Motorhome Travels in USA

New York and the North East Quarter 2012

2012-04-07T06:05:00.001-07:00

Travel Costs for RV Trip
Trip Itinerary

Trip Index Links to our RV Travels and Information

1. New York Buying or Renting a Motorhome in America

2. Atlanta to Washington Across the South by RV - LA to Miami, 2011

3. Washington to Boston Panama Canal Cruise - 2011

4. Boston to Newfoundland 30 National Parks by RV, 2010

5. Newfoundland to Quebec Alaska & The Rockies by RV from LA, 2009

6. Quebec to Detroit

7. Detroit to Chicago

8. Chicago to Ocean City

9. Ocean City to Atlanta

1 New York

      This trip is set for 11 weeks, 30th March to 17th June 2012. however, before we pick up the RV in Atlanta, we have planned 5 days in New York and after doing the planning we find we are going to run out of time, there is just so much that should be seen. The Pennsylvania Hotel is a medium budget hotel in a good central location, directly opposite Penn Station and a block away from the Empire State. Our main pre-planning was to book in for a concert at Carnegie Hall and another at the Lincoln Centre for the NY Philharmonic. Also it was necessary to pre-book for the Word Trade Centre Memorial. Our time in NY is just before Easter, March 31 to April 5th.

    The Qantas sardine class was the go again, Melbourne to LA, a good flight over, but a bit of a rush to clear customs at LA, transfer our luggage and ourselves to another flight 1hour 55m was the supposed time but as we were stuck taxiing to the terminal for 30 mins, then immigration, collect the baggage and queue for customs we were on the run, just made it. A four & half hour flight to New York, transfers and we were eventually checked into the Pennsylvania hotel by 8.00pm.
We had asked the travel agent to book a 3 star close to the action. However our first reaction to room 774 was that it was one grade up from sleeping on the street, the king bed had such a dip in the middle, it looked like an Aunty Milly’s Chocolate slice. It was an effort to sleep, we managed to learn to grip the edge of the mattress while going to sleep, but there was not much rest. The next morning we dismantled the bed, to find that two of the supports beneath were broken, The Room Service attendant arranged for another room, 1040, yep this one is OK and yep 3 star. They assured us that they were not going to blame us for the damage. “man, she said, yo is too old to cause that sort of damage”. It had us worried as another tenant told us he was going to report that his room had been broken into, but then he realised that it was the norm. Another worry had come to mind from when I was checking in, I had noticed that there was a clause in the fine print, that allowed them to charge $50 if you checked out before your scheduled date. When we saw the first room, we understood why the clause was there.                                                                    Actually the Pennsylvania Hotel is the 4^th largest hotel in NY, with some 1770 rooms. In 1919 when it was built, it was the largest hotel in the world until 1927 and was the first to offer high rise elevators. The hotel was immortalised by Glenn Miller in 1938 with their hit Pennsylvania 6-5000. That was and still, is the hotels phone number.   Gotta say though, it is showing it’s age, but hey, if you want to see New York, you can’t do it from inside the hotel, 3 star we wanted and got.(eventually). And we are only a block away from the Empire State Building, right on the Penn station and opposite Madison Square Garden. The hotel has four Ballrooms on the 18^th floor, and one on the Mezzanine level, we must try to check them out.
Day one and we collected our GreyLine Hop On / Hop Off tickets and took the Uptown one first. A great tour, enhanced by the guide being a local resident and gave a lot of detail about the New York rent stabilisation program and local issues, plenty of opportunities to get pics from the top deck, we were all issued with white plastic hooded ponchos as there was a bit of misty rain about, we must have looked like a bus load of KKK. We had gone through the hassle of getting a couple of 7 day passes for the subway so we stayed out and used the subway to get us to the Lincoln Centre, to catch the concert of the New York Philharmonic before it heads off on a world tour, The celebrated violinist Peter Zimmermann is the artist-in- residence and was incredible.

    Day two saw us take the Downtown tour, it made us appreciate the first tour guide as it was difficult to hear what this guy was saying. We certainly saw a lot of the city until we were all unloaded at the Battery Park, Gave us the opportunity to walk back to Wall St and being Sunday, it was a day of rest for the stock exchange and all the financial hangers on, so it was full of tourists instead. One of the icons of the Wall St sector is the Bull of Wall St, a serious huge bronze statue in an traffic island in the street. For some obscure reason there were barricades all around the stature, which prevented anyone from getting a decent photo of it, a police car stationary just in front of it and a cop standing there to stop anyone from getting close enough to photograph it. Just seemed odd. Back on another bus to complete the circuit, however we stopped at Times Square to soak up the atmosphere and a chilly dog for lunch. Caught a subway shuttle to Grand Central Rail Terminal, an incredible building built in 1913, a real showpiece, on the lower level a great food court, a pity, we had not long had lunch, this certainly would have been a better option. Back on the shuttle to Times square and a walk up 7^th Ave to Lindy’s on 53^rd for their famous New York Cheesecake, an early dinner. A little further up the hill to Carnegie Hall, where we had booked for an afternoon concert of the New York Chamber Orchestra. The subway back for an early night.

    There are some twenty four subway lines, operating 24hrs per day that shift nearly 4 million passengers around the city daily. We noted three line levels at one station. It seems much of the subway was built using the cut and shut method as the roof of the train is less than ten feet below the roadway in some places, There is very little clearance above the train in the subway, aided by the fact that there is no overhead electrical gantry, it seems be connect via a third rail. This method allows for the tunnel to be excavated as an open cut, the tracks laid, steel girders place over the top, concrete slabs and then the roadway laid on top. It seems that most of the subway lines are directly beneath the roadway. We noted a poster in a train today advising that a major addition to the subway system was under way, called East Side Access. It also stated that this is the first extension to the system for over 100 years.

    Day three and we were out early, onto the subway, uptown to check out Cathedral of St John the Divine. Built in 1892 the size of the interior is such that the Statue of Liberty would fit inside. Whilst anchored in Episcopal and Anglican traditions, the Cathedral is open and encourages ideas and liturgies from other faiths. Priests, Rabbis, Monks and Imams, have shared the pulpit here. They have an annual Blessing of the Bicycles and on The Feast of St Francis all sorts of animals are brought in to be blessed. A truly rare place of worship, with an interior structure that equals many of the fine cathedrals of England. The subway back a few stops and we ventured into Central Park, starting at Strawberry Fields, the memorial to John Lennon, who was shot entering his home at opposite the park. Originally a swamp area, Central Park was set aside for the people, as the development of New York was so packed that there were no areas for recreation for the families. Whilst there are areas of the local bedrock showing through, basically the park was shaped by the dumping of materials, excavated whilst building the city. Today the park has it’s own police precinct and is maintained by a dedicated Park Management body. The park has many specialty areas in it’s many acres, the was a lake where you could hire a row boat, a pond withy remote controlled yachts, another pond where you could rent a fishing rod and catch a fish, only problem is, you have to put it back. There is even a beach, albeit only 50ft wide, a Children’s Zoo, where adults can only enter if accompanied by a child. And so the list goes on. It seems to cater for every one and testimonial to that is the number the frequent the park.    We exited the park onto 5^th Avenue and had a fair walk to the Guggenheim Museum, where it became very clear that we are both art ignorant. What was one of our must see features in New York ended in 40 minutes and we were out of there, the building was an architectural masterpiece, but cameras were not allowed.
    Bloomingdales a very up market department store was on the way to Grand Central Terminal where we checked out the Oyster Bar Restaurant for a late lunch. Then the subway downtown to the 9/11 Memorial, certainly a sobering sight, looking at the two pools that are set in the footprints of the original twin towers, these pools have 30 ft high waterfalls cascading into pools then a further drop into a centre void. Around the perimeter bronze parapets have the names of the victims of the attack inscribed.

    Day four, we were at the Empire State Building by 8.30am, only 2 blocks walk from our hotel. The New York Skyride was set up on the 2^nd level, a visual experience of flying over and through Manhattan, then it was up to the 88^th floor for the observation deck. A perfect day for it, clear skies, with visibility 26 miles. Lots of photos. Back on earth and a cab to Pier 83 for the Circle Line 3hr cruise around Manhattan Island. The last people we knew who took a three hour cruise was Gilligan & Co, so we were hoping for the best. The cruise started from the area of the Hudson River where the passenger jet made a crash landing after a flock of Canadian Geese took out the engines, our cruise ship was a direct part of the passenger rescue operation. The cruise was well narrated, inside was warm, but braved the cold for few shots we couldn’t get from inside. An interesting sight was the Hell’s Gate Bridge, which is a miniature of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, it is claimed that the authorities in Australia sent a team over to take details of the bridge in New York before replicating the design on a much larger scale in Australia. Another one was Pier 54, the site prepared for the docking of the Titanic 100 years ago this year. The pier has an iron arch at the end of the pier set there to welcome the passengers. From pier 83, the Water Taxi then down to South St, checked out the cheap ticket outlet, but the shows that we were prepared to see were not on offer so the subway back to the hotel. The hotel has a theatre booking desk, we checked there for tickets but at $245 each we declined the offer, they deal through a broker (read that as Scalper) who bought the tickets for $150 and was offering them for $245.

    Day five, a one block walk to Macy’s, the largest department store in the world, most interesting was their annual flower show, set up in a large tent pavilion outside their Broadway frontage. A subway on the D line gave us an hour ride to Coney Island and Brighton Beach. The Coney Island amusement park was in seasonal maintenance mode, so there was not much action but still quite a spectacle, a lengthy boardwalk between the beach and the amusement park was well in use. Melbourne’s Luna Park entrance was supposedly a copy from Coney Island, however there was nothing like it there now. A light lunch saw us at “Nathans” famous hot dog outlet, the site of the “International Hot Dog Eating Contest”   After our return trip on the subway we felt we have by now qualified as cavers, given that we have spent so much time underground these past five days. A few other observations on the subway here, when we stopped at the end of the line at Coney Island, 10am, we exited what we had remarked on as a very clean carriage, however a team of cleaners were on hand and went into each of the ten carriages on the train. The layout of the carriages had the seating all hanging from the walls and ceiling so the floor was totally clear, making them easy to clean. Ticketing, there does not appear to be any sections, a seven day MetroCard ticket, cost $29, allowed us to travel anywhere on the 24 subway lines and 468 stations as well as the MTA buses. Stations are remarkably clean, given the volume of passengers. Many of the stations seem to have resident buskers, entertaining the commuters, many of the buskers were really great.
    A few hour rest at the hotel and we were off to see the “Top of the Rock” which is the observation level at the top of the Rockefeller Building, best to be done at night as the NY Night skyline is quite a spectacle and it also give a great view of the Empire State Building, Before venturing up to the top we took in the action at the Rockefeller Plaza, they have a large area set up as an outdoor ice skating rink, the trees in the surroundings are fitted with fairy lights all over. The night capped off a wonderful 5 days, we were up at the crack of dawn to catch our flight to Atlanta.   Photos : New York

Map of Entire Route.

Map Atlanta to Washington

2 Atlanta Georgia to Washington DC

We collected the RV from Storage, moved it to a park site and set about settling in with our baggage, topped up the fuel & water and took advantage of a laundry to clean up our gear after a hectic 5 days in New York. After a good sleep in our own bed we were ready for the road by 11, did the obligatory shop at Wal-Mart . Amazed at some of the low prices compared to Australia. (2 lts Orange Juice $2.15 compared to $5.45), filled the larder and moved out, negotiating the freeways through the centre of Atlanta to head north to Blue Ridge where we settled in at a small RV park close to town. Blue Ridge is the start of the Mountain Country here in North Georgia, actually we are at the southern edge of the Smoky Mountains National Park, in the Appalachia mountains, the landscape is very hilly and heavily wooded with trees just coming out and getting their new leaves after what has been a mild winter for the area. However, we are told they are expecting snow next week. Must look a picture here in autumn, by the number of deciduous trees. The Blue Ridge Scenic Railway was up and running and being Easter Saturday, they have “Hidden” 5000 Easter Eggs in a field a few miles up the track. The afternoon run was booked out with 460 eager passengers, the little tackers each carrying a basket to gather the eggs. We took the morning train which follows the Toccoa River all the way through to McCaysville/Copperhill, these are twin towns on the border between Georgia and Tennessee, in fact, there is a blue line painted through the carpark at the IGA supermarket which defines the actual border. Not long after leaving Blue Ridge it was announced that we had attained cruising speed of 15 miles per hour. The area being noted as a mecca for trout fishing we saw several out with their fly rods along the way. The countryside was dotted with white and pink Dogwood trees, out in full blossom, as were several orange wild Azaleas After leaving the train, we headed north towards Sweetwater, Tennessee.

After a roadside camp 30 miles from Sweetwater, we were in time for the first tour of the Lost Sea in the Great Craighead Cave. At the bottom of the cave is a lake almost 3 football fields in size and 70 ft deep at one end. It is now called the Lost Sea Cave, referring to the fact that the lake was first discovered in 1905, by a 13 year old, but flooding prevented access to the lake section until the 1970s. In the upper sections of the cave there are remnants of the cave being used by confederate soldiers, the date 1863 was burned into the ceiling by a soldier’s torch. Further along is a hopper that was used to make gunpowder during the war. An old moonshine still was also found in the cave and is on display there. The lake was stocked with trout as an experiment, but they need to be fed daily as there is no natural food for them, nor can they breed there. An interesting stop. We drove through to Maryville, a very appealing town, some attractive buildings and housing, on to the Smoky Mountains National Park and picturesque drive alongside a fast flowing stream until we rose up to a pass at Clingmans Dome, on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina. The 520,000 acre Smoky Mountains National Park was created in the 1920 & 30s When The State Governments of Tennessee and North Carolina put up $7million and J.D.Rockefeller Trust tipped in $5million to buy out the 6000 landowners and then donate the land to the Federal Government to establish a National Park. The NP Smokemont campground gave us restful stop for the night. That was needed after Lorraine had us traipsing over a Nature Trail, imitating mountain goats, we had to test the new hip didn’t we. Obviously not satisfied with the strenuous jaunt down the cave earlier in the day.

The Cherokee Indian Reservation and the town of Cherokee is the southern starting point for the Blue Ridge Parkway, a tourist route, also a National Park, which extends 470 miles along the crests of the Southern Appalachian Mountains and links the Shenandoah and Smoky Mountains National Parks. That equates to traveling from Melbourne to Adelaide on the top of a mountain ridge.

The road is one lane each way, double lines almost the entire trip. There are no cross roads, no commercial vehicles and no shops. So you go over normal roads and freeways on bridges. The principal and layout is similar to that of the Natchez Trace, only this one has views. The only hassle is the road is not very wide and there is no shoulder. In places the rock walls and trees hang very close, in fact at times they overhang . The colours of the trees are at times quite spectacular, but being early spring, many of the trees have yet to develop their foliage. At times we see whites, pinks, reds and orange scattered through the green . There are some 450 “Overlooks” where you can pull in and click away with the camera. The views across the mountain tops is awesome, the ridge is generally at about 4500 ft, the highest point being 6480ft which we went through today. We would compare the views, with those from Mt Buller or Mt Hotham and they just keep coming.

The drive would be even more spectacular in September and October when the autumn foliage would be at it peak. At Linville Falls campground we met up with “Camp Hosts” Jack & Martha, volunteers who had just opened the campground last weekend for the season and were settling in to look after the park until 31^st October. We checked out the falls before heading north, another 1.6 mile hike, so the new hip is getting a workout, now seeking an exit from the Parkway to get some fuel, that’s’ right no gas stations either. Found a pleasant little town of Blowing Rock, just off the Parkway so topped up with fuel and back on again, until our bliss was shattered by a detour, some road works on the Parkway, the detour sent us through Sparta, North Carolina, it would have to be the Christmas tree growing capital of the free world, all shapes and sizes, some have been worked on as topiary, in spirals, some perfect little conical trees, and some just little trees, we reckon Macey’s get the spiral ones and Walmart the also rans. They have an interesting system on some road works sites, where you stop at the flagman’s stop sign and wait for an escort vehicle to come along, he has “Follow Me” on his tailgate, so like little sheep, we all follow him until he pulls off to the side after clearing the road works and waves us through, The strange thing about our first encounter with the “Escort Car” was that the length of the road works was only 100 yards. The escort car took more time turning around to escort the cars back the other way than it did driving through the road works. Still, he is employed so it creates work. We think that one of the big employers seems to be that of religion, there are so many different denominations, often churches are, side by side, some are beautiful buildings, They each must have a Pastor to tend the flock. Another fascination is the banks, in Australia the banks are pretty well just a shop in the strip or shopping centre, but here we often see the bank as a stand alone building, albeit looking very much like a mansion with columned fronts, car parks on all sides. They give the appearance of very expensive properties.

Our second day on the parkway started off with the same spectacular scenery as the first, but as we went on the elevation dropped to around 2500ft and we were winding along with farms either side. After we entered Virginia, some small roads did cross the parkway, although we had precedence at all times. Stopped off at Mabry Mill, a restored water mill on the parkway, to check it out. There seems to be an abundance of rhododendrons throughout the mountains, at least the foliage is the same but we must be a bit early for the flowering. Some sections of the parkway have the 10ft high rhododendrons lining both sides of the road. Towards the end of the day we found we were back up on a high ridge with panoramic views to the left and right and settled at Peaks of Otter Picnic ground for the night. Official camp sites still closed for the winter season.

After the 470 Miles on the parkway the road connects to the Shenandoah National Park and the feature of that NP is the 105mile Skyline Drive, which effectively makes it 575 miles winding along mountain ridges, by far the first 250 miles was the most impressive, but there were always new panoramas to gaze at, and often on both sides at the same time. We experienced some light snow along the way at about 2500ft, it came in patches and looked quite heavy at one stage, but not enough to stay on the road. we came down to earth at Front Royal, which is 72 miles west of Washington, in Virginia. We dived into the peak hour traffic on the freeways and found our RV Park “Cherry Tree Park” by 6pm. Now to look around Washington over the next couple of days. We noted that gas prices have gone from $3.89 to $4.15 as we crossed the state border into Maryland. Photos

Route Map : Washington to Boston

3 Washington DC to Boston MS

We found Cherry Tree Park had all you could want for an RV park close to a major city, apart from the fact that the freeway is right alongside and there is not much let up over night. The local Metro bus has a scheduled stop inside the park, which connects to the rail system. The park also takes bookings for several tour companies, however “Grayline” pick up from inside the park for guests booking with their tours. Grayline got the gig for us and we booked a 9hr “DC in a Day Tour” DC is like Canberra, it is not a state it is only 69 square miles in area, with a population of about 500,000. A square section taken out of Maryland, on the border of Virginia. DC actually stands for “District of Columbia”. Because they are not a state, locals have a beef, that they pay their taxes but have no representation.

The Day tour took us to the Capital Building, where we joined the throng lined up for a guided tour of this magnificent building. School groups galore, all being shunted around by their teachers, it was great to see and an obvious lead in to the patriotism that is so evident in USA. Other places we visited were the Jefferson Memorial, The White House, pictures through the front fence was as close as anyone can get. The World War 2 Memorial, The Lincoln Memorial, from a distance, The Washington Monument, Dr Martin Luther King Memorial, The Smithsonian Institute Air & Space Museum and the Smithsonian Institute American History Museum. There are many other buildings and places of interest, but we reckon we have seen the heart of Washington so we plan a rest day and then hit the road.

Rather than get onto the freeway system, we chose to follow Route 1 north from Washington, that way we get to see the housing, and being Saturday there was a park full of kids playing Lacrosse in Baltimore, so we watched their antics over lunch. Trying to follow a specific route means you do not rely on the GPS, it always heads off to the freeway, and while you can give it a via option that does not allow you to follow a route. We found an RV park at Jackson, looked more like a construction site, they wanted $44 for a night, eventually knocked off $20 for us being a first time camper there. At $44 I was ready to walk on principle. As much as we tried to stay off the freeways, we did end up on the New Jersey Turnpike , which is a Tollway, which reminded me that we should get a E-ZPass as it works in 14 states in this quarter of the US and we will be around them a lot. Next day, our plan was to take the freeway on to Staten Island, then off to Jersey City, somewhere along the way the turnoff to Jersey City got lost so we ended up driving over the Narrows Bridge under the end of the Brooklyn Bridge, then under the end of the Manhattan Bridge and along an expressway through the areas of Queens and the Bronx and on to Rye, just before the state border to Connecticut. It was a pretty hairy drive, the expressway lanes are so narrow and the road surface leaves a lot to be desired. Our first shock was when we got to the toll booth off the Narrows Bridge, $26. Then a further $10 spread over another 4 booths before we cleared the tolling sections. We tried on a couple of occasions, to avoid the freeways, and just follow the original highway 1, but kept getting tangled and it was so slow. A couple of our chosen campsite options were still closed for the season which lead us on to Old Mystic, near New London, Connecticut, 250 miles for the day, all rather strenuous. Still we got some extra shots of New York from a different angle on the way. Speed limits on the freeways seem to be taken in the same manner as red lights are for pedestrians in New York, it is considered that they are a “Suggestion” One New York guide stated that one way they can tell a tourist, apart from the camera around their neck, is that they wait for the green light before crossing. Off the freeways you do get a better chance to study the housing, lots of small, square, two story houses, mainly weatherboard appearance, however there does not seem to be any timber weather boards used, they seem to be the vinyl imitation type. By far the majority of roof covering is imitation slate or imitation shingle. The material is bitumen impregnated malthoid which is laid in strips of about 4ft x 1ft on top of a layer of plywood over the rafters. Done well, it looks great, but a check into the material indicates that it has a 15 to 25 year life span, depending on the severity of the weather changes. This seem to be born out by checking the older houses and they can look pretty chatty, so unless you are prepared to re-roof every 15 years, I would look for another option. Fences do not seem to be of much priority, sure, the inner suburban houses have them, but in other areas often there are none.

We noted many businesses closed and buildings left vacant, as we drove up through New Jersey and into Connecticut. Houses too, several vacant and boarded up to prevent vandalism. On a few occasions we noticed houses that had passed their use by date were just left, to gradually decay and fall apart.

Moving through to Rhode Island and what a difference, as soon as we came across the border into Westerly the housing changed there was a feeling of prosperity that was not evident very much since we left Washington, not many house for sale, well not until we moved away from the more affluent areas, then they started to appear, keeping away from the motorways we were able to duck down to the coastal towns, a lot of very nice housing. The use of wooden shingles on the external walls seems to be a feature for some houses, the timber is left to weather and goes a dark brown, most roofs are still the same malthoid imitation slate. Still a lot with the white weatherboard look, but generally real timber narrow weatherboards. not only private homes, even large buildings, 4 & 5 stories high.

Managed to pick up an E-ZPass for the toll system, to save chasing cash. Jamestown on Conancut Island, was fist settled in 1636 and named after King James, Newport on neighbouring Rhode Island, famous for it’s hosting of the America’s Cup Yacht race, is also home to several wealthy estates on Bellevue Avenue “Marble House”, built by W.K Vanderbilt which cost $11m in 1892 to build, it has 500,000 cubic feet of marble in it. Just down the road, or I should say around the cliff is “The Breakers” built by Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1895, There are at least a dozen other mansions of the same ilk, that are all in the same area. Newport itself has some very tight, narrow one way streets that made navigation in the RV a bit tricky. A tour trolley was the go, we were given an excellent tour of Newport and past the mansions on the cliffs, the guide knew his stuff, rattling off the names of the owners and where they got their wealth, one of the surprises was the Lee & Perin fortune which came from “Worcestershire Sauce” Apart from the dozen or so of the mega rich from the Rail & Shipping of the Vanderbilts, to Banking, Steel, Coal. There were loads of others who made it from the start of the Industrial Revolution, and created an elite set in the Newport area. Membership of the “400 club” was the key invitations to the social gatherings, parties etc. Mrs Astor, controlled the 400 club, and was of the opinion that one needed to be of the third generation in Newport to qualify, causing a lot of one up-manship to make points. Society of the day had their sights on the European Nobility and groomed their daughters to marry into it. They reasoned that Europe had the nobility and titles but they were strapped for cash, whereas the American elite had the money, but not the titles. Power was the driving force. One example is American heiress Jenny Jerome, who married Lord Randolph Churchill in 1874, their son was of course, Sir Winston Churchill. From its roots as one of the three most important ports in Colonial America during the 1700's, Newport grew to become the summer playground for several hundred families who possessed between them, more than 80% of America's wealth during the late Victorian period. Still, we are left today with thirty of these magnificent buildings, being maintained and serviced by the Preservation Society of Newport. In the 65 years that the society has been saving these buildings from the wreckers ball, more than 30 million visitors have passed though their gates. Many of the less significant properties have been taken over by the University, as the annual taxes to maintain the properties became untenable. Washington Square in Newport was the scene of much of the action in Steven Spielberg’s 1997 film “Amistad” The ugly power poles in the square were removed and replaced with gas street lanterns, these are still there and functional, thanks to Spielberg.

After an overnight camp at Rochester MA we headed down to Woods Hole and arranged passage on the ferry to the island of Martha’s Vineyard, a sightseeing bus was waiting to meet the ferry, so we were immediately off on a 23/4 hour narrated tour of the island and narrated it was, the driver/guide did not stop talking for the entire trip, rattling off the names of the past and current home owners, from James Cagney, Dianna Ross, Carley Simon, Jackie Onassis, plus a heap of other performers and politicians, Clinton spent his summers here whilst president, together with 240 security guards. Obama has spent a couple of holidays and the list goes on. I suppose it could be looked on as the Rhode Island of the 1900’s and while some of the housing are rather expensive, nothing as ornate and over the top as Newport. The building material is nearly all timber and the majority of the houses are clad with Cedar shingles. The entire timber frame is covered with a plywood skin, then the shingles are fixed to it. Thinking it was a local material preference, I quizzed the guide, who advised that they want that look, but all the shingles come from Canada. The island itself is fairly flat, 20 miles long and about 4 miles wide, with some 300 miles of stone fencing, originally the stone was gathered from the island, left there by the glaciers of the last ice age, however as they want to maintain that colonial look and there are no more stones to gather, they now bring the stones over by ferry from the mainland. The permanent population of the island is 16,000 but that swells to 100,000 for summer. Obviously many of the houses were vacant at the time we visited. The island was named after one of the early settler’s daughter, who had a wild grape vineyard. A commercial vineyard ran for about 40 years, but they were unsuccessful in getting a good wine grape to grow. Two of the early settlers from England each carried a gene which caused deafness, as a result of local breeding, it was not long before a large number of children were born with hearing problems, resulting in sign language being developed on the island. Steven Spielberg was busy here also, with a couple of films, the most famous being “Jaws”. The houses used in the 1975 film were pointed out on the tour. Our tour finished and we were just in time to catch the ferry back to Woods Hole, a shuttle bus then transports travelers to the carpark which is 4 miles from the wharf. Things are pretty tight in Woods Hole. We continued our drive up along the southern and eastern edges of Cape Cod, settling in for the night by a pond near Wellfleet. Cape Cod has many such freshwater ponds, with no seeming inlet or outlet. The houses on Cape Cod are similar to those on Martha’s Vineyard most asking to be photographed. One feature is that they are all a bit different, no standard designs, apart from the holiday beach huts. We headed into Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod, stopping on the way to see that Cape Cod Light, it was built in 1797 on 10 acres of land allocated to it, in 1996 it was shifted about 450 feet inland as the continual pounding of the waves on the cliffs had eroded away 6 acres of the land . Provincetown was where the Pilgrims landed in 1620 to colonise the country. The town is reminiscent of small English villages along the Cornish coast, very narrow streets, winding in all directions, our biggest problem was finding somewhere to park the RV. Most public parking areas did not permit RVs or anything with dual rear wheels. We managed to sneak a short time, enough to have a look around and get some snaps. There is a very large tower, a 252 ft monument to the Pilgrims, it does look a bit out of place and in fact it is described in the local guide as “What better way to herald a 20^th century Portuguese fishing village, of 18^th century Yankee heritage, a landfall for 17^th century English immigrants, than with a tower out of 14^th century Tuscany”. We moved back around the inside coast of the cape to Plymouth, where again it is claimed the Pilgrims landed and they have Plymouth Rock there tucked away under a multi column canopy. It is stated that the rock is symbolic only, it is not proven that the Pilgrims did first set foot on the rock, a replica of the Mayflower is moored a short distance away and looks very impressive. There is a monument to those who died from that first arrival. Of the 104 passengers who came over on the Mayflower 48 died in Plymouth during the first year. They buried their dead under the dark of night and leveled the ground, so the Indians did not know how many were left. A side trip, in looking for a campsite, ended up at Scituate on the coast, where a group of Irish immigrants who had gone to become fishermen in 1847, One of them recognised the algae growing on the rocks as “Irish Moss” or Carrageen. Being familiar with it’s market potential they set up an industry that lasted 140 years, Carrageen is used as an emulsifier in chocolate and cosmetics.

Into Boston and we get the rest of the story, to refresh our knowledge of American history, in 1630, 10 years after the arrival of the pilgrims, a fleet of 16 ships brought over 1000 Puritans to the Boston area. So this is where the boost to the population came from, it also had it’s problems, with the strict religious zeal of the puritans, sending other believers out of the area to allow them the freedom to practice their religion, that was the start of the Rhode Island habitation.

Today, Boston is proud of it’s heritage, from Paul Revere riding between the towns, sounding the warnings of the British approach, the rebellion creating the Boston Tea party, by tipping crates of tea into the bay, in general, their starting the revolt against the British, which eventually resulted in the independence of the USA. There are “walking tour” guides in period costume, leading groups around the historic areas. Equally, they are proud of their education facilities, Harvard University has turned out 8 Presidents of the USA. Also there were some notable “dropouts” from Harvard, including Bill Gates of Microsoft Fame, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and Edwin Land, one of the great inventors of our time, he invented the Polaroid camera , as well he had 535 other patents registered to him. We found Boston a fascinating city, interesting are the cemeteries dotted throughout, we inspected the one where Paul Revere and Benjamin Franklin’s parents are buried.

The city has many churches, each with it’s own character, One large church with a very tall steeple is in it’s third building, an inscription is engraved on a tablet. “First House of Worship occupied in 1670”, “Second House occupied in 1730” , “This House occupied in 1875” It appears that as the church tower was leaning about 20 degrees, it was felt unsafe and was demolished to make way for this existing building. Apparently much of the Boston City was built on a reclaimed swamp. Photos

Route Map Boston to St Johns

4 Boston, MS to St. Johns, Newfoundland

On leaving Salisbury, the weather had broken, our three weeks of sunshine had now gone into a misty rain, that was to follow us up the coast,. Much of the beach is hidden buy housing and obviously there is mainly private access, you felt for the poor buggers living on the other side of the road, as they would have to walk quite a distance up the road to find an access track between the houses. Over the border and past the coastal houses of New Hampshire. Some wonderful homes along there. Such a change from those on the Massachusetts side of the border. The coastline for New Hampshire only goes for about 30 miles and then we are into Maine. Well known for it’s seafood, which was evident by the number of lobster restaurants along the way, we found the Maine Coast very attractive, again you had to battle to get down to the coast through the narrow winding streets, but there were some real gems of places, particularly around Ogunquit. A surprise when we entered Portsmouth, the sign said “Settled in 1603” Now we had just gone through the saga of the first settlers being the Pilgrims in 1620 and the next lot the Puritans in 1630. Given that 50% of the Pilgrims died in the first year, now we find that Martin Pring first wrote about the area in 1603, However, Martin must have been a tourist in an RV, as the city was not settled until 1630 and after that, it became a haven for exiled Puritans from Massachusetts. Along with Newport, Portsmouth became involved in the infamous “Triangle Trade” that made substantial profits from slavery. Ships would leave their American port, laden with produce, sail to the West Coast of Africa , where they would sell or trade the produce in return for slaves, the slaves would be then shipped to the Caribbean, where they would be traded for sugar or molasses , the sugar or molasses, would end up in New England and turned into Rum. The ships would take 12 weeks to complete the triangular trade run. On and up the coast of Maine, there are still many picturesque little harbours and villages along this rugged Maine coast. The area around the Acadia National Park and Bar Harbour was a great visit. We ventured down to Lubec near Quoddy Head to cross into Canada onto Campobello Island then ferry it to Deer Island and then another ferry to mainland Canada, over the bridge and into the arms of Canadian Border Control, but it all didn’t last long. It appears the ferry has not run for a long time, so we had to backtrack, so within a half an hour we were back over the bridge and into the arms of the US Border Control, they were a lot more inquisitive, thorough, I suppose. Unfortunately this neck of the woods is a blight on the appearance and building standards of the lower Maine areas, the good houses seem well built, but the others, and there are too many of them seem jerry built. Apart from the housing condition, the roadsides are frequently covered with litter, lots of foam coffee cups, a sight not prevalent further south. We spent a night being buffeted by freakish winds and rain but as we moved on it began to clear. We took the opportunity to fill with petrol before leaving US, at $3.949/gal, over the border in St. Stephen, Canada $1.39/lt (C$5.26/gal). As we crossed into Canada at St Stephens, in New Brunswick, we were picked out for a “Random Vehicle Inspection”, so a 20 min rest in the patrol office while our RV was gone over by three officers, a quota job we suspect. Picked up some Canadian $ and headed for Saint John to check out the “Reversing Falls”

A rocky gorge on the Saint John River at the edge of town is the meeting place for the dramatic tides of the Bay of Fundy, which has the highest tides in the world, around 36ft. The rising tide pushes back the waters of the Saint John River, making the river flow backwards. The effect goes back 60 miles upstream, according to a resident from up there, he claimed the river rose 3 to 4 inches on the high tide. At the high water slack, everything at the gorge is calm, then the tide starts to go out, over the next 6 hours the water drops to it’s low level creating a massive flow through the gorge, whirlpools and rapids are revealed. This all starts over again, as the tide turns and comes in. There are several vantage points to witness the tide movements, here at the reversing falls, Hopewell Rocks and the Tidal Bore at Moncton are two other areas we hope to visit after Newfoundland.

Saint John was one of the earliest towns settled in Canada, in fact there were 15,500 loyalists, who were expelled from the US during and after the revolution, 14,000 of them came to Canada under refugee status, settled in Saint John, New Brunswick, and established a prosperous logging industry, the other 1500 went to Nova Scotia and settled at Digby

Booked the ferry for the 9am sailing for Digby the following day, set the alarm, woke early but decided to go to the wharf early rather than hang around. We were settled on the ship and were amazed that they were actually setting sail at 8.00am. Guess who didn’t realize there is such a time zone as “Atlantic Time”.

Met up with an interesting character from Nova Scotia while waiting to be loaded, Doug Mein, Doug and his wife were returning home to Nova Scotia to open their Campground at Church Point, for the coming tourist season, after spending the winter in Florida, to escape the severe winter here, as well as sharing their time with their family who are all in the Florida area. Doug filled us in on a few happenings with Nova Scotia, the loss of labour to the oil fields out west has drained the schools of pupils and left many houses empty, One school dropped from 500 students to 30 over five years. Fishing is the main industry, lobster and scallops, in particular.

The loss of two ferries from Yarmouth, capable of transporting trucks and RVs has decimated the tourist industry in the south and left the lobster fishermen with an extra 12 hours transport for their catch.

As we go around the coast, anticlockwise from Digby, we pass through village after village. Housing is again 99% all timber, weatherboard mainly, but still some shingles, also, we find that the tides are becoming less extreme. It appears that the area of water between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, called the “Bay of Fundy” is the peak tide area and the further up the bay, the more extreme the tide difference. In the extreme areas, the fishermen slip a cradle under the boat when they moor it, so that when the tide goes out the boat will remain upright in the cradle. You can walk around on the sand between the boats tied up at the wharf, while the tide is out.

Our first and second days on Nova Scotia we inspected the wharves, spoke to fishermen, who were all coming in with good catches of lobster. School boys and retired folk were getting some pocket money, fishing from the wharf for bait fish for the lobster traps, they are paid $1 per pound. The particular fish they were catching were similar to a flathead in appearance, but more ugly and with 2 poisonous spikes.

We encountered a strange looking field, we had noticed them before and guessed that they were Cranberries, they were, it is actually called a “cranberry bog” the bushes if you can call them that, grow only 2 to 3 inches high, the berries are virtually underneath the foliage, which really looks like a ground cover, to harvest the cranberries they flood the field with 6 -8 inches of water and gather the floating berries.

The coastline on the southern section of Nova Scotia is pretty tame, no cliffs, in fact there were only a few hills on the road, but not much. Once we got to Peggies Cove Lighthouse it was a different scene, very rocky with great granite boulders that the waves were crashing on to. We moved on to Halifax, after enjoying a lobster meal at the Sou Westerly restaurant beside the lighthouse. Still we find that most RV parks are not open, so we have enjoyed the hospitality of Wal-Mart on a couple of occasions.

2012 being the 100^th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, Halifax has set up some special displays at the Marine Heritage Museum. Halifax sent out the Mackay Bennett, an ocean trans-cable repair ship, to recover the bodies from the ocean, those that were unsuitable for embalming were buried at sea and the other 209 bodies were taken to Halifax, 59 of those were identified by relatives and taken home for burial, the other 150 were buried between the 4 local cemeteries, each cemetery has a Titanic section, clearly marked One of the funeral parlours that was used as a morgue for some Titanic victims is now a popular seafood restaurant, “Five Fishermen” with many ghost stories. The 705 survivors of the disaster we picked up out of the lifeboats by the ship “Carpathia” which was 58 miles away when it received the distress signal but by the time it arrived it was too late for those in the icy water. The survivors were taken directly to New York on the Carpathia. It is also claimed that another ship the “California” passed the stricken passengers but was unaware of the disaster, their radio room had closed for the night, before the signal was sent from the Titanic. It is claimed that more than 1500 people died on the Titanic, but only 209 bodies were recovered

Even in death, there was class distinction, 1^st class passengers were taken off the Mackay-Bennett in coffins, 2^nd & 3^rd class passengers in canvas bags, and crew members on open stretchers. Prior to this, while collecting the bodies from the sea, as they were running low on embalming fluid, 1^st class were given preference while others were buried at sea.

An interesting co-incidence or call it what you will, but apparently in 1898, 10 years before the keel of the Titanic was laid, American author Morgan Robertson published the novel ”Futility”, The novel was of a British passenger liner “Titan” that hit an iceberg in April in the North Atlantic and sank on her maiden voyage, without enough lifeboats. The fictional ship was eerily similar to the future Titanic in size, speed, equipment, numbers of passengers (both rich and poor) and those lost. The book, also known as “The Wreck of the Titan” is still in print

Five years after the Titanic, Halifax was to use the procedures they developed for the recovery of the victims from the sea, when in 1917 a local disaster, known as the ”Halifax Explosion “ when a French Munition Boat “Mont Blanc” collided with a Belgian Relief Ship in the harbour. The collision caused an explosion that flattened all of Northend Halifax killing 1600 people in an instant, windows were shattered for 50 miles. The Mont Blanc was obliterated, it’s half ton anchor went two miles in one direction, whilst one of it’s gun barrels was thrown 3 miles in the opposite direction. A total of 2000 were killed in the tragedy.

We traveled on, up the east coast from Halifax, passing the small fishing villages, mostly veiled in a cloud of fog, but light enough for us to appreciate the coastal landscape, settling in at Spanish Ship Bay for the night. A booking for the ferry to Newfoundland was possible for the following night sailing so we enjoyed a leisurely run up to North Sydney to the ferry terminal, an interesting historic site on the way was the house on Alexander Graham Bell at Baddeck on Cape Breton Island. Photos

Route Map : St Johns to Quebec

5 St. John’s, Newfoundland to Quebec, Quebec

The ferry trip from North Sydney to Port aux Basques on Newfoundland took 8.5 hours and was quite smooth, mind you, we were both sleeping in a cabin for pretty much the whole time, so we did not see a lot of the ship. An earlier check showed it was very well appointed. We were greeted with a dusting of snow when we arrived, and the dock and all waiting vehicles were nicely white. A quick drive around the town showed it to be very quiet, but then, what would you expect for 8.30 Sunday morning. Spread out around a small bay, the smallish timber houses were separated by narrow winding streets, quite attractive with the covering of snow on the roofs and cars. We set off on the Trans Canada Highway to the Capital City, St. John’s, which was reminiscent of driving the Alaska Highway from Whitehorse to Tok. 550 miles of open highway, similar scenery, only the mountains not as high and imposing. There are many lakes along the way, which seems to be well taken advantage of, with the production of Hydro –Electricity, much of which is fed into the Quebec power grid. The town of Gander professes to be the mecca for Telemark skiing, and a little along the way is Gambo, boasting their feature as a fisherman’s paradise, very big on Salmon over here.

No wild life ventured out of the trees for us to dodge, although there were several signs, warning of the dangers of moose being present, and in fact one area had just installed an extensive length of “Moose Fencing” on both sides of the highway. Again we find that the RV parks do not open until June, so we have now given up on them and just find our own spot to bed down, but need to find a Laundromat from time to time.

The terrain in Newfoundland is very wet, an enormous number of lakes and wherever there is a depression in the ground there is a pond, at any elevation there is a pond. You would not dare to drive off a formed road or track, as the basic ground is so boggy and swampy. The 2^nd day on the road started off in full sunshine, by the time we were approaching St. Johns the clouds had darkened and looked very bleak. A four inch dump of snow had hit St. Johns just before we got there, it was quite a picture with everything covered in a white blanket. Then the sun came out, we never actually saw any snow falling for the day. After a drive around the city and waterfront we headed off to travel around the perimeter of the Avalon Peninsular, that is the small almost H shaped outcrop on the South Eastern end of the Island. The Peninsular is home to 50% of Newfoundland’s population. The small coastal village of Brigus was a delightful example of the early years of settlement. We walked the streets and docks and spoke to some locals. Further up the coast we were confronted with a large iceberg floating not far off the coast, found our way to the cliffs for some photographs. As we left and turned the corner there were more and more of these white monoliths in the water. We found a cliff top position at Lower Island Cove for the night, with a view of at least 4 icebergs. The other side of the peninsular was also dotted with small coves and fishing villages, we have gone through Queensland, Melbourne, Chelsea, Victoria, don’t know where they pinch these names from. After booking our passage on the return ferry we took a detour to have a look at Jackson’s Arm, which is on the Eastern side of the Northern Peninsular. To our surprise we were confronted with snow, frozen lakes and people off on their skidoos making the most of the disappearing snow.

Jackson’s Arm is a small fishing and timber village, however the sea freezes over and locks the fishing boats in for 4 to 5 months of each year. Asked what they do in the winter when they can’t fish, the reply was they have some great winter activities and they love their snow-mobiles.

The harbour was still half covered with an ice flow, and the boats were preparing to make a start for the season. Some small icebergs were floating in White Bay, it was all quite a spectacle. We made it to Port aux Basque well in time for the 11,45 departure of the ferry, a good opportunity to catch up with the local laundr-o-mat and freshen up our gear. Another very calm voyage, three out of three. Off the ship by 8,30 and we headed for the Cabot Trail, a 300km, well publicised tourist trail, looping around the peninsular of Cape Breton Island, “World Famous” so they say, however our early impressions were more focused on the quality of the road than the views, after about 40 km the road improved and although it slipped back on occasions, the trail was certainly worth the effort. Some stunning views of the coastline to The Gulf of St Lawrence as the trail wound around a couple of very high mountains. Spoke to some fishermen who were unloading ten crates of fish, their two days catch, into a cool room, a look over their crates showed some huge Halibut about 50lbs in weight, they showed us another frozen from an earlier catch which was about 100lb they claimed their largest to be 150lb. most of the other fish were Hake. We settled at Inverness, right on the beach, for a windy night. This whole area was settled by the Scots in 1803 and the effects are still very evident, A very large Gaelic College just as we started on the trail and references all along the way. A sign outside one building states “If it’s nay Scotch it’s crap” All the clans are well represented and the names of the streets and towns are straight out of Scotland. There is of course New Glasgow among the list. In one area a large official looking notice advised “The Site of the New Scotland” On approaching one town a sign stated “The home of the Rankins” a few miles further along and there was a turnoff to Rankinville. We stopped for a cuppa and got chatting to a couple, yep he was a Rankin. Called in at post office to mail some letters the three staff were chatting together and I am sure it was Gaelic they were speaking.

