050925 ST. GEORGE, UTAH

9/25/2005
St. George, Utah
9/22/2005
Even with all the rain yesterday, today was a clear, warm, sunny day – excellent for travel. interstate 80 is the main road out of town – heading south – and basically a good driving road. It soon changes into interstate 15 and apparently this is a road that is in need of repairs in some areas and that’s exactly what is happening as we travel it – roadwork. We have a schedule to keep today and did not plan on traffic and road crews, but then again, it could be worse.
We could be trying to get out of town in Galveston or Houston.

According to our map, Draper is about 20 miles south and there is a camping world store there. CW is like a toy store for Rvers. Anyway, as we get near, the exit # we are looking for doesn’t exist. We found this odd event a week before – it seems that the map and the actual exit #s don’t match. Besides, that, the mileage is also “off” and Draper is 4 miles further. As we pass Draper, we expect to see a large sign for CW but nada. Not being in the mood to drive around trying to find it – we pass and stay on the highway. One of our discount clubs has a RV park and restaurant for $7.50 a night. However, when we get there, the restaurant is closed and a sign on the door offers it “FOR SALE” with the RV park. We check our “Bible” for the next city. Cedar City, and are not too fond of the parks and their descriptions, so we decide to bite the bullet and put in some extra driving time. There is another club park listed in St. George, so off we go. The park (Settler’s) is large and nice, and when we check in, we are told that they are not nor have they every been a member of Happy Camper – so our hopes for a 50% discount is dashed on the rocks. It’s late, I’m tired, peter is whining for a tree, so we settle for our 10% Good Sam discount and hook up. With our next stop at Pahrump, Nevada, we’ll stay here thru the weekend, blow by Vegas and settle in at Pahrump for a long week.

Settler’s is in the heart of the city and so we are within Batmobile range of some stores and restaurants. We get to cruise the neighborhood, which means Peter wishes he had brought his Nikes. The weather is warm, 60s at night and high 80’s daytime – we enjoy it and drink lots of liquids.

I am not sure if I will have cell phone or internet service at Pahrump – so if u may not hear from us for the next 10 days. For some of u that will be a relief.

Till next time,

050922 - SALT LAKE CITY

Salt Lake City 9/22/2005


We arrived at the city in late morning and check-in for most RV parks are noon or later, so we decided to take the Beast for a tour of the downtown area – at least that’s what looked most interesting. The tall buildings, temple spires, trolley cars, and a bit of traffic. It all looked quite clean and organized.
As we headed toward our park, we made mental notes of the locations of restaurants, laundries, and we even noticed that we were not too far from the fair grounds which was hosting its annual state fair that weekend.

The RV park was a KOA – which usually means 2 things – its going to be well organized, with good services, and it’s going to be a little more expensive that the average park. I was right on both counts. To mitigate the cost, we decided to pay the weekly rate - 7 days for the price of 6 – figuring with the cost of gas being what it is – it would be worth not driving for a week.

As we hooked up – we did notice some dripping from our black water tank (the nasty one). It was Friday, so naturally when we called the local Mobile RV repair man he scheduled an appointment for Monday morning. This created a major inconvenience – not being able to use our toilet – having to use the park’s facilities. Of course Peter was delighted, since that meant he got to go for walks more often – even if it meant bathroom duty.

The mechanic came out as planned, sealed the crack in the tank, fixed a few other things on my to-do list and everything was back to normal by the afternoon.
We decided that the damage was probably done on the road to or from the Valley of Rubble. I knew I should have bypassed it.

This park did have everything – from a Mexican restaurant on the corner, to Pizza delivery from down the block, with a small restaurant in the park for breakfast and dinner and even a barber shop. In addition, they arranged tours that picked us up at the park.

One tour we took covered the basic city highlights including the Mormon historical sights, temple, tabernacle, and a general tour of the city and its surroundings. Unfortunately, the capitol building and tabernacle were under construction for earthquake retrofitting, but we did get to attend a beautiful organ recital at one of their other religious centers. The recital hall was immense and awesome. The organ was smaller than the one in the tabernacle but it could have filled my high school gymnasium. I can imagine the size of the other.

The city is well designed, laid out in a sensible grid – numbered by the distance from the temple – center of town. It is said that when it was originally planned, the streets were to be wide enough for a 2 oxen team and wagon to be able to make a U-turn. In fact, even the Beast could make the turn.

Initially, we were told that Peter was not allowed on the bus, but after a short but forceful explanation, he was granted access. Of course he was a perfect gentleman, and everyone on the bus wanted to pet him.

Our next tour was to take us to the 2 most famous non-religious sites of the area … The Salt Lake and The Open Pit Copper Mine ( the largest in the world).
Supposedly, the only site that can be seen from the space shuttle besides the Great Wall Of China.

The lake is about 16 miles out of town and once you describe its size, shape, age and content, there is not too much else to say. Once you see it, there is not too much more to see. There is actually a marina there with about 50 boats, but only about 3 sail boats were out that day. The lake is big, in fact about 40 by 20 miles big) with 11 islands in it – the largest being 11 miles long – but they are all uninhabited except for wild life.

