Rainless in Seattle

The collage of pictures in the previous entry resulted from Peggie playing with her new camera. Margie commented that one curvy road sign is not enough. The confusing part is that the signs are contradictory. Some suggest 50mph, some 45, some 30, you never know what to expect! Even worse are the directional arrows. One points right, so I go right. Then all of a sudden there is one pointing left! Which one do I follow? One sign means watch for deer, one means elk on the road, one warns of livestock, and worst of all is "rocks." I never know what to watch for. Here I am trying not to run over the flagger or the road equipment, and I have to divide my attention between all kinds of animals and boulders. Thank god they have trained the trees to stay off the road!

So now it is Thursday. We managed to get out of the room in time to get breakfast before they switched to lunch. We never thought of Seatle as a 'walk around' town, but our hotel is well located for just that. We walked down a few blocks to the Space Needle so we could go up to the observation deck while the sun was out. We had to reassure several confused locals that they weren't being followed by aliens. Those creatures on the sidewalk are just shadows. We were pleasantly surprised at the fine temperatures, dryness, and lack of wind 520' above the ground. I took advantage of the opportunity to call both of our children to rub in that we are not only not at work, but the weather is grand and so is the view. (Work starts next week!)

Then we went over to the monorail for a ride over to the Pike Market Place. That's where they throw fish around to entertain the tourists. I found all the street performers to be more entertaining, myself. The market would be a great place to get fresh produce and fish if we lived here and had cooking facilities. Dave, I want you to know that Peggie in short sleeves and sun glasses was a real, as opposed to a staged, picture. I don't know what the numbers were for the temperature today, but it was perfect.

Then we took advantage of the free downtown bus to go to Pioneer Square. We were thirsty so I ordered an iced tea at a coffee shop and they asked me "What kind of tea?" I don't know. In Tucson, iced tea is iced tea. There is no "kind." I finally convinced the barista (who was from Fairbanks) that I didn't know one tea from another, so she made a suggestion and I went with it. It tasted like iced tea.

We went to a restaurant recommended by the hotel desk clerk. They specialize in fresh seafood. The meal was really good, and so were the drinks. We were glad we were walking and using public transportation, not driving. We visited with a saxophonist playing jazz below the Space Needle. He had been inspired by a musician playing at the colliseum in Rome, so now he is traveling the U.S. playing at iconic locations. Sounds like fun to me.

Guess what we did today!!!!!

Ups and Downs of Travel

What goes up must come down."
I am pretty sure that is the abridged edition of Sir Isaac Newton's Theory of Gravity.
It applies to roads in central/north Oregon. When we got gas and computed mileage at 22mpg (where was that figure in Nevada?) I said "well, that's because all the uphills had a downhill right away." Maybe 55mph and no headwind helped, too.

Those of you familiar with travel in Utah know that all Mormon farms are well maintained and prosperous looking. We could tell when we got to Oregon that not all the farmers are Mormons. Not only did the towns have other kinds of churches, but we came across this place in the mountains that showed a certain lack of routine maintenance.

Of course, you can understand letting the barn go a little, when this is the main house.

We decided to stay in Pasco, a little west of Walla Walla, because I needed an oil change while we were in civilization. So today we got ready to leave and it was raining. Here we are in Washington, and it was raining. Who expects that?

As we got near Grand Coulee Dam, we came to a place called Dry Falls State Park. We have those all over Arizona, but we don't name them all, or make them State Parks.


This isn't dry. I am pretty sure that is water down there. Okay, technically the water isn't coming over the edge right now, so I guess the falls are dry. When all that ice melted 15,000 years ago a bunch of water ran across this area. The original falls were about 20 miles downstream, and just like Niagra, it slowly migrated to here. Now there are volcanic rocks scattered all over the plains south of here, washed down from here. Anyway, while Peggie was using her new camera, here is what I was doing.


We did get to Grand Coulee Dam. It is one mile across and contains enough concrete to make a sidewalk nearly twice around the world. The height of the dam was calculated to get the maximum water storage without backing up into Canada.

