Gee 2 on the Road

North Ranch SKP

2012-02-13T12:55:00.002-05:00

A reminder, SKP is also spelled Escapee and is our primary membership organization. They also provide our postal mail address - that Livingston TX address you may see from time to time. The campground at North Ranch is about 60 miles north of Phoenix and about 20 miles north of Wickenberg.

We returned to Wickenberg on Saturday and had lunch before walking over to the museum which had so impressed us almost two years ago on our first visit. The open shed that had faced the center of town has been enclosed and houses some exhibits that were in the main building, minerals and Native Americans, as well as a new exhibit of the history of the "Express" companies. It was interesting to see which of the old companies continue to exist in some form to this day. The two most dominant ones are Wells Fargo which was primarily a stage coach line then and American Express which handled freight on stage and then rail. Some of you might remember Railway Express Agency, later R.E.A. the last company to handle interline freight on the railroads as an independent company.

As we toured the main exhibit building we found a collection of photos of Arizona ghost towns with really fine interpretive audio by the photographer, Kurt Wenner. To see much of what we saw click on this link and select Arizona. As we walked through the exhibit and listened to the audio we noted that a few of the sites were near by. On Sunday we worked around the coach until after lunch then we took off to see if we could find anything in Congress and Stanton. We took 89 a couple of miles north to the intersection with 71 and turned left over the railroad tracks to Ghost Town Road which I had noted as we drove by on our way in. There was also a sign pointing to the Congress Cemetery. Eventually, as all interesting roads in these parts do, we left the pavement behind. Proceeding up the dirt continuation we passed a BLM dry camping area about .6 of a mile along and eventually we came to the Old Congress Cemetery. The most recent burial we saw was in the '50's and that seemed to be forty years after the next most recent. Retracing our tracks we found a turn with no indication that the road was private and followed it to the current town cemetery. We returned to 71 and contemplated our next adventure.

We had heard that Stanton was east of 89 just north of the intersection and a check of the website and Google Navigation confirmed that. So we set off on another adventure. Six miles of good dirt road brought us to a sign that read LDMA Stanton. LDMA? It did not mean anything to us so I decided to play stupid, not hard on some days, and parked and walked into the office as if I was looking for a campsite, which I might indeed have wanted. I learned that LDMA is the acronym for "Lost Dutchman Mining Association." The campground is members only and we were given permission to look around. We immediately met a member who was not out mining for placer gold and was more than willing to give us some of the history. The buildings date back to the gold rush of 1863! and have been restored and maintained by the association for their own use. There is a large Opera House with a bar that fills one end and the hotel across the street houses the card room, TV room and kitchen. Most of the men were off on their claims and the woman we spoke with said she preferred to "mine" on beaches for lost coins and jewelry as the sand is easier to dig than the rock in the claims around Stanton. Membership in LDMA includes the privilege of working the claims the association owns all over the west and into Alaska. We have run into the name in our travels, but had never met any members before this excursion.

Following directions from our guide and in agreement from Google Nav we continued up the road we had come in on and 6 miles of tortuous dirt road that climbed a couple of thousand feet brought us back to 89 in the town of Yarnell at 4800 feet. This is the Big City for the miners and there were a couple of businesses that seemed to still be open, most of the town which sits astride the road from Wickenberg to Prescott seems to be verging on becoming a ghost town itself.

We returned down the very long grade from Yarnell to the valley floor and our coach at North Ranch. We concluded the day's adventures by going to the activity center for the weekly Ice Cream Social. We slipped the ice cream but enjoyed the social which became a do it yourself program responding to questions about the states east of the Mississippi. Carol and got roped into telling what there was to do in Alabama. We surprised ourselves, and others, with how many interesting paces we knew to recommend in Alabama. Lots of fun.

Dinner, the Grammy Awards, and our books on Kindle concluded the day.

Two for One - a Catch Up Post

2012-02-11T12:40:00.002-05:00

Yes indeed we went to Laguna Seca Recreation Area, the Chapparal Camping Area which happens to over look the Mazda Race Track at Laguna Seca. We got to watch school cars race around about half the track from our campsite. Some were slow and many got faster as the day progressed. Most were Mazdas, but there was also a class of open wheel racers out there at times. Side note, had an open wheel racer pass us on PCH in Malibu one day!

Point Lobos walk

The climb to the campground was noted as a 16% grade! Since the curves lilmited speed to the 20 MPH we were able to make on the grade it did not seem outrageous. Coming down on the other hand. . . even in the car it was hairy. At the top we met Anna Lee and Jerry and the rest of the Springfield RV Club. We shared a wonderful potluck dinner the first night - it was so good we were able to repeat it the second night after a day that included a long walk on Point Lobos, lunch at Vivolos Chowder House - Carol found a place next door where she enjoyed a vegetarian meal without the smell of fish. I will refer you to Jerry and Anna Lee's blog for food pictures and site pictures. I am working with limited bandwidth so will take advantage of other's pictures when they are available and excellent. Day two included wine tasting at Ventana Winery followed by a trip to the Farmer's Market where some of us bought fresh fish to bring back and grill. More fresh halibut for me, yum!

Thanks for the warning!

The third day included brunch at First Awakenings in Salinas followed by wine tasting at two wineries; Paraiso and Hahn. At each we enjoyed the tasting and made some purchases. Storage has become an issue. We have several bottles under the bed and the wine rack is temporarily full. We also have added a Port to the standing collection in the food file. As always visits with friends come to an end, although we hope to see Jerry and Anna Lee in Rochester in the Fall and maybe go on up to Niagara-on-the-Lake and Stratford with them.

Left Anna Lee and Jerry at Laguna Seca and headed up to Sacramento to see niece Minda and her fiance Will for dinner Thursday night at their apartment in Davis. We stayed at the KOA on the western edge of Sacramento as it is the closest place we could find. The Elks is way out on the other side of Sacramento. Friday we had them come to the coach for dinner. Carol made a wonderful vegetarian stew and salad which we all enjoyed. On Saturday we picked up Will and Minda and went to the farmers market in Davis where we had breakfast and bought some great produce and lots of oranges. Will went to write and Minda joined us for a walk which we based on a Volksmarch. We found some interesting galleries and ended at her friend Val's home. Will joined us there and we had dinner together at Tulli a local restaurant. After dinner we made our farewells and returned to Gee 2 for a good nights sleep.

We were in touch with the Hoggs (see past posts) and learned that they were in Ehrenberg, AZ for a few more days. We set off early on Sunday morning with 600 miles to cover. Clearly this was going to be a two day push for us. We started out with a determination to head down I 5 as it is another route that many take and contains the "Grapevine." We didn't make it more than 30 miles before we crossed over to CA 99 which is parallel to and slightly east of I 5. This road surface seemed much better than the 5 and traffic flowed easily. Over the distance we traveled (Stockton to Bakersfield) it was entirely freeway. At Bakersfield we picked up CA 58 which heads out into the mountains. Reading "Days End" (an Escapee website that tracks free and cheap overnight camping ) I learned that there was a parking area just off exit 172 that had been reported as an overnight stopping place. We pulled off the road and settled into the large flat space with Edwards Airforce Base to our southwest. We watched a magnificent sunset over the base and the lines of wind turbines marching along the ridge lines. After sunset we could see the red lights on the many towers flashing in unison across the desert. As we had breakfast we watched lines of oversize loads with wind turbine blades headed out onto the highway. We prepared for departure with a minimum of effort and by 9 we were moving. The route was 58 to 395 to 18 to 247 to Joshua Tree NP and then south on 177 to I 10. I will let you pull up your own Google Map or paper atlas to see the area.

Ehrenberg sits on the east bank of the Colorado River barely into Arizona. The Hoggs are in a membership park on the river. We settled into a desert parking lot for $1 a day which seems exorbitant since it buys us nothing but desert. On the other hand a buck seems pretty cheap. We have had a couple of Happy Hours and dinner at the Hoggs and dinner at the Quartzsite Yacht Club the next night. We moved to Quartzsite to wait for our mail to catch up with us after the Hoggs moved on to El Centro. I took the car in to have someone look at the tires. One valve core is leaking and another tire seems to have lost a bit of air for no reason.

Purple Mountains Majesty - Hi Jolly BLM Area Quartzsite

The mail did not come in on Thursday as expected so while we were waiting I stopped at Best Auto for a look see at the tire with the leaking valve. The owner replaced the valve core and I handed him a $5 and much thanks. We camped in the desert at the Hi Jolly BLM area. There was plenty of sun and no reason to run the generator until we wanted toast for breakfast. The solar panels were putting out plenty of power for our needs and the batteries held up fine running the furnace overnight and my CPAP machine. Friday the mail arrived and we moved on to North Ranch Rainbow Campground north of Wickenberg AZ (north of Phoenix). This looks like an exciting week to be in Arizona as they are celebrating the centennial of Statehood on February 14.

A Blog Post a Day Keeps the ??? away?

2012-01-28T21:02:00.002-05:00

I have just reread Brave new World by Aldous Huxley. It was published in 1953 and I believe the first time I read it was in 1958 in a high school class under the tutelage of Carl Lang. None of that will mean much to most of you, but if you haven't read the book recently the relevance title of this post will mean even less.

It all started because in response to something someone said I replied "In the year of our Ford". My next thought was "where did that come from"? Then I thought that it was from Brave New World (hereafter BNW). Since we are on the road, just running to the library to pick up a copy to read is not simple. However, when we were visiting in Florida, I bought a Kindle. I "went shopping" and found a copy of BNW in Kindle format and zap I owned it. Yup in the far future as written in the early 1950's they have changed their worship to Ford and taken the tops off of every cross to change them to "T" (as in Model T). I will not pursue BNW any further, if you want to get the link between the title and the book, you will have to read it. Time for me get a half gram of soma.

Today we have gone Elks Lodge to Elks Lodge. We are back in the Monterey Lodge we visited last March. It still has a wonderful view of the ocean. We had thought of stopping at a Harvest Host winery, actually we did, but it was only noon when we stopped so we tasted Tobin James reds and bought a couple of bottles of their Merlot before retreating from the mobs to our coach for lunch. We decided to move on to the Monterey Elks, as planned 3 hours previously. Harvest Host is yet another "club". It is a loose association of farms with sales venues across the country which mostly have space for a motorhome or two to dry camp on their grounds for a night. The list is only accessible to members and it includes wineries, dairies, cattle ranches and truck farms with farm stands. They are mostly well off any route we are likely to be on when going point to point, but they will be interesting when can take the time to venture off the beaten path.

I seem to have drifted away from my initial thread. That happens. Back to the Kindle. These are wonderful sources of reading materiel. We have a shared subscription to the NYTimes and it is really much easier to bring the Kindles to the table over breakfast than trying to find room for two laptops along with the meal. See a book you think you might like to read and find it and sample it before buying. Think a strange thought like "In the year of our Ford" and track down the 60 year old book and begin reading it within minutes. It is really amazing, by the way, how much I forgot about that book. I may have to venture into 1984 of similar vintage and assigned reading by the same teacher. I have reread that some time in the last 50 years, but darned if I can remember when, I do remember RATS and I do remember turned down page corners for the sexy parts, or at least they seemed sexy then. Can't dog ear a page on the Kindle, but I can bookmark it, or highlight it or share it.

I search through the "Under $3.99" regularly and download samples. If I like them they are mine at once, if not,they are deleted from the Kindle and the wishlist. In case you think you will miss the feel of the paper and the heft of a book, remember trying to read something like War and Peace or a really fat paperback book. They all fit in the same 4 by 6 inch frame that weighs a few ounces and on e ink can be read in any light you can read paper in, you do need light. Carol has the Kindle Fire, she does not need any light since it is backlit, but reading in sunlight can be difficult. Also the Fire weighs much more, maybe twice as much as my Touch. It still is lighter than most books. When we fly to Rochester, it will be so much easier to carry our Kindles than than the books we need for the flight and down time in Rochester and if we run out of reading material on the ground no need to find a bookstore or news stand. If wifi is not available, I merely turn on the hotspot on my phone and we are connected to more books than the Library of Congress. How cool is that? I must seem like a real ad for Kindle, but I am sure that if we had Nooks or Sony's the atitude would be the same. Maybe if we had "Gizmos" - see The Last Bookstore in America by Amy Stewart - we would feel differently.

The Lagavulin tastes fine and I am sure the dinner of fresh giant artichokes (from the San Luis Obispo Farmer's Market) and squash and salad will feature some really nice wine. I had best post this before I become maudlin. Tomorrow we drive about 15 miles to Laguna Seca Recreation Area (yes the race track is there) to meet the Braunsteins and the Springfield RV Club. Should be some great fun.

Up the Coast and Plans Keep Changing

2012-01-26T14:34:00.001-05:00

We stayed on in the LA area as planned and visited with the Arnalls who we know from my days on the JDC Board (that's American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee - for those who don;t know the acronym). we had dinner at Palomino which was a nice restaurant in the UCLA area. We also had lunch in Venice at Roses Cafe with Jan Shapiro, Carol's sister-in-law's sister. Along the way we had a brief visit to Yechiel's office, a couple of trips with Avtalyon to Capoeira, a Brazilian dance form that derives from a martial art. He is quite taken with it. We also had a day out with Azriel which included a stop at an air museum, The Black Bird site. There is a display on the grounds where they were built of a U-2 and a couple of Black Birds (one SR 71 and an early prototype that saw extensive service designated an A-12). There were also several interesting planes ranging from a C-47 to an F-4 D Phantom and a F 111 Stealth fighter. Azriel was captivated .by a maintenance worker who was working on the U-2. His grandfather had flown the U-2, it was quite a tour of the plane. From there we went to Devils Punchbowl State Park. Words will not do it justice. The upthrust rocks jut into the sky at angles over 45 degrees. The mountains around are over 8,000 feet and the park itself is over 4,000 feet. We all had a good time scrambling over rocks and down trails. Azriel got into it as well and was quite a trooper.

Eventually it was time to move on. As we rolled out of Malibu Beach RV Park our only destination was Agoura Hills, about 30 miles away, to get an oil change and routine service. We once again were thwarted in our effort to stay at Santa Barbara Elks as they were full. We continued on up 101 to El Capitan Beach State Park. there we paid $35 for the privilege of staying on a parking lot sandwiched between the ocean and the 101 with a passenger rail line in the mix. There are no hook ups and there is not even a dump. The views were wonderful and we had a couple of very nice walks. Pictures will be posted when I have some bandwidth to work with. While stopped we made some phone calls and changed our plans. We are going to hang out on the Central coast for a while and meet Anna Lee and Jerry Braunstein and their Springfield RV club in Monterey on Sunday for a few days of fun and wine tasting as a group. Then we will continue on up to Davis to see our niece before turning around and retracing to get to Phoenix well before we fly to Rochester. Of course there are other friends including the Hoggs who are in these parts (these parts means southern California and Arizona - rather broad designation). Also we hope to see our friends in the Phoenix area as well. Time will tell.

Elks Lodge 322 is located between a cemetery and an RV storage lot and backed up against the 101. Interesting surroundings. The lodge is nicely kept and seems to be very active. The camping area is extensive with water and electric (30 amp) hook ups for a dozen coaches and a dump available to members. The RV storage lot is part of the Elks property.

6 for Drinks, 4 for Dinner, Sleeps 2

2012-01-18T18:26:00.000-05:00

To any RVer the subject line is a standard answer to the capacity of a motorhome no matter how big. We have been known to break the "rule" on occasion, for instance when we invited Deb and Scott to spend the night with us New Years Eve. Privacy can be hard to find in a coach as the space is so limited and the walls so thin.

This past weekend we stretched the "rule" yet again. We started by having our grandson Azriel on board Saturday night after bringing him out after Shabbat. This was a down payment on his 11 year old RV trip with us. We have neighbors in Malilbu Beach RV Park who have a 9 (almost 10) year old boy and Sunday morning we took a wonderful walk just south of the grounds of the park with Nate joining us and accompanying Azriel. About 2, Azriel's parents Yechiel and Miriam and his brother Avtalyon came out. While the boys played, I got busy on the grill with vegetables cut up by Carol preparing dinner. Although there were only six of us as compared to ten last year, the grilling did seem to go on forever. Eventually we were able to gather in the coach, the temperature had dropped too low for comfortable outdoor dining.

After an episode of National Geographic "Galapagos" from Netflix it was time for everyone to bed down. Yes, we made room for all six of us to sleep on board. We, of course, took the Master Suite in the back. Yechiel and Miriam got the convertible couch, Azriel got the dining booth (the table top gets dropped onto the benches and the cushions cover the surface) and Avtalyon got the floor using the cushions from the couch as his mattress. I don't think anyone would recommend this as a long term sleeping arrangement (more than one night!), but it did work fine for the night. In the morning we took a ride to Point Dume where we walked on the beach and climbed the Point to look over the ocean. There was a video production crew set up on the parking lot to record an episode of Modern Family (whatever that is). This tied things up a bit. We returned to the coach for lunch and everyone seemed ready to take it easy for the afternoon, playing some catch and just talking. Later in the afternoon we watched another episode of "Galapagos" and it was time for everyone to go home.

Carol and I wandered around the coach putting things back to where they belong then sat and read in the peace and quiet. It is a mixed blessing, we enjoy the quiet, but we also really enjoy having the kids (both generations) with us. Can't have both at the same time.

Experience in Los Angeles

2012-01-13T15:01:00.002-05:00

It is always surprising to find something new and different right under your nose and realize it has been there all along. We have been visiting our family in LA for several years have driven up and down Venice Blvd more times than we care to think about. Carol at one time noticed the Museum of Jurassic Technology and after wondering for a bit put it out of her mind. Yesterday Carol, our daughter-in-law Miriam and I were wondering what to do with some spare time with Avtalyon in tow. We decided to head over to the museum to see what it had to offer. We first checked out the web site to see if it seemed interesting. If anything it left us with less idea of what we might find, but it intrigued us enough to venture in the door. Once in it took us over two hours to extract ourselves. I will not try to describe everything, check out the link above for much more detail.

The displays cover a range of subject matter from sculptures in the eye of needle and microscopic mosaics of butterfly wing scales to the history of trailer parks and trailers in the Los Angeles area. On the top floor is a tea room with complimentary tea after 3 PM and a rooftop garden and columbarium. The interior is a rabbit warren of small rooms, the lighting is dim and many hands on exhibits were out of order, seemingly permanently. It is a place to study, to be amazed and to meditate. If you are ever in Los Angeles with a couple of hours to kill and you are anywhere near the museum definitely consider spending some time there.

On our way to the house from the RV park in Malibu we have driven by Topanga Canyon Rd many times. In fact several years ago we were forced to drive it in the dark and rain when The PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) was closed by threatened rock slides. We had never driven it in daylight and so we elected to stop at Topanga Beach and carry our lunch out on to the beach to watch the surfers. As we ate and watched I noticed some large bodies beyond the surf line. There was a pod of whales passing by. We were too low and did not have binoculars with us but given our location and the time of year they must have been grey whales migrating north. There were also dolphins playing in the water between the surfers and the whales.

We drove up and over Topanga Canyon Road. It is an steep twisty road that climbs over the Santa Monica Mountains. Eventually it brought us to the 101 in the Valley. Leaving the wilderness of Topanga Canyon for the rigors of 4 and 5 lane freeways required an instant adjustment of thought process. Eventually we connected to the 405 which brought us back to Pico and the house on Alcott.

As I write I cannot help thinking about friends in Rochester who are recovering from various procedures. Lorraine, if you get to read this, know we are thinking of you. Lisa, I have seen Scott's postings on FB and want you to know we are thinking of you too.

Repaired and Rolling

2012-01-09T22:17:00.001-05:00

As promised Friday morning the delivery trucks arrived with new batteries and a new motor for the slideout room. When we were preparing o return from lunch I got a call that the coach was ready to roll. We finished our walk back from Andele, a Mexican Restaurant about a half mile from Sunland, paid our bill and were underway before 2 PM.

While we were rolling we called Bev and Dan Armstrong who we knew were in the Tucson area to see if we could get together. After a bit of back and forth we realized that they were going to drive to Saguaro SKP Coop in Benson AZ to hear Arvel Bird perform in the Coop clubhouse. We were aware of Arvel Bird since he has played at the Ganandogan Powwow just south of Rochester several times, while we were away. He has also performed with the Rochester Chamber Orchestra. Since we were already headed for Saguaro Coop and planned to stay there a couple of nights, it made sense for us to meet there. And we did. Bev and Dan arrived at about 11 Am and we had a great lunch spread that Carol put together with a minimum of effort. We ate in the sun just outside the coach and conversation continued non stop until Dan got word that Arvel was in and setting up. We walked over to the clubhouse where Dan contributed his effort as a "roadie" schlepping stuff from the car to the stage.

Eventually we returned to the coach and ordered in pizza which we elected to go and pick up.from G and F Pizza in Benson. Good pizza if you happen to be in Benson and happen to be in the mood for pizza. Not likely for most of you readers I am sure.

The show was wonderful. Arvel is a master of the fiddle and native American flutes and I am sure many other instruments. Rather than my blathering on about him click here to go to his website http://arvelbird.com. We came away with 2 CDs we bought and 1 that he had messed up the signature on which he gave to us. We also picked up a DVD of him in performance which he gave away with the purchase of the CDs. He and his wife are very close with our friends the Armstrongs.

We all parted company after the concert and in the morning Carol and I left Benson behind to roll closer to LA. We stopped mid afternoon at the Hi Jolly STVA (that is Short Term Visitor Area) just north of Quartzite AZ. As I may have mentioned in the past Quartzite straddles I 10 just east of the California border. Most of the land is controlled by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) of the Department of Interior and with some limited regulation is generally open to free or very low cost camping. In STVA here there are no facilities. We have no access to water, dump or electric. We have plenty of water with us - 100 gallons and the capacity to hold 100 gallons of sewage. For electricity we are using solar panels and some time on the generator. Those new batteries are working out just fine.

We shopped for a new coach, we will be doing that for some time now, we may even buy something eventually. Today I was pretty enamored of a Winnebago Journey (you heard that right Dot and Larry). It is the same length as out coach and has a lot of nice features. The price is, lets just say up there. Plenty of time to think this over and look some more. In the mean time we added some new LED lighting and other "stuff" that we just had to have.

Tomorrow we will rise at our usual time and try to get on the road by nine. we have about 4 or 5 hours (LA traffic will determine that) to drive I 10 to the coast and then up the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) to Malibu Beach RV Park where we will stay until the 24th. There may not be much posting for the next two weeks. We also booked flights to Rochester from Phoenix, February 17 to 20. Haven't been in Rochester in February in 12 years but our friend Zvi Zeitlin is giving his 45th annual recital in Kilbourn Hall on Sunday at 3 PM and he has announced it will be his last. Two days later he will be 90.

A Temporary Show Stopper

2012-01-04T19:44:00.000-05:00

Our plan has been to drive to LA with brief stops along the way to visit with people as we go. We made a stop in Austin to have dinner with Leigh and Patrick, yummy meal at "Second" we highly recommend it. we parked at the Austin Elks Lodge which is up on hill overlooking downtown. Hard to beat the view. Leigh and Pat came for happy hour and we shared the bottle of Champagne that Scott Deb had brought - sorry we couldn't find a time to share it with them - it was a very nice NY Champagne -and and then we went on to dinner.

The next morning, that would be Tuesday, we got on the road relatively early and stopped in Fredricksburg to shop at Rustlin Robbs purveyor of salsas jams etc. lots of etc. We also made a stop at the cooks store where I found Costa Rican coffee, Carol found a new fry pan and we did some other financial damage. We continued on along 290 eventually joining I 10 for the long pull to LA where it is known as THE 10. We stopped at the Walmart in Fort Stockton, they moved it since we stopped there last, and bought a couple of things before settling in for the night.

By 8:30 AM we had cleaned up from breakfast and were ready to move on. I started the engine and pulled in the living room slide with no problem. I threw the switch to activate the bedroom slide and nothing happened. I traced the power as far as I could, actually made sure all the fuses were good and put in a call to Coach-net, my road service company. They contacted H & H Truck Service, just a half mile down the street, who sent over a technician. He started tracing the power all the way back to the motor for the bedroom slide out. This is located under the bed, under the the storage compartment under the bed. There was power all the way to the motor. He had no way to repair or replace the motor. He cranked the slide in manually so we could head on down the road to our next stop, Las Cruces where we will be having dinner with Leora Zeitlin and Stewart Kelter in about an hour. We will be here at least until Friday noon as the parts will not be shipped until tomorrow. We were very pleased with H & H Truck Service and with the way coach-net took care of our needs including getting us an appointment with Sunland RV in Las Crucis where we are parked now.

While we are here, I ordered new batteries for the coach. Our Trojan 105 6 volt batteries are over seven years old and are not as peppy after a night of heating and lights as they once were. Since we will be out in the desert again soon I want dependable batteries. They will be installed at the same time as the slide out motor on Friday. That will leave us 4 days to get to LA. Plenty of time. I will try to post when we get underway again.

A Week In Livingston

2012-01-01T22:20:00.000-05:00

We are preparing to move out in the morning. We got in here on the 26th, Monday. We have done very little in the way of sightseeing, hiking or other local activities. Carol has been focused on getting her "store front" going so her photos will be available to sell. You can visit http://anncarol.imagekind.com/ to see what she has been up to this past week. I have had a continuous, it seems, round of minor maintenance and repair chores that have kept me busy between bouts with my own computer. The tally of jobs seems long, but most of them were a couple of minutes and resolved issues that have been bugging me for some time.

In the mail when we arrived was a package from Fleetwood with a new latch for the throne room door and two marker lights for the front corners of the coach. One had burned out and the other had cracked. The throne room door latch was never right from the day we got the coach. I had "fixed it" innumerable times and most recently had sought to replace it, but the cylinder opening is just slightly smaller than residential standard. I figured Fleetwood would send me the part that fit. They did, but instead of knobs the latch came with levers. It actually seems to be an improvement. The marker light replacements caused me to be seen rolling around on the ground under the front of the coach and reaching way up into the innards to reach the connectors for the lamps. Just a couple of minutes for each.

I took an hour and a half to wash the whole coach (not the roof) and get it nice and clean so I can dirty it on the road tomorrow. It always feels good to remove the travel dirt so I can open a cabinet without getting filthy. I had been trying to replace the parking lights on the front of the RAV4, but was unable to figure out how to do it without removing all of the grill and metal work above the bumper. Took it into West RV and Automotive and they removed all that plastic and metalwork, at the cost of an hours labor, and changed two dollar light bulbs. Thank you Toyota for an incredibly stupid design.

Part of our reason for hanging here in Livingston was to go to the New Years Eve show at the Liberty Opry. We had contacted Deb Freedman and Scott Mackler who had just moved from Rochester to Dallas this Fall and they agreed to join us in Livingston and go on to the show. Mid afternoon on the 31st they arrived at our site and it was really wonderful to see them way out west here. They need to write there own blog post, or maybe book about the trials and tribulations of there move from Rochester to Dallas. Scott has a new truck and Deb has yet to be able work as a doctor while she waits for Texas to license her.

At about 5:30 per Carol's plan we got in the RAV4 and headed for Liberty, dinner first at Chili's, the only passable restaurant in the area. They have a bar even though the county is dry. We joined the Chili's Uniclub which got us permission to order drinks. This began an episode that could have been on a sitcom. They only had two wine glasses and three of us ordered wine. Scott agreed to drink his white wine from an on the rocks glass. The ladies ordered red wine, BAD red wine. Back it went. Deb decided to go along with Scott on the chardonnay, but Carol really wanted red wine so they brought her a Marguerite! not quite! so back she went with instructions to bring out the other red wine. It was amazing just how white that wine looked and tasted. I got my Marguerite and was quite happy. We went on to the show and we all enjoyed it immensely. It was four hours of country, rock, blues and gospel, why would any group call themselves "Rendered Heart" I kept thinking about rendering chicken fat.. I must have missed something.

We got back to the coach by a little after 1 PM and spent several minutes setting the living room up for sleeping. The verdict is that the convertible sofa may be fine for one, but for two it is less than wonderful. Who knew? As we resumed consciousness, Carol began the preparation of a delightful breakfast with fresh made corn bread, scrambled eggs and fruit. It sounds simple and the preparation was not elaborate, but we were all full and satisfied and then we sat at the table for another hour or so. Finally as time came for them to leave we had to take some pictures to record the event.

That's me with Deb and Scott

And that's Carol - she let me touch her camera

Moving West - Slowly

2011-12-25T19:19:00.000-05:00

I guess I have not had much to write about for the past week or at least time to write. We took two days to drive from Deer Creek to Rainbow Plantation, the Escapee park in Summerdale, AL. We stopped at Ochlockonee State Park in the FL Panhandle along the way. It is a lovely park and if we are in the area we will definitely consider staying there again. The most interesting sighting there was a white squirrel with a light black stripe on its back, not an albino. The drive was remarkably without adventure.

At Rainbow Plantation we had a nice site, as they all are, with an oak tree hanging over us. The sound of falling acorns on the roof was always jolting. We were stopping there to visit our cousins Ellie and Eddie Holtzman whose daughter and family, Joy and Shaul Antar, live in Fairhope, about 25 minutes from the campground. Ellie and Eddie were visiting so we planned to make it a family get together for Shabbat and Hanukkah. We were invited to Shabbat dinner at the house and responded with an invitation to our motorhome followed by Chinese dinner in the traditional Jewish celebration of Christmas. Hunan's Chinese buffet was adequate to the occasion. It was not jammed like the Chinese restaurants in Rochester.

