Bill and Monicas Travels

2012-10-11T10:54:00.002-07:00

Here we are at June Lake,CA campground. there are so many deer
here we decided to hitch a ride with one.
We then moved on to Eagle Lake,CA, north of Susanville.
full hookup campground at the national forest campground for $25 a night
with golden access discount. the nicest forest service campground we
have ever been too and the lake area was fantastic, a great bike trail,
some hiking around the area, free wifi if you camp close enough
to the host, which we did. Next stop, Medford Or to visit
Doug and Barb's son and grandson, Travis and Riley.
then on too Diamond Lake, OR and a visit to Crater Lake, NP.

Here we are at Crater Lake, kinda hazy today, probably from all the fires this year. we decided to go out
to wizard island to get a close up view of it.

Can you see the bird shape? Barb called it an angel. the water was so calm when we got here.

We love the deep blue of the lake!

Here is a dead tree over looking the deep blue of the water.

Phanton Ship in the distance.

Ghosts II, Bodie, CA

2012-10-05T19:47:00.002-07:00

this is the end of the Bodie blog, you will need to go to the previous post to start at the beginning of the Bodie list if you want or just scroll down and read it all from the end to the beginning, but it will cost you extra to do it that way!!!!

looks like a comfortable couch!!

This was a poster in one of the houses with this and 3 other history photos showing different years.
Bodie had a population of almost 10,000 in its heyday, that is a lot of people back then!
the job of pounding the ore with a 24pd sledge for 12 hours a day for 6 days a week paid
4.00 a day, equal to $80,000 a year now, I dont think I would pound rocks for
$80,000 a year even now, or even when I was 18!!

Hey Monica, how about a tour in my 1937 Ford!!

Here is the grave of Waterman Bodey the man that discovered
the gold here in 1859. He Died in a blizzard in nov 1859 here
not long after discovering gold.

Ghosts!! Visit to Bodie, CA

2012-10-05T19:05:00.000-07:00

Here is the town of Bodie, CA it was a mining town
from about 1860 to 1942 when the last of the
gold mining companies left. there was a caretaker
on the property from 1942 until 1962 when it was turned over to the
state of CA for a state park.

this is a lathe that was used to mfg any parts
they might need or to repair parts,
mainly the ore stamps!

some of the belts running the machinery

these are the ore stamps, they pounded the
ore down from fist size to smaller size to
extract the gold and silver. the Ore that was larger
than fist size was pounded into smaller sizes by hand
with a 24 pd sledge hammer!!! those guys
earned their money!

Ranger Mike talking about the stamps and the
process of mining. He was very good
and informative, we really enjoyed his
talks on this tour.

the managers house, set right next to the stamp mill
with it running 24 hours a day 6 days a week
I can imagine what the noise level was like.
You could here the stamps from 3 miles away
when they were running and there were
at least 9 stamp mills in this town during its
heydey, can you imagine the noise level!!

some clothes and items left when they deserted the town.

school house

school house reflected in a window!!

American pickers would love this place, lots of old
bikes, etc laying around.

Here is an old trunk sitting on the floor of a house.

the main street!

this newspaper was dated oct 19th 1941, I guess it has been there all that time.

Green Acres is the place to be!!
or should I say Beverly Hillbillies.
I think Bill and Monica found their dream car!

Hey Monica, we finally found our retirement house!!
airconditioned any everything!

Nice Bathroom too!!

room with a view!!

I think this was a globe!

anyone remember what this was!!

Bill and Monica waiting for the gas attendent, it might be a long wait!!

the firestation, Bodie had a devastating fire in 1932 that burned a lot of the buildings along the
main streets. there is a photo later that shows the difference after the fire.

Bill and Monica and Barb at an Ore cart, looking for some of the left over gold I bet!!

Old well that has seen its better days!!

This is something that Doug needs to use more often, sniff, sniff!!

Here we are just waiting for a lift!

A old buggy!!

If you want to see more info about Bodie, CA go to this link below and it gives

you more info about the history of the town.

we spent over 4 hours exploring this town and we could have spent another

full day here. If you are ever traveling down Hwy 395 In California and

want to see some great history take the 12 mile drive back to Bodie.

It is a State Park, entrance fee is 7.00 per person, well worth it.

the last 3 miles of the road are gravel and you must take your fillings out of your teeth before you go on the road or you will find them on the floor of the car

by the time you get there, but it is worth the drive!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodie,_California

2012-10-03T09:36:00.002-07:00

Here we are relaxing at Great Basin National Park.
it was a steep 8% climb up to the campsite, then
the site was so unlevel we could not get
totally level on the 5th wheel.
but we are enjoying the scenery and the color
changes of the trees!!
we leave tomorrow for June Lake, CA!

This is the viewpoint for Mono Lake along Hwy 395
in Calif, real neat place!!

