Seeing North America

It’s sunrise and we are headed south. Our goal today is Timberville VA where we will visit a high school friend Nico and his wife, Barbara. Before talking about our trip south we need to talk about our journey out of our driveway. With our gravel driveway we never gel down to bare ground. Each time we snowblow there’s a thin layer of snow left behind. Over time this builds up and when we have a melt such as on Thursday the becomes ice. So now it’s Friday morning with the easiest way to get down the driveway is with a pair of ice skates. Our trailer needs to be backed down the driveway on shear ice. After applying ice melt and sand we finally are out after 30 miles of trying. We’re on the road with a fully winterized trailer. So there’s no water in the trailer, just some RV antifreeze.

We’re underway as Wells works on getting his sea legs driving our trailer once again. The drive is uneventful with no traffic issue with the weather warming as we head south. We arrive a little aft Wer 6 with the temperature in the high 70s.

Sunday March 17

Saturday we spent de-winterizing the trailer.  When leaving home we had not drained the RV antifreeze or loaded the trailer with water due to the below freezing temperatures. Nico and I spent some time puttering with the trailer which of course involved a few trips to the hardware store.  Saturday evening we enjoyed a great dinner with Barbara and Nico.  With the trailer all set to go we got underway late morning.

Heading south and west we set our sights on Chattanooga but fell short staying at Panther Creek State Park north of Knoxville. It’s a sweet Tennesee State Park with a small camping area, lake, hiking trails, and plenty of day activities. Before working on supper we enjoyed a short hike where with Marsha’s delight we found toothwart in bloom. We love spring wildflowers.

Tomorrow starts our next adventure as we head to Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. In Texas we hope to do some birding along the Gulf Coast then Texas wildflowers.

Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area and Quivera National Wildlife Refuge were first on our dance card for today. Let me back up just a tad. Since we planned on birding we wanted an early start we planned on getting up early. I figured if we were up at six we could be on the birding trail by 7. Yesterday we had crossed in from Mountain Time to Central Time. My fitbit watch normally corrects for local time since it syncs with my cell phone in turn syncs with local cell signals. Well last night I could not get my watch to sync with my cell phone so it continued to report Mountain Time which is one hour later than Central Time. This morning I woke up at 4:30 AM so I thought it was 5:30 local time. Time to get up and start the coffee. By the time I am finishing my first cup I realized my watch had corrected itself to Central Time and I really got up at 4:30! Oh well we were up.

Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area is a large freshwater wetlands and associated shallow lakes that are part of the migratory route of several birds on their way north in the Spring and south in the Fall. Quivera NWF is a large saltwater wetlands and lake system. That also supports birds migration. Many species fly through including Whooping Cranes. We were too early in the season to see them on this trip, but we did see lots of birds.

In the afternoon we headed east to Tallgrass National Preserve. It’s a collaboration between The Nature Conservancy and The National Park Service. They have 11,000 acres of tallgrass prairie they are attempting to restore. Only 4 percent of the original tallgrass prairie exists today. I view it as way too little an effort to save and preserve this unique ecosystem.

We are now camped at a city campground that has water, electric, showers, and toilets for the price of zero dollars, Chanut, Kansas. It’s free for the first two nights then it’s ten dollars a night afterwards. It’s been hot and very windy today much like yesterday with winds out of the south about 45 mph and temperatures in the lower to mid-nineties. We are running the air conditioner now.

It’s time to get back to updating my blog. We’ve visited the Tetons, Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, Custard State Park, Wind Cave National Park, Carhenge, and Denver. We are now in Central Kansas a town called Hoisington.

Time to catch up after several days of not blogging. After leaving the campground along the Little Salmon River we headed both south and east. The temperatures were much cooler even dropping to almost 100 degrees for a daytime high.  Our destination was in the great Ketchum area were we met up with Marsha’s brother and sister in law. We mostly visited with them including eating out together for a couple of nights. We took in an arts festival in Ketchum and headed to some hot springs.  All but me enjoyed the hot springs along a riverbank while I preferred being out in the main flow in the cooler water.