Not to let the adventurous part go by the wayside, we are staying in Omak tonight for a very good reason. First, we got here in plenty of time to make it over the Cascades, until we stopped at a C-store for ice and drinks. I innocently struck up a conversation with a fellow while we ate lunch from our journey food. Forty five minutes later, we knew his life story (it is a good story, but you don't have time for it now) and I was beginning to worry about getting over the mountains before dark. Did I mention that it was raining? Just on our way out of town, heading into 3 hours of nobody-lives-there, darkness a few hours away and rain, (maybe snow in the mountains?) the check engine light came on. We had had our oil changed yesterday, so the first worry was that somebody had goofed, and we were out of oil. I checked that... in the rain, of course. I remembered a couple of dealerships in town, so we turned around. One of them was a Jeep dealer, so I explained the situation. The service manager says, "Do you have a few minutes, it will take about an hour to get to it." I got an image of the map in my head, and I couldn't picture a town big enough for a Jeep dealership within half a day. So, yeah, I have a few minutes.

Long story, short, they got me in sooner than expected and it was a sensor that got wet. Really, in the rain? A sensor got wet? Nobody planned for that back at the factory? Anywhoo, the 3-year/36,000-mile warranty would cover it. My odometer? 36,105. No kidding. But he put it in as warranty work anyway, since all he did was reset the computer. But then it was too late to head into mountains, so we are in Omak.

Can you say flexibility, boys and girls?

No, we cannot do the splits, and we can't touch our toes. But we are sure flexible in our plans.

After yesterday's marathon drive, we slept in and took our time today. We finally left Winnemucca at 12:30 with full bellies and a full gas tank. We altered plans to go only as far as Pendleton instead of Walla Walla. See, flexible.

The road runs straight for 10 or 20 miles, goes between and around some hills, then goes straight for 10 or 20 miles, goes between and around some hills,then goes straight for 10 or 20 miles, goes between and around some hills,....well, you get the idea. The neat thing is that straight road allows a lot of looking around, and you can typically see anywhere from 10 to 100 miles. Peggie is having lots of fun learning to use her (see, I'v given up on calling it ours) new camera. In the rear view mirror I saw these snow covered mountains, so we stopped to capture them on digital storage (not film).

You may notice that Peggie can stand right in the road to take these because you can see cars coming from as far away as yesterday, or if you turn around, tomorrow.
She snapped this one to show what I do.

We had to stop just outside of Burns to use a restroom at a rural store/cafe/gas pump (yes, one pump) watering hole/old men's gathering spot. Two of the old men there gathered were getting tools out of a truck next to us. One of them was going to try to fix something that he said he couldn't find anything wrong with. The other old guy offered to stand by and watch. Being the ever helpful neighbor, I offered to help the guy watch. The first guy climbed up on the roof and took the cover off the hood of the kitchen exhaust fan. Guy two explained to me that the wind had been blowing and there was a noise in the fan. While we continued to fulfill our obligation to watch, he went on to tell me that the week before the wind had downed 35 power poles and had blown one of those wheeled irrigation contraptions used to irrigate circular fields across the highway. After we left, abandoning my watchful duties, we came to the stretch of road where the damage had been done. It was amazing to imagine the wind that could move that quarter-mile long contraption across the road. It looked like it started the poles going down when it struck six of them in a line.

On the other side of Burns we found a closed scale so we stopped to see how badly overloaded we are. We are 500 pounds heavier than the jeep is supposed to be. I guess that explains the 17 mpg, instead of 20. Almost immediately after pulling back on the road, still distracted by the weight and the abundance of water all over the fields, we missed the turn we needed. Fifty eight miles of great roadway later, there was a sign identifying the road. Wrong number. We consulted the map to corroberate the error, checked alternatives, and decided backtracking was better than pressing on to the interstate. At least we finally saw those mythical antelope.

So now we are back to that whole flexibility thing. After the extra, unnecessary 116 miles,we are esconced at the Comfort Inn in Burns. About 190 miles short of Pendelton.
If one of us would just keep her eyes on the road signs, we would be in Pendleton by now. Traveling on schedules and deadlines is so stressful. I like it this way.

Numbbutts Adventures

We must begin this entry at the end.