Barb and Doug decided to have a campfire, it is real
nice and toasty, Monica dont get too close to
the fire, it will burn your toes! they have Bear boxes
all over this campground, but when Doug
opened one up there wasnt any bears inside it.
I dont know why Doug and Barb like bears so much,
everywhere we go it warns us to watch out for
the bears, I wonder if Doug and Barb
are trying to get rid of us and have the
bears eat us!! I am gonna have to keep an
eye on them.
And Doug keeps telling Barb she will
see a Bear later in the camper, maybe
that is why he makes us sleep in
the truck all the time!!!

Here we are sitting on a big rock looking at the view
in Yosemite National Park, it is real pretty here, careful
Monica, dont slip off the rock it is a long ways down!!

Uh, Oh, Monica fell off the rock with Pumpkin, looks like
Pumpkin is ok, I might have to give CPR to
Monica later!!! wink! wink!!

here we are by a nice lake with a great view, there
are lots of people here in Yosemite, but they all
talk funny, like they are from somewhere else!!

I knew that Doug was taking us a long ways up
the road into Yosemite, but we can hardly breath
up here! I might have to give Monica Mouth to Mouth!!

See the road behind us, it is a long steep road,
good thing we didnt bring the 5th wheel, it
wouldnt make it up that road, see how far down it
is behind us, it is a long way down to the
bottom.

2012-10-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

Here is the entrance to Arches NP we are sitting on the
sign with Doug and Barb. Now we have to drive up
a big hill that is real steep, but the views are
awesome!

Here is Barb standing under and arch!

this is fiery furnace, you cant hike here without a
guide because you will get lost!! I can see why!

this is double arch, really nice!

Here we are at Mesa Verde NP, does this lion look kinda hungry!!

Here is Spruce House!

this is Cliff Palace, real neat place to visit.
We liked the campground, but again with the bears, we had
to be on the look out for bears all the time.

Here we are in Arches NP, near Moab, UT, this is one of the windows arches.

Here we are visiting Delicate Arch with Doug and Barb.
we had to hike 1.5 miles uphill to get here
and the last 200 yards were on a shelf rock path!!
we werent scared tho!! we just closed our eyes.

Here we are under Delicate Arch! It took us 2 hours to get
here and another 1.5 hours to get back.
we saw someone that didnt drink enough water
and they were taking him out on a stretcher. He looked
like he was going to be ok tho!!

Here is the shelf path, see we are sitting right on the edge
of the cliff, it was over 100 ft down to the bottom of
the canyon if we fell off!

Here is Barb and us standing right on the edge,
Wuuuu, we wernt scccaarredd at all!!

we packed up our stuff to go boating,
we have 2 boats a BBq, a couch, chair and other stuff!!
Looks like we are ready to go!!

this is right behind our campsite at Arches NP, we climbed
up the rocks, it was a neat campsite!

Here we are at our campsite in arches!

Here is the camper at our site at Arches NP!
Real neat site backing up to the rocks!

Now we are heading to Great Basin National Park, it will take us 3 days to get there because Doug doesnt like to drive more than 250 mi a day.

We are going to Delta, UT to stay the night, then heading across the desert on Hiway 50, the loneliest Hiway in the USA!

2012-09-21T07:32:00.000-07:00

Look Monica! a Bear track in our
campground!! I wonder if he
will eat us for dinner, that is scary!!
They told us to watch out for bears
and not leave any food outside for them.
Doug told Barb she might see a bear
in the camper later that night!
I wonder what he meant by that!!

2012-09-21T07:28:00.003-07:00

Look Monica, Here are the night lights of Colorado Springs!
we are up on Cheyenne Mountain at the state park,
right below the entrance to Norad, the place that
tracks Santa Claus every year and maybe some
other things in the sky!

Here we are at 11 Mile Lake up in the mountains, Look
at the Minnow, do you think we could catch
a big fish with this one as bait!!

Here is the top of the Pass between Colorado
and New Mexico. It is real pretty up here.

Wow the view from here is great!

Here is the train station, see us sitting with Barb
and our friend Nancy is watching the dogs so
they dont have us for lunch!!

I think they are going to let us drive this up to the top of the
Pass!!!

Here we are sitting on the engine of the Cumbres scenic
railroad in Chama, NM.

Here is the train about to go over the trestle by
our campground!!
It really blows out a lot of smoke!

Here we are riding on top of the train, whoo whoo!!

We are riding in the Car with our friend Rex, he works on the
train!! I hope we dont fall off, where are the
Margaritas!!

2012-09-10T15:25:00.001-07:00

Monica, look at all the dead trees from the fire here at the Poudre Canyon near Fort Collins!!

It burned up a lot of trees, but most of them were dead from Beetles.

You can see the trees that are beetle killed and didnt burn.
Mother natures way of cleaning things up!! Now a new forest
will grow. Things are already green as the grass grew after the fire.
The firemen saved lots of houses, some right in the middle
of the fire area, with burned trees all around them but
the houses were ok, Amazing!!

After seeing all the dead trees we decided to go see
some nice flowers at the CSU flower garden!