While parked in Rainbow Plantation, I noticed that the new LED over the entrance had gone out. I was quite annoyed as it was expensive and I had been lead to expect 10,000 hours not 10 or 100. I tried a few things and determined that the LED was fine, but the fixture was broken. This necessitated a stop at Camping World for a replacement. While there I picked up a double LED ceiling fixture to replace the ceiling florescent fixture which died last year. The LED strips that I had been looking for cost $40 to $50 each and it needed two. This whole fixture was the cost of one LED strip. This resulted in fun and games as I brought the purchases home and began swapping light fixtures. The dead fixture, which had been relocated to the driving area, came out to be replaced by a working florescent fixture from the kitchen work area, where I installed the new LED fixture. That was the easy part. The exterior fixture was secured with waterproof mastic which had to be carefully scraped off after removing the screws and prying the fixture away from the wall. Fortunately I had thought to buy some mastic for the new unit, I now have enough mastic to redo every fixture on the exterior of the coach. Other minor maintenance included redoing the silicone seals on a couple of back marker lights that I had made a mess of last winter when I was trying to stop a leak by sealing everything that had an opening, between the rain drops. As a grand finale, with Carol, I opened the compartment under the refrigerator that houses the major interior wiring harnesses and the converter (converts 120 volt AC to 12 volt DC). We vacuumed several years of accumulated dust topped by a thick layer of Alaska dust. I suspect there will be Alaska dust in this coach long after we have sold it. It is everywhere.

Today we left Rainbow Plantation. The comment we received more than once was "you're leaving on Christmas Day?" Yup, it is also the 6th night of Hanukkah, but few know that. We decided to stop near Lafayette, LA in Poche Bridge at the Poche Fish 'N Camp where we have been welcomed a couple of times in the past. It is not too far off the highway and as a Passport America discount park it is very comfortable with full hookups. If I haven't described it in the past, or even if I have, it was originally a fish farm and the grounds are made up of three multi acre fish ponds with campsites around the edges. It is a shame we are not fisher people as the camping includes fishing rights. The Poche family have a long history in this region and in addtion to the Fish 'N Camp they have a restaurant/meat market nearby. There is nothing there for either of us. I would really like to try the Boudin, but the main ingredient is pork which is a significant ingredient in all of their products.

Tomorrow we will move on to Livingston TX and the Rainbow's End Escapee Park where we plan to be through New Years and we are meeting Scott and Deb their for New Years Eve entertainment.

A Week in St Petersburg

2011-12-18T11:34:00.001-05:00

We stopped at Paynes Prairie State Park just outside Micanopy Florida. We have been there before and found it to be an excellent spot for birding and relaxing. Roomy sites and very quiet. We took a long walk on Cone Dike trail. There were cautions about not feeding or approaching the bison or the Spanish wild horses that inhabit the prairie. We did not expect that to be a problem for us. As we approached the two mile post on the trail in the distance we saw a group of horses on the trail and decided to hold up to let them clear the area. They did not seem interested in moving on. Using our binoculars we were able to see that one of the horses was down on the trail and another was nuzzling it. This did not seem to be a healthy situation for the horses or for us to get any closer. We decided that a 4 mile round trip, two out and two back, would have to be sufficient. We stopped at the Visitor Center to let the staff know about the horse. The staff person made it clear that there was no likelihood of rescue as it is a wild life area not a zoo. We let her know we understood, but were concerned that other visitor might not like finding a dead or dying horse in the middle of the trail. She then told us a story of a group of walkers that had found a herd of bison on the trail between them and the Visitor Center at the end of a long walk. They were stranded for an hour or more waiting for the bison to move on. With assurance that the rangers would be notified we returned to the car and drove into Micanopy to wander through a few of the antique shops that are the primary feature in the center of town.
The next morning we got back on the road to Fort Desoto Park not too far from Carol’ brother and sister-in-law, Arthur and Natalie. We spent the week visiting with them and other family ad friends. Their daughter Ericka got a day off from the Christmas frenzy at Old navy and spent it with us. We also got in the car drove to Naples, about a 2 1/2 hour drive, where we met Arnie and Peggy and Marilyn and Al , cousins, at the Naples Museum of Art. This turned out to be a wonderful day in all respects, ignoring the 50 minute hold up on I 75 while they cleared a wreck from the driving lanes. It was great to get the cousins together. They figured that Art had not seen them in 26 years. We spent a couple of hours in the museum and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is in the Naples area. The Steve Tobin exhibit is a highlight and the recent Mexican artists’ work needs to be seen. Carol and I were fascinated with a 1918 print of “Steerage” by Stieglitz surrounded by work that he had supported in his galleries. We went on to dinner at Water Mark which was pleasant if undistinguished in its menu. We all head a great time and stayed at the table until it was clear we needed to begin the 2 1/2 return to our assorted homes. They had come over from the east coast. Wednesday we took it easy and Thursday, as were thinking of moving on Art and Natalie invited Cecil and Doreen who we had met in Calgary to dinner – Papa Johns Pizza and salad by Carol.
As I write I am sitting in Deer Creek RV and Golf Resort, just a few minutes from Disney World. We are visiting the Topfs who live here and last night the Singers who we last saw in Minot in 2005 rolled in and we all went to dinner at Sweet Tomato. Today will be a mini CHAI gathering for lunch with two more couples. They are all preparing for a rally this week. We will be rolling on to Alabama tomorrow. Norm, Carol and I took a great hike in Tiger Creek Preserve yesterday. It felt great to get out and move.

Heading South with stops

2011-12-07T21:18:00.001-05:00

After returning Alex to his parents and spending another week at Dan and Malena's it was time to move on if we were going to keep up the rest of our schedule. Besides Saturday, Dec 3 had been exhausting. We started with Cory at a soccer game followed by a team lunch at a pizza place. We wandered the Charlottesville Main Street Mall and shopped at Alacazam for Chanukah presents. Finally we met Alex at his choral concert at 3. Following that we went back to the soccer pitch to pick up Cory and take both boys home so to the parents could meet cousin Steven Berbeco who was driving in rather unexpectedly to spend the night. We had a great time with the boys and around 10 or so Malena, Dan and Steven appeared. This was not the time to go to sleep, yet, as we needed to catch up. In the morning we had a round of goodbyes and followed Steven down out of the Hollow headed n similar directions.

We went on to Baltimore to see our friends Alan and Bunny Bernstein who had moved into Alan's late mother's house four years ago. We had seen them only sporadically in Rochester since their departure. It was great fun to see them on their home turf and to enjoy their guided tour of Jewish Baltimore. We certainly will need to give Baltimore more attention in the future. During the second night there it started to rain and I woke up with nightmares of mud because we were parked on the lawn at their direction. Having slogged through more mud than I care to think about at conventions and on the roads in Alaska, the sound of rain on the roof while parked on lawn was alarming. After a wonderful breakfast and a warm send off, I started the coach and started to back it down to the driveway. As the rear wheels reached pavement I turned the front wheel slightly and applied the brakes gently resulting in a slide sideways of about a foot. No damage to any trees or shrubs nor to the coach, but the lawn will require some attention to repair the ruts.

As we rolled out we knew we had three and a half days to cover 1,000 miles or so. As I write we are 800 miles along after two days, in Brunswick Georgia. We have not decided where we will pause tomorrow night, but we should have made the decision before we start the engine in the morning.

We have added some complications to our travels. We are looking to make a stop in Alabama where cousins Ellie and Eddie Holtzman will be visiting their daughter Joy and family. Eddie is not well and we don't want to pass up the opportunity to see him. We will then have to make serious tracks across the south to get to LA by 1/10/2012. Still not sure where we will spend New years Eve. Liberty TX is not out of the question (see last years post if you don;t know why that would be fun).

Reprise: The Video of Alex as Patrick Henry

2011-11-29T09:21:00.001-05:00

For whatever reason I cannot seem to edit the Williamsburg post and the video of Alex was not working so here is the video:

Colonial Williamsburg with Alex

2011-11-28T12:05:00.001-05:00

Just a year later we finally got to take our grandson Alex to Colonial Williamsburg for a week, on the motorhome. This is a first for him as the last time we had him out it was with Cory and it was just an overnight. Our drive to American Heritage RV was uneventful, the repairs held up nicely, and as soon as we settled in and disconnected the car we were off to Colonial Williamsburg. I must say that their pricing is confusing and at this time there are so many options that my mind was boggled. We settled on a simple multi-day ticket (that is three days) but could not buy the senior tickets online. We bought them at the campground where they were just $2 less than at the gate. Alex's junior ticket was cheaper online, although maybe I could have saved $.50 at the campground. Go figure.

We began with a tour of the Governor's Palace guided by Mary, the Housekeeper, who was a bit rushed because she was preparing the house for a ball that evening and needed to survey all the public spaces and her office in preparation. When we took this tour a year ago we were impressed by the carefully researched and prepared presentation. We were no less impressed this year. Although this was a different "actor" clearly she had the role down perfectly and was able to respond to questions in character. we were all delighted and walked out into the beautiful day to tour the gardens and then take a broad view of the entire historic area. Alex was particularly interested in seeing some chickens. He has won awards for his raising and handling of Bantom Chickens and knows far more about breeds and breeding than one would expect from a 12 year old. We were given the location of two chicken flocks on the premises, but were not able to get to them on Friday before things started to close down at 4:30. At 5:30 there was a Fife and Drum Corp with torchbearers that marched from The Capital to The Palace Green with a stop at the Magazine for the firing of the canons. We were entranced and marched along with them for about half the parade route. Bandwidth will not permit me to show off Alex's video footage of the torches and the playing. We rode the shuttle bus back to the visitor center and returned to the coach for a late dinner and early to bed for us - very late for Alex.

Saturday morning we got up, had breakfast and headed back to Williamsburg to have a conversation with Thomas Jefferson in the Palace Garden.

Mr Jefferson gave a very moving monologue for about 40 minutes on the development of the colonies that date in 1776 and the ideas that he thought would make for a good government. He addressed many questions from the attentive audience including some from the far future. We might not agree with all of his ideas, after all he was a slaveholder and a political leader of his time. However he had many who disagreed with him in his time as well.

After training to be part of the militia:

We wandered on from there to the Capital where the tour included a presentation in the House of Burgess about the doings of the days and the fact that the Lords had left town rather hurriedly upon hearing of the happenings in Lexington and Concord. Seated at the table were Patrick Henry, James Madison, and er, ah oh well so much for my memory.

The guide talked about the issues leading to the need for the colonies to declare their independence from the Crown and concluded (you need to click on this):

We moved downstairs to the Courtroom where capital crimes are tried and look who we found in the jury box - reserved for members of the upper house:

Alex soon found himself answering a question correctly before the questioner could turn and ask for an answer. He found himself seated in the governor's chair. This may not have been the best place to be for in a day they were all escaping from "the rabble."

We ended the day with a stop at The Wythe house where there was a lovely chicken coop with chickens of the same breed Alex is raising as well as other breeds he recognized immediately to the surprise and pleasure of the docents. We concluded the day by wandering through the museums of folk art, furniture and other collections. Needless to say we got lost in there and could easily have spent the entire day there. Instead we retreated to the coach for dinner and a good night's sleep for all. In the morning we were taking the coach and car to the Historic site so we could leave directly from there. Here is Alex on the coach steps:

Our plan for the last day in Williamsburg was to start at The Powell House where we were told there were more chickens and then no real plan. Alex was not totally thrilled with the chickens as they were the same breed as at Wythe House. Also the rooster was far more protective and would not let him feed the hens without trying to peck him. He did see some pigeons, actually Giant Runts, that were being kept in a coop. He ventured into the coop followed by Dean, the keeper. They returned into the light and Dean gave Alex this pigeon to hold:

I wan't sure we would get to leave. Indeed we spent an hour and a half there. Not only were there birds to hold but there was salt to grind and friends to be made.

Report from Covesville

2011-11-24T09:12:00.001-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

The trip from Rochester to Covesvilles was not quite as planned. Dan got sick and could not fly in to drive the Prius. We decided to go back to Plan A which was to take turns driving the coach and the car with Josh riding along and maybe driving the Prius with me as copilot. We made a remarkably on time departure and got to Main Tire Exchange in Dansville, NY early only to find that the only tech capable of doing an alignment had been sent out on an emergency road service call. While we waited another tech pulled the coach into the service bay and determined we had a loose bearing on the wheel that had had the worse tire wear.. Apparently that was the source of the wear. By the time he had that tightened and put back together the alignment guy had returned. He set up the equipment and determined within minutes that nothing had changed since the last time he had seen the coach and we were on the road again by noon.

We continued on to the Yogi Bear Shangri-la on the Creek in Milton PA with me driving the coach and Carol pushing the Prius. We are not partial to this type of campground, but with three on board we needed to be able to pull out the slides for comfort and having hookups really made sense. In the morning we rolled out in the same configuration. After stopping for propane at the Carlyle Flying J we had an "incident." Neither Carol nor I are quite sure what happened, but the driver's side mirror was removed from its rightful place and left dangling from it's electrical connections. Carol saw me swerve away from the passing truck and we conjecture he must have drifted into my lane. My first indication of the contact was the sound of the mirror breaking away. A brief stop on the shoulder allowed me to tape the mirror to the side of the coach so I wouldn't lose it. Then came the fun of driving with no mirror. Fortunately we had radios with us and when I wanted to move left I could ask Carol to block for me and let me know when it was safe. Fifty miles of that was enough and we pulled into the first available rest area so I could make further repairs. By a miracle the glass had survived the impact and the primary damage was to the head of the mirror. I was able to remount the mirror arm and with a liberal use of grey tape I was able to secure the mirror in a usable position and we continued on to Covesville with no further incidents.

Unfortunately Carol did not want to drive the coach with the taped up mirror and she was not comfortable with Josh practicing his driving under the conditions so he didn't get the on road experience we had hoped to give him. Upon arrival I went online and found that the manufacturer of the mirror was still making the exact model and had them in stock. I ordered one for second day delivery and planned to install it myself. After crawling under the dash I determined that the entire installation amounted to driving four screws to mount the mirror and two plugs under the dash to power the adjusters, heaters and turn indicator. This seemed to be quite an easy task. Yesterday, Wednesday, when the mirror was due I crawled back under the dash to actually prepare by unplugging the two plugs, a seemingly trivial task albeit performed while lying on the floor contorted around the driver's seat reaching over my head.

I tried three different tools to cut the one tie wrap used to secure the harness. This was made difficult because I could not get leverage to slice it with a knife nor could I get the scissors under the wrap because of the angle. I finally got it loose only to discover I had dislodged two other cables from places I had not noted. One came from the control switch for the leveling system and after two tries and several uncomfortable minutes I was able to reset it on the circuit board so the levels worked as always. The other was a red wire with a half circle on the end. I traced that to the controller for the supplemental brakes in the car. Since the black wire from the controller went to a screw on the frame it seemed clear that the red wire needed to be connected to a power supply and there was an open slot on a fuse block just in reach of the wire. I will know tomorrow when I connect the car to take Alexander with us to Williamsburg whether I made that connection right. If not it will be a simple matter to stick it in the other side of the slot.

I need to wrap this up and go help prepare for Thanksgiving Dinner. A highlight will be a Skype video call with Malena's sister Tafiline in South Africa. Also her father, David, will be with us. He was supposed to be going to Iran this week, but the security situation and visa problems are keeping him safely state side. I look forward to the chance to spend some time with him face to face as we have have had many interesting conversations via email over the past year.

2011-11-09T10:07:00.003-05:00

Carol has been working on her images and has them posted at imagekind.com. Here is a message she sent to her blog list:
Hello all;

I am pursuing a new venue to promote and sell my artwork on Imagekind, an online gallery and store. Today, I am honored to be one of the featured artists. Please visit Imagekind http://www.imagekind.com/ and click on the Featured artists link for Ann Carol Goldberg. I hope you enjoy viewing my work and with the holidays coming up, I hope you will consider my work as gifts. Note please that my galleries are still a work in progress, I am slowly uploading images to my galleries and loving being part of the modern world at this stage of my life.

Hugs to all,

Ann Carol

Roll Out Preparation 2011-2012

2011-11-08T16:43:00.000-05:00

Anticipation is building. That means I am sleeping less and spending more time thinking about Gee 2 and the RV lifestyle. When I sit down at the computer I first go to IRV2.com and then to RV,net/forums. Then I check my email and if I think of it or am triggered by the news I may check the markets, there I thought about it and went to check, they are up at this moment. Since getting home from the nine month grand circuit, we have spent a lot of time and money restoring everything from the coach to the bicycles to full operating condition with new whatever it takes to assure pleasant and safe travel. The restoration of the RAV4 was the most extensive. We had Vogel Collision redo the front of the car to repair or replace most of the damaged parts, no collision but lots of stones. Then they had to put a new tailgate on as the “little dent” in the door had crushed the inner support structure. As a reward for faithful service we bought a Tow Guardian to mount in front of the car to reduce the amount of stuff kicked up by the coach and traffic hitting its front. We will soon see if that reduces the damage. The coach has all new tires, the car has new brakes and we are a year older, as are the toys.

Our departure will have some modifications. We really don’t need the Prius to sit in the garage all winter so we are giving it to Dan. Not being gluttons for punishment, we suggested that he come and get it so we would not have to drive down in caravan alone. He also will be bringing Josh (his son) with him and Josh will get an extended driving lesson so long as Dan’s nerves can take it. I have taken Josh out for a number of driving lessons and I must be much more relaxed as a granddad than I ever was as a father. He says he has only seen me prepare for sudden destruction a couple of times :) Josh can tell is own story, seek him out on FaceBook, that is how we know what’s going on.

We actually have plans and reservations for after Covesville. We will be visiting Bunny and Alan Bernstein in Baltimore where they assure me there is room for the coach. I have confirmed this on Google maps. Most people have no idea just how big 36 feet by 12 feet (open for camping) really is, especially when it wants to be level. Then we will make a rather swift transit to St Petersburg FL fr a visit to Carol’s brother and sister-in-law while we stay in Ft Desoto County Park. We made reservations to be assured of a place to stay, that’s Florida in December.

We do not know what our route will be after Florida. We do know it will get us to Los Angeles, just not when or how.

It has taken me forever to write this because we are spending so much time with friends here in Rochester and attending to “stuff” that, for the most part, can only be done in Rochester.

Where Was I?

2011-10-16T15:59:00.001-04:00

[This post was written in early August and I just found it in my draft bucket and realized it never got posted – it is out of sequence here and chronologically it fits before “Rolling East” and after “Our Exit from Alaska]

A fair amount of time and miles have passed since I last sat down to write. We are sitting just outside Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park still in Canada by about 30 miles. We are preparing to drive over the border to stay near an entrance to Glacier NP for a couple of days. Have to see those glaciers before they disappear altogether, which is predicted for 2022.

Backing up to Jasper redux. As I noted when we came through Jasper in May we had not been able to go to Edith Cavell Mountain on our first trip because our rental RV was too long, at 28 feet, to make the climb. In may we could not make the trip because the road was closed waiting for the snow to melt. This time, as soon as we got the coach setup on site we disconnected the car and drove up Edith Cavell Road to the viewing area and trail heads. We did not have time for nor were we prepared for a major hike, it was already 4:30 PM. We did take a shorter circuit which took us to the edge of the Edith Cavell Glacier Lake and a great view of Angel Glacier up in the bowl above us.

The very next morning we hooked up and pulled out of Whistlers headed south on the ice Field Highway with Okotoks set into the GPS. We were returning to visit the Hoggs and get the hitch looked at since there would be plenty of service shops in the Calgary area. Tony of RVMD who is a friend of the Hoggs, met us at the campsite as we were setting up and took one look at the drop hitch and receiver and started wondering how we had made it that far. He found broken welds and other signs that the hitch was already in failure mode. He made arrangements for us to go to The Welding Shop in Calgary the next morning (at 8 AM a 45 minute drive away). The welder who looked at the hitch could not believe that we had done such damage to the drop hitch without ripping the receiver off the coach. I explained that we needed a drop hitch or some other way to lower the towbar’s connection to the coach so everything would be level when hooked up. He proposed lowering the receiver itself by the requisite amount. First he put in a new crossbar as low as he could then he had the receiver welded to the bottom of the crossbar instead of directly into it as we were used to seeing. It took half a day and it is beautiful and the tow bar is level when attached to it.

During our visit we also treated the Hoggs to dinner at a wonderful French Bistro they love in nearby Okotoks, we also had a happy hour the lead into dinner on the second night. Then we rolled on south.

Although out intended first stop was Parks Canada Waterton, we saw signs and Milepost said we were passing “Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump”. Had to stop there as we had read about it for so many years. It is part of a ridge line where bison grazed and for over 5,700 years the natives had herded the buffalo into gathering areas above the ridge and after separating out the number they could handle they would slowly herd that group towards the jump, in only the last quarter mile or so would they stampede them so they would rush over the cliff to their deaths. The name is derived from a story that a young man in the tribe waited under the brim of the jump to see the bison fall. When the bodies were cleared in the food processing they found that the bison had fallen back into the declivity he was in and smashed his head. We were assured by a docent from the local Blackfeet tribe that this story was apocryphal, made up when the park was being created in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s to make the place more fascinating.

We crammed that in before lunch and then headed to Waterton/Townsite where we found all the Parks Canada campgrounds were full. We drove a couple miles back up the road to Waterton Springs Campground. Here we experienced a new combination of available services. We have electric and sewer but the water is not useable as there is a boil water notice in the office window. Fortunately we came in with a full freshwater tank. Shortly we will move and I hope to able to post this by tonight or tomorrow.

The rest of US 20

2011-09-08T23:02:00.001-04:00

The rest of the drive to Rochester from Cleveland was uneventful and even anticlimactic. The thumping from the out of round front tires became annoying and both us kept both hands on the wheel while under way. The audio book we were listening to took over from the route and the scenery. We agreed that this last stretch felt like 250 miles too much. We rolled along US 20 through Ohio to the Pennsylvania border where we picked up I 90 to avoid Erie. As we approached NY we got back onto US 20 and managed to stay with it, detours and all to I 390. By this point the GPS was off and we were driving from memory.

We decided not to stop at Graycliff which we will leave for another trip, it is a Frank Lloyd Wright compound on Lake Erie. It was plain that we would not arrive in time for the extended tour and abbreviated tour did not seem to warrant the deviation from US 20. Not to mention the idea that I could not get in touch with anyone to be sure they even had room for us. That will have to be a car trip from Rochester. Anyone for a day trip?

Home in the stick house. It feels strange to have so much indoor space. It seems strange to have unlimited water and no worry about sewage. It is strange not to face the limits of 30 amps of electricity. We miss those limits. When we stand in our enormous five headed shower for two we feel sinful in the waste of water, but we love it.

It is good to see friends we haven’t seen in either 9 or 4 months. We miss our road friends. We miss the road, already. We will be back on it in November.

Some statistics for those who are interested. we drove 16,695 miles in the coach since last November 18. We burned 2,504.547 gallons of gasoline which makes the average miles per gallon 6.666. We spent just under $5,000 for campsites in 267 days on the road (I took out the 20 days we spent in Rochester in May) or an average of $18.49 per night. 60 of those nights were free. From Okotoks AB to Okotoks AB was 6,186 miles. Okotok is about 3,000 miles from Rochester on the route we took.

Other thoughts a week after settling in to 1482 East Ave for a while. We entertained 46 friends at our 3rd Annual Labor Day “Picnic”. Not sure we could pull that off in a campground. We became far more aware of waste of resources having lived with the limits I cited above for nine months. Is it really necessary to let the sink run when there is no immediate need for water? Not only does it waste fresh water, it taxes the sewage system as well. Try living with 100 gallons of fresh water and gray water capacity of 60 gallons for a week. We do when we are in the desert. Try limiting your use of electricity to what can be contained in 2 deep cycle 6 volt batteries plus whatever the sun chooses to give you through photovoltaic cells on the roof. Or watch the volt meter drop if you try to run the microwave and any heater when you are limited to 30 amp service, in case you don’t know your house has at least 200 amp service. Oh and consider that to run the gasoline generator to make up for excess need costs at least half a gallon of gasoline per hour, just a couple of bucks an hour!

These are not complaints, we never felt that we wanted or needed more. We learned to live within the limits and be grateful when we could hook up in a full service campground and take advantage of full flowing water. We choose to limit ourselves for the pleasure of being away from everyday services, we do not consider it a hardship. If we, did we would drive down the road to a place that offered all the amenities.

I am blathering. I am not ready to close this piece because it will signify the end of a glorious nine month adventure that is really just a small piece of the glorious 47 years of our marriage. We look forward to resuming the road in November. Who knows where it will take us?

Report from Elkhart on US 20

2011-08-27T10:22:00.001-04:00

We made it through Chicago or rather around Chicago. We were of faint heart and elected not to try to trace US 20 through the surface streets of Chicago and environs. We came through Rockford and continued south to I 80 and, despite dire warnings from a trucker we bypassed the big city at around noon with no effort and nary a stop. Easing on to the Indiana Toll Road (I90/I80) we continued on to Elkhart arriving just after Duncan RV Repairs closing time of 5 PM. We were delayed 12 minutes at the toll booth when a trucker got stuck in the Zoom Lane without a valid pass and no one could get the gate to open. We backed the coach and car, with me holding the steering wheel of the car, about 20 feet to clear the barrier and use the other lane.

We parked in our assigned slot #6 and rapidly realized that there was a major rail yard across the street and next to the repair facility is a scrap metal recycling yard that was on 24 hour schedule. It was noisy although free. We seem to have joined a long term club “Waiting for parts at Duncan RV” One couple who work part time for Fantasy RV arrived a week before us and parts for their refrigerator arrive a day late and then fail immediately so new ones must be ordered. Almost everyone needs glass repair, Duncan’s specialty. We didn’t on arrival, but after our first day in the shop where they only did an oil change and lube, we too need a new driver side windshield, a stone chip turned into a crack before our eyes. . .

Days pass, it is now Friday, we arrived on Monday afternoon. We have camped at Elks and Walmart, only staying over in Duncan’s lot Wednesday night in hopes of getting some work done first thing in the morning. The new windshield is fine, but the tape needs to be removed and everything cleaned up. Oy, the gasket is not right, “its OK we have it in stock and there will be no cost.” Finally at 11:30 we leave the grounds for the last time, we hope. We have a new driver windshield and new topper awnings on our slides with new hardware to keep them from rubbing as well as fresh oil in the engine.

Next stop Sam’s Tire on the road to Cleveland. We arrive at 11:50. The Michelin truck has come and gone and they have forgotten our XZE 245/70R 19.5 LRG tires! I express myself in words best not repeated and we set out down the roads on tires I have not trusted for the past 500 miles. Only 800 miles to Rochester. Here’s hoping they hold together for the trip. So far they are showing no signs of overheating so I guess we are OK.

We resume our travels on US 20 with the GPS complaining bitterly “take the next right – recalculating” trying to get us into the OH Turnpike. Finally, as we tangle with Toldeo, OH traffic and complexity we succumb to the siren song and get onto the Interstate. Can’t wait to see the toll bill. Having decided that Google knows best, we follow blindly into a back entrance into Punderson State Park that is marked “Authorized Vehicles Only” Oops! A groundkeeper greets us and explains that the road does indeed go through although it is a bit narrow and has some low hanging wires. Oh and he acknowledges that many vehicles including semis have made this same wrong turn thanks to GPS. We loop around out onto the main road and following his directions find our way to the main entrance. When we called earlier we were told that all the full hookup sites were taken but there would be no problem getting a 20 amp electric site. A review of the campground map shows there are 5 fhu sites (fhu = full hook ups) and 195 sites that mostly have 20 amp. There are plenty of open sites so we settle down in this surprisingly beautiful state park just east of Cleveland. We will stay at least two nights while we visit the Slepians and catch up on some sleep.

We may make one more stop before Rochester although we are only about 5 hours out.

Report from US 20

2011-08-21T16:12:00.001-04:00

From the excitement of discovery along 20 in Nebraska to a long drag across Iowa where we only stopped for two nights, one in Sac City. It surprised us how the nature of the route changed at the state line. Our first disappointment was right at the line, South Sioux City in Nebraska meets Sioux city IA. We followed signs and GPS to a water front campground in South Sioux City only to be met at the entrance by clear evidence that the camping area was still underwater from the flooding in June! There was no room to turn the entire rig around without some backing and filling which meant disconnecting the car, maneuvering and then reconnecting. We are getting good at this, second time in two days.

We decided to cross the Missouri into Sioux City, IA and visit the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Site on the eastern bank. It is right next to a casino which was fortunate as the Interpretive site is currently underwater. In neither case was there any signage to tell the unwary stranger about the flooding, sure we knew the area had flooded, but that was two months ago and we would have no idea that these specific sites were involved.

As we tried to figure out how to continue east we learned that I 29 was closed due to flooding to the south, someplace, the information was not particularly useful to us and we struggled with 2 GPS and maps to return to US 20 in a very industrial part of Sioux City. We located a public campground outside Sac City, Hagge Park, which was almost full, but had one clear site for us. It is a beautiful, quiet place and we were sad to move out in the morning, but move we did. We stopped at Walmart in Cedar Falls, IA for the night. The only truly memorable stop in Iowa was Fort Dodge at the recreation of the original fort, well of a fort that might have been but never really was. The recreation has stockade walls that never existed. Given our experience with the Missouri in Sioux City we were concerned about trying to find anything in Dubuque above the Mississippi, but found that the area was in much better shape, flood wise in any event. We decided to press on to Grant River Park, a Corp of Engineers park on the river above Dubuque in Wisconsin. By now we had contacted cousin Mimi in Madison and decided to venture off 20 for a family visit. Grant Park is lovely, right on the river with extensive area to explore. It is, however, bordered by a busy freight line with a grade level crossing at the entrance to the park. Having crossing bells, and whistles within 100 feet of your window may be fun for serious train buffs, but it does make for disturbed sleep and conversations broken while waiting for a 100 car coal train to clear the area. We moved on again in the morning.

Our first extended stop in eight days is Mendota Park in Middleton, WI just outside Madison. We have been here twice before to visit Cousin Mimi. We have enjoyed Shabbat together at the home of a member of their congregation who welcomes guests four times a year for Shabbat dinner and experience. We enjoyed the Shabbat immensely and on Saturday we went to Madison’s wonderful farm market and after a kayak on Lake Mendota we enjoyed the bounty of the farm market. Great corn and other vegetables as well as fresh rainbow trout for Mimi and me. Sunday, as I write has been quiet. Weather permitting we will attend an outdoor showing of the 1920’s silent “The Golem” with live music performed by Yid Vicious. I may report on that in a later post.

