Notes from the Road

Florida from coast to coast

2012-01-05T19:07:00.000-08:00

After all the great time with relatives in Alabama, we had to press on with our plans to go to the end of Florida. We figured the best way to start was to go all the way to the west to Pensacola, which has a special place in our hearts. My medical screening for entry into the Marine Corps was accomplished in Pensacola and it's where I started flight school. Shelli and I got engaged on the beach there on the way to the Marine Corps Birthday Ball. Eight years later it's where we bought our first home, and had Michael and John at the naval hospital there. It's also where I left the Marine Corps after a flight instructor tour.

After stopping by our old house to see how big the trees had grown, we went to Naval Air Station Pensacola and set up at the campground on base. The weather was clear and cold, and the sugar white sands and shiny blue water looked magnificent. A flight of two Blue Angel F/A-18 Hornets screamed overhead with smoke on while they flew low over us and came in for the break. I realized right away I missed flying the Hornet. Going fast, making noise, & blowing stuff up; of course I miss that. However, I don't miss the deployment schedule and time away from home so much.

Our first home.

The pavilion in our old neighborhood where we used to take Michael and John in a wagon while we walked our dog Otis, and threw the racquet ball for him over and over and over. We have a lot of great memories from here.

Being at the edge of Florida, we decided to drive over into Alabama and meet Shelli's cousin Kim and her family at Lambert's Cafe in Foley, AL. The home of "throwed rolls" did not disappoint as the rolls were thrown right to us, and they were warm and good. Michael and John enjoyed the roll catching and tricks played by the staff on the unsuspecting diners. They enjoyed seeing their older cousins Jim and John, and really enjoyed hearing their stories of getting into trouble even more. It was great seeing more family and laughing through the night. For a video of us catching the rolls click here.

In Lambert's Cafe with the Gallops family. I'm the only one that didn't order raccoon eyes with supper.

My last Marine squadron commanding officer still lives in the area and stopped by to spend some time catching up. It was really good to see him and catch up on many things including what all the guys are doing now. One of the neat things about aviation is that the personalities are similar enough and the community small enough that there are always plenty of things in common to talk about even after ten years without seeing each other.

Some of our friends from Virginia are stationed nearby and we were able to go to their house and have the kids spend an afternoon playing with friends. The Shiels family are good friends and we enjoyed comparing home schooling notes and talking about crazy ideas like living on a boat and traveling around. Unfortunately Mike was still in Afghanistan and we just missed seeing him by about five days.

Visiting our friends in Florida for the day.

We took Maui out for some fun running in the sand along the beach right by the campground. He had a great time digging in the sand and racing Michael and John. After the beach time, we spent several hours touring the National Museum of Naval Aviation. It's a great place for a review of aviation history including the space program. Afterwards, we went to the Naval Hospital to take a picture with the kids where they were born, then we went down along Perdido Key where I used to rent a condo back when Shelli and I got engaged. We continued over some bridges past Orange Beach Alabama and on to Alabama Point for some fishing at sunset where I remember fishing with my dad. I guess I used up all my luck back then when I caught two catfish at once when I was about ten years old. This time we saw shrimp, fish, and jellyfish floating by, but we didn't catch anything.

While we were driving back at twilight and John briefly looked out his window as we were crossing a high bridge, and commented "look at the snow!". At that time of the day it really does look like snow, but it's just sugar white sand. That rounded out a very full day for our last one in Pensacola.

On the beach right outside the camping area on the Naval Air Station. There is plenty of nice white sand and shallow clear water here.

Maui wins the races now.
Zoom, Zoom (John)

Get ready, set, go! (Shelli)

I wonder just how long Maui would dig? (Shelli)

Cool action shot huh? (John)

They call this area of the panhandle of Florida the Emerald Coast because of the water color.

I named the jellyfish Blob. (John)

Out by the F-14 on a stick in front of the National Museum of Naval Aviation. It's a really nice museum and it brings back some great memories for me.

John in the A-4 cockpit.

I'm fat. Fatter than usual. (Michael)

The Blue Angels' A-4's hanging in the Diamond Formation from the ceiling.

Standing by a HARM missile like the one I got to shoot years ago. It was really impressive to watch it come off the rails and streak across the sky.

On the steps of one of the helicopters from HMX-1, the Marine Corps unit that transports the President. Several of my friends had this duty.

Flight of the intruders.

Manning the guns!

Michael in a Blue Angels' A-4 cockpit.

Outside Naval Hospital Pensacola where Michael and John were born. Michael got to come out the front door when it was time to go home. John had to go out the back to an ambulance and be taken to the neonatal emergency room at Sacred Heart Hospital because he had a hole in his lung.

We tried fishing but didn't catch anything. (John)

The next morning we left Pensacola to drive towards Orlando. Luckily for us, that took us not too far from Geneva where we had mistakenly left a lot of our food in my parent's freezer. They were kind enough to get everything for us and meet us for a pizza lunch in Bonifay, FL right off the interstate. We continued on and made it to an RV park in Kissimee, FL after dark. We got everything hooked up but couldn't get the satellite to pick up anything, so I moved the RV back as far as I possibly could in the site to get a clear shot past some trees. Once it locked in, I put down the levelers. The next day when I went to empty the tanks, they didn't seem to drain out at all. When I did a little checking, I found out why. See if you can figure it out from the picture below.

Can you see why the tanks didn't drain well? When I retracted the leveler and moved the hose it worked much better.

Technically, I guess I could have backed up a little more. There really isn't much reason to leave so much space left unused.

We had been doing pretty well staying away from the expensive tourist trap activities on our trip until we got to Orlando. Of course, Orlando is pretty much the center of the expensive tourist activity universe, so we decided to go ahead and do a few touristy things. Michael had been wanting to go to a Ripley's Believe it or Not museum for a long time so we did that. We had been to Disney World and Universal Studios here a couple of years ago and really did all the Disney stuff, but John was too short to ride one of the roller coasters he really wanted to try at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure, so we spent one full day there. They were building the Harry Potter section of the park the previous time we were there, but now it was open, so we got to check that out too. We had good timing with limited crowds and good weather. We had really short or no wait time on the rides. It was nice not to have to stand in the rows and rows of guard-railing that we would have spent hours waiting in per ride during the summer rush.

For some reason, I couldn't get the picture straight? (Shelli)

The new Harry Potter Village is pretty impressive (Shelli)

They had Who-ville people walking around this area with very impressive makeup jobs.

After getting soaking wet on a couple of rides.

The butter beer was really a very good frozen drink that seemed to be a mix of cream soda, butter, and butterscotch with some heavy cream on top. We got in line for these several times.
This stuff was good! (Michael)

We also went to Gator Land in Orlando and had a good time there. The shows for jumping gators, exotic animals, and gator wrestling were entertaining. They had several hundred gators from babies to huge adults, and some very large crocodiles in multiple areas of the park. We were allowed to feed them hotdogs, but they wouldn't let us hand feed them.

Rawr! (Gator), (Michael)

The gator on the left has a hotdog resting right on top of his head. Michael threw it just right to peg him right between his eyes. He eventually submerged and a seagull claimed the hot dog.

I think this gator was considering what it would be like to have some human boots.

This guy looks like he quit brushing his teeth when he got around to the front. The last ones are a nice shade of green.

This gator was excited enough to lift out of the water to grab some chicken on a rope. It was a little cool so the thrashing was subdued - maybe later in the day when he had warmed, he woul have jumped up a little higher.

Heere gator gator gator. (Michael)

Good thing there is glass between us and the gator. (John)


This guy kept his eye on us the whole time. I call him blacky. (John) Durrhh! (Gator) (Michael)

That big one ate all the food (John)

Isn't he cute...............not Michael. (John)
Photo BOMB! (Michael)

It was pretty swampy out here, maybe even a few gators here and there. (John)

Yep, I wrestled this here gator all by myself. (Michael)

That guy would just not leave! (John)

This crocodile seemed content to dry out and bake in the sun for hours. Jokes about braces didn't seem to offend him.

We drove from Kissimme down towards the Keys and passed a Lamborghini in the process. I don't mean we saw a Lamborghini, I mean we passed him with our RV while pulling a minivan. He should feel really bad because he was passed by us, but at least he has company, because we passed a Ferrari somewhere else along the trip. I don't remember where. I just thought I should point out the fact we passed those guys.

We made it through Miami down to Islamorada just below Key Largo and stopped at San Pedro Village (campground) to spend a couple of nights. We were near the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park and spent most of the day there exploring the beach and walking through the mangroves. We decided not to go out on the boat to snorkel the reef because they had reports of Portuguese Man of War jellyfish. We had follow on options for getting into the water where there were none, so we went fishing instead. We fished off the bridges south of Islamorada and saw spotted rays jumping, big fish stalking prey, and had a lot of our bait stolen by small fish that knew how to quickly get tangled on the bottom or rocks on the sides. We watched the sunset and called it a night.

The next day we tried our luck fishing right off the boat dock behind the campground and we caught a bunch of interesting fish. Using shrimp and light tackle, we caught snapper, cow fish, needlefish, pompano, and small pan fish. Each of us caught something.

The weather was sunny, warm and nice down here. (John)

A bunch of bugs kept biting us. (Michael)

Fishing from one of the many bridges.

We saw spotted rays jumping out of the water from here.
Not much luck here either, but we had fun. (John)

Cool fish huh? (John)

This cow fish held his breath so long, he started turning blue.
Vibrant. (Michael)

That thing had some sharp teeth (John)

I wasn't holding him because of the teeth. (Michael)

I wasn't really asleep. (John)

I think Maui was using John for a pillow rest. (Michael)

We went to Key West and parked our RV in front of my friend Jim's house. I used to work with Jim before I retired and he and Joan were gracious hosts. We started the next day in Jim's boat and went to fish a few miles out. We stopped in an area that looked good with tons of birds flying around chasing bait fish. With a big lure trolling, we soon had a big cero mackerel on the line, but I lost him when he ran and took the line by the prop before I realized it. We stopped at another area and put live bait fish on the lines and sent them down to hang out just above the bottom. In only a few moments we had fish on and realized we were right above a bunch of grouper. Several times we had two on at a time as we raised them to evaluate if they were big enough to keep. John hooked an obviously big fish and asked for help with it right away, Jim grabbed the line and confirmed it was something big. After some work and scooping it into the net, we pulled in a 35-40 pound Jewfish (Goliath grouper) that unfortunately had to be thrown back because it is considered endangered. After bringing in probably 15 grouper, we decided to head back in for a break. With two grouper over 20 inches long to keep, we had a great start for dinner.

That fish was 40 lbs and I hooked it. (John)

It was up to my waist. (John)

If you look closely at John's fish on the right, you can see two cuts where something really big had tried to eat it.

Fish slime on my shirt... ;( (Michael)

After a good morning of fishing we went out for an afternoon looking for lobster and stone crab. We started off in a shallow area about four feet deep where some old culverts and other debris was scattered around. Right when we slowed down, we saw about a four and half foot long nurse shark just hanging out on the bottom, but it swam away when it saw us. The nurse shark was a good sign, so we hopped in and started looking for lobsters in the pipes and under the edges of debris and rocks. Michael, John, Jim and I took tickle sticks and nets to catch the lobster while Shelli and Jim's dog Cubby watched from the boat. The Florida Spiny lobsters don't have big claws like the Maine ones, but their spines can stick you, so we also wore gloves to protect our hands.

The tickle sticks are used to move the lobster out from under cover, align them facing away from the net, and then tap them on the antenna to cause them to dart backwards into the net. Then the tickle stick is used to close off the net and seal the lobster in until it can be measured. If it's big enough, it goes to the boat, if not, it is released right away. Each of us were able to catch lobster, especially when one of the pieces of debris was turned over and a crowd of probably 10 lobsters were exposed and walking along the sand.

We paused to take a Christmas picture before going after the lobster.
My hat almost fell off the boat. (Michael)

See the nurse shark on the bottom, pointing towards the camera? On the right you can see an old culvert piece that lobster like to hang out in.

Michael holding up his first lobster catch.

I figured the best way to measure this lobster was to size him up on John's head.

Michael and John comparing catches while I worked to get a smaller one released from the net.

Warming up on the boat and holding some lobsters. You can see these spiny lobsters don't have the big front claws like Maine lobsters.

At the second spot, there was a nurse shark hiding in an abandoned tub. I used the tickle stick to get it's attention and it quickly departed the tub. As I filmed it scurrying out from underneath the tub, I was surprised to see another four foot long nurse shark fan out behind it. We didn't find lobster at this spot, but we caught some spider crabs just to check them out and then moved on to another site to try our luck a little deeper. The water was about 70 degrees, which becomes pretty cool after being in for while. Riding in the wind on the boat then getting back in the water and repeating the cycle a few times starts to sap away body heat, so it starts getting cold.

Michael decided not to get in at the third spot while Jim, John, and I went in with the spear gun. Jim made a shot at a large grouper. The fish was hit in the stomach but it swam away so hard it ruptured it's gut and got away. On the next shot, Jim landed an invasive lionfish that is a threat to the entire reef system. After removing the lionfish, he went back down and the grouper was still in the same area and he was able to shoot him again and get him aboard the boat. The sun was about to set so we decided to head on back and check the stone crab traps on the way in.

Michael and his shipmate, Cubby.
It was freezing. (Michael)

The grouper and lionfish that couldn't escape the spear gun.

Michael and John pulled in the ropes for the traps and I lifted them into the boat. We had a very good day and there were a lot of big stone crabs in the traps. Jim showed the kids how to pull the crabs out, grab them by both claws at the same time from the back, and snap off the claws that were big enough to keep. Stone crabs are incredibly strong and it takes some finesse to remove the claws large enough to harvest without getting a pinch. Each of us had a go of grabbing both claws, measuring each one, and snapping off the keepers. John lost a little meat from his thumb when one crab got him, but overall the people came out ahead in this competition. Most of the crabs lost one or two claws and only one of us got a cut. The crabs will get a chance to fight back another day because they grow the claws back, and can survive just fine with both claws removed at once. The claws went in the cooler and the crabs were thrown back into the water. The traps were all reset with pigs feet for bait and we were off to prepare our catch.

We ended the night with a supper of plenty of grilled grouper, two lobster tails, and 30 stone crab claws. Jim and Joan gave Michael and John their first lesson on cracking open the thick shells of the stone crab claws. The meat is a delicacy and is sweeter than snow crab legs, but it takes some work to get it. There were little pieces of shell and splatters going all over the place as we tore into them. We ate a lot, but there was so much meat in the claws we probably didn't even eat half of what we had available that night. The lobsters were outstanding, and the grouper was mild and pulled everything together.

The crab trap and the rope for it was soo slimy. (Michael)

The crabs were strong! (Michael)

Those things are strong (John)

Adding more to our dinner pile! (Michael)

There is more food here than the picture shows. We had a feast and still had left overs. Jim knows how to prepare seafood!

The next morning we went out see what we could find using a seine net in the shallow areas near shore. On the way out, we went by several big iguanas basking in the trees to warm up. We pulled the boat up alongside and were just about within touching distance of them as headed out. There was discussion about grabbing one by the tail, but it didn't happen. I was too short by about two inches when I jumped up for it. That was probably a good thing.

We went to a nice wide shallow area near Naval Air Station Key West where F/A-18's were coming in and out of the landing pattern. The shallows were great with sandy and grassy areas to spread the seine net and walk along to collect whatever might be there. It was a really interesting thing to do because there was no telling what would be in the net. After walking a few yards, we pulled the ends together and took a look at what we had collected. We had several crabs, some pipe fish, and needle fish. We took turns walking along and checking out different areas. We found unusual crabs, big cow fish, a puffer fish, a baby flounder, and a lot of little bait fish. It was like a science class as we examined the life in the shallow areas. We collected the fish in a bucket and then put the video camera in the bottom of the bucket to get a view from the fish's perspective. The images turned out very neat.

Iguanas in trees! (Michael)

Seining was really cool. (Michael)

Putting our seining catch in the bucket for review.

A baby cow fish. (John)

Learning to seine was fun. We took turns pulling the net, collecting fish, and using the GoPro video camera.

A bigger cow fish and a puffer fish

A day in paradise!

A puffed up puffer fish (John)

A tough life!

Besides all the adventures on the water, we spent some time just hanging out at Jim's house. It backs right up to the water where we were able to catch snapper and look at barracuda right from the edge. The hot tub and pool with a hidden cave under a waterfall were a lot of fun for Michael and John. Maui had a great time playing with Cubby and looking over the edge down at all the fish.

We went to Mallory Square one evening to watch the street performers and sunset. The area has plenty of shops for the cruise ship tourists that dock nearby, and it gets pretty crowded around sunset. There are too many acts going on to see them all in one day. There are jugglers, sword swallowers, gymnasts, escape artists, fortune tellers, people painted like statues, animal acts, and other oddities. Each one tries to generate as much commotion and draw out their performance as long as possible to get the biggest crowd around them. This gets the most people around at the end of their show when they make their money from donations. We watched a couple performers as the sun was getting near the horizon, and then tried to find a good spot for a picture. After the sun set, we walked along to view another performance before heading out for supper. The Great Rondini was just starting his straight jacket escape act and he asked Michael and John to help him draw a crowd. It took me a few pushes to get Michael to go out in the front, but soon he and John were at center stage. Rondini gave them Christmas hats, put them on a stage and asked them to raise their arms while the crowd yelled to draw attention. After a bow in front of the crowd, Michael was the first to escape the act.

Maui and Cubby taking a break from playing hard. Cubby is about 6 months old and he kept Maui busy.

The hats and paddles are real homemade ones used by Cuban refugees that made their way very close and then abandoned their boat. These hats and paddles were left behind. I apprehended these two guys near Jim's hot tub.

This is the famous marker of the Southernmost point in the Continental US. Previously on the trip we had gone by the Southernmost point in Hawaii.

Hey boys...there's something behind you!

It was very crowded along the sea wall for sunset, we couldn't find a spot without people in the background of our picture.

Watching the sunset at Mallory Square in Key West

Right after the sun set, the sky really lit up.

YEEHHAAW! Great Rondini! (Michael)

When it was time to leave the Keys, we took a few pictures in Marathon on the way up and stopped for a souvenir Christmas ornament by the big lobster in Islamorada. The water color along the drive is really very pretty with baby blue shallow sandy areas, emerald greens, and dark blues. We also drove alongside the stretch of road they pretended to blow up in the movie True Lies.

Coming to the end of Seven Mile Bridge in Marathon.

Maui is trying to figure out a way to get to the seagulls - (Shelli)

Quick picture and Christmas ornament stop.

We kept driving until we got to Gator Park in the Everglades on the Tamiami Trail to the west of Miami. They have a couple of RV sites and we set up for a couple of days right across from some water. After getting hooked up, we were leaving to go have dinner when we noticed two gators floating on the top of the water within about 40 yards of the RV. We decided it would be wise to keep Maui on a leash and use a flashlight when taking him out at night. We went to a Latin American restaurant and got several dishes to sample. We had a Cuban sandwich, the vaca frita (fried flank steak), pechuga (chicken breast flattened and grilled), fried sweet plantains, and congri (rice and beans). The hit of the table was the vaca frita. Everyone liked it the best.

The next morning we went to the front of the park for the airboat tour and gator/wildlife show. The boat held about 20 people and we were in the back just under the elevated driver's platform. Right after starting the tour we were seeing gators, birds catching catfish, turtles, and fish. The guide was good at pointing out plants and animals, and providing information about the everglades. When he throttled up the boat, we really moved along quickly and the ride was very fun. We drifted sideways at times and did a fast 180 degree turn at the midpoint. The animal show afterwards was very entertaining with a wide variety of animals presented by the guide.

Think the gatorman knows he is being made fun of? - (Shelli)

One of the many gators on the airboat ride.

This one was coming to get us.

Michael is trying to get his earplugs to stay in. The boat was loud - especially when sitting right in front of the prop.

The air boat tour was pretty interesting and more fun than I expected- (Shelli)

On the way back in.

John trying to get a Purple Gallinule that flew onto our boat to land on his hand.

It went here instead.

This was a mom alligator with about 8-9 babies! (John)

They were staying pretty hidden, but there were several gators in the grass.

Right before heading in for the animal show.

Here baby, baby gator. (Michael)

We went slow through this area and saw several gators, fish, turtles, and a heron catching catfish.

The guide had a big black scorpion on his hand as he reached out and collected tickets from Michael and John.

A big cane toad. I had heard about these in Australia, but didn't know we had them in Florida.

This guy talked strangely. (Michael)

Teamwork.

Moe was very strong (John)

Mooo (Michael)

After the tour and show, Shelli, Michael and John went back to the RV to do homeschool work and I took the van in to Costco to get a tire repaired that had been going flat repeatedly. I made plans to drop off the van and go to lunch with friends I used to work with in Miami. We had a good lunch at a place for arepas, which are corn cakes I really liked when I was in Colombia. Of course, I had arepas.. with cheese and shredded beef and it was very good. It was great to catch up with a couple of friends, although it was unfortunate that most of the guys from the office were gone. They are always working hard and busy on the road to various countries, so this day was no exception. After lunch I went back to Costco and waited, and waited, and waited. After a total of 4.5 hours with the van at Costco, they told me they couldn't find a problem but said they reseated the tire. I finally left with the same tire I showed up with and a strong feeling I would have a flat again soon. Most Costco's are very good, but this one in Doral, FL has a tire shop that has the efficiency of the federal government.

The next day we drove out on the Tamiami Trail through the Everglades and had miles and miles to look for gators as we drove. It wasn't long before I was spotting gators right off the side of the road in the waterway and started calling them out to Shelli and the boys as they did school work. After a couple of loud "GATOR" shouts, they came up to look for them with me. We would each shout out when we saw one. After about 50 or so spottings, Shelli was ready for school to continue. I kept spotting and shouting out each and every gator we went by. Somewhere past the hundredth time, it was getting old as Shelli tried to keep the boys focused. Michael was also concerned about me actually looking at the road while I drove the 56.5 foot long RV and van combo instead of looking to the right and scanning the water and banks. Unfortunately, I felt the need to continue calling out every gator sighting and this went on for a looooong looooong time. I enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, the gator sighting tapered off as we worked our way over to the gulf side of Florida and up to Bradenton, where we had a reservation at Pleasant View RV park. It was very nice and we had a great lake view. As we set up, we noticed the park was mostly filled with snowbirds driving around in their golf carts and carrying dishes to a potluck. We were through setting up in time to drive to the beach to watch the sunset. We took Maui and let him run on the beach while Michael and John threw sand at each other. We later found out dogs are not allowed on the beach and we could have been fined a few hundred dollars.

The next day I had reservations to go out on a boat and scuba dive to look for fossilized shark teeth. Venice, Florida is known as the shark tooth capital of the world because of the abundance of fossils there. There are many types of fossilized shark teeth, turtle, stingray, whale, mammoth, horse, bison, camel, and mastodon parts that can be found. The most sought after are the huge teeth up to 7 inches long from the C. megalodon shark, which at over 60 feet long is believed to be the largest prehistoric shark. It is also calculated to be the most powerful biter of any animal that has lived (up to 10 times the bite force of a great white). I had looked for fossilized shark teeth from the shore in Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina before and had found many, including some small megalodons, but no big ones. I had been wanting to dive looking for a big tooth for years so I was on a mission.

While Shelli homeschooled Michael and John the next morning, I drove to Venice Beach and went out with Capt Gil Cross, his son Bryan, and two other divers. We went about a mile and a half offshore and dove at a depth of around 30 feet in 68 degree water. The water was calm, but the visibility was only a couple of feet. Luckily, I only needed about a foot to be able to see the bottom and look for fossils. I was focusing on finding the big megalodon teeth, but picked up anything that looked interesting as I went along. As I picked up things and stirred the silt, the visibility got worse. At one point, I noticed a couple of remoras just off to the side of me. Not being able to see more than a couple of feet in any direction, I began to wonder if the remora (known to commonly attach to sharks) had just detached from something big that was watching me as I swam around. I thought it would be ironic to be looking for fossilized shark teeth and find some new ones in a living shark. I decided I was there to find big megalodon shark teeth didn't have time to be concerned with living ones, so I focused on the bottom and just kept looking. I was using my dive knife to move stuff around as I looked, so anything that bumped into me would have probably been stuck before it knew what was going on.

I made a total of four dives during two days with the visibility being better the second day at around five feet. On each dive I filled two mesh bags with fossils. I found a lot of shark teeth including sand, tiger, snaggle tooth, and makos. I also left with whale rib bones (one with a tooth mark from a megalodon bite), turtle shells, stingray barbs and dental plates, bison teeth, horse teeth, a 30 caliber shell casing from WWII aerial gunnery practice, a whale ear bone, and .... a few big megalodon teeth. Unfortunately I didn't find any huge ones, so that means I will have to come back and try again some other time.

Looking over the first day's finds.

The stuff I kept from the four dives.

From the top left - Two deer antler pieces, an unknown mammal bone, two turtle shell fragments. Next row from left - stingray dental plates, stingray barbs, small shark teeth.

A part of a mammoth tooth, shell casing from WWII aerial gunnery practice, bison teeth, horse teeth, small shark teeth.

Top row is turtle shell pieces. Second row- two unknown mammal bones, part of a mastodon tusk, whale ear bone, whale vertabra, coprolite, whale rib bone with cut and break from shark tooth, crab claw tip, small shark teeth.

Big teeth from top left - The largest megalodon tooth would have been just over 5 inches if intact. The broken ones are called heart-breakers. The one below the biggest is 3 1/4 inches. The biggest one on the bottom row is a mako, and the last ones on the right are from a snaggle tooth (Hemipristis elongatus).

Shelli, Michael and John met me after my last dive and we explored Venice Beach and Caspersen Beach. We watched porpoise feed on small fish within less than 30 feet of the shore. We found several small shark teeth as we walked along.

Maui enjoying the view of the lake.

Shhh....don't tell Maui he's not a person. (Shelli)

Life is good! (Shelli)

Trying to get out some of our energy- (Shelli)

Had to pause the sand ball fights for a picture. - (Shelli)

We found a perfect spot for watching the sunsets at Bradenton-(Shelli)

The end of the Florida adventure

Michael - "The Florida trip was very fun! My favorite activity was The Ripley’s Museum and Universal Studios. I have been wanting to go to a Ripleys Museum for a long time and it was a great trip! The Ripleys Museum building was tilted sideways and there was a two way mirror where people made crazy faces (including us) and they didn’t even know other people were watching them at the end of the tour. It was wacky and funny. At the end, we watched a bunch of people make themselves look pretty silly. In Universal Studios we went to “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter” and it was really impressive. They had this really good frozen drink called ‘Butterbeer’. I bought myself three of them and we are going to try to make Butterbeer once we have a new home. My favorite ride in Universal was the “Dueling Dragons”. It had many loops and made us feel like we were about to crash into other coasters and brick walls.

After Orlando, we drove to the Keys down at the tip of Florida. Driving down to Florida was different because it looked like we were driving out into the middle of the ocean. We stayed at Dad’s friends house, Mr. Cusick. He had a boat, pool and a seadoo right on the water in Key West. His pool had a tunnel under the waterfall that lead to a cave with benches, it was really neat. Maui even had a friend to play with, a six month old Pomerainian named Cubby. Mr. Cusick took us fishing, taught us to seine and also took us to pick up crab traps. I had an idea to put the Go Pro camera in the bucket of fish and it looked really cool with all the exotic fish swimming over it It was all very cool and memorable, the entire trip to Florida was fun and I am glad we added it on to our adventure!"

John- "Florida was a great trip! I am so happy that we decided to extend our adventure and not stop in Colorado back in September. We did some of the coolest things. First of all, the Harry Potter World in Universal down in Orlando was awesome. It had some great thrill rides, wand shops that had all of the Harry Potter movie wands (I am hoping to get one or two for Christmas and my birthday) and these great frozen drinks called ‘Butterbeer”. The entire place was very authentic and made me feel like I was at Hogwartz. My favorite ride at Universal was ‘the Dueling Dragons’, it had loops and walls that looked like we were going to hit them during the ride. I had been waiting a few years to ride this ride. When we went to Universal last time I was too short and could not ride it so I was really looking forward to getting on it this time.

After Orlando, we headed down to the tip of Florida. The drive down was really neat, we went over bridge after bridge and just kept driving out into the water! We stopped at a few bridges to fish but didn’t catch much. We finally got all the way down to the tip of Florida in Key West. Dad’s friend, Mr. Cusick took us out on his boat. We also stayed with him for the weekend in his house right on the water. We caught a lot of grouper and I caught a monstrous Jewfish that was 35-40 pounds!!! It was really hard to pull in, Mr. Cusick had to help get it in the boat. Sadly, we had to let it go because they are endangered. Mr. Cusick also taught us how to tickle lobster right into our nets for dinner. We also got to pull up his crab traps, which were really heavy, and pick out the stone crabs. One crab pinched my finger pretty good and drew blood! But, we had the last laugh...they were all on our dinner plates."

It was about 10 hours of driving to get back to Alabama for Christmas. We went through Georgia on the way which makes it 25 states we have been to since March. Sometime just after New Years we will be driving to Colorado Springs to settle down. We will go through Arkansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico on the way which should put us at 28 states total for the trip. We will update the blog after we stop and properly winterize in Colorado.

Back to the Future - Headed to Colorado Springs

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Alabama Stuff

Playing poker - John

Uncle Tim took us on a hay ride, it was really fun jumping on and off it. John fell at one time but we kept moving so he had to hurry up and catch up. Though his knee was all banged up. -Michael

I had just fallen off when this picture was taken - John

Christmas in the RV. See the tree on the table?

This was just after I got my bow - John

Playing guitar and piano - John

We went to the De Soto Caverns in Alabama. It was really neat inside and they had a Christmas presentation in it. -Michael

In the caverns - John

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This was on New Years eve and a firework scrap hit me in the eye. -Michael

Lighting off fireworks - John

After completing our RV repairs and replacing the front left rim on our van which was cracked, we were ready to leave Alabama and head towards Colorado Springs. While it seems crazy to head to the higher elevation and cold in an RV in January, we thought it would really make it clear if the cold would be a problem for us in Colorado. If we would be okay int he RV, we would definitely be okay once we settled into a house.

Our route took us through Memphis where we planned to stop for the night. We planned on having ribs for supper, but got into town a little late. We called a round to some of the higher rated places in Memphis and found that most were going to be closed before we could get there. Luckily Central BBQ was still open and we manged to pull in just before they locked up. When we called to check on their hours, we told them we were coming and they were very friendly. The manager liked our story of traveling the country in the RV and he hooked us up with souvenir cups, a bottle of hot and sweet sauce, and their in house potato chips. We got enough ribs and pulled pork to fill us for supper and have plenty of leftovers. Of course it was very good. Memphis knows BBQ.

Central BBQ was a great place to eat in Memphis, Tennessee. The service was really good. -Michael

I learned if you eat BBQ ribs and and it's a little spicy, your nose may run. If you used a paper towel to clean your hands while eating the ribs, but don't have a tissue to wipe your runny nose, you can use the paper towel and it will smell nice and smokey. I'm thinking about marketing BBQ tissues right now. Bacon ones would be good too. Maybe boiled cabbage.... um...maybe not.

