Oregon Bound for a few days

November 14th -18th
We were a little antsy to get back into the rig before winter set in and we jumped on a family reunion invite instigated by Christine and hosted by Harris’s brother Rick who was primed to show off his and Teresa’s hard work bringing their bonus room to near completion. We headed off at our usual early start time of 10 AM. Our first stop was a quilt show in Puyallup where Judy rushed through in 1 hour and Harris did a couple of geocaches (1of 2). For some weird reason the van refused to start after it had been turned off for a few minutes. No click, no cough, no engine churning, nothing. It would finally start after repeated tries of turning the key, taking out the key, reinserting the key. We were a little unsure and anxious of being stuck in the middle of nowhere so we looked for a Dodge Sprinter dealer to ask for some advice. The advice was “You need to pay a $100 diagnostic fee for us to tell you what we think. We can maybe get to it before we close but maybe not.” Since there were no engine codes and we would have to wait several hours without a guarantee that it would even be looked at, we decided to push our luck.

Next stop was Judy’s college friend Jean Gregory. She showed us their gorgeous newly remodeled kitchen while catching up on kids. Meanwhile Rick called to tell us that the Thomas female siblings were backing out of the family reunion and that Al would not make it until the following day. The anticipated family reunion was now down to 2 siblings from the original 5. The silver lining was that the weather broke; it was warm and sunny where the past many days and nights were downpours interspersed with gray cloudy drizzles. Dinner was at a nearby Mexican restaurant with more catch up talk which continued through apple pie back at Jean’s house. We rolled up to Rick’s house around 10 PM (only a few hours late but early by traditional Thomas time).

We stayed up late talking to Rick and Teresa, then went to bed in our little home away from home parked in the driveway. Even though the weather was gorgeous, the night was cold! Harris had bought a small electric heater, and it was put to good use. It warmed our “bedroom” quite nicely. The next day, Saturday, we took a short walk to a waterfall, and introduced nephews Michael and Adam to geocaching. It was fun to see them race, not walk, through the trees, barely looking at the gps…just race to get there first! Al arrived Saturday night, and we played hearts with a double deck because there were so many players. Judy was the high scorer! Which in this case meant, she lost.

We got a slow start on Sunday, due to an excellent breakfast, and good company, but we were anxious to get going to the Oregon coast. It was beautiful weather all around Portland, but got very foggy and gray around Salem. We cut over at Newport, then headed north for just a few miles to Beverly Beach. Helen and Joe Donahue had just arrived and luckily found two spots next to each other near the beach.
Beverly Beach is on the coast, of course, but Highway 101 is in between the campground and the beach. A bridge was being repaired right at the entrance to the campground, so we only had access to half the beach.

We’ve been blessed with many friends, and camping with them brings out the best. Helen and Joe brought more than enough food and snacks, and desserts, and coffee, and …well, you get the idea. Harris and Joe cooked steaks over the fire Sunday night. We played Boggle and Yahtze….Judy won!

Monday the weather was just…incredible. It was incredible for any time at the beach. But for the middle of November, it was a minor miracle...warm, clear, blue, sunny…wow! We geocached most of the day, from muddy trails to city sidewalks. The most interesting find was outside a little shop. The clue said something about an old horror movie that had been remade. Joe spotted a rock in the garden that looked a bit odd. Judy told him to pick it up and see if it was hollow..nope…but it did have a large plastic fly sitting on it. Aha! He picked up the fly, and sure enough, there was a little geocache tube attached to it. We ate a picnic lunch by Yaquina lighthouse. There was a lo-o-o-ng ramp (handicap accessible) down to the beach and some tide pools. We weren’t interested in walking down there (or more to the point, back up), but then we spotted something in the water. So we had to go look! Seals! Lots of seals, swimming in the tidepool bay, sunning themselves on the rocks, completely ignoring us. It was worth the steep walk back up to the car.
Harris and Joe cooked chicken over the fire that night. A little bit too well…done…but still tasty. We taught them the card game “quarters” that Candy and Rick taught us. Guess what! Judy won again! (If only the highest score was the winner…sigh. Who ever heard of a score of 315?????) Seriously, Helen won, and thought the game was marvelous. We enjoyed seeing our good friends, visiting with them, and playing games in their 24 (?) foot trailer with a slide out. Lots of room!