Tomorrow’s plan is to move on to Elkhart IN, assuming we can get through Chicago, where we plan to stop for some routine maintenance and six new tires for the coach.

Report from US 20

2011-08-15T21:55:00.001-04:00

Please note I got the right word in the title this time.

Today we covered just shy of 160 miles with two extended stops. We got a rather late start as we wanted to get the inside of the coach cleaned up and catch up on some email before rolling. The Alaska dust is still everywhere, I suspect I will be cleaning it out a year from now.

Our first stop was at Johnstown NE. I am not sure it will show up on your printed map, out FMCA atlas has a fine dot with 2 point print. It was founded in 1982, although some of the buildings clearly predate that time. John Cherry bought the land and started ranching in 1982, he apparently set aside the land that makes up the village and dedicated it to create the village. In 1992, Hallmark came along and used the village to film O’ Pioneers a Hallmark presentation. That is its claim to fame. According to Ruth who owns the L Bow Bar the town has stagnated ever since. Although they do show a growth from 53 in the 2000 census to 64 in the most recent census, she says some young people moved in and started having kids. There is the Sandhills Sage & Co which according to the sign on the door expects to be open 4 days this year. There is bank that never was a bank, just painted to look like one for the movie. There is not a lot else. Ruth provides food to a group of locals who work nearby and come in for lunch.

We moved down the road to Stuart where we found the White Horse Museum graces the road with its large white house and grounds, not quite enough room for us to turn around so we again had to break the tow and turn the vehicles separately, we are getting good at this. This building was put up in 1913 and has served as a private house, a hospital, a home for the aged and now a museum. The White Horse name comes from the White Horse Troop which was a touring company of well trained and matched white horses performing group and individual tricks. This museum, like others we have toured along the road is an accumulation of the belongings of the townsfolk that no longer have a place in their daily lives but are to “valuable” to be discarded. There is a treasure trove of material including the guest registers from the local hotels, the entire output of the local newspaper and I am sure, someplace the collection of medical records of the period when it was a hospital. There is an Alumni Room with photos of every graduating class from the high school, with the exception of 2006 – 2010, 2011 was there. It seems that every trophy that was ever awarded is stuffed in a box or on a shelf in every nook and cranny.

We moved on down the road with the promise of FREE CAMPING in Plainview NE. As we turned the corner to Chilvers Park in the center of Plainsview there we beheld four concrete slabs clearly labeled, “Campers Only” and there are the promised electrical boxes at the back of each site. Further reconnaissance located a sign that said that the camping is indeed free as is the tour of the town along with a bottle of water. Wow! Furthermore the camping sites are directly across the street from the High School and they have left their unsecured wifi running for the summer, although school does start on August 18. We took a walk through town and found most of the businesses empty and buildings for sale, prosperity has not found this town but they are still welcoming to passing strangers.

More of US 20 as we roll on tomorrow maybe all the way to Iowa. Check in to see if we make.

Report from US 20

2011-08-14T20:17:00.001-04:00

We rolled along into Caspar WY where we stopped at the National Historic Trails Interpretative Center which is located at the junction of the Oregon, California, Mormon Trails and the Pony Express Route. In this area US 20 follows the general route of the those trails as they started in St Louis and ran roughly together until they reached Independence Rock about fifty miles from the Center at which point they diverged to reach California, Salt Lake City or Oregon. This is another extraordinary presentation using historic materials and recreations to tell the several stories of these emigrations.

A local charity was having a fundraiser at the Center the in evening and had set up a tent across the driveway which rather flummoxed us as there was no way to turn around without that piece of driveway unless we disconnected the car. After touring we came out and had lunch on the coach then we set about breaking down the tow and turning everything around, we were closely observed by the local herd of Prong Horn Antelope who were curious about our activities.

Rolling along we found that US 20 joined I 25 for a while and then to our relief it departed the expressway, and us with it, to continue on to Lusk WY. I suppose I could say nowhere and be almost as accurate. Lusk had two features for us, first was the report of free camping in a city park and the second was The Stagecoach Museum. We called ahead to be sure the museum would be open, to confirm directions and possibilities for parking. We were warned that if we had driven two blocks we would be out of town and that there was plenty of parking. The first was a bit of an exaggeration, the town must have extended 10 blocks east to west and we passed a substantial Elks Lodge (at least the building was substantial) on our way to the museum.

The museum turns out to be a Grandma’s Attic of everything the towns folk did not know what to do with when they moved, died, ran out of room. It includes one of the last two stage coaches that actually were in use in eastern Wyoming before the railroads and cars pushed them out. It was made on the east coast and shipped around the Horn to the west coast and placed in service there before being sold and driven cross country to Wyoming to serve out its existence there.

After spending the night in the Elks lot we got an early start on 20, along with many of the motorcyclists leaving Sturgis, SD and migrating back to wherever they had come from. Don’t ask, I have yet to figure out how they were on US 20 when Sturgis is a couple of hours north, but they are bikers and can do anything. We missed Fort Robinson in Crawford although we stopped at the Crawford Visitor Center to get Nebraska Information. We decided we have seen enough forts, including Niagara and Ticonderoga so chose to give this one a miss. Next time we will reconsider given the information we have, that this fort was in active use through WWII when it served as a POW camp for captured Germans! We did stop at the Museum of the Fur Trade which was established in the early ‘50s on the site of a fur trading post and its location seemed great as it is right on US 20 (this was before Interstates). It is now in a backwater, but it is definitely worth going out of your way, if you are not staying on 20, for a several hour visit. It details the fur trade on the North American Continent from the first trading with the Indians in the east to the discovery and conquest of the west by the fur traders and their explorers. We dragged ourselves away after a couple of hours. Once again I chose not to examine the hundreds of original weapons collected in their weapons gallery. As we rolled west we realized that it was Sunday and most of the museums we might have stopped for were closed.

We settled for the night In Valentine, NE at Wacky West Camp Ground. We may actually stay a second night as we have been on the roll for more than two days without a break and there are things to do here.

Rolling East

2011-08-13T13:07:00.001-04:00

I haven’t had time to prepare a post for a while. since the last we have been in Waterton Lakes NP (Canada) Glacier National Park and Yellowstone National Park. I have posts and photos from all and they will be published soon.

In the mean time we picked up US 20 in Yellowstone and having driven the western end in Newport, OR and the eastern end in Boston, MA we have decided that this will be our route to Rochester. It is as good a conceit as we could determine given that we have focused on specific route since leaving Los Angeles. Pacific Coast Highway, Ice Field Highway, Alaska Highway, Klondike, Top of the World, Taylor Highways. You get the point.

We have always preferred 5 and 20 for crossing NY when time permits. William Least Heat Moon gave it homage in “Blue Highways.” So find ourselves having stopped in Cody, WY where we attended our first western rodeo. It started off rough when the first cowboy out of the chute on a bare back bronco was thrown and had to be carried off on a stretcher. We stayed on and saw some interesting rides and events that we have heard of but not seen live, for rodeo buffs it probably was a mediocre performance but we saw all the usual events in the home of Westeren Rodeo. In the morning we went to the Buffalo Bill Historic Museum and tore ourselves away after 4 hours without even looking into the Museum of the Plains Indian and the Museum of Weapons. The Draper Art Gallery has a wonderful collection of Western Art and i t includes a reconstruction of Frederic Remington’s studio. If you think you might be near Cody, which is the eastern gateway to Yellowstone, plan at least a full day in the museum, the entrance price includes two days, just to give you an idea.

We moved on at 1:30 and followed US 20 to Greybull and then on to Thermopolis. there is a direct road to Thermopolis, but we are following 20 to see where it takes us. Thermopolis looks like a great place to spend some time. It is near a center of dinosaur fossil beds and it has a major hot spring which we chose to avoid as it appears to be quite commercial. We stopped for the night in Wind River Canyon at Boysen State Park right on the river. Nice park although it is jammed between the highway and the river with a rail line on the other side of the river. We also had as bad a mosquito experience as any we had in Alaska.

Saturday morning finds us traveling east on 20 to stop in Caspar, WY and then on to Lusk or wherever we decide to stop for the night, maybe even over the border into Nebraska.

Our exit from Alaska and some Bear Pictures

2011-08-01T11:17:00.001-04:00

First the bear pictures taken at the head of Chilkoot River where it exits Chilkoot Lake. The salmon are so many that they can be seen from the shore and there are plenty of fishermen catching them, mostly not in conflict with bears.

After two days in Haines we drove the car and coach down to the ferry dock for departure. To save a few bucks since they charge by the foot, I removed the tow bar mechanism from the back of the coach. It adds two or three feet to the overall length. In doing so I discovered that the battering of the Alaska Highway had resulted in bending the bar on the drop hitch (used to equalize height between the car and the coach). That bar is intended to carry a 400 pound tongue weight not the 40 or 50 pounds it carries and it is a solid two inch bar of steel! The bend is not so severe as to hinder its use, but I will have to find a replacement with a different design. For my fellow RVers, I will disclose the manufacturer if they fail to make good on this design flaw or at least make me whole.

As we sat in the ferry line it occurred to me that arriving in Skagway at 10 PM with no campground reservation could be a bit of a problem so I made few calls and got a reservation at Pullen Creek RV Park just a hop skip and jump from the ferry landing (not that you can get very far from the landing, Skagway is 4 to 5 blocks wide and 20 blocks long).

As I write we are sitting on the shore of Lake Atlin in the unincorporated settlement of Atlin. Remember back to May when we made a side trip to Carcross YT just because it was there? well we chose not to go to Atlin, which is only 60 miles away, because the middle third of the road is under construction. After hearing from those who took that road we decided we had to come down this essentially 60 mile dead end to see what it is all about. Of course it was founded in the search for gold. Then White Pass and Yukon RR punched through a 2 1/2 mile rail line to link two passenger ships it owned and built a hotel to house the many very rich who were looking for something different from Yet Another Grand Tour of Europe. They were very successful and the wealthy and the potential gold seekers filled their boats, trains and hotel for 20 years, then came the Depression and BUST. The MV Tarahane sits on the shore restored to a semblance of its former glory for us tourists to tour. The village at the end of the road has remnants of its former self preserved and restored. There is a warm spring (not hot, warm) there is a glacier to fly out to see, and of course some interesting residents to talk to.

The middle third of the road is still under construction and they water it constantly to keep the dust down. Mud on the other hand!! We are coated, well the underside of the coach and the entire car anyhow. Of the middle third where no active work was being pursued it is sold dust free gravel. I believe they use a calcium compound to keep the dust down. The third at either end is paved and reasonably good. I would advise anyone thinking about making the trip to do it. The scenery is as impressive as any we have seen on the trip. Our campsite looks over the lake to mountains on all sides with snow and ice and green growth as well. The weather forecast is not great so we will have moved on well before you get to read this. There is no phone or internet service available.

Plan: tomorrow tour the historic sights in Atlin that were closed when we got here and then move on out to the Alaska Highway to retrace to the Cassiar Highway which is just before Watson Lake ( see back to late May postings). Not sure how far we will get and probably will stop in a roadside turnout overnight. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

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Saturday night, July 29.

We have been on the move constantly. Thursday night after leaving Atlin we indeed found a very nice roadside Recreational Area with a lovely trail along the Rancheria River. then we moved on to start down the Cassiar Higway finally, I’ve been reading about this road, like the Alaska Highway since I first dreamed of making this trip. It is a wonderful two lane road, narrow and winding with plenty of hills to keep the drive exciting. There are few distractions such as roadhouses along the ay. The biggest, Jade City, is a full fledged roadside attraction with more jade items than I care to think about. The road is 475 miles and we started 75 miles from the northern end along the Alaska Highway. We planned to turn off for Stewart/Hyder so we planned a stop near Iskut at the Red Goat Lodge and Campground. It was very nice and especially so because we were the only campers present. The wifi was not wonderful and we continued to have a total lack of connectivity. When we left Skagway we had fallen though a hole in the connected grid and three nights later we have not found our way out of it.

During the drive today we were a bit discouraged about seening any roadside critters. Much time had passed since our last interesting encounter. this state of affairs did not last to lunch time. By then we had seen four or five black bears along the road, including one that walked up to the side of the coach without seeming to be aware there were people in it. By the time we reached Stewart we had seen a total of eight black bears including a sow with two cubs, and we had not gone to the wildlife viewing area yet! Stewart sits on the most northerly ice free port in BC. Just 2 1/2 miles across the water is Hyder, AK which of course is a mining community. They were connected by bridge then and now by a highway cut into the the wall of the mountain that is in the way. There are no custom formalities crossing into Hyder as the road only goes on to Canada eventually. For some reason the Canadians maintain a customs post for returning from Hyder to Stewart. We did get a Hyder Alaska stamp in our passports from one of the shopkeepers. The reason for the drive was to go to Fishcreek viewing area which is a raised boardwalk over a stretch of stream that has a large annual run of salmon which attracts a large number of bears, both black and Grizzly which attracts a large number of people to see them. We saw one black bear and there were very few salmon in the stream which explains the lack of bears.

Still no internet connection. Tomorrow we plan to try Yellowhead #16 to turn east toward Jasper. Unfortunately BC has a ban on overnight parking in turnouts and rest areas unless specifically marked. How civilized, how boring!

INTERNET for a day!! I have included bear pictures near the top, there are more pictures in the Album Alaska 02. soon there will be an album YTBCAB 2011 (that is Yukon Territory, British Columbia, Alberta for the non Canadians among you) with pictures from our trip south from Alaska.

Click here for all the Photos

Thoughts on turning south

2011-07-26T13:24:00.001-04:00

Although we will be in Alaska for another week or so and I still have stories to tell of our week in Fairbanks, I am thinking back over the entire trip and our expectations and experiences. Alaska is a different state of mind. It is vast distances and a shrunken perspective. The road network gives access to a miniscule portion of the territory and to maybe 90% of the population. The people are as varied as anyplace else in the US, but I think a sign we saw the other day “American by Birth (Wisconsin) Alaskan by Choice” says a lot. To become an Alaskan is to thrive on extremes in weather and in amount of daylight. To be independent minded and to accept that your neighbor is too. To stay awake until the sun sets in summer and I don’t know what they do in winter. People are mowing lawns at 10 at night, we find ourselves sitting up until all hours not realizing the time and on a day like today with temperatures in the high 70s and clear blue sky who wants to waste a precious minute of sunlight.

We came here knowing that this would be our one lifetime drive to Alaska. Call it a “bucket list” item, call it a dream, we’ve finally done it after talking about it for years. It is hard to think about leaving. It is harder to say we won’t be back. There are things we want to do, places we have not gone, people we have not met yet. I suspect we may make this trip again. If I was a fisherman or hunter, you could not keep me away from here. We hardly count as outdoors folk compared to Alaskans who drop everything on Thursday and head for the wilderness, to hunt, to fish, to pan for gold, to be in the outdoors.

It is a small state. We meet people who are transplants from Buffalo, Fairport, Syracuse and the Adirondacks, not to mention most every other state in the Union, but mostly northern states. We see RVers in Denali who we met a week ago in Homer. We make new friends in Fairbanks and they take off to drive the Dalton Highway as we prepare to drive the Richardson for Tok and Haines and Hyder as we think about reentry into the lower 48. We have not been here long enough to call it “outside” as they do.

Fairbanks has been a kick. We are at the Elks Lodge which is across the Chena River from downtown and that is a five minute walk

The population approaches Brighton (for non Rochester people a good sized suburb of about 35,000) and the surroundings comprise maybe a total of 50 to 70,000 depending on how far out you count. The Fred Meyers Store here, a Kroger store that gives Walmart a run for the money, is the largest in their system and is expanding. They take orders and ship to the Interior where bulk deliveries of anything stop with freeze up in September or October and resume in early May. Small items can be delivered by plane, but those are bush planes and it is very expensive.

The city is defined and divided by a river and rail yards. We are between them. This is the northern end of the Alaska RR. The tracks stop here. The Chena River flows in a serpentine course through the city and from our window it seems to be a placid little stream. In 1967 it flooded up 17 feet over flood stage and where we are was deep under water. The business heart of the city was washed away. The river has been tamed by flood control devices and the city has rebuilt. In 1967 the population was less than half of what it is today. There are modern buildings for the University and Hotels and governmental offices and there are building that date back to the founding of the city in 1906. Those are mostly log buildings and many are in use as they were when they were built with the later addition of electricity and in many cases running water. It is not unexpected to see outhouses in the outlying parts of the area.

We have tripped over band concerts and gotten drawn into contra dancing. We have seen Muskoxen and flowers and have spent a lot of time in magnificent museums and galleries. We drove out to Circle City, the first gold rush city on the Yukon River, before Dawson. It was the Paris of the North blossoming from nothing to 3000 people in 60 days and fading to nothing 9 months later when gold was found on the Klondike. It is a backwater town of natives who travel as much by boat on the Yukon and its tributaries as by car, maybe more. The local bush plane is tied up next to the general store across the road from the airstrip.

We drove four hours out and 4 hours back for this visit. We have been tracking the gold mania for two months and this was the last of the places we wanted to see.

We departed Fairbanks planning to stop in Tok to refuel and meet Suzette at the Visitor Center. There were delays in departure, not the least being the US Postal Service inability to deliver mail to the Post Office it is sent to. After a stop at the downtown PO where our forwarded mail was supposed to be, we tracked it down at the Geist Rd PO, a different Zip code but not too far away. At first they did not want to even look, finally the worker agreed to look at the USPS printout we were carrying and off she went to to return with our mail. Free to move on.

Longer ago than we choose to think, Carol helped a student who had been driven out of her family home get on a train to, as we were told, Skagway. She traveled by train, plane and boat to Skagway where she was met by her aunt, Suzette, who was living in a cabin in Dyea (see posts from out visit to Skagway). Later they moved to Tok where Suzette bought some land and built a plywood cabin. We had a delightful visit with our new friend and spent the night in the coach in her driveway.

Ok, this is turning into a major ramble. We have not had adequate service or time to be able to post anything in a week. Tonight we are in Haines, AK, known as”the other Southeast AK town accessible by road. In a day or two we will take the ferry 15 miles to Skagway and drive out of Alaska for the last time this trip, the drive from here to Skagway is 360 miles!

Road report: Between Tok and Haines Junction once we crossed the border into Canada we experienced the worst road of the trip, Top of the World was a picnic, it was merely narrow, dirty and frightening for lack of shoulders. Alaska Highway from the Canadian Border to Destruction Bay is broken by frost heaves and shifting permafrost. At any moment it was possible to become airborne (think about that in a 22,000 pound vehicle) and then land so you are launched again immediately. When we stopped at a pullout just before Destruction Bay we opened each cabinet very carefully. All were in a jumble. The worst, and funniest was our closet. Every single item in the closet was on the floor, nothing was left on the rod. Fortunately they came down with their hangers so it was short work to restore them to hanging. Wrinkles, who would notice?

We continued on into Haines (140 miles south of Haines Junction) and planned on staying in a commercial camp ground as I could not locate an Elk Lodge or any other close in freebee. Driving down Main Street, Carol yelled “Elks” and slammed on the brakes. Sure enough there is a nice full hookup RV park located behind the lodge. Haven’t met any members yet as it is Sunday and the Lodge won’t open until sometime tomorrow.

After we washed the car in a nearby carwash, we drove out to Chilkoot Lake SRA where bears are reputed to feast on the fish right along side the fishermen. It’s true, they do.

I will post some bear pictures shortly. We had no luck getting useable photos on Sunday, but got great shots on Monday.

Click Here to see the album online at your pace.

Pictures, I’ve got pictures!

2011-07-20T02:50:00.001-04:00

Ok here are mostly pictures with a few words to tie them to the blogs they should have been with.

Our drive down Kenai Spur to Captain Cook State Recreation Area lead to these:

Of course we had to photograph the 4th of July Parade:

Enough Parade, there are 400 more images but I won’t bore myself and you! I mentioned that we had a great time at Veronica’s Coffee House:

And I extolled the virtues of our celebration at Double Musky in Girdwood:

We stayed in our hidden and not so secret camping spot along Portage Glacier Road:

It is near the Chugach National Forest Trail of Blue Ice:

I think I even mentioned that we met some Yupik natives who stopped by our campsite to enjoy the pond:

We are often at our happiest looking at birds and we are especially grateful when a bird poses, and poses and. . .

We even got to see some salmon moving up through the marsh to their spawning grounds:

Then there is Anchorage:

And Palmer:

and the Bear Paw Fair in Eagle River:

Our favorite camping price is –0- Here we are camping (?) on the street in Talkeetna:

Well that’s all the pictures for now. I have stories from Denali NP and then on to Nenana and Fairbanks and. . . but it is 10:50 PM and the sun is still well above the horizon and we have driven eight hours to go to Circle City and back, but that is a tale to be told soon, unless I forget it.

Catching up - again

2011-07-15T02:16:00.001-04:00

As I write Anchorage is well behind us. Actually so is Talkeetna and Denali NP. I will try to summarize a nine days of activity. the connection here is so bad that I cannot get out a notice of the posts I have put up, “The 4th” and “Leaving Kenai – on to Anchorage”. I have lots of pictures but that will have to wait until Fairbanks where I hope we will take some time and have adequate connection to post them.

Anchorage: On our first afternoon walking around the tourist area we came across Cyrano’s a local theater group which was putting on “Putnam County 25th Annual Spelling Bee”. I am a snob an generally will not attend “amateur” performances, but this seemed intriguing and we had not attended theater since Ashland OR. Tickets were $23 each and available for Saturday night, Friday was the opening. Curtain was at 7 PM so a light snack and off to theater after a day of wandering the shops in Anchorage. This was some of the finest theater we have attended. The performances were strong, the voices were well trained and wonderful and the hall was tiny. The audience was 150 – full house – and it was great. We left the performance exhilarated and happy. Finding no place to satisfy both of us at 9:30 at night we went back to Eagle River CG and made a light dinner on board.

The next day we decided to take the bikes and ride the path from Earthquake Park to downtown, about 11 miles. At the park I pulled the bikes off the roof and mounted the front tires and asked Carol to fetch the seats from the back of the car . . . long silence . . . where are the seats? It is hard to miss two bicycle seats in the RAV4. They were a dozen miles or more back on the coach. I forgot to put them in the car. We took a nice walk and looked at the park, it is the remains of a neighborhood that slid into the inlet during the earthquake of ‘64. Several hundred feet of bluff slid down into the inlet carrying homes and lives to oblivion. I will post pictures when I can.

We left Anchorage with some regrets, but grateful to leaving relative civilization behind. We headed out to Talkeetna. Those of you who know me well have heard me talk endlessly about the wonderful meal of halibut I had in Talkeetna in 1997. All things must change. The place we remember is now a chocolate shop, not bad actually, and the town, as we pulled in, was overflowing with tourists. Driving the motorhome and tow’d through the throng was a challenge, especially since the directions to “free camping” that I had were wrong. Somehow I got the coach onto Avenue B in front of the Ranger Station as described, although the directions said Avenue C. No small difference as the town is divided by an airstrip that predates statehood and is a protected historic site, also still in use. It runs between C and D the entire length of the town and stops just short of Main Street which is the only way around it, if you don’t count the alley.

We parked across from the Range Station on B and there we spent the night. The Alaska Rule is simple, if there is no sign saying you can’t, you can! There were plenty of no camping signs in other places in town, but this stretch of road had no such sign. By six PM the place was almost deserted. All the Princess and Holland America groups had retreated to their lodges and all that was left were some mountain climbers and us, oh yes a couple of hundred locals too. Dinner was at West Rib and my “Homer Split” (a nice piece of halibut and an equally nice piece of Salmon for those who can’t make up their mind") was wonderful. Carol ordered a bread bowl of spinach warmed in a sauce for us to share, she ended up enjoying that as her main course.

Our objective was to take a flight up to land on Ruth Glacier on the flank of Denali. It was not to be. Our arrival day was cloudy and reports were that warming had softened the glacier so that landing was not advisable. The following day was overcast and raining, no point in trying to fly unless you enjoy looking at the inside of clouds. We left for Denali National Park saddened. We may have to return.

I will keep this going although we start a new part here. The Parks Highway which runs through Denali State Park and Denali National Park is named for Mr Parks and has nothing to do with the fact that it runs though the parks. From Palmer, outside of Anchorage it runs through Wasilla, a town we in the lower 48 were not aware of until 2008, and on to Denali and Fairbanks. I have left out several lesser towns that make it an interesting drive. A reminder, Alaska’s population is on a par with Monroe County, NY and Anchorage has about the population of Rochester, without the county. Fairbanks is about 70,000. A village of 900 is a population to be noticed in this state. Most of the places I have mentioned are far smaller than that, for example Talkeetna has a resident population of between 400 and 500.

We pulled out of Talkeetna and headed for Denali. We were getting desperate for a luandry facility and after a couple of weeks with no reliable hookups good electric and running water seemed like a great idea. We stopped in Cantwell, pop 245, at Cantwell RV for two nights so we could clean up a bit and spend time in Denali, only 27 miles further down the road. I got on line while Carol was doing laundry and booked us on a shuttle bus back into the wilderness as far as Eielson Visitor Center (66 miles in from the the Wilderness Access Center) with a 6 AM departure! We got up at 4 and staggered around finishing assembling our kit and arrived by 5:30 to get in line for our bus. I did not have time to get tickets, all I had was an acknowledgement of reservation which I printed out and carried with me. I guess they are used to this, because the on duty dispatcher took my printout and returned with tickets in a matter of minutes. Here is where I will insert the pictures of our trip. We saw two bull Moose, 3 brown bear, a small herd of caribou and other animals I could not get in the camera frame. At the Toklat rest stop Carol and I left the bus and began to walk up the road toward Eielson Center, 15 miles away. We had no intention of walking all that way. The rule is any walker can flag down a shuttle bus for a ride to the next stop as long as it is not past the point you have bought the ticket to. Also any out bound bus with space will pick up any hiker for return to the Wilderness Access Center. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, we did not see any large mammal wildlife while we were walking along the road.

We returned to Gee 2 late and had dinner and fell into bed. the next day we packed up everything and returned to Denali with the whole rig which we were able to park in the RV parking lot and we road the free bus in to Savage River. This is the furthest point we could have driven our own vehicle with no special permit had we chosen to do so. We left the whole rig in the parking lot and took to the shuttles for transportation. While were sitting eating lunch in the parking lot, there was a knock on the door and Roger and Susan who we met in Homer were standing there. They had recognized us as we passed them on the road. We are hard to miss, as there are not a whole lot of NY plates up here and we have Orange and Silver bikes on the roof of the RAV4. What fun!

By 5 we were on the road on the Parks Highway to bring us to MP 269, The June Creek Rest Area. We do recommend it to passing RVers who want a neat place to send a lunch, dinner or night. Tomorrow we plan to be in Fairbanks at the Elks Lodge #1551.

Leaving Kenai – on to Anchorage

2011-07-15T00:57:00.001-04:00

What do you call a person who lives in Anchorage, and Anchorite? I don’t think so. Apropos of nothing at all! It just popped into my head.

Leaving Kenai, we drove up the the highway to the Seward and turned off onto Portage Glacier Road where we pulled into the free spot we had found the week before. It was populated with mostly day users and by nightfall there were only a couple of tenters and a van. WE drove into Girdwood and fulfilled our promise to ourselves and dined at Double Musky. This is a highly regarded apres ski place and a dining venue that people from Anchorage (see the opening sentence) take an hour drive to for dinner on special occasions. The meal lived up to the reviews and later that night we returned to the coach sated and content. During dinner a staff member announced that if we wanted to look out in the parking lot there was a bear passing through. We chose to stay seated and enjoy the meal.

Wednesday we drove back onto the Kenai Peninsula and took the Hope cutoff for a 16 mile drive to this small, historic near ghost town. It is another remnant of gold fever and yet 151 people live there, some still prospecting in the area. It is not a place you will read much about as the gold fever was very short lived and it was not a huge draw. The Klondike boom dragged most of the prospectors away. Hope is actually very close to Anchorage by air or boat, right across Turnagain Arm, but the road trip is a couple of hours. Sort of like the distance between Rochester and Toronto. Once the railroad was built Hope no longer served as an entry to the Kenai and it dwindled.

Back to the coach for dinner. We prepared for departure in the morning and midmorning we left the Kenai area for the last time, this trip. As we drove to Anchorage we stopped along the Seward Highway at Windy Corner to view the Dall Sheep on the cliffs above us. And we made a stop at Bird Point to look for Beluga Whales and birds. Birds yes (green violet swallow), whales no. Our last stop along the way was Potter Marsh just outside of, or maybe just inside of Anchorage. there are two long boardwalks and we saw birds and salmon in the stream waiting for the the next rising tide to help them up the next step.

We continued on through Anchorage to Eagle River and the Eagle River Campground. It is glorious here, but our gaining a campsite was pure luck. After our first circle looking for a suitable site it appeared we were out of luck. I stopped just past site 1 and flagged down the campground host to ask his suggestions. He told me the people on site 1 were just preparing to leave. This seemed strange to me at 3 in the afternoon, but I did not question the luck and prepared to take possession. After we separated the car from the coach, I decided to back clear. Today our insurance replaced the back window on the car. Later, as I was buying firewood from the host’s wife, I learned why they had left. They had seen a bear in the campground and that was too much for them. My question, where can you go camping in Alaska without the chance of seeing a bear close up? Only someplace where there are no campers stupid enough to put food in their tents and there are no moose with calves. In other words, no place.

The 4th

2011-07-15T00:55:00.001-04:00

We decided to stay in Kenai at the Elks Lodge #2425 after two nights at Kenai RV Park ($40 for full hookups and Wifi v $15 for electric and wifi sort of) no comparison once we got the laundry done and the coach washed and vacuumed. As usual nice folk at the lodge, if only they would ban smoking so we could spend some time with them.