It was pretty late when we pulled into the Graceland Campground which is right behind the Heartbreak Hotel and across the street from Graceland. The next morning we noticed they had Elvis music playing on loudspeakers that could be heard along the walking path in the campground. We walked over to take a picture by the gate to Graceland and the souvenir shops along the way also had Elvis music playing outside. It was pretty neat in a very cheesy sort of way.

This was the entrance for the mansion of Elvis. -Michael

We pressed on down into Arkansas and had a lot of bumpy travel along the roads in Arkansas. There was a fair a mount of construction going on. Unlike many places we had seen on our trip where it looked the road construction was just a pork project in an area that didn't need it, this place needed the work. In between bumps we could see an amazing amount of migrating geese, ducks, and blackbirds. It was almost like a swarm of locust with big skeins (flocks) of geese in formations that were changing rapidly in the strong wind. I noticed a whole lot of very big well fed local hawks along the roadside. I'm guessing the passing blackbirds provide a source of winter fattening for the predatory birds.

My friend Mike, who's family we had visited in Florida about a month ago, had told me years ago about how good the BBQ was from a small place in Arkansas near Little Rock AFB where he was stationed as a C-130 instructor. He had talked about ordering it for delivery some time and having us over to try it in Virginia where we lived, but we never got around to it before he went to Florida and I went to California. When I planned the route to go through Arkansas and look for diamonds at the Crater of Diamonds State Park, I saw it took us through Little Rock and I knew I had to plan a stop at the Mean Pig.

We pulled into the parking lot and took up the length of the whole building when we parked in the back of the Mean Pig. When we went in, I noticed a "challenge" listed on the menu, and a lot of celebrity photos on the wall near the restrooms. I saw one of them was Adam Richman from the Travel Channel TV show Man V. Food. From that, I could guess the challenge was eating some big serving of food, but I went to the counter and asked what it was. The owner (Buddy) told me it was a timed event to eat a whole medium chopped pork sandwich with Shut Up Juice on it.

Suddenly my mind wandered to a happy place and I thought if the shut up juice worked I would buy a few oil tankers full of it. Seriously, I have a whole scroll of names I would like to send Shut Up Juice to. His son in law handed me a toothpick dipped in the Shut Up Juice and I thought if it was really concentrated and a toothpick drop was enough, maybe I could get by with just one tanker. Unfortunately, it wasn't what I was thinking. It's a super powerful hot sauce that is 2,000 times hotter than a jalapeno, and just a tiny taste set my tongue and the roof of my mouth on fire. Buddy told me they pour the WHOLE bottle of sauce on the sandwich, and I didn't want to try the challenge if I planned to keep driving in the RV for the next couple days. He said I would feel miserable, so I decided to pass on the challenge and go for sandwiches with sweet sauce instead. If you want to see one of the less than 200 winners out of thousands who have taken the challenge, click here for a clip from Man V. Food. We got a family deal of chopped pork, great big buns, and BBQ beans to take to eat in the RV.

Buddy walked outside to take a picture of us in front of his sign, and he told us about how he started the Mean Pig after he retired from the Air Force. I asked him if he had just retired now and was thinking about starting it, would he do it. He told me he wouldn't start it in this economy, and he told me he had seen 20 food businesses come and go in his town in just the past year. In spite of the cult-like following and celebrity traffic to his store, he said he was nowhere where he should be with his business. I was torn between disappointment and reassurance because I had previously been planning to open a food business when I retired, but I had decided not to because the risk vs. reward ratio is so highly tilted to the risk side now.

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A few hours later we arrived at the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, Arkansas. They had very nice campsites and there were very few people in the park. We set up just before sunset and got an early start the next morning to go looking for diamonds. This is the only diamond mine in the world where people can hunt for an keep their own diamonds. Over 19,000 diamonds have been found at this one location, but finding them isn't easy. We spent the morning looking, including scooping up buckets of dirt and filtering it in the cold water and scanning the surface. We had no luck and decided we didn't want to spend the rest of the day trying. It was a check in the box to get and something I had wanted to do for years, but we had enough to say "been there, done that".

This was a area in Arkansas were we looked for diamonds. -Michael

All rough, no diamond here.

We drove on into Oklahoma and stopped for the night in an a tiny campground in Ada. The next morning we decided to make a long day of driving and made it through Okalahoma City, through the top of Texas, and in to Capulin, NM where we stopped for the night. Capulin is by a dormant Volcano and is at an elevation of 6844 feet so there was plenty of snow on the ground and freezing temperatures when we arrived. This was our first night of camping in our RV in well below freezing temperatures. We thought we were ready as long as the tank heaters in the RV worked.

We had two electric heaters to use so we wouldn't burn through our propane too fast using the furnace. I thought is would be better to use them than burn so much propane and have to move the RV to fill the tank so often once we got settled in the spot in Colorado Springs. The next morning the water pump didn't work and I learned a lesson. The furnace heat is ducted into the compartment with the water pump. Using the electric heaters kept the furnace from coming on and therefore, the compartment got too cold. I thawed out the pump with heater tape and a hair drier and was pleased to see there was no damage. The tank heaters had worked, so the dump tanks had not frozen. While I worked on thawing the pump, Maui had a great time in the snow and playing with a bright blue eyed husky that was at the campground.

Crazy dog.

See Maui's eyes?.......... CREEPY - John

Shortly after leaving the campground, we crested a hill and got our first good glimpse of the beginning of the Rocky Mountains. It was a really inspiring sight. Off to the side of the road we saw herd after herd of antelope and counted well over a hundred of them as we neared the interstate to turn and head up into Colorado. I was having a really good feeling about the decision to live near the mountains and western scenery.

There were a lot more of these antelope as we drove along.

As we neared the Colorado border we planned to stop and take a picture by the sign, but the sign snuck up on me and there wasn't a good place to pull over in the RV, so we just blew right past it and kept pressing on to Colorado Springs.

The first signs of something not flat, only 1127 miles from Alabama!

The view driving into Colorado Springs. -Michael

We enjoyed the scenery all the way up but didn't like the really strong and gusty winds that were pushing us from the side. There was a winter storm coming in and snow and low teens temperatures were forecast for the afternoon. We wanted to top off the propane tank and get settled in at the campground before it hit. I had the heater tape to wrap the water hose, but still needed some other winterizing supplies and wanted to have plenty of time to prepare. We stopped at a Home Depot near a Wal Mart and a sporting goods store so I could get what I needed and Shelli and the boys could look for some snow boots. Unfortunately I didn't find a place to fill the propane tank and was running out of time as the sky was turning dark.

We pulled into Colorado Springs Saturday afternoon and made it to the campground just as the first snow flakes started falling. I expected it to get very interesting, but the snow quit before there was a good dusting and I was able to get us set up without a problem just one spot over from where we had parked in September. The sun went down and the temperature dropped like a rock, so I didn't hook up the water and decided to just use what we had in the tanks for the first night. We went to dinner that first night at the house of someone Shelli had talked to on the phone about the school Michael and John were about to start going to. She had a son that would be in Michael's class and we thought it would be good to know someone before the first day. They were a very nice family with one of them a local from Manitou Springs and the other from Kentucky. We all got along well and it was nice to have some new friends right away.

At a indoor rock climbing place - John

We ran a mix of the furnace and the electric heaters to stay warm the first night and it worked well. I ran the front electric heater more than the front furnace and the rear furnace more than the rear electric heater so the water pump would have heat. We expected a long cold night with lots of snow, but we just got the cold. The kids were disappointed the next morning when we didn't have any snow, but I was pretty happy about it. The sun came out and it didn't even feel that cold. When we left for church, we didn't even take jackets even though it was about 20 degrees. All along as we considered moving to Colorado Springs, we were really concerned about how we would feel about the cold. Well it was pretty dang cold but it didn't seem like a problem.... yet.

We put the heat tape on the water hose and insulated it with pipe insulation all the way from the spigot to the hookup on the RV. I didn't buy tape for the dump hose and figured I could just dump it during the day when the sun comes out and warms everything up. I spent the next several days finding cold spots or drafts in the RV and insulating them. I put the foil covered bubble wrap insulation on every window because that was a big source of cold even though the windows are double paned. Even with the insulation, the aluminum window frames are like heat sinks straight to the outside and we found that condensation forms and then freezes on them when it gets below around 10 degrees. Luckily, the air is dry and there isn't much condensation to worry about. Pretty much each morning the sun comes out and everything feels really comfortable. When it is sunny, we take down the bubble wrap and let the sun warm up the RV. It does a great job and we normally don't run the heater during the day until the sun heads off to the west behind Pike's Peak.

We have had a few spells of really strong winds where the whole RV shakes as the gusts up to 70 mph rush down the mountain. You can certainly feel the cold when the wind is blowing, and anything left laying around outside ends up somewhere else outside when the wind blows like that. We have had a few times when the forecast was for a lot of snow, but right where we are has not had any accumulation that lasted more than a couple of hours once the sun came out. Just a few miles north of us they have had enough to cover the roads and have drifts a couple of feet high. Right up the hill from us to the West they have had well over a foot a few times. This has been just right for me. There hasn't been any accumulation to climb up and brush off the RV, but we have been able to drive around and look at it. One morning on the way to church everything just a couple of miles away from us was covered in snow. The entire view was white with every tree limb covered and it was really beautiful. As the wind blew, the dry powder blew around and the sky looked like it was shimmering as the sun lit the crystals. The snow isn't a heavy wet mess and is really pretty nice.

Maui nose all about snow now

There aren't a lot of people in the campground through the winter.

We have had temperatures down to 1 degree and we haven't had any problems with water freezing. However, Maui ran into a little freezing trouble when he ran into the creek one day when the temperature was about 17 degrees. There was plenty of ice along the edge of the creek, but the center was still running and Maui splashed around while playing with some other dogs. The water froze on him right away. He was almost instantly covered from whiskers to tail with ice. He even had rocks that froze to his fur as they were splashed up. We had to bring him into the RV to thaw and then dry him with the hair dryer and place him in front of the heater. He shivered for about 15 minutes, and I bet he was happy it wasn't a long walk back from the creek. Hopefully he learned his lesson because that could be very dangerous. Unfortunately there was a puppy that ran out onto a lake nearby here and fell through the ice recently, and his owner died in front of his children after going in to get the puppy out.

Maui ran into a river and got frozen, he even had rocks sticking to him. -Michael

This was when Maui started getting cold. Being frozen didn't bother him until he got in the RV. -Michael

We have been fortunate to meet several very nice families here. For the first several weeks in a row we were invited to the same friends house for Saturday football games.

More stuff Johns birthday.

:( - John

That was good Cookie cake - John
Check out my hair?

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Skiing

Zach Miles taught us how to snowboard. -Michael

Weeeeeeeee - John

Snowboarding was really fun. -Michael

Colorado Springs has a good mix of people and space. It doesn't feel crowded anywhere and the traffic isn't bad. There are a plenty of businesses with at least one of just about everything you can think of. The major chains are very well represented here with two Costco's, I think four Wal-Mart Supercenters, maybe three Super-Targets, four Petco's, three of four Home Depots, he same number of Lowes, a whole lot of movie theaters, malls, mini malls, and restaurants.

That burger took me 2 days to eat and i still didn't eat it all - John

Maui hanging out on a trail in Garden of the Gods

Picture of the route

We went through 29 states on this trip

We made it through the winter and Colorado Springs is officially our new home. We looked at hundred of houses and didn't find a fit. There was always something we didn't like or a price/updates required combination that just didn't make sense to us. We decided to rent until we could get used to the area and find a house with the right combination of price, location, quality, view, etc. The first house we went into to consider as a rental felt really warm and homey, with a nice location and views of the Air Force Academy, Pikes Peak, and Garden of the Gods from various windows. It was big and had a movie room in the basement with a 120" screen and projector. When we decided to rent it for sure, we brought the boys by to see it. We knew if they saw it and we didn't rent it, they would be crushed after seeing the movie room.

The more we visited the house getting ready to rent it, the more we liked it. The owners were moving to Korea for an Army change of duty station. They really wanted to sell the house, but didn't think they could in time for the move, so they listed it for rental. Shelli became good friends with the owner and the next thing we knew we had agreed on a purchase price and move in date.

We moved in April 1st and jumped right into a few projects to personalize the house. Things didn't really need repair, but we wanted some things changed since we are planning to actually live in one place for a long time now. We front loaded everything we thought we wanted to do. We added stucco and changed the color of the house, replaced the carpet, put in iron balusters in the stairs, changed hardware in the kitchen and doors to rubbed bronze, painted a couple of rooms (Michael's was pink and had to be changed right away), and did some landscaping changes.

We spent the spring moving in and adjusting. Betsy, Popa, Jodi and Nathan came out for a visit in June and stayed for a few weeks. Experienced the fire evacuations, we had a family of four evacuate to our home in the middle of the night while they were here. We did the normal tourist things......
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Joey has always wanted a saltwater aquarium so he decided to set his up while Jodi was visiting. Did I mention, we now have four aquariums? Seriously, they are beautiful and Joey has worked extremely hard to get them customized and established.
No vacations for us this summer since we just spent the last year on the road. However, the boys did head south with the Alabama crew in July down to Texas to visit the Jones family and then headed to Alabama along with a trip to the beach. In total, they were gone about three weeks.

Boys started and adjusting well to middle school just 1/4 mile from our home. Playing soccer and both have great coaches and excellent teams. Joey still waiting on official 501-3c document from IRS to get Angels of Americas Fallen started. I volunteer at the kids school on different occassions and I am getting back into running on a regular basis. Did the incline (slowly) with a friend (1 mile of stairs that ascends 2,000 ft). View at the top was amazing and reminded me of why we chose to live in Colorado Springs!
Trip is officially over....sold the RV today on Shelli's birthday.

Shelli - Selling the RV was somewhat bitter sweet. We made many memories this past 1 1/2 years... some good, some bad but all made together. I think the biggest lesson in all of this for me has been the realization of having a huge amount of time off together is not what makes our lives enjoyable, it has been finding a bigger purpose of what to do with the time we are given, growing together and strenghtening one another in our faith. I am so thankful that Joey was diligent and made this opportunity happen for us. It was definitely 'unchartered' territory for me but I am seeing with each passing day just how fleeting our time is with Michael and John. The teenage years are hitting and the timing of our journey could not have happened at a more appropriate time. For this, I am thankful and I am blessed!

Focusing on family and friends in the South

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We stopped for the night just below Nashville, TN at Camper's RV Park. It turned out to be a good place to stop because we ended up with a flat tire on our van the next morning, and the people at Camper's were very helpful. As I was checking out the tire, the owner stopped by and offered to help. It turns out he is a Marine and with him was a long term camper that was in the Army. They both took an interest in helping me with the tire. The tire had gone flat and wouldn't hold any air as I tried to fill it with my portable air compressor. It looked like it must be a bead seal leak so I took the wheel off and got it rounded out enough to take some air, but it made sense to get it reseated properly. They took me to a local tire shop where it was fixed for no charge. We were back in the South and the Southern hospitality was very apparent. We have traveled to all 50 states and I have actually worked with people from all 50 states and four US Territories. There are nice and friendly people in each location, but there is a greater level of willingness to be friendly, to the point of going out of the way to be kind in the South. I like it.

Back in Sweet Home Alabama!

After repairing the tire, we drove the rest of the way in to Alabama and made it in time to watch football with family. There is no better place to be to watch college football than in the South. The primary focus for sports in the area is football, and the dedication of the fans to college football is greater than any other place. The cars all have stickers, flags, flyers, and license plates supporting their teams. The fans are wearing logos on their hats, shirts, belts, jackets, faces, etc.. It is unusual to see someone not wearing a team logo on any given game day, and the lines in the grocery stores are full of people buying junk food for the game. We had boiled peanuts - made properly and not from a can like we were forced to do a couple of times out West, ribs, chips with cheese dip, and many other kinds of good stuff. A lot of family came over and it was a great way to start our visit.

We went to dinner with a high school friend of Shelli's and Michael and John had a great time hanging out with their children at their house. John had expressed an interest in learning to play piano, and Shelli's mom (Betsy) taught him how to play "Paper Roses". In addition to piano, John kept talking about wanting a hunting bow and his uncle Tim just happened to have an old one stored in the barn. John made out like a bandit on this part of the trip. Shelli's dad (Popa) was retiring from his position as the President of the Alabama AFL-CIO. We went to his reception near Montgomery, and it was a very nice event with a crowd of several hundred people. There was a big screen showing slides of family, friends, and co-workers and it was really neat to see.

Popa's Retirement Party (but only temporarily, he is already scheduled to go back to two part-time jobs after the holidays)

Betsy is teaching me how to play the piano. (John)

Play time at the park. Seeing them all chase the ball is pretty, especially when Beau beats all the big dogs to the ball. (Shelli)

Making Jodi's homemade doughnuts...they are really good too! This is not my real smile, I'm just being funny. (Michael)

Pulling this bow back is much harder than it looks! (John)

Maui's Birthday Party! (Shelli) From the left - Buddy, Beau, Charlie, and Maui

Maui thought the cupcake was lip smackin good!

To keep the tradition of Michael and John trick or treating with their grandmother, we went to Geneva for Halloween. After stops at a few homes along the way, we went to the Junction (a park area where the Choctawhatchee and Pea rivers join and home to what is believed to be the largest and oldest oak tree in Alabama. The city was hosting a trunk or treat event and it was very successful. There were a lot of people and a of lot stations for trick or treaters. Michael and John enjoyed time with their aunt Vickie and Gramma, who also dressed up for the occasion. They scored a large amount of candy - although someone at the Junction was handing out apparent yard sale leftovers like old dolls and stuffed animals!?!

We always try to stop in Troy, AL at Crowe's for some chicken. They have done zero improvements to the place in 20 years, but they haven't changed the recipe either, and that is okay with me.

Ready for Halloween!

Helping Gramma garden.

Making Milky Way cake with Gramma is a tradition. It gets messy somehow.

There always seems to be a little flour and cocoa on everybody.

Even Maui got a little flour on his nose.

The tradition with Granddaddy is eating the cake.

Michael and John spent some good time with grandparents and extended family. We went to Hartford to shoot the bow John had been given by his uncle Tim. Cousins Blake and Casey had a target for the bow and guns, so we we were able to shoot pistols and a rifle as well. We all had fun.

To keep from staying too long at any one place, we went back to Childersburg to stay while we dropped off the RV for repairs to the awnings from hail damage we had in Montana. We drove about an hour to the Camping World in Anniston, AL. Should have been easy...more on this later.

Shelli's parents were planning a trip to visit her sister Cindy and her family in Flower Mound, Texas. They asked if were interested in going too. Considering our total flexibility, and our feeling that any drive now is easy compared to the one to Alaska, we were game. We loaded the people and bags that would fit into Betsy's SUV for the 10 hour drive, and Michael and I sunk into Stewart's Corvette convertible. Surprisingly, driving the Corvette was a lot like driving the RV with the van attached, only it was faster, cooler, and more fun. I discovered, if executed properly, stepping on the gas can result in the GPS flying into the passenger's lap. It was a perfect homeschooling lesson about Newton's first and second laws of motion. If not for the threat of a ticket, we could have worked on Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity.

Yeehaaw :D (Michael)

We had a very nice visit with the Jones family. There were several great meals including ribs prepared by Rex, breakfast casserole prepared by Cindy, and monkey bread prepared by the Cindy, Shelli and the kids. We also had pizza, and made a trip to BJ's Restaurant, a trip to Rosa's Tortilla Factory, and an after church lunch at Babe's Chicken.

Enjoying our fried chicken, biscuits and gravy for Sunday dinner after church. (Shelli)

On Veteran's day we all went to the DFW airport to welcome home returning troops. There was a large crowd there with signs and flags. There were many veterans and several Patriot Guard Riders (the motorcycle group that escorts our fallen during funeral processions). They allowed the veterans to go towards the front (just behind the family members of those stopping in Dallas) and be the first to welcome the troops as they came into the crowd-lined passageway. It was an honor to be there and shake the hand of each one and say "thank you" and "welcome home". We've come such a long way from when my father returned from Vietnam. I hope people continue to remember it is politicians that start and stop wars. The military personnel are just the ones who have to live or die the consequences.

This was really a fun and patriotic thing to do, especially on Veteran's Day! (Shelli)

In Texas we watched plenty of football, played several board games together, and had lots of good discussions. The world's problems were all solved while Michael and John played plenty of video games with Kelsey and Reese (Reese also solved many world problems in between games). We delayed our departure from Texas one day after checking the weather and realizing we were looking at thunderstorms and rain the entire drive back to Alabama if we left as scheduled. The next day John swapped places with Michael and rode back with me in the Corvette. To ensure John learned about Newton's laws, we demoed the GPS in the lap lesson.

Playing Apples to Apples makes for many laughs. (Shelli)

Locked and loaded. (John)

Aunt Cindy's monkey bread is a favorite! (Shelli)


This is the soap dispenser at a gas station in Texas. Crickets bodies on the top and legs on the bottom. It was safer to not wash our hands. (John)

Vroom, vroom! (John)

Popa treated Michael and John to tickets to the Alabama vs LSU football game in Tuscaloosa. Their cousin Jodi and her boyfriend Nathan took them very early in the morning to the game. They went to ESPN's Game Day filming site and were in the crowd as the broadcast ran. After that, they met up with family friends at their RV for their first shot at tailgating. Thanks to Hap and Candy for for providing them a ton of great food!

Dad came up with the ideas and Jodi drew them free handed. Its good huh? (John)

Cousins having fun!

For the championship, Alabama is coming back for the win! (Michael)

It was great to have so much time during the visit. Michael and John had time to help Popa with one of many rounds of leaf and acorn clearing he will be doing this season. Maui got a chance to go to the park for some fun again with his cousins. We got to take some fall foliage pictures at Chuck's house by the tree that turns golden yellow each year, and Chuck and Popa made a target for a BB gun range out of hay bales right in the back yard.

Nathan and Maui playing. Maui didn't like Nathan's mask..... DAARRHHH! (Maui)

Sad thing is...the leaves will all be back again tomorrow. (Shelli)

Maui collected beggars lice over and over and over. The little green seeds hang on like velcro and are a pain to remove.

Anyone up for a playdate at the park? (Shelli)

The dogs get pretty tired and have to take a break at times. (Shelli)

Michael and John couldn't wait to climb in this tree in Chuck and Pollye's yard. (Shelli)

Everyone working to build the target in shape of a Christmas Tree. They painted it green later. (Shelli)

For Thanksgiving we planned to travel back to Geneva and leave from there to go down to Florida. The idea was to have the RV with us and ready to go. BUT, we found out that Camping World had not even ordered the parts for the RV, although the insurance company had approved it and the adjuster had been there and spoken with them twice. The one person that handles insurance claims had been sick, and then still couldn't get her hands around ordering two pieces of fabric and one metal arm. That meant it wouldn't be repaired in time for us to go on our Florida leg of the trip on time. A month wasn't enough time for them to even place the order for the parts! We just picked it up and drove on without the repair.

We drove the RV down to Geneva and got ready for a big Thanksgiving. The cooking really went into overdrive, as it should in the South. We made three pecan pies, a coconut pie, a pumpkin roll, a smoked turkey, a huge amount of collard greens, field peas, biscuits, sweet potato casserole, and cranberry sauce (both from a can & made from scratch). As if it was not enough to make a ton of food for Thanksgiving, we had a family gathering for a Thanksgiving part two a couple of days later at my grandmother's house. All of her children, almost all of her grandchildren, and great grandchildren were there. It was a very big crowd, and the first time in a very long time so many of us had been together.

John helping me make the Pumpkin Roll. (Shelli)

Mom's pecan pie is really good. (Michael)

The smoked turkey, ready to go.

We are ready for the feast to begin! (John)

We were able to get most of the family in one photo. If we had taken it before we filled up for lunch, we might have been able to fit everybody in the frame.

The visit was brief because it was the day of the Iron Bowl. This annual college football match up of Auburn and Alabama stops just about every other thing in the state of Alabama while the game is on. We all had to rush out to watch the game because it doesn't work to record it and watch it later. Someone might call, text, or yell loud enough for the result to be overheard. Regardless of which team is ranked higher, anything could happen during the Iron Bowl. With Alabama having a shot at playing for the BCS championship, we were pulling for Alabama to win. I am an Auburn fan, but having been out of the state for so many years, I will pull for either team if there is a chance at a championship. This concept is foreign to anyone that hasn't been away from the state for so long. Everyone else wants to see their team crush the dreams of the other side - every year. Two years ago I pulled for Alabama and they won the national championship. Last year I pulled for Auburn and they won the national championship. I'm hoping to be three for three when the dust settles this year.

A friend from high school opened a coffee shop, so we stopped by to see how she was doing. It was good to see her business venture and catch up for while. The kids got slushies and she made Shelli and me her signature frozen mocha. Neither Shelli or I like coffee at all, but this frozen mocha was really good. We let Michael and John try it and they liked it so much we decided to come back and bring my mother the next day for round two. Thanks to the Hole in the Wall Coffee Shop for best frozen mochas around!

Another friend from high school and her husband stopped by to visit and check out the RV. It was really good to catch up. A couple more friends tried to meet up, but the time was so compressed with all the family Thanksgiving events for each of us, it didn't work out. Time was up, and it was time to press on with the last big adventure leg of our trip.

We are Florida bound!

Colorado Springs Evaluation - Sept to Oct

2011-10-14T22:12:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since our last post. Because our activities lately have been more routine than adventurous, we decided to wait until we had a summary of our time in Colorado.

On the way from Mount Rushmore down to Colorado we stopped at the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs South Dakota. We drove down through Nebraska and detoured a bit to stop at Carhenge. When the roadside stops are this weird, it's worth a bit of delay to check them out.

This is the world's largest mammoth research site.

This reminds me of the Flintstone's lodge.

There were grasshoppers everywhere around Carhenge - Michael

We came to a stop in Colorado Springs and set up a long term site at Garden of the Gods Campground, which is right by Garden of the Gods park, of course. Access to the park is free and the scenery is very beautiful. The entire area is very scenic with views of Pike's Peak and front range of the Rocky Mountains.

They are all looking at the deer on the left. There are a LOT of deer in the Western side of town. They are all over the place in residential areas and it is not uncommon to see multiple bucks just walking through neighborhoods.

We have gone to Garden of the Gods several times because it is so nice and is so close to us. The rocks are good for scrambling. With the exception of a couple of days of heavy rain, the weather has been just about perfect. Colorado Springs is known for over 300 days of sunshine a year and we believe it. Almost every morning is clear with some clouds appearing throughout the day. Each morning the sunny side of our RV heats up. The humidity is low and it is very comfortable to be here during the fall.

There are a bunch of holes where birds live in here - Michael

I was stuck in the back for a while, but I managed to get out - John

Woof - Maui

Maui looks happy. This is my bad haircut. I told the girl it was way too long, so she just pretty much cut it off.

The rock on the left is the one Michael and John climbed in.

We also went to Red Rock Canyon which is just a mile South of our Campground.

We didn't want Maui going up this one because it had steep drop-offs. We were okay with Michael and John going.

Hi- John

It was really high up here and you could see all of Colorado Springs - Michael

There was a little cave at the top - John

Shelli had a birthday while we were in Colorado Springs. Between this trip and our previous RV back in 2001-2003, all of us will have had a birthday in an RV while on the road. We always have cake and ice cream regardless, and it works out well.

Maui pushed us over and made his own spot. Good thing Joey didn't need to get in the picture because there was no more room. - Shelli

Out for a hike after church and lunch on my birthday. It was what I wanted to do. Last year we hiked in Zion National Park on my birthday. - Shelli

Look at the clear skies. There are trails all over and I ran here a lot. One day I got lost and couldn't find my car for a while- Shelli

We have been visiting a few schools to see if they would be a good fit once we stop. There are plenty to choose from here with many public, charter, private, and home school options. In the meantime, home school has started again for Michael and John. The mornings are school time and the afternoons are used to get to know the area.

Maui wanted to join John's history lesson - Shelli

We have looked at neighborhoods all over Colorado Springs including ones to the North in Monument and to the West in Woodland Park. With most of the daily activities and stores we would probably use in the Northeast part of Colorado Springs, we think that will be the area we choose. There are plenty of older neighborhoods and new developments to choose from. Surprisingly, there are many home builders with new homes under construction to choose from. In comparison to Southern California where there are a LOT of obvious vacant foreclosure homes, there are not many eyesore homes here. However, there are a lot for sale and not that many rental homes available because like everywhere else, many people have had to get out of homes they couldn't afford and have to rent now. Rental rates are high in comparison to what a home payment could be here.

It appears as though the builders are trying to finish projects and have lowered their profit margins and prices to do so. I am doubtful the bottom has happened in the housing market and don't believe we will miss the low interest rates right away, so we are not rushing into a choice yet. We are looking at all options and will probably wait for the next couple of months to slow the pace as winter sets in. We'll see how it looks then. Most of the homes have recently lowered prices, and I think they will do it again.

We have been going to the New Life Church and think it is a good fit for us. It is a mega church with thousands of attendees each Sunday. It has a very good band and choir - I counted 119 singers and band members on the stage last Sunday. It's like being at a concert. The kids have made many friends at the church and we have gone out to dinner a couple of times with one of the families we met there.

With a population of over 400,000, Colorado Springs is the second largest city in Colorado and the 41st largest in the United States, so it has all the stores we would want. We and are happy to see the prices are not as expensive as the other places we have seen in the past year. The commissary on Peterson Air Force Base has really good food prices compared to some other ones we have been to on this trip. The Air Force Academy also has a commissary, but it isn't as big.

Our last week here we had a cold spell that lasted a couple of days. We woke up to heavy snow that was falling, but not sticking to the ground at our elevation. The mountains above us collected a lot, and it was very pretty when the snow stopped and the skies cleared to a sunny day with a bright blue sky. The sun lit up golden colored aspen trees that really stood out with the green trees topped with snow. We took some video clips of Maui playing in the falling snow, but didn't get any pictures of the mountains right after the snow fell. Several days later we took some from one of the areas we are looking at as a potential neighborhood, and from one of our friend's home.

The view from the deck of one of the houses we looked at.

We went over to dinner at two old friend's homes. Both had very nice homes and plenty of room for us to spread out. One was a former co-worker from the National Guard whom I have stayed in contact with, and the other was in my TBS platoon in the Marine Corps. It had been 19 years since I last saw him when I was participating in an Airshow in Kansas and he was close enough to drive over from Kansas City to meet me. After all that time we still had a lot in common. For both visits it was a really nice escape from the space issues of the RV and to go meet with them and their families. Once we get settled in, it will be nice to have some old friends already in town.

Aspens along the roadside

Pike's Peak with some pretty fresh snow on it.

