Reno

We spent the day in Reno, Nevada. It's not at all like Las Vegas with glitzy shows and hotel/casinos with big themes. It's all gambling and food and drink. But we did see the awesome National Auto Museum which is the largest in the U.S. We saw a Ford Model T that is a camper. Maybe the first motor home! The Trukee River runs right through the middle of town. We found a Whole Foods here and did our grocery shopping. Then we went to a new shopping mall where they had a free concert. It was a country and western band which was good but we left early not being huge country and western music fans.

The Loneliest Road in America

Today we drove the "loneliest road in America, Hwy 50. It's known as that because you see very few vehicles and it goes through a lot of flat land with nothing but scrub brush. We drove almost all the way across Nevada east to west about 270 miles. We stopped about half way through at a small town called Austin for lunch. It is nothing like the Austin in Texas. It was quaint but junky. They had one rv park but we decided to move on to a bigger town where are camped now called Fallon. It's got 6000 people and many more stores. Our car was so filthy from driving on dirt roads from going sightseeing that I took it to a car wash while Cindy did the laundry. We didn't see too much today as far as sightseeing goes. We did see one interesting sight. We pulled in to a turnout to switch drivers and saw a tree with hundreds of shoes draped on it. Look closely at the picture. It must be called "The Shoe Tree". Tomorrow we will visit Reno and Carson City.

Ely day 2

Today we saw a national park, caves with formations, charcoal ovens, and went on a historic train ride. We drove to Great Basin National Park and took a cave tour with beautiful stalactite's, and stalagmites in 40 degree temperature. The we drove up to 10,000 feet to the summit of the park. We then went to see charcoal ovens where wood used to be made into charcoal. They are like brick teepees as you can see in the picture. Then we hopped a train ride through historical mining town of Ely. Mona insisted on coming with us. They are original restored trains.

Next stop- Ely, Nevada

After Cindy cleaned the bugs off our winshield in the Wal Mart parking lot in Utah we took off to Ely, Nevada (pronounced Elee). It was a long hot boring 400 miles past the Great Salt Lake into the Nevada desert with not a tree in sight. We picked a different place in Nevada we hadn't been to before. It is near Great Basin National Park which has caves and pristine beauty. Ely is a historical old mining town with train rides and a museum back to the past. They used to mine garnet here and you can go garnet picking which we did. There is one area which allows people to keep what you find. Most of it is in lava rock which you have to pick out. We brought a bunch of rocks to our motor home and Cindy chiseled out what she could while I cooked dinner (oven baked potatoes with broccoli and "cheese sauce" with corn on the cob. Tomorrow we will probably go to Great Basin National Park.

On the Way Home

We left Yellowstone today for home. We are taking our time to see sights we haven't seen before along the way. We traveled through Idaho and Utah today. Mostly all you see is flat land with a mountain range on the east. We stopped at a rest stop in Idaho and they have a lava formation trail that is interesting. Seems there was a big eruption there way back. Then we saw Idaho poatoes finally growing along the freeway. Cindy says they are probably red potatoes because the flowers are pink as you can see in the picture. When we got to Utah we stopped at a Wal Mart Supercenter and did grocery shopping. We are camping here tonight. The temperature was about 95. There is a Chili's next door so instead of cooking in our hot motor home and making it hotter we ate at Chili's. Wow that Black Bean burger was good! It is starting to cool down now. It is very windy but no hail storm yet.

Old Faithful

Here is a video of "Old Faithful" that I shot on day 1 in Yellowstone. It erupts approximately every 75 minutes with 5000 gallons of boiling water shooting 150 feet in the air.

Yellowstone Day 3

Today Sat. July 26 we spent about 3 hours seeing a few sights in Yellowstone we didn't see the last 2 days. We found out that when driving the roads in Yellowstone traffic will come to a standstill at any time because either a wild animal will be in the roadway or people will stop their cars when they see a wild animal off in the distance and so everyone has to stop a be a lookyloo, like the bear that stopped traffic, yesterday (see picture July 26).

We then went into town and had lunch at a restaurant. We ordered a cheeseless pizza and it was pretty good. Then we saw a few sights near our RV camp and happened to see a an interdenominational log cabin church that held Saturday evening Catholic Mass so we went. Our RV camp is really out in the sticks with few people and houses and stores, very peaceful.

Tomorrow we leave for home. Haven't decided exactly what we will see on the way. I-15 goes all the way to San Diego but we would like to travel through places we haven't been before. Maybe we will go through northern Nevada.

Yellowstone Day 2

Today we did the second loop of things to see in Yellowstone. We have seen practically all of Yellowstone's attractions. We saw some big waterfalls and more geysers and wild animals. Tomorrow we are going to see some attractions by our RV park which is actually in Idaho. We may go into the town of West Yellowstone and walk around like tourists.