We moved on down the coast and worked our way around to Moncton, New Brunswick, with the hope of seeing the Tidal Bore, This is the area where the massive tides of Nova Scotia are most noticeable as the tide change in the Bay of Fundy forces its way up the Petitcodiac River at Moncton. The river is also known as “The Chocolate River” and for very obvious reasons. If you were to think Melbourne’s Yarra River is muddy, boy you haven’t seen this one. Twice a day the tide drains the river to almost dry, the herons and seagulls gather to pick their meals out of the shallow river, just before the tide changes and then the tidal bore surges up, reversing the flow of the river, as we watched the bore approach with a wave that appeared about 1 1/2 feet high, as soon as it had passed, the river had risen by almost 3 ft. Within an hour and a half of the bore passing, the river has risen a further 20 ft. All this backwards and forwards flowing, rips the soil from the banks and keeps it in suspension as the muddiest water ever. As it was too dark for photos, we returned to the same spot the following morning. We had been talking to local, a keen photographer and I mean keen, he had given us the time for the bore’s arrival for both the night and the following morning. Mother Nature was right on time, on both occasions, so we were in position for some snaps in a better light by the scheduled 9.40am. Hopwell Rocks is another featured viewing location for the effects of the tide, so after witnessing the bore pass through at Moncton, we skedaddled down to Hopwell Rocks, where the tide had just reached it’s peak and was now on the way out. The viewing area was officially closed for the season. We have learned three French words Arret = Stop, Ferme = Closed and Sortie = Exit. Anyway we pleaded ignorance and proceeded to the viewing area, we reckoned Mother Nature wouldn’t stop the tide just because there is a “Ferme” sign there. We photographed just after the high tide and hung around until just before the low to have a comparison. A lot of other people kept coming in as well.

After seeing the World’s Highest tides in action here, which are noted as one of Nova Scotia’s features, it is interesting that all of the featured viewing points are actually in New Brunswick. One side of the Bay of Fundy is Nova Scotia, where it is difficult to get to the water as it seems to be private land. New Brunswick, on the other side of the bay have made a feature of it and provided access points. However I must throw in, that the most dramatic tide effects that we have seen are in Broome, Derby and Port Headland, Australia, maybe a tad lower, but certainly more dramatic, the advantage here is that you can drive right up to it at St Johns, Hopwell Rocks and Moncton, whereas in Australia it is in the remote North West. Likewise the Reversing falls at St Johns, is not a patch on the “Horizontal Waterfall” in Northern Western Australia, but the cost to get in to see them is a lot different.

We turned our sights to Prince Edward Island, the home of “Anne of Green Gables” fame, and headed across the massive 13km long concrete bridge, it looks almost like the old Roman Aqueducts the way it is constructed, it is a toll bridge, but they let you come over and enjoy yourselves for free and hit you with a bill for the return trip. We were quite surprised with the amount of agriculture on the island, we have seen more ploughed fields here in a couple of hours than we have seen since we got off the plane five weeks ago. In an attempt to link with our kindred spirits, we toured the island looking for a suitable resting place for the night, as the RV parks are still on their sabbatical, eventually we scored a nice spot. Called in at the National Park at Green Gables and checked it out, it was very well done. Impressive farming communities all around the Island, by our standard they are small farms, but probably highly productive, we noticed a large McCain’s factory there to process the produce and another larger one, Cavendish Farm Products. We followed the

coastline around the north west of the island and headed back to the bridge. We solaced ourselves with the fact that the $44 toll to cross both ways was cheaper than the alternative, (particularly as there is none). Off the Island we turned west toward Miramichi, found the coast road, promoted as The Arcadian Coastal Route, a lot of it was not much more than a goat track, you really feel for the poor RV when subjecting it to that sort of abuse and for what you see of the coast, It’s not worth it. We will stick to the main drag, at least until we clear New Brunswick, and hope that the road works in Quebec are a bit better.
Photos

The highway got us to Campbellton, crossed the Restigouche River into Quebec and hey presto the roads were better. Being in Quebec we find that English is not necessarily even a second language, more like “it might come in handy sometime”. Until now, in Canada the road signs are written in both English with the French equivalent written below, most other signage is done in both languages, it can be confusing trying to read them as you drive by and find yourself struggling with trying to read the French as part of the English sign. We don’t have that problem in Quebec, here the signs are only in French. Now there is a problem, the extent of my French came from the “Pepe Le Pew” cartoons and “Allo, Allo” oh and Marcel Marcau, but as he was into mime, he did not speak, so he is of no help. Lorraine on the other hand, had done French in High School, but as that was 60 years ago thought that all was forgotten. Not quite, as we drive along Lorraine is continually trying to read the signs and it is gradually coming back. Sign language came into play when I went in to book into an RV park at Pabos Mills for the night, the problem was they open on 15^th May and it is now 7^th May, but a foot in the door is a distinct advantage. He asked if I spoke French, as he spoke very little English. We had to make do with his very little.

Our other surprise here on the Gaspe Peninsular, is that we were expecting it to be a virtual wilderness area. Not so, there are town after town along the coast, well, we have done 80 miles of it and we can see houses as far as you can see around the coast. The other surprise is that the towns seem more alive and affluent, the standard of housing has improved immensely we are noticing about 10% of houses are brick as are nearly all public buildings. A lot of churches are also masonry. Many houses have gardens and in general they look more cared for, no where near as many houses in a state of disrepair and or, in need of a coat of paint, as we have noticed previously on our drive here. It certainly has been a scenic drive so far.

There is a Canada Rail tourist train which runs along the Eastern Coast of the Peninsular, we think finishes at Gaspe, it would be a spectacular trip for any train buff. The scenery continued through to Gaspe and the Western side of the peninsular was even more spectacular with the mountains running along the water’s edge, the road dipping down into each cove to reveal a different village. No longer is white the predominant house colour, but a array of brightly coloured ones gives a fresh appearance.

There was one stretch, where the highway was built 15ft above the water, with the mountains a shear rise on the other side, apart from a few occasions when the road went inland a little before dropping down to another seaside village, the highway went for about 50 miles on that same level, winding around the mountain bases. We rate this Gaspe Peninsular scenic drive to be much better than the (world famous) Cabot Trail. And the road 100% better.

There are ample Camping Parks and Motels along this route, however, still deep into the French Only language territory.

In our last 250 kms drive into Quebec we frequently took the tourist drive that went through the heart of the old towns, whereas the coast highway detoured and skirted around the back of them. They were all different. In some villages the houses were built almost right onto the street, making driving an RV through a bit daunting, in another village, hedges were all the go, the houses here were set well back, they had front lawns and the hedge gave them privacy from the street. Still another had the front lawn but they had fences, fences of all types. One village we passed through seemed to be a haven for artisans, their work on display throughout the village and galleries promoting their display.

One of our thoughts as we drove through was that we could not recognise any of the local food shops, Restaurants, not a problem, lots of them, fish shops, were also well signed, but where’s the corner store. Photos

Route Map Quebec to Detroit
6 Quebec, Quebec to Detroit, Michigan

We arrived in Quebec and found a campground with the internet and a very obliging but little English speaking hostess, on a misty Wednesday and booked in for a city tour the next day.

We tested the route to the ferry, the night before, and just as well, as the directions were a bit vague and following signage through narrow streets that are being remade, made it all the more difficult.

The ferry trip was only 10 mins and there was a ferry every 30 mins so no big dramas. Our tour coach picked us up at the ferry for the Morning “Old Quebec Tour” A fascinating history to the city. After being settled in 1608 it fast became the hub of the fur industry. After a 3 month siege of the City, the French were ousted by the British in a 20 minute battle. This apparently ended the 7 years of war with England in 1759. England later gave the city back to the French as it really only wanted to control the access of the St Lawrence River. However the English established a ship building industry and over a 5 year period built over 2000 large wooden ships.

The City is built high on a hill overlooking the narrowest part of the river, The Chateau Frontenac is a major standout of the city skyline, positioned right on top of the hill. The Chateau was built in 1893 by the Canadian Pacific Railway in their continuing bid to attract wealthy tourists. The Chateau is one of a chain, such as we saw in Victoria on Vancouver Island, Banff Springs and Lake Louise in the Rockies. These hotels are all massive structures built in the style of a French Chateau.

Quebec’s location gives it 10 ft of snow each year. They do not clear the snow from the roads through the parks on the hill, they groom them for telemark skiing. However, they do clear the roads to make access for cars and because of the steepness of many of the roads they use 600,000 tonnes of salt each year to remove the snow. Some two miles of the St Lawrence River freezes over to a depth of six feet in winter, ice breakers are used to keep the shipping lanes open. Ten foot tides are another of the features of the river.

The city is in several sections. The old “walled city” with the early French wall, then there is the more robust English wall, there are many houses still in use that were build in the 1700s, really was a great city to tour. The Afternoon tour took us to the Island of Orleans a large island in the river, a short distance from the city. The island has been protected from development, no industry, supermarkets fast food outlets etc. It is prime agricultural land and it is intended that it remain that way. On to the 270 ft Montmorency Falls, we were there at the time of maximum flow. Winter time and the falls freeze and it is a mecca for ice climbers, along a few miles and we visited the Shrine of St. Anne de Beaupre, a massive church which attracts a pilgrimage each year on July 26^th, St Anne’s Day. Over a period of 12 months it attracts 2.5 million visitors.

Quebec seems to have the major production of products from the Red Maple tree, in fact they supply 75% of the world market. They tap the trees in a similar fashion to how a rubber tree is tapped. A long blue plastic hose is linked to a series of trees and the maple sap runs through it and collected in a pail at the bottom of the hill. The sap is processed, by heating, the temperature of the process defines what product will emerge, at one temperature Maple Syrup is produced, at another temperature Maple Butter is the product. Each tree can produce 35 to 50 litres of sap per 4 – 8 week season during Spring, as the sap rises to develop it’s new growth. Only about 7% of the tree’s sap is removed.

The City is 98% Roman Catholic, but apparently the wheels have fallen off as the birth rate is 1.6 per family. Also there is 15% unemployment, but it doesn’t show, there seems to be more new construction going on than we have seen since we got off the plane.

The day was great, even though it was a bit drizzly all day, restricting photos. We found Quebec a most welcoming city, we were heartily assisted by all who were approached.

Moved on to Montreal, still in Quebec, straight into an RV park and booked a similar tour for the following day with Grayline, by this time the weather has cleared, so we can look forward to a good day’s sightseeing. The tour lived up to the Grayline standard, it was great, we saw all of the features of Montreal, just a pity the open top double decker bus was not operating, that starts in a week. From the enclosed bus you see the buildings and land marks as they are pointed out but, not possible to get many photos. The city of Montreal like Quebec is predominantly French language, the difference being, that here English is taught as a second language. Like Quebec the city has a fantastic array of old buildings, originally there was a walled section, but that is no more, The Basilica of Notre Dame and St Joseph’s Oratory being the largest and most impressive, The dome of St. Joseph’s is second in size to St. Peter’s in Rome. One of the largest landmarks is Olympic Park where the huge dome and it’s 45 degree inclined tower created for the 1976 Summer Olympics is 574 ft high. It has been a source of trouble and embarrassment since it was started. It was not completed until 1988 when it was then possible to retract the roof, however that was a problem and had to be removed, it now has a fixed Kevlar roof. Bits of concrete had fallen over the time and as recent as 4^th March 2012 a slab 24ft x 36ft fell from the roof of the underground parking facility. Financially is has been a disaster, an estimated $134m in 1970 has ended up at $1.61b. A special 8% tobacco tax was introduced in 1976 to pay for the dome. It was eventually paid off in 2006. There have been calls for the structure to be demolished, but as it has a subway line beneath, they cannot implode the building. It is estimated it would take years and cost $700m to demolish. The use of the building has also been an embarrassment, with it’s 78,000 capacity it does not get many gigs and as a concert venue, the acoustics are not good. This White Elephant, should perhaps be named Myki, it cost the same and the overrun was about the same as our botched ticketing system.

Another feature of Montreal is the “Underground City” which is made up of 20 miles of tunnels incorporating shops, food courts etc, it links up to 7 subway stations as well as shopping malls, banks etc, covering 12 sq kilometres. The benefit of course is to counter the effect of the severe winters and snow depths of 6 to 10 ft. and let businesses go on as normal.

The city of Montréal is on Montreal Island between the Ottawa and St Laurence Rivers.

The tour guide went on to praise the medicare system, they have, the hospitals are free, but we do pay 50% tax to fund it. He also claimed there is 15% unemployment. Hey, why work if you have to pay 50% tax, The subway system seemed very efficient, surprised to notice rubber wheels on the trains, however the ride was a bit more bumpy than we expected, figured the rubber allowed a bit of bounce. Like the New York Subway, they have different colours for each line, makes it easier to follow, fares are constant irrespective of distance traveled.

An early start saw us in Ottawa, the capital of Canada by 12.30, as it was Sunday, we booked into an RV park, drove off and parked at a Wal Mart close to the city, and got transport in to meet up with the hop on, hop off tour bus. We took in the sights of the city and then spent some time in the market place, where we were tempted to try an apple/cinnamon “Beaver Tail”, Boy they could become a habit. Came across a guy busking in the market playing the didgeridoo. He was claiming to be from Australia. Sorry mate, your accent does not cut it. There are some great Chateau style buildings in the city, One hotel claimed it’s manager of the day went down on the Titanic.

Being the nation’s capital, of course it had all of the International Embassy’s, the tour bus guide pointed them all out. Ottawa is on the banks of the Ottawa River, the northern bank is in Quebec, while the southern is in Ontario. Portion of the city is on the Quebec side which has some of the museums.

Smiths Falls just south of Ottawa, we checked out the Rideau waterway with its canals and locks that connect Ottawa to Kingston over 126 miles and with 47 locks. After the war of 1812, which was started when the Americans declared war on England, in response to a trade embargo preventing America from trading with France, as well as the feeling they were insulted over some other issue. The canal system was built, between 1826 and 1832 to provide the British Army with a safe route for transporting supplies to their garrisons away from the St Lawrence River, which was exposed to the American forces. It has now become a major recreation facility. The Chaffey Lock also has an Australian connection. The locks were named after Brothers Ben and Samuel Chaffey , however some 60 years later Victorian Government minister, (and later Prime Minister) Alfred Deakin came to Ontario to investigate the Chaffey irrigation system, Brothers George and William Chaffey, sons of the earlier family were enticed to come to Australia in 1887 where they installed the irrigation system in Mildura, Victoria.

Kingston is situated on Lake Ontario, at the start of the St. Lawrence River, just along from Kingston is Gananoque where we took a boat cruise of the “Thousand Islands”. Here in the St Lawrence River is a group of islands actually over 1800 of them, many, really most of them with holiday homes on them. As we traveled down through the island the homes became more lavish, to the point where “Millionaires Row” has some incredible “Holiday” mansions, the cream of them is the 127 room Boldt Castle, which was built by George Boldt from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel empire. Although it was never lived in by Boldt, as his wife Louise died before it was completed, and he abandoned the construction. It was later completed by the 1000 Islands Council and is available for tourists to visit in season.

We moved on to Peterborough to check out the highest hydraulic lift locks in the world. We were fortunate that we arrived just in time to witness the first operation of the locks for the 2012 season.

The locks resemble two huge bath tubs each on a central lift ram, one lock is down in the lower canal, with one end open allowing boats to drive into the lock, the end gate is closed and the lock complete with water and the boats, rise up to the level of the upper canal 19.8 metres above the lower canal. As the lock ascends the other lock descends to the lower level. When at the top the other end of the lock opens and allows the boats to drive out onto the upper canal. It was all quite a sight, particularly as it is 108 years old, having been completed in 1904. Photos

Toronto, the financial hub of Canada is situated on the shores of Lake Ontario, at the western end. A sprawling city, with massive freeways, 8 lanes each way, took a bit of getting used to, getting in and out of the transition section. We found downtown a very vibrant city, very multi-cultural. The Dundas Square where we picked up the tour was a mini Times Square, with lights and lots of activity going on.

The city planners have certainly made the most of being on the waterfront and as it was Saturday of a long weekend (Victoria Day) the docks were in full swing with stage acts and performers, lots of activities for the kids. We took an open top bus tour of the city, which included an island cruise. The Rogers Center, home of the Blue Jays, the only Canadian Baseball team to make the major league, was abuzz with action, fans streaming in for a game, hoping the team can follow through from their win over the New York Yankees a day or so earlier. We had traveled into town on the subway and were fortunate to get the new train “The Rocket” on both journeys. It appears that the Federal, State and Local bodies have combined to fund this venture. A most impressive train, the major safety feature for the traveling public is that the whole train is open from one end to the other, 5 or 6 carriages. The opening between the carriages is 6 – 7 ft wide giving a clear view for the whole train, another feature is that, like the New York system they do not have an electrical gantry on top and therefore save a lot of space with tunneling. Perhaps a worthwhile junket for some aspiring pollie to get the facts. Photos

Niagara Falls was our next stopover, we arrived in town late, checked in to an RV park and went and sussed out the location of the falls and what parking was available. An out of town parking area with a free shuttle to the falls was available for RV parking so we headed there the following morning. The falls are amazing, the amount of water going over is mind boggling. The falls are on the Niagara River, which is the outlet from Lake Erie and flows 36 miles through to Lake Ontario.

The water plunges 176ft over the falls, however as Lake Erie is 328ft higher above sea level than Lake Ontario there is another 152 ft of falling before the water reaches Lake Ontario, this accounts for the series of rapids before the falls and again further down stream where there is a tourist aerial tramway that crosses the gorge. Another interesting fact is that Lake Ontario’s deepest point is 800 ft deep, Lake Erie’s deepest point is 60ft.

We managed to be at the falls on the Sunday of a long weekend, so it was teeming with people, we sort out as many vantage points for photos as we could, even ventured to the top of the Skylon Tower and got a mild dose of sunburn over the day. Photos

Leaving Niagara Falls we followed the Niagara Boulevard along the gorge, from the falls to Lake Ontario at Niagara on the Lake before turning towards Detroit. We followed the shoreline of the lake as best we could, but again you do not get to the lake as it seems to be private property down to the waters edge, The region is all food production, vineyards and wineries in the Niagara on the Lake area then it went to corn, potatoes, soya bean, tobacco and a lot of crops that we did not recognise, but the farmers were out ploughing and sowing and praying for rain. There were an amazing number of wind turbines, scattered all over the farms. Before we had traveled the 100 miles to the USA border the farmers’ prayers had been answered, but somehow we think they overdid it with the praying, as the amount of rain we got, would have washed their newly planted crops away. After a 40 min grilling at the USA immigration/customs we were set to go and made it to an RV park at the Wayne County Fairgrounds for a couple of days. Photos

Route Map : Detroit to Chicago

7 Detroit, Michigan to Chicago, Illinois

Whilst Detroit and Chicago are only 283 miles apart we have chosen to go up along Lake Huron, along a stretch of the lower shores of Lake Superior then down the west cost of Lake Michigan, to Chicago, which will stretch the journey out to 1180 miles

Known of course, for being the hub of the US Automobile industry, Detroit is on the Detroit River, which runs approx 28 miles, joining Lake St Clair, the smallest of the lakes in the group and Lake Erie.

Detroit was a strange city, firstly we could not find any tours of the city, nor could we locate a public transport system. There is a People Mover on an elevated track which does a circuit around the city, but does not extend to any of the suburbs. We made inquiries and were advised not to use the bus, and not to drive in as there is no parking and if you value your possessions it is not worth the risk. All sounded a bit daunting., Whist at Wal-Mart in Dearborn we arranged with a roving security guard to keep his eye on the RV while we took a taxi into Detroit and have a look around. Had to wait for an hour before the taxi arrived, however it was only a $20 fare in to the city. Our second surprise was that there was very little traffic in and around the city, we are talking 5pm, on a weekday, The people Mover was great, all automated, no driver and 75 cents to ride, but virtually no passengers on it, we stayed for a complete circuit and there would not have been more than 6 people, including us in the carriage at any one time.

A taxi rank at the bottom of a station, we had noted always had a taxi or two in the line, so we had no difficulty in getting a cab back to Dearborn.

The city itself has quite a lot of modern buildings, but it seems they are all commercial, no department stores, no apartment buildings. No one lives in the city, is what our advisor told us.

Prior to our venture into the city we visited the Henry Ford Museum and the Greenfield Village which is located at the Dearborn Ford complex. The Ford proving ground was opposite and that was apparently built on the site of the original air strip, laid down by Henry in his earlier years and in fact, it was the first paved airstrip in the world. The visit to the museum showed us sides of Henry Ford that we had not previously been aware. Henry had first set up a company called “The Henry Ford Company”, but he quit soon after, following disagreements with other management and he the started “The Ford Motor Company”. His involvement in the aircraft industry in the early stages of flight. Ford had built and sold small planes but never turned a profit from it, rather he suffered a $5.5m loss from the venture and after the tragic loss of his test pilot, Harry Brooks, at age 25, who he had treated as a son, Henry abandoned his activities with aircraft. Henry also had a passion for Steam trains and collected quite a few which are on display, including the “Allegheny Locomotive” the largest ever built.

In the collection of cars, are four Presidential vehicles, including the Lincoln in which President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Catering for the many school children who were there with their teachers, there were areas where you could work on the construction of a Model “T”, all of the parts were there and a couple of attendants assisted as the car was being pieced together. Another area had a conveyor belt where they had school kids on each side assembling model cars.

The Greenfield Village, alongside the museum, has a fully operating steam railroad which takes passengers around the perimeter of the park. Model “T” Fords are whizzing around taking people for rides, as is an old bus and a horse drawn omnibus. A tribute to Thomas Edison with many of his works on display, an antique carousel and a working farm, growing crops etc.

We moved North to Saginaw and up along the West coast of Lake Huron to the Tawas Point State Park, where we camped on the shore of Lake Huron. Our next move was West, across the peninsular to the Sleeping Bear Dunes State Park, On the drive across we went through some interesting farmland, through an area signed to watch for Amish people in their horse drawn jinkers, not that we saw any, we suspect they would stay off the main roads where possible, but obviously there are some in the area. Lakes Houghton and Crystal, both large Michigan inland lakes, were among the many that we passed. At Sleeping Bear Dunes SP we inspected the park and from a viewing platform 450 ft above Lake Michigan , where the sand dunes plummeted down to the lake for miles either side. Around a bit further there was dunes area where you could climb the dunes, if you have the energy to spare, we took photographs instead. Further up the coast we found a gem of a State Park, nice and quiet and right on the waterfront. Fisherman’s Island SP.

The coast from Charlevoix to Petoskey was very appealing, looks like a nice place to live, if you could stand the winters. We moved on to cross the Mackinac Bridge into the Upper Peninsular of Michigan. Wow that was some bridge, It took 5 years to build and has enough steel cable in it to go around the world 1.5 times. With it’s 8,614 ft span, it is the third longest suspension bridge in the world. After crossing the bridge we could have turned right to Sault Ste. Marie, where the largest locks in the world are located. The Soo Locks operate in the St. Mary’s River between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. The locks pass an average of 10, 000 ships per year over the 21ft height difference between the lakes. The locks can accommodate the 1,000 ft freighters built for use on the lakes.

Instead we adjusted our schedule to travel north on the peninsular, to see the Tahquamenon Falls, near Paradise. We ran into a thick cloud of smoke blanketing the area, it turned out to be a forest later found that the fire that has been going for 3 days and has burned out 30,000 acres so far. We fire had continued to burn and in fact they closed the park the following day. The falls were good and all the smoke gave them quite an eerie look. Moving on, we finished the day at a lakeside site at the Munising RV Tourist Park. It is the Memorial Day long weekend and whilst the guy next to us had booked his site 7 months ago, he could not believe we could get one on a walk in. We booked a boat tour of the “Pictured Rocks” for the following morning. The boat tour was certainly worth the effort, it took us about 15 miles around the edge of Lake Superior, to view the cliffs, which are in fact the “Pictured Rocks”, so without the boat cruise you cannot see much of them at all. The cliffs ranges from 200 to 400 ft high with varying colours streaking through them, caused by the weather as well as the minerals leaching through the sandstone. It was a particularly calm day which being a lake I expected, however that is not necessarily the case, there have been many shipwrecks in the lake, due to the sudden changes in the conditions, apparently it is not uncommon to have 10ft waves. Another tour operator has glass bottomed boats and takes tours over the sunken wrecks, the water clarity is such that good views of wrecks up to 60ft down can be seen. Lake Superior is the largest of the Great Lakes and has a maximum depth of over 1000ft. It is claimed that the lake holds enough water to cover the entire USA to a depth of 5ft .

Munising in winter is a different ball game, they get about 250inches (20ft) of snow each year and the harbour freezes over, so ice hole fishing is one of the winter sports. A local paper mill is the major employer for the 2000 odd residents. After checking out the local fare of smoked fish and fresh baked pasties, we traveled along the southern coast of lake Superior for 50 miles to Marquette and shortly after turned South heading towards Milwaukee, once in Wisconsin we found a site by the Smalley Falls, for the night and settled back. Our peace was interrupted by a couple of Park Rangers, suggesting that we really shouldn’t be here, but as we were only staying overnight, they showed us the way to other falls nearby for the following morning and they bid us a good evening and to stay safe. We think also that being a couple of old farts from Australia also helped. Well the earth moved for us that night, the thunder rolled on and on, actually shook the RV, the lightening was so bright, even half asleep with our eyes closed we could see the brightness of it, of course the rain accompanied it all, we were fortunate that we had stayed on the road metal surface, so no big dramas moving off in the morning, We half expected our guardian angels from the parks dept, to call and check that we were ok. Next morning we checked out the Long Slide Falls as was recommended, however with the rain as it was we would venture no further on the track than the top of the falls. As we drove on South we came across a marker alerting us that we were exactly half way between the Equator and the North Pole 3107.47 miles each way, we decided not to change course and moved on to Manitowoc, stopped and went over the dockyards on Lake Michigan. Photos
We then moved down to Milwaukee, our first stop was the Harley Davidson Museum, which did not disappoint, they have been making motor cycles since 1903 and a specimen of pretty well all models since was on display. As well a history of the company and its trials and tribulations, they merges with the international corporate company AMF in 1960 and eventually bought their way out of it in 1980. At that time it was almost a coin flip between bankruptcy and a new beginning. They have since become a public company and at last all seems well, after having to prove their worth against the Japanese imports. The loyalty of their customers and agents being a major factor in their success.

Milwaukee was also under a cloud of smoke, whether from the forest fires near Paradise 300 miles away, or not we do not know, or is it smog.

The State Fair Grounds have an RV park less than 6 miles from the city, so that was a good option. Even on Sunday of the Memorial Day weekend we were able to get a site.

The Pabst Mansion in Wisconsin Avenue was worth a visit, we were given a 1.5 hr tour of this magnificent display of America’s Golden age of wealth, Built in the 1890s by Beer Baron Capt. Frederick Pabst. The mansion is the last of 60 or so such mansions built on, then Grand Avenue, however this is the only one left that is able to be restored, most have given way to progressive development. This one almost went the same way, it had been used for 60 years as the residence for the Catholic Archbishop and a gathering of nuns and priests, it was then sold and was to be torn down and a multi story car park built in it’s place. The preservation Society was able to have it retained for a period while they amassed sufficient funds and loans to buy the property. Much of the furnishings have been returned to the mansion by family members, as well, a lot had been put into storage during it’s time as a Catholic Seminary. Gradually the building is being restored to it’s original state. The St. Joseph’s Basilica was our next stop, but unfortunately it was closed, so an inside inspection was not possible and external pics will have to suffice. Chicago is only 100 miles south so we set our sights there, we wound through some coastal roads, past some pristine residential properties along the way. Photos
As we entered Chicago, Monday 4.00pm holiday weekend and 90 degrees temperature, the beaches were packed, it looked like Bondi at Christmas. All sorts of watercraft, zipping around on Lake Michigan. We eventually found our way to our targeted stopping place in Chicago, taking 31^st St. exit to The McCormick Truck Marshaling Yards, just South of the McCormick Convention Centre by Soldiers Field , home to the Chicago Bears, Our thanks to Lea & David for putting us on to that one. This is in the shadow of the city skyscrapers, a train line for a neighbour and several buses and long haul trucks to keep us company, but as all other options are 25-30 miles out, this is a good one. Mind you, it was a hot night and the tour buses and long haul trucks that were there nearly all had their engines running to keep their air-cons working. We moved during the night to a more deserted area and away from the rail line, that gave us the opportunity for a good sleep. The following morning we found we were surrounded by trucks that had come in overnight, but we slept through all that movement.

A short taxi ride to the centre of town next morning, we headed for the Sears Tower, oops, it is now officially called the Willis Tower as the major tenant of the building is the Willis Insurance group from UK. The observation deck was on the 103^rd floor, all glassed in, but some great viewing. There is also the Sky Walk on a glass floor 1353 ft above the Chicago River. Unbelievable, but we BOTH went out and had a photo taken to prove it. At 1730ft the tower is the highest in North America and the 8^th highest in the world.

Chicago was quite a surprise to us, we found it a clean city lots of fresh new buildings, and a wide range of architecture. Actually it is a wonder that they didn’t rename it Phoenix, after the devastating fire of 1871, 300 died and 90,000 left homeless when 17,500 buildings were destroyed and 2.5 square miles of the city was totally flattened. A possible contributor was in the fact that at the time there were 50 miles of timber roadway and most buildings were of timber construction. In clearing away the debris from the fire, it was used as landfill and created a large area on the shore of Lake Michigan, now used as a great public park.

As in the famed Phoenix, the city rose from the ashes and became a for-runner in modern architectural design. There are many tours of the architecture conducted by the Chicago Architecture Foundation. Inside their building is a complete scale model of the entire city.

The elevated train loop that goes through and around the city is pretty much the only relic of the past, it’s steel structure along some streets is a bit of an eyesore, the city stations on it, almost look temporary, there are wooden steps leading up from the street, wooden flooring on the walkways and the platforms. However the trains themselves were efficient and frequent, obviously doing the job of shifting people in and out of the city. Another relic in the city is that it is the start of the “Route 66”, the original Mother Road from Chicago to Los Angeles, as we boarded the city tour bus we noted the “Route 66” sign on the post. Navy Pier, another attraction of the city was a vibrant hub, right on the edge of the city, with all the offerings and rides such as Ferris Wheel, harbour cruises, sailing ship cruises, theatres and museums.

There are many interesting buildings in Chicago, and many of them have stories to tell. One such is 35 East Wacker Drive, known as the Jeweler’s Building. When the 40 story building was built in 1926, the lower 23 floors had car parking and a car lift installed in the centre of the building, to facilitate the Jewellery merchants to safely transport their jewels to their office. In the Al Capone days of prohibition, the dome penthouse of the building was a speakeasy, often frequented by Capone. Needless to say the building has been remodeled since then.

So it’s another night in the truck marshaling yard, then off to Indianapolis. Photos

Route Map : Chicago to Ocean City

8 Chicago, Illinois to Ocean City, Maryland

200 miles South East of Chicago and we arrive at the Indianapolis Speedway in the next state, Indiana. In time to participate in a tour of the Race Track and the museum. The 2.5 mile track was built in 1909, primarily as a testing track for the fledgling auto industry, so they could push the cars to their limits, to find their weaknesses. As the public roads at the time were little more than dirt tracks, they needed a surface more substantial.

In 1911 the first Indianapolis 500 auto race was run on the track with a surface of tar and dirt, It was not very successful , so over the next 12 months 2.5 million bricks were brought in and laid on a sand base for the new track. The name “The Brickyard” was coined and has stuck, even though the only remaining bricks that can be seen are a 3ft wide strip across the track, which is the “Finish Line”. Most of the original brickwork is still there, but is now covered with several layers of asphalt.

The winning car from that first race in 1911 was taken out of the museum, dusted down and used as the lead car for the introduction of the 2011 race. Now both winning cars are on display side by side. On the track tour we actually did a lap of the track, albeit in a bus and not quite as fast as the speedway cars. There are 5 race events at the track each year, including, Nascar, The Formula 1 Grand Prix and the Motorcycle GT. After getting into an Indi car for a photo opportunity, it became clear as to why most racing drivers are not much bigger than jockeys. For a while, I had my doubts as to how I was going to get out. After a couple of changes of ownership and a hiccup during WW2 the 96^th running of the race was held on 27^th May 2012. Whilst we missed the race by 3 days we had the opportunity of the track tour. Photos

The nearby Fairgrounds, offers camping facilities and as a side benefit a horse show was set to start that night, so that was a pleasant addition.

What we saw of the horse show was mainly dressage, with riders and horses competing in an indoor arena. In dressage the horse obeys commands with several moves and gaits, in time with music, often high stepping with its front legs, One breed of horse there was the Friesian, a rare old breed that was almost wiped out before WW1. At the fairgrounds, we also clashed with the local college having their end of year graduation ceremony in the huge facility.

Further to the East , where we traveled on Highway 40, which coincided with the Historic National Road (SR40) Yard Sale held between May 30 and June 3^rd this year. We were not aware of the festival at the time but were intrigued by the number of “Yard Sales, Barn Sales, Rummage Sales, Garage Sales” that were along the road, over 130 miles of the road between both states of Indiana and Ohio, there were literally hundreds of “Sales”, some quite professional with tents and trestles, others just spread out on the front lawn. There was every conceivable item on offer, cars boats lawnmowers, toys, clothing and of course all the general bric a brac that makes up a garage sale. We continued on past Columbus, the capital of Ohio and settled for a couple of days at Buckeye Lake.

Talking with some other campers we got a bit of an insight into the “gun” culture in the US. The couple were heading to Canada and are aware that they cannot enter Canada with their firearms, rifles and shotguns are ok, they will let them passed, but hand guns are a no no. they are able to hand in their handguns at the border and have them posted either to their home address or to the border control post where they intend to cross back into the US, that way they can be comfortable as soon as they get back. The couple are both in their late 70s and each has their own hand gun in the RV. We were thankful that they were in the RV, as the dear lady was well on the way to being shickered as they worked their way through a slab of beer and this was 11am..

Route 40, we find is one of the original Federal Highways from 1926 and went from Atlantic City to San Francisco a distance of 2285 miles. The entire highway is inundated with yard sales, for the four days, to day we saw motorcycles, horse drawn buggies, skidoos and everything else you could think of for sale. A couple of times we had to dodge an Amish horse drawn buggy on the road. We bypassed Pittsburgh and took the tollway through to Harrisburg and settled in for the night at the Hershey Conewago Camping Ground. Yes, it is linked to the Hershey Chocolate Dynasty, although at $44 per night, for a basic site, perhaps they are looking at getting out of the chocolate business. After checking out the toilet facilities, they should stay in chocolate. One look inside and I lost the urge.

Highway 40 continues on to Atlantic City, although there are a few gaps, The Yard Sale bug had not seen to have arrived in New Jersey, what presented to us on the 40 in New Jersey was a daunting picture of the state, whilst there was only one yard sale, there were heaps of houses, businesses closed and “available” as well as cars marked for sale, quite depressing. On to Atlantic City, obviously on the Atlantic Ocean, about 90 miles South of New York City. The city is a mecca for gamblers with casinos all along the beach front, it was like Las Vegas, but instead of the “Strip” as in Vegas, they are set on the famous “Boardwalk” which runs all along the foreshore. With its 12 casinos, it is in fact recognised as the second largest gambling market in the nation, behind Las Vegas. The latest addition is the $2.4billion, 47 story Revel casino/resort.

Whilst the foreshore and boardwalk are all glitter and gold two blocks behind and the housing was deserted, falling down, boarded up or just cleared leaving empty spaces. Again a very depressing view of New Jersey. However as we moved South from Atlantic City, the neighbouring town of Ventnor City and the housing situation changed dramatically. From there the standard of housing was fantastic, in fact the area going down to Cape May on Delaware Bay could be likened to the Miami Keys, a series of islands linked with toll bridges (very narrow bridges), and some seriously gorgeous housing onto the waterways, the Atlantic Ocean on the left and the inland waters on the right. At the bottom is Cape May which can also be likened to Key West with it’s narrow streets and old buildings. All very summery and touristy. Photos

We took the ferry from Cape May, New Jersey to Lewes, Delaware, a ninety minute trip, then proceeded down to Ocean City, again we are on a narrow peninsular between the Ocean and the inland waterway. Although with only one casino, Ocean City is a huge development, which we likened to the Gold Coast in Queensland, great multi story units, built right on the beach edge, a real holiday atmosphere, it looks like it is schoolies week, with youths tearing around the streets on hired motor scooters. We noted an advertisement “Hire Scooters $5hr” and thought no wonder the kids are into them. However had cause to walk past the sign and there was a very small 3^rd, hand written before the hr. We have no idea how much they actually cost to hire (apart from the 3^rd hr being $5)

10 miles South of Ocean City we booked into the Assateague Sate Park for the night. The park is on Assateague Island and is famous for it’s wild horses, there are about 120 wild horses on the Maryland half of the island and apparently 150 or so on the lower Virginian half, they are called Chincoteague Ponies. A fence at the State Border separates them. It is thought that they originated from 17^th century mainland farmers, bringing them over to the island to avoid fencing laws and taxation of livestock. They are now feral and have learned to survive on the sparse vegetation and harsh weather on the island. They just wander along the beach and sand dunes among the tourists.

The Chincoteague Ponies are now “Officially Owned” by the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Brigade. As a fund raiser they round up the new foals each year and auction them off. Photos

Route Map : Ocean City to Atlanta

9 Ocean City, Maryland To Atlanta, Georgia

Moving on down the coast, where we intended to have a look at the islands and the peninsular leading down the to Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel, The problem is again you cannot get close to the water, so might as well drive straight down the highway. The area is heavily into corn growing, and some parts are very depressing with houses just falling apart. Quite possibly the farms have been merged and people displaced as a result, one small town we drove through had probably half of the houses deserted and falling down, vines growing through the openings. You would not feel very secure if you were still living in the town.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel is a real eye-opener, it is 17 miles in total, however the first six miles are in the form of a two parallel bridges running 30 – 40 ft above the water, then they merge and enter a tunnel for one mile, which goes under the bottom of the bay, comes up onto a man-made island and separates into another pair of parallel bridges again for the next four miles, at another man-made island another tunnel for another mile, then up onto another pair of parallel bridges for the last four miles to the other shore. The two tunnels are under the two shipping channels into Chesapeake Bay and allow uninterrupted flow of both shipping and vehicles. Sounds like it would be a great option for Port Phillip Bay. The toll was $17 each way
Shortly after leaving the bridge, a notice giving direction to the Fort Story Lighthouse at Cape Henry caught our eye so we made a quick turn and before we knew it we were lined up to enter an Army Base, (which surrounds the lighthouse). We could not back out or do a U turn, we were stuck and had to queue up while the police checked our insurance, registration and driver’s licence before they then had all of the compartments of the RV opened for inspection. Eventually we were cleared and proceeded down with a great list of dos and don’t, you may photograph the lighthouse, but nothing else, which we did and got out of there.
Further down in North Carolina we crossed over onto the “Outer Banks”, which is a narrow strip of land encompassing Pamlico Sound. With Cape Hatteras at it’s most Eastern point. At the top of the strip is Kitty Hawk and seven miles south Kill Devil Hills. It was here where the Wright Brothers made their first powered flight in 1903. There is a memorial to the Wright Bros., and a visitor centre houses a replica of the Wright Flyer as well as other flight memorabilia. Kitty Hawk has as its salute, a Monument to a Century of Flight
The town of Kitty Hawk was chosen as the site for their testing after getting a list of the windiest sites in USA, Kitty Hawk came in 6th but had the added advantages of sand dunes for soft landings. The brothers had a bicycle shop and they used their equipment and knowledge from that to fund their passion of flight, They had determined that there were three main obstacles that need to be solved, Lift, Thrust and Control. They used kites and gliders over three years to test and prove their theories before attempting the powered flight, On the 17th Dec 1903 Orvil made the first flight which lasted 12 seconds and traveled 120ft, on the same day they repeated the test with three more flights, the last flight went for 59 seconds and traveled 852 ft. In their excitement of the achievement, their celebrations caused them to forget to tie the “Flyer” down, a gust of wind rolled it over and damaged it beyond easy repair. It was interesting to find, that a piece of the original “Flyer” was taken to the moon by Neil Armstrong on his historic flight.
The National Parks Service has done a great job in maintaining the site and the volume of visitors is a testimony to that. A duplicate of the 1902 Glider and the 1903 Flyer are on display in a purpose built auditorium, a museum of their lives and the processes they undertook to achieve their goal is all on display. Outside, the grass runway used on the 17th Dec 1903 is maintained and has stone markers for the start and finish of each of the four flights undertaken on that day. Even the timber sheds that they erected to work on the site have been faithfully reproduced. Another two building containing further displays were unavailable on the day we were there, as they were recovering from a deluge of 9” of rain in one day, seven days earlier.
This upper section of the “Outer Banks” of North Carolina is all very touristy and obviously a favourite beach holiday area. Most of the houses are three story, timber, with lots of balconies. Mini Golf and fun parks for family entertainment abound. They seem to love their Mini Golf, there are some very elaborate set-ups mostly around the “Pirate” theme. We were to find out later that the “Outer Banks” were a favourite base for pirates in the early 1700s.
Back at the visitor’s centre at Kitty Hawk and we caught up with their Monument to a Century of Flight, which itemized all of the major developments in the history of flight
Traveling down the coast road on the outer banks we crossed onto Pea Island, most of which is a wildlife refuge, the housing had stopped and we had sand dunes both sides of the road. There must be problems at times as a front end loader was on standby near the heavy dune area, the couple of towns that cropped up before we reached Cape Hatteras, were both pretty tacky.
Pamlico Sound, the inside waters to the outer banks is a haven for Kite Surfers, by the crowds and the number of kites in the air, there must have been a competition going on as we drove through.
The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse built in 1870, is the tallest lighthouse on the USA mainland at 200ft, there are 247 steps to reach the top, I know, I counted them. The view was great from the top.
The lighthouse was featured in the series “Monster Moves” because in 1999 it was decided to move the lighthouse with it’s 1 million + bricks, hollus bolus, 2870 ft inland from the eroding shoreline. The move was obviously successful.
Whilst on top of the lighthouse I was talking to a ranger, he asked if I had any questions about the lighthouse. I said well yes, Why is it so far from the shore?, he gave me a great lot of detail as to why it is there, he could tell me that there was a smaller light built in the early1800s which came down in a hurricane, but, he obviously had no knowledge of the big move 13 years ago. (neither did I at the time).
Traveling South from Cape Hatteras there is a forty minute ferry ride to Ocracoke Island, the ferry is run by the North Carolina Highways and is no charge. Once on to the Island the town of Ocracoke is at the lower end, it is a hive of tourist activity, with very narrow winding streets and lanes between the houses, heavily timbered, often right to the edge of the road. The favoured form of transport in the town is “Golf Carts” all unregistered, you can hire them all over town, they seemed to be flying everywhere. If we weren’t dodging the golf carts it was pushbikes, the second most rented thing in town. We had 2 1/2 hrs wait for the next ferry to take us to Cedar Island, a walk around town and lunch soon filled the time. Whilst sitting at an ice cream shop we noted a sign on a surfboard standing up outside the shop it stated “Come In” “Snacks, Knives, Kid Stuff, Candy, Guy Stuff”. A bit puzzling, how knives fit into the ice cream scene. Our Ferry to Cedar Island would take 2 ¼ hours and cost $30, cheap, cheap, cheap. We reckon we would have used more than $30 worth of fuel traveling the same distance, a pedestrian passenger for the same trip is charged $1. Again, the ferry is operated by the North Carolina Transport. This was the last of our ferry trips, it is bridges from now on down the coast. Cedar Island is very flat and marshy, looks like it would be a great area for the Air Boats as in the Florida Everglades, however we did not see any. Fortunately we are not here in Summer, the mozzies would be horrific. On through Moorhead City and Jacksonville to Myrtle Beach ,where we planned to spend a couple of nights.
Some signs are a bit strange, one store had a huge sign across the front “Hams, Fireworks, Peanuts” seemed a strange combination. And a another “Hams, Knives & Liquor”
Another that we don’t think would last long in Australia, “I got my crabs from Dirty Dicks” after seeing that sign several times we eventually passed Dirty Dicks Seafood House.
The best thing about Myrtle Beach was, petrol was down from $3.49 at our last buy to $3.08. The RV park we had selected was on the beach, however you would need to pack a cut lunch to get there. We decided to have a look around at a few of the sights and move on down to Charleston and spend the extra time there. Myrtle Beach is split into three distinct areas. North, Central and South, all very touristy, with Restaurants, Dinner Shows and all sorts of entertainment. Greg Norman even has a Steakhouse restaurant there on the strip, understandably, as the whole area here in South Carolina and well up into North Carolina is one golf course after another. A new touristy development called “Broadway” is built around a lake, (full of catfish), in Central Myrtle Beach, with several night club venues and Hard Rock on the edge if it, as does Planet Hollywood, Ripley’s also have an Aquarium on site, it was good for a walk around.   Photos
We made it to Charleston, South Carolina by 7pm. The main street in Charleston “Meeting Street” has the Museum Mile as part of it. The next day we walked the last few blocks down to the waterfront ,and went a bit camera happy snapping all of the old mansions along the way. We took a tour of Calhoun Mansion, which unfortunately was more of a museum of collected art objects from around the world, it was chock a block in every room, however the building itself was interesting.
We then visited the Chalmers Street “Old Slave Mart,” where until 1863 slaves were auctioned daily. It was quite an eye opener to read and listen to stories of some who lived through that period. The importing of slaves from Africa was banned in 1807, however the trade continued dealing in local born slaves.
A tour of Fort Sumter was a great way to conclude our visit to Charleston. The tour takes you by ferry to the fort which is at the entrance to Charleston Harbour and it was here that the first shot of the Civil War occurred on April 12 1861.
The fort was one of a series built along the coast, after the War of 1812. After Lincoln was elected president with no support from the southern states, South Carolina delegates voted unanimously to secede from the Federal Union. Upon the secession it was decided that the state would reclaim all government facilities into state control. Fort Sumter was under the control of Major Anderson, who refused to surrender control of the fort. A shot from a cannon which exploded above the fort, became the opening volley of the Civil War. Over the following 10 days of siege and bombardment the fort was taken by the South Carolina troops. After two years of holding the fort in defiance of the northern assaults the fort was reduced to rubble with the top half, systematically blown away by the naval guns, the fort was returned to the control of the North.
Charleston is steeped in its history revolving around the civil war and of it’s slave markets that were central to the local economy. Before the Civil War, ships approaching or leaving the Charleston harbour were continually harassed by pirates.
Edward Teach was known as the infamous “Blackbeard” and was the most feared of the pirates, during a battle he was known to have woven wicks laced with gunpowder into his full face beard and light them, for effect. He had a huge frame, and wore a crimson coat, two swords and bandoliers stuffed with pistols and knives. He worked hard to create the menacing appearance.   In the battle with the British at Ocracoke in 1718, it took 5 musket balls and 20 sword lacerations to kill the man.   Photos
100 miles to the South is Savannah, just over the border into Georgia.
Savannah was settled by the British in 1733, The British feared the presence of the Spanish, as they controlled what is now Florida from their capital of St. Augustine. The intention was to have a defence force between Charleston and St Augustine. The city was laid out with four town squares, with the housing surrounding the squares similar to military barracks, the squares were there to provide the colonists space for military exercises. Today however they are cherished for their aesthetic value with their huge Live Oak trees, (live oaks do not lose their leaves). As the city grew, the original pattern was continued, until there were 24 town Squares, 21 still remain and contribute to the charm of this interesting city. Many old building are there as they were 200 years ago. The oldest building in Georgia is the Pirate House on East Broad St. It is now a Bar & Restaurant, similar to it’s roll in 1754. However, at that time it was a place to be avoided by the general public. It served as a watering hole for sailors and pirates. It is said that many a drunken sailor was shanghaied from there, taken through an underground tunnel from the bar to the wharf, to make up crew numbers on other ships. The Pirates House boasts as being included in Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 novel, Treasure Island and that one of the main characters, Captain Flint, stayed there.
Apart from the Trolley Tour and dinner at the Pirates House, the town certainly deserves more time than we are able to afford, as our date with Qantas draws closer.
Another day and we are back at Atlanta, sorting and packing for the return flight.   Photos

The statistics of our trip are: We had 5 days in New York, then 71 days in the RV. We traveled 10,919 miles (17, 572kms), We free camped 25 nights, 7 in National or State Parks and the other 39 RV parks, spent $5107 on gas (petrol) and $1464 on RV Parks, which works out to $92.56 per day, for travel and accommodation, for the two of us.