After about five weeks in Colorado Springs, we left and headed towards the Southeast to spend time with family. Once we got just past Colorado Springs and onto I-70, everything changed. We went through the flat and windy remainder of Colorado and into the flat and very windy entire length of Kansas. We pressed on past the Museum of Oz, but stopped for gas in the town that advertized the world's largest prairie dog and a live five legged cow. Unfortunately the animal freak show place was closed, so we just got our gas and left. However, we built a memory before leaving because our gas pump stuck on instead of clicking off while I was cleaning the RV windshield. Shelli was coming back from walking Maui when she saw a bunch of stuff splashing down behind the RV. I ran back and stopped it after maybe three gallons had poured down the back and onto the concrete. There went about nine dollars.

We were looking forward to stopping in St Louis on the way because we had found several really good places to eat when we went through there during our move to California about two years ago. We went to the Donut Drive-In (which is a small shack with no drive through) for some of the best donuts we have found, and to get some really good ice cream at Ted Drewes Frozen Custard which is on historic Route 66. Both places were featured on Food Network and both really deserve the attention. We drove all day and got to the Donut Drive-In late at night as they were finishing up some of their prep for the next morning. We got a big box of our favorites and they gave us a free bag full of extra pieces that had broken during the process and couldn't be sold. At Ted Drewes there were lines at all of the three or four open windows and people were taking pictures of themselves outside the store. After our late night frozen custard and donuts, we picked up a pizza and toasted ravioli from Imo's Pizza to take back tot he RV. Imo's makes a St Louis style thin crust pizza with provel cheese, which is cheddar, Swiss and provolone mix. It's pretty good, although a bit different. After all that food, we called it a night, but made plans to go to Pappy's Smokehouse for ribs the next morning as soon as they opened.

We arrived at Pappy's just about three minutes after they opened and there was already a line wrapped through the length of the store and out the door. The place has only been open three years but it has been featured on several TV shows and has won several awards. The word is out and now it is THE place to get ribs. We had the ribs, a pulled pork sandwich, fried corn, sweet potato fries, and green beans. We have decided the ribs are the best we have had from any restaurant anywhere. That's saying a lot because we have been to 50 states and have had BBQ pretty much every where we could. The dry rub they use cooks to a caramelized sweet topping on the meaty just right pork ribs, and their sauces are good along with it. The fried corn and sweet potato fries are good too, but the green beans were not appreciated by Michael or John. It seems as though the body may reject green vegetables once it gets used to ice cream, donuts, and sugar coated pork. Who knew? We bought a couple slabs of ribs to go, in case anyone develops withdrawal symptoms.

Outside Ted Drewes. The lines went around to the front of the store, which you can't see from this angle.

In Pappy's after rounding the corner on the home stretch of the line. The line goes on way to the left, down a length about three times as long as you can see in the picture, out a hallway, out the door, then along the building in the parking lot.

The funny thing about this leg of our adventure is that after driving all over the West Coast and up through the vast stretches of Canada into Alaska and back, the lower 48 states seem small and so easily accessible. Going over a thousand miles on fairly flat and good roads is no big deal at all. I think we also re-calibrated our scales of some other things. I completely dislike the increase in traffic, and find the scenery west of Colorado to be quite a bit less interesting. It's just hard to compete with the great views we have had of the big open spaces and towering mountains.

I should also mention I am really tired of other drivers. There must be a perception of RV's that people can't shake. Just because it's big doesn't mean it's going slow. When the road is good, I move along pretty fast and pass anyone that is going slower. When I'm in the right lane passing someone, I keep getting people that I previously passed that are now mindlessly pulling over behind me and accelerating right up on my tail, like I'm in their way. I find a spot in traffic to get back over and have to put on my brakes and drop a bunch of speed to be behind the slow lane traffic. Then I wait and wait and wait for the tail rider, who has suddenly lost their hurry, to finally move forward. Then I get back over to pass the slower right hand traffic I'm behind, accelerate back up to speed (spending a lot of gas money to do it), and find that the tail rider mindless driver is back to going about 4 or 5 miles an hour slower than I was going before they rode right up on my tail. It happens over and over again as people blank stare at the road or talk on their phones and assume they need to get around that RV. I'm thinking about getting some big flames painted on the RV and adding a fake jet engine to the back. Maybe then people will think I'm going faster and won't assume they have to get past me. The other issue is the people that actually are in a hurry that pass and then whip right over in front of me. Given that RV's don't stop well, it's really dumb to jump into the safety space in front of an RV. A NOTE TO ANY DRIVER THAT IS NEAR AN RV: The RV driver can't stop fast and can't make fast lane changes - even with the reflexes of a fighter pilot. If they happen to be an old retired (older and more retired than me) driver with poor reflexes, it gets worse. GIVE THEM ROOM.

We will arrive in Alabama at Shelli's parents home tomorrow, Oct 15th. We will get there in time to watch SEC football and share some Pappy's ribs for lunch. We will make our next post after several weeks visiting family.

50 States Complete

2011-09-03T21:59:00.000-07:00

The drive from West Yellowstone was very scenic with a river running alongside the road through mountain passes. There were a lot of people fly fishing and rafts with people and dogs going downstream. We went through Bozeman and pressed on past Billings on Interstate 94. We saw at least 50 antelope in the grass fields along the way. The road down to the campground in Hardin, Montana was very pretty with golden grasslands and wheatfields. As we topped a hill, the view really opened up and there was nothing but open space for as far as the eye could see. Anyone who thinks the world is over populated has never been to the West. There is plenty of room, water, land for farming, and animals if people would just spread out some. It's only when millions of people stack up like in LA that they drain the entire area's resources.

The photo can't capture the scale here. It goes on and on. The dark sky was from thunderstorms that had passed.

We drove the 15 miles from our campground to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument to see the historic place of Custer's last stand. They had a visitor's center with artifacts from the battlefield including personal items of Custer and Sitting Bull. We watched a documentary about the battle and then walked to the site of the last stand.

Gravestones marked the burial sites where Custer and his men fell. A year later, Custer's remains were relocated to West Point.

LTC Custer was brevetted to Major General. His brothers Tom and Boston, his brother-in-law James Calhoun and his nephew Autie Reed also died at Little Bighorn.

Since we had been having so much fun spending money and extra days getting broken things fixed, we thought we should do it a little more. As we pulled into the battlefield, we heard a sound from the front of the van that sounded like brakes sticking a little. The wheel felt a little hot when I checked it before we went into the visitor's center, so when it was time to leave, I drove slowly and checked it out again. It was clear there was something wrong because it sounded like metal grinding. I took off the wheel to check and found nothing wrong with the brakes. The wheel bearings were apparently shot and the van was not safe to drive. We called AAA and they sent a tow truck to get us back to the RV, and the van to a repair shop. No place in Hardin could help us until the next day, so the tow truck took me to Billings where there was a large repair shop at the Chevy dealership. The bearings were completely shot and the wheel would not even rotate freely. This was probably the source of the heat that ruined the brakes previously. We needed a new axle, hub, bearings, and ABS sensor. The parts were ordered and the car was fixed late the next day. We ended up staying three nights in Hardin, just hanging out.

Pick the song........♫We were in our rolling home, where the buffalo roam, and the deer ad the antelope play. Then suddenly we heard a discouraging word, as our van's wheel bearings gave way.♫ or ♫ Tow, tow, tow your van. Now your gonna pay.♫

With the van back up and running we left Montana but stopped for lunch at a pullout that turned out to be an area by the Powder River where Custer had camped. From there, MAJ Reno had patrolled and spotted signs of Indian activity - that ultimately led them to the battle at Little Bighorn. We drove on into North Dakota. I had hoped to be able to meet up with a friend from High School that had recently moved there, but as luck would have it, he was in Alabama this week. We didn't spend a lot of time stopped in ND, but we made it to the next to last state the kids had not been to. We drove on down into South Dakota, and when we crossed the state line, we had officially been to our 50th State! We didn't stop for a picture because there was no place to pull over and turning around is too much of a hassle.

(Shelli- On the way through South Dakota, we drove through miles and miles of grasslands with views of space, more open space, then more miles of grasslands and open space. It was really very nice, and it gave the kids plenty of time to do their first day of homeschooling work. We detoured over into the Northeastern part of Wyoming to go to Devil’s Tower (seen in Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind). It was really cool looking, but the most amazing thing was the amount of deer we saw along our route! We went through a small town called Aladdin that had a population of only 15 people, but we saw 17 deer. Joey and John decided to start counting them since we had already seen so many, and they actually counted 161 on a stretch of road that was only about 50 miles long. This beat our previous record deer sighting from West Virginia when we saw 100 in a 30 mile stretch along the highway. We also saw 15 turkey, and two coyotes.

Devil's Tower in Wyoming

(Shelli - As we drove back into South Dakota we stopped by the sign for a picture even though it was dark.)

I didn't get both the sign and the people in focus. Look at the sign.

Look at the people.

(Shelli -Off to the South we could see a line of thunderstorms with very intense lightning. We drove through some rain and high winds on our way, but luckily it cleared up before arriving in Hill City, SD. Once we hooked up at the KOA campground, we had a clear sky, so Joey, the boys and I all climbed up on the top of the RV to look at the huge amount of stars. We set a reward for the first one to see a shooting star and I actually saw the first one! Joey enjoys astronomy and pointed out the Big Dipper, the North Star, the Milky Way, Jupiter with four of it's visible moons, and the Andromeda Galaxy, which we were able to see with binoculars. Seeing Jupiter and its moons led to a discussion concerning Copernicus and Galileo, which coincidentally the kids had just read about that morning in their science book. I had no idea Jupiter's four largest moons are named Galilean moons after Galileo, and that he was put under house arrest until the end of his life by the Roman Inquisition for agreeing with Copernicus that the Earth was not the center of the universe. It’s fun to learn together!

This KOA campground is one of the kids(and my) favorites. It has everything from putt-putt golf, recumbent bikes, pools, hot tubs, jumping pillows, water slides and panning for gold. Maui loves the open fields and has been chasing birds since we arrived. Maui and I have been going out for runs every morning on the trails and back roads. The view of the ‘black hills’ and open fields are very pretty, and it calls me to be out and enjoying life. The weather is amazing with a cool crisp breeze in the air that is extremely refreshing, clean and healthy feeling.

Out in the big field of the KOA campground. There are more rocky hills to the left of the frame. - Shelli

Maui in action chasing birds- Shelli

We went to Mt. Rushmore and to the Crazy Horse memorial. Both are cool to see, but I have to admit.....I imagined Mt. Rushmore to be bigger than it actually appears in real life. However, it was very neat to see and it was something I had wanted to see for quiet a while. The Crazy Horse memorial still has a long way to go, and leaves much up to your imagination in its current state.)

I wish ALL our current politicians could freeze like this and do no more harm.

The view from around the corner.

They have a LONG way to go with this.

(John - Today we went to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. Rushmore was smaller than I thought, but it was still very cool. Crazy horse was only a head and some chalk where the horses ear is going to be. Then we got back to the campground and jumped on their jumping pillow. The next day we rode their water slide and played putt putt golf, and that night we rented recumbent bikes. We had a great time and I want to stay longer.)

(Michael - In South Dakota, we stayed at our favorite line of campgrounds, KOA. I like them because of all the activities and kids there. This one had two pools, a jumping pillow, a water-slide, playground, splash pad, ice cream, pizza and more. The first day John and I spent our time on the water-slide. The second day we were on the water-slide for half the day then we went on the jumping pillow and also rented banana bikes. The third day we were supposed to leave but we got to stay. So we jumped on the pillow and rode our bikes that day. KOAs are awesome.)

Maui and John racing.

Vroom, Vroom - John

So, now we have all been to all 50 states, plus DC. That could sound like a little bit of a disappointment to have completed the goal of seeing all of them. However, there is still a whole lot to see and do. For every stop we have made, there have been at least a hundred other things we passed by that were worth stopping for. We have been checking off many things that are on a lot of people's bucket lists, but my list of things to do just grows and grows.

It has been good to expose Michael and John to all our states and let them see what people are like across the country. Thanks to the military, I have worked with and know people from 50 states, DC and three territories, and know there are really good people in each of them. Now the kids have seen that too.

(Michael- Two days ago I arrived at my 50th state, South Dakota! My favorite state on this trip was Alaska because I had my birthday there and got my iPhone. Seeing all the bears, including the huge Grizzly bear that was 10 feet away from us, was an amazing thing. I like traveling in the RV, but I will also be happy when we get to a house in Colorado. Traveling in the RV is something I'll always remember, we are having a lot of fun times. I still want to go to Alabama and Florida to see our family over the holidays and go scuba diving in the Florida Keys with Dad. Maui told me a secret that he is excited to meet his cousins, Buddy and Charlie, and his Uncle Beau in Childersburg. He's hoping he'll also be able to have his birthday party with them.)

(John- I have officially been to all 50 states! I don't know what one is my favorite but it is between Montana or Alaska. There have been nice and mean people in all the states. For example, there was Mrs. Lingo, the nice lady who ran the farm at The Diamond M Ranch and let me ride Lightning, and the fat old biker man with a white beard we nicknamed Santa when he stole our parking space in Yellowstone......... no wonder he was traveling alone! Most people have been very nice and I have met people from a lot of different places. Seeing bears, catching salmon, riding horses and being charged by buffalo have been some of my biggest memories. I am very glad Mom and Dad are taking the time to do this with us, even if we have to do school now :(

We are leaving South Dakota Sunday and heading down towards Colorado Springs. We will spend several weeks there to evaluate if it is really where we will call home once we stop the trip.

Boise to Bozeman - A two week update

2011-08-27T19:41:00.000-07:00

We continued through Eastern Washington and Oregon with Shelli driving the van behind the RV. The scenery was really neat with big wheat fields I didn't know they had that far in the West. The temperatures rose with each mile as we worked our way into the high desert. We arrived in Boise on Kelli's birthday, so Shelli picked up a cake on the way in and we made grilled halibut and salmon for dinner that night.

We surprised Abby again and showed up with a cake for Aunt Kelli's birthday

We are so fortunate to have Kelli, Vince, and Abby in Boise, and for them to allow us to base our operations out of there periodically. This time we adjusted what gear we were carrying and repaired the van for towing. As usual with most customer service issues these days, the parts were ordered late and we were delayed four extra days. I told the parts rep at Camping World we needed the tow bar to continue our trip, and I wanted the order to go in that morning. She said she would place the order and call me with a tracking number that afternoon. What that really meant was she would simply push the paper to the desk beside her and take the next day off.

Luckily we have gracious hosts, and more family time memories were built by Michal and John with Abby. The food is always good at the Chodor household and we do neat activities the kids really enjoy. While we waited for the van parts to arrive, we made good use of the time.

(Shelli- Boise seems to be a favorite for the kids. They have made friends and love spending time with Abby, Aunt Kelli and Uncle Vince. Instantly, Maui felt right at home, but I don’t think the three cats had mutual feelings! Abby was still on her summer break, so most nights were late ones watching movies and all three of the kids sleeping on the couch for a cousin slumber party. Some of the highlights were frog catching (huge ones), Jump Time, the strenuous hike up to Table Rock with neighborhood friends, the pool in the afternoons with Uncle Vince, washing the RV with Dad, going to the Boise State scrimmage game, the much anticipated Boise river float boat trip, and ........having bowls of ice cream every evening after dinner.

I actually really like Boise as well. It has a friendly small town feel with neighborhood schools. Boise is the capital of Idaho, so the city has anything you need as long as you want to drive into the city. Kelli and Vince live in a nice quiet area removed from the busyness of the city with beautiful mountain views and walking/running trails just down the street. The trails go for miles and miles throughout the entire city along the Boise River. Biking and running are very popular here and I actually went running almost every day with a neighbor friend of Kelli’s that I met. She and another running mom met every morning at 7:45 so I tagged along, holding them up a little as I was trying to acclimate to running at a higher altitude AND HILLS (not to mention how lazy I have been lately and how little running I have done since March)! These were much harder runs but the scenery made it all worth it! Boise is around 3,000 feet, Colorado Springs is around 6,000 so I have lots of acclimating to do!)

Making Vince's Grandpa Rocco's spaghetti and meatballs - John

We used the flashlights to stun the frogs so another person could grab the frog with a net - John

He would have made some good eatin - John

How come I'm the only person making a funny face? - John

We washed the RV from top to bottom and removed tons of grime, which exposed quite a few nicks in the paint from the flying gravel along the rough road stretches. The temperature was in the 100's and it was a big contrast to what we had been experiencing. The soapy water dried about as fast as we could rinse it. To recover from the heat we floated down the Boise River in the really cool water.

The purpose of this whole adventure was to maximize the time we spend together as a family before the pressures of modern day living and second careers take over so much of our time. We are sticking with this plan and realize "family" includes our extended family. We are altering plans to enable time for important family events like Shelli's father's retirement in October in Alabama, Thanksgiving and Christmas with parents in Alabama, and more activities to share as a family during the winter in the Southeast. We have become quite comfortable in our rolling home and aren't ready to call it quits so soon.

After the van was finally ready with the new tow bar, we pulled out of Boise on Wednesday and headed towards Yellowstone. It was another super hot day and we had to run the generator to power the air conditioners all day. We stopped in Pocatello for dinner and drove into the night to make it to a campground on Hebgen Lake in West Yellowstone, Montana.

(John - Made it to Montana, state number 47 and counting. We have three more to go! When we drove into Montana, it was night and the sky was filled with so many stars! When we got to the RV park Dad and I took Maui out for a walk and to look at the night sky. As we were letting our eyes adjust to the darkness, we heard coyotes and dogs howling.)

The next morning I prepared to unhook the van for a day trip into Yellowstone National Park. I noticed the tire valve stem cover was missing from the front right tire on the van. When I looked closer I could see it had melted away and the rim was discolored. Sometime on the trip in the caliper must have stuck and the hot brakes had probably been completely glowing red. We were lucky it didn't result in a fire that could have spread to the RV. We would have probably just barely had time to grab the marshmallows and graham crackers to make smores as our rolling home burned to the ground under the Milky Way (which was as bright as I have ever seen).

A place that serves as a Yellowstone tour service and auto shop was able to check out the van that afternoon, so I unhooked the RV from the campground and pulled the van on into town. I didn't chance driving the van by itself because I would have probably had a bison or a bear lumber onto the road and might not have been able to stop. The last thing I'd need after smashing up the van would be for a big angry animal to come take revenge on the guy that didn't brake for them.

(Michael - We have been having big afternoon thunderstorms every evening while we have been in Montana. The first night, we had a huge hail storm, it went on and on forever and did some damage to the top of the RV. However, Maui loved it and was playing with the hail balls. He was running around like crazy chasing all of the balls falling from the sky. The storm got worse so we brought him in and we all watched it from inside the RV. It lasted a very long time.)

Hail was everywhere! (Michael)

The front A/C cover took the brunt of the damage. Some holes were about two inches wide and up to about seven inches long.

Some duct tape provides a temporary fix until I can get new covers. I used paper plates to help bridge the really big gaps.

In spite of the thunderstorms, the mornings were nice each day and we were able to explore Yellowstone National Park. The drive in from the West entrance down to Old Faithful was really nice with a river running alongside the road. We stopped at several of the geothermal sites and arrived with pretty good timing to see Old Faithful erupt. It goes on about a 90 minute cycle and we only had to wait about 10 minutes. We looped through the park and went to viewing areas for the upper and lower falls of the Yellowstone river. We saw elk, a lot of bison in several herds, and a coyote.

See the family resemblance? - John

Just goofing off for energy release - Shelli

This is the Grand Prismatic Spring. The water temp is about 160 degrees here.

Watching Old Faithful (Michael)

The Yellowstone River is at the bottom of this canyon. The falls are to the left of this area.

(Michael - When we went into Yellowstone, we entered Wyoming and got our 48th state! We saw tons of buffalo and a few different herds. This was cool because this was the one thing that I had been wanting to see in Wyoming. The coolest thing that happened was when we drove around a corner to see a herd next to the road and several of the big ones were head butting one another and fighting right in the road. Traffic was stopped in all directions just to watch. The buffalo were huge! Some of them stopped right in front of some cars and just starred them down while scratching their hoof down on the road like they were ready to go. As some of the buffalo finally crossed the road and cleared a path, mom started driving slowly away. Then, a buffalo decided he wanted to cross and began to run (charge) alongside the road just toward our van. Mom sorta panicked and did nothing, she just stopped to see if the buffalo wanted to cross in front of us. I think it was actually charging at Dad and he got REALLY close to us with a REALLY mean look in his eyes. Dad was taking pictures outside of the window with it rolled down. Dad told mom to go and quickly rolled up the window and brought the camera in but Mom was still sorta panicked and didn’t move, so the buffalo continued down the side of our car trying to decide whether to give Dad a head butt or not. Seriously, I think Dad could have touched him and the buffalo maybe even left some fur on the side mirror. It was a close call!)

Shelli was driving and I was taking pictures and video taping, so I was in the passenger seat. There was nothing I could do as the mad bison closed in - except...roll up my window. That's right, a two thousand pound bison with big horns was bearing down on me and all I could do was roll up the window. Unfortunately I didn't get any of it on tape. When I was switching hands to get the window up, I must have hit the button and stopped recording. I really wish I had it on tape just to hear the audio. John said I told Shelli to go five times.

Found the bison I was wanting to see (Michael)

Move it or be trampled. - John

The bison were as big as some of the cars (Michael).

(John - Today, I got to do the thing that I have been waiting a very long time for; horse back riding on trails in Montana. We went to the Diamond P Ranch (kinda funny since our favorite place in Alaska was The Diamond M Ranch). We all four, along with about 8 other people, rode on a trail up into the mountains. We all got on our horses and followed the guide up into the mountains. We crossed streams and meadows and went up and down lots of hills with rocks and roots on them. We noticed that the horse in front of Michael was extremely gassy and bad for us....we were all behind him! Sometimes the horses would go slow and then trot or gallop to catch up, that was fun! I can’t believe I finally got to ride a horse like a real cowboy out in the Montana Mountains!)

The start of the ride. - John

It was actually fun riding the horses through the woods (Michael).

Look, no hands!

The horses were trained so well I could take my hands off the reins and they would turn for you. - John

The ride had some really pretty scenry (Shelli)

As the horses turned for home, they picked up the pace (Shelli).

Resting at the top! (Shelli)

Happy Trails! It was a good day and a good thing for the four of us to experience together (Shelli).

We are leaving Yellowstone Sunday and heading up to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument to let Custer's last stand be our first stop for the next week.

Leaving Alaska

2011-08-16T20:28:00.000-07:00

This week we were without internet or phone service most of the time. This update is posted late because we spent so much time driving and just didn't have the time or the means to publish it.

Sunday- It was raining again, but we went out looking for bears anyway over by the stream we had seen them at before. With the low tide, the amount of fish in the area was even more staggering than we had seen the previous time. There were dead fish and seagulls feasting on them in the mud flats exposed by the low tide. Out in the water there were fish fins sticking up out where the fish were waiting for the tide to come in so they could more easily navigate into the stream.

Seagulls eating the unsuccessful salmon. They eat the eyes first, sometimes while the fish are still alive.

Pink salmon stacking up on their way upstream.

In one area by a fish hatchery, the salmon were all lined up very thick by some rocks and we could easily get down right by them. They pink salmon return here by the millions and the silver salmon by the hundreds of thousands each year. With just his bare hands John caught a few that were stuck in the pools of water between some rocks and set them free; maybe 15 or so. Who knows, it could result in hundreds more salmon coming back to spawn over the next three years or so.

Grabbing a pink salmon with my bare hands (John)

This salmon was actually pretty small compared to some of the others (John).

John with one of the pink salmon which are also called Humpy salmon because the males develop a big hump on their back as they return to spawn. The structure behind John is there to keep the fish out of the power plant and direct them over to the hatchery on the left.

We drove down to the city dock, where John and I went fishing and caught two small Irish Lords and a starfish. It was cold and rainy, but the otters and marmot near the dock didn't seem to mind.

The smallest fish I have ever hooked through the mouth (John).

Dad caught this star fish with his line, not the hook (John).

The RV park in Valdez with some of the big hills in the background. The white streak is a big waterfall. The clouds and fog rolling through the mountains around us made it really pretty

(Shelli- Monday- We reluctantly pulled away from Valdez. Why is it we REALLY have to return? I guess we REALLY don’t.......The weather was very dramatic looking with fog and rain all over the mountains and recent rains made the waterfalls really dramatic. There are so many big waterfalls along this road. The drive from Valdez is really very beautiful; maybe one of the best drives we have been on. Wanting to get quite a bit of driving out of the way so the really bad stretch the next day wouldn't be so long, we made it to Border City RV Park near the Canadian border by dinner time. We checked the RV for damage after a bird couldn't decide which way to go and smacked into the front of the RV. Michael and John played out by the river with Maui in the high grasses. Maui loved it, but he got filthy and kids lost their shoes after wrestling and throwing each others shoes into the grass. Luckily, Michael found them after looking around for a while, but John had an allergic reaction to something in the grasses or to the tiny gnats that were all over the place. He had welts ALL over him! The mosquitoes were bad in the area too. We could tell we were near Canada.)

Bye, bye birdie (John)

Maui loved playing but got so dirty!

Maui found a comfy resting spot while Micheal played on his new phone. (Shelli)

Maui actually slept like this for quite a while as we drove across Canada. (Shelli)

Tuesday- We pulled away from the Border RV park and sadly made the trip back into Canada. The moment we did, we had sickening memories of the bad road experiences. The frost heave bumps shook us up and down again. As before, some were marked and some were not. It's very hard to tell if a bump will be bad or not, and staying very slow means extra hours and hours of driving. Going fast means shattering your teeth. Trying to go faster when the patches of road are decent and slowing for the bad bumps is very hard to do well. It really is a maddening thing. We drove and drove and drove. I thought to myself, "I'm surprised we didn't break anything on the way in through this road, and I'll be amazed if we don't break anything on the way out".

Made it to Whitehorse Canada and stopped for the night. I don't get amazed easily, and so, I wasn't amazed when I walked around to the van and discovered we had, in fact, broken the tow bar on the bumpy road. The permanent mounting bar on the van was sticking up at an angle and there was a small crack visible on one side. I could see there was rust in the top part of the crack, but there was progress that was obviously new. The bar had been bent slightly in California when a woman backed into it, and that probably had started a small crack that couldn't withstand the Canadian frost heave minefield.

The bar is tilted up a few degrees. It went far enough back to have the top section bang into the bumper and leave a gouge. On the lower right you can see some of the pits and missing paint caused by flying gravel along the route.

Wednesday- The kids played in the woods while I troubleshot and looked for options. After learning replacement parts wouldn't make it to any RV repair shops for at least 10 days, I decided to go ahead and pull the van longer. I went slower and stopped frequently to check the crack to see if it was advancing. The idea was to go as far as we could and then disconnect the van and have Shelli drive it behind the RV the rest of the way back into the United States when it looked too bad.

(Shelli- We have had the van for so long we started calling it Vangeezer. I am thinking “Old Faithful” is becoming a little more appropriate at this point, since we got it when John was born and we have been to almost all the states in it. We have towed it from San Diego, to Miami, up to Maine, and all the way up to Alaska. It has about 180,000 miles on the odometer, which doesn't include any of those towed miles to the four corners of the U.S.A. We finally got on the road around 2:00 pm and the road wasn’t as bad as we remembered once we got past the worst frost heave section. We had come up on the Cassiar Highway and it was bad for so long we had exceeded our tolerance level for bad roads. We thought we had a long stretch of unpaved dusty roads, to go through this day, but it must have been the part at the end of the Cassiar we were thinking about. The roads still weren't smooth, but they weren't too bad. We stopped at the Gold Nugget RV park outside Watson Lake around 8:00 pm.)

(Shelli- Thursday - We left the Watson Lake area and headed toward Dawson Creek, BC. We didn't get on the road until about noon. We have definitely moved into a “retired” state/routine. The reality of a ‘normal’ life with work/school schedules does not sound appealing to any of us right now. We are living with no schedule or plans, and just end up wherever we end up at the end of the day. Conversation between the four of us has definitely increased. It is a LOOONG way across Canada.)

Driving and driving creates lots of time to think and talk. Periodically, Maui will dart up to the front of the RV, sorta like Kramer entering a room on a episode of Seinfeld, look around like there is something very important to see, and then he will just turn around and go back to lay on his little place curled up on the couch.

We are paying the price for driving in Canada. We paid $5.41 per gallon in Fort Nelson. Out in the middle of nowhere it might be expected we would have to pay more than normal, but this was price gouging because it was a pretty well developed area with some fuel tank farms and seemed to be a distribution point. Nice.

This was in Watson Lake. The signs kept going a pretty long way from left to right and covered a very big area.

We stopped for a break and decided to check for gold. We found zircon, but no gold.

The rainbow went completely across the road and over the RV, but the right side dimmed before I could get the picture.

A nice double rainbow.

Feel the wind in my face, feel the.......bug in my mouth? I was actually trying to teach Maui how to stick his head out of the window.(John)

He learned fast.(John)

This bison picture is not zoomed in, he almost charged us.(John)

Maybe this reindeer was looking for Santa's sleigh?(John)

We have seen so many of the following animals that we almost don’t even call them out anymore (but we still do); bald eagles, otters, salmon, black bears, bison, moose and caribou. We have seen a life time of streams, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, mountains, snow, glaciers, RV’s and bad roads. Our drive through British Columbia today yielded two black bears, one grizzly, 25 bison, three dead buffalo and two reindeer. As we were ending our drive for the day in British Columbia, we both noticed the full moon and the approaching cars with their headlights on. It has been pretty much daylight so we haven’t really seen the moon, or night time car lights since June.

Friday - We made it from Fort Nelson to Grande Prairie. The tow bar crack has widened a little, but not enough to disconnect it yet. The roads continue to be a challenge with bad sections, construction, and gravel patches. The scenery is really very nice, but we wish we could just teleport to the United States. We have been very disappointed to pull in through major towns where we thought we would have nice roads and find out they can be just as bad as the middle of nowhere. Grande Prairie was very frustrating and resulted in quite a bit of tow bar weakening.

Saturday - We drove into Japser National Park. It was very scenic with big lakes and rocky mountains. We saw two small spotted fawns (just like Bambi), a fox darted out and ran right in front of our car, a deer leaped in front of us over the guardrail, two more sets of deer just by the road, big horn sheep, and mountain goats. We drove through Jasper and into Banff National Park where we continued to see plenty of rivers and nice blue streams. We saw a big mean looking brown bear beside a river and a big black bear eating berries on the side of the road. A police officer came by to disperse the crowd that had stopped on the road to watch the black bear. We started walking back to the RV, but a lot of people were not heading back to their cars. The policeman fired off a flare to scare the bear away so the people would leave. That would be a decent idea, but the guy shot the flare into a tree and it bounced over the crowd and across the lanes of traffic. The bear left, but I think it was laughing when it ran away.

Bighorn sheep in Jasper.

Just to the left we passed a few mountain goats. We thought about walking back to them, but decided to throw rocks in to the river instead.

We didn't stop to take any pictures of the really blue rivers. We'll have to do it on our next trip.

I thought the angle of these mountains was really interesting.

After eating berries near the road, this brown bear crossed a creek and didn't pay any attention to the crowd that had gathered.