We were a half a block walk from the parade route. We went out about 30 minutes ahead not knowing what to expect. The parade marshal passed us about 10 minutes after the announced start and the street was thronged with people (always wanted to use “thronged”) and kids with plastic bags(?). Every other float or group was throwing candy into the crowd. Two hours later the last participant, a police car came by and the road reopened. The participants ranged from high school bands to a seniors group called the Golden Girls who danced the length of the route. There were 30 Harley Davidsons in a group and it seems every race car from the local track was towed through the town as well. The big oil companies, Tesoro and Conoco-Phillips had large floats and a half a dozen candidates for Kenai Borough Mayor participated. There were fire companies from Kenai, Nikiski and the municipal airport, oh and Soldotna too. I will post a bunch of pictures for you to browse, but not here, not now.

Afterwards we returned to the coach for lunch to avoid the good stuff with long lines at the fair. We toured the fair and along the way saw another section of Kenai we had missed in our previous wanderings. We determined to return to the wildlife viewing areas we had stopped at before because so many people reported seeing Sandhill Cranes and Caribou that we wanted to try one more time. We had better luck this time and saw 6 Sandhill Cranes way in the distance and a group of 5 Caribou, one was a calf, also pretty far off. But we saw them!

To return to Sunday. We drove out the Kenai Spur to its end at Captain Cook State Recreation Area and drifted back towards Kenai. As Carol drove I was reading The Milepost as usual and came across this quote “SY 26.8 . . . Drive to road end (0.8 mile) for a good view of Nikishka Bay and oil platforms in cook Inlet; Arness Dock, built on a base of WWII Liberty Ships (still visible);” The first thing a noted town is Nikihiki, they can’t spell anything the same twice in this state. Next we turned down the road to explore and got some pictures of the old hulls. I have lost the entire day’s shooting on my camera through stupidity (thought I had transferred them and reformatted the card – oops – 3 different recovery programs have said “nothing found” and there is nothing worth $70)

Music, Music, Music and some other adventures

2011-07-04T03:22:00.001-04:00

Saturday after some domestic work cleaning up the rig at Kenai RV Park we went to the Visitor Center where we learned we had already walked most of the sites of the Kenai Old Town. We shopped at the Farmers Market, mostly crafts, very little in the way of food or produce, not surprising given that the growing season is very late here.

We drove out a bit to see Kenai Landing, an attempt to convert an old cannery into a resort and shopping area, and a couple of over looks where we hoped to see some wildlife.

The primary wildlife viewing of the afternoon turned out to be a moose cow and her calf feeding along side the road in an area of commercial structures and not far from a residential area.

We had heard that a performer named Hobo Jim would be performing at Kenai Landing that afternoon at 3 so after lunch and some other wandering we returned and paid our $5 each cover to join a crowd of 8 or 10 participants to hear Hobo Jim. We really enjoyed his performance. He is listed as the Official Balladeer of Alaska and has been writing and performing for many years. He writes for many of the names recording out of Nashville and he records for Nashville label. The small audience was a bit surprising although by the time we left there were maybe 20 or so.

We left because we had stopped by Veronica’s Cafe the evening before and heard that there would be music and food beginning at 6:30. We had very nice food and the music was pleasing and in the modern folk tradition, guitar and voice and interesting lyrics.

We entered as strangers and realized that we were maybe the only people in the three small rooms who were not local and well known to each other. By the time we left we had been included in the local vibe and felt part of the crowd, it was hard not to be since we were crowded in with everyone. As we left at 9 or so we were hugged by Veronica and warmly thanked by the musicians.

Off to Hooligans Bar in Soldotna for more Hobo Jim. This was a whole lot different. It was a noisy, smoky bar and Jim clearly was drinking and playing to a very different audience. He got louder and more raucous and in a couple of numbers managed to offend just about everyone who might choose to take umbrage with his lyrics. We were hysterical. As we walked in he greeted us form the stage commenting that he had seen us earlier. Afterwards he gave us hugs in farewell. At 11 he wrapped up and made way for a rock band. We had had enough smoke and still had a 20 minute drive through territory with moose and bears roaming the roads so we left. Two songs stay with us “Iditarod Trail” the anthem of the race and his best known song (chorus “I did, I did, I did, the Iditarod Trail”), he played it in grade schools across the state for years, and “I am Alaska.” Also we did buy a cd of his with these two and many other songs. He now is available on iTunes.

We moved to the Kenai Elks Lodge the next day and will stay through the 4th for the Kenai parade. There are no fireworks scheduled as the only dark is after midnight. Sunset tonight is 11:35. Our current thought is to drive back to Portage Glacier Road on Tuesday and then take the car to Hope and then dinner at Double Musky in Girdwood. The reviews and recommendations are all excellent and the vegetarian menu they sent when I asked for Carol is just fantastic. Then Anchorage and pick up mail in Palmer again.

Changing Plans on the Fly

2011-07-02T14:03:00.001-04:00

I think you are all getting the point that we are not real good at making plans and sticking to them. Our Monday plan was to pick up the mail in Seward and do some last minute shopping, you never know what stores were in our near future, then on to Soldatna for a free overnight at Fred Meyers or in an out of the way gravel lot with room for 100 RVs just outside of town.

We didn’t make it quite that far. As we approached Coopers Landing, on the Upper Kenai River we noticed that we had a coupon for buy-one-get-one-free at Alaska Rivers Adventures for a 3 hour float trip down the river. I called and learned they had room on the 2 PM trip and room for us to park the coach for the time of the trip. The float was pleasant with only one class 2 rapids to moisten us about the ankles. The wild life was exciting with multiple eagles circling to pick up salmon and lots of fishermen one the banks and in the stream, especially where the Russian River joins the Kenai. Our guide told us that they were nicely spaced out with little crowding, a light day.

In the midst of the fishermen were three bears also fishing. Most of the fishermen ignored them and they also seemed indifferent to the competition. A couple of the fishermen, on hearing our warning about the bears stopped fishing and walked over to see them! Further down river we saw an apparently solo bear checking out the river for dinner, or maybe mid afternoon snack.

We rounded out the day by retracing the down river route to the take out and then following the Skilak Loop (19 mile dirt side road that returns to Sterling Highway eventually) to seek out free camping in the woods. None of the sites we passed were suitable to we pulled into Upper Skilak (pronounce the “i” as a long “e”) Campground, a National Fish and Wildlife property which meant that the $10 fee was only $5 for us “old” folks. Nice spot in the woods with plenty of room for coaches up to 40’ of course no hookups at all.

Tuesday we did make it to Soldatna, but by now we had decided to continue on to Homer directly and stop in Kenai and Soldatna on the return. The highways in Kenai are all down and back, there are no alternate routes. Actually much of Alaska is like this so if you miss a turn going one way you can pick it up on the return. We drove through Homer out on to Homer Spit which extends four miles in the Kachemak Bay. Homer is actually divided between the main land and the far end of the spit. We are camped at Fishing Hole about 100 yards from an active fish cleaning station and about 30 yards from Pier One Theater. No hookups but the dump is just beyond the fish cleaning station. We do have plenty of gulls and a few Bald Eagles observing the action and helping themselves to anything not put into a cooler. The gulls seem to have targeted our solar panels and the front of the coach, oh and Carol’s shoulder as well.

The whole Alaska Album can be seen by clicking here.

Portage Glacier and . . .

2011-06-26T14:42:00.001-04:00

We passed through Anchorage with a couple of stops for traffic lights and out onto the Seward Highway headed along Turnagain Arm towards Seward. We made many stops along the way to see the scenery and to view Dall Sheep on the cliffs above the highway. We stopped at the Girdwood Tesoro Station to top off fuel since there is no fuel for the next 87 miles and it will be much more expensive in Seward than in Girdwood (90 miles from the nearest gas station). We also topped off propane and emptied our holding tanks in preparation for dry camping in the Portage Glacier NFS campgrounds. The short of it is we spent two nights in the NFS campground at $9 a night and then moved across the road to a NFS dispersed camping area, free. I like that better since the services are the same and we shared the space with one other Escapee couple. The Tesoro station was a zoo. there were cars, RVs, and boats on trailers in every conceivable place and some places that weren’t. Oh yes it was Father’s Day and they were almost all Alaskans returning from the weekend camping, fishing, biking and any other outdoor activity you can think of.

Monday we set out to see Whittier which meant driving through the only tunnel that shares space with trains. The tunnel was built as a train tunnel and in 2000 they remodeled it and added pavement so one lane of car traffic can use the tunnel when there is no train in it. On the hour, for 15 minutes you can drive to Whittier and on the half hour, for 15 minutes, you can drive back. In the car it cost $12 to go to Whittier, no charge for the return. The history is fascinating. It was created in World War II as a secret harbor. In order to use it they had to cut the tunnel though the mountain. For more than I choose to write follow this link. We spent two hours in the museum and wandered the waterfront. We chose not to take a 26 glacier and animal watch cruise at this time. Instead we returned to the coach for lunch and then drove up the road to Girdwood.

We had a coupon for a free ride up the Alyeska Ariel Tram for one. Then we learned that if you climbed the mountain you could ride down compliments of the resort. We set out to climb the 2,000 feet to the tram house. Yes 2,000 feet in 2 or 3 miles depending on the route. The trail maps were not wonderful, especially since there were no sign posts at trail intersections for hikers, there were plenty of signs for descending skiers and even some for descending downhill bikers (suicidal maniacs). We climbed and climbed and everyone we met climbing down said just keep going up, you can’t miss it, all roads lead to the tram house. After a couple of false starts at the foot of the chairlift to the very top from an upper bowl we found ourselves on a narrow trail that does not look skiable along side a chair lift with no indication other than a windsock that we might be anywhere near the top. I pulled out the map one more time and found the phone number for the lodge and was rapidly routed to Brian who knows the mountain. I described what I could see and and told me exactly where we were and that we were only five minutes from the top. Maybe for him five minutes. By then I was on my last energy, Carol was ready to hop and skip to the top. Fifteen minutes later we emerged at the tram house and headed for 7 Glaciers Inn. Yup you can easily see 7 glaciers from there.

To make a long story longer, as we entered the bar of this very swanky resort in our climbing togs with backpack and trekking sticks, we saw another couple who seemed to be alone looking for an appropriate place to sit. I said “join us” and they did. Ann and Bill are younger than us and they had flown to Alaska to celebrate Ann’s round number birthday. As we ordered we revealed that we were celebrating our 47th wedding anniversary a day early. We decided to drink to celebrations and had a delightful time. They left to make a phone call and we decided to dine right there since it was already 7 and the only other place we had a recommendation for was closed on Monday. It was the right choice. Highly recommended if you don’t mind prices that are high by Alaskan standards.

Tuesday morning, our anniversary, we moved the coach across the highway to dispersed camping area where there is no charge, my favorite price. As noted the only other coach there was Mark and his wife, Escapees who have spent the year in Alaska. We won’t do that, although the place does lead one to consider it, the cold and snow make Rochester look mild. After setting up, we set out for a hike to Byron Glacier. At the trail head there was a sign that there would be a hike with a Ranger and a licensed ice worm hunt. We changed plans, picked up lunch at the coach and went to take a ride on the MV Ptarmigan to actually see Portage Glacier. We returned to the trailhead and met up with the Range and a “Jr Ranger” 9 year old and off on to the trail and on to the snow pack below the foot of the glacier. I will include copies of our Ice Worm “Hunting License” when the connection is better. I could not get a picture of the one ice worm the Jr Ranger found because it is really hard to photograph an item one inch long and the diameter of a course human hair being held on snow in the palm of someone’s hand.

Next day we moved on to Seward. Tried to stop on the road to Exit Glacier, but most of the free spots were taken and even those do not appear to be suitable for us. So much for free. We are staying in Resurrection CG – Seward City Park. Not hooked up but we are directly on Resurrection Bay, 50 feet give or take from the water, depending on the tide. So far we have taken another glacier, wildlife tour with Major Tours, done a Behind the Scenes tour of the Alaska Sea Life Aquarium, wandered all through Seward on foot, ridden our bikes out to the end of road at Lowell Point to book a kayak trip with Millers Landing. We took the kayak trip yesterday, the paddle was seven miles on the bay, planned paddling time was 2 1/2 hours. We grounded short of two hours and the hike to the WW II fortification took less than an hour. All in all we had about 30 minutes to explore beyond the time scheduled.

Although we have pictures of all these activities, my current Verizon connection is not good enough to upload the images. I will post a bunch of them to my web album as soon as I have a decent connection.

We Meet the Nicest People

2011-06-19T01:45:00.001-04:00

Our travels have always been about people and places. We certainly have the good fortune to sit next to interesting people in restaurants, in campgrounds, standing in line for almost anything. The places are there for the driving and looking the people sometimes require some effort on our part. Read on.

We reluctantly pulled out of Chena RV in Valdez leaving the most wonderful owner/operators we have run into. Judy was there to greet us in the morning with suggestions to make our day better and to welcome us back in the evening with questions about how we enjoyed our activities of the day. She and her husband are very solicitous and go out of their way to make RVers feel welcome. Wash the coach? by all means use as much water as you need. TV? here is the included cable and a decoder box. Wifi, included and a good strong signal with a fast connection to the internet (backhaul – as the techs say).

We drove back up the Richardson Highway, the only road in and out of Valdez, over the Thompson Pass, stopping at Worthington Glacier to walk out and take a look at it. We pulled into Copper Center, which is on a loop road off of a loop of Old Richardson Highway off the highway, got that? We did not eat at the roadhouse, mostly because we had just had lunch and weren’t planning to spend the night there. After an hour or so of poking around, we headed up the road a few miles to the Wrangell-St Elias National Park and Preserve Visitor Center (I will not spell that out a gain). As promised in our Days End subscription, an Escapee Only source, there is a double ended pull out with signs on the side road to the Visitor Center, just outside its gates. There are no signs forbidding over night parking, which in Alaska, we are told, means it is permitted. We went into the center and talked with the rangers, one of whom seems a bit rigid and questioned the propriety of such use of the pull out but agreed that so long as it isn’t signed there was nothing she could do about it. After watching the film about the park we bought two copies for distribution to our children and beyond, just to make them envious! Then we drove out to the pull out and set ourselves up for dinner and the night.

It seemed that Palmer was to be our next stop as I had our mail sent there for pickup at General Delivery. We did not know when it would arrive and really did not want to pay for a campground. I got out the Days End section for Alaska which I have printed out, and checked on Palmer. The only Escapees in Alaska who offer overnight stopping are the Mathews in Palmer. We called and were welcomed warmly. On arrival Dave was out in the yard to show us where to set up. He courteously let me ground guide Carol into backing into a fairly tight spot. After a brief tour of Palmer during which we found our mail waiting for us we returned and brought a bottle of wine and some dip into the house for Happy Hour. It is great to make new friends. They are very attentive and when we started talking about what to see in Palmer Dave reopened his memories of being a volunteer in the visitor center and gave way too much to do in a day. The next morning he greeted me with a list of all the must see and do things from Palmer down through Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula.

Short history course. There was a depression in the 30’s. One attempt to alleviate the troubles was a program of colonization of empty areas. 200 families from Upper Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and one family from Oklahoma were transported to Palmer Alaska in 1935. Some 60% did not take advantage of the return ticket that was available. All of the construction was done by imported workers to plans drawn in Washington. Some of the designs fell a bit short, the barns are too small for their intended use as dairy barns. This is a surprisingly rich agricultural area and there are dairies, hay farms and vegetable farms thriving in Palmer.

There is also a Musk Ox (they have no musk and are not oxen being most closely related to goats) farm that sells the combed out under hair of the musk oxen which is shed in the spring to a native coop that weaves the most gorgeous pieces from the spun yarn. It is very warm and very strong and oh yes VERY expensive. The participating natives are able to stay in their villages up near the arctic circle and continue their culture and life style thanks to the cash they earn from weaving these scarves and other articles of clothing.

Oh yes the other thing they are trying to do is to domesticate the musk oxen. The first new animal to be domesticated in 1,000 years. They expect the project to take a total of 250 years. 193 to go. The first place these animals were raised on a farm was in Vermont.

Have I run on enough? Nope. From the Musk Ox farm we drove up Hatch Pass to Independence Gold Mine state Park at the top of the pass. They started serious hard rock mining there in 1937. Production peaked in 1941 and 1942 brought orders to shut down as gold was not military necessity and the resources they were using needed to be redeployed. They struggled to keep the mine open claiming they could produce a precursor to tungsten, but the ore was of such poor grade that they never shipped an ounce. By 1943 the site had been abandoned. The mill works have collapsed and only the living quarters remain intact. The tour was great fun and the area is wide open for exploration. the weather was superb and it being Saturday Alaskans were out in force hiking and sunning where ever we looked. We finally returned to the coach to a quiet dinner and a chance to record this.

To see all the pictures from this trip Click Here The pictures from this blog are near the end.

Onward to the Kenai Peninsula tomorrow.

Valdez

2011-06-15T02:27:00.001-04:00

We took our time driving from Chitna to Valdez. After looking at all the possibilities we decided to stay ion town at a very small RV park called Chena. It appealed to us because it had only ten sites and the Churches did say the owners were very helpful. On our way in we drove by half the other places and our choice was confirmed. Instead of 160 sites on a sea of gravel Chena has just eh ten sites on a pond of gravel. Gravel makes sense here as it does not become mud or snad to track into the coach and water drains right through it, no standing puddles to breed mosquitoes, there are enough of them as it is.

The drive took us over Thompson Pass at 2,800 feet. It does not seem very high, but it is clear the weather in the pass can be fearsome. We have been told by locals that the plow crews use GPS to guide them through the pass in storms! We came over it in clear weather. We passed the turn off for the old town site which was devastated in the earthquake of 1964 and continued into the town that was rebuilt and has grown with the routing of the Alyeska Pipeline to the port. It is a great fishery and we have seen halibut over five feet long hanging from the catch racks of the charter companies. I bought some an grilled it. I am reminded of Talkeetna, 1997, my most memorable halibut meal, eaten at a picnic table on the curb there.

We took a cruise with Stan Stephens to Meade Glacier which included poking in as close as we could get to Columbia and Shoup glaciers and some whale watching and sea otter watching and Dall Porpoise watching and bald eagles and puffin, both horned and tufted and bear watching. We saw one bear swim across from the mainland to an island as we were traversing the passage. Stan said he had not seen a bear take that long a swim in his time here – he is in his 70’s and has been guiding in Alaska 50 years. Here are some pictures from the day trip:

Plans to go sea kayaking have been placed on hold, not enough people want to take the trip we want to take for it to go. We decided to take a “domestic day.” Many chores great and small have piled up. Carol did laundry while I washed the coach down to remove the sand and road dirt from our drive over TOW and down to Chitna. Our neighbor works at the local NAPA store and he located a replacement for the oil filler cap I left back in the Yukon someplace. We still have piles of dust and grit in our storage bins, but that will just have to accumulate until we get on paved roads in the lower 48. We did wander around the harbor area and walked into Anadyr Sea kayaking. We had not walked in there before. they offer a kayak trip to Valdez Glacier which involves a four or five mile drive rather than a two our boat ride to the kayaking site. WE sgned up for the next day.

We met Heather, the guide, and David and Joanie whose son works on a fishing boat in Valdez for the summer. The five of us set out for Valdez Glacier with full coverage rain gear over long johns and fleece for warmth along with PFDs (Personal Flotation Device) for safety. We put into the water with the hope of entering an ice cave or two, walking on the glacier and maybe seeing some other interesting feature. As with wild life viewing there can be no promises since the features of the glacier change from day to day as the weather and glacial movements shift things around. Rather than give you a blow by blow here are a selection of pictures from the day:

And there you have two days in Valdez with more to come.

An Unplanned Day

2011-06-12T01:38:00.001-04:00

Not that we ever stick to a plan, but today, Thursday June 9, was particularly fragmented. For starters we had decided to head for Valdez instead of Fairbanks. A couple of days ago I decided it was time to have a steak so I had pulled one out of the freezer to keep in the refrigerator. We are traveling alone because other than some dear friends we find it best to keep to ourselves.

As we rolled down the Tok Cutoff toward the intersection with the Richardson Highway which would take us to Valdez I was reading in The Milepost about some other places to see along the way. I saw that Copper Village looked like and interesting stop and a mere 35 miles out of our way was Chitina at the end of a 35 mile in and out road. It seemed reasonable to take that side road, especially after checking my other resources and finding that there is Federal land that is available for “informal” camping. That means pick yourself a piece of land, set up camp and enjoy. No rules, no fees oh and no supervision. As it happens this piece of land is located at the junction of the Chitina and Copper Rivers and is the only place in Alaska where dip netting and fish wheels are permitted.

As I began to learn this we pulled into an overlook and met Stan and, and oh well both of us forgot her name. We shared the thoughts and they thought they might join us. We passed each other several times along the road but somehow we are in Chitina and they are not nearby. I already described the Top of the World Highway. This route was not quite as bad, we averaged well over 30 mph while moving. This does not include a 20 minute halt on the road for construction vehicles to move and many stops to ooh and ahh. Finally we made it to the Wrangle Elias National Park Visitor Center, which is not in the park because the only access to the park is over really interesting roads, by plane or boat. We heard a presentation on Wolves by a summer Ranger, nicely done, nothing particularly new, and we drove on.

We drove on slowly as the road continued to alternate potholes (Rochester you ain’t seen nothin’) with frost heaves – think of a giant economy sized speed bump with sharp sides – with whoop-de-dos, sort of like the road falls out from under you and just as you are dropping it rises to boost you into the air. They are more exciting when they are at an angle across the road so you twist as you bound. Opening a cupboard after a day of this can be life threatening.

Anyhow we descended into Chitina and passed through the town and out the other side, onto the McCarthy Road and over the Bridge to the “informal” camping area.

We decided to camp well away from the area of active dip netters as we did not want to be seen as interfering, especially as they are expected to here in force tomorrow. Many of them have set up fish wheels.

These scoop the salmon out of the water and shunt them in live catch wells where they wait to be filleted. Carol and I got talking to a couple of men working together filleting fish after fish. they had already filleted 28 fish that day – apparently there is no limit here. As we asked questions and responded to theirs, the man doing the filleting motioned to his buddy to get a small fish out of the well and then he stunned me by asking if I wanted it whole or filleted. After asking twice to be sure I had understood the questioned he filleted the fish before our eyes and bagged it and gave it to me with instructions not to overcook it. Color me flabbergasted.

The steak stayed in the refrigerator for another day while I grilled one fillet to eat half

and save the cooked part for another day. The other fillet went into the freezer. the net weight of fresh Copper Red King Salmon minutes out of the water was over 2 pounds. Retail price is incalculable (well I saw it for $7.50 a pound today) and I must say taking a fish and putting it on the grill within minutes of its coming out of the water is beyond compare.

Yet another unplanned day!

Friday we decided to try the drive to McCarthy on the McCarthy road, a 55 mile drive on a dirt and gravel road reported to be a very difficult road with old railroad spikes just waiting to eat a tire, the road is laid out over an old rail bed. The drive to McCarthy was fairly straight forward, it took 2 hours running at speeds up to 40 and a lot of 20 and 30 mph stretches. After Top of the World it was a piece of cake. We had the bikes on the roof and I had brought along the seats and other paraphernalia necessary for bike riding. When we got to the end of the McCarthy Road we were confronted with a foot bridge and a half a mile walk beyond that to get to McCarthy, or hiring a shuttle from the other side of the footbridge. We got the bikes down and with much trepidation, put them together. We had not ridden them in several months (we actually can’t remember the last time we rode them), the chains are rusty and everything was a bit stiff. The tires were soft as well and I had not thought to bring my pump. That was good actually as the road was dirt and lent itself to underinflated tires.

We reached McCarthy and discovered there is not anything to do there before 5 PM, and it was not yet noon, except go on to Kennicott to tour the Kennecott Mine Mill and the Kennicott glacier. Those are not my misspellings. They meant to name the company after the glacier and misspelled it.

We chained up the bikes and took the shuttle to Kennicott where booked the tour and went to Kennicott Glacier Lodge for a lovely lunch while waiting for the tour. Here is the mill: Looking up at the 14 story structure from below knowing that it was built in 1908 we did not expect the tour to us take all the way through the remaining interior portions. We indeed climbed to the very top where copper ore was received from the mines by tramway and followed the processing all the way to the very bottom where the finest poorest grade ore was sent to the leach plant for further extraction.

The road we had driven was on the rail bed of the line built to haul the coal to Valdez where it was transshipped to Tacoma for smelting. This is where Kennecott Corp got its start. It is said they mined enough silver as a byproduct to pay for the railroad, mine equipment and the town, some $30 million and netted a profit of $100 million on the copper. This is 1930 dollars!

Before we drove up the road to Chitna I had only the vaguest notion of what was here. The activities we did not partake in included ice climbing, mountain hiking, white water rafting/kayaking, choose up sides softball in McCarthy, or getting drunk in any of the saloons in each of these towns.

On from Whitehorse to Dawson City and Over the Top of the World Highway to Tok AK

2011-06-09T00:22:00.001-04:00

Well there was an overnight along the way at Pelly Crossing. You could look it up someplace I guess, but there isn’t much there, there. The Pelly is a river that is tributary to the Yukon and the crossing is a bridge and a small community consisting of a roadhouse and a Heritage Museum to record the local First Nation tribe’s lifestyle and culture. There is/was a campground across the way. The reason for the lack of positive description is that this appears to have been a government campground recently, but is currently listed in the guide books as free. The campsites are “indistinct” and there are no services offered. This is a better deal than some similar campgrounds that collect $12 C for the privilege.

I have not recorded the long drive we took to get to this halfway point on the road to Dawson City. It is “miles and miles of miles and miles” to quote an unknown source. Every turn brings another vista and another ooh and ah and the hope of seeing some wildlife, mostly forlorn. Rising in the morning to the sound of construction on the bridge we prepared breakfast and rolled on down the road leaving Marty and Nancy, Alaskans who got to the park shortly before us on their trek south, as we continued north. Sunday was another day of miles and miles bringing us into Dawson City early afternoon. We decided to stay at Bonanza Gold RV Park just out of town and across the street from Bonanza Gold Service area. Is there a theme there? We had rolled up 5400 miles since leaving El Paso, TX !! and it was time for an oil change and other routine maintenance as we prepare for the worst roads of the trip. Already in the last stretch the road was deteriorating the closer we got to Dawson.

Some highlights of the visit to Dawson include a visit to Diamond Tooth Gerties Casino with three shows a night. I broke even at the black jack table and got to take a garter off a dancer (you will have to ask Carol to tell you the story). After the 10:30 show we drove up to Dome which is a five mile drive to a high point above Dawson where the sun barely sets on the solstice. We did not stay long enough to see it set on June 6. As I write it is 10:10 PM and the sun streaming in the windshield is almost blinding me. Our second day, we started out at Dredge #4, the largest surviving dredge from the gold era here. It last produced gold in 1959. It is amazing to see the size of this machine. Each bucket picked up 16 cubic yards of rock to process through the screens. The most amazing part of the story is that the entire operation was electric. They ran hydro power from the Klondike river over more than thirty miles of wilderness to run the dredge. Since the dredge moved itself up the creek bed they had to continually extend the lines. It only moved 10 feet every few days so they could keep up with it. Following the dredge we toured several homes (Jack London’s and Robert Service’s) and then came back for lunch so we could move Gee2 to the service station while we went to town for a walking tour with weird stories about people and places.

We have had a quiet dinner on the coach and got to talk with Ron and Aiko and Brian and Ruth who we met back in Whitehorse. Not so early to bed and up sort of early tomorrow to take the ferry to the beginning of the Top Of the World Highway which leads to Chicken and on to Tok. I hope to post this soon, but even if I get connected in Dawson I will not be able to post pictures. The band width reminds me of the 300 baud days. There is only one circuit for the population and it is not fiber. Anyone uploading video will take down the entire town.

Wednesday Night – it is hard to call it night when you never see dark.

We set out early, for us, at 8:30 AM to board the Black Ferry for a 15 minute ride across the Yukon to drive the road that causes more talk among RVers in Alaska then any other. It is paved part of the way, it is chip sealed and that has washed away in parts, it is dirt or it is gravel and there is 180 miles of it climbing and descending to live up to its name, Top Of the World Highway affectionately known as TOW. Carol was at the wheel for the first two hours bringing us to the most northerly land entry into the US at Poker Creek, AK. By then we had stone chips in the windshield of the RAV4 which was new in LA and there were stones all over the car. The coach was filled with dust and we still had 120 miles to go. We covered the windshield with a tarp in an attempt to prevent further damage and I took the wheel just 5 miles before the border. According to reports we were entering on the worst of the worst road. Fortunately it had not rained for a couple of days and the road was dry and merely dirt. An aside to those who know the road to Dan and Malena’s house back in the woods of Virginia, just like that for 60 miles! And just as narrow with trucks and tour buses (well only one tour bus and no big trucks while we were out there) going both ways. The one tour bus we encountered had a pilot vehicle out ahead and he radioed back to the bus to wait at a wide spot while we proceeded through the well packed dual track road.

Naturally we stopped at Chicken. Think of a bad chicken joke, any bad chicken joke, you will find it there on a T shirt, mug etc. Susan Wiren, who has been in National Geographic and is featured in the Church book Camping in Alaska, is a true Alaska character. I will get pictures up on the website when I have some time. Carol has a new T shirt as do I and I finally got to add a hat to my collection.

About 30 miles out of Chicken the road improved enough for us to pick up the speed to 40 and even 50 for a mile or two. 180 miles is a really long day when the overall moving average is 30.9 MPH.

Shortly before Chicken we noted that the sky was misty, then we noticed the smell of fire. For long stretches our view of the mountains was obscured by smoke from fires burning a couple of hundred miles to our north outside of Fairbanks. When we got to the Tok visitor center, they confirmed the presence of many fires between Tok and Fairbanks. Although no roads are closed, we are thinking that we will head south first before going to Fairbanks. So as of this writing we are going to head down to Valdez and then over to Anchorage. It does not change our mileage at all. If you look at an Alaska road map, you will see that to get from Fairbanks to Anchorage and to get in and out of Alaska by road you WILL pass through Tok. Tok is Alaska Main Street. We are comfortably camped behind the Chevron Station which provides free dry camping on their lot for the price of a fill up which we needed anyhow.