Buying or Renting a Motorhome in America

2012-02-16T16:30:00.000-08:00

Buying or Renting a Motorhome (RV) in America

INDEX

The RV

Rent or Buy

Renting an RV

Buying an RV

Choosing the right RV

RV built-in facilities

Registration and Insurance

RV Storage Options

RV Clubs and Roadside Assistance
Servicing your RV

The Trip

Planning the Trip

RV Parks and Park Directories

National Parks and State Parks

Choose the dates for travel

Choose your Travel Route

Free Camping

Travel Costs

Ferries

Driving

Driving in the USA

GPS

Towing a Vehicle

Toll Systems

Other

Visas and Passports

Travel Insurance

Money & Cards

Phones & Internet

Shopping and Loyalty Cards

Please Note: This post is in the process of being set up, as yet links from the index are not set up. My apologies for any inconvenience in have to search and scroll.

Rent or Buy

Whilst owning the RV has a lot of pluses in it’s favour, if it were for a single trip, the scales tip towards renting, there can be some tempting deals around, particularly if it is not in the peak season. For anything under 4 months, the time required to set it up plus the added costs of owning, registration, insurance and storage or selling would, in my opinion rule out buying.

After that it can be a viable proposition to purchase, particularly if further trips to the USA or Canada are planned. In our case, we will have had 10 trips spread between family members over the 48 months of ownership, a total of 25 months on the road.

Keep in mind that this blog is written from an Australian’s perspective, consequently any reference or comparison to Australian systems may, or may not, be relevant to other countries.

However, the intent here is to explain some of the issues faced by Non-Americans when trying to navigate through the systems.

Renting an RV

Some of the big RV renters are USA RV RENTALS, EL MONTE RV RENTALS and CRUISE AMERICA RV RENTALS, CAMPING WORLD

If you look at the rental RVs on the road the majority are 24 or 26 ft “C” Class

The hire RVs are generally 24 or 26 ft Class C, Ours is a 24 and we find it great, it is classed as a 6 berth, but it is great for 2, the table is always up and ready to use, the overcab bed is great for storage and the bed at the back is made up all the time, toilet, shower, big fridge/freezer, built in furnace (LP gas heating system) built in generator, 110 volt mains power air-con/heater, all good,

For hiring, you would need to check out the rates, keep in mind all of the extras,

Such as bedding, outdoor table & chairs, GPS and mileage.

They generally allow 100 miles per day and you would need to buy a block of mileage before heading off, if you think you will do more. It can cost 25 to 40 cents per mile for the extra mileage if you just leave it until the end of the trip.

We did 170 miles/day on our National Parks trip in 2010,

220 miles/day on our Alaska trip in 2009

and 120 miles/day in 2011across the south fro LA to Miami

Insurance small print items are always a worry

Important also to check out any area restrictions that might apply.

Some websites to check out are:

www.usarvrentals.com

www.elmonterv.com

www.cruiseamerica.com

www.rvrentalsofamerica.com

www.campingworld.com/rvrentals/

And the list goes on

In Alaska : http://www.greatalaskanholidays.com/ is a major renter.

Their website also offers some great suggestions for Alaska RV destinations

It also seems Mid April to Early September is the range for the RV season in Alaska.

Another is : http://alaskabestrvrentals.com/

In Canada

A few sites to start looking there are :

http://www.cruisecanada.com/

http://www.apollorv.ca/

http://www.canadream.com/

Buying an RV

The Cost of Owning an RV Stored in USA

The purchase of the RV which could range from $20k and up, depending on your taste.

A good 6 berth “C” class would probably set you back $35k

Then there are the fixed costs:

Annual Registration $120 pa (will vary depending on the state of registration)

Annual Insurance 1^st Year $1200, 2^nd year $850 pa

Storage $1440 pa (12 months LA) or $600 pa (12 months in Atlanta)

Good Sam Membership $20 pa

Good Sam Roadside Service $110 pa (Platinum)

Good Sam Mail box $10 per month (plus mail forwarding costs)

Buying the RV

One shouldn’t loose sight of the fact that compared with Australian and European prices, RVs are at comparatively bargain prices in the US. I have to say that to try to screw the last $ out of the purchase price could end up being a disaster and the exercise wrecked.

Buying second-hand from a dealer,

Be aware that the RV will, by law, have been stripped of everything except for the mattress.

Allow $3500 - $5000 to re-stock with bedding, linen, cutlery, crockery, cooking utensils, water hose, sewerage disposal hoses and fittings, electrical lead, Snow Chains, First Aid Kit and of course it is essential to have a GPS.

Plus allow several days to purchase and set up the equipment before travelling.

Some suggested sites to start looking on the internet are:

www.rvonline.com

www.lazydays.com

www.rvusa.com

To get an idea of RV values the NADA site can help, it requires a zip code for your required area such as 32513 for Pensacola Florida or 92801 for Anaheim California the site is:

http://www.nadaguides.com/RVs

Lazydays have great setup in Tampa Florida. They have now set up a branch in Tucson Arizona,

They have a huge lot of used RVs, they will give you a golf buggy to tour around the lot and pick out an RV that you like, once purchased you can camp on their site whist it is all sorted and being in Florida can make reg & Insurance easier, The only down side to them was that we could not browse their website for prices as they do not list them, make an enquiry on a unit and they will email the price. Also the cost to get to Florida made it less appealing. In hindsight, it would have been the cheaper way for us to go. By looking at their website you can see the range of RVs that they have to offer. They seem to stand by what they sell.

Buying second-hand, private sale.

Certainly you could get it for the best price and it will probably come with all the fittings and furnishings. The problems here are: no warranty, and getting around to view them. To find one on the internet, you may find the need to travel all over the country to view them. This of course is costly and time consuming. There have also been horror stories of buyers from overseas having paid the funds over before they get into the country, being confronted with a vehicle, a lot less quality than what was expected or in fact advertised. Once the sale has gone through, you are stuck with it. I would like to be able to “Kick the Tyres” before handing over the cash.

USA in general is a very pet friendly country, and that is born out in the fact that pets are welcome in 99% of RV Parks, National Parks, State Parks. Etc. Accordingly they become a part of the RV community and have left their mark on some RVs on the market. I note some sellers advertise “No Pets”. Something to look for, if it may bother you that dogs or cats (or both) have been living in it.

Buying second-hand using an intermediary

Still a gamble, we tried this method, cost an arm & leg in inspection fees and we still ended up with a lemon that we traded in after two weeks. Cut our losses and put it down to experience.

Ex Rentals

Our unit is an ex rental and as they change them after 2 -3 years to keep their fleet modern, it is not a bad option, They are usually well maintained mechanically.

Most ex-rental RVs are sold off through the dealers

Three of the big RV renters are USA RV RENTALS, EL MONTE RV RENTALS and CRUISE AMERICA RV RENTALS, It could even be worth contacting them direct to get on to an ex rental unit before it goes to a dealer.

I am told that Cruise America is offering deals for international buyers and have an arrangement with the Arizona State to accept registrations there. But check out the registration costs before committing, I have been told it is excessive.

Payment Options

For details of payment, when purchasing the RV refer to the "Money and Cards" section

Choosing the Right RV

Selection and Size of RV

There are a lot of huge RVs in the USA, many of which are driven to a single location and set up for the holiday season. Many are set up as permanent accommodation. They look great have all the bells & whistles but they are a pain to drive once off the main highways.

If the RV is to be used for travel and sightseeing some compromises have to be made.

We found the “C” Class models were best for travel, they are available in all sizes. From 22ft to 33ft

If you look at the rental RVs on the road the majority are 24 or 26 ft “C” Class, which is an indication of the popular sizes

Again in considering that we were intending to visit a lot of the National Parks, we noted that some of the access roads restricted travel to 26ft long vehicles

Transport on ferries and storage parks are also paid on a per foot basis.

Many of the later model “C” class brands have been incorporating one or two slideouts, which increase your living space but maintain a small size for driving, Some of the rental companies are offering them as an option now, so those will soon be drizzled onto the used RV pool also. But be aware that to use the slides the RV is required to be perfectly level for them to operate, This would seem to be an inconvenience if it is just an overnight stop, so make sure that the RV is still usable without extending the slides.

Model of RV

As late a model as possible is best. Lets face it, most products today are made to replace not repair and often have a built in 10 year life span, I do not see that the RVs are being made any differently.

I note that some storage facilities will not store vehicles over 10 years old.

Originally we purchased in Seattle, through an intermediary, we ended up with a bomb and traded it when we got to Boise Idaho, the 1st RV was supposed to be max 30 ft and it was sold as that, but on collection it was 34ft. It was also a 1997 model and apparently in that era the water and other pipes were below the floor line, which caused freezing issues all the time during winter, later models have all the pipes above the floor line. Our current RV which is the one we bought in Boise is a 24ft Fleetwood Jamboree 2005 model and we find that just fine, it is a 6 berth but as you would be aware, you would have to be desperate to travel with 6 in it, It is great for 2 for extended travel, Another option is engine size, we bought a 450 Ford V10, they also have the same size RVs with the 350 Ford engine, I would assume it would be a saving in fuel, with the 350.

We went for the 24ft, a 26ft was on offer at the same yard and it had a walk around bed across the back and would have been a better option, as it is we have to enter the bed and crawl up to get in, not a big drama but the other would have been better. The extra $1500 was the decider after coming back from having to trade in the one that we bought by engaging a “tyre kicker” to organise the purchase, big and costly mistake, in hindsight we would sooner allow a week to do the inspections ourself.

It can very tempting to go for the luxurious “A” Class, and some do and are very happy with it, but be aware that they come with restrictions as to where you can drive them and that you are going to be driving in a strange environment, eg. Left Hand drive, and many of the smaller roads do not have the side verge that we take for granted. You can find trees or boulders right on the edge of the bitumen. Often the best solution, if tempted to go for the larger “A” class, is to go the whole hog and tow a small car. If your mode of holiday is to stay for extended periods in an area and thoroughly explore the region, before moving on, then this may well be a good option.

RV Built-in Facilities

LPG Furnace

Most RVs, are fitted with a gas furnace, which is a necessity, particularly if travelling anywhere near the snow.

The LPG system is different to ours in Australia and also that of Europe and the UK, in that it is a large permanently fixed tank, accessed through an outside hatch, and is only filled by the servo attendant. No Cars run on LPG.

Electric Connection at RV Parks;

The American electrical system operates on 110 volts as compared with Australia, Europe and UK where they operate on 240 volts It is therefore advisable to take a 12v/240v inverter with you if you are also taking any electrical items that may need charging from a 240v outlet.

There are three connection outlets at most sites 50 amp, 30amp and 15 amp

Most “C” class RVs use the 30 amp unless it is a monster with twin aircons. “A” Class RVs are more likely to have the 50 amp connection. It is a good idea to carry a couple of adaptors 50 male / 30 female and 15 male / 30 female. We have needed each of them at odd times.

Generator

Most Rvs have a generator installed from new, they are built in and generally only require maintenance when the RV is serviced. A common model is the Onan 4 or 5Kva (they are quiet).

It is certainly worth having and should be a criteria when selecting.

It is essential that the generator is operated at least once per month and if it is a petrol generator, make sure to have a stabilizers fluid added to your fuel tank for the last time that the generator is operated before storage. Onan recommend their “OnaFresh Fuel Preservative and Stabilizer”

Sewer Connections

As with the electrical system, the USA use a sewerage system different to those in Australia, Europe and the UK. Rather than the removable cassette, the US RVs have a fixed blackwater tank, to which a flexible hose is connected and plugged into a sewer point in the ground near the rear driver’s side of the RV. Once connected, a slide gate is opened to drain the blackwater tank into the sewer point. The sewer gate is then closed and the grey water tank gate opened, this action flushes the hose. We have a habit of flushing a bucket of water through the toilet bowl to clean the blackwater tank, then a bucket of water through the kitchen sink to clean out the grey water tank.

Registration and Insurance

Registration / Insurance

When buying an RV it has to be registered to a person who has an address in the state where it is to be registered. Herein lies a problem, unless you have a friend or relative prepared to lend their address to your purchase.

Sometimes to overcome the problem, the salesman will use his address to get the sale done, however the problem re-arises when renewal comes up and not knowing whether you will get any mail forwarded on to you from the salesman.

Many states such as California and Idaho require the RV to be presented for inspection annually for re-registration.

California and Canada are particularly hot on having regular “Emissions” Certificates for the RV. California requires one every 2^nd year.

It appears that Florida does not require inspection and the RV can be registered for 2 years at the one time.

We found the answer was in joining “Good Sam” which is an equivalent to Australia’s RACV, RACQ or NRMA Whilst they are based in Florida, it operates nationally.

Good Sam membership can provide:

An excellent Roadside Service specific to RVs.

A home address for Registration using Florida as the home state.

The same address for Insurance of the RV

Contact to an Insurance Company for RVs

A mail collection and or forwarding service, through their “American Home Base Inc.”

Mail out of the “Highways” monthly journal

It should be noted that to arrange a USA mailing address before you enter the country, it cannot be done through Good Sam, However you can arrange it direct with “American Home Base” overt the internet. http://www.amhomebase.com/

I would advise anybody to get the US address set up first before attempting anything else-- Here`s the problem.Good Sam would not provide an address until we were in the U.S.However, American Home Base who actually operate the Good Sam service were happy to oblige with the address through them direct and we completed the paperwork for the PO box after we arrived. This meant that we were able to open a bank account with Bank Of America as soon as we arrived. The bank was happy with our Aust. Tax file No instead of the ubiquitious social security No.

We could not renew our initial insurance, which we had arranged in Idaho when we bought the RV, as we did not have an Idaho address. Again the answer came through Good Sam and our Florida address, However there were some minor hitches in getting the insurance accepted.

We went through Gilbert RV Insurance Agency in Orlando Florida Ph 407-382-9204. We had to explain that we live in Australia and use the RV for holidays, eventually that was accepted, it seemed that they were concerned that it was our only home, as we do not have any other insurance in Florida.

Most important is to arrange the mailing address with Good Sam before negotiating any deal, insurance, registration, or any other contract.

We also found it a hassle to have an extra person’s name added to the list of drivers for the insurance company. To avoid the drama, list all probable drivers at the time of setting up the insurance, for the year, if it is intended that they will be driving the RV for more than a week. The Insurance company required a certified copy of each persons’ State and International Driving licences. (obtained in Australia from RACV, NRMA, etc)

No problems with our insurance going to Alaska, I know some companies baulk at Mexico but ours doesn’t. although we haven’t and most likely won’t drive there.

Whilst in USA just recently we were advised that the US Department of Home Security has thrown a cat amongst the pigeons by declaring the use of the Good Sam Mailing address inappropriate for the registration of RVs.

If this is the case, it would seem to have far reaching effects, as many US citizens have sold their house and live full time in their RVs and use a mail forwarding service, such as Good Sam as their legal Address. It appears that the intent is to put a barrier up for the likes of us “Aliens”.

We have our RV registered under this address and as yet we have received no notice of any change, however, please be aware that all may not be plain sailing.

A review of the options available apart from Good Sam are :

Case 1.

Jeannette Rea from Johnnie Walker Travel Homes, 5800 Boulder highway Las Vegas NV 89122 www.jwrv.com comes highly recommended

Jeannette, the RV sales lady did all the work for them so all they had to do was pick up the keys for her when they arrived in the US.

Case 2

When we bought in Colorado Springs it was all up to us.

When you buy an RV/vehicle from a sales place they do not register the vehicle like in Australia. They give you a temporary notification allowing you 60 days to get it registered.

We didn't pay any sales tax/stamp duty until you register the vehicle so be very aware of that as it could cost you big time later.

You must have insurance before you drive out of the sales yard and that insurance needs to be from the State where you are going to register the vehicle. eg. We had Nevada insurance but we had to cancel that and take out South Dakota insurance when we registered it there,or that is what I have found.

We picked South Dakota to register as it has only 3% sales tax BUT you need to get a SD driving licence which did include a written test & drive. For the licence we did need our I-94 departure card (B1/B2 Visa) With a USA driver’s licence it make the insurance a lot cheaper.

It seems Sales Tax in Arizona is 6% so it would be worth while checking out the state you are going to purchase in.

In South Dakota we had help from

Terri Lund

110 E Center St

MADISON SD 57042.

Terri also has a mail service called www.mydakotaaddress.com Terri has been very helpful and trustworthy.

Case 3

The vehicle rego in California with a Florida address was no problem and we have just renewed it on line.(you only need the smog test in Ca. every 2 nd year) Insurance was done through Michael Diamond of Diamond Michaels Insurance in Sun City just out of L.A( which is where we purchased the vehicle) and could not have been simpler. We contacted him before we left Aust and did it all on line. He arranged cover for us through Progressive Insurance with full comprehensive and $19,000 cover on the vehicle for under $400. The added bonus is that Progressive are a recognised national company which seems to overcome the state based insurance issues. I would highly recommend him.We did need an international driving licence for the insurance DMIA - Diamond Michaels Insurance Agency 28125 Bradley Rd Ste 190, Sun City, CA 92586

(951) 679-1329

We have just returned from our trip across the Southern States, and there have been some developments, of which you should be made aware.

In the past two months, a colleague from Australia has purchased an RV, privately in Alabama, picked it up and drove it to Florida to effect the registration. The registration officials in Pensacola Florida would not accept the Good Sam address as a legal address for the registration. He was told that the “Department of Home Security” had intervened and had declared it not suitable for a legal address. The staff at Good Sam were beside themselves with the news and the possible implications, as many US residents have sold their homes and taken to life in their RV, using Good Sam as their legal address.

Fortunately in this case, the Australian buyer did happen to have a cousin who resides in Florida and was able to use his address, so his problem was solved.

However that leaves the rest of us up in the air. We have our own RV registered and insured using the Good Sam address and have not been advised of any change. But until it is cleared as to whether it was a kneejerk reaction by some official of the Department or if it will flow through to us we do not know. Maybe it is a stopper for new registrations not renewals.

We would hate for someone to be faced with the same problem, based on our recommendations and not have a handy Cousin to call on.

But all is not lost, whilst in the USA we were put in touch with an organisation called “Montana Corporate Services” and they seem to have the answers to our registration and insurance issues as Non Residents (Aliens). We have spoken to John McCluskey john@montanacorporate.com and we are satisfied that it is a way to go. We have attached some brief details below, of their operation, as they were relayed to us. If interested check out their website montanacorporate.com, where a series of links end up giving the complete picture.

Montana Corporate also offer a mailing service, which seems a little cheaper that Good Sam.

http://www.montanacorporate.com
1 - Fill-out our simple Montana LLC online form. We'll prepare and file it for you.
2 - Buy your RV, boat or airplane in any state, and from any dealer or individual.
3 - We'll get your plates and FedEx them to you. That's it!

How it works

The Limited Liability Company (LLC) form of business offers both the protections from personal liability of a corporation and the favourable tax treatment of a partnership. It provides for flexibility in the contribution and distribution of assets.
Under this type of structure, you need not hold annual meetings, elect officers or issue stock.
There are no stockholders. Owners are called members.
The LLC can purchase assets like vehicles, boats and aircraft.
Because the LLC is considered a Montana resident, no sales taxes are collected on any purchases.
An LLC-purchased vehicle is not owned by you but by your Montana LLC and your business address will be 302 N. Last Chance Gulch, Suite 403, Helena Montana, not your home state address.
You can also have a personal, Montana mailbox address for LLC members.
Official Government documents come to us, not you, and we - as your Montana Registered Agent - forward official correspondence to your home address.
The cost to form your LLC is $575 and is all-inclusive.

The Costs

Your credit card will be charged when we file your LLC with the Montana Secretary of State.
We'll send you an email copy of the draft Articles of Organization for your LLC prior to filing. About an hour after that, your Articles of Organization will be filed and your credit card charged $575.

The 2nd step of the process - the licensing of your motorhome - will cost $720. Your credit card won't be charged for the licensing until we get your plates.
Keep in mind that you will be saving by not having to pay Sales Tax on the purchase of the RV.
You have the option of automating future payments for maintaining your LLC's annual requirements.
Montana does not require proof of insurance to license a vehicle.
When you do insure your vehicle, speak with your insurance agent and make sure he or she understands your vehicle will be licensed in Montana through your LLC but may be domiciled elsewhere. If your insurer has a problem with that situation, here are insurance companies other clients have used successfully:

Garden City Insurance
(Keith Nelson)
Email: info@gardencityins.com
415 N. Higgins Ave., Suite 5
Missoula, MT 59802
(866) 444-1084 [Toll Free]
(406) 549-8527 [Fax]
Farm and City Insurance Services
"Your RV Advantage"
1-800-331-1520
American Modern Insurance Group, Inc.
1-800-543-2644
P.O. Box 5323
Cincinnati, OH 45201-5323
Progressive Auto Insurance
1-800-PROGRESSIVE
Aon Recreation Insurance
1-800-521-2942

There is no problem or barrier for a non-US citizen to form an LLC in Montana for the purpose of buying a motor home. We have clients from many countries, including Australia.

With the use of a PMB (Personal Mail Box) the member address can be the same as the Montana LLC address. More details on PMBs can be found here: http://www.montanacorporate.com/PMB.asp

Here are some basic details:

There are just two steps required to register a motor home or other vehicle in Montana.

· Form a Montana LLC. This is always the first procedure and can be done online.

· Buy the vehicle (or transfer ownership) in the name of the LLC, and license it in the State of Montana.

We assist you with both steps.

The total cost involved for both steps is $1,295 for motor homes. For other vehicles like cars, trailers or motorcycles, the total cost will be $995 plus the Montana State vehicle registration fee.

You will not pay sales or property tax on any vehicle licensed in the State of Montana and no vehicle inspections or proof of insurance is required.

The annual cost to maintain your LLC is $150 and includes all the functions required to keep the LLC in good standing.

Additional details can be found on our website: www.montanacorporate.com

Don’t hesitate to email or call if you have any questions.

RV Storage

It should be noted that for storage of the RV in USA, it is preferable to select a storage facility below the snow line of the US, a rough line is through San Francisco on the West Coast to Myrtle Beach on the East Coast.

We met one couple taking their RV from Canada to store it in Southern California for the winter, as it had caused too much problem during the severe winters in the North. Crater Lake NP has an average of 44ft of snow per year (that is the highest in USA) can you imagine a motorhome left out in that.

Apart from the storage cost other issues to be taken into account are:

The cost of internal flights from the International entry airport to the location of the storage unit.

The cost of travel, from the nearest airport.

Cyclone and Tornado affected areas.

From Australia, LA is generally the cheapest arrival city and transport from airport to Storage unit would cost a max of $100 (taxi) there are other cheaper options. We used an RV Park & Storage only 10 mins walk from Disneyland and could use the Shuttles from LAX

Myrtle Beach, whilst it has an airport the cost to get there from LA is via a 3 flight route costing around $500 ea return. However the whole East lower coast is subject to possible cyclone and storm damage.

On the East Coast, Atlanta is a better option, can be direct from LA at cost of around $300 ea return.

Some random storage costs: Anaheim LA $120 / Month

Atlanta $50+ / Month

Indianapolis $60+ / Month

Denver $50 / Month

Myrtle Beach $54 / Month

Storage of the RV is not a big problem there are many RV storage facilities and whilst they do not actually take responsibility for the unit, most have secured entrances that require a code to get into, we started off with Anaheim Fullarton storage in California and later shifted to one which was 10 mins walk from Disneyland and is an RV park as well as storage, we used a similar one in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and also in Atlanta, Georgia.

Just google RV storage in the area that you want and see what is available,

We do not winterise the RV, as we choose a storage facility below the snow line,

Some good deals are available in Arizona, Yuma and Wickenburg.

An undercover storage was found in Houston Texas for $60/month

Texas RV Centre at Cleburne between Fort Worth and Houston where they have under cover storage for $55 per month, not an enclosed garage, just under cover.

www.texasrvcenter.com/

Cleburne also has an RV Service Centre.

www.cleburnervcenter.com

Shuttle services operate from many airports and are considerably cheaper than taxis. It is best to pre-book the shuttle via the web: for example SuperShuttle services over 35 airports:

www.supershuttle.com

RV Clubs and Roadside Assistance

RV Clubs

Good Sam publish a directory and is very good, it includes state maps with all RV parks noted. Membership is $20 pa and offers a great roadside service facility for $80 to $120 depending on the level of service required, We chose the Platinum Service at $120 as it gives us a complete backup service. Good Sam’s Roadside coverage services http://www.goodsamclub.com/default.aspx

Camp Club USA , Costs $50 per year to join, but that gives you a copy of Woodall’s, another top directory, plus 50% disc on 1200 RV parks in USA & Canada, check out both websites.

An update here is that:

Passport America has taken over the operations of Camp Club USA , still the 50% discount applies however there are now over 1800 campgrounds across USA, Canada and Mexico available to you. Membership is still around $50pa but well worth it. You can join online before you get there at www.passportamerica.com They also have a mail forwarding service. A catalogue of their parks comes with the membership

Family Motor Coach Association

This is the largest club specifically for Motor Coaches (“A” Class RVs)

www.funroads.com

Roadside Assistance

Be aware that RVs do not come with wheel or tyre changing gear, no jack or wheel brace, there usually is a spare wheel. It is considered too dangerous for owners to be out changing wheels on the heavy RVs. So roadside service is a must have option. The other requirement, of course, is that you will need a mobile phone to contact the service provider.

We found AAA helpful. Their roadside service is national, but their branches are all state orientated, we joined AAA in Seattle, Washington, but when we wanted to register the RV in Florida our home branch didn’t want to know us. We found that Good Sam is a national organisation and gave us everything we required. Some time later AAA came back and tried to put us on to a section that would recognise a non USA mailing address. Too late, we had gone with Good Sam.

http://autoclubsouth.aaa.com/membership/membership.aspx?nvbar=membership

Is a good place to start enquiries with AAA

Twice when we had a tyre problem and rang Good Sam, it was the AAA local guy that turned out. So they all work in together anyway.

The problem often comes from their web site structure, when filling in an application form for AAA, you will come to a drop down selection for “State” and it will list all of the US states but will reject any thing such as Qld or NSW, there can be a drop down for the country and Australia may be listed, however they do not give an option other than a US state, similarly with zipcode and an Aussie post code does nothing. This of course can all be solved by getting a Good Sam mail address.

We found this problem of web page design several times with US organisations, whilst it gives the impression that they do not want to deal with any other than US residents, I think it is more likely just short sighted web page design.

Servicing Your RV

We found it important to have the RV serviced before putting it back into storage after each trip.

There is a site called

www.rvservicereviews.com which has listed all RV Service Centres in each state and has a user rating on each, so go on line, nominate your preferred state and select “sort by location”

Planning the Trip

Home Research

We use a Michelin Road Atlas to plot and plan our trip.

We do a lot of research into where we are going to travel, work out what we want to see and joint the dots on the map to plot the travel route. Using the internet, we would google “tourism” for the particular city or area and select the most popular item and decide what we want to see. Check out City tour operators and note the preferred tour or just list those features that the tour will visit and prepare to drive there in the RV. For National and State Parks the relevant website will give a map and details of the park and it’s features.

Once the route and destinations are listed, we try to allocate around 150 - 200 mile driving legs, to select where we would plan to stay for the night. We would add extra days at cities to provide a buffer, as we often find recommendations from locals will point us in the direction of “Must See” places. We print out our Itinerary from that research, but it is not set in stone, we are prepared to diverge where necessary. As we travel, we will modify a copy of the itinerary to represent the actual trip for our records. Those itineraries are available to view on the posts at : http://www.bluroo1.blogspot.com.au

We print off a page for each destination, number them in their sequence and take them with us to the US.

Trip Records Our Alaska trip 2009, 10200 miles, we spent $2958 for fuel and $636 Camp costs, an average of $73 per day. Averaged 220 miles per day

2010 National Parks, 7,500 miles, Fuel $2397, Camp costs $1043 an average of $78 per day. Average of 170 miles per day.

2011 across the South from Los Angeles to Miami, 7200miles and have stayed at RV Parks for all but seven of those nights, 2 freebies, 1 NP & 4 SP, Fuel $2615, RV Parks $1945 An average of $75 per day. Average of 120 miles per day.

RV Parks & Park Directories

Cost of parks vary, of course, $25 -35 for a small town, we paid $60 in Las Vegas KOA, but only a walk to the strip, $45 in San Diego KOA, have seen $70 in San Francisco and New Orleans, that’s probably the top of the range. For Florida Keys, State Parks $43, RV Parks and $60 to $120.at Key West

It is important to know what type of site you want, We usually ask for : “Water and Electric 30 amp, Back in site”

“Drive through Full Hookup” is what you will get unless you ask and that is the dearest. Sometimes there are no options. That will include sewer, cable TV (could be 90 channels)

“Back in, water and electric” is all that is needed if you are moving around, if it is offered it is the cheapest option. In most cases we only use the water in our tanks and do not use that unless we need to top the storage tank, a taste test is also a good move. Apart from that, it is not wise to dump the sewer too frequently, the system works better if it is left to near full, that allows the chemicals to have time work their magic.

To hook up to the “town water” directly to your RV is an option, but not one that we have used, there are sometimes warnings about the pressure, which can cause damage, unless a pressure attachment is fitted. Unless we were going to have a lengthy stay it is not worth the risk.

We did call at two RV Parks where there were no toilet/shower facilities, they only take RVs that are completely self contained.

Park laundries Most RV parks have Laundry facilities, they all take quarters 25Cent pieces in varying quantities. You can usually buy quarters from the office. We usually start off with a “Log of Quarters” (40 for $10) you are going to need them along the way.

Good Sam

Apart from the insurance, registration and mail assistance, Good Sam membership gives a 10% discount on many RV supplies as well as a discount on Good Sam listed RV parks.

Their website is: www.goodsamclub.com

KOA (Kampgrounds of America)

A chain of RV parks, well worth signing up to. They are a national franchise group, generally the parks are well run and well set up. I believe they are linked with “Big 4” in Australia., maybe they will give reciprocal rights, I do not know. Sometimes they are expensive eg. Nashville $56. while the park up the road was $35. You will find them at www.koa.com

Camp Club USA , Costs $50 per year to join, but that gives you a copy of Woodalls, another top directory, plus 50% disc on 1200 RV parks in USA & Canada, check out both websites. An update here is that :

Disneyworld, Orlando, Florida

There is an RV Park in the Disneyworld complex called Fort Wilderness Resort and we noted that one of the boats from the main gate called there, so it certainly would be a good option and is $61 to $76 per night with no transport worries between the three Disneyworld Parks. Complimentary transport is available to all Disney parks and to Downtown Orlando.

Park Directories

Printed directories are a must, to have at least one.

Woodalls Full directory of all RV Parks

Good Sam Trailer Life Directory Full directory of all RV Parks

Passport America Their directory is restricted to the 1800 or so affiliated clubs

Online directories are also available at:

www.campusa.com

www.camptheusa.com

www.gorvcampgrounds.com

www.reserveamerica.com

National Parks & State Parks

National Parks and National Monuments

Both are controlled by the National Parks Service.

The difference between them is that the NPs have been gazetted so by Congress, which can take a long time to achieve. It was realized that a much faster way to preserve a natural or historic “treasure” was for it to be declared a national monument, which the President could do with the stroke of a pen.

From the public’s point of view they are treated the same.

Probably the best investment a motor homing tourist can buy, is a National Parks Annual Pass. The cost is $80 and it’s value can be seen when you consider some of the NPs charge up to $25 entry, plus $20 per night camping. The annual pass gives free entry and usually a 50% reduction on the camping charge. Another point with the pass is that it allows for two signatories on the card, which could be two drivers that will use the RV at different times through the year. At the park entrance both the card and the drivers Photo ID are sometimes requested and checked.

The card can be purchased from the entry booth of the first National Park that you visit and applies for 12 months from that date.

A great website we were told of is : www.reserveamerica.com

which will display all of the RV friendly national and state parks within a given distance or direction of your intended travel, reservations can be booked ahead, or just use it to find what parks are in the area.

National Parks, a lot are run on the honour system, pick a site, fill in a coupon put your money in an envelope and drop it in the box, prices range from $8 to $20, State Parks are usually dearer but often better facilities, California state parks are the dearest, as is their petrol.

Note, the National Parks Pass does not give a discount for State Parks.

Choose the Dates for Travel

15^th May the magic date

Many tourist facilities are closed until 15^th May

Skagway Alaska. First cruise ships for the season start to arrive and the town comes to life after the winter closure, Most of the store holders close their stores and depart for the winter.

Access to Denali NP can be limited before 15^th May as their shuttle busses start about then.

The Klondike Loop is not a loop until after the “Top of the World” highway opens after the winter shutdown each year, There is an international border on the road and the road opens when the US Customs opens the office each year, which is about 15^th May. The top of the world highway forms the link between the Alaska Hwy and the Klondike Hwy to make the loop

Access through Yellowstone National Park is restricted to the Northern and Western entrances until late May, which leaves the North East, Eastern and Southern entrances closed until then.

Shuttle busses at Bryce Canyon NP do not start until about 1^st June (but you can drive the same route)

Access through Yosemite NP to the Western entrance is closed until about then. (Access to Yosemite Valley is still ok from the West.)

Access to the Mariposa Grove just outside Yosemite opens around 1^st June

Logan Pass on the “Going to the Sun” road through Glacier NP does not open until after 17th June

The walking track down to the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde NP opens about 15^th May (you can still view them from the lookout points)

The Rim Rd at Crater Lake NP does not open til after 1^st June (But you can still get to see the lake)

The “Trail Ridge Rd” through the Rocky Mountains NP does not open until early June

Events of Interest

Quartzsite : A winter haven for RVers Quartzsite, in Western Arizona, just 20 miles east of the Colorado River on I-10, Quartzsite has been a rockhound's paradise since the 1960s. These days, it is also a mecca to well over a million visitors each year, most of whom converge on this small town in a wave of RVs during the months of January and February, these RVers are referred to as “Snow Birds”. At this time of the year, 2,000 vendors of rocks, gems, minerals, fossils and everything else imaginable create one of the world's largest open air flea markets in Quartzsite. Eight major gem and mineral shows as well as vendors of raw and handcrafted merchandise peddle their wares to the snowbirds, collectors and enthusiasts, making Quartzsite the place to be the first two months of each year.

Calgary Stampede

Early July 2012, 6^th to 15^th is the 100^th anniversary

Autumn in New England

Famous for the Autumn foliage is best between Sept 22 to Oct 22

White Christmas

Certainly the place to experience a White Christmas, although not necessarily a pleasant one if in an RV.

Florida

The winter destination for many US holiday makers, the season there starts 1^st November

Halloween

October 31^stNot a public holiday, but a lot of hype goes on with pumpkins, scary stuff and the like. The kids get right into it. Often the funds raised at Halloween go to UNICEF

Tornados

The Tornado season is basically Spring, (March – June) although they can occur at any time.

Tornado Alley, where they are most prevalent is a tract from the Gulf of Mexico up through Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma & Nebraska

Hurricanes

The Hurricane season is from 1^st June – 30^th Nov (Katrina was 23^rd August)

Whilst the entire East and Gulf Coasts are vulnerable, Most affected regions are New Orleans and Southern Florida

Travel dates to consider.

Summer begins 22^nd June

Autumn begins 22^nd Sept

Winter Begins 22^nd Dec

Spring Begins 22^nd Mar

Autumn in New England Between Sept 22 to Nov 1

Tourist Season starts Memorial Day (Last Monday in May)

Calgary Stampede Early July

Wild Bill Show (Cody) starts 1^st June

Florida season starts 1^st November

Do not even consider touring Alaska without a copy of “Milepost”, available at all newsagents.

For the lower 48 states a similar book is “Next Exit” at about $20

Choose your Travel Route

Starting and finishing point

Obviously needs to be your storage facility.

We have had our RV stored 10 mins walk from Disneyland in Anaheim California and it has been a great starting point for the 6 trips that the unit has had since we bought it. Our first trip was certainly the trip of a lifetime it was 10,200mile (16000km)

Mind you our 2^nd trip around the 30 National Parks was also a ripper, it was about 7000 miles. If we had to choose only 1 then Alaska would get the gong.

If we were going to Alaska again, we would aim to get to Glacier NP in Montana, then through Banff, up the Icefields Parkway to Jasper on to Dawson Creek where the Alaska Highway starts with a big “Zero” mile post in the middle of town and follow that through to Delta Junction, down to Valdez, then around to Anchorage. Back through Fairbanks along the Alaska Highway to Tok, turn left along the “Top of the World Highway” through Chicken on to Dawson City. The down the Klondike Highway to Whitehorse the access to Dawson City that way is depending on the weather the US customs between Chicken and Dawson City does not open until around 15^th May, just need to check before you go for that year. The drive down to Skagway was well worth it and should not be missed.

We were unable to do the “Klondike Loop” as we were a week too early and the road was not yet open at the top, it was our only disappointment of the trip.

Our 3^rd trip came about by us wanting to shift the starting off point to the East Coast, so we could maximise our next holiday trips from there. Once we had plotted the trip and done an itinerary, we both became quite excited about it. It took us across the Southern States, did a loop up the music trail from New Orleans and it’s Jazz to Clarksdale, the home of the Delta Blues, then to Elvis’s stomping ground, Memphis, Jackson and then to the home of Country Music, Nashville. We concluded our trip with a fair coverage of Florida, before storing the RV in Fort Lauderdale.

All of these trips can be checked out in detail at http://www.bluroo1.blogspot.com.au

Which includes route maps, travel times and travel costs

Our next scheduled trip in 2012 will cover the North Eastern quarter of USA and around the great lakes.

Reno

If travelling through Reno make a point of visiting the “National Motor Museum” you won’t be disappointed.

Can also recommend Reno RV Park 735 Mill St Reno $30

Close to town & Museum, Bus outside front to town

Free Camping

Free camping is not a problem, however in some areas, it becomes difficult to pick a spot.

Wal-Mart seems to be the favoured place for free camping and sometimes they can look pretty crowded. In general Wal-Marts policy is to allow camping in their carpark, however some towns have regulations against it and consequently those Wal-Mart stores cannot oblige. It is required that you see the “Customer Service” desk inside the store and ask permission to camp for the night.

We had our RV booked in for service at a Camping World store the next day and asked if we could stay outside overnight, No problems go for it. They didn’t tell us that they had music blaring out over speakers throughout the yard all night, we had wondered why we were on our own.

Free Camping “Boondocking” as it is known in the USA Check out the following links, one gives Wal-Mart’s policy and a download of the 4000 Wal-Mart locations

http://www.onfpg.com/

Travel in a recreational vehicle (RV) can get costly, what with the price of fuel, vehicle maintenance, tolls, parking and supplies. There are ways, however, to make the trip more economical, particularly when faced with an unplanned stop. With just a little research, a smart and thrifty RV traveller can find ways to save. The easiest way is to prepare a list of free RV parking locations. Free RV campgrounds, or boondocking sites, exist in every state across the U.S.

Travel Costs

Cost of travelling in an RV will vary according to your preferred way of living. Excluding the costs incurred with the purchase or rental of the RV The basic cost of any travelling is made up of Fuel, Accommodation and Food.

Fuel, Certainly the major outlay for the RVer, however it has to be taken in context with the trip that you are doing. Of our three trips covering 25,000 miles we spent $7970 on fuel.

Accommodation, Whilst the RV provides the basic accommodation, it is relevant to include the costs of RV Parks. For those three trips we also spent $3625 on camping fees including National, State and Commercial Parks For those who want to free camp all the time this will reduce the cost or if always in a commercial park this will increase the outlay

Food, Most RVs have a large capacity fridge and freezer, fresh food is just as available in the US and Canada as it is in Australia, only cheaper (probably 20% cheaper). However, we do not factor in the cost of food as a trip cost, as we would be eating the same type of food at home in Australia, so there is no extra cost incurred. There is of course the opportunity to experience a different range of products available.