It's hard to tell here, but this guy just seemed to look meaner than other ones we saw.

Heading downhill in Banff.

The bear was foaming at the mouth a little from chomping on the little yellow berries.

The crowd looking at the black bear. This was just before the flare incident.

We stopped in Banff for the night. All the driving is getting old, but we are pressing on because we are ready to be back in the U.S.A. We are spending a lot of time during the drive talking about what we should do, and about when to stop the adventure and settle into a house. The pull of Alaska was very strong and we would have stayed if we were looking to live somewhere for a couple of years and then move again. However, Shelli really wants to stop in one place when we settle, and Alaska is so far from all our family we ruled out living there long term. Regardless, it was really depressing to be leaving and I kept thinking maybe we should turn around and go back. There is something very appealing about the ruggedness and simplicity of life there. I think it would be easier to focus on family and eliminate some of the modern negative hurried life distractions we have all become used to. Just because it has become normal doesn't mean it is right to live the way we do now. Almost everything that consumes our waking moments is stuff nobody did at all 60 years ago. Pressing schedules, constant stress, mindless TV, internet based time robbers like Facebook, constant interruptions from texts about nothing, long commutes to work, shuttling kids off to multiple activities everyday with almost endless seasons or multiple seasons for each sport, and maybe 40 minutes of real time together as a family each day is all stuff that developed recently. For the rest of the history of human life, it has been families working, living and learning together. I think for the most part we have lost that in developed countries, and that loss is probably why everyone seems to be so unhappy all the time. People are probably less civil now than they have ever been.

John wrote in his journal "My teacher is my mom and my family are my friends". That sounds pretty good. Michael and John are happy with the RV trip. They both said they want to keep going and don't want to settle down yet.

(Michael- Driving through Canada wasn't fun, but we saw tons of wildlife. The coolest thing we saw was the bison just by our RV on the side of the road. We followed alongside two of them as they walked the road. Maui growled outside of the window really, really, mean. It was the meanest we have ever heard from him, he sounded super scary. We also drove by a whole herd of them just laying on the bank on the side of the road. We also saw sheep, coyotes, and deer. Canada was like a drive through wild animal park.)

We had planned to head to Great Falls, Montana and get a new tow bar for the van, or get a tow dolly for it. Instead we decided to go towards Boise and pick up some stuff we had left there at Kelli's. The roads continued to bang up the van tow bar and we finally had to call it quits on the towing. Shelli drove the van behind us the last several hours of the day. It ended up being a 12 hour day from start to finish, but we made it back into the United States just North of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and kept driving on past Spokane, Washington before stopping for the night. That put us within 6 hours of Boise on major roads. It was nice to be on smoother roads.

Alaska Week Five

2011-08-07T22:44:00.000-07:00

(Shelli - For this weeks blog, the boys and I wrote a little more than previously. Joey has been wanting us to contribute more and we finally gave him a little break).

(John - We went back to Denali National Park and Perserve to see the sled dogs and they were awesome! They had big dogs, small dogs and even 4 day old pups. Amazingly, they were already training the puppies by getting them use to human contact and manipulation. The Park Ranger talked about 30 minutes telling us the history of sled dogs in Alaska and how they are still used today. The Ranger then rode the sled while the dogs pulled him around the track, the dogs got so excited when they got to pull the sled. We got to stand at the back of the sled for a picture when they were done.

When we got back from Denali, mom let me drive the car. Don't worry....not by myself. Mom was in the same seat. I sat on her lap and and just let the car go to the campsite because it was downhill. Mom had her hands on the wheel and her feet on the gas and brake the first time. The second time mom let me steer all by myself and control the gas a little. The last time I got to control everything...the gas, brakes and the steering wheel. I love driving!

We found so much gold today at the El Dorado Gold Mine! I found $15.00 worth. We first saw a huge working sluice box that was at least 75 feet long. Next, we went gold panning and all together we found $92.00 worth in about 20 - 30 minuets of panning. We got cookies and hot chocolate as our gold was weighed. I even got to hold the 19 oz gold nugget. It was the size of my hand. At the end, Michael, Dad and I realized that a lot of the gold that was being weighed was spilled out on the counter tops and floors. We all three got busy collecting the spilled pieces and adding it to our own gold containers. I got five more dollars of gold from that. It was the best gold panning we have done. I really had fun!)

(Michael - At Denali National Park there was an interesting Dog Sled Demo that we went to see. We walked down a trail to where the dogs were. There were many dogs, probably about 35 in all. Almost all of them had blue eyes and were very cool looking. John started to pet one of their paws and the dog turned very quickly to let John know he didn't like it. It tried to slash John's hand with his claws....only kidding, but he didn't like it at all. The guide talked forever about the dogs and how the park only uses dog teams in the winter within the park to transport supplies, security, observation studies, etc. No motorized vehicles are allowed in the entire 6 million acres! When the guide said he was going to hook up the dogs for the sled demonstration, they all got up and barked with lots of excitement. Each one of them wanted to be the one picked. He picked 5 dogs, hooked them up and they pulled the sled all around the track really fast. The dogs looked like they loved it.

At the Cantwell RV park just outside of Denali, John and I got to drive. Mom let us take turns driving every time we had to go do the laundry. I would drive to the laundry room and John would drive back, then we would swap out the next trip. We had to sit in mom's lap, but we got to control everything...the gas, brakes and steering! Not trying to brag, but I thought I did really well. I drove smooth and my acceleration wasn't jerky, driving was really fun!

After we got back from Denali, it was raining and almost dark when someone knocked on our door. It was Colton, a 12 year boy from Arkansas that was camping next to us with his mom and older brothers, inviting us over for smores by their campfire in the rain and mud. His dad had to stay back in Arkansas to run the ranch. The four of them rented an RV for three weeks and are touring Alaska this summer. We all four, and Maui, walked over and ended up visiting with them for a while. We each told stories of our trip. They said they were going to Kenai so we told them about our favorite place, the Diamond M Ranch. The next morning they were having problems with their circuit breakers, so Dad helped them out a little. They were just getting started on their trip and learning all about RV living. They had even tried to filter out the light at night with pizza boxes in their RV windows. We told them that luckily our Aunt Kelli had given us the black-out liners and they worked like a charm.

We went to the El Dorado Gold Mine in Fairbanks and it was really fun too. When we got there, the Conductor played the guitar for us. When we got to the top of the mine we watched the owner and her workers use the huge sluice and they found a lot of gold pieces and one nugget. After that, we got to pan for gold. We took it in and had it weighed, I found $22.00 worth of gold. Once we finished we got to have free cookies and hot chocolate. We rode the train back down and the conductor played the fiddle for us.)

The first day we didn't even think to stop for a picture at the entrance. Good thing we had a second day.

This is one of the dogs that we got to pet at the Dog Kennels. (John) Look at those blue eyes.

This is the dog that snapped at John when he touched his paw. (Michael)


The sled was very unstable and we almost feel off. (John)

Panning is very fun but takes a while to get the hang of it. (John)

The Alaska Pipeline stretches for over 800 miles, running from Prudhoe Bay and stops in Valdez, Alaska.

(Shelli- We did a little shopping around, replenished our groceries and went to the book store for a while. The boys each got new books for the trip back across Canada and Joey went gold panning. He went out to a local creek all by himself so that he could stay and pan as long as he wanted. Michael, John, Maui and I played ball and fetch down at the river. Maui seemed to really like this campground. The river proved to be a fun playground for him. He has discovered water and has realized how he can just run and jump in now. He will chase anything we throw in...the ball, sticks and even rocks. He really liked to chase the ducks as they would get close to the bank, but it didn’t take long for the ducks to stop coming by him.)

I was throwing the ball for Maui to get some of his energy out. (Michael)

This is Maui running back and fourth between Michael and I trying to get the ball that we were throwing. (John)

Maui now loves fetching anything we throw in the water.

(Shelli - We packed up the RV and left Fairbanks, stopping at North Pole, AK for a quick lunch. This town had ‘Santa’ decor and street names. The street lights were candy cane stripped to resemble the North Pole. McDonalds, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, etc. even had North Pole type decor to display their signs. However, we found it very interesting that when I asked about the closest gift shop for Christmas ornaments, three out of three of the locals said there wasn’t really anything like that, and Safeway (the grocery store chain) would have the biggest variety. I thought that to be odd. As I was walking back to the RV, I noticed a newspaper headline about the Northern Lights and the current solar activity. After telling Joey about this and him doing some research on the computer, we decided to turn around and head back to the same RV park we had just left in Fairbanks. We were too close to the possibility of seeing them to head south to Valdez without giving it a shot. Seeing the Northern Lights had been a long time desire of Joey’s, but this trip just wasn’t going to be timed right. Northern Lights are best viewed during the cold, clear and dark winter months. However, the recent solar flare activity had it in the news and there was a high likelihood of being able to see them.)

All the street lights and business signs that could be made to look like candy canes were colored this way.

(Shelli - After no luck with the ornament shopping in the North Pole, I went to the Discovery River Boat Shopping Village back in Fairbanks. I actually went and found the ornament, and then drove back to pick up the boys and Joey once I saw there was a 40 Below Room at the village. So, we donned our parkas (except for Joey who was in a short sleeved shirt because they only had three) and entered the arctic freezer! It was COLD at - 50 degrees Fahrenheit!!!! We only stayed in for a few minutes, it actually stung our throats just breathing in the air. Joey’s hair and beard quickly started developing a layer of frost and our noses began to freeze from the inside. We posed for a picture and exited. As we were leaving, the girl that was working at the village said that in January it gets to 40, 50, or even 60 below, and honestly the difference between 30 and 60 below wasn’t that different. She just stays in all winter and runs from her car to buildings. I don’t think I would enjoy living in that for very long!)

Our eyelashes began to freeze in here. (Michael)

(Shelli - Even though it was a clear, sunny day as the evening began to darken a little, the rain and clouds moved in making it impossible to view any solar activity above the clouds. Joey kept getting up every hour to check, but no luck. There were multiple layers of clouds covering the entire sky. We didn’t even really have enough darkness either, it was just too light. The thought and excitement of planning to go see them was all we got. Oh well.....I guess we will just have to come back to Alaska sometime!

Friday we left and headed down past the town of North Pole again on our way down to Valdez. As we went just past the exit where we had previously stopped and turned around the day before, Joey and I both noticed this huge (I mean about 30-40 foot tall) Santa built alongside the freeway no less than 1/2 mile from where we had asked if there was a place to buy Christmas ornaments. It was drawing attention to the big ‘Santa House’ shopping village. I wonder if the locals just get tired of answering the same question day after day and just mess with the tourists.

It was a beautiful drive down to Valdez with high mountains, the Alaskan Pipeline alongside us all the way, winding streams, glaciers, and too many waterfalls to count.)

A lot of the time we don't have a pull off available to stop and take pictures of the scenery, or I don't notice them until we have gone too far to be able to stop in time. It takes a while to stop our 56.5 foot long RV/Van combo, and we can't just turn around and go back easily. We stopped here in time to take a picture of this glacier on the way into Valdez.

When we arrived in Valdez, we saw a familiar sight. There was a rental RV with a pizza box used to darken the windows in the back. It was our neighbors from the RV park in Cantwell that had shared smores with us. We said hello and talked about what we had each done since we had last seen them. After setting up in our site, we spoke with a guy from Tampa that asked where we were from when he saw our Florida license plates. This has played out over and over during this trip. Answering "Where are you from" should be easy for pretty much everyone, but it isn't for us. We have no home. We are from Alabama - a long time ago. The kids were born in Florida, but they have also lived in WV, VA, and CA. We left California last, but we aren't from there. We aren't from Colorado where we are heading. After the standard discussion about where we are/aren't from, the guy told us he had seen a stream thick with spawning salmon and bears feeding on them just about 5 miles from the park.

We had really wanted to see bear feeding on salmon, but decided not to pay $2,400 for a flight to go see them. No kidding, it's that expensive to fly to the famous areas to see them catching the jumping salmon. Even though it was about 9:00 pm, we quickly loaded up the car and went straight to the spot he told us about. Sure enough, as we got close, we saw several cars pulled over and people looking off to the side. Right by the road there was a culvert from the bay that led under the road up into a small stream that worked it's way up into the woods. The water was completely full of fish struggling to head upstream. Seagulls were everywhere feasting. Within just a couple of minutes, less than a 50 yards away, we saw a black bear sow and two cubs come out of the woods. The mom went down and simply plucked a fish from the water. She took it up for the cubs who had run back into the edge of the woods to hide while she fished. A bunch of seagulls went over to try to steal some of one of the cub's fish and it scared the cub so much it ran away and scampered up a tree. Another bear came out from higher up the stream and caught a fish, then stood up and backed away to eat it. After a while of watching them, we moved just a little down the road and saw a group of people on the bay side of the road.

We joined the group and saw a brown bear feeding on salmon right at the water's edge. The bear had big teeth and big claws, and it was no more than 30 feet away from us. It was busy eating and didn't give us much consideration at all. It just squished eggs out of the salmon and licked them off the rocks, then walked slowly along the edge of the water feeling with it's front paws. When it stepped on a fish, it would grab it and take it to the side where it would again eat only the eggs before heading back into the water for another fish. It walked by us, and was well within 20 feet of us as it moved along the shore. Periodically it would look up at us, and look around at the seagulls near it. It seemed to get annoyed by the seagulls splashing behind it a couple of times. A family with young children joined us and the bear's annoyance factor really went up when their seven year old starting throwing rocks at the bear! The father threatened the boy a few times, but the kid kept throwing rocks. It was getting late and this was a really good time to leave, so we went on back to the RV park.

We stopped to tell the family from Arkansas about the bears. Since they had flown into Anchorage and rented an RV, the only way they could get around was to unhook their RV and drive it. We loaned them our van and they went off to see the bears too. We had just seen some true natural wonder events firsthand. It was like National Geographic highlight reels and it didn't take anything other than our time to witness it. It was good to be able to share that opportunity with some people who had been nice to us earlier.

(Shelli- I found it very interesting that the salmon work so hard to get back to their place of birth just to lay their eggs and die. The instinct of the 'circle of life' never ceases to amaze me. Kinda like the bear thing as well....the bears just know to eat the most calorie/nutrient rich part of the fish and then move on to more. They don't even exert themselves because they 'just know' to conserve their energy for the hard winter. And who doubts the intelligent design idea?)

The spawning pink salmon were so thick, we probably could have walked across them if we tried. (Shelli)

This was the first set of bears that came out of the woods. (Michael)

This bear made it look so easy to get the salmon. (Michael)

This bear stood up with his fish right after he caught it. I think he was just showing off.

He looks scary, check out his teeth! (Michael)

This brown bear (grizzly) moved very slow and methodical in his salmon catching approach. (Shelli)

Look at the claws on this bear.

The grizzly would press on the salmon to get the eggs out. (Shelli)

Savoring the most calorie/nutrient rich part of the fish, the eggs. Then he would go get another- (Shelli)

We scheduled a nine hour glacier tour by boat and went on a large catamaran through the very calm waters of Prince William Sound. We took sea sickness medicine just in case, because we didn't want to feel as bad as we did on the halibut charter before. This was a very different experience with calm waters and nobody felt bad on this trip. They served two meals and we all were able to eat, where last time food was pretty far from our minds.

The scenery was really breathtaking as we looked at mountain after mountain with waterfalls spilling into the sound. There were rocky edges with caves and small beach areas along the shore. We could see fish in the water, fish jumping out of the water, jelly fish, sea lions, seals, bald eagles, puffins, otters, and a small deer. The captain did a very good job slowing the boat for the different sights and he provided narration about the history of the sound. We learned about the history of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, gold mining, fur trapping, copper mining, and wildlife in area. We went right up to the Mears Glacier and stopped for about 30 minutes at it's base. We could hear the ice cracking and see small pieces falling into the water. There was something very powerful about the sound as it resonated through the air. We heard one very loud pop and saw a big crack develop off to the left at the bottom, but unfortunately no huge chunks calved off while we were there. The crew grabbed some pieces that were floating by and we were able to hold it, and even eat small pieces of the crystal clear ice. It was really very impressive.

We left the glacier, and went back past the epicenter of the 9.2 magnitude earthquake of 1964 that completely decimated homesteads and gold mines in the area. We went back along the opposite side of the sound and saw humpback whales and Dall porpoise. The porpoise headed straight towards our boat and displayed their tremendous speed as they cut through the top of the water. They turned around on a dime and played in the bow wave of water from our boat. We were right on the front and were looking straight down at them. We finished the trip by going by the very end of the oil pipeline and hearing about how oil is loaded into the ships for transport. We had come to Valdez for the boat tour and it was well worth it. We didn't know to expect it, but the scenery overall driving into and at Valdez was truly outstanding and was among the more picturesque areas we went through in Alaska.

There were waterfalls everywhere. I didn't expect Alaska to give Hawaii a run for it's money with waterfalls.

This bald eagle swooped down and caught this salmon, but was unable to fly back with it. It had to swim to the shore and then hop up farther in to eat it.

A commercial fishing boat retrieving it's net.

The pink salmon haul coming in.

The gooey stuff on the left of the net is jellyfish. It just squished out as the net was pulled higher.

This is a mother sea otter with her baby on her belly as she floated on her back past us.

There were several large groups, called rafts, of otters as we cruised along. Some of them rolled over and rested again on their backs, then just looked at us as we went by.

Otter row.

Seals on icebergs.

This was their cool hang-out.

Look at the black dots at the bottom. They are all seals lying around on the icebergs that have fallen off the glacier. This provides some sense of scale to show how huge this glacier is.

This is a piece of ice from the glacier and it was freezing my hands! (Michael)

The back drop seems a little odd with most of our extended family currently having such record high heat waves. (Shelli)

The end of the Trans-Alaska pipeline and the loading point for oil headed out.

(Shelli - Alaska has been so very memorable. The place has amazing scenery, unbelievable abundant wildlife, and overall the people have been very friendly. We have even had several occasions of strangers going above and beyond with simple actions that put smiles on our faces. We have experienced really nice times together as a family and made memories in Alaska that I will cherish forever. We still have MANY miles to go to make even more (approximately only 3,600 miles to Colorado Springs)!

Alaska Week 4

2011-07-31T13:11:00.000-07:00

To start of this week, we picked up our salmon Sunday and loaded it into the freezer that already had our 92 pounds of halibut. The salmon completely filled up the freezer and we had to give up on our plan of extra ice cream storage until we eat enough fish to make room. I'm glad we didn't find a smaller 3 cubic foot freezer like we originally thought we wanted.

There wasn't room for another fillet. We had to shake them around and smooth out the top to be able to shut the freezer lid.

Even through it was rainy, we went to the beach in Kenai to see the carnage from all the dip net fishermen. While there weren't as many people as I had seen there Saturday, it was obvious a whole lot of people were still into fishing when we pulled up. There was a hearse in the parking lot with fishing gear and a Dracula mask in the back. I guess you go in whatever you have.

Can you see the Dracula face in the back window?

Down at the beach, the scene was pretty brutal. People were lined up out in the water with their nets and fish carcasses were lined up all along the beach. We walked to the edge and watched a family catching a couple of fish. They offered to give us one, but we were out of room in the freezer, so we had to decline.

See the line of people and the nets in the water? There were almost twice as many people there the day before.

This net isn't the largest we have seen. Some have wheels built in to help roll them down into the water and they are bigger than the roof of a compact car. See the fish whacking club the woman on the left is using?

The fish parts are everywhere.

I got more black sand while Maui ran around and around through the tall grass at the top of the beach area. We had to keep him up at the top to stay out of the salmon parts everywhere. He chased birds that were WAY out of his reach, but he seemed to enjoy every minute of it. I guess he thinks he is keeping them in their place way up there.After running through the sand and mud, Maui needed a bath. We took him to a dog wash that worked out pretty well.

Working at the dog wash.

Monday we still had quite a bit of rain, but there were breaks that worked for Michael and John to get out the shovel and build bike ramps along with the 9 year old son of the owners. They had been clearing some land and had piles of dirt that were just right for making ramps. After the mini BMX park was built, the owner said he sure was glad he had dumped the dirt there.

These are some of the bmx ramps we made, they were awesome. (John)

We rode on these for hours with Toad. We used shovels and rakes and made these from some of the dirt that the owners had just dumped here. (Michael)

The weather really cleared Monday night and the campground had a bonfire and smores with huge marshmallows. Even though it was around 9:30 pm, the sun was really nice so we decided to go to the beach and walk along in the sunshine. Michael and John climbed up and jumped off the side of the cliff over and over. They were jumping over the edge and landing on the dirt spill-over area at least 9 feet below them. Michael took clay and made war paint marks on his face. Unfortunately, we didn't have the camera for that.

Tuesday we drove up the Sterling Highway to go look up river and see crowds at the Russian River fishing. The river gets skinnier and more clear the farther away from the mouth where it dumps into the bay, so the scenery is a bit more interesting, but the fish are not as good quality for eating after so much exposure to the fresh water. We saw a lot of people fishing, but no bears.

We went to a creek listed as a good site for gold panning. The gold search was pretty much a bust, but we found a LOT of mosquitoes and saw some river otter. As we were about to leave, we saw our first upstream spawning salmon that had turned the bright red color. The sockeye salmon that are the subject of the big fishing furry are the ones that go farther up stream and turn red. By the time they fight the current, dodge the commercial nets, the dip nets, the fishermen's lines, and the bears, they are tired. The one we saw tried going upstream and then ended up being pushed backwards. I guess it will take a break and try again and again until it makes it.

(John- I had a great time at Diamond M Ranch - mostly because of the farm. The farm owner, Mary let me ride Lightning because of all the work I had helped her out with during our visit. We rode down the trail to the river, then we rode back throughout the entire farm and park. Feeding the animals, cleaning their cages, and brushing Lightning was fun for me and didn't seem like work. Getting to ride Lightning was 'icing on the cake'. Mary has so many ideas to enlarge the resort like a paintball court, or even setting up a Man Tracker course. I hope I get to come back next summer to be a work camper and to see what they have added.)

This is Lightning, he is very nice and gentle. (John)

Yeeha!!!!!!!!!!!!! (John)

Because we were scheduled to leave and drive up to Anchorage on Michael's birthday on the 28th, we took him to the movies the afternoon of the 27th. We went to see Captain America in 3D, and like the other times we had gone to the Orca Theater just two miles from the campground, there were only about 12 other people in the place and we parked right in front of the entrance. It's hard to beat parking 10 feet from the ticket counter and having no line to get in to buy our popcorn. There was no threat of anyone sitting in front of us and blocking our view either. We rounded the night out by getting a pizza from Big Daddy's Pizza for the third time in two and a half weeks.

The next morning, Michael opened his presents and had the cookies he had requested instead of a cake. After that, we loaded up the RV and drove away. We were sad to leave the Diamond M Ranch. As we drove off, one of the owner's sons ran alongside the RV, waving the whole time. We drove along the Sterling Highway and up the Seward Highway back to Anchorage. We pulled over for lunch and surprised Michael with a cake and ice cream in spite of the cookies earlier.

(Michael) - On my birthday I woke up at Diamond M Ranch. I got to open....I mean take my gifts out of their Wal-mart bags (Mom didn't have any wrapping paper). I was very happy! I got a lot of sweets and a ton of money from my family, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. After we left Diamond M Ranch, we drove to Anchorage and ate dinner at Golden Corral (I really like their yeast rolls and honey butter). I had been thinking about what I wanted to do with all my money. I finally decided to Invest it...... BAHAHAHA! (Sigh) Whoo....that was a funny one. I really decided to buy myself my first phone. So with 10 minutes until Best Buy closed, we looked and tried to get the new iPhone 4. It was to late and their system wouldn't process the account. I was sad because the number they had given me was just two numbers different from my mom's cell number. The next day we got on at the AT&T store and Dad changed our family plan to unlimited texting. I also found a cheaper case. My birthday in Alaska was great!

Maui was thinking about trying to snatch my loot. (Michael)

Surprise! Birthday cake for lunch.

John came out from the back of the RV at lunch time to surprise me with a cake. (Michael)

Michael's big birthday purchase.

The drive was really very beautiful. There were sections with huge mountains nearby, that looked even bigger when there was an RV ahead of us that was dwarfed by the immense hills. The weather was sunny and very nice as we drove along.

This view with the reflection of the mountains in the water was right where the Sterling Hwy joins the Seward Hwy.

After driving around the point of the Turnagain Arm and looking at the very low tide, we stopped at Crow Creek Mine to try the cold panning there. After taking a bucket, shovel, sluice, and a big wagon with fat tires down to the creek, we tried our hand at digging up some gold. Just like most gold rush prospectors, we did not strike it rich. The bags of sand we were given to pan through produced a few flakes of gold for us, but the time at the creek ended up with just a tiny speck in Shelli's pan. We brought back a bucket of concentrates we collected from the sluice to go through later, but I'm not expecting much from it. We stopped by the little stream where most people pan their sample dirt because I thought a bunch of them probably wash some of their gold over when they try panning for the first time. Within just a few tries, I found a couple of small flakes. I should have just been working the tiny stream instead of dragging all that gear back and forth to the creek. I know there was a bunch more gold in the stream, but we needed to press on for dinner in Anchorage.

The water was cold and we didn't find that much gold here - Michael

Sifting our the bigger rocks before loading the stuff from the bucket into the sluice. Adjusting the sluice in the creek to get the right amount of water flow and the right angle takes some work and experience. We never really got it dialed in right.

We drove from Anchorage to Cantwell, just South of Denali National Park. The drive was really nice with BIG expanses of trees and mountain views. The roads were pretty good and the traffic was light once we got past Wasilla, where red light after red light got really old.

Eleven years ago Shelli and I had planned a trip to Denali National Park with back country lodging reservations and everything. Right after completing the plans and buying some gear for the trip, we learned Shelli was pregnant with John. We cancelled our plans because the wilderness didn't seem like the place for us to be with her pregnant. This week, we finally made it to Denali.

Because cars are not allowed very much access, we took the eight hour bus tour of Denali National Park from the Wilderness Center. The weather was cold and rainy and the bus was basically a no frills equipped school bus. The windows fogged up quickly, and the solution was to open every other window, letting in plenty of cold air. The temperature was below 50 degrees, so the wet wind chill was pretty chilling. The wet unpaved roads splattered up a lot of mud, so the windows got smeared up pretty bad on the outside. In spite of the mud, we saw a mother and baby moose not too long after getting on the road. The driver would stop each time anyone saw something and he would give us plenty of time to see it, so it was actually a pretty good set-up. Soon we saw a bunch of Dall sheep on a mountainside as we drove along through the vast wilderness. We saw a single caribou, then a mother brown bear and cub playing on a distant ridge. As we neared the turnaround point, we saw a red fox cross the road and walk by our bus. We stopped at the Eielson Visitor's center where there can be a good view of Mount McKinley. Can be - for the 5% of park visitors that actually get to see it. Most days it is covered with clouds. If it isn't raining like it was when we were there, it is so big, it creates it's own weather and remains covered in clouds most of the time.

Moose cow. The calf is just off to the right behind the tree.

Sow and cub.

The vast expanse of Denali keeps going and going on. I bought this red jacket 11 years ago to wear to Denali, so it finally got used for it's original purpose.

After about 30 minutes at the visitor center, we headed back out on the same, and only, road. Soon we saw about seven caribou, then another group of caribou a few miles later, then some more caribou up on the very top of a ridge farther down the road. Next we saw three brown bears not far off the road, down by a creek. One was a cub, another was a small female, and the other was a large male. Not far past that we saw another large male on the side of a hill eating berries. We saw several other caribou, but stopped calling them out and stopping to look at them. We also spotted a bunch more sheep in the distance. In total we saw over 20 sheep, over 20 caribou, two moose, 6 brown bear, a red fox, a falcon, and several ground squirrels. The park is known as a place to see wildlife for good reason. We didn't scratch the surface of the park and still saw this much in one day. The scenery isn't as dramatic as some places we have seen on the trip, but it is very interesting for it's large scale.

There were a few places where the hills were colored really neat like this. There were also some really black mountains.

Mount McKinley is somewhere in the these clouds.

Caribou on the move.

This caribou has a GPS tracker around it's neck.

A caribou on the top of a high ridge. There are no hunters in Denali - or else this guy would learn a hard lesson about silhouettes.

See the white sheep way up on the loose rocks of this cliff?

These sheep must have been standing on the edge of their hoofs.

This picture is worth clicking on to zoom in some. Check out his teeth and claws.

A different brown bear on the hill side. (That's a fat bear - Michael)

This one was eating berries. It must take a lot to get fat on berries. This bears don't have it as easy as the Kenai ones that easily fill up on salmon.

That's it for this week. We will be going back into Denali one more day and then heading to Fairbanks next week.

Alaska Week Three - Fishing Follies

2011-07-23T23:26:00.000-07:00

(Michael - Spending most of the summer in Alaska has been really fun! My favorite RV park we’ve stayed at has been the Diamond M Ranch. We ended up staying here for 3 weeks. I liked the basketball court and the wifi. John liked the ranch with the horses and other animals. We fished a lot in the town, Kenai, where Diamond M Ranch was. The first day we fished we didn’t really have the right equipment. The second day we went back with new fishing poles, hooks, and yarn and we caught 7 big sockeye salmon. The third day we caught 14 salmon. All the fish we caught were red (sockeye) salmon. It was cool. Fishing for the red salmon was hard at times, the fish were really strong! We couldn’t just reel them in completely, we had to use nets once we got them close to the bank. Then we had a huge stick for whacking their heads to kill them before we would bleed them out (remove their gills). Summer in Alaska has been fun and we still aren’t done, we still have about 2 weeks left in Alaska before we head back towards Colorado. )

(John - I have been having a great time in Alaska. I have been halibut fishing twice and salmon fishing three times. Me and my Dad went halibut fishing the first time by ourselves, we kept 2 fish each (the limit for halibut). It was so fun we decided to take the whole family next time. Because of the rough sea, we all got seasick except for Dad. I only threw up once and then I caught a lot of fish. I caught a 35 pound halibut and a 25 pound one too. Dad did most of the work when we were all seasick and he caught most of the fish. Then we tried salmon fishing from the bank of the Kenai River but only caught two fish on our first attempt. Dad hooked 8 of them but we didn’t have big enough hooks so we never landed them. The guy next to us let Michael and I reel in some of his fish. On the next day, we went to a different spot and caught 7 fish, we made a pool that fresh water flowed in and out of that we kept our fish in. On our next trip out, we fished at midnight and caught 12 fish. We caught one more as Dad was cleaning the fish because we could catch more the next official day. We were there until 1:00 am filleting the fish. I love the fishing and I am having a great time. The Department of Fish and Game even changed the limit to 6 per person yesterday since the salmon run is so big this year!)