Whitehorse Days

2011-06-04T01:54:00.001-04:00

Thursday, first day in Whitehorse, we drove in from Carcross then we spent time getting caught up on internet time and other work around the coach like a complete pressure wash. Then into town to the Visitor Center then on to get Free Parking Permit (closed at 4:30 we arrived at 4:31). Stopped by the box office for “Frantic Follies” and bought our tickets. Back to G2 for dinner and then into town for the 8 PM door opening and the 8:30 curtain. Fantastic show! Definitely worth the price of admission, many belly laughs and endless chuckles. Got out at 10:15 and the sun was still up.

Friday, second day. We drove into town to see the Beringia Museum (pronounce that with a soft g) which focuses on the prehistory of The Yukon and the many wooly mammoths and similar animals whose remains have been found here (many look much like what has been unearthed at La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles). We arrived there at 9:55 Am in time to see the first of two movies and there was one other couple in the place. By the time we had played with the atlatl out in the grounds another couple had arrived to join for the second movie. Then we finally got around to buying our tickets and had a guided talk by the staff person. At noon we left with the first couple and walked over to the Yukon Transportation Museum which was included in our ticket price. That museum has photos from the early days of flight in The Yukon, a history of the White Pass and Yukon River (WP&YR) rail construction from Skagway to White Horse and an entire section devoted to equipment used to construct the Alaska Highway. It was now 1:45 and we went back to the coach for lunch and then roared on. Next stop the McBride Museum which has collections of material from the growth of Whitehorse with a particular emphasis on the characters. For our newspaper friends I spotted this, hope you can read it:

They have the original cabin of Sam McGee (read Robert Service “The Cremation of Sam McGee). None of the poem is based on fact and Sam McGee actually lived well beyond the time of the poem and in warmer climes, but he was a friend of Robert Service. From there we went on to the 4 PM guided tour of Klondike the last stern wheeler from the era preceding the highway from Whitehorse to Dawson City.

There are more pictures on the picasa website, just click on any of these to get there. Or Click Here

Not done yet! We drove out Miles Canyon Road to see the Miles Canyon suspension bridge, a foot bridge over this rugged canyon which carries the Yukon River over rapids into Whitehorse. From there we continued a bit south to Copper Moon Gallery. Watch for signs otherwise you would have a hard time finding it. It is an extensive gallery of local artists work. Although it is uneven, it does seem to feature some of the finest local art we have seen. This is well worth a stop, about 15 miles south of Whitehorse just north of the Petrogas station (within sight).

Following this we went back to Whitehorse and after a bit of car touring settled on the Bar and Grill at Edgewater Hotel for dinner. The meals were excellent and we met an engaging couple who collect countries like we collect states and provinces. They were on the return leg of a car trip from Los Angeles to Alaska.

End Day 2. I’m tired! Not sure what we will do for an encore tomorrow. I had intended this to be just a list of activities, but I hesitate to fill it out with any more detail. You will have to make this trip for yourselves! We know there were 8 tour buses in town, but we managed to miss the crowds where ever we went.

Days 3 and 4 and 5 . . .

2011-06-02T18:21:00.001-04:00

After leaving Fort Nelson we made a planned stop at Liard Hot Springs. This is a well reported “must” stop along the AH (reference to Alaska Highway hereafter). Unlike the Radium Hot Springs these have not been “bottled” into swimming pools to serve the masses. The spring descends through a series of pools created by modest damming with logs. The board walk to the pools and around them is a substantial, but plain boardwalk and the changing rooms are Spartan to say the least. We entered the water at turned out to be the midpoint of its temperature range. Moving up stream a few feet raised the surface water temperature a few degrees and a like move downstream lowered the temperature a bit. The surface water is hotter than the bottom water so if it felt too hot I could just reach down and circulate the deeper water up to mix with the surface to moderate the temperature. Although I had no thermometer with me the temperature was reported variously as 108 to 110 F. To other travelers along the way: This is indeed a must stop and if we pass this way headed south we will stop again.

Although we made several more stops to ooh and ah over the vistas and to acknowledge bison, bear and other critters along the road we eased in to Watson Lake, YT late afternoon and set up camp at Downtown RV. This was as described a large gravel parking lot with hookups and right in the center of town. During the day’s drive we had noticed a clanging, banging noise which turned out to be a loose part on a rear wheel cover. Three of four rivets had come loose and the center section was wobbling and clattering. I spoke to the campground owner who directed me to the Home Hardware which was through the Signpost Forest and across the highway. There Homer guided me to the correct bin of nuts and bolts and advised me to add some Loktite to make sure they would hold. Returning to the campground I set up my repair shop – tool kit next to chair in the sun in front of the coach to make my repair. This attracted a neighbor who we joined later to see the Northern Lights Show. Yeah, I know we are in the Land of The Northern Lights, but they are hard to see when the sun has not set at 10 PM and rises before we awake at 4 AM. So we had to see the video of the Northern Lights in a very nice planetarium facility across the street form the campground.

The next day, as we were rolling toward White Horse, we decided to take a side trip recommended by several people. At Jake’s Corner we turned down route 8, The Tagish Highway toward Carcross. Yes, there is a crossing there, but it is not cars. It is a Caribou Crossing. After much fiddling around and struggling to find the visitor center we were guided to the Carcross Campground. The signs we had passed seemed to lead us to driving down the local airstrip, not generally a good idea. It turns out the road to the campground is maybe 100 yards off the centerline of the strip and then disappears into the woods. Here we set up camp for two nights with no electric, water or sewer. There is phone service. There were only two others in the campground for the night.

Our visit to Carcross included a walk in the Carcross Desert. A one square mile of dunes left over from prehistoric times. It really isn’t technically desert as it is too humid. It is quite strange to see lush conifer stands in what appears on the surface to be desert and no cactus to be seen, they would never survive the sub zero (Fahrenheit) temperatures of winter. The town itself is torn up, as the roads are being realigned to make it easier for tour buses to drive through and stop. Also many of the important structures from times long gone are being restored. This is not a preserve area so major restoration is more a matter of money than permits. Walking around in some respects was like walking though a Disney back set before the place is ready for guests.

Day 5, Wednesday, we set off early in the morning (for us) in the car to drive 65 miles to Skagway, one of the premier cruise ship stops on the inland passage. Before we got very far out of Carcross we spotted two bears on the side of the road sparring. They were distracted enough that I was able to back the car up a 100 yards or so after going passed them and stop on the side of the road across from them and spend several minutes photographing for me and for Carol. We signaled to another car what we were seeing and as they stopped we drove on. The rest of the trip was engaged in much oohing and aahing over the incredible scenery and mountains still enrobed in snow and ice. We climbed past the Canadian customs, 7 miles from the border and ascended to the border with the US and then descended 7 miles or more to the US Customs Post. Those 14 miles are so inhospitable that no one wants to maintain a permanent post there. Oh yes, this is where the Gold Rush Stampedes of 1898 had to climb to to get to the Klondike Gold Fields in Dawson City. They had to travel 600, that’s six hundred miles from the ports of Skagway or Dyea.

Before turning into Skagway we took an eight mile side trip to Dyea town site. This was one of the two primary launching sights for the gold seekers to reach for Dawson City and the Klondike Gold Fields. The town grew from a native village of a few hundred on a tidal flat to a substantial town that hosted tens of thousands in a year! Today almost nothing remains but clues for archeologists. A wharf they constructed that reached a mile out over the mud flats is now a few remaining posts out in the flats and some indents in the ground at the shore end. The largest warehouse is crumbling remains that need to be defended from the bears which like to tear the wood apart for the grubs that it hosts. The rows of trees planted to define the roads and a line of stumps.

We turned from there to Skagway which survived only because a rail link to Whitehorse was constructed there at the peak of the of the boom and together with the deep water harbor these made Skagway a coastal link to the interior. Today it is filled with cruise ships and tourists and the streets are indeed lined with gold in the hands of the passengers from the cruise ships waiting to be exchanged for all kinds of goods and services the merchants are prepared to sell.

The day ended with an uneventful drive back to G2, tucked away in the woods. We never did see dark at the campsite even though we stayed up until 11 and got up at 4 ish for nature calls.

Day 1 Road to Alaska and Day 2

2011-05-29T23:51:00.001-04:00

We left Mile 0 RV Park by 9:30 and were directly on the Alaska Highway. Using the sources we had been reading we decided to take Mike and Terri Church’s advice and stop short of Nelson at a roadside campground for our first night out. We bypassed a couple because they didn’t offer much for the money and looked rather too scruffy. We finally decided on Sikanni River Campground & RV Park because the next and last possible stop was a “User Maintained” site. That is, an abandoned provincial campground. The ones we had looked at along the way were all muddy and unkempt.

Sikanni River is at the bottom of a northbound grade with pitches to 9%. Carol was at the wheel and eased us down the grade at an average speed of 30 mph in first gear, we barely warmed the brakes. She caught the first driveway into the store/gas station/rv park and we were greeted by Jackie the owner. Gas prices were sky high ($1.459/liter) so we elected to skip the top off in hopes of slightly lower prices in Nelson. The campsite we took with power but no water or sewer was $25 and is directly on the Sikanni River. As I was checking in – handing over the cash – I noticed a sign “Free Night of Camping Awarded each night to a Lucky Door Prize Winner (When we have more than 5 campers).”

We had not seen much wild life along the way. It is too early for berries to attract the bears and the moose and elk seem to be pretty much at rest while we are driving. Much to my surprise, as I was sitting outside the coach with my book looking at the river, I heard what sounded like a large horse approaching. It was a female moose and she trotted across the campground in front of the coach and passed within 50 feet of where I was sitting. I barely had time to realize in was a moose before it was gone from sight.

After dinner we wandered around the campground greeting the other Alaska bound travelers and chatting about our experiences. Jackie and her husband approached and handed me $25. I had won the drawing for the day. Putting aside the lucky draw, Carol and I would strongly recommend to our RVing friends who might take this trip to plan a stop at Sikanni River, if you still have brakes for stopping when you get to the bottom of the grade.

To be posted the next time we have internet service.

We stopped at Fort Nelson Heritage Museum and could not photograph .1% of the material they exhibit, so here is the largest item on display:

It is a 16 cylinder engine used to drive one of the generators to provide electricity to the region. It ran for over 111,000 hours.

We have internet of sorts tonight at Toad River Lodge. Camping is reasonable the gasoline is outrageous, $C1.559 per liter. That works out to north of $6 a gallon. Of course Fort Nelson is 115 miles back and the next place with “reasonable” pricing we are told is Contact Creek Lodge, 165 miles up the road.

On the road we passed a truck camper stopped on the shoulder. When we saw them fueling at Fort Nelson we said they were stopped to look at a sow bear and cubs, not that we could have stopped had we known, but . . . Later on, as we passed through Summit Lake and began a long descent through an incredible gorge with the road carved into its side, we saw several Stone Sheep (smaller than Rocky Mountain Sheep) on the side of the road and up the cliff. Couldn’t stop but went real slow to avoid hitting them and to take a look. No pictures.

More coming!

A rough interlude and we are off

2011-05-28T00:48:00.001-04:00

This is being posted after a delay because as I write I am sitting in the Canadian National Parks forest outside of Jasper and there is no internet available and I dare not use my phone as data roaming charges are $2.00 per megabyte!

The last full posting had us flying to Rochester to celebrate my mother’s birthday, get in some doctor appointments and see some friends before resuming our trip. Mom was non responsive on her birthday, the 10th and began to slip away shortly thereafter, well she had been declining rapidly since the previous Saturday, but she had rallied so many times in the past that I figured she would again. Not to belabor the point, she died two days after her birthday and we buried her on Friday and sat Shiva (check out the Jewish way of death) through Tuesday and flew back to Calgary on Friday the 20th.

The Hoggs pulled Gee 2 out of storage for us and set it up on the site next to them before coming to the airport to pick us up at 9:40 PM. Don’t talk to me about small planes, they are great for an hour flight, but 4 hours in a CRJ is cruel and unusual punishment. The Hoggs Malibu felt more spacious than the plane for the long drive back to Okotoks. After spending delightful time with them they saw us off Tuesday morning, we drove through some traffic to TransCanada Highway 1 which leads to Banff and onward to lake Louise where we picked up The Ice Field Parkway to Jasper. Although we made several stops along the way none of them were in Banff or Lake Louise. We did not need another tourist shopping experience (Banff) and we had spent a lot of time In Lake Louise some years ago. We did stop at the Ice Field Center and ooh and ah at the Toe of Athabasca Glacier and we certainly made any number of brief stops to ooh and ah and OMG over the Canadian Rockies as they were exposed and hidden by the ever changing clouds.

We finally made it in to Whistlers Campground just outside of Jasper where we had stopped all those years ago in the rented Class C motorhome that was our gateway drug to our present addiction. It was late and we figured we could find decent food in Jasper so we set up and drove the mile and a half (~3 kilometers) into town where the Brew Pub turned out to be noisy with a mediocre menu. Next stop Kimchi Korean where we had a wonderful meal. Carol had a vegetarian version of my dish and we are both happy. Back to Gee 2 for tea and sleep.

Two days later: We drove up to Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway and celebrated by paying for camping at Mile 0 Campground after the previous night at Wal-Mart in Grande Prairie. We are ready to jump off and don’t know when I will have the next opportunity to post.

Calgary and preparations to fly to Rochester

2011-04-29T15:37:00.001-04:00

Over the Canadian Rockies, past Banff and down the east side into Cochrane AB, just west of Calgary, where we met Dean and Jane at Springhill Campground as planned. They were off at a family gathering and stopped by the coach on their return to the park. The next day we drove over to Cochrane Ranch for a wee bit of a hike and plenty more talking.

Jane prepared dinner on their coach that night and we concluded our wonderful reunion. We hope to see them in the southwest again next winter. Early in the morning we saw them dive off.

We left for Okotoks ninety minutes south and east. As we pulled up to the gate of the Country Lane RV Resort, the Hoggs were waiting in their car to escort us the last kilometer and open the gate to the private park they live in when not on the road. We set up on their friend’s lot and began five days of seeing yet another new city and spending time with good friends.

We started by calling friends of Carol’s brother and sister-in-law and arranging to meet for lunch. We had a wonderful lunch with plenty of talking and sharing of experiences followed by a driving tour of Calgary and a visit to their home. After returning to the coach we were joined by the Hoggs for Happy Hour and and time to plan the rest of the stay.

Wednesday we drove into Calgary again after a lovely Vietnamese lunch,walked around the Olympic Plaza the center of the city. We got into the Glenbow Museum where there was a fantastic exhibit of Yousef Karch portraits. We finally tore ourselves away as they were closing and walked through the +15 back to the car. In Rochester we call the +15 Skyways – have not yet found out what +15 comes from other than the conjecture that the walkways are 15 feet above the pavement. The other non metric anachronism is that houses are sized in square feet.

Another happy hour and dinner and an early departure on Thursday for Rosebud, a very small town east of Calgary on the prairie. Their website, click here, will provide the details and some history. We had lunch and then went to the Opera House where we saw a production of A Bright Particular Star (see the web site for plot summary and playwright). There were only forty in the audience as the weather had been particularly nasty dumping an inch or more of snow on the roads as we drove and it was midweek as the season is just beginning. Five minutes before curtain the lights went out with a crash. Then stage manager and other backstage people were seen moving around with great haste. The power had gone out and they resorted to back up power to provide lights. Eventually they got power from the Fire House generator – fortuitously just next door - and the curtain rose no more than 15 minutes late. I am not generally tolerant of performances by those who are not professional. The cast were faculty and students at the Rosebud School of the Arts and they were marvelous. We thoroughly enjoyed the play, the production and the performances of the cast. I would return to this theatre for another play if I were in the area.

Our return drive included a stop in Calgary to meet Pat and Bob’s daughter Jenny and son-in-law Art at their home. We arrived just as they were concluding the sale of a car that had served as Pat and Bob’s tow’d before we knew them and had served the family through two engines. We were welcomed warmly and had a lovely conversation that included an appearance by Reed, their son, Pat and Bob’s grandson.

As I write the weather is ugly. The temperature is in the mid 30’s and it is precipitating on and off. I would say raining, but there seems to be some harder stuff mixed in with it. Tomorrow, Saturday the 30th, we will store the coach in a lot next to Country Lane for the two weeks we will be in Rochester. We will arrive in Rochester late on the first and depart again late afternoon on the 15th.

For those of you who worry about our various maintenance headaches here is a report. Tony the RV Medic is resident at Country Lane and a friend of the Hoggs. He spent a couple of hours and resolved our major headache with the leaking sink and installed a new faucet in the kitchen. Everything inside the coach that is supposed to be dry is dry! Just as there are things in all of our houses that could be made to work better or differently there are those things in the coach, but none of them are of any consequence and I will address them as they annoy me.

And we find surprises along the way

2011-04-23T20:29:00.001-04:00

The road from Spokane to Calgary portended great scenery some wonderful mountain roads and nothing to totally surprise us. Our first stop near Bonners Ferry at Blue Lake RV Park had a really scary entrance. We had been warned that the turn was nearly 180 degrees with a steep descent. We were not told that a major BNSF rail line crossed the road at the bottom of the descent. Yup after I pulled off the road to let tailgating traffic through I execute the turn only to find a long freight train across the road. I was able to get far enough down the grade to let a track work truck join me on the little piece of road. The campground was just the other side of the tracks, very close, felt I could reach out the window and touch the passing trains. Neither of us heard a single train all night long. It is like sleeping at Dockwieler RV park. What 747s?

With an unhurried start in the morning we took a route up the west side of the Canadian Rockies planning to cross them near Banf. Since we did not want to go all the way to Calgary (actually Cochrane) in one day and open campgrounds are rare at this time of year we made an early stop in Radium Hot Springs, BC. The Canyon RV Park is wonderful. It sits in the bottom of a canyon (surprise!) isolated, yet within walking distance of the town. Again the descent was very steep but there was no railroad track, only rocky Mountain Sheep grazing on the cliffs beside the road. The park was nearly full and mostly families for the Easter Holiday. They all quieted down before we needed them to. As we were checking in the owner suggested we might want to go the the hot springs. Surprise, a town with the name Radium Hot Springs has them. Not more than 4 kilometers from our site was and incredible complex with cool springs (30 C) and hot springs (39C – for reference 98.6 F = 37 C). We soaked away what was left of the afternoon in the hot, the cold and the hot tub 40C. Put that together with my newly butchered haircut (electric razor and some help from Carol) I felt like a new man.

Saturday with Carol at the helm we climbed over the Rockies on Highway 93 through Banf and on to Springhill Campground in Cochrane just north of Calgary. To say that we oohed and aahed and oh wowed as we took the drive is an understatement. I limited myself to very few pictures and here is one:

Hmm, almost looks like a postcard.

One last item. We have updated the map on the inside of the door with three new states, OR, WA (both planned) and ID somewhat of a surprise.

I know that is a funny place for Alaska. Will fix it when we get there. Oh yes will get to add the Yukon too, as we go.

Still in Spokane – I am not a plumber

2011-04-21T00:25:00.001-04:00

Looks like I will need to get an RV plumbing type person in one of these days. There is a miniscule leak at the connections I made. I suspect the inlet connector is stressed since the new faucet’s pipes were longer than those on the one I removed. I am not prepared to rebuild the piping although I am told online that it is easy to do. I will let $$ do this fix and install a new kitchen faucet as well. I hate to give in, it looked so simple. In the mean time we are topping off the freshwater tank and using the onboard pump to provide water. This way we can take the pressure off the system when it is not in use. It seems to be leaking about 4 ounces every 12 hours and I have a container catching the drips. There is another advantage to using the pump and freshwater tank supply, it forces us to refresh that 100 gallon tank and turn the water over so it does not get stale.

My last post, just yesterday, elicited a reminder that our friends the Goldman’s in Rochester have a son Andrew who is on faculty at Gonzaga University. We have known Andrew since . . . oh I won’t go there, he is the same age as our son Yechiel. When John and Roz reminded us, we sent email and then established phone contact. More importantly, in the middle of a very busy end of semester, end of academic year time we were able to get together for a couple of hours on the Gonzaga campus. We even had a few minutes with Andy’s wife Amy. We had a marvelous tour of the campus and spent time in the art department gallery and then had a tour of the Bing Crosby Memorabilia Room. He grew up in Spokane and attended high school and college at Gonzaga.

Andy got out a map and showed us some interesting points that we had missed for one reason or another. Life and schedules being what they are we will not be able to get to everything this time. We will save the list should we get back to Spokane in the future. Nevertheless we made an immediate trip to Manito Park on South Hill. We stopped and took a walk through the Lilac Garden and the Rose Garden, neither anywhere near in bloom yet and around the duck pond, which looks like a miniature of the lake in Central Park. It is quite lovely although we did not take time to see all five of the gardens. Then we zoomed downhill (a local would clearly understand the zoom downhill thing – that road is steep) to the Davenport Hotel which we had driven around and passed without ever stopping. The restaurants looked scrumptious the meeting and event rooms that were open to public viewing are really grand and the Peacock Bar could give its name sake at the Waldorf Astoria a run for the money, although it appeared far more affordable.

After that we went back to the coach, put the bikes up on the roof. One of these days I will put the front wheels on and we will ride – haven’t done that in a couple of months. The weather has been lousy for the most part. We are planning on rolling down the road into Idaho tomorrow. It will be a short day because we can be into Canada in about 2 or 3 hours and we don’t plan on that until Friday.

Not sure where the next post will be from. Probably the Calgary area. Carol has been busy making plans to see as many of our friends as possible in the 14 days we will have in Rochester.

Spokane . . . for instance

2011-04-19T15:17:00.001-04:00

Not sure why the route changed from right up US 97 to the Canadian border to a run to the east to Spokane WA, but it did. It may have had something to do with fewer miles and less time in fuel pricier Canada. It may have been the availability of an Elks Lodge (#228) with an RV park run by The Wheelin’ Elks. Add to both of the above the opportunity to continue through Idaho and add yet another state to our rapidly filling map and I guess there are enough reasons.

On the way we stopped at Steamboat Rock State Park just south of Grand Coulee Dam for a couple of nights so we could tour the dam and see the area.

Got to Spokane on Friday and could not agree on how long we would stay so we paid for three nights. It is now Tuesday and Carol is doing laundry so we will not be moving before Wednesday. I have a faucet to replace in the rear sink which if all goes well should take less than an hour. Well it took almost an hour and I am not sure that it is totally tight, but it will hold. The pump is not cycling which means any leak is minimal if not just my imagination.

Last night we had a complete Seder for two. Carol prepared a wonderful meal to which I added chicken to satisfy my craving for meat to make it a feast for me. We dug out the Haggadot, which we have carried for several years now, and took our time over the entire order. It was very interesting, but certainly the children and grandchildren were missed.

As we relaxed after clearing up the remains Carol noticed that the furnace was running and running and blowing cool air. At 10:30 pm it did not seem likely I would find a service person. We turned off the furnace, which kept on blowing. I disconnected the electric and turned off the master power to the coach which did shut the furnace down until I turned the power back on and it resumed blowing, not good. As I undid the screws to open the furnace compartment, it shut down, at last! After a brief hesitation, the usual count to 10, I had Carol turn the furnace back on while I held my breath. The fan resumed blowing and after the usual pause the gas valve opened and the flame ignited. We did not have a chilly night after all. There is no good explanation for this heart stopper, but I will have it looked at when we get into an RV service place.

In Spokane we have been to the Post office, to mail tax stuff to various government entities, toured the river front and attended a play. Oh yes we also drove to Coeur D’Alene, ID just because we could. The post office turned into a mess. They only have General Delivery at the main post office in downtown Spokane. I had had our mail directed to a branch in Spokane Valley, about 2 miles from the Elks Lodge. The mail was delivered to the branch and was there on Friday when we went to pick it up, but they would not acknowledge that they had it as they don’t do general delivery there. We went downtown, but the package had not been transferred there and would not be there until Monday. Little did I know that the package had a checkbook that would have saved a lot of grief in finalizing my tax payments. I found that out on Monday after I mailed all the checks and returned to the coach with the still unopened package. Lesson learned, but I am not sure what the lesson is.

While we wandered downtown Spokane after the post office we found the Loof Carrousel – sorry about the lighting -

and the Spokane Falls Skyride. Had to go on the skyride. More walking around brought us to

which has a companion store “Atticus” which sells goods for a more mature clientele.

Retracing to Portland for just brief paragraph. We had not been to the northwestern most corner of Oregon by the time we got to Portland and we had wanted to see where Lewis and Clark had wintered so we drove to Astoria OR and then out to Fort Clatsop. Since it is all reconstructed we did not bother with many pictures, but we did stop to see a demonstration of firing a muzzle loader.

This is a fairly typical shot, nice frame and balance not much interest. Sometimes you just get lucky with the timing:

Come Drive with Us

2011-04-11T00:06:00.001-04:00

I have this desire to see if I can share with you what a day on the road with us is like. Our plan for the day, Sunday, April 10, was to see as much of the Columbia River Gorge as we could traveling from our campsite in Beaverton, OR to someplace near Yakima Washington. We chose Yakima because it appeared to be under 200 miles and it is on US 97 which we had decided to take north because of advice from the Hoggs who make this run every year. Actual total miles came in at 176.4 and total hours on the move were metered at precisely 4 hours by our GPS, all in all an ideal day.

Having determined the beginning and the end we had to fill in the sandwich. I had noted during my mapping time that the Historic Columbia Gorge Highway branches away from I 84 which parallels the river several times to interesting sights. Carol and I agreed that if things were going well we would take as many of these side trips as seemed reasonable/comfortable. The next key questions was where to cross the Columbia River. This is a non trivial question as there are four bridges, each offering advantages and disadvantages. We settled on The Dalles Bridge as it is toll free and had no width warnings nor is it subject to high winds as at least one other bridge is. The Maryhill bridge had been recommended, but it would have meant not driving any of the Washington side of the river. The final decision of where to spend the night was left open.

With Carol at the wheel for the first two hour shift, we pulled out of the Beaverton Elks Lodge at 9:15 AM and negotiated our way through Sunday traffic in Portland to I 84. Once clear of the city we decided that the first Historic drive seemed to add too many miles and the prospect of significant mountain driving, we decided to pass and stay on the freeway as the views were quite beautiful from that road. Further along at Bridal Veil Falls we exited onto the Historic Road and made our way to Wahkeenah Falls for a brief stop along the road and then 1/4 mile further to Multnomah Falls where Carol was able to pull into a turnout that was large enough for the coach and car to be off the road. I am not posting pictures because there are many on the web taken by people with better equipment and time to wait for the rain to stop and people to get out of their way. If you come this way, don’t miss these stops. Ignore the rain and the cold, that is the way most people will see these sights.

We returned to the freeway eventually, some of those bridges were so narrow that Carol had to take the middle of the road, the lanes are not as wide as our coach – a legal 103”. At Cascade Locks we decided to leave the freeway and get a view of the locks and stop for lunch on board. The view was not to be. The only apparent access road has a 12’ height limit sign and we were not about to see if maybe they meant 12’3” which is our “official” height. We parked in front of the library and had lunch before changing drivers. My turn!

We decided to take another nine mile side trip on the Historic Road from Mosier to Rowena. The names are not important unless you want to track us on Google Maps or Google Earth. Although there was a general warning about vehicles over 50 feet long not being appropriate, we pressed on. In those nine miles the road climbed high above the river, maybe 2,000 feet and then descended a series of switchbacks and corkscrews that were really breathtaking. This was all done at speeds less than 20 mph. There was a bicycle group on the road, fortunately going the other way or I might have had to pull over to let them pass. After our return to I 84 we were content to continue on to The Dalles (yes that is an intentional T in “The” It is not Dalles it is The Dalles) where we left I 84 for good and Oregon as well as we crossed over to Washington. We also left the rain and chill behind as we drove on to the Yakima Valley where they claim 300 sunny days a year.

Our last decision of the day was where to stay the night. We are low on propane so we wanted a place that could fill our tank, we are cheapskates with many discount arrangements so it had to belong to one of those and after the friendly Elks parking lot we really wanted someplace with a view. The Yakama Reservation (in the Yakima Valley – go figure) has a large RV park that met all of our requirements. We pulled in and were greeted by a groundskeeper who said the office was closed, but we could take a space and settled up in the morning. So here we sit with no idea what we plan on doing in the morning, but we know it will either be interesting and fun or it will be chores and such on the coach that have been ignored for the past month.

I hope you enjoyed riding along. The four hours of driving encompassed a day of seven hours from departure to arrival. Not really tiring and our favorite way to cover ground.

Two Air Museums and a Chamber Concert

2011-04-08T13:31:00.001-04:00

The short version is while staying at Coyote Rock RV Park south of Lincoln City we drove north and toured the Tillamook Air Museum which is housed in a blimp hangar that is a remnant from WW II – it is LARGE! It held nine blimps for servicing at once. There were two of these hangars.

While driving from Lincoln City to Portland we stopped in McMinnville at the Evergreen Air and Space Museum. The major attraction is The Spruce Goose, the largest wooden airboat ever built. It is as large as a 747 (of which there is one forming the roof of water park!) It wingspan is 20 feet longer than a football field. A DC 3 is on the floor tucked in under a wing between the sponson and the body with room to spare. There is also a P 38 WW II twin boom fighter. I have read extensively about this plane and this is the first I remember ever seeing.

When we arrived at the Beaverton OR Elks Lodge #1989 We started looking for tickets to the Altenberg Trio which was playing at Lincoln Performance Hall at Portland State University. Although we could not reach the box office we went on in to town, in heavy traffic 15 minutes, and located the hall and found a place for Thai dinner nearby. When we returned to the hall it was filling with people and we were able to get seats together, way up near the back, but the hall is so good we were not bothered by the distance. It was a wonderful concert, Beethoven Trio in D Major, “The Ghost”; Martin Trio of Popular Irish Melodies (it is in French actually); and after the intermission Brahms Trio in B Major Op 8. Take a deep breath. From large and small airplanes to large music in a day with a stop off at an Elks Lodge bar for small talk and to register for the RV park.