The Copper Mine is a pit … about 3 miles long by two miles wide, and one mile deep. It is basically a hollowed out mountain. Again, a pretty impressive site to see – for about 5 minutes, and then that’s all there is to see. There is a small museum at the site – and a short movie about the history and operations of the mine – pretty impressive.

We never got to the fair, but since it was so close, we got to watch their fireworks show a few nights from the comfort of the chairs in front of our RV.

The weather was pretty nice most of the week, expect for the day before we left – a large rainstorm – mostly late night – early morning – gone by the time we got up, but showers later in the afternoon briefly.

We really enjoyed this area, and once again have changed our itinerary. We had planned on going to Colorado and then to New Mexico, but checking the weather told use that winter temperatures were already appearing – nighttime – 30’s – not our cup of tea – so we’ll head south instead – planning on a week or so at a club park in Pahrump, Nevada that has some good press.
Till next time,

050914 - CITY OF ROCKS

Sep 14, 2005
City of Rocks

Having traveled southwest from Pendleton, Oregon, we passed thru Boise, Twin Falls and Delco. In one brochure, we were encouraged not to miss The City of Rocks, so we added it to our itinerary.
From Delco, we were directed down highway 77 which started out as a well built and smooth road. The sign that told us the City of Rocks National Park was 43 miles didn’t bother us too much until the road started to deteriorate into dirt road detour 10 miles later due to construction on the “main “ road.

For the next 30 miles, at about 25-30 mph, we trekked on thru dusty, semi-graded, unmarked roadway. It got to the point that I didn’t care if we were going to the City of Gold and they were giving free samples. I wished I could turn back. 2 hours later we finally arrived at the Visitors Center, watch an 8 minute video, picked up some brochures and asked for further directions.

A couple of humorous incidences along the way did break the sour mood the road had put me in – first a small wagon train, consisting of about 6 pint sized covered wagons, and about 6 horseman. I’m guessing it was a tourist thing, but it was the last thing I expected on the road from hell.

Not much further down the road I ran across the smallest cattle drive I ever saw – maybe 6-8 steers, being driven by about as many cowboys, and being followed by a cattle truck which looked big enough for this tiny herd. Unfortunately, driving was difficult and stopping to take pictures was not on my mind.

from the visitors center, it was a few more miles to the actual location of THE CITY OF ROCKS and once there, these rocks were spread along a trail about 10 miles long.

I guess my imagination and expectations got ahead of me, but as I stared at the rocks, I had trouble enjoying them. True, they were big, … very big rocks …
But the names they were given had no resemblance to their shape. The elephant rocks I guess looked like elephants laying down, and the Twin Sisters were just two large and tall rock formations alongside each other. The bathtub rock is about 50 feet high and maybe about that much in diameter and if you climb to its brim, there is a depression that makes it look like a bath. I will take their word for it.

There were a bunch of campsites available – I’m glad I didn’t know that – because I might have been tempted to make reservations and then be even more disappointed. The sites were primitive – dry camping – and for the very hardy.

I felt obliged to take lots of pictures to justify the effort it took to get there, and then realized that leaving was going to be just as difficult – 52 miles of hard driving on cattle roads to the interstate. All in all, a full day behind the wheel and a grateful early night’s sleep at Willard Park (Utah) … a small, off road RV park with nothing to offer other than peace and quiet.

I may send out a large batch of pictures so you can decide for yourself if these rocks look like anything. There was one formation that did look like a bear mounting an elephant. Tell me if you agree.

In the future, I will rename this experience as The Valley of Rubble. This is a place that only Fred Flintstone could love.

Till next time,

PENDLETON, OREGON

050912 - PENDLETON, OREGON

September 12, 2005

We are finally out of Washington State.
Pendleton is in NW Oregon. It's a small city with a big reputation. Besides being known for its line of clothing, each year in the 2nd week of September, it has its annual Rodeo, called ROUNDUP. We stumbled on this event by accident while fooling with one my computer travel programs.

The town is about 15,000 people usually and swells to about 3 times its size during roundup. To these people, that's allot, but,I remember going to a rodeo in Madison Square Gardens that held much more than that, but for an outdoor, small town event it's quite a party.

Anyway, when we entered the town, we took a quick look see and it took about 15 minutes to cruise it.

We found the stadium, next to it was the convention center, and then we found Wal-Mart - which was bigger than the 2 of them combined.

This morning we were awakened by the rocking of our little house accompanied by the sound of loud, rushing wind.
It was 7:30 am and the sun was shining, with a bright blue sky and white clouds over head. The trees were shaking and bending from the violent gusts that were reported to be about 44 mph.

Peter did not seem to mind the noise and movement - as soon as i opened the door - he leaped out. Fortunately, the wind was coming from the west and our door is on the east side, so our patio area is sheltered.