We like Kenai so much we decided to stay another full week. John has been trying very hard to convince us all to just stay and live here. I would be up for that for a few years, but the idea is to get settled and stop moving around all the time. If we already owned a chunk of land and could have a set up like the RV campground/ranch it would be very hard not to stay. Of course, we are here during the best weather and activity time of the year, and we might think differently if we were here in January in the dark and cold. For now, there so many things to do, and we are in a really nice place with friendly staff and other campers, so we just felt like we should stay. We were waiting for the big salmon run and it started pretty much the first day of our third week in Alaska. The numbers are in and the fish count shows record numbers of red salmon in the rivers. They have counted over 700,000 fish running up the river. There are so many fish, they just doubled the daily catch limit for sport fishing from three to six per person. The canneries are so full, some of them have stopped taking new deliveries from the commercial fishermen because they are over processing capacity, out of ice, and out of storage.

Our first day fishing was a learning day at Swiftwater Park with some light gear and a couple new lures a guy recommended at the sporting goods store. I guess it was what he needed to sell, but it wasn't what we needed. We were obviously the newbies in the crowded section of the river where we were. It is known as combat fishing here this time of year because everyone is fighting for space on the bank and the tone can get ugly. Many people have spent a lot of money getting here for their dream fishing trip and they don't want any problems, crossed lines, etc.. It is dangerous because the current is very fast and it gets powerful if you step out a little too far, and because the lines and hooks being slung everywhere can easily catch people in addition to the salmon. When the lines get stuck on the bottom and are yanked loose, or a line gets spit out from a fish that gets away, it slingshots back towards the shore and can take out an eye. We saw a medical center with a sign advertising hook removal. One local told us the hospital has a dummy they put a pin in each time they have a hook they have to remove. At the end of the season, the dummy is a pin cushion. We also talked to several people that fell in the water and had stories of just barely making it - only after being grabbed by someone else to help them out. One guy who was drying out his clothes from his narrow escape told Shelli he was being dragged down river by his waders filled with water and he couldn't turn over to be able to use his arms. He said he was helpless and wouldn't have made it if someone had not grabbed him. Another guy in our RV park, John from Liverpool, England, said he would have been gone if his wife hadn't grabbed him. When I mentioned to our John, Liverpool is where the Beatles were from, this John said he was their same age and knew them when he was growing up. He said Paul and John both dated his younger sister. I guess she could have taken Yoko's place if things had gone differently.

We were able to find space and not tangle up everyone's lines, but we weren't landing any fish. A friendly guy beside us landed fish after fish. His son had just joined the Marine Corps and he had a USMC lanyard around his neck, so we had an easy conversation starter. He had caught his limit of three fish per day at the time, so he helped by giving us some pointers and letting Michael and John use his rod and reel. We left with two nice red salmon on our stringer and took them to the cleaning station at the park.

John with the first salmon we caught. Thanks to Jim in the background, we got to use some gear that was suitable.

This was the first salmon I caught thanks to Mr. Jim's gear. (John)

This is the fish that Mr. Jim let me reel in. (Michael)

WHOAH!!! A fish!

Dinner was fresh sockeye salmon on the the grill - a little plain, but good. The next day we cooked salmon for dinner again but spiced it up by brining the fish in salt and sugar water for hours, then pan frying it with garlic, onion, smoked paprika, olive oil and butter. It was served on bowl of big penne pasta with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. For dinner the next night we made salmon burgers by finely chopping the fish (John broke in our new ulu knife chopping it), adding eggs, panko, garlic, liquid smoke, smoked paprika, onion powder, and lime powder. The burgers had a very nice flavor and the texture was very good. For another meal, we put panko bread crumbs on a halibut fillet and pan fried it in butter and olive oil, then topped it with toasted almonds and a coconut lime sauce. We have several ideas for each fish to try next time, and we will have a lot of fish to try it out on.

We have learned we can eat better in an RV than we did sometimes at a house when we were always busy with routine stuff. We go out to eat less often, we make what we want with what we have and work on our creativity, and it can be very good. Of course we have our fair share of snack cakes, chips, cookies, candy, hot chocolate, roasted marshmallows, and ice cream.

The following morning, I went back to the beach at low tide to look for the deeper black sand deposits that might contain gold. I found some that were more promising than my previous attempt, so I filled two 5 gallon buckets and a couple of gallon zip lock bags. Then I walked down the beach and saw an even better deposit. With only one gallon bag left, I had to just put the sand right into my backpack. When I put the wet backpack on, I heard the seams of my backpack rip a little, and I had to walk bent over to keep the weight low. It was very heavy and the buckets were not light. I had to make four trips back down the beach, up the hill and to the car. So far, all the gold I have found is....... tiny, and not much of it. At least I'm getting exercise.

We bought some better fishing gear and prepared for what we now knew was a winning technique for catching red salmon. The line is set up with a weight and bare hook with a piece of yarn tied just above it. It is flipped, not cast, just a couple of yards out out into the water upstream and followed with the tip of the rod as it goes downstream. When we feel a good bump, we do a quick retrieval because the fish swim with their mouths constantly open, and a bump probably means the line is in their mouth. We hope to set the hook in the corner of their mouth because a snag outside the mouth is supposed to be thrown back.

That same night we went back to Swiftwater Park and gave it another shot. This time we each landed big red salmon. Whenever one of us would get a fish on, whomever wasn't fishing grabbed the net (we had to buy a bigger net too, by the way) and scooped it up. When they are are hooked, they put on a great show. Many times they will jump out of the water just feet from you and start pulling line out as they run into the current. A lot of the time there are multiple fish on for people within just a few feet of each other and the water is churning with splashing fish and people grabbing nets. It's pretty exciting. The fish flop around a lot when they are in the net and on the bank. We got splattered with mud each time getting the hook out, and, as is the technique, smacking the fish in the head with a rock or stick before putting it on the stringer. If you can't find your stringer, it helps to have two inventive boys that can make a fish pen out of rocks. With a catch of seven, and it getting way past dinner time, we called it a night. If you plan ahead and have bags to carry the fish in, you have no problem getting them up the hill to the car. If you didn't, you can try to use the flimsy bag your new hip waders came in, but it doesn't work well. Our fish were bigger than the bag, but we managed to get them up the hill. When we got back to the car we found the stringer and a garbage bag. When Michael held out the bag, John dropped the first fish in head first and it went straight through the bag and onto the ground. Salmon have a kind of pointy nose, and I guess about a seven or eight pound fish rocket with a pointy nose was just too much for the bag we had. We wrapped the fish in what was left of the bag and stopped just before closing time at the processing house to have the fish packed and frozen. On the way in, a couple of the fish slid out of the bag and onto the ground in the parking lot, generating some laughs from all of us and a guy in a truck that was pulling in. When it was time for the guy inside to load our fish into the bucket on the scale, he picked up the bag, without supporting the bottom, and it ripped the rest of the way spilling the fish on the floor. We will have tenderized salmon.

Michael landing a big fish while John and I both have nets ready to grab it.

John helping Michael get the fish over to the stringer.

John helping a nearby fisherman land his catch. He, Shelli, and Michael were a big help to others.

The first fish I caught of the day. (Michael)

John netting one of my catches. You can see the splashing all around him. The fish are really strong and keep flapping and flopping all the way to the end. You can see how far out most people go into the water. Just another step or two out here and the current can take you down in a heartbeat.

It takes a lot of teamwork to get the salmon all the way on the bank without losing it. (John)

Shelli catching a sockeye. In between Shelli and me you can see a fish being landed by the person on Shelli's left. John is on the right about to net Shelli's fish.

It took all three of us to 'land' the salmon. This was definitely a fun and entertaining way to fish! (Shelli)

Here, I am bleeding the fish so the blood doesn't get in the meat after the fish is dead. (John)

This is the fish I caught and you can see the fish pool Michael and I made. (John)

This is the new gear we bought in action, it worked so much better! (John)

We forgot to take a picture at the river. This is outside the fish house, these fish are heavier than they look. (John)

We decided to all go on a halibut fishing charter because John and I had such a good time when we went, and we all really like halibut. We went on a small boat out of the town of Ninilchik, with only 6 passengers. It was about 45 miles to the charter office so we had to plan plenty of time to get there on time. We had a show time of 3:45 am and that meant a wake time of about 2:15. None of us had gone to sleep before 11:00 pm, and I didn't even get in bed until about 1:00 am - and never fell asleep. After a little sleep deprivation, we made it to the boat and were launched into the bay by a big John Deer tractor. The tractor pushes the boat into the water and when it floats off the trailer, the tractor pulls the trailer away until it's time to catch the boat on the return leg. There were at least a dozen other boats being launched the same way, and we all went out into what turned out to be very rough water. There were big swells left over from a storm the previous night. The boat kept slamming down hard and jarring our teeth and spines as we pushed on out for 45 minutes that felt like three hours. When it was time to bait the first hook, it had started to calm, but it was too late. John and I felt bad, Shelli felt worse, and Michael felt horrible. John and I powered on while Shelli and Michael took a breather. John landed the second fish of the boat and it was a really big one that took a lot of hard work to get in. With 4 pounds of weight on the line, and about 175 feet of line to reel in - before you add the weight of a fat, flat fish fighting, it is a heck of a workout. Shelli chummed the water over and over while Michael slept to try to get over the seasickness. John felt bad enough to stop fishing, so it was just me reeling, and reeling, and reeling. I caught fish after fish, alternated arms for cranking, and used the rod holders a lot. Within a minute of having the line out, I was reeling a fish in. I alternated between John's rod and mine, and sometimes had to choose which one felt heavier to decide which one to reel in first. Shelli reeled in a fish and John chummed the water before he got back in the fight. Then Shelli was back to chumming the water. John caught the last fish and we called it a day as Michael was waking up. My legs were shaking and my arms were shot. Some of it was fatigue from the previous day, night, and the fishing, and some of it was just seasickness blahs. The ride back in was not as bad, and since we got started so stinkin' early, we were back on land before 9:30 am. After taking our fillets to be packed and frozen, we learned we had 72 pounds of cleaned fish!

I never even touched a fishing pole, I was just too sick. (Michael)

It calmed down a lot once we started fishing and it was a clear view to the mountains on the other side of the Cook Inlet. It's hard to see, but there is a puffin in the water on the right.
Or....could it be Russia? I have heard that you can see it from here. (Shelli)

John, Shelli, and Michael zonked out on the return.

John measuring up his biggest fish. It turned out to be the biggest catch of the day on our boat!

This is the 35 pound fish I caught but Dad helped a "little." (John)

The catch of the day!

Now with a total of 92 pounds of halibut being frozen for us between the two halibut trips at one processing place and 34 pounds of salmon being frozen at another, we were looking at about $400 to ship it back, and we don't even have a house to ship it to. We had to get a storage solution. We looked for a 3 cubic foot freezer that would it underneath out RV, but couldn't find one, so we bought a 5.3 cubic foot freezer for $160 to hold all the fish, and put in the middle of the RV. We aren't sure if we will carry it out to the car when we drive, or if we will just move it in to the walkway when we bring the slide-out in. It will fit, but the walkway will be pretty much completely blocked. There are some cons of having the big freezer in the way, but it allows us to carry the fish and maybe extra ice cream, so it's clearly worth it.

After our no sleep, big wave, chum bucket halibut hauling trip, we took the rest of the day off from fishing. The next day we slept in, and and hung out around the campground, doing some cleaning. There is a lot of cleaning to do when each trip ends up with wet, muddy, smelly fish clothes, or pounds of sand and dust that makes it's way into the RV. Even with normal conditions, all the dirt that makes it into a house makes it into an RV, but there is a lot less space for it to be spread around. Add the fur of a golden retriever and the dust from a gravel parking area with a lot of other RV's driving by, and there is a lot of accumulation of dust bunnies and dirt gorillas.

That night we went for a late night of fishing to hit the 9:00 pm high tide run. We had big ones that got away after running down the river in the current and snapping lines and leaders, but we had our share of big fish too. We all caught fish again and ended up catching our limit of three fish each, plus one smaller salmon we threw back. We remembered the stringer this time, but it wasn't long enough. Our fish wouldn't fit. Besides the big salmon, Michael even caught a tiny fish, which had to be the smallest one ever caught on a hook in the river. Not long after, John pulled a tiny one in too. I don't know the odds of that, but it has to be extremely low.

We all helped people nearby land their fish by using our new net whenever they had a fish on. Michael and John really stepped it up and were fishing and helping like adults even though they were the youngest people I saw on the river. At 11:45 pm or so, I was at the table in the river filleting our 12 fish. It took me a while, but at least I had bags this time. Just after midnight, Michael saw a salmon swim by close to the edge and pointed it out. John grabbed it and we had our first fish of the next day. Our limit had reset so we were able to go home with 41 pounds of fillets. On the way home as it was actually getting decently dark, dark enough to need headlights, we saw a big moose on the side of the road. We were all on the lookout for more, but they blend in very well at the just past dusk lighting level. Just a few miles from our RV, I had to suddenly put on the brakes for a VERY big moose that just walked right out in front of us. She must have been close to seven feet tall and we all looked up at her as she lumbered across the road.

The first fish I caught of the night, you can see John fishing in the background. (Michael)

I caught a little fish on my hook, I made a world record! (Michael)

A close up of the fish. See the red hook? Above the hook is just an inch or two of colored yarn we tied to the line.

The flash makes it look a lot darker than it was. I was cleaning fish with no need for light other than the ambient light that was available. The camera had red eye reduction on and fired a bunch of pre-flashes plus the flash. It didn't go over well with the other people fishing that couldn't see anymore. I was flash blind for a little while. You can see the mud splatters on John and Michael.

The next day we needed another long sleep-in morning to recover and we took it easy around the campground for a while. We went with the campground group on a fishery tour in the afternoon. It was a family operation with boats and nets in the bay. They explained how they launch their boats with cables and trucks because the tide changes and crasher waves make it dangerous, how the six week season can be a money loosing period for them if the fish run is low, or the trouble they can have when the run is very large and canneries can't handle their catch. The tour explained why the prices of wild sockeye is what it is in the lower 48 states, which was interesting, but it wasn't exactly exciting stuff for 10 and 11 year olds. We left early and took Michael and John to see the movie Cars 2 as a reward for their can-do attitude and performance on the river so late at night.

We rounded out the week with a bunch of time around the campground with Michael and John playing with all the kids in the park while I sorted through my black sands and Shelli picked up our halibut fillets. Guess what, the 5 cubic foot freezer may not be big enough. The 92 pounds of halibut pretty much half way filled it up and we have over 65 pounds of salmon at the fish house. We aren't even through fishing, so this could get interesting. We could have some help eating it if needed because Maui has had some salmon now and he REALLY likes it. His dog food is salmon and rice, but the real thing must be better somehow. We are parked near the smoker that is being run pretty much constantly and Maui has been standing outside eyeing the trays of salmon waiting to go in. We could have an incident in the campground if we don't watch it. I don't know what the people would do if he ran over and ate a bunch of their fish, but I know they have fillet knives, and it could get ugly.

Maui staring down the salmon on the rack in the top left of the picture.

In spite of the big salmon run and new higher limit of fish we could keep, we have already done a lot of fishing and we decided to take a break. There are a lot more people here on the weekends, including Friday, and it is packed on the roads, beaches, and rivers. I went to the beach Saturday and there were at least five times more people dip netting than I had seen before. They were staggered from the water's edge out to chest high. There were fish spines and heads all over the place, and the sand was churned up from the trucks and ATVs that had been going back and forth. Surprisingly, it didn't stink as bad as you might expect. I guess the cooler temperatures keep things in check.

We just took it easy the last couple of days of the week just hanging out at the campground. There are lots of trails and plenty of room for bike riding. There is a basketball court and plenty of kids here to play with. Michael and John were having enough fun without going anywhere. We went to our second Saturday night social and had salmon, rhubarb crisp, and salad, among other things. The salmon is fresh, the salad and rhubarb was picked today from the farm on the ranch. They were celebrating owner family's grandpa's birthday tonight and they had guitar and fiddle players playing bluegrass, Celtic, and civil war era songs while grandpa and his granddaughter danced. The family that runs this place is doing it right. If I had a setup like they do, I would stay here for sure.

The basketball court. Michael and John are on the left. You can see the double decker bus and the spiral staircase to the viewing area where they have the Saturday night potluck socials.

We will be here until Thursday of next week when we drive up through Anchorage on the way to Denali.

Alaska - Week Two - Kenai

2011-07-17T19:26:00.000-07:00

The Diamond M Ranch where we are staying is a very big and nice RV resort. It is located between Kenai and Soldotna, which both have plenty of stores and a lot of fishing and outdoors gear stores. There is a Wal-Mart, Lowe's and a Home Depot which is pretty big town stuff here. We are pretty centrally located for a lot of activities.

We went to Prospector John's to try gold panning and sluicing. It turns out it was also an art gallery for big timber carvings like life size bears and people, and bigger than life size chairs and salmon. After walking around and checking out some very impressive carvings, we tried out the gem mining and gold. It was rainy and cold, but we stood out at the sluice box and ran our "paydirt" through anyway. Gold fever keeps you warm- for a little while. We hightailed it back to the RV to get some hot chocolate and dry out.

(Michael - We went to Prospector Johns in Soldotna, Alaska. Prospector Johns is a mining village. When we went in there were many gems and arrowheads. We ended up going in the mine shaft where John and I went in the gem mine and found a bunch of gems. Then we all got big buckets of dirt and took it to some sluices and all found a lot of gold and garnets. Once we had all our gold we took the sluicer to another area and took out the plastic grass called miners moss which caught all the gold we didn't see. Then we panned the dirt out of the miners moss and put all our gold into vials. I ended up with 18 pieces of gold and 2 garnets. On the 13th the Sawfest begins where they make sculptures out of wood. Prospector Johns was very fun.)

Big wooden chair - Michael

The mine shaft where we found gems. It was really dark - Michael

It's raining gold.

We were all having fun looking for the gold for several hours. -Shelli

(John - We went to the farm at the Diamond M Ranch which had pigs, chickens, chicks, ducklings, a goat, and a bunny. First, we saw and held the chicks and ducklings. One duckling had a pompom on his head, and they were so soft and fluffy. Next, we held the older chickens one had feathers on his feet. We saw Muffin the goat and held Thumper the bunny, who was huge and he was not even full grown. Then we met Earl and Daisy, the potbelly pigs. They were fat, rough and tough. Last, we got to pet the horse Lightning, he was hurt but he was very gentle. My favorites were the chicks and ducklings. I had a great time and the owner told me I could come back anytime I wanted. I have been back every day since then to feed and play with the animals. This afternoon, the daughter of the farm owner and I had races to see who could catch the rooster the quickest, I did it in 1 and a half seconds!)

These little ducks were very soft and would cuddle right up next to us. -Shelli

This bunny was named Thumper and he was only 9 weeks old, he was not even half grown. - John

Right before John yelled "OWWWW!!!!" - Michael

Earl and Daisy would eat their own food while also walking over to check to see that the other sibling didn't get more than their fair share, sometimes stealing a little from the wrong pile. - Shelli


This horse was very nice and gentle and I could have rode him if he had not cut his leg. - John

We headed out to the beach in Kenai to watch the people trying to catch salmon with huge dip nets. The dip netting for salmon is a big attraction for Alaska residents who are allowed to catch the fish for "subsistence". All the parking lots and campground fill up with Alaskan's coming in to stock up. Anyone that hasn't been a resident for a year is not allowed and must use fishing gear and pay for "sport" fish licenses. When the fish run, the commercial fishermen get the first shot, then the dip netters at the beach and mouth of the river, then what is left swim up the rivers and into the creeks to spawn. The sport fishermen, bears and eagles fight for the ones that make it inland. Luckily, when the reds (sockeye salmon) run, they come in by the thousands and there are plenty for everybody. You just have to be here during the window when they run.

On the way to find beach access, we saw a caribou right off the side of the road before we crossed the Kanai river. We saw a laundromat that had a sign for gold panning. It turns out it was Joe's Mining and Dive Supply, and Joe told me they find gold right on the beach where the black sands collect. I decided to collect some gear and give it a try. We took a 5 gallon bucket and a scoop, parked at the top of a high bluff where there was space and walked down a bunch of steps and down along the beach looking for the black sand deposits. I didn't find thick concentrations of 4 inches or more like Joe had described, but I did find some thin layers and scooped up a bucket full. Then the fun began.

Gold is found along with black sands because the two are heavy and settle out together. The bad thing about that is a bucket full of black sand is VERY heavy. It was a long, long walk back dragging that bucket, so we all took turns. The climb up the stairs at the end was actually not as bad as walking through the thick sand on the beach carrying the two thousand pound bucket. When I got back, I tried panning some of the sand to see if there was any gold and it was very difficult to get the sands to pan out. The particle size seems to be just right to keep everything sliding along together and it made for some tedious work. I did find some tiny flecks - really tiny, but it was promising. I went back for another round of sand the next day, and found some thicker spots, but still not the deep deposits. Another long haul down the beach and up the stairs waited for me, but this time I didn't have any helpers. I stopped by Joe's and picked up a bowl and pump that circulate water and use centrifugal force to sling out the lighter material and leaves the fine gold behind. I set it up inside the RV in a big blue bucket, rigged it to a 12 volt car socket adapter, plugged it into one of the accessory outlets, and let it do the work. I did find more gold, but again it was very tiny. We won't get rich from my mining hobby, but it is fun to do. With the weather being overcast or rainy and cool, it was a good thing to do.

There is a lot of clutter here from me rigging up this system to get gold from the black sands.

After a few days of the rainy or overcast weather, we got some really beautiful sunshine and warm days with temperatures all the way over 70 degrees. We went with the Diamond M Ranch group on a razor clam digging expedition about an hour South. There were hundred of people all up and down the beach and it looked like all the clams should have been taken. However, as soon as we walked out through the muck to the digging area, we found out there were more than enough clams for everyone. We started looking for the little circles or dimples on the ground that were the result of a clam squirting water. We soon learned there were so many clams, all we really had to do was dig a hole anywhere and just keep expanding the sides. In fact, it was sometimes hard to dig without hitting a clam with the shovel and breaking their surprisingly fragile shell. I would dig and Michael and John would reach down into the hole and grab the clams before they could dig away. Sometimes they would grab the clam and it would extend it's foot as an anchor and make it pretty hard to pull them up. After just about an hour we walked away with 97 clams, and n the drive down and back, we saw three moose. It was a very nice sunny day.

(Shelli - When we arrived back at the RV the clamming group met up on the lawn armed with scissors and knives. The guide taught us all the "parts" of a clam and the cleaning instructions began. It took hours, but we had a good time. All the participants talked about where they were from and what they were doing, or had done in Alaska, so we all learned and enjoyed listening to everyone's stories. The weather was beautiful and the boys even said they were having a great time as they were cutting, snipping and scrapping slimy clam parts away. Everyone in the cleaning group had to try the raw clams......needless to say....raw clams are not any of our families top of the list for favorite foods!) However, we did surprisingly like the clam chowder made and served at the ranch the following evening as a potluck social for all the campers.

This was when we were riding to the beach in the back of a truck and the driver went very fast on the sand so we would not get stuck. - John

There were so many clams we learned we only needed one digger and two grabbers.

This was right after we had started and we had about 10 clams already. - John

I was helping cut and clean the foot of the clams, it was cool because they would tense up after they got cut up. - John

We had planned on leaving on July 16th after a week here, but we extended the length of our stay because the reds had not run yet. We have the flexibility to stay around to see the big run, so there was no reason to head out until we got a chance to see the big numbers of fish. Because this is the big time of the year for fishing, the campgrounds are overflowing, and we had to move to an overflow area with only electrical hook-ups to be able to stay past our reserved time. Even the llamas are getting squeezed. The dry campers are being put in the field, right there with them. Once the big groups catch their season limit and the weekend passes, there should be more elbow room. We will move to a full hook-up spot Sunday and stay at least until Wednesday.

Don't the llamas look sweet? They eat them here.

The excitement really builds as it gets closer to the big run. Pretty much everyone is here for the salmon and the promise of rivers and streams full of them is a big draw. This run of reds happens pretty much right around the middle of the month of July every year, and it turns out the reds really started arriving late on the night of the 15th. The campground's fish cleaning station had a long waiting line as the dip netters brought in the the morning's catch and the first big hauls we had seen.

The day before the Reds came in. Anxious fisherman were trying to get ahead of the game down at the Kalisof River but not much luck yet! -Shelli

(Shelli- The weather is great for running and the RV resort has wonderful wooded trails and a paved bike path that goes for miles. The kids have gone with me a few mornings on their bikes to take Maui out. Maui loves the roads and trails back to the farm and down to the river. Since leaving California, Maui's world has totally opened up to the outdoors. He seems to love the freedom of space and running with not many boundaries compared to our backyard filled with the pool and no off-leash opportunities. He seems to thrive in his new found life!)

Maui in the field near the barn.

Out by the barn, there is a bald eagle nest with three baby eagles in it. We have been watching the parents sit in the tree tops nearby and stand guard over their babies. They can't sit in the nest with them because the babies are about the size of a small buzzard! The three babies barely have room for each other in the nest. One time when we walked up the mother flew right over us and then landed in the treetop. We could see a feather on her beak and found a fresh kill of a bird on the grass. We think she had just killed the bird and was going to take it to feed her chicks, but when we walked up she dropped it. We left so she could come down and get it, but several other people showed up and kept her too nervous to come down. We heard one guy picked up the bird and was waving it around for the mom to come get it. Two things - I guess he thought the "eagle eyed" mom couldn't see it without it being swung around; He must not have any idea how bad it might feel for two inch long talons to rip into his hand.

Mom flying right over us.

He's not playing possum.

Two of the little chicks.

Mom on the right and the nest on the left.

As we were doing all these activities, we were on the lookout for moose. We average at least one sighting a day, but we have only seen one bull moose and he was young with really small antlers. Some of the female moose we have seen were huge.

We will be starting our next week off by going fishing for salmon. Wish us luck.

Alaska - First Week (plus a couple)

2011-07-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

We made it across the border and to the town of Tok, Alaska on the 1st of July.

Whew, we made it. The RV and van are in the background. You can't tell how filthy they are from this distance.

There isn't much to Tok, but it does have a restaurant, a couple of RV parks, and some gift stores. We celebrated the arrival, my birthday, and my retirement at the best place in town - Fast Eddies. Being pretty much the only place in town, there was a line of people waiting. We had our burgers (mine was a halibut burger), fries including beer battered ones, and onion rings and went to the RV for cake and ice cream.

Fast Eddies wasn't very fast since it was the only place to eat - John

We drove out the next morning and I saw a fox that ran off before anyone else could see it. We were just a tic past Tok when I saw it. I told John about that and he didn't get the tic-tock joke. We saw two black bears and a whole lot of trees during the drive. The enormity of Alaska was apparent to us. There were very long views with just tree tops going on and on with no civilization in sight. The roads were much better, not great compared to normal standards, but pretty nice compared to what we had been through. The challenges of frost heaves tearing up the roads is still present, but they do a much better job of repairing and marking the bad sections. You could tell the engineers just powered through and made it work.

We stopped at a park in Glacier View. It turns out they have a glacier for you to view there. We took Maui and walked right out onto the 27 mile long Matanuska glacier. It was muddy and messy, with hard ice covered with mud and rocks up until the area where the white ice begins, closer to the blue ice. Maui had a blast walking around the mud, and he carried a bunch of it back with him. We took him back to the campground and let him run around in the deep wet grass and flowers for a while, and he came out clean - like nature's doggy carwash.

(Michael - In Glacier View, Alaska we went to the Matanuska Glacier and went gold panning. The long hike to the glacier looked like the underworld. All the rocks were black and jagged. When we got to the glacier it was really slippery and fun walking around on the rocks. We took a picture and then headed back to the RV. )

It didn't look like it was icy, but this was all black ice - Michael.

My paws are cold- Maui.

The campground was right at the base of a big hill with a trail to a bluff with views of the glacier. There were big mountains around us and we were able to see Dall Sheep on the top of one nearby. We were able to see a moose cow and her calf right on the hill with the walking trail. All we had to do was step out into the big outdoors. It doesn't really get dark, so Michael and I walked out to look for the moose at midnight one night when he couldn't sleep.

Looking for moose at midnight. No flash required for the photo. The dark hill on the right side had three Dall Sheep on it.

(Shelli - Walking back from a trail walk one morning with Maui... John said to me.....”I think this trip is the best thing our family has ever done. The worst part is not being able to really get away from one another for very long, but I guess we have to take the cons with all of the pros?” At that moment, I thought to myself.....all the effort, money, planning and stress of the idea was worth it. The value should continue to grow as the four of us age and look back at the memories we are making!)

The next day we went to Caribou Creek just a couple of miles from our park. Because we saw a sign that showed gold panning as an activity there, we took our pans, a bucket, and a shovel and walked down a very long, steep and really muddy trail. Because it was pretty remote, we also took the bear spray. We made it to the creek's edge and tried our luck at panning while Maui ran through the mud. The current was very fast and we had to make sure Maui didn't get swept away like one of our gold pans. The water was cold and Maui started shivering a lot, so we packed up and headed back before we found the mother lode gold. We didn't have the right gear for panning and it was our first attempt, but we actually found some tiny flecks, so the hunt for Alaska gold was successful. I also found a very nice agate in one of the shovel scoops. Maui had so much mud and dirt on him, Michael said he thought Maui probably had some gold on him. We gave Maui a warm shower outside the RV and took a long time to wash out all the grey dirt.

(John - When we went to Caribou Creek, Dad, Michael and I panned for gold. I also made lots of mud pies in the pond next to the creek and threw rocks for Maui. I got very dirty but Maui got even dirtier, he looked like a brown dog with gray spots. We found a little gold but it was all small flakes that we could barely see. )

(Michael - The hike down to the creek was extremely muddy with lots of flying insects. The creek had a very dangerous current, it was too strong for Maui. So, he played in the pond next to the creek and got very dirty. We found a few specks of gold but this is just the beginning. )

This is where I threw the gold pan in on accident. The current took it away and it was out of sight in two seconds - Michael

This was when we found the first tiny gold flake - John

I was fishing and Maui was watching, but the current was too strong and we didn't catch anything - John

The mud was like quicksand. Maui was very puzzled - Michael

Maui was cold and shivering when he came to sit right beside me. It was time to go.

We pressed on to Anchorage and spent the next several days just getting supplies, hair cuts for Michael and John, and my retirement ID card at Elmendorf Air Force Base. We went to a scenic overview near the Anchorage International Airport. It was 10:00 at night and the sun was shining strong. We had a nice view of the water and downtown Anchorage. We didn't stay long because there was a very steep drop-off and birds were flying all around us. Maui has begun chasing birds like crazy, running around even when they are way above him, and we were afraid he would run right off the cliff, looking up the whole time.

10:00mp view with downtown Anchorage in the background. See the birds to the left swooping around the cliff drop-off?

With oil changes, new tires on the van, Costco, Wal-Mart, Target, GameStop, and Sports Authority runs complete, we headed down to the Kenai peninsula. The view along the Seward and Sterling Highways was really magnificent. The Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet has the largest tidal range in the United States and we could tell the tide was rushing out as we drove by. There were mountain peaks, waterfalls, valleys, grassy hills, rivers, creeks, and three moose for us to look at along the way. The weather was very sunny and nice. The sunlight on the water in the creeks made them look very light blue. When we were driving along the coast of Cook Inlet, we could see a very big mountain on the other side of the water. It seemed to be much taller than surrounding mountains and really got my attention. I saw another one to the North of it and thought it was farther away and it appeared to be even bigger. It had a cloud around the middle, but we were far enough away to be able to see the top poking through. I thought we were too far South to see Denali (Mount McKinley) but this sort of fit the image I had in my mind. It turns out it was two volcanoes, Mount Iliamna and Mount Redoubt, both with peaks just over 10,000 feet. Denali is twice as high as them.