Yellowstone Day 1

Today we spent the whole day at Yellowstone National Park. It was really adventuresome. We saw lots of geysers, lakes, rivers and wild animals. We also saw the fire damage that devastated the park in 1988. A lot of the greenery is coming back but we saw many dead trees sticking up out of the forest. We saw "Old Faithful" shoot up. We and many people waited 20 minutes for the show.
The amazing thing is there are geysers at a lot of different areas of the park. So you drive around to them to view the geysers. There are different colors everywhere with boiling, bubbling steam. Very few actually shoot up like "Old Faithful" but boil and bubble up showing their colors. Some you can see that drain into the lakes and rivers. Here are a few pictures, we will have more tomorrow.

Arrival in Yellowstone

Today Wednesday July 23, '08 we arrived in Yellowstone. Along the way we saw a lot of rivers with rushing currents. Some people were fishing in them in fishing boots. When we got to Yellowstone we crossed right into Idaho about 20 miles to go to our RV park where we will camp for 4 nights. It is close to a big lake so tonight we hiked up a trail where we could see it. There were cows in the road by the lake that apparently gotten through their fence, so we didn't go any farther. Tomorrow we will drive into Yellowstone and probably see "Old Faithful" the famous geyser that goes off about every 78 minutes.

The Wal Mart Storm

This morning we left JellyStone RV Park and made it as far as Bozeman, Montana. We drove through some rain, but the roads were generally nice. Shortly before we parked at the Wal Mart for the night there was a huge down pour. We noticed the street was flooded near a corner. It was a short but heavy rain. I stayed in the RV while Mike went into Wal Mart to shop. While he was in Wal Mart a lady parked her car in front of us and started to bail water out of it. She asked me if I had a bucket. I got a small bucket, a popcorn tub, 2 large rags and a squeegee. She, her daughter and I bailed a lot of water out of her car for about an hour. She was parked in front of Wal Mart when the huge down pour came and she was parked in a low spot in the parking lot. Later I saw a huge black cloud coming from the west. I thought it was going to rain. Well we got rain, hail, thunder, lightening and gale force winds. I thought the RV was going to tip over and I was sure the hail was going to dent the car and RV. Fortunately we stayed up right and there are no dents in the vehicles. There is just a lot of ripped leaves from the trees sticking to the car and RV. All is well now. Okay, well not all is well. when we pulled into the next RV park we discovered the awning that comes out when we pull out the slide out is now full of holes. The hail punctured it. It is there to keep leaves and dirt from getting into the RV when we put the slide out in. Oh Well, we will have it replaced when we get home. All is really well.

Spokane

Yesterday, Sunday July 2oth we left Mardean and Peter's beach house in Stanwood, Washington to start our travels to Yellowstone. What a beautiful setting their house in on.

We first drove to Spokane where we spent the night. Today we spent a few hours at Spokane Riverfront where we there is a rushing river with falls. Then we drove about three hours to Missoula, Montana. We drove through the eastern part of Washington where the weather is dramatically hotter the the west part, then through Idaho, and then into Montana where tonight we are spending the night at, get this...Jelleystone RV Park. We got a glimpse of Yogi Bear walking around as you can see in the picture. By Wednesday we will be in Yellowstone Park (no Yogi).

Stanwood

Today we left Canada and drove 80 miles to Stanwood, Washington to visit Cindy's girlfriend she hasn't seen for about 20 years. She lives with her husband and two dogs right on the beach of Pugent Sound. It has a beautiful view.

Vancouver

July 16 and 17 we have been in Canada. We are staying at an RV park in Surrey which is 5 miles from the border. Our Sprint cell and internet service is iffy since we are at least 5 miles from a cell tower in the U.S. and Sprint doesn't have service in Canada. Surrey is about 30 miles from the big city of Vancouver. Today we drove to Vancouver to a little island called Granville actually a peninsula where they have a huge farmers market with produce and eateries and little shops. It was fun. Surrey is 1/3 agriculture so yesterday we drove around and visited some farms where they sell produce. A lot of it is organic farms and some are U-pick it but we didn't see any of those.

It's wierd to visit a foreign country where most people look like us and talk like us. As for driving there are a lot of round-a-bouts and some of the green lights are flashing. We haven't figured that one out yet.

Tomorrow we leave to go back to Washington to visit Cindy's friend Mardean in Stanwood which is about 200 miles from here. Then we will probably to visit Yellowstone Park in Wyoming and then head home.

Boeing

We toured the Boeing airplane plant in Everett which is near Seattle today. Cameras are not allowed but we could use them in the exibition building. We toured the biggest building in the world. It has to be to accomodate whole airplanes that they assemble there.