Helen and Joe had to leave Tuesday, but we thought if the weather held we’d stay another night somewhere on the coast. Alas, when we awoke on Tuesday morning, it was raining. We ventured up the coast anyway, and checked out a park at Pacific City the Donahues had told us about. As we drove through the deserted county park, Harris said, “Oh look! See the bunny?” cute little black and white guy, didn’t even twitch as we drove by him. Then we looked again, and there were seriously, bunnies all over the park. There must have been at least 50 or more. And bunny droppings all over the park. We decided that even if we were to stay another night, it wouldn’t be there! There was an interesting and huge rock in the water that we took a picture of.
One goal on all our trips is to take side roads instead of just the interstate. So, we took the scenic route along the coast, and stopped at the Tillamook Cheese factory. It was a fun and interesting stop, with a good view of the factory, and tasty samples. We continued up Highway 6, then 47, then another highway to Apiary and Rainier, then crossed the Columbia at 432 at Longview. Whew. Would have been a lot shorter just to get to I-5 and shoot straight up that corridor, but we’ve done that a lot. Somewhere along highway 6, Harris remarked, “hey, at least there’s no traffic”…Just then, we rounded a corner and joined a huge line of backed up vehicles. We waited about 30 minutes before moving, then saw there had been a very bad accident, and cars were being routed around it one lane at a time. We were sobered by the scene.

We stopped in Seattle to say a quick hi to Tasha, and check that she was all right. She had called us when we were outside of Olympia to say she had been rear-ended getting off the freeway at 45th. She was ok, and the car had a dented back fender. But we were glad to see for ourselves that she was in one piece. We stayed for a short time, then headed home and arrived about 11.

Lessons learned: The heater was wonderful! We need to pack for any and all weathers. We could have used shorts at the beach, even if it was November! So, next time, shorts and coats! Harris had been busy before the trip installing a new HD radio and a CB radio. The radio was nice, but for some reason didn’t work on AM. Something to fix. The CB came in handy because it picks up a weather channel.
Don’t know when the next trip will be, so we might have to winterize the little house. We do have a big trip planned in the spring. (more later)

Idaho Trip Pics

Trip to Idaho
Friday Sept. 26th
We were to meet Candy and Rick Lubansky who live in the Bitterroot Valley in Montana so Judy and Candy, the decision makers, looked at maps while on the phone and settled on Farragut State Park, in Idaho.

We thought we’d leave early, but after a walk it was still 10:30 before we got out of Lake Stevens. Of course, last time it was 11:30, so, it’s progress of some kind!

We drove highway 2 all the way to Spokane, not hurrying, but not taking any long stops either. Then 90 to Couer d’Alene, then 95 north to Farragut State Park. It is a great place to camp and recreate. We arrived just before nightfall and only a few minutes before Rick and Candy.
They arrived in a “too cute” white Eurovan that when glanced upon made one think of good things of our generation- Woodstock, connecting with Mother Earth, not using more than your fair share, and sharing what you have with others. They popped up their home and came over to our place to share snacks and wine while we caught up on life events.