Mount Redoubt

We went all the way down to Homer, past the Russian River and Kenai River which are world class salmon fishing spots. Homer is known as the halibut fishing capital of the world. It has a long stretch of land called the Homer Spit, that juts out into the bay. We stopped at an RV park on the spit and parked just yards away from the water. From our front windows we had views of the water, eagles, seals, and snow covered mountains. We were right by the famous "fishing hole" which is a saltwater pond with an opening to the bay. Salmon come into the hole and circle around while seals swim around and bald eagles fly over. Shelli and I took Maui out for a walk along the top of the fishing hole area and two bald eagles flew by pretty close. We could hear their wings pushing the air as they went by. There were so many eagles, we took them for granted and didn't even take pictures of them. As luck would have it, I thought about this the last morning and decided to take some, but I didn't see a single one before we packed up and drove away. Driving up the hill on the way out. I stopped to take a picture of the spit sticking out into the bay, and a bald eagle flew by.

Our RV site was right on the water with views of mountains. This was low tide. At high tide the water was up much closer.

I was throwing rocks and Maui was chasing them and jumping into the bay - John

The fishing hole. There is a seal head poking up in the bottom on the left side.

The Homer Spit, and a bald eagle on the left.

(Shelli - One morning down on the Homer Spit while I was taking Maui out, we couldn’t help noticing the HUGE bald eagles hanging out between the front of our RV and the shore. They were semi-circling us and then meeting back up on the ground for discussion with lots of squeaking between the two of them. I really think they were trying to decide whether Maui was a doable meal for the two of them. They were huge, their wings were enormous and their beaks looked rather sharp, so I am not really sure myself if they could have had a successful go at the idea. Therefore, we didn’t stick around any longer to find out.)

John had been wanting to do a fishing trip with just me - sort of like Michael got to go diving with me in Hawaii. We went on an early morning launch for a half day halibut charter with Rainbow Tours. After an hour and half ride out we put the first line in the water and John caught the first halibut of the boat. We caught them until our arms were shot and we had picked out our favorites for our limit of two per person. it was a great experience and was well worth it.

(John - Dad and I went Halibut fishing and I caught a fifteen pound halibut. We both caught at least 7 fish but we could only keep two. Two was the maximum for each fisherman per day. We have 22 pounds of cleaned, filleted fish. It was very hard to pull the fish up. The water was 162 feet deep and it was like pulling a huge piece of cardboard through the water when I was pulling in the fish. Once we got our keepers, the deckhands cleaned and filleted the fish. The deckhand even let me keep one eyeball! Dad cooked it that night for a great dinner, it tasted really good. Ha Ha. Halibut fishing was one of the most fun things I have ever done. I will never forget it)

On the way out to start fishing.

This was one of the smaller fish we caught so we threw it back - John

These were my two keepers. I was holding the smaller one because the bigger one was hard to hold - John

I was trying to find Dad's fish, in a mound of halibut. It had gaff mark but it was still almost impossible to find - John

We kept four fish, in this picture Dad's other one was being cleaned - John

When we were out on the boat and they were cleaning the fish, I kept an eye out for Michael - John

We had our fish vac packed and frozen, but kept out about two pounds for dinner that night. We are RV living, so we had to make do with what we had to prepare the meal. I took some cornbread mix, Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and for a panko like topping crushed up cheese-its (four cheese flavor). With a soak in milk and a roll in the breading mix, it was pan fried in olive oil while we fried sweet potatoes that we topped with sugar. It was kind of a redneck/Italian feast and it was really pretty good.

Michael joined us for fishing from the boat docks the next day. He caught a big ugly Irish Lord (also known as a sculpin). After no luck catching other fish, we moved to the very end of the Homer Spit and ended up catching flounder and cod. The fish processing remains from the commercial fishing is pumped through a pipe and out into the bay right in front of where we were fishing. It attracts a ton of seagulls and a lot of fish. The pipe is underwater, so at first we didn't know what was going on when we would see a big swirl of bloody water and seagulls and fish feasting of parts. It looked like a shark had come through and ripped up something. After the third time this happened, I had to ask someone to find out what it was. Although I didn't have my waders, I decided it was worth it to walk on out into the water to be able to cast right by the feasting zone. We started catching a lot more fish and even landed one seagull.

(John - Once Dad had reeled the seagull in, we used my jacket to calm it down by putting it over the seagull's head. Luckily, the line had just wrapped around it's legs and tail feathers. Once we let it go, my jacket was soaked, rocky, muddy, and very smelly, but now it has a story.)

(Michael - At the dock we caught one fish and three crabs. When we were catching the crabs they would always let go right when we were getting them up. So, when John was catching the last one, he yelled I've got a crab and yanked the line up as hard as he could. When he yanked, the crab let go and went flying in the air. It landed on the deck of the black and yellow boat behind us where the guy who had been talking to us just left. It was really funny for us, but not the crab because it smashed on impact and died.)

We were stuck with a dilemma. Leave a dead crab on the guys boat, or go on the boat to get it without permission. Either way was wrong. As we discussed it, a lady on the other big boat beside us, who had apparently seen and heard the whole thing said we could go get it. I hopped on and retrieved the smashed crab.

The only fish we caught here was this Irish Lord. The spikes were really sharp - Michael

I think this was a cod I was catching. The blood circle where the fish discards came through a pipe was just to the right of the picture - Michael

We tried our luck a few times at the fishing hole, but never caught anything there. The last night there, we saw some guys catching a few salmon by using herring for bait. Like playing follow the leader, we had been using lures because that is what everyone else was doing when we got there. None of them had caught anything either. Glad they weren't jumping off cliffs.

The last morning John and I went to the end of the spit again and took our surf pole we had used in Oregon for crabbing. We figured we could cast farther with it and might get a halibut from the deeper water. We caught something on almost every cast. We had several flounder and bunch of big cod that we threw back because we were really hoping for a halibut. We saw an otter on his back just floating by as we fished. We didn't have the camera with us to take any pictures of our catch or the otter.

After leaving Homer, we drove to Kenai, where we will be staying for a week. On the way up, we saw a big moose right by the road.

This moose was very big, but it was a cow, so it had no antlers. I took the picture as we drove by - John

We arrived in time for the pot luck dinner at our RV park, the Diamond M Ranch. They grilled halibut and salmon for us, and everyone brought a side dish. It was a pretty good feast followed by some fresh hot rhubarb crisp and ice cream. It has been a good 9 days.

We will shoot for an update post each week on Sundays.

Canada

2011-07-04T00:33:00.000-07:00

Because our internet connection was so spotty recently, we had trouble getting the Washington summary posted. It just went out a day ahead of this Canada summary. If you didn't read about Washington yet, go to the older posts link at the end to to access it.

Michael
We made it to Canada and it is really cool. It is scenic and interesting.
I found a Canadian penny at the last gas station, which had a lot of Canadian candy that looks really good. When we stopped at the first RV park in Canada, it had a BBQ buffet that was delicious. The owner was really funny and entertained us while we ate. The second RV park had a pool so John and I went swimming.

Today we are driving up to Smithers and should get to Alaska in about 3 more days. I have been helping Dad hook up the water and electricity in the RV last week, now it is John’s chore. I have been watching movies, using my iPod and playing with Maui to stay entertained. I have also been playing my guitar and my ukulele that I got in Hawaii.

It’s really hard to go to sleep in Canada and Alaska because it doesn’t get dark until 2 AM. It helps having the blackout liners on our windows that Aunt Kelli gave us. We also saw a lot of bears driving up to Alaska. One was a mom with two cubs that were eating berries in the bushes. And we saw the worlds largest weather vane which was a plane on a stick that pointed in the direction of the wind.

John
When we entered Canada the boarder patrol asked Dad a lot of questions. Canada is very scenic and has a lot of wildlife, we even saw our first bear just now as we were driving! Mom squealed, “a bear, oh my...a bear.” We saw eight bears in one day. Sadly, the first one was dead on the road but the second set was a sow with her two cubs. I will remember this one the most. We saw four more black bears and the following morning, Dad yelled, “a grizzly bear on the left!” I jumped out of my bunk bed, almost hit my face on the wall and ran to the front of the RV. Dad had to turn around in the road for us to see it again, It was a grizzly, and it was my first grizzly I have ever seen in the wild. Dad has been driving a lot to get us to Alaska, I have been playing yhatzee with mom and playing solitaire. I watch movies and play my ukulele to entertain myself. I’m almost done reading “The Lost Hero”. It is my favorite book series.

Dad has taught me all about the pumps and hook-ups to the RV. Michael and I have been taking turns helping Dad with the RV and taking care of Maui. So far, the RV trip has been great!

John and Maui passing the time.

Joey and Shelli
After a frustrating morning preparing for the push North, the drive into Canada was so nice it made it a very good day. We went through the Sumas border entry and drove up on the Trans Canada Highway in British Columbia. We continued on Highway 97 and the scenery was really beautiful. The mountains were big with jagged peaks and had really big waterfalls. We went along very fast moving rivers that were obviously swollen from rain and snow melt. In some areas we could hear the water roaring as we drove by. We stopped at a small RV park near Cache Creek and had a nice dinner. There were a lot of mosquitoes - something we plan to have to deal with for a lot of our trip.

The next day we drove up into Prince George and saw a sign that told us the highway was out. We stopped for out first fill of gas by the liter with a pump that didn't quite fit in the tank, and a price that makes California fuel seem like a bargain. We asked the attendant about the road conditions and learned that all that snow melt and rain had washed out a bridge between us and Dawson Creek, and the only way to Dawson Creek was a 300 mile detour. Although we had planned a couple more hours driving that day, we backtracked south to a park and made new plans. Since everyone at the park was headed to Alaska, the topic of conversation among us all was what to do. Learning the repairs to the bridge were expected to take two weeks, we decided to go another route completely and go pretty much due West on 16 and then head North on the 37, the Cassiar Highway. Even though we were told there was a long stretch of unsealed gravel that way, we thought it would be better than going 300 miles out of the way, and we could come back through the other route after Alaska when they would have had time to fix the bridge.

The drive on this route was very scenic and we saw our first black bear. He was huge and was standing up very straight and alert. He looked like a wooden silhouette. I didn't think he was real until he moved. Later I saw another big black bear off to the side of the road, just hanging out in the rain - there has been a lot of rain on this trip. We drove a long day and made it all the way to the Cassiar junction. The RV park we stayed at in Kitwanga had no internet service. We also had no satellite service. We were already working our way into the wilderness. We spent a lot of time driving and looking at things, but no almost no time stopping to take pictures of it. The push to just get to Alaska is strong and there is so far to go.

We started the next day by heading off on a detour through Stewart, BC and into Hyder, AK to go to a bear viewing area. The scenery along the way was really stunning. It was probably the most scenic drive I have even taken. The mountains were very imposing with a lot of snow on them and there were waterfalls all along the way. There were really nice glaciers, the first of the big ones with blue coloration I had seen. There were also rivers, lakes, and creeks along the 35 mile route. It was a couple of weeks too early for the salmon run that brings out the bears in droves to the viewing area, but we saw a total of eight black bears along the road on the way back, and on the highway as we went North.

This was the first glacier that we saw, it was really pretty and blue in areas - Shelli

One hundred people live in the town of Hyder, Alaska - Michael

This was the sow and cubs we saw but you can only see one cub in this picture - John

Now you can see both cubs who quickly left - John

This was another long driving day with about 10 hours of moving time on really bad roads when we stopped at Dease Lake for the night. After paying and pulling in, we realized our campsite had no hook-ups. When Shelli went to ask about a full site, she was told it was too remote for any services and the next campground was over 70 miles away. The view of the lake was nice and we cooked hot dogs on the fire before going to the lake to throw rocks.

Me throwing a rock that Maui almost jumped in after - Michael

It looks like I'm shooting the water... Quickdraw style - Michael

I built this platform and dad took the picture, but I built a lot more to it after - John

We got on the road early the next morning and got our first grizzly bear sighting just a few miles into the drive. Then the road conditions started to go downhill pretty quickly. We had a long, long day of teeth jarring, white knuckled, forearm straining driving. Driving a big RV with a towed van behind it forces you to pay attention on good roads, but on bad roads with a lot of rain, the fatigue factor really goes up. We joined the Alaska Highway near Watson Lake where we would have come through if we had gone to Dawson Creek. We thought it would have been much better if we had been able to avoid the rough parts of the Cassiar Highway, and that it would be better now, but in reality, the road conditions are absolutely horrible on this stretch too. We made it into Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory and stopped for the night. The internet service was extremely slow at the RV park and they blocked Facebook and YouTube sites.

I had heard how bad it was, but I think you have to experience it first hand to really understand what a thousand miles of bad roads really means. It gets into your mind and eats at you. Just when you think you should slow down to avoid breaking your axles, you think about how long it will take to get there and you just plow through it. Although we have been on the main roads (sometimes the only road), we have gone through many unpaved stretches with a mix of gravel and big rocks. In some spots the dust cloud behind us is big enough to hide the entire view in the side view mirror. In some places I can see a spray of rocks going out in all directions from the back, and we can hear the rocks banging into everything. The van is getting trashed. It has a coating of tar, rocks, and a perma-coating of dust. As bad as the unpaved road sounds, in most places the gravel roads are better than the paved sections. There are huge dips and ruts in the road that bounce us around like a plane in severe turbulence at times. Some spots are marked with signs, but many are not. It actually seems like the worst ones are not marked. We go through areas where we slow down because of the signs and realize it was nothing worth slowing down for, then we hit a big unmarked one that almost snaps the van off the tow bar. I think it is the Canadian’s way of getting back at us for acid rain. We had been through bad, then horrible, then we got to worse when we went through an area about 125 miles from the Alaska border, Shelli described it as driving through a mine field. Then about 10 miles later it got even worse. The kids got air a couple of times and the entire RV did at least once.

The picture doesn't capture how bad the dust coating is. The rain washes it away some and then it builds back up. This gravel stretch was pretty smooth. The bad ones are too dangerous to be up taking pictures.

Although I am making light of some of this, and there are real challenges with roads that freeze and thaw, but honestly, it shouldn't be this bad. Canada should do more to improve this, and Alaska should pitch in to help fix it if they want people to be able to come visit. Maybe the airlines and cruise ships got together and paid off the highway departments to make sure sane people would fly or cruise there. There isn’t much traffic out here. Frequently there is nobody in view in front or behind us, and I like it that way. Traffic close means rocks being thrown up. As one jerk in a small truck flew past us on a really bad spot, and kicked up rocks right into our front, I realized why Canada doesn’t let you pass through with handguns. Good call on their part..... Seriously.

Now that I have painted a picture of how bad the driving can be, I should point out the fact that we get to come back through most of this again on the way out.

The scenery continues to be amazing. In addition to the natural stuff, we saw the world's largest fly fishing rod, the world's largest weather vane, probably the largest sunflower, and probably the largest gold pan. We didn't stop for those things because we had a long way to go and had enough slow driving from the road conditions. We didn't take a lot of pictures in general because while we were driving they just didn't do much justice to what we were seeing, and timing shots in between bumps was tough. After leaving Whitehorse, the St. Elias mountain range was in view and it looked very much “Alaskan”. We also had big views of Yukon wilderness. The parts with nothing but thousands of trees leading up the mountain ranges miles and miles away in the distance make me thing of the gold prospectors coming through for the first time when there wasn’t even a horrible road to go on. A person could disappear out here very easily.

A rest stop as we were getting close to Alaska.

It's hard to get the scale here, but this dandelion was huge (maybe the world's largest)!

Shelli drove a while during a long straight stretch with little traffic. It turned out to be one of the roughest parts of the road. When the RV got air, she was driving and this bone flew up all the way from the back to the front. At the same time, Maui was hurled up off the couch, did a flip, landed up front and caught the bone after it bounced off the back of my head.

On the morning of July 1st, Shelli and the kids had a birthday cake and gifts for me. It was a nice way to start my 43rd year and my first day of actual retirement from the military after my terminal leave ended.

We had played scrabble the night before

We had been timing our drive to make it to Alaska by my birthday, and after a lot of driving we finally made it to the border. The roads in Alaska were better right off the bat and that was like a birthday gift for us all. In total it was the worst day of driving, but we saw a big moose, another black bear, and two huge trumpeter swans (the world's largest - really they are the largest in Alaska). It was a really nice day.

We will probably start doing the blog updates once a week while in Alaska. We will shoot for Sunday mornings as long as we have good internet service.

Washington

2011-07-02T23:39:00.000-07:00

Michael
"On the way to Olympic National Park we saw a bunch of odd signs involving “Twilight,” later on we found out that it was filmed there. When we stopped at the LaPush Beach, John and I built a really cool fort. It was fun. Then we did a hike in a place called Hoh Rain Forest. Moss was on the trees everywhere. It looked just like where “Big Foot” would be. On the way back, we saw two huge elk. They just kept eating on the side of the road like it was normal to be so close to cars and people. We got some really good pictures, it was cool.

We went to Mt. St. Helens in Washington. You could see the volcano almost the whole drive there. When we got there, it was snow peaked with a big crater in the middle. All the trees fell straight down in a line where the volcano exploded all the way across the hills. We learned that the snow falling in the crater collects very fast and doesn’t melt because it is protected and shaded. The glacier that filled in the crater is the youngest glacier on earth. On the way back we saw a coyote wolf hybrid that had really thick fur."

John
"When we went to LaPush Beach, Michael and I built an extremely cool fort. Dad looked for more agates on the beach. After that, we went into the Hoh Rain Forest and we saw a Bald Eagle and two elk right by the road. The elk were huge! We went on the Trail of Mosses and Dad told us survival stories about when he went through training with the military. This day was awesome because we saw a lot of animals. The thing I will remember most is the eagle and two elk.

We went to Multanomah Falls near Hood River, Oregon. We walked up to a viewing area near the falls and took a bunch of pictures. Michael, Mom, and I went up to the bridge over the falls and Dad took pictures of us and then came up. When we were going up, before Mom and Dad noticed, Michael walked on the outside of a bridge over the small creek with fish in it. On the way back I asked if I could do it and Mom and Dad said I couldn’t try it. After we drove home we took Maui down the jogging path with all the obstacles to the river."

We drove up from Astoria, OR into Castle Rock, WA and stayed a very accommodating RV park. The Toutle River RV Resort provided us a free stay for two nights. They participate in the Tents For Troops program where active duty military stay free. I had a week or two left before my retirement was official (currently on terminal leave), so it worked out for us. We set up the RV spot quickly now that we are getting settled into a groove. Each week we rotate who gets out to help me set up and who gets out to take Maui on a walk when we pull in or stop for gas. We have become pretty efficient at getting things done now. The car disconnect and hook up process is also a pretty quick flow now.

Having a cookout meal after hiking down to the river - Shelli

On the trail to the river, there were a bunch of obstacles - Michael

Rings like in gymnastics - Michael

John learned this in gymnastics.

I was horizontal with the ground when Dad took this picture - John

I couldn't do pull-ups in the center because there was bird poop there - Michael

Toutle River RV Resort. The sign said free for military and they really meant it.

After setting up the site, we loaded up in the car and took Maui with us to Mt. St. Helens. It was about 45 miles away and the weather was very nice for the trip. We had really nice views of the crater and mudflow areas on the way up and into the Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. We learned a lot about the crater formation and changes since the 1980 blast.

There was an Elk down in the valley - Michael

Mt. St. Helens in the background.

The trees in this picture are all in focus, but they look blurry at the top. The effect doesn't translate as well in the photo as it did in reality.

It looks like my tongue sticking out, but it is a peanut butter cracker. I was giving Maui some water - Michael

A high hill top with trees blown over from the blast. These are big trees even though they look like a bunch of toothpicks here.

Looks a little like a wolf here.

Looks more like a coyote here.

The next morning we dipped back down into Oregon to drive through the Columbia River Gorge and to the tallest waterfall in Oregon, Multanomah Falls. I had seen pictures of the falls and have always wanted to go there. It was way out of the way from our routing in Oregon but not too bad a drive from where we were in Washington. It was overcast and rainy parts of the drive, but it was nice when got to the falls. It was well worth the side trip and we got some neat pictures.

The upper part drops 542 feet and the lower falls 69 feet.

Michael, Shelli, and John on the bridge.

On the way back we took care of several stops to shop for things we needed including a DishNetwork receiver for the RV. We had been using the cable hookups at the parks, or the antenna with success so far, but since we already had the satellite dish and the programming is a pay as you go monthly fee with no commitment, we decided to go ahead and do it.

Making progress North the next day, we went to McChord Air Force base and I made some administrative stops to confirm some pre-retirement issues. Shelli and the boys made commissary, exchange, and GameStop runs. The boys traded in some old Xbox games for new ones and we stocked up on groceries. After taking care of that business, we drove up and West to Port Angeles, WA for the night. Using Passport America club pricing we had a discounted site for just $13 a night that was just a few miles from Olympic National Park.

We went through the towns of Forks and La Push on the way around to start our look at Olympic National Park at the Hoh Rain Forest. Forks and La Push are featured prominently in the Twilight book and movie series. There were plenty of Twilight Tour companies, and Twilight this and that commercialism things going on throughout the area. I guess it is to be expected the little towns would cash in where they can, but I saw one roadside firewood shack selling "Twilight Firewood" that made me laugh. Whether intended as sarcasm or an official money grab, the idea was funny to me. I'm sure some crazy fan has come through and bought some of that special Twilight firewood. I haven't seen or read any of the Twilight stuff, but we learned today the story line involves the Quileute Tribe with werewolf ties and the vampires from the town of Fork have some issues with them. I guess some people of the small tribe don't want the extra tourism. We saw a sign at one trailer saying "Go Away".

The water was super clear at this lake - Michael

Michael and I built a really cool fort - John

This was the second bald eagle we saw and he was eating a fish - John

It was raining in the rain forest! - Shelli

Somewhere, under the mossbow - Shelli

Driving back out of the Hoh rainforest.

Nobody saw the higher elk until several minutes after we saw the first one, even though it was not far away - John

This was probably the brightest rainbow I have ever seen. It was touching the water - Shelli

We drove the RV to Port Townsend to take a ferry across the Puget Sound to avoid driving all the way back down to Tacoma and up through the traffic of Seattle. We were the biggest vehicle and had front row parking on the 30 minute ferry ride across. We had good weather and a really nice view driving by Whidbey Island Naval Air Station on the way up.

Front row parking on the ferry. We walked to the top to check out the view from there, but ended up just staying inside with Maui. He seemed to like it.

As we neared the top of Washington, our focus turned to getting the last supplies and items for modifications to the RV we thought we would want before we headed off into Canada and the more sparse roadways. We burned a lot of time getting things, finding out it wasn't what we wanted or wouldn't work and returning them, and finally getting things installed. The main thing we ended up with was some new blinds to darken the bunk bed areas. We parked the RV in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Bellingham, WA and just spent the night and the next morning there. It is fairly common for RV's to stay overnight at Wal-marts. However there are really strange people (besides us) that camped out in the Wal-Mart parking lot that far North. There were some vehicles that appeared to be permanent settlements and there was a regular minivan that parked behind us that apparently was a full time home to a family with young kids. We could hear the back opening for diaper changes and crying babies late into the night.

After a frustrating day of trips back and forth to stores including Best Buy, Costco, Sears, Wal-Mart and Target, we finally packed up and drove the remaining few miles into Canada.

Waiting at the border for the Canadian Customs inspection. Maui was using his "puppy eyes" look to ensure we were given easy passage.

Oregon

2011-06-24T21:21:00.000-07:00

Although some of the content might be redundant, to show the difference in perspectives and thoughts about the Oregon portion of our trip, we will post Michael's comments, then John's, and follow with ones Shelli and I collaborated on.

Michael:
The first thing we did was one of my favorites, which was the West Coast Game Park where there were many amazing animals like tigers, leopards, and wallabys. We got to pet tigers! After we got food, which was for the animals, we went outside where many animals were. There were lemurs, goats, deer, wallaby, bison, and more. There were also big cats. One of them was a white, mental tiger that stalked us and then charged at us. If there wasn’t a fence we would’ve died. There was also a very annoying donkey that kept following us which we named Cling-on. We found out later that he just wanted the ice cream cones our food was in. There were two funny chimps, one kept sticking his tongue out and clapping his hands. After that he was hitting the other one and kept messing with him, they were acting just like brothers. The West Coast Game Park should be illegal, getting so close to the animals was really great.

After that we took Maui to the beach for the first time and he ran like crazy. Driving up the coast to Washington we went to Sea Lion Cave, which obviously was a cave with sea lions in it. There was a horrible smell in there but it was still cool to go down to the cave in the elevator and see the sea lions.The next day we went to the Tillamook cheese factory which had tons of samples of cheese and ice cream. My favorite ice cream flavor was rootbeer float. We all had lots of samples and then a huge bowl of ice cream. Then we went crabbing because John had been really wanting to go. I crabbed some but then mom and I built a bonfire on the beach that kept us all warm. There was a really annoying dog named Lily that jumped in the water while we were crabbing. Unfortunately, there was a really strong current and she almost drowned. There was a campground in Astoria, OR that we really liked and it was a KOA. We really liked it because it had tons of activities and stuff like movies, free food, parks, pools, trampolines, and tons of kids. We jumped and played games with lots of other kids, it was great. Now we’re in Washington and heading to Alaska. The Oregon coast was great and fun, but I’m ready to get to Alaska.

John:
The West Coast Game Park was extremely awesome because we got to pet tiger cubs. About five minutes in we saw the wallabys. We didn’t even have to go to Australia to see one. We got to feed the wallabys and pet them, they were extremely gentle. They were as soft as a fluffy puppy. Then we saw a rabid mental tiger and it pounced at us. Goats were all around the park and one burro followed us everywhere. The tiger cubs were the best part of the park, they were funny when they tried to roar. I really liked it when they jumped in our laps and drank from their bottles that we were holding. We also got to pet a leopard cub, it was yellow with black spots and bright blue eyes. I loved the West Coast Game Park because petting the animals was really a cool thing to do. I never thought I could get so close to wild animals.

Next we took Maui to the beach for the first time. He loved it! He was running around everywhere and jumping at the waves. The next day, we got to go see a sea lion cave. We went down in the mountain in an elevator to see them. We got to see lots of sea lions. Later on, we finally went crabbing for the first time. This is when we met the crazy dog named Olivia, she almost got pulled out to sea by the current and she got nipped by a crab. Sadly, we only caught one crab big enough to keep this time, but we had fun learning how to do it. We sat by the fire that Michael and mom made to get warm before we left. The following night, Dad and I went crabbing at sunset and this time it was ‘jackpot’. We caught at least 150 crabs and got to keep 6 to eat for dinner. We also looked for agates and went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. We tried samples of cheese and ice cream. They had 38 flavors and my favorite two were udderly peanut butterly and sticky buns. We stayed at the KOA campground and had so much fun on the jumping pillow they had. In conclusion, I love the Oregon Coast because it was fun and picturesque, but I did not like the cold weather. I much prefer the Hawaiian warm weather.

Shelli and Joey:
We drove from Boise to a park just South of Bend Oregon the first night. The second day took us through the Deschutes National Forest and Umpqua National Forest past some amazing scenery on long curvy roads just North of Crater Lake on the way into Bandon, Oregon. There were steep hillsides covered with trees, rocky outcroppings, and winding rivers and streams with big whitewater in some places and very smooth flows in others. It was really nice, but it was hard to take a peek while driving and trying to stay on the road.

Our first stop in Bandon was the West Coast Game Park Safari. It is a walk through zoo with petting areas, and a wide variety of unusual animals. It was misting and rainy, but since that is normal weather for Oregon, business went on as usual. There was a Wallaby enclosure right at the entrance and we were able to hand feed them. They were very gentle with soft mouths when they took the corn and feed from our hands. Once the first one came to the fence the others hopped right on over for their handout too. After looking at the Emu, the binterong (bear cat), the capybaras (worlds biggest rodent), and avoiding the puddles and piles of animal droppings some poor guy was sweeping up, we made our way over to the tiger cages. A Siberian tiger that seemed a bit deranged watched us as we neared his area. He took on classic predatory movements and kept his eyes on us as he walked around, crouched, and drooled a long trail of clear spit out of the right side of his mouth. As Shelli filmed him, he charged towards us. Except for the fence, the view was pretty much the same as the last view some unlucky prey would have. Nearby the tiger area there were a bunch of goats, deer, and a donkey. The donkey decided he liked us, left the feeding area and came right over to us. He stayed close and followed us around the rest of the entire park. Like Donkey from Shrek, he was a faithful follower. Very faithful - Michael named him Klingon.

The highlight of the park was the petting area where they allowed us to pet, feed and play with exotic animals. They brought out two Bengal Tiger cubs, a skunk, an opossum baby, ferrets, and an African Spotted Leopard cub for us to interact with. It was really amazing to have access to the tigers and leopard. The tigers were roaring with tiny baby roars (like the Lion King before he grew up) as they argued over who would get the bottle of milk. As Shelli was filming Michael and John petting them, one of them jumped up on her lap and tried to play with the camera strap. The little leopard cub was very new and had very clear blue eyes. On the way out, we were entertained by the chimpanzee's. One was loud and obnoxious, making classic raspberry sounds, clapping for himself, and slapping the older chimp for fun. The behavior was similar to pestering brothers - something we have seen somewhere before.

Feeding the wallabys. They were very cuddly.

Nobody wanted to hand feed the capybara.

See why?

Klingon the Donkey decided he liked our family.

Here he is following along from place to place,

Michael found where they make Hershey's Kisses.

Bottle feeding baby tigers!

They would roar and muscle their way in to get the bottle away from each other.

This one jumped right up on Shelli and caught her off guard. He wanted to play with the camera.

This one wanted to play tug of war with my camera bag when it was time to leave.

What... doesn't everybody play wiffle ball with tigers?

Possum in a cap.

He was very calm and soft.

The leopard was tiny and his fur was very soft.

This skunk would fit in well with the chimps.

Look at those eyes!

On the way back we stopped along the beach and got our first look at the big rocks in the ocean. It was still misting and cold, but the view was very nice. After some climbing on the rocks that were exposed by the low tide and watching a sea lion just a few yards off shore that was watching us, we went to the old town area. There we saw a boat dock and a fishing area with people pulling in Dungeness crab. We went into a couple of the stores and had samples of fudge at one, and samples of about 20 different kinds of jellies, fudge, chocolates, and brittles at the other. We drove by a cranberry bog area for growing dark red cranberries used by Ocean Spray to keep their juices the dark color.

Cool wet brown sand. Neat big rocks all over the place.

John, taking a moment to reflect.

