Unexpected freeway sighting in E. Washington

Friday and Saturday, April 27/28, 2012 Days 320/321

Here's a picture of the Handiquilter boxed up inside Howie...not too crowded!

We left southern Idaho early in the morning. The wind had been blowing all night, as well as lots of rain, but it wasn't too bad when we started out. Then it hailed on us! Definitely time to head for home.
Later in the afternoon, the sun did come out, so we had to take a few pictures to remind us of this.

Crossing into Oregon, we were debating where and when to stop. Last time we stopped near Hermiston, close to the Washington border. This time, Harris decided that since there was a Mariner game on the radio, he'd just keep driving toward home. We planned to be there about 10 or 11 PM.
This is a picture taken before we were going over the Blue Mountains in Oregon. This area is one we'd like to come back to and explore someday, when we're not at the end of a 7000 mile trip!

As we left the Tri Cities area of Washington, headed for Yakima, Harris's phone rang.
"hello?"..."Look at the truck in front of you...well, now we're 2 cars, 3 cars, 4 cars in front..boy, you guys poke along!" (too true, we do, trying to get that good gas mileage). "who is this? we don't see a truck?" "Mary!"
Judy's sister, Marilyn, husband Gene, son Jeff and his wife Mary were returning to Yakima Sportsman State Park from the Walla Walla area. They had been wine tasting, and when they were going down the freeway, they said, "Hey, that vehicle sure looks like Howie!...what do you know? that's Harris inside!"
So, they called us. What are the chances of this? Meeting someone you know on the freeway?
We decided we just had to stop and see them. So we pulled into the state park and found they had saved us a spot right next to them. We could have gone home, but what the hey, the sun had come out and we didn't have a definite date we had to be back, so...what's for dinner?
Marilyn had plenty for us, she said...and she always says this! We had a wonderful beef fondue and salad and home made bread and cheesecake for dessert. Jeff made a great fire that we sat around while it got dark. It was fun to catch up, but after all the desert we'd been in the last month, we were feeling the cold and had to get out layers we luckily had packed back in March.
The next day, Saturday, Marilyn and family went to Zillah for more wine tasting, and we hung around the campsite for the morning because the sun was shining and warm. Finally, it was time to leave...the Mariners were on the radio again, so we could listen all the way home. We got home about 4 and started unloading....

Oops! forgot about this pic...geese on the river in the park...

total miles driven Friday= 524



total miles driven Saturday= 175

Salt Lake City (picking up Judy's machine)

Thursday, April 26, 2012 Day 319

Only one picture today...rain, rain, rain.We left Green River, Utah this morning, in warm sunshine, but we knew the weather was going to change today. After days of warm, hot! sunshine, it did indeed change. We drove through Salt Lake City to pick up Judy's Handiquilter, and the high was 76. By the time we crossed into Idaho, the temp dropped to the 60's, then the 50's. And it started to rain, gently at first and then the clouds opened up and the water came down. We parked for the night at Declo, Idaho, and the Village of Trees Resort, just off I 84. We bought a pizza at the office/store for dinner, because it's still raining too hard to grill outside. We feel very snug inside, except for the pesky leak in the bathroom.

Last night we stayed at a nice park called Shady Acres, where we met a couple from the Netherlands who were driving and camping in an RV for the first time. That's one of the best parts of traveling, meeting people from all over. Yesterday while hiking in Arches, we met a couple from England, and we talked "football" with them. We've met others from Germany, and of course people from many different states.

While traveling through the long miles of desert and flat farmlands, it helps to listen to audiobooks. We've listened to The Hunger Games, the sequel Catching Fire, and are halfway through Mockingjay. Not the easiest books to listen to, but it makes the miles go by more easily! (we also listened to the Mariners beat Detroit today. :)

We should be home in a couple of days. As long as it's raining, we prefer to drive on....

Total miles driven today= 353

Arches National Park

Wednesday, April 25, 2012 Day 318

Arches National Park wasn't that far from Mesa Verde, and on our route, so we were excited to see another national park on this trip. The weather has been just perfect for days now...80's, clear skies, light wind. There are over 2000 catalogued arches ranging in size from a 3 foot opening to the largest which is 306 feet long. The geology of the land is so incredible...stretches of desolate land, then these incredible formations everywhere. Butch Cassidy and his gang hid out here, and it's easy to see how!