Saturday
After sleeping in…Wow these nights were chilly. The sun goes down and sucks up all the heat after it leaving behind clear star-filled skies that are barely visible through the dense trees of our campsites. After sleeping in until the temp was more manageable, taking hot (and unlimited) showers, and a quick breakfast, we were off to explore the lakeside town of Bayview.
Bayview is a stone’s throw from the campground and supports a summer resort economy complete with all services (bars, restaurants, realtors for summer vacation spots). Rick and Harris parked themselves on front row lounge chairs taken from the Corona beer commercials that had a commanding view of the lake. Judy and Candy window shopped the lake floating boat homes, some that were for sale for only 300,000+. We then parked ourselves at a floating bar that was cleaning out everything because it was closing for the season the next day. Candy focused on “Delicious Red”, Harris on a miss-poured beer, Judy on lemonade, and Rick (the DD) ice cream. We threw off our eating cycle by eating the salad bowl sized chips and salsa and gabbing for a couple of hours.
We introduced C&R to geocaching and they became instant converts. Well, Rick might become one after the Twins finish their season. We found one that Harris had to climb a tree to retrieve. The log was in the mouth of a complete face that someone had created and nailed 12 feet up on the tree trunk. One geocache was on the disc golf course. Judy found the hardest one that was hidden in a drilled out hole underneath a root, completely hidden from view. (We had warned Candy that Judy wasn’t up to hiking, due to a bad cold. “No problem, “ says Candy, “I have a bum knee”….right…..you should have seen her charging up those hills. Harris remarked “I’m glad she’s ‘slow’ right now!”)
They taught us a card game called “quarters”, a variation of rummy. We taught them whist.
Candy and Rick are definitely the people you want to camp with. They love to cook and are very generous with their provisions. Rick brought sugar free chocolate for Harris. He also made a great breakfast Sunday morning. After more geocaching, Rick and Candy left for home. We lucky retired folks played on.
(Note to C&R, Heyburn park isn’t worth the time.)

Sunday night
So…we drove further west and camped at Riverside State Park outside of Spokane. Beautiful place to be. We spent the next morning walking and geocaching in Riverside City park and downtown Spokane. We meandered back on highway 2 and decided to take a small detour up to see Grand Coulee Dam. What a marvel. Harris loves to see these things. He wanted to take the tour, so Judy bravely went along. We had to go through a metal detector, then we walked along the top of the dam to a little building. Inside we found several rows of long seats with rails in front of them positioned like a theater, which were all facing a glass wall. Great view of the part of the dam….then the guide came in, closed the door, pushed a button and we moved! Down, down, down a gentle incline to the inside of the dam. Judy closed her eyes. We stopped halfway down to see the tops of the generators, then continued down to the bottom of the turbines. Huge buildings, huge machines, lots of noise, and Judy was glad to get to the top again.

We decided to stay for the laser show, which is beamed from the visitor’s center to the face of the dam. Interesting, a little hokey (I am the mighty Columbia, life giving river), but fun to see. Especially since the weather has been so great. The evening was just a touch cool, and the stars were fantastic. We camped outside of the city at Spring Canyon national park. One great advantage to camping this time of year, there are very few other people around. Farragut was almost full on the weekend, Riverside had about 6 others, and Spring Canyon had 3 other campers.

Friday, September 12, 2008
Got up at a more decent time of 9AM and went on a walk of the Belknap premises. Talk about flowers and gardens! This could qualify as the Butchart Gardens of Oregon. There were several types of gardens including Asian and memorial, but our favorite was the secret garden. There were ten or more water pools and fountains with beautiful aromatic flowers enclosed within a circular wall. We were impressed. We decided to spend the day at the hot springs but camp at a national forest camp ground called Olallie that we heard about from a full timer Sprinter couple in Madras, Or. The camp ground is at the junction of 2 rivers. We will have plenty of water music tonight. At the hot springs we spent the afternoon reading and talking with various couples that showed up. A cleaning lady put up a closed sign on the men’s bathroom and I turned the sing around so that people thought that the pool was closed. We had the entire pool to ourselves for a couple of hours until someone investigated further and entered the pool area when they saw us. Their remark of “Wow, the lower pool is really crowded and this one has only you two” drew a smirk from Harris. When we returned to the campground for dinner we shared our next door neighbor’s campfire for an hour or so and heard about their plans to go deer hunting the next day. On a sadder note, we heard that the Jim (the older of the two hunters) had lost his 40 year old son in a hit and run accident in Renton this past June. It had made the local Seattle news and Jim is still working through that horrible experience (Police are still investigating). Judy made a great chicken stir fry and we are getting ready to see The Great Debaters now before bed.

