Wrapping Up 2012

The photo above is the very first photo I took in 2012.  Sunset in Arizona.  Me taking a photograph of a sunset--go figure.  I guess I should start a blog post about our year's travels with a photo of a sunrise but oh well.

 
First, the boring facts; we traveled 7,019.9 miles this year with The Beast.  We started the year in Arizona and ended it in South Carolina.  We visited the Pacific Ocean coastline and have stayed three months on the Atlantic Ocean coastline.  During our cross country travels Denny and I stayed at forty-three different campgrounds in eighteen states.  Of those forty-three campgrounds, twenty-two were membership campgrounds or affiliated with our member parks so we either stayed for free or at a greatly reduced ($10 a night for example) price.  Of the remaining twenty-one parks, I'm sure probably one third of those were Passport America parks where the cost of the stay is discounted at 50%.   We don't boondock, dry camp or spend the night in Walmart parking lots.  When counting up our restaurant stops I was surprised to see that Denny and I tried one hundred and nine different restaurants, cafes, diners or bars over the course of a year.   Hmmm, I can see right now where we could cut our expenses a bit!  I think Denny and I managed to play about ten new golf courses before I injured my back.   And as is usual with The Beast, we had numerous repairs to be made to the furnace, to leaking slide outs, lights, propane regulators and hoses and right at the end of the year the microwave/convection oven blew for the second time in one year (thank goodness for extended warranties.)

Ah, but the good part of traveling by RV comes next; we saw full moons over the ocean, over rivers, over lakes and over the desert.

Over the past year Denny and I have seen birds and critters and flowers galore, except when we specifically went to see something special like the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve where there were no poppies.  Sigh.  At the Mesa flea market in Arizona Denny splurged on a pair of 20 x 70 binoculars and boy have we had fun with those.  They allow you to see rock climbers and soaring birds and things you just wouldn't be able to see normally or with a regular pair of binoculars.

  

During this year's travels in California we were finally able to see the Lone Cypress and to drive Seventeen Mile Drive in Monterey.

After fourteen years on the road we finally made it to Yosemite National Park.

And the Reno/Lake Tahoe area.

I rode a duck for the first time in Wisconsin Dells.  It was there that I slipped and fell, ending up with compression fractures in two vertebra which ended our travels for six weeks while we saw a back surgeon and had our normal check ups with our family physician and dentist in Ohio.  Because it was so uncomfortable for me to ride in the truck for the long distance to our hometown from our campground Denny and I didn't get to visit with as many of our friends and family members that we would have liked.

After the back surgeon cleared me for travel Denny and I headed north to visit both sets of sons and their families before turning the nose of the truck towards Myrtle Beach.  Our intent was to check out homes in the area as a possible location to settle down, but when we found a place that we liked Denny and I found ourselves getting cold feet about the whole idea of staying in one place.  Together we realized that there are still coastlines to explore, lakes to picnic beside, bends in the roadway to follow.  Yes, if we bought a house we could always fly or drive to other areas and stay in motels but traveling in a RV allows us to take the cat with us without worrying about her care (or if she's clawing her caretaker to shreds), sleep in our own bed, cook local produce in our own kitchen and enjoy having a different view out of our windows every week.

So while we will continue to look at houses as we travel I have a sneaking suspicion that at the end of next year we'll be nestled among the saguaro cacti with a view of the Superstition Mountains out of the rear window of The Beast.  While missing the sound of the surf at Myrtle Beach.  And so it goes....

Natural Fireworks

Sunset comes late here in this part of the world--this was taken about 9:20PM.  It had been raining hard and suddenly the sun popped out so I figured I'd better try one last time to get some pictures of a sunset since every evening this week it clouded up and rained near the time the sun was due to set.

Between the facts that I was walking Patches and the mosquitoes were biting the palms of my hands as I was trying to take photographs, I was pleased that any of them turned out at all.  The mosquitoes really were bad here; it must have something to do with the herd of cattle and retention ponds nearby.

Hoards of mosquitoes meant the only ones out where those of us walking our pets--most folks stayed inside and missed the sunset.

They missed some pretty skies.

Time for a late night snack.  It was not my intent to share.

We're moving on today; we're heading to Hungry Horse, Montana which will be a longish day for us at 300 miles of red line roads.  But it should be scenic!

Another New Road

Yesterday's trip from Cody to Garryowen, Montana was another new route for us.  This time we took US 14-16 which is the Bighorn Scenic Byway and Wyoming doesn't exaggerate its claims one bit.  Abandoned airplanes, red rock, tan rock, white white streams, overflowing rivers, the Big Horn mountains and roads that tried to twist back around on themselves which is not necessarily a fun thing when your twenty-some foot long truck is pulling a 38 foot trailer through said mountains.  But gorgeous it was and we even spotted a moose cow on the far side of Shell Canyon before we crested Granite Peak at 9034 feet, which was a climb of 5000 feet for us.  Quite a drive indeed.

Friends Don and Vicki were waiting patiently at the campground for us; they had held over an extra day so we could meet up for one day and catch up on their Alaska cruise.  Denny and I lost a few hours of time with them because our morning started with Denny having to have a Moh's procedure done to remove some basal cell carcinoma so we left Cody about three hours later than we normally would plus those steep, twisty mountain roads slowed us down quite a bit.  But the four of us made the most of what time we had, yakking, enjoying Don's delicious homemade chicken enchiladas and swilling homemade Lynchburg Lemonade.  Good times!