Our Trip Records Our Alaska trip 2009, 10200 miles, we spent $2958 for fuel and $636 Camp costs, an average of $73 per day. Averaged 220 miles per day

2010 National Parks, 7,500 miles, Fuel $2397, Camp costs $1043 an average of $78 per day. Average of 170 miles per day.

Ferries

For our inside passage trip, we booked the ferry through BC Ferries online before we left Australia, We ferried from Port Angeles to Victoria, drove to Port Hardy at the top of VI where we had our passage booked to Prince Rupert, Depending on the time of year and the weather as to how far up the inside passage the ferry will take you, all that info is on their internet schedule. http://www.bcferries.com/

Alaska Marine Highway Ferry System also has a lot of information and destinations

http://www.akmhs.com/

On the other side of Canada Marine Atlantic runs ferry services to Newfoundland

http://www.marine-atlantic.ca/eng/index.asp

Throughout the USA we have come across several ferries that simply link roads across rivers or entrances to waterways, in the main these are a free service run by the relevant state transport authority.

Driving in the USA

General Driving Differences

Coming from the Australian system, we found several issues that stand out and are worth noting. Of course there is the issue of driving on the wrong side of the road, but everyone else over there copes with it, plus the fact that they put the steering wheel on the wrong side of the vehicle certainly helps.

Right turn through the red light at intersections is a great move, it certainly allows traffic to clear.

The position of traffic lights. In Australia, the traffic lights are on both sides of the intersection, so at a red light you would stop at the first light. In the US, the lights are usually only on the far side of the intersection, which means you need to stop well before the light.

Left turn at intersections is a hard one to get used to, you have to think “Left Over” and get to the other side of the traffic before turning.

Right turn “Turn Right, Hang Tight” is a good reminder

Petrol Station Etiquette

Petrol, called gasoline in USA, it’s not always the cheapest petrol advertised and some stations advertise their fuel prices as “cash” price;
Petrol stations there are all individual in relation to payment methods;
General method is to pay by card at the pump prior to lifting up the petrol nozzle, however a large number of servos required you to key in your Zip Code (for the card) to use this method and if your Zip Code isn’t in a particular area it won’t let you pay this way and you have to pay inside prior to lifting the fuel nozzle. We were told that if you use 00000 (5 zeros) as the zip code it works sometimes. it didn’t for us so haven’t tried again.
Some of the servos will only let you pre-pay a set amount, ie $50, $100 etc, but the problem here is, we wanted to fill up all the time, so this method didn’t suit us;
Failing all else, they would require you to leave (yes leave) your credit card with the attendant. As a safety precaution one of us would remain inside with the credit card and wait for the other to finish filling the RV, then pay for the fuel. We had to use this method a majority of the time.
Another approach is where you go in and prepay $100 on your credit card, come out and fill the tank, if the tank fills at $85 then you go back and get a credit on your card for the $15. Often the computer system will not allow the attendant to start the pump without a payment being made.
In some areas we travelled, the norm was to use your credit card at the pump, in & out quickly, lift the nozzle, select the grade of fuel, fill tank, hang up nozzle and a receipt is printed out.
In some areas in Canada we found a $100 limit on auto credit card sales. If you know you require more to fill, go to the cashier first, we have been blocked trying to do another transaction after the first is completed.
Oregon is one of two states where the driver cannot use the bowser, an attendant must do that.
There were a few occasions where the attendant let us fill and pay after, as we do in Australia, however these locations were rare and usually in a remote area.

GPS Navigation System

A must, in particular when travelling through the major cities, with their freeway systems.

Tom Tom & Garmin seem to be the most popular. However if you want to check out a ripper system, very affordable http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/7-GPS-Australia-sat-nav-navigation-system-Bluetooth-/220840256560?pt=AU_Electronics_GPS&hash=item336b1ae430

Mine came (delivered to Australia) without maps for USA & Canada, but they are downloadable from the internet at no cost, a colleague had his delivered to the USA and it had maps for USA, Canada and Australia as well as every country on it, even Iceland. I suppose when ordering, it could be requested that those maps be included. Have only tried mine in Australia so far but the voice instructions given are very good.

While the GPS will get you to the required destination, if you have it set on “Fastest Route” it will go out of it’s way to get you onto a freeway, however if it is set on “Shortest Route” you could find yourself weaving in and around narrow suburban streets, It might be good to see the area but frustrating being in an RV. We try to keep it on “Fastest Route” however will check the route planned and ask for an alternative route if it looks a problem.

Freeway Driving

Driving the freeways can be daunting as often you are in an unknown area and dependant on the instruction from the GPS. In the RV, we found it best to travel in the second lane from the right, if in the extreme right lane, it is possible to get shunted off the freeway by the lane becoming an “exit only” lane. The Tom Tom GPS voice command would be telling us to keep left, however we found that we had to interpret this as “do not take the next exit”.

Of course you can still get into trouble, I recall being in the 2^nd lane, all of a sudden another freeway merged on the right and we found ourselves in the sixth lane, of course the GPS then told us to take the next exit. Two choices, panic or keep going, best to just ignore the GPS and move over as the traffic allows, take the next safely available exit and then allow the GPS to get you back on track.

We use an international licence and needed to send a certified copy for the insurance, It is important that all probable drivers for the year be listed and a copy of their International Driver’s licence be sent to the insurer when arranging insurance. However if and when asked for my licence on the road, I would offer my Australian Licence and have had no problems.

The roads can be good, to absolutely disgusting, There is a problem called “Perma Frost” where the ground is permanently frozen and the bitumen road can rise and fall and be very scary to drive on at time. Whilst it is very pronounced in some sections of Alaska, we felt that other areas used it as an excuse for the deteriorated roads. Some of the older freeways are concrete slabs and the continuous “kerchunk, kerchunk, kerchunk as you cross the slab joins can drive you mad. On the good side where they have used bitumen they can be pretty good. One thing we noticed on some secondary roads, was the absence of a verge on the side of the roads in some states, trees, boulders etc can be right at the edge of the bitumen, tends to push you to the centre of the road and needs to be watched.

Toll Systems

Toll Roads & Bridges

On the West coast we only encountered tolls on the Golden Gate Bridge, however it is only charged on South bound traffic, no charge on North bound.

The East coast is a different matter,

New York has EZPass toll system which appears similar to the Victorian E Tag system. Cost for the EZPass is $25 and the $25 is posted as a credit to your account.

There are 7 addresses in New York where you can walk in and get a pass. Have your “Good Sam” address and your RV details available when applying.

Florida has the SunPass for the toll roads there, although unless you are in a desperate hurry, there are acceptable alternate routes. https://www.sunpass.com/index

Illinois, Chicago has the I-Pass which can be used on the Chicago Skyway, the Indiana Toll Road and in 14 states where the E-ZPass is accepted

I-Pass can be obtained online at :

http://www.illinoistollway.com/tolls-and-i-pass/about-i-pass/get-i-pass-and-get-going

or get the locations for pick up from that same web site

E-ZPass can be obtained from : http://www.nh.gov/dot/org/operations/turnpikes/ezpass/index.htm

The following states accept both the E-ZPass or the I-Pass

New York, Maine, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Illinois,

& New Jersey

Texas has the TxTag system :

http://www.texastollways.com/content/how-to-pay-tolls.php

California has FasTrak : http://www.bayareafastrak.org/

However in all our travels in California we were never forced to use it, there is always an alternative, except of course for the bridges where you can pay cash anyway.

North Carolina has Quick Pass : https://www.myncquickpass.com/en/home/index.shtml

Michigan does not have any toll roads

Towing a Car

Towing a small car in US is not a problem a lot do it, we have seen full size Hummers on tow, but not many who are doing a lot of miles,

We tow one in Aus, but found we could work around it in the US by making sure we buy our supplies before setting up camp.

Tow Vehicle

A Tow vehicle can be an automatic, however a special pump arrangement is needed to ensure that the Auto gearbox is being lubricated, the following web site has details of what is needed.

www.remcotowing.com

A good option to this is a small 4WD auto, which can be towed using the two gear shifts. The 2000 Chevy Trakker is a good choice here. To flat tow it : Auto lever in Park, 4WD gear shift in Neutral and Ignition turned on (to negate the steering lock)

Visa & Passports

Visa Waiver Program

Visa Waiver Program: http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/without/without_1990.html There are 35 countries where the visa waiver program will provide entry to the USA, the application form can be downloaded from : http://immigration.terra.com/visa_waiver.html It appears that it must be accompanied by an e-passport, (the newer ones with the micro chip) The program, once issued is valid for two years and costs around $14.

Be aware that the Visa/Waver program does not extend beyond 90 days and all hell can break loose if you go over.

Extended Visa for USA

There is the availability of an extended visa called the B1/B2 Visa.

The B1/B2 Visa is available for 12 months or 5 years, so it would be wise to apply for the 5 years. The B-1 is for business visa and the B-2 is for for a tourist visa. And the initial application can be started on the internet, by downloading the forms at : https://www.usimmigrationsupport.org/b2-tourist-visa.html

The USA Consulate addresses in Australia are:

Melbourne : http://melbourne.usconsulate.gov/ Sydney : http://sydney.usconsulate.gov/

Canberra : http://canberra.usembassy.gov/visas.html Perth : http://perth.usconsulate.gov/

On the website for the USA Consulate in Australia to apply for a B1/B2 Visa. The on line website asks a lot of questions and tells you what to take to the Consulate when you go in person to make the application. An appointment is made on line and a date and time allocated to you.

You arrive at the Consulate at the appointed time, there are probably a heap of others there who have the same appointment time, however they process the applications pretty quickly.

The documents that you will take with you provide proof to them that: you can support yourself, will not be looking to work in the USA and that you have sufficient need to return to Australia, eg Bank accounts, proof of home ownership, assets, family, etc, etc.

Be aware that whilst it might be a 5 year visa, it still only allows you to be in the USA for a maximum of 6 months at a time. So you can come and go for 6 month blocks throughout the five years. If you are wishing to stay for longer than 6 months it would be well to arrange your trip that you will be in Canada or Mexico for a period, before the 6 months is up. It would also be a good idea to check with the consulate, as to how long you need to be out of the US, before re-entering

Passports

Apart from the obvious need to have a passport to enter the country, they do need to be kept handy, as they can be called on at all times, as we have travelled through Texas, close to the Mexican Border we have had to produce our passports at checkpoints within the USA 2 or 3 times a day.

There are no problems going between states, usually just a state line as in Australia, no check points or staff, and probably just a different price for petrol. Canada is a different story, there is a Customs office on each border crossing, no great hassles, need to show passport and have it stamped as you enter the country. And again when re-entering the US through the customs check point.

Mexico seems to be another story, unless you are planning to stay and tour in Mexico, you would be wise to leave the RV in USA and walk over, In Tijuana there is at least a 2-3 hour wait to get the vehicle back into the US.

Travel Insurance

Most of the high end Credit Cards have complimentary travel insurance. ANZ has an 80year age limit on theirs.

Westpac Visa Gold has no age limit, nearly all are covered by Zurich Insurance, and a written response from Zurich was given confirming the no age limit. However pre existing medical conditions are not covered unless it is requested and approved. The only criteria is that the full return fare is paid on the credit card and it should be noted that for coverage to be included on any side trips, such as a City Tour with a tour company, then the payment for that tour must also have been paid for on the card.

This same medical exclusion and condition applied to all other travel insurance policies that I checked, as well as having an age supplement on their premium which after 72years almost doubles the premium.

In Australia, for those not game to risk the complimentary insurance offers, then try :

World Care Insurance, Travel Insurance Direct, My Cover Insurance

Be aware that the cost of hospitalisation and medical treatment in the US is astronomical.

On a recent trip, a fall during skiing caused a $1500 bill, which was for an x-ray and one doctor’s visit. Fortunately travel insurance covered the bill.

Another, with a tummy upset, drew a $450 doctor’s fee for one visit

Money & Cards

Travelling expenses and purchases

We find the Travel Card works well for us, we use the ANZ Travel card loaded with US$ before we leave Australia, There are no extra fees charged for conversion on each purchase, we have accepted the exchange rate that we are happy with when we loaded the card. We will also use the travel card to draw cash from an ATM usually $300 each time to have some cash available, we often make those withdrawals from inside a WalMart.

An alterative Travel Card is the Ozforex which is put out by the Macquarie Bank, it appears cheaper than the others, by not have a reload fee, (the ANZ card has a 1.1% reload fee.)

You can load up to AU$25,000 on to the card over several currencies. You can also apply online : http://www.ozforex.com.au/our-services/travel-card

Another suggestion that apparently works well, is to keep an eye on the exchange rate, when it is up, buy Walmart Gift Cards, that way you save 5% on the money and a further 3 cents on fuel.

Normal Credit Cards Mastercard and Visa do not present a problem, however American Express and Diners often attract an additional charge. The issue you have to deal with there is all the conversion cost entries on your statement.

One other problem we have found with credit cards, including the Travel Card, in USA is when trying to use them in an automatic vending machine, for petrol etc, the machine requests a zip code for the particular card before it will process the sale, as an Australian zip will not suffice, the sale is aborted and you need to go into the store and deal with the cashier. The same problem arose when trying to make a purchase over the phone, to a store where I had already made two purchases using the same card, but as I was not there in person with the card the phone system required a 5 digit zip code. Buying a SunPass for the Florida toll system on line and I was confronted with the same zip code issue. In that case I put on 00000 and it went through. Interestingly an add for the Sunpass was promoting it’s ease of use for visitors.

Bank Account

We tried the bank for an account, it was hassle because you are not local and require a national ID card. However another couple were successful, This was their experience:-

would advise anybody to get the US address set up first before attempting anything else-- Here`s the problem.Good Sam would not provide an address until we were in the U.S.However, American Home Base who actually operate the Good Sam service were happy to oblige with the address through them direct and we completed the paperwork for the PO box after we arrived. This meant that we were able to open a bank account with Bank Of America as soon as we arrived. The bank was happy with our Aust. Tax file No instead of the ubiquitious social security No. We generally operate on our Aust NAB bank card however as the fees are minimal and have had no problems at all with it or our Aust drivers licenses.

Bank of America is one of the largest in the USA, some banks are small, some confined to a state or an area. It has since be checked out with Bank of America, who confirmed that a Driving Licence and Passport would be sufficient to open an account (although it might be safer to have a document with your Tax File Number as back up). A debit card would be immediately available on opening the account. This would save a lot of hassles at the petrol pump

Paying for the Purchase of an RV

When paying for the purchase of an RV, the safest way is to have your home bank pre- warned and prepared to transfer the funds to the nominated seller of the RV. Whether it be to an individual or a RV dealer it shouldn’t matter, so long as you have the funds available and the bank has agreed to the request.

In considering how others have transferred the funds for their RV, I was given the following responses:

We paid for the RV using our credit card. We put enough money on it to cover the purchase and they just did a normal Visa transaction. This meant there was a fee for international use etc but it was the easiest way for us.

2. My method was simple, however, I was in Australia to look after the initial bank arrangements, not the U.S.
I paid the deposit with a telegraphic transfer through my bank. Then as the amount to be paid was over $25,000 my bank opened an account in U.S. dollars. When the time came to pay the balance I was in America, however, because I had already signed all the necessary paperwork before I left Australia, my wife simply handed that paperwork to the bank for the final transfer. I had the account details of the seller obviously.
Quite easy really, but you'll need a sympathetic bank and a bit of push from yourself, as they do this for importing businesses but not generally for single private transactions.

Another possibility is to use PayPal. (This system is used for most purchases on Ebay and is very reliable) Both the buyer and the seller need to have a PayPal account. You would need to have on your PayPal account, both a credit card and a bank account details. The system works this way:

You want to buy for $25,000 It would require two transactions as there is a $12500 limit per transaction, both can be done on the same day. You would have to go on to the internet open you account with PayPal and direct the funds to come from your bank account option, the transfer is very quick, (Note, if, when the bank goes to pay the bill if there are insufficient funds it reverts to your credit card, that’s PayPals backup) If you only have a bank account registered with PayPal then it will take 3 -5 days to clear the funds, If you only have a credit card with them the card would need to have a facility for a $25000 withdrawal. The fees associated with PayPal are 2.9% so you could expect the seller to add $625 to the price of the RV as he is the one who cops that fee.

Ozforex also arranges international money transfers for amounts over $2000, and their fee structure looks quite favourable. http://www.ozforex.com.au/

If you are be able to arrange a bank transfer from your home bank to a US bank, your bank will hit you with fees and so will the US bank. Whatever way you chose the process will probably take a few days and there are fees, no matter which option you take.

Cash is the other option but that’s a lot to be carrying and you would need to declare it when travelling.

Another point to be aware of, I am told is that it is almost impossible to cash a cheque in USA unless you have a bank account and it is almost impossible to open one of them without a social security card. The only other option could be a store that advertises “Checks Cashed” and they would take a large chunk for themselves.

Phones & Internet

Mobile phones The best coverage seems to be with Verison, however that is a CDMA system and those phones do not have a sim card, we spoke to a Verison salesman in one of the shopping malls and there seemed to be a way of getting a good deal, particularly if you are going to use it with frequent trips, certainly worth a check there seemed to be a way of buying a phone and arranging that you can retain the same number each time you return. However I did not take note of the procedures required and would suggest if that is your preferred way, then front up to a Verison store and ask the question.

When we were not getting reception in the North Dakota/Montana area, we noted others were chatting away on their phones, I could not contain myself and would ask who their carrier was, invariably it was Verison. Ours was with AT&T which seems to be the next best. I made a point of checking out with the users, to find that Verison was their carrier.

I found my AT&T mobile when out of range, would show “Emergency Only” reception, now I do not know what that would do, or who you could call on it and whether a flat tyre would be classed as “Emergency” in their eyes. Most Mobile phones are tuned to have 112, 911 & 999 pre-programmed as emergency numbers and they will scour all phone carriers to find a connection. The phone companies operating in Alaska are 1. Alaska Communications, 2. AT&T, 3 GCI Wireless & 4. Verison (who uses Alaska Communications network). I am told that Verison works well in Alaska,

For a sim card phone AT&T are the only company to go with, We use our own phone, with a sim card bought from an AT&T store, we have a 10c per min plan with no contract. You can buy $100 credit and it will last 12 months, or lesser amounts for lesser periods.

Another couples recent experiences are worthy of note :- The telephone story is unbelievable! We eventually settled on a prepaid one with Verizon for $1.98 per day, when used, and also a prepaid Verizon Wi Fi at $50 per month for 1 gig. Not cheap but we like to stay in touch with the family and the coverage has been very good.

Broadband, we found it too expensive to get a plan for ourselves, but it was easily worked around as most RV parks have Wi Fi available, most are free, others a small fee. If you are predominantly free camping you might look at the Verizon example above. There are a lot of mobile broadband systems advertised in the USA, but they seem to be more expensive than in Australia. Wi-Fi Hotspots are often found at, McDonalds, Starbucks, Safeways & Applebees . If you can park close enough in the car park, you can often get reception in the RV, otherwise take the computer inside. Another favourite try is at an off ramp where there are a group of hotels, often in the carpark you will pick up an available signal. The following link will show hot spots in any area requested http://hotspotr.com/wifi

Skype is of course the cheapest way to communicate with home; we keep a laptop in the RV. Wi-Fi phones can also be used in a hot spot using Skype, without going through the computer.

Shopping & Loyalty Cards

Loyalty Cards

Shopping in USA is much the same as in Australia, only I would say that a tad more friendly.

Loyalty Cards are offered by most food retail chains and they certainly do save money on the checkout bill. The difficulty in travelling around is that some chains are restricted to a state or an area, rather than national. We have several cards but find that we are more likely to come across a Safeways store, plus they have an automated petrol discount system which is applied to your card with every purchase. The checkout girl often will ask and allow you to sign up there and then. Best to be prepared and have your “Good Sam” Florida address available to use, if you have arranged one.

On our last trip across the South we did not find any Woolworths stores East of Arizona, We resorted to Wal-Mart and find their produce very good.

Another suggestion that apparently works well, is to buy Walmart Gift Cards, that way you save 5% on the money and a further 3 cents on fuel.

Publix stores seem to be popular in south eastern areas where we have been, and they are a good option to the Safeways supermarkets.

Wal-Mart stores are huge and have a full range of everything from groceries, meat & deli, alcohol, clothing, household supplies, electronics to auto accessories etc. They have a policy of allowing free camping for RVs at a lot of their stores, knowing that it will attract some business, and that is fair enough, we do support them because of it.

Walmart issue a large format roadmap book which also serves as a Store Directory, listing the addresses of all their thousands of stores, handy to have and not expensive.

Home Depot and Lowes are two huge hardware chains that vie for that area of business, Home Depot is probably the larger, with it’s stores being half as big again as our Bunnings Warehouses

Best Buy is a large electronics chain and has all the gear.

Cracker Barrel is a family style restaurant with outlets all over the country, a good meal, well priced. A bonus is their free location map which can serve as a map to plot your trips.

Panama Canal Cruise 2011 Fort Lauderdale to San Diego

2012-01-13T16:14:00.000-08:00

Cruise Map

The Cruise - Fort Lauderdale to San Diego

We took advantage of the offer from the RV park to provide us with transport to the cruise dock. Whilst we were at Fort Lauderdale we were not aware that the cruise terminal was about 15 miles away and the security required to be passed through, made us thankful that we did.

Once aboard the ship “Celebrity Infinity“ we were invited to lunch before going to the cabin as the cabins were not ready. It also allowed us the opportunity to explore the ship and find out where things are. The cabin was a bit of luxurious space after ten weeks in the RV. The onboard programs cater for all tastes and often one has to choose between a couple of desirables as they overlap.

There is a large stage auditorium where a great range of programs, musicals, lectures and of course the obligatory “Bingo” is held each day. The ship is dotted with several bars, dance floors, and venues for all sorts of programs. We were allocated a reserved spot on the early dining session.6pm on table 419.

We have 4 American men at our dinner table, they are all good company and it make the evening meal something to look forward to, they are amazed at what we have done and reckon we know more about American history than they do. We have already seen more of America than most of the Americans we speak to.

As usual there are some obnoxious travelers but we can be selective on this ship as it has so many nooks and crannies. Would you believe our cabin neighbours are from Wonthaggi Vic.Other couples are from Altona and South Morang. Another from Sydney and another from Brisbane, there are a lot more but we have not met them.

On the second day out we passed between the islands of Cuba and Haiti and headed for Columbia, where we docked at Cartagena ,

Cartagena, Columbia

We had arranged a tour of the area and were met at the dock by a string of buses, We were taken to the old 17^th century Fort San Filipe de Barajas for a guided tour, then on to the walled city, an old part of the town which houses the Dungeons and the Inquisition Palace, where the persecutors used the “Spanish Inquisition” to torture and extract money from the inhabitants, in the name of the Catholic Church, for “Crimes against the church”. A gruesome display but fascinating.

Also inside the Walled City, The Church of San Pedro Claver was in session with mass at the time of our visit, so we were able to visit the adjoining monastery. After a look at the beaches with their black sand and the developing tourist trade by the look of the massive resort hotels being built, we headed back to the security of the ship.

Colon, Panama

Overnight the ship sailed to Colon in Panama, situated at the Atlantic end of the Panama Canal, we docked there in the morning and joined a tour that took us to Panama City where we toured the old “Colonial City” which is quite distinct from the new modern Panama City, which presents a skyline as large and modern as Sydney, with all the skyscrapers. The old city is where the history is and whilst there are a lot old buildings that are abandoned and in a state of decay, there is a huge amount of work going on to restore the buildings, give it another five years and it should be an eye-opener.

The Panama Canal.

We were then bused out to the Miraflores Locks the last set of locks that we would be going through the next day. Here we were able to see ships going through the locks, see some of the history and story behind the building of the canal and the plans that are already in process for the extension to the system. At the moment there is a term in marine technology known as “Panamax” which refers to the maximum width of a vessel to enable it to go through the locks of the canal. The use of the canal saves the shipping lines 4 weeks of travel were they to go around the bottom of South America.

The Panamanians, who now have total ownership and control of the canal since it was given over by the USA in 1999 after a 20 year progressive hand over program, following many years of political dispute The Independence of Panama by breaking away from Columbia was tied to the US building the canal. The canal project first muted by the Spanish in 1527, but it was started in 1880 by the French, however it was a disaster, as they had tried to employ the same techniques that they had used in building the Suez Canal just prior. But the Suez was built on a flat terrain and dredged through sand. The terrain in Panama was to go across the mountains which form part of the Continental Divide of the Americas. The Diseases of Yellow Fever and Malaria had caused many thousands of deaths for both the French and later the Americans. The USA then offered to build the canal as they saw it as a necessary defence project, to help accommodate their Navy which was split between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. After starting along the path that the French had taken, it was realized that the task was impossible and the project was halted for two years whilst new plans were developed. Instead of the one level canal proposed by the French, the newly appointed US Railroad Engineer John Stevens, designed the lock system that is in use today. The system relies on the Chagres River to provide the 26 million gallons of water to operate the lock for each ship’s entry and again for it’s exit from the man made Gatun lake. That 26 million gallons of water is delivered in 8 minutes. A ship of Panamax size has only 2ft clearance on each side whilst in the lock. Locos known as “Mules” are connected to the front and rear of each ship and whilst the ship moves forward under it’s own power, the mules monitor and adjust it’s direction. A huge container ship, fully loaded, which entered the locks just before us paid $450,000 in toll, our cruise ship was charged about $340,000 which equates to $175 per passenger. With 45 ships per day transiting the canal, it is not hard to see where the country’s main revenue comes from. Construction is well underway to build a duplicate set of locks at each end which will allow for wider ships with double todays load, to use the canal and with a 60% saving in water usage. This project should be completed by 2016.

We are both enjoying the cruise, aided very much by the fact that we have had very calm seas all the way so far. The Atlantic and the Caribbean were surprisingly calm, but we are now in the Pacific Ocean, so far all is calm and well. Life on board can be pretty hectic, working our way between all the eating facilities, meals are great, with a wide range to choose from. Our most important day of course was on Tuesday 18th, when we sailed through the Panama Canal. From Colon we entered the Gatun locks at 7am where the ship goes through three locks raising the ship 26 metres above sea level, where we enter Gatun lake, we then sailed 30 kms through the lake to the start of the Culebra Cut. This is the start of a 14 km section that was cut through a mountain range, to the Pedro Miguel Lock, the first of the locks to lower the ship 9.5 metres , another 1.6kms and we entered the Miraflores Locks which lowers the ship in two stages down to the level of the Pacific Ocean, the travel time through the canal is 8 to 10 hours. All very fascinating, we were up at 5.30 to get a spot at the front to take the photos we so desperately need. Of course once we secured a good spot on the rail, we could not leave it or we would not get back there, once through into Gatun Lake we returned to the cabin where we were able to take advantage of our balcony to watch the lake go by, then it was back to find another spot for the transit through the cut and the exit locks. Needless to say we were both like shining beacons after our day out doors, I look in the mirror and think I still have my sunglasses on with the shape of them clearly outlined from my sunburned face . There was little sun on the day, it was overcast and it was more wind burn that we got, all looks and feels the same. But given that we are in their “Wet Season” we were fortunate to have it clear all day.

The other bright news is that our agenda on the ship has included a dance just before dinner and then again a couple more . Yep we have been slowly working up with the dances and actually had a few compliments passed yesterday, so that is a great relief in our stages of hip recovery.

So now it’s a point of pacing ourselves, so we do not over do it and checking out the different bands and dance floors. We found that the main floor is made from stainless steel with strips of lights set in it, bugger to dance on, at least with our style of dancing anyway, so we have given that one the flick.

Puntarenas, Costa Rica.

Once through the canal the ship headed north, with it’s next port of call being Puntarenas in Costa Rica. Our shore excursion here was a train, boat and bus trip through the area, we were very fortunate with the weather, at the time of our arrival it was fine and had been so for the past two days, during the week prior to that, there had been 120 inches of rain. The rivers were swollen and running very fast. We learned that the Republic of Costa Rica was the original “Banana Republic” as it’s wealth was built on the supply of bananas to the world markets, Coffee and Pineapples are now major exports. It appears a tax of 40% on wages, allows for education, medical to be provided. As in Panama, there is no army, they wish to remain neutral with the world. Back on board for lunch and we were planning a trip to the local market, however the sky opened up and those on the afternoon excursions from the ship came back drenched, needless to say we passed on our market visit.

Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala.

A day at sea before our next stop which was Puerto Quetzal in Guatemala, Our excursion here took us to the City of Antigua Guatemala, a ninety minute drive from the Port. Antigua is set in the mountains, at 4500ft above sea level, it is surrounded by 3 active volcanoes and coffee plantations. Antigua was listed by UNESCO in 1979 for it’s Cultural Heritage. Whilst a lot of damage has been caused by the volcanoes and earthquakes over the years it still seems to hold together, we visited the ruins on and old Cathedral and a monastery, which is in a state of preservation and still being used, it was being set up for a wedding while we were going through. The Mayan Civilization was active in Guatamala from 300BC to 1500AD and whilst the remains of their temples etc are some 200 miles to the north of Antigua, there are many artifacts that are displayed in the old buildings in the area. The streets are all paved with cobblestones and the buildings all appear to be held to their original structures. The country is basically dependent on it’s rural crops of Coffee and Sugar. Jade is a major industry here, it was lost for 300 years as the Spanish deemed the wearers of jade to be worshiping a false god and was punishable by death, so the use and mining of jade was set aside, until an American Geologist went searching for and found the old mine sites around 1980.

Sunday and we woke to a real ocean, none of this mandy pandy flat stuff, now we have white caps all over, with waves to about 6ft, still the ship did not pitch too much, but by lunchtime we were back to the norm of calm seas.

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

Monday, also a day at sea before we reach Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. We are travelling at about 18 knots, so it takes us two days to do the 850 miles from Guatamala. This gave us the opportunity to get in a bit more dancing, hope we don’t wear out the new hip before we get home. We are advised that US Customs is to make a full inspection of all passengers when we dock at San Diego on Friday and will probably be delayed by about 3 hours. As our plane doesn’t leave until 11pm from LA we will still be OK to make it, have organized a hire car, just need to get a cab to the airport in San Diego to pick it up.

Our day in Puerto Vallata was a just OK excursion, not well organized, but at least we were able to have a tour around the area, It is hard to come to terms with umpteen buses all flooding the town with tourists from the ship, groups wandering off all over, following a guide holding up a stick, you never seem to be close enough to hear what is being said so you turn off and just look, (and photograph). We had lunch at a Hacienda and were entertained by local dancers and entertainers in national costume. We left port at 3pm and set sail for Carbo San Lucas, Mexico, our last port before San Diego.

Carbo San Lucas, Mexico

It was quite strange, as we are traveling up the West Coast, but when we sailed into Carbo San Lucas the sunrise was behind us, which meant we were facing West. Carbo San Lucas is just around the corner of Land’s End, a group of rocks which define the entrance to the Gulf of California or as it is more widely known “The Bay of Cortez”, which at that point is about 50 miles wide. Carbo San Lucas has no deep sea port, so we had to go ashore by tender. There were two other cruise ships in the bay so there were tenders going back and forth to all three all day. It was a busy bay with glass bottom boats, parasailing, jet skis and fishing boats all zipping around the bay. We had no organized tour arrangements, so we went ashore to have a look around, we were approached by a pedal cycle taxi to be chauffeured around town. We finally gave in to the 2^nd approach and were pleased with the result, the poor guy pedaled for an hour showing us the sites of the town, he got a midway break when we arrived at the beach at the front of a nice set of condominiums, maybe a time share facility. Along the way we were told of the influence of US movie stars that have homes in the area, Madonna being one of them. Apart from the tourism and fishing there doesn’t seem to be much industry, so it was a big deal that there were three cruise ships in the bay. It also meant that bargaining was not as fierce between competitors as there was an oversupply of customers. There were no trees apart from those obviously planted for street or hotel adornment. The surrounding area was just barren rock, with houses seemingly hanging on to the cliffs overlooking the water.

The Ship left promptly at 3pm and we took advantage of the time to start packing our bags for the disembarkation.

Across The South by RV, Los Angeles to Miami, 2011

2012-01-13T16:00:00.000-08:00

See Map of Entire Route

Travel Itinerary 2011

Travel Costs 2011

1. LA to Tucson See Route Map

After a fairly easy flight from Melbourne Australia, in the Qantas sardine section, the last row (88) so I suppose you could say we had a longer ride. We arrived in LA at 6.50am on Friday 5^th Aug. What with customs and a bit of a wait for the Disneyland Express, we were settled in at the RV park by 10.30. Time to do some stocking up of supplies and make sure all was ready for the road for the next day.

Saturday we headed to Palm Springs a resort area on the edge of the desert, noted for its health retreats for the rich & famous. The surprise before we got there was the massive amount of wind turbines that adorned the hills and flat land in the valley, literally thousands of them. It almost looked as if they were touching the next one, they were so close, row after row of them.

We headed to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway which takes you to the top of the mountain, it is also used as the access to the Mount San Jacinto State Park at the top which is a favourite spot for Telemark Skiing during the snow season. From the top you got a better appreciation of the surrounding area and the spread of the wind turbines below, it would be interesting to know how much power is generated in the area.

Palm Springs itself seemed a bit clinical, all well laid out with a lot of gated communities as well as health resorts. See Photos

Joshua Tree National Park.

We headed around to Joshua Tree so we enter the Joshua Tree National Park from the east and work our way down. The park is another example of variety in the National Parks in the USA, Whilst it is a desert, it is completely different to the others that we have visited and it has many different sections within the park, The top section is full of Joshua Trees and smooth rounded boulders, we found an excellent RV campsite in the “Jumbo Rocks” Camping area. The next day as we headed west though the park the Joshua Trees disappeared and the general geology of the park changed completely, different areas seemed to have large pockets of varying sorts of cactus. At one area we were looking at the site of an inland sea back in pre history times. Cottonwood Spring , being a rare supply of fresh water, was used as an oasis for the local Indians and as well the cowboys traveling through. Another value in traveling east to west through the park is that it is mainly downhill all the way.

After leaving the park we joined Highway 10 which we would be using as our main direction across the states, but leaving it for periods allows you to relax with the driving and see more of the countryside. We passed by the General Patton Museum at Chiriaco and moved on to Quartzsite. See Photos

Quartzsite.

A small town just over the border in Arizona, which has become a Rockhound’s Paradise for the past 50 years. The town is inundated with RVers escaping the cold winters in the north of the USA, some 2000 vendors of gems, rocks, minerals, fossils etc converge on the town to trade with the million visitors that arrive in their RVs, mainly during January and February. Being August when we arrived, the town was like a ghost town, dozens of RV parks closed down just waiting for it to start again next year, It reminded us of Skagway in Alaska where they had to make their money in 4 months then desert the town until the next season starts. We did manage to find an RV park operating and very nice it was too. We have set ourselves the need to check into RV parks more often on this trip, as we are still in the hot period. So the power for the air conditioner will be our little bit of luxury. The odd spar or pool might not go unused either for that matter.

We turned off the highway 10 to head towards Wickenburg and the near by ghost town of Vulture City. Along the road as soon as we left the Highway 10 we started to notice RV parks dotted all along the road through the desert, we could not work out how they survived, they all looked in limbo and a lot of RVs in storage, but it still wasn’t making any sense. We later find that these are for the “Snow Birds” mainly retirees from the northern states, who travel to the area to escape the severe winters of the north, what on earth they could find to do in the middle of the desert is beyond us, there was no obvious activity available. On through a town called “hope” with it’s “Little Church Of Hope” a short distance further along was a sign “You are now beyond Hope”. Wickenburg was a very impressive town, all neat and well groomed, Vulture City gold Mine was another story, hot, dusty, and of course all fallen into heaps of rubble, but interesting.
See Photos

Carefree, Fountain Hills & Phoenix
From Wickenburg we moved on to Carefree, a town some 25miles north of Phoenix the state’s capital. Carefree boasts the USA’s largest sundial, the arm is 62 ft long and points to the North Star.

Whilst the Sundial was impressive with it’s very manicured desert cactus surround, so to was the town, or suburb of Carefree, the whole area seemed newly developed with it’s Mexican flat roofed houses all of earthy tones and nature strips, front yards all being beautifully laid out with varieties of cactus as the mail ingredient and pebble rather than grass as the ground cover. We know the sundial was built in 1959, so the whole area must have had major makeovers during the past 52 years. We later moved on to Fountain Hills, which unsurprisingly has as it’s town feature, one of the tallest fountains in the world, It has been in operation since 1970 and the water can reach a height of 562 ft, although for most days it is limited to 330 ft, still impressive, each year on St Patrick’s Day the water is dyed green. Like Carefree, Fountain Hills seemed very up market with the same care and attention to the nature strips both side and centre, and the same impressive quality of housing. If people are doing it tough over here, it doesn’t show in this part of Arizona. We were to find out later that those two areas are the top shelf spots around Phoenix. We stayed at an RV Park in Tempe, a suburb of Phoenix, a light rail “Metro” system outside the front gate was convenient, cheap, clean and gave that same feeling of pride on the city that we have gathered from the other towns that we have so far visited in Arizona, The freeways are uncluttered, general wide streets. No such thing as peak hour congestion. You would have to say that this would be a place you could adopt, but only so long vas you could take the 5 months a year of 100 degree heat. See Photos

The Apache Trail

We moved on through Apache Junction and took the scenic Apache trail, past Mt Superstition and the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine, which apparently isn’t lost any more. after running out of bitumen and winding our way through 20miles of unmade (7-10mph) corrugated road with incredible scenery, we set up camp in the Apache Lake Resort, again “a room with a view”. And to top it off and make us feel at home, we were nestled in under a gum tree.

Both of our cameras have been working overtime, but so far, have not taken the opportunity to view them. Next day we had another 12 grueling miles of the same 7– 10 mph until we reached the Theodore Roosevelt Dam, and a relief it was too. But for all of that, the scenery was worth it. See Photos

Tonto National Monument.

We called in at the Tonto National Monument which features a series of cliff dwellings constructed by the early Indians in the 1100 to 1300AD era. A half mile hike up a 13% grade in 104 degrees of heat, what do they say about mad dogs and Englishmen? The smart half of this duo sat back in the air-conditioned lounge and waited for the photos to be taken. See Photos

We headed to Florence, a town boasting more heritage buildings than any other in the state, they were a bit boring but we were confronted with a town that seems to have become the home for a great lot of prisons, They were all over the place, the mainstream state prisons, maximum security, death row, women’s prisons juvenile justice centres, private prisons, federal prisons, they even had prisoners there from Hawaii and Alaska. To top that off as they are now a federal seat, they have the Sherriff’s prison and the immigration detention centre. The locals reckon it is a safe place to live, there is that much law enforcement there.

On our way to Tucson I had my childhood memories of Tom Mix all but destroyed. All those trips to the local theatre to see Tom Mix tackle the baddies during the 1948 -52 period and all the time he was an ex Tom Mix, he had died in 1940, we came across a monument to him along the way. See Photos

Tucson
We settled in at the Prince of Tucson RV Park for 2 or 3 nights.

A drive around Tucson gave the same impression of respect and appreciation for the amenities, the freeways are almost an art form, with their decorative trims and colours, no such thing as plain old concrete grey. Again, graffiti is at a minimum, don’t know if they have the death penalty for graffiti artists, but what ever they are doing, it works. See Photos

2. Tucson, Arizona to Alpine, Texas See Route Map

Pima Air Museum

Our first day at Tucson we sheltered from the heat for a while, then took off in the afternoon to see the Pima Air Museum, (Pima being the County of Pima). The museum has a fantastic range of aircraft, including “Air Force 1” the official plane for Presidents Kennedy and Johnston, so it probably was the plane that flew Johnson to Australia, when he was given the famous “All the way with LBJ” line. Unfortunately for Lorraine, as we were there in the afternoon, we had missed all of the transported tours, so we had to leg it. Damned hot it was too. See Photos

Old Tucson Studios

The following day we set ourselves the task of “The old Tucson Studios” and the “Desert Museum” We were first at the gate for Old Tucson. There were hundreds of western movies shot here since 1939, when it was built for the filming of “Arizona” It has been turned into a theme park /movie set, as there are still some movies done here as well as commercials, but of course the Western is no longer the flavour for movies or TV, The list of stars that have plied their craft here, includes Russell Crow and Paul Hogan. A real memory lane trip. They had some stunt shows and dance hall stuff going on, but not to the Disneyland standard. See Photos

Desert Museum

On to the Desert Museum which is only 3 -4 miles away from Old Tucson, we were advised that as it was Saturday they had an evening session with extra features, the cooler evening sounded good, which is another reason we tacked it on the same day. The museum was a cross between a zoo and a botanic garden, there were snakes, mountain lions, bear, humming birds among the other birds and of course cactus, all sorts of cactus, it seems that Arizona is the cactus state, their emblem is the Saquaro Cactus, (pronounced Swaro) it is a huge cactus but only grows 1 inch per year, takes between 50 to 75 years before it will grow arms, (had a photo with the last emailing) many never grow arms. Our day was pretty full 9 ‘til 9 so we were both pretty knocked out by the time we got back to the bus. Lorraine’s walking really stood up to it. But we did take plenty of opportunities to grab a seat in the air-conditioned theatres. Still we were to give it another nudge the next day.

On heading out of Tucson we got back on the freeway system and headed across town to the “Colossal Caves”, about 2mile to the east, The caves were dry, so there was no slippery bits for Lorraine to encounter, other than the 352 steps through the cave, so it was quite a challenge. Don’t think we will tackle another cave for a while though. See Photos

San Xavier Mission

We moved on to the San Xavier Mission, just south of Tucson, the mission was built in the 1700s and is apparently the only one of it’s kind that did not get burnt down, it has operated as an active church to the local Indians continuously. There is a massive restoring exercise going on, to the point where experts from the Sistine Chapel in Rome have been bought in to advise the restoration team. The team is headed up by an expert from the Guggenheim Museum, and an army of experts from Italy, France, Spain, Mexico, etc are all pulling together to restore the mission to it’s original state.

We checked out some genuine Indian “Fry Bread” from a stall outside the mission, I had read about it and had downloaded some recipes but after looking at the size of all of the Indians behind the stall, decided to only buy one to share and give a try. It was very nice. See Photos

Tombstone

We moved down to Nogales on the Mexican border, it was all pretty grotty so we kept pushing along to Tombstone. Well we were quite surprised to find the town is very much alive, they have an authentic “Shootout at the OK Coral” each day at 2.00 which is the time of the actual gunfight, a repeat is run at 4.00 (but that is a copy, not the real time). We booked in to the Wells Fargo RV Park which is right in the centre of town and almost next door to the OK Coral, so we can walk every where and will stay a couple of nights. Fronted up to the Longhorn Bar for a very nice steak dinner tonight.

Spent a day doing the town, The trolley bus first, which showed us all the places of interest and the driver gave us a running commentary of the issues which made the town famous. The town was founded by a Ed Schieffelin, who was told by the army that he was crazy going looking for rocks in such a hostile Apache Indian area, the only rock he will find there is his own tombstone. Eventually when he discovered silver in the area in 1877, he named the mine Tombstone, The area around here was actually known as Goose Flat, but as the town grew it changed it’s name to Tombstone and for the first 4 years that the mine operated, it pulled out between $40mil and $80mil (1-2 Billion $ in today’s market)of silver. As the town grew, trouble started between a Rancher family and the Law, The Marshal was killed when he tried to take a rifle from a cowboy, by grabbing the barrel and pulling it towards himself, the firearm went off.

Virgil Earp was appointed in his place, he intern deputized his brothers Morgan and Wyatt to help control the cowboys, after a series of confrontations, it exploded in the “Gunfight at the OK Corral” where three of the four cowboys were killed, Virgil and Morgan Earp were wounded as was Doc Holliday, who had thrown his hat in to assist, from all reports it was Doc Holiday that fired the first shot. Wyatt & Doc were charged with murder and a month long court case followed before they were acquitted and found to be doing their lawful duty.

We did a tour of the mine, yes a day after saying we would not do another cave, we were down a silver mine, checking it out. We visited the office of the “Tombstone Epitaph”, where we were given a copy of the October 1881 edition which has the full court report of the trial.

The Birdcage theatre, once a hot spot for gambling among other activities, reportedly had one table with a poker game which ran non-stop for 8 years and 5 months.