Sept. 11 Thursday
Our morning walk outside the Tygh Valley Fairgrounds included a vulture drying its wings over a branch that it was perched upon, a dead deer (which might have explained the vulture just mentioned) and a cemetery that was established at the time of the Civil War! We said good bye to the “Escapees”, a group of RVers based in Oregon that had a 30+ unit rally there for the past 4 days (bean bag baseball, white RV elephant auction, shared fires in the evening and lots of RV experience story telling to us). Ours was the 2nd smallest RV there but they were a great group of people (made us feel like youngsters!)
We stopped in Sisters for Judy to check out the stores and for Harris to find some geocaches. Then it was to Bellnap Hot Springs. We decided to take the scenic short cut route 246 over the Mckenzie Pass. It was one of those half the mileage but triple the time short cuts. It reminded us of the road to Hana in Hawaii with many turns at 15 mph. What surprised us was the lava rock bed at the top of the pass. It looked like a moonscape with an observatory plopped right on the top of the pass (no problem with nasty lights here). We made it to the hot springs just before dark where we feasted on roast chicken brought from Rays Supermarket just 2 hours before. The double wrapped paper bags held the heat in perfectly! Soaked for a bit and Harris showed his love for Judy by watching Atonement (those 2 rum and cokes sure helped!)

Wed. Sept 10
Today was a very lazy day. We got up late, ate a very leisurely breakfast, talked to several of the retired group of campers next to us. We finally went for a walk down the road at about 11 or so. Came back for lunch, showers, then into Maupin to check out a few things. Harris wanted to use a coupon for a river rafting, but it was only good for an all day trip, something neither of us wanted. We went geocaching, but only found one of the three. (two were hidden by the same guy in the White River Falls State Park…found an empty fishing line where one could have been once…and the other was somewhere in a wall of rocks…) disappointing. The high point of the day was driving a back way into Maupin that a camper told us about that goes along the Deschutes River that was scenic with Tribal fisherman netting fish on wooden platforms and the river rushing by below them. We kept passing alternating signs every few hundred feet saying “You are entering public lands” and “you are leaving public lands”. Talk about bipolar! Now we're back at the same camp, drinking rum and cokes, sitting outside in the beautiful evening, and life is good.

Pics: Stonehenge, Mt. Hood in the distance, Maryhill Museum

Wed. Sept 10

Today was a very lazy day. We got up late, ate a very leisurely breakfast, talked to several of the retired group of campers next to us. We finally went for a walk down the road at about 11 or so. Came back for lunch, showers, then into Maupin to check out a few things. Harris wanted to use a coupon for a river rafting, but it was only good for an all day trip, something neither of us wanted. We went geocaching, but only found one of the three. (two were hidden by the same guy in the White River Falls State Park…found an empty fishing line where one could have been once…and the other was somewhere in a wall of rocks…) disappointing. The high point of the day was driving a back way into Maupin that a camper told us about that goes along the Deschutes River that was scenic with Tribal fisherman netting fish on wooden platforms and the river rushing by below them. We kept passing alternating signs every few hundred feet saying “You are entering public lands” and “you are leaving public lands”. Talk about bipolar! Now we're back at the same camp, drinking rum and cokes, sitting outside in the beautiful evening, and life is good.

September 9th –Crossing into Oregon
After a night where we thought we were camping in Safeco Field due to the constant trains that went by our campground at Maryhill State park, we were off to see Stonehenge, Maryhill art museum and the Maryhill vineyard. The campground was beautiful perched up on the edge of the Columbia River with widely spaced RV spots and abundant green grass with a view of the river and Mt. Hood. It just took awhile to get used to those trains!

Stonehenge was picturesque being on a hill overlooking the river and with Mt. Hood to the west. The souvenir shop was closed which was fine with us and there were a whole 4 people there plus 2 dogs. Just the way we like to visit places! It looked smaller to us than we were expecting, but then we realized that there just aren’t a whole lot of big sized rocks to work with in England.

