Monthly Archives: September 2007

Trip Part 3……warning……Picture Overload!

*** Saturday 1st Sept 16:23

We had to leave camp to get to the shuttle that took us to the General Sherman Sequoia tree. It is the 1st year for the shuttle here so a lot of cars were still driving to the viewing. Even though we HATE depending on others for rides and getting around, I believe that they should limit the amount of cars to get into those parts and require shuttles. Way too much pollution and wear on the roads….anyhow enough of that soap box.

More of our campsite.

2007 831 084

2007 831 091

2007 831 094

2007 831 095

It was really cool to see the most massive tree in the world. We tried to take pictures, but you really don’t get a sense of the size until you are there. The General Sherman is estimated to be 2,200 yrs old! If you never seen it, you have got to come here.

2007 831 053
Where the down branch came from, in the picture above.
2007 831 047
There was (what we 1st thought) a huge tree down by it, but it was one of it’s branches! We were blown away.
2007 831 060
2007 831 075
2007 831 071
2007 831 019
2007 831 029
2007 831 030
Well, back to the original order of happenings.

After Meteor Crater, it was on to the Grand Canyon. We visited the south rim of the canyon. That was so neat to see the different colors of sediment in the cliffs. And knowing how big it actually is and you are only seeing a small portion of it?!? It was hard not to take a picture every 2 feet. It is amazing to see that over thousand and thousands of years that a river did that.

2007 824 062

The steam engine was really cool looking. We had to take a few pictures, knowing that Harold’s dad would enjoy them.

2007 824 055
2007 824 032
2007 824 029
Just some pictures of the scencery as we were driving and making stops.
2007 824 099
2007 824 089
2007 824 085
2007 824 082
2007 824 020
After the Grand Canyon we stayed at Lake Powell. When Harold booked this, it was Lake Powell RV & Marina……..we had no clue that it was a National Park and a stunning one at that. If we would’ve known we would’ve booked 2 nights. We had a beautiful view of the man made lake with the huge colorful cliffs around it, beautiful clear sky with the moon….another place to come back to……….the list keeps getting bigger……………grin

2007 825 001
2007 825 009
While going thorough a town we ended up in the middle of a parade along with a miniature cattle drive.
2007 825 028
2007 825 027
2007 825 026
2007 825 025
Then the next day it was on to Zion National Park. Wow, wow, & wow…..the colors, the cliffs……damn. It was great! You have to drive on some long and winding roads, with huge cliff drops. There is a tunnel through the cliffs that was made in 1929, so RVs can’t fit with incoming traffic. The tunnel is about 1 mile long and they stop traffic coming from the other end, so you can drive down the middle of the tunnel. To do this, you have to pay an extra fee to take care of the man power involved…..but so well worth it. They have caved out windows in the tunnel so you can see the heart dropping cliffs……even if you can’t stop.

Where we camped, we were totally surrounded by the canyon walls….giving you a stunning view. Our running joke through the last couple of places was “this view sucks, it is so not worth it”……well, for the natural awe inspiring wonders you got to see…….totally worth it. Plus with it being national parks, it is so less expensive then you would expect and its worth. Our national park system is great for making sure that everybody is able to afford these great wonders of ours.

2007 825 067
2007 825 056
2007 825 036
2007 825 033
During 90% of our trip, we got a hell lot less connection then we thought we would. That was a disappointment. The work was piling up, so while at Zion there as a little town across the river with a café with internet. So we spent about 3 hrs there just getting things caught up. The sad about working online, is you about have to do it everyday. =(

Weekend Summary

• Started Sept 15th @ 23:47

We are here at D’s chilling out with everyone. They are playing cards. It has been a great visit.

We got up here Friday later then we planned, made good time until Seattle…ggrr That city is horrible on I-5 no matter what time of day. We hit there by 3pm and it was worst then Indy at rush out. That pushed us back on time.

It wasn’t too bad crossing the border. Only took us about 30 minutes. We are leaving early tomorrow to try and miss the border rush. We are going to start the passport process next week. It will make it so much easier. Then we are going try and apply for the Nexus….it is a prescreened pass for crossing the border. We want to try and come up every few weeks so it will make life easier.

We were staving when we got up here so we were going to get a quick bite and head over, well didn’t happen. Eliza was cooking dinner for us. That was totally unexpected and so cool. It was great timing. She cooked up some great chicken with a thailand chili sauce. It reminded me of a slightly spicy sweet and sour sauce. I haven’t eaten that many wings in forever. They were great.

• Finishing up Sept 17th @ 21:25

After a late night, we went back to the hotel and crashed. We were exhausted.

We meet with a couple of our friends for breakfast. Didn’t think we would spend so much time, but we were having so much fun catching up. We haven’t seen them in years.

Then we headed to D’s for some of his great BBQ & potato salad. That man can cooked. It also helps that Eliza loves to cook herself. When they cook, they cook a lot. The grill stayed filled for a couple of hours.

P9150019

P9150013

P9140001

We got to meet some of their friends. That is one that is so Diesel is that amount of people that he knows, so you are always meeting someone new. You end up hearing some really cool and interesting stories.

