on this road not on the map and drove several miles along a large Deparment of Energy spot of land. Not exactly sure what it was but probably better I don't know.

The west part of Washington state rivals Idaho and Montana so far for nothing-ness but the sunset as we approached Yakima was the best I've seen so far on the trip.

The area around Yakima is full of vineyards and fruit orchards. Felt like we could have been in Greece or what I imagine the countryside of Italy to be like.

We got to the campground late that night and it was underwhelming even in the dark. It was the first cg (that's RV lingo for campground) I stayed in I was really disappointed in. No matter - once you are in the trailer the outside stuff doesn't really matter too much. The next morning we took off and headed for Mt. Rainier.

Mt Rainier National Park

The winding highway road to Mt. Rainier National Park gave me a glimpse of what was to come from Washington drivers. There were a ton of RV's heading back from the park the opposite way (it was Labor day) and all driving really fast on this winding road.

We entered the park on the southwest side and parked at the ranger station at the Ohanapecosh Visitor Center. The rangers were extremely friendly and helpful, we decided to forego driving up the winding steep road to higher elevations and just enjoy the forest around us.

We took the Silver Falls trail to the Grove of the Patriarchs Trail and saw these huge Red Cedar and Fir trees over 1000 years old. Pretty cool.

The forest had a very different feel than the parks we had been too, more dense, older - felt like a dinosaur might leap out at anytime. Must be just more rainfall and more consistent, Glacier and Yellowstone felt like more harsh environments.

After our hike we drove the rest of the way through the park, and after awhile thinking we had seen Mt Rainier, there was finally a break in the clouds and there it was in all its 14,000 feet of volcanic glory.

As the road was pretty steep and crowded I was going pretty slowly down the hills, apparently much to the distaste of my fellow drivers. I managed to pull off at one spot to let some cars pass and see if we could get a picture of the peak. During which time a nice young gentleman was kind enough to share his thoughts of me and my driving.

I have never in my life encountered such rudeness, and I've lived in NJ for most of it. It's the first time I ever been called a "F*ing Douche Bag" before - to my face anyway - complete with arm gestures out the window of the truck. Needless to say Washington drivers do NOT have a warm place in my heart...

However, the other people I've met here have softened that and we continued on to Winwoodville WA where the universe had found me a place to land my trailer while I was away...

That's more than enough for this post. Stay tuned for the rest of the Washington experience.

Cheers,

Kelly

Glacier Continued...

- 9/10/08 -

It's interesting to go back and read the blog and how much different the entries are written post-haste vs in the heat of the moment. Right now I sit comfortably indoors as it pours outside in New Jersey. Yes I know a bit confusing...but the miracle of modern conveniences, the airplane, has brought me back home in 5 hours what took 3 weeks to travel by land.

Two weddings in two weekends brought me home for a brief visit. Taylor is at a friend of a friend's house outside Seattle and Chuck is eagerly waiting my return at Sea-Tac. So while home and with ample internet access I am catching up the blog with what I recall of the adventures. The tenor and emotion is a bit more detached as the tale is told with the passing of time...but perhaps you are getting a broader picture of it all...who knows? Just rambling.

Glacier - Day 3

We spent the day close to "home", just went a bit down the road to hike a trail by Lake McDonald. Tried to make it up to another lake that way but after a few hours and hitting mosquitos that couldn't have cared less about the Deep Woods Off we had showered in, a warning of bear "scat" down one trail from some fellow hikers, we turned around.

Lake McDonald - Glacier National Park

The rest of the afternoon passed relaxing by the lake, soaking in some peace, playing a little frisbee and then we went back to camp for a fantastic fire (thanks to the super dry wood from the place across the park) and excellent dinner. A great way to end this segment of the trip. Glacier was unbelievable, I'm going to vote my favorite place so far...

Westward Bound...

The next morning we took off and headed west, drove through some remote part of Montana and back through the pan-handle of Idaho. The drive on I-90 through the panhandle of Idaho is gorgeous. The road follows along a river there and we had an awesome lunch spot in LoLo National Forest watching the fisherman float down the river.

We stopped in Cour D'Alene, the largest city I think we had been to since Cheyenne for gas and encountered one of the more colorful moments of the trip.

It sounds harmless enough, a man and a woman doing some yard work on the edge of the gas station property, with their small dog standing guard. Really not much unique about that right? Well a few more details....