Next stop was the art museum where Sam Hill was showcased as a techie pioneer. He was the first to pave roads and his future house which was turned into a museum because he lost interest in living in, was made by pouring concrete into forms for the entire house. Judy bought a basket kit while Harris was impressed by the realism painters and the Andy Warhol exhibit.
Listening to the GPS, we drove 15 miles east of the museum to go see the winery. When “you have reached your destination” rang out, we were in the middle of nowhere. Back tracking 12 miles we saw a sign that stated the winery was 3 miles WEST of the museum! Dang that technology! We entered the winery with high expectations for the wine that we had tasted with Bob and Glenda at Mt. Rainier, but were told that the Sauvignon Blanc that we tasted was not the traditional recipe like the new stock that was currently available. We left with a wine cork instead.
On our way to Central Oregon we started looking for an overnight camping spot 30 miles south of The Dalles (where Judy checked out a quilt shop while Harris found 2 geocaches). At an intersection where a sign exclaimed a state park 4 miles east and an rv park 7 miles west and neither were in our camping book, we decided to poll the local folk by knocking on a door of a house with a rig parked outside. She proceeded to tell us of a county fair ground that had shade, hook ups and was only a mile away. We checked it out and found it more than satisfactory. Not only was the price cheap at $15/night, but it also had wifi! This is where the past few logs are going to be uploaded.

Mt. Rainier Sept. 8
The weather continues to dazzle. Bob greeted Harris with coffee at 8 AM and the four of us sat around the campfire as the sun rose into the sky. Four hours later it was time to say good-bye with promises of getting together some time in the future. We decided to hike to Carter Falls, a short mile plus hike. When will we learn that hiking to see the falls, any falls, entails long stretches of up-hill hiking! The cool part of the hike involved crossing the river bed that the storm of Dec ’07 unleashed volumes of water that brought down train loads of boulders down from the mountain heights. It totally wiped out one camping section (Sunny Point) and many bridges. Looking down we felt as if we were in an Indiana Jones adventure film (even though we were only 4 feet above the “raging” river). The only way across the river was on a log that had been sawed in half. It had a skinny rail on one side. Judy got dizzy crossing the river, but felt adventurous! We finally left our campsite around 2 on our way to Maryhill, our next stop. Our gps wanted us to go west instead of east to get to Yakima and it proceeded to tell us to turn around for the next 30 miles as we headed to Paradise and Ohanapacosh to exit the park. We continued to ignore it…It’s a beautiful drive out that way and over White Pass. We did a quick stop in Yakima to check out emails at the library (no wifi, can’t believe it!) We rolled into the Maryhill state camp ground around 9PM.

MT. Rainier Sept 5-7, 2008
We left Friday around noon, and drove to Glenda and Bob Dehning’s in Shelton. Had a wonderful meal, slept in our little home parked in their driveway, and persuaded them to join us camping in Mt. Rainier the next day. It didn’t take them long to get ready, their camper is usually loaded…just a few clothes and some food and we were all off. We were following them to the Yelm highway and down 706. We passed through the little town of Alder, and all of a sudden Bob pulled off the road. He had a flat tire! He called AAA, and was told it would take several hours to send someone from Centralia (!), so he and Harris heroically did it themselves. (No small task…take the camper off, crawl under the truck for the spare, etc.) About an hour later we were on our way again. We camped at Cougar Rock for 2 nights. The mountain was out! Just a few puffs of clouds around her. Of all the times we have visited Rainer, this has to have been the “hands down” best visit, weather-wise. It was incredibly wonderful, very warm short sleeves and shorts during the day and crispy cool at night. We ate well with Harris and Bob cooking like cave men over the roaring fire (chicken and steak). We hiked around Paradise area, played 2 new games (Bananagram and Rummicubes) and taught them whist. A great time was had by all…sorry to leave tomorrow!
Ps…saw 2 bears at Paradise. One was a very large black bear in the valley below the road at the Inn. The other was a cub on the trail up to Myrtle Falls. I haven’t seen bears here since I was a little girl.

Our first real trip

Sunday, August 17, 2008

We left today for the first real “outing” since buying our rig. We went to Sol Duc Hot Springs, in the Olympic National Park, for a camping trip with Marilyn, Gene, Jeannie and her kids. Jeannie went early in the day and found 3 great camping spots all together for us. We arrived last and just backed into our level spot. So easy!