After a late night we headed to the hotel for some shut eye, since we were leaving very early Sunday for the border. We left just before 7am and got to the border about 30 minutes later. It took us about 15-20 minutes to get through. It wouldn’t have been so bad but they only had 2 lanes open at that time.

It was a rainly drive home, but at least Seattle wasn’t as bad, but still worst then you would think for a Sunday. I’m happy that we didn’t decide on Seattle based on traffic alone…….icks

Today was a day of work once we got a few errands done. Then we stayed around the house since we were expecting some deliveries. Which pissed us off when we didn’t get our stuff! The UPS site said they were suppose to be delivered today, but now says that it was left at the facility……..and we paid for 3 day! We are mad as hell.

When it is ground, it is no big deal. But we paid extra! And we wasted our day waiting for it when we should’ve gone to the grocery store and other errands. I’m so pissed, that I’m calling them again and demanding that they be delivered 1st thing in the morning…..it is such BS!

Well, I called them……..Harold’s words “you are a bitch”, I’m like damn right, I’m pissed and they screwed it up and wasted our day………ggrrr

Otherwise, we had a great weekend. =)

Getting Settled

I hope everyone has been enjoying some of the pictures I took. I know I have been posting them like crazy.  And these are just a few pictures from my camera.  We took 1000s on the Nikon and neither of us have touched those.
I’m thinking I may need to find a new blog design that will let me do the bigger pictures then this one does. Sometimes you really can’t enjoy the pictures until you really see them.

The house is slowly but surely coming together……it seems to be a never ending battle.  The last major project is the garage…..or storage unit, for a better description……..lol

We finally, finally have cable!  Thankfully!  Now we can actually watch the news and see what it going on in the world……..what a concept.  They came out today to do it.  Ended up 2 hrs late and then took almost 3 hours since they had to drop a line in the office.  This townhouse has never been hooked to cable, so he had some work to do.

We went and got our DL for here in Oregon.  Ok, here is a few strange things………they issue you a temp paper one and mail you the other, you can have EITHER a DL or an ID, but not both, they take only cash or check…..no credit, we had to take a written test even though we have nothing against our FL lic and they cost over $55…….not including $5 to take the test.  Now the cool thing, the DL is good for 8 years, only cost $125 to register your car that will last for 2yrs, not 1.  Out of all the DMVs we have been in, everyone was friendly, helpful, and happy……..you normally don’t see that.  Even the comcast guy had the similar nature, so that was cool.

Tomorrow we are heading up to see D & family for the weekend. Wish us luck on crossing the border…..we are taking lots of id stuff with us.  We are so looking forward to seeing them.  Next week we are going to apply for our passports now that we are here.

Well, I need to balance our books and then start on packing.  I may not be able to post tomorrow since I don’t know if our hotel in Canada will have internet.

Live Strong

Trip Part 2…….warning….lots of pictures

*** 31st Aug @ 19:03

We are here in the Sequoia National Park, took so much longer to get here.  We didn’t realize that we would be climbing, climbing and climbing to over 6000 ft elevation while doing it on the very winding, cliff dropping road.  Lets just say that I rarely looked down…..icks.  But it was beautiful.

Our campsite.

2007 831 011

One of our 1st views.

2007 831 002

2007 831 005

We just had a good dinner, have no internet, no biggie….so decided to work on our blog writings.  We have a fire going, of course, we have a 2 families camping together….must be about 6-8 kids….right in our view, and a group of about 5-6 men camping to the side of us.

2007 831 102

We are only allowed to run the generators between 8am-11am and 5pm-8pm, so we have it going for the fridge and charging everything up.  There are no hook ups, but that was really to be expected.  We were informed that we have to sleep with the windows closed unless we moved all of our food into the bear box next to the site!  =)

We have 100ft tall trees all around and got to see a couple of the monster sequoia trees…..those were great.  But that was just driving by.  Tomorrow we are going to drive the RV to the next stop up so we can take a shuttle to deep forest. The shuttle doesn’t pick up from the camp site.  Afterwards we’ll be back to the campsite for one more night.

But I’m going out of order here……….

After White Sands it was on to the Petrified Forrest and the Painted Desert.  WOW!  WOW!  It was gorgeous.  For one, I didn’t know that it was one and the same. The colors were a lot more ranged then I thought it could be.  The Petrified Forrest reminded me of colored glass.  Then the sky was stunning with its clouds formations and reflection of colors off of the cliffs and rocks near by.  Words really don’t do it justice….so here are a ton of pictures.  =)

2007 823 007

2007 823 010

2007 823 018

2007 823 015

2007 823 016

2007 823 019

2007 823 021

That is the shadow of the cliff on the other side of the road…..so cool.

2007 823 022

2007 823 024

2007 823 028

2007 823 039

2007 823 041

Then it was one to the next stop, which was the Meteor Crater.  Well, if we were going to make it Flagstaff for the evening, we weren’t able to stop.  So we found a RV park right outside of the crater and canceled the other one.