Don and Vicki are heading east to get to Ohio in time for our 40th high school reunion while Denny and I are still working our way north and west before we need to be in Seattle for our own Alaska cruise near the end of August.  The four of us will meet up again in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in the fall for a month of talk, golf, games, Happy Hour bar hopping, beach walking, shark teeth searching good times.

In no particular order, leaving Cody, Wyoming, heading east on US 14 through the Big Horn mountains to Interstate 90 up to Garryowen, Montana.

Foothills.

Denny and I thought this was an airplane graveyard.  It turns out it is the Museum of Flight and Aerial Firefighting.  Kinda.

Driving through the Shell Canyon portion of the trip. There is a waterfall in the canyon, but the parking lot was too crowded for our rig, plus we had miles to go and promises to keep.

More of the canyon.

Every curve in the roadway led to a new palette of colors.

The state of Wyoming does something I think is interesting--they label the various rock formations with the era that it was created along with the tentative dates.  I did not take any pictures of any of the signs though.

We had been coming down off the mountains for quite some time before I took this photo since it was so hazy in the distance.  We were WAY up there!

After we were all set up and settled in with an adult beverage and chatting with our friends Don and Vicki we were subjected to a brief thunderstorm.  When that cleared up we ate dinner outside and then had a nice (not spectacular, but nice) sunset to enjoy.

The clouds above us were pretty neat, though.  Vicki and I checked for stars later, but the clouds were still thick in the sky.  I would imagine I'll be able to see a lot of them if the clouds clear up this week.

I would say our route is a good one for a day trip as there were a lot of picnic areas and small visitor centers (and that waterfall!) and places to pull over and just enjoy the scenery.  The pictures don't begin to do the area justice.

Five Ten Pound Bags of Potatoes Too Much

While we were at the Sinks Canyon State Park, we inquired about driving The Loop, a 26 mile gravel road that brings you around to the Red Canyon area and then back to Lander.  Unfortunately, just as the disappearing Popo Agie River didn't disappear that day, we were unable to drive The Loop since it was still closed due to snow.  Well, dang.  The ranger suggested the 1.5 mile walk to the Popo Agie Falls.  I turned to Denny questioningly, since 1.5 miles is a lot when you haven't had any exercise all winter.  He said "sure", so off we drove,out of the Sinks Canyon State Park and into the Shoshone National Forest to the Bruce's Bridge parking lot.

There are no signs for the trail, even though there is a paved path leading down towards a campground and another dirt trail that splits in two directions, so I stopped a lady and asked which one would lead to the falls.  She hesitantly pointed to one of the dirt trails so off we went, unsure if we were really headed in the proper direction.  Hopeful of seeing marmots or bear or big horned sheep, we walked the rock-studded path, craning our necks to see up the granite and sandstone cliffs, looking for critters and admiring the wildflowers.  The roaring Popo Agie River provided a loud running commentary as we walked.

Shortly after we started I turned to point something out to Denny and saw a rider behind us.  Even though we had yet to go far on the trail, I knew that this was the way to do it.

After walking and walking and walking on a path that steadily increased in slope and altitude, we started asking the few people returning from the falls, "is it much farther?".  They would smile sympathetically and say "yes".  Sigh.

At three places we had to scramble over rocks and tiptop across mud as the flooded river encroached upon the trail.  Here Denny threw a three foot piece of thick driftwood into the river where it immediately disappeared and never resurfaced.  This is not a place to slip and fall into the river.

After walking for an hour with no clue if we were even getting close to the falls, we stopped for our small picnic lunch that I had packed.  Sitting upon a large rock, we had this view looking up river.

The elevation and the long walk finally got to Denny who could go no further.  Although I was pretty pooped myself, I was bound and determined to get to the falls to get a photograph or two, since everyone returning from the falls said they were fabulous. As it turned out, we were only about a quarter of a mile away from the falls, but you couldn't see that because the trail piggy-backed upon itself for a while and then wound around the hillside to the falls.

And to be perfectly honest with you?  I was a little disappointed once I finally struggled up that last bit of path, because Denny and I have seen some pretty awesome waterfalls in our travels.  I guess I was expecting more fall, less cascades, which is what this falls appeared to be.  Can one become jaded by too much beauty?  Hmm.

So down I went to find Denny, although I was stopped by two different groups of folks heading up to the falls, asking if I was the lady in green whose husband was waiting down the trail.  It seems Denny asked them to check on me if they saw me.  Isn't he a sweetie?  And aren't we just adorable together?

While I may have been disappointed a tad in the falls, Mother Nature provided a wonderful sunset that night.

Oh, and that potato thing?  That's the fifty extra pounds I'm carrying and that's the image I held in my head as I was slowly walking up that 1.5 mile trail to the falls.  How much easier that walk would have been without those five 10 pound bags of potatoes.  That's my next project.

Who Needs PS?

One of the things I love above Arizona is the sunsets. Out here, you don't need PhotoSh*p to intensify the color of the sky because Mother Nature does that all on her own. These shots were taken on the hillside that we're backed up against, so you see the tops of RVs at the bottom of the shots. Denny had just taken some luscious pork chops off the grill, so I rushed the shots a bit, but the colors speak for themselves. The fourth picture is actually the sunrise behind The Beast this morning, taken from inside the trailer since I don't wander out in my robe when it's 30 degrees outside; I'm weird like that.