HAD A WONDERFUL TIME BUT GOOD TO BE HOME

     With the fire coming close to Yosemite, we feel fortunate we got to see what we did.  Hopefully the fire will be contained soon.  When they talk of areas that are close to being burned, we were in a lot of the areas.  Ironically as we drove through the areas that were very dry, we commented that it would be quite easy for a fire to start.  
      I have a few more pictures of when we were at Dave & Maxines'.

                                                          

      Tuesday morning we went to breakfast & then Dave drove us up further in the mountains and we did a couple geocaches.  The terrain was a little more difficult than Maxine & I wanted to attempt, so Dave & Kent climbed on up into the rocks and disappeared for awhile but then they emerged with the find.  Good going guys !    Maxine then joined them for the second cache.  I was feeling a bit light headed (we were up to 8,000 ft. in elevation) so I stayed back & waited for them to return.  Again they emerged victorious !



                                                    Kent & Dave looking for the cache

                                                                      We found it !

           After  finding the cache's, Dave took us on around the loop in the mountain.  Lots of beautiful scenery, things you don't see in Indiana.  
            We got back to the campground and got things around and we left Dave & Maxines at about 12 noon on Tuesday.   Our time was short but we had a good time.   Certainly look forward seeing you in December.

             We had to stop and take a picture with a cactus before we left the west.  I have no idea what kind of cactus this is but it's all we had to choose from.   This is the desert and it was HOT, it was good to get out of it.  We made sure we had enough fuel as there was no fuel until we got to Barstow which was almost 2 hours away.  
                                               
                                             

Driving through New Mexico the rock color was beautiful.

             
      Driving through Oklahoma we saw a strange sight and there were a lot of cars parked and walking back to the phenomenon.  This was right along old route 66 and back in a farmers field.  They were old cars buried halfway into the ground and cans & cans of spray paint just thrown on the ground.  Story I hear is the farmer owned a junk yard and he wanted to give the kids a place to do their graffiti on the old cars instead of on buildings or anything else where it doesn't belong.
Someone told me that they had seen this on YouTube.   I really can't verify that but could be.
                                           
                                                   

   
           We left Tuesday at 12 noon and we were at Sheila & Darrens' Friday at 4:00. Sheila had made supper for us which was very much appreciated.  Thank you Sheila & Darren.
                         
                                                    

             From there we left and headed home.  HOME !  We got home & found a Welcome Home sign placed there by Von & Jenny.  Thanks guys!  Wasn't expecting that.

                                  

                                         

  We have had a wonderful retirement trip, something we will never forget.  We could have stayed out even longer but it was time to come home.  Nick & Shelly took care of mowing our yard & keeping an eye on our place and picking up our mail.  We Literally could not have done this trip without their help.  Thank you so so much, you are super.

   The states and other countries we traveled were:  Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, S. Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Canada, British Columbia, Yukon, Alaska, Washington State, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri. 

  One statistic is we were out on the road for 66 days and we stayed in a RV park for 23 days and dry camped with no plug in services for 43 days.  I averaged out the cost of lodging & with all the dry camping we did lodging cost us an average of $11.57 per day.   Now if I could average the other costs down that low  our expenses would have been very good.     No matter what we had the trip of a lifetime.
Miles traveled:  11,937
Photos taken:  4100 (plus)   AND   lots & lots of video.

I guess I take a lot of pictures & videos so when we are not able to travel anymore we will have hours of entertainment of our traveling days. 


Thank you for following, I really enjoyed sharing our travels with you.
Check us out from time to time because since we are retired we do plan to travel as we can.

                                  


                                                          Until next time
                                                          Kent & Martha


                                                           

ALL REPAIRED /OFF TO VISIT FRIENDS

If we HAD to have a set back, it happened at a good place.  The Ford Dealership that took care of us was in  Chehalis, Washington.  They worked us in and had us out the door in a day and a half.  The young man that did the work on our truck was Trevor and a very good mechanic.  We took a walk downtown to the OLD part of town which was about a mile away and we found a place to eat breakfast, a historical museum, a sweet corn processing plant (very interesting, and we found a cache.  We were out the door that evening by 6:00pm.  Trevor assured us that with the bigger transmission cooler we would be good to drive up any mountain and not have a problem.  Trevor I sure hope your right!!!

                        Picture at the top is the old transmission cooler /lower bottom of picture where his
                          hands are        

                                           Bottom picture is the new transmission cooler

 

With Trevors assurance we decided to go ahead with the rest of our plans, so we headed to Yosemite and it is definitely mountain driving as was  Sequoia National Park, so we definitely gave it a workout and we are still navigating

 

We got to Yosemite late in the afternoon and we didn't want to start in and not be able to get clear through the park that day, so we went back out and stayed in a pull off spot in the National Forrest.  You can stay in a pull off in the National Forrest but not in the National Park.  So this was our spot for the night.

 

 

About a half hour after getting settled in I kept hearing bells.  It kept getting louder, and all of a sudden I looked out the door and there were cows with bells on.  Earlier we had seen a sign to watch out for range cows.  So evidently they have freedom to roam the woods, so we saw them first hand out our back door.

 

 

Some scenes of Yosemite

 

 

 

                               Look real close & you can see Kent inside in the picture below

 

When we finished in the Sequoias we headed on South to our friends

Dave & Maxine

Going to spend a day or two then start heading east.