This raven posed perfectly for us in front of a formation called "Balanced Rock". This rock really does look like it could tumble off at any time.

This formation is called "Double Arches".

This one is called "North Window". There is another arch right next to it called South Window.

This cabin was built in the early 1900's..it replaced an earlier cabin built by John Wesley Wolfe who homesteaded here in the late 1800s with his son Fred alone for over 10 years. When his daughter and family arrived later, she made him improve the cabin, and it remains here to this day. We just can't imagine living way out here, all alone, for so long! It seems such a harsh country to try to make a living in.

As we said, the weather has been perfect for many days, and it's beginning to turn. There are clouds tonight, and rain predicted for tomorrow. We're headed to Salt Lake City tomorrow to pick up Judy's Handiquilter...hopefully fixed for good this time...then back home. It'll be hard to put the shorts away! Total miles driven today= 155

Mesa Verde National Park

Tuesday, April 24, 2011 Day 317 Well, today was our lucky day...actually tomorrow will be, too! As we drove up to Mesa Verde National Park, we discovered that this whole week, there is no charge to enter any national park. Yay! So, onward and upward.The road climbs from 6950 feet, twisting and turning up to 8572 feet, then back to about 7000 feet. Judy kept her eyes on the hillside, not the cliffs! There have been many fires over the years at this park, mostly caused by lightning. One sign we read said that over 70% of the park has been burned at one point or another. It was weird to see huge swathes of trees looking like this, and right next to them would be green trees obviously untouched by the same fire.

Our first stop, naturally was at the visitor center where we bought $3 tickets to a ranger led tour of one of cliff dwellings. This park was created in 1906 to preserve the archeological heritage of the Ancestral Puebloans, both on top of the mesas, and in the cliff dwellings below. The park includes over 4500 sites, 600 of them are cliff dwellings. This is a picture of one such dwelling, called Cliff Palace. The ranger told us the dwellings all date from around 1200, and were abandoned about 1275.

Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling. The hike to get there isn't long, but it was a bit strenuous. All the signs ask you to be aware that people with health problems might not want to proceed. They don't tell you that people who are chicken shouldn't proceed either. (Ask Judy...) The trail is steep, and involves climbing up ladders at various points, with a 100 foot overall vertical ascent. But it was worth it to see all this close up and personally. The architectural details were astounding.

As you drive around the park, there are lookout points such as this one. Across the canyon you can just make out the "House of Windows". The openings aren't actually windows, they are doors. Small doors!

We stopped for another "short" hike to see another dwelling called Spruce Tree House. You could walk right up to this one, and Harris went down into a kiva to take this picture. Judy declined to go down another ladder.

Another picture of the Spruce Tree House cliff dwelling. The trail down is all paved...and easy....but going back up is another story! (and we were grateful for the path. We were told the Indians used hand and foot holds in the cliff itself to go up and down, not paths.)

We just did a little "taste" of Mesa Verde, because we knew we had miles to cover before dark. So we drove back down to the highway and across the little corner of Colorado into Utah. The mesa area itself was full of green and trees, and as we drove through the valley the landscape became flat and almost ugly, except where there were huge fields. Then, as we entered Utah, we encountered rock formations again.

Isn't this an interesting formation, standing there all by itself?

Tomorrow we're heading for Arches National Park. This is a little preview of what we hope to see.

Miles driven today= 150

Stopover in Espanola, NM

Monday, April 23, 2011 Day 316
We got an early start this morning, intending to explore Mesa Verde National Park by the afternoon. Because we were sticking to back roads, we went on NM highway 96 and ended up going by this really lovely lake. Then we saw there was a campground, so we just had to check it out.

Turned out the campground was an US Corps of Engineers park. A dam had created Abiquiu Lake. The weather was so perfect we were very tempted to stay the night here, but it was only 9:30 in the morning...and we had plans, so we drove on.

We crossed the Continental Divide at 7380 feet, and then were on our way into Colorado. The landscape started to change as we climbed up and down. We even saw snow on the side of the road at one point, although the weather still seemed hot.
It was a good thing that Harris called ahead to our intended stop...the camp wasn't open for the season yet! So we found a wifi spot and started looking around. Harris found a real gem of a place called Mesa Verde RV Resort, just a few miles from the National Park. When we got here, we decided to just stay put for the afternoon and do our exploring tomorrow. (After all, a hot tub is a great thing to relax in!)