On Sunday we left the Ketchum area meeting Marsha’s high school friend, Jean, and her husband, Brian for lunch in Pocatello. We had not seen them since the mid 1980’s when we bicycled from Utah to Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park and back to Utah. We pushed onward in the direction of Teton National Park to Alpine, WY. Monday we made it to Teton National Park where we stayed for two nights. Of course we checked out another visitor center which helped us orient how to spend our time there.  Marsha was looking for a hike while I was looking for photograph opportunities.

Next morning we were up and out early planning on capturing the first light on the peaks. We arrived at our scouted location about 15 minutes before sunrise. Out of the car with the photography equipment heading to the spot I wanted when we stumbled upon two more moose. I didn’t even stop to photograph them since it would require changing lenses. Onward to the spot and I captured the shot I desired. Then we headed up near Jackson Lodge where we did a hike. As the temperature warmed I was regretting I carried my equipment. We only saw three people while on the hike. It’s a treat to leave the crowds behind, but if you stay with your car in either Teton or Yellowstone you’ll not get much alone time.

Tuesday afternoon we headed to a location I wanted to scope out to catch a photograph of the Teton Mountains reflected in calm water. We found the perfect spot. All that was needed was calm wind, good lighting, and the smoke and haze to leave. While investigating the location at 2:30 in the afternoon we stumbled upon a couple of moose feeding in the water.

Next we headed to Morman Row where there’s to look at the iconic barns with the majestic Tetons in the background. With the haze and smoke the mountains did not pop but I did manage to take a few photos. Then it was time to look for pronghorn and bison. We did find a few pronghorn but no buffalo.

Approaching noon we headed to the Olaus and Mardy Murie homestead. If you have not heard of them you should do a bit of reading about them. They were partly responsible for Teton National Park, the National Elk Refuge and most of the National Parks in Alaska. We spent almost two hours with the docent at the Murie Homestead.

Back to the campground where we ate then I headed out for more photograph while Marsha stayed in the campground for a Ranger led program on pronghorns.

Wednesday morning we headed north to Yellowstone. All the campgrounds were full but we found one outside the park closer to Cody, WY where we arranged to stay for two nights. We checked in at the campsite and started in on chores including laundry and showers, heavenly showers. We last showered at the campground near Ketchum.

After chores we headed back into the Park looking for, in my dreams, wolves. No luck on wolves but got a great view of a golden eagle in perfect lighting. I captured several good shots of the eagle then on to the Lamar Valley. We did see mule deer and a few prong horn and then a bison. Wait, there’s another one. Oh, what is the hold up on the road? More buffalo and more and more buffalo. We saw well over a thousand of them and that’s a conservative estimate. When they decide to cross the road or walk in the road you have no choice but to wait them out. We finally got passed them and headed out the northeast entrance to the park. We ended up getting back to the campground close to eleven in the evening after driving close to 400 miles. It was a long day to say the least. I am not even sure I want to share the horror of stock in the road. Stock in the road, what does that mean. Well, it really means don’t drive at night when you cannot really see the black cattle in the middle of the road. We had a couple of near misses and even a slight hit. We are not traveling fast when around the bend about a dozen cattle were on the road. I hit the brakes and served missing all but one. This road was deserted and I am not sure what would have really happened if we hit the cow full on. What we did was hit the steer with our passenger side mirror. It gets slammed back to the side of the car we see that the steer is not injured. Well, maybe sore where his head made contact with the mirror, but not really hurt.  We pushed the mirror out again and it did not have a mark on it. No broken mirror, nothing. We were LUCKY! So was the steer. As I said, a long day.

Did I mention it’s been warm the past few days? Yesterday as we climb long hills in the truck pulling the Airstream the temperature gauge would shoot up indicating we were close to overheating. The outside temperature read as high as 108 according to the truck digital readout. On each long climb I turned the heater on full blast in the truck with all the windows open and the engine temperature would cool.

We plan on meeting Marsha’s brother and sister in law near Ketchum, Idaho late Friday so we have roughly 700 miles to cover in two days. Well, if we planned on a direct route it is maybe only 400 miles, but why do the direct route when there are things to see. Our route today includes much of what I covered on my bicycle back in 1975 including Rattlesnake Grade.