Look at all the pretty flowers, watch out for that bee, Bill!

Time to do Laundry, we washed and washed this stuff
till it was clean, see the rock we beat the clothes
on to get them clean.

Hey Bill is this a pair of Doug's underwear, BARB,
BARB!!! I think you need to wash these again!!
I sure hope that smell comes out!!!

2012-09-06T20:02:00.000-07:00

Wow Monica, where is Stout, COLO?
I wonder if the 1/2 is Pumpkin!
I like Stout in the liquid form.

Here we are at the home of John and Darlene, friends of
Doug and Barb. we had a great lunch of Longhorn
burgers, we are hooked, that was great burgers!
I wonder if we can find that in Oregon.
This is the Cloverbloom Ranch with lots of
Longhorns.

I wonder if they mind if we sit here while they eat lunch. I
wonder if they mind too much that we had their cousin for
lunch, whoops, dont say that too loud, those are
big horns. I wonder why they call them LongHorns?

RideEm cowboy!!

this one looks like it might be a good buckin
bull! take me to your leader!!

Monica, I think we had better move, this is not
the place to be when she decides to
drop one of those things we saw
in Montana at the bison range!
what is that smell anyway? does Pumpkin
need a diaper change?

2012-09-06T06:15:00.004-07:00

Here we are sitting in the campground at VeDeaWoo,
(pronounced vee da voo, dont ask me I didnt name it)
(probably some french guy or something, or maybe it
is chinese)
Near Laramie, Wyoming. Shall we go hiking in the woods to
see whet we can find?

Look Monica a very large Moose in the woods
lets get closer for a better picture of
the Moose!

Hey Monica, what do people look like when a 7ft tall
Moose charges you in the woods!!!!

I think he wants to play peek-a-boo!!

I wonder what Moose steaks taste like!!

what are all these people doing up on the rocks!!
Playing their trumpets of course, isnt that what
everyone does when rock climbing!!

Can you spot the crazy guy in the picture?

Here he is, the crazy guy, and he wasnt alone,
there were lots of crazy people there!!

Here we are with our friends having happy hour
after a long and stressful day of hiking
and being chased by a moose!
say isnt that Dog licking her lips?
and where is Doug?
I think we better keep our eye on that Dog, she
looks like she will eat anything!!

Stay tuned for more adventures of the travels of Bill, Monica and
Pumpkin! Now we head to Colorado, the Mile Hi State!
Monica can you say short of breath!!!

Bill and Monica SKP's34 travels

2012-08-28T07:47:00.002-07:00

Can you believe it Bill, Larry and Marie gave us to a family with a CAT and a DOG. I sure hope they don't try to eat us.

Well, we have made it a week and the only thing that these people seem to do is take us to far away places and go down STEEP roads.

First when we leave O'dell we end up on a road that is 16% grade. Then later in the week we have to go down an eight percent grade for 5 miles. I think I might like this place called Scottsbluff NE. I am told it is flat.

I can't seem to get HOME HOME ON THE RANGE out of my head. You know

Deer, Antelope and Buffalo roam. We saw all three at the Bison Range. It was a great day but wouldn't you know it more Steep roads.

We left Hood River and traveled to Washington state and stayed at a nice campground on the snake river near Pasco WA. then we headed east into Idaho and stayed at a nice campground on Lolo pass. Here we are at the campground.

We arrived at Ronan, MT to spend a couple of days and we were happy to hear that we get to visit the National Bison Range and see Buffalo. We can hardly wait!!

Here we are at the visitors center, they have lots of elk antlers so we decided to climb up and see what it looked like up close!
then we headed up the road to see what kind of wildlife we could find. first we saw some antelope and this one was running real fast.

Then we saw something laying in the road so we decided to check it out. we cant figure out what it is but it sure smelled!!

we finally saw our first buffalo, it was big!!

Here we are looking at a buffalo from the truck.

sure glad we didnt get too close.
after visiting the bison range we headed east across Montana to a place called Nebraska!! we heard that if you are good all your life, do nice things for people all the time, when you die you get to go to Nebraska!! Just a rumor!!
Bill isnt too sure about Nebraska tho, he says he smells a lot of conservative Republicans here, kinda makes him nervous!!
We finally get to visit Scottsbluff National Monument. It was real hot. Here we are at the Sign below the bluff.

We visited with the pioneer lady, she told us how hard it was traveling on the Oregon trail and showed us some things that she used while traveling on the trail. we went further up the trail and saw all the wagon ruts from people that had gone before. This was a Murphy wagon, made in Missouri. there was another wagon made by some brothers, called a Studebaker, it was a smaller one than the Murphy wagon.

Then we got so sit on some Oxen that was pulling a wagon, we were a little nervous as they were very big, but they held real still so we could take a picture. We like traveling in the 5th wheel better, it has air conditioning and it was 100 here today when we visited this place.

Here are a couple pics of the Monument just behind our campground in the early morning.