Total miles driven today= 243

Los Alamos, NM

Sunday, April 22, 2011 Day 315
Today we drove to Los Alamos to have a look around. This first picture shows the changing vegetation as we climbed up in elevation...there's even a little snow left on the distant mountain.

There was a gap between cliffs here that made us think of the "Hole in the Wall Gang". As we passed the outskirts of Santa Fe, there was a film studio.

Just outside Los Alamos, looking down from a viewpoint along the highway.

We went on a walking tour of Los Alamos, visiting various historic points within the town. We also found a geocache called "fuzz garden"...it was in the landscape outside the police department.
Los Alamos means the cottonwoods...which are in full "bloom" around here now. We knew about the history of the atomic bomb being developed here, but little else before we came. Of course, there were Indians here for hundreds of years, Spanish explorers and settlers. But we also found out that there was a boy's school here, Los Alamos Ranch School, started in 1917 for rich boys primarily from the East Coast who could benefit from the great outdoors. It ran for 26 years, and many of the buildings we visited were from that period.

The historical museum itself is housed in what was primarily a guest house for the school. It is an excellent museum, with great exhibits from ancient times, through the school period, and including the World War II period, when the government bought the land and buildings for the scientists and army personnel working on the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer had visited this area previously as a young man, and recommended the site to the government.

This little "room" was at the end of the historical museum displays....anyone else recognize a "bomb shelter" from the sixties?

The Bradbury Science Museum is named for Norris Bradbury, the Los Alamos lab director from 1945=1970. It was wonderfully overwhelming, with information about the history of the bomb, ongoing research the lab does in many areas, and its defense work.

We particularly liked reading the stories about people who worked here, from scientists to cleaners to army personnel.

This is a replica of "the gadget"...the test bomb that was detonated further south in New Mexico before the "real" ones were made.

After we were too full of information to take any more in, we drove north a bit more to Espanola, and are camped at The Cottonwoods RV park for the night.

Total miles driven today=155

Founder's Festival

Saturday, April 21, 2011 Day 314

We stayed in Albuquerque today, because there was a festival going on in Old Town...a 306th birthday festival for the city.

Last night Harris was checking out the other class B vans in the park, and ran into this one. He got to talking to the guys who were traveling in it, and wow! discovered that we'd met them last year in Savannah, Georgia! small world indeed.

We tried to get to town early enough to find a good place to park. Because we did, we were able to do a couple of geocaches. One was called "Cinderella's Shoe " and took us to a house whose yard was decorated with all kinds of "found" objects. One pole in front of the yard was covered with old shoes that had been nailed on it. The cache was inside one of these shoes!

There were several of these large figures around the town square, all representing different cultures.

There were various kinds of performances going on in about 6 different areas. Harris particularly liked the Mexican bands and dancers.

This is a flamenco dancer. She was impressive!

Dancers waiting their turn to go onstage. We loved all the colorful costumes.

Later in the afternoon, all the figures were gathered together in one place. We were getting very tired and hot by this time, so we decided to leave and head back to our campsite.

We don't have a picture of it, but Judy got Harris out dancing. One area had a square dance band and caller, and anyone who wanted to could get up to dance. So we did! It was fun! We haven't done that since our days of "barn dancing" in Juneau....long ago.


Total miles driven today=35

Albuquerque

Another day of staying put. Harris said he wants to stay in the sunshine and warmth as long as possible. Judy said, well, it doesn't get warm in Seattle until July. Harris said, so? let's stay until July!
Not!
Anyway. We went into the "Old Town" section of Albuquerque. It's full of old buildings with new shops, mostly touristy Southwest type things. There were also people on the sidewalks selling their wares.

This is the San Felipe de Neri church, built in 1793. It's right in the middle of the town square.

We're posing here beside a cannon in the town square. There are 2 replicas here, the real ones are in museums. There were something like 20 of these here during the Civil War, and they were buried to keep them from falling into Yankee hands. We didn't realize that there were any battles fought in this area.

There were groups playing music in several places, and selling their CD's.

This is a picture of "claret cup" cactus. This was taken outside the NM Museum of Natural History. We went there for a geocache. Then we decided to go back there after lunch. It was a great museum, full of all kinds of information, from dinosaur bones to the birth of the home computer.

We ended up going to an RV park we stayed at before...not that we remember it! (Enchanted Trails RV Park and Trading Post.) Last time we were here, we think we just pulled in long enough to sleep.


Total miles driven today=35