That park was a story and a half.  We called, booked it and then arrived 30mins after they closed their check in!?!  Luckily they had security.  Took about 20mins of yelling to find him……annoying, but we got in.  And it was a really nice park.  They even had very soft grass right outside of their bathrooms…..I had to take my shoes off and put my feet into it!  I haven’t felt that since Indiana…..sure in hell didn’t get that in Florida.

That park was right out side of the crater.  Which we think it is privately owned for the pricing it had.  National and state parks aren’t that pricey.

The Meteor Crater was created about 50,000 yrs ago, by a piece of astro that was about 150ft wide, weighed several thousand tons and hit the earth at 26,000mph.  To walk the rim, it would be 2.25 miles around.  It didn’t look that big….until you learn that they put a cut out of a 6ft tall astronaut on the bottom, that you couldn’t see without binoculars or a great zoom……..there was a rock, that didn’t look that far or that big, but it was as big as a 2 story house, that is just to give you an idea how big it was.

2007 824 005

That little spot in the middle of the crater is where the cut out of a 6ft tall astronaut is.

2007 824 008

Harold going down to take a few more pictures.

2007 824 006

2007 824 016

Trip Part 1

Started 24th of Aug @ 11:00 AZ time

I really wanted to do one of this daily, but with all the site seeing, driving, situating (if that is a word) and fighting for interact connection to get work done it wasn’t happening…..I’m pretty disappointed by that.  =(

We picked up the RV on Monday the 20th.  We actually were able to get a hold of it a little earlier so we were feeling pretty good about the time.  Well good thing that we did get earlier, because it took longer to pack up the RV then we thought it would…..ggrrr  Then, of course, it was one of the hottest days of the year…….which is always our luck.

**Trying it again 30th of Aug @ 13:18 Pacific Time Malibu, CA

As I was saying, I can’t believe how long it took just to get everything into the RV.  It took 3-4 hrs!  It really didn’t seem as we had that much, but damn!

After loading it up, I had to finish the cleaning of the house….sweeping, mopping, wipe downs….etc.  It was so hot that I had to dump very cold water on me.

When all of that was done, we took one last jump into the pool just to cool off and enjoy.  It felt good.

Then it was on to the shower, so I can turn in the keys to the house and I was going to say one last good-bye at work, but ran out of time.  The rental car was due by 18:00 and it was 17:30 by now………….plus rush hour…..gggrrr  I knew there was a reason why I wanted to get things done faster.

So I totally didn’t get to stop by, which irritated the hell out of me, but I did get the car in 5 min late so I wait in the long slow line to check it in.  I figured if he saw that I waited, instead of the express, I wouldn’t be charged a late fee and I wasn’t.  So 15min was a good investment.

So we were on the road around 18:30, our goal was to get inside the Mississippi line before stopping for a few hours.  Well, that didn’t quite happen.  We ended up stopping on the other side of Pensacola for a few hours.  So we still did pretty good.

Honestly, that part was kind of a blur to me.  When we loaded the RV we just put stuff everywhere.  So I spent that evening and a good portion of the next day just trying to get things organized.  It was driving me nuts that I couldn’t find anything, especially when my hubby asked for it.

During this time, our cats went into major hiding mode………..especially the boy, Reggie. It wasn’t until the 2nd day when Harold closed off the bedroom area to the cats that we were able to get them out.  So we gave them some love.  Now Alexis will come out when driving, demand attention and will sleep on the chairs and couch.  Reggie, rarely comes out when driving, but will come out once we are stopped and settled.  They both have a thing for sleeping on the dash board and peeking their heads thru the curtains when we close them.  It is cute as hell…but, of course, to protect from claw marks we have put towels over the dash where they are currently stretched out sleeping very happily.

2007 820 823 044

Trying to get back into bedroom.

2007 820 823 042

Hiding under a chair.

2007 831 098

Taking over the chair.

2007 831 096

Chilling while we are stopped.

2007 826 829 vegas 016

Loving the dash.

I know this may sound horrible about Florida, but it was so great to see actual vegetation when we hit Alabama, Mississippi & Louisiana.  It felt good to be headed west and out of that state. Florida was a good temp move, but we knew that we would never be staying there permanently.  Some how, we always knew we would head west.

Of course it is desert once we hit Texas.  =)
2007 820 823 036
Look at the drainage ditches for flash flooding?
2007 820 823 053

We stayed our 1st night in an RV park in Alamogordo, NM, right before White Sands National Park.  Harold had been out here years ago with a bad camera and was never able to fully capture the beauty of it.  So it was on the must see list.

It was stunning; I still don’t think our high-end cameras fully got it.  The sand looked almost like black ice covered in snow on the roads and as bright as the freshly fallen snow.

2007 820 823 090

2007 820 823 097

2007 820 823 099

2007 820 823 102

2007 820 823 107

We had a blast at White Sands.  We climbed one of the dunes in our bare feet, it was so, so hot out but the sand was surprisingly cool.  It felt great on my feet.  I was even able to climb without my feet hurting and it gave me a great work out.  So I need to put a sand dune in our back yard in Portland…….lol