Sol Duc is a great place to camp. The resort has three pools of hot water to soak in. There’s also a big pool for swimming. This pool was very warm this time…pleasant to swim in on somewhat cool days. The boys are great swimmers, and Natalie is comfortable now, so we had lots of fun playing keep away with them. We’d swim, then soak, then swim, then soak….
There are also lots of good hiking trails around, although most are pretty rugged. We just did easy ones, to the falls (l mile), and a longer one (2.5 miles)…then soaked again. Hard life.

We had great weather until Tuesday night, when it poured rain. Our rig was very comfortable, but it did leak a little in the bathroom vent. So nice not to be in a clammy tent! Jeannie had to go home Wednesday to get Nick registered for high school, but Justin stayed with us for the next leg of the trip.

We left Wednesday morning to go west around the peninsula. We haven’t been that far west in Washington for ages. We stopped in Forks for gas and groceries. Forks is a tiny little town that has become a tourist destination because of some teen books about a vampire romance. Fun to see signs about characters in the books around this little town. We drove down 101 to Pacific Beach. The camping spot there was right on the beach. Good thing it was an RV camp, because even the pavement had puddles of water on it. But RV campers don’t care! We’re warm! We’re comfortable! We can cook, eat, play cards, even watch movies! Such decadence…We also walked along the ocean beach, enjoying the wind and waves. Harris, Gene and Justin did some geocaching in the area.

Next morning, Justin asked to travel in our van with us. We said sure, but warned him it would be a bumpy ride in the back of the van. No problem for a 12 year old, he almost enjoyed it! We only went a short distance this day to a county park near South Bend. It was a nice little park on a bluff above the beach. The guys went geocaching again, and Marilyn and I set up all the tents the kids had used in Sol Duc to dry them out. Next morning we headed to Fort Stevens state park in Oregon., where Jeannie, Nick and Natalie rejoined us, and Jeff, Mary and Samantha were able to come for a long weekend.

Fort Stevens is an incredible place…huge….and we were glad Marilyn had made reservations as it was full, full, full. We actually parked outside the yurt Jeff and Mary slept in as an extra vehicle, while Marilyn and Gene shared their spot with Jeannie and kids. We set up Mary’s tented gazebo and played cards in between all other activities. Fort Stevens has miles of paved trails for bikes, and we borrowed Marilyn and Gene’s bikes for some rides. Wow! It’s been years since we’d done that…as our muscles reminded us the next day. The camp is at the site of a military fort that was used in WW2, and was actually fired upon by a Japanese sub. We were lucky enough to overhear a tour by a park guide on one of the bike trips. We also biked to the beach and enjoyed a couple of sunny days here. On Sunday it started to rain, but we were leaving so didn’t care. BUT! The drive home was through some of the worst rainstorms we’ve ever been in! Took us several hours, and we were glad to be home again.
Camping with Marilyn and crew always means good times and good food….and now in our little home away from home, it also means we’re dry and warm. What a great trip!

August 12…Tuesday…A long day. Up before 6, hit the road, ate breakfast at Glacier Point in Yosemite. Beautiful views of Half Dome and other peaks, and a couple of loooooooooong waterfalls across the canyon. They were so far away the water looked like lighter stone. You could barely make out it was moving. But, even so far away, it sounded like jet planes roaring around overhead. We wondered what it would sound like close up! We then drove partway into the valley for some awesome views of El Capitan…just like the picture postcards, imagine that! The roads are very steep and winding, so it took a long time to do just that little bit. We drove out on highway 120, which was even more winding, if that’s possible. We drove through Calaveras (where everything advertised had a jumping frog in it….shades of Mark Twain), and Sutter’s Creek, but didn’t stop to pan for gold. This was supposed to be the scenic route, and it is prettier than the freeway, but nothing like our mountains in Washington. Dry, and brown, full of pine trees, sorta like eastern Washington. We finally headed back to I-5, Sacramento, and beyond. Didn’t make it all the way to Redding, but that’s OK. Stopped at a cheap RV park just to get some sleep.