The longer version: It has hardly stopped raining, yet. We had a delightful dry day, mostly, on our run up to Tillamook. In addition to the Air Museum we took in the Tillamook Cheese Factory self guided tour. I remember why I do not usually eat cheese made in vast quantities. It is all very consistent and has no surprise and no great flavor. They do not even age it beyond 4 years, and very little of that.

As we circled the scenic loop we parked the car and took a 2 1/2 mile hike on a trail that eventually brought us out onto the beach for the return to the car. We stopped along the road to watch hang gliders doing their thing including landing almost on top of me. A bit further along we came to one of the shortest lighthouses ever at 25 feet high. We returned to the coach tired and ready to have dinner and read.

On a previous day we came out of our campground and instead of turning left to get back to 101 to explore the coast, we turned right and circled inland on a 25 mile search for excitement or least something interesting to see that was not in the guide books. We founded a hidden Elks Lodge when I pulled off the road to let traffic through and found I had turned into Toledo Lodge facility. Who knew! We also found another railroad museum tucked away on Siletz. It is a leftover from the logging era and the docents may be too. On yet another day we took a walk on the beach from North Jetty Road in Lincoln City. Carol wanted me to get a photo of her with a wave washing over the toe of her boots. I was using her camera. I will leave the rest to your imagination, the photo I took does not show the aftermath as I was running up to help her regain her footing.

More about our explorations in Portland in my next post.

Great Theater, Great Friends

2011-03-30T00:24:00.001-04:00

but first an update on the wetness. Had a dry sunny day in Crescent City, CA at Village Camper Inn. Please note that did not last 24 hours. I got up on the roof and caulked everything in sight, again, with a fresh tube of caulk. Then I determined that we had a lot of humidity in the coach from showering and cooking, Carol has been making some wonderful soups! We have not been venting thoroughly. Added some vigorous ventilation to our program and the carpet is drying out.

Slow forward a week (we do nothing very fast here) and I set up at the Elks RV Park in Florence, OR only to find that the satellite would not work. After a lengthy discussion it was determined that the LNB must have given up the ghost to weather and vibration and needs to be replaced. Now all I have to do is figure out what an LNB is and install or have installed a new one.

Enough! After our day with Jerry and Anna Lee in Sacramento they were able to get tickets for us to join them at Ashland Shakespeare Festival. We reserved an adjacent RV camping spot and met them on Friday, the 25th of March. Their journey over the mountains was moderately more harrowing than ours as they had to delay a day to avoid 70 mph winds and snow in the passes. We just crept in from the coast. There are stories to be told but I will save them.

Friday night we went with Anna Lee and Jerry and their long time friends Ann and Jerry (you are not seeing double) to The Oregon Cabaret Theater to a performance of “The ‘Daly’ News” the story of a father’s weekly newsletter throughout World War II to his 4 sons serving in various branches of the military. The music was written by Gregg Coffin who has written many things we have seen performed at GEVA Theater in Rochester. It was a wonderful performance and foretold great theater to come.

Saturday, after a wonderful brunch of Challa French Toast prepared by Jerry on their coach –hmm brunch for 6, that must violate some RVing rule someplace – because it was raining we sat around and shared stories with Jerry and Jerry and Ann and Anna Lee, of course by now Ann Carol was using her full name just to be part of the pattern. Nothing to be done with “Paul”. Jerry and Ann left late morning for home. No one needed lunch so we went off to a 1:30 performance of “Language Archive.” This is a wonderful play and the performances were superb. The theater, a relatively new theater, has a thrust stage with audience on three sides. The staging and lighting were really well done and furniture seemed to appear and disappear without distracting. Dinner was the four of us at Arbor House in Talent, that is a town about half way between Ashland and where we were staying in Phoenix, OR. OMG, I seldom use that expression, but in this case it is needed. Each item was beautifully prepared and flavored. Carol and I ordered curry dishes and they brought out samplers so we could adjust the level of spice to our desire! None of us had ever seen that before.

Sunday the Braunsteins were off to brunch with local friends they had met on a cruise so Carol and I waited out the rain and headed into Ashland for a light lunch and some light shopping, before settling into the large theater for “To Kill a Mocking Bird” performed from the only stage version approved by Harper Lee. The stage was practically bare and yet it was very dynamic. Shadows on a scrim gave us Boo’s house and the mad dog and other visitations and they changed in perspective as the actors approached or retreated. The cast was excellent the three children were really very good. It was hard to believe that the boy playing Dill was only 9 years old. Because of the children the performances are only during the day and only 40, so seats were at a premium.

After a lovely ethnic dinner at Sesame with the Braunsteins and their friends we returned to the theater to find it transformed for a modern day version of “Measure for Measure”. The lines were pure Shakespeare, even those in Spanish and the mariachi band of three women certainly brought a different approach to the play. The standing ovation at the end was certainly well deserved. Well entertained and exhausted, we returned to our coach for a good nights sleep to the sound of rain on the roof.

As we set up for departure it was not raining, yet. As near as I can figure it has rained on us some part of every day from March 8 to today, March 29. Rain is forecast for tomorrow, the 30th, as well. I am not complaining but the moss on my head will need trimming soon.

And yet further up the coast

2011-03-22T01:47:00.001-04:00

We have been traveling up the wet coast. That is not a typo! It has rained some part of every day for the past week since we left Sacramento. After we finally got the exhaust repaired in Ft Bragg, we settled in to a rainy day and as I approached the closet in the back of the bedroom I found myself with a cold wet foot. We drove on up to Eureka and the Eureka Elks Lodge with its 32 space campground in a separate parking lot for RVs. When we arrived the sun was out and things were drying off so up I went onto the roof with the usual repair materials all set to put and end to that nasty leak. I know I closed up every crack and possible opening, but the rain resumed as did the leak. Every time we have had a dry period I have applied new treatments to different area to no avail. Today on return from touring Crescent City with its tsunami devastated harbor and then driving up into the Stout Redwood Grove on the edge of town and hiking among the giant redwoods in high top rubber boots, I stretched a tarp over an area I think is the source of the infiltration. (In case you didn’t notice I am practicing my run on sentences)

I have a call into a mobile RV repairman, but he didn’t return the call today and my hope for his help is limited. I am frustrated, but I know I will get this fixed too, some day. Of course it would help if we could get someplace where it does not rain several hours of every day.

The Towlers, founders and majority owners of City Newspaper in Rochester were reading this blog and realized that we were very near a friend of theirs from the Independent Newspaper world and they sent us email with phone numbers and such. Wow are we ever grateful. Kat and Doug picked us up at our coach in the Elks lot and walked us in to the Sunday Elks Brunch, they too are Elks. Later that day with their invitation, we drove to Ferndale, a Victorian Village they call home, to see it and to pay another visit with them. It is not necessary to replay the details, Carol may need to write a book to do that. Suffice it to say we will delight in calling them friends and hope to come back this way when there is slightly less rain. March is usually wet and this March has been particularly rainy. We do understand that wet and cool are normal here year round.

We are enchanted with Humboldt County, although we did learn that others are enchanted by the good marijuana crop that is grown here, now largely legal. We walked into a couple of shops advertising glass blowing. Yup they blow glass, into bongs of all sorts, sizes and shapes. I remember when we knew these as head shops. Am I showing my age? We backed out and decided that we really weren’t interested in blown glass any more at least until and if we get to Seattle.

Further up the Coast

2011-03-18T13:09:00.001-04:00

We took a leisurely drive up the coast from Mendocino to Eureka where we found another very nice Elks Lodge with a 32 space RV campground adjacent to the Lodge. Full hookups yet and cable and WiFi. Having found this we next had to figure out why we might want t o be in Eureka for a while. First we just had to take the Avenue of the Giants which parallels US 101 through the Humboldt Redwood Forest. You have all seen pictures of the trees and the road. It was cloudy and rainy and we did not have a large format camera to do justice to the majesty of the trees. Carol tried and may post some of her images. I took some pictures but nothing you want to see.

As we were sitting at lunch I received email from one of my bulletin boards that there has been a major slide across PCH 1 between Carmel and Big Sur. That is called a long term closure. Sure glad we are well north of that. We have seen many places along the way where slides have been cleared from the road and a couple where the road is routed around places where it was undercut and falling into the sea or a gorge.

We located the local Jewish Community and will be attending Friday night service and pot luck dinner – sound familiar? Not sure about Torah Study as it starts at 8 AM and runs up to 3 hours!! Then of course there is Megillah Reading Saturday night. Brief explanation, we read the Book of Esther to commemorate Haman’s attempt to destroy the Persian Jews and his eventual downfall. The celebration includes food (what else?) drink, of course, and lots of noise. Much fun for the children, and the adults.

Eureka is a wonderfully preserved Victorian area and the buildings are really great to see. Add to that the Lumbering Convention at the Fairgrounds which we will drop in on and there is a lot to do and see.

Written one day later: It is raining again and still, Noah isn’t until the Fall, but . . .

Too Much Excitement

2011-03-12T12:40:00.001-05:00

We retraced to the coast and CA 1 north on the 101 to 128 to 1. As we progressed the noise level from the engine began to rise. Suddenly we were driving with a very loud opening in the exhaust system. This is illegal, unpleasant and potentially dangerous as fumes began to leak into the coach. We opened windows and continued to press on to our campsite in Caspar Beach RV Park just north of Mendocino. As we drove I got on the phone and made arrangements for a repair requiring us to make a week long stop to wait for an appointment. There is only one place capable of doing this work along the coast and the drive back to a larger city on 101 is not to be thought of.

Fortunately Mendocino has been in our dreams for 31 years. That long ago we made a trip to San Francisco for a New England Life meeting and then stayed on for ten days to drive down to Carmel and then up the Central Valley to Napa and on to the coast with a stop at Harbor House in Elk. The plan was to check in at Elk and then drive to Mendocino and for the day and see the galleries and tour the town. We never made it because our rental car had a flat tire as we were pulling into Elk and the arrangements to fix it ate up our travel time. We waited a long time and it is worth the wait. But we did arrive with yet another vehicular malfunction.

We love the location of the RV park situated just above the beach in a sheltered cove with high headlands to the north and south. Remember that! We toured down to Elk and further on the Pt Arena and refreshed our memories, Harbor House has not changed and iota. The garage now sports a cafe and coffee shop in one wing and the old junkers in the field beyond that Carol lovingly documented 31 years ago are all gone. There is also a wonderful artists collective gallery that we spent a long time wandering through and congratulating ourselves that we have given up collecting beautiful objects for there certainly were many to choose from.

Friday got off to an early start. At 4 AM our neighbor was knocking on the door. He had a NOAH weather alert radio and the first Tsunami alert had been sounded. We were not real coherent, but got online to see what the ruckus was about. I do not need to tell you what story greeted us. By 5 AM the local fire department had two and three trucks in the campground at various times. They spread the word that we were in the Tsunami Warning area and needed to evacuate by 6 AM. I got some clothes on and went outside to stow the awning I had just deployed, remove the windshield cover, put the bikes on the car, put away all the outdoor toys like the chairs, grill, and other conveniences we deploy when we are going to stay for awhile. Carol was busy putting the interior into travel mode, something we usually allow a couple of hours for as we do it slowly over breakfast starting before bed the night before. By 6 we were hooked up and ready to roll. We rolled all of 8 miles to a gas station located on the high ground by the 1 where I topped off the tank and got permission to hunker down. If the exhaust had not needed repair we might have gotten more creative, but level, high and safe seemed to satisfy our needs and so there we stayed for the next ten hours until they reopened the road to the RV Park. We got a lot of reading done and many phone calls made. We still have our repair appointment for Monday at Jacks Muffler, another early day.

Where was I?

2011-03-09T01:21:00.001-05:00

Oh yes, driving up the coast road. The trip from Monterey through San Francisco and over the Golden Gate Bridge was uneventful. It is a beautiful drive and the route was straight forward and traffic was mild. Carol got to drive through San Francisco and over the bridge as well as on into Sacramento. We used Thursday night to get some work done as well as some reading.

Friday We were picked up by Annalee and Jerry Braunstein. We met in Vermont at a FMCA Rally and I got friendly with them especially on an American Volkssport Association walk in Burlington. With them we toured the Capital – check off California. Then Jerry wanted to take us out to the delta area and lunch at “Al the Wops” in a Chinese Town that was built in 1915 to house the Chinese after an earlier town had burned down. The site provides some history of the Chinese in this part of California.

As five o’clock approached we returned to Gee 2 to prepare to drive to Davis to see niece Minda and her fiancée Will Fertman. We had a lovely dinner in their small grad student apartment just off the UC Davis Campus. We also spent Saturday with them. They chose a route to Sonoma and Minda had chosen a wonderful restaurant “The Fig and the Girl” for dinner. Carol and I treated and the cheese plate Will selected was wonderful – if a bit skimpy by his standards and the wine I chose was also pretty good. We dined well and fortunately we had left the car a couple of miles away so we had a nice walk to recover from the dinner and permit me to burn off the wine to be able to drive. As if we had not bought enough at the Davis Farm market before leaving for Sonoma, we had to go to the Sacramento Market and Minda joined us or the shopping on Sunday. Then she had to get the car back to Will for his work and she needed to get some work done as well.

The weather was not wonderful so I spent a lot of time at the computer catching up with personal finances. It is amazing how far behind it is possible to get even though I pride myself on checking in on this stuff daily. I missed some things that will cause me some aggravation for a few weeks. Nothing big, but I HATE to pay any interest charges.

We stayed on Monday and after yet some more grocery shopping, we went to the California State Railroad Museum. It claims to be the biggest in the country and second biggest in the world. I won’t argue. I love the size range from the Front Cab 4-8-8-2 articulated monster with 6,000 horsepower at 40 MPH to the Z scale models (track gauge is 1/4”) it is all there. Carol expressed doubt since the weather was chilly and the thought of a couple of hours wandering in a train yard was not appealing. It is not like that, they built a Roundhouse with a turntable to support the exhibit and everything on display was indoors! We loved the RPO (no not that RPO – Railway Post Office) with a docent “Jim” who had worked the line from Chicago to Sacramento for two years. The sleeper was set up to rock like was going down the road and there were flashing lights and the sounds of rail travel as we talked with the docent on board.

Back to the coach for one of Carol’s very creative dinners and off down the road on Tuesday toward Mendocino, more twisty roads. I got to drive mostly freeway, Carol took over the wheel as we left the 101 for 128 through the redwoods and up over the coastal mountains back to the 1. We had both noticed that the engine was getting louder and as we started to mention it to each other, it began to roar. Clearly something in the exhaust system has broken. It remains to be seen what and how long the repair will take. That is tomorrow’s project and we are set to stay in Mendocino on the beach for a week while we get that all in place.

We have great wifi and no phone service in the RV park.

Driving up the Coast Road

2011-03-04T01:25:00.001-05:00

Among the many experiences I have read about on RV forums, driving the Pacific Coast Highway aka PCH aka 1 is an experience some chose to avoid and many relish. We have driven from Los Angeles to San Francisco north on the PCH over the last week. It is a wonderful experience. We have driven through flat agricultural areas north of Monterey and we have driven rugged coast line through Ragged Point where I swear I was looking at the brake lights on my tow’d on the switchbacks.

Although a mile here and a mile there are challenging driving, for the most part it is an exercise in paying attention to the road and keeping one’s speed in check on the descents. Our time in Monterey was fun and there are hikes we did not take because of limited time. We did two major undertakings in the one full day we had. We went to the Steinbeck Center in Salinas and after lunch we drove down to Carmel and drove the 17 mile circuit.

Approaching the Steinbeck Center the highway passes through several miles of agricultural land, all of it in production. As the GPS announces we are two miles from the Center, there is no sign that the fields will ever end. Then rising from the fields are the buildings of a moderate sized city. The highway becomes Main Street and then the Center is blocking the road. There is a forced turn into the parking garage and we were taken aback as we had our bikes on the roof and needed more than the promised 7 1/2 feet of head room. Fortunately the first level of the garage was not very full and had plenty of headroom. If you have ever read a Steinbeck book or seen one of his play/movies this is a must see history of him and his times. If you have not read his work or seen his plays/movies this is a must see history of him and you will want to go out and read him. The one real memento of his life is Rocinante, the pickup truck with camper mounted on it that he used for his 10,000 mile tour of the United States as he wrote Travels with Charley. For RVers this is a must read, and better than the Long Long Trailer (but not as funny).

The 17 Mile Circuit in Carmel was established as a horse drawn in the early days and has been maintained to provide access to the private playground of the very rich that is Carmel. The route along the coast includes the Lone Cypress and many other great overlooks and opportunities to walk down to the water. We did it on our trip out here in 1980 and it does not seem to have changed in the least.

Our route up the coast was driven by my desire to drive the motorhome over The Golden Gate Bridge. This took us many miles out of the way, the Bay Bridge would have been a much shorter route. I discussed this drive with some California RVers I met at the Monterey Elks Lodge and they approved of my decision suggesting that we keep to the middle lane as much as possible. This is the most wonderful of the Lodges we have seen yet. The fitness room was in active use all the time it was open from 6 AM until 9 PM. The camping was comfortable along an edge of the parking lot with adequate 30 amp and water pressure and there is an on site sanitary dump as well. I was greeted warmly in the bar and met several members and touring RVers. If we are in the area again we most certainly will take advantage of their three day camping limit. The drive was wonderful and Carol got to drive the coach over the bridge while I took pictures of the fog.

Catching Up

2011-03-02T01:13:00.001-05:00

I last wrote and posted about all the failures we have experienced. Since then we have had none of our own and the car windshield has been replaced and there is one small screw that needs to be driven back into place when I remember to do when not traveling down the road.

We spent nine days in Dockweiler our least preferred RV Park both for cost and location under the LAX departure runways. Its redeeming value is relative closeness to our son Yechiel’s home and its proximity to the beach. We chose a space (#81) as far down the camping area as we could get from the entrance and the runways. I am not sure how much it helped, but we slept, mostly. After 5 days at the Burbank Elks it was quite a change.

The Dan Goldberg family flew in on Wednesday, late and we met them at the beach Thursday morning. They played there until it school was out for the local family and then we had dinner at Miriam and Yechiel’s and everyone crumped. Friday we took the Virginia family to Labrea Tar Pits Page Museum and LACMA (Los Angles County Museum of the Arts. Then we settled in for Shabbat. Saturday we gathered at Miriam and Yechiel’s for the day, with some time at the park to run off Shabbat Lunch. Sunday was an expedition in two cars to San Pedro, the port of LA where we saw shipping and toured the museum and rode the Red Trolley and thought we wore everyone out. True for the parents and grandparents, not apparent for the boys. We wrapped it all up on Monday, President’s Day, by breaking the RVer’s myth of 6 for drinks, dinner for 4, sleeps 2. We had 10 for play on the beach and drinks for 6, dinner was grilled vegetables. I was at my new Weber Baby Q grill for 90 minutes grilling for the gang of 10 (and some burgers made from meat carried from Virginia for us carnivores). It was too cold once the sun set to sit out so we all ate on board. Lots of fun. Oh yes, sunset in a clear sky on the ocean horizon treated us to a “green flash” (you could look it up or follow this link). This was a first for Carol and most others, I had seen it many years ago from the top deck of our boat in the Galapagos.

One last item to report from the LA visit. We stayed on an extra day to attend “Poetry Cafe” at the kids school. When I tell you we sat through 125 kids reciting their own poetry and were disappointed only that it ended, you will understand how exciting an event this was. Of course Avtalyon and Azriel were “performing” and they were divine.

The route from LA was north on PCH (Pacific Coast Highway), THE ONE. We made our first overnight stop in Santa Barbara, actually about 25 miles out of town up in the mountains at Cachuma Lake Reserve. It is a lovely spot worth more time to explore, but the weather was dreadful and we were spending time with Bob and Joyce Herman. Although we know each other from Rochester, we have deepened our friendship with meeting at the extremes of the continent. We actually ran into them at an overlook in Nova Scotia a few years back when I noticed a car with NY plates and the license frame was from Hoselton, a Rochester area dealer. Then we saw them. This time we knew they were in Santa Barbara and called ahead to make plans. Several good restaurants later and one incredible party and we were on our way north again.

For the record, Carol and I went to Solvang when we first got there and found our selves in looking for a decent restaurant among hordes of Greyhounds (the dogs were in town for a convention). There were none at Root 246. This is a superb dining place, not cheap! The staff were wonderful and food preparation was beyond expectation, Bradley Ogden the Chef heard that Carol is a vegetarian and came over to discuss the menu with her. I have never seen beef short ribs served without the ribs and with such wonderful sides. With Joyce and Bob we had lunch at a wonderful Mexican restaurant in Santa Barbara and decided to put off dinner until after Shabbat service at Bnai Brith Cong. Rabbi Stephen Cohen is the son of Jules Cohen who among other things was my boy scout troop leader back in the ‘50’s. He is also a fine cardiologist. Dinner was at Cold spring Tavern. The meal was ok, the atmosphere was wonderful and the road was unspeakable. We drove out on the mountain road that lead to the campground we were staying at and then turned off on Old Stage Coach Road, a left over from the stage coach days. It twisted and turned down the mountain side and the rain and fog just made the drive more interesting. I braced with a scotch before dinner to prepare for the drive back up the road and found the main road shrouded in fog for several miles as we continued to twist our way to Cachuma.

We found that courtesy of the Hermans we had been invited to a party at Gail and Peter’s home up a canyon road. The jazz trio was wonderful and the guests and host and hostess had all lead fascinating lives and we made several new friends who I hope we will see again when we pass this way in the next years.

Another day another hundred miles as we worked our way up THE ONE to Morro Bay where we stayed at Morro Bay State Park. It is a lovely park with great surroundings and the State of California has made it almost unaffordable. The senior rate for water and electric is $48 cash or check only! and the final indignity was that a tree fell on the power line as we were setting up and the power was out from 1:30 to 11:30 PM. Carol ad I walked into the town, about a mile and wandered through the shops. This is a nifty town and in better weather the hiking and boating would be a lot of fun. The next day we set off to Hearst Castle, a state historic park. We took Tour 1 and it was well worth it, for that matter it was far beyond worth it. The guide alone was worth the price of admission, she was wonderful and her tail gunner was also a lot of fun. If you are coming this way, or even close, do miss this tour.

Now we are in Monterey at yet another Elks Lodge. This one looks like a nice country club although you do want to follow their directions getting in, we got turned around and taking a left turn into the lot required that we disconnect the car in mid turn, never fun.

I’ll post now and write more soon.

Failures, mostly small

2011-02-17T14:59:00.001-05:00

This trip has been characterized more than any other by a collection of problems ranging from moderate to trivial. I will detail them here for my own record and for my amusement as well. Most of these were not caused by anything either of us did.

DVD player - would not work when we sat down to watch a movie. Tried all the available alternatives and could not get it to play through the TV as it had the day before and we had not moved or anything. Walked across the street to Frys Electronics and bought a cable to connect the computer to the TV and while there picked up a Blue Ray Disk player, works great. Oh plugged the “broken” DVD Player into the rear TV directly and it worked there. Maybe my problem lies elsewhere in the distribution circuit that came with the coach, but it passes though Cable and Antenna and Satellite – see next.

Satellite - bought a DVR to replace the simple receiver we had so I could skip commercials and record ahead. Although it seems to work fine I have not been able to line up on a satellite since connecting it. I did rebuild the antenna base but I could not get a satellite before I did that either.

Carol’s six year old Lumix Camera – the screen went black and the camera would only take pictures of black. Tried everything to no avail and the camera is due to be replaced anyhow. Ordered a Canon G 12 for delivery on Friday, the Lumix resumed working!

Reading Light Paul’s Chair - the switch broke, they do that. Found and installed a replacement

Reading Light Carol’s bedside – the screws that secure it to the wall jiggled loose. Inserted wooden toothpicks for filler and reinstalled

CPAP Machine – a show stopper! When I went to set it up after moving from Burbank to Dockweiler it would not work. Asked Kathy to go into our house and pack up the house CPAP and ship it to me at great expense – next day Fed EX.

Tail lights on Car in tow mode – endless problem getting them to work after we connect the car to the coach. Much fussing results in making it happen each time. I have tried many approaches, but jiggling wires seems to resolve it.

Broken windshield – took a stone in the car windshield while driving on US 95 north of Yuma, it extended in to a crack that I have not called in yet. It is not in the drivers line of sight.

Slow leak left front tire car – I kept adding air to the tire from Big Bend to Yuma, finally pulled into a BigO tire place where they pulled out a roofing nail and patched the tire. They did the work gratis and the guy who did the work got a nice tip. He saved an expensive new tire for us.

Car horn – stopped working in LA traffic one day. Had a mechanic look at it and he reported both horns were burned out. I began search for new horns and was about to buy at NAPA. In frustration I leaned on the horn button one more time, it is working (was working yesterday – haven’t been in the car yet today)

Vent for Furnace (screw loose) – just nonsense and the screw was installed crooked from the factory.

Propane Detector – It is currently disconnected as it was sounding off every time we stopped to set up for camping. Not sure what the cause, but it certainly was not propane leaking. I thought it might be engine gasses, but it is not supposed to be a CO detector and I have one of those that it not in alarm status.

Latch on drawer rear vanity – trivial issue. Had to remove the part on the drawer and turn it over. Works fine now.

All of this says that if you want the pleasure of RVing you had best be a bit of a mechanic and be prepared to either fix things yourself or wait to find someone who will do it and be prepared to pay.

Please be aware I am not complaining. I suspect that if I added up all the trivial and not so trivial things I fix while in our house in Rochester the list would not be any shorter, just different.

California on my Mind

2011-02-15T14:31:00.001-05:00

Although we actually have been in California since we pulled into Senator Wash on February 1, we are in a very different place since we arrived on the coast on the 9th, 5 days ago. Here is a recap of the situation in Los Angeles. Our son, Yechiel, is in Massachusetts for training at his company’s home office. Dan and family are headed to Los Angeles this week on Wednesday and Yechiel will return on Friday. We came in to spend time with Miriam and the boys so she would not have a full week of coping alone. We will all be together from Friday through Monday, Presidents Day. We will disperse shortly thereafter.

For the moment we are camping at Burbank Elks Lodge #1497 not far from Bob Hope Airport. As I stare out the windshield I am looking at Yahoo headquarters just across the commuter rail tracks less than a block away. This IS California and the lodge is nonsmoking, unlike the previous ones we have visited. It also has a nice fitness room and decent showers so the lack of sanitary sewer where we are parked is not a problem. I was concerned because they only have connections for three coaches and I assumed there would be a high demand for space. Not so. There is another coach that arrived after us and there has been an empty slot right along. Who knew!

We have spent much of our time with Miriam and the boys. Sunday we all went to Santa Monica Pier to play in the sand and take in the activities on the pier. As we got out of the car in the sunshine looking out at the Pacific a fog bank rolled in obscuring the ocean and the pier from view. We ate our lunch on the sand, but the damp chill soon drove us and most of the beach goers to find an alternate place to play. We went on to the pier. I invited the boys to ride the Roller Coaster with me and Avtalyon agreed so off I went to buy tickets. As we approached the line to board he decided the “brakes are too loud” and refused to take another step in the direction of the line. Carol and I got to ride together, something that seldom happens as she generally finds the whipping motion too hard on her neck, this is a “gentle” coaster and we both enjoyed the ride.

Last night we went to dinner at the Hillcrest Country Club on Pico with our friends from the JDC Board Etty and Claude Arnall. We are blessed to meet so many people in so many different ways and find wonderful friends along the way.

When we were at the Northeast Regional FMCA Rally in Vermont 18 months ago we met the Braunsteins and they gave us an audio book they were done with (12th Card – Deaver). We sent along a thank you when we finished the book and now it looks like we may be joining them In Ashland Oregon for the Shakespeare Festival at the end of March. The calendar fills even though we resist making plans too far ahead. Somehow if you want to do some of these things it is necessary to actually commit way ahead. Not real happy about having a schedule, but it it the only way we seem to get to some of things we want to do and some of the people we want to see.

To wrap up this post, today we went to the Huntington Library and Art Collection. OMG!!! We had four hours there and barely scratched the surface. We will get back on future trips to the left coast. Glad the kids are here so we HAVE to get here.

Elks to Elks to BLM to BLM with a WalMart Stop Too

2011-02-04T11:28:00.001-05:00

This has been some journey across NM in a day and then to an SKP Coop to Two Elks Lodges and on to Quartzite and then Senator Wash, both of the latter are BLM, thank you US taxpayers.

From Sierra Vista we cruised through El Paso and made a stop at Camping World at milepost 0 on our way out of Texas. There we had routine service and rolled out to Walmart in Las Cruces, NM for the night. With an early start we crossed NM and rolled through eastern Arizona climbing the Dragoon Pass on I 10 (you really must do this drive and stop at the rest area at the top – it is gorgeous) and descending into Benson where the Escapee Saguaro Coop is located. We stayed there a couple of days so we could pay a visit to the Pima Air and Space Museum which has been growing on the eastern edge of Tucson for the past 10 years. Too many planes, too many pictures, egad what a collection.

Onward to Casa Grande and the Elks Lodge there. The plan was to meet Bob and Pat Hogg who were staying near by in a Western Horizons resort. The lodge parking lot was fine. There were no utilities, but we had come in expecting none and that worked out fine. We could not spend any time in the lodge as it was very smoky. We met Pat and Bob and had a pleasant Happy Hour at their place. The next day they picked up up and we went to Boyce Thompson Botanical Garden where we spent most of a very lovely day exploring the grounds. That night we went out to dinner at Eva’s Mexican to celebrate Pat’s birthday, a big one they noted. After fond farewells and we will see you soon, who knew how soon, we set off on our separate headings. We all knew we were headed for Quartzite, but without plans who could tell when.

We drove the short distance to Phoenix, actually Scottsdale, where we settled into another Elks Lodge that offered water and electric and had a sanitary dump on site. Site 6, where we landed by default, did not have a functioning water spigot so I connected across to another site with a spare spigot using my new replacement 50 foot extension hose. Promptly at 11 PM the power went off and we were on battery again for the night. As I thought about firing up the generator for breakfast power came back on by magic. This was repeated a couple of nights later, although by then I had learned the location of the submaster breaker that was taking down half the sites. It was cold and we were all running electric heaters and water heaters, oops!