Through a major oversight on my part, we ended up driving 650 miles today and almost running out of gas. See the title? Twelve hours in a car creates numbbutts. Nearly four hundred miles between gas stops means squeezing the last bit of fumes from a tank of gas, and that is adventurous.
Go back to the original plan. Leave Tucson on Friday, the 23rd, have lunch with family in Cottonwood, then press on to St. George, Ut. Not much of a push, really. Last year, pulling the trailer, we made that many miles the first day.
Forward to revised plan. Drive to Cottonwood on Thursday, the 22nd, have a more leisurely visit with family, and go only as far as Kanab on Friday. We could leave late, arrive early, and be well rested.
Now we get to the oversight. Two things. First, we gassed up in Kanab, not St. George, making Tonapah nearly four hundred miles, instead of three hundred. Secondly, we did Zion in the morning, feeling lots of time, so we stopped often (it was worth it) arriving in St. George at noon. We were then three hours off the original schedule. No red flags, no alarm bells, no hairs on the back of the neck, we pressed obliviously on.
Now let's go to the beginning. We took our time, but got out of Kanab before nine. We got to Zion and the ranger confirmed that it was, indeed, Free National Park Day, so we saved $25 on admission. The road is narrow and twisty, and the scenery is breath-taking (you must look at the photo album when it links-Peggie experimented a lot with the new camera) so we were going slowly and stopping often.

I think that arch is Zion's eye, keeping a watch over the park.

Being a professional animal spotter, I saw the butt end of this bighorn sheep on a rock face as we came around a curve.Luckily, there was a place to get off the pavement. After we got out of the car, he started to move. This is just one of the poses he gave us. Check out the album for more. I looked up on line, and sightings of bighorn are rare in the park, so we felt privileged. All the other cars went by without a clue.
After the big tunnel, we stopped to let the long line of cars go by and got great shots of the cliffs, including this now dry spectacular waterfall. We lunched in St. George and continued on our way. (Cue ominous music)

Here is Peggie at the entrance to the Extraterrestrial Highway. As you can see, many previous travelers have found it necessary to leave their personal marks on it. Shortly after this sign was another that announced "no gas for 150 miles." (increase volume on ominous music) I checked the odometer, did a quick calculation and decided we could make it, if our mpg held at 17 or better. The drive is beautiful if you like wide open spaces. In the one hundred miles of the Extraterrestrial Highway, we counted 16 vehicles going the opposite direction, and one (stopped fixing a flat) in our direction. There were a few free range cows, including a group in the road, but no sign of UFOs. The low gas warning light came on when we had 50 miles to Tonapah. Always before when the light came on I could put 18 gals in. That means there are four gallons remaining, and at 17mpg, we only need three. (cue nervous sweat)
The drive into Tonapah was uneventful other than the wild horses we saw. At the first station we came to, I put 21.456 gallons of gas into my 22 gallon tank. What, me worry?
Now we get to the numbbutts. It is five o'clock and we still have 250 miles to get to the motel we have reserved with no possible refund. Not to mention there are no motels for the first 200 of those miles, anyway. Off we go.

One benefit of driving late was this sunset. We needed to stop and get circulation into our lower extremities, anyway, so why not snap some pictures. These shots are iconic Nevada. One detriment to driving late, is we covered an hour and a half in the dark. What good is traveling when you can't see the landscape? It is 53 miles on I-80 from Battle Mountain to Winnemucca. We passed two slower moving vehicles, but otherwise saw no other cars on our side of the freeway.
I am writing in the morning. I was asleep 30 minutes after checking into the Holiday Inn Express. Today I feel like a rocket surgeon.

Bill and Peggie Have Left the Homestead

Here is the marked-off space equal to the back of the jeep. Everything we want to take with us has to fit in this space.

The night before we need to load up, the space looked like this and I was busy drawing a schematic for the actual loading.

And this is what it looked like loaded. The sign says "Alaska or Bust". Beverly Hillbillies eat your hearts out.

We were headed out of town, getting fueled up, when Peggie's phone rang. Her new shoes were in. We could drive 12 miles across town in the wrong direction to get them or have them mailed. We, of course, took what turned out to be the one hour detour. After all, we are retired, we have lots of time, and we were already leaving the day before the original departure date. So what's an hour here and there?

We were impressed with the green hills. Those of you from east of here, this is green to us. The hills below here were yellow from the blooming brittlebush. We can't remember ever seeing so many blossoms.

We spent the night as scheduled at The Beach House Resort and Spa. Mom is doing very well.

Liz and Molly came for dinner. The next morning Vada and all her kids came over. We got off midmorning, still well ahead of the original timetable. The clouds were low hanging and threatening.

Here is the old snow and the light frosting that fell last night on the way to Flagstaff. For those not from this area, we are amazed to see new snow this late in the year. Temps in Tucson were almost in the 90's last week. We both needed a bathroom break heading across the reservation but the blowing sand and lack of cover discouraged Peggie so we had to look for the next trading post. We paid Alaska prices for a bag of jerky, and the use of the restrooms, then went outside. A friendly local man struck up a conversation, offered me $30,000 for the jeep. I said I would accept it in cash, but he could only offer an IOU. Then he hit me up for a couple of bucks for "a cup of coffee." During the conversation I discerned that he had already had quite a bit of "coffee" today, so I said goodbye and left.