The Great Van Caper

The Great Van Caper
August 9, 2008. Harris and Judy buy a van. This adventure started several years ago, when we were looking into buying a used tent trailer. Nothing seemed to suit, so we continued looking. I don’t remember why we started looking at class B vans, but we went through several makes and models, getting progressively more expensive until we ended up with this one. A diesel engine 2005 Sprint, made by Pleasure Way. Harris found it on Craig’s list (where else?) a couple of weeks ago. He continued to look at it, think about it, and finally made an offer. Then, in the space of 2 days, we decided to go for it. We flew to Los Angeles at 6 AM today, drove the van from the airport to the RV park with the owner, and bought it! We know nothing about owning or operating an RV! So, I guess we’ll learn by doing.
We filled the tank, bought a few things at Target and Camper World, and left LA. What a big city! It took over an hour to get clear of it. We drove north, and stopped just outside Sequoia National Park for our first night. We’re in a private RV park, not bad, and can hook up to electricity and water so we can see to unpack our stuff.
I really wanted to see Sequoia and Yosemite, since I’ve never been to either, and figured now was as good a time as any. So, I got to pick the route home so far. Don’t know what I was thinking. Central California in the summer??? It’s been 100+ degrees today! It’s fine in the van, with the AC going, but we’ll see how the night cools off, or if we’ll have to have the AC going all night.

Aug 11 (pt 1) or “Honey, Did we make a mistake?”
During the day, we were going up and down incredibly beautiful (but incredibly steep) stretches of road. All of a sudden, the check engine light came on and stayed on. What do we do? What did we buy? How badly were we taken? That really was a too-good-to-be-true deal! Reading the manual while other not printable thoughts ran through our minds found these words (amongst many others) “You may experience a lack of power when the check engine light comes on” Not very soothing words when you are going up 7000’ mountains and then down them… It was Sunday and we were three hours from a Dodge dealer that was down the road that only vehicles under 23 feet were allowed. We crossed our fingers, watched the temp gauge, and looked in case an oil light or a “You ruined the car/engine” indicator light blinked on and continued onward to our next camping destination ever thankful that we didn’t experience that lack of power…
Aug 11-(pt2) The First Night “Dry Camping”
Dry Camping means that you are not hooked up to the grid…no power (for the air conditioning !!!), no water, no sewer hookup. Last night we found a cheap ($22) RV park that we were able to run the AC, not worry about using up water and were able to take showers in the main building. Tonight no such luxuries… We were on our own, off the grid, masters of our own destiny. Luckily, we were at 7000+ feet of elevation which rendered the lack of AC moot. We opened the windows and found ourselves early in the morning spooning like honeymooners due to the fact that we brought only 1 light blanket with us. The only causality was the door mat we left later in the day after stopping in Sequoia National Park for lunch after a hike.
(sidenote: on the 10th, we hiked up to Moro Rock….actually climbed the stairs…400 stairs to gain 300 feet of elevation…great views from the top, but a little too hazy to see the Coastal Range to the west. Some of the way was very narrow, only allowing one person at a time to pass…which made for interesting people-blocks, some going up and some going down.
Then we continued on the shuttle bus to Crescent Meadows, and did a short hike to Tharp’s cabin, which was made long ago inside the fallen trunk of a Sequoia tree. Fun to see. Back to the shuttle, back to our van, continue on to find a camping spot. On the way, we saw a big back up of cars on the side of the road, which usually means wildlife. Sure enough, we saw a mother black bear and 2 cubs.



Monday Aug 11th Or what’s that saying about the warranty running out right when…
The check engine light mysteriously went out today when we started the car. The mileage read 35,849 miles. Fresno, the next (and only) large city on our way to Yosemite, was 80 miles away. The warranty says 36000 miles. Do we figure it was a fluke and carry on? Or should we check it out? Duh, we decide to check it out. The day was spent driving out of Sequoia national park to Fresno, trying to find a Dodge dealer, waiting 3 hours to be told the light wasn’t that important. The temperature gauge in the front of the car was malfunctioning, and not covered under the warranty since someone else had already fixed it. So we have to find out if that person was a dealer, and if so, get it fixed again. But at least we know the engine won’t just die on us! (knock on wood). Rest of the day spent driving to Yosemite National Park, finding a campground that didn’t require reservations, and setting up “camp”..which is so much easier than setting up a tent, et al!