We have a few passes to climb this morning which I am not overly concern about since the temperatures in the early morning were close to 65 degrees. No issue for the truck when it comes to overheating. What does concern is our afternoon travels since the temperatures are expected to be warmer than yesterday. This forecast proved correct with our high for the day according to the truck at 111 degrees.

Why my concern with Rattlesnake Grade? Let me bring you back to 1975. I’m on my fully loaded touring bicycle and I cross the bridge over the Snake River between Lewiston, ID and Clarkston, WA. Not sure which way I want to head from there but on the map I see a road heading south to Enterprise, OR eighty miles away. I even laughed to myself when I noticed a squiggle on the map where the road traveled, a printing error or something. Anyway I head towards Enterprise. It’s late September so the temperature is ideal for cycling. The road south from Clarkston climbs for a few miles then more or less levels off in rolling terrain with miles and miles of wheat. It was a great ride with almost no traffic. This was not a well traveled road. Then I crested Rattlesnake Pass and the road started down. It was ten miles of switchbacks down a canyon wall to the bottom. It is a side canyon off Hells Canyon the deepest Canyon in the United States. Yes, deeper than the Grand Canyon. I camped along the river and started off to Enterprise early the next morning. Well what goes down must come up and the road climbed for ten miles up the canyon wall. It was one of the high points of my trip.

Chief Joseph Canyon

The road was so amazing I wanted Marsha to see it. It was about 2 pm when we started down the switchbacks with the outside temperature over 100 degrees. My concern was the long climb up the grade pulling the trailer with the high temperatures. I was not sure if we would need to climb for a mile then wait for the truck engine to cool down. Well we started the climb with the heater on full blast. The engine remained cool enough to not worry about it. The only drawback was the limited visibility due to smoke in the air from forest fires. C’est la vie.

Looking north down into part of Rattlesnake Grade. You can see part of the road,

In Clarkston we resupplied and headed into Idaho. We are now parked at sweet campground along the Little Salmon River. It’s one of the nicest of the entire trip. Nearby is a staging area for fighting one of the forest fires. Helicopters overhead shuttled huge water containers to battle the fire. Apparently the nearby fire is getting under control unlike the huge files down in California.

We left Mary and Tom’s at the end of rush hour. I was looking forward to less stressful traffic while pulling the trailer. Heading east from Portland we followed the Columbia River Gorge. If you have not been there consider placing it on your to do list. The drawback for us was the very limited visibility due to so much smoke in the air. Visibility is 4 to 5 miles and no better. We left the Columbia River upstream of the Gorge heading due south in dry land wheat lands. Miles and miles of wheat with no trees. We headed to the John Day Fossil Beds Painted Hills Unit. Pretty amazing colored hills in a surreal surrounding. I did not take many photos due to the smoke and haze but I’ll post one or two with this post.

Painted Hills in Central Oregon

Hopefully our last day in a long while dealing with heavy city traffic. Our rig took us to Portland, OR where we visited with an old friend, wait, make that a friend of my for many years. We visited Mary and Tom. Mary and I were buddies and lab partners in high school. Since Southold High School we’ve seen each other only a couple of times. I enjoyed meeting her husband Tom while also having them get to know Marsha.

Mary took us to an outdoor Japanese Garden and the Portland City Rose Garden. We had a good time. Afterwards Tom and Mary cooked a great meal which after much debate we enjoyed outside. The inside/outside debate was due to the current heatwave. The temperature hovered in the mid to lower 90’s. Tomorrow the forecast is for it to be a bit higher in Portland while we are headed to central Oregon where the forecast is for temperatures in the low 100’s. Not my cup of tea.

We did the short drive to Olympia getting there before our friend Angelina left for work in the morning. We unhitched our trailer and started in on a day of chores. It took a while but we found a car/truck wash. Our truck was covered with mud from Alaska. It’s now a new color. Before it was golden mud and now sparkling gold. Next task was an oil change. It’s the second one of the trip. We started off with an oil change just prior to leaving NY. Our second one was Valdez and the third here in Olympia. We had a delightful visit with Angelina.