We stopped at the scenic overlook and got this shot of the storm over the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Vermillion Cliffs are across the gorge. Six hundred feet down at the bottom of that gorge runs the Colorado on it's way to the canyon.
Just outside of Kanab, UT, tonights rest stop, we couldn't resist this unique gate in a picturesque rail fence. We fought cross winds all day. Semis passing in the opposite direction felt like they were sucking our roof off. We got a little bit of low blowing sand, but could see quite a cloud of it over the Painted Desert.

After hours in the car, we decided to walk to a restaurant for dinner. It was about four blocks through the old residential part of town. The houses are beautifully taken care of. On the way back we went down a different street and saw a beautiful old house that looked like it was being restored. It had a sign saying it was built in 1890. The owner was trimming some trees in the yard, and we talked with him for a while. He is a rock and relic collector and a retired doctor. He said we could come back sometime and he would direct us on some great roads in the Strip to the North Rim. We think that's a great idea.

After tomorrow, if you don't hear from us, suspect that we have been abducted by aliens while driving past area 51.

Life is good.

That slogan is one of the choices for spare tire covers on Jeeps. It is appropriate.
I just finished a four week sub job for a teacher on maternity leave. It was a great job, and I made enough money to pay the ferry fare to Skagway. Sweet.
Now I am on vacation (Peggie has not worked at all since we came home last year) until my job begins in Skagway on May 4th. Then I will begin another five grueling months shuttling tourists back and forth over the same old road, watching the plants change and counting bears.
We will depart the Old Pueblo on the 22nd and drive all the way to Cottonwood that day. We have reservations at The Beach House Resort and Spa. This is our favorite B&B because they treat us just like family.
The next day we will plan to spend the night in Kanab, UT, home of The Greatest Earth On Show. This will allow us to transit Zion National Park in the morning, see St. George, then head into the wilds of central Nevada, where we will take our chances on The Extraterrestrial Highway and other remote routes. After what we are sure will be an exciting night in Winnemucca, (with a name like that it has to be good) we will enter Oregon in Malheur County. Malheur means "unfortunate" in French, so we can't wait to see what adventures we can find there. We get to Washington in time to RON in Walla Walla, where we hope to discover why they named their city twice. We plan to visit the Grand Coulee Dam because it is famous for some reason. We will spend one additional night in an-as-yet-to-be-determined town on the East side of the Cascades so we can take the scenic Route 20 in the morning. Evening sun in your eyes on scenic mountain roads is not recommended. We then should have a few days in and around Seatle before catching the ferry on the 30th for a three night and day trip up the inside passage. We have brief stops in Wrangell, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Juneau, and Haines. All stops are during daylight so we will be able to see something, though no chance to disembark.
If our hotels are Wifi equipped, we hope to post pictures on the way. Peggie will want to play with her (our?) new camera, anyway.
Figuring out what to take and how to pack it into the jeep will occupy much of our time over the next few days.

Springtime in the desert

AAAHHH-CHOOO AAAAAHH-CHOOOOO AA-AAAHH-CHOOOO

I awways sndeeze trweee tibes. Den I ab stobbed up foa wyle.

We went to Phoenix for the Bice family Easter-in-the-park picnic. We always play a rousing game of "Who's that over there talking to whathisname?" intermingled with "Whose kids are those?" All of my cousins keep getting older looking and their children and grandchildren grow up. I still recognize my aunts and uncles, though. Of course, they don't move around much so I can study them for a while.
We met and liked Bruce's fiance. He is so happy we couldn't even rib him about how great retirement is.
The spring flower display is in full bloom, so we came home on the Florence Hiway. It is SPECTACULAR!!! There are six shades of globemallow along with the lupine, poppies, desert marigolds and other stuff. Except for all those colors, the desert is green.
Yesterday we went down (over?) to Benson and came up (north), which is down (stream) along the San Pedro to San Manuel. The hills are awash in poppies there, too. North of Redington there are saguaros that must have started growing before Columbus sailed, they are massive, with too many arms to count.
So this has been a road weekend. Sitting in the park all afternoon is what brought on the allergy attack. It was worth it.