 

 

                     Dave & Maxine are  campground hosts in Serrano National Forrest.  Very nice
                      campground except we had to climb the mountains again about 7,000 ft. up in
                      elevation.  The weather is perfect with no humidity.
                                                                          

                             This is how they parked us on their lot.  They have a double lot and they
                             are the campground hosts, but it was their superior that suggested how we
                               could park on their lot.  Kinda cozy but we fit in.  Could never have done
                              that with the motorhome!
                                                                         

                             

                                                This is Dave and Maxines new vehicle
                                                                      

 

 

 

 

Until next time

Kent & Martha

 

 

 

SOMETIMES THERE'S BUMPS IN THE ROAD

Yes there have been bumps in the road, but  we'll get to that later in the blog. 
After the Bear tour we stayed one more night in Wrangell, then the next afternoon we took the ferry out and headed to Prince Rupert B.C.  Since it was going to be almost a 16 hour ride we decided to get a cabin.  Here are some pictures of the ferry and the cabin.

                                                

 

We paid the extra 5 bucks for a window but it got covered up when we went to bed

                                   He lost the flip of the coin & ended up here (no not really)
                 

 

We did sleep really good and didn't get up until it was almost time to get off the ferry.  We could have overslept real easy.

After getting off we headed into Prince Rupert.  We were hungry so we found a McDonalds and got some grub.

 

 

The drive down through Prince Rupert was really pretty in the first part of the drive.  I could not take enough pictures.  Then the further we went it got not so pretty and we saw a lot of fields of hay.  Hay must be a big crop in that area cause there was a lot of it.   The last part of the drive was so dry and looked like a desert.  So here are some pictures from each area.

 

 

 

Someone relaxing and taking a break amongst all the beauty

 

 

 

 

 

And there are sooooooooooo many more

 

 We did get behind this car and obviously they had already done Alaska and was heading south, but Why didn't they take the sign out of the window ?

 

 

 

 

This is not one of the big big fields but there were fields of bales all over for quite a lot of miles.  There was one place that was maybe a 40 acre field or more just all one solid field of hay.

 

We came to a town of West Quesnel B.C. and there was a wooden bridge so we stopped to see what that was all about.  It says on the plaque that it is the world's longest wooden truss bridge.  So we walked over and back, so now we can say WE DID THAT.

 

 

Another big industry in the B.C. is logging****Lots of logs

 

 

Stopped in Houston for a photo shot

 

 

Largest fishing pole ?

 

Stopped to take some photos

 

 

After taking this picture we both stepped on this cactus & I looked down & had a little ball of it on my leg.  That sure came off hard and it hurt taking it off.  Kents was on his shoe (sandal) and I liked to never get it off.  Using bare fingers to boot to take it off...DUH (well I had nothing else at the moment)

 

We FINALLY made it to the border YEA!  We are back in the USA!

We drove to Bellingham, Washington and stayed the night in the Walmart parking lot along with about 10 other campers.  The next day we met & made some New Friends.  They are Gary & Diane and they are Super good friends with Kent's sister Marsha & brother-in-law Don.  They said we could  not be that close to The Knutzens' and not stop.  So we gave them a call and we met up with them and they are such hospitable people.  They have a cottage or (cabin as they call it) so we went out there and Gary was going to set crab pots because Shaun their grandson was coming the next day and he would pull them back out and take the catch to eat.  Good thing about all that was he shared them with Kent & I.

 

 

This is Gary & Diane

 

 

Thank you so much Gary & Diane.  The invitation to visit & stay with you was so nice.

 

This is Shaun

 

These were the Freshest crap we have ever eaten.  By the time he brought them in from the cages he pulled out of the water and back in to shore He  cleaned*cooked* and ready to eat in 25 minutes.  Thank You so much Shaun!  Delicious!   Also I want to thank Kathy, Shauns' mother.  She baked cookies for Shaun since he was coming from 3 hours away and I guess he gets a batch of cookies when he comes, so anyway she shared some of his cookies with us.  Thank you Kathy they were scrumptious!  Sorry Shaun.

 

Beautiful Sunset out at the Cabin

 

 

Leaving there we stopped in Everett, Washington & toured the Boeing plant.

 

                                                         Fuselage section of a 767

 

The Dream Lifter is a specially designed plane to haul parts from Europe for the 767

 

Then the next day to Seattle, and the Space Needle

 

 

 

 

Mt. Rainier

 

We caught this picture just as the cloud was around the mountain & within 3 minutes of taking the picture the clouds engulfed it.  I just thought the picture was so pretty.

 

 

Now back to the title of this blog

We have traveled many bumpy roads on this trip and were doing so again yesterday (Monday) so with bumpy roads you must go slower, just a constant slow up speed up a little, tight turns, etc.  Well yesterday we were going to see Mt. St. Helen and we did not make it.  We started loosing transmission fluid and we could not go on up the mountain.  Since there was no cell service some nice people behind us took Kent to the ranger station and after 2 hours finally came back.  The truck was ON THE ROAD & with a steep drop off on our side.  The guys blocked the tires but I was so afraid if I got in the camper I could make it shift & roll back.  Never happened but I was afraid to move the slide out or anything.  We waited for 5 hours before the tow truck came.  He was very nice and he got us towed to a Ford dealership.  We are getting another transmission put in as we do not want to break down on the way home.  So we took the camper off the truck and the back lot of the dealership is going to be our home for a couple days.  They have been very helpful.  They have worked us in and have let us plug in to their electricity while here.  They even have free Wifi.  Can't beat that.   Some pictures of the dilemma.

 

 

The transmission is out & hope the replacement arrives in the morning

 

This is Dave & Trevor the Mechanics working on the project** I told them they just made my blog.

 

 

 

 

Well I have been  a bit long winded but there has been so much to share, so I hope you enjoy

 

 

 

Until next time

Kent & Martha