Michael

Rock climbing in the mist.

After a continuously wet stay in Bandon, we moved North, stopping at Bullards Beach state park. The sun was out and we were able to get Maui out for some good exercise. He ran around and around in circles covering a large field of grass as he hopelessly tried to catch swifts that were flying at least 20 feet above him. Although Maui had been in the water before at our pool in California, he was never comfortable with getting in on his own. We decided to see how he handled the beach. After initially running away with a tucked tail when the waves came in, he got used to the new sights and sounds and started running all up and down the beach. As we would throw rocks in, he would go right in the water after them. The surf was cold and the sand was flying and sticking all over him, but he was a very happy dog. We took him back to the RV for a bath in the parking lot. Having the outside shower head with hot and cold water was very helpful. Maui got the hot spa treatment and then rested on the towels in the sun while we brushed him. There were big globs of fur rolling with the wind down the parking area. I think we could have given a down pillow a pretty nice run for it's money if we had collected all the soft fur that blew away.

John caught this blue bellied lizard while Maui was chasing birds

The rock to the left of Michael is supposed to be a woman's face looking up.

Maui on Bullards Beach.

John getting Maui to run into the surf.

Michael throwing a rock too. Look at Maui's concentration on the rock.

John and Maui racing on the beach.They both look happy.

Maui started shaking and John started running.

We continued North through Coos Bay and stopped at Osprey Point RV Park in Lakeside. It was a nice place with a rec room, fishing dock, and a shiny red Ferrari parked out by one of the RV's. You see a lot of strange things in RV parks. We saw the Ferari on one side and on the other, a motorhome obviously hand spray painted blue (including most of the air conditioner covers on the top). The van engine revved really high after unhooking it from the RV. It was almost like showing off for the Ferrari, but it was really some transient problem that had me thinking we had finally killed the van after all these years and miles. After opening the hood and restarting it, all was well. It kind of looked like I fixed it - I liked that.

Things breaking will be a part of this experience. We already have a nice long scratch on the paint from where one panel was open when Michael opened the door and the corner gouged it pretty well. I remember scratching a very deep cut into my father's 1962 Falcon Ranchero after he just got it painted shiny jet black. Rather than kill me, he just stayed calm when I came in to tell him what I had done. This was a chance for me to pay a good example forward. This was just a learning point about fessing up for what you have done and getting on with life. For major issues, right after we bought the RV the hydraulic leveler system pump failed, and it was replaced by the dealer we bought it from. It still seemed to operate way too abruptly, but they assured me it was normal. Before leaving Boise, I got a second opinion as part of a Spring out of storage service check. I was assured the guys had looked at it and that is just the way it is for that model. It didn't seem right to me, so I troubleshot it and found the rear left and right cylinders rigged backwards. After a few minutes switching electrical harnesses, Tada! the system levels perfectly and doesn't shake my teeth loose when I retract the jacks. I'm finding I have to be my own doctor, mechanic, investment advisor, and retirement planner if I want a decent job done. Competency is hard to find anywhere nowadays, and a work environment that allows it's employees the flexibility to make real corrections and do real customer service is almost non-existent.

Besides fixing stuff, we made Wal Mart runs and stocked up before going to Abby's Pizza in Coos Bay in honor of Abby from Boise. It was pretty good with a crisp crust. We checked out tide pools and rocks in Sunset Bay and called it a day.

Michael is on the right about two thirds up the rock.

The thinker.

Cool rocky inlets and tide pools are all over the place here.

The rocks are covered with plants, but they aren't as slippery as they look.

By the Van that has been everywhere.

A nice overlook showing the water color.

When it was time to move along, we decided to go up to Netarts Bay where we had been told crabbing was very good. Netarts is close to Tillamook where the Tillamook cheese and Ice cream factory tour is offered. We took the tour and sampled a lot of cheese and just about every flavor of ice cream they had before picking the ones for our real servings. By the time we did it all, we were full and had lots of left over ice cream. An ice cream lunch is always good planning in my book, but the execution sometimes gets a little iffy. We will have to keep trying until we get it just right.

In the Tillamook factory.

On the way out we stopped at the sporting good store and bought a big reel and a crab trap that is cast from a reel. I figured for the coast of three hours of boat and trap rental, we could have some good gear we could use again at other places. We went to the Happy Camp area of Netarts Bay and loaded our trap with chicken. After a good cast and a few minutes of soaking we pulled in our first dungeness crab. It was not a keeper, but it was a success. We caught several more, sometimes with them not actually in the trap, but holding on to the outside greedily trying to grab the bait inside. After a few hours we got tired and did not have a keeper (has to be a male and 5.75 inches wide). We decided to give it a break for a while. The trap is heavy and reeling it in is very tiresome. The method that seemed to work the best was for John or Michael to grab the pole and run straight back, pulling the crabs up onto the beach. After dinner, we gave it another go right at low tide and managed to get a keeper. It doesn't get dark here until after 9:30 pm or so, and we stayed till well after dark. We were cleaning and boiling our dungeness crab late that night. They have a fair amount of meat and we were all able to have a crab sampler platter before midnight. It was good and John was hooked on catching crabs.

Dungeness on Netarts Bay.

The good parts.

The next day we drove to some coastal areas around Garabaldi and tired crabbing from a long pier. It wasn't working for us and there was a sea lion that was apparently stealing bait, so we called it quits and went to Cape Mears where we saw a bald eagle, a lighthouse, and a very old Sitka spruce tree called the Octopus tree that had limbs growing out like tentacles. We had a picnic lunch with a million dollar view of the beach and big rocks.

Somebody shot the lens with a shotgun - from the inside! People are no longer allowed to go to the top.

PB&J with a view.

We went back to the RV to pick up Maui and went hunting for agates on the shore of Cape Meares. It was a great rocky area and John and I found several white agates and quite a bit of the green jasper while Michael threw rocks for Maui.

The waders and rubber boots helped.

John catching tiny shrimp that were all over the place.

It was still cold- in the middle of June.

After a quick dinner, John and I went back to Happy Camp to give crabbing another go. The weather was beautiful and the orange sunset really made it nice. We looked across the channel at several big Bald Eagles just hanging out. However, we were not catching anything, As we decided to leave, we saw someone else with a trap like ours. We compared notes and decided to try it one more time after a modification to make the trap open better. All of a sudden the whole game changed and we pulled in 5 crabs in one cast. So did the other guy. Then we pulled in seven, then four, then five, then seven and so on. All the crabs were too small or were female and had to be thrown back, but it was exciting and fun to be making the catches. The pace continued and many locals came by to watch us. They were amazed at our luck. We had 11 crabs in one cast, but still no keeper. The other crabber finally got a keeper and John went to check it out. On the way back he was scanning the water's edge and spotted a red rock crab which is not subject to such strict rules for keepers. I had my waders on so I jumped in and got what turned out to actually be two red rock crabs fighting. We had two keepers now. We kept having success with our casts and ended up with a keeper Dungeness and a red rock from casts. John walked along the shore and again found a red crab we caught to add to our pile. It was dark and late, but the success hadn't slowed. We kept pulling them in and ended up with another dungeness keeper and found two more red rock crabs right along the edge that I was able to just go in and catch. We spent a late night cleaning and boiling them in two separate pots because we didn't have one big enough for all of them. We saved the meat and had a good roadside crab lunch the next day. When the dust settled, we had clearly caught over 150 crabs.

On the way further North we stopped at the Sea Lion Caves, the world's largest sea cave just south of Newport. We took the elevator down into the cave and saw the sea lions on the rocks inside. From the platform outside, the view down the coast was really very nice and a lot of sea lions could be seen coming and going on the rock ledges below.

Ready to pay to ride the elevator down into the cave.

Just below here there were a lot of Sea Lions jockeying for position on the ledge.

In the cave. The smell was great.

We moved North to a KOA campground in Astoria, near the mouth of the Columbia river where Lewis and Clarke completed their journey to the Pacific. The area is historical with plenty to see, but the campground offered free ice cream the first night, so that took priority. With put-put golf, a bouncy trampoline, free pancake breakfasts, inflatable bouncy rooms, and indoor heated pool, and other games, swing sets and places to ride bikes, the campground was a pretty good destination in itself. We stayed three nights in one spot to allow the kids some good activity time. The final stretch of road from Tillamook up into Netarts had been very bumpy and curvy, and the rest had been curvy too - mostly in the rain. I needed a break and Father's Day was a good time for one. With the free pancake breakfast to start and activities set for the kids at the park, we didn't have to go do a lot. For lunch we went to a local favorite place for fish and chips, the Bowpicker. It isn't a favorite because of the building or sitting space. It is just a tiny boat with a big propane gas tank hooked up to it so it can fry fish and fries on it's spot on a trailer near the Maritime Museum. There are always lines and very little seating is available at the two tables outside, but the food is very good. We filled up so much we had trouble eating the coconut cream pie for Father's day that night.

Shelli in line. It's not even a drive through.

Father's Day lunch right in front of the Bowpicker.

At the KOA cooking what they call baked slugs (Biscuit dough on a stick, then filled with Bavarian cream and cool whip).

John added the chocolate frosting to his.

The jumping houses, and trampoline balloon were high on the list for Michael and John. Because the visibility was so low when we drove by, I wanted to get a better look at Cannon Beach and Haystack rock, so I drove 20 miles back South to walk around that area. I found just a few small agates, but saw a lot of huge starfish and a lot of birds on Haystack rock. The official Jelly Belly RV and Car were staying near us and we got sample packs from them before going to watch a sunset from the beach at Camp Rilea military area and take pictures of Michael and John jumping as silhouettes.

On the beach waiting for sunset.

This looks like a rock concert on the beach to me. Michael is on the right and John the left.

This one looks like they are blasting off to the moon to Shelli.

John found this dungeness crab as it was dying on the beach. Oh, the horror of a wasted crab!

Karate action.

John took the camera while we walked off into the sunset.

Tuesday, June 21st, after John serenaded Maui, we left Oregon. Maui and Michael took a nap during the final miles on the way out. We spent 10 nights in Oregon and got a really good look at the coast, but there was plenty inland to see we just didn't get to. We will be camping in Washington, but will dip back down into Oregon to see Multanomah Falls and the Columbia River Gorge.

Somewhere, over the rainbow on the ukulele. There are tufts of Maui fur on the grass to the left.

Nap time on the way to Washington.

Boise via Yosemite and Tahoe

2011-06-12T22:46:00.000-07:00

We drove down to Yosemite National Park for the day after getting back to the mainland. We drove through rain fog, and snow showers on the way into Yosemite. It was a big wake-up call from the past month.

It was cold and rainy in Yosemite, but that didn't deter the crowds of people there to see the big snow melt waterfalls cascading down. The views were great when the clouds weren't obscuring the tops of Half Dome and El Capitan. Bridal Veil Falls was flowing so strongly the bottom was a could of mist with just about zero visibility around the base. The upper and lower falls were thunderously loud. We could really hear the water crashing with crescendos as the volume increased or big gusts sent it falling in different globs.

Finding parking was a challenge and it was hard to enjoy being in the beauty of the valley with car after car, and delay after delay, to get from one section to another. A whole day of driving was spent circling the loop. The place was over half filled with tourists from India. I don't know what caused the collection to be a majority of Indians, but I felt pretty confident I could easily find a doctor or an engineer if anything went wrong.

We left Yosemite and traveled the long and winding road towards South Lake Tahoe, We went through 8,000 + elevations and were back in the snow showers and big snow drifts quickly. Many roads were closed but the one we had spent many curvy turning hours on appeared to be open - until we neared the 7,500" area and it got iffy. Remembering we were not far from the famous Donner Pass, we took notice of the situation and the surroundings. It would be easy to make a wrong turn and end up at the bottom of some gully where nobody would find you for years. Many places had no guardrails, there were curvy up and down grades, limited visibility, narrow roads with blind turns and icy patches with fog. It was nice exercise for the forearms - gripping the steering wheel tightly. The pass was open but we went through snow drift areas that were easily over ten feet high.

Pulling in to South Lake Tahoe was nice to put an end to the crazy driving for while. We filled up late that night on a Chinese buffet and got a mid morning start the next day. It was still cold and breezy as we drove to viewing areas. As we drove out of South Lake Tahoe, almost all the shore access areas were pay-to-see state park areas or Casino/ Hotel property. After coming from Hawaii where free beach access is available everywhere, it felt very wrong to get hit up for $7 here or $5 there just to be able to drive in and look for a few minutes before heading on along the lake shoreline to see other sites. It was a bit depressing and made me wonder what it will be like for my grandchildren some day. Pay for everything, a permit required for everything, view everything from a distance behind barriers, or maybe even just a webcam monitor in some crowded viewing area. The "experience" is being take out of nature - mostly it seems so the state can generate revenue to pay it's park employees. I think it is a bit of a self licking ice cream cone.

We found a nice pull over area and worked our way down to the water and rocks without paying to do it. The sight was nice and we had a good time. We considered staying around longer, but everyone really wanted to get back to see Maui, so we started the push for Boise. After lunch at a local BBQ place for Memorial Day, we hit the road with expectations of stopping in Winnemucca, NV for the night.

We made reservations and arrived to find out the reservation was lost, the hotel was a part of a casino, it had multiple names, it wasn't clear where to enter for the hotel part, and the lobby was oozing smoke from every corner. We gave up on it and decided to press on late into the night to Boise. After driving and driving (past the area with no gas for 100 miles) we checked at the gas station in the next "big" town. There was a dumpy line of motel rooms behind the gas station, but they were all full. The teller informed me there was a funeral in town and everything was booked. Since it was a funeral, the way I saw it, at least one bed should have been available.

We pressed on past the long stretch of nothing in Oregon that has a 55 MPH speed limit where you can see for miles. This must have been in the inspiration for Sammy Hagar's "I Can't drive 55" song. Neither could I, so I didn't, and we made it Boise around 11:00pm. It was nice to see Maui after so long away. He was plenty happy to see us.

Waking up the next morning to spend time with the Chodors was great. We caught up on stories about the move they had just done into their awesome new home with great views of the mountains from the back yard. We had plenty of good food and tons of snacks available. Shelli made salty caramel cupcakes, which are probably the best cupcakes I have ever eaten. We slow cooked Kalua pork, and coconut rice with pineapple and mango salsa, and rounded it out with buttermilk/coconut biscuits with coconut butter. At the Chodor house, there was double thick bacon, sliders, breads, ice cream, rice pudding, pizza, fried chicken, homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs, steak fajitas, and plenty of chips, jello, parfaits, and sundaes with homemade chocolate sauce.

For a non eating activity went to Bruneau Dunes State Park and went through the most horrendous mosquito gauntlet I have ever seen. We had to follow a trail through some brush to get from the parking are to the largest dunes. Just a few steps in, we began seeing swarms of mosquitoes. We all ran to try to get through the area and out to the windy open dunes area. After running fast in for a couple of minutes, we came to a marshy are that was impassable. We had to turn and fight through another pathway. We quickly decided to completely reverse and exit the area. Running and sweating, we plowed back through and into the parking lot. The mosquitoes followed us all the way out, so we had to defend ourselves by smacking the mosquitoes off each other. I frequently was able to hit three mosquitoes in one strike. After being in 47 states, growing up in the South, visiting most Central American countries and many South American ones, I have never seen such an infested area. Poor Abby ended up with 41 bites on her arms, legs and face.

We gave up on the big dunes and went toward the smaller one away from vegetation. It was nice and still tall enough to make everyone really tired at the top. Cardboard sledding didn't work very well, but the plastic sleds were doable. We found a horny toad lizard and enjoyed the last part of our stay at the park. They need to do something about that mosquito trap area of the park if they want return visitors.

Cousins Becky and Adalee from Medford, Oregon made the 8 hour drive over to spend some time with the Chodors and Joe and his girlfriend Elisa came in from Memphis. The focus of this week has been on seeing the relatives we don't get to see often. We will update the blog with more of the stuff from this part of the trip once we get moving along in the RV and settle into a rhythm. We will be leaving Saturday headed for the Oregon coast.

On the way into Yosemite. From beach sand to snow,

Bridal Veil Falls in the background.

A LOT of snow is still up in the mountains between Yosemite and Tahoe.

Michael hurling a snowball right at John in the car.

Lake Tahoe on the Nevada side.

It was different looking into the clear water and not seeing colorful tropical fish. We didn't even see a turtle.

Hiking along the rocky shore. What a nice backdrop.

One of the many big boulders to climb.

Michael and John at the top. This picture is zoomed in a lot. It was a long climb up from the water.

Michael in a cool tree that was hanging over the rocks.

John on the rocks.

We made it back to see Maui and his head was missing.

Getting the pineapple and mango salsa ready, card tricks, and ukelele.

At Bruneau Dunes before the trek into mosquito alley.

Abby after mosquito alley. 41 bites!!

Bruneau Sand Dunes. The mosquitoes didn't follow us here.

Kelli and Michael at the top.

John using some of his new surfing skills.

John caught this horny toad lizard.

Abby didn't.

Maui playing tug of war.

Kelli and Adalee dressed for fun.

Woof.

Yo Dog.

The hills turned green while we were in Hawaii.

Abby had an early birthday party before the relatives all left. We don't know where we will be on her real birthday June 30th.

Down the side of the cliff where Michael and John built forts.

Another view of the fort construction area.

Michael, Abby, Becky, Adalee, and John having parfaits.

Kids, a dog, and a green spring lawn. Life is good!

Can you tell who is the ham at this table? Adalee was entertaining from start to finish.

Michael and John prepping for the ropes course at Bodies in Motion.

Michael on the net, Shelli and John on the platform to the left.

Nerf gun wars.

Joe, Elisa, Kelli, Vince, Abby, Michael, Maui, Shelli, John, Fat Daddy, Becky, and Adalee right after we finished packing.

A round of farewell hugs.

Adalee was sad to see us go. After she had hugged Shelli, Michael, and John, I asked if I was getting a hug. Very sadly, she said, "You're going too?"

One last family picture before we hit the road headed West.

Back to Maui - our dog, not the Island

2011-05-31T13:14:00.001-07:00

We had a cottage right on the beach at Bellows Air Force Station. There was a constant sea breeze and and some of the most soothing views of light blue water out of the four islands we went to. Throughout our trip we never had a room where we couldn't hear the surf, and we saw all shades from intense striking deep blues to powder blues. The beach at Bellows is very sandy and consistently is a pleasing light shade of blue as you can see in the photos below. When the clouds would pass by and create bands of multiple hues, it was really beautiful. There was very little traffic and plenty of room to have a section of beach all by ourselves. A large portion of the beach is for military use only and a public section is frequently closed during week days for military training. It is a great place to go for seclusion.

We made good use of the volleyball court, the frisbee golf, and put put golf within walking distance of the cottages. With plenty of ice cream and snacks picked up from the commissary, we were totally self contained and had everything we needed right there. The wind blew constantly and keep it just comfortably cool and pleasing to sleep with the white noise of surf and winds. The only detractor was the foot long centipede that wiggled under the door late one night. They can deliver a nasty bite similar to a wasp and they are thoroughly creepy. After shooing him away didn't work, he was given an application of shoe praise until he properly stuck to a paper towel for disposal out the back door. That thing had a surprising amount of mass and was quite a beast to sling out into the darkness.

After spending several days soaking in the beautiful view from the cottage right on the beach, we moved over to the Navy Lodge at Pearl Harbor for the start of Memorial Day weekend. We thought it was fitting to be there right beside the USS Arizona, USS Missouri, and USS Utah memorials.

We thought about heading to Australia, but the one flight scheduled that week kept getting rescheduled a day later each day. With little confidence we would get on the flight, and room reservations running out in Oahu, we seriously considered going to Guam. After considering our options and deciding we had done enough beach activities for now, we decided it was time to head back to see our dog Maui.

We hopped on a plane early on the 28th of May. After a month in Hawaii, we had the highest space on the roster for Space available travel back in our category, so we easily got aboard. There about 80 people trying to get one of the 50 seats, so about 30 people were left waiting for the next plane. We had a comfortable ride on a C-17 with a full load of pallets. We found room to stretch out on the floor and get some sleep. Everyone seemed to be pretty adept at stepping over whomever was sprawled out at the time. When the C-17 landed back in California at Travis AFB, it was cold and rainy. After 33 days in tropical paradise it was back to reality.

The view from the back door of our cottage on Bellows Air Force Station. Take a look at the color of the water!

Just before the boogie boarding commenced.

Planning the attack. Rabbit Island is in the background.

The view looking North as Michael and John catch a wave.

One of the many waves caught in the two days there.

Both John and Michael became good at getting up on the boogie boards.

Sand art.

Even though we were in Hawaii for just over month, we didn't just sit still much. This was nice.

Shelli and John building a wall to protect John's sand dolphin from the waves.

Mission accomplished. The dolphin was still there when we left the next day. This is the view looking South. We saw a lot of turtles around the end of the jetty in the background.

Turtle protection wall completed.

I found a couple of coo coo nuts on the beach.

A forced moment of togetherness. Pose. Smile. Click. Arms back down.

Jim - Patterned after the real turtle Michael and John named Jim and hung out with on the Big Island.

Masterpiece.

We went back to Pearl Harbor for our last night at the start of Memorial Day Weekend. It seemed fitting to go by the Arizona memorial again.

Beside the USS Missouri (Mighty MO). The unconditional surrender of WWII by Japan was signed aboard this ship.

From Michael:
The whole RV/Homeschooling thing is really great because of all the fun things we get to do. When we were in Hawaii the bad thing was we never had wifi, but we got to skip a lot of work. After we homescho... I mean hotelschooled for about a hour, we would go to the beach or go get really good shaved ice. Obviously, that was awesome. Our last month of school was in Hawaii! Fortunately, it was the perfect amount of time, most people only stay for 7 days, to me that would be way too “week.” This perfect, paradise was great but it had to end. The thing I definitely won’t miss from Hawaii is the radio, all they had was reggae and disco junk, no popular music and not even much authentic Hawaiian. When we left it was a little saddening, but everyone was ready to see our dog, Maui. I was ready to see my dog too, and Bessie... (My Xbox)

From John:
Hawaiian homeschooling
School in Hawaii is fun, ya? I loved schooling in Hawaii because it was extremely flexible. We had no real schedule at all, sometimes we would boogie board all day and do work at night or the other way around. Some of the activities we did were thrilling and we learned something during every activity we did. Some of the things we learned about were volcanoes, manta rays, Pearl Harbor, and Captain Cook. The USS Missouri is actually bigger than the Titanic was, and the Titanic was huge in its day! Though all of this was fun, I still missed my dog, Maui very much. He was what I miss the most about being away for so long. Homeschooling in Hawaii was great, but I am excited to get back to see Maui.

From Shelli:
Now that our family has been on the road for over two months, I’ve finally realized there wasn’t so much to stress about. I know....Joey and many others tried to tell me to relax but now I can say from experience that it is working! Schooling has gone well. The boys are finishing their ‘school’ assignments this week. We have met all of the official school requirements and were able to add many real life experiences along the way. We have made numerous memories that I will cherish forever. Luckily, we are all learning a little about the rewards of a less materialistic and simpler way of life. It is amazing to see how many “things” we don’t really need on a daily basis. Our quality time with one another is increasing and this opportunity is a true blessing!

We plan to visit Yosemite National Park and then Lake Tahoe as we work our way back to Maui in Boise.

Maui - the Island, not our dog

2011-05-25T02:47:00.001-07:00

May 14 - May 25

We made it to Maui and drove along the West coast to start the day. Around noon we got an early check in to our condo, the Kamaole Sands in the town of Kihei in South Maui. We got a nice one bedroom, two bath condo with a full kitchen and ocean views. It is located right across the street from a very nice park/beach with big grassy areas, shade trees, benches, and restrooms and showers. The location is great and allows us to easily access the beach without going anywhere. We have a reserved parking spot and are centrally located close to the pool and hot tub area where there is ping pong, foosball, and wifi available.

We bought groceries and have been making all our own meals. We are saving where we can, but food prices are insane here in the grocery stores. We have seen milk at over $7 a gallon, cereal is all over $5 a box, the average loaf of bread is about $6, and fruit grown here is very expensive too. If it isn't on sale, we don't buy it.

We started off snorkeling and boogie boarding right near our hotel. The snorkeling wasn't great so we went just down the road to Ulua beach. The visibility wasn't very good because the coral had just bloomed, but that meant some things could be seen close to shore that otherwise would not have been there. The visibility has been improving all week and we found another really good dive site named Five Caves (also called five graves). We decided to go with scuba gear rental and do our own dives from shore instead of going on boat charters. Most of the good sites are close to shore and it worked really well for us. We saved a LOT of money and got to the same places others were being guided to. Each location we went to had a whole lot to see with turtles and eels seen on each dive. Follow the link at the bottom of this page to a video of some highlights of what we saw.

We did the long and curvy drive along the Hana Road (with 46 one lane bridges and 620 curves) to the Haleakala National Park and hiked to Waimoku Waterfall. It took over two hours each way, but the scenery was great and the hike to the waterfall was very memorable. The kids got in the water and took the GoPro video camera in with them. Just past the park entrance to the hike to the waterfall, we went along the road out by Charles Lindbergh's grave and stopped at a local fruit stand that had a bicycle powered generator that ran the blender to make smoothies.

We had planned for just under a week in Maui, but we decided to change our reservations and extend our stay because it seemed to be everyone's favorite island. The pace is relaxing and we have such easy access to the beaches, it just seemed to make sense to hang around longer. There are no crowds and we have been able to find parking easily and stretches of beach pretty much to ourselves every day. We usually take our time getting up and heading out to the beach and taking a picnic lunch. After a while we head back in for a break, make dinner and then walk over to watch the sunset, or take dinner with us and eat at the park at sunset. Even though the boys should be worn out from snorkeling and boogie boarding, most evenings end with them getting back in the water, running, and having sand fights after throwing the frisbee for a while.

We spent most of the day on the West side of Maui yesterday checking out the beaches and stores along Front Street. We had a picnic lunch by the largest banyan tree in the world and then made a stop at the Local Boys Shave ice store. After a bunch of stops at scenic points, we made our way back for boogie boarding at the beach by our condo. We really like our condo location in Kihei. No crowds, plenty of parks and beaches with easy access. It isn't as much of a resort area as the West side and that fits us better.

Last night we walked over after it was really dark to see what we could find along the shore and in the tide pools at night. There were plenty of crabs running into the surf when we caught them in the light, and a lot of needle fish on the surface. The most interesting thing was when we walked along a path through a brushy area over to another rocky cliff. We could hear what sounded like an infant crying. Then we heard what sounded like a pack of wolves howling. It was really VERY eerie. I shined my dive light (a crazy bright one called an AquaSun) and lit up the whole area. It turns out it was a bunch of seabirds settling in for the night. I'm not sure which one was making the crying baby sound and which ones sounded like the wolves, but it was a nice relief to see it was something so benign. It REALLY sounded worse.

Our last day in Maui was spent with a lot of boogie boarding, another trip the Local Boys shaved ice stand, and an ice cream stop. Tomorrow (25th of May) we will leave early to check out the really calm morning sea before flying back to Ohau. We will be checking into a beach cottage on Bellows Air Force Station. It is right on the beach and is very secluded. I anticipate a lot more boogie boarding to round out the week. We will pass the one month in Hawaii point at Bellows and then decide whether to head to another destination in the Pacific, or head back to California.

Michael and John have started writing summary paragraphs as we go along. In the future we will include them with the pictures as we add more pages.

From Michael:
Oahu
Diamond Head in Hawaii is a very cool crater caused by volcanic eruptions. You can hike it in about an hour, round trip. There are many steps that take your breath away very quickly. At the top there is a very cool bunker to aim artillery fire, but it is abandoned now. The top is very crowded by tourists but we could still see our hotel from there. My great, great Uncle Duron used to work there to intercept and translate Japanese messages. His house was overlooking Waikiki and Honolulu. He sold his house a long time ago, but it recently sold for over a million dollars! Diamond Head is really cool and fun to hike. When you get to the top, you can see everything...... And the breeze cools you off.

Pearl Harbor
We went to Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii. It was about a 75 minute tour. When we went, we watched a short movie about Pearl Harbor and then we got on a boat to go to the USS Arizona Memorial. When we looked at the ship oil was still coming out of it! We got to throw flowers too to remember the fallen of Pear Harbor. The ship sank because the Japanese came down and bombed Pearl Harbor. When the Japanese were flying in, someone saw them on the radar and reported them but whoever was in charge said just ignore and it was fine. And a general ordered all the planes parked wingtip to wingtip with no ammo. But the attack pulled America together and helped change its history.

Kauai
      Our trip to Kauai was very fun. We saw many rainbows. Kauai means garden isle and it rained every day on the island when we were there, but there were a lot less tourists there.
      Our rental car was a Chrysler 300. When we got to our hotel we got to stay free with all the points Dad earned. The hotel was under construction so we got free breakfast and wifi. And every Friday they showed a free movie. We ate at a really good place called Ohana Diner. All the locals go there. And there was a really good shaved ice place called Ono Ono Shaved Ice. They had over eighty flavors! Some weird ones were, pickle, peanut butter, chocolate, and cake batter.
      When we went snorkeling, we snorkeled at Poipu. (weird name) We saw a huge sea turtle and swam with it. There were a bunch of tropical colored fish too, and an eel. Hiking is really fun, especially when rain pours down on you. Only thirty minutes into our hike we could see the whole coastline. And on another hike we saw about ten rainbows. Kauai is really cool!

Big Island
Volcano National Park
      Yesterday, we drove to Volcano National Park. The drive seemed like it was forever, but when we finally got there the volcanoes were really cool. We went into the Lava Tubes where the lava made tunnels a long time ago. We went to the steam vents where steam came through a bunch of holes in the ground. The coolest thing was when we went to a lookout point at night and saw the lava glow. The lava glow is where the main, huge volcano is and at night you can still see all the lava in the volcano glowing like a fireball. It was really cool but then we had to do the super long drive back again.

Manta Heaven
      Kona Honu Diving Tours are great! You go out on a boat and they hook up all your equipment for you. Then you go dive. When were were diving, we saw four huge manta rays. Then we saw two bottle-nose dolphins. After all that, we saw a bunch of eels and one moray eel. I started falling on it and it almost bite me!
      When we got back on the boat, they had great sandwiches for us and potato chips. Then I got seasick. I hoped I didn’t throw up because those sandwiches were so good! Then they did a briefing about the best part, the mantas.
      When we got in the water we all sat in a circle at the bottom. We shined our lights up and it attracted plankton and the mantas feed on plankton. It was so cool! The mantas kept swooping right over our heads! A bunch of them even touched us. The biggest one there was 16 feet long. Manta Heaven and Kona Honu Diving Tours are great!

Maui

Maui is by far the best island of Hawaii. Our hotel was great! Unfortunately, we will have to leave this place one day. Our hotel is so enjoyable because there is a pool, hot tub, ping pong table, foosball table and free wifi. After all that fun stuff, the food is great! We even tried spam for the first time last week. In my opinion, Local Boys is the best place for shaved ice. If you ever go to Maui, you have to go to Local Boys. My favorite flavor is mango and strawberry with ice cream in the bottom. The shaved ice, which is as fluffy as snow is great! Obviously, the beach was great too! We scuba dove at amazing, astonishing Five Caves, where we saw turtles, eels, crabs, fish and trumpet fish. John and I also boogie boarded on some huge waves on several different days and I almost stood up one time. The waves were so dangerous, we could have broken our necks. Maui is the number one island to visit!