We located Lennie and Judie Gross, members of Chavurat Yehudim chapter of FMCA and had a fun lunch with them. By now we had contacted other Rochester people we knew in the area and between gallery visits and other sight seeing we had dinner with Judy and Harold Samloff after a visit to their home in Happy Valley and went to dinner at Tom and Mary Markusen’s home in Cave Creek, beyond the northern end of Scottsdale. The views from both of these homes are exquisite. Mountains, valleys, plains are all visible from these wonderful sites. Watching the sun set from Markusen’s was a wonderful experience and the birds enjoying their natural setting were also a joy to see. The dinner was wonderful and the company even more so.

Back to Scottsdale Elks Lodge and a different reality for the night and then a day of shopping in Scottsdale old town before setting out for Quartzite. I won’t trouble you with the history of the place again. Suffice it to say we found a BLM short term visitor’s area 3 mile north of town (if you can call it that) on US 95 called Hi Jolly. It is named for an Arab camel herder who herded camels for the US Army in the area. The routine is simple, pull off the road and stop to pick up a registration form that can be used to track your time on site, limit 14 days. Drive in until you find a place you want to stay, off the road – hard to determine really – and stop there.

A call to the Hoggs located them in Rose RV in the thick of the action. We went over for Happy Hour and agreed to meet in the morning to check out the vendors in the Big Tent a couple of hundred yards or more long and half as wide. After that we gathered at our coach in Hi Jolly for - you guessed it - Happy Hour. I will not document all the “stuff” we acquired. I do have much more solar capability now than I had going in and some other items that are almost as important . The solar is great! I only run the generator to support cooking in the convection/microwave or toasting English Muffins. Those resistance heaters will eat a battery in nothing flat. Everything else runs off the panels by day and the batteries they have charged by night. It is very quiet and very fuel efficient.

Onward to Senator Wash one of our favorite desert places. We will stay here until the 9th or so when we head for LA and our family reunion.

I will post some pictures for this period later. I want to get this up and the pictures are on my phone which is supporting my online activity. It is propped against the back TV set which is the only place I seem to get phone service in the coach today.

Big Bend Journal

2011-01-24T23:00:00.001-05:00

We left Austin as planned on Thursday, January 13, with our sights set on reaching Big Bend NP in two days. Our somewhat less then direct route lead us to an overnight in Sanderson, TX at the Canyon RV Park wedged between the Southern Pacific main line and US 90. It is self check in, self pay and we never did see the owner/operator, but we got to top off the freshwater tank and drain our holding tanks before entering Big Bend where there are no amenities in our chosen campground – Rio Grande Village. There is a full hookup campground adjacent but it is more than four times as expensive and is no more than a paved parking lot with hookups. We are on a spacious site with glorious views and the sound of generators, our own included, starting at 8 AM and silenced by 8 PM. Actually it is 9:15 as I write and I don’t hear any of them. My solar panel is doing the work of recharging the batteries now that breakfast is over.

We arrived on Friday and after setting up we took a bike ride to get an overview of the area. This park is huge. It is 50 miles from our camping area in the east to the western extreme of the park. Needless to say, we did not leave our immediate neighborhood in our brief bike ride. After greeting some neighbors and sitting out in the sunshine to read for a bit, we sat with the guide books and maps to plan our activities. Saturday morning greeted us with chill (40 degrees) and fog. Not wonderful, but we packed up lunch and a variety of clothing in the car along with binoculars, hiking sticks, bird book and who knows what else and set out for Chisos Basin. This is an area we had not explored at all in our trip here in 2005. The road from the Basin Junction is only 7 miles, but it climbs a pass to drop into the basin where there is motel lodging and restaurants for those who do not choose among the variety of camping possibilities. After wandering around a bit we retraced our steps to the Lost Mine trailhead. By this time the sky had cleared and the sun was bright, the temperature began to rise. We set out on this 4.8 mile round trip with gloves and three layers of clothing. As we climbed, and this trail had no letup as we climbed 1000 feet in 2.4 miles, we got warmer and stopped a couple of times to remove layers. As we neared the top of the climb I was regretting the jeans I was wearing, wishing I had worn lighter slacks or my pants with zip off legs. We had lunch at the top of the climb with views of the rugged land all around us. The traffic on the climb was light, we saw maybe half a dozen people descending as we climbed and when we reached the top there were only two guys having lunch. As we descended we saw more people climbing and wondered if they realized that there was no way they could reach the top and return before the light was gone. We spent about four hours on the trail including our lunch break.

We were grateful to return to the car and rest our legs. We had not been on any strenuous walks in a while and for myself, my legs were tired. We stopped at Grapevine Hills trailhead and after a few minutes walking in sand I begged off. Even though it was only a mile in I was tired and the light was fading.

Sunday morning dawned cloudy and chill. We had decided we would take on the Mule Ears Spring hike. It is a 3.8 mile round trip with a net elevation gain of 20 feet. However that NET does not give notice of several lengthy steep elevation changes along the way. We were still layered and had settled into hiking mode as we set out. Before we got there we passed Burro Spring Pour Off and the short trail was too tempting so we stopped and hiked into this box canyon to see the waterfall that you don’t want to see if there is water coming down. The canyon is a trap, once water starts flowing it will fill and there is no place to escape the flood.

All was dry!

Mule Ears gets its name legitimately, here is what it looks like from the trail:

We continued on to our target and began the hike into a spring that flows in the desert. We made one stop to shed layers and eat our lunch on the way in. We found the remains of the corral at a trail junction and followed around the wall to a short trail that lead to the spring which was flowing and had a population of frogs we could see and hear.

We concluded the day by continuing down the road to Santa Elena Canyon and hike to narrow of the canyon. This gap in the surrounding cliffs is cut by the Rio Grande River which is the border with Mexico at this point . It feels so narrow that it seems we could touch both sides at the same time. Although we had considered taking Old Maverick Road back to the main highway, the Volunteers had discouraged us and it would be dark by the time we got back to Gee 2 so we retraced our route and arrived at twilight.

Monday we decided to devote to the eastern end of the park, primarily Boquillas Canyon which defines the point at which the river departs Big Bend. We had explored this area thoroughly in 2005 when we last visited here, but felt it worth another trip in any event. The river is shallow and slow at this part of its course and there are many “informal” crossing points. These are used today by residents of Boquillas, on the Mexican side to set up little bodegas to sell their handcrafts.

They set them out on rocks with an honor jug and signs with prices. Purchases are discouraged by the Border Patrol and any goods bought this way are subject to confiscation. This does not seem to bother either sellers or buyers. We were carrying no money and thus avoided temptation.

After spending time along this beautiful canyon we retraced past the campground where we stopped for lunch and then went on to the Hot Spring. I put on a bathing suit and we walked in from the parking lot and met a small crowd seated in the remains of the hot spring house enjoying the spring. in 2005 the river was so high that the entire foundation was under water and it seemed dangerous to try to get on top of the vent. Now, with the river several feet lower, we could walk to the foundation and pick our way to a seat in the spring. Carol rolled up her slacks and joined me on the edge of the spring and we had a lively discussion with other travelers who had come to the spring.

This ended our time in Big Bend. In the morning we rolled out along the road to Study Butte and then we decided to take the road to Presidio. It was a lot of work driving this rollercoaster of a road in Gee2, but the scenery was well worth the 67 miles of extreme hills (15% grades) and tight turns. We stopped in Marfa long enough to pick up our mail and continued on to Sierra Blanca about which later.

In Austin – part 1

2011-01-09T13:35:00.001-05:00

Getting together with Leigh and Pat in Austin has become a regular event that Carol and I look forward to and plan on every time we pass anywhere near that delightful city. We really enjoy their company and they do know the neatest places to see and tour in the city they \both love. Later in this week we will get to share our love of Austin with friends from Rochester, the Poleshucks, who we will be meeting here.

Yesterday, Saturday January 8, was an example of the diversity of culture to be had in this city. We started at Flatbed Press, which is celebrating 20 years of fine art printing.

From there we went to the Austin Museum of Art where we saw many of the finished prints we had seen at Flatbed Press on display along with other interesting work. We did find the labeling and references to audio on phone to be out of synch with layout of the images. This was disconcerting to say the least. In one case the reviewer starts with the image with on the label and digresses to an image that is in a different room and much further along in the progression of show. Next stop was Arthouse at the Jones Center which was mostly about the newly reconstructed building which is a work of art unto itself.

This view is from the loft looking down on the second floor gallery space. There is a wall to the left (not seen) which is in sections and is hung from the rafters so the sections can be moved to create a wide variety of gallery spaces. We moved on to coffee and then some sales galleries and finally to an opening of work where I lost Carol. She was very struck by the first work she saw and immediately started talking with the artist about what she was seeing. It was some time before she got past the first room of this extensive gallery.

Dinner was high end at La Condesa, which I would highly recommend. The Duck in Mole was grand and the reports on the Scallops and other dishes were also excellent. Service was friendly without getting in the way and the atmosphere is a delight. We were sated and barely able to move so we decided to partake of the Austin scene in a neighborhood bar.

In addition to a good group of Texas musicians; Guitar, Bass Guitar, Pedal Steel Guitar and drums playing fun country western there were a lot of people playing a game of dominos that made no sense to us.

It is called 42 and we are going to have some instruction in the rules before we leave town. The story is at some point card gambling was banned so this game was devised to get around the prohibition.

We left early – about 11 PM – to get some sleep to prepare for another days.

Who’d a Thunk

2011-01-01T13:08:00.001-05:00

Weird wonderful strange News Years Eve in Texas.

In the Escapee Campground guide we noted that there was a special four hour New Years Eve Show at the Liberty Opry in Liberty Texas, a mere 45 miles down the road from where we are staying. Having not made any plans we thought it might be fun to try a very different experience. I called for tickets and was able to get two. The show started at 8 so we thought we ought to have a meal in Liberty.

Checking the internet for restaurants I found a few chains and one interesting sounding Mexican. When Carol called, she learned that they used lard rather than vegetable oil meaning there was no vegetarian option she could trust, not to mention I do not eat pork products. That left McDonalds, Subway or Chili’s as the only choices. So it was New Years Eve dinner at Chili’s, not our usual option, but we were able to find some reasonable choices and were not left hungry when we drove the rest of the way to Liberty Opry. The people watching was super.

The show bill can be found at www.libertyopry.com/schedule.htm

Here is the brief listing from that website:

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2010 - 8:00 P. M.-Midnight *
"NEW YEAR'S EVE" SHOW
STARRING:
HEATH SPENCER PHILIP
DONNA B "The Ebony Cowgirl"
JABBO CANNON
Jay Cantu
John Ray Baxter
Rick Burton
Jim Cox
Larry "Booger Lee" Etheridge
Kenneth "Little Red" Hayes
Andy Lingenfelter
Jerry Locke
Mike Loftin
Aaron Marshall
Marcy Rae
Ray Sowell

If those names do not mean anything to you don’t be surprised, they didn’t to us either. The top three are performers brought in for this show, and apparently many other shows during the year. The remainder are the Liberty Opry Band who play every week! Actually Jay Cantu is one of the owners of the Opry.

By 11 or so, as they were heading to the second intermission, the energy level was still rising. The mix was Country, Western, Gospel, 50’s Rock and later. Heath Spencer Phillips did Elvis and Roy Orbison and I can’t name the others. He leapt off the stage, he cavorted and by the time he finished a number we were all exhausted for him. Jabbo Cannon did a really great Johnny Cash as well as gospel (you could tell he was going to do gospel because he took off his hat). When we came back from the second intermission at 11:30, they were running 30 minutes behind schedule and started changing the playlist to try to hit Auld Lang Syne by midnight. They were only a minute or two late.

Following a stirring medley of Dixie/Battle Hymn of the Republic and something I didn’t recognize we were all invited to a buffet (Big Ugly Fat Fellows Eating To much according to the comic who was one according to his own testimony). It was 12:15 and we still faced a 45 minute drive home. We left and talked about the experience all the way home. The quality of the performance was incredible. Many of the musicians are older performers who have come off the road and settled in east Texas and this is how they keep active. Their years of performance showed in their presence and sound. There is a regular show every Saturday night and we agree that the next time we are in this part of Texas on a Saturday night we will make it to Liberty, unless it is an all Gospel night which Carol says we might still consider.

May this year be a good year for all of us.

Art in Houston (post 8 – I counted)

2010-12-31T12:13:00.001-05:00

We have been reading, listening to news and stories and doing a little wandering since we got to Rainbow’s End in Livingston, TX. We actually took the “official tour” finally after being here four or more times. The postal setup is amazing. As we were guided back through addition after addition Carol commented, “when do they build a second story” as she said that stairs appeared and we climbed up to the office area on the second floor, recently added. It is amazing what can be built with volunteer labor which is how all of Rainbow’s End has been built.

The name seems a bit trite, but it has a story. When the first member of the original group that founded the Escapees agreed to stay here to run the operation, they parked their old trailer, which they called Rainbow for the last time, hence Rainbow’s End.

We are using the DroidX to provide internet connection and it is fine for the most part. Bandwidth is limited and Verizon’s 2 GB limit may turn out to be a hassle, beyond that it is really nice not to have to depend on what each campground has to offer in the way of internet service, so long as there is phone service.

The last time we spent time here we went into Houston and saw many galleries, but somehow we never got to the Museum of Fine Art Houston (MFA H). I think we agreed there was no way we could do it justice at the end of a long day of many galleries. Yesterday we arrived at MFA H at 11:10, just after opening. We did not need our Memorial Art Gallery membership with its North American Reciprocal as it was a free day. Some time after 4 we staggered out, unable to stand on a gallery floor or to feast our eyes and brains on one more magnificent work of art. The collection of gold artifacts from Indonesia was our starting point and the show of Latin American art, much of it on loan was amazing and eye opening. The wonderful work by Fridah Kahlo and Diego Rivera seemed almost a second thought after seeing the more recent works by artists with whom we are much less familiar. The collection of impressionist work was breathtaking and worth a trip all by itself.

When we walked into the Chinese exhibit we were greeted with a mural that covers all the walls of the gallery. Check out this site to get an idea of what we saw. We have never heard of gunpowder art before. If you are near Houston, if you can find a reason to go to Houston, go to the MFA H.

Tonight, New Years Eve, we have tickets for Liberty Opry’s special show:

We have no idea what to expect, but it will be different from any other New years Eve we have spent. (no, none of those names mean a thing to us). Maybe I’ll provide a review another time.

Christmas Shabbos in Goose Island SP

2010-12-26T14:46:00.001-05:00

We have been here in Goose Island State Park since Monday, the 20th. The weather was wonderful until Friday night. We have taken a couple of bike rides and several nice walks in the park. Birds are plentiful and we even managed to get over to 4th Street to see the Whooping Cranes that seem to hang out there. Actually it is the block between 4th and 8th, when they numbered the place they were thinking in smaller blocks then currently exist, the next street is 12th. We were directed to this location last year during our stay.

There are no organized walks or activities at this time, after all it is that season. We are in site 105 right across from the designated Bird Host. We have seen Dennis, but he has been busy on many CBC’s in the area (for the non birders reading this that is Christmas Bird Count – a national project that has been ongoing for many years without internet connection I can’t recall how many, but over 50 years). We do not have to stir from the coach to see many different birds from Cardinals to Grey Catbirds to Mockingbirds and Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers and many many more. As I write two birders are standing in front of the coach peering through binoculars into the distance.

We are being industrious water conservers. The site has water and electric but no sewer so when the grey water tank is full we will have to move to the dump which will require 75% of the work necessary to get on the road – we can leave our outdoor stuff set up. This is day five and the highly inaccurate gauge shows we are at 3/4. Two more nights and we plan to move out on Monday in any event, we should be good. Fortunately we set up across the street from a nice clean bathroom with nice showers. This is a big water saver.

Yesterday was a “work” day (sorry about the four letter word). In the morning we took our laptops to the office to spend some quality time using the free wifi offered there. In the afternoon I had committed to hold a board meeting of the Goldberg Berbeco Foundation, Inc to do some grant making and then to begin the process of dissolution of the corporation. After 50 years we are moving on. We drove into Rockport and established ourselves in the Rockport Dairy Queen parking lot to take advantage of their free wifi which is combined with decent cell service, something we lack at Goose Island. After the meeting we set out to find a coffee shop to await movie time. Oops, December 24 at 4 in the afternoon is not a likely time to find a small shop open. We did find a book store – those that sell stuff stay open until the bitter end – but no coffee shop. Off we went to Cinema 4 which was running a matinee showing of True Grit.

This might be considered a mini Occasional Movie Review – haven’t done one of those in a long time. GO SEE IT, if you haven’t. The Coen Brothers have made a fantastic movie and the acting is wonderful and the use of language is just great. More than enough said.

Across Three States in Day and a Loose Screw (or is that a Screw Loose?)

2010-12-21T11:49:00.001-05:00

As the weather began to improve we debated – Livingston to Goose Island State Park to Austin or Goose Island SP to Livingston to Austin. Don’t bother looking at a map. Goose Island is almost to Corpus Christi, way out of the way to end up in Austin, but that is what we were facing. We are in Goose Island State Park just outside of Rockport TX as I write this so you can imagine that Livingston will come next, unless it doesn’t. What about those three states? We woke up on Sunday in Alabama, east of Mobile and by the time the light was gone from the sky we were parked in the Texas Welcome Center at mile mark 880 on I 10 (that is 880 miles to the other side of Texas past El Paso). We had crossed Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana into Texas. That was a long day. And we still had 5 hours to get to Goose Island.

Sleeping in the truck parking section of a Welcome Center not more than a lane and a half removed from the highway itself requires an act of discipline to convert the road noise to a background lullaby. It would have been better if we hadn’t been 15 feet from a speed bump in the parking area. We slept, sort of, mostly, kinda. By 6 we were up and about and by 7:30 we were rolling down the highway. Went through the heart of Houston on I 10 to US 59 between 9:00 and 9:40, and never had to slow for traffic. A miracle.

None of our drives would be worth writing about without something untoward happening. This time it was the loss of a nut and lock washer less than an eighth inch across that caught my attention. As we were rolling down the road my eye was caught by a screw drifting out of place on the driver side windshield wiper. The weather was fine or this could have been a show stopper. The screw is the pivot screw that holds the wiper blade to the arm. Fleetwood, in its nightmares, engineered a unique wiper blade mount on many of its coaches. The parts are only available, to the best of my knowledge, from the factory. I was about to loose a significant part, the screw, with no means of replacing it quickly and easily. I warned Carol and eased off onto the shoulder praying the screw would not drop out before I got stopped. It didn’t! Now how to fix it in place without the nut. First a twist tie went where the nut would have gone. Next some grey tape (I have no idea how to spell it) went in place to hold everything together for the short term. Today, a day later, I took off most of the grey tape and used rescue tape to make a long term repair.

If you haven’t used it, this is funny stuff. It only sticks to itself and once stuck to itself for 60 seconds it will not separate. I took two wraps of this stuff to secure the blade to the arm and the screw in place. Done!

Now we are settled in to Goose Island SP for a week. We will visit the Whooping Cranes and the Sand Hill Cranes and we will see many other interesting birds here. To be sure we get some good guidance we are set up across the street from the Birding Host who we hope to get to know. Since arriving we have done a more complete setup than usual including awnings and lights and outdoor seating. Oh yes it is pleasant to sit out in the sun or shade with the temperature in the high 70’s.

Finished a day later, Tuesday, sitting on a picnic bench outside the office to et wireless connection.

Idling in Alabama

2010-12-17T15:57:00.001-05:00

We left Elks Lodge 713 in Albany GA early, for us, and rolled along to Rainbow Plantations Escapee Park in Summerdale AL. That is way south in the little part of Alabama that makes it to the gulf east of Mobile Bay. We planned on moving on today, but. . . Spent Thursday roving around with a walk in Bon Secour NWR and lunch at the Old Oyster House.

Before we left for the day, I was walking around the coach and saw water dripping from a connection that had never caused a problem before. When I took it apart, I found that the end of the hose connection was a little crimped and apparently eroded as well. I was not able to get a good seal so I picked up a replacement hose end to resolve the problem. While I was working on it Bob walked over and struck up a conversation (no idea who he is beyond the name and he is neighbor who once owned a Southwind). I called on Carol to lend me her hair blower one more time to warm the end of the hose so I could slide the new part in.

Other minor repairs/fixes have attracted my attention and been resolved. For some reason the builder put vinyl (or linoleum) flooring on the bottom of the cabinet that is set up for a washer/dryer. The flooring curled up at the edge preventing the bottom drawer from closing. I got out the staple gun and tried to staple my finger into the floor, not a good idea. That was a few days ago and all is healed and the flooring is now nice and flat. I noticed a light fixture over the bed had worked loose. When I took it down I found that the builder had driven the screws directly into the wallboard with no mounting. CHEAP! For now I have filled the holes with wooden toothpicks and reset the screws – also CHEAP and QUICK – also works long term.

The mail came yesterday! Six pounds and over 60 pieces. We are busy telling all we missed that our new mailing address is: 127 Rainbow Drive #2707, Livingston TX 77399 and scanning the pieces we need so we can burn the paper along with the stuff we don’t need. Snail mail is really slow now as it has to go to Livingston and wait for us to tell them where to send, once we know.

We are not sure when we will leave or where to. At present maybe Sunday and maybe Goose Island SP, near Rockport Texas on the coast or possibly Livingston TX. The weather looks delightful either place for next week.

Another Family visit and on to ?

2010-12-12T21:21:00.001-05:00

After leaving Williamsburg we set out to visit Mimi Caplan and Joe Feak. Mimi is Carol’s first cousin and we have stopped by to visit several times over the years. They live on a thirty acre farm in Ivanhoe, NC, about 30 miles north east of Wilmington, NC. Getting in and out of there farm yard is always exciting for us as it requires bending past an old dogwood tree that leans out over the drive at the perfect angle to hit the awning on the way in or the refrigerator vent on the way out. This trip was a no damage trip :)

Our big excitement was a trip to Walmart in Wallace, NC. For the most part we sat and talked and watched the animals, horses, donkeys, geese, Guinea Hens, and assorted birds along with the dogs, Diesel and Ruben behave as animals do. We have always enjoyed having long talks and also long walks with Mimi and Joe. The walks did not happen as the weather was not conducive to spending voluntary time out in it. Cold and raining or at times raining and cold. Did I mention we also ate. Great meals put together by Mimi almost in passing. There was plenty of hot sauce, Joe is getting into the business of distributing Rum Island - Bonefish Joe’s, a very tasty hot sauce with a story longer than the label on the bottle.

We cannot figure out how we want to get where we want to get. The concept (avoid the word PLAN) is to get west quickly, yet here we are south of Charleston, SC, plainly way off route for Texas. There is this cold blast spreading throughout the southeast (not to mention the rest of the country it seems) and Joe suggested it would be warmer near the coast, so we are going to circle south along the coast and then tomorrow begin a dash to the west hoping not to spend more than another night in freezing temperatures. Tomorrow night it appears inevitable that we will freeze, we are not likely to drive more than 6 hours and somehow that does not get us past the Florida Panhandle. I’ll report on our freeze avoidance results in another post – if I remember.

I think I am stretching your patience, not to mention my own. For the RVers reading this we are in Lake Aire RV Park south of Charleston. It is Passport America. The entrance road is in poor shape, the person we were greeted by was very pleasant and the facilities appear to be well maintained, other than the entrance road. It would be a nice destination stop for Charleston area in better weather. I do love the sound of the freight train when it passes.

Here is a photo of the suspension bridge on US 17 entering Charleston, it really is quite spectacular:

Williamsburg – without Alexander

2010-12-08T22:43:00.001-05:00

Plan is a four letter word. Every time we think we know exactly what we will be doing for the next three days – a plan – something throws a monkey wrench into the works. A friend came over for a visit and brought her own special variety of cold/flu/virus you name it. Sure enough just three days before our departure Alexander came down with it. Fever and all. There was no way to take a sick child on a motorhome to a happening that would require walking around in 35 degree weather for a day trying to grasp lots of new information.

We left without him. No point in staying around to be sure we came down with “it.” Propane was running low and I learned a new fact (that is previously unknown to me) that a portable propane tank when subjected to cold temperatures will not flow sufficient vapor to meet the needs of an RV furnace when it is full. We were running through the onboard tank and would need to move soon to refill that.

We drove to Williamsburg, the American Heritage RV Park is a very nice facility only ten miles from the the Historic Area and they had propane for sale at an only moderately confiscatory price which they assured me was lower than any in the neighborhood, and only $1 a gallon more than I had been paying in Charlottesville. But enough of my complaining.

We had a glorious day in Colonial Williamsburg, well worth the price of admission subject to advance purchase discount and Senior discount etc. Pat’s “twin” from 1765 gave us a wonderful account of life just before the Declaration of Independence in the Governor’s Palace and the action in the courthouse was a lot of fun especially because both Carol and I took parts in the trials that were presented. Lunch at Chownings Tavern turned out to be a very special event for us especially because they had a nice salad for Carol and the Brunswick Stew was very delicious and warmed me nicely.

After a tour of the Capitol and the Gaol and the Coffee Shop we went to the Museum of Folk Arts and got lost for the 90 minutes that remained to us before closing. Worth another visit for itself. It was too late to drive back to the coach and begin the preparation of dinner so we went to 2nd Street Restaurant which I had researched the night before. The menu looks simple, but it was all very well prepared and the pricing was distinctly modest for the quality of meal served. All in all a superb day.

We missed Alexander, yet we were not sure how happy he would have been with the nature of the day we ended up putting together. It certainly would have been a different day.

While we were enjoying our day, our daughters-in-law had been putting together a gathering in Los Angeles. We will be together from February 16 to 22. We are now booked into Dockweiler RV Park – on the beach by LAX – for then. So now we have a PLAN of sorts. At least there is a stake in the ground for the third week in February.

A nice long visit in Covesville

2010-12-02T21:42:00.001-05:00

After our too eventful trip down here, we have been content to stay with Dan and Malena and the boys. Thanksgiving was a joy with Malena’s mother and step-mother here and her sister Simone and husband Steve along with sister Jessica. Add in the 6 of us and it was quite a crowd. The turkey was more than big enough and the rest of the food was plentiful so there were plenty of leftovers for lunches.

After everyone cleared out on Friday and Saturday we took a deep breath and then Dan left on a business trip for the week. We have picked up some chores, you should see me collecting eggs and closing up the chickens for the night. Then I schlep firewood for the wood stove. Then I have a scotch to be followed with wine with dinner. We have had two nice visits with Ed and Gretchen Robb, the first at Devils Backbone Brewing Company and the second at Thee Notch’ed Grill in Crozet, a little quieter then DB.

We are preparing to drive to Fredericksburg tomorrow, in the car, to visit with Helen Schwartz, a classmate from high school. Then on Saturday David Lovenheim and Tari Bradley will join us at the farm, he too is a classmate from Monroe High and we will meet another classmate Bill Freedman, MD who is a cardiologist here and his wife Lindsay for lunch in Crozet.

The plan for next week is to leave here on Tuesday with Alexander and head for Colonial Williamsburg. We have campground reservations, not really needed at this time of year, at American Heritage RV and will spend two days seeing the sights then we will meet the family at Malena’s dad’s place in Unionsville to hand off Alexander then off to see Mimi and Joe (Carol’s cousin) in Ivanhoe, NC. After that there is no plan.

We’ve burned through at least 18 gallons of propane just staying warm and warming water for showers. That’s two refills of the 30 lb tank and one 20 pound tank (30 pound tank holds just short of 7 gallons and 20 pound is a normal grill tank, holds short of 5 gallons). I suspect that by morning our 30 lb tank will be empty or close to it again. Fortunately I still have most of the 18 gallons the onboard tank holds so I have no worries.

All the finicky details necessary to keep everything operating smoothly. Since we can use the freshwater from the house and drain the holding tanks into the septic those worries are much less, although with the cold I do think about what will freeze up at the most inconvenient time. I am grateful for the 30 amp outlet we installed here. Plenty of electricity for our needs.

There you have a mind dump as I prepare to curl up with a book before going to sleep.

A Rougher Start than Usual

2010-11-20T21:50:00.001-05:00

We’ve been pushing to leave earlier than ever and finally set the date for Thursday, November 18. We hoped that the roofers would have finished all the major work on our roof and Carol had one more medical appointment that morning. Carol took the Tow’d to the appointment and I was to meet her there with the coach and hook up for travel there. That part worked out great, the medical facility was on the way out of town and the timing was fine. The roofers were held up by delayed delivery of skylights and lousy weather. As I pulled out of the driveway, they were setting shingles under a gray sky that threatened rain.

I had changed our mailing address to Livingston, TX as Escapees is reputed to do an excellent job of mail handling for RVers. I had my doubts about our local post office and they did not prove unfounded. I sealed the mail slot so no mail could be delivered, also no inserts, chinese restaurant menus, or HOA communications. Our neighbor called two days after we left to report that the post person could not figure out why the mail would not go through the slot! Called the USPS LOCAL office and were told, “oh we will start it today” They never checked the system to see that it was supposed to have started two days previous. AAaargh

So we are away and crusin’ south on US 15 headed for I 81 through bands of rain and chill. As I come to the turn from 147 to 15 at Tedd’s Landing (if you have never driven the route, you are blessed) there are two lanes for the left turn and I see that all the trucks are lined up in the rightmost of the two lanes. Silly me, I forget the simplest lesson from my safe driving course, which is always take the widest turn, and try to slip down the far left lane. I have a stripe on my rearmost awning upright from the edge of the trucker’s mirror which I repositioned for him. Fortunately that is the sum total of the damage, another service stripe.

The next day saw me attempting to die the rug red with some very nice red wine. I was exiting a lay by on 250 in VA and the exit was partially blocked by a car for reasons I cannot imagine. I went behind the car and and this put the left rear wheels on a small rise which rocked the back of the coach severely. This is not the first time this has happened in 10 years, but it is the first time that a wine bottle hit the inside of the cabinet door just right to release the Velcro strap placed there to prevent just this occurrence. It dove onto the floor and knocked off the top. Naturally stopping and then parking on a steep downgrade did nothing to keep the spill localized. Somehow we got it cleaned up and through Carol’s diligent efforts there is no more than a slight blush where the wine concentrated.