The woman was wearing, I'm not kidding a flourescent green bikini (top and bottom) pulling weeds in the middle of the city - no where near the water. The man was pretty hippy looking. But their dog had on a, I'm pretty confident in this, black and white polka dot tutu.


The photos don't do the scene justice, trust me, it was funny. Not something you expect to see when you pull up to a gas station off the highway. After a week of driving through some pretty rural areas we were just at the end of sanity and took endless amusement from the scene.

I'll leave Washington as the next posting, the last state on the journey so far...

Cheers!
Kelly

Big Sky Country

Well the next leg of the journey took us from Butte, MT to just below the Canadian border to Glacier National Park. We passed a ton of Cherry Orchards along Flathead Lake, a beautiful area.

After much deliberation we chose the best campsite C126 at Fish Creek CG and after a little McGuyver-ing, we settled in for the night.

The campground was beautiful, really right in the woods but not designed for RV life so much, which is actually okay, keeps it pretty quiet. After a smoky fire (man the wood has to be really dry) and some dinner we went for a walk around the camp by the lake enjoying our first night in the woods woods.

The first full day of Glacier we drove the Going to the Sun road, listed as one of the most scenic drives in the country and I have to agree. Our first real experience of the park was just breath taking. I can't count the number of times Liz or I said "Wow" only to turn a bend and say it again.

We stopped for lunch by the Weeping Wall, which is aptly named as the Glacier water run off seems to just seep through the rock wall and makes the mountain look like it is crying. The park is a series of mountains and lakes all carved by giant glaciers. You can see the difference in the forces that created these mountains versus some place like Teton.

Teton was formed by plates crashing together which forced the Tetons up and the valley floor down to create these really sharp peaks. Glacier you can see the sweeping path that carved out the landscape by the huge force of ice, pushing the dirt and rocks to form the smaller hills around the area and the pieces that fell off to form the lakes.

It looks and feels different. We hiked up to the lookout for "Hidden Lake", elevation something like 7,000 ft.

The Road brings access to a landscape many people would not get to see because it would take a week to hike up to these view points. For better or worse it is a different way of experiencing nature, and still a pretty scary road to drive...

We drove the rest of the length of the park and made it to Many Glaciers where we had been informed were more bears. At the visitor area there were rangers with scopes and a bunch of people all gathered around. The ranger had 2 focused on grizzlies up on the mountain, we got to see our first grizzly! From a very safe distance, perfect!

Very exciting day 1, totally pooped we ended up eating at Two Sisters Cafe (address, near Babb, MT) and making a slightly scary evening drive back to camp.

And that was all just Day 1! Will write some more later...

Cheers!

Kelly

Public Service Announcement

The last we left our fearless heros, Kelly and Liz were heading off to dance with wolves, or run from mountain lions or was it lie in the fetal position and pretend to be dead so the grizzlies don't eat them? I don't recall.

Actually last I wrote I was quite comfy having a chai latte at a nice little cafe in Jackson Hole. We bought some provisions at the organic store and took off for Montana. Having made the slight detour south to Jackson Hole, the best route appeared to be west into Idaho and north on I-15. Appeared to be. The first 5 miles of that drive were the scariest of my life, Teton Pass was a bear.

Now here's the PSA part

***For those who have never driven anything larger than say an SUV or Van, there is a HUGE difference between a 6% and 10% road grade. Just so all you car drivers out there know. The large vehicles going slowly on steep hills are not doing it to piss you off. They are either constrained by the size of the engine or they are being - careful and trying not to drive off a cliff. SO have a little patience and try not to ride up their bumper the whole way increasing the stress and potential death factor for them and for you exponentially.***

Not that I have any personal experience of this...now with that public safety announcement out of the way...

We drove through Swan Valley in Idaho which is really beautiful and made it to Idaho Falls. We got the spare tire fixed there for the trailer (a nail was the culprit) and bought cowboy hats.

We stopped in Spencer, ID "The Opal Capital of the United States" for gas and some friendly banter at the counter. From here we passed through the rest of "nowhere" Idaho into "nowhere" Montana. Missed the rodeo in Dillon and finally camped out at the KOA in Butte, Mt. Home of the "Our Lady of the Rockies." Was actually a cute little down. Small. Campground was nice, clean and easy.

That's all I can manage for tonight, will continue the thread through Montana to Glacier, back through Idaho and into Washington.

Cheers!

Kelly