A lot of the bars and buildings still have the telltale marks of the era, the Crystal Palace for example, has some 125 bullet holes in the walls and ceiling

The 2pm re-enactment of the “Gunfight” was obviously the highlight for the town each day. There were the 3 Earp brothers, Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil, plus Doc Holiday all in their black gear plus the 4 cowboys and 3 women and another 2 gents, all in period clothing, parading around town most of the day. Prior to the 2 and 4pm re-enactments there was interaction on the main street between the actors, which seemed to lead up to the gunfight. A Wells Fargo coach also conveys tourists around the town area. Main St. (Allan St actually) is blocked off permanently to through traffic. Only one movie was ever made in the town, it has no appeal to the movie-makers because it has power lines & bitumen throughout the town. It therefore does not portray an old western town.

So, the town now survives on tourism and you would have to say they do it fairly well. We were there on a Monday so it’s not just a weekend job. See Photos

Boot Hill Cemetery

Boot Hill the final resting place for the cowboys gunned down that day and apparently a lot of other interesting characters, will be our last port of call as we leave town and head to Benson, we are advised that the original headstones which were made of wood have all been removed stored away and replaced with metal ones, still with the original inscriptions, apparently weather and tourists were taking their toll. Well Boot Hill did have some interesting headstones, such as “Here lies Lester Moore, 4 slugs from a 44 no Les no More”, another “John Heath, taken from county Jail and LYNCHED by the Bisbee mob in Tombstone Feb 22 1844” and “George Johnson, Hanged by mistake, He was right, we was wrong, but we strung him up and George is gone.”.

We moved on to Benson and sought the nearby, Mescal Film Studio, where the later westerns have been made, it is in fact part of the Old Tucson Studio, and was a closed set until 2004, when they stated allowing visitors, but something must have happened in the ensuing 7 years, because it is now “not open to the public” so our seeking it out was in vain. See Photos

New Mexico

Away again, East on highway 10 and eventually we left Arizona and entered New Mexico, a quick stop to take some photos of Steins a ghost town, but now on private property so did not get to have a close look but close enough for some snaps. We set up camp at an RV Park in Deming and quickly availed ourselves of the indoor pool that was nearby. See Photos

Texas

With the intent of a short drive to El Paso we took until 9.30 to leave the park, El Paso is a large, not very attractive, sprawling city of around 1 million, looks almost as big as Melbourne, but not very appealing, we had no specific reason to call there and the look of it, just sent us driving on through, There were several Border Patrol vehicles traveling around as we are just above the Mexican Border, so we thought it best not to free camp, instead we called in at an RV park in Van Horn for the night.

Thursday morning we drove through the main street of Van Horn before getting back on the #10. In it’s day it must have been quite a town, the wide main street was obviously the original highway right through the centre of town, now that the highway has been shifted with it’s duplication to run alongside the town, it seems that the town has almost died because of it, so many businesses closed down and buildings in disrepair. Maybe it will be the next ghost town in Texas. Kent was 37miles down the road where we are to turn off, it turned out to be two buildings and the remains of an old bluestone school house, again the freeway had passed it by. The road south from here is known as the Texas Mountain Trail (118). See Photos

McDonald Observatory.

Our first stop along the way was at the McDonald Observatory, we just arrived in time for a tour of the two main telescopes. The guide left no stones unturned with his explanation of the system, demonstrating how the telescope moves and lines up on it’s target, together with the turning of the huge dome to line the opening up with the telescope. There is no such thing as looking through a glass tube to see the results, it is all transmitted to computers on a lower level of the building. This telescope has a 110inch lens. We then were transported to the newer telescope which has a 4 times larger lens and as such is the 5^th largest in the world. Scientists from around the world can apply to book a session with the telescope, they do not even have to come on site, their project will be recorded and sent to them over the internet, there is basically no cost, as it is all born by the University of Texas in the interest of science. After the tour we had a lecture on the Stars and the Sun with current images of the sun being filtered and displayed on a screen where you could watch the gaseous explosions leaping from the surface of the sun. A fascinating study tour. See Photos

Fort Davis

We moved on to Fort Davis, much of which has been preserved by the National Parks Service.

The fort housed over 400 soldiers and played a key role in the defence system of West Texas from 1854 to 1891, in particular guarding the transport corridor between San Antonio and El Paso some 600 miles. The men spent more time building roads and telegraph lines than they did chasing the Apache and Comanche raiders. See Photos

We moved on to Alpine and settled in at the Lost Alaskan RV Site, a drive through the town reveals a very substantial town, obviously well supported by the Sul Ross State University with it’s many large and impressive buildings. The town is also serviced by 24 different churches.

We next head for the Big Bend National Park, which is about 100miles south of Alpine.

We are told, of course that nothing is as big as Texas, however if you were to combine both Texas and New Mexico, you would have an area as large as South Australia.

3. Alpine, Texas to New Orleans, Louisiana See Route Map

The Rio Grande

We were given advice by a fellow RVer to change our travel direction and head to Presidio a small town on the Mexican border and the take the 170 route east along the Rio Grande to Terlingua and “keep your camera ready”. Presidio was a nothing sort of town, but the drive along the 170 was magnificent, it is ranked in the top 6 drives in the USA, accordingly we stopped and clicked and started, only to stop and click some more, he warned me it would be a long drive and not because of the mileage. See Photos

Big Bend National Park

Terlingua is a hot and dusty small town just outside of the Big Bend National Park. Previously the town’s history was one of Quicksilver Mining, but now it depends on the tourist trade, catering for 4WD and River tourism. We hooked up with a local tour operator Big Bend River Tours and arranged to go on an escorted Canoe trip through the San Elena Canyon on the Rio Grande River, which is the border between Mexico and Texas. We were to paddle 3.5 miles upstream, walking the canoes up the rapids, which were very mild, because of the time of year and the level and flow of water in the river. However to the uninitiated canoeists that we are, they were rapids. The canyon walls towered vertically 1500 to 2000 ft either side of the river, a truly awesome experience. We lunched on a small bank before heading back down stream and this time of course we had to negotiate the rapids, (the guide called them ripples), after a few crashes into the canyon walls we managed to make it the 4 miles to the end without tipping the canoe ending up in the drink, we had packed our cameras in the waterproof bags for the return trip, such was our confidence. We slept solidly that night, pleased with our achievement. He weather was stinking hot although a slightly cooler breeze seemed to crop up around 4am. We got on the road early, but not before Lorraine arranged for a couple of photos posed with the local Sheriff. This time we entered the National Park under our own steam and headed for Rio Grande City, a camp area at the bottom of the park on the Rio Grande, it was lush with trees and very well laid out with a great number of camp sites, we were tempted but we had only travelled 50 miles, we took the road to the Boquillas Canyon Overlook, here we were on a ridge overlooking the Rio Grande, there were displays of ware for sale with price tags on them sitting on 4 or 5 large boulders, as we got closer we noticed as young Mexican lad down by the river, across the river in Mexico were a group of men with their horses. We decided to buy a couple of the trinkets, shortly after another lad appeared, he had waded across the river to collect the cash from the tin, they reassembled their display and headed back to Mexico. Their township of Boquillas del Carmen was spread out on the hill above the opposite bank of the river. See Photos

We headed out of the park through Marathon, finally booking in at an RV Park in Sanderson.

The area around here is very flat and very low scrub. The most interesting feature was our counting the number of border patrol cars are constantly slowly driving along a dirt road beside the highway on the Mexican border side. Often they would be towing a group of 3 large tyres all chained together, the driver seemed to be hanging out the drivers side window studying the dusty road as if looking for tracks, it appeared the tyres he was dragging would clear any marks from the roadway to show up any later disturbance. It all looked like a waste of time.

This area is apparently a popular deer hunting area from Nov – Jan each year. A run over from the 1950s when Texas was very big into importing exotic game into the state to set up hunting ranches, it seems that it is now limited to Texas Pronghorn and other deer. Otherwise the town is almost dead, A builder from California had taken on a contract to build a new visitor centre for the town, we had noticed it on the way through and wondered at it with the rest of the town falling down. Another hot night, but at least the Air-con literally takes the heat off.

San Antonio and the Alamo

Next day we targeted San Antonio, and whist it was still over the 100 degrees, at it was more comfortable driving with the auto air-con. We crossed the Pecos River just before Del Rio, a huge bridge spanned the Pecos canyon. An information plaque outlined how the Pecos was a major stumbling block for the pioneers with the steep walled canyon and wide river, even more of a problem for the Railways where they had to build tunnels and bridges to get the line across. We stocked up with supplies at Del Rio, set up for lunch at Amistad Reservoir only to be moved on by the National Guard, because of a bomb threat, they had to clear the area,. As we drove out there were army, police, Fire, even helicopters overhead, so we got outa there quick. See Photos

As we approached San Antonio the country side was changing a lot, Cotton seems to be a major crop here, can’t quite understand it, as in Australia the cotton is a very water dependant crop, doesn’t seem that way here, maybe a different strain of cotton. Interesting to see the way they create a huge bail of compressed cotton, put a tarp top on it and leave it stand around the edge of the paddock, they seem to transport the cotton without leaving the roadside looking like there has been an explosion of cotton balls, such as I have noticed in Australia, but that was a while ago, so they may have changed by now.

More and bigger trees and the towns we drive through seem to be busy.

San Antonio, the 3^rd largest city in Texas, a much more friendly town to the approach, we set the Tom Tom for the KOA RV Park and it guided us through the maize of freeways that skirt the city, First time we have seen a “City Skyline” since Phoenix. The city has built it’s tourism on “The Alamo” The event in 1836 when some 200 tried to defend the post, against the 2000 troops of the Mexican Dictator Santa Anna, Names like Davey Crockett and Jim Bowie were to be among those who were lost in the onslaught. It is very much along the lines of “The Eureka Stockade”, only a lot more brutal. It became a rallying point for the Texans and indeed Santa Anna was defeated some 11 weeks later and Texas gained it’s independence from Mexico.

A lot of the original Alamo buildings are still there, having been preserved as a memorial site. A day sightseeing around the City and surrounds, including a couple of the historic missions that still operate in the area having been built in the late 1700s, The “River Walk” looked a good thing but the legs were not up to it in the heat of the day. An Imax film of “The Alamo” runs ever hour at the nearby theatre, and provided an hour away from the heat. Again another interesting, but hot day. We decided this was our opportunity to sample the Mexican fare and we were directed to Mi Tierra Restaurant. Can’t remember what we had but it was good, or maybe it was that margarita that stops me from remembering. Worked it out, we tried Barbacoa and an assorted Platter. See Photos

Houston

An early start got us to Houston by 2 for a late lunch. If we thought the Los Angeles Freeway system was complicated, by Houston standards they are a walk in the park.

Houston, incidentally was named after Sam Houston, the general who routed Mexico’s Santa Anna in revenge for the Alamo slaughter, his action set up the move to “The Republic of Texas” prior to them joining the United States in 1845

At 50 miles out of town we started on the concrete freeways, the 2 lane (each side) went to three, then four and by 30 miles out, we were into 5 lanes each way, a four or five layer freeway interchange has cars and trucks going in all directions at various levels, then a toll road began in the centre median of the freeway, this added another two lanes each way. Cars appear to make a sudden dash to get across 5 lanes to get to the toll way in the middle. I still haven’t worked out the legal way to get in and out of the toll way lanes, don’t think I want to. We were shunted off the freeway more times in the hour or so, we took trying to follow the Tom Tom to our selected RV Park, than we ever have in LA. Imagine the frustration when we found the RV park was no more. Back into the system with another target RV park. I am sure the freeway systems here are the cause for so much divorce, I cannot quite hear the voice on the Tom Tom for the road and traffic noise, so I have to rely on Lorraine reading the screen and relaying the directions on to me, keeping one eye on the side mirror for traffic joining the freeway, the other eye on the left mirror to see what is coming at me there, the other eye on the lanes ahead to make sure I don’t get into an exit only lane, the other eye on the other lanes to make sure I don’t get shunted off onto another freeway or tollway.

We now know where the term “Houston, We Have a Problem” came from, we reckon the space shuttle was trying to find it’s way to the launch pad.

At one stage Lorraine said “keep going straight up” I am looking out the front and all I see is an off ramp which literally goes straight up in the air in front of us. It wasn’t where we had to go but caused some angst and confusion. I understand George W. Bush comes from here, maybe that explains it all.

Eventually we found our RV park, not the most exciting, but will do for the night. The particular items we were to visit here, The Space Centre is on our way to Galveston so we will not use the RV park as a home base, we will catch up on things as we move out.

The drive to the Space Centre had us on a freeway which took us past the edge of the city of Houston at an elevation, the sun came out and it was great for a few snaps, the freeways still intrigued us and we noted the tollway was in the centre on the 5 lanes each way freeway, a concrete barrier, kept them apart so there was no switching, the tollway had flyover entry and exits, it was noticeable that it was only one way, into the city, we presume it reversed in the afternoon. Another interesting feature was a two, sometimes three lane, one way traffic along side the freeway, Usually called Frontage Road, a sort of sanity zone, which received traffic from the freeway and fed traffic on at different intervals, so in all, with the three lane feeder each side, five lane freeway each side and the two lane tollway in the middle, that’s 18 lanes of traffic. On top of that some of the freeways have an extra one or two lanes each way for, multiple passenger, taxis, motorcycles & buses, that would make for 22 lanes wide. See Photos

Houston Space Centre

The Space Centre was an eye opener, we were treated to tours of the equipment, and exhibits of the actual space capsules that were used, two Imax sized screens gave presentation films on the history of space travel and it’s future direction. In a replica control room we were given online images of the present control room and the details of a current space craft which was above Australia as we watched. A “Tram Tour” of the Johnson Space Centre, Gave us guided tour of the actual Houston Control Room, which directed the operations during the space and moon landings, of which there have been six, the last in 1972.

The weather had turned to a deluge as we approached the Space Centre, however after a full day in the centre, while outside they had 2 inches of rain, we were back to a very steamy heat when we left.
See Photos

Galveston

We continued to Galveston some 50 miles south of Houston, Galveston is on an island that was not much more than 5 -6 ft above the sea level. There is a beautiful 30 mile stretch of beach facing out to the Gulf of Mexico. Obviously a favourite holiday spot for Texans, by the number of large resort/hotels along the esplanade.

There was a disaster here in 1900 when a hurricane swept across the island, and only buildings were above the water, at that time there was no island. Some 6000 perished in what was the worst disaster in US history. To rebuild the city, they built a 15ft high concrete seawall then proceeded to pump in sand behind the seawall to raise the ground level up by 15ft. It took 6 years to complete and a following hurricane, as strong as the 1900 one, resulted in little damage and only 6 lives lost. Prior to the settlement on the island, in 1820s it was the home base for a local Pirate, Laffette, who plundered the Spanish ships, returning with their gold from Mexico.

Today, Galveston is a major supply port for the oil rigs in the Gulf as well as a repair centre for the rigs themselves

For the first time in our three weeks here, we were able to sit outside in relative comfort.

A harbour cruise spotting dolphins and learning the history of the area, then we boarded the ferry to cross to the Bolivar Peninsular, The housing here in Crystal Beach is being built on huge 6” x 6“ timber pillars and very high off the ground (12’ to 16’), a lot of new work in progress and quite a few dump bins full of building rubbish, we were to find that this area was flattened by Hurricane Ike in 2008 and they are just getting things back together, talking to some, they say they were lucky to come out of it alive, lost everything. I cannot imagine that building a house higher is going to save it in a hurricane, maybe keep your feet dry until it blows away. You look at this flat, treeless peninsular and say why would you bother, there has to be safer places to live.

However talking to the locals, “We love the Peninsular” is their response. We are camped on Crystal Canal an offshoot of the “Inter-coastal Waterway” which is a man made canal, it extends about 360 miles from Galveston bay to the Mississippi River at New Orleans, in parts it is 3o miles in from the coast, it is a major shipping route for the transporting of materials. The section we are on, Crystal Canal is peppered all along one side with rather expensive holiday houses and the other side the RV Park, each of the houses and many of the RV sites, have a covered boat shelter, with a hoist. The boat is driven in over two webbing slings, it is then raised, out of the water by 3 -4 ft.

The house directly opposite us is on the corner of the canal, it is owned by two doctors who are here maybe twice a year, it looks like no expense was spared.

Driving out the next day we were aware of the obvious damage caused by Ike in 2008, many sites are just a concrete pad on the site, some just the stumps are remaining, some buildings just boarded up to keep out intruders, but an awful lot of rebuilding has been done.

We continued along the coast, we left Texas and went into Louisiana at Sabine, Cameron seemed to be the site of a Tornado in the not too distant past, again, there are just concrete pads where houses once stood.

Brought back to mind the devastation we had in Australia with the fires and the floods,

The coastline of Louisiana on the Gulf of Mexico was completely littered with rubbish, for miles, plastic bottles and packaging, but a lot of bits of clothing etc seems a long time back 2008 for it to be still there from that, but who knows. See Photos

New Orleans.

We completed the run into New Orleans on Sunday and after a good look around the wrong side of the city, we realized that we had put the wrong address into Tom Tom, so we headed back to the other side of town to the KOA. RV park. Our first day and we took the shuttle into the French Quarter to have look around, some remarkable old buildings, many pre Civil War. The intricate lace work and out back courtyards are distinctive features of the area, This section of the city was not badly flooded by Katrina, which was actually 6 years ago today. See Photos
Apparently there are few areas that were virtually abandoned after Katrina. You can buy a house there for $7000. But apart from that, the city is all go go go. The Mississippi River varies between a half to one mile wide in the city area and it’s depth is around 200ft, we are 110 river miles from the coast at New Orleans and by the size of the shipping that goes up and down you would think it was an ocean port. In fact the locals claim it to be the largest port in USA, for annual tonnage passed through, ahead of New York. Main cargo shipped from New Orleans are crops, barged down from northern states and steel. The banks of the river are all levied with huge earthen mounds along both sides, Then in the city area, there are concrete flood walls with great solid steel gates on rollers and rubber seals these are closed when there is a danger. We were told that part of the problem with the Katrina disaster was that the gates were closed ok, but water got in behind them from an unanticipated source and the gates would not let it out. Of course another apart of the problem was evident when we were driven through one section and were told that “This is the lowest part of New Orleans, it is 14 ft below sea level” So the city is literally living on the edge. We joined a tour of Oak Alley Plantation, which took us through the stately old mansion with it’s 300 year old oak trees lining the driveway. Still a working sugar plantation, which is the main crop in Southern Louisiana, while Cotton is the crop of the north of the state. See Photos

The city is ringed by swamps, it is amazing how they have built their freeways, they can go for miles built like a bridge over swamp land one to two feet deep.

4. New Orleans, Louisiana to Nashville, Tennessee See Route Map

Our day off, tweeking the RV with a few minor repairs and adjustments, gave us the break we both needed. A tour of the Swamp & Bayous with Cajun Tours had us drifting through the swamp on a flat bottom barge looking for wildlife, the main attraction of course is the alligators, they seemed to be familiar with the operator and responded to his calls, you could see them swimming through the weed towards the boat. The chicken pieces were the attraction for the alligators, who would jump up 2 to 3 ft to snatch the food, a couple of families of raccoons also knew the boat would throw a supply of marshmallows towards them, the trees in the bayou were predominantly bald cypress, the official state tree, which were often adorned by Spanish Moss, draping down, giving them the eerie, swamp atmosphere, The Spanish Moss is an air plant and has no detrimental effect on the cypress. See Photos

A day trip to the mouth (delta) of the Mississippi River gave a insight into the trauma that the area goes through on a regular basis, Katrina was of course a major destroyer of property in 2005 but there have been others before and since, which have left broken houses, some, just concrete pads left, perhaps with a chimney, others the stilts which formed the supports for the house are there, but without the house on top. The most popular form of replacement house seems to be the portable type. Most still have the wheels under them even though they have been set on stumps and raised a bit from the ground. So much looks so temporary. There are also many fine new houses on the peninsular, it is easy to wonder why people subject themselves to such constant pressure. Then come the heli-port airfields, think there were 3. They are shuttling staff to and fro from the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, further on, as we got to the end of the road, there were several marinas for the fishing fleet. We stumbled in to one of them and noticed a group of men around a large semi trailer, on closer check we noted that they had 2 piles of dead alligators, a ute nearby had another 10 or so in it, a small boat tied up also had 6 or 7 on the floor. The culling season had just started, this was the 1^st September, and the season goes for the whole month. Each of the catch was being measured for length and the numbered tag on the alligators tail was recorded, as they were loaded into the ice in the semi. The government issues tags so that a controlled number of alligators are harvested each year. They are worth $25/ft if they are over 9ft in length and $15 - $20/ft for those smaller than 9ft. So an average of $200 each for the fisherman.

The only signs that we noticed of the recent oil spill from the BP rig, is a few signs out along the highway, claiming they were not compensated enough or that their claim had been rejected.

On the way back to New Orleans we called at Fort Jackson, built in 1822 to ward off the Spaniards from aggression against New Orleans 80 miles further upstream.

The freeway back through the city was at a snails pace, the reason, 12 lanes of traffic converged on the toll booths but after the toll booth, the freeway reduced to 4 lanes in a half mile, to go over the bridge.

We took the Ponchartrain Causeway when we left New Orleans, an amazing structure, two separate bridges across Lake Ponchartrain one for each direction, each with 2 lanes of traffic, it is claimed to be the longest bridge in the world. 24miles from shore to shore, as straight as a die, with three raised sections for medium boats to pass under and one drawbridge section to facilitate the larger vessels, can’t be too big though as the lake is pretty shallow all over. We struck a storm as we crossed, could not get a photo of the drawbridge for the rain, could hardly see out of the windscreen. See Photos

Baton Rouge

Baton Rouge, the capital city of Louisiana was only 100 miles from New Orleans so it was an easy day.

News came that Tropical Storm “Lee” was building just south of New Orleans and looked like being a threat. It had started as we left New Orleans and we were in it over the following three days, Jackson had had 10” of rain by the 3^rd day, it came in squalls as the winds in the storm reached 50 to 60 mph.

Baton Rouge, the capital of the state, it was 10am Saturday of a holiday weekend and raining, when we drove in to town, hardly saw a car, we wanted to see the Old Capital Building, built in the 1850s in the style of an European castle, the 1,575 ft long cast iron fence was of particular interest to me, the panels and posts were cast in 1855 and are a treasure of the skill of the patternmakers and foundrymen of the time, the panels were designed to follow the contour of the land and included fleur de leis on each picket, pineapples on each post and a pair of massive eagles and tomahawks on the main gate posts. Unfortunately, the rain only permitted a moderate amount of photography and I was completely soaked on return to the van. The building is listed as being open to the public on Saturdays, however, I was informed that they were closing, seemed a bit early at 11am but who am I to argue. As the rest of the city seemed to have closed as well, we drove on. See Photos

Natchez

Our GPS took us the long way round, a straight line to Natchez is about 80 miles, however we ended up on the I10 back to Lafayette taking us 220 miles to get there. By the time we realized what was happening we were on the Atchafalaya swamp Bridge, 18.2 miles with no way out, so we bit the bullet and kept going, it was an interesting drive though. The rain persisted all the way to Natchez, where we found an RV park on the banks of the Mississippi, albeit 40 -50ft high on the top of the levee.

We managed to get a few short clear periods, which allowed us to walk around Natchez, a historic port on the Mississippi River 330 miles from the gulf, at that point the river is still over ½ mile wide. Natchez has probably the largest number of 1790 – 1850 period houses that are still maintained, lived in and available to visit. It reflects the past opulence of the time when cotton was king and the work force were mainly slaves.

Interestingly many of the wealthy builders of the mansions in the area were from the northern states, they had their crops growing in the north and shipped it down the Mississippi to be treated and dispatched from Natchez.

We found reference to the “Natchez Trace” a 445mile track which follows the path of earlier Indians, hunters, traders, soldiers from Nashville, Tennessee to Natchez, Mississippi. The National Parks have taken it over and re dressed it as an historical track. Travelers are invited to follow the Trace, where the items of interest and historical importance are clearly marked. We traveled the first 85 miles to Jackson, where we moved off to have a look around and stay the night.

We chose to resume our original route and headed for Vicksburg.

Again we are on the banks of the Mississippi See Photos

The Civil War.

The Civil war is still very much a part of the history in the area. The war started when Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860, arguing that the America’s nearly 4 million slaves should be freed.

We find that Vicksburg is still reeling from the 43 day siege of Vicksburg by General Grant, ending on July 4^th 1863, this was the day after the battle of Gettysburg when General Lee was defeated on July 3^rd 1863 and both were to be seen as major turning points of the Civil War, although it was not to conclude until April 9^th 1865. Five days later John Wilkes Booth, a southern sympathizer shot and killed President Abraham Lincoln.

For 80 years after the war Vicksburg would not celebrate 4^th July as “Independence Day” (which celebrates the 1776 independence from England). because it coincided with the date of the siege.

Crossing the Mississippi River again and back into Louisiana on to Lake Providence where the State of Louisiana has it’s official Cotton Museum, but alas it only opens Thurs to Sat, being Tuesday we continued on, entering into Arkansas for 50 miles, before crossing the river again at Greenville, taking us back into Mississippi again and on to Clarksdale.

Clarksdale.

Clarksdale is the base for the Delta Blues Museum and the site of Ground Zero Blues Club, part owned by local, Morgan Freeman, not forgetting one of it’s former sons, Justin Adkins (now an Aussie).

The museum is under a massive building upgrade, with the extension being made to expand the “Muddy Waters” heritage in the area of the Delta Blues.

The local Fairground acts as an RV park so we hooked up there.

Lunch at Abe’s Diner, a Clarksdale institution since the 1930s and we were off to Memphis. See Photos

Memphis

The Gracelands RV Park next door to the Heartbreak Hotel and the ‘Elvis’ empire was a good choice.

A shuttle to “Beale St.” for a night on the town, which was a great experience, Wednesday is “Bikies Night” in Beale St. Plenty of police around but all was uneventful, apart from the music, it made for an interesting spectacle, all shapes and sizes of motor bikes Harleys of course, but a heap of others as well. The Gracelands tour was a must, and a surprise, we both expected a lot more opulence, but it really was just a family home, a mansion by 1960s standards, which he bought for $100,000 at the age of 21. It gave us a different view of the guy. The house has all his awards and clothes displayed, making it quite a museum, back over the road is his two private Jets and a museum with his cars, Four hours and very interesting, Lots of opportunity to buy stuff at the many “Gift Shops” surprise, surprise. See Photos

Another shuttle and we were at the “Sun Studios” in Memphis where Elvis got his start and many other greats did their recordings, Johnny Cash, B.B.King & Jerry Lee Lewis were just a few, that was also very interesting . A tour of the Gibson Guitar Factory was planned, They have three factories, Nashville being the head office and where they make the mandolins and the like, This one at Memphis specializes in the electric guitars, and the third is in Wyoming where they do the acoustic guitars, located there because of the proximity to the supply of suitable timbers.

Memphis is the newest factory and the tour was quite an eye opener with the detail they go to in producing the best (they claim) I suppose Fender would disagree. Memphis the city is very attractive a tree lined Main St mall closed to all traffic except the trolleys (trams) slow, noisy, & cheap. Set on the Mississippi River and arrangements are in hand to start 7 day Riverboat cruises south to New Orleans and also north to St Louis, new docks are being built for the program. See Photos

Jackson

The Music Highway (I 40) runs between Memphis, Jackson and on to Nashville. We stopped off in Jackson and took in the Casey Jones Legend, he actually was a real guy who rammed his loco into the caboose at the tail end of a stationary train in 1900, he was classed a hero as he took such actions as he was the only one killed. See Photos

Nashville

Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry, the home of “Country Music”, we checked into the KOA, the most expensive park we have had at $56 per night, a park just down from here seems to be $30. In picking up tickets to the Saturday performance we signed up for a backstage tour, so we were able to strut our stuff on the stage (to an empty house of course). The whole area around Nashville was under water in a freak flood caused by 24 inches of rain over 2 days in May 2010. The Opry had 4ft of water over the stage, a massive repair effort got the place back and operating in six months. A whole shopping complex including the Imax is still closed. The river rose 30 ft to the top of the bank then went on to flood the city. We lunched at the Hard Rock Café which had undergone a $10m rebuild after the flood.

Our attendance at the Grand Ole Opry was quite an experience. It is and always has been, a “live Radio Show” on 7pm Tuesday, Friday and Saturday nights each week, so you have the radio commercials in between the performances. There weren’t any known (to us) artists on, but it was a good night.

The Country Music Hall of Fame, another icon of the Nashville music scene and the associated tour of RCA Studio “B”, the studio where Elvis transferred to when he left Sun Studios and where he made most of his recordings, along with a host of other legends of the music world, The studio still operates today and is in the heart of the strip called “Music Row” where all the music businesses are located. It is claimed that Music Row is to music, as Wall St. is to Finance.

The General Jackson Showboat operates on the Cumberland River here at Nashville, The Showboat, with a rear paddle drive has a huge ballroom and stage in its centre, seating some 700 for a well presented meal and excellent Country & Western Show, as the boat paddled through the city. A great finale to our stay in Nashville. See Photos

5. Nashville, Tennessee to Orlando, Florida See Route Map

Before leaving Nashville our final stop was to visit ‘The Hermitage’ the preserved home of Andrew Jackson the 6^th President of the USA. Jackson, born of Irish parents was a hero General in the war of independence against England, proving that the American Militia could win battles against the might of the British troops. The Hermitage was his Tennessee farm, growing cotton, corn and sorghum as well as a substantial orchard. Jackson is ranked as the 3^rd most wealthy President, however five years after his death, his son had blown the lot.

We moved East to Chattanooga, still in Tennessee, but only just, being near the border of Georgia, in fact we crossed into Georgia and back into Tennessee before reaching Chattanooga.

Chattanooga

Chattanooga, about the size of Ballarat, with hills all around and one large mountain on the edge of the city called Lookout Mountain. We found a campsite at Raccoon Mountain RV Park, a nice quiet spot for a 3 night stay for some R & R, there was of course Lookout Mountain waiting to be explored, there were four features there on the mountain, Ruby Falls, a spectacular underground waterfall that plummets 150 ft into a pool, all happening 1120 ft underground, of course there is the cave walk in before you reach the falls, Then an Incline Railway which they claim has the steepest incline tracks in the world. This area was steeped in the history books with the Civil War, The mountain was considered the key to the area. One residence on the mountain was host to the command of both armies on the same day, as the fortunes changed. One of the problems they had defending the mountain was that when they pointed the cannon down at the approaching troops the cannonball would roll out of the cannon.

Yes, it is a history book, when you consider that the civil war was 10 years after our Ned Kelly and the Eureka Stockade was about the same time.

We were at a site, where it was claimed that the "Battles for Chattanooga" where the fiercest battles were fought and changed the outcome of the civil war. The two battles in the area, Chickamauga, then Chattanooga, had 47,000 casualties, 5000 of those were killed over 2 days in September and then 2 days in November 1863. Further along the mountain was “Rock City” a walk-through garden which was interwoven with paths between, around, under and over huge boulders. An incredible amount of work had been put in over the years to transform an almost worthless piece of real estate into a spectacular facility, the views out over the valley, where at one point you can see 7 different states of the USA, the flora and the woven rock pathways being the features.

We had another cave on our doorstep at the Raccoon Mountain campground, this was also well worth the visit.

We moved south from Chattanooga, into Alabama, called in at the Natural Bridge, 148ft long and 60ft high over the forest, hosts Jim and Barbara made us most welcome. See Photos

Tupelo
It was then on into Mississippi, where we called at Tupelo, the birthplace of Elvis, The small white weatherboard (shotgun) house is all well preserved and quite a feature of the town. Of course, it is on Elvis Presley Boulevard,.

South again towards the Gulf of Mexico, but a welcome stop at Lake Lowndes State Park in Columbia for the night. There we met up with an Australian couple, from Qld, who are into the 6^th month of an 8 month tour around USA in their new Hurricane “A” Class RV See Photos

Gulfport
We came back onto the coast at Gulfport Alabama, (which is about 150 miles East of New Orleans) we came around the beaches through Biloxi to Mobile, an interesting drive, white very fine sand and wide beaches, lots of beach gear for hire from vendors along the beach, including Jet Skis. Casinos and some rather lavish houses along the way. A great park to visit was the Battleship Park just at Mobile. On display are the battleship USS Alabama and the submarine USS Mobile. Gulfport was almost wiped out with Hurricane Katrina 5 years ago $5.5 billion damage to Gulfport alone. The have done great job rebuilding it with all the new infrastructure that was needed. See Photos

Florida Panhandle

As we drove along the coast road from Pensacola Beach, it is noticeable just how many of the homes are new. Lots of trees show regrowth after being stripped bare by the storm. We noted that all looked new on the island and there were no empty allotments with the old bases left standing. We later found that it was a bit of a sore point with many locals, Apparently a government subsidy on storm insurance works well for those who have afforded a holiday home on the Island, If it gets blown away as they nearly all did with Hurricane Ivan in 2003, they get their houses rebuilt. The island acts as a buffer for the mainland and whilst the winds might do some damage, the surging waves are stopped by the island , so it cops the brunt of them all. The local view is “why on earth would you want to build there”

Apparently after Ivan there was a house sat in the middle of the bay between the island and the mainland, picked up and dumped there by the hurricane, quite a tourist attraction for some time after. It must be a Florida state government subsidy as there was no such help down near Galveston, Texas

On leaving Navarre, we followed the coast road (98) which took us through town after town of glitz, hotels, casinos and condominiums built almost on the waters edge, alongside those, were many closed businesses, empty houses and apartments, Panama City seemed to be the hub for the touristy bits, very Surfer’ Paradise. On to Tallahassee and from there a straight run across on the I-10 to Jacksonville on the Atlantic East Coast. It seems to say something, when you notice an abundance of shops offering “Payday Loans”, Title Loans”, Car Title Loans”, Pawn Shops, Pawn & Gun Shops, probably the same thing, however some emphasize the gun factor.

Interesting also to see billboard adverts for hospitals, one comes to mind where a picture of a patient who has had a triple bypass at this hospital and is living proof of their expertise.

Car dealers advertise “no interest” loans, they imply that a bad credit history doesn’t matter, however I am told that that is only a gimmick and does not really apply. See Photos

Florida’s East Coast.

We took the coast road South from Jacksonville and it was about 45miles before we actually saw the Atlantic Ocean. The paying customers all had their houses, condominiums, resorts etc taking up the beach fronts, Some were crass, some ok and some “wow”, a lot of manicured nature strips and front gardens, The drive was marred by light rain and a bit of thunder every now and then, but that is the season over here, they expect 30 mins of rain each day. We picked an RV park close to the Daytona International Raceway.

Daytona International Raceway
The Raceway have organized tours of the facility, which took about 2 ½ hours and was a great experience, It is possible to arrange a three lap circuit of the track as a passenger in a race car at around 160mph and at a cost of $145, they claim it will be the fastest $145 you will ever spend.

From Daytona Beach we headed South to the Kennedy Space Centre, we gave the tours a miss as a lot of it was a duplication of what we had seen in Houston, but viewing the launch site was interesting. 50 miles west and we were in Orlando for another R & R this time a week in a Sheraton Resort a bit of luxury after 7 weeks on the road. See Photos

11 hours of the Epcot Center on Monday required a day off to recover , took in a dinner extravaganza show called “Medieval Times” it was well done horses, jousting, knights in armour and all that. Then, back to see Mickey at Disneyland for another 6 hours. The Disney World complex is huge, traveling in on the shuttle today, as we passed the entrance there was a sign directing us a further 5 miles to the car park and ticket centre, from there you get either a monorail or Paddle Boat to the particular park of your choice and they are at least a couple of miles from the bus drop off. There are 7 car trams that shuttle those who have parked their car for $14, over to the ticket booths.

6. Orlando, Florida to Fort Lauderdale, Florida See Route Map

Had an interesting experience on our last day at the park. We booked a taxi to take us to Disneyworld. At the entrance, the attendant wanted a $14 parking fee, either pay it or be turned around, both the driver and us refused to pay and the driver was turned around, however, he drove back the wrong way up an exit lane, through a transport maintenance depot and eventually dropped us at a Disney Hotel where we caught the monorail to the park. We had been delayed at the pay booth for some time, we found the tour operator’s vehicle in front of us had the same problem and was refusing to pay, don’t know how they got on.

There is an RV Park in the Disneyworld complex called Fort Wilderness Resort and we noted that one of the boats from the main gate called there, so it certainly would be a good option and is $61 to $76 per night with no transport worries. Buses are available for continuous transport between the camp and all the Disney parks.

After leaving Orlando we called at Lazydays RV World in Tampa, They are the largest single RV sales/Service organization in the world. Covering 145 acres, with 200 service bays, there are literally hundreds of RV of all sizes, brands and prices, both new and used. We spoke with a salesman to get some further details on buying and registering an RV in Florida for a non US citizen. See Photos

Florida’s West Coast.

Clearwater, about 10 miles west of Tampa, is reached by a series of man made causeways, there are bays, bridges of all types and sizes as we traveled south along the Gulf of Mexico coast of Florida. Some of the causeways are miles long, linking a series of islands to make them part of the mainland.

Sarasota

We settled in Sarasota for a couple of nights while we explored the Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey circus history which began here in Sarasota in the early 1900s, John & Mable Ringling set up in Sarasota and after 15 years using the area as a Winter retreat, they began to build a rather sumptuous mansion, It was completed in two years and has all the latest innovations of the 1920s installed, Electric Refrigerator, Electric stove, the first residential installation of an Otis Lift,

John had made his fortune in Oil, Ranching and Land development, so the Circus was more of a passion and an excuse to tour the world, seeking acts for the circus and buy art treasures from all over and ship them home. John recognized the tourism potential of the Sarasota area and went about buying up the land on both the mainland and the keys, eventually owning some 2/3 of the area.

Having no family they bequeathed the mansion, the collection of Circus memorabilia, and their collection of art to the State of Florida in 1936. The museum has the largest collection of 15^th century paintings by Rubens. The whole estate was a joy to visit apart from the extra time on our feet and not yet having recovered from Disneyworld. See Photos

The West Coast of Florida is a real playground, it seems to be protected from the Hurricanes, which are usually generated off the African Coast and build up as they cross the Atlantic and or the Caribbean. It seems that the weather stations are always paranoid about following the direction of each of them and at this time of year there appears to be an endless stream. Most do a left turn and travel north up the Atlantic, but they are always on the lookout for the loose canon that will hit the US coast.

There is a string of Islands on the East Coast which goes 240 miles from Palm Beach right down through Miami and then forms the 160 miles of the Florida Keys. On the West Coast of Florida there are islands or Keys as they are known here they start at Palm Harbor and go down about 150 miles to Naples. The waterways between these islands form a playground for the boating people, many of the homes are built backing onto canals connecting these waterways. The islands or Keys form a barrier against the varying ocean conditions, Many boats to 20 ft long are stored by lifting them out of the water and suspending the boat in a sling. As we crossed a bridge at Nokomis on the west coast we noted two large buildings by the side of the canal, a sign advertised “Boat Racks for Hire” on looking into the buildings we could see that there were boat racks on both sides, storing boats 4 high for the entire length of the buildings.

Speaking of signs we noticed another Hospital advertisement (on a full size bill board) “Our average waiting time is 7 minutes”. Don’t think there would be a market for those signs in Australia.

As affluent as the area seems with all its resorts and gated complexes, you can’t help but notice the number of business that have closed, just boarded up and the car parks empty, not just small business, some quite large supermarket sized properties.

Driving on through Naples one is confronted with Vanderbilt Avenue and a hotel labeled Ritz- Carlton, doesn’t give one the impression that we are in the cheap seats area. Then there are the gated Country Clubs as well as public golf courses that come right up to the edge of the highway, no fence, we have to assume that they are all good golfers as there is no protection for motorists against the wayward golf ball. The Tamiami Trail is the label put on the #41 which goes from Tampa to Miami. See Photos

The Everglades

After Naples it gets into the area just above the Everglades National park, it is still tagged as the Everglades and a lot of it is swampy, with tour operators offering Air Boat Rides at regular intervals along the road. Another interesting road sign was warning about Panthers crossing the road. We later find that they estimate there to be about 9 panthers left in the north of the everglades, where there is still some dry land. Having heard good reports on the Miccosukee Indians, their village and air boat rides. We decided to hang out until we found them. It was well worth it, the guides were great and value for money with the ride, skimming across the swamps and through the grasses and reeds. See Photos

Miami

We settled in at the Everglades RV Park, 24miles SW of Miami for a couple of nights, arranged a city tour and a boat cruise on Biscayne Bay for the following day. It took 2 hours to do the 24 miles in and again afterwards to get home again. We felt we saw what we wanted in Miami, it is a huge city with enormous skyscrapers. The City Tour was a hard seated tram look-a-like, which covered the Art Deco hotels on the beach front, complete with “Bogey” sitting in his car outside the hotel used in the film“Casablanca”, then back to the main city area, it was a good look at the city. The boat cruise went around the islands in Biscayne Bay and they pointed out the luxurious homes belonging to the present and or past celebrities, boy there is some money tied up there, in boats as well as the houses. Islands, bridges, and more bridges to get the traffic around. See Photos

The Everglades National Park

The Everglades National Park is an amazing place, it covers thousands of square miles and the highest point of land within the park is 8 ft above sea level, just after entering the park we had to go through “Rock Reef Pass – Elevation 3 Feet” The whole area is a sea of water slowly moving southward from Lake Cheechobee which is 80 miles north of Miami, as the water moves slowly south sediment is trapped by grasses and small islands have formed over the years. They are called Hammocks and are usually shaped like a tadpole with the large end always to the north and are dotted over the grassy plains. Flamingo visitor centre is about 35 miles in from the park entrance and on the coast of Florida Bay. It was named Flamingo after flocks of the birds that were seen there in 1890s, but they do not frequent the area very often now. A few dugong were seen in the marina, We were advised to call at Royal Palm a viewing point near the entrance on our way out.

Here we came close to many of the birds we had been seeing throughout the park, they seemed tom pose for the camera here, as well we were confronted by a fairly large alligator, a large turtle and a Gator Gar Fish. See Photos

The Florida Keys

Key Largo is the first of the many islands or keys that make up the “Florida Keys”, we stayed there overnight at the John Pennekamp State Park, This park is set up for the boating fraternity, You can drive your boat up and moor for the night, hook up to power, refuel etc. If you forgot your boat you can hire a 20 ft one for $245 per day or a 30 ft one for $340 per day, They have glass bottomed boats taking park guests out over the coral reef.

Key West is the last of the Keys and is 100 miles from Key Largo. It was very noticeable the further down the keys the dearer petrol became $3.35 per gal at Key Largo and $3.79 at Key West other items prices rose accordingly. RV park prices were over the top, the State Parks were $42 per night, while the private parks ranged from $65 to $120 per night. That’s what you get when there is a captive audience.

The drive down through the keys was interesting, I suppose the area could be best likened to a 100 mile stretch of the Great Barrier Reef with a string of fifty or more islands and road linking about twenty of the main ones with bridges and causeways. Between the 50 or so larger islands, there are many more little outcrops of mangrove etc. The longest bridge in the series is seven miles long. There were several places where the old railway bridge had been left to rot away alongside the concrete highway, The railway to Key West was built by John Flagler and has been long since abandoned.

Before settling in to an RV Park at Key West we drove around the island, negotiating the very narrow streets rather tenderly. Saw the house where Ernest Hemmingway lived. There were signs all around threatening if one was to dare park an RV on the side of the road it would be towed away. Sunset at Mallory Square is a must do on Key West, we thought it was just the novelty of watching the sunset from the Southern most point of the USA, but no, it is a full on event with street entertainers, buskers, musicians, cafes, stalls, and of course the bars, (away from the square), the whole town comes alive for it. Yachts, loaded with revelers sail past the dock, noted one with a pirate hanging on to the rigging . We had managed to catch a bus from outside the RV park, I had asked where we could park the RV when we went to Mallory Square and were told that RVs are banned its Taxi or a bus.

We called at the marker for the Southernmost point of USA for the obligatory photo. After the event we caught the last bus for the night ,8.45pm. Taxis must do a roaring business later on.

Our RV site was backed right up to the waters edge, with the ocean lapping only 12 inches below the park grounds, I am sure the site fee included an insurance premium, to cover the site against storm damage.