From John:
Oahu
Diamond Head
      We went to Diamond head and climbed to the top. It was so steep and hot. My Uncle Duron actually worked there, he translated Japanese messages. I think there was like 2 to 3 hundred stairs. The view on the top was amazing. It took us 30 - 45 minutes to get to the top. Diamond Head was a military coastal defense station. The military could also guide artillery from the top of the crater. The crater was actually never used for its purpose. I thought it was extremely fun. Western explorers and traders mistook the calcite crystals on the crater for diamonds which gave it its’ name, Diamond Head. Ships use this crater as a navigational tool. I loved this hike, and I will never forget it.

Pearl Harbor
On Sunday, my family went to Pearl Harbor in Oahu. First, we watched a video about why Pearl Harbor was attacked. Then we went on a ship to the USS Arizona Memorial. The USS Arizona was a giant battle ship. The memorial was very interesting, the ships oil is still coming up from the tank. The whole trip was 75 minutes and we dropped flowers into the water to remember who died. We learned that the planes were parked wingtip to wingtip and were “unloaded”. The radar did pick up the Japanese planes that morning but the person in charge said not to worry about it and thought it was just a group of planes returning from training from California. The attack on Pearl Harbor united us and if it did not happen, it would have completely changed the course of history.

Kauai
      Kauai is a very lush island and is known as “The Garden Isle.” It has water falls, beaches and lots of wild life. We saw about 10 rainbows in about 30 minutes.
Kauai also has many fruits grown locally. We saw papayas, coconuts, bananas, sugar cane, taro root and guava fields. Dad and I even cut down and ate some sugar cane, it was very sweet. I also tried taro root ice cream. It wasn’t my favorite.
      Kauai has numerous activities. First, we went to “The Wettest Place on Earth”, Waimea Canyon. Next, we snorkeled and got really close to a green sea turtle. We saw bright fish and a very cool eel. The green sea turtle is actually named because it has green meat.
      Next, we tried Ono Shaved Ice, it was extremely good. They had 60 flavors, I got cherry and pineapple. Last, we hiked along the NaPali Coast. The trail was muddy but you could see the whole beach from the top. We got caught in a rain storm. I loved Kauai and had a great time.

Big Island
Volcano Park
      My family first saw the huge crater, and I mean huge! When we saw the lava tubes, I was amazed. They were wet, moist and dark. I knew it was going to be cool when we first saw the volcano. We finally got to see the lava glowing inside of the volcano at night. The lava glow was very bright. I took some pictures and so did Dad. I loved the volcano park and will hopefully come back again.

A Night in Shining Column
      My family and I were on the Big Island in Hawaii. Then my Dad took us on the best trip ever! We went on the boat Honu One and traveled to a deep, dark cove. The jump was cool. The jump into the pitch black water was scary but once we got to the spot where the mantas were, everything changed. The light lit up the water like the sun. The sights we saw were awesome! The mantas were gray, graceful gliders. The fish made a huge column and looked like a pillar of smoke. The plankton shined through our lights. The scuba divers made a huge circle on the bottom and shined their lights up towards the snorkelers.
      The manta dive/snorkel was the coolest and most amazing thing I have ever done! It felt like I was in the middle of a discovery channel show. I loved the manta dive and had a lot of fun. Now I am not afraid to jump in the middle of the ocean at night!
I had so much fun and hope to do this again too!

Maui

Maui is my favorite island. Maui has great diving, boogie boarding, and shaved ice. The weather is always sunny and the abundant sea life is colorful. The activities are endless. Amazingly, we could not complete half of the activities in the two weeks we are in Maui. Because we like the ocean, we boogie boarded almost every day. Maui is an incredible, interesting island that has huge waterfalls too. After driving the curvy Hana Road, we hiked 1.8 miles to get to Waimoku Falls, which is 400 feet high. Along the hike we passed through a bamboo forest, which seemed as high as The Empire State Building. It was dark and creepy. I really liked Maui and hope to come back next summer so I can get my scuba certification.

Click HERE for a video of snorkeling and diving highlights.
Click HERE for a video of boogie boarding action.
Click HERE for a video of the waterfall and Hana road.

A bad day for pigs on the West side of Maui. We saw a lot of birthday parties and family outings where they were cooking out at the many parks right on the beaches.

One of the almost daily stops at Local Boys for shaved ice. Our friends in California, the Brinkerhoff's, recommended it as the best place for shaved ice on the island, and they were right.

The grassy part of the park by our condo. A lot of people gathered here to watch the sunset. This was about as big of a crowd as we had to deal with. We liked the lack of crowds in Maui.

Michael and John are on the rock on the left and are watching the sun set over the island of Lanai.

This area looked kind of like an African savannah. Just to the right of here is where the birds were making the eerie noises.

Playing tag in the park right by the beach.

Shelli got tired.

Getting ready for the first of our shore dives. The reef is just off to our left.

One of the many eels we saw. This one was tiny and seems to have been an albino.

No comment.

A nice rest stop at a banyan tree on the hike to the falls. The one by Front Street in Lahaina is much bigger than this, but no climbing is allowed.

Just a few feet off the trail, Michael and John practically disappear. The small patch of red on the left is Michael's shirt. The bit of yellow in the center is John's.

On the trail.

Michael and John cooling off after the hike. It was very humid and hot on the way back to the falls. Sixteen years ago Shelli and I hiked to this place. When I got close to the falls I could tell they mist us.

Follow the rules.

Nice view of the Southern area of Maui. Molokini crater is just to the right of Michael.

Frisbee on the beach at sunset. Hard times.

In between sets. Michael is wearing the GoPro video camera for this session.

Shelli and Michael towards the end of a ride in

John about to catch a nice wave

One of the beach views right across from our condo. We'll miss this place.

Big Island Fun

2011-05-17T02:17:00.037-07:00

We have been taking it a little slower on the Big Island, but that doesn't mean we haven't had amazing adventures here. We are using the mornings for school work and planning the days activities. Packing a picnic lunch and heading out to do whatever the weather and our mood dictates is working well.

May 8th- Mother's day. Shelli got to choose the activities and dining options for the day. She decided to slow down the pace for the day so we just walked around the shopping area near our hotel and she picked up a rashguard shirt for snorkeling and beach use. She chose a coconut shrimp lunch right by the water for lunch. For the evening we just hung out by the pool and in the hot tub, and had a relaxing dinner by the tiki torch lights.

May 9th - It was cloudy and a bit rainy, so we decided to drive to the Volcano National Park instead of beach activities. The curvy road made for a long drive, but we stopped at a black sand beach to break up the drive. There was a turtle sunning on the black sand and several more were swimming around just past the surf. We drove through macadamia nut and coffee farms and saw more papayas, sugar cane, and bananas growing right along the side of the road.

We spent some time at the park visitor's center learning about volcanoes and took in views of the caldera. We walked through the Thurston lava tubes and checked out the prehistoric looking ferns along the way. After a stop at a steam vent that was plenty hot, we headed out for dinner in Hilo around sunset. We had plenty of local food at a small diner and headed back into the park for views of the lava glowing at night. Unfortunately the flow that was making it's way down to the ocean stopped in March after a big eruption drained the lava pool down several hundred feet and closed off one of the main vents. However, the glow from inside the caldera looked really neat with the misty conditions and almost pitch black night with clouds covering the small crescent moon.

May 10th - We scheduled a two tank boat dive with a day dive followed by a night manta ray dive. Although Shelli was NOT interested in participating, we convinced her to go along and snorkel with John while Michael and I dove. The water was a deep blue as it can get on the way to the dive site and there were a lot of spinner dolphins there to greet us as we pulled in. They were swimming along the boat and putting on a show of jumping and flipping that would make any dolphin trainer proud. The first dive was a good refresher for us and the water was very clear with visibility of about 100'. Michael spotted to bottle nose dolphins swimming near us and pointed them out to the guide. Soon after four manta rays swam by and we found two moray eels, three trumpet fish (including Charlie, the local friendly fish that likes to hang out right by your face), a flounder, and plenty of other colorful fish. The snorkeling wasn't as good, with not a lot to see. Unfortunately the dolphins didn't hang around.

The sunset on the boat was nice, even though several people were not feeling well because of seasickness. Everyone crammed in the sandwich and chips anyway to load up for the next water entry. As darkness fell and the boat lights came on, the huge manta rays showed up. While we were receiving our pre-dive briefing, the rays were doing somersaults right at the back of the boat and feeding on the plankton attracted to the lights. The divers went in first and then John convinced Shelli to jump into the black water before him. Just a short swim over the divers collected on the bottom around a rock "fire pit" and pointed the flashlights up while the snorkelers overhead pointed their lights down to create a column of light that attracted tons of plankton. The mantas moved up and down the column feeding and brushing up against both snorkelers and divers. It was an amazing experience as these absolutely huge mantas swooped up and down. There were at least twenty individual mantas (identified by name by the boat crew based on unique markings on the manta's undersides) and they put on a non-stop show the entire 50 minutes we were in the water. The largest was Big Bertha with a wingspan of 16 feet! Michael and I were in the last dive group to exit the water and the mantas followed us to the boat.

May 11th - Another slow day with school in the room and then a picnic lunch by the ocean. We went to the harbor nearby and found a nice spot on the rocks overlooking the clear water full of very colorful yellow fish. We watched the boats coming in and a huge sea turtle swimming by as we ate lunch. From there we went to a national historic park at a lava flow site and went to the old fish pond made from stacked volcanic rocks. There were large fish jumping out of the water and plenty of tide pools to explore. After looking for manta ray themed dive shirts in kids sizes with no luck, we rounded out some school lessons on volcanoes and the Hawaiian Islands formation before Michael and John spent the rest of the day in the pool.

May 12th - We stopped at a beach park for a picnic and ended up right by an old memorial site and monument. One of Capt Cook's men was was buried there in 1779 and that was the first Christian service held in Hawaii. We had been doing school lessons on the formation of the Hawaiian Islands and this area was particularly good for observing the effects of erosion and formation of the sandy areas and cliffs. Along the beach there were a lot of rocks and coral and Michael and John spent a lot of time stacking rocks and then throwing other rocks to knock them down. The waves were rolling the rocks back and forth in the surf and making a really relaxing sound.

May 13th - We went to a really good snorkeling area that was loaded with sea turtles. There was one feeding right at the edge of the water and we were able to walk right in and swim alongside him. Michael and John found four or five more further out where they were snorkeling and were able to film them up close and take pictures of them. There were plenty of colorful fish to chase around. For lunch we pigged out at the Big Island Grill on huge hamburgers, coconut shrimp salad, a great big hot fudge sundae, a big banana split and cheese cake with coconut and mango sauces. Later that afternoon we stopped at a huge roadside lava tube that had collapsed partially and was a neat place for exploring. We drove way out on a very long extremely bumpy road through an old lava flow area. After everyone had enough we went to an area with $10M homes and took advantage of the fact that all beaches in Hawaii have to be public. Even the most expensive places can't exclude anyone from the shoreline, so the guards gave us a pass and we went to a very secluded beach area that only had one other family on a really nice sand area with very neat tide pools and rocky outcroppings. We found a turtle sunning on the rocks and just hung out there right beside him. At that point it was just us and him on the entire beach as the sun was heading down. We decided to leave the beach to the turtle and head down closer to where we had done the manta ray dive to watch the sunset. We found a great spot with big waves crashing and watched the sun disappear below the horizon and we saw just a bit of the "green flash" phenomena at the end. I had been looking along the road all over the place as we drove trying to find a spot to get a fresh papaya straight from a tree. Although I had seen many, they weren't in areas where they could be picked by the general public. We found a papaya tree with some ripe fruit right by where we had parked for the sunset and this one didn't have any signs saying it was prohibited to take fruit. The tree was very tall, but we were able to shake loose a few and catch them as they fell. With the exception of the manta ray experience, I think this last day on the Big Island was the best one we had.

May 14th - We had some great bucket list experiences on the Big Island and we had great chances to study it's ecology, geology, history, and culture. However, leaving on the 5:30 am flight wasn't such a great idea. We got the best price, but trying to get the rental car turned in and make it to the gate was an adventure. Alamo didn't open until 5:30 and they didn't have an after hours drop off. They said they could meet me at 5:00 and get me to the flight on time. That wouldn't work anywhere else in the world but there. The flight was on a Cessna Caravan operated by Go! Mukelele airlines and they didn't even use the standard gates or security. Apparently there are so few of us on the plane nobody really cares what we are carrying. The single pilot plane is used for tours and had great visibility with plenty of windows and an open door so we could see the cockpit the whole flight. The rising sun was cutting through the clouds and the lighting was really nice along the mountains and water. The flight was great because it was smooth as glass all the way on the 30 minute flight to Maui. We were picking up our rental car before the winds even started to stir.


A Mother's Day to remember. (Shelli)

Hot tub after dinner by the pool on Mother's Day. (Joey)

Bananas growing right outside our condo. (Joey)

Black sand beach with sea turtle warming on the sand. (Joey)

Black sand between the toes. (Joey)

I liked the contrast of the black sand and the white froth of the waves. (Joey)

Shelli pointing out an incoming turtle. (Joey)

In front of the caldera at the Volcano National Park. Although there was some steam coming from here, the active area is just behind the dome to the left of John. The road circles around from here, but the whole section around the left side of is closed due to dangerous gases. (Joey)

The entrance to the Thurston Lava tubes. (Joey)

In the lava tube. It was damp and water was dripping on us. (Joey)
There were a bunch of slugs in here. (Michael)

In the area near the lava tubes. It felt pre-historic with the giant ferns all over the place. (Joey)
Michael isn't really this much taller than me. He is standing on a rock. (John)

The active part of the volcano just after sunset. It was cold and misting, but the conditions really made the lava glow look spectacular. (Joey)
We could have roasted a lot of marshmallows :( (John)

Michael at the start of our first dive in Hawaii. (Joey)
Hi. (Michael)

The water was clearer than it looks in these photos. (Joey)
Hi again. (Michael)

This moray eel seemed to be getting tired of us hanging out by him and looked like he was about to come out to run me off as I was taking pictures. (Joey)
The eel said "Hi". (Michael)

Charlie the trumpet fish is a friendly local that hangs out at this dive spot. He is a close talker and hung our right by us on the night dive too. (Joey)
Charlie said "Hi". (Michael)

Next two picture captions - Michael wasn't feeling well on the boat. He hoped he didn't throw up the great sandwiches they served us. We watched the sunset and then got ready for the dark. (Shelli)

Just before jumping into the dark water. (Shelli)

Michael with two of the twenty manta rays that were swimming around us. The dots you see all over are the plankton that were attracted to the lights - manta dinner. (Joey)
The mantas kept scraping the top of my head. The plankton all said "Hi". (Michael)

The mantas were stacked right on top of each other from Michael's head at the bottom to John's belly on the surface. The spots and markings you can see here are unique and can be used to identify each manta. (Joey)
The mantas didn't say "Hi". (Michael)

We saw these big open mouths coming at us over and over. The first couple of times, it is pretty unnerving. The mantas were big enough to easily fit my whole upper body into their mouth. (Joey)
The mouths were huge and they kept coming right up at John and me. John talked me into going on the trip and when it was time to jump into the dark ocean, he looked at me and said "you go first Mom ". (Shelli)

John is talking to his aunt Suzy while while we walked around a national historic site. (Joey)
Aunt Suzy said "Hi". (John)

Tree climbing by an old fish pond that had big fish jumping. (Joey)
Almost there. (John)

Michael building one of his rock statues. The white blur in the treeline to the left of him is the Capt Cook memorial. Capt Cook let the locals believe he was a god on his first visit; on his second they realized he wasn't and tested his mortality. The memorial marks the spot where he failed the test. This was also close to where he had done the first Christian service in Hawaii when one of his crewmen died. (Joey)
This was fun. When the waves crashed they pulled the rocks in and made a cool sound. (Michael)

John's creation. (Joey)
This is harder than it looks. (John)

John's rear end says "Hi". He didn't know I was doing this. (Michael)

A great place for throwing rocks. (Joey)
The rock says "Bye". (John)

Michael and one of the many turtles we have seen. We were so excited to see the first turtle on Oahu in Waikiki and I jumped off a rock wall into the water to get some video of it. On Kauai we saw a couple and snorkeled along side them thinking it was about as good as it would get. The Big Island topped all that with turtles sunning close enough to see easily and many swimming and feeding in clearer water. None of them seemed to mind us being close. (Joey)
I got even closer than this after taking the picture. (John)
The turtle's fin slapped me in the face. (Michael)

John right after he had been snorkeling and filming several turtles. (Joey)
This was the best snorkeling place for seeing turtles. (John)

Lava tube right by the side of the road North of the airport. (Joey)

One of the old lava flow areas along the extremely bumpy road we drove down. (Joey)

Walking along the rocky edge of the beach in the $10M per home neighborhood. (Joey)

This turtle didn't pay to be in the neighborhood either. (Joey)
I named this turtle Jim.... he said "Hi". (Michael)

This tide pool reflection looked neat to me. The area behind them was like a big bowl that filled and emptied as the surf came in and out. It was kind of like a mini Niagara Falls when emptying, then it would fill with water that would make a big dome of froth at least 20 feet wide. (Joey)

Nice crashing waves as we waited for sunset. (Joey)

I couldn't resist a classic silhouette shot here. (Joey)


The tall papaya tree we had to shake to get fresh fruit. (Joey) We caught them as they fell. (John) Click here for a video of the dive/snorkel trip.

Through with Kauai and on to the Big Island

2011-05-08T18:27:00.001-07:00

We left Oahu on the 3rd of May and went to Kauai until the 7th of May. Today we headed to the Big Island. Each island has it's own flair and Kauai certainly lives up to the Garden Isle reputation. It was much more lush and much less crowded than Oahu. We found many banana trees, coconuts, taro, sugar cane, and papaya growing right along the road. We stopped and harvested one piece of sugar cane and made good use of my dive knife when peeling and cutting up the stalk.

The weather was a bit rougher, with a lot of clouds, winds, big surf, and rain. However, we found plenty of sunny spots to enjoy, especially along the Western side all the way out to the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands where we had a picnic lunch on the beach. We drove out to Waimea Canyon and went all the way to the top to Wai'ale'ale which is one of the wettest spots on earth and averages over 462 inches of rain a year. From there, the clouds roll over and down into the canyon and out the Na Pali coastline side where Jurassic Park was filmed.

We found some calmer spots for snorkeling and found multiple green sea turtles right along the edge of the rocks where we were snorkeling. They were not afraid of us at all and I even had to jump out of the way to avoid being bumped into by one as the surf pulled him back. There were plenty of colorful fish and a moray eel right there within yards of the beach for us to see. We drove all the way to the end of the road on the North shore past the famous Hanelei beach and hiked along the Na Pali coast until heavy rain convinced us to turn around. There were several spots along the north coast where we could see eight or more separate long waterfalls in one view, and we lost count of rainbows. We went to the Kauai Kookie factory and sampled just about every kind of cookie they had before loading up on macadamia nut shortbreads, taro crispy cookies, and chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies. The local food was very good and the shave ice at Ono Ono was really a big hit. The single size was extra large and there was an option for a scoop of ice cream inside. I also tried the Halo Halo. I thought it was pretty good. The Taro ice cream was the best part to me. We also ate at a very local place, Ohana diner, with great Kalua pork.


Picnic lunch at Barking Sands on the Pacific Missile Range Facility base. (Joey)

You can see two islands in the background. One bigger one on the left (Niihau) and one small one (not sure which one) on the right. (Joey)

We couldn't hear the sands bark. (John)


There were random horses tied by the road every few hundred feet along this stretch of the road. (Michael) Anybody have an idea why? (Shelli)


Waimea Canyon. (Joey) This is a spot where we saw a lot of rainbows. (Shelli)

The view down from the top of Waimea Canyon looking towards the Na Pali coast. (Joey)

Some of the water falls on the right side. This is the area where they filmed Jurassic Park. (Joey)


Some artwork. (Michael) Today's art homework is to draw a mustache on your brother's face. I just wanted a mustache. (John)

It was cold, windy, and rainy at the top. (Shelli)


The sign says this is one of the wettest places on earth. (Michael)


Now I look like Adolf Hitler after eating chocolate. (John) Maybe they need more art practice? (Shelli)


I almost fell three times on the slippery wet mud, but I caught myself. (Michael) It rained on us here and we were actually in the clouds as they passed over the top. (Joey) I was concerned about the boys falling over the edge because it was VERY slippery. (Shelli)

We looked down the side and it was just a sudden drop-off. (John)
There were several rainbows that appeared here as the rain and clouds alternated with sunny patches. (Joey)

Dad and I chopped down some sugar cane right by the side of the road where it was growing wild. (John)


I got cherry and pineapple and it was very sour. (John)


Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie. (John) Wanna keep your hand? (Joey)

Waialua Falls. If you stared at a stationary point near the falls for about 20 seconds and then looked at the walls to the side, there was an optical illusion that made it look like the walls were waving. (Joey)

The road was covered by a tunnel of trees. (Joey)


The sugar cane was good. (Michael)

This is where we saw and swam right next to a sea turtle. (Michael)

One of the places where we could see big waterfalls in the distance through the rain and mist. (Joey)

The water in the cave had bacteria and was pretty much the same thing as poisoned. (Michael)

Waiting for the sun at the start of the hike along the Na Pali coast. (Joey)


The rocks were very slippery and I fell pretty hard here, so I stopped for a rest. (Shelli)


Trying to decide to go on the hike or not as the black clouds were everywhere. (Shelli)

The weather cleared so we decided to head back in along the trail. (Joey)

At the start of the hike. (Joey)


With the sun out, the background looked like a postcard. (Michael)

Deep in the jungle, swinging like Tarzan. (John)

"Oooohooowooohooowooohooowooo" (Michael)

An old taro farm. I think they planted it here on Poi-pus. (Joey)

I think these are the most populous group on the islands now. (Joey)

If you hold your hands out they will think you have a treat. (John)

Click here for a video Michael and John swimming by a sea turtle
The turtle was just right there by the shore so we got in the water with him. The visibility isn't great because it was right where the waves were stirring everything up.

We have video of the hike along the coast and of snorkeling with lots of colorful fish, but we don't have them edited and ready to upload yet.

I liked Oahu more than Kauai because Oahu had more things to do. My favorite thing so far was eating shaved ice. (Michael)

I love Hawaii and I don't want our trip to end. My favorite thing so far was snorkeling. (John)

My favorite thing so far was the hike along the Na Pali coast. The most memorable part was when we were coming down the slippery trail along a cliff during a tropical storm with heavy rain and very heavy winds. (Shelli)

One month since we left California - Hawaii update

2011-05-05T12:09:00.004-07:00

Surfing in Waikiki and trying to get some video of it - a GoPro HD video camera is strapped to my head. Trying to time the videos was hard and the camera is a very wide angle, so when they did catch waves, they didn't show up well in the video. I swam while John and Michael surfed - talk about tiring! I would tread water while they made runs in and back out. It was a long way out to the break and a LONG way back in. (Joey)
I look weird in this picture. (Michael)

Can you tell I am super fatigued? (Joey)
I was relaxing on the beach and taking pictures. (Shelli)

John honing his balancing skills. (Joey)
Surfing was fun and it feels really cool to stand up. This wasn't my best ride, but it was the only picture we got. (John)

Michael at the end of a wave. (Joey)
Surfing wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I thought it would be worse. (Michael)

Hawaiian shaved ice is good! (Michael)

We are eating Hawaiian shaved ice and it was really good. My flavor was raspberry and cherry. (John)


Getting close to the top of Diamond Head. (Joey)

A good view of most of the inside of Diamond Head. (Joey)
We had to climb about 300 stairs worth to get here, but it was worth it. (John)
This was a strenuous hike, but rewarding to get the top. (Shelli)

At the top looking down towards Waikiki and Honolulu. (Joey)
You can see where we surfed from here. (Michael)


At the USS Arizona memorial. Homeschooling this week included WWII history. (Joey) Oil is still coming up from the ship. (Michael) We could see the outline of the ship and you could tell where some of the damage was. (John)

The top of Diamond Head is behind us. The very top is where we climbed the day before. (Michael)

We walked around for a different view of the sunset and there was a part of a rainbow in the sky to the left. (Joey)


I had been wanting to get a picture made with birds for a long time. (John)

Can you spot the two turkeys in this picture? (Joey)

Hey look there's a bird on me! (Michael)

Hope he don't poop! (John)

Second day of surfing. Twice the boards. (Joey)

At the Duke Kahanamoku statue in Waikiki. Duke was an Olympic medalist swimmer and is the father of modern surfing. (Joey)

Click here for a video of our surfing outings

It has been one month since we pulled out of California in the RV! With no house payment and all our stuff in storage, we have a lot of freedom. We have been minimizing costs and are on track to have spent the same or less than we would have if we were still living back in California. With the free Space-A flight and discounted rooms through the military discounts, getting to and staying at Oahu was not bad at all. We are using points I had built up from work trips for the Kauai room and we found very good deals on rental cars for each island. The inter-island flights have been the biggest expense so far. Our condo on the Big Island is under $300 for the week. Maui is up in the air right now. I'm looking for a good deal for the six nights we plan there.

We've been in Hawaii for a week, but it feels like it has been much longer. Each day has been filled with activities and sights. On Oahu we stayed two nights in a cottage on the beach on MCAS Kaneohe and five nights at the Hale Koa hotel on the beach in Waikiki. We drove around most of the island and hit all the major stops. We left Oahu and flew to the island of Kauai on May 3rd. We are in a Courtyard by Marriott on the beach in Kapaa for four nights and and then we head to the Big Island for a week. It is hard to to make timely updates because we have been staying very busy. We really haven't had a single day of rest and relaxation just sitting on the beach.

Our Kauai adventures will be uploaded later.

We made it to Hawaii

2011-04-29T02:34:00.000-07:00

In the cockpit while flying in a C-17 from Travis AFB to Hawaii.
The flight was so cool it didn't seem like it was 5 hours long. (Michael)

The pilots let us wear their head sets, and they talked to us for a while. (John)
The pilots were both First Lieutenants and they didn't look much older than Michael and John. (Shelli)

I took this picture when we were in the cockpit. There was nothing but water for miles. (John)

We sat on cargo seats. It was better than flying in a normal plane- you could get up and walk around whenever you wanted. (Michael)

Box lunches. A sandwich, soda, water, candy bar, and bag of chips. Not bad for under $5 bucks.

Homeschooling kills some time on the long flight over. How about getting to go to Hawaii for a school day?

Trying to finish up work for the year. It made sense to use the flying time instead of beach time. (Shelli)

The view out of the the small window in the back.

Our cottage on the beach at Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe. We got a Jeep for our rental car.

The view from the deck of the cottage.

We had plenty of sounds to lull us asleep - helicopters, jets, prop planes. (Shelli)

We kept getting woken up by roosters at 6:30 am. (John)

The rocks and tide pools were easy to get to but were pretty slippery. We found a really cool moray eel that was about two feet long. (Michael)

We had our own little cove. (Michael)

A roadside stop for lunch on the windward side. I had a super good Blue Hawaiian drink and some really good Kalua pork. (Michael)
It was the best pig I ever had (John)

A roadside stop for some healthy local produce.

I liked the fried bananas. - (Michael)

At the Dole Pineapple plantation.

In the pineapple field.

I can spell Pinapple. (John)

We learned about the history of Pineapple farming, James Dole's story, and couldn't believe how many miles of pineapple plants we drove by on the way to the plantation. (Shelli)

The Kailua Beach park was a great place for a lunch picnic.

The water color doesn't come through as brilliant as it really was.

The water was at least 5 different shades of blue. (John)

Through the looking glass.

Rabbit Island in the background from a scenic overlook.

There were two guys on top of a cliff and it looked like they were about to commit suicide, but they were just paragliders. - (Michael)

The waves were really powerful in the area between the Southern point and Diamond Head.
You can't tell from this picture, but the water looked like it was glowing bright blue. - (Michael)

Shelli and John watching Michael and me trying to time the waves just right for a picture.

There was a neat little cave right by the edge.

Serious exploration.

Compare the size of the splash on the left to John and Michael on the right.


See the fisherman in the left side? The waves were coming up to where he was standing and could have washed him over easily.

We moved out of the cottage and over to the other side of the Island for a change of scenery. This is on the beach at the Hale Koa hotel in Waikiki.

Poolside just before sunset.

I thought this was brilliant with the guy in the water and fishing at dusk. Nothing like sending out bait and pulling it right back towards you at feeding time. As Jeff Foxworthy would say "Here's your sign".


The end... for today.

We have been so busy getting on the road, spending time with family in Boise, getting to Hawaii, and doing activities, we haven't collected our thoughts and insights on the whole concept of this traveling adventure yet. We will get past captions for pictures and will add some commentary soon.

Aloha from Shelli.... I hope everyone is doing well. We will be adding more soon and having the kids contribute more of their thoughts. We are about to spend time relaxing by the beach and reflecting on our experiences so we can put them into words. (Shelli)

Activities in Boise - and heading towards Hawaii

2011-04-23T21:19:00.005-07:00

The Chodor's kitchen was a busy place.

Pizza time.

Abby scores!

We had to clap a lot because Abby scored at least three times per game.

Everyone was happy with Uncle Vince as the coach and a team that played very well.

Proud cousins.

Powell's candy store is a big attraction.

Making Grama's famous Milky Way cake.

Biking along the Oregon Trail.


The trail was just down the street from the house.

Maui checking out a rock chuck (local name for a yellow bellied marmot). Look to the bottom right of the picture for the rock chuck.

Click here for a video clip of the kids chasing Maui, snow, and a large Hawaiian guitar player

Click here to see Michael playing Dead or Alive on a 12 string guitar (just two days ago he had never tried a 12 string)

The RV is in storage and we are leaving Boise and heading to Travis Air Force Base tomorrow (Monday) to catch a flight to Hawaii. We are going to be riding in a space available status, which means if there are empty seats available on a military flight to Hawaii, we can ride free. If we have to hang out a couple of days waiting for one with space, there are plenty of things to do nearby.

Staying in place for a while in Boise, ID

2011-04-11T21:59:00.000-07:00

We are staying with my sister Kelli, her husband Vince, and their daughter Abby for while. My mother is flying in from Alabama tomorrow evening. We are looking forward to a good visit.

We went to Camel's Back Park in Northern Boise. There was a sandy cliff just right for climbing.

Abby, Michael, and John.

Vince, Michael, John and Abby at the creek.

Just hanging out.


Everybody is looking up at a very big Owl in the tree......except for the family in the background. They were collecting owl vomit chunks for fun. No kidding.

Video as we were just rolling along in Northern Nevada.

2011-04-10T13:02:00.000-07:00