The next evening, just after dark, an RV pulled up besides us and Peter actually let the driver pet him.
She was a silver haired senior, driving a late model 28 ft model C, dressed in a blue sweater over what looked like a white nurse's uniform. Her name was Fran.
She lives in Gunnison, Colorado and is driving to Vancouver, Canada to attend a party tomorrow. She left Salt Lake City this morning at 7 am and drove 600 miles to Pendleton this evening. Pretty amazing. To reach the Canadian boarder she will have to drive about another 400 miles tomorrow. I hope she made it.

Oddly enough, I was planning on staying at Blue Mesa Park, which is in Gunnison. She talked a little about the town and suggested a good Italian and Chinese restaurant. She lives in a condo on the river.

We talked about traveling and some of its difficulties for the older traveler, but she seemed to be able to handle the routines of RV camping, although admittedly slower. She seemed pretty adventurous, having skydived in Hawaii last year.

She was tired from her day's driving, so we said good nite and she was planning on taking off at 7 the next morning.

One of our other neighbors was a contract physical therapist, traveling with his dog Mabel (a Lab mix). He has an agency that gets him temporary jobs at about 3 month at a time, and travels the country, trying to stay in the warm spots as often as he can.

Unfortunately for us, the actual rodeo events did not start until Tuesday the 13th, so we arrived a little too early for the big show but too late to get a reservation, so we had to move on with just the a walk thru. Apparently there is a rodeo circuit in the area, so perhaps next time we will be better informed as to the events and dates. I'll have to keep wondering how Peter would have reacted to all the horses and livestock.

Till next time,

MOSES LAKE, WASHINGTON

050906 - MOSES LAKE, WASHINGTON

Sept 6,2005

Moses Lake, Washington

Today was a special day – at least for Peter – the opening of a fresh 40 pound bag of dog food. HE always gets so excited – like opening a fresh can of coffee – getting that scent of a freshly opened bag – thinking that the whole bag is for you in one sitting – trying to get his nose into the bag - oh the disappointment. But he got over it. He always does.

This RV resort is large and well organized. The grounds are grassy with paved interior roads. The weather is warm and comfortable so we are looking forward to a pleasant and relaxing week.

On Alternating night there are card or board games so we decided to try our hand at Bingo. It was a small group and Peter got bored and took a nap. A few games later, he seemed to take an interest in my card, and when I told him I hadn’t won yet, I got a card for him. He tends to be the lucky one in our group. Unfortunately, there were these two sisters, about 5 and 8 years old that wan quite a few games and frustrated most of the adults.
At the end of the night Peter was very upset when I told him how much of his Kibble allowance he had lost.

The park was half full when we arrived but by the time the labor day weekend was starting it was packed with many families taking advantage of the good weather, and the opportunity to use the lake for boating, water-skiing and jet skiing.

The adjacent sites had motor homes and tents for the kids to sleep in and tables set up to feed this Army. Fortunately, they, like many others stayed for Friday and Saturday and Sunday, and then were gone Monday morning – which was the actual holiday. I guess many have long trips home or want to beat holiday traffic. We didn’t mind. The park was as empty as when we arrived.


PASCO, WASHINGTON

As we check in, there is a notice taped to the counter stating that the following breeds of dog will not be allowed in the park. Among the list were Pitt Bull, Doberman, Rotweiler, Malamute, Chow and any form of wolf. It’s a good thing that Peter could not see the countertop because I’m sure he would have peed on the notice. I told him about it when we finally parked and he just smiled.
The park was pleasant and its just a stopover.

050901 - KATRINA THOUGHTS

KATRINA THOUGHTS

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Today, as days go, was a good day.
Yesterday, Sprint sent me a new modem (not for free), and after only 3 representatives and one troubleshooting wireless technician, I was able to get it activated and. running.

I had been watching some of the news about Hurricane Katrina on the TV in the lounge, but decided to spring for the $2 a day to have it hooked up in the Beast so I could follow it more closely.

As most of you know, I recently returned from an 11 day rally in New Orleans at Mardi Gras and although the weather was cold and rainy for part of the time, it was tolerable. Besides that visit, I also spent a few days at Gulf Port (Biloxi ) Mississippi a couple of years ago on our first trip around the USA. We had stayed at a RV Park along the beach, near some of the casinos. It was really a beautiful area and we roamed the beach front with Batmobile One.

After watching the news coverage and super-imposing my memory over the current destruction, I tried to imagine what it must have been like when Katrina hit. I’m sure the few RV Parks along the beach and their remaining (if any) occupants and vehicles must have been blown around like toys. It may be an area I may never be able to return to for a long time – perhaps never.

We are currently in Moses Lake, Washington, and while we originally were worried that the Labor Day Weekend would find us without a place to stay, we smooth-talked our way through it. The park is about half full now, but I’m sure that will change in a day or 2.

The weather has been very warm and sunny, not a problem. Peter likes our long walks (with the Batmobile) and it seems like the exercise is helping to keep him trim and strong.

Our new current plans seem like we will head south to Oregon, thru Idaho, Utah to New Mexico. We just found out there is a rodeo in Pendleton, Oregon.

Till next time,