We moved 5o miles north up the Keys and secured a site at another State Park, the Curry Hammock S.P.. And settled in for a couple of nights, the weather had broken and a bit of rain but still high humidity. A beautiful sandy beach , so flat you could fish for flounder, and we are on the Atlantic Ocean, not a wave. A couple of nights with calm waters and beautiful sunsets, just the way to close our RV part of the trip. We called back at John Pennekamp SP at Key Largo and booked in for the Glass Bottom Boat cruise. We were taken 6miles off shore to the Coral Reef and viewed the fish and coral through the glass panels in the bottom of the boat. It was a nice trip and they did have the decency to rate this Atlantic Coral Reef below the Great Barrier Reef , and we have to say it was not a patch on the Barrier Reef, for coral colour and fish size, I don’t think we saw a fish that would have been too large for a home aquarium.

Our trip in the RV has ended in Fort Lauderdale at Kozy Kampers RV Park (well recommended), where we will leave the RV in storage for the next family member to pick it up and do their thing on the East Coast of USA. So a couple of days to clean up and pack things away before we board the Celebrity “Infinity” for the 15 day cruise back to San Diego then fly home from Los Angeles. See Photos

We have traveled 7200 miles (12000kms) an average of 110 per day, of the 69 nights we had 1 National Park, 5 State Parks 2 Free Camping, 7 in a Resort and 54 in RV Parks

The average cost of parks (without the resort) was $32 and the average cost of fuel & Camp cost $75 per day.

30 USA National Parks by RV in 2010

2012-01-10T22:47:00.000-08:00

See Entire Route Map

Travel Itinerary 2010
Travel Costs 2010

1. L.A. to Las Vegas See Route Map

We had a good flight over from Australia with Air New Zealand, we had chosen flights which got us in to LA at 11.30am, plenty of time to pick up the motorhome and book in to the RV Park in Anaheim, avoiding the dramas of a hotel stay in between, similarly we have arranged our exit flight which leaves at 9.30 at night on the 24^th May, this will again avoid the need for an overnight stay in LA, unless we choose to be early, but with our schedule there is not much chance of that.

We set off to Long Beach to have a look over the Ship “Queen Mary” lots of stair climbing but well worth the trip. We had hoped to see the “Spruce Goose” the wooden plane built by and very briefly flown by, Howard Hughes in the 1930s. However not to be, the big dome hanger that they built for it is still there but the plane was moved many years ago to Oregon State (I think). We headed down the coast to San Diego, our memories of the thumpety thump of the concrete freeways coming back as the miles went by. The Beaches were littered with white bodies as Winter has just finished and we are now starting Spring, so a bit of warm weather and they are all out. Some of the beaches were adorned with all the colours available with their wind surfers flying high above the waves. It was also interesting to note the number of oil pumping stations along the coast and the off shore oil rigs that can be seen between 1 and 3 miles off the coast. It was Saturday and a 4 lane freeway (each way) but still there was a bottleneck and the traffic slowed to a crawl for about 45 minutes. There is always a bit of a learning curve trying to fathom the Tom Tom GPS but it gets you there if you can program the correct details and we are gradually getting re-accustomed to the system. We had pre booked into an RV park in San Diego, thought we should spoil ourselves before we hit the deserts and canyons on our trip. See Photos

San Diego & Tijuana

Sunday we decided to have a look at Tijuana across the border into Mexico, we drove to the border and parked the RV then walked through the security gates and check points, once over the border we got a cab to the downtown area, markets and eating stalls, touts outside all trying to lure in the customers, and boy, if you show the slightest interest they will hound you. We actually managed to avoid buying anything other than lunch and a cab ride back to the border gate, where we got on the end of a queue, it only took 35 minutes before we were through, on week days it can be 1 ½ - 2 hours. The 5 or 6 lanes of cars that were queued up, wait for at least 2 hours to get across, it was certainly a experience.

We headed up the highway to Coronado, on the opposite side of San Diego Bay to the city, a high bridge spans the bay at an unbelievable height, it would have to be a lot higher than our West Gate bridge, literally quite frightening driving across it, even more so as the side walls are only 4ft high and only 2 lanes. We went on to do a tour of the Aircraft Carrier “Midway” which has been decommissioned and is set up as a museum at the wharf, right on the edge of the city. The decks and hangers are complete with a whole range of aircraft that were used on the ship, certainly quite a spectacle.

San Diego looks a great city, very clean, well situated by the bay with a lot of modern buildings and good transport services, There are of course the slummy areas, which we always seem to find as we “lose” ourselves in every city we visit. It is one of the major naval bases in the USA.

Monday we gave the day to Sea World, after a brief stop at an upholsterer to have the foam on a couple of seat cushions upgraded. Sea World was good, a lot of emphasis on the Killer Whale Show, which certainly was the pick of the shows. Chased up some shorter legs for the table in the RV to make working at it more comfortable, thought we should do it before leaving San Diego. It is wonderful how a mobile phone the internet and a GPS can shortcut the lack of knowledge of an area. With the GPS you just follow the prompts, the odd curse when you can’t get to the right freeway exit, but eventually you get there. It would be panic trying to navigate the freeway system without it. After about 200 miles for the day we settled in off the road (behind a road metal storage site) we had climbed to well over 4000ft onto a desert plateau, just where they have huge storage area for used planes, most of the worlds airlines apparently send their old planes here when they upgrade. From here they are on sold to other airlines and countries. Just like a huge used car lot. They of course still have their tail insignia intact, so it is easy to recognise them. The area at Adelanto was selected as the climate here has little adverse effect on the planes.

Continuing up route 395 we found we were traveling through the Mojave Desert we passed a huge site which seemed to be collecting solar energy, row upon row of curved mirrors, each row about ½ mile long, it was at this point whist stopped to take a photo or two that we noticed the dome of our forward skylight/vent had broken and blown off. No way of fixing it on the road, 100miles back to the nearest town where we might get a replacement fitted or go on, we will be in Las Vegas in 2 days, so long as it doesn’t rain we’ll be ok and as our route takes us through Death Valley, renowned as probably the hottest place in USA, we reckoned we were safe to proceed. See Photos

Death Valley National Park.

Entering the Death Valley NP from the East in the morning was certainly the best for the views and sun position for driving and photos, The road descends from 4000 ft to 1000 ft in 8 miles, there are several stopping points to take advantage of the panoramas, at that lower level it is to Panamint valley, the road climbs again to Towne Pass at 5000 ft then it drops into Death Valley, Stovepipe Wells is at sea level, however the road kept getting lower. The lowest point of the valley is 282 ft (88m) below sea level. The salt pan at the floor of the valley extends 40 miles long and 5 miles wide. (We later see an information board listing most of the “below sea level” spots around the world, Lake Ayre gets a mention at -15m however Egypt, Israel and Lebanon all have low points more than 150 m below sea level A sandy base seemed to feed a procession of willy willys in the first valley, then in the second valley, there was an area of sand dunes (Mesquite Dunes), there seemed to be a stationary sand storm hovering over the dune area, quite eerie really, as the wind was blowing a gale, but the sand storm was not moving.

We checked in to a National Park Camp ground at Furnace Creek, next to Death Valley tourist centre, after purchasing a tarp to tie over the top of the motorhome for the night, yep, it had started to rain, it was looking more threatening as we kept going. The wind was blowing a gale but we managed to cover the hole before the rain came. By 8pm all was quiet, the wind had stopped and the rain had amounted to nothing, but we could not risk it. We woke to a calm clear sky, so set about our sight seeing , by 7.45am we were at Golden Canyon, a mile walk in, then an extra ¼ mile to Red Cathedral, both were well worth it, lots of pics. Back on the road and we turned onto a loop road tagged as “Artists Drive” a one way of about 10 miles winding through the coloured sandstone foot hills on the East Side of the valley floor. Spectacular scenery with such a wide range of colours, the drive topped off with a stopping point marked “Artist’s Pallet”. A further 12 miles and we were at “Bad Water” which is the actual lowest point of the valley, it was just on lunchtime and a bus load of Asian tourists had stopped and handed out their lunch boxes, they were every where squatting, eating their meal. A steady stream of tourists were walking out onto the salt pan a path had been well trodden out to about ½ mile, very glarey and the salt started to sting the eyes. The whole scene reminded us of the frozen lakes that we saw last year in Canada & Alaska.

The road was open for us to continue through and out of the valley at Shoshone, then across the state border and on to Pahrump in Nevada. Refueled and made a phone call to Camping World Las Vegas, we were in luck they could fix the roof vent on Friday (Good Friday actually but they do not get the holiday’s over here that we do). We took the opportunity of camping outside their front fence for the night so we wouldn’t have to battle traffic in the morning. See Photos

Las Vegas

First impressions of Las Vegas are that they do not have any owner builders here. The housing estates are terrible, the houses all look the same, square boxes all in straight rows.

8.00 am we booked in for the service to the roof vent, had all three covers changed, reckon if one was blown the others wouldn’t be far away. So let it rain now. No, cancel that, we have booked in to the Circus Circus RV Park just on the end of the strip for 2 nights we can see the casinos all around us. We are camped between the Stratosphere, Sahara and Circus Circus. Incredible drive down Las Vegas Bvd. Past most of the big ones. Managed to catch most of the red lights and took the opportunity to grab the camera and take some photos. Down to the mundane things though, laundry catch-up of course. Called at the local DFO (Las Vegas Outlet Centre) for a bit of shopping, it’s a bugger getting used to after all the haggling and discounts you think you have the price you are going to pay, not so, always plus tax. Buy a post card for 25c hand over 25c no, they want 27c.

Looking forward to dinner and a show and a walk down the strip

2. Las Vegas to Winslow See Route Map

Pets are the go here in the US, people are up walking their 2, 3 or 4 dogs around the caravan park, all on leads, all with their plastic bags on hand, just in case. Not only dogs though, cats get in on the act as well, noticed a couple of cats sitting on the table in the van while the owner is outside with the dog. Talking to a couple in the waiting room of the RV service centre one woman was extolling the virtues of her cat “Tiddles”(or something) “She just lays there in her bed the whole time they are traveling, doesn’t make a sound” The hubby butts in with yeah but the other one squeals the whole time, it wont shut up, he wasn’t complaining, just a matter of fact. Another man in the customer lounge is nursing their dog, as it was a bit scared of a bigger dog outside. One of them made the comment that they replace the kids when they leave home. Many RV parks have doggie play yards, complete with a red fire hydrant.

Saturday we were up and on the bus by 8.00am We bought an all day ticket $7 each and by the end of the day we had boarded 9 times, so reckoned it was value, The first bus was a double decker and scoring front seats on top we stayed on for the scenic tour of all that Las Vegas Bvd. had to offer. The “Strip” is about 3 miles long and with the most incredible theme buildings that the casinos could imagine, amongst them is the Pyramid, Obelisk and Sphinx for one, another had the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge, The French themed casino of course had the Eiffel Tower complete with a restaurant, The Greek theme is Caesar’s Palace with lots of marble statues including a huge Roman Warrior out front The Italian theme casino has a canal with bridges and people have gondola rides with all the authentic costumed gondoliers, and so it went on. Obviously no expense spared. The city is still evolving, new buildings still being built, although probably there has been a bit of a slowdown in the current economic state, one huge building, still a long way from completion had a sign on the hoarding “ Opening Fall 09”. We set the GPS to our first selection of RV parks to be close to the action, when we got there it was a construction site for another casino, so we had to choose another.

Our first walk through Circus Circus Casino turned us off, it stank and was old and run down, there were stalls inside that you would expect to find in a street market, the clientele that it attracted seemed to match the décor. Others were very impressive.

We had booked in to a show “Mac King” Comedy/Magic at Harrah’s Casino, an afternoon show starting at 3 so we had time to do a circuit on the monorail. A great show, then a bit more pounding of the strip, by now the crowds are well and truly out in force and it’s quite a battle getting past the touts pushing fliers at you as well as the general crowd. We were recommended the Gold Coast Casino for a good Buffet dinner so we made for there. It was good. We made it back to the motorhome by 9pm, a long day but we were satisfied that we had seen all we wanted, never managed to put a coin in the pokies, but their not our scene anyway. Another of the sights from the bus was the “Wedding Chapels” dotted along the Boulevard between the strip and downtown, a lot were cute little wooden churches with all the trimmings. Must do some business, they were so special purpose and so many of them. Most of the casinos seemed to have a chapel for weddings as well. See Photos

Hoover Dam

Sunday we packed up and headed to Boulder City and Hoover Dam, weren’t sure if we could drive across, there were signs “No Buses or Trucks” we got in the queue anyway they could always get us to turn around, no problem though, there were a lot bigger RVs than ours there. After the mandatory vehicle inspection, inside and out, we were back in the queue. It is certainly an awesome sight, we had visions of the valley being a lot wider than it is. Crowds of people there, Sunday, so that would account for a lot, they are also building a huge bridge over the valley and duplicating the highway, that accounted for a lot of the delays but it was worth it. A lot of roadwork is being done on the highways as a part of the “Investing in the Rebuilding of America” program to help work through the recession. See Photos

Route “66”

On to Kingman, we are out of Nevada and now in Arizona, we are headed towards the Grand Canyon. We decided to take the “Route 66” historic loop. At the halfway point near Peach Springs it has so far been a shabby run down attempt to hang on to the 50s image, it may improve. But we settled down off the side of the road for the night.

The balance of the current “Historic Route 66” was pretty mundane, the only glimmer was the town of Seligman where there was several attempts to recreate the 50s scene, a bit tacky though. Route 66 has actually been absorbed into the new Highway 40, but they have kept the section between Kingman and Ash Fork for posterity. We found the best representation of the route was in the town of Williams where we refueled, just after the end of the 66 Loop at our turn off to the Grand Canyon. We were advised that the forecast was for storms the following day and as it was currently sunny but blowing a gale, with gusts to 50mph.they expected the forecast to be right.See Photos

The Grand Canyon (South Rim) National park

We reached the Grand Canyon area by 11.30 and caught up with an IMAX screening of the Grand Canyon. Watching it was a good introduction to the actual thing. The Grand Canyon National Park Visitor area runs for about 40miles along the South Rim and its elevation is 7000 feet, from the visitor centre about 1/3 the way along, there are 3 shuttle bus routes which move the people from point to point along the rim, they are at no cost and you get off at a point, take in the scenery and photographs then catch the next bus to the next stop. With about 10 mins between buses it was very effective. After an exhausting day we had made it to the Eastern exit of the park by 7.00pm, the winds howled and came in chilly gusts, quite dangerous to be too close to the edge, where there was no railing. The weather had caused them to cancel all flights over the canyon for the day. As we were at our last view point it started to snow very lightly, there was still thick patches of snow amongst the trees and on the shaded sides of the canyon walls, but it was obviously old stuff. Given the approaching weather we chose not to hang around, so we completed our viewing for the day and moved on, camping about 30 miles outside the park on the way to Cameron, where the rain started to set in.

The spectacle of the Grand Canyon was fantastic and we managed to get some good snaps in spite of the weather. We both felt that we were colder here than we were in Alaska this time last year.

We had pulled into a scenic view area which turned out to be a Navajo Indian site where they sell their wares to unsuspecting tourists, They were closed when we arrived and weren’t there when we left at 7.30 am, actually the site looked derelict and whether or not it was functioning we will never know, but as a lot of their housing looks in the same condition, who knows. The wind blew during the night, the van was rocking continually and we must have parked on the wrong angle as the wind was able to use some part of the bus’s anatomy as a bassoon, the non musical sounds were most annoying. The rain continued through the night, however we woke to a clear crisp morning, freezing actually, straight off the snow peaks nearby. We walked to the “view” and found that we were not far from the Little Colorado River running at the bottom of a gorge with 1000 ft walls either side.

We pulled in to the next view site and got the full treatment, from the car park you had to walk the gauntlet through an Indian market place, and of course by this time they have started to set up, we got suckered in. But the view was worth the effort.

We moved on to “Wupatki National Monument”.See Photos

Wupatki National Monument

This is a preserved ruins of the homes (Pueblo) of the Indian tribes that lived in the area 800 years ago. It is amazing how so much of the buildings have remained. Using large sandstone boulders as the base, they constructed brick dwellings, the natural stone in the area all seems to be flat slabs which they used with a clay based mortar. The dwellings had no windows and only internal door ways, entry was via a ladder through a hole in the roof, this also acted as a vent for the smoke from their fires. We visited several Pueblo ruins, all different, some multi story. At the main site there was a large oval, 100 ft x 30ft with 5ft high bricked walls where they played ball games, another circular pit was a meeting place, it had a brick seat all around the perimeter and was about 30ft diameter.

Before re-entering the main highway we passed Sunset Crater Volcano, one of the features of this volcano is that being in the dry Arizona desert area the volcanic ash does not fuel regenerated growth, as the sides of the volcano are very straight and of loose grey scoria.See Photos

Meteor Crater

On to Flagstaff a large very sprawling city, we restocked the larder and fuel before heading East to Winslow, where we visited the Meteor Crater, a 4000ft diameter and 700ft deep crater which was formed 50,000 years ago by a meteor 15 ft across and estimated to have weighed several hundred thousand tons thumped into the ground.

We set up at the RV park close by for a quiet night, although we were warned to disconnect our water hose from the supply over night as they expect freezing temperatures, which is probably why Lorraine has turned on the RVs gas furnace.

We are running a couple of days ahead of tentative schedule, and that is good, it indicates we were a little conservative with our estimates and it is all up for change if the need arises anyway.

We head up into Mesa Verde & Monument valley from tomorrow so we are likely to be in Indian Reservation territory for a while and unsure of our ability to get internet contact. See Photo

3. Winslow to Cedar City See Route Map

Must add to our “Pets of America saga” As we were having breakfast in the van park at Winslow we observed a chap walking his dogs, there were three dogs all on leads. Two about poodle size, both white and fluffy, the third dog also white, much larger about the size of a German Shepherd, The man stopped at the side door of his rather large motor home, wife stuck her head out, he stooped down and picked up one small dog and handed it to the wife, he then repeated handing the second small dog to the wife, he then bent down and picked up a 2 meter long x 50cm wide fully carpeted piece of chip board from beside the motorhome, he placed it in the doorway and the other end down on the ground forming a ramp, which the large dog immediately walked up into the motorhome. The ramp was then removed and stored in a rear compartment of the motorhome.

Leaving Winslow, we headed for the Petrified Forest & painted Desert National Park. See Photo

Petrified Forest National Park.

We entered the park at the Southern gateway it turned out to be the preferred direction as we finished the day at the Painted Desert where the late afternoon sun gave the best effect. We thought this park might be a bit of a nothing, but as it wasn’t far out of our way we decided to have a look. It turned out quite the opposite, we spent 6 hours pouring over the vast quantities of petrified logs, there are thousands of them. They claim that it is the largest collection of petrified trees in the world, of course we know bragging is an art form over here, but this lot was fascinating. It is claimed that during the Jurassic period (200million years ago) this was sub tropical forest which was virtually wiped out by a massive flood, the trees were swept away and floated down stream in the raging flood, gathering at a low point, settling to the bottom then being covered by volcanic ash and mud, the chemicals from the ash leached into the wood and began the process of crystallizing the fibres. The passage of time and the change in the climate has seen the mud gradually washed away from the now stone logs, as the log becomes exposed and it’s supporting mud is washed out the log , now brittle, cracks across, water in the cracks turns to ice during winter which expands and breaks the piece off. The result as we see it now is a series of 1, 2, 3 & 4 ft logs, many still lying in the shape of the original tree. There are no branches or roots, it is felt they were all broken off during the river journey.

We wondered how long they will last because of the number of shops & factories selling petrified wood before we got to the National Park. They are down on it in the park, with heavy fines, even “Rock Hound Lorraine” had to pull her horns in. See Photos

Painted Desert National Park

The Painted Desert section of the park was a sight on it’s own, We say section, actually there were probably 15 stops that we made at different view points, some with a short walk and some quite a bit longer. The colours of the landscape were from all shades of grey, greens, tans, biscuit, white and black. Scientists have been able to determine by carbon dating the black layers which they believe were the result of crop stubble being burned, that maize was farmed here, as far back as 1400BC (the era of the Pharos).

We moved on to Gallup for the night before fueling and heading North . In all it was a most enjoyable day, copped a bit of sun burn, even though the wind was still very cold. Gallup is just over the border into New Mexico and we found we had to adjust our clocks, we thought things were a bit active for 7.30, oops it was 8.30.

Cold, it was freezing when we woke, put on extra layers, but by 8.30 back into the shorts. There is still snow on the mountains around here.

Lorraine did some washing in the Laundromat attached to the RV Park and was surprised to find there were 84 automatic washing machines plus rows of driers.

As we drove up the highway we were aware that this is Navajo Indian territory their housing is all very spaced out, one here one there, a few in groups, no visible sign of farming for income, little or no stock, houses very run down, some were probably abandoned , but difficult to tell from the ones that weren’t. We bought a local paper “The Navajo Times”, actually hoping to get some news on the earthquake, but no mention of it. Interesting headline on page 2 “Auditors: Millions in loans to Navajo businesses not repaid” Sounds a bit familiar doesn’t it.?

We had an interesting exercise trying to purchase a bottle of distilled water to top up the house batteries. The Auto Parts Store” don’t stock it, sent us to Safeway or Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is a combination of K-Mart, Coles Supermarket, Target, and Harvey Norman all rolled into one, plus some, the stores are huge. We went to the Auto section but were then referred to the grocery section. There we found it labeled “Nursery purified Water” purified by steam distillation especially for babies. Hope the batteries like it.

Shortly after going through Shiprock we found we were crossing the border out of New Mexico and into Colorado and on our way to Cortez, the land soon became greener, crop producing , spray irrigation systems and the farms looked productive. From Cortez we were headed to Mesa Verde National Park. See Photos

Mesa Verde National Park

The park was put on the World Heritage Listing in 1978 for it’s preservation of the ruins of the Cliff Dwellings built between 1190 and 1270 AD The Puebloans who lived in the dwellings had deserted the area by 1300.

The dwellings range from one room houses to villages of more than 150 rooms .

There were two 6 mile loops of road which directed the visitors to many of the sites. As the dwellings were built at different levels of the cliff face, the best view of them is from the top of the cliff on the opposite side of the canyon, hence the road loops. In and out of the van as we went around the circuit. We were running late (of course) as the loop roads and museum close at 5pm. But as we drove around we realized that any earlier and the shadows would have obscured much of the detail. We were also 3 days early to have guided tours down to the dwellings and walk amongst them as they don’t begin until the 11^th April each year. We were disappointed at first with this but consoled ourselves with the fact that as old farts it would have been pretty strenuous climbing, so we were happy with our lot and frankly seeing them from a distance will help preserve them as they are.

The entrance to the park is only 9 miles from Cortez but from the entrance it was 23 miles to the dwellings and a steady climb for most of the drive. The dwellings are at 7000 ft above sea level and we actually went to 8500 ft before dropping down to the cliff tops, much of the road was lined with snow. Another cold night coming up!

The 145 ml drive from Cortez to Monument valley took us past 4 Corners monument. This is the junction point between four states and our drive today started in Colorado, briefly into New Mexico, across into Arizona and eventually we finished in Utah. We were hoping to get a photo with Lorraine in Utah, Keith in New Mexico, the camera in Arizona and the background would be Colorado. But alas we were thwarted, the 4 Corners Monument was closed for construction, so we slid on by. A lot of the countryside on this drive was very much like our outback, red sandy desert with patchy tussocks, not as red as Central Australia, more a tan colour.
See Photos

Monument Valley

Monument Valley is a Navajo Indian Tribal Park and as such is not a national park, if it was there would be a decent road to drive the 17 mile loop in the valley, but there again if there was a decent road the Navajo tour guides would be out of a living with their 12 seater 4WD utes (utes are called Pick-Ups over here). Each major view point along the loop there is a group of tables, offering “Indian Jewelry” several have a coral of horses to tempt the tourists into a trail ride, One had a tired looking horse standing by waiting for someone to take up the offer of “Your photo on a horse $2”

Then of course the horse could walk out onto a cliff edge with you on it for a more dramatic photo, Sure that would have been an extra, but didn’t check as we are not horse prone.

There are about 15 separate Buttes that make up the valley grandeur. Of course there are all different angles and sunlight direction that give infinite options for the camera snapping tourists. We certainly gave it a nudge.

Most of the buttes are about 1000ft high, one, called the Totem Pole, for obvious reasons, is 450 ft high but only a few metres wide and all offer an amazing panorama

We settled in at their campsite overlooking the valley for the night, hopefully we will be up early enough to see the sunrise on the buttes (out of our dining room window) we will of course check out the sunset tonight

After a few snaps just after sunrise we were off again, through a town called Mexican Hat, much of which is perched precariously on the cliff overhanging the San Juan River, as we passed through the town we saw the reason for it’s name, a natural group of rocks balanced on top of each other high up on a hill, they resembled a Mexican Hat. The next town was Bluff, a pretty town, again on the San Juan River, they seem to specialize in river rafting and the like, a busy little town with loads of RV parks, and a lot of history, This was the first town settled in the area by a group of Mormon followers, they were given the task to establish a settlement there. A lot of their history has been preserved and recreated, giving the town a bit of a theme park appearance at first look. See Photos

Canyonlands National Park

We inquired about the roads into the “Needles Section” of Canyonlands NP and were given the all clear, it was an 80 mile round trip and whilst much of the “Needles” is only accessible by 4WD, the drive in was very much worth while and the scenic drives that were available to us, complimented by the short walks made the sojourn a pleasant one and again added to the list of pics.

Back on Highway 191 and on to Moab, the gateway to The Arches National Park, we tried to park in the campground but alas they only take pre-bookings and the campground was full. Our next option was a series of campgrounds set up by the State along the banks of the Colorado River on route 128 (which is listed as a scenic route and had been recommended by Pauline & Steve). We settled in at an overflow site at Big Bend for the night. The drive in along the river had us snapping at every turn, again the cliffs either side are about 1000 ft high with only the river and the road at the bottom, pity, but we are not going all the way up the 45 mile road. We caught up with camp host and were discussing the Colorado River, it seem to be running pretty fast through the rapids by the camp site. He said that by late May the river would be up another 6 ft and the noise becomes quite deafening. We asked where the river empties, well he replied it used to empty into the Bay of California in Mexico, but nowadays it doesn’t empty anywhere, it all gets used up, much to the disgust of the farmers at the bottom end. Sounds a bit like the way the Murray is going. Also sounds a bit hard to believe.

Moab seems to be a centre for outdoor sports, it was Sunday and of course the town was full of Offroad Motorcyclists, All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) Cyclists, Climbers, Hikers, they also do Base Jumping from the cliffs around the area. Scary stuff for us old farts. See Photos

The Arches National Park

The Arches NP was great, like all of the parks they are special because of their own features.

Entering the park is a climb through a series of hairpin bends virtually going up a cliff face. All the way dodging cyclists, as they pedal up the road. Once it starts to flatten out you are faced with an amazing array of stone pillars, balancing rocks on top of columns. There are stops along the way with walks to the various stone arches that nature has created, the walks vary fro ½ to 3ml. We gave the extended hiking a miss but we managed to see many of the arches from the Landscape Arch that is 306 ft from base to base to Delicate Arch which when seen from a distance dwarfs the hikers that have braved the 2 ml trek and climb to it’s base and resembles the handle of our kettle in shape. The mass of towering spires and balancing rocks are as much an attraction as the Arches. Certainly a spectacular park. See Photos

Island in the Sky (Canyonlands National Park)

The Island in the Sky section of the Canyonlands NP was only a 40 mile drive from Arches NP, We took up residence at a camp site for the night. The Island in the Sky refers to the fact that the whole triangular area is set on a plateau with 2000 ft sheer cliff walls on two sides , The Canyonlands NP is divided into three sections with the Green and Colorado Rivers separating the three sections, prior to the convergence of both rivers they are quite sedate running rivers, after they join is where the fun starts and some of the rapids become fearsome, during one set of rapids the Colorado drops 30ft. The feature of the Island in the Sky is of course, the views that you get from the different view points, and they are awesome. See Photos

Dead Horse Point State Park.

We moved on to another park “Dead Horse Point” where we were able to get the last remaining campsite, This is a State Park and gets its title from the 1850s when cowboys rounded up wild mustangs (horses) drove them out on to this point of land and erected a fence across the 30 ft neck to keep them in. They cut out the horses they wanted and left the others penned in there, they died of thirst, in sight of the Colorado River 2000 ft below. The views from the point would have to equal those of the Grand Canyon, unbelievable. The weather has turned sour the winds have stirred up dust, making photography not good, a prediction of snow overnight and or possibly some rain did not eventuate, however we woke to a clear sky and were able to see the view at its best.

After leaving the park we had a long drive around to come back in at Zion NP an estimated 295 miles to the South West via highways 70 to Cove Fort the #15 through Cedar City to Toquerville. The drive took longer than expected, firstly due to the frequent stops at view points along the way. See Photos

San Rafael Reef.

Incredible canyons, mountains and the San Rafael Reef, a 30 mile long reef pushed up by the adjustments to the earth’s surface way back. The snow did come, we drive through it, wasn’t enough to stay on the ground, although the mountains around still have a coating between the trees. We say trees, don’t think Utah knows what a tree is, an odd 20footer, but mainly 8 to 10 ft is the order around here. A change in the road noise alerted and worried Lorraine, we eventually found a flat inside rear tyre. So it was sit back and wait for the roadside service. RVs do not carry equipment to change wheels, it is considered too dangerous. Tyre fixed and we headed to Cedar City for a night in a fully equipped RV Park, just gotta have one every now and then. See Photos

4. Cedar City to Custer See Route Map

Cedar City, quite a large town has a backdrop of a range of snow covered mountains, local comments are that they have had 180% of their annual snowfall already and are expecting more over the next two weeks. For us the weather had cleared and a short trip to Zion NP was a pleasant one.

Zion National Park

Zion NP is a 10 mile long canyon, the sides of which are supposedly the highest sandstone peaks in the world, (What else would you expect). We were told that of all the National Parks Zion was one not to miss. It certainly lived up to expectations. We were able to get a campsite within the park, and from there the park is accessed by using the free shuttle bus service which leaves the visitor centre every 7 minutes. There are 8 drop off points along the road in to the end of the canyon and each has it’s own feature, hiking trails of all degrees, we chose a 2 mile easy walk at the last stop, having appreciated the scenery from the shuttle all the way. We had to nominate the fact that we intend to go on to Bryce Canyon NP which meant we had to purchase a pass for the tunnel. The road out goes through the National Park and a 1.1 mile long tunnel has been cut through the mountains in 1930, for larger vehicles such as an RV, the pass allows the rangers to halt all traffic from the opposite direction so the RV can be driven down the centre of the road through the tunnel section, it is the only way it will fit. Immediately after exiting the tunnel there is a trail to an overlook of the approach to the tunnel and the end of the canyon, 1 mile return, moderate difficulty. We tackled the walk much to Lorraine’s fear and trepidation, a lot of white knuckle hanging on around narrow cliff paths, we got there (and back) the view was certainly worth the effort. But you have to watch for the small carpark as soon as you exit the tunnel.

90 miles on we started on State Route 12, it is listed as a scenic route, a sign said “Get your cameras ready) in the first couple of miles we had 4 scenic view overlooks, when the route entered Red Canyon, the name says it all, the red sandstone was just that and with all sorts of eroded shapes, eventually we got to our objective for the day, Bryce Canyon NP See Photos

Bryce Canyon National Park

We found a camp site amongst the snow, the site was clear but the picnic table alongside has only it’s top above the snow.

A 40 mile drive to the bottom of the park and back, stopping at all 14 viewpoints gave us an appreciation of Bryce Canyon’s uniqueness. The hundreds of sandstone pinnacles that fill the scene are called Hoodoos, they are continually eroding from the monsoon weather experienced here and melting snow which blankets the park in winter, the end of the park is at 9115ft hence the snow still being here, however today we were in T shirts it was so hot. See Photos

Kodakchrome Basin State Park

A short distance after leaving Bryce we turned off at Cannonville to the Kodakchrome Basin State Park, didn’t know what to expect, but the name implied that it would be photogenic It was only a small park with great facilities. The Ranger who took our entrance fee advised “If you see something interesting stop, anybody else will go around you” in the typical droll accent. Well we were pleasantly surprised, the area is as the name suggests a basin ringed by sandstone cliffs of a mixture of colours, the special geological feature, unique to the park is the sandstone chimneys that are dotted around, often with a white top section and a red lower section, again we were fascinated by the variety of the scenery. A plaque on one of the walking trails had a quote from Leonado da Vinci. “ Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions, nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous” It seemed most appropriate. We met a couple of women at the park who warned us of the next part of our trip to Boulder where we will have to cross the “Hells Backbone” a half mile section of the road where there is no side verge either side, no guard railings and the cliffs drop 1000ft on either side of the winding section of the ridge road. You can imagine how excited Lorraine was, with the thought of that approaching, The scenery continued in accordance with the claim that this is one of the top five scenic drives in the USA (Route 12/24 Utah). See Photos

Capitol Reef National Park.

Our next target on this road was the Capitol Reef NP where a 130 mile stretch of mountain range, thrust upward eons ago has left this awesome sight, We took too many photos, but as Lorraine’s camera has decided to start working again, we had happy faces as well. Onward on route 24. See Photos

Goblin Valley State Park.

We turned into the Goblin Valley State Park, where as you could have imagined by now has a unique formation of sandstone really in the shape of mushrooms, but the title Goblins certainly appeals to the kids, they were all over them as excited as you like. There are three valleys and each are littered with these gnome like shapes, hundreds of them, again, nothing like anything we have seen here to date. We moved on and took up a camp site at South Temple Wash, being Friday night there are heaps of others here, it is a haven for the young at heart, there are hundreds of miles of trails that dot the area for the recreational use with motorbikes and 4 wheel ATVs. We were sure we saw Gavin fly past doing a mono on his Kawasaki at one stage. As night fell they quietened down and as we will be out of here by 8 in the morning no problems.

We were back on the Route 70 and off towards Grand Junction. Fruita, a town 11 miles before Grand Junction reminded us of a suggestion from a fellow RVer while we were at Moab. He strongly recommended us visiting the Colorado National Monument as it was only 10 miles south of the highway and well worth the detour. We took his advice, See Photos

Colorado National Monument

The park is a 30 mile stretch of mountains that were used in the early days by ranchers to graze their cattle during winter on the high plateau, the same sort of thing that the Cattlemen did on the High Plains in Victoria until a few years ago, until the greenies whinged and got their way.

The feature of this park is the road that the cattlemen carved into the mountains to get the cattle to and from the plateau. The tracks were expanded during the 1920s depression and formed into serviceable roads. Well I can tell you, I have never driven such a heart pumping drive, as the one to the top. Not only are the roads narrow and full of turns and tunnels, but they have only a row of bricks along the cliff edge instead of a guard rail. Driving an 8ft wide motorhome with the steering wheel on the wrong side did not help. Strangely Lorraine didn’t take any photos for the whole drive up. Her suggestion was that we should turn around and go straight down again, not for the thrill of the drive, but for the fear of the next 20 miles if we went on and down the Eastern end. We continued and it was still quite narrow and windy but there were many lookout points where we could pull in and enjoy the views. After calming down, we both feel it was a must do experience for any tourist going through the area. (It wasn’t even on our list) After adapting to the mountain goat environment, Lorraine was able to keep the camera snapping during the run down. The park is a favourite with cyclists and we encountered many. We ended the day booked in at Glenwood Canyon Resort RV park on the Colorado River at Glenwood Springs. The park had direct access to the river and river rafting was all the go, several groups were camping, with their clothes strung along the fences, after returning from an exciting day on the river. See Photos

Snowfields Highway

On leaving Glenwood Springs along Route 70 we were again thrust into a most exciting drive. For 30 or 40 miles the highway went along a deep canyon with the Colorado River at the bottom, a railway track alongside and the highway split into two levels on the other side, going East we were on the lower 2 lanes nearest the river, the West flowing traffic had it’s 2 lanes virtually built like a bridge, rising and falling as it coped with the slope of the gorge. At times the West section was 50 or so ft above us, other times running level. There were three tunnels in the section the last and longest being the Johnson Tunnel at about 2 miles long built in 1979. All the time the highway is following the bends of the river and at each bend in the road you would be presented with a new sight. The area we are in here, is the Colorado Ski area, passing through Vail, with turn offs to Aspen and Breckenridge, and Copper Mountain. As we went over the 10,600ft summit, obviously there was a light dusting of snow the night before. Skiers and Skidoos were still at it, some ski lifts were still working after their long winter. See Photos

Denver
We continued on down into Denver the capital of Colorado.
As it was Sunday, we parked the RV in the city and took the shuttle through the mall. Fixed stone chess boards set in the mall had groups sitting around playing. We found the Blue Bear, a sculpture that we had seen a documentary about the making of it. The doco was quite fascinating so we made a point of seeing it for ourselves, The huge bear is standing looking in through the glass wall of the Colorado Convention Centre. It is about 30ft high, made from fibre glass in sections, it was designed on a computer and each section was made separately. The actual assembly of all sections was done on site, (with a lot of prayers that they would all fit).

“Bearly” satisfied we headed out towards The Rocky Mountain NP, aware that the top road is still closed because of the snow but we can still get in to a bit of it at Estes Park. Along the way we passed a sign giving directions to “Buffalo Bill’s Grave”. We chose a designated “Scenic Route” “Peak to Peak” It started off very interesting, taking us into Central City and Black Hawk, twin towns that resemble Walhalla in Vic. only much larger. Set in steep gullies, old houses give the aura of an old mining town, which they were, however we are only 40 miles from Denver and the 2 towns have been transformed into gambling dens, a lot of the old buildings have been converted into Casinos, and of course a huge modern casino has been built to capture the gambling public while the older gambling saloons give the atmosphere to the towns. We were running short of fuel and the GPS had us winding around a lot of one way streets that were not built for motorhomes, up and down hills trying to get out of the place, we never saw a service station there, unless it was disguised as a casino. Sunday night and the town was really pumping. We eventually found our way out with the help of the GPS and refueled a few miles out. We camped on a roadside spot at Ward for the night. The rest of the “Scenic Route” was pretty mundane eventually we arrived at Estes Park the gateway to the Rocky Mountains NP. See Photos

Rocky Mountains National Park.

We fronted up at the entrance to the NP, expecting to be told of the road closure due to the snow, to our surprise we were told they had opened 30 miles of the road and we were welcome to use it. We took the drive to Bear Lake, then back to the other section which went up to 11,000 ft at Rainbow Curve Lookout. So whilst we did not make the full Trail Ridge Road, we did part of it anyway. The road goes to 12,183 ft and is 48 miles long, it gets snow to a depth of 20ft. It takes so long to clear the road that it doesn’t open until nearly June. We were told of an event in the 1970s where a concrete dam built high in the mountains near Rainbow lookout, burst causing a flood, sending boulders as big as cars down the gully, washing away much of the town of Estes Park and the holiday cabins that cluster along the banks of the Fall River.. The drive out of Estes Park was spectacular, like the former Freeway that followed the Colorado River, On a smaller scale, this road wound through the high canyon walls, following the Fall river. Small log cabins were built against the cliff face, it seemed to go for miles, along the way fishermen were trying their luck for the local trout, all very picturesque. See Photos

Within an hour and a half we were out of Colorado, into Wyoming through the Capital City, Cheyenne and settled in for the night on the side of a road, not a tree in sight, it’s all farming here, crops, cattle and the obligatory Oil Well to top up the coffers. It seems most farms have a well, and 4 or 5 small storage tanks, now that the price of oil has risen it is economic for them to put in the equipment. A bit like “The Beverly Hillbillies” TV Series.

The oil wells didn’t last long, another 40 miles and there were none to be seen, must have passed over the oil field. The Eastern Wyoming countryside changes between similarities to the Wimmera and the Western Districts of Victoria. Many of the towns are very depressing, some get very tacky trying to hold on to images of past eras, others very run down and gives the impression that nobody cares. We left Wyoming and entered South Dakota, headed for the town of Custer, yes named after the General. Custer is central to several sites we had mapped out to see, “Crazy Horse Memorial”, “Mount Rushmore”, Wind Cave NP & Jewel Cave NM. As we approached Custer the clouds were as black as black, a serious storm brewing. We booked in to the RV park then had a look around, the rain started in earnest so we figured that the caves were a good option, so off to Wind Cave NP in time for a tour.

Wind Cave National Park. & Custer SP

The cave is not a wet cave, no rivers and dripping water, and as such does not have the traditional stalactites and stalagmites one expects in a cave, but it had features not normally found in other caves, it was not spectacular in comparison to others we have seen, however it boasts some impressive statistics. Within a 1 square mile area on the surface, the cave is a labyrinth or maze covering 4 levels and whilst they have discovered and mapped 135miles of cave within that area, that makes it the 4^th largest cave in the world. However they also claim that they have only mapped 7% of the entire cave.

By the time we emerged the rain had stopped, so we went off to take some photos of Prairie Dogs, who have just started to appear after their winter hibernation. They were all over the place, like a plague of rabbits. The forecast is for unsettled weather for the next week so we are going to have to choose our times for visiting Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse. See Photos

5. Custer to Salt Lake City See Route Map

Mount Rushmore National Monument

The weather cleared overnight and we headed to Mount Rushmore while it held. The monument was all it was supposed to be, carved out of the solid granite of Mt Rushmore are these huge 60ft high heads of the 4 Presidents who gave the greatest change in the structuring of the United States.

1^st is George Washington, Commander of the Revolutionary Army and First US President , next was the 3^rd President, Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and Mastermind of The Louisiana Purchase, {A negotiated deal in 1803 with Napoleon Bonaparte to purchase for a total of $15m, 828,000 sq miles of territory claimed by the French and Spanish, approx 1/3 of the current USA (down the centre) which had split the US and fears of the French and Spanish having the power to block US trade through the port of New Orleans.}3rd was Abraham Lincoln, whose leadership restored the Union and ended slavery on US soil. The 4^th was the 26^th President, Theodore Roosevelt, who promoted construction of the Panama Canal and ignited progressive causes such as conservation and economic reform. The Sculptor of the Monument, Gutzon Borglum commenced in 1925, it was completed in 1941, supervised by Borglum’s son only months after his father had passed away.

The carvings are quite spectacular, They have all the glitz of a Light & Sound Show, but that doesn’t start until May, we are sure it would be a real star spangled banner extravaganza, but the mountain is what we came to see, so we were happy. The whole area reminds us of Skagway, in Alaska last year where we were 10 days ahead of the tourists and most shops were shut, and repairs after the snow had cleared were on in earnest, there are so many similarities only Custer is not so isolated, but many shops are still closed and the RV parks are trying to get ready now that the snow has gone.

Patriotism is so strong here, many houses have the stars & stripes flag hanging from a pole on their house, Driving along a country road one might find a shed or barn with “God Bless America” boldly painted on the wall, another that comes to mind is one we photographed the other day in Fort Collins, a well worn shed, the wall facing the street was almost entirely painted as the national flag.

Many, many references to the national spirit of patriotism as you drive around. See Photos

Crazy Horse Memorial

We also called in on the “Crazy Horse Memorial” which is less than 20 miles from Mt Rushmore, this is a work in progress, started by a sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski in 1948, and now continued by his widow Ruth and seven of their children, The project is funded by visitor fees and donations, twice the family rejected nearly $10m of Government funding as they strongly believed it should not be built by the taxpayer.

It is a huge operation, we witnessed a blast today which removed 4,000 tons of rock. It is claimed to be the largest carving in the world at 563ft high and 641ft long. The face is complete and has such wonderful detail in it. The visitor centre is one mile from the mountain that is being carved and that in itself is an enormous complex, including 2 auditoriums, which shows a video of the progress along the way. We are in the off season and we could see how it is geared to cope with the hordes of visitors that come through the summer.

We were recommended to drive the Iron Mountain Road and experience the “Pigtail curves and tunnels of the scenic road” The Pigtail refers to the way the road is built, it winds up like a corkscrew, going under a bridge then winding around over the bridge, and on it went , quite an experience. The extension to that road is the Needles Highway which was also recommended, and looking at some photographs was highly desirable, so we set our plans that way. We noticed on a map of the area the list of Tunnels in the Black Hills, yes I had forgotten to mention that is where we are, “The Black Hills Of Dakota”, anyway three tunnels on the Needles Highway are 10’6”, 9’0” and 8’4” respectively, given that our RV is 8’6” wide and 10’9” high, we decided to take another route.