Enough!

For now we are happily ensconced in Dan and Malena’s driveway and here we will stay until well past Thanksgiving. Then we will begin our move to the Southwest.

Bill, David, Alan and Bunny, we hope to see you all sometime in the next two weeks.

Itchy Tires Syndrome

2010-10-25T21:30:00.001-04:00

My birthday is past, the visits to family in Los Angeles and the visit of the Charlottesville family is far enough past that we have restored the house to a semblance of order. I am ready to be on the road! I call it “itchy tires” because they need to roll.

For those who keep score of my RV maintenance odyssey even sitting in storage has resulted in some work. I decided that I had to have a flat screen, HD, TV in the front cabinet to not watch. This new one weighs 12 pounds vs the former hulk weighing in at 70 pounds. I am less afraid of its falling in our laps on a rough road than the old one. It also uses LEDs for the back light which will draw much less power, should I turn it on. I should even be able to run it off of battery in the desert.

Just last week the coach was in again. This time for a major recall on the brakes that I have been waiting for for two years. Of course the pads had 73,000 miles on them and were not included in the recall. Another ouch. I am hoping it is now ready for the road.

We still have a weekend drive to Shelburne VT to spend with my sister Sandy and David and family and a flying weekend to Sarasota FL for a Bar Mitzvah. In the mean time we are waiting for the roof on our house to be replaced, again, if the weather will only relent.

I WANT TO BE ON THE ROAD!

Oh, yes, I am retiring. I have some work to do to make it complete, but my life insurance license is a thing of the past, on my birthday yet. I expect to keep my securities license for a few more months and then that will be gone too. Not sure how I will adapt to giving up those emblems of my work identity for the past 36 years. So far I am fine with it. I am even giving up the CLU ChFC after my name, time to take on a different identity.

I am ready to be on the road! My tires are itchy.

The end of a long, interesting summer

2010-09-12T15:31:00.001-04:00

Happy New Year, L’Shanah Tova!

I could not keep writing and posting with everything hanging in the balance, so there has been a longish silence. I have a post about a bike ride that has been pending for a month, will get that up real soon.

I seem to have been restored to my former good cardiac health, one remaining test to be sure in October, but my workout regimen and our long walks satisfy me that everything is ticking along just fine. I will take the tests to satisfy the medical records (and provide another boat payment for the medical staff – small boat in any case). I had my second cataract lens surgery on 8/31 and have been told that everything is healing fine. As I type, my reading glasses are laying along side the computer. I am told to use them as little as possible. Reading the NY Times with good light is just fine, but books have smaller type and the light is a bit poorer late at night when my eyes are closing. I am in better shape than when the summer began.

As we pass through the High Holiday season, I’ve blown shofar for two services already, we look forward to visits from my sister, from Dan and family and any RVers who are passing through Rochester. Carol is looking forward to Brighton High School Class of 1960 reunion at the end of September and two weeks later I will be seeing many of my Monroe High School Class of 1960 friends. Since the schools were rivals in 1960 and Carol and I knew many people at the rival schools we will attend each other’s reunions. Of course I have been gathering with the Reunion Committee from my class frequently as we have worked to put it all together.

By mid October we should be ready for a break. Our departure to the south is planned to get to Dan and Malena’s for Thanksgiving. If we can get there a week early so much the better. We will eventually depart from there for our annual southern and western jaunt.

July was interesting - redux

2010-08-02T21:39:00.001-04:00

oops, I guess I didn’t make it clear. The TEE was good and they shocked me back into rhythm and I left Strong with my heart pumpin’ the way it is supposed to. All that remains is follow up to be sure it holds.

July was interesting

2010-08-02T19:30:00.001-04:00

Although it is still July – the 31st – as I write it will be August before I post this.

As those of you who have been reading know, I had cataract surgery on June 29 and was scheduled to have the second eye done on July 20th. What I didn’t remark on, at the time was the immediate follow up to the first surgery. As we prepared to leave, the nurse handed me a copy of my EKG from the surgery and said my internist was expecting me at 12:30! The short story is that during the surgery they saw a change in my EKG and there was now am atrial flutter showing where one had never existed at any time in the past.

I have spent July undergoing testing and waiting for this that or the other. The next step in on Monday August 2 and if you are reading this I got the expected result from the cardio conversion I am hoping to undergo Monday afternoon. I will have one more test, a Transesophageal Echocardiogram, and if that is good I will be treated to a “reboot” of the cardiac electrical system. If it works out, the flutter will be gone, I will resume long, fast walks and the second eye surgery will be planned for the end of August. If it hasn’t worked out you will not be reading this and there will another post with humorous wisecracks about how my heart flutters for Carol. and I will await the next steps in repairing this anomaly.

Finally, thank you to all who knew I was facing this and have taken the time to email/text/call to offer me prayers and wishes for swift recovery. I have been buoyed on the love and caring of friends and family. I look forward to a quick recovery and I plan to be at the gym for my daily workout tomorrow and the rest of the week.

I still need to demonstrate that my heart will stay with the revised program on its own so I can get my other eye done and prepare to roll Gee 2 this fall.

Carol has been, as always, my strength and support through this and I hope the strain has not been too great on her.

Thoughts on Cataract Surgery

2010-06-30T09:31:00.001-04:00

This is not something that I had any expectation I was headed for this summer. Last winter, as we turned east, I noticed that someone seemed to have blurred all the highway signs. I was sure that the signs were wearing out, the reflective material was falling off, for some reason I could no longer read them until it was almost too late to make the exits. Fortunately the GPS was giving plenty of warning and Carol was on duty as navigator when I was at the wheel. When she was at the wheel I did not have to worry about reading the signs, too much, besides I have the small binoculars handy to read ahead.

I’ve had the first eye done Tuesday, two weeks after the first diagnosis. The other eye will be done in three weeks. It will be a while before have the full benefit of the new lens since it is capable of accommodation and some healing and practice needs to take place before I will experience that. already, as so many have said the distant vision is wonderful and the colors have changed. This is all the more apparent since both eyes were in about the same condition so I have a clear A-B comparison.

I cannot talk much about the procedure as my primary memory is staring into a white light and at some point asking Dr Lindahl where he was in the procedure, at which point he said the lens had been removed and he was preparing to insert the new lens. My next memory was Carol coming to get me out of the recovery room.

XRIJF Nights 8 & 9

2010-06-20T14:29:00.001-04:00

Runnin’ out of steam

It is Sunday afternoon and I am resting at home and trying to catch up with life after taking the last nine days off. Somehow I never even got to track our peregrinations from Friday Night so here goes, from memory.

We started at Montage again to hear Brad Shepik. Enjoyable, long wait in line, we were very near the front when we arrived. The music was excellent and we were rocking along with it until we both felt it was getting a bit repetitious. So we cut out and headed over to Xerox Auditorium to hear Little Red Suitcase. This was a WOW for us. Two nicely matched voices with some really weird instrumentation including penny whistles, a slightly out of tune old accordion and others including a piano with various things stuffed in the strings to alter the sound. We really enjoyed them and even thought about coming back for more, but there is already not enough time to hear everything we want to hear.

We went off the reservation a bit (half a block) to Spot for dinner. Carol found a lovely salad, something she had been dreaming about, and I had a nice sandwich. It was a change from food on the street. We went on to the Big Tent for Djabe. There were no seats to be had so we stood at the rail behind the sound setup and enjoyed the show from there. A big treat was John Nugent’s joining the group with his sax for a couple of numbers. He is great with the sax as well as at promoting jazz in Rochester.

We still had some hearing left so we decided to venture back into Abilene for Bryan Lee & The Blues Power Band. We got there in time for front row seats. Carol could not sit still so she went to stand further back in the crowd that assembled. Seated where I was it became apparent that loss of hearing was not going to be a joke. At one point I shoved my fingers in my ears and my neighbor, seeing this, took out a bag of fresh earplugs and offered them to me. Gratefully, I stuffed them in my ears and enjoyed the rest of the set immensely.

Timing was good when they wrapped up and we headed over to jazz Street for Abbots Custard for Carol and popcorn for me. The street was swarming as the early show of Jeff Beck had let out and the 11 PM show was filling. We strolled up to East Avenue and the closing strains of Booker T & the MGs gave us a following wind as we began our walk home.

Add four to the count.

Saturday we set out early for the walk to Montage, again, to for Ibrahim Electric. We met many of the same people in line that we had met before and some new people. The activity level on the street was high as it appeared that the forecast storms had decided to go elsewhere and it was a warm, balmy evening. There were now two stages on East one at Chestnut and the other at Alexander. With East Ave closed off from Goodman to Main there was a lot of detouring for drivers. Even walking we eventually had to detour to get home. Ibrahim Electric were electrifying we stayed in our seats from the first note to the last and then begged for more. When we recovered our breath we headed out the door and over to Java Joe’s for sandwiches. Carol went to look elsewhere, but could not find a salad nearby so joined me for a veggie sandwich.

Having eaten too fast we headed over to Lutheran Church of the Reformation (to give them their full name) to hear Mikko Innanen & Innkvistio. They had had airline luggage issues and were missing their CDs to sell, a trombone and the synthesizer player’s pants – he was in shorts. The trombonist also plays sax, very well, and they revised their program and did some improvisation to take advantage of the equipment they had. At the end of the set we quick timed over to Christ Church to hear Dennis Rollins Velocity Trio. We hadn’t planned it, but this was the last Club Venue we were to hear and what a way to go out. All three performers were engaged and alive to the music. There was no sitting still for any of us and the hour flew by far too quickly. As we headed for the door we both realized that we could not possibly go on to another venue for the 10 PM show. We had hit the wall together and we wandered the streets of the festival, basking in the heavy bass of the three street stages and the big tent without really engaging any of it. We met friends all doing the same thing. Some people were talking about asking the promoters to add a tenth night next year for the tenth annual XRIJF. I don’t think I could take it.

As we headed out East Ave we got closer and closer to the Alexander street stage with Smash Mouth. I can vouch for it’s being loud with lots of bass. We put in our ear plugs and detoured up the alley a half block before Alexander and worked our way over to Park Ave where peace and quiet reigned. We got home and collapsed.

It was a GREAT Xerox Rochester Jazz Festival.

The count: add three more venues, total 7 since night 7’s total count of 33. Grand total of 40 venues in 9 nights, all for $105 each. This was a great entertainment bargain, the greatest I can imagine. We won’t forget and look forward to attending again.

XRIJF Night 7

2010-06-18T13:46:00.001-04:00

A Ramble

Carol had a certification course at LifeSpan that ran until 5 so we agreed to meet at Harro East keeping up the Cuban theme we have been following, she joined me at the usual table in plenty of time to hear Pablo Menendez & MEZCLA a Cuban group here on a Cultural Exchange. Although they suffered from the Harro muddy sound we enjoyed the set and stayed for most of it.

We rambled over to Xerox for the early set of Joyce. Her singing was very nice, but how much Portuguese do I need/want to listen to, besides some interesting music was to be expected at the Lutheran Church. So we strolled over there, with a stop at Java Joe's for sandwiches to fortify us for the rest of the night, to find the hall filling, filled, no seats available downstairs and we decided not to give up our SRO spots to explore the balcony. Rather than my writing at length about the pleasure of the session with Palle Mikkelborg just read Jeff Spivak's column in the Friday Democrat & Chronicle. We stayed through the entire set and were slow to leave when it was done.

But leave we did. We wandered past the festivities on Jazz Street bypassing the jam in front of Java Joe’s this time down the alley to get on over to Christ Church to hear Get The Blessing, yet another great show. I must admit that the names they give their pieces left one thinking about more food. They played pieces called, Sushi, Doughnut, Starfish, you get the point. The music was better than the names.

At 9:30 it hardly seemed likely we would get seats for Joe Locke Group Featuring Vocalist Kenny Washington in Kilbourn, people had been in line since before 9 for the 10 PM show. We were going to walk by anyhow so we walked in the door and ended up getting seated before the show began. It was a great show and Kenny Washington sang up a storm while Joe Locke and the group played their hearts out. It was a great finale to a wonderful evening of music. Check out Spevak’s column linked above.

The count: last night we were at 28 shows, we appear to have attended five shows on Thursday bringing the total to 33.

No ideas for tonight, yet.

XRIJF Night 6

2010-06-17T10:25:00.001-04:00

A mish mash!

Our trek to the Festival started out all wrong. As we discussed whether to walk or drive I decided to copy all of the document files (My Documents) from Carol’s computer onto a back up external drive the reason is a whole other story. It went far faster than I expected and when I checked, the entire My Pictures folder was not on the external drive. It also had vanished from the computer! Yeah we have backups up to January, but there have been backup problems and time gets in the way and . . . The computer is now at Microworx for restoration.

We drove! our first stop was Rochester Contemporary (in the midst of the Festival area) for a private party put on by City Newspaper to thank advertisers and others associated with the paper. We decided to walk over to Xerox Auditorium where Rochester/Roland All-Star Accordion Jam! was on. We figured it was different enough to be worth a listen. Start with false advertising. Joseph Natoli took the stage and spent 30 minutes demonstrating the various tricks an accordion mashed up with a synthesizer could do. There was a bass, drum kit and another accordion on stage, but no evidence of performers. I know what the instrument sounds like and can appreciate it. I know what a synthesizer can do and can enjoy it. But I came for Jazz and got what amounted to a sales pitch. Onward! I have no idea or interest in what might have taken place in the last half of the hour.

We walked into Christ Church where John Taylor was playing solo on the piano and stayed for the rest of the set. We hustled on over to Lutheran Church for the Nordic Jazz Eivind Opsvik Overseas was doing unnatural things with a guitar, bass etc. It resulted in some interesting music. The reviewer in the Democrat and Chronicle described the the departure after the first number as Lemmings, we breasted the tide and found good seats and stayed for two numbers. We left at this point because Hackensaw Boys were performing at Abilene the Americana venue. Our interest was aroused because they are from Charlottesville, VA where our son Dan and his family live and participate in the music scene. I called him to get his opinion of the group, which was very high, but he was a bit surprised that they were performing at a Jazz Festival and that we were going to hear them.

We heard the last three numbers of their first set and really enjoyed them. I must go out and get a hubcap and two number 10 cans for my percussion outfit now. The real miracle is that I can still hear this morning.

Where was I? oh yes out on the street between Harro East and Abilene and getting hungry by now. We headed for jazz Street (Gibbs Street in case you forgot) and the vendors where the chill wind and feeling of rain was keeping the crowds down a bit. This made buying some food easier and we sat on the curb and ate while the line for Steve Turre Quartet in Kilbourn Hall grew and grew behind us. For some reason we didn’t get in the line, but went over to the Big Tent to hear Das Contras a Scottish Quartet who really put out some great sound. We waited through the half hour break and listened to the beginning of their second set. During the second number a very drunk woman from the audience clambered up on stage and threw her arms around the neck of each of the musicians in turn. It was amazing that they were able to keep on playing without a missed beat, including the drummer who played through an extended, rousing, conclusion with her hanging on his neck. Security finally arrived to guide her back stage and hopefully to recovery.

We had not yet had enough so we walked over to Kilbourn for Steve Turre Quartet (see above). There is a wonderful review of the performance in the D&C and I agree with Jeff Spivak entirely on this one. Turre concluded his final number at 11:15 and then was headed back out to do another when we left in total exhaustion.

OMG I just counted up the venues and see we made it to 6 of them and that doesn’t count the entertainment at the party and we started on the street late. By my count we have listened to 28 groups so far and there are still three nights to go.

I may update this post later with a plan for tonight, although if you compare my plan for last night with the actual you will see we can’t even count on starting where we plan.

XRIJF Night 5

2010-06-16T13:50:00.003-04:00

Hop, Skip, Jump.

Some how we could not get a good map of what we planned put together before hand. Carol had to meet me there while I held a place in line so we agreed to start at Montage where Miami Sax Quartet was performing. We like the performance so much that we stayed right there through the set which ran a bit late.

We left and decided to go to Rochester Club Ballroom where the Sicilian group was just wrapping up, but the food and service were reputed to be excellent. We never found out. As we arrived the group was just finishing up and the temperature in the room was so cold I developed goose bumps. Carol started shivering so we left, the various alligator items on the menu did nothing to encourage us to stay. We found what to eat on Jazz Street. Carol at Ludwigs and I had a Jambalaya plate from a stand. We hopped over to Lutheran Church to catch the end of the set of Samuel Hallkvist Center which turned out to be very exciting and very avant-garde, too much so for a lot of people. We enjoyed but did not make it back for a full set.

We skipped down the street to Abilene where Rosie Ledet & The Zydeco Playboys were performing in the tent over the parking lot. Lots of beer, lots of people and great Zydeco music. We stuck out the balance of the set and were really moving with the beat by the time they wound it down.

On the way back to Jazz street we stopped at the Big Tent to hear Alison Brown Quartet. Click on the link to learn more about this really bright banjo player. We never got seated, but I am not sure we would have stayed in our seats in any event. This was not Jazz, but it sure was great and there was a lot of jazz in the performance. We loved it and stayed all the way through.

Jumped on over to Max for Bill Dobbins Trio with Chuck Israels & Rich Thompson. This was very cool jazz. The audience seemed to be mostly musicians. Members of the Eastman Jazz Ensemble were there as was Hilario Duran who had played at Max the night before. We stopped to talk with Jack Presberg the doctor with the best piano Jazz hands around, at the next table. We had had maybe too much up tempo and rousing music and after 45 minutes we decided that tiredness and the hope of Abbots Custard warranted a slightly early departure. Abbots was already closed :(

Haven’t plotted out tonight yet. We have a City Newspaper party at Rochester Contemporary Art on East Ave so we may not get into a 6 PM show unless the rain holds off the crowds. The phone is on except when it is off for shows.

Late add of proposed map: Christ Church at 6:45 Lutheran Church at 7:30 Big Tent at 8:30 Montage at 10 - go home at 11 and start all over tomorrow

XRIJF Day 4 (really should be Night 4)

2010-06-15T14:17:00.001-04:00

From the sublime to the sublime to the . . .

Words cannot do Stanley Jordan justice. By the time he was done people were crying, were saying he was channeling some alternate universe, was on a higher plane than the rest of us. Check him out on YouTube. Jack Garner introduced him as four guitars in one man. He used both hands on the neck of his guitar, each playing a different part, then he added the piano, (where did that third hand come from?) and when he finally had to admit he was short a hand he used his chin, or was it his teeth, on the top of neck to strum an open chord he found someplace among the other notes he was already playing. Oh yes, he took his music from Mozart, Bartok, jazz standards, and anyplace else he could find them. On YouTube you will find videos with him performing with Les Paul and with Chet Atkins.

It was hard to imagine we could be further moved until we heard Viktoria Tolstoy at the Lutheran Church. As predicted by the review of her performance on Sunday the first half was fine, but by the second half of the show the tight connection of her band and singing united to thrill us into sitting very still so as not miss a nuance. Where to go from that?

Could not get into the Tent to hear Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, it was packed with a line out to Main Street. So we went on to Xerox to hear Robin McKelle a local performer who has made her mark in Europe and returned to Rochester, at least to own a house and play for us. We could not get in on the main floor and had to ascend to the upper reaches of Xerox Aud, the balcony. Great view of the tops of heads, everyone is a bit foreshortened from up there but the sound is great. We expected a fine show from the previews and from people who heard her earlier show, but our expectations were reduced because of the two great shows we had already heard. Wrong! she was wonderful. Her style is more polished performance with some small talk but the substance was great and her band were really together. Three for three.

Could we keep the string going? It might have been, but with such great shows under our belt the Kilbourn group Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba’s material seemed repetitious and not really interesting. As a stand alone show it was probably stupendous, but it had some mighty competition. We moved on after 25 minutes to Max to hear the second Cuban pianist Hilario Duran Trio. His cerebral performance (quoting the D&C reviewer) was also exceedingly good, but we were tired and Carol could not get into it as much as I could, so we started walking for home before the last number.

The tally; we were in five venues for performances on night 4 brining the total number of performances on our Club Pass to 17, so far. Where can you find a better entertainment value? $105 invested in December (based on one Club Pass) and we have already had $350 worth of great performances with five nights to go. I wish my stock investments performed as well.

Night 5 will start at Montage with Miami Sax Quartet and we plan to get to Abilene for Rosie Ledet & The Zydeco Playboys. Looking at the list it seems we will also try to get to the Lutheran Church – I’m beginning to feel like a member already – and Xerox.

Click on any of the links to read more about the performers and follow a link up to see the whole schedule – it is daunting to view in its entirety. Actually each day it is a challenge to map out a route, taking into account the groups we want to see and the logistics of time, place and expected wait time in line. Dinner is mostly a matter of picking up something handheld to chow on while walking to the next venue. Onward!

XRIJF Day 3

2010-06-14T13:19:00.001-04:00

We got off to a great start. We left the house walking at 3:40 and arrived at the front of Montage at 4:15 or so. We were not the first to arrive, two other groups were represented by individuals holding place. By 4:30 the line was filling and by 4:45 the line was beyond the area where it is probable that you would get into the hall. Chuchito Valdes was the featured artist. He is Cuban from a line of Cuban pianists and the anticipation was very high. He played continuously with no break to talk to the audience other than to say THANK YOU at the very end. We thanked him with two standing ovations and a lot of cheering. It was great to hear such a different approach to the piano. It was very high energy.

Onward to Lutheran Church and the Stefan Karlsson Trio. They were very good, very smooth and well thought out. After the energy of the prior show, it was a bit low key for me and we left after about 30 minutes to hurry on over to Xerox Auditorium to catch Dmitry Baevsky Quartet from Russia. We needn’t have hurried, there was plenty of room. Carol and I agreed that they were pretty good lounge group, have a drink sit around and talk with some smooth jazz in the background. Thirty minutes of that and we had had enough.

Off to Max to hear Katie Thiroux Trio. We were surprised to walk right in at 9:45 for the 10 O’clock show. Sunday night and 5 venues competing for the crowd and she is a definite newcomer. We split on our appraisal. Carol, with her vocal training, felt that Katie has a ways to go. I really liked her singing and the scat. Yeah I know there were some intonation problems, but she is really cute :)

We don’t have a plan yet for tonight other than to get there early and to hear Viktoria Tolstoy at Lutheran and, if possible Robin McKelle at Xerox. That looks like a conflict, but we will see what plays out. Now I have to post this and preview the rest on tonight’s acts on YouTube to see what else we must hear.

XRIJF Day two

2010-06-13T14:48:00.001-04:00

That’s Xerox Rochester International jazz Festival for the those not in Rochester.

Last night we started out at 5:30 (in line by 4:15) at Harro East, which many of us remember as the auditorium of the JY, to hear Catherine Russell sing for her third trip to the festival in four years. We had heard her before and didn’t want to miss this year. The sound in the venue was right on for her and she sang many of the songs from the 20’s that were performed by Fats Waller and later by Louis Armstrong and the band her father lead. It was a great start to what turned into a wonderful evening even with the scattered rain and chill in the air.

From there we went to Christ Church to hear a group called Brass Jaw, think of it 3 sax’s and a trumpet in an 1800’s church. They had arrived an hour before the performance at the end of a 38 hour trek from England with a lengthy stop in Ireland – where apparently they got no rest. They certainly filled the hall and with sound and with audience. We stayed through because we were enjoying it so much.

We ate our sandwiches on the hoof (sorry Carol) as we headed to Lutheran Church of the Reformation – it should have been a five minute walk, but the crowds gathering around the two street stages impeded progress. We arrived to find the church full to almost overflowing to hear Torben Waldorff Quartet with Torben on the guitar. We advanced our seating toward the center as the set progressed waiting for the last note to fade before dashing out the door to find it raining. Fortunately the car was across the street with our rain gear so we got out the coats and headed over to Kilbourn Hall to get in line for Billy’s Band.

This was their fourth performance in two nights and the hall rapidly filled to the limit. We were way down front and there were some high school jazz musicians sitting in front of us and their enthusiasm was infectious. The performance was over the top and is was great to see them on a stage where they could move around. The last time we saw them was at Max which is a nice venue, but the stage is conducive to a group that stays in one place for the performance.

We tried to go to the after hours club across town, but parking was difficult, it was raining and by now it was 11:30 pm. I must admit after seven hours in the crowds and four of them listening intently to great acts, I was tired. We made it home before falling asleep.

Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival

2010-06-12T15:10:00.001-04:00

O. K. so we are not on the road. Gee 2 is in storage for a bit while we catch up with things in Rochester.

This week – nine nights actually – is devoted to the Jazz Festival in the title. We have Club Passes, bought last December, just in case, which give us access to ten venues doing two shows a night for the nine nights of the festival. That is a possibility of ninety different club shows. Plus there are free shows – four or five a night, plus 6 headliner events which we have not bought tickets for, yet. Missed Gladys Knight last night.

The line up is incredible. The opening night we went to four shows. We stared with Mose Allison in Kilbourn Hall and left after 30 minutes to catch Stan Tracey at Christ Church (all UK performers there) and then after a stop to pick up sandwiches and eat them we were on to Lutheran Church where the theme is Nordic Jazz. We then got in line at 8:45 for a 10 o’clock show at Max featuring Michael Klaeshammer. This was a show where we saw no one leave – of course we were sitting way up front. The show was supposed to end at 11, but Klaeshammer asked if anyone wanted to leave and then played on until 11:15 when the clean up crew wanted to get in. We walked the 3 miles home and it was just enough of a walk to get us over the excitement so we could get to sleep.

We have a line up planned for tonight starting with Catherine Russell at 5:30. If you are in Rochester you will know where to find us through next Saturday. If you really want to locate us text me, send email (my phone is with me me) or try to call me, I may answer if I am not in a show and can hear the ring.

Those of you in other cities or on the road, if you love Jazz, plan on joining us this year or next. This is one of the biggest jazz Festivals around. They project attendance of 150,000 in a metro area of a million. Last year was 133,000.

Cancelling the Trip to Alaska

2010-05-14T21:23:00.001-04:00

We have decided that driving to Alaska is not possible this summer. I am taking the first steps toward retirement and do not want to rush the transition of my practice to our son.

We will be staying in Rochester at least through June. As the transition proceeds, I will see when I can get away. Then we will leave by plane or RV for points to be determined. I will post when I know the plan.

In the mean time we have our Rochester International Jazz Festival Passes and hope to see many of you there. For our RVing friends we would love to entertain you if you are passing near Rochester, NY. The Finger Lakes are really grand.

Arrival in Rochester Real Soon now

2010-05-01T12:01:00.001-04:00

Since writing last we have finished crossing the US to Virginia and spent 9 wonderful days with Malena, Dan, Alex and Cory. We had a delightful evening with the Robbs at Devil’s Backbone and are at the moment of writing we are northbound on I390 about 60 miles south of Rochester.

The homeward drive has been reasonably uneventful. One hour and a half hold up for a truck turned over on I81 in the middle of Maryland and the usual assortment of nutcases behind the wheel of assorted vehicles, is about par for the course of any long drive.

We plan to be in Rochester for the month of May and the first part of June. Just heard that Club Passes for Jazz Fest are sold out. We have two that will go on sale the end of May, when we know we will be leaving for Alaska for real this time.

Until re roll out again.

Paul/Xctraveler

(Ann) Carol Gets Up a Head of Steam

2010-04-20T15:13:00.001-04:00

All of a sudden Carol is posting daily. I cannot write my long posts and do it daily. I won’t! Well I do try to write daily, but it takes a day or three to assemble the posts usually.

You may be wondering about the () around Ann. We have known each other since before first grade as many of you know. Her given name is Ann Carol a single name although it looks like two with no “-“. I have known her by that name, by a familiar name “Anky” and mostly as Carol. There are other names that are best kept just between ourselves. The Ann Carol was not used much until she started actively producing art and she chose to resume that name as her artist’s name. When a call comes in for Ann Carol I know it is from the Arts community. When they ask for Ann I know they haven’t a clue and Anky is only used by aunts, uncles and older cousins of whom there are too few remaining. Anyhow, I haven’t a clue why I wrote this.

For our visit to Berea, Kentucky you can read her post at Message in a Minute Entry #3.

When we left the west coast we had a tentative plan that included the COE stops we have made and a couple of Escapee Rainbow Parks that we had never seen. It turned out that the Missouri SKP (alternative spelling) was a bit too far south for us to reach, but we did divert a bit south to come to Raccoon Valley Escapee RV Park, just north of Knoxville, TN. We laughed as we drove up, because we drove right by Volunteer RV Park that we stayed at in January of 2006 for our visit to Oakridge, TN. The park is under reconstruction with the building having its space almost doubled and a new section of the park being developed and leveled as we sit in the older section of the park which is quite nice. We back up to a stream and there is a wonderful nature trail, quite steep, just across the creek.

We drove to Great Smokey Mountain NP to swing through Cades Cove before the summer traffic clogs it up and learned as we arrived that it is closed for major road reconstruction until five days from now. We drove through the park from Townsend to Gatlinburg very slowly and then though Gatlinburg as fast as we could. I cannot even begin to describe the lineup of chain everything mixed with amusement park rides, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, and ice cream and pancake joints all lined up along the highway like a gauntlet of beggars looking to take my money in exchange for items of dubious value. We continued on to Pigeon Forge which is only slightly more charming, but does offer three huge outlet malls in a row where almost any clothing item can be bought at a discount for almost anyone. I qualify that because Carol finds the selection of clothes in her size to be limited to nonexistent. She did find something to buy however.

Back in Raccoon Valley RV we gathered with our neighbors, Jim and Dee and Earl and Barb to exchange tales from the road and other assorted common experiences. When we all agreed it was time to eat, we went our separate ways. Carol and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and the picnic table next to the creek outside our door. We dined out there and were sitting and relaxing when the sun set taking away the last of the nice warmth. Nice end to a great day.

And today – Tuesday, April 20 – it is raining which is why I have time to write.