The weather held for us for the day we went over Crazy Horse and Mt Rushmore, storms the day before and we woke the morning after with a thick blanket of fog, See Photos

Jewel Cave National Monument.

We made it to Jewel Cave NM and had the tour there, on surfacing we found the fog had given way to light rain, which dogged us for the next 150 miles as we headed west towards Sheridan, back in Wyoming for a short time before going into Montana which will be the 9^th different State we will have visited out of 10 before we finish back at LA.

Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument

Another wet morning in Sheridan and a delayed departure fitted in well with a visit in the afternoon to the “Little Big Horn Battlefield” By then, and 60 miles down the road the weather had cleared, or at least stopped raining.

It was fascinating to have the battle details laid out, the area covered about 5 miles from where the battle commenced to “Last Stand Hill” where General George Custer and 41 troops from the 7^th Cavalry perished on 26^th June 1876.

In total during the battle the 7^th Cavalry lost 263 of it’s troops, 210 under Custer and 53 under Major Reno and Captain Benteen, the Indians had lost 100 of their braves

The countryside is marked where the soldiers died, although all of them were buried in a mass grave on Last Stand Hill, a horse cemetery for the 7^th Cavalry horses that died is also on the hill.

Over recent years the story has softened with the attitude that warriors from both sides were defending their nations rights. Marker stones have now been placed where many of the Indians died.

In view of the fact that Custer attacked the massed camp of 7,000 Indians from the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, lead by Chief Sitting Bull and supported by Crazy Horse, the tribes included about 2,000 warriors, he must have had rocks in his head.

It has to be acknowledged that it was the last big battle of the “Indian Wars”

The whole issue was caused by the gold strike in the Black Hills in 1874 which drew thousands of eager miners onto the Indian Reservation, violating the Fort Laramie Treaty, The Indians resumed raids on the trespassers and ignored demands from the Commissioner for Indian Affairs to cease, or be treated has hostiles. The army was called in to enforce the order. See Photos

We moved on to Hardin for the night and a beautiful red sunset it was too.

Hardin through to Billings, a large sprawling city, as it was Saturday morning when we went through, there were all sorts of activities going on, a Rodeo was in full swing on one side of the road and on the other a huge car boot sale was all the go.

We turned off on the 212 to approach the Yellowstone from the North East Gate at Cooke City. Aware that we had to traverse Beartooth Pass, at 10,978ft. We reasoned that if the road was closed there would be notices up and as an alternative we could bypass Beartooth from Red Lodge. Our reasoning had gone astray, there was no access from Red Lodge, both Beartooth Pass and the alternative route were still closed with snow. We had to come back to the freeway and move on to Livingston and enter Yellowstone from the North Gate at Gardiner. It added about 60 miles to the day’s travel but we were compensated by meeting a very helpful and pleasant couple, Phyllis and her husband, Richard, at the Information Centre at Red Lodge. The drive back to the highway at Columbus gave us the opportunity to see some more of the Montana countryside. We were impressed by the difference in the housing at the ranches along the way, a lot more individuality, less of the transportable houses that seem to be dumped on properties. There was a feeling of pride in the area.

The 60 miles from Livingston to Gardiner are quite picturesque, a range of snow capped mountains on the left and the Yellowstone River alongside the road, we stopped at several spots along the way, one stop had an information board with details of the annual migration of many of the animals from the harsh Yellowstone winter, following the river to the winter pasture areas, then back along the same route in Spring to graze the Yellowstone again.

Yellowstone National Park

We arrived at the Roosevelt Arch, a huge stone gateway built in 1903 and from where President Roosevelt laid the foundation stone and declared Yellowstone their 1st National Park. We booked in to the campground at Mammoth Hot Springs. 5 miles into the park. Soon we were at the Hot Springs area where hot water is oozing from the ground in several places, steaming as it flows over the formations created by the chemicals in the water. The colours of the formations vary from white, grey, sand, yellow, orange, tan and darker browns, quite spectacular.

A gentle rain saw us to sleep but the following morning we woke to a blue sky and found a dusting of snow over everything.

As we had not come in from the North East entrance at Cooke City, we set the day for a trip across the park and back again, this area is renowned for its Bison, Elk, Bear and Wolves so it was a slow trip both ways with eyes peeled and camera at the ready. We saw so many Bison grazing the fields and hill sides, there would be herds of 6 -10 as well as herds of 40-50, there were also 2 Bison calves, that we saw, must have seen several hundred bison for the day, started to feel like Buffalo Bill. Deer was also quite plentiful at the start of the day, caught up with some cheeky Ground Squirrels who seemed to demand their photo be taken.

We decided to walk the ¼ mile to a Petrified Tree, it was particularly interesting because it is still standing, about 10ft of the trunk that is. We are sure it was ¾ mile each way and the icy wind made it a brisk walk. The day went on and off with snowing, not heavy, just enough to be a pleasant experience. We got to Cooke City and Silver Gate, on the other side of the park, but as the road was closed from Red Lodge to there the only access is through the park, virtually making them isolated for winter, reminded us of Skagway in Alaska, where they have to make their money in the 4 month tourist season, it must be same here, you really wonder how they survive.

On the return trip to Mammoth Hot Springs, we caught up with some bears, 4 lots of them, a Grizzly, then a Brown Bear was making a meal out of an Elk carcass, which he had dragged out of the lake. A little further along another Grizzly and her cub were wandering through the edge of the forest, they didn’t hang around in a clearing long enough to get a photo, we heard of a Bison carcass near the road that had been attracting wolves and bear, we called in and managed a few snaps, but it was a fair way off and tested the zoom on the cameras. It is a bit like bird watching, some people will sit off such a carcass for hours and watch the goings on, we are not quite that patient, or professional.

We did see a Coyote, it crossed the road in front of us and we were able to follow it’s movements through the saltbush.

Mammoth camping ground is the only one open in the entire park at this stage, so we had to tailor our movements accordingly.

After a cold night, (no snow) we were away at 7.30am, 5 miles out we came to the bear on the bison carcass, yes he was still ripping it apart, and the array of cameras helping him digest every mouthful, it looked like the media frenzy of cameramen around a league game, there were spotting scopes and tele lenses so big, that made us too embarrassed to bring ours out of the car. We pulled up wound down the window took one shot, it was good so we drove on and left them to it.

All around Yellowstone you are likely to find some lone bod with a spotting scope on a tripod, counting bison, or what ever takes their fancy, bison calves are the in thing because they have just started dropping.

We chanced a trip across to Canyon Village we knew the road only went 2 miles passed the village before it was closed to traffic until late May. The village was boarded up baring a souvenir shop so we drove to the end of the road, unannounced it actually lead to the South Rim Drive and the North Rim Drive, both of which were open to the few travelers who either knew or like us took a chance.

We knew we were going to miss some of the best scenery in Yellowstone by not being able to drive down the centre, as luck would have it, that scenery was on these two Rim Drives, so we had a feast, or the cameras did. One of the stops is labeled “The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone” and that says it all.

The views are of the Upper Falls and the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River. The colours of the canyon walls, created by the mineral hot springs in the area contribute to the scenery, The falls themselves were in full flight with snow still lining much of the banks of the Yellowstone River.

Old Faithful Geyser

Then it was an appointment with “Old Faithful” the most talked about geyser in Yellowstone and indeed the reason for many to visit. Even The President has an appointment with “Old Faithful” in June and there is quite a buzz about the preparations. There are many geysers in the park, one we saw was “The Steamboat” it’s eruption schedule is so erratic it can be 4 days or 50 years between, so you just look at it in it’s everyday form, which is still turbulent. There is steam coming out of the ground in all sorts of unlikely places, boiling water spilling across the ground forming streams flowing all over, they insist that visitors stay on the tracks or boardwalks. In places the sulphur (rotten egg) stench is very strong. We walked in on Old Faithful with 2 -3 minutes to spare, had to run to catch it, or wait another 2 hours for the next one.

The whole area is a hot spot over a molten lava pool 100mls below the surface, they have at least 2000 earth quakes in Yellowstone every year. This year since Jan 15^th the have been 1450 to date. Some of course very minor and some up to level 4.

The colours in the hot pools are like the rainbow, sometimes you have to wait until the wind blows the steam away from you to actually see the pool. In another area there is “Roaring Mountain” with steam billowing up from the whole face of the mountain. They claim that 80% of the world geysers are in the area.

We eventually made it out of the park at the West Entrance and headed South stopping overnight at Macks Inn 30 miles down the road, We have now entered Idaho, the 10^th and last state that we will visit, although we will be jumping back to others along the way. See Photos

The Craters of the Moon National Monument

We traveled west to visit “The Craters of The Moon NM”, the road across was through a high plains desert, filled with Sage Bush, similar to our Salt Bush. The area eventually opened out into cattle farming and the use of water spray irrigators intensified, they seemed only to be growing hay and baling it, large rectangular bales staked up out in the open everywhere. We measured one of the spray irrigators, the sort that pivots around a water supply and the sprays cover a semi circle, The one we measured had 8 sections and was ½ mile long, so that was the radius that it would cover, others we saw had 10 & 12 sections. We do not know where they were getting their water from as we had not seen any rivers at all let alone ones that could supply the demand.

The Craters of the Moon NM is an area of 750,000 acres and all of the area is covered with lava flow or cinders, yet there is no major volcano there. The lava welled up from long fissures across the Snake River Plain and is know as the “Great Rift” creating this vast lava field.

The landscape looked similar to a telescopic view of the moon’s surface hence it’s name. We tackled a ½ mile walk to the top of “Inferno Cone” rising 160 ft above the base level, supposedly one of the largest Cinder Cones around, steep and windy but a great view. After inspection of a few of the other features, such as Spatter Cones which were in fact mini volcanoes, we were left with a graphic idea of the eruption site, still with deep holes into the earth, currently with a great blob of snow at the bottom.

After we were “lavaed out”, we headed to Idaho Falls on our way to Jackson and the Grand Teton NP.

We noted a sign on a building in Arco which proudly acclaimed Arco as “the world’s first town to be lit with nuclear power”, and a fast food shop advertising “Atomic Burgers”

On our way back across the desert we found the reason for the claims, an information board outlined the program that has seen 50 nuclear reactors, built in this desert region of Idaho since 1945 and indeed a sign pointed to Atomic City, just off the highway, which seemed to be the hub of the industry.

Strong winds confirmed that the RV is as streamlined as a brick and suggested we bed down for the night and a campground by a reservoir filled the bill. See Photos

Grand Teton National Park.

The drive through to Jackson, just South of Grand Teton NP was quite spectacular, we were driving through light snow, the road was at first winding along the side of Palisades Reservoir for several mile until the turnoff at Alpine, it was even better after that as we followed the Snake River through the canyons and up into Jackson. The town of Jackson is a very busy hub, the gateway to the Grand Teton NP and a ski resort in it’s own right. A lot of the buildings were upmarket log cabin type construction. The ski slopes are right behind the town, at a glance it looked as if you couldn’t stop coming down the slope you would end up in the main street.

Unfortunately, the beauty of the trip in had it’s consequences, because of the low cloud and snow it meant that the mountains in the National Park were not visible, they were blocked out by the clouds. A visit to the information centre and we were told that the forecast showed it was not going to clear for a few days. We got over our sulks and decided to have a drive around the park. There are several lakes, the largest Jackson Lake is about 30 miles long, it was frozen over and quite a spectacle. The park is known for it’s wild life and in particular there is an elk sanctuary which sees an annual migration of elk to within a couple of miles of Jackson, we were a bit early for that and the best we could see was a lone Coyote which ran across the road in front of us. We hung around for a while hoping that the clouds would lift, but decided to cut our losses and head towards Salt Lake City. We managed to find a nice quiet campsite well off the road for the night, just past Salt River Pass. See Photos

The drive south was very scenic, after we turned away from Bear Lake at Garden City, the drive became similar to the drive out of the Rocky Mountains NP. The road went up over Geneva Pass and then hugged the Logan River as it wound through the Montpelier Canyon for several miles. The beauty of the drive was enhanced by the fact that it was gently snowing all the way. The canyon ended abruptly and we were in Logan City, probably one of the most appealing cities we have gone through, wide clean streets some great buildings, and a bit more of a feeling of affluence and pride from the residents. Being the site of the State University may have contributed to that. We stopped at the Logan Tabernacle, an imposing building. As the headquarters of the Mormon religion we were to see many of their churches. Continuing to Salt Lake City the light snowing changed to a full blown blizzard. You know you have serious snow when the windscreen only allows vision through the wiper path, and on an 8 lane freeway it is no fun.

We arrived in The campground at Salt Lake City in time for lunch on Thursday and to sort out our program, as we are staying for 3 nights

In closing, this we are enjoying the sights of the light snow returning, but now it has turned to hail.

6. Salt Lake City to L.A. See Route Map

This is the last chapter in our amazing adventure for 2010. Alaska was exciting last year. This has been very different, but every bit as exciting

We arrived in the campground at Salt Lake City in time for lunch on Thursday and to sort out our program, as we are staying for 3 nights

We found that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has their practice on Thursday evening so we booked into a tour of the city which included the choir performance. The tour was not bad but when we fronted at the Tabernacle we were advised that the Choir was singing at the Conference Centre at a special genealogy conference and we could not get in. A bit of bad organization, the tour company was not advised and neither were the girls at the Tabernacle, who were there to greet us, (and explain the virtues of the Mormon Religion). Full of apologies and implored with us to set aside Sunday morning for the TV Broadcast recording at the Tabernacle, This had been our original plan anyway. The other pity is the performance at the conference centre was only ½ filled with people any way and had the tour organizers known, we could have been included. Salt Lake City was settled by the Mormons, after fleeing persecution in the Eastern States. Initially they came in covered wagons over the 1300mile trek. 10 years later they were still coming some walking and using hand carts to transport the family possessions. The destination was to them Zion, and they came with a passion to establish their church, and boy have they done that. About 80% of the population of Salt Lake City are Mormons and the buildings that they have established are incredible. They run a free shuttle bus from the airport and the RV park on an hourly basis. If you have time between planes they will give you a tour of Temple Square, the hub of the church area. The Conference centre has a huge auditorium that seats 21,000. The Church Office Building has an observation deck on the 26^th floor, it is huge, the tallest building in Salt Lake City. We spent some time in the Family History Centre where we were able to trace back a couple of extra generations on the Williams family tree, actually found out where our Welsh heritage came from. Could have gone on and on but we had to move on.

It seems amazing what can be achieved on a 10% tithe. Also with a lot of volunteer helpers.

The girls at Temple Square are volunteers, they save their money to support themselves when they accept a “Mission” for 18 months. The boys commit to 2 years when they accept a mission. The location and purpose of the mission offered is determined by the church leaders and may be declined by the person, although we got the feeling that no one did. It has to be said that we always came away from an encounter with a volunteer, full of admiration for their cheerful attitude, manner and helpfulness.

Another tour that we arranged, was to the Salt Lake and the Kennecott Copper Mine. Kennecott is a division of Rio Tinto, they have the largest open pit mine in the world here producing 300,000 tons of copper per year, plus a host of other by-products. There are 70 gigantic haulage trucks which each transport 250 – 300 tons of ore per trip, their tyres are 12ft diameter. The pit is 2 3/4 mls wide and ¾ ml deep. Since 1893 they have produced 18.1million tons of copper.

One of the interesting items on the lake part of the tour was a building called ”Saltair” This is actually Saltair 3. We were shown pictures of the original “Saltair” it was built on pylons over the lake and a railway line took the full sized steam train with passengers right out to the massive building on the pier, it had a dance floor that would hold 5000 patrons, around the outside on the pier was like Luna Park, Imagine St Kilda Pier 100 times larger. Anyway it burned down and so did it’s replacement. The current one is not a patch on the earlier models and actually looks pretty forlorn. It is used for rock concerts etc as the noise is not a problem as it is 15miles from the city.

The lake itself is huge 80mls long and 40mls wide with 20 islands, there are no rivers that flow from the lake, and it’s salt content varies in different parts and the lake changes in depth according to the feed in from the snow seasons and the evaporation which is the only means of it reducing.

Sunday morning, we were picked up at the RV park and taken to the Tabernacle for the recording of the weekly “Music and the Spoken Word” program. The non denominational program is carried on more than 2000 radio & TV stations word wide and has been uninterrupted since 1929.

The 300 -360 choristers are all volunteers, they must be 25 years or more, a member of the LDS(Church of the Latter Day Saints, which is the Mormon religion) and they can participate for 20 years or turn 60 whichever comes first. The 180 women’s outfits, (4 each) are all hand made by a team of 6 volunteer women. The members of the full orchestra which accompanies the choir are also volunteers, as were the dozens of ushers and assistants. The 30 minute program was a delight and very moving, prior to the actual recorded session there was considerable practicing and getting things right.

A little more about the religion itself. They believe in a living Prophet and his role is for life, he is chosen by the prayers of the 12 disciples of the church. They used to practice polygamy, in fact the Prophet Brigham Young who lead them to the site to establish their city had 23 wives, apart from being a prophet he was either a masochist, a martyr or a fool. The Territory of Utah was declined in it’s bid for Statehood on several occasions until they banned the practice of polygamy, 10 years later they became a State.

After leaving Salt Lake City we were on Route 80 which closely follows the original “Oregon Trail” and “California Trail” of the early pioneers when they left Kansas City to open up the west, both trails followed the same route until Battle Mountain, in Nevada, where they split, one trail to the North West to Oregon and the other to the South West to California. It was probably that same trail that the Mormons took to their Zion.
See Photos

Bonneville Salt Flats

Before crossing the border from Utah into Nevada we stopped at the Wendover Salt Flats, the site of the Bonneville Speedway, where Sir Malcolm Campbell had some of his speed record attempts, 622.4 miles/hr was recorded there in 1970. There is a measured mile on the salt flat and to complete an attempt, the vehicle has to be measured over the mile both ways within 1 hour. See Photos

After an overnight spot amongst the mountain goats and sage brush we made Reno by lunch, time enough to take the public transport system and have a look at the Casinos. We went through several, they all appeared the same, and had the same smell about them, not at all appealing and no where near the class of their Vegas counterparts. Reno itself was not an appealing city, we seemed to be confronted with a lot of weirdos in our short time there.

National Automobile Museum. (Reno)

One Shining light in Reno, we happened to pass the National Automobile Museum whilst on our day trip. Looked up the details, it looked promising so we delayed our departure the following day to pay a visit. There are 220 motor vehicles on display, many previously owned by film stars, such as Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, John Wayne, Al Jolson, Bette Davis and James Dean. All of the cars were presented in immaculate condition and the settings were appropriate for the era represented. A most enjoyable couple of hours.

Carson City is about 20 miles south of Reno and the gateway to Lake Tahoe. Carson City had a more appealing feel about it, cleaner, newer buildings more compact. It still had casinos but the appearance of Reno was that the newer more up-market casinos were being built on the fringe and indeed Carson City probably is gaining from that shift. See Photos

Lake Tahoe

The climb up out of Carson City went over Spooner summit at 7164ft and down to Lake Tahoe. The lake is divided between California which has 2/3 and Nevada which has 1/3, The nearby ski areas of Squaw Valley and the like make it a popular base for the moneyed set and many of the homes around the coast and on the hills overlooking the lake, attest to that. We did a complete circuit around the lake which was about 75miles, the lake is 1640ft deep in parts and holds enough water to cover the entire area of California to a depth of 14 inches. The lake is so clear that objects on the bottom 65 ft below the surface can be seen. Although the area is known for it’s skiing at the nearby snow fields it is obvious by driving around that the Summer is the peak for them, boating is huge, with marinas at various places around the lake. Most boats are still in storage, some stacked 4 high on special racks in yards by the shore. Many of the lakeside houses have their boats moored, suspended above the lake in a covered “Boat Garage”. Whilst winter is cold and the whole area is deep in snow, the lake does not freeze because of its depth. See Photos

Yosemite National Park

We moved on towards Yosemite NP and our first target there was Hetch Hetchy, the site of a bitter feud in the early 1900’s when the beautiful Hetch Hetchy Valley was flooded to provide a guaranteed water supply for San Francisco. The fight still goes on. As we drove in there were notices “Restore Hetch Hetchy”

We made camp just outside the park at a National Forestry Campsite Diamond “O” to allow a full day to explore its features, we noted a sign that restricts vehicles larger than 25ft x 8ft , we are 24’6 x 8.2, so we are hoping no one runs a tape over us.

No such luck, as we approached the entrance the Park Ranger greeted us with I’m sorry you are too large, there are only 2 RVs that fit the criteria, Mercedes Sprinter and a Dodge. She shudders every time an RV approaches. Our appeals were having no effect, but an alternative of a 1ml walk in to Observation Point was an option and park the RV at the entrance gate. The Ranger gave us a map and advice on the track. So off we went., The map indicated that we would follow the trail for 7/8 of the distance then turn right for the last 1/8. We returned after 2 ½ hours of solid going, unable to find the end, we had given up, as had a group of young guys in the same boat. We returned to the Ranger to find that the map was not to scale, the first part of the trail was 1/8 and the second part 7/8 of the trip. (could have been the reason we missed the turn) They confessed that several people get lost, but it’s easy they say.

We decided to refresh with a cuppa and have another go. Not only do they need a new map maker but they also need someone with a pedometer to measure the distance. We are sure that 1 mile was more like 2. We made it to the top, so that was an achievement. Unfortunately the view was a disappointment to us and to others who had made the trip. When we returned, the Ranger assured us that they would get to work on proper signage and send a party out to review the trails needs. So we achieved something anyway.

The drive into Yosemite from the Oak Flat Entrance Gate was rather quiet, we were both thinking the same thing, this is just another drive through a pine forest until after 15 miles and we hit the view over Yosemite Valley, Great granite mountains with waterfalls cascading from the top, middle and all over, a river at the bottom of the valley raging, white water that would be a challenge for any raft, but they are not allowed here. We understand now what the people rave about with Yosemite. Managed to get a camp site for 1 night and need to check early tomorrow to see if there is a vacancy for the next night, There are hundreds of campsites, all full and this is mid week and not school holidays. Wouldn’t like our chances were it the weekend.

There are also dozens of semi-permanent tents set up where people drive up in their car and have a tent booked for their accommodation.

There is a free shuttle that moves people around between 21 different bus stops.

There was a waiting list for the Friday night campsites we put our name down at 8.15am and were number 9 on the list of about 35 wanting sites, there were 17 available so we were in, but had to go back at 3.00pm for the draw. Used our day doing the Valley Floor Tour and generally checking out the facilities. A great video of the park was on at the Visitor’s Centre, we have found this feature in most of the National Parks and give a good insight as to what to look for in the park.

The biggest of the granite rock faces “El Capitain” is 3200 ft high and attracts rock climbers from all over the world. Camp site 4 is set aside for climbers and was littered with tiny tents. We understand there were 35 -40 climbers actually on the rock face on the Friday, we were able to find and photograph 4 of them, It apparently takes 4 -5 days to climb “El Capitain” so the climbers have to sleep on the near vertical face of the mountain, suspended by their ropes, apparently it is quite a sight at dusk from the valley floor where you can see the climbers turn their head lamps on to set up their night gear. We gave it a miss as it is more hassle with a motorhome once you have settled in.

They recently had a record set by professional climbers to scale the 3,200 ft face, it took just 2 ¾ hours. The ranger explained that they do not carry any gear with them on those attempts, it is all set there for them. They virtually run up the rock face using the ropes and gear that has been laid out.

There are many water falls in the valley the most noted being Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls, which are just behind the visitors centre. The falls were flowing at full strength, an enormous amount of water spilling out over the top of the cliff 2,000ft up, these falls dry up in August after the snow melt has stopped. Another the Bridal Veil Falls was also in full bloom, this one is often in photos promoting the park. Horse Tail Falls is a lot smaller and usually does not flow for long, it comes off the top of El Capitain, it was also flowing. This one coming from so high up and not the great volume of water actually does not reach the ground as a stream, in its 3.200ft drop the water is dispersed by the breeze.

As we left the park gate on Saturday morning about 8.15 there were 35 cars queued up to enter the park and more were streaming up the road as we drove away. See Photos

Kings Canyon National Park

We moved on to Kings Canyon NP and had a ranger guided tour of the Grant Grove stand of Sequoia trees, they are huge, many of them are over 2200 years old and have a massive diameter, up to 40 ft. One huge tree named General Grant is the tallest of the Sequoias in the NP, though not the largest, was nominated as the nation’s “Christmas Tree” by President Coolidge in 1926. See Photos

Sequoia National Park

The following day we went on to Sequoia NP about 35mls along the mountain range. One of the features of the park is the tree named General Sherman, it is reputed to be the largest tree in the world, a girth of 103 ft at the base and a height of 275 ft and weighs an estimated 1385 tons. During the Summer Season there is apparently an endless procession of people lined up going past the giant as if paying homage, we at the Spring Season were able to walk up and photograph without such clutter.

A Giant Tree walk, a half mile round trip was a highlight for us, the snow was banked up and in places 2 to 3 ft deep, when there is no snow it is designed for wheel chair access. We had to put on our Yaktrax (shoe chains) which we bought in Denver for just such an occasion, and use the walking poles to make the walk safely, they were great, would not have attempted it without them. On the walk there are countless giant sequoias, all begging to be photographed. After having our fill of sequoias in brilliant sunshine, we headed down the mountain and quickly found the clouds closing in, the fog lasted all the way down to the foothills. On through Fresno and the weather turned to rain as we thundered down the Freeway 99.

Well we are definitely on the home stretch now, the expected mileage has blown out to7300 and we have notched up 7050, we have only 250 down the #5 to LA left. See Photos

We have been through all of our scheduled National Parks and Monuments. We find ourselves with an unexpected 3 days to spend in LA and there are lots to see there. We might even catch up with “Mickey”

7. Back at L.A..

We went up to Turlock where we had the RV serviced, washed and waxed last year and had them do it again, we came down the #33 to avoid the hassle of either the #99 or the #5. We were amazed to see the number of oil pumpers around McKittick and Taft, to say hundreds seems to underestimate, they were all over the skyline, paddocks and alongside the road. Then it was the #5 for the last 75 miles up over Tejon Pass into LA. Boy is that a pressure drive, holding 60-65mph Semis left and right almost wall to wall, watching the lane markings so you don’t get thrown off into right turn only lane. We eventually made it to Anaheim, picked up the keys, filled with petrol and settled in at the RV park. We have booked up a full day tour of LA with Greyline Tours tomorrow and a full day at Disneyland on Thursday. We figure we should sleep on the plane on Friday night.
See Photos

A summary of our trip costs.

We drove 7500miles, used 797 gallons of petrol, spent $2397 on petrol, and $1043 on camp site costs. We spent 12 nights free camping, 23 nights in RV parks and 15 nights in National or State Parks.

Alaska and the Rockies by RV from Los Angeles 2009

2012-01-09T18:53:00.000-08:00

See Entire Route Map

Travel Itinerary 2009

Travel Costs 2009

1 From LA up the West Coast See Route Map

After a 15 hour flight from Australia we arrived at LAX airport on the 4^th April 2009 at about 4.30 pm and found the Disneyland Express which took us firstly to the Disneyland Hotel, sat there for a bit while the ticket man got on and collected the $32 return fare, the bus then took off and dropped people at the various hotels in the area, Ours was the Castle Inn, which is almost opposite the entrance to Disneyland. And was the cheapest on the internet when we booked it. It was handy, clean and plenty of facilities around. A $20 taxi ride the following morning had us at the RV Storage in Anaheim, It was Saturday, we let ourselves in, found the RV, started it up and set about unpacking our gear and finding our way around our home for the next 7 weeks. After about 3hours we launched ourselves onto the Los Angeles freeway system and set the Tom Tom GPS to Santa Barbara on the coast, it’s called blind faith, but it was certainly better than trying to read the maps and follow the signs. Our biggest problem was getting used to Tom Tom’s instructions, sometimes she leaves it a bit late, other times she is early and you find you have turned a street early and do a few loop the loops to get back on track, come to think of it that was mainly in Hawaii where we were being tested by her.

The West Coast
We called in at Santa Barbara checked out an RV camp ground it did not impress at all, it was more like a storage yard for RVs than a camp ground, $50 they wanted, no one home, you leave the money in an envelope and pick your site. We needed to stock up with supplies, so we took the envelope for a site and went in search of a supermarket, we found a “Scolaries” store and did our shop, so they got the $50. Although we are about 180miles North of LA, you would be forgiven for thinking we had traveled South into Mexico.

We finished up spending our first night camped on a side road off the highway. $50 seemed too much for taking up a bit of gravel space for the night. Anyway our site was much better.

Hearst Castle
Thursday we continued up the coast road, a sign “Hearst Castle” 10 miles ahead, we dragged our memories and realized that this would be William Randolph Hearst, the media Magnate (the Rupert Murdoch of the 1930s) We called in and asked about a tour, sorry all sold out, we were told there was a little man in a cap who was going to return his tickets, we found him and ended up on the next bus to leave for the castle. It was a great tour well worth the time and cost. Photos
Heading north again we called in and photographed some sleepy Elephant Seals on the beach. The coast road we have been traveling on since the leaving Castle has been absolutely spectacular, I know we are proud of our “Great Ocean Road” in Victoria but this is every bit as scenic. Our only regret is that we are traveling North, there are double lines for most of the road and as we are on the hill side of the road we do not get anywhere near the same opportunities to pull in and soak up the view, mind you we are not without some photos. We intend following this coast road right up to Seattle, as we write this we are camped, overlooking the ocean at Rockport, having traveled 940 miles from LA.

We called at Monterey where Clint Eastwood was mayor, (don’t think he was home) it was a nice town, we walked the wharf and bought some fresh fish. Went on to Salinas where, after disobeying Tom Tom at one point, she got even and sent us through the middle of the market garden plots of Artichokes, eventually we got our destination A Walmart Store and a Home Depot (ala Bunning’s) We bought some tools and materials for some motor home renovations and have been gradually sorting out a few of the bugs ever since.

Last night we camped overlooking Tomales Bay, again we called at a Camp Ground, no one home, fill in the form and leave $40 in an envelope and find a site. Thanks, but no thanks. It was much more pleasant on our own. Today we called at Fort Bragg for supplies and fuel looked for an early stopping place, so far the commercial RV parks do not impress, all jammed in on top of one another.

We ended up at Rockport, at a council operated beachside van park, on some cliffs overlooking the Pacific.

9^th April, Thursday. A miserable day it had drizzled all night, just enough to be a nuisance, we headed up Highway No 1 through the redwood forests, a feature that we wanted to see was the “Avenue of Giants” in the Humboldt State Forest, quite spectacular, huge redwood trees, one had a hole you could drive a car through, it was claimed to be 315 ft high and 21ft diameter. The avenue went for 31miles in and out of dense timbered areas. It was the original Highway 101 but it was so narrow they rebuilt the highway just outside the forest we have moved on to Clam Beach camp area, again overlooking the Pacific. It stopped raining which gave us a chance to walk the beach. The sand is dark grey here and has been for the past three days driving along the coast.

It is now 9.15pm Good Friday, in US they are aware of Good Friday, but shops are open, no holiday here, not even displays of Easter Eggs in the shops, haven’t even seen a hot cross bun.

We have booked in to a nice state run park in Brookings Oregon, just over the border from California, on the coast, we have power, internet, dump site, etc, etc. We did not travel far today, although we have covered 1172 miles since leaving LA. We got here at 11.30am and have had a rest day, spent a bit of time tinkering with the motorhome. Still a very scenic coastline.

We begin to think that we have got used tom the left hand drive, then all of a sudden you find you have approached the wrong door to get in. Must be vigilant about becoming complacent, when the mind wanders one reverts to the comfort zone.

The helpful part of driving on the wrong side of the road, is that they put the steering wheel and controls on the wrong side as well. Photos

2 Brooking Oregon to Vancouver Island See Route Map

We are now in Canada, Victoria, on Vancouver Island to be precise. We came by ferry from Port Angeles in Washington State and landed here at 3.30pm today Tuesday 14^th April and booked into the Fort Victoria RV Park about 8 miles out of town, at last we have internet for a couple of days.

We left the coast road in Washington at Lincoln City and headed to Portland as we wanted to see the Mt. St. Helens Volcano visitor centre, The last time we were here in 1983 St. Helens had erupted not long before and was still smoking. The visitor centre showed details of the damage that was caused by that eruption. We have now been told that a volcano near Anchorage in Alaska is playing up and they are diverting planes from some areas, it’s only hearsay at this stage so we will have to wait and see. Whilst we were able to see all of the things the visitor centre had to offer, outside it was raining cats & dogs and visibility was so bad not only could we not see the mountain, it was difficult to see the tail lights of the cars ahead, wish we could send some of it home, it might break the 10 year drought that going on in Australia .

Coming through Portland the Tom Tom lead us on a merry chase, we had it programmed for the shortest route, I would hate to see the long way, we were sent through the elite area of the surrounding hill country, it was like winding through the small lanes of Tacoma in the Dandenongs. Still as frustrating as that was the homes were well worth the diversion, the gardens were a picture, being early Spring the blossom trees are in full splendor. Lorraine and I have different names for the Tom Tom, the main difference is that I swear. It is an absolute necessary evil.

We avoided Seattle and chose to head towards Port Angeles on the North Coast of Washington State, at this time we were searching for a place to pull up for the night and following a sign to a State Park we ended up at Twanoh State Park on the shores of the Hood arm of the waterways that surround this picturesque area. The road winds around, about 30 ft from the shoreline and between the road and the water there is a continuous string of houses, some of them extended out over the water, many have their garages and tool sheds built in hacked out cuttings from the hillside on the other side of the road, as there is no room for them on their house lot.

The camp site is in a cedar forest, we were the only campers there amongst these huge 250 ft high cedars. The weather had cleared and the next day looked to be good so we decided to hang in for another night and take advantage of the power to complete the renovations to the cupboards, as by now we had obtained the rest of the materials needed by a visit to Home Depot just out of Portland.

Lorraine took time at Home Depot to check out the Spring blooms and found the our old fashioned Columbine was the in flower, other wise most of the flowers were the same as at home, camellias and rhododendrons being very popular.

We finished installing the shelving and a few other tit bits that had needed to be done, We were warned by the ranger that we could expect hail and snow overnight, the hail came but alas no snow. I am sure we will have had our fill of snow by the end of this trip so not a big deal.

The drive from Twanoh to Port Angeles, we expected to take a while but we were soon onto a freeway system that took us over a massive floating bridge and had us there by 11.30am. A ferry was leaving at 2.00 we booked our berth and waited.

Victoria, Vancouver Island

We have had a busy day, took the bus to town, did a bus tour of the Victoria, Museum, Craigdarroch Castle etc. then caught another bus out to Butchart Gardens (about 25km to the North) so we are ready for an early night. Money was a bit of a problem, the regular buses do not give change, I had a few $1 & $2 notes left over from our last visit to Canada (1985) It was quite a novelty for the bus drivers as they have not been in circulation for years. We must say it was pleasure to hear the teenagers going to school almost all, thanked the bus driver as they got off, not only the teens, but most adults as well. The bus drivers were all most helpful in guiding us to the next bus connection stop, in all quite a pleasant experience. The Castle was great, the grounds were in the process of being re-laid out in the original form, so that part was a mess. The Butchart Gardens were a picture, and we certainly took a lot of them, perhaps a bit out of season for the main blooms (roses and rhododendrons) but the blossoms and bulbs were in full strength. We feel we have seen Victoria and so will move on up the island tomorrow.
Victoria has a similar climate to Melbourne, rarely snows if ever, about 20" rainfall per year, temp range 1 - 30 degrees so it is perhaps a little cooler.
They claim to have the best weather in Canada and as such is a favorite spot for retirees.

3. Victoria to Prince Rupert See Route Map

We left the Fort Victoria RV Park and headed North along highway 1. The highway No1 Starts at Victoria and continues across to the Atlantic. The Canadians claim to have the longest continuous highway in the world, they quote Australia and Russia as having longer, but they are not sealed all the way. I don’t know what part of the sea they sealed between Vancouver Island and the mainland, but there is an hour’s ferry ride in the middle of the highway from Nanaimo to Vancouver.

A brief detour at Duncan , where we turned West to have a look at Lake Cowichan, it is a huge lake which they use to train on for ocean canoeing, very pretty countryside with patchy snow still on the tops and ski slopes of the mountains to the West, we returned to highway 1 sidestepping a couple of times to have a look at some of the coastal towns. We were quite surprised, we had envisaged that the island was sparsely populated when you leave Victoria, not so, there is a freeway 2 and 3 lanes each way so far and by the number of shopping centres there must be a fair population to justify them, and they are still building more.

Anyway highway 1 turned west into the ocean and we took to No 17 to continue North. We were very glad that we chose to get the ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria rather than from the Vancouver port. We docked in the harbour in central Victoria, whereas the Vancouver ferry docks at Nanaimo 111 kms North of Victoria.

We found a very nice State Park on the coast just out of Parksville where we setup for the night, no power or water at the site, but very nicely laid out amongst the tall trees.

Port Hardy

We saw our first wild deer this morning, in the camp ground. later on in the day, just before Port Hardy a couple of black bears beside the road. No chance for photos in either case.

Port Hardy is pretty well the end of the road here on Vancouver Island, a smallish timber and fishing port and I suppose the ferry creates a bit of work and industry. The drive up the coast road was very interesting, we went through Fanny Bay, famous for it’s oysters we stopped and watched at one of the piers, the bank of the beach was probably 3ft deep with oyster shells. Several communities have their houses built on the bank and extending out over the water, small houses, no front yard and the only outdoor space a wooden deck.

Several areas had logs floating in the bay , bound together for transporting to the mill

Shakes and Shingles are a popular building cladding for roof and wall . Some mills specialize in churning them out.

They look good, mostly they are left in the natural split state. Another interesting method is the log cabin construction, which they seem to have perfected here. The barns many of them the Dutch type (double pitched roof) are huge, In Europe they house their stock in them over winter, but we are not seeing much stock here at all, maybe it’s for the big boy’s toys. So many homes have motorhomes stored in their yard. Another feature we noticed was the ads for sale of motorhome sites along the resort areas. Motorhomes of course come in a range of sizes. Many of the 5^th Wheelers are obviously not for traveling purposes, particularly when they have 4ft high 3 pane, bay windows in the front end. They are almost certainly intended to be driven to a site and left to be used as a luxury cabin.

The snow capped mountains in the north of the island are quite spectacular the camera was constantly clicking away and occasionally we would be able to stop and do justice with the camera. The highway finally reduced down to one lane each way and the traffic reduced to odd cars & trucks carting logs. We checked out their “fish & chips” at Port Hardy, the fish “Halibut” was very nice, but we will pass on their chip making next time.

The motorhome is traveling well and we are delighted with the way it handles, at 10 miles per gallon, while the cost of running is not cheap, when you consider that it is our accommodation, transport and restaurant it becomes cost effective.

We have driven 2164 miles (3482kms) since leaving LA through to Port Hardy at the top of Vancouver Island. Think that’s about the same as Melbourne to Perth.

We are free camping just out of Port Hardy tonight and will check out the ferry details and check-in time tomorrow then spend the rest of the time looking around the town. Photos

Prince Rupert B.C.

We are here in Prince Rupert after 22 hours on the ferry, Booked in to an RV park for the night and will head off towards Whitehorse and Skagway tomorrow. The ferry trip was interesting through the inside passage, very much like the cruise down the Yangtze River in China, the main difference being that there was no action along the shores of this one and there was a lot of snow capped mountains along the way. Unfortunately the weather was not favorable, a fine misty rain most of the time and low cloud, which was impressive on the mountains but stopped a lot of visibility. The water was very calm and the trip smooth. It was the last voyage for the “Queen of Prince Rupert”, it is to be de-commissioned tomorrow (not our fault). We enquired about leaving the RV here and taking another ferry from here to Skagway, but the delays along the way and the fact that there is no other way to return to Prince Rupert to collect the motorhome aided our decision to drive to Skagway. Photos

I have just returned from visiting a neighboring RV (Martin & Barb Tighe, from Ketchikan ), Alaska, I went over to see if I could get some information on the roads up north, 2 hours later I returned with 2 travel books that the couple gave me to assist us with our travels in Alaska, one of them the 2008 “Milepost” unbelievable generosity.

Other neighbours here, a couple had been to Australia last November, the wife being an Aussie was having withdrawal symptoms for the Sydney surf, she has been here long enough to loose her accent, hang on, we don’t have an accent, they do.

It appears that the best time of the year in the Alaska area is June /July, that is when the salmon are running up stream and all systems are up and running, but we will make the most of it for what is open and available now.

We saw two sea otter playing in the water by the jetty this afternoon and there are a few deer wandering around the campground.

Prince Rupert has a area called Cow Bay, there is a café that sells Cowpaccinos, the boardwalk is lined with black & white lamp posts, litter bins and all other appropriately painted items. On the other side of the street is “The Udder Place”.

We were able to find a supply of Muesli, at Port Hardy of all places. The store was “Overwaitea” who advertise as “B.C.’s very own food people” so we are assuming they are wide spread in B.C. They had a huge “loose” products serve yourself area , where you select, bag and weigh your product. Nuts, dried fruit, sweets, jams, chocolate, grains, muesli, plus plus plus, All very professionally set up.

This RV park has arranged for wireless internet, he gave me the password and said I would be the first to use it, didn’t work and the couple next door said they had been given the same password 12 months ago and it didn’t work then either. Photos

We are now in Terrace, the drizzle has stopped, now it’s raining. A beautiful drive from Prince Rupert , the snow is melting, parts of some lakes were still frozen over and the waterfalls down the mountain sides are all over. The road is clear of snow, so at this stage it’s just the rain that is a constant nuisance.

4. Prince Rupert to Skagway See Route Map

Well we ended up sending the emails from an internet Café in Terrace. Tearing my hair out trying to hook up with hot spots, just aint my cup-o-tea.

We camped a few miles out of Terrace, it rained all night, and looked like it was set in for a while. As we moved further East the rain eased and we at last saw the sun, it is bright and yellow, we had almost forgotten, we fueled at Kitwanga and were advised that the forecast was for more rain.

The Cassiar Highway.
We turned onto the Cassiar Highway and the sky started to show patches of blue, it was a great drive, the mountains snowcapped rising from the rivers still partly frozen, lakes were just a sheet of white. We both have to soak our right index finger tonight, they are suffering from an overdose of camera clicking. We seem to have it all today even snow, although it was very warm traveling .

We free camped by the Ningenaw River , we seemed to be in a spot where moose or elk visit there were several sightings of droppings but no positive ID. We were expecting to be woken by them during the night, but no such luck.

We did however wake to the silence of light snow falling, there had been a fair bit overnight as the Jamboree was covered and all the Spruce trees were holding their share an each branch, it was quite a picture. As we enjoyed our breakfast the snow fall got heavier. Needless to say, another photo opportunity not to be missed.

We took to the Cassiar Highway again with great appreciation of the fact that we have snow tyres fitted.

We drove for 12.5 hours today through the most magnificent mountain peaks, frozen lake after lake, rivers trickling between thick banks of snow and icing over anywhere where there was no movement, trees standing tall and proud with their burden of snow, The occasional wind gust would go past the trees and it was like a dog shaking after a swim, the tree would shed it’s snow in a puff. The Spruce seems the ideal tree with snow on it, it conjures up the traditional image of a white Christmas.

The snow continued to fall for about an hour after we hit the road, it was bleak driving, but then the sun came out and we hade a magnificent day for the rest of it. The road was still covered with snow for some time. The Jamboree grew spikes from the wheel nuts on the front wheels and icicles formed all over the body of the RV. We however were snug and warm in the Jamboree., The gas heater (furnace) and the generator take turns to keep us warm during the evenings.

The days are long it was still quite clear at 9.30 last night and there was no moon at the time.

We refueled and lunched at Dease Lake, there we caught up with a couple of IT guys. I asked the question about having portable internet on the laptop here, not on he said. It is possible, but not for mere minions like us, it costs a fortune to set up and then 8c/min to run. He asked were we headed North or South, North I said, he replied, “then it’s only going to get worse.”

What about a plug in card bought in USA, forget it, was his reply. So it looks like we are on “occasional contact only” Lorraine’s phone has been getting no reception either.

The wildlife sighting for the day was the rear end of a black bear going off into the trees.

We tried to book in to an RV park tonight but they all looked inaccessible with the huge build up of snow around, we looked at 3 and went past them all, eventually we found a track that went down to an old road works, by Swan Lake so we were about 200m from the highway. All of the “Rest Areas” along the highways have notices prohibiting overnight stays, so it’s not worth the risk trying it, particularly as one is so visible with the long daylight hours. Another trap we found all the way up is the sign “Campground” follow it and you may well end up in a resort with facilities for RVs. About 30miles before meeting up with the Alaska highway we crossed the border from British Columbia into The Yukon, we did that again and again and again. The state border between the states is a straight line, however the Alaska highway weaves across it several times.
Photos

The Alaska Highway
An interesting fact about the Alaska Highway that we are traveling on now, is that it was built by the USA in 1941 in such a rush, they forgot to consult Canada about it. After Pearl Harbour, the US were fearful that Hitler, who at the time was planning to invade Russia and if successful, he would have access across the top via the Bering Strait to Alaska, The US needed to be able to supply Alaska, fearful of the Japanese Navy Submarines, they chose the inland route. After the war Canada bought it for a fraction of the cost of building the highway.

Skagway

At last ALASKA, we arrived in Skagway at about 5.30 after another day of great weather and unbelievable scenery, photo stops almost around every corner, I even got up onto the roof of the Jamboree to take one panorama group. It is hard to put the camera down, no sooner do you turn it off than you are reaching for it again. The drive down into Skagway through White Pass was about 20 miles of steep down hill grade, There were several truck escape run offs, should they have brake failure. In the middle of the run down “US Customs” They inspected our fruit & vegies and asked all sorts of questions. The lass had difficulty in understanding what I was saying, must have been a bit deaf or something. We traveled on the opposite side of one great canyon to the Skagway –White Pass Tourist train. We took photos of the railway line and how it was tacked onto the side of the mountain, bit scary. The railway was a hangover from the Klondike Gold Rush and has been restored as a tourist feature for the town, Photos

It is 9 days before the first cruise ship comes in and everything in town is either being repaired or repainted. The town itself looks like a set out of Disneyland, the shopping section are all old buildings as they were in the heyday of the Klondike era (1898), as we are 2 weeks early all but the grocer, hardware and a couple of other stores are “Closed - Open Mid May” . So May to September is the operating period, during that time the population doubles from 800 to 1600.

Another interesting fact about Alaska is that it was part of Russia until 1868, USA had been pressuring Russia to pay for their share of a telegraph system that was being built across the top from USA to Europe through Russia, Russia didn’t see the value in the telegraph line and reckoned that The US would eventually take over Alaska, so they tried to pit Canada and USA in a bidding war to buy Alaska, USA paid about 5 cents per acre for the property.

Not long after we settled into the only RV park that was open , and had a heck of a job finding the owner, we rang a tour operator from Haines, a town across the inlet to book in for a flight over Glacier Bay and all its mountains. The weather prediction was not good for the next day, so he suggested that he could fly over and pick us up and go in 25mins. We thought we would drive over and leave from Haines, woops, it was 15 miles by sea but 350 miles and probably 10 hours by road. We accepted his offer to pick us up. It was 90 minutes of “pinch me, is this real”. The small plane flew at 120knots at 4000ft. We took about 300 photos between the two of us. Whilst it was looking a bit overcast when we took off it wasn’t long before the sun was shining and the viewing was awesome. We flew over many glaciers and were given a running commentary as we went. The whole experience was mind blowing, we spent the rest of the evening sorting out our photos and drooling over them on the computer. It had been a busy day, we were on the road at 7.15am and drove about 320miles to get to Skagway. Needless to say we had a lazy day today walking the town and lounging about. Photos

5. Skagway to Anchorage See Route Map

Saturday 25^th April, that might be Anzac Day to us as Australians, but as it is the last Saturday in April it’s “Clean up Day” in Skagway.

Friday we noticed groups of school kids being shepherded around each with their yellow plastic bag, picking up what ever litter they could find, but Saturday is everyone’s day for the clean up, getting ready for the first Cruise ship, which will bring the first of the 900,000 tourists that grace their boardwalks each year. We bade farewell to our neighbours for the past day, a couple of women each approx 50ish, they drove up in a huge 38ft “A” Class motorhome towing a big ute, and in the back of the ute was a rather large Quad Bike, inside the RV a poodle and a cat were quite a home, Our only other neighbour in the park was a woman, traveling with her 2 large dogs in a large ute with a “Slide On”.

As we drove around town to refuel before heading out we noticed family groups, little tackers in pushers and a bit older, all with their yellow bags, in some cases the bags were bigger than the kids. We blew our goodbyes to Skagway and headed up the mountain pass (White Pass) on the way, we of course we had the opportunity to stop and take some photos, We noticed a ute stopping in different places and assumed they were also playing the Kodak game, but no, father was behind the wheel, stopping for Momma to get out and pick up the litter along the roadway edges, on one occasion we noted her climb over the guardrail to retrieve some morsel of rubbish, it was almost a sheer drop off the edge and she was clinging to the rail, extending herself out to reach the rubbish. Photos

It was a beautiful day, blue sky, the mountains looked so crisp, then as we reached White Pass it snowed, we were able to pull over and take advantage of the incredible scenery from the Jamboree window while we supped on our morning coffee.

A bit further along , over the hump as it were, we saw a group of vehicles parked where they had unloaded their Ski-Doos and took off across the valleys and up the sides of the hills leaving only an array of tell-tail tracks to show where they have been. Other sporting gear such as Snow-Boarders using kites to propel them along

We actually saw one guy put on a pair of skis and take off down the hill, (must have been an old fart). A dog sled was parked on the snow, no dogs around to be seen, other than the ones sitting in the cars. Everyone seems to have a big dog or two and they are made welcome in all the RV Parks and shops. They often occupy the font passenger seat in the car or ute. One chap driving a ute, noted that I had a camera around my neck so he stopped and chatted because the dog , a huge Siberian Malamute loves having his photo taken of course we obliged and the dog “Phoenix” dutifully posed. A bit further on and we are through a Canadian Customs checkpoint, about 30miles from Skagway, now we are in British Columbia, but not for long, 20 kms further on and we are now in Yukon, We still are, back on the Alaska Highway and will be for another day, before we re-enter Alaska at Beaver Creek.

We got back on this highway at Whitehorse which is the capital of Yukon, the city centre was a bit off the highway, we called in for a look .

Interestingly the capital of Alaska is not Anchorage, the most populated city, nor is it Fairbanks, the next largest city, no it is Juneau, which was quite close to Skagway, but strangely you cannot drive to Juneau, there are no roads in, it’s either fly or ferry. So we could not get there without considerable expense.

We settled in off the highway for the night, as I write this it is 10.30pm and it is still quite light outside, the sun has not long dropped below the mountain range.

Sunday 26^th, was a bit of an anti-climax from the “In your face” mountain terrain that we had been through.

We traveled alongside the St Elias mountains and Lake Kluane before re-entering Alaska just past Beaver Creek. The Nutzotin Range was in the distance but the close landscape was a bit less interesting. Photos

We turned West at Tok and then came around the back of the St. Elias mountains, where the scenery became a lot more dramatic. The St.Elias range is a glacieral range with several glaciers formed between 12 and 26million years ago. The ice is estimated to be 700metres in depth in some parts of the glaciers.

The less interesting area mentioned previously was actually a about 150miles from Burwash Landing to Beaver Creek. The land here is “permafrost” where the soil is permanently frozen 2 ft below the surface, this has the effect of causing the trees to have stunted growth as their roots cannot penetrate the frozen ground. The surface of the ground is a permanent slushy marsh as water cannot penetrate to get away, almost impossible to walk through. The roads in the area suffer from “Frost Heaving” where the earth moves and distorts the road surface, in places quite dramatically, causing severe bumping and shaking of the RV, so it was a case of slowly riding the big dipper.

In this region we passed through Northway just over the Alaskan border, Northway has recorded temperatures of minus 70 degrees, in winter.

We finally settled on a site next to the Slana River for the night, and sit here watching great chunks of ice float down the river, when a beaver went along the opposite bank.

Caribou on the Move
We rose to a warmer morning, on the road by 7.15, a lot of photo stops as we went along side the Wrangell National Park. At 9.30am we stopped in our tracks to allow a herd of about 250 wild Caribou cross the highway just in front of us. They are apparently on the move during their migration and moving away from the threat of Wolves. Needless to say the cameras went crazy, and out with the tripod as the herd moved a bit distant. It was a great thrill. A local couple stopped and we chatted about the Caribou and the area, they recommended we include a side trip to Valdez on Prince William Sound. Valdez is the end of the 800 mile oil pipeline, built in 1979 which starts in Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean. The oil is fed into a series of huge holding tanks or loaded directly into waiting tankers.

After getting our breath from the Caribou excitement we decided to take the Richardson Highway for the Valdez option and delay our arrival at Anchorage for a day. Photos

Valdez.
Valdez is heralded as Alaska’s equivalent to the “Swiss Alps” and whilst we have not seen the Swiss Alps, one can appreciate the comparison. 85 miles out of Valdez we started down into a wide valley which became more narrow and dramatic the further we went, we would be cautiously approaching every corner as they were all gasping for a photo. Unfortunately photos, as good as they might be do not give the full story, it really was like an “In the Round” presentation. We stopped at Worthington’s Glacier and watched as some climbers traversed the glacier, There are frequent warnings about the inexperienced walking on the glaciers and this was emphasized again by a couple of skiers we met on Thompson Pass a few miles further on. They had just completed their day’s ski on one of the mountains, which for them was a 10 hour walk to the start of the skiing and they would break the skiing into 4 sections before reaching the bottom. They were both Ski Guides enjoying their off season. They felt that they should stop skiing now as it was getting too dangerous with the snow on top of the glaciers melting and making the opening of the crevices more of a hazard.

There are only 3 or 4 Ski Fields with lifts in Alaska, much to the disgust of the two boys, although another is planned for Anchorage. Thompson Pass has a reputation for receiving the most amount of snow each year, an incredible 1000 inches (25metres) . From Thompson’s Pass into Valdez was through narrow gorges all very awe inspiring. We made it to Valdez , parked and walked the floating marina docks. They are quite complicated as they have 16 ft tides here that they have to contend with. The snow on Thompson Pass was looking rather grey, which the boys advised us was ash from the recent volcano activity.

Our first peer into the water and we are greeted by a Sea Otter laying, floating on his back with his front paws tucked up under his chin, obviously dozing. We walked the town replenished our larder, refueled then drove around to the other side of the bay and took up residence for the night overlooking the water and the town. Chatting to a couple of locals pointed us in the direction of Allison Point, the pipeline terminal and a good view of the sound. That all proved good advice and in fact we were able to stay in a park on the water’s edge overlooking the town, which is nestled in at the base of a huge mountain. The drive out the next morning was equally as interesting as the drive in, part of the drive is through Keystone Canyon, a very tall cold canyon just wide enough for the road and the Lowe River. We stopped in the middle of the canyon to inspect an old 1880s railroad tunnel cut through the solid rock mountain, at 7.30 in the morning, we were never so cold as the wind through the canyon made us. Photos

130 miles back to the junction and we were again on track for Anchorage. The Glenn Highway, lined with spruce and obviously suffering from more “Frost Heaves” eventually rose to 3000ft, where we stopped for lunch. A couple of guys pulled up with a trailer loaded with Ski-Doos and a couple of tow sleds. Father and son from Wasilla, they had driven a couple of hours to this point to unload and set up their gear then drive their Ski-Doos 13 miles across the snow and a lake to get to their hunting lodge that they have been building for the past 3 years, they need to retrieve some equipment before the snow goes and they can’t get their ski-doos in. We watched as they took off at great speed, dad was not sure whether he needed a jacket or a swim suit for the journey, as the snow has receded so much over the past fortnight. Craig and his Dad have invited us to call in at their shop at Wasilla on our way past to Fairbanks. (we tried, but couldn’t find the shop) Photos

Anchorage
On to Anchorage and the highway again ran along side a magnificent range of mountains, this time the Chugach Mountains, which was clearly displaying the long run of glaciers and we tried to observe them at every vantage point.

We have finally reached Anchorage and booked in to the Gold Nugget RV Park for 2 nights.

6. Anchorage to Fairbanks See Route Map

A day in Anchorage, shopping for bits & pieces was a pain in the butt, the City is very flat, seemed to give off little character, the road system seems difficult to follow, multi lane roads where they forget to mark the lanes, we tried on several occasions to go “Downtown” , eventually we got there.

One interesting piece of history here is Captain Cook, yes “Our” Captain Cook, he discovered the area here, which is aptly named Cook Inlet, whilst he was searching for the “North West Passage” A large statue overlooks the inlet. We had found the same in Victoria on Vancouver Island. He was a busy boy, was our Captain Cook.

One aspect of our trip is the timing, great for some things and not so good for others, It certainly did not put Anchorage in it’s best light, the city has mainly Birch and Aspen trees throughout, and of course they are deciduous and all are bare at this time. Apparently we just missed the thaw, which is a particularly ugly period of Anchorage’s year. When all is slush. Even though there is snow and road gravel around the edges of some areas the city was quite dusty.

This is the place for boys and their toys. There are a lot small planes in airfields dotted all around the place, Alaska is said to have the highest ownership of small planes in the world. The snow season sees the utes and motorhomes towing a trailer with 2 or more Ski-Doos, as the snow melts the Ski-Doos get covered up and the ATV’s (All Terrain Vehicles or Quad bikes as we know them ) come out and take their place, The sides of the highways are as you get near a town become like a race track along each side of the highway. They are getting to be a problem with soil erosion. Also seen being towed around are the swamp boats, the ones with a huge fan to propel them across the shallow swamps, and boats of all sizes are being moved around. It is Sunday today and obviously the first fine weekend for the year has got everyone on the move.

Alaska like every country has it’s quirky tournaments , like rolling cheese down a hill in England, racing up a mountain with a bag of wheat over the shoulder in the Mallee, Victoria. A couple of Alaska’s famous one’s are “The Arctic Man”, where a skier a snow machine and driver, The skier starts at 5,800 ft elevation and drops 1,700 ft in less than 2 miles to the bottom of a canyon. The skier then catches a tow rope from his partner on the ski machine, who tows him 2 ½ miles uphill at speeds of up to 86 mph before they separate and the skier finishes the race by going over the side of a second mountain and dropping 1200 feet to the finish line.

Their other big one is the Iditarod . A 1000 mile dog sled race from Anchorage, apparently the same guy has won it for the past 3 years. Last year he entered another 1000 mile dog sled race a week after winning the Iditarod with the same team of dogs and won that one as well.

There appears to be very little farming, but what could you farm in the climate here. An area just north of Anchorage was set aside and President Roosevelt sent farmers from the Mid-West into this area to try to make Alaska self sufficient with food, similar to our Soldiers Settlement Scheme Photos

The Kenai Peninsular.
After leaving Anchorage we headed South to Seward, another very photo demanding trip with glaciers and snow covered mountains, we tried for a diversion into Whittier and the Portage glacier, but alas the tunnel was closed due to a rock slide. We thought we would try again on the return trip, figured that as Whittier was the port where the Alaska Sea Ferries pull in they would not have the road closed for long. It appears that up until not long ago there was only train and air access to Whittier, then they put this 1 mile tunnel through a mountain and built the road, we find it has been closed for over a week and the train is now being subsidized to transport passengers for free to and from the town.

Not long after we started down the highway from Anchorage along the edge of “Turnaround Arm” a 40 mile arm off Cook’s Inlet, so named by Cook because he found there was no Eastern outlet. We pulled over to clean the windshield as we were heading into the sun, Before the cleaning I took a couple of photos of the extensive mud flats, the water’s edge was way out. After cleaning the windscreen we noticed that the water’s edge had come in a long way. Lorraine put the kettle on and we sat for the next 15 minutes and watched the tide completely cover the mud flats. You could actually see a small wave advancing across the mud as the tide came in. Later we found a small point of land called Bird Point where it explained the whole phenomenon of the tide movement here. It is called “The Bore”. From Bird point where the Arm narrows, at the start of the flow in the bore can be a wave up to 600mm high advancing across the mud flats. We were not fortunate to time the main “Bore” and as we were watching earlier it was on a very wide stretch of the inlet

Seward.
At the end of the drive we found Seward, a similarly attractive fishing port as Valdez, with the extensive floating moorings and the same high rise & fall of the tide. Halibut is the fish of the area, it is so popular that they have great competitions when the season is on. We decided to buy some fresh Halibut for a meal, we located a store attached to a fishing fleet. Sorry we only have frozen Halibut, but it was caught fresh (now there’s a statement) We said ok and he retrieved a package from the freezer, a bit under a kilo. After paying for it I waited around for a while, expecting him to draw up a certificate of part ownership in the trawler that caught the fish, but no such luck. We thought we should keep it for a while before offering it to the frypan, to savor the moment.

Homer.
From Seward we drove another 200 mile to Homer, another part of the Kenai Peninsular, on the way we called at Kenai and Nikishi from where we could see three volcanoes 50 mile across the inlet, Mt Redoubt was the one that threw a lot of ash in the air three weeks ago and it is still puffing a little white smoke from time to time. The other two Mt Iliamna and Mt Augustine have been dormant for a while, they are all located on the “Pacific Ring of Fire” a list of volcanoes skirting the Pacific.

Homer was an interesting fishing town and claim to be “The Halibut Capital of the World”, whilst the town is spread out on a hillside overlooking Kachemak Bay, the actual business end of the town is built on a Spit of land that looks as though several small islands have been connected with a built up roadway, all heavily walled with rock. The spit is about 2 miles long and a few hundred feet in width. There, the fishing fleet and harbour for the smaller craft are moored to the now familiar floating docks and a number of Charter Companies waiting for the tourist season to kick in. The Spit is also home to many RV parks, all of which were empty at this time. We stayed in the first one we came to as it had been a long day, so we were on the beach before the main spit started.

We watched as another camper was picking up something from the sand along the beach, curiosity got the better of us and we went off to find answers. Coal, he was collecting coal from the beach, he had read about local people gathering coal from this beach, for some reason it keeps working it’s way up through the sand and there is always some to gather.

It was 11.00 at night and freezing cold, he thought he would have a fire to see if it burns, the following day. We woke the next day to a cloud that hung 20 ft off the ground so there was not much we could do if we hung around. We toured the Spit, spoke to a few locals and headed back, to see if we could get through to Whittier on the way home.

No such luck we are still too early, but we could get as far as Portage Glacier, so off we went, we took advantage of the closed facility there to use it as a camp for the night. The glacier and surrounds were pristine, the tour boat to take tourists to the edge of the glacier is still frozen in the ice, so it will be a while before it gets going. Photos

Denali National Park.
Our next overnight was at Denali NP on the way to Fairbanks. Were fortunate that the park had not yet opened officially and they were training bus drivers for the opening. Normally you park at the front and get bused in to the camp sites (tents only). The road was open and we had been told by a guy at portage glacier that they were allowing cars in for the full 30 mile drive and not worrying if they stayed over night, we took full advantage and parked for the night on a ridge 20 miles in and watched Caribou grazing in the valley below. In the distance we could see Mt. McKinley (also known as Mt Denali) the tallest mountain in Alaska. They have also reasoned that it is in fact the tallest in the world, when measured from it’s base. Everest has a start by being on the Himalayas. A very chilly night in the park, up early to drive the extra 10 mile and catch the wildlife while they still had sleep in their eyes.. Photos

Nenana.
Nenana, a sleepy little town, about 60 miles south west of Fairbanks is home to the Annual “Nenana Ice Classic” Wher each year the local residents erect a huge timber tripod on the frozen Tanana River, the tripod is connected to a time clock, when the ice melts and the tripod collapses into the river, it trips the clock and records the exact time. A lottery is conducted, with people from all over the world placing bets, on the time and date that the tripod collapses. This lottery has been an annual event since 1917. The dates have ranged between 20^th April and 20^th May. Lottery Tickets are $2.50 each and the winning prize can up to $300,000.00. Photos

Fairbanks.
On to Fairbanks, we didn’t hang around much, it was Sunday, Again the city was very flat and dusty, they had been having temperatures up to 80 degrees, there was still snow built up that had been cleared off the edges of the roads. We drove on to the next town (more like a suburb) called “North Pole” There are no prizes for guessing what the main business is in this town. The Santa Claus Shop on St. Nicholas Drive, where all things can be arranged. Letters posted from here are of course postmarked “North Pole”. A must call in for a look. Photos

7. Fairbanks to Jasper and The Rockies See Route Map

We moved on to Delta Junction and decided to take a side trip to Summit Lake and Isobel Pass which, at 3280ft is the highest road pass in Alaska, it was a 120 mile detour but well worth the effort, the mountain scenery was up to what we have become to expect here. We were able to drive in, almost to the base of the “Gulkana Glacier” set up and have lunch, looking at the glacier through the picture window in our traveling restaurant / hotel. This was also a great place to see the Oil Pipeline. Photos
Back on the highway we moved on to Tok for the night by the river.

An hour before crossing back into Yukon a wolf presented itself for photographing on the side of the road and Lorraine obliged.

We had wanted to make the return trip via Chicken and Dawson over the “Top of the World Highway” to complete the “Klondike Loop” however that was not to be, as the US Customs was not due to open the border crossing there, for another week.

The Alaska Highway.
The return trip along the Alaska Highway was a bit ho-hum, as we had traveled this way before. However the scenery was very different, as the sides of the roads are now mostly bare of snow and the water ways and lakes are thawing, some rivers can be seen running with the ice still along the banks, great chunks of ice float down causing all sorts of clogging. We took some photos of places we had taken on the way up, to compare the difference.

It was a long day, slow because of the “Frost Heaves” in the highway, about 200 miles is badly effected. Even so we managed to cover over 400 miles that day We finally got an internet connection in Whitehorse as we passed through, hence the last email. Eventually we set up camp on the banks of the Yukon River.

Wed 6^th was another repeat of the drive up, it was however topped off by the sighting of Bison along the road side, first there was 5 of them, we stopped the van and just sat there, cameras snapping as the small herd slowly walked past us , the herd split 4 went down one side and one the other. Shortly afterwards we encountered another two walking along, we stopped again as they passed. Again we found a site on the banks of the Laird River and settled down for the night, we had gone down a side track and when we heard it start to rain well after we had gone to bed, it was decision time, shift now or risk getting stuck. Sense prevailed, albeit driving in jocks, backing up onto the highway then finding another spot.

The Northern Rockies.
Today we have gone into new territory and the Alaska Highway took us through, up and over the “Northern Rockies” past Munch Lake, which is famous for it’s Jade green colour, whilst still mostly frozen there were parts where the colour was quite visible. We were greeted along the way with a herd of about 40 Bison, obviously grazing the “Long Paddock” along the road sides. The other wildlife that we were fortunate to see today were 4Elk, 10 Caribou, a Fox, and 2 Black bears and a Badger (we think it was anyway) have a photo so we can check it out.

Speaking of photographs, I thing I am traveling with Cecilia B DeMille, Lorraine has take over 2000 photos so far and does not nook like letting up, even caught two bison having a bit of a head butt type play on the movie section of her camera.

The Alaska Highway, as we mentioned before was built by the US in 1941 The whole highway was built at a rate of 6 miles per day, building from both ends and finished in 8 months and 12 days,. When you look at the terrain that was encountered over the 1500 miles and the bridges needed, it was a remarkable feat. We will have traveled the entire length when we reach Dawson Creek tomorrow.

The daylight seems to be getting back to normal (our normal that is) It is 8.00pm and the sun is low in the sky.

We are currently at Sasquatch Crossing (not on the map) about 240km NE of Dawson Creek BC.

Well, now that was yesterday, today, we have been to the 0 milepost of the Alaska Highway in all it’s glory in the middle of an intersection of the town. We have now moved on into the State of Alberta, in an RV park on the outskirts of Grande Prairie on our way to Jasper and the start of our Rocky Mountains section. We are looking forward to that.

Today we added a black bear and a deer to out wild life list, other than that it was pretty mundane farmland, paddocks being ploughed for sowing, small oil wells pumping away, putting extra dollars in the farmers’ pockets. We actually saw some green grass for the first time in weeks.

The trees are getting noticeably taller as we come South from the Arctic areas. Spruce trees are like a carpet, throughout Alaska, Yukon and Northern British Columbia. But the size of the trees in their diameter of the trunks, makes one wonder how they could use them for milling. A large tree would be no more than 300mm diameter and that would not mill much useful timber.

8. Jasper to Banff See Route Map

Well our GPS sent us on a bit of a tour, we seemed to go East instead of South, it was starting to rain and the shock of the traffic in Dawson’s Creek left us follow the GPS blindly. We were well out of town before we realized and by then it was easier to go along with the computer voice of the Tom Tom, than turn back, it was going to get us to the right place, but not the way we expected.

We had filled with petrol after shopping at Safeway and were pleased with the 7c per litre discount we got by using the Safeway Card. No sooner had we left town we also left BC and ventured into the state of Alberta , the first servo we saw had petrol at 12c litre cheaper than Dawson Creek.

We sussed out an RV park on the outskirts of Grande Prairie, it was advertised as full year operation and it must be as they have quite a few permanents there. We obviously were one of the first travelers for the season, many of the bits weren’t working properly. They tried to make things all homey, and it was nice. A small plaque inscribed “Some days you step in it, Some days you don’t” was displayed neatly on the wall. The following morning when we were packing up we had to empty the sullage tanks and top up with fresh water for the next week. You got it , we experienced our first frozen pipe “blowback”. Not a pretty sight, you don’t know what to grab first, shut off the valve or shove the pipe back into the dump pipe, you can’t reach both and there is going to be a mess which ever one you choose. I began to appreciate the little motto on the plaque. Photos

Jasper.
All fresh and ready for the road we traveled down the Bighorn Highway and finally to Jasper, for the last 70kms we were headed toward a huge mountain range, snow covered peaks crisp green trees lining the sides of the lower slopes and gullies, It became noticeable that the tree line in Alaska was a lot lower than down here, (That is the height of the mountain that sustains tree growth). We were approaching the Jasper National Park which is at the Northern end of the Rocky Mountains, They continue 285 kms South East to just past Banff, We intend to explore this area before we leave.

Sunday 10^th May (Mother’s Day) and what a day. We programmed to be up at the Gondola first thing and have a relax before the trip up Mt Whistlers. It is referred to as the Jasper Tramway which gives a non-stop Gondola ride to the upper terminal at 2,270m.

As we had not adjusted our clocks after entering Alberta, we had no time to spare and were shuffled on to the next car. Amongst the attendants here there are many Australians, young, fresh and keen, they come to work for the season and seem to love it. The ride up was great and the view was breathtaking , The driver in full Aussie accent gave us the names of all of the ranges in view and the names of many of the mountains and their history. Mt Robson was pointed out , it is 80kms from the gondola and today was only the third day for the season that it has been visible. Two days back the visitors to the top saw nothing and were virtually snowed in. So the weather is certainly holding on for us, I must remember not to complain when it breaks. When we got to the top, the panorama of the Rockies was awesome. There is a 1.5km hike from the upper terminal to the top of Whistlers a rise of 1,100 meters. We decided to have a go, we got three quarters of the way up and sanity prevailed, we could see others having difficulties coming down so we called it a day and rested set up the tripod, took the mandatory photo with the appropriate background and headed down the slope. We headed out to Maligne Lake for lunch, on the way we stopped at Medicine Lake, which was all but dry, reading the info sheets on the lake it is a mystery as to why , but the lake is always full to a depth of 20 ft and although there is no visible outlet to the lake it always dries up in the Autumn, just leaving a few small streams across it’s very flat bottom, The lake is quite large 5km x 1km so there is a lot of water coming and going. Maligne lake is in the same valley , it is 15km long and keeps it’s water year round, albeit frozen at this time. Photos

We headed out to catch up with Mt Robson , camping on the way at a small lakeside park.

The following day Mt Robson had it’s usual cloud hanging to it, so the top wasn’t visible, we went to a couple of falls in the Robson NP one of them “Rearguard Falls” is the last hurdle for the Salmon when they fight their way back 800 miles from the sea up the Fraser River to their spawning grounds. It is apparently quite a spectacle each August as they try to swim up the falls. Photos

We returned the Jasper to refuel and raid an ATM Shock , Horror, all the ATM’s we tried would only accept
Mastercard, they rejected my Visa Card (the preferred card for the Olympics). Finally a bank had a machine that was Visa friendly.

The Glacier Parkway.
We traveled along the Glacier Parkway, the road between Jasper and Banff, the scenery was fantastic, it seemed to take forever as we were continually stopping for photos or call in and check out a couple of falls, after many more photos we arrived at Columbia Icefield at 8.30 pm. there we propped for the night, A little snow fall welcomed us. We spent the evening sorting out our cold weather gear for tomorrow. We have arranged for a trip out on the Columbia Glacier in a huge “Ice Explorer Bus”. Photos

We woke to the ground covered in snow, there was about 50mm that fell overnight, it put a pretty effect to the Chalet and the area. We were first in line for the Glacier Trip and the first trip had only 10 passengers, It was great, the fresh snow on the glacier, undisturbed, the sky cleared , sun came out and we really didn’t need the several layers of clothing that we had squeezed into. An exciting experience, they have an area cleared on the glacier where they take the groups to and you spend 25 -30 minutes out of the special snow transporter on the glacier, the tour guide was saying that in the peak of the season they would have 8 transporters and 400 tourists in that same area which we shared between 10. As we returned to the Chalet we passed two full busloads going up to the glacier. Tour buses had started to arrive from Banff for their day excursion. Photos

We moved on along the Glacier Parkway gazing in awe at the mountains on either side, it was another day of slow going and lots of photos. We had been recommended the walk in to Peyto Lake and Bow Summit by the bus driver.

On turning in to the lower carpark at the lake we found that the 15min walk to the lake view was through snow , probably 3-400mm deep but if you keep to the trodden tracks it is compressed and ok to walk on, what hadn’t been considered was that we were 2 old farts not used to trudging through snow, veer off the track and it’s down down down, so the 15 min walk blew out to 45 each way. Not very far in and it was felt that the new “Black Diamond” trekking poles would be useful, they almost turned mother into a mountain goat. It was like watching a movie of Scott crossing the Antarctic, trudging one foot after the other. But we got there (and back) It was about 1.5kms round trip and snow was falling for most of the return. A very exhausted but satisfied mother was ready for a cuppa.

Lake Louise.
We continued along the Parkway to Lake Louise. It seems to be quite an up-market resort area, but as it was snowing pretty solidly for the last 30 mins of the drive we had a quick look around tried to get a glimpse of the lake, but the snow was falling fairly heavily, it all looked like a wonderland and so we headed for the campground. Hopefully the weather will clear overnight and we will see it tomorrow.

We are encountering a lot of other motorhomes on the road now, the rental season must have kicked in. A lot of Aussies too.

Went back the 6k to have a look at the Lake at 8.30am, it was still snowing heavily , so we donned the warm gear and braved the short walk, it was a magnificent sight, this huge hotel / resort the frozen lake the trees all hanging heavy with snow, couldn’t see the mountains, or more than 20m out onto the lake but it looked fantastic, (more photos). Photos

Banff.
We headed off to Banff, the snowing eased as we went along the 1A scenic route, saw 2 Moose, 2 Deer and a Grey Wolf on the way. A pretty drive but for the first part we couldn’t see the mountains for the low cloud. Banff, we found to be a very commercial town, up-market stores with upper market prices. The town seems to have been built around the very large Banff Springs Hotel which was opened in 1898, the then owner ( the boss of the newly built Canadian Pacific Railroad) was so impressed with the area he decided that as they could not export the scenery they would import the tourists. This they have done very successfully, when built it aimed at the upper crust of society and still plays that role. It was soon to be part of a chain of Luxury hotels in the Railway Tourism line, Lake Louise Hotel is on the same list. Both are still very much the luxury side of the Canadian Rocky Mountaineer train extravaganza tour. Photos

We had intended to stay the night in the RV park there, but we drove past it and decided to return to Lake Louise to camp, as we had to back through there anyway.

A stop off at Johnson’s Canyon on the way back was the highlight of the day, we only went to the lower falls, 1km in but a lot of the walkway was on a platform fastened to the sheer side of the canyon wall, quite scary in places and we were almost on our own due to the time of day. All sensible tourists were tucked up getting warm.. The lower falls were a thunderous roar of water plummeting down into the canyon. We gingerly crept our way back along the catwalks to the warmth of the Jamboree, and back to Lake Louise.

The snow had all cleared from the roadways and the clouds had cleared when we arrived and we decided to take another look at the lake. The comparison to the morning was amazing, what looked like a Winter Wonderland this morning was completely changed, we could see the mountains and the whole lake which were a picture, but the whole scene from the morning visit is the one that will remain with us as Lake Louise.

We are now about to make the 2000 mile run down to Los Angeles hopefully in time to catch the plane home.

There is of course a few more sights to visit on the way.

9. Banff to Mt. St Helens See Route Map

We left Lake Louise after another morning of light snow when we awoke. It was just as well we took the effort last night to see the lake while it was clear. We called at an internet café to send off the last emails then headed out towards Fields near where there is a spectacle of engineering with the railway line. To make the climb the trains go through the Spiral Tunnels. If a train comes, you can see it go into a tunnel in the mountain, then before the Caboose has gone into the tunnel, you can see the engine come out of another tunnel on another level, The trail then winds around goes under the road and into another Spiral Tunnel to get it to another level and get over “Kicking Horse Pass”, the effect of the spirals is to double the length of track required to get to the level required this means that the incline of the track can be kept to an angle that the locos can cope with. We were fortunate in that while we were there a goods train entered the tunnel, we got photographs of the Caboose going in and the loco and the body of the train spread over three levels. The train was obviously very long, we did count one yesterday, 2 locos in front and one at the rear with 114 carriages in between, this one must have been the same.

Emerald Lake was our next stop, a very pretty little lake with a charming set of 2 story log cabins grouped in a resort complex, A store with rental canoes, rowboats and whatever else they would use, all a bit lost at the moment as the lake is still 80% frozen. A local attraction near the lake is a natural bridge, where the water which formerly went over falls eventually cut its way through the rock and formed an arch.

Rogers Pass in the Glacier National Park was the peak of the railroad problems when it was put through in the 1880s. The mountains are so steep either side of the pass the avalanches are commonplace, Canadian Parks are proud of their efforts in keeping the road open for the past 10 winters, They call on the army to set up and fire some pretty hefty artillery into the mountains at different times to cause small avalanches, before they become major ones. The Trans Canada Highway (No 1) goes through several tunnels that are built as avalanche protection, they do not go through the mountain but are built over the road in places where avalanches can and do occur. The rail goes through several others as well as a long tunnel through the mountain. The rail line, the river and the highway all vie for space along the narrow valley, at times it was difficult to know which was on which side as we criss crossed our way along.

Whilst the mountains were huge on both sides and dramatic with their snow covered sections, it was not pleasant driving as Highway #1 seems to have every road train and truck west of the Rockies traveling on it. Most daunting when they are looming in the rear view mirror. The weather was very patchy with periods of rain, sleet and sunshine.

We made it to Salmon Arm and settled in to an RV park for the night.

Kamloops.
We traveled on through to Kamloops, where we were able to have the wheels rotated and pressures set, from there we followed the Thompson River, most of the time we were high above the river and we stopped from time to time to watch the goods trains wind their way around the cliffs on the other side of the canyon. 2 diesel locos in front then 69 freight trucks another loco in the middle, 69 more trucks and fourth loco at the rear. As we proceeded the canyon got more narrow, the cliffs steeper and the road more winding, eventually the clean waters of the Thompson river flowed into the muddy waters of the Fraser River at Lytton The waters remained separate for some time before they merged into one muddy raging river. There are two railway companies competing for business and they have tracks one on each side of the canyon, We camped on the cliff above the railway and river just out of Lytton and were surprised at the number of trains that went through during the night.

Friday 15^th May, it seemed that all of Canada has been waiting for it, a long weekend “Victoria Day” well the Monday is the holiday but it kicks off the start of the camping, fishing outdoorsy things after the long cold winter, so we had to do battle with them on the roads as we moved along.

Hell's Gate.
We had planed to visit “Hell’s Gate” just South of Lytton the next morning, even then we arrived an hour and half before opening. So we waited.

Hell’s Gate is the narrowest section of the Fraser Canyon and it is here where they built a series of fish ladders to assist the Salmon in their upstream drive to get to their spawning grounds. Apparently when they were blasting to build the railway the rock slides that resulted almost blocked the river, the narrower neck that was left caused the river to pass through with such force that the salmon were unable to fight against it. The numbers of salmon reduced as a result and action was taken to build the ladders, the fish numbers have returned to the prior levels as a result of the ladders.

Of the 3500 eggs laid by the female salmon it is estimated that only 7 survive to become adult fish. Those fish that do make it to the spawning grounds exhaust all of their energy getting there, they die after laying their eggs.

The drive down through the Fraser valley included the road going through several tunnels, quite a spectacular drive.

We crossed the border into USA at Abbotsford and moved on to Burlington for the night.

The jamboree was due for a service, after all we have driven 8500 miles to date and wanted to have it done before putting it to rest for a few months. Called at Camping World in Burlington but they were unable to fit us in, we stayed there the night and we moved on in the morning and managed to get a booking with Camping World in Fyfe for the Monday at 11. Photos

Mt Rainier.
This gave us the opportunity to have a look at Mt Rainier a very impressive snow covered volcano type mountain not far away, after a very narrow winding road we found a campsite on the banks of the Carbon River, the river was fed by the glaciers around Mt Rainier and was running quite swiftly, although by the size of the trees, stumps and other debris that was spread over the rocky river bed, it has a lot more stories to tell at the height of the flow.

Alongside our campsite was a rainforest with all the hanging vines and moss, this gave us the opportunity to get the daily exercise we need.

The servicing of the Jamboree was not without the inevitable delays but we were on the road again by 3.30 and after a few arguments with Tom Tom we found our way to nice RV Park at Mt. St.Helens. With internet connection there we were able to make some hotel arrangements in LA before the flight home and have a bit of contact with home, catch up on some laundry and generally tidy up. Raining again, we called here on the way up but could not see the mountain for the rain. At least we got a chance to see it this time before the rain started. Photos

10. Mt. St. Helens to LA See Route Map

On our last visit to St Helens we called at the Visitor Centre, the mountain was not visible due to the rain, for this visit the rain was on and off, low cloud restricted view again. We headed in towards Coldwater Lake nearer the mountain but stopped at the next visitor centre The Hoffstadt Bluffs Visitor Centre , this one concentrated more on the disaster and it’s ramifications and of course offered helicopter flights over the mountain and a host of souvenirs and a restaurant. It was still too cloudy to see the mountain so we had to make do with a postcard and make our way southward.

We turned off the #5 to bypass Portland and decided to stay off and run down through the smaller towns like Oregon City, Silverton etc. Sublimity and Stayton were two towns that impressed with the neatness of the gardens, style and quality of housing and the general feel of the area. It was actually a shock, as we had come to accept the general untidiness of many of the houses and in particular the quantity of old cars that seem to be a “Must Have” feature to clutter their building sites. The standard of housing seems a bit of a quandary, most new houses seem very well built and look very good. However the older houses often show signs of unwanted movement, dips in roof lines, uneven footings etc. Portable housing, often in the form of a 30 x 10 relocateable are often sat on very temporary supports and look very temporary. It almost seems as though if the building is a relocateable then there are no rules to obey. This was also noticed in Alaska and Canada where we thought perhaps the short time between the end and start of Winter would cause great difficulties in building in our “normal” way.. Or perhaps the “Permafrost” permanently frozen earth may have contributed.

Crater Lake National Park.
We decided to head towards Crater Lake National Park. Called at Silver Falls State Park and on past Big Cliff Dam. Solid rain but managed to gear up and walk out on the wall for a look and a photo, the highway took us over a snow covered mountain pass (ski area) and down to Sisters a town similar to Bright (Vic) obviously geared for the snow season,. Just past Sisters we found ourselves in a much different climate, dry, horsey farms, a prairie they call it. After passing through Bend, we found a campsite in a forest just out of Sun River, a property development site. Saw a coyote run across in front of us but not quick enough to get a photo.

Crater Lake is an amazing place. It has the highest snowfall in USA a yearly average of 44ft . The lake was formed when the volcano erupted 8,000 years ago and blew so much mass from below that the mountain could not support itself and collapsed forming the lake (official theory) With the annual rainfall of 66inches and 44 ft of snow the lake was filled and stays that way. It is a beautiful dark blue lake with an imposing snow capped rim. There is a rim drive on 30 miles around, but that is only open in July. It was certainly worth a few panorama photos, so we hope they work out. Photos

Mt Shasta.
From Crater Lake the drive was down toward Mt Shasta an impressive snow covered cone shape peak and at 14,162 ft is the tallest in USA on the west coast. The mountain was in your face as you drive down highway #97 and a great photo opportunity, we were warned about it and as we approached we noted that the sky was becoming hazy and as it was late we looked for a camp site before the mountain as it would most likely be clearer in the morning. This proved to be the case. Mt Shasta is apparently a volcano preparing to erupt but when, who knows. Climbers to the summit report of tell tale odors and steam rising from vents in the surface, Sophisticated monitors have been set up to keep an eye on it, but when you see the towns nearby, and read about the other volcanoes that have blown and the devastation they caused, the town of Weed does not seem a healthy place to live. Photo
A little further down we went in to Mt Lassen Volcanic Park, and saw the results of the 1915 eruption there. All part of “The Pacific Ring of Fire” An interesting map which highlights all of the known volcanoes circling the Pacific Ocean, There are hundreds of them.

From Redding we entered the Central Californian Valley which is 400 miles long and 80 to 100 miles wide. The area is as flat as a billiard table and is the food bowl of much of America. For miles we passed fields of Olives, then it was rice, mile after mile of lasered fields irrigated and sectioned off with the rice crops just planted. The next day we went through the orchards of peaches, tomatoes and cherries. As we ventured further down the valley the crops changed and almonds, walnuts and grapes came in huge quantities. Cotton, we were told was a big crop south of Bakersfield, although our only sighting was the telltale bits of cotton along some of the roadsides, blown out of the transport trucks.

Fresno.
We called at Fresno and had a good look around there, I might add that most of the moving around was trying to find a particular store using Tom Tom, It ended in many drives around the block, and eventually Tom Tom found our store on a freeway. If that GPS was a chook it would be in the pot by the time we finished.

We had found a gem of an RV Service centre “Best RV Centre” in Turlock CA, where we stopped and had the Jamboree “Washed and Waxed” for a $75. which was to save us a few headaches later. Also managed to pick up a couple of good draw locks that solved the opening draw saga, that has been an ongoing issue. Ain’t no more.

Bakersfield was our overnight stop, we tried for a Wal-Mart camping spot but it was like Christmas Eve in the carpark so we moved on to an “Official” RV ground.

This left us 110miles to get to Anaheim (LA) RV Park where we had booked in for a couple of nights to calm and settle before the flight home.

The drive was to take us through Tejon Pass at 4100 ft in the Sierra Madre mountains,70 miles North of LA. The freeway system through the mountains was 4 lanes each way and the scenery was so different to what we have been accustomed, treeless hills and canyons, slight scrub The Tejon Ranch a State Government acquired ranch ex 1853 surrounds the freeway and is a “Saving California’s Heritage” project.

We tried to choose a soft option, rather than go into LA and out to Anaheim we got Tom Tom to take us around, missing the “Busy” part. It was Saturday morning . Big mistake, we sat for an hour doing about 2 miles, the only reason appeared to the merging of 2 freeways. The mistake was, in assuming that some freeways are quieter than others. They are all the same, so it would have been a better option to go all the way on the #5. Photos

After 49 days on the road we covered 10,200 miles (16,415km), used 1096 gallons (4148 litres) of petrol. Fuel and camp costs averaged out at US$73.50 per day, our food and side trips etc. were extra. We had 15 nights at RV parks, 12 nights at State or Fed Parks and 23 nights free camping at sites of our choosing.

We will sit outside tonight and watch the weekly fireworks display put on by Disney ant Disneyland , which is about 1 mile away from our Anaheim RV Park on Ball St. and contemplate our next venture